all I can say is that it would bring me much mental comfort, if I could just see an elegant argument, preferably in ordinary language, that shows how it would be impossible (in the modal sense) for demons to exist. — Arcane Sandwich

You'd have to show that it's a contradiction. I don't think it is.

Do you want the honest answer, or some bullshit? — Arcane Sandwich

Honesty is fine.

See, this is what I'm saying. We need the modal equivalent to Moore's hand argument in order to refute claims like that. "Maybe such and such ..." Well it depends on what such and such is, in each case. Maybe I was tricked by a demon? No, demons don't exist. Why not? Here's a hand, mate, ask a scientist.

Does that do anything for you, or should I excuse myself on the way out? — Arcane Sandwich

I don't need more certainty than what comes naturally. I'm fine with the possibility that I've been tricked by a demon. Why do you need to conquer that doubt?

As if one might have a large language model without a large language. — Banno

Maybe you were tricked by a demon.

What do you mean by that, frank? I mean, in relation to the topic of Mathematical Platonism, formalism, and ontology? I don't get it. Can you explain it to me like I'm simple-minded? — Arcane Sandwich

I just meant physicists and philosophers can claim whatever they like. The idea of rights isn't needed.

There are no restrictions on what a person can claim unless it's a religious environment and people are executed for saying the wrong thing.

This is just an example of how people will desperately cling to the politician promising better times as they had before and turn away from the ones trying to make a realist effort on how to something when the change is permanent. — ssu

True.

All there is, is behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

You started with the concept of a duck though.

He actually used the very word "scientism" in a positive, unabashed, unapologetic way. And that, quite frankly, is awe-inspiring. — Arcane Sandwich

Was he gainfully employed?

Oh. When I asked if the problem driving contemporary populism was systemic, I was asking if it's actually a problem with democracy.

That's one of my disagreements with Bunge, he saw nothing but trash in Kripke's works. — Arcane Sandwich

Bunge doesn't sound like the brightest bulb in the pack.

Right. Your table is a rigid designator.

If you place any credence in critical theory, then all problems are systemic — Pantagruel

Does that mean the only solution to any problem is revolution?

Engels argues as much, when he talks about the ability to completely optimize economic realities, if only we can produce with consciousness as human beings "not as dispersed atoms without consciousness of your species." Whereby you transcend the problems of all "artificial and untenable antitheses." (from his Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy) — Pantagruel

Napoleon said organize by function if you want to kick ass. Competing priorities?

Laclau’s project is an attempt to rethink contemporary spontaneous political movements and collective action. — Number2018

I think what he says does apply to what happened in the Southeast in the late 1890s. Collective dissatisfaction in the South finally gave way to Jim Crow laws, which were supposed to reestablish some lost glory from the past.

I don't know how to assess MAGA. I feel like I'm too close to it. It's easier to construct a narrative when it's something that happened in the past.

There isn't actually any reason why mainstream parties could respond to the what people who vote for populists ask — ssu

Trump promised a return to the 1960s when there was job security. The US has since deindustrialized, so there's no way to go back.

Sure. So populism is essentially a symptom of the deficiencies of the existing system of governance. — Pantagruel

Is the problem systemic? Or is it just a particular set of circumstances? I lean toward blaming neoliberalism and its built in neglect of the well being of Main St. I feel like that's probably simplistic though.

So the underlying concrete problem is addressed by a coalition of billionaires who don't like to pay their workers. Does this make populism a corruption of reason? Or is Maga not a genuine form of populism? — Pantagruel

My point was that populism is what happens when there are no solutions and the unrest is just spinning it's wheels.

What is the underlying "rationally and contextually situated request" — Pantagruel

Mostly reliable employment I think.

The original Populists were late 19th century Southern politicians who responded to the widespread plea from small farmers for price fixing to stabilize their positions. Some of the Populist politicians let it be known they had no intention of asking Washington for that. They were just using the unrest to secure their power. Events like this fed a sense of hopelessness which led to race baiting and the infamous Southern demagogues.

I think populism is a two edged sword. It's just democracy in action in some ways. It's people letting their voices be heard. The problem is there are no solutions available for whatever reason. That's really the situation. The slow brewing sense if instability eventually spills over into racial and religious intolerance. Yes, the politicians who thrive in this environment are villains, but the real issue is a lack of solutions.

The specific philosophy of mathematics that resonates the most with me is Mario Bunge's specific brand of mathematical fictionalism. He says that the number 3, for example, is just a brain process. And the same hold for every other abstract concept: from a humble number, to a tautology, to a scientific hypothesis, to a scientific theory, all of them are brain processes, but we feign that they exist as "autonomous ideas", as it were. — Arcane Sandwich

What we could do is just use the concept of abstract objects as a placeholder. One day we might understand it better. Maybe it will turn out that Bunge is correct. Until we have a testable theory, all we have is biases.

The reasons for such dismal numbers for males range from high alcohol consumption and smoking to poor healthcare and hygiene habits to dangerous driving and risky behaviors.

So Russian men basically party full blast until they die. Is that a cultural thing?

Typically, offices have rules concerning sexual harassment, not so much about having sex there, let alone promoting it. ( — jorndoe

I would be fired on the spot for having sex at work.

The point being made in my post is that there is a difference in method between finding the value of π and the value of the mass of an electron. — Banno

I agree. It just occurred to me that physics posits items that are just as far fetched as abstract objects, point particles being one of them.

@ssu

Russians are encouraged to have sex while on break at work to help increase the population

Electrons have only one dimension. Do they exist? :chin:

1. The universe was created by a supremely powerful deity
2. Intelligent extra-terrestrial life has visited Earth in secret.
4. If Hitler hadn't killed himself then he would have been assassinated

If there's any truth to these statements it certainly doesn't seem to concern norms and behaviours. — Michael

These are cases where we pretend the world is like a novel and it has a narrator. It's third person. My theory is that propositions are all like this: we're pretending the world can talk.

:grin: The number of experts in phil of math is tiny. You have to be an expert in two fields. Maybe one day such a person will pass our way! That would be cool.

Yes, it's a puzzle. It's not a conflict between religion and science tho, that's all I meant.

Well, Frege is a modern representative of it, but it really does go back to the ancients — Wayfarer

This isn't true. It's unfortunate that this wasn't made clear at the outset.. Mathematical platonism, otherwise known as realism, is just the view that mathematical objects are neither mental nor physical. We call them abstract objects. That's it. There's no accompanying doctrine.

I see the issue in terms of the cultural dialectics sorrounding philosophy, religion and science — Wayfarer

Mathematical platonism originated with Frege. He lived at a point when a scientific outlook was coming to dominate the intellectual scene, but panpsychism and the idea of a world-mind mixed easily with mechanistic thinking at that point. There was no conflict until the 20th Century when eliminatism became fashionable.

Snails do not have access to a platonic reality. It's not some mystical or divine intervention, but a simple result of a snail adding calcium to the edge of it's shell. — Banno

Sure. I agree. Josh and I were talking about "constructive interaction" with the environment and how that might be the genesis of universals like numbers. He said:

It’s not that the world isn’t involved, it’s just that the world only reaches us through our constructive interactions with it. We are an intrinsic part of the world, and the Real is the effect of a two-way interaction. — Joshs

That led to a little discussion of how that actually works in individual cases. We didn't get very far tho.

When you understand thought as a system, you cannot possibly dismiss its very real 'existence'. — Mapping the Medium

I think there are two approaches, which reflect temperament.

1. Start with an ontological bias, like materialism, and try to find a bridge from that to the world we all inhabit.

2. Start within the world we all inhabit, naming things and making observations, and leave the explanation open ended, realizing that though we may lust to have a theory, we can never have the vantage point necessary to verify it.

The first approach is best for people who want to wrap philosophy around themselves like a web that gets tighter and tighter with every movement. The second approach allows a person to lay philosophy down in a neat package. Maybe people go back and forth between the two.

Merry Christmas!!!

I think the answer is:

And every thing is like that. — frank

But Josh is the one who's actually read Husserl. Take it up with him probably.

In a way, the number 5 implies all other numbers, because its meaning is rooted in its place in a sequence. And every thing is like that.

Maybe like this? This is probably what a Babylonian (500 BC) abacus looked like. This is where the number zero entered into the human intellectual scene. It was when a merchant would draw a diagram of a certain abacus result that he or she would need a symbol for the blank spots. Zero was born as a symbol: an attempt to stop that which underway and record it for future reference. Phenomenologically, it's like when we say we were arrested by the beauty of the sky. Stopping, exiting time, inhabiting an inner sanctum.

Our basic experience, the most basic one possible (and this will prove to be crucial), is already theory-laden. — J

Right, if we focus heavily on the ontology of abstract objects, we overlook the accompanying problem: what's the basis of our confidence in the other two categories: mental and concrete? It's all myth building.

Not sure why the question is addressed to me - did I write something about this before? — SophistiCat

No, it's that you're a reliable source for information about physics.

This led to some unfortunate numerology - long since abandoned - that grew ever more convoluted as later, more accurate measurements no longer quite fit that initial 1/137 estimate. — SophistiCat

Oh. So it's not really significant? Good to know. :grin: Thank you!

How do you apply that to these examples of the Fibonacci sequence?

It’s not that the world isn’t involved, it’s just that the world only reaches us through our constructive interactions with it. — Joshs

Right. That's along the lines of what I was saying. Although, that's just a gesture at explaining why math helps us predict events. It's when we take individual cases, like Fibonacci numbers, that we find we haven't explained anything. Yet.

And the structure of the universe isnt the product of imaginative construction? Wittgenstein would say you’re being tricked by your own grammar, that is, by hidden suppositions that project themselves onto the ‘real’ world and then seem to arise from that outside. — Joshs

So you're saying that math can be a community construction without necessarily arising from any activity involving the world. It's that what we call the world conforms to thought a la the Tractatus, so it's no surprise that we find an affinity between our math and the world's shenanigans.

Do you believe that we are also products of analysis? That your individuality arises from reflection on events?

Yes, because that's what we do. Presumably the sort that don't interact with the world are pure maths, the ones that do, applied. — Banno

I was thinking about things like the Fibonacci sequence. It shows up in a lot of places that have nothing to do with human consensus. There's something about the structure of math that matches up to the structure of the universe in some ways.

@SophistiCat Could you explain the thing about the number 1/137 in physics?

Maths as an act of collective intent. — Banno

It would have to be the way collective intent interacts with the world, right?