Theory of Forms - Plato

I find it really interesting to think about "what it means to be". Something is only that somthing because we say it is, a chair is a chair because we say its a chair, but why can't my goldfish be considered a chair? This is because if I considered my goldfish a chair I'd be considered insane.

"what is true substance?" leads to the idea of forms by Plato

It says that Plato believed in one creator that created only one form of everything and that everything else with the same "idea" or "form" is a copy. He believed that the orignal ideas that only excist in the mind of the creator were perfect and every form that excisted on this world was a copy and is imperfect. With this being said "intellectual truth" is different the "physical truth". He says that we all have the knowledge to know what a perfect idea is yet we can could never create the idea. He gives the example that we all know what a perfect circle looks like yet an artist can never duplicate a perfect circle, this is because it is only intellectual truth, not physical truth.

This means NO ONE is orginal, we are all copies of the orginal idea of the man and woman, none of us our perfect, which i think everyone already knew. We are all copies of eachother on an imperfect world.

Plato shares that somthing is equal to another thing because it shares the same form. A Stone is equal to another stone because it is participating in the same form, or corresponding with the orginal idea of the stone. Another example, we consider the dogs coat to be soft but we also consider a blanket to be soft, this is because they both participate in the orginal idea of "softness" I find this to be sooo true, I really agree with this concept, why do we connect these to vague ideas to be in the same category? a dogs coat and a blanket are two completely different forms but we consider them both to be soft? We consider these forms to soft because of perception, we are able to judge the forms to be soft because of our experience through the senses. The fact that we can argue somthing to be soft or smooth shows that their cannot be a perfect form of softness.

This post only consist of the basic theory of forms. Their are so many possibilties within this theory and arguments with other philosophers that i obviously cannot post everything in one night, but the concept in general really interests me and i'm wondering if any philosopher ever thought if a form can switch with another form, if a goldfish wants to become another a form like a table, could it? Do we only have the knowledge to think of the fish as a fish? Is a goldfish even gold? what makes a gold fish a goldfish other then the orginal idea of a goldfish? If these ideas that are only in the mind of our creator that are the basis of our entire universe were some how destroyed would our world go into complete chaos because we do not have the knowledge of any forms?