Determinism is bugging me big time :-(

[funyun]

It's not a thing if it doesn't exist. You can't have knowledge of a hypothetical, because hypothetical has the property of being unknown.

It's still a thing, it's just a conceptual thing, a purely informational thing, rather than a physical thing, as we usually think about it. I'm not sure just because something is hypothetical means it is necessarily unknown. Given certain defined conditions of that hypothetical, we can likely deduce certain things about it.

I don't accept such an example. You're equating conceptualization with knowledge. How are they the same?

They're the same when what you're conceptualizing is purely in your head, and therefore designed by you.

Knowledge of a non-entity, eh? Very curious. Can you substantiate this better?

I'm not sure how. It seems clear, to me at least, that we can have knowledge of things that don't exist in reality. As long as they aren't logically incoherent, and, perhaps, as long as they aren't physically impossible. A unicorn is neither of those things. But like I said in the case of a unicorn, we have knowledge of what a unicorn is simply because we came up with it. It's sort of analogous to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm not arguing it theologically though, but philosophically. The discussion here revolves around the philosophical aspect.

Theology is a kind of philosophy, and it draws on philosophical knowledge and terminology.

 

[Triad]

It's still a thing, it's just a conceptual thing, a purely informational thing, rather than a physical thing, as we usually think about it. I'm not sure just because something is hypothetical means it is necessarily unknown. Given certain defined conditions of that hypothetical, we can likely deduce certain things about it.

I see a major obstacle here. Anything you would attempt to define regarding a hypothetical is purely arbitrary, or contrived. By it's very nature, hypotheticals are indeed undefined. There is nothing "knowable" about it. Try it with any example of a hypothetical. Tell me exactly what you "know" about a unicorn, or pick any other hypothetical. How can you know anything about it while it's in the hypothetical stage? If it became known, it was no longer fall under a hypothetical thing.

They're the same when what you're conceptualizing is purely in your head, and therefore designed by you.

What you're saying here is that you have the ability to think anything into existence at will, and if someone thinks an opposite thought, they can think it back out of existence. Such loose philosophizing doesn't seem to carry any meaning with it at all.

Tell me this: Can you tell me anything that does not exist? Can you give me even one example?

I would think there would be a distinction between a thing and an idea of a thing. How do you reconcile things that actually exist vs. the ideas of actually existing things? Are they the same? They can't be, because you've already noted that one is physical and one isn't. So, the idea of Stonehenge is much different than Stonghenge itself. And this produces by your definition, two existing things — but of the same thing. But we already know they're not the same identical entity. One is the physical thing, and the other is a representation of it. You can't have it both ways. See the contradiction there? I don't believe you've accounted for this fine distinction.

And let's say 10 billion people have cogitated about Stonehenge in their own unique ways. Does that still mean there is simply one combined Stonehenge/Idea of Stonehenge entity?

But like I said in the case of a unicorn, we have knowledge of what a unicorn is simply because we came up with it. It's sort of analogous to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Your argument is therefore cyclical. There's no logic in tautologies. Knowledge is the discovery of truth, not the creation of truth.

Theology is a kind of philosophy, and it draws on philosophical knowledge and terminology.

But there are theological concerns that classic philosophy does not address, and that's what I'm referring to. The theological questions you're raising are not part of classic philosophy, or any direct branch of it for that matter. Surely you can delineate between a religious discussion and a philosophical one.

 

[TeddyKGB]

I see a major obstacle here. Anything you would attempt to define regarding a hypothetical is purely arbitrary, or contrived. By it's very nature, hypotheticals are indeed undefined. There is nothing "knowable" about it. Try it with any example of a hypothetical. Tell me exactly what you "know" about a unicorn, or pick any other hypothetical. How can you know anything about it while it's in the hypothetical stage? If it became known, it was no longer fall under a hypothetical thing.

A unicorn is not unknowable because it is hypothetical; it is unknowable because it is made-up. Hypotheticals can describe entities that are knowable in principle if not known in practice.

In fact, I am reluctant to give a statement or question about unicorns the status of "hypothetical" at all.