I was referring to the basic structure of an organized debate at the university level. I wasn't actually talking about the Democratic or Republican party. — thewonder

Ok, so it seems that, at the university level, people are taught that every issue is black and white. That is the problem. In a sense,, that is a form if group-think - that there are only two sides to every issue. It limits our possibilities for finding solutions. We need to think out-of-the-box.

For instance, with the issue of gay marriage people think that the government should ban it or allow it. The problem is that the govt. shouldn't be in the business of defining marriage in the first place. Like religion, it shouldn't be making laws that either prohibit or respect any idea of marriage. So there aren't only two sides to every issue despite what the propagandists at the universities would like everyone to believe.

Once you accept that mind is informational, then the question "How does matter relate to mind?" can be reformulated as two:

1. How does matter relate to information?
2. How does information relate to mind?

These questions are associative: answer both, and you answer "How does matter relate to mind?" — hypericin

Matter is information. Better yet, matter is the form information takes.

I think the problem lies more in the idea of substances - that matter and mind are different substances, hence the problem of dualism and how they interact. But then, what is a substance? To resolve the problem, we think of them as the same substance - information.

The brain is not an information processing body, any more than the stomach is. The brain is biological, it works by electrochemical and other biological mechanisms. When you've explained the biological mechanisms, that's it, there isn't anything left for "information" to do. — Daemon

Information informs. What else is there for information to do?

Even within organized debates at the university level, we are taught that there are two parties who engage in debate upon a single issue, which has only two sides, and that one of them will come out as the victor. — thewonder

This is wrong. The two parties often adopt the positions of the other party when they are in power precisely because they want the win for their party and not for the other party. Just look at the fight over the Supreme Court.

There's a certain irony to being relatively a-political, to me, in that I came to be so after being very politically engaged, aside from that what people often say of it seems like a more genuine Politics. — thewonder

Exactly. This is how I became an atheist, too. Only after really learning what religion/politics is (group-think), do you come to abhor them.

So what, then, is the problem with individualism? — NOS4A2

Nothing, as long your individualism doesn't trample on another's right to be an individual. In this sense, you cease being pro-individualism the moment you think your individuality trumps someone else's. The whole point of individualism is realizing that you are not the only individual, else you cease being pro-individual and begin being authoritarian.

It's really that simple. All the other complaints in this thread aren't about individualism, but about authoritarianism - when an individual ceases to recognize the individuality of others and impose their way of life on others, or when an individual thinks that they are the only individual.

The problem is that people in this thread that are complaining about individualism are actually complaining about people that believe that individualism entails only believing that you are the only individual. Individualism doesn't only entail that you are an individual, but others are too. Authoritarianism is the idea that you are the most important individual, not individualism.

I should add that my client and I don't avoid talking about politics because we think differently. We actively seek each others opinion on issues in an effort to understand the other's positions, not in an effort to beat each other over the head with our own positions. The characteristic of an intelligent person is one that actively seeks opposing views, rather than avoid them or automatically characterize them as "racist" or "sexist", in order to better understand and to be intellectually honest with the facts.

Most people, it seems are not only engaged in Politics but quite so. Becoming a-political in the sense that you are actually in opposition to politics as such and not merely in so far that you have kind of personal aversion to being engaged within them, which may be more reasonable, would leave you both without friends and allies. — thewonder

It hasn't always been this way. Within the past couple of decades politics has been infiltrating every aspect of our lives, such as late-night TV, Oscar awards, and sports.

My sense of being a-political is simply the idea of abolishing group politics, ie political parties. Most people have only one or two issues that they really care about and vote for the political party that they believe will represent their ideas on their one or two issues. So they end up voting against their positions on other issues. Many others don't bother educating themselves on any of the issues and simply vote the way their family and friends vote, or just look for the Ds and Rs on the ballot.

To those in government, it has become more of a religious endevour to get wins for your party and that means demonizing the other party and making out your party to be the righteous party. In this type of political environment, facts are obscured and hypocrisy is prevalent. Those constituents caught up in this religious movement see other humans that don't think like them as demonic and themselves and those that agree with them as righteous. It divides the culture into uncompromising factions. George Washington predicted this would happen, hence his outspoken aversion to political parties.

Being social and being political are completely distinct events. As an example, I have a client whose IT I service and there are some times where one of the owners and I talk about politics. He is a registered Democrat and I am a non-affiliated LIbertarian. We don't agree on many things, but we respect each other and still service their IT for over 20 years. Thinking differently politically doesn't necessarily get in the way of our other social interactions, nor is it even part of every one of our social interactions. I don't see how them calling me about a computer problem and me resolving it has anything to do with politics, or that we are practicing politics in any way. If you agree that atheism isn't a religion, then I don't see how one could also believe that a-political is still a political party. In the sense I am using the term, it is the abscence of political parties, just as athiesm is the absence of religion.

The term, "liberal" is thrown about and incorrectly used most of the time, especially on the left side. They call themselves liberals, but they have become more and more authoritarian socialist in the last 20-30 years. The right has become more authoritarian theocrats in the last 20-30 years. Astonishingly, authoritarianism has become the the dominating aspect of American politics, as everyone is out to tell you how to live your life and to put you into some arbitrary box based on the color of your skin or you genetalia. Libertarians are the true liberals and in America, liberalism is declining.

I see libertarianism as more of an a-poitical movement in the sense that it adopts the idea that you don't know what is best for others, only for yourself, so telling others how to live their lives is fundamentally a-liberal or authoritarian, and that freedom is a double-edged sword. Everyone is just as free as you are and can do what they want as long as it doesn't trample on the freedoms of others. Once you begin to tell others how to live, and put people into boxes to further your own, or your political parties goals, you abandon your liberal principles and adopt an authoritarian stance. Yet these people continue call themseles "liberals" and "progressives". It's not progressive to demonize another group and tell others how to live their lives, or put people into categorical boxes based on race and sex. Humans have been doing that since we evolved. What is progressive would be to actually be liberal in the sense that you abandon the idea that you know what is best for others and that we abolish political parties.

LIke the fundamentally religious, the fundamentally political individual needs to confirm the validity of their ideas by forcing people to believe what they believe. They group together and any one that believes differently is an outsider. They find safety in numbers, as if the logical fallacy of pleading to popularity is somehow the evidence they need to confirm their ideas. Progress has never been made in participating in group-think.

If the left desires equality of outcome and you're against it that means that you desire inequality of outcome. — praxis

Equality of outcome is a lack of diversity. You can't have both equality and diversity. To achieve equality of outcomes, we'd all have to be genetically engineered and raised by the State.

Almost every political affiliation is, at best, a cult. — thewonder

Exactly. So it's like asking if one can be actively a-theist. We can. When one observes the negative effects of religion / political affiliations / group-think, one actively tries to engage with others in an effort to show these negative effect to others.

Even should one succeed, how are they to cope with the inescapable isolation to follow? — thewonder

What inescapable isolation? That doesn't seem to follow? You're not implyng that even atheism is a religion, or that a-political is a political affiliation, are you? We can be social without being political/religious can't we? Is there a difference between being social and being political?

Perhaps it looks like that because you yourself have extreme views? — Benkei

So the idea to abolish political parties (extremism) is extremist? Perhaps it looks like that to people who fight racism with racism.

So, it's not a game but there are goalposts. I see. — emancipate

See what - the truth?

Without the other numbers, what use would it be to say that there is 1 of something? Again, we're only talking about comparisons when we use math. Its merely part of the description of something and all descriptions aren't mathematical, so reality can't be fundamentally mathematical.

Both. Were there not 10 chickens before humans were around to count them? — Marchesk

There were a quantity of chickens before humans were around to count them. What we call that is arbitrary. Aliens could use a different scribble to refer to the quantity, or use a totally different number-system for all we know.

Can numbers exist on their own without being attributed to things? Can things exist without being counted, or having numbers attributed to them?

Sure, but the measurement always gives us a numerical value of some kind, and we decide on the units. — Marchesk

When comparing an apple to an orange, are all the words that we use to compare them numerical? Is color numerical, what about taste or smell?

The issue is in mathematical physics, that discoveries are made BECAUSE of the maths, not made first by observation, and then described mathematically. A case in point was Dirac's discovery of anti-matter. According to the equations he developed or discovered that described electrons, there ought to be positive counterparts to the negatively-charged electrons. At the time no such things were known but lo and behold some years later they were discovered 1. There are many other such examples in the history of physics, which is why Eugene Wigner felt compelled to write the essay On the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. — Wayfarer

I guess the question is, when is a discovery made - when it is observed in the math, or when it is observed in nature? Either way, it was observed.

A number is a symbol denoting a count. And the count is nowhere but in the mind of the counter, it is a purely intellectual act. Yet all who can count will agree that 19=19 so it is not the property of a single observer. — Wayfarer

But why does 19 = 19? Is it because 19 is the same scribble as 19?

Does an object weigh 19 pounds or 8.6 kg?
— Harry Hindu

Those are just different units for the same value. — Marchesk

The value of what - another number - something mathematical, or feature of some object?

19 = 8.6

or

19 pounds = 8.6 kiolograms?

It's not the numbers that are equal, but the weight, right? When we talk about weight, are we talking about measurements, or something else? Aren't measurements OF something? Isn't a measurement simply a comparison of objects and their features?

Yes, math is done in abstraction all the time. It's not like there are prime chickens. — Marchesk

Right, so unless you are saying abstractions exist independent of minds, then math doesn't exist independent of minds. But don't think that doesn't mean that abstractions aren't real, or that they don't have causal power. My point is to watch where you are pointing with your words. When talking about ten chickens, are you talking about a number or chickens?

I am saying that what I said is partially true. :wink: — emancipate

Which part? What does it even mean to be partially true? Doesn't it mean the same as partially false? What does it mean to be true or false?

Ah we are such good sophists. Going round and round and getting nowhere. I'm stepping off now. Good game. — emancipate

I didn't see it as a game. But you obviously did because you kept moving the goal posts. When one sees language as a game and the other doesn't, where else would you expect a conversation to go?

Statements not about feelings are statements about things. — Mww

Feelings are things. Ideas are things. Feelings and ideas are a causal part of the world, just like everything else we make statements about.

Feelings don’t matter in statements not about feelings but about things. — Mww

...which was the point I was making about the distinction between objective and subjective statements - when you confuse talking about things that are not your feelings with talking about your feelings. When you tell me the apple is red, are you talking about the apple or your feeling?

Statements not about feelings doesn't mean feelings aren’t about anything.
Feelings are always about something. If feelings aren’t about anything, statements with feeling as predicates are worthless tautologies, re: beauty is a feeling. — Mww

That is the answer to my question:
Excellent, then we agree that words are about feelings and other things, as well as feelings are about other feelings and other things. You can have feelings about the way others feel, just as you can have feelings about your favorite sports team losing, or the injury to your toe after stubbing it. Now, can we agree that confusing words that are about your feelings with things that are not your feelings is a category error and what makes a statement subjective rather than objective?

Because every statement ever made is first constructed by a subject, and because a subject has feelings, then any implied empirical statement is really a statement about feelings, hence a category error? — Mww

Making a statement is a behavior. All behaviors make statements (leave effects). Effects make statements about their causes. Your behavior (the statement that you make) is indicative of your ideas and feelings. I can gather what you think from what you state, just as I can gather what a dog feels from it's yelp and what tree rings state about the age of a tree. We apply the same type of reasoning in determining what words mean as we do in determining what tree rings mean.

No. Our understanding of reading words is about words that exist, and that from an assertorial judgement on a given cognition on empirical grounds; feeling is only an aesthetic judgement that is not given from any cognition, but on a priori ground alone. Understanding is an affect on experience; feeling is an affect on personality (technically, subjectivity) because of an experience.

Do try to separate feelings from cognitions, psychology from philosophy. — Mww

I'm not understanding. You see scribbles on the screen. Is your visual experience the same thing as the scribbles on the screen? If not then your visual experience is about the scribbles on the screen. Understanding only comes after you have a visual experience that is OF, or ABOUT the thing you are looking at. Understanding is then OF, or ABOUT, your visual experience, while your visual experience is OF, or ABOUT the very thing light is reflecting off of that you then see. One might say that what you see is more about the light than the object it reflects off of. So then in talking about what we see, are we talking about light or the object that the light reflects off of?

Feeling is a tactile sensation. Seeing is a visual sensation. Hearing is an auditory sensation. Smelling is an olfactory sensation, and tasting is a gustatory sensation. We know the world through our sensations. One sensation can verify what the other is informing us of. They are all the same in that they inform us of some state-of-affairs, whether it be the state of our bodies and brains, or the state of the weather. What we talk about are our sensations. We have good reason to believe that our sensations are about the world, so that are words are about the world, not just our sensations.

I wasn't making an objective assertion about reality when speaking of my faculties of perception.

*Any time you try to make a case for what reality is, and how it is, then you are making an objective statement. — emancipate

Yet you failed to do so and don't even realize it. So you weren't making the case for how your faculties of perception are regardless of what I think your faculties of perception are? Or are you saying that your faculties of perception are not part of reality (real)?

If that's true, then it should be possible to do physics without numbers. — Marchesk

Would it be possible to do meaningful math without the numbers referring to things that are not mathematical? When Farmer Joe counts the chickens in the pen and there is one less than there was yesterday, is he counting numbers, or counting chickens? Are chickens math or organisms?

Anyway, the mass of an electron is the same value before our evolutionary ancestors could count. We understand that value numerically. — Marchesk

What is the mass of an electron? Wouldnt you be providing an arbitrary measurement? Does an object weigh 19 pounds or 8.6 kg?

How do you know anything except by some sort of observation? How do you know that you know anything? What reasons do you have to believe anything? How do you know that you're being rational as opposed to being irrational? The evidence you provide to answer these questions will all be observable.

I couldn't possibly know that because I deny that your 'absolute truth' has any meaning to anyone else, further more, I challenge you to demonstrate that it does have philosophical meaning. — magritte

Exactly. That has been my point. Your statements are of no use to anyone else for the same reasons. So why make statements at all?

Your attack on 'relativism' is an ad hominem attack against persons unnamed. Once you name them they will throttle your self-refutation argument based on their own language games. For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms such as absolute truth. — magritte

I have only "attacked" those that make such statements that essentially mean, "it is true that there are no truths". For you to succeed, you would have to have them grant your philosophy and its terms, such as "no absolute truth". You don't seem to understand that your own arguments apply to your prior arguments where you attempt to assert what the term, relativism, is for everyone.

In that case, the prospects for a theory of morality are rather hopeless, if we have to wait for "nature" to deliver the verdict. (We'll possibly be dead by then.) — baker

No it isn't. Natural selection shows us that morality is a social construction.

And if they’re not, why would it matter? — Mww

Exactly. If feelings aren't about anything, then your words and your feelings wouldn't matter to anyone except yourself, so what would be the point in putting your feelings into words to tell others how you feel? There would be nothing anyone could do about how you feel because there would be no reason for how you feel.

How are we even communicating if our words don't exist apart from us after we type them for others to observe and read? I would be reading my own feelings, not your words and you reading your feelings, not my words. Our feeling of reading words is about words that exist on the screen, not our feelings, or we'd never get at what each other are saying.

I have multiple faculties of perception. I used the word 'all' to encompass them. As a quantifier. As an umbrella term. I think it is you who struggles with words. But this is pure sophistry, as is usual in philosophy discussions. — emancipate

What interest would I have in "all" of your faculties if perception? What use would it be for me if your faculties of perception are not similar to mine, and how would either of us know if they are or not, if all knowledge is subjective?

Beliefs are considered reliable when they are justified. One form of justification is observation.

Faith is belief despite the lack of justification. Faith glories in believing even when the facts lead elsewhere. — Banno

What observation backs your belief that 2+2=4?

Or your belief that you have a pain in your foot? — Banno

Then you have no justification, or reason, to believe that 2+2=4? Or that you have a pain in your foot? So, you're saying you have faith that 2+2=4 an that you have pains in your feet?

Just like the lack of a loving, omniscient God is justified by the observation of all the violence, hate and unintelligent design in the world, 2+2=4 is verified through observation. The very fact that you think, which is observable, is evidence that you exist. I think, therefore I am.

There is no absolute truth outside of absolutist dogma. To an antirealist, pluralist, or relativist 'absolute' truth is complete nonsense because it does not belong to any naturally sensible or logically rational language game. Before you can challenge any of these people, it is entirely up to you to say what in the world an absolute truth is. Remember that Truth is not a Platonic or platonic object but the value of a binary evaluation. Binary evaluations don't work across all plural contingent realisms, and especially not outside all realism. They may be logically inapplicable. — magritte

Is your post not an example if absolute truth? Are you not telling everyone that reads this that the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth? If not, then what are you actually saying? Should we believe what you wrote? Why or why not? Is what you said useful to others? Why or why not?

Because every statement ever made is first constructed by a subject, and because a subject has feelings, then any implied empirical statement is really a statement about feelings, hence a category error?

Too absurd to be true, so I’ll grant the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s not what you meant. — Mww

If statements are about feelings, then what are feelings about? Are you an anti-realist or solipsist?

But who decides what being right is? — baker

Natural selection?

No, just that since everyone is subject to death anyway, death is nothing special, not a sign of failure.

Becoming extinct is a failure in terms of a species. But dying, as an individual, is not failure, because everyone dies anyway. — baker

99% of all species that have existed are now extinct. We could say the same for every individual that has existed.. Who's to say that all species are destined to become extinct like individuals are destined to die?

Nah. I used all to refer to my faculties of perception, and hence my unique experience. In other words, I wanted to encompass the various modes of perception under the quantifier 'all'. It was not a statement about the universality of perception for other entities (human or otherwise). — emancipate

But your faculties of perception are not all faculties of perception. You seem to have a problem with how to use words, or are simply moving the goal posts.

OC2 is relativism. Relativism is the view that truth and knowledge are not absolute or invariable, but dependent upon viewpoint, circumstances or historical conditions. What is true for me might not be true for you; what counts as knowledge from one viewpoint might not do so from another; what is true at one time is false at another. — T H E

Does this statement not assert the absolute truth about Relativism? Statements like this defeat themselves. In asserting the truth that there is no truth, you end up pulling the rug out from under your own argument.

OC2: Truth and knowledge are relative in that they are dependent on the language game in which the claims of truth or knowledge occur. — Banno

This statement defeats itself. This statement's truth value is dependent on the language game being used and isn't useful outside of this language game. What is basically being said is that this statement isn't true outside of the use of English. So this statement would not be true for Spanish speakers, yet we can translate this statement to Spanish.
:roll:

Subjective statements are categorical errors, insofar as statements are technically empirical objects in the world, hence are not contained in the mind....or brain, if you wish....hence not subjective. — Mww

I'm talking about what the statements are about. The statements are implied to be about other empirical objects and states-of-affairs, not the personal feelings and emotional states of the person making the statement. That is the category error - when a statement is asserted to be about the empircal state-of-affairs when it is really about the person's feelings or emotional state.

I just figured it went without saying, that because perception and understanding are faculties belonging to all humans in general and thereby to each human in particular, then it follows necessarily that the objects of those faculties belongs to any human in possession of them. Which is sufficient reason to claim perception and understanding of reality, or anything at all in fact, is entirely subjective, — Mww

Which part of this statement is subjective? Which part is objective? What reason would you have of making subjective statements to others? What use would they be to others and why? If we both can only speak from our subjectivity, then aren't we simply talking past each other - talking about our own subjective states rather than the objective states of the world?

What could be more important than winning?? — baker

Being right.

Just look at humans vs neanderthals. Who is now extinct?
Everyone has to die at some point. This is not a consolation. — baker

Then your point is that no one ever actually wins?

It is partially true that all perception and understanding of reality is subjective. Is my previous statement objective or subjective? — emancipate

Objective. Again you are asserting a state-of-affairs that exists for ALL, and you are implying that this state-of-affairs is true even if no one knows it is true. Any time you try to make a case for what reality is, and how it is, then you are making an objective statement.

If it were subjective, you would only be speaking for yourself and your perception and understanding, not about others perception and understanding.

Obviously I'm not talking about the symbol. It's the number it references, not whatever we use to denote it. 19 is just a symbol. It represents a quantity which is also prime. — Marchesk

Where is the number/quantity 19 in relation to the symbol 19?

Math is about the mathematical objects the symbols represent. Numbers, sets, proofs, functions, graphs, whatever. Realism is asking whether any of those objects are real, not the symbols. The symbols we came up with to represent the objects. — Marchesk

But numbers are just symbols. Where in reality is there a number that the symbol points to? Quantities are always OF something, not something that can exist on its own. Math is merely a comparison of measurements.

I agree, by the way. All perception and understanding of reality is subjective. How could it be otherwise. Doesn’t mean reality is itself subjective. — Mww

The statement is an objective claim about the ontology of perception and understanding, which is just another way of saying epistemology. Any time you make a statement that asserts how some state of affairs exists for all humans, not just yourself, like what perception and understanding is for all humans, you are making a objective statement.

Even stating how things are for just you is objective as you are part of this reality and any statement that is true regardless if others disagree is objective. Stating that you like strawberries is objective. It is objectively true that you like strawberries even if I were to disagree.

What is subjective is when you project qualities of yourself onto an object that has no such properties. When you say strawberries are good, you are projecting your feeling that you have when eating strawberries, not asserting anything true about the strawberries. To me strawberries are bad, but that is just a projection. Harry Hindu doesn't like strawberries is objective because I am now correctly stating that the property has more to do with me than the strawberries.

In a nutshell, subjective statements are category errors.

If all (perception and understanding of) reality is subjective then the burden of proof is not on the claimant but on the disagreer. — New2K2

But the disagreer has a subjective reality too. Which subjective reality is the disagreer disagreeing with? Ultimately they'd both be talking past each other.

So might makes right. Some people become the winners, some the losers. — baker

What do you mean by "right"? Winning something does not make one right. It simply makes one a winner. There is more than one way to win at something -brains can win out over brawn in many instances. Just look at humans vs neanderthals. Who is now extinct?

You're clearly not trying, if it makes no sense to you. Have you ever "grasped" the idea that you do not understand something? That's what I mean. When someone speaks a foreign language for instance, you might apprehend that you do not understand what the person is saying. — Metaphysician Undercover

Or you're clearly not trying if it makes no sense to me. Someone speaking a different language to me clearly does not understand that I don't understand that language. Speaking and writing requires an understanding of your audiences understanding of the words you are using. It requires two or more following the same protocols to communicate. How you might communicate with a child or a person just learning English will be different than how you communicate with an adult that speaks English fluently.

So you're saying that your dualism isn't one of mind vs. body, rather one of understanding vs mis-understanding? I still don't get it.

In the ontology which I respect, concepts are artificial. Do you not respect the difference between natural and artificial? "Artificial" is commonly defined as produced by human act or effort rather than originating naturally. — Metaphysician Undercover

And humans and their actions are outcomes of natural processes. The only reason you'd want to distinguish between what humans do and what everything else does is because you believe in the antiquated idea that humans are specially created or created separate from nature.

I don't see any principle, other than 'what was intended by the author', whereby we'd distinguish a wrong interpretation from a right interpretation of a symbol. Therefore your claim that a natural effect symbolizes its cause (without an appeal to intention), is just as likely to be incorrect as correct. So it's a worthless assertion. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't excluded intent. As a matter of fact I told Wayfarer that their posts symbolize their idea and their intent to communicate it, which are causes for there being scribbles on the screen that we can observe. Tree rings symbolize the age of the tree because of how the tree grows throughout the year, not anything to do with the intent of some human. Humans come along and observe the tree rings and their intent is to understand what the tree rings are. The human attempts to grasp what is already there and the processes that produced the tree rings. This is how the human comes to understand what the tree rings are, which is what they mean. This is what humans do, we attempt to understand what exists by explaining the causal processes involved in producing what we observe.

It is not concepts all the way down, I am dualist, so I see (apprehend with my mind), that there are aspects of the sensible world which cannot be conceptualized. That is the incompatibility between the intelligible and the sensible, which gives the need for dualism. — Metaphysician Undercover

This makes no sense. How can you apprehend something which cannot be conceptualized? Apprehend and conceptualize are synonyms. Both are akin to "grasping" something mentally.

A concept is not a symbol. So a symbol can represent a concept which can represent a natural thing. But a symbol cannot represent a natural thing directly because it is required that a mind establishes the relation required in order that something can be a symbol. Therefore, it is necessary that a mind acts as a medium, between the symbol and the thing, in order that the symbol can be a symbol. This is what it means to be a "symbol" to be related to soemthing by a mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are not concepts natural things?? You seem to be making a special case for human minds, as if human minds are seperate from nature, when minds are just another causal relationship, like everything else.

No, that's nonsensical. A symbol must be interpreted to represent anything, and what it represents is a function of the interpretation — Metaphysician Undercover

What if it's interpreted wrong? Is it still a symbol? It seems more accurate, and less religious, to say effects represent/symbolize their causes.

You’re working within the representative realist notion where ideas stand for, or represent, things. — Wayfarer

Not just ideas, but everything. Effects stand for, or represent, their preceding causes. The scribbles in your post represent your idea yesterday that you intended to communicate to me.Your idea represents an actual state-of-affairs that exist independent of you and I talking about it. At least, that is what you are asserting. If that is not what you are asserting, then what are you talking and thinking about?

Physicists went out to explore just those ‘objects and their processes’, confident that they existed independently of anything said about them. But that was just what was called into question by what they discovered. They discovered that the answer to the question 'is an electron a wave or particle' depended on how you asked the question, and that it was impossible to say that an electron 'really is' either of them. — Wayfarer

But what about the physicists themselves? What are they composed of - waves or particles? You seem confident that these physicists and their discoveries exist independent of your observation of them. I assume that the physicists you are talking about aren't scribbles on a screen, but human beings, which are objects just like everything else that we observe. This idea that you're asserting that these physicists have contradicts the very thing that they are trying to show.

Whether or not an electron is a wave or particle is dependent upon the view you are taking and the causal sequence that lead to that particular observation. The observer is part of the very universe that the physicist is describing and part of the causal sequence that manifests as the effect in the mind.

The realist argument is that those numbers and symbols are about something which exists independent of us. — Marchesk

Right. So is math the numbers and symbols, or the thing the the numbers and symbols are about, or the relationship between the numbers and symbols and what they are about?

For us to do the math. Does that mean prime numbers only came to exist when mathematical language was created? I'm not so sure about that. — Marchesk

Are you asking if the actual scribble, 19, came to exist when mathematical language was created or what it represents came to exist when mathematical language came to exist? What is the scribble, 19? What does it represent? Is not, "prime number" a word in a language?

don't know what a fundamental particle is. I do know that its properties are described mathematically. Tegmark's point is that all physical properties are mathematical. I don't know whether that just means we have to understand them that way, or that there is real mathematical structure.

The challenge to the anti-realist here is to come up with a way of describing electrons that doesn't use math but is still faithful to the experimental results and predictions. — Marchesk

To describe something is to use symbols to represent that thing. Does it really matter if we use math, English or Spanish? Claiming that all physical properties are mathematical is akin to claiming that physical properties is information, or that physical properties are measurable. Math makes use of measurements. That's what the numbers represent. Being that languge precedes math, therefore is more fundamental than math, then isn't it more accurate to just say that physical properties be represented using symbols?