ontology is fallible

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154328 wrote:

The symbol is culturally determined, the number is obviously not.

Excellent point. And when one looks closely at positional notation, it really hits home. It does seem that the Greeks were more attached to spatial representations of numbers, but Euclid proved there was no last prime without his compass, if I understand the books right. (And primes are the numbers that other numbers of made of. Fundamental theorem of arithmetic.)

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154328 wrote:

Although I presume that to said geometers, triangles were three-sided, even if they did not have a symbol for this number.

After the Pythagoreans proved incommensurability, the Greeks had no way to rigorise geometry until Eudoxus invented his theory of proportion. On this point, if numbers are real, how do you account for incommensurability?

jeeprs;154328 wrote:

if I went from London to Calais on the channel ferry, and asked for three croissant, and got two, I would have been cheated, culture be damned. Three is trois, drei, whatever. The symbol is culturally determined, the number is obviously not.

On mainland Europe, everything is dome in base ten, in the UK there are systems in various idiosyncratic bases, the arithmetic doesn't add up across the channel.
All that is going on, in all cases, is that something is compared to some other thing, why this would lead anybody to espouse realism, about numbers as abstract objects, is a complete mystery to me, and nothing in your replies to me goes anywhere towards dispelling that mystery.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154328 wrote:

He did. Probably would have kept me out also. Maybe that is what happened. So here I am 2,500 years later still trying to figure it out:bigsmile:.

Well, I mention that because I'm obviously just lately really struck by what I took for boring in high school. Just looking at how we conceive volume. And also the cones and spheres and cylinders make pi visible, and pi is just part of the structure of our experience. Pi is just one of the ways of this world. It seems to me that the sphere is perhaps the most beautiful of all shapes. Didn't Parmenides present Being as a sphere with nothing outside it? It's volume is 4/3 * pi * r^3. It's has the most efficient surface to volume ratio, which is probably why the sun is a sphere, as the sun is a gravity implosion fusion reactor?

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;154336 wrote:

It's volume is 4/3 * pi * r^2.

An inaccurate statement.

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;154338 wrote:

An inaccurate statement.

Yer right, Iwrote that down wrong. it's r^3. Sorry!! It's fixed, god bless our souls.
But is that all you have to say on the matter? Do you....like spheres?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;154196 wrote:

All those questionable things. But who is questioning them? And all those great tags. "Russia dolls" and "great chain of being" both in the very same sentence. How could anyone fail to feel an intellectual thrill?

You are right. It is completely bullshit, and i don` t have a clue why people don` t see him for what he really is.

@TuringEquivalent,

Perhaps spheres are a bit too eternal. Maybe a cone. You can make some progress with a cone. Concentration or expansion? You decide....

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;154335 wrote:

All that is going on, in all cases, is that something is compared to some other thing, why this would lead anybody to espouse realism, about numbers as abstract objects, is a complete mystery to me, and nothing in your replies to me goes anywhere towards dispelling that mystery.

I think Jeeps ought to seek help from our good old amazon.com. As for Platonism, it is a wonderful philosophy.

The Platonism comes out of an old notion that meaning is reference. So, if i say "3 is prime", i am making a claim about number 3, with the predication of "is prime".

Is it convincing? Well, if you think that "3 is prime" is true, and that it is context independent( not based on any context, cultural etc), then you want to give a nice justification for why it is independent of context. Platonism ofter you the reason. The reason why "3 is prime" is true is in the same way why "cat is in the mat" is true. It is true, because 3 exist as an abstract object, and the predication "is prime" comes out of the essence of 3.

nice, right?

@TuringEquivalent,

Would it be an example of ontology to say that ontology is fallible? Isn't ontology a being? Are we saying that it is the nature of such a being to be fallible? (I'm sort of kidding around here.)

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154247 wrote:

Well, Reconstructo, I am sure there is a formula somewhere for the percentage of that post which I understand, but it is perishingly close to zero.

It could not get closer to unadulterated nonsense, could it?

@TuringEquivalent,

What is being? Can we accuse ontology w/o practicing it?

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;154570 wrote:

What is being? Can we accuse ontology w/o practicing it?

What does "accuse ontology" mean, for heaven's sake?

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;154361 wrote:

I think Jeeps ought to seek help from our good old amazon.com.

What do you call a Greek skydiver?

@TuringEquivalent,

It is a mystery. :bigsmile:

@TuringEquivalent,

TuringEquivalent;154703 wrote:

It is a mystery. :bigsmile:

Q: What do you call a Greek skydiver.

A: Con Descending.

Somehow it reminds me of our conversations :bigsmile:

kennethamy;154416 wrote:

It could not get closer to unadulterated nonsense, could it?

I wasn't meaning to knock Reconstructo. True, there are posts of his I can't understand, but I always like the spirit in which he writes them, and he is not afraid to boldly go where others won't, as opposed to just taking potshots at other people's ideas to make himself look good (not saying that you do that) while having no positive contributions to make of their own.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154744 wrote:

Q: What do you call a Greek skydiver.

A: Con Descending.

Somehow it reminds me of our conversations :bigsmile:

I wasn't meaning to knock Reconstructo. True, there are posts of his I can't understand, but I always like the spirit in which he writes them, and he is not afraid to boldly go where others won't, as opposed to just taking potshots at other people's ideas to make himself look good (not saying that you do that) while having no positive contributions to make of their own.

Not everything is bad intentions. eg: " i am better than you, so you suck, and i am great". I told you to read more about it in the hope that you might grow as a person.

@TuringEquivalent,

You are still condescending, and a very careless writer as well. So long.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154769 wrote:

Y very careless writer as well. So long.

If anything, you have trouble keeping up with me. I gave you two arguments, and you have yet to reply at all. That is a lot coming from a person who ask me "What do you call a Greek skydiver?" out of nowhere. This is almost funny if it was not so sad.

@TuringEquivalent,

I wrote a sarcastic comment here, which I regretted, so I removed it. Hope discussion goes well.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;154792 wrote:

I wrote a sarcastic comment here, which I regretted, so I removed it. Hope discussion goes well.

That is why it is almost funny if it was not so sad. It is ironic that you would blame me for writing "too long", and yet you can ` t even understand 2 simple sentence. Can you not see how inconsistent you are?

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