Yes, fundamentally all 'things' are mental constructs, but one of the most important distinctions in philosophy (if not the most important) is to be able to tell the difference between the two kinds of mental constructs: the abstract and the concrete. One way to put it is:Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 10:45 pmAll things are mental constructs. You cannot presume that the PROCESSES in thought are themselves not 'real'; you CAN self-reflect on the means of how you 'conclude' things. And the fact that you assert that the concept of 'organizing' thought as unable to be 'real' tells me that you lack the logical aptitude to reason.Atla wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:13 am
It's not about sorting or organization. Again: 'sets' don't refer to anything in nature, they are purely mental constructs. 'Electrons' do refer to something in nature, they are not purely mental constructs. The 'lack of elephants' doesn't refer to anything in nature, it's a purely mental construct too.
This forum is filled with people who have the rather serious cognitive impairment of being unable to distinguish the conrete (has physical referents) from the abstract (has no physical referents). And so then they came up with all these world-changing theories, that they absolutely must publish before they die, and thus save humanity.
So yes, I agree that this forum (as with the world) may be filled with people who have 'cognitive impairment'. But I think that the more likelihood is that either one is lying to themselves or being intentionally deceptive for some emotional reason. One combined factor would be that most people are simply NOT able to be intellectually fair because the emotional factor takes precedence when even simply being tired, for instance, not itself a mental dysfuction but a temporal state of mental fatigue that animals have by evolution.
You here are being inappropriately 'unfair' in how you yourself are expanding a general probablility regarding people's theorizing on this site because I ASSURE you that you are not here presuming to LEARN anything in absence of some BELIEFS about your own credibility to think and to contribute what you think to others when an opening presents itself.
Now, I ask you to explain how you can reason at all if the act of reasoning is not a reality? You are expressing that thought itself is a delusion because by selecting the PROCESS of thinking IS to 'organize' those perceptions prior to acting. If we don't do this, then we do not need consciousness because our brains could only at best serve to AUTOMATICALLY respond without a need to think at all.
Instead of giving me a short insult as an emotional response, explain how you could expect us to KNOW about electrons at all without being able to first and foremost 'organize' thoughts based on immediate senses?
concrete = mental constructs that have physical referents (for example three apples)
abstract = mental constructs that have no physical referents (for example three, or for example a set)
unless of course you can show that abstract objects exist