My initial guess was that a set is something that contains and not something in its own right. So zero remains a nothingness of anything in that case. Very abstract ideas. Couldn't structure just be that which contains a process and thus, like sets which compose it, it is nothing in itself. This would certainly make mathematics a system of process and divorce it from the notion that anything rests and stays permanent within it

When Hegel speaks of Leibniz's Monads, he says the monads are independent of the mind and dependent on them at the same time. This is the heart of Hegel's dialectic. The process in the philosophy of Leibniz is for Hegel "a completely developed contradiction." And he unites Kant with this: "What this also means is that the antithesis of objectivity [noumena] and subjectivity [phenomena] is overcome and it is our business to participate in redemption by laying off our immediate subjectivity and becoming conscious of God as our true essential Self [noumena]... In cognition, what has to be done is all a matter of striping away the alien character of the objective world that confronts us. As we habitually say, it is a matter of 'finding ourselves in the world,' and what that amounts to is the tracing of what is objective back to the Concept, which is our innermost Self."

His point is that we are noumena and thus the Selfhood of God. But this also means we are phenomena and not the noumena of the world as matter. Understanding objectivity and subjectivity in relation to what we "construct" and what we find "read at hand" is a constant process of paradox that never reaches a completion in understanding be needs to higher intellect realizing itself as identical to the Godhead (what the Indians call Brahmin)

Position: biology is the basis of our rights, thoughts, and value. You state:

"To put it another way, if you think we are lumps of meat - just lumps of meat that happen to think things - then you have a problem when it comes to explaining our moral value."

"And you can't say that we are morally valuable because we are made of meat, because the meat itself is not morally valuable absent a mind inhabiting it."

Without these dogmatic pronouncements you have no thread. But you can't defend them. If you think your identity is not in space and some fairy substance is what you think has value, then you're not in reality

As I understand Hegel, we know about human nature epistemically by learning about God. God is not a consciousness apart from us although with Kant we can think it is. Hegel pushes us to understand human consciousness itself as deeply as possible

I didn't know about structuralism in math! That the number one is an idea, a true idea, seems to me to be the basis of all that follows though, kinda that unity before the plurality. But structuralism in all forms is a really interesting idea!

Could someone rightfully say that 0, 1, and points are not in any sense sets? Or is there more too that?

You think thinking itself is immaterial and matter dead.

I think that matter has the *potentiality* to be a living loving thinking evaluating thing

There is no full proof argument either way. Even you say "it SEEMS obvious" in your OP

Whether it's the divine Intellect of Spinoza's writings or an interpretation of Kant, a mind by itself can't have power to act, on it's own or thru a body (as is dualism). It takes physical energy to have "work" (as used in physic's termonology). I like Kant because he helps me understand how mysterious the world which is around us is. Matter is what we are but what is matter then? Idealism raises great questions but I don't interpret any of the German thinkers from Kant until Kierkegaard as denying that matter is real and fundamental. We are just not sure at times what that entails

It's not difficult to see the difference between something alive and something dead. We see this even with plants. You say something outside space is what makes something alive. We say it's the configuration of the biology and yes biological things die. How are dead bodies suppose to prove we (our identities) are really outside space?

Nietzsche asks whether at the moment of death you would want to relive your life. If you would, then you succeeded in life

If dualism is true, what is wrong with killing someone? The body alone dies, the outer shell, so you say, but the identity survives?

I am a twin and they have separate bodies. Duh. You dont understand natural law which is why you make unfounded statements over and over again

Wow that's simply put. Thanks

It seems to me you can state the reason you can move the odd numbers in line with the naturals but can't move the countable in line with the uncountable in a pretty simple way say that I can go and find more about this

"Not because of the shape or size or colour or location of your physical body. For if your body was a different shape, or size, or colour, or location, this would not affect your moral value. Plus I myself do not seem to have any of those features, yet I seem morally valuable (it is my body - not me - that seems to have a size, shape, colour and location)."

Each body is valuable and unique

"It also seems obvious that when a mind is not present in a body, the body has no moral value and its destruction is not morally bad. For instance, a mindless foetus or a corpse both seem to be things whose destruction is not morally bad (those who think it is always bad to destroy a foetus, think a mind is always present from conception - which as well as being implausible, just underlines that it is the presence of a mind, not the presence of this or that physical feature, that is doing the moral work)."

Well abortion is immoral but that's a different question. The issue is live humans and what makes them valuable

"What about consciousness? I don't think so because a) when I am unconscious I am still morally valuable - it is not morally ok to destroy those who are unconscious, other things being equal and b) many conscious states are morally disvaluable - such as undeserved pain - yet a mind that is in undeserved pain does not thereby come itself to be morally disvaluable. I can have thoroughly bad mental states, yet still be morally valuable. So, if a mind can have moral value despite its conscious states having moral disvalue, then the mind's moral value is not grounded in its mental states."

It's grounded in biology. So you haven't addressed the issue

"It seems, then, that we are morally valuable because we are minds."

Why? All you made where asserions

"And we can also conclude that our minds are not our bodies, because our bodies would not be morally valuable were it not for the fact they have our minds in them."

Statement, not argument

"To put it another way, if you think we are lumps of meat - just lumps of meat that happen to think things - then you have a problem when it comes to explaining our moral value."

Statement, not argument

"You can't say that we are morally valuable because of our conscious states, for they can be thoroughly morally disvaluable, yet we can still be morally valuable despite this."

Who said it was based on conscious states? That is not the issue

"And you can't say that we are morally valuable because we are made of meat, because the meat itself is not morally valuable absent a mind inhabiting it."


Statement, no argument

"Reflection on our moral value seems to reveal something about what we are, then. It reveals that we are not physical bodies, but immaterial objects."

This last sentence should have been the whole thread. You didn't make argument, like I said

You really are not familiar with the proof? — TonesInDeepFreeze

No because I've asked people many times and they bring up the diagonal thing, although this just shows there are infinity more uncountable than countable and yes, however there are infinity many natural than odd. But you can biject with one and not the other? I'm not a jerk, just want some way I can understand what they are saying. It seems to me infinity is always just infinity at the end

So value is objective but not necessary?

Maybe on an ontological level something simple is always completely one with some composite, everytime

Impressionistic descriptions are fine for stoking creativity in mathematics and sometimes for making certain mathematical concepts intuitive. But they are not mathematical demonstrations. — TonesInDeepFreeze

If you know why we can do:

Odd numbers: 1 3 5 6....

Natural numbers: 1 2 3 4...

but can't do:

Countable: 1 2 3 4...

Uncountable: 1 2 3 4...

then say it.

I really want to know

If you have an alternative theory, then state your axioms. — TonesInDeepFreeze

It seems to me the natural numbers are a type of power set to the odd. If I imagine (not a bad word) any infinity as a ruler going off east into forever, I can make this ruler and a second by taking the first number of a countable set and the first number of a uncountable set and send them off to infinity like you do with naturals and odds.Why isn't it the same thing? The rulers would fit side by side because they are all within infinity

"Cantor realized that [the set of natural numbers is 1-1 with the set of odd numbers]". — TonesInDeepFreeze

But there are infinite more natural numbers, just as with the reals. Is the point that there are far more infinities of reals than infinity of naturals vs the odd? I can imagine putting any two infinities one to one if you start with one number, then two, and onward

The possibility of the soul has to be proved, since it's nowhere in experience

It's existence has to be proved

It's value has to be proved.

Why can't meat have value?

Why can't meat think? To me it's obvious that it does. It does in animals

But there is no argument in the OP

There is no moral value to something that isn't material. You have it backwards

It's worth while to read Plato but when he says the soul is immaterial and that something immaterial like this doesn't come in more or less, he is talking about something he can't know anything about imo

I thought you meant Pinkards commentary on that work. But the Phenomenology is not an easy work. I had to read it 4 times before I understood it fully, after which I could go on to Hegel's other books. People dismiss Hegel as "written mental illness" but I can vouch for him by saying that he does not contradict himself and he does make sense; he just uses a difficult style to say what he wants and not many people understand it

It's interesting that you know some Greek. But Plato is part of the Aristotelean and Thomistic tradition which tries to prove there is a God and that souls are transcendent and this is contrary to the modern philosophy I'm into. I'm not saying I can prove my beliefs but Plato never has a strong argument for his positions in our eyes and so we point out the flaws and show the alternatives. If you have an infallible argument the soul is separate from the body, do present it and I'll comment

Schelling and Hegel accept noumena as God, of which we are a part. So they accept what Kant says but submerge all phenomena into the ocean of God and us. Hegel emphasizes how everything is logical and Schelling has his philosophy of nature.

It was Kant who cut us off from previous philosophy and the scholastic method. But some are not satisfied with him. Kant added ideas about morality and aesthetics to his philosophy but others have continued to add more and more, although they accept that phenomena is a totality and the transcendent is unproven

I read that too. He has another book on Hegel too. But neither are by Hegel

Which book did you read? If you didn't understand it you need a commentary. I've read most of Hegel and understood it all. I could write a paragraph by paragraph commentary if I had the time. Schopenhauer attacked Hegel, Schelling, and Fitche because they had the respect of others which he lacked. Their philosophies are all the same, all additions to Kant, which is why they are all called German idealists

For Hegel there is mind as receptive and mind as concept. At least read one of his books before you criticize, geez

The soul is the harmony among parts. There were Homo Denisovan, Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthal, and many others

Organization and matter are simultaneous and reflect each other. A thing is determined (a one) and undetermined (flux) at once

Every part of that argument is wrong

Yet he also says in the work that we see purpose in the world with judgment just as we follow morality with practical reason, but all the same pure reason can prove none of it

Is the noumena in our minds (subjective), outside us (objective), or both, or neither? I wonder about this a lot. "The mind as concept realizes it too is the universal, is one totality returned into itself, whose distinctions are equally this totality and the object" writes Hegel

It was meant thusly. Sartre writes of being and nothing spread like ripples to compose the universe. The Ideas of Plato are in the world and in us. They are transcendental. There is nothing transcendent

"Death is the most complete act of being". That could have be written by Sartre himself

If the world is put in relation with the mind, then the result can be correctly stated by saying the mind (subjectivity) and its object are really the same. But it is also true to say they are in themselves different. These are both correct and incorrect! Paradox? Trying to express these matters perfectly is impossible in (normal) communicative language, but as Wittgenstein said about the world and self: "everything is open, nothing is hidden".

The soul participates in the body as much as any object participates in itself. Something without parts can't subsist on it's own. The world is what is real. Plato brought up interesting ideas for his time but he is quite cooky. If dualism is true, maybe the soul vanishes when the body dies. There is obviously an unbreakable connection between body and soul. Only the resurrection of the body can insure immortal existence

Can't God make you wrong is this discussion without informing you? So you don't know you're right