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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: one_less who wrote (78185)4/15/2000 5:08:00 AM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 108807
 
That is why we use the term discovery in this sense. It can be discovered because it has an existence apart from the discoverer.

But we don't use the term "discovery" in these cases, we use the term "invention". Big difference.

I doubt that anyone, anywhere, came up with the ladder right off the bat in its fully developed form. The first attempts probably were no more than a piece of tree propped against the surface that needed to be climbed. It wouldn't take long to discover that a piece of tree with branches was easier to climb. It might take a little longer to use two pieces and attach cross pieces. But I don't think anyone ever saw a cliff and a bird's nest and whipped up a modern extension ladder.

Think of the idea of "blade". It is out in the universe, you say, as an independent concept. But is it out there as a rock with one sharp edge, a Gerber folding hunter, or something in between?

What exists independently, I would say, is the possibility of a blade, which is governed by the principles of physics and engineering that involve cutting one object cutting another. That possibility exists independently. of course. So does the possibility of an electric light bulb, a space shuttle, and many others we have yet to see.



To: one_less who wrote (78185)4/15/2000 9:48:00 AM
From: epicure  Respond to of 108807
 
I've never been able to swallow the existence of Platonic forms. Your rehash of the idea is equally unpalatable. I see absolutely no reason why ideas should have an existence separate from the brain they arise in. The simplest explanation, and the one that doesn't require any further proof, is that they don't. I'll go with that.