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You are saying two things: what we call objects (perhaps, except for "atoms") did not exist - in a meaningful sense of the word - until humans appeared and foun

You are saying two things: what we call objects (perhaps, except for "atoms") did not exist - in a meaningful sense of the word - until humans appeared and found it convenient to perceive them; and the nature admits no actual boundaries between objects (which is why these objects do not, in fact, exist), rather itself being kind of a soup of atoms. There are terms for these philosophical delusions, one being (a mild form of) idealism, the other, reductionism. They are indeed delusions, because neither is useful or can be proven in any logical or scientific way. Why, for example, not take you reductionism a step further and say that atoms, elementary particles, etc. do not exist, either? You are left, then, with a rather featureless, uniform "matter" (you could call a "matter field" or something). Your philosophy ends there, as there is nothing else left to talk about; my point, on the other hand, has been that the objective reality is much more complex than that; that, in particular, there are emergent phenomena - which are no less real than what they came from; even the very convenience and practical usefulness of perceiving things the way humans do is, in fact, dictated to us by something that is outside our control. I call that something "objective reality."

danbruc 3y ago
I completely agree, talking about the macroscopic [1] universe as one thing is at least complicated and unwieldy and maybe even severely limiting. But that does not actually matter, it must be outright wrong to do so. If I can talk about the universe without splitting it up and counting things, than that undermines your position that the numbers are inherent in nature. And I agree with you that it is much easier to think about the world split up into many countable objects, but that does not make the idea of numbers inherent in nature. Maybe they are inherent in the human brain, maybe they are a complete invention, I do not really care for the sake of this discussion. Or maybe that is what you actually meant all the time, inherent in human perception and thinking, whereas I really mean inherent in the universe, predating humans. With regard to the delusions I can only say think again. A non-wobbly stool for a human to sit on or a five-finger glove to keep a human hand warm, those things can not possibly have existed before humans. There might in principle have been a collection of atoms in the shape of such a stool or glove before humans, but they would not have been a stool or a glove. Objects as we humans use them are more than the sum of their atoms, they also capture things like intentions, usages and even their history. A tree trunk can just be a tree trunk or it can be a bench to sit on. An atom by atom copy of the Eiffel Tower is not the Eiffel Tower build by Gustave Eiffel. The human notion of an object is in general very rich, often fuzzy and inseparable [2] from the human mind. I have no real objection to the claim that they are for all practical purposes part of nature to humans, those concepts could be hard wired into the human brain and that seems even very likely to me. So if we are limiting the discussion to the universe as perceived by humans, maybe there are numbers or at least precursors to them in our minds, encoded in the connections of our neurons controlled by our DNA. But if we step back further, if we try to look at the universe independent of the way it is perceived by us, there I do not think you said anything so far that convinces me that numbers are already exist there. [1] As before I want to avoid also having to deal with elementary particles and given the examples we have discussed so far sticking to the macroscopic world does not seem to be a limitation. [2] Inseparable is not the proper word here but for brevity I will gloss over that until it becomes relevant.

danbruc 3y ago

I completely agree, talking about the macroscopic [1] universe as one thing is at least complicated and unwieldy and maybe even severely limiting. But that does not actually matter, it must be outright wrong to do so. If I can talk about the universe without splitting it up and counting things, than that undermines your position that the numbers are inherent in nature. And I agree with you that it is much easier to think about the world split up into many countable objects, but that does not make the idea of numbers inherent in nature. Maybe they are inherent in the human brain, maybe they are a complete invention, I do not really care for the sake of this discussion. Or maybe that is what you actually meant all the time, inherent in human perception and thinking, whereas I really mean inherent in the universe, predating humans. With regard to the delusions I can only say think again. A non-wobbly stool for a human to sit on or a five-finger glove to keep a human hand warm, those things can not possibly have existed before humans. There might in principle have been a collection of atoms in the shape of such a stool or glove before humans, but they would not have been a stool or a glove. Objects as we humans use them are more than the sum of their atoms, they also capture things like intentions, usages and even their history. A tree trunk can just be a tree trunk or it can be a bench to sit on. An atom by atom copy of the Eiffel Tower is not the Eiffel Tower build by Gustave Eiffel. The human notion of an object is in general very rich, often fuzzy and inseparable [2] from the human mind. I have no real objection to the claim that they are for all practical purposes part of nature to humans, those concepts could be hard wired into the human brain and that seems even very likely to me. So if we are limiting the discussion to the universe as perceived by humans, maybe there are numbers or at least precursors to them in our minds, encoded in the connections of our neurons controlled by our DNA. But if we step back further, if we try to look at the universe independent of the way it is perceived by us, there I do not think you said anything so far that convinces me that numbers are already exist there. [1] As before I want to avoid also having to deal with elementary particles and given the examples we have discussed so far sticking to the macroscopic world does not seem to be a limitation. [2] Inseparable is not the proper word here but for brevity I will gloss over that until it becomes relevant.