I’ve met self-proclaimed non-spiritual atheists that uphold this metaphysical worldview but are in practice superstitious and affirm things like “your car was broken into today because you weren’t cordial to person A last week” or, as an example of the flipside, self-proclaimed Christians that adhere to all ritual aspects of their faith and uphold this metaphysical worldview while at the same time in practice being in many a way atheistic (e.g., they fear - and hence innately believe - death to be a cessation of being; or else don’t believe in the occurrence of spiritual realities in the here and now, as contrasted to occurring for biblical figures (e.g., “burning bushes” are OK biblically but not in reality that is lived); etc.) - this to not address the grave hypocrisies in ethical principles relative to Jesus Christ’s teaching that often enough occur (the ontology of values being in many a way metaphysical). — javra

I don't find any of this surprising and I don't think professed worldviews tell us much. I've met many atheists who believe in clairvoyance, astrology and magic. Atheism is just a position on one idea. God or not. People often assume it means Richard Dawkins acolytes.

Materialistic Christians are pretty common too. I grew up in the Baptist tradition in the 1970's We were taught that most of the stories in the Bible were allegories. Most Christians I knew did not believe in ghosts, demons, miracles or anything supernatural. Religion seemed more about community than anything else.

Having worked with people dying in palliative/end of life care, I have noticed how often Christians no longer have faith or any interest in God. Deathbed deconversations seem to be more common than non religious people finding god/s in their pending mortality.

Can you explain this further? What is this "more primordial and fundamental" way of thinking from which mathematical 'qualities' derive? And how does the derivation work? And are "objectivity, correctness , exactitude and effectiveness" "peculiar to mathematical logic"? Why? — Banno

Yes, I'm interested in this too.

It's interesting to note that while some believe pomo can come to a conclusion that 2 + 2 = 5, those with knowledge of the subject here suggest this is a straw-man and a fit up.
— Tom Storm

Here's the context:
The notion of mathematics as objective and eternal is today being replaced, among mathematics educators, by the postmodernist notion of “social constructivism.” According to “social constructivism,” knowledge is subjective, not objective; rather than being found by careful investigation of an actually existing external world, it is “constructed” (i.e., created) by each individual, according to his unique needs and social setting. Absolutism is deliberately replaced by cultural relativism, as if 2 + 2 = 5 were correct as long as one’s personal situation or perspective required it to be correct.
— Arthur T. White — Banno

I did read have a cursory read of Izmirli's piece which you provided. Aside from the historical survey I wasn't quite sure what the piece was saying. I was just pointing out that people's take on postmodernism varies. In this case, White versus @joshs. It seems to me that joshs was making the point that White has it wrong.

It's unclear to me what you are attempting to say other that there are different ways of knowing and that you believe in god because of personal experience. I was talking to a Muslim on Wednesday who put his argument the same way you do, except for him Jesus was a mortal who died and only Allah provides the way to Paradise. How do you measure one person's personal feelings (revelation) against another's, when the revelation grounds utterly different worldviews?

Yes, I was familiar with the Sokal affair.

Pomo was never in high regard among the general population , so there was nothing to recover from. — Joshs

More that this, people seem to resent pomo without taking much trouble to understand it. The subject seems to bring out antipathies the way Communism used to. Notice how Jordan Peterson uses the term 'postmodern Marxists' to rally his troupes and disparage the current era of alleged meaninglessness.

I think it would be better to ask what postmodernism has to say about the sciences in general, not narrowing down to math. What does postmodernism say about logic? What does postmodernism say about philosophy? — ssu

It's maths I'm interested in precisely because maths seems to offer a type of perfection and certainty that science and certainly philosophy do not. My question is niche not general. If postmodernism has a tendency to devalue or critique foundational thinking, how this applies to maths seems more interesting to me than how it applies to science (which is tentative and subject to revision) or philosophy (which might be seen as a swirling chaos of theories and positions).

It's interesting to note that while some believe pomo can come to a conclusion that 2 + 2 = 5, those with knowledge of the subject here suggest this is a straw-man and a fit up.

There is a definite tendencies towards "No True Nietzschean," arguments when someone transvalues values the wrong way, towards the wrong politics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's an amusing line. :up:

More simply put, my position is ↪180 Proof: nature does not "comply" with "physical laws"; rather our best, unfalsified models conform via physical laws (i.e. generalizations of transformations of phenomena) to the observable, objective regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

I was just talking about this to someone at home. Language does us a great disservice when we use terms like 'laws' of logic or 'laws' of nature in as much as for many this word implies a 'lawmaker', so that anthropomorphic theism is built into the language and infects people's thinking.

I dont agree with this split between feeling and thinking. Pleasantness and unpleasantness are not just meaningless bodily sensations that happen to get tied to different experiences via conditioning. They are better understood in terms of enhancement to or interruptions of goal-directed thought. We are sense-making creatures who attempt to anticipate and assimilate strange new events via familiar schemes of meaning. We strive to make the world meaningfully recognizable and relevant to our purposeful activities, and pleasantness-unpleasantness are meanings that express our relative success or failure in making sense of things. Anxiety, guilt, fear and anger result from our finding ourselves in situations that threaten to plunge us into the chaos and confusion of incomprehension. — Joshs

I’ve come to a similar view. This is beautifully explained.

X 2

Jesus of Nazareth did exist. — javi2541997

There's no good evidence of this but I think it is safe to say the myth came to us via one or two messianic preachers of the time. There were many doing the rounds. This plus borrowing miracle stories etc from other places. Even today we can find living gurus and religious figures who do 'miracles' and have exaggerated stories attached to them.



I don't follow or accept any religion and I'm not a believer in gods or goddesses. I've written here before that (aside from enculturation) I think theism is a preference people have, like their sexuality or an aesthetic appreciation, which may be back filled, ad hoc with reasoning. The notion of god has never supported any of my sense making, nor seemed coherent to me. I haven't 'felt' a need for it.

I don't see math as separate from the mapping process in the equation 'math properly mapped=reality.' My equation would be 'a mind mapping=the reality of math.' So the math is more closely tied to the mind's activity, than it is to a reality separate from the mind. — Fire Ologist

Interesting. I once posited here somewhere (perhaps unwisely Kantian) that maybe maths may be part of our cognitive apparatus - like space, perhaps a preconscious organising feature of the human mind, a frame upon which we’re able to understand the physical world.

Same goes for logic. Same goes for language. — Fire Ologist

Many postmodernists seem to challenge the idea that language represents reality. So if language seems to be metaphor - maths appears to be more than this and I come back to it's 'unreasonable effectiveness'. I'm not sure we can really say that language is as effective as a maths equation.

:up:

I wish they were more cunt and less post.

PS - That was a dumb thing of me to write. I was in a tram packed with very loud Swifties. Big concert tonight. I was a bit overwhelmed…

Thanks and Christ! It’s a can of worms…

I'm interested in what I might get from member's responses. As I said at the top, time is limited and I have no education in any of this, so I am just wanting to sift through the various views. My trying to read about maths proper would be like teaching card tricks to a dog.

One way of putting that is to say that some philosophers of mathematics and foundationally inclined mathematicians were becoming postmodern even before postmodernity. (Alternatively, perhaps these concerns are not postmodern at all but are quintessentially modernist) — Jamal

That is definitely an interesting strand which you and the Count have raised.

I'll mull over what's come in so far and see if I need to refine my OP quesion somewhat.

Thanks for the article. Looks interesting. Possibly too technical for me, but I like the thrust of the enquiry.

The idea of 'truth-value realism, which is the view that mathematical statements have objective, non-vacuous truth values independently of the conventions or knowledge of the mathematicians' is I guess what I am am exploring too.

But a mathematician talking about post modernism... that might be interesting. — Banno

A conversation between both would be interesting (and perhaps incomprehensible).

This recognizes the issues at the foundations of math but also fixes "math as math" in itself, as a long-form tautology. From within the tautology of math, there is no room for cultural or historical influence. Or maybe the culture is that of universe, and its history is all time, and the society is the society of minds. Only such influences will produce a math, and because these influences are so simple (universe, mind, all time) that math is so simple and need never change - we've fixed it that way in its own axioms. — Fire Ologist

Nice.

I don't think we ever can or will. Math is sort of how we think, not what we think. Math turns whatever we think, objective. It makes objectivity by being math. It is therefore, non-cultural. It is just human. — Fire Ologist

Ok. I'd like to hear what @joshs might say in response to this. It simultaneously suggests that maths is an intersubjective phenomenon but what is the relationship of the reality we map maths too (or visa versa)?

Challenging mathematics lack of grounding is already a major issue in mathematics. It was the defining historical trend in the field over the 20th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Could be. But no one is claiming PM is entirely original in this.

So, attacking the grounding would be nothing new — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm sure, but no one is saying it is.

whereas attacking the reliability seems extremely difficult if we're not talking about applied mathematics — Count Timothy von Icarus

If this is what they do. But I don't think it is the reliability as such they would unpack, perhaps more the context of that reliability - the world we assume maths seeks to map and explain. But that is my question - what do they argue in this space?

From Joshs earlier response, it seems that Husserl's phenomenology has a framework for exploring the nature of mathematical objects and structures. It examines ways in which mathematical objects are given to consciousness - an investigation of the ontology of mathematical entities. The old quesion: are mathematical objects mind-independent entities, or are they dependent on human consciousness?

And I suspect some postmodernists coming after this might find that the role of consciousness or, perhaps, the human point of view is what gives maths its power. It isn't that maths is discovered but invented. I'm curious how that this might be laid out. I suspect it will be too technical for a layperson.

This makes sense as "mathematical foundations," is simply not something most people care or even know about, and so it's not a good place to "challenge power dynamics," at least not for any sort of social effect. Math classes, however, are an entirely different story. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does your language here suggest that you take post modernism to be a posturing deceit?

There is already a lot of pluralism and "questioning all assumptions," in the foundations of mathematics/philosophy of mathematics, so it's hard to see what a post-modern critique of mathematics would find worth critiquing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not aware of a maths specific critique. Just taking as the starting point anti foundationalism and the notion that all human knowledge is radically contingent. What does this mean for maths and how do post modernist theorists assess it's reliability and, presumably, its lack of grounding?

AFAIK, no one, including any p0m0, has ever pointed out a 'culture' wherein mathematics does not work — 180 Proof

That's the issue right there isn't it. If there are variations in how maths is done, this does not appear to undermine its capacity to produce consistent results every time.

Enumeration represents what Husserl calls a free ideality, the manipulation of symbols without animating them, in an active and actual manner, with the attention and intention of signification.
So rather than a perception of things in the world, counting requires turning away from the meaningful content of things in the world. The world is not made of numbers, the way we construct our perceptual interaction with the world produces the concept of number, and this construction emerged out of cultural needs and purposes , such as the desire to keep track objects of value. — Joshs

That's what I'm looking for. It's not an easy thing to fully understand.

Some argue that the concept of 2 is more fundamental than 1. Theses disputes suggest in a subtle way the cultural basis of concepts of number. — Joshs

Any thoughts on the unreasonable predictability of maths? Does maths allow us to make any assessment of realism?

P.s. In large part posting this in a want to see if any more formally mathematical intellect would find anything to disagree with in what was here expressed. — javra

Great and thoughtful response: I'll mull over it.

I gave you an example and you completely ignored it: please re-read my previous response. — Bob Ross

Do you mean this below?

let me use a perhaps odd example. A calculator would be hypothetically perfect if my purpose for it is to hold up books and it is flawless at fulfilling this task. — Bob Ross

As you say an odd example.

I think this is just a strange way of defining the idea of flawless. You may as well say that perfection is an erect penis flawlessly being used for hanging up a dressing gown.

The calculator is actually perfect if it is in a state of 100% (flawless) self-harmony and self-unity—i.e., all the parts are in agreement and peace with the other parts. The calculator isn’t broken, it doesn’t have parts that oppose other parts in a manner that brings disunity, etc. — Bob Ross

This sounds like what happens when language is used imprecisely.

I can accept that we might use the word perfect to describe a calculator which does its job flawlessly.

I would avoid talk of parts being in agreement and at peace with each other. The calculator is not Krishnamurti.

What benefit does the word prefect bring you here? Does it not just mean 'working as intended'?

I don't think you are quite understanding pragmatic goodness. It is perfection for some purpose. — Bob Ross

I think if it means pragmatic goodness then leave out perfection. The hallmark of 'pragmatic' is it's efficacy in certain situations (which may change with new information and says nothing about whether it is good or true). It's utility. The moment it is called perfection it suggests the goodness is far from pragmatic and constitutes that which cannot be improved upon.

In terms of actual perfection, the clock is perfect (morally good) if it is in self-harmony and self-unity. — Bob Ross

You have parsed perfection into a kind of dualism - that which is not quite perfection (the physical) and that which transcends the human (Greek philosophy's The Good).

I'm assuming you are joking about a clock being morally good, with self-unity, etc.

:up: This is the matter I'd like to hear more about from someone with more specialized understanding of the subject. It's in the realm of social constructivism, perhaps. And I guess it leads to a subsidiary question, does supposed universal language of maths have to be such as it is, or could it have taken a different form and had the same results? And in this identified difference, does this point to maths being more arbitrary than we think?

But its not the most pivotal of issues to me. — javra

Ditto.

Thank you for an interesting conversation. I've appreciated your approach. :up:

But, if so, then – via pi and so forth – so too is all our modern scientific knowledge of quanta nothing more than concoctions of human imagination. — javra

I am not sure my point leads here but I am sympathetic to this regardless. I am a reluctant anti-foundationalist and consider human knowledge to be contingent. With constructivist leanings, I've often thought truth is shared subjectivity.

If I can remember back to the point of the discussion I think I was arguing that I have never seen an physical example of perfection in the real world. Examples we could proffer like Margot Robbie or George Elliot's Middlemarch or Mahler's Second Symphony or Botticelli's; Primavera, whatever, are using the word perfect to say we like them. The notion of perfection in this kind of context becomes a superlative rather than a precise philosophical understanding.

I suspect only maths offers us what we might dub perfect solutions (but I am no mathematician, so I'm happy to be wrong here) where an equation is the most elegant, prefect solution to a given problem. An equation which cannot be any better. This would satisfy my idea of perfection as that which can't be improve upon.

it can then likewise also lead to unicorn based technologies we all live by and universally agree upon. — javra

That I would like to see. Apparently their horns contain magic...

But you are quite right to say that a perfect circle and a unicorn have little in common. A perfect circle is a mathematical abstraction, while a unicorn is a mythical creature. The unicorn relies upon open an open ended imaginative discourse, while the circle's properties are defined mathematically.

By entailment: If a perfect circle is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn, then the number pi is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn. — javra

But I didn't say that a perfect circle is no more real than a unicorn. I said we can't rely upon the mechanism you identified since it can also imagine a unicorn. It's a critique of the epistemology not the putative conclusion per say.

You made this point which I liked:

A perfect circle is realized in this world by all minds which can comprehend it's, granted non-physical, being and, furthermore, all minds with sufficient comprehension will be able to thus realize an understanding of the exact same geometric form. — javra

But it may also lead to unicorns. :wink:

All experience is meaningful, and all meaning is valuative. All valuation is affective. — Joshs

Nice. :up:

I think I agree, but I would add that it is not the expression of anger which is the biggest problem today in our polarized world, but the failure to see the world from the perspective of others such that what appears as malevant intent can be seen instead as the other’s best effort to live ethically based on their vantage. Anger is blame, and blame impugns intent, delegitimizing the other’s motives. Whether we express our anger or not , as long as we cling to blame, we delegitimize the other, as seen in today’s political discourse. — Joshs

A way of thinking we really need to overcome. Any thoughts on that?

A perfect circle is realized in this world by all minds which can comprehend it's, granted non-physical, being and, furthermore, all minds with sufficient comprehension will be able to thus realize an understanding of the exact same geometric form. Such that this understanding is objective. — javra

Nice. I hear you but i don't think this is all that useful a formulation. We can find any number of minds to agree and visualise a unicorn but it still doesn't make it true. In this way we can also have objective accounts of ghosts and UFO too. Not sure what the word objective adds to this understanding.

But its getting a bit late for me. And, again, I've got nothing to sell. So I'll leave it at that for the time being. — javra

No worries. I don't have the right currency, anyway. Have a good one.

My actual point is what evidence do we have and can anyone provide an example in the real world of such a perfect thing? Not an abstraction, not an argument, not a theoretical description: but an actual perfect thing. — Tom Storm

Exactly. Can we demonstrate perfection in any thing?

Abstractions are abstracted from concrete givens, and as far as I know there are no concrete examples of perfect circles. — javra

A perfect circle is still an abstraction even if there is no such thing as one in real life. Abstractions are not always directly derived from concrete examples. They can also emerge from conceptual reasoning, logical deduction, or mathematical principles. But my point doesn't rest on use of the word abstraction. Call it 'theoretical' if that sounds better to you.

are you saying that the (perfect) circles do not occur in the real world, but only in fictitious worlds? — javra

Do we know if a perfect circle can be realised? I call it an abstraction because until it is concrete it is just an idea that represents general qualities or features distinct from specific instances or occurrences.

But even if there were a perfect circle what does this mean for perfect morality? Is it the same use of the word perfect or is this another equivocation?

And by now I've forgotten what Bob Ross was arguing about morality and perfection in the first place. :wink:

I just find you implicit assertion that objectively perfect givens do not occur, — javra

Fair enough. You are entitled to that reaction.

But have I said that objectively perfect things do not occur? I actually don't think this, so if you can find me saying it, I withdraw it.

My actual point is what evidence do we have and can anyone provide an example in the real world of such a perfect thing? Not an abstraction, not an argument, not a theoretical description: but an actual perfect thing.

And I'm not even sure if we came to an agreed working definition of perfection.

I'm not selling anything, you — javra

Surely you know this expression essentially means, 'I do not accept the proposition you are putting to me'. Or are you not, in fact, trying to convince me of something via argument? Anyway, I've already said syllogisms don't do it for me. Let's see what others think.

No. I'm not going for it. But nice try. Someone else may buy it.

Nice work.

But don't we have to ask first, "Is anything objective?" You kind of just asked that, so I think you would agree this question is in the mix here. I mean, if nothing is objective, or we can't know it if it is, than what measuring stick can we hold up to anything to adjudge "No, this one is subjective." And then to ask about a thing like 'perfection' whether it is subjective or not - difficult question. — Fire Ologist

Good point. I guess I would say that instead of ‘objective’ there are intersubjective agreements on matters. These are held by communities which share values and world views. Politics, religion, art and science are examples of such intersubjective communities and yet even here there are schisms.

I thought you were only interested in perfection's application to morality; — javra

Indeed, but you know what it's like here; you enter a conversation and come out the other side covered in the conceptual detritus of ideas others raise in your passing.

objectivity as that state of being which is fully impartial relative to all coexistent sentience (let me know if you have a better but incongruous definition of “objectivity”), — javra

I don't understand that sentence.

p1) There either can occur or cannot occur such a thing as an objectively perfect circle (this in contrast to the subjective perfection of a circle which my five-year old niece has drawn on paper).

p2) If there is no such thing as an objectively perfect circle, then neither can there be such thing as an objectively imperfect circle.

p3) If there is no such thing as an objectively imperfect circle, one can then objectively have a circle which takes the shape of an octagon.

p4) A circle in the shape of an octagon, however, is not a circle when objectively addressed - as is commonly confirmed by all sane humans.

c1) Therefore, there is such a thing as an objectively perfect circle.

c2) Ergo, objectively perfect givens can and do occur. — javra

I'm not a big syllogism guy. Firstly I can never understand them and secondly it seems to me (as my old philosophy tutor used to argue) that one can make a valid argument for anything using a syllogism. But reality will always have its own ideas. I stay away from them.

Let's just take P3

The fallacy here lies in the equivocation on the term "imperfect circle." In the first part of the statement, "imperfect circle" I assume refers to a circle that deviates from the ideal geometric definition of a circle, perhaps in terms of symmetry or roundness. However, in the second part of the statement, "imperfect circle" seems to be interpreted as any shape that is not a perfect circle, including polygons like an octagon.

The fallacy occurs because the two interpretations of "imperfect circle" are not equivalent. A circle that takes the shape of an octagon is not objectively a circle; it's objectively an octagon. An octagon lacks the defining characteristics of a circle, such as being round and having a single continuous curve.

But let's not do syllogisms.

You did give me a chance to use the word 'objectively' so maybe there is progress. :wink:

Sounds good to me. What part of the world are you from?

what is Valentine’s Day? I’ve never had to engage with it. My memory from movies is that you send anonymous cards to people you have a crush on. And I imagine some young couples might go out to dinner and buy presents for each other. Is that it?

I am surprised to see Valentine's day come up here. Apparently it is February 14th. Not that this means anything, but I don't know anyone who has taken any notice of it. I thought it was an old Victorian tradition that mainstream Americans (mainly) seemed to go in for. We've just had Valentine's day and at my work (around 40 staff) the subject never came up and I would think most people would consider it a cheesy mainstream pseudo-event used to sell stuff (presumably trinkets, flowers and dinners?) like the inconsequential Mother's and Fathers Day.

Do we know or can we demonstrate that there was ever a case of nothing?

It strikes me that 'perfection' is a word which we use in various ways - from a mere superlative to an almost transcendental category. Which usage is correct? — Tom Storm

"The word perfect is used in various ways.." This sounds like subjectivity is at play.

"...it just means..." This sounds like objectivity is at play. — Fire Ologist

You're almost there. Keep going....

What would really be interesting is what you mean by "transcendental implications" in general, and then apply it to "perfection". — Fire Ologist

Yes, what a great question! Wouldn't that be interesting? Imagine if there were a Platonic category of perfection - an instantiation of perfection that operates above and beyond any human criteria of value. The way the Platonic realm is said to work. Wouldn't that be something? Do you believe in this category?

Ok. Perfection is identical to flawlessness. There are only two types of perfection: hypothetical and actual perfection. The former is pragmatic goodness; the latter moral goodness. — Bob Ross

What I meant was an actual instantiation of perfection, not more abstractions or discussions of usage. Let's look at something in the world which we can agree upon is an example of perfection.

There is no chief function of a clock.. . — Bob Ross

Well if that's the case then we can't say what perfection in a clock looks like since there will be multiple competing possibilities as I have already described. I've already said that time keeping is but one dimension in those who collect clocks. :wink:

:up:

The word perfect is used in various ways, sometimes it just means ‘great’ or ‘cool’. The more interesting philosophical aspect of this is the transcendental implications of the idea of perfection.

As I said earlier, 'perfect' generally means that which can not be improved upon. I entered this discussion by looking for an example of this understanding of perfection in relation to morality. It is this I am interested in, not its imprecise and multifarious uses in ordinary discourse, poetic or otherwise.