From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net> To: <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU> Subject: Re: BHA: theorya/theoryb Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 00:10:26 +0300 Hi Howie-- > Now, maths has never been my strong suit. I do wonder, though, whether it is > legitimate to argue, as Tobin does, that something can be a subset of > something else and still "add" something new to its parent set? No, the subset has ("adds") a characteristic that the parent set hasn't--the subset doesn't alter the rest of the parent set. For example, Set A = all apples; Set B = all golden apples; Set C = all the golden apples in my shopping bag. A > B > C. Anyway. I don't grasp how a subjective state could be real without also being actual, or at least partially actual. Something that is real but not actual is basically a set of potentialities or possibilities which have not (yet) been realized. (RB said so himself, during the conf.) A subjective state, however, is necessarily already realized--certain physiological and psychological processes have occurred to produce a thought or feeling. Then, *subsequent* to the production of the subjective state, that now-existing subjective state has certain powers, and arguably, some (but not all) of those are never realized, and so in that sense are not actual. But the state itself, whatever powers it does or does not exert on the world, is itself still actual, and must be on pain of not being in consciousness! --- Tobin Nellhaus nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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