5 ms·

Which, along with infinity, does not exist. The ability to produce an infinite series of numbers (by adding another one) does not constitute a proof of existen

by lngnmn 10y ago

Which, along with infinity, does not exist. The ability to produce an infinite series of numbers (by adding another one) does not constitute a proof of existence of anything infinite outside one's mind. Good philosophers, like Leibniz and the Indian tradition, which includes early Buddhists, have postulated this, but popular memes are much stronger. The ability to notice some inherent patterns of natural phenomena, such as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, does yield this ratio to be immortal, or any other inferred constant. Math does not exist outside people's minds (contrary to the popular discourse from the Zen And Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance). Only a few of what we call conservative forces and different forms of what we call energy (or matter if you like) which are different aspects of the same That, to which human categories are inapplicable.

keiferski 10y ago
Once, just once, I would love to open the comments of a philosophy-related HN article and not see a middlebrow dismissal [1] as the top comment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  It's a slight variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect; people have just a little knowledge of some field, and can therefore dismiss entire decade's worth of thought on the matter.
  - lngnmn 10y ago
    What is wrong with dismissing entire decade's worth of superstitions, astrology, alchemy, metaphysics and theology?
- lngnmn 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with philosophy, which was and still is the endeavor to unveil what is - to see things as they are.
justifier 10y ago
Did you click the link or simply start soap boxing? It's a survey, and the link text is a quote of one of the surveyors which I only found by clicking view comments then ctrl-f'ing 'immort' which took me far down the list to find this: Shane Magrath, 48, from Australia, has loved math since grades 9-12 “One day the universe will be a cold black emptiness. However that which is mathematically true will remain vibrantly true even if the universe fades to darkness. When we do mathematics we touch immortality.” You rely too much on proof by assertion to support your ideology > does not constitute a proof of existence of anything infinite outside one's mind. You argue a lack of rigor but refuse to uphold your dismissal to your own projected standards You even claim there are texts to support your position but choose to leave out a link for others to review I am comfortably an opposing opinion to your opinion but one of the things that confuses me about those that share it with you is the 'outside the mind' element Can you elaborate on how mathematical phenomena only exist inside the mind and if so how that proves mathematics fails to exist immortally
sethrin 10y ago
You're correct to say that mathematics is not empirical, but why you think that somehow invalidates it is obscure. Judging by your last paragraph, your position is more informed by mysticism than a knowledge of epistemology. Mathematics may not be "real" but the truths it produces are the product of inarguable logic -- it is because it does not depend on the real world that we can say that mathematics is 'touching immortality'.
- lngnmn 10y ago
  > it is because it does not depend on the real world Nothing does not depend on the real world, to begin with. Especially, products of the mind conditioned by senses and a language.
  - sethrin 10y ago
    Philosphically this is a valid position. Similarly with e.g. nihilism. Practically, there is such thing as an abstract concept, and your attempting to argue otherwise is sophomoric.
danharaj 10y ago
This dismissal seems to implicitly accept Cartesian dualism, maybe? There's not much difference between a human engaging in mathematical reasoning and say, a computer enumerating proofs. Mathematical reasoning is a form of computation. Computation comprises physically realizable processes that are equivalent in a certain way. It is this equivalence between computational (and hence physical) processes which allows us to talk about mathematics as something "outside" of the human mind which itself is only one sort of computational physical process. As far as mathematics is concerned, the human mind isn't privileged. So if mathematics doesn't exist outside of people's minds, it certainly doesn't exist within it either. But then what are we talking about? Computation is a finitary process, but its behavior is informed by infinity. Even if infinity doesn't "exist" in the sense that we could ever observe and comprehend it, we can see its shadow everywhere. > The ability to notice some inherent patterns of natural phenomena, such as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, does yield this ratio to be immortal, or any other inferred constant. I have to disagree. The fact that there are patterns to notice is a deep mystery of the world and prefigures mathematical truth. Things are different in some ways but the same in other ways. Trivial, but fundamental. The fact that we can find mathematics everywhere relies on this fact.
- lngnmn 10y ago
  Math, as the science of patterns, captures some patterns of what is. There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about it. There is some necessary order, which physicists and philosophers are truing to grasp, and the language of choice to describe physics is math. But it is only a systematized and logically structured observations of what is. What is a deep mystery for me, is that life, it seems, does not have the notion of counting at all, at least on the level of cell biology. It is uses "pure functional" molecular structures as "code and data" and message-passing as its "language", but this is quite another topic. This, BTW, is a hint to justify the principle that what cannot exist without an observer does not exist in principle. There is, obviously the notion of a distance, but not necessarily of space. There is notion of a process as a result of applied forces, but not necessarily of duration and time. Time is a derivative. Derivatives does not exist, physical phenomena do.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by lngnmn 10y ago

keiferski 10y ago

Once, just once, I would love to open the comments of a philosophy-related HN article and not see a middlebrow dismissal [1] as the top comment. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
It's a slight variant of the Dunning-Kruger effect; people have just a little knowledge of some field, and can therefore dismiss entire decade's worth of thought on the matter.
- lngnmn 10y ago
  What is wrong with dismissing entire decade's worth of superstitions, astrology, alchemy, metaphysics and theology?
lngnmn 10y ago
This has nothing to do with philosophy, which was and still is the endeavor to unveil what is - to see things as they are.

justifier 10y ago

Did you click the link or simply start soap boxing? It's a survey, and the link text is a quote of one of the surveyors which I only found by clicking view comments then ctrl-f'ing 'immort' which took me far down the list to find this: Shane Magrath, 48, from Australia, has loved math since grades 9-12 “One day the universe will be a cold black emptiness. However that which is mathematically true will remain vibrantly true even if the universe fades to darkness. When we do mathematics we touch immortality.” You rely too much on proof by assertion to support your ideology > does not constitute a proof of existence of anything infinite outside one's mind. You argue a lack of rigor but refuse to uphold your dismissal to your own projected standards You even claim there are texts to support your position but choose to leave out a link for others to review I am comfortably an opposing opinion to your opinion but one of the things that confuses me about those that share it with you is the 'outside the mind' element Can you elaborate on how mathematical phenomena only exist inside the mind and if so how that proves mathematics fails to exist immortally

sethrin 10y ago

You're correct to say that mathematics is not empirical, but why you think that somehow invalidates it is obscure. Judging by your last paragraph, your position is more informed by mysticism than a knowledge of epistemology. Mathematics may not be "real" but the truths it produces are the product of inarguable logic -- it is because it does not depend on the real world that we can say that mathematics is 'touching immortality'.

lngnmn 10y ago
> it is because it does not depend on the real world Nothing does not depend on the real world, to begin with. Especially, products of the mind conditioned by senses and a language.
- sethrin 10y ago
  Philosphically this is a valid position. Similarly with e.g. nihilism. Practically, there is such thing as an abstract concept, and your attempting to argue otherwise is sophomoric.

danharaj 10y ago

This dismissal seems to implicitly accept Cartesian dualism, maybe? There's not much difference between a human engaging in mathematical reasoning and say, a computer enumerating proofs. Mathematical reasoning is a form of computation. Computation comprises physically realizable processes that are equivalent in a certain way. It is this equivalence between computational (and hence physical) processes which allows us to talk about mathematics as something "outside" of the human mind which itself is only one sort of computational physical process. As far as mathematics is concerned, the human mind isn't privileged. So if mathematics doesn't exist outside of people's minds, it certainly doesn't exist within it either. But then what are we talking about? Computation is a finitary process, but its behavior is informed by infinity. Even if infinity doesn't "exist" in the sense that we could ever observe and comprehend it, we can see its shadow everywhere. > The ability to notice some inherent patterns of natural phenomena, such as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, does yield this ratio to be immortal, or any other inferred constant. I have to disagree. The fact that there are patterns to notice is a deep mystery of the world and prefigures mathematical truth. Things are different in some ways but the same in other ways. Trivial, but fundamental. The fact that we can find mathematics everywhere relies on this fact.

lngnmn 10y ago
Math, as the science of patterns, captures some patterns of what is. There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about it. There is some necessary order, which physicists and philosophers are truing to grasp, and the language of choice to describe physics is math. But it is only a systematized and logically structured observations of what is. What is a deep mystery for me, is that life, it seems, does not have the notion of counting at all, at least on the level of cell biology. It is uses "pure functional" molecular structures as "code and data" and message-passing as its "language", but this is quite another topic. This, BTW, is a hint to justify the principle that what cannot exist without an observer does not exist in principle. There is, obviously the notion of a distance, but not necessarily of space. There is notion of a process as a result of applied forces, but not necessarily of duration and time. Time is a derivative. Derivatives does not exist, physical phenomena do.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]