• ENOAH
    843


    To answer briefly,
    1. 'nature" in whichever way we define/understand it through mind, is included as one of the fictions. I cannot know that Nature is real. It's just that I think most philosophical pursuits of the problem make it worse when they focus on MInd/Form/Spirit/Dasein as real when for every other member of our universe, it is Nature alone that is "present". Descartes, after his impressive acrobatics, concluded I think...But he started in the place which poses the problem in the first place, not the presence of his breath, but in the re-presentation of his thoughts. The "I" thinking is already a fiction.. He should have concluded, Body breathes, Body is.

    2. Sankara, though closer, also got lost in the fiction with the necessity of Brahman to "oppose" maya. "Oppose" is only necessary in the system regulating Mind. And yes, how do we even dare to speak of a Reality vs Mind when, as you say, there isn't knowledge of the Absolute, since we end up with no grounds for the fiction/reality distinction? We cannot speak. Speaking belongs to the Fiction. I am not suggesting that our "access" to the reality, like everything else, be mediated through the Fiction. I am suggesting that the Reality cannot be "known" in the sense that we understand knowledge. If we "want" to "access" Truth or Reality, as distinct from our constructions, we must, and can only, do so in be-ing. Don't expect me to be able to answer the question further, because, as it turns out, I'm already just reconstructing fiction. But if anything, don't look to Sankara, don't even look to Mahayana epistemology and metaphysics. Look to Zazen, not Zen philosophy, but the actual sitting in Zazen.Maybe that process allows for brief, timeless (because free from the construction of time) "moments" of Real be-ing.
  • ENOAH
    843
    every language we know of has words for one and two and some, just like all have words for live and die.
    https://intranet.secure.griffith.edu.au/schools-departments/natural-semantic-metalanguage/what-is-nsm/semantic-primes
    Lionino

    Thank you.
    But for your reference to be effective in demonstrating what appears to be your position on this, you'd have to accept that all of the primes are inherent in Nature and none are derived from post-lingual human constructions. Are you? Some of those primes seem to be questionable as to their "ontologies."
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    What point? I was just pointing out that, altough different languages count in different ways, the concept of one and many is present to all languages.
  • jgill
    3.9k
    No, math is not embedded in the universe. There are structures and patterns we recognize and attempt to describe using mathematics, which we initially devised for this purpose. But mathematicians love to explore this thing we have devised, and see where it might go in various directions, regardless of whether it continues to describe physical reality. Hence, all those tens of thousands of research papers per year - explorations into the abstract.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    2.8k


    :up:

    It brings up the same question as the "What Is Logic?" thread. We have our formal systems, mathematics as a field of inquiry; we have the possible universe of all such systems we might create (our potentiality for math?); and then you have the apparent instantiation of mathematics in nature. Yet our math and this math are clearly not the same thing.

    Are these all the same thing in some way? Is there a general principle that connects them? For, from the naturalist perspective, it seems like the easiest way to explain our and other animals' ability to fathom quantity is that quantity exists "out there" in some way, but obviously there are arguments against this intuition.

    In the logic thread I proposed "logos" for the logic-like function of the world. I wonder what a good term would be for "the apparently mathematical in nature?" Quantos? Mathematicularity? Máthēma? Quanticularity?
  • Joshs
    5.7k

    In the logic thread I proposed "logos" for the logic-like function of the world. I wonder what a good term would be for "the apparently mathematical in nature?" Quantos? Mathematicularity? Máthēma? QuanticularityCount Timothy von Icarus

    We could always dust off mathesis universalis.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    the apparently mathematical in natureCount Timothy von Icarus

    Mathematicality is the closest existing (this one barely exists) word for that meaning. To be more specific, inherent mathematicality.

    Quantos? Mathematicularity? Máthēma? Quanticularity?Count Timothy von Icarus

    :worry:
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    2.8k


    :worry:

    Would you deprive us from a future where articles in metaphysics discuss "quanticularity qua quanticularity?" :cool:
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    Would you deprive us from a future where articles in metaphysics discuss "quanticularity qua quanticularity?" :cool:Count Timothy von Icarus

    With words such as "transcriptomics" and "eusociality", we are already at a point of no return towards that future.
  • L'éléphant
    1.6k
    But I chuckle at where it may have taken off: this idea that Math pre-exists our constructions.ENOAH
    I wish I still had the philosophy of math anthology book that featured the math philosophers who argued for the construction of mathematics as an empirical endeavor.
  • jgill
    3.9k
    math philosophers who argued for the construction of mathematics as an empirical endeavor.L'éléphant

    I think of Newton, developing calculus to describe physical phenomena. And perhaps some math is created in this fashion today. But by and large it's not an empirical process. Although math is called the Queen of the Sciences, it is not really a science.
  • Joshs
    5.7k
    I think of Newton, developing calculus to describe physical phenomena. And perhaps some math is created in this fashion today. But by and large it's not an empirical process. Although math is called the Queen of the Sciences, it is not really a sciencejgill

    You’re saying math is not empirical for roughly the same reason that a novel or poem is not empirical, right?
  • jgill
    3.9k
    You’re saying it’s not empirical in the way that a novel or poem is not empirical, right?Joshs

    Sounds right.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    I think of Newton, developing calculusjgill

    Leibniz :^)

    I wish I still had the philosophy of math anthology book that featured the math philosophers who argued for the construction of mathematics as an empirical endeavor.L'éléphant

    Lakatos?
  • Abhiram
    60
    No, I don't think so. Math is just random pattern finding. It is finding pattern and solving the pattern with other pattern. If there is a being which have intuitive method to acquire knowledge math is not at all necessary.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    If there were no humans on the earth, then you will see no math on the earth or anywhere in the universe.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    If there is a beingAbhiram
    What could that being possibly be?
  • Abhiram
    60
    That is something which has been thought about since ancient Greek philosophy. Being for me is to be in this world to have existence in this physical world but all encompassing physical reality , space, time and thought with it. Like an intertwined whole with several distinguishable parts which cannot be separated
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Being for me is to be in this world to have existence in this physical world but all encompassing physical reality , space, time and thought with it. Like an intertwined whole with several distinguishable parts which cannot be separatedAbhiram
    What does it look like? Have you seen it personally in real life or even in your dreams?
  • Abhiram
    60
    Oh no. Being is , to be, to exist. You cannot see it you could experience it yourself. It is subjective after all. It is you lived in experience.
  • Corvus
    3.2k
    Oh no. Being is , to be, to exist. You cannot see it you could experience it yourself. It is subjective after all. It is you lived in experience.Abhiram
    Berkeley said "to exist is to be perceived." No perception means no existence at all.
  • ENOAH
    843
    In the logic thread I proposed "logos" for the logic-like function of the world. I wonder what a good term would be for "the apparently mathematical in nature?"Count Timothy von Icarus

    Isn't logos the beginning of everything humans experience, and therefore not inherent/imbedded in Nature? (And I'm not referencing so-called St. John). Isn't math, computer science, the periodic table, grammar, logic, the rules of Football, and so on, just numerical or other modified formations of the original word, Language? I say, in the beginning of the becoming of human Consciousness and History, was, the "word," all strictly human things were made by the word; and without the word was not any thing human made that was made.
  • Abhiram
    60
    Then who is watching you when you are asleep. Does that mean you don't exist when you are asleep.
  • ENOAH
    843


    I think Berkeley was (unwittingly(?)) referring to human Consciousness. For human Consciousness:
    "to exist is to be perceived."Corvus
    ; anything not perceived in/by Human Consciousness, does not exist for Human Consciousness.

    The "you" which continues to exist in the dream state, is still Human Consciousness.

    The you in deep dreamless sleep, is not "you" but the Real Organism which exists in Nature, independently of Consciousness, which "you" have displaced with your experiences constructed out images which must be perceived to exist.

    That "you" the one presumably in deep sleep never goes out of existence, but for the dreaming or waking human, that Real You is overshadowed by the shadows in the cave; that is, by things (which must be) perceived.
    And, to tie it back to the OP, math is one of those things, restricted to human Consciousness and, therefore, only "real" insofar as constructed and perceived.
  • Abhiram
    60

    Actually it is not that straight forward. Berkeley as you might know is an empiricist and he is against rationalist ideal. Therefore he clearly want to establish perception and sensation as the method of knowing. He also wanted to establish God. So he goes on to say that when we asleep we are perceived by God.But that argument is followed by the question who perceives the God. Clearly that is contradiction. Consciousness is clearly established by Kant if I am not wrong. Contrary to popular belief mind and consciousness are two different things. Berkley for sure is an idealist and there is an importance for mind but that doesn't mean he talked about human consciousness.
  • Lionino
    2.7k
    I wish people into scholastic philosophy and theology were obliged to study Modern Greek so they realise how silly they sound, and how the usage of foreign words does not grant them mystique.
  • ENOAH
    843


    Thank you for clarifying, and sorry for my recklessness. I know far too little about Berkeley to justify my claim above. I was admittingly using it as a stepping stool.

    When you differentiate Mind and consciousness, I'm not saying I disagree. But when you have a second, can you provide me with a brief explanation. Do you mean human Mind and Human Consciousness? Are you being technical as in Mind is the proper subject of psychology and consciousness of metaphysics? And in my post, if I, as I believe, am referencing one, which one am I imprecisely or unknowingly referencing. What is Berkeley's focal point regarding his inqury into Reality for humans? Mind? Consciousness? The Brain? Or, (some privileged, none of the above) Being? Again, I'm seeking information. If and when...
  • Abhiram
    60

    Consciousness and mind are really problematic. Different philosophers have different approach towards both. You could refer philosophy of mind if you are interested in it. Jaegwon kim wrote it if I am not wrong. It explains about these aspects in detail. You could check that if you are interested.
  • L'éléphant
    1.6k
    Lakatos?Lionino
    No. They're not that fancy. They're practicing math scholars and philosophers.
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