The Thingness of Things

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What's a thing, in general? Minds deal with things, so this question comes up in trying to understand minds. Minds think about things, speak of things, manipulate things, care about things, create things, and maybe are made of things. Examples of things: table, elephant, carbon atom. France, Martin Luther King. Insertion sort. Chess. Unicorn. Learning. Seven. Towel, strand, wing, crystal, finger, space, diffraction. The laws of electromagnetism. The first World War. What about non-things? It might be hard to list non-things because what we have words for, tend to be things. Redness seems like sort of a thing, but less so. Laws of physics also. Also ghosts. One might say "the ideal gas law is totally a thing" or "ghosts aren't a thing", though I think ghosts are a thing. Events can be things; WWI seems like a thing to me. But a minute ago I picked up my bottle of water and drank from it; that's clearly an event, a real one, but it doesn't feel that much like a thing. The abstract [drink

The Thingness of Things August 23, 2022 $\newcommand{\Z}{\mathbb{Z}}$ What's a thing, in general? Minds deal with things, so this question comes up in trying to understand minds. Minds think about things, speak of things, manipulate things, care about things, create things, and maybe are made of things. 1. Things 2. Non-things 3. Features of things 4. Indication 5. Inadequacy of "clustered" Sevens Unique things 6. Inductive nexus of reference Reference Nexus Inductive 7. Discussion A Thing is a cavern Talk of "things" Noumena Non-thingness Subjectivity 1. Things Examples of things: table, elep

The Thingness of Things

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