In other words, it is not even possible to write anything about the real, physical world. That impossibility is strictly enforced in mathematics. — alcontali
I still find that impossible to reconcile with engineering which relies heavily on the application of mathematics to the physical world. What am I not understanding? — Wayfarer
By dragging "55" into the fray, which are symbols that have inherently absolutely nothing to do with boats, you have subjected yourself to number theory. You cannot do whatever you want with "55", if you want to do it consistently. — alcontali
Are symbols meaningless? — creativesoul
But so much of what we use every day - every minute! - depends on maths, and without maths it wouldn’t exist. — Wayfarer
So declaring that maths exists in some ethereal platonic domain doesn’t do justice to the facts of history. — Wayfarer
that does not mean that these regulated language expression are real. — alcontali
Mathematical platonism has considerable philosophical significance. If the view is true, it will put great pressure on the physicalist idea that reality is exhausted by the physical. For platonism entails that reality extends far beyond the physical world and includes objects which aren’t part of the causal and spatiotemporal order studied by the physical sciences. Mathematical platonism, if true, will also put great pressure on many naturalistic theories of knowledge. For there is little doubt that we possess mathematical knowledge. The truth of mathematical platonism would therefore establish that we have knowledge of abstract (and thus causally inefficacious) objects. This would be an important discovery, which many naturalistic theories of knowledge would struggle to accommodate. — SEP
It is not just mathematics that exists in some ethereal platonic domain. All language does.
No ! All languages, including the metalanguage of mathematics exist ie. are useful concepts in the only 'domain' that matters to humanity i.e actions and interactions connected with prediction and control. — fresco
but the difference with number is that it's predictive. Through maths, I can discover many things I couldn't otherwise know — Wayfarer
What you have ultimately done here is talk about language - about what language is. So where is your infinite regress?You fail to get my point because you fail to understand that talking about language is in essence an infinite regress equivalent to pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
The only 'given' we can start from is that we are clever primates with a complex set of socially acquired behavioral gestures ,we call 'human language' which segments what we call 'the world'. The abstract persistence of 'words' (internalised gestures) act as place markers for focal aspects of that shifting flux we call 'things' allowing us to attempt to predict and control aspects of our world relative to our lifespans and our pattern seeking. Place markers are not 'representational' of 'things in themselves', they are contextual memory aids within potential action plans. — fresco
It's really simple. Meaning is the relationship between some cause(s) and some effect(s).I see, but I don't think I agree, at least not in the context of this forum. I want to try this again. What does "meaning" mean?
Meaning is a mental relationship, connection between a phenomenon (the referent I guess) and a symbol or symbols such that the symbols represent the referent, e.g. the meaning/definition of a word.
Meaning is a mental relationship, connection between a system of related symbols and a system of related phenomena such that the symbols represent the phenomena, e.g. the meaning of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. This is a bit clunky. Needs work.
Meaning is used metaphorically to refer to a mental connection between two phenomena which is similar to the connection between a symbol and a referent, e.g. the meaning of life. Clunky too.
As Charles Montgomery Burns once said - I don't know art philosophy, but I know what I hate. And I don't hate that. — T Clark
I want to try this again. What does "meaning" mean?
Meaning is a mental relationship, connection between a phenomenon (the referent I guess) and a symbol or symbols such that the symbols represent the referent, e.g. the meaning/definition of a word.
Meaning is a mental relationship, connection between a system of related symbols and a system of related phenomena such that the symbols represent the phenomena, e.g. the meaning of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity. This is a bit clunky. Needs work.
Meaning is used metaphorically to refer to a mental connection between two phenomena which is similar to the connection between a symbol and a referent, e.g. the meaning of life. Clunky too. — T Clark
No, what I have 'done here' is to use 'languing' behavior to elicit languaging behavior from you ! There is no 'ultimate', but It would have been more gratifying if I had also elicited 'research behavior' as well !What you have ultimately done here is talk about language - about what language is. So where is your infinite regress?
I suggest you think about the 'meaning' of that one key word ...'context'.
You might find that discussion of 'meaning' without that is as vacuous as trying to play tennis with no tennis court and no other player. — fresco
As a designer, I was always a little bit annoyed by the word "design", and how it meant quite a few different things ... but those things were closer in meaning to each other than the easy ones we just mentioned. So they cannot always be distinguished from context. — Pattern-chaser
I think quality (cf. Pirsig's Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance), and good, are (examples of) such words. The multiple meanings they carry are too close together to separate easily. Maybe this is what gives rise to confusion? These words carry all of the meanings they carry, often simultaneously (or so it seems). So when it comes to defining these terms precisely, we encounter problems. — Pattern-chaser
It's really simple. Meaning is the relationship between some cause(s) and some effect(s). — Harry Hindu
No, what I have 'done here' is to use 'languing' behavior to elicit languaging behavior from you ! There is no 'ultimate', but It would have been more gratifying if I had also elicited 'research behavior' as well ! — fresco
I don't understand the argument you are making. Your definition doesn't match my understanding of what "meaning" means. — T Clark
it appears that mathematics as we know it arises from the nature of our brains — Joshs
Unfortunately, Kant did not insist on the fact that pure reason, divorced as it is from the real, physical world, is in and of itself, necessarily meaningless, i.e. free of any possible (real-world) semantics. It is its extreme purity that makes this type of knowledge meaningless and also useless, to be understood as: having no real-world semantics and no direct use or direct application. — alcontali
Instead, it appears that mathematics as we know it arises from the nature of our brains and our embodied experience. — Joshs
He well understood the fact that mathematics relates to what you describe as 'the real world'. — Wayfarer
Therefore, they are 'rational or intelligible objects' the perception of which is key to the operation of reason herself. This is deeply antagonistic to today's evolutionary naturalism, but there it is. 'Darwin doesn't explain Einstein.' — Wayfarer
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