on Nietzsche

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok


I suppose it's not the arguments themselves that are incomprehensible to me, but rather your insistence that those arguments are valid.

Most of them are valid. The question is whether they are sound or not.

I find them baffling in the same way I would find the argument "the world can't be round, since if it were the people on the bottom would all fall off" baffling. Strictly speaking, I can understand the sense of them, but they rely on a set of assumptions that are blatantly silly. Well, that's not a good example, since in the case of your "circle" argument the assumptions aren't obviously false so much as comically unwarranted.

Prove it.

Back up. Weren't you just saying that Forms are more strongly supported than the type of empiricism most people endorse? What's this about "incorrect?" Or are you just saying "even if it WERE incorrect?" But I do agree that you can learn a good deal from other people's mistakes.

I never said I believe in the TOF. I just think it is better than the crap most people believe. I believe neither.

But I DID think about it. I asked for your arguments in favor of the idea. You gave me the arguments, and they turned out to be rubbish. I therefore concluded that I have no particular reason to believe in the idea itself at this time. I remain open to the possibility that there are Forms, and will re-evaluate my stance just as soon as I hear a compelling argument. From you or anyone else.

You didn't bother addressing the ones you were given. You just moaned on about how you thought they were daft. I can think of plenty of arguments against the TOF myself.

Not good enough, sonny. Your usual tricks won't work with me. I know that you don't know what you are talking about, and I know that you are desperate to hide that fact.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

You seem to be contradicting yourself, you said Plato's Forms are a 'substantial unity' and that means they are a 'substance'? Did something get mixed up here?

It just means they are independent things. Your height has no existence independently of you. Some people might want to say that Forms are attributes, in which case they would be like your height, but Plato is clear that Forms have independent existence.

Also the term 'numerically identical with itself' is also flying over my head, are you doing that on purpose?

It means that they are one thing numerically (counted as one), not specifically (counted as one of the same kind). If all of us are human beings, we belong to the same species and are specifically identical, but not numerically identical.

We frequently aren't talking about the same thing and generally assume the words we use mean the same thing. But can only really tell were talking about the same thing by detailed comparison and contrasting between our concepts. Two people with different concepts must either reconcile their concepts until one person alters their concept to match the other or one absorbs a copy of the others concept. Our education provides a library of common concepts that most of us can converse with and language serves as a labeling system.

That's one view. I can think of reasons why we should believe that, but it is important to know what we give up. What we give up is "realism": the idea that our concepts map on to reality. For example, a marine biologist will have a very specific concept of what it means to be a "whale". Most of them will tell you that calling something a "whale" marks out a real difference in reality. That whales are different from other animals is not a matter of wordplay (Plato actually wrote about this – he suggests that linguistic relativism means that there cannot be any real knowledge).

For a realist, the job is to get our concept to fit reality as best as possible. Where there is a difference in reality, there needs to be a difference in concept. Scientific concepts are the best example we have. Social concepts and some of our other words are not so good.

Consider this counterargument: concepts tend to mean things. "Whale" picks out certain features of the world as being the reference of "whale" and not others. But if concepts are wholly disconnected from reference to the world, how can we mean anything when we use them? You say that language labels things, but how can it do that if the label "thing" is just another part of our language, which doesn't reflect any real division in reality?

If you aren't a realist, then that's OK, but you need to be aware of what you are giving up.

By object of thought I think you mean what the thought is about and in reference too. In that case then of course anything can be the object of a thought. I distinguish between a concept which is a connection between experienced memories and abstract knowledge, it is durable in the sense that one retains a concept even when it is not at the forefront of the mind. Thoughts are transient and involve the reasoning with ones established bank of concepts, the results may alter an existing concept for add new ones to the mind. So yes everything is a concept in a sense even simple raw experience memory which is ultimately what all the other concepts are derived from in combination with very low level instincts for example our brains have an instinctive recognition of the passage of time.

I'm not sure I follow. On your account, what does the concept "whale" refer to? To my memories of whales?

[Elok]

You have got to be ****ing kidding me. How exactly am I supposed to disprove "X cannot exist without Y" where Y is something completely undetectable? And why should I have to disprove an obvious non sequitur? Can you disprove "the earth orbits around the sun because triangles have three sides?" I don't think so. Because triangles DO have three sides, you cannot show that the laws of physics would not cease to work if triangles were in fact quadrangles. See how neatly I caught you in my logical trap? Give me a phd!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok
You have got to be ****ing kidding me. How exactly am I supposed to disprove "X cannot exist without Y" where Y is something completely undetectable?

What do you mean by undetectable? Do you mean by empirical means? That's just assuming empiricism without any argument. Do you mean measurable?

The argument just requires you to believe in a universe where there are at least two things that share some nature. If that is the case, then Plato thinks there must be Forms.

And why should I have to disprove an obvious non sequitur? Can you disprove "the earth orbits around the sun because triangles have three sides?" I don't think so. Because triangles DO have three sides, you cannot show that the laws of physics would not cease to work if triangles were in fact quadrangles. See how neatly I caught you in my logical trap? Give me a phd!

That's not much of an argument. Try again, this time without the confusion. Impaler gets it. See, he doesn't agree with Plato, but understands he has to give an appropriate argument and his line of thinking is for the most part clear.

Here's the question again in simpler form: The many Fs all have Fness. Fness is in some sense a unity. Is Fness identical with (a) all of them, (b) some of them, or (c) none of them.

Just pick one alternative and run with it.

[Impaler[WrG]]

What we give up is "realism": the idea that our concepts map on to reality.

I don't see how I am giving up something that Plato isn't offering me. I take the scientific perspective that our concepts may never actually fit reality perfectly but we seek to achieve the 'most predictive theory', aka a concept that has the greatest agreement with experience. I accept that my conceptual map is not the territory but 'Forms' seem to be saying that the map IS the territory and I don't see how that can be supported as we have no track record of Platonic though processes being more predictive.

Consider this counterargument: concepts tend to mean things. "Whale" picks out certain features of the world as being the reference of "whale" and not others. But if concepts are wholly disconnected from reference to the world, how can we mean anything when we use them? You say that language labels things, but how can it do that if the label "thing" is just another part of our language, which doesn't reflect any real division in reality?

For someone who has never seen a Whale they can acquire the concept of a Whale only by having another person provide references to other concepts (Mammal, Big, Aquatic) the first person already possesses. They can then assemble a reasonably accurate mental concept of Whale and label it with the new word 'Whale' or any other word or symbol or mental token. Theirs no direct connection to the experience of a Whale but the concept just created in their mind through a 'referential' process has a chain of reference back to real experience through other concepts.

If I did in fact start to throw names at a person and told them to memorize them without any explanation then those labels would indeed be empty and the concepts behind them would indeed be meaningless to that person. But the mental labels and their empty concepts would still exist in the mind ready to be manipulated and enriched later. Just because SOME label and concepts can be wholly disconnected from reality doesn't mean they all are.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

I don't see how I am giving up something that Plato isn't offering me. I take the scientific perspective that our concepts may never actually fit reality perfectly but we seek to achieve the 'most predictive theory', aka a concept that has the greatest agreement with experience.

That's going to put you in the anti-realist camp. That's OK, since there are many anti-ealists.

I accept that my conceptual map is not the territory but 'Forms' seem to be saying that the map IS the territory and I don't see how that can be supported as we have no track record of Platonic though processes being more predictive.

That's a fair comment. It's not really meant to be predictive in the way that modern science is. Plato is interested in mathematics and geometry more than anything else, and tends to assimilate all knowledge to that kind of knowledge. Aristotle is a bit different. The kind of causation that operates here is formal causation, which modern science ignores, but metaphysicians would argue is necessary.

Both Plato and Aristotle agree that to know reality is to know the essence of things. Say a human being is a rational mammal that is an animal that is a living thing, etc. This is what it is to be a human being – the essence of humanity. The aim of the knowledge seeker is to know this essence and all the others and the genus-species relationships between them.

The difference between them is that Aristotle thinks that the essences are in things and are abstracted by the mind (like abstracting concepts, but in this case the concepts mirror reality). The problem for him is that he runs into an incredible difficulty trying to explain how different things can have the same essence. Plato on the other hand argues that the essence is separate from individual things (for various reasons, including epistemological ones). Plato's problem is explaining the relation between the Form and the particulars.

If you believe in realism, and you believe that essences can't be in individual things, then you are pretty much stuck with the idea of Forms. As noted above, mathematicians are often platonists because they see numbers as real, rather than notional.

You can of course give up this sort of realism and hold that things just don't have natures, or even if they do, we can never know them. That's a rather high price to pay. I personally find sceptical arguments less than compelling.

For someone who has never seen a Whale they can acquire the concept of a Whale only by having another person provide references to other concepts (Mammal, Big, Aquatic) the first person already possesses. They can then assemble a reasonably accurate mental concept of Whale and label it with the new word 'Whale' or any other word or symbol or mental token. Theirs no direct connection to the experience of a Whale but the concept just created in their mind through a 'referential' process has a chain of reference back to real experience through other concepts.

What about the first person?

I'd be wary of claiming that concepts were "in the head". Take this example. Let's say I cannot tell the difference between a whale and a shark, so if I were presented with a whale and a shark, I would not be able to identify each one. But I know that a whale is not a shark. If that is true, then the meaning of the concept "whale" can't straightforwardly be like a mental picture derived from experience.

Let's take another example. What does "Dodo" refer to? There aren't any Dodos left, but many would be tempted to say that the term rigidly designates a natural kind, even though the natural kind does not exist any more. What kind of being would the natural kind have if this were true?

If I did in fact start to throw names at a person and told them to memorize them without any explanation then those labels would indeed be empty and the concepts behind them would indeed be meaningless to that person. But the mental labels and their empty concepts would still exist in the mind ready to be manipulated and enriched later. Just because SOME label and concepts can be wholly disconnected from reality doesn't mean they all are.

What about mathematical concepts like numbers?

[Impaler[WrG]]

What about the first person?

Sorry I worded that badly, by first person I ment the person being taught, that person needs to have concepts like Mammal and Aquatic in place and then be told that the new Whale concept references them.

I'd be wary of claiming that concepts were "in the head".

I don't see how one could argue that theirs not something "in the head" of an individual who knows something, even if you believe in Forms. If not then what keeps us from each knowing everything, even if we must 'discover' these pre-existing Forms that necessitates a unique change in the head of the discover. I'm attributing everything to that changed head state which I call a concept, Forms add nothing to that while complicating things substantially.

Take this example. Let's say I cannot tell the difference between a whale and a shark, so if I were presented with a whale and a shark, I would not be able to identify each one. But I know that a whale is not a shark. If that is true, then the meaning of the concept "whale" can't straightforwardly be like a mental picture derived from experience.

If your shark & whale concepts are hollow except for the fact their not the same thing then you obviously can't do much of anything but state that any object you see can't be both a shark and a whale. You would have two almost empty concepts and its not surprising that you can do little with them, the richer and more developed the concepts the more you can do with them. Direct experience with a whale would constitute a separate but related memory of that event. The memory is linked with the whale concept (if you knew what you saw was a whale) which enriches the whale concept and makes it more useful as a predictor, you could now identify the whale. Conversely I can have a memory of experience without recognition or connection with a concept and only later have the label and other information given to me to allow a fully fleshed out concept to be made.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Agathon
What do you mean by undetectable? Do you mean by empirical means? That's just assuming empiricism without any argument. Do you mean measurable?

You have to begin any argument with certain assumptions. Plato is assuming that characteristics cannot be shared without some sort of transcendent mediator. I do not work from that assumption (and in fact do not understand why on earth he should), hence his whole line of argument collapses for me.

That's not much of an argument. Try again, this time without the confusion. Impaler gets it. See, he doesn't agree with Plato, but understands he has to give an appropriate argument and his line of thinking is for the most part clear.

Here's the question again in simpler form: The many Fs all have Fness. Fness is in some sense a unity. Is Fness identical with (a) all of them, (b) some of them, or (c) none of them.

Just pick one alternative and run with it.

Fine. (A) it is, except that "identical" doesn't sound right to me. Michael Jordan =/= tallness. Even saying he "has tallness" sounds fruity to me. He's not carrying a tallness in his pocket, tallness is merely the noun form of an adjective used to describe his size relative to many other men. The fact that other men can be tall presents no problem to me; the shared nature of characteristics is simply how the world is, and it seems to me that any attempt to explain it will invariably introduce unknowns and hypotheticals we have no way of verifying except by referencing the theory that assumes their existence in the first place.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

Sorry I worded that badly, by first person I ment the person being taught, that person needs to have concepts like Mammal and Aquatic in place and then be told that the new Whale concept references them.

Then how do we get "mammal" and "aquatic"? What relation do these concepts bear to the world?

I don't see how one could argue that theirs not something "in the head" of an individual who knows something, even if you believe in Forms. If not then what keeps us from each knowing everything, even if we must 'discover' these pre-existing Forms that necessitates a unique change in the head of the discover. I'm attributing everything to that changed head state which I call a concept, Forms add nothing to that while complicating things substantially.

There is to be sure something in a person's mind (for want of a better term) that counts towards their competence with the concept (being able to apply it correctly). But we wouldn't want to call that the meaning of the concept. It seems more reasonable to assume that experts would have perfect competence, and we could count what is in their minds as the concept, because it maps to the thing. But the concept itself and individual competence with it should be two different things.

You don't have to be a Platonist to believe that, but it would fit quite well with Platonism, since the Form would be the objective nature to which we hoped to approximate our competence.

If your shark & whale concepts are hollow except for the fact their not the same thing then you obviously can't do much of anything but state that any object you see can't be both a shark and a whale. You would have two almost empty concepts and its not surprising that you can do little with them, the richer and more developed the concepts the more you can do with them. Direct experience with a whale would constitute a separate but related memory of that event. The memory is linked with the whale concept (if you knew what you saw was a whale) which enriches the whale concept and makes it more useful as a predictor, you could now identify the whale. Conversely I can have a memory of experience without recognition or connection with a concept and only later have the label and other information given to me to allow a fully fleshed out concept to be made.

OK. The same applies. But what about the dodo?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok

You have to begin any argument with certain assumptions. Plato is assuming that characteristics cannot be shared without some sort of transcendent mediator. I do not work from that assumption (and in fact do not understand why on earth he should), hence his whole line of argument collapses for me.

Fine. (A) it is, except that "identical" doesn't sound right to me. Michael Jordan =/= tallness. Even saying he "has tallness" sounds fruity to me. He's not carrying a tallness in his pocket, tallness is merely the noun form of an adjective used to describe his size relative to many other men.

Tallness is a quantity predicate. Quantities must be quantities of something. But let's leave that aside, because it's perfectly reasonable to say that Michael Jordan "has" humanity (that's a "substance" predicate). In that case Jordan would be human, but so would other human beings.

The fact that other men can be tall presents no problem to me; the shared nature of characteristics is simply how the world is, and it seems to me that any attempt to explain it will invariably introduce unknowns and hypotheticals we have no way of verifying except by referencing the theory that assumes their existence in the first place.

OK then, so you've taken the position that it is in all of them. Do you think that there is such a thing as the nature of a dodo? That is such a thing as what it is to be a dodo, or dodo-ness. Imagine if in the future a preserved dodo was discovered and cloned (not an unreasonable supposition these days). No reasonable person would claim that this wasn't a dodo, and presumably you would say that the nature of dodoness would be somehow manifested in it.

But there aren't any dodos now. But in some sense it would seem that dodo-ness has to exist, even though no dodos presently have it (I'm using this as a picturesque example, but you could take any natural kind which currently has no instances). Do you want to say that dodo-ness is something real, yet not manifested in any material instance, or do you want to say that it is notional. It seems to me that whether or not any particular dodos exist, we are talking about the same dodoness. It would seem strange if when no dodos existed it was merely a concept and when dodos came back into existence it suddenly became part of the world.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Agathon
OK then, so you've taken the position that it is in all of them. Do you think that there is such a thing as the nature of a dodo? That is such a thing as what it is to be a dodo, or dodo-ness. Imagine if in the future a preserved dodo was discovered and cloned (not an unreasonable supposition these days). No reasonable person would claim that this wasn't a dodo, and presumably you would say that the nature of dodoness would be somehow manifested in it.

But there aren't any dodos now. But in some sense it would seem that dodo-ness has to exist, even though no dodos presently have it (I'm using this as a picturesque example, but you could take any natural kind which currently has no instances). Do you want to say that dodo-ness is something real, yet not manifested in any material instance, or do you want to say that it is notional. It seems to me that whether or not any particular dodos exist, we are talking about the same dodoness. It would seem strange if when no dodos existed it was merely a concept and when dodos came back into existence it suddenly became part of the world.

It doesn't seem strange to me. I'm not sure what you mean by "notional," but aren't you begging the question by assuming dodo-ness has an independent existence to begin with? Dodo-ness seems to be a combination of several attributes (e.g. big beak, flightlessness, great stature). Plenty of other birds have similar qualities; toucans have big beaks, penguins can't fly, and harpy eagles are pretty huge. The dodo is only unique in that it has a particular combination of those qualities. And, when you break it down, those qualities are in turn just combinations of protein sequences coded by DNA, like an anthill or termite mound is just the consequence of thousands of simple, instinctive actions. Which is not to denigrate the wonders of the natural world, I'm just saying that these attributes are themselves combinations of other attributes. Is the Form of dodo-ness composed of six billion or so Forms each of adenine, thiamine, guanine and cytosine? And is the Form of adenine composed of the Forms of carbon and oxygen and so on? Does each carbon atom have six-electron-ness?

BTW, what do you think of the book "Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar?" I got it for Xmas, and while amusing, it seems pretty lightweight and simplistic to me.

[Impaler[WrG]]

You don't have to be a Platonist to believe that, but it would fit quite well with Platonism, since the Form would be the objective nature to which we hoped to approximate our competence.

No the material world is the object to which we seek to conform our concepts too. It sounds like your arguing the expert is an expert because his mind has conformed perfectly with a Form. Firstly its never going to be possible to falsify this by any kind of test, we can't compare the concept in a mind to a Form we can only compare it to the world and see if they agree. Even then we can't show they are truly the same only that their not disagreeing for the particular experiments we performed. Their is always the possibility of future disagreement.

But there aren't any dodos now. But in some sense it would seem that dodo-ness has to exist, even though no dodos presently have it (I'm using this as a picturesque example, but you could take any natural kind which currently has no instances). Do you want to say that dodo-ness is something real, yet not manifested in any material instance, or do you want to say that it is notional. It seems to me that whether or not any particular dodos exist, we are talking about the same dodoness. It would seem strange if when no dodos existed it was merely a concept and when dodos came back into existence it suddenly became part of the world.

If by notional you mean that Dodoness is simply a label with descriptive data behind it then yes thats what I think. A person can have a Dodo concept in the head (the result of learning it from reading a book for example) which is completely independent of everyone else Dodo concept and the rest of the material world, their concept is not part of nor is it a reflection of some higher perfect concept/Form.

In fact a mind can hold concepts for things that have never and will never exist even things which are logically impossible or contradictory like square circles. The existence of something dose not necessitates the transcendent mediator as Elok terms it. No such mediator is even possible given our know physics. I see nothing but tautological arguments for Forms as I can explain mental concepts and learning without them, at the same time Forms necessitates some-kind of Dualism of Matter and Form which I am unwilling to accept without a water-tight proof that Forms are necessary.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Elok

It doesn't seem strange to me. I'm not sure what you mean by "notional," but aren't you begging the question by assuming dodo-ness has an independent existence to begin with? Dodo-ness seems to be a combination of several attributes (e.g. big beak, flightlessness, great stature). Plenty of other birds have similar qualities; toucans have big beaks, penguins can't fly, and harpy eagles are pretty huge. The dodo is only unique in that it has a particular combination of those qualities. And, when you break it down, those qualities are in turn just combinations of protein sequences coded by DNA, like an anthill or termite mound is just the consequence of thousands of simple, instinctive actions. Which is not to denigrate the wonders of the natural world, I'm just saying that these attributes are themselves combinations of other attributes. Is the Form of dodo-ness composed of six billion or so Forms each of adenine, thiamine, guanine and cytosine? And is the Form of adenine composed of the Forms of carbon and oxygen and so on? Does each carbon atom have six-electron-ness?

As I said, the Dodo is just a picturesque example. You could take any real thing (a chemical compound, or a rare subatomic particle) that doesn't exist at present and make the same claim. I don't think I am begging the question, since the Platonist would say, if there were no tokens of the type, what would be the status of the type? Perhaps it would be easier to take a shape again. What if no circles existed? What would circularity be? A concept, or some independent nature.

Since you said that you thought the nature was in the things, I wanted to know where you thought it was when there weren't any of the things.

BTW, what do you think of the book "Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar?" I got it for Xmas, and while amusing, it seems pretty lightweight and simplistic to me.

I've never read it. Plato would probably have liked it. He has a great sense of humour.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

No the material world is the object to which we seek to conform our concepts too. It sounds like your arguing the expert is an expert because his mind has conformed perfectly with a Form.

Only if you're a Platonist. You don't have to be a Platonist to believe this. Aristotle would be pretty happy with that, even though he doesn't believe in Forms.

Firstly its never going to be possible to falsify this by any kind of test, we can't compare the concept in a mind to a Form we can only compare it to the world and see if they agree.

Well done. Now you know why Plato thinks that both minds Forms are immaterial, since this would make it possible for us to have non-representational cognition of them. Knowledge for Plato is having the Form in mind, and gives you the same certainty that you have of your own existence (as Descartes argued).

If by notional you mean that Dodoness is simply a label with descriptive data behind it then yes thats what I think. A person can have a Dodo concept in the head (the result of learning it from reading a book for example) which is completely independent of everyone else Dodo concept and the rest of the material world, their concept is not part of nor is it a reflection of some higher perfect concept/Form.

Notional just means "a name". Again, you don't have to be a Platonist to support this argument. All you need to support it is to say that Dodoness has objective existence and that is what the term "Dodo" means. You are following the anti-realist line, which is as I said perfectly respectable. The realist line is different.

Here's an example to show you what I mean. Take two scientists, one is deaf and one is blind. Both understand perfectly the concepts "sound" and "light" as they apply to objective reality. Both can attend scientific conferences on light and sound and have perfectly meaningful discussions with each other (perhaps like Helen Keller did). But each of them would have a different way of thinking about them, because the blind guy couldn't experience light and the deaf guy couldn't experience sound. Here we might want to say that there concept is the same, but what's in their head is different.



In fact a mind can hold concepts for things that have never and will never exist even things which are logically impossible or contradictory like square circles. The existence of something dose not necessitates the transcendent mediator as Elok terms it. No such mediator is even possible given our know physics. I see nothing but tautological arguments for Forms as I can explain mental concepts and learning without them, at the same time Forms necessitates some-kind of Dualism of Matter and Form which I am unwilling to accept without a water-tight proof that Forms are necessary. [/QUOTE]

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]

No the material world is the object to which we seek to conform our concepts too. It sounds like your arguing the expert is an expert because his mind has conformed perfectly with a Form.

Only if you're a Platonist. You don't have to be a Platonist to believe this. Aristotle would be pretty happy with that, even though he doesn't believe in Forms.

Firstly its never going to be possible to falsify this by any kind of test, we can't compare the concept in a mind to a Form we can only compare it to the world and see if they agree.

Well done. Now you know why Plato thinks that both minds Forms are immaterial, since this would make it possible for us to have non-representational cognition of them. Knowledge for Plato is having the Form in mind, and gives you the same certainty that you have of your own existence (as Descartes argued).

If by notional you mean that Dodoness is simply a label with descriptive data behind it then yes thats what I think. A person can have a Dodo concept in the head (the result of learning it from reading a book for example) which is completely independent of everyone else Dodo concept and the rest of the material world, their concept is not part of nor is it a reflection of some higher perfect concept/Form.

Notional just means "a name". Again, you don't have to be a Platonist to support this argument. All you need to support it is to say that Dodoness has objective existence and that is what the term "Dodo" means. You are following the anti-realist line, which is as I said perfectly respectable. The realist line is different.

Here's an example to show you what I mean. Take two scientists, one is deaf and one is blind. Both understand perfectly the concepts "sound" and "light" as they apply to objective reality. Both can attend scientific conferences on light and sound and have perfectly meaningful discussions with each other (perhaps like Helen Keller did). But each of them would have a different way of thinking about them, because the blind guy couldn't experience light and the deaf guy couldn't experience sound. Here we might want to say that there concept is the same, but what's in their head is different. So the conclusion would be that the meaning of the concept does not depend on their way of accessing the world. Similarly, extraterrestrial scientists who share none of our senses could plausibly discover the same scientific theories as us.

In fact a mind can hold concepts for things that have never and will never exist even things which are logically impossible or contradictory like square circles.

I have failed to think of a square circle on numerous occasions.

The existence of something dose not necessitates the transcendent mediator as Elok terms it. No such mediator is even possible given our know physics. I see nothing but tautological arguments for Forms as I can explain mental concepts and learning without them, at the same time Forms necessitates some-kind of Dualism of Matter and Form which I am unwilling to accept without a water-tight proof that Forms are necessary.

Our argument in recent posts hasn't been about Forms or transcendence. That comes later. The argument in recent posts has been about realism versus conceptual. Not every realist is a Platonist, but if you want to establish Platonism, you have to establish realism first.