Atheists: Does "an Idea" Exist?

Do you believe in the idea of an idea?

 

Yes, but is theism a belief that God only exists in your head?
If so, then I am a theist.

 

I don't follow TheSamantha, do you care to elaborate on the OP?

 

i·de·a

īˈdēə/

noun

1. 
   
   1.
   
   
   a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.
   "they don't think it's a very good idea"
   synonyms: plan, scheme, design, proposal, proposition, suggestion, action point,brainchild, vision; More
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. 
   
   2.
   
   
   the aim or purpose.
   "I took a job with the idea of getting some money together"
   
   
   
   

 

Do you believe in a thought or suggestion about a possible course of action? Concepts?

 

What does this have to do with atheism?

 

I think it's contextual, depending on what the thoughts are but it seems a rather pointless and vapid discussion. I don't believe the notion that thoughts inherently have some absolute life to them "out there" like the theory of forms/ideas that Plato and some Ancient Greeks ascribed to. However, I think we are pattern seeking beings with neurological "shortcuts" that allows us to perceive reality in a variety of ways, or even misperceive reality.

 

What do you mean by "the"?

 

sure they exist. i'm full of them. but they might not always come FROM us. our spirits swim through a soup of them. just observe your dreams. or at least mine do.

 

I would assume an idea exists in the mind of the person who has the idea. If not it's hard to see how humans create anything new.

 

I don't know if atheist believe in an aim or a purpose. It appears that the American dream is alive and well with atheist. They want all the material things that anyone else wants. They want a good life, a good income, family, all that.

They just aren't delusional about purpose, usually.

 

Yes.

What is the point of this question?

 

statistically emergent phenomina are ideas that exist quite concretely. but ideas aren't the only completely nonphysical things that can. gods and souls, should either or both happen to exist, also fall into this catigory, as do any sort of spirit beings. being an unprovable territory, by deffinician being an unmeasurable one, enables people to believe what they will.

 

An idea, being an object of mind, is by definition nonphysical. I believe that the mind can conceive and it can perceive, in other words the mind can create its ideas (conceive, which Spinoza defined as the active dynamic) and it can perceive ideas (the passive dynamic). Our own free will is dependent upon the ability to conceive----and yes, we can have an idea of an idea. Because of conception and free will, there is an inherent randomness to our minds.

Then too, I argue that this is related to the perfect idea (eidos) of Plato, or even more so, as described by Aristotle. After all, our perception of all of reality is just that, and nothing more----perception. An understood, or a consciously, and even subconsciously perceived perception is also an object of mind, and it is therefore a nonphysical thing by definition. But such is only the subjective side of the idea.

At any moment in time, countless superpositioned quanta are suddenly manifesting as particles or subatomic particles, with a single position in space-time before instantly reverting back to their superpositioned state----yet how do they 'know' where to manifest so that physical reality maintains the consistent concrete material physicality we know it to have with a continuous historicity from one moment to the next. In other words, there is an objective side to the idea.

Maybe there is not one simple essence of tableness that all tables, for example, are defined by and fit into. But there is something that allows the table in my dining room to maintain its same shape and texture at all times, even, I assumne, when no one is in the room. A foot on one of the legs was broken and has been obviously reconnected----a mishap from after we bought it. And yet that broken foot is always there in the exact same manner as it was fixed. All of the countless particles manifesting at any given moment always manifest in a position that all of this remains consistent----and not just those particles, but in many cases (such as with protons and neutrons, and how they fit into atomic nuclei), even the individual parts of those particles.

They manifest where they manifest because of encoded probabilities----quantum information. Quantum information is a nonphysical object of that quanta. The probability demonstrates an inherent randomness. Nonetheless, the consistent and concrete nature of physicality demonstrates a purpose, or intention, to that physicality. That table has its own perfect form, or eidos, or idea. With its broken foot, it may not represent the 'perfect form' of all tables as Plato believed, but it has its own perfect form, unique to itself, born out by its own quantum information.

 

Yes, ideas exist. They are electrical impulses and neurochemical reactions in the brain.

 

The table is only ever an idea. What we experience and call physical reality is just ideas. And the reason these things are temporary, the reason they fall apart, is because, like dreams, they cannot last. Reality is a much more concrete form of a dream, but they're both made of essentially the same substance, which is thoughts.

 

i believe because i have experienced,
and i'm sure many have, some, many, without realizing it,

there is as much that is strangely, wonderfully, diversely, greater then ourselves,

as much or more, as there is that is 'less'.

---

everything anyone has ever said about it,
is highly speculative on their part,
or someone else's.
but it is
universal and there for all of us to experience.

what someone else believes won't get you there, and neither will neuro-chemistry.

more people are prevented more often from experiencing it,
by insisting it can only exist in some way according to some belief they've been taught or conditioned to assume,

then by an equally adamant belief that nothing of the sort can exist.

that's right. every belief is its own, and 'the' 'anti-belief'


every name, is a name we made up,

for something we know nothing about,

but can experience, almost whenever, we stop trying to pretend that we do.


that's why i say no belief has the slightest idea what its talking about.
though all might contain some small percentage of wisdom,
and most, if not all, are reasonably well intended.