Plato: Misconceptions and attempts at clarification...

Essence said:Look, your whole issue is you don't get that the wave function isn't some physical "thing." It’s just a mathematical probability function we had to come up with because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

The thing is, the wave function wasn't "invented"—it was "discovered."
And also, what do you mean "not material"? You're drifting into some weird idealistic territory there! Didn't you basically redefine "material" as anything we can actually measure? Well, we can totally measure how well the probabilities from that wave function line up with an actual experiment.

Just because you're sitting in your room reading Feynman and thinking you've actually mastered this stuff... man, that's not real knowledge. Studying like that just leaves you with a bunch of wrong assumptions about everything else—philosophy, the history of science, all of it. You haven't actually learned a single thing about physics.

Essence said:mistyfox812
Look, since everything else she wrote was basically just nonsense—and I’ve already torn most of that apart anyway—I’m only gonna tackle this one point. It’s not even about her personally; it’s about correcting a pretty widespread misconception (which is exactly why we're all here, right?).
Essence-
You haven't actually proven anything. You didn't even bother to address—let alone debunk—the massive pile of quotes and conclusions I laid out.As for misconceptions? We've pretty much crushed them all, both regarding Plato and you.😂

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I did prove everything I set out to prove. Let me say it one more time:
1. your idea that Plato’s philosophy is just Christianity in disguise is totally wrong
2. your claim that Plato hated Democritus is just plain false
3. your take on Plato having a negative impact on science is incorrect
4. your whole thing about Plato discriminating against women is just wrong

Regarding #4: I totally forgot to bring up the argument from the Symposium where the wisest man, Socrates, gets his most important teaching—about the philosopher being an eroticist (pretty sure Epicurus read that book too)—from a woman named Diotima.

Since you couldn't actually defend those points—I mean, you tried with the second and fourth ones, but I showed why they don't hold water—you just pivoted to attacking general practices instead. Then you started throwing out Plato quotes that have nothing to do with the actual debate, which I haven't responded to yet because—like I said—I don't want to go down a rabbit hole until we wrap this part up.

Essence said:So, you were hunting for that specific Quote to prove Democritus was basically a thorn in Plato's side—mostly because it was pretty obvious you'd never even heard of it before. Then, once you finally tracked it down and realized it actually *was* legit, you suddenly started screaming about how it’s unreliable just because it doesn't back up your little theory. Now you're leaning hard on "credibility" like it's your ultimate trump card. But honestly? If we're playing that game, why should anyone believe Diels or any other historian or biographer for that matter?

So you're basically banking everything on one super sketchy piece of testimony. Like, what is that EVEN based on? Aside from all those paranoid projections you've got going on, that's literally your only foundation. And then, the second I point out that this whole testimony is probably just some malicious fabrication, you suddenly try to throw the entire field of history under the bus. Seriously?

Essence said:I was being totally sarcastic when I said that looking at what’s left of Democritus makes you think those Platonic followers actually succeeded in wiping out his work. I clearly stated—like, super clearly—that Plato backed off from that whole thing because his buddies talked him out of it. But hey, apparently I need to grab some crayons and draw it out for you since reading is obviously too much to ask?

Man, you're seriously spreading that same old rumor again? The one cooked up by that guy whose teacher sold Plato into slavery? Seriously, you're just spreading total nonsense here.

Essence said:Man, you’re such a little liar—and honestly? A total blind, religious fanatic, too. Why won't you just be real with people for once? Just admit that these works are being systematically wiped out and erased by the government and the church. It's simple, really. You don't want to go public because it doesn't look good to stand on the side of the people who burn books.

It’s honestly kind of sad when you can't see your own fanaticism. And trust me, it isn't even that hard to spot if you're actually looking.
There’s actually this pretty reliable trick for spotting blinded fanatics in any debate. Honestly, it doesn't matter what the topic is—literally anything. When they run out of actual arguments, they just start dragging up Hitler. It’s like, because they can't handle someone having a different view, they decide their opponent is pure evil, and in this day and age, Hitler has become that go-to archetype for them. Homework for Essence: just count how many times he gets brought up in this thread.
And honestly, if you want to call me a liar, go ahead—it’d actually make sense at this point. You'd have to take what I said and twist it into something it definitely isn't. But you didn't do that. That's the thing. Fanatics don't even care about arguments anyway. They just stick to that whole "spit first, ask questions later" kind of vibe.

Essence said:The early Church Fathers were actually pretty smart—they knew exactly where they’d face the most pushback against their faith. They realized people saw their religion as just a messy pile of old-world myths that couldn't hold a candle to the deep philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans. So, what did they do? They reached for Plato. They leaned hard into his ideas because they knew those concepts would be the backbone of Christian theology. That's basically what I was getting at when I said Plato *is* Christianity—and you totally caught my drift!

So now I’m the liar? Seriously? Here is the exact Quote you wrote. Like, how am I even supposed to read this other than exactly

Essence said:Christians didn't just "take" Plato's teachings and tweak them to fit their own vibe.
Christianity *is* Platonic teaching.

So wait, you're saying Christian doctrine is basically just Platonic teaching? Yeah, no. That's just not true. And I already shut that down. Now you're totally switching up the story! You're acting like Christians did take Plato's stuff and reshaped it—which is the exact opposite of what you just said.

Essence said:And now mistyfox812 is back at it again, trying to strip all the soul out of physics and turn the whole thing into nothing but math. Like, matter isn't even made of Democritus's little particles anymore—it's just a bunch of spreadsheets and numbers.
...mistyfox812:
Basically, particles are just a collection of properties we express through numbers. These properties don't have anything to do with stuff we can actually see, hear, touch, or taste. They only exist in our thoughts.
Essence-
Man, Heisenberg would be rolling in his grave if he saw how you're twisting his matrix mechanics.

Actually, here's what Heisenberg wrote (physics and metaphysics, Penguin Books, p. 356):
'' 'In the beginning was symmetry,' which is way more accurate than Democritus's idea that 'In the beginning was the particle.' Elementary particles are just embodiments of symmetries; they're just the simplest way to represent them, but they're really just a consequence of those symmetries.''
And also (same book, p. 364.):
''...the representatives of one or more properties are mathematical forms that outline elementary particles; they are, so to speak, the ideas of elementary particles, which ultimately correspond to the actual object of an elementary particle.''
But hey, what did he know about physics, right? Just some fascist metaphysician, a homoerotic Plato follower. And why should we listen to him when you clearly don't even know the first thing about physics? You've probably never even heard of quantum physics—too bad he died before you could give him an update.

Essence said:Look, mistyfox812, I’m just gonna be real with you—this isn't working anymore. I honestly would've loved to keep doing these online tutoring sessions with you, hopping from physics to math to philosophy and history, but my schedule is just totally blown. There's zero time left. We pretty much cleared up all those misconceptions about Plato, and honestly? We basically figured out everything there is to know about you.

I really hope that after this lesson you’ll stop putting Plato on such a high pedestal. Like, seriously. Be open to everything, sure, but don't be so wide open that you lose your damn mind in the process. If you aren't careful, you're just gonna spend your whole life blindly following stuff that makes zero sense to you. Don't let that happen.

Hey there! What's up?
👋

So, how exactly do you deal with people you can't stand? Look, if you stop pushing all these lies after this, I promise I won't fire back with any insults or total nonsense. Honestly, I’ll be more than happy to just walk away from this whole thing. You haven't just been arrogant—and trust me, I've seen some ego on these boards—but you've also shown you're totally fine with twisting facts, lying, and throwing jabs. It's all wrapped up in this pathetic cynicism, which, let's be real, is always just a sign of being spiritually weak.
I’ve touched on most of what we talked about—okay, maybe not all of it. It’s tough to clear the air when you’re throwing mud at everyone in sight. But honestly? In every single topic where I actually jumped in, I showed why your take just doesn't hold water. And even in the spots where you weren't technically wrong, I pointed out how you were totally twisting my words. Look, let me just remind you where this whole thing started: that wild leap you made trying to prove God can't exist based on Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Man, I felt like I had to step in—not even for God's sake, but for Heisenberg's, because that was just wrong. That kind of logic is exactly what people mean when they talk about bad metaphysics: making this massive, illegal jump from a concept to actual reality. It just doesn't work.
Man, you totally took my little comment and ran with it! You went off on everything—religion, sheep, Plato, Democritus, Epicurus... even physics and politics. Then we were deep in the weeds talking about the meaning of history, democracy, Hitler, feminism, and basically every other topic under the sun. Seriously, where does it end?
I already covered most of that—but you just keep finding ways to expand on it every single time!
I totally missed answering that part about Plato’s Republic. But honestly, man, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. It's super obvious because your posts are all over the place. Like, in your first post, you're claiming Plato is this big-time aristocrat who wants slaves and thinks women shouldn't have any say in politics—but then your later post just completely contradicts that! It looks like you actually picked up a book in the meantime and realized all three of those points were wrong. I mean, seriously? There aren't even slaves in the Republic. Women are treated as equals. And as for the aristocracy thing—it's not some hereditary, "born into it" type of deal. In the Republic, it's just rule by the *ariston*—the absolute best people—regardless of where they came from. So now, you're basically accusing Plato of trampling on the rights of the very aristocrats you were just complaining about. Makes zero sense!
Whatever, I’m done talking about it. I'm just over it. Honestly, there’s zero point trying to explain things to arrogant know-it-alls—and I don't even mean they lack knowledge, I mean they're just too full of themselves. They're like these closed-off Houellebecqian elementary particles that freak out at the mere thought of anything changing within them. Anything that threatens the ego? Total nightmare fuel for them. That’s why these "particles" cling so hard to pure empirical data. It feels safe to them because all the change happens "out there," while their precious little egos stay exactly the same. But man, true realization requires you to actually change who you are. To really learn or understand something, you have to let go of the ego entirely. If you can't wrap your head around that, you're never going to get what Plato was talking about. So yeah, I'm keeping my thoughts on Plato's Polity to myself. Like Goethe said: "Don't tell anyone, only the wise, because the crowd will just laugh at you..."

Look, I don't want to just tear you down without actually pointing you toward the right path. Seriously. So, I’m gonna drop a Heisenberg quote on you—but hey, if you're feeling all arrogant or uncomfortable right now, maybe just wait until you're feeling more chill before you dive into this:
I was honestly too insecure to jump into those debates myself, but man, I was listening. Really soaking it all in. I kept thinking about this whole idea of "order." The way some of those speeches were all over the place—it felt like a sign, you know? Like even when you have different versions of true order, they can clash, and that friction actually creates total chaos. It hit me that this only happens when we're dealing with partial orders; little fragments that broke away from the main core. They still had their own energy, sure, but they’d lost that sense of direction toward the center. The longer I sat there listening, the more it messed with my head. The lack of a central point was actually physically painful for me, but honestly? I wouldn't have known how to find my way back to the middle of that messy web of conflicting opinions anyway... We were stuck in those discussions forever, and then suddenly, this kid shows up in the courtyard with a violin. Once everything went quiet, the first massive D-minor chords of Bach's Chaconne just soared right over our heads. And boom. Suddenly, the connection to the center was undeniable. Those sharp, clear structures of the Chaconne were like a breath of fresh air, blowing away the fog and showing the outlines that were hidden before. You could finally talk about a central core again. It’s always been possible—whether you're looking at Plato or Bach, using music, philosophy, or religion as the language. So, it's gotta be possible now, and it'll be possible in the future too.

ironbadger31 said:Oh, please... Jesse, I have to say, I was actually a bit blindsided by the sheer amount of pointless insults you’ve been throwing around in here... 😢 It’s just not what I expected from someone like you...

Look, whatever the case may be, I’m asking you nicely to drop the attitude and tone down the rhetoric, because honestly, none of this makes any sense. And without even getting myself dragged into this debate as a third party, I’ll just point out that your explanations are riddled with holes (I read the whole thing 😉), which really doesn't justify acting out like this.

So, I’m signing off. 😁

Hey ironbadger31,

it’s been a while since we last spoke..

I take all that criticism with a grain of salt, truly. 🙂

Down here, a heavy wind is blowing through the city, rain clouds have taken over the skyline, the cat is meowing, and on the corner of my street, they're selling roasted chestnuts—they're steaming and sizzling, wawecli hot and delicious..

But how on earth does any of that have anything to do with Plato? 😕

🙂

nobody and nothing
So, you're claiming the "difference will be too small," implying they won't fall at the exact same time? There *is* a difference. And even if that gap is tiny, you can actually see it with your own eyes—you can clearly observe that one specific object always hits the ground just a fraction sooner. Galileo arrived at the conclusion that there would be no difference in a vacuum purely through logical deduction, because he couldn't actually perform that specific experiment himself back then.«

John Walker74
I didn't bring up this experiment because I wanted to get into a pedantic debate with you about some microscopic discrepancy in how fast a stone falls; I used it as an example to prove how utterly useless philosophy and mathematics become when they aren't backed up by experimental verification.

The reason Galileo is such a titan is that he integrated experimentation into the scientific method, which is easily his most significant contribution to physics. That’s precisely why he’s hailed as the father of modern physics.

This particular experiment matters because it provided a simple, elegant way to demonstrate that the old way of looking at things was fundamentally broken compared to the Platonic or Aristotelian worldview.

The point wasn't to explain away some negligible difference in falling speeds, which is exactly the kind of vague, circular reasoning you try to hide behind with your Platonic obsession; the issue was a massive, cardinal error that persisted for two thousand years and served as the foundation for a completely delusional model of the universe.

Based on the flawed premise that heavier objects fall faster, Aristotle concluded that Earth is the heaviest thing in existence and sits right at the center of everything. Then you have air, which is lighter, and finally the celestial bodies, made of ether, which are considered the lightest of all. Throw in fire, water, air, and earth as the four elements—each supposedly possessing qualities of being cold, hot, wet, or dry—and you end up with a vision of the cosmos that is spectacularly backwards.

It wasn't just that this model was wrong or that you couldn't calculate a single thing using Aristotelian physics; it was that anyone brave enough to question this geocentric and ego-centric universe saw their books burned, and the author would be lucky to escape the stake along with their writings.

I'll say it again: I don't give a damn about that tiny margin of error. The goal was to show people that Aristotle's claim regarding the proportional speed of heavy objects falling was a MASSIVE mistake. We aren't talking about fractions of a second here.

nobody and nothing
But you can see that difference with the naked eye—it's incredibly slight, but you can tell that one object consistently lands just a hair before the other.
John Walker74
Regarding this "naked eye" observation you're so sure of, it’s blindingly obvious that you haven't actually tried the experiment, despite my suggestions. You've let Plato cloud your judgment far too much. Just try it once; it won't kill you. I am telling you right now, if I stand on the roof of my house and drop objects of varying weights—where one is many times heavier than the other—there is absolutely no way you could judge which hit first without precision instruments. If you think I'm wrong, let's make a bet.

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nobody and nothing
Galileo didn't just stumble onto the idea that there's no difference in a vacuum simply by sitting around thinking about it. His own experiments couldn't have proven that through pure thought alone.
John Walker74
Why are you so stuck on the notion that Galileo arrived at the assumption that objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum just by using his imagination? What else was he supposed to use? But with the specific experiment we keep going back to, Galileo first used it to open his own eyes to the fact that he shouldn't blindly trust Aristotle.

Through countless trials using inclined planes, he realized that friction was what actually hindered an object's movement. So, he spent his time smoothing out those surfaces, lubricating them—doing everything possible to minimize friction—while measuring falling speeds at various angles and so on...

Naturally, he eventually concluded that if you could reduce that friction to zero, or essentially remove the air, all objects would fall equally. But he didn't reach that conclusion through mere speculation; he got there only after a rigorous series of experiments.

People had been pondering this exact problem for thousands of years before Galileo ever showed up, but clearly, nobody bothered to master it until Galileo came along and bridged the gap between mathematics, logic, and experimentation. Once experimentation was finally integrated into the scientific method, science actually started to move forward. It stopped being nothing more than empty philosophizing. This is where you and I differ significantly.

You seem to believe that Plato made a massive contribution to science, whereas I believe he actually set science back by completely ignoring empirical evidence. Even if we ignore the fact that he left behind a whole trail of misconceptions and failed to contribute anything truly vital to science, that's the least of the problems.

nobody and nothing
In the future, if there's something I've written that you don't understand, just ask.
John Walker74
To be honest, I didn't understand, because you won't find that kind of phrasing in the works of either Newton or Galileo.

nobody and nothing
It seems to you like there's a massive distinction between moving at a constant velocity and being at rest. Honestly, it’s no wonder; that is the most common mistake made by people without any actual physics training. And since you're so insistent on precise terminology, Newton's first law doesn't even mention a vector sum; it says: "...unless some external force changes that state."
John Walker74
It is perfectly clear to me that all physical laws regarding rest and uniform motion remain identical, but who exactly said otherwise? And it isn't my fault that Newton specifically distinguishes between rest and motion in his first law; don't blame me for his wording.

And since we're talking about strict citations, Newton doesn't say an external force but rather external forces. Here, look at the Latin and English so you can actually learn something. For those external forces to be able to change a state of rest or uniform motion, their vector sum cannot equal zero.

LEX I: Corpus omne perservare in statu suo, quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.

LAW I: Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

So don't act surprised when you run into definitions like these in textbooks:

Newton’s first law of motion states: If the vector sum of the forces acting on an object is zero, then the object will remain at rest or remain moving at constant velocity.
OR:
An object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion will continue in motion with a constant velocity, (i.e., a straight line with constant speed), unless it experiences a net external force - this means the vector sum of all the external forces acting on the object.
OR:
A body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced and outside force.

There might be some arrogance involved here, but at the end of the day, we are talking about actual knowledge.

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nobody and nothing said:Actually, Heisenberg wrote this himself (Physics and Metaphysics, published in the States, p. 356)
'' 'In the beginning there was symmetry,' which is certainly a more accurate way of putting it than Democritus's thesis that 'In the beginning there was the particle.' Elementary particles embody symmetries; they are merely their simplest representations, acting as consequences of those symmetries.''
And also (from the same book, p. 364.):
''...the representatives of one or more properties are mathematical forms that outline elementary particles; they are, so to speak, the ideas of elementary particles, which ultimately correspond to the actual object of an elementary particle.''
But of course, what did he know about physics—that fascist, that metaphysician, that homosexual Platonic thinker? You can laugh at his words too, since physics isn't exactly your specialty. You've never even heard of quantum physics—it's a damn shame you died before you could update him on a few things.

That all sounds lovely and wonderful, and sure, Heisenberg was a top-tier scientist, but does that somehow change the fact that Heisenberg was leading the project to build the atomic bomb for Hitler?

nobody and nothing said:And if you actually wanted to call me a liar, you’d have to back it up by twisting my words into something I never actually said. But you didn't do that. Then again, fanatics don't need logic; they just prefer the whole "spit on it and claim it stuck" approach.
So now I'm suddenly a liar? Here is the exact quote of what you wrote. How else am I supposed to interpret this, given how it's phrased:
So, you claimed Christian doctrine is just Platonic teaching. That isn't true, and I refuted it. But then you shifted the goalposts and wrote that Christians eventually took Platonic teachings and reshaped them—which is the exact opposite of your initial claim.

You didn't refute anything.

If someone writes "fuck you" on a wall, does that mean Joe broke his dick?

Stop taking everything so incredibly literal.

Did you honestly think I was suggesting that Plato was out there preaching about a coming savior, the resurrection, or the Three Wise Men?

Those kinds of myths have always existed, before or after. What made Christianity the most dominant religion on the planet was precisely its use of the sophisticated Platonic philosophical system, which Christian theologians—think Jesse, Origen, St. Augustine, and others—leveraged to build their foundation.

And let's be real: if that Platonic framework hadn't served their purposes, those theologians wouldn't have touched it in the first place!

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nobody and nothing said:So, here is my question for you: how on earth is probability linked to a WAVE function?
Why does that function have to be a wave function specifically?
Is there actually anything within probability theory itself that suggests probability should be described by a wave function?
And is there anything in classical mechanics regarding collisions between spheres that implies this probability ought to be modeled by a WAVE function?

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I honestly can't give you an answer to that. I have no clue. Look, I’m smart, but I’m not exactly a genius. You seem to think you’ve cracked the code just because you’ve read some Plato, right? Wolfgang Pauli thought he had it too. Heisenberg felt the same way. And look, your lawyer, Nobel laureate Feynman (yet another heavy hitter in science—it seems you have a thing for destructive types😲, only drawn to scientists who helped build atomic bombs) claims even he doesn't grasp it. Or anyone else for that matter!

The man simply admits he hasn't a clue.. I’m sure that quote rings a bell for you, so I won't bother searching for it. It's a mystery to him and everyone else. And once the mystery begins, that’s where God steps in. Or Plato’s forms from some incomprehensible realm. To quote your lawyer again.

Richard Feynman's Views on the Irrational Origin of Religion

"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.

Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries.

So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time -- life and death -- stuff like that.

God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out. "

When it comes to this whole mess, Feynman strikes me as being far more honest and sincere. The ultimate form of integrity is simply saying, when you don't know something, that you don't know.

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nobody and nothing said:Feynman loved to joke.
Take his book, for instance, where he lays out wave optics and explains how light functions as a wave.
Of course he knows that light follows both the traditional wave model and the particle model. His whole goal is to unify those two frameworks under a single new concept of a 'particle' that encompasses both behaviors.

What an absolute idiot you are. "Feynman loved to joke"? Sure, that’s true, but he was being deadly serious here. Quantum electrodynamics—have you even read anything by Feynman besides this one little booklet?—actually starts by explaining the very experiments that prove light doesn't just act like a wave, but like a particle. Then, he spends the rest of the entire book showing how to calculate that particle's movement using a wave equation. That’s how you account for all those experiments where light looks like a wave in traditional physics and the ones where it acts like a particle. Mysteriously, nobody actually knows why light behaves this way, but that's the reality.

But hey, Feynman loved to joke. Honestly, it isn't even worth my time to argue with you. Goodbye.

😁 I suppose I hold a bit of a grudge against Plato for being so vague about the actual location of Atlantis. It’s frustrating, really. On a different note, I've always had a soft spot for plasma spheres; there's something captivating about how they just drift right through matter.

bozanstvena333 said:😁 I honestly hold a bit of a grudge against Plato for not being more specific about where Atlantis actually is located. Plus, I’ve always had a thing for those fireballs, you know, because of the way they just slice right through matter.

Maybe he just got too caught up playing games with the little kids and simply ran out of time to mention it?🤣