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Abstract quantities, even positive integers, don't exist in reality. Heck, even "objects" don't really exist, because "boundaries between things" don't concrete
by pphysch 5y ago
Abstract quantities, even positive integers, don't exist in reality. Heck, even "objects" don't really exist, because "boundaries between things" don't concretely exist except in our perception and imagination.
If there is any primal, axiomatic concept, it is "object"/"thing". From object you can derive quantity (many objects), from quantity you can derive quality (two objects are different), and so on and so forth.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoYou can reason about the same reality in various different terms, and the choice in terms shapes how you see the world. I don't think it's easy to argue that one concept is the true concept from which all concepts inevitably derive. You can just as easily think of things as parts of a whole as objects in an emptiness. In some languages the name for door is the same as the name for mouth, and a door is a bit like a mouth so it makes sense to relate them. All language is metaphorical like that, except not always as explicitly. When we say a thing is an object, we say that our concept of that thing shares similarities to the concept we have for objects.