I hinted at this question in another thread, but I am more confused the more I think about it. I believe intangeable things do exist, but I don’t remember what brought me to this decision.
I’m thinking mainly about ideas but souls, gods, God, magick, and the tree falling in the woods all fit in this category. Take the discussion wherever you will.
possibly the world’s only naive cynic
Huzzah, I say, Huzzah! That’s a question over which we can spin our wheels (as the entire field of philosophy has been doing since Plato) for an eternity.
Traditionally, you’ve got a couple options:
[list=1][li]Platonism: the intangible exists as ‘form’, an ideal blueprint of everything in the universe. Somewhere, there’s the form of a perfect bowel movement.[/li][li]Transcendentalism: the intangible exists as part of the rational structure of the universe. Beauty is ineffable, yet always detectable.[/li][li]Nominalism: the intangible exists only so far as it concrete in our language.[/li][li]Behaviourism: the intangible exists as a collection of actions conceptually unified by it.[/list=1][/li]
What am I forgetting?
I apologise if I’ve been loose with these definitions. It’s been five years since I graduated from Philosophy at a B school.
Here’s my take:
If it’s really and truly intangible, meaning it has no effect at all on the “real” world, then I don’t care if it exists, because it is meaningless to me.
I believe “tangible” is derived from “tangere”, Latin for “to touch”. So we could say, for example, that a person whose innate sensory input was limited to the sense of touch is to some extent capable of constructing a mental picture (analog) of the universe. Via logic and experimentation, such a person could and probably would come up with explanatory theories and concepts that included items that were intangible: color, for example.
Add a few more innate senses plus a plethora of sensitive instrumentation, and you’ve merely widened the aperature.
In the same spirit as Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach, I suspect any system which is capable of generating conscious sentiency (such as the universe in which we live) is always going to contain “things” that exist in reality but which cannot be sensed by any means available to the sentient being(s).
Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post
There are remedies for the intanglible. If your hair is intanglible, for instance, there are sprays and shampoos that will help get the tangles out.
No need to thank me.
As far as reality goes, I know I exist. I’ll just attribute everything else to my incredible intelligence.
You know, the rest of you should thank me for having such a great imagination. ;).
“Does the intangible exist?”
I find the question difficult to grasp.
Slythe said:
I was thinking, “sick imagination.” I mean, you are actually admitting to coming up with some of the folks on the SDMB…
You’re right. I had second thoughts about the whole “David B” thing, but never was one to sweat out the small stuff. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just do a switch with Heather Locklear.
THAT should make Spin City interesting.
Hey, Slythe, watch the way you talk to your brother-in-law!
Difficult, but not impossible. My point being that just because a concept is not readily “tangible” doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The very concept of nonexistence is intangible. Certainly there are things that do not exist. Or should I say there aren’t things that do not exist.
Evidently, my spelling is worse than I thought. I meant intangible instead of intangeable, but you knew that already.
I am specifically interested in what ideas philosophers came up with. I want to take a philosophy class someday, as I find what little I have heard on the subject to be fascinating. (A logic class too. I get stuck in loops, and I hate that.)
Tenn, I think you accidentally responded to your own joke. It was a good one, anyway.
possibly the world’s only naive cynic
Maybe the best answer of all is,“I don’t know, yet”. People who have to have an answer now, and thus attribute a religious cause, whether it fits or not, to a question have shown their inability to grasp this.
Note to David B:There’s only one person with enough imagination to buy that relative answer!
No accident. I’ve always said that it’s OK to talk to yourself, and it’s OK to answer yourself…as long as you recognize the voice that answers.
Your Friend and Mine,
TennHippie
Slythe: Can entropy be reversed? 
In an open system, yes. In a closed system, no.
In a closed mind, yes(after several whacks with a 2x4.) :).
Intangibles do exist. There are things that our senses cannot perceive directly, such as gravity. We can watch things fall, we can feel weight, but we are not actually perceiving gravity itself, yet we know it exists as the cause of the things we can observe.
Often, people will try to rationalize belief in magic or souls as though they were analogous to gravity. They aren’t. Gravity is observable, obliquely. We see it manifested in many ways, all of which are consistent with a well-formulated sense we have of how gravity works. `Magic,’ whatever that is, has never been shown to be observable directly or obliquely – and believe me a lot of people have tried and are still trying to prove that it’s observable.
Slythe, entropy in a closed system can be reversed if the Universe itself is closed.It could collapse into the Big Crunch and rebound into a new Universe. The ultimate free lunch. In fact, it could have done so an infinite number of times already and may continue to do so forever.The Second Law of Thermodynamics does not forbid it. Although it should. I mean, it’s the law, right?
'Course, maybe the Universe is open, in which case forget I even brought it up.
You are unique - Just like everyone else.
Entropy in a closed system can be reversed if an outside source of energy can be and is used. But then it wouldn’t be a closed system, would it? Declaring the universe to be an open system is invalid unless we have a way to harness and use the energy provided, therefore, as of now, our solar system is a closed system.
By definition, the Universe is everything that there is. It’s eventual fate depends on the amount of matter contained in it. More than the critical mass, and it will eventually recollapse. Less and it it will undergo a gradual heat death and reach thermodynamic equillibrium. In the case of the former, it may condense into a singularity, bounce, and form another Universe. No outside energy is required or even possible. The jury is still out on this, and the verdict may never be reached. Science is not very good at answering questions about first and last things.
You are unique - Just like everyone else.