From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 8:07 AM
To: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Infinity (was: You' have to be God....ATTN: PH)

Jim Humphries <jim@nospamma.humph65.fsworld.co.uk> wrote 

> > > with the present example [ an idea of 6 *today*,
> > > and an   idea of 6 *yesterday*] every property
> > > of the one does not belong to the other!
> >
> With the present example - an idea of 6 *today*,
> and an   idea of 6 *yesterday*-every property
> of the one does *not* belong to the other.

Since this is simply a word-for-word
repetition of a point that was plainly
refuted by the part of my posting that you dared not
to quote, it suffices to repeat that part:

  Individual events or acts
  of contemplation can of course be distinguished.
  However, the abstraction or concept of "six-ness"
  or "six-hood" -- that which is in common to all such
  six-ish acts of contemplation -- cannot be distinguished
  as being different across those acts.  Indeed,
  this is true by the very definitions of "abstraction"
  and "common".

I defy you to complete this sentence: "that which is common to 
all six-ish acts of contemplation can be distinguished across 
those acts because ...".

> when you say that there is 'something which the events have
> in common' you are going beyond conceptualism.

Conceptualism is hardly incompatible with identifying that 
which is in common across individual events of contemplation.  
Just what in conceptualism do you think a concept *is*, if not
this?

> you are , covertly, smuggling in Platonism through
> the back door.

Platonism is the notion that ideas have ontological existence
independent of the minds that contemplate them and the
entities that instantiate them.  Nothing I've said implies
Platonism.

> That there is 'something which the
> events have in common' has not been explained
> by you here- just asserted on 'common sense'
> grounds.

I indeed consider it obvious that there is something
that "an idea of 6 today and an idea of 6 yesterday" 
have in common. I'll give you a hint: it's precisely
that which led you to say '6' both times
rather than saying '7' or '525923'.

> But you have said that there is 'something  which the
> events have in common' [..] How do you know that ?

Because I see that you used the symbol '6' for both events.

> I'm suggesting that yours is a covert Platonism.

Again: nothing I've said implies Platonism.

-- 
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net