I was trying to tease out whether your “God is real” is intended in the same sense as “the monster group exists” - neither exists in physical reality, but both exist in at least some minds; in a kind of mental reality. My other questions were intended to ferret out whether your idea of a mental or algorithmic “real” includes only well-defined and consistent ideas, or whether vague, incorrect, and impossible ideas also qualify as “real” in your sense.
Sorry I didn’t make that clear in the original comment—I didn’t mean to seem confrontational. I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your interesting suggestion. This appears to be one situation where more politeness might have helped. :)
As for where I am coming from, I’m one of those philosophical anti-realists mentioned earlier in this thread (and a big fan of van Fraassen). I am far from convinced that electrons are real. So I’m interested in the details when someone says, in effect, that God is just as real as electrons.
I was trying to tease out whether your “God is real” is intended in the same sense as “the monster group exists” - neither exists in physical reality, but both exist in at least some minds; in a kind of mental reality. My other questions were intended to ferret out whether your idea of a mental or algorithmic “real” includes only well-defined and consistent ideas, or whether vague, incorrect, and impossible ideas also qualify as “real” in your sense.
Sorry I didn’t make that clear in the original comment—I didn’t mean to seem confrontational. I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your interesting suggestion. This appears to be one situation where more politeness might have helped. :)
As for where I am coming from, I’m one of those philosophical anti-realists mentioned earlier in this thread (and a big fan of van Fraassen). I am far from convinced that electrons are real. So I’m interested in the details when someone says, in effect, that God is just as real as electrons.