According to Plato, our observable world is just an imperfect reflection of the Realm of Ideas which is, well, perfect (this is likely where the meaning of "ideal" comes from).

The Realm of Ideas is where the perfect forms of various things exist, including beauty and justice but also dogs, cats, tapeworms or asteroids - since Plato argued that the real world is constantly changing and therefore it isn't a reliable source of knowledge. True knowledge, according to Plato, can only be deduced by pure thought (math and logic, not observation)

So, what would the Form of Horse Dung be like?

This is a half serious thread obviously.

Edited November 1Nov 1 by Otto Kretschmer

11 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

what would the Form of Horse Dung be like?

Unicorn dung?

Just now, swansont said:

Unicorn dung?

Well... maybe.

17 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

According to Plato, our observable world is just an imperfect reflection of the Realm of Ideas which is, well, perfect (this is likely where the meaning of "ideal" comes from).

The Realm of Ideas is where the perfect forms of various things exist, including beauty and justice but also dogs, cats, tapeworms or asteroids - since Plato argued that the real world is constantly changing and therefore it isn't a reliable source of knowledge. True knowledge, according to Plato, can only be deduced by pure thought (math and logic, not observation)

So, what would the Form of Horse Dung be like?

This is a half serious thread obviously.

The idea of horse dung, presumably.

6 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

According to Plato, our observable world is just an imperfect reflection of the Realm of Ideas which is, well, perfect (this is likely where the meaning of "ideal" comes from).

The Realm of Ideas is where the perfect forms of various things exist, including beauty and justice but also dogs, cats, tapeworms or asteroids - since Plato argued that the real world is constantly changing and therefore it isn't a reliable source of knowledge. True knowledge, according to Plato, can only be deduced by pure thought (math and logic, not observation)

So, what would the Form of Horse Dung be like?

This is a half serious thread obviously.

I suppose that depends whether you are a street sweeper or a rose gardener ?

Does a materialist assert the primacy of physical objects over the ideas we can form about them?

Are there attempts to form an interface between the two concepts?

Might the one reality bleed into the other or can there be a model that subsumes both?

14 minutes ago, geordief said:

Are there attempts to form an interface between the two concepts?

For Plato, that was math. His academy even had a motto that people who don't know geometry should not learn philosophy though I forgot the original wording.

Edited November 1Nov 1 by Otto Kretschmer

25 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

For Plato, that was math. His academy even had a motto that people who don't know geometry should not learn philosophy though I forgot the original wording.

28 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

For Plato, that was math. His academy even had a motto that people who don't know geometry should not learn philosophy though I forgot the original wording.

Maybe a good attempt.

Maths is an edifice of the mind but there are seemingly no(?) * physical objects that cannot be modelled entirely mathematically.

And no thinking being could construct a mathematical model without recourse to information coming from the physicsl world.

• Do the uncertainty theorem and chaos theory belie that?

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

So, what would the Form of Horse Dung be like?

A tetrahedral stack of 35 spheres?

From what I understand, it is wombats who are more Platonic in their outputs.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-wombats-make-cube-shaped-poos-180970847/

The Australian marsupial pushes out little piles of cube-shaped poos, and naturalists and biologists have wondered for years how the round sinuous plumbing found in most animals could produce an end product that looks like it came from a brick factory.