MetaMetaphilosophy

@click here,

click here wrote:

Sure the names of numbers are created by man but the concept comes before man's invention. If there are '2' piles of primordial sludge over there and '2' more over there. We can state that there are '4' primordial sludge piles. The way that we refer to the concept is man made but it still exists aside from that. We could have created different terms to refer to numbers, 2 could have been "%$#" and '4' could have been "%&#". We created the form to view this concept but the concept was not created by us.

No, that primordial sludge pile is not objectively "%$#" or "2" or anything, it just is. And that's the point. Through the objective reasoning method (in this case, mathematics), we've applied meaning to the primordial sludge. It's not the names ("sdadas", "2" "12121") that are of importance in this respect, but the notion of categorization, of reasonably considering the world around us - and this is precisely what this objective reasoning method allows us to do. The concept was most definitely created by us. You really believe asteroids count themselves?

This is our subsequent reflection of the world through a subjective lens.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

No, that primordial sludge pile is not objectively "%$#" or "2" or anything, it just is. And that's the point. Through the objective reasoning method (in this case, mathematics), we've applied meaning to the primordial sludge. It's not the names ("sdadas", "2" "12121") that are of importance in this respect, but the notion of categorization, of reasonably considering the world around us - and this is precisely what this objective reasoning method allows us to do. The concept was most definitely created by us. You really believe asteroids count themselves?

This is our subsequent reflection of the world through a subjective lens.

I disagree with you. I think that numbers as well as ideas are innate. For an inventor to invent something that which he is about to invent has to have the potentiality to be invented. So the concept, being possible, is innate and 'exists' before it is recognized.

@click here,

click here wrote:

I disagree with you. I think that numbers as well as ideas are innate. For an inventor to invent something that which he is about to invent has to have the potentiality to be invented. So the concept, being possible, is innate and 'exists' before it is recognized.

The invention works because of our understanding of it, not because it has any objective meaning. If someone constructs a computer that requires "2" transistors (outputting 120 watts), it only requires "2" transistors to operate because we've measured (using a method of mathematics) how much power is required to operate said invention. Objectively, "120 watts" and "2 transistors" don't exist, they are only placeholders we use for manageable, objective reasoning. Through calculation we can come to an understanding of the world around us, and then manipulate that calculation to meet a desired end, but without us, the concepts would not exist (A concept is an understanding consciousness shares, an idea derived from our subjective experience. Without consciousness, concepts do not exist)

Things may exist before we recognize them, but this does not mean they mean anything before recognition - they don't. We apply the meaning. A watt does not exist without meaning; the amount of power objectively exists, yes, but our classification of "1" and "watt" does not!

@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

Things may exist before we recognize them, but this does not mean they mean anything before recognition - they don't. We apply the meaning. A watt does not exist without meaning; the amount of power objectively exists, yes, but our classification of "1" and "watt" does not!

That is what I was saying. I know that "1" and "watt" mean nothing until they represent something. Yet what they are applied to exists.

@click here,

click here wrote:

That is what I was saying. I know that "1" and "watt" mean nothing until they represent something. Yet what they are applied to exists.

Well, I'm disagreeing with this:

click here wrote:

So the concept, being possible, is innate and 'exists' before it is recognized.

The very nature of a concept means that it is not innate. It is a notion we've constructed, a recognition of the world around us. A recognition is a product of the perception of an observer.

And if you see what I'm saying, then you agree with both Bright and I, because this is the basis.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

Well, I'm disagreeing with this:

The very nature of a concept means that it is not innate. It is a notion we've constructed, a recognition of the world around us. A recognition is a product of the perception of an observer.

And if you see what I'm saying, then you agree with both Bright and I, because this is the basis.

You said this: "the amount of power objectively exists, yes"

maybe concepts is a bad word to use.

So then you would say that laws of logic are a complete creation of man. that man defines that circular logic is wrong?

@click here,

click here wrote:

So then you would say that laws of logic are a complete creation of man.

Yes.

Logic is a method of understanding. Like mathematics, it can prove to be useful, but I wouldn't say it illustrates an objective truth. BrightNoon, expressed it well: "Mathematics does not represent realities of nature, but rather our own thoughts, our own particular manner of dividing the world into conceptual objects. " Logic does the same, and both were created by man. Without our application of meaning, logic and mathematics have no use.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

Yes.

Logic is a method of understanding. Like mathematics, it can prove to be useful, but I wouldn't say it illustrates an objective truth. BrightNoon, expressed it well: "Mathematics does not represent realities of nature, but rather our own thoughts, our own particular manner of dividing the world into conceptual objects. " Logic does the same, and both were created by man. Without our application of meaning, logic and mathematics have no use.

I'm gonna do some thinking. This isn't a topic of Philosophy I've thought much about yet. Good stuff.

@click here,

click here wrote:

Sure the names of numbers are created by man but the concept comes before man's invention. If there are '2' piles of primordial sludge over there and '2' more over there. We can state that there are '4' primordial sludge piles. The way that we refer to the concept is man made but it still exists aside from that. We could have created different terms to refer to numbers, 2 could have been "%$#" and '4' could have been "%&#". We created the form to view this concept but the concept was not created by us.

There is certainty in the equation 2 + 2 = 4, but no certainty in measure at all. The flaw is not in the numbers, it is in measure itself.

Its the Copenhagen Interpretation problem that for most is still unresolved. Einstein was right about 'dice' and probability, it's time to straighten out that problem.

Life without measure is equal, and equal is the certainty in nature that mankind is looking for.

The solution to nature's equation is the equation = itself, Oneself, Truth.

=
MJA

@BrightNoon,

Sure, math is true by convention only. Yes, tautologies do exist but they are empty shells. "unicorns have one horn sure tells us alot about the riddle of life" Wittingtstein blew Russel's mind when he pointed out that logic and math are true by convention only. Russel was a good mathematician but a lousy Philosopher. The words "true and false" are made up, useful, pragmatic,homocentric and have no metaphysical meaning whatsoever!

@goethe10,

goethe10 wrote:

Wow! That is really good! Well put.

But you can say it more concisely, like with 'the objective is just a measure within the subjective' or 'for the word 'objective' to have any meaning, it can only be taken to represent something about a subjective experience'.

@click here,

click here wrote:

I disagree with you. I think that numbers as well as ideas are innate. For an inventor to invent something that which he is about to invent has to have the potentiality to be invented. So the concept, being possible, is innate and 'exists' before it is recognized.

The concept does not exist before the inventor thinks of it; the world exists. To describe, define or categorize the world is to impose arbitrary divisions upon it. To understand is to express something foreign in familiar terms. From where do the familiar terms ultimately come? From the organism doing the undesting; i.e. they are created. The fact that an inventor of some device can create something functional, proves not that the world is the way he beleives it to be, but rather that the world functions, and that forms which exist, exist, and forms that do not, do not. Those same processes in the world could be expressed otherwise: i.e. divisions could be made ina nother way. There are potentially infinite ways in which the world can be categorized; the categorization is not the fact; the act of categorizing is the fact.

@BrightNoon,

I have to chime in on the side of Zetherin, here. (Hello, strangers!) The map is the territory. We live largely in the concepts we create. Poets (etymology = creators) are not only the unacknowledged legislators of mankind, but also its creators. For man is largely the metaphors he lives by. It's the same with math.

I think most of us agree that there is a Real World out there. But it seems pretty obvious, upon reflection, that we experience this Real World thru an Interface of our own devising. And there is also the Interface that Kant describes.

It's as if the Real World (or the Thing-in-Itself) has to pass thru a cultural interface first and then thru the automatic interface of the brain.

I know this is an oversimplification.

Man forgets that the language he thinks with is his creation. That the gods he worships are his creation. That the equations he calculates with are his creation. Etc. etc.

(As always, my thoughts are subject to revision....)

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