[russdill]

It really depends on what you mean by real. Many philosophers have adopted the stance that if a concept provides a useful way to talk about reality, it's real. There's no such thing as tables or chairs, but we consider them real because doing so is useful. By the same token particles are real because they are a really useful way to subdivide reality, even though their appearance is just a consequence of field theory.

[p1esk]

There's no such thing as tables or chairs

What do you mean?

[strogonoff]

Parfit’s equivalent of “there’s no such thing as tables or chairs” is “there’s no such thing as France”. In other words, it’s a label we give to a collection of people, but France doesn’t technically exist other than as those people themselves.

It’s one of the points I disagreed with him on (his line between “exists” and “not exists” seems arbitrary, like he is forcing a particular layer of abstraction), and it somewhat undermined his bigger argument about the nature of the self in Reasons and Persons.

In some ways, France is more real than people comprising it. In almost every way, a chair is more real than particles or fields that it can be modeled as.

[russdill]

As in, if you look at any accepted theory of physics, neither tableness nor chairness appear.

[mensetmanusman]

Nor does life appear, but that is real.

That probably just means our theory of physics (that only explains 4% of the observable universe) is wrong.

[russdill]

I'm replying to someone who is considering whether or not particles are real as they do not appear in field theory directly

[mr_toad]

If someone sticks a cushion on a beer crate and sits on it, is it a chair? Opinions differ.

[eth0up]

When this question arises, I always think of Korzibsky in my foggy recollection of him. Linguistics do program us, more than, I think, we admit. Unfortunately, individuals have limited authority in how language is applied, but in theory, a language could be constructed to program us in strictly beneficial ways. One aspect of such a hypothetical language might be the alteration of nouns to verbs, ie describing things as functions rather than things. Many are critical of this concept, but it seems to me of some potential. Language does affect perception and while it may not do so entirely, its effect is formidable.

Beercrashion: the tendency of some specific wooden structures to serve a peripheral function to some creatures as a comfortable buffer between them and the surface beneath them often called ground.

[p1esk]

Do opinions differ whether that particular beer crate is real? Of whether the name is appropriate?