So I think the distinction you are trying to draw between physical universals and non-physical universals is not a tenable one. — Andrew M
You seem to be misunderstnding; it is the incoherence of such a distinction that I have been arguing for both in this thread and the other. The reference to incoherence is right there in the OP. — Janus
Math are grounded in certain human actions; sorting, arranging etc. These actions are performed with a certain amount of regularity by most humans. These performances are then re-enforced by schooling and "hardened" into rules. These rules then, are the basis of math — Πετροκότσυφας
If you can only convey the mental imagery in your head to others by converting it into a physical format, like the screen with letters on it that you see before you, for others to then receive, then doesn't that show that information is physical? How do you get the information in your head to others, and before anyone reads your post does your post contain information? — Harry Hindu
How did you even know that flags are being waved if a flow of information (that flags are being waved) didn't happen? It seems to me that you thinking abstractly isn't necessary for information flow. You simply need to have eyes and brain to process sensory information.Seeing flags being waved is necessary but not sufficient to know what information is being conveyed. It also requires the ability to think abstractly. — Andrew M
Thank you.It did require using physical means to convey it. There is no other way. — Andrew M
So what if the representation is "physical"?! Ideas can be representations too. You are still caught up in this false dichotomy of "physical" vs. "non-physical". I have said numerous times that this distinction is unnecessary as the "physical" and "non-physical" still interact and are causally influenced by each other. By this same token, information is both "physical" and "non-physical" as information is the relationship between cause and effect (which I have said numerous times as well).Again - the representation is physical, but ideas are a different matter. Notice that in physics, computer science, and many other fields, new symbols, codes and languages have been invented specifically to communicate ideas that have been discovered. At the time those insights are first glimpsed, quite often they emerge in quite incommunicable ways, or even ways that can't be articulated, and then first they have to be described, and then communicated. That is what it takes to translate them into physical representations. What does that, is the human intelligence, the mind. I am saying it is the unique ability of the mind to discern meaning - likeness and unlikeness, greater than, less than, equal to - and central to that, is the ability to recognise universals. — Wayfarer
You are employing a very narrow sense of 'observe' here. Natural regularities and patterns are observable, but obviously not in the sense that you can look at one like you might look at a tree. — Janus
To address your other objection: if there is some "aspect of reality" that we cannot observe, and that cannot be explained in the language of physics, it can only be daid that it is non-physical in the trivial definitional sense that 'physical' is taken to mean 'unobservable' and/or 'not capable of explanation in terms of physics'.
Any other sense of 'non-physical' implies dualism...or what else? — Janus
As explained in this article:
Thus, interestingly, there is a sense in which Wittgenstein actually agrees with the line taken by Hardy, Frege and other Platonists insisting on the objectivity of mathematics. What Wittgenstein opposes is not objectivity per se, but the ‘philosophical’ explanation of it. The alternative account he proposes is that arithmetical identities emerge as a special codification of these contingent but extremely robust, objectively verifiable behavioral regularities. (Yet, recall that although the arithmetical propositions owe their origin and relevance to the existence of such regularities, they belong to a different order.) So, what Wittgenstein rejects is a certain “metaphysics of objectivity” (Gerrard [1996, 173])
A closer look at the contingent regularity relevant in this context – behavioural agreement – is now in order. (At PI §206 and 207 Wittgenstein suggests that these regularities form the basis of language itself.) This type of agreement consists in all of us having, roughly, the same natural reactions when presented with the same ‘mathematically’ related situations (arranging, sorting, recognizing shapes, performing one-to-one correspondences, and so forth.) Its existence is supported by the already discussed facts: (i) we can be trained to have these reactions, and (ii) the world itself presents a certain stability, many regular features, including the regularity that people receiving similar training will react similarly in similar situations. (There surely is a neuro-physiological basis for this; cats, unlike dogs, cannot be trained to fetch.)
So, it is simply not the case that the truth-value of a mathematical identity is established by convention. Yet behavioural agreement does play a fundamental role in Wittgenstein’s view. This is, however, not agreement in verbal, discursive behaviour, in the “opinions” of the members of the community. It is a different, deeper form of consensus – “of action”
The specific kind of behavioural agreement (in action) is a precondition of the existence of the mathematical practice. The agreement is constitutive of the practice; it must already be in place before we can speak of ‘mathematics.' The regularities of behaviour (we subsequently ‘harden’) must already hold. So, we do not ‘go on’ in calculations (or make up rules) as we wish: it is the existent regularities of behaviour (to be ‘hardened’) that bind us.
While the behavioural agreement constitutes the background for the arithmetical practice, Wittgenstein takes great care to keep it separated from the content of this practice (Gerrard [1996, 191]). As we saw, his view is that the latter (the relations between the already ‘archived’ items) is governed by necessity, not contingency; the background, however, is entirely contingent. As Gerrard observes, this distinction corresponds, roughly, to the one drawn in LFM, p. 241: “We must distinguish between a necessity in the system and a necessity of the whole system.” (See also RFM VI-49: “The agreement of humans that is a presupposition of logic is not an agreement in opinions on questions of logic.”) It is thus conceivable that the background might cease to exist; should it vanish, should people start disagreeing on a large scale on simple calculations or manipulations, then, as discussed, this would be the end of arithmetic – not a rejection of the truth of 2+3=5, but the end of ‘right’ (and ‘wrong’) itself, the moment when such an identity turns into a mere string of symbols whose truth would not matter more than, say, the truth of ‘chess bishops move diagonally.' (Note that this rule is not grounded in a behavioural empirical regularity, but it is merely formal, and arbitrary.)
The very fact of the existence of this background is not amenable to philosophical analysis. The question ‘Why do we all act the same way when confronted with certain (mathematical) situations?’ is, for Wittgenstein, a request for an explanation, and it can only be answered by advancing a theory of empirical science (neurophysiology, perhaps, or evolutionary psychology).
Related to Platonism, ‘mentalism’ is another target of Wittgenstein, as Putnam [1996] notes. This is the idea that rules are followed (and calculations made) because there is something that ‘guides’ the mind in these activities. [...] The mind and this guide form an infallible mechanism delivering the result. This is a supermechanism, as Putnam calls it, borrowing Wittgenstein’s own way to characterize the proposal. [...] Moreover, if we try to take these super-mechanisms seriously we fall into absurdities. — Πετροκότσυφας
I have said numerous times that this distinction is unnecessary as the "physical" and "non-physical" still interact and are causally influenced by each other. — Harry Hindu
Do not other animals discern the meaning of what they are smelling - is it predator, food, a female in heat, or the scent markings of a competing male? — Harry Hindu
OK, then I'm not clear on what we would be disagreeing about. Do you agree that information, gravity and mind (as universals) are all physical? Which is to say, aspects of the natural world that we empirically investigate? — Andrew M
These things are not perceived by the senses, they are produced by inductive reasoning, as conclusions. — Metaphysician Undercover
Doesn't this sense of "non-physical" imply dualism to you? If there is an aspect of reality which cannot be sensed, nor understood by physics, then we ought to conclude that there are two distinct aspects of reality, that which is sensed and understood by physics, and that which is not. Doesn't this seem like dualism to your? — Metaphysician Undercover
The term "behavioral regularities" does not even refer to the process of learning and its institutions. It refers to acts of sorting and arranging and W. does not hypothethise about its origin. Regarding the rest,
at least what of it is not irrelevant, it does not sound like W. I'm not sure where you've found that. It actually sounds more like you when you were replying to Samuel about school. — Πετροκότσυφας
No, this is wrong. If you see your cat coming in every morning for her food; this is something you have observed. This habit of hers is not 'directly' in-the-moment-observed, like the cat herself is, but it also not an inference; you know she regularly comes in and eats the food you provide for her. — Janus
It might imply an inherent dualism in the way we think about things; but I don't think it implies an ontological dualism. — Janus
That there is some sort of pattern, or regularity to your cat's activities is an inference. — Metaphysician Undercover
Our discussion has been such that we have assumed that it is inherent within reality, — Metaphysician Undercover
No, you still have it wrong: that there has been a pattern or regularity to your cat's activities is a matter of observation: that there will be such in the future would be an inference. — Janus
What have I said that entails that I must think that? I don't agree with any notion that any way we might be able to think is just "all in our heads". Nature (including us) is such that we can think dualistically (among other ways of thinking); and from that it certainly does not follow that nature is, in some purportedly absolute ontological way dualistic (or monistic). I think what follows is that nature is non-dualistic or pluralistic; it has infinite, and infinitely many, aspects. — Janus
Consider that every time your cat comes for food you look at your clock, and calendar, and make a note. — Metaphysician Undercover
What we have been discussing is the premise that one aspect of reality is physical, and another is non-physical — Metaphysician Undercover
Nope, it's not correct by definition, because there's nothing in place to make it right or wrong. — Πετροκότσυφας
Nope, it's not uniform practice itself that makes it right or wrong. It's not the criterion, it's the presupposition for the emergence of the criterion itself. It's the rule, which is based on uniform practice, which makes it right or wrong. — Πετροκότσυφας
Based on that, it's only natural to harden this basic mathematical practice, inherent in this situation, into a rule. Three kids = split food in three. — Πετροκότσυφας
How did you even know that flags are being waved if a flow of information (that flags are being waved) didn't happen? It seems to me that you thinking abstractly isn't necessary for information flow. You simply need to have eyes and brain to process sensory information. — Harry Hindu
In other words I don't think that the idea that universals are physical or non-physical is a proposition that could be correct or incorrect; but merely more or less useful or fruitful in different contexts. — Janus
This distinguishes it from Platonism, which posits a non-natural realm.... — Andrew M
I don't believe there is anything over and above the natural. — Janus
Nevertheless, we agree that the container of info is physical, even if the info it contains is not. But I think that a mental image is also nothing but a container of information. After all, 'mental image' is synonymous to what I called earlier 'physical visualization', even according to Edward Feser's article.That image imparts no information. — Wayfarer
To clarify, I was referring to information pointing to no concepts, that is, meaningless raw data, like statics from the tv set, perceived by the senses but unintelligible to the mind. Otherwise, I agree that meaningful information must be non-physical, for the reason you pointed out.If information is the arrangement of physical parts, then there must be a reason for that particular arrangement being the particular arrangement which it is in order that we can say that it is "information". It must have the capacity to inform us of something. — Metaphysician Undercover
You are once again confusing the symbol or word, with the concept it points to. Yes, we can change the symbols 1, 2, 3, ..., but we cannot change the concepts I, II, III, ... As such, we can make 1+1=3 if we change the symbols, but cannot make I+I=III <-- As you can see, there is one too many bar on the right side of the equation, which makes it unbalanced.What different symbols represent is not unchangeable, and this is evident in evolving language. So if for some reason the ordering of the symbols which represent numbers gets changed, and this all agreed upon, such that the order is 1,3,2,4, and the symbol 3 starts to mean the same thing as 2 does now, then 1+1 would equal 3. — Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with your first three sentences. This is why there are different languages and writing symbols. However, I still disagree with your last sentence, that concepts or universal forms are dependent on that relationship. A rock participates in the form of rock-ness, even before a subject observes it or find a word or symbol for it for the first time.The point is that there is no necessity between the symbol and what it represents. It doesn't necessarily represent what it does, and this is because what it represents was somehow decided upon. Therefore the relationship between the symbol and what it represents is dependent on the existence of subjects. Since the existence of concepts seems to be dependent on this relationship between symbols and representation, we cannot simply assert that concepts are "objective" if you define objective in this way (independent of subjects). — Metaphysician Undercover
Not gonna lie, I did not read your quoted paragraphs (tl;dr O:) ), but I read the above. Let's make the distinction between three kinds of reality: (1) potential, that is, not actual and contingent, (2) actual and contingent, and (3) actual and necessary. I claim that math concepts fit into reality (3). We can use Chesterton's Test of Imagination to demonstrate this.Wittgenstein would agree they're objective. Yet, he (rightly, in my opinion) denied that math are discovered and unchangeable. Rather, they're invented. The world is a certain way. But it could be otherwise. This means that the way the world is, is contingent. Although, it is also a fact that people most of the time perform certain tasks the same way. It is not just the world that exhibits regularities, it is us as well. Math are grounded in certain human actions; sorting, arranging etc. These actions are performed with a certain amount of regularity by most humans. These performances are then re-enforced by schooling and "hardened" into rules. These rules then, are the basis of math. Had the world been otherwise, had we been otherwise, then our practices would be different and math would be different as well (if they would have been invented at all). — Πετροκότσυφας
If by definition, you mean quite literally the description of the concept, and not the concept in itself, then I agree with you. (man this topic is hard).Sure, there are the books that contain the definition and the people that know it. The definition, while abstract, is not something ontologically separate from those physical books or people. (It is also implicit in the natural world which means it is discoverable by anyone with the requisite intelligence and skills.) — Andrew M
we agree that the container of info is physical, — Samuel Lacrampe
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