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#1 |
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Yes
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Is it possible for an idea, or anything like an idea, to exist otherwise than in a mind?
You could draw a parallel with Mechanics. There's no such thing as absolute velocity. All velocity is relative. Nobody or nothing can be descibed as absolutely stationary. You, for example, are standing or sitting on the earth which is whizzing through space around the Sun which is whizzing in space around the Solar System, which is whizzing through space .... and so it goes on. You must have experienced sitting on a train in a station and not being sure whether it is you who are moving or the train on the next platfrom. Perhaps you could argue there is no such thing as an absolute idea. An idea is a perception which must have a frame of reference to exist. And one person's frame of reference must, by definition, be different from another person's. Any criminal lawyer will tell you that if two people descibe an incident, both will believe they are telling the truth yet both will give a (slightly) different account of what actually happened. What is small to someone is big to somebody else. What is perceived as good by one person could well be perceived as bad by soembody else. The problem comes I think when you address yes/no or on/off or true/false situations. It is not true that all numbers are less than 100. 99 is. 52 is. But 105 isn't. Is this absolute or relative? But then I suppose you could argue, what is a number? Specforces
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#2 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 161
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I guess it depends on what an idea truly is. If an idea is simply an action of the human brain, than ideas couldn't exist without a mind.
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#3 |
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FFR Player
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I think you're asking two differnet things here. Are you asking whether actual ideas in their solid form can exist, then yes. You could say that fire was an idea of man. You could also say that fire exists without man. Fire in it's mechanical form was invented by man, but it would occur anyway, so it exists even without man's help. If you're talking about the conceptual idea, a thought that one comes up with, then no. You cannot have thoughts without a mind.
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