Comments

  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    ↪jgill
    I think in the West much of Eastern is considered nonsense. But I also think this is more about perspective than fact. Is God outside of nature or is nature God? Should we look for God in everyone? Could our understanding of God affect our understanding of democracy?     — Athena

    I suppose there are psychoanalytic threads woven into the relationships between the gods of ancient Egypt, but, yes, nonsense. On the other hand, some of the spiritual practices originating in the East, like Zen Buddhism, are relevant today. I once wrote a chapter of a book on a certain aspect of a sport being a "mystical art form." :cool:
  • Mathematical universe or mathematical minds?
    There's more magic in complex analysis than in complex arithmetic. :cool:
  • Mathematical universe or mathematical minds?
    And complex numbers make commutative order matter in a way that is "physically realistic" — apokrisis

    Perhaps you are speaking of the canonical commutation rule in QM? Obtained by employing the imaginary number i. Otherwise I see no particular advantage in, say, multiplication or addition over the reals. Of far more interest is Euler's formula and its relation to wave forms.
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    Maybe we should not be divided between those who have made math and science their God and those who have not because we are butting heads — Athena

    I see a more divisive conflict between right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats.

    So those who understand stand math as it is taught in the West have valuable information, but we should know they most likely come to the study of math and all other things with closed minds. — Athena

    Not my experience at all. But if you mean entertaining the wisdom of the ancients, like this:

    A distinction must be made between associations of deities and manifestations of a neter principle into other neteru’s principles/forms. For example, it is wrong to assume that Re-Sebek is an association of two deities —

    Yes, perhaps of interest as part of history, but nonsense nevertheless.
  • Doing away with absolute indiscerniblity and identity
    but with eternal inflation, there are guaranteed to be other identical versions of you, and some with only slight differences — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Why? :chin:
  • Negative numbers are more elusive than we think
    Friend, there are many interesting questions and debates involved with the foundations of math . . . The existence of negative numbers is not one of them. — Real Gone Cat
    :up:
  • Rules and Exceptions
    1. is a colloquialism, not meant to be taken seriously.
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    Zero, or empty set. is nothing, but it is a type of nothing, or nothing of a specific type of thing. If we proceed to say that the specified type is every type, so that it is nothing of any type of thing, then "every type" is a type. And if types are things, (Platonism), then nothing is something. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I like to make sure statements like this are enshrined on the forum. :cool:
  • Mathematical universe or mathematical minds?
    This is a bold claim... that all pure math is eventually applied. Really? — Pie

    I've commented on this before. ArXiv.org receives 150 - 300 math papers a day, most probably pure math that vanishes into the academic aether after a while having served its purpose, tenure, promotion, prestige within specialties, curiosity, etc.
  • Are dimensions needed because of Infinity?
    ↪alan1000
    There's a one to one correspondence between points on such a line and points in the interior of the cube. You could look it up, it's a simple arithmetic trick involving manipulating the digits of the numbers representing the points.
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    What is not worth the effort? — Athena

    Competing with the wisdom of the ancients, such as:


    Ennead The nine worlds of the Odine Mysteries. The Egyptian Ennead, or company of nine gods and the goddesses, represents archetypal principles that regulate and rule the cosmos through the laws of number. The pharaoh came forth from between the thighs of the divine Nine. — Athena
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    But, you should ask one of the mathematicians here, like jgill or others, who could help you out much more than I ever could. — Manuel

    Not worth the effort
  • Are dimensions needed because of Infinity?
    If its any help, the "number" of points inside a cube is the same as found on one of its defining edges (lines).
  • Who do you want to see as 47th President of the United States?
    Biden reelected — Jackson

    Biden deselected
  • "Philosophy simply puts everything before us,"
    RIP Jackson :sad:
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    the fixed point behaviour that anchors renormalisation in quantum field theory — apokrisis

    Beyond my pay grade. :smile:
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    I am not entirely certain that a stable methodological approach can be establish to examine the properties or existence of PoR, but that is something I am currently contemplating — Bob Ross

    Since this seems to lie at the foundations of your paper it would be good to make it a bit clearer what you are talking about. I'll ignore the infinity stuff, that itself is puzzling from a mathematical perspective.

    Another member of TPF has in the past submitted a lengthy and sophisticated essay on a theory of everything (or roughly that), starting with an assumption every fact in the universe can be encoded for use in Turing machines. But doesn't explain how.

    When one doesn't explain clearly at the outset what the fundamentals are or how they can be attained, readers may not be enticed to go further.

    But that's just how I see it. Others here may differ. OK :cool:
  • Evidence of conscious existence after death.
    A waste of philosophical energies. :meh:
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    Quick question, for my benefit: does this applied math give us insight into the nature of the world? — Manuel

    Quick answer: insomuch as there are existing patterns in the world that we identify and attempt to codify with mathematics. But applied math can go any number of directions, like computing the stresses on bridges, calculating the orbit of a satellite, building the pyramids, etc. :cool: Sometimes pure math finds surprising applications, like a result of mine from 1991 that was recently used in a paper on decision making in group environments.
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    Applied math, the kind the gives us theories, usually belong to physics. — Manuel

    Sorry to be picky, but applied math goes beyond physics. Physics, in fact, almost has its own math.
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    So fixed points are important as the emergently stable invariances of a physical system. The symmetries that anchor the structure of the self-reconstituting whole — apokrisis

    An example would help. Intriguing.
  • Venerate the Grunt
    Joining the military is a HUGE gamble — Bitter Crank

    It depends on how you join. I was sent to the U of Chicago for twelve months to be certified as a meteorologist (weather officer), all expenses paid plus salary, housing allowance, etc., never wore a uniform. Two and a half more years of not unpleasant duty and out, receiving an automatic GS11 rating should I want to join the Weather Bureau. I have a friend, now a district attorney, who was sent to law school, everything paid for plus salary, etc.,and rose to colonel in the Judge Advocates office. Another friend was sent to medical school to become an MD, all expenses paid plus salary, served a short period an left the service for private practice.

    Then there were those inducted during the Vietnam War. There's your HUGE with bells on it.
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    To use math is to apply mathematics. And to apply mathematics is to treat the thing which you apply mathematics to, mathematically. Therefore to use math is to mathematize the thing you apply it to. — Metaphysician Undercover

    See why I love this forum? :cool:
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    Actually, philosophy should seek help wherever it can be found. :meh:
  • Venerate the Grunt
    Still no one coming forward saying, "I was a grunt and now I am a philosopher"? — jgill

    Did we honestly expect that? — ToothyMaw

    I was being optimistic. Of the 15,000 or so who have joined the site perhaps a few would read the thread and post up.
  • Is this even a good use of the term logic?
    Four in a Row Game
  • Venerate the Grunt
    Friedrich Nietzsche was an artillerist in the German army during the Franco-Prussian War.
  • The nominalism of Jody Azzouni
    My own account of causation is taken from Lewis: A causes B if it is not possible for A to be false and B to be true. — Michael

    This assumes a linear causation chain. I.e., no other cause for B exists. If C also causes B, then A can be false and B true, and still A, like C, causes B. :chin:
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    And I think we agree there is only 1 unbounded infinite, as more than one would be by definition, two bounded infinites — Philosophim

    This essay might get a larger following if all this infinite stuff were in mathematically acceptable nomenclature. Just a thought.
  • The nominalism of Jody Azzouni
    . . . but instead, the world is a "fabric with features". — Marchesk

    A little like quantum field theory. We are excitations in a reality field. Neat.
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    So if using mathematics in a field of study does not constitute mathematizing it, then what does? Is physics mathematized? Is music mathematized? — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, I agree, although using simple percentages is near the lower bound of the definition. At this intellectual level grocery shopping might be, "Well, one can is $2, so two cans will be $4".
  • Venerate the Grunt
    Still no one coming forward saying, "I was a grunt and now I am a philosopher"?

    Mostly grunts came from conscription (draft) and that came to an end in 1973 in the US, in 1972 in Australia, 1960 in the UK, and 1945 in Canada. So anyone here who was drafted would probably be 70 or older.
  • The unexplainable
    A high percentage of philosophers throughout history failed to take that into consideration. — Tate

    Dummies. :snicker:
  • Climate change denial
    Given how polarized US politics was becoming at the time, I'm starting to wonder if Gore being the face of climate change activism in the country made Americans LESS likely to address it. Not that that was his fault . . . — Mr Bee

    With his fleet of SUVs and flying all over the world? How could that be?
  • Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
    What is the probability, given the givens, of the child you're planning on having will find life worth it? — Agent Smith

    Not really using math, just guesstimating probabilities. In any event, the idea is dreadful. :roll:
  • Getting a PHD in philosophy
    I assume the great cost of getting one is related to the supposed promise of a career in a subject. — TiredThinker

    I got mine from Colorado's Land Grant University over fifty years ago for the sole purpose of staying in Colorado (I was a dedicated rock climber with a wife and small child) as an academic, a strategy that worked well for me for I was hired into the state system. These days unless you are completely enraptured with and highly competent in the subject I would not recommend a PhD program - at least in math (probably in philosophy as well). An uncomfortable percentage of grad students end up as lowly adjunct "professors" with minimal salaries and no benefits. This coupled with the not unlikely scenario that higher education is going to undergo really significant changes in coming years make academia a crapshoot. The situation is different in the tech industry in math and physics.
  • Venerate the Grunt
    ↪ToothyMaw


    I was thinking of those who post on TPF.
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    My systems science approach is predicated on global constraints that produce local stability. So fixed points emerge due to top-down acting constraints on possibility. — apokrisis

    In a social setting suppose a very famous and compelling person, say, "William", attracts followers. "Jack" wants to be close to William, but must push aside others surrounding his target. He finally gets very close and stays there, inching forward. William, who remains himself in all of this, is like an attractive fixed point. Now, suppose William, always comfortable with himself, begins to change, but still attracts many if they come at him from a certain direction, but if they come towards him from his bad side he repels them dramatically. Now William has become an indifferent fixed point. Finally, suppose William becomes sullen and angry to all save himself, so that his closest friends flee from him. He has become a repelling fixed point.

    However, suppose William is a leader, like a Czar born into his position. He is psychotic and teeters on the edge at all times. If he is provoked in the slightest way, he will explode, taking down friends and enemies alike, his symmetry having been broken.
  • Getting a PHD in philosophy
    A PhD is simply a license — Agent Smith

    True enough. My father and I both earned the degree - in different areas - and he always called it his "union card".

    The PhD requires original research, whereas the MD does not. But I've seen the former degree awarded to students whose advisors did most of the "original" stuff for them.

    A more or less "real" test is whether, after getting the degree, the person publishes in refereed journals. This is required in big universities, but not necessarily in smaller institutions. Also, are their papers mostly their work or the result of a number of authors.

    In mathematics, breakthroughs in new concepts are of greatest value in that one can begin generating one's disciples as PhD students. It's a big game.

    There are several doctorates in philosophy here on TPF. They know best about their discipline.
  • Venerate the Grunt
    Kinda looks like philosophers tend to avoid military service. Oops! Forgot about Wittgenstein, Descartes, Socrates, Heidegger, Feyerabend, etc. More recently: Jesse Hamilton
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