I believe you are right about the way language constitutes the Being of what can be said. But not the Being of what cannot be said. When language is deployed to speak the world it encounters the impossible, that is, what is "exterior to itself. A toothache's ache is not a thesis. I put most emphasis on the value dimension of our existence which is so emphatically underscored in the existential declaration of what it is. This I hold to be evident beyond question: screaming agony, say, as the most poignant example, is NOT an interpretative phenomenon in the purity of its presence[...] — Constance

Here, I do not care if I am caught in the middle of interpretative necessity (after all, saying something is outside language is itself an occasion pf language) which have no limit in subsuming phenomena, and the "purity" of the pain. The screaming pain of this sprained ankle IS absolutely authoritative, and this sense of absolute IS aligned with the traditional sense of ontology, which Heidegger wants to ignore.

As to universal maxims being followed by humans, we take no issue with this. But the analytic of ethics/aesthetics (Wittgenstein says they are the same thing, and I agree) reveals a transcendental Reality that has nothing to do with the Kantian/Heideggerian ontotheology.

And God is, I argue, certainly NOT a cogito. This is a rationalistic perversion invented by logicians. — Constance

I claim that there is indeed a process of interpretation. As I said, suffering does not occur in the absolute singularity that you claim. And this is demonstrated in the exercise of the recognition of pain. What is the link between pain and memory? If pain were not part of a process of signification, we could not even say that memory, insofar as it has as its object of memory, is somehow related to pain. In this sense, what is it that memory brings out of pain? Meaning. Pain cannot be thought of without its inscription in a process of signification being already given at the very moment of its existence. That would be to make pain something absolute, but so absolute (absence of relation) that neither thought (nor memory) could relate to it.

This even occurs at the level of presence that you point out: Husserl's understanding of temporality. It is not convenient here to recall Husserl's analyses of temporality. Husserl refers us to a differentiated structure of the moment in which something presents itself to the cogito, and this moment is related to the traces that are retained (retention, protention) in this moment (such as the moment of pain). Thus the aforementioned presence of the experience is inscribed in a chain of signification. That to which I have constantly referred. It is not an absolute, and its meaning is not given from itself. Language, therefore, is not a mere accident that survives the experience, but a possibility that is given by essence insofar as the experience is imbricated and inscribed in the signification.

I claim that this transcendent reality of which you speak when you speak of pain belongs to what Heidegger calls Western ontotheology. And this is so insofar as you have referred to the absolute, to purity, and to authority about something like pain. That reference to purity, to the absolute, and to the presence of pain is the classical element of the unconditioned and that whose meaning and being is given from itself. But how do we make this compatible with ethics? Such an absolute makes impossible the recognition necessary for empathy and understanding of the pain of others. More ethical than "I suffer" is "the other suffers". And the suffering of the other is not my experience! Ethics at this point must challenge and transcend the value of presence and experience, just as memory and language do, and just as the process of signification in which pain is inscribed invites us to think.

Wittgenstein said this about logic. It would require a perspective removed from language, but this too would find its analysis question begging and would also require yet another pov, ad infinitum.

But on the other hand, language is inherently open. It confines or limits content in no way, even regarding its own nature, meaning when I ask what language is I get answers, as with symbolic logic and semiotics, but ask what these are and there are more answers, but these, too, are questions deferring to others, and so on (Hermeneutics).[....]

Jab a knife under my ribs and the pain is exclusively me and mine. It is not a cogito at all that experiences this — Constance

"We use language to talk about language". In this sense, language becomes the space of essentiality. It is what Heidegger pointed out when naming language as "the house of being". That is why I point out this exteriorization of language, even of language on itself. We give ourselves in language, not so much by language but by the transcendentality of language that is even at the level of the cogito. And I would go further, to the level of perception and sensibility: memory. When you say that pain is something mine and mine alone, you are already carrying out a re-appropriation: there is no pain without duration. So the repetition already takes place even at the level of sensibility. That is why we can remember a pain, because its meaning as pain transcends it and makes it possible (as duration or repetition). It is almost like the movement of a language, full of signs and signs of signs. Pain is also a sign.

This is why the whole matter has to be reconceived, just as you say. The universal cannot grasp the singularity, but only itself, and this is undone by Derrida who argues it does not even do this, and one feels a kind of thud as one hits the bottom of the rabbit hole. The question ends there, for it has turned on itself as one's curiosity faces a world, perhaps for the first time, as an uncanny presence. Important to see, I am saying, that once in this "no man's land" it is thought that got you there. Thought is the way "in" as well as the way "out" (in and out, two particles of language. But why should language be set apart from the very uncanniness it brings one to? There is an epiphany in this: ALL is indeterminate, or transcendental, if you like. — Constance

The thing is that it is not universalization in the strict sense. It is transcendence, and singularity begins with transcendence (as has been said above about pain qua singularity) and signification. Hence we can establish an ethics about pain because if it were so absolutely singular it would be impossible to remember, or even to be aware of it. Religion, according to my reasoning, is a case of reappropriation of the field of transcendentality. It is something that still establishes universal maxims that must be followed by humans. God according to tradition is a cogito, but his condition of possibility (transcendence) exceeds the cogito.

It seems to me that this is an inconsistency in the approach. An evil animal would be an animal that does not follow its nature. Consequently, no animal can be evil (but neither good) by nature but by accident or by a deviation from its nature. As I understand it, to be good or evil cannot be something proper to the nature of a being. To be good or bad is something external in relation to nature.

In general today we understand evidence as scientific evidence. Scientific evidence depends entirely on repetition in controlled environments where particular experiences composed of beliefs, desires, motivations and various subjective phenomena are neutralized.

Subjective experiences and scientific evidence are not the same thing. In subjective experience that which validates a belief does not escape the particular subjective experience. In scientific evidence that which validates theory necessarily escapes particular subjective experience. At least scientific evidence is intersubjective. And to say "intersubjective" is an understatement.

When we compare both types of validation we realize how poor is the validation of beliefs on the religious plane, since their "evidence" is nothing more than testimonies and inscrutable subjective experiences.

I would not confine language and all the mediatedness in which we are involved as a simple medium that divides two poles so easily: man and the world. My view is that the medium is more than what can be confined in a cogito, in a self, or in man. Language for example is not a mere medium for thought but a possibility of it which reveals to us -perhaps even better- the very nature of thought itself, or rather, something essential to thought which does not allow itself to be secluded in thought and which slips into language as a necessary possibility of thought.

For example, if we take an affirmation such as "I am" supposed for thought, it never presents itself in a pure singularity but in a repetition (Kant said that the I accompanies all our representations) in which its meaning implies the possibility of repetition. Thus the "I am", or the "I think", makes sense on condition of my own absence and disappearance. Hence man can speak of the I am as something that even makes sense in language, in writing, etc. According to this, if thought did not "begin" as repetition, it would not be possible to write "I am" in a book and for another person to understand it when reading it.

Perhaps this is what Husserl was referring to when he spoke of the original intersubjectivity at the level of the cogito. But do we see the passage from one to the other? So language is not an accident of thought, nor something that is simply recruited into a cogito, it becomes a necessary possibility of intersubjectivity. And why not beyond? All this indicates that there is an element of exteriority in our interiority. Derrida said that the outside is the inside. Ultimately I agree with him: the separation between subjectivity and the world cannot be maintained so clearly. Not if it is analyzed from the point of view of the whole framework of exteriorization that implants us in the world and does not allow for a radical gap as has been thought since Descartes.

Religion is at the heart of this matter. Our evaluations from the origin contemplate its repetition (something that is valid for other men). The divinity that man thinks is perhaps an act of recognition of the exteriority of our valuations. In the sense that my evaluations escape from me (just like the I am of which we spoke above). The error of religion in general is perhaps not to consider that repetition and exteriority escape subjectivity. Thus, we still make the presentation of our evaluations too subjective. The divinity, as will, thinking being, etc., is the cogito trying to reappropriate that which exceeds it.

In a sense my point is very similar to what Derrida says about how the identity of the self in order to transcend and have a certain ideality implies the particular disappearance of that self. Derrida suggests that when someone writes "I am X" we are in the presence of the identity of the self beyond its mere presence, and suggests to us that its factical absence is necessary and implied.

Isn't this the ideality of a universal that, in a sense, detaches itself from its particular ground and projects itself onto a repetition as the condition of possibility of identity? Derrida suggests to us that identity, the Being of things is always in transcendence and that transcendence is necessary for identity (just as in a book about me, read by someone else is an inelidible transcendence [Derrida would call it Spectrum] of my being and my identity ).

Nominalism would not take into account the repetition and transcendence in the identity of things, thus depriving itself of any discourse on Being. And like all skepticism it would fall into its own pragmatic contradiction by speaking of the being of things while denying the condition (transcendence, spectralization if you will) that allows it to speak precisely of things and to be a philosophical stance.

This is just an example of a thing not fulfilling its end properly; and NOT that it had no end. It is uncontroversially true that the body develops the eyes for seeing all else being equal. When the circumstances impede, then there can be an eye which is developed in an impoverished manner. — Bob Ross

Think about how you discover for the first time that an eye is used to see. You obviously don't know that a priori, until it is actually functioning. And the assumption that "seeing" is somehow magically contained in the development of the eye is actually conditioned by elements external to the eye (e.g. the light that the eye needs for vision, and this is evidently external to the eye, it cannot be said that light belongs to the teleological identity of the eye); but mainly it is never demonstrated a priori, only a posteriori. An eye can always fail to see, and it is not necessarily a failure, it is just one more possibility of the eye. But why a posteriori? Because what we call the function of the eye is externally determined by other identities (such as light), which can no longer belong to the essence of the eye. So: light is not the eye, but light is necessary for the vision of the eye. If light is not the eye then light is not part of the teleology of the eye. And consequently vision is not something that is somehow prefigured in the eye. So there is no teleology called "vision" in the eye.

This doesn’t negate in the slightest that we are biologically predetermined in various ways: which is just to say that our bodies have functions. Those functions dictate our design in a weak sense of Telos. — Bob Ross

I would say conditioned but not predetermined. As I said, predetermination implies foreshadowing, or rather, that assumes that the future is implicit in the past in some way. But that is undemonstrable and is easily refuted by people who are born with eyes and yet are blind. Did we say that their eyes had the Telos of seeing and not seeing? Then the prefigured nature of something is not something that can be verified other than a posteriori and is just a possibility. For example, we can say that the Sun will be extinct in X years exactly, that is a Telos that we understand, and we can do all the tests we want and that will not prove that it will be extinct in X years. Since thousands of things can happen that can make the Sun explode, what would happen to the Telos? Telos is a simple possibility, perhaps more minor plausible than others, but not a predetermination, neither an essence which can encompass all possibilities . You can say that the telos of life is to reproduce and survive. Do we say that people who do not want to have children have no life? And people who commit suicide? Thousands of similar examples can be proposed. The point is that you cannot take as a necessity that which is a possibility.

In my view nominalism fails to recognize the persistent and repetitive element of things. We can take time as the framework of the demonstration: If we imagine that something, a thing, in its minimum time this minimum time is less than that which is necessary for us to realize that it is a thing. This suggests to us that although no time is the same, something must remain the same in order not to fall into an absolute difference that would not allow us to identify things. In this sense in the identity of things there is essence and universalization (repetition through difference, through different moments or times. Isn't that belong to universals?). Thus the link of essence with identity is permanence and repetition through difference. Something that links essence with identity is permanence and repetition. Even in the principle of identity, in its formulation the repetition of sign X in X=X is implied. Universals are at least something that repeats and is the same for different times.

It can be said, in a certain sense, that nominalism becomes absurd if it is carried to its ultimate consequences. For it would deny the very possibility of identity as repetition and permanence. We need time and permanence in order to distinguish and identify. Identity and difference imply each other.

You are right, it is better to talk about self-deception.

However, I think there is a misconception. Bad faith does not refer to the absence of freedom; according to Sartre, you are also free when you act in bad faith. Bad faith, as I understand it, refers to pretending to be a mere object whose actions are determined by your circumstances and not by your freedom.

You cannot self-deceive yourself that you are acting in good faith, because that implies that you know what it is to act in good faith. But no external determination like a knowledge act as an agent of your freedom. Therefore you cannot self-deceive yourself about your own good faith.

The paradox is actually different. It is that when we pretend to be determined by our circumstances, social roles, etc., we are already making use of our freedom precisely in order to pretend. As in the case of the waiter who pretends to be a simple waiter, but the very act of pretending makes it clear that he is not a simple waiter.

From my point of view a very important thing to ask is: If we are free, are we condemned to be free? If so, then the act of bad faith is the attempt to free yourself from all responsibility for your life and your being. But A person, following Sartre, acting in bad faith would irremediably be free. Therefore bad faith is pretending that you are not free and that you have no responsibility. So to act in bad faith is to speak dishonesty. Bad faith is in relation to the other: When we act we do not simply affect ourselves, but we affect the other (even ourselves as the other). In this sense we can say that the act of bad faith consists in getting rid of the ethical commitment with respect to the other.

Consequently, bad faith is only recognized by those who act in bad faith. It is a secret, like a testimony. But it has ethical consequences in relation to the other.

I cannot agree with the teleology of being. It is a form of preformism that in my opinion is already well refuted.

To illustrate this, one can take the example of genetic transcription in biology: If we have a DNA sequence, this in itself does not possess genetic expression; it is only in its relation to the RNA and the process of transcription that something like an expression takes place. The idea here is that what we believe to be the prefigured result does not actually exist but only takes place in the relationship of the DNA to an other that interprets and translates it in its own way. The information of who we are is not in the genes, but, strangely enough, in the unprecedented process of transcription, interpretation, translation, etc., itself.

In a similar way we can see ourselves: "I am I and my circumstances" (Ortega y Gasset), "Existence precedes essence" (Sartre). The end of our existence is never prefigured and is always about to happen, and it is to the extent that we develop in our circumstances that we become what we are. Nietzsche entitled one of his books as follows: "Ecce Homo: How one becomes what one is". We can say of ourselves that to a large extent we become what we are. We become. Which means that the end is not at the beginning (as teleological thinking presupposes).

But religion would be our reaction to the deployment and imposing force of the law which constitutes us as theoreticians or followers of the law. We, consequently, in some cases, act religiously. However, such an unfolding cannot itself be religious insofar as it is the condition of possibility of religion itself.

As I remember, advaita philosophy resorts to a process of identification just like monism. As I understand it, there are three metaphysical realities that identify themselves: Brahman the Absolute, jīvātman as individual sentient entities, Jagat as the physical universe. It is hard to not understand this as classic monism. Also I don't think that the via negativa (such as negative theology, "neti-neti") is enough for exclude advaita from monism since there is such identification in metaphysical realities.

I wonder where your thoughts lie on the matter. — Constance

We cannot prevent our assessments from slipping into how things should be. We cannot avoid that our assessments are posed on a quasi-universality space. Society, language, culture, writing, technology, multiculturalism make our problems project beyond a singularity. "I am a slave to my own words" means that what I say is not said by me, but also by the other, and moreover, it may be said by everyone. We say how one should act in general, because it is impossible to say how one should act for myself alone and for no one else ever.

The essence of religion consists in giving a face and a will to the universalizing influence that is exerted upon us and upon which we are deployed. It is the law with a face and a will. Hence that face and will can become anthropomorphic (God). The question is why do we give a divine face and will to the unfolding of the law? The essence of religion, it seems to me, lies in the answer to the question of why we give face, will and divinity to the quasi-universalizing (it would be better to say Exteriorizing) unfolding of our valuations.

I wonder to what extent such a non-dualistic viewpoint offers a solution to the split between materialism and idealism, as well as between atheism and theism. I am aware that there have been many debates on the topic on the forum. Also, there are various philosophical positions, including substance dualism and deism, so it is a complicated area. Here, in this thread, I am focusing on the idea of non-duality and asking do you see the idea as helpful or not in your philosophical understanding, especially in relation to the concept of God? — Jack Cummins

From my point of view non-duality means monism (there is only one substance) and duality means dualism (two substances). But I am not a substantialist. Substance means that which is absolute, exempt from relation that conditions its existence or its being.

For me the classical concept of God is framed in substantialism and dualism. So the only way that atheism can be closer to theism is to the extent that such atheism is substantialist and such theism is not dualist. Therefore the first meeting point is monistic pantheism.

If dualism refers to the mental thing and the material thing, the classical theism of a personal God cannot be in agreement with a monistic pantheism, since it starts from the distinction between spirit and matter, etc.

This doesn't seem like Plato to me. Indeed, Plato says words cannot be used to bring one to knowledge of the Good (Republic, Letter VII). This seems more like the post-Humean Enlightenment project of thinking in terms of "rules all rational agents will agree too." But I think this is quite a bit different from the classical view of ethics, which focuses on the virtues. For one, the virtuous person enjoys right action. They don't need coercive, external rules. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm referring to ideas like of the Good, which are found in a hyperuranian topos and cannot be constructed but can be discovered. That is, as simple ideas of autonomous constitution to which humans can have access, but cannot constitute.

My stance is kinda particular on this matter. I claim that Universality is always virtual, it is under construction and surpasses our subjective particularity, but it is not given once and for all like in Plato.

Our moral judgments are always in a project of Universality. This is why a moral judgment, no matter how particular it may be, is not simply particular but is on the way to Universality. However, if Universality is virtual, there is always a remainder that allows moral judgments to come into play, to gain relative dominance and stability over one another, or even to coexist relatively.

But never in an absolute manner. Never in an absolute manner such that it closes this virtual space where morality and ethics are put into play. Hence, determining how one should act can never be closed to the other and their possible point of view. This is what Derrida called the principle of hospitality, which makes the ethical and moral task infinite; as long as the space in which ethics and morality are played out never closes and is always open to the participation of another. Doesn't this virtual space of Universality impose itself in such a way that we should assume that our ethical and moral judgments are not absolute and are always in play in discussion with other judgments? According to this the least we should do is be open to the participation of the other.

This position is not anti-realist in the sense that it does not close the path from the particular to the universal, it does not deny the space of Universality. Anti-realism fails to recognize a space that exceeds the particularity of judgment and subjectivity, and that allows that judgment to come into play and discussion. It also fails to recognize that judgments can become kinda universal.

But neither is it a realist position in the sense that it does not assume ethical and moral rules given once and for all like in Plato. I claim that there is an excess that constitutes our judgments and makes them project onto Universality. For example, the very language we use is constituted by rules that the subject does not master and that exceed subjectivity. That is a degree of Universality.

My attempts to find a non-fictional example of an object not being an ideal has failed. This is strong evidence for the conclusion reached. — noAxioms

Think about the embodied-mind. There would be a relation between our ability to grasp objects and the appearance of things as objects in our perception.

I think what you expect to find is an object unmediated by our categories, for example. But that is like saying we are going to perceive something without perceiving. Every perception involves an adaptation, an interpretation. There is no access to reality that is not mediated, but we can ask why our means are embedded in reality, and above all, we can ask why they work and what the link is between the world we are in and our categories, our language, our ideas, etc. Therefore, the world would have something ideal-ish that allows our thinking and our perception to maintain a certain continuity with the world.

Well, according to my view the idea of God is located at de limits of the reasonable. Just because is a limit-idea which overflows any context of a posible proof.

But then again, we can certainly replace the logic sentence denoting God by five axiomatic expressions in higher-order modal logic. That is what Gödel did. Hence, God is not ineffable. Where is the proof that God would be ineffable? Furthermore, God can be proven from carefully chosen axioms because that is exactly what Gödel did. — Tarskian

I think you are misleading my argument. A proof like Gödel's continues in this step of enclosing God through logic. Again, can't God be contradictory? When we talk about an incapacity, aren't we betraying the nature of God? What happens is that by trying to conceptualize God [whether through Gödel's axiomatic expressions] we enclose the very concept within a context that conditions it [Gödel's proof does not prove the moral God, nor the creator God].

For me, the important thing is to show how our proofs, precisely because they are proofs, miss the mark, thereby showing that the concept of God is so plural that it is difficult to see how a valid proof can even be conceived. If I choose unconditionality as an attribute of God [why shouldn't I choose it?], the matter is practically closed. Then there is no proof sufficiently exhaustive that could work.

I would like to show that the idea of God is closely related to the idea of limit. And that because of this relationship, a huge problem arises that overwhelms the capacity of any proof. However, the idea of God is necessarily linked to the idea of limit. This is the reason why God, in my view, is related to the ineffable, as philosophies like those of Levinas or Kierkegaard have done. But then it is not a moral God, not a physical God, not a logical God, etc. God would be the limit of his own definitions.

There is something interesting that arises from considering the possible proof of God: Why do we believe that God is something that can be proven?

A Proof belongs to a context of interpretation that delimits its conditions of possibility. But isn't that precisely a form of conditioning? For example, when we understand God as the creator of the universe, as a kind of origin of everything that exists, aren’t we subjecting His concept to linear causality, to His physical intervention in the creation of matter and energy? Isn't it paradoxically a subsumption of God to physical causation rules that He does not dominate? The same can be said of a logical proof or a moral proof: Can God not be contradictory? Can God not do evil?

In each case, the nature of God is subordinated to a context that betrays His nature by conditioning Him. This is the old issue of how a finite being can access the infinite and even relate to it. Or how the unconditioned can relates the conditioned. It is the issue of why it seems that the idea of God is problematic in itself as it relates to the ineffable and that which is unconditioned. Ironically, according to the above, it can be said that if God exists, He cannot be proven. God would be beyond reason and will always be a mystery.

Hello.

So this got me thinking, and I could only conclude that what constitutes an 'object' is entirely a matter of language/convention. — noAxioms

When we say that objects are a product of language, we are simply shifting the problem from the external world to the interiority of language. We then say that there are objects in language.

We might rather ask why language functions and allows us to operate as subjects who are part of reality and act within it. Doesn't this mean that if there are objects in language, then there are also objects-ish in "the world external to language" that authorize and enable our language to function? Why aren't we crazy animals wich constantly fails to interact effectively with the world?

This breaks with the skepticism that seeks to radically separate language from reality or the external world. If there were no certain ontological continuity between language and the world, we would simply be animals incapable of grabbing a rock, striking it with another, and creating fire.

When I think about emergentism, a lot of questions always arise (and of course I don't ask to be answered, since they are a bit rhetorical): When we say that something emerges from a physical thing, do we say that what emerges is also physical? And why do we say it is physical? Is it because they share some property? Is there any consensus on the definition of this property? Is it because they share constituent parts? Is it because the relationships and laws that govern these constituent parts explain the characteristics and properties of that which emerges? If emergentism tells us that new properties arise from its constituent parts, are the properties of the parts preserved in the new reality that emerges? Or are the properties lost? If the property is "being physical," wouldn't it be necessary to determine how that physical property is repeated and persists in the reality that supposedly emerges?

One can say that a citizen is composed of cells, but it is difficult to say that cells can be fellow citizens of each other. That seems like a categorical error. I think that emergentism gives an explanatory power to composition that it really does not have and that it constantly proves not to have as soon as we try to explain an increasingly larger whole from the parts. Thus falling into constant fallacies of division and composition. What remains in doubt is that we are actually talking about a whole in which each of its parts share a common property that, however, seems too specific and that can be applied less and less as we increase the focus to see a larger reality and greater content. And not only that, but the rule of unidirectional construction from the smallest to the largest is called into question. This is why I am not a substantialist (physical substance monism in this case) but instead advocate insubstantial pluralism.

There is the architectural metaphor. It tells us that there are building bricks from which structures and objects such as buildings are formed. But when I ask myself what are the building bricks of, say, computer language, ethical and moral values, mathematics and many other things (that at first do not seem physical to us) I feel like we are talking about how a joined bricks of a building explain the functions of the company that operates in that building.

I think you do not take into account that the gravitational singularity is defined according to space-time, although we are talking about an infinite curvature. If the value of curvature is taken to a limit, it does not imply that we stop talking about curvature, nor its need to represent it in space-time. I claim that the need to represent according to a space-time scheme tells us something about space-time time itself. At this point the philosophy of space-time can provide us with the general-ontological concept that is exercised in physics. We can ask ourselves: Does the gravitational singularity coexist with the current state of the universe? Should we differentiate them as two different moments? You could say: "In the gravitational singularity there is no before or after." Well, then there is an inadequacy of that space-time scheme that we use to represent the difference between one state of the universe and another state.

You're still stuck in the Newtonian causality. While I agree with you, in fact I said this in my previous post that there was always something, and that the universe did not come from nothing, your train of thought is still the regularity of the laws of the universe. We are totally not on the same page. — L'éléphant

I wouldn't say Newtonian. I conceive spatiality and temporality as part of the thing to the extent that it is always in relationship. However, when talking about the order of coexistence and order of succession I am talking about something that all science implies when using the notions of space and time. Hence, taking the example of the theory of relativity, we represent things in planes and diagrams (such as Minkowski diagrams). Things, in this sense, are always constituted by the spatio-temporality in which their effects and relationships are expressed. In this sense the thing, its relationships, and its effects on other things are in a correlation that determines its being and existence. Therefore, it is not valid to think of an isolated absolute thing (absolved from all relationships) from which everything arises, nor nothingness from which something comes to existence.

You have a three-year-old. You ask him to go to the big fruit bowl on the table across the room and get you two apples and two oranges. You don’t ask him with words because he’s not good with number signs. Instead, you hold up two fingers and say, “apples.” Next, you hold up two other fingers and say, “oranges.” — ucarr

In that case "two fingers" is the third one I am referring to. "Two fingers" is the sign here. To the "two fingers" you have to ADD "oranges" or "apples". Why do you have to add them? Because with the number the numbered thing is not given. The child already understands this autonomy of "2" (for example with the other fingers of the hands) and is able to apply it to different things. He has evidently learned it as something third that is not between apples and oranges. Well, let's remember, if the number were intrinsic to things there would never be two pairs of fruits, the "2" would not be a third; the "2" would belong to one thing and not another (so as not to violate identity).

It just preserves from one pair to another pair what the eyes perceive. Number signs, in order to be assigned meaning, must first be referenced to something tangible and countable — ucarr

No. Relating them (reference) to something "tangible" does not imply their identification. The relationship in this case presupposes two terms, the number and the numbered as something different. The effective relationship implies only that we can do it and that there is a passage from the number to the thing numbered. How is it possible that we can manipulate things by counting them and not fail at every attempt to manipulate them? It is not because there is something numerical in the thing, but because the thing allows itself to be chiseled, so to speak (that is why in general geometric figures do not exactly adjust to the tangible things to which we apply, the same thing happens with numbers, there are always a rest).

I can give you an example of math attached to tangible things and thereby being meaningful and useful: civil engineering. — ucarr

Chiselling. You have to adapt the raw materials for their numerical application. Only then can you successfully manipulate them (numerically, in a exact way) and build bridges, pyramids, etc.

A toddler can see the difference but does not see it as a numerical difference. He can see the difference between an isolated object, and see objects of the same type, or similar, together and separated in space. But there is no number there that he sees. If we tell the toddler to repeat what he has found (difference, spatiality, similarity, etc.) as an order (like in a market) he will not be able to. He needs the objectification that a symbol gives him, for example, in such a way that this symbol can enter into a relationship with other symbols. If we ask what a '9' is, we cannot answer with difference, nor with spatiality, nor with similarity. We respond in relation to other numbers with which this 9 is contextualized, as an addition, of unity, for example, among many others.

The case is that "the number" always appears as another of the things we count. Someone who has already learned elementary mathematics (such as simple numbering) can ask them to give you two oranges or two apples. If the number were not different from the numbered things, it would not be possible to give us two apples after giving us two oranges. Since if the number is not a third with respect to apples and oranges, this number falls into the essence of some of the objects, which would lead to saying that two oranges ARE two apples. Violating identity. That is why we must differentiate between the number and the numbered, and in fact in practice we always do.

With respect to the topic in question we cannot say that the number (in this case the number "1") is an essential (or internal) property of the thing. It is an external property of the thing.

If none of these numbers are there, then how do you assign the number-signs to what you see? — ucarr

Isomorphism.

The in-absentia status of pure numbers gives the impression of their categorical independence, but no, numbers never completely exit the natural world. — ucarr

Well, given what I've said independence is real. Otherwise we fall into contradiction and the complete uselessness of mathematics.

What's new and had existed infinitely was the singular point that has infinitesimal volume. Then big bang happened — L'éléphant

So you think you are as old as the big-bang?

If not then you have come into existence like many other people. And not only that but you are different from the mythical primordial singularity of physicists.

But as I said in my answer, although things come into existence constantly, what would be unusual is for them to come from nothing. Since generally there is a causality that precedes and explains them, kinda. The important thing is that "coming into existence" presupposes the order of coexistence and the order of succession. From this it follows that the universe did not come out of nothing: It could have been there forever.

Yesterday I went to the market and told a worker "give me two of those melons." He gave me the two melons.

But! The imaginary worker-philosopher might have told me "there are not two, there are 57." I wonder, is number two in number 57? But objectively there are not 2 melons, there are 57. Or maybe there are two and 57 at the same time, objectively. There can also be 4 and 57 at the same time. Are there also two pairs? where is the rule for counting? Surely it is not in the thing itself! Isn't it the case that when I said "two" I have given something that wasn't there, a difference, a partition, a slice, a rule, a number simply different from 57 regardless of whether they are melons, apples or anything else? So number is different from numbered things.

I wouldn't say "in-built math". Toddler can differentiate and identify. The quantity appear in another level perception. After all, when we think in numbers we don't think at the same time all the things we have counted.

Well, if he doesn't know how to count he probably doesn't know that there are two things. He knows that there is a difference and that they are separated in space, that one thing is not the other, that they are similar, etc. Then perhaps a proto-two will appear in his mind that will then finally be objectified and solidified as knowledge thanks to teaching and learning. But obviously "the two" will not have arisen from the thing itself, rather it is something that happens to the thing when it enters into a relationship with someone who defines the measure and sees the difference between the two, and the Lollipops.

If this is something you cannot know — ucarr

I have said "I have" as I can say "I have counted." To you it seems that apples and oranges are numbers, to me their numeration may simply be external properties that are only acquired in relationship. The latter is true and the former is false (due to impossibility to identify the number and the numbered).

then your argument above has no grounding in fact and therefore no logically attainable truth content, only blind guesswork. On that basis, why should I accept it? — ucarr

Because I have also indicated something that I do know: That the apples and oranges have been counted and have been subjected to number. And because they are differentiated (they are in a different place, for example, or do not share the same space) they can be counted.

You say number stands apart from apples and oranges . When we look at number five apart from them, we know nothing about their number. How do you know both have number five? — ucarr

We do not know. "Have" refers to property. I prefer to say apples and oranges can be counted as something potential. We learn to count. But first things appear differentiated. The number is also differentiated, and in that case we would speak of isomorphism.

Since number five, in abstraction, tells us nothing about apples, oranges or any other physically real thing, that tells us pure math, in order to be physically real and thus inhere within particular, physical things, and thus be existentially significant, meaningful and useful, must evaluate down to physical particulars. Universals are emergent from particulars, but they are not existentially meaningful in abstraction. — ucarr

Well, they always tell us something significant and meaningful about themselves. Whether they are useful or not would be something extrinsic.

Physical: anything subject to the spacetime warpage of gravitational fields — ucarr

How is number 5 deformed by gravitational fields

I don't mean given in the sense of something given once and for all without the need for explanation. I am referring to something given in a historically validated scientific field. When you learn mathematics you access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships and so on that you can practice without having to think about a supposedly more fundamental reality (let's say physics). That it is unnecessary is proof of an autonomy of the sciences and of the discontinuity in knowledge as a whole.

If I have 5 oranges in one basket and I have 5 apples in another basket, the 5 does not seem to participate in Appleness nor the orangeness. So the number is not the same as numbered things. "5" is not oranges, nor apples, it only applies extrinsically. Therefore is wrong to say that "5" is physical "because apples and oranges are physical". You must say that numbers are physical things by itself to the extent of numbered things (apples and oranges).

Then it is necessary to define what you mean by a physical thing.

I see what you mean. But what I’m wanting to differentiate is the sensory from the intellectual. Numbers and the like can only be apprehended by a rational intelligence that is capable of counting. It is that faculty which I claim that physicalism cannot meaningfully account for. — Wayfarer

If I understand correctly, you are referring to something similar to Kant's categories. In this case to the quantity category. Well, I'm not a big fan of nativism. Although I consider that there is certainly a disposition of consciousness that allows access to mathematical knowledge without many problems. That is, consciousness is not primarily a tabula rasa but is already in a certain continuity with a differentiated world (here differentiation would be a genesis of the category of quantity). The mathematical knowledge that we learn as children shapes this disposition of the human intellect to the point that we can conceive a mathematical object in itself and in its ideality. I speak of an objective and historically rooted constructivism.

Now, the history, this history since I am born and molded to the point of being able to conceive mathematical objects in their ideality and objectivity cannot be described in terms of physics. It is like founding epistemology from quantum physics. That doesn't make any sense. In this sense the whole is more than what we believe its parts to be. Even the idea that we talk about a whole and its parts seems to falter. We may have to talk about different realities in relationship where no reality is more fundamental than the other. This would be a materialism, but a materialism of the Platonic Symploke without substance and without fundamentalism in order to respect the relative autonomy and irreducibility of the dimensions of reality evidenced by the sciences.

I mean phenomena in the sense that they are objects that are presented and prepared for scientific work. These objects, however, may be the product of a historical construction, but at some point in their history they are given in an epistemological cut from which they are presented as a category in the process of closure and establishment of sui generis circular relationships. In general, when we try to learn a science that is already historically established and solidified, the objects we learn are also solidly established. These objects are not given to us as something dependent on a more fundamental reality (say, physics) but as sui generis objects, arranged in a body with a certain autonomy and ontological discontinuity with respect to other objects of a different kind. When we learn mathematics we do not learn "the neurochemical composition of numbers", nor is it necessary to do so to access its scientific nature: We access demonstrations, laws, necessary relationships, etc. given in a gnoseological and ultimately ontological discontinuity.

If this is the case, and things can start to exist, for no prior reason (they are uncaused), then why don't we see more things starting to exist at different times? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually we do see many new things appear: new stars, new human beings, new social problems, new diseases, new hopes, new philosophies, new theories, new films, new technologies, etc. What is not common is that something new arises out of nothing and for no reason. It always seems that if something new comes into existence (and that did not exist before) we are obliged to think about it in the order of coexistence and in the order of relation. In other words, we are obliged to think about the new among other things that precede its existence and with which it is related in some way. This is perhaps the most rational aspect of existence: That nothing comes from nothing.

I think you're echoing Chalmers, but going beyond asking for a theory of consciousness to asking for a theory of abstractions (like math) as well. He said we should start with just proposing phenomenal consciousness as a thing to be explained by science, similarly to the way gravity was added, with no insistence that science as it is has to be able to answer it. It could be that we have to wait for more quantum theory answers? Or maybe a type of physics that we haven't thought of yet. — frank

Certainly what I have said is close to what Chalmers thinks. Although I would not go so far as to talk about the mental, the mathematical, etc. as something fundamental in the sense that simple fundamental particles exist. I would simply say that there are phenomena that are given. And we are fortunate that to the extent that we work with these phenomena, other things appear: laws, relationships, correlations, demonstrations, and certain epistemological closures (or categorical closures) that make a set of phenomena and objects something exclusive to a science. : Physics does not have language as its object of study, nor the rational actors of the economy, nor the Pythagorean theorem, etc.

Something that generally happens to reductionism when it fails to carry out a reduction is that it tries to proceed by presupposing semantically, phenomenologically, and practically what it intends to reduce. To take an example: If we imagine that thanks to some kind of super advanced experiment we can associate a certain experience (say, seeing a dog) with some quantum determination in the brain, we have to talk to our guinea pig in terms different from those of physics so that we can carry out the association: "Think of a dog", or "see this picture of a dog" we say to the subject of the experiment. But without the semantic content of those words and the knowledge of what an experience is (without using terms from physics) we would not be able to carry out the experiment or any association between the experience and "brain physics."

As result these things that appear to us in scientific practice (relations, correlations, discoveries, demonstrations, principles, laws, etc.) are also literally reduced to nothing if we carry out a physicalist reduction. The result is that we have a poorer, reduced and scarce knowledge of the world.