Well, Jeremy, you know that you guys are the ones who are always screaming "insufficient data" when simple responses are given.

You're always demanding rigorous scientific evidence, proofs, or theories to back-up every idea.

So I'm just trying to stay ahead of you.

Otherwise, I could just say that the non-physical is that which exists without the need for physicality, and be done with it.

That would be a lot less typing for me. But I could just hear the compaints now. "What the hell was that supposed to mean? Back it up with something substantial!"

If I was asked the question my only honest answer could be ideas.

Ideas, or concepts they themselves are non material. You can have a set of bits that represents an idea, but without understanding the relationships its not really data, its not really a concept, its just a bunch of bits.

Concepts, and ideas are non physical. Its what the physical can be made to represent.

Just to be a nerd. I will reply with this. Ideas are essentially electrical impulses in the brain. So they are physical.

Hang around here long wenough and you'll find out just how debatable that statement is.

BTW - Welcome to the forums. Always nice to have another intelligent and literate person around to bounce ideas off.

I feel shallow right now,, my mind immediately went to 'platonic'.... (blushing)

Wow! That's beautiful Bushi.

Well done!

Oh you bad girl.

That is what represents the ideas. The electrical impulses are electrical impulses that are in a pattern that the brain can interpret to have meaning.

The thing that is represented itself does not necessarily exist in a physical form. The electrical impulses that represent fairies, dragons, werewolves ect are real, however each of those ideas are of things that are not real, and thus not physical.

Get it? So for me non-physical is the same as saying does not exist.

Two minds alike.

***

How can that be? Are you saying that ideas do not exist? Thoughts do not exist?

I agree that thoughts and ideaS may not be "physical" but the certainly DO EXIST.


*****

So according to Bushidobillyclub ideas don't exist because he says they are not "physical."

So I guess we can't have any ideas?

We can't have any thoughts?"

I have heard people say "Hey! that was my idea! He stole my idea!"

Impossible, according to Bushidobillyclub. Ideas do not exist.

He said: " So for me non-physical is the same as saying does not exist."

He also said:
"Concepts, and ideas are non physical. Its what the physical can be made to represent. "

Sorry this does not compute. It is not logical.

Way to miss the point!@

Do werewolves exist? The electrical impulses in your brain that occur when you think of this concept exist and are physical, but does the actual werewolf?
Does pi exist? Does any abstract concept actually exist outside the pattern of electrochemical synapse?

Does any imaginary thing actually exist.
Now the problem here is Im asking JB and she of course believes that all thought actually does create reality, so where screwed, no wonder you do not understand.

I mean do you actually believe that when someone imagines stabbing you in your face that some alternate reality you has just been stabbed in the face? Because if that is true, I owe a whole lot of apologies to a LOT of alternate reality people. However not to you JB, I like you.

The thought of stabbing someone in the face exists. Thoughts are things. Thoughts do manifest into actuality if they are persistent enough.

The thought must exist first before it becomes reality. All thoughts do not become reality. To bring a thought or visualization into reality takes a lot of effort and maybe persistence. But most of all it requires intention.

But you clearly stated that you do not think that ideas or thoughts exist.

Now you are saying that it is the specific content of that idea or thought that you are claiming does not exist.

If this is your point then I agree. It does not exist in the physical world until it unfolds into the explicate order. (David Bohm's terminology)

But thoughts and ideas do interact with the physical world in that they are necessary for just about anything you are wanting to manifest, create or do.

I don't know if they do or not.

When you close your eyes and imagine a werewolf, does THAT werewolf exist?

If you think of the perfect rocking chair, does THAT chair exist? It might, but maybe the version you imagine is slightly different . . . maybe change the color, or the angle of the arm rests . . .

This concept is very old.

No, go back and read, I said that its not necessary that what a thought represents exists. I went to great trouble to explain what I meant. Even used examples.

I have a vivid imagination, I can come up with thousands of ideas that will exist as a pattern of electrochemical synapse, but the thing the electrochemical synapse represents will not exist, becuase I just made it up. It is not itself physical, it is not itself real, however it has a pattern in reality that represents it.

These "non physical" are also available to all of us at anytime..all we need to do is ask. I do this often and have no doubt in my own being they exist and are here to, there, to help us.

If you build it ,they will come

Okay I went back and read. Here is your two statements:



This is how I (rightfully) interpret these statements:

1. A non-physical thing equals non-existence of that thing.

2. Concepts and Ideas, being non physical, do not exist.

I do not understand your rationalization that follows:
"Its what the physical can be made to represent."

I suppose that is what I would call the "manifestation" or "unfolding" of the thought into physical reality.

But logic maintains that if a thought did not exist, it could not unfold into physical reality as a thing. If an idea could not exist in its entirety, it would never unfold into the explicate order.

An invention like the computer for example. It was not part of physical reality before it was an idea or a thought. There is nothing in the physical world that you can "make" to "represent" a computer.
until you first design that computer via thought and ideas (on the mental plane.)

If you could actually "see" with your physical eyes, what people were thinking, would you then think that a thought is real?

Reality or being real (as in having existence) does NOT require being "physical." This is where your thinking runs into a dead end.

This is why I talk about "physical universe" and physical reality as apposed to other universes and other realities.

To say that it does not exist unless it is physical is the ultimate prison bars that will keep you inside of that box.

Bushi said

Therefore, Concepts and ideas do not exist. (If I got the syllogism right.)


I can see where one could say that the physical representation of some concepts and ideas do not exist.

But I’m having trouble with the conclusion that concepts and ideas themselves do not exist.

If they don't exist, then what are the referents for the labels?

Yes, that is exactly what I meant.

Clearly thoughts, and ideas exist. I wonder how many times I have to reiterate what I meant, using examples before its understood.

When I said, " . . its what the physical can be made to represent" is that whats hanging you guys up?

So if I draw a picture of a princess in the sand, does a princess exist in physical reality? Or is it the sand made to represent a princess that exists in physical reality?


. . . and here I thought I qualified everything I said as to remove misunderstanding . . . I suppose that is what I get for thinking.

Then non-physical things do exist.