Fluff. Let me lay it out for you. Bunge et al, the scientific materialists want to bring mind under the ambit of the neurosciences - firm, objective, and measurable. Thoughts are brain patterns - what could be more obvious? But their problem is, that try as you might, you will never find a thought in the neural data. It is just as Leibniz said - blow up a brain to the size of a mill and stroll through it. You will never find a thought inside it.

Hang on, you will say. What about those amazing devices which allow science to reconstruct images from neural data? Subject thinks 'yacht', and lo, a yacht appears on the monitor. But let's not forget that experts in neuroscience and information technology painstakinly construct and train these systems to recognise such correlations, which allows them to reconstruct the imagery that is display on the monitor. The expertise and rational abilities of the scientists is interpolated into the picture in order to produce those results. (Also see Do You Believe in God, or is That a Software Glitch.)

What has actually happened is the cognitive science, not neuroscience as such, although incorporating aspects of neuroscience, has discovered that the brain/mind actually manufactures or constructs what we take to be the 'objective world', the world within which the firm and unyeilding statements of the natural sciences are meaningful. Of course, one of Bunge's nemeses, Arthur Schopenhauer, anticipated this long before either neuro- or cognitive science existed:

materialism is the attempt to explain what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly. All that is objective, extended, active—that is to say, all that is material—is regarded by materialism as affording so solid a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and reaction). But ...all this is given indirectly and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely a relatively present object, for it has passed through the machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of which it is first presented to us as extended in space and active in time. From such an indirectly given object, materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the Idea (in which alone the object that materialism starts with exists), and finally even the will from which all those fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in truth to be explained. — WWI

Bolds added.

Fine, then, you might say. Let's detect the system in the brain which supplies this 'machinery and manufactory' so to show once and for all that it is a physical system. But neuroscience has been able to do no such thing! It has found that 'enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience.' This provides direct scientific validation of Chalmer's 'hard problem of consciousness', something which the same paper actually says.

So - what of numbers, universals, and the like? I say, along with the phenomenologists, that these are regular structures in consciousness, something like laws of thought. But you'll never trace them back to neural transactions, as such, as they possess a unitary and simple nature that is of a different order to the phenomena of neuroscience. This is why I will insist that numbers (etc) are real but not existent. They obtain and hold within a universe of discourse (wittgenstein's 'language game') - whereas Bunge's crude materialism wants to imagine them encoded in biochemical format, as kind of physical symbols, as oxymoronic conception as there has ever been.

↪Wayfarer
That by way of agreement? Can we cure Arcane Sandwich of his reductionism? :wink: — Banno

Alright, let me phrase it like this then: consider a fraction, any fraction, I don't know, two fourths, for example: 2/4.

You with me? Good, don't get lost. One must be very concentrated for this. Now, picture another fraction, like 1/2.

OK? Now, Imagine that I said that 2/4 is reducible to 1/2.

Why? Well, take a look:

2/4 = 1/2

And here is where I say "right"?

And you say "I don't agree with you, that looks like nonsense to me. You shouldn't be a reductionist. Why would you reduce two fourths into one half. What happened to the other half? Did you lose it? Is it lost in the world, somewhere? Poor thing, it must be very hungry, especially without the other half."

That's what you sound like to me. Now, you're free to believe whatever you want, but that's just my honest impression of your beliefs in the Philosophy of Mathematics.

Math has to be absolute, in the formal sense that "it's not up for debate", it's not for the community of mathematicians to decide. — Arcane Sandwich

The 'solution' on offer not only agrees with this but explains how it comes about. "Counts as..." illocutions set up new games to play. If you decide to move your Bishop along a row, you have ceased to play Chess, and your piece no longer "counts as ..." a Bishop. If you decide that 3+4=8, then you have ceased to do maths, and your "3" and "4" no longer count as 3's or 4's.

2/4 = 1/2 — Arcane Sandwich

That's an equivalence, not a reduction.

The sort of reduction in question occurs when one language game is thought of as a part of anther. In this case you are in effect claiming that mathematics is a game within biology, and not a distinct, seperate activity.

Seems pretty plain to me that this is a mistake. Maths is no a variation of biology any more than Chess is a variation of Poker. They are very different activities.

↪Arcane Sandwich
Fluff. Let me lay it out for you. Bunge et al, the scientific materialists want to bring mind under the ambit of the neurosciences - firm, objective, and measurable. Thoughts are brain patterns - what could be more obvious? But their problem is, that try as you might, you will never find a thought in the neural data. It is just as Leibniz said - blow up a brain to the size of a mill and stroll through it. You will never find a thought inside it. — Wayfarer

And the usual scientistic, materialistic retort to that is that if you perform an autopsy, and you open a stomach, you won't find the feeling of "I'm hungry" anywhere, on your anatomy table. It does not follow from an assumption of that nature, that the mind should not be studied as biologically and as mathematically as possible. To say nothing of how it should be studied in a philosophical sense, including our beloved Phenomenology and, more generally, our beloved Continental Philosophy. Among other philosophical traditions, of course.

Hang on, you will say. What about those amazing devices which allow science to reconstruct images from neural data? Subject thinks 'yacht', and lo, a yacht appears on the monitor. — Wayfarer

I've never heard of such a thing. I don't think that's possible, I would have heard of it, since I follow the latest developments in the field of cognitive neuroscience, as Bunge did himself.

What has actually happened is the cognitive science, not neuroscience as such, — Wayfarer

Why are you against the very concept of cognitive neuroscience to begin with? That's the part that I can't seem to wrap my head around. Like, it's not that crazy as you make it sound, man. Bunge himself said that one of the cutting edge sciences of today is cognitive neuroscience. Gosh man, it's not that hard to explain it to people: you take Cognitive science, you take Neuroscience, and you combine them into a single, new academic discipline called cognitive neuroscience. Why are you even opposing those two concepts to begin with, @Wayfarer. Why don't you believe in their "Dialectical Synthesis", so to speak? You can be a Dialectical Idealist, like Hegel, if you want. No one's stoppin' ya. I'm not the "Philosophy Police".

. Of course, one of Bunge's nemeses, Arthur Schopenhauer — Wayfarer

He's not one of my nemesis, Wayfarer. Why are you throwing around crazy implications like that? I'm not Bunge. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but Bunge has been dead for several years. And I don't know about you, but I can't speak with ghosts. I love Schopenhauer by the way, extremely funny and witty.

We pretend that there are infinitely many integers even though we can think of only finitely many of them - and this because we assign the set of all integers definite properties, such as that of being included in the set of rational numbers. — Bunge, Ontology II: A World Of Systems, page 169)

We don't pretend that there are infinitely many integers, because there are infinitely many integers. That's how integers work. And they work that way not just in this or that mind, but as an activity performed by our community. — Banno

The solution to this is to say that there are potentially infinitely many integers. Once the logic of iteration is in place, there are potentially infinitely many integers just because there is no inherent logical limit to iteration.

Yep. The way we do integers is such that there is no largest integer.

Salient bit is that it's not a pretence that there is no largest integer, it's just what we do with integers.

The 'solution' on offer not only agrees with this but explains how it comes about. "Counts as..." illocutions set up new games to play. If you decide to move your Bishop along a row, you have ceased to play Chess, and your piece no longer "counts as ..." a Bishop. If you decide that 3+4=8, then you have ceased to do maths, and your "3" and "4" no longer count as 3's or 4's. — Banno

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Math has to be objective and absolute. As in, it has to have rules, and if you break those rules, then you're not doing math. But that's trivial, because the only rules in math are syntactical, at the end of the day, anyways. For example, if I say:

= 7 2 + 9

That's not math. It uses mathematical signs, but that's not math. It's not a mathematical formula to begin with, from a purely syntactic point of view. Why not? Because the rule itself as a concept say so, just like the rules of Chess say that you can't move the bishop horizontally. It's a rule, in the sense of "regulation" (Reglamento). A correct formula in this case would be the following one:

7 + 2 = 9

Or the following one:

2 + 7 = 9

Or the following one:

9 = 2 + 7

Or the following one:

9 = 7 + 2

We then say that all of these expressions are, in turn, equivalent to each other. And so, and so forth, and welcome to the lovely world of the Foundations of Math. It is a barren landscape, much like a desert. So, are we just going to pretend that this is a "community thing?" No, because "community things" as you understand them, are not isolated from biology, as you seem to suggest. Like, if someone has severe brain damage, from blunt force trauma, in such a way that it causes a specific type of dementia, that person might not believe you when you tell that person that the formula 2 + 2 = 4 is mathematically correct. They "take your word for it", they "trust you" that this is indeed a mathematical formula, but they just don't believe you. Or perhaps in other cases, they try to convince you that 2 7 = + is a legitimate mathematical formula, it just so happens that it's not "Conventional Math", and that the "Community of Professional Mathematicians" have a bias, and that such a bias justifies their discriminatory practices towards people who think that 2 7 = + is a legitimate mathematical formula, and so forth.

2/4 = 1/2 — Arcane Sandwich


That's an equivalence, not a reduction. — Banno

(spit to the side, now with a Yankee tone): That's an opinion, not a fact.

The sort of reduction in question occurs when one language game is thought of as a part of anther. In this case you are in effect claiming that mathematics is a game within biology, and not a distinct, seperate activity. — Banno

So are you an Australian Realist, yes or no? You speak Australian English, you don't exactly strike me as the sort of person that would be allowed to speak to King Charles himself. Sup' dawg.

Seems pretty plain to me that this is a mistake. Maths is no a variation of biology any more than Chess is a variation of Poker. They are very different activities. — Banno

False. You're comparing biology to Poker, and that's a fallacy.

The solution to this is to say that there are potentially infinitely many integers. Once the logic of iteration is in place, there are potentially infinitely many integers just because there is no inherent logical limit to iteration. — Janus

I don't know, maybe. But if so, then you're no longer doing mathematics, you're doing something else.

↪Janus
Yep. The way we do integers is such that there is no largest integer. — Banno

Who cares? There's no set that contains all of the other sets, and no one in their right mind would say that "sets exists" in the same sense that you folks are discussing "do infinitesimals exist?"

you won't find the feeling of "I'm hungry" anywhere, on your anatomy table. — Arcane Sandwich

No kidding. Anyone will know that corpses do not have appetites.

Why are you against the very concept ofcognitive neuroscience to begin with? That's the part that I can't seem to wrap my head around. Like, it's not that crazy as you make it sound, man. Bunge himself said that one of the cutting edge sciences of today is cognitive neuroscience. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm not opposing them. I'm saying they don't support the view that neural states are identical to the contents of thought or that the elements of consciousness can be reduced to the neurophysiology.

The point I've made, which indeed you haven't wrapped your head around, is that the world within which materialism is true, is one created by the brain/mind. I'm saying materialism gets it backwards or upside down, in pursuit of so-called scientific certainty.

I'm not Bunge. — Arcane Sandwich

But you did say:

my solution is better than yours, because my solution is technically Bunge's solution to the problem. If this is reduced to community terms, I prefer to agree with Bunge than with you on that point. — Arcane Sandwich

That is the view that I was critiquing, whether or not you later chose to defend it.

Hang on, you will say. What about those amazing devices which allow science to reconstruct images from neural data? Subject thinks 'yacht', and lo, a yacht appears on the monitor.
— Wayfarer

I've never heard of such a thing. I don't think that's possible, — Arcane Sandwich

I'm beginning to form the view that you're too confused to debate with. You will jump in with an appeal to Mario Bunge, who you mention frequently, who is a textbook scientific materialist and ' professor of scientism', yet when those ideas are challenged, you will say, 'hey that's not me, that's him!' - even though you're the one who introduced him and appeared to argue for his position. What gives? You will say things that I find quite agreeable and then a couple of sentences later, say the very opposite. Maybe your screen name is well-chosen. :chin:

The point I've made, which indeed you haven't wrapped your head around, is that the world within which materialism is true, is one created by the brain/mind — Wayfarer

So what? Materialism and scientism are not the only premises of my personal philosophy. One of my other premises is realism. So, I don't need to take your word for it, or anyone's word for it, for that matter. I am free to believe whatever I want to believe, even if my beliefs are mistaken. What I am not allowed to do, is to utilize my mistaken beliefs as mere tools to be strategically and tactically deployed in any given context. Conversation simple does not follow those rules, it does not abide by them.

I'm saying materialism gets it backwards or upside down, in pursuit of so-called scientific certainty. — Wayfarer

And I'm saying that you get it backwards or upside down, in pursuit of so-called anti-scientific certainty.

So are you an Australian Realist, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

Philosophy in Australia is not that simple.

And I'm saying that you get it backwards or upside down, in pursuit of so-called anti-scientific certainty. — Arcane Sandwich

But without any supporting argument.

↪Arcane Sandwich
I'm beginning to form the view that you're too confused to debate with. — Wayfarer

Then don't debate with me. No one's forcing you.

You will jump in with an appeal to Mario Bunge, who you mention frequently, who is a textbook scientific materialism and professor of scientism, yet when those ideas are criticized, you will say, 'hey that's not me, that's him!' - even though you're the one who introduced him and appeared to argue for his position. What gives? — Wayfarer

I disagree. Give me a specific example of such behavior on my part. With quotes.

You will say things that I find quite agreeable with, and then a couple of sentences later, say the opposite. Maybe your screen name is well-chosen. :chin: — Wayfarer

Sure. I'm allowed to agree on some points, and to disagree on some other points, about anything, with anyone. You have the same basic right. Everyone does.

So are you an Australian Realist, yes or no? — Arcane Sandwich

Philosophy in Australia is not that simple. — Banno

That doesn't answer my question though.

Give me a specific example of such behavior on my part. With quotes. — Arcane Sandwich

I did just that, but you're in such a hurry to reply that you didn't notice.

Then don't debate with me. No one's forcing you. — Arcane Sandwich

Sure thing. Hope you enjoy your time here, but might serve not to spread yourself too thin.

I did just that, but you're in such a hurry to reply that you didn't notice. — Wayfarer

I disagree, I considered it, and I arrived at the logical conclusion that this specific example that you quote is not indicative of the behavior you claim to observe in the visual recognition of my writing habits and patterns. Therefore, I claim that what you have presented does not qualify as evidence in the way that you intend it.

Sure thing. Hope you enjoy your time here, but might serve not to spread yourself too thin. — Wayfarer

I'm having a great time here, it's the best Forum I've ever seen. A bit "rambly" at times, but it's a nice atmosphere. I like the colors, green is actually my favorite color.

No.

I'm having a great time here, it's the best Forum I've ever seen. A bit "rambly" at times, but it's a nice atmosphere. I like the colors, green is actually my favorite color. — Arcane Sandwich

Fifty posts a day is a lot. Make sure you take time to step away from the screen.

Tomorrow's Newspaper will say "Newsflash: Up next, we'll take a look at why some Australians don't believe in reality, and -according them- neither should you. Stay tuned."

Salient bit is that it's not a pretence that there is no largest integer, it's just what we do with integers. — Banno

I agree it's not a pretence, it's a logical entailment.

I don't know, maybe. But if so, then you're no longer doing mathematics, you're doing something else. — Arcane Sandwich

What we are doing here is not mathematics but philosophy of mathematics. So, all I'm saying is that I think what I outlined is the best way to understand the situation regarding what is a given in mathematics—that there are infinitely many integers.

So, all I'm saying is that I think what I outlined is the best way to understand the situation regarding what is a given in mathematics—that there are infinitely many integers. — Janus

But the question of the OP literally asks if they exist in a "Platonistic" (sic) Platonic way.

But the question of the OP literally asks if they exist in a "Platonistic" (sic) Platonic way. — Arcane Sandwich

If the infinitely many integers are understood to be merely potential as a logical consequence of a conceptual operation—in this case iteration—and are not considered to be actually existent, then the need for a Platonic 'realm' disappears.

Philosophy in Australia is not that simple. — Banno

Thanks for the link, will read with interest. As I’ve often mentioned, Armstrong was HoD when I was an undergrad, and as an aspiring counter-cultural philosopher, I was duty bound to reject Materialist Theory of Mind on the basis of the title alone. Of course he was an erudite and persuasive fellow, but I’ve formed the view that the variety of materialism he advocated was basically a form of Christian heresy, based on re-interpreting the Aristotelian universals as scientific laws.

Keith Campbell, on the other hand, I liked a lot. His Philosophy of Matter unit was the best individual course I did in philosophy. Got an HD for an essay on Lucretius. :cool:

I was for a while at ANU with Passmore and Smart, but mostly influenced by Peter Herbst. Then UNE, and the eclectic mix of Franklin, Londey, Birchall and all. Franklin built a small Department that managed to span a multitude of approaches.

The relevant point is that philosophy in Australia has never been monolithic.

Jim Franklin was a customer of Campus Computers at Usyd in the late 1980’s, when I was manager there. He was then quite a gnomic figure back then with long hair and beard. (I went to a book launch of his in 2023 and made the acquaintance of a nice academic with whom I corresponded for a few months thereafter. Franklin didn’t remember me although I wouldn’t have expected him to. See also his criticism of Stove’s Gem, which I think is quite applicable to many debates you and I have had.)

R. L. Franklin, not Jim. Very different fish. Long ago.

Oh. Well Jim Franklin is indeed a UNSW philosopher, so an easy misidentification to make.