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What makes circles more special than a bunch of crumbs? Humans decided circles are interesting. I am not denying analytical philosophy doesnt make true stateme
by resource_waste 1y ago
What makes circles more special than a bunch of crumbs? Humans decided circles are interesting.
I am not denying analytical philosophy doesnt make true statements, but rather that there isnt anything mystical about these true statements. They are constructs of human language. There was no God that typed pi=3.14, but rather humans made 2pir = c true by developing a linguistical logic system where we have radius = 1 and c= 6.28.
- tanderson92 1y agoThis isn't true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoperimetric_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoperimetric_inequality
- resource_waste 1y agoI'm not sure what point you are making. This is language too.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoMy argument is that ALL civilizations will discover circles. They aren’t human arbitrary. They are discoverable mathematical forms.
- resource_waste 1y agoDiscover? You mean name circles and claim that 2pir = c? Do you think there is something special about 2*111 = 222? Humans had to define every step from length of a line to the significance of roundness. Its all language.
- cwmoore 1y agoAs for your last sentence, compare semantics and semiotics. They are not the same thing. As for the others, consider "mathematics invention vs. discovery". There certainly is something special about doubling and halving quantities. See "meiosis".
- resource_waste 1y agoYou are referring to 'Kinds'. Humans classified all of these, and you are merely repeating the classification.
- cwmoore 1y agoNo? Lol? Accurate username?
- 1718627440 1y agoWe don't care about circles, because they are called "circles". The universe is a 4D-system (at least). Objects have boundaries (i.e. not everything is endless). Some dimensions can be degenerated. Combining this results in 2D-shapes. When you have an attracting force tangential to the boundary and another force repelling in an arbitrary direction, voila you have a circle. When you have an event. And the propagation speed doesn't change. Degrading to 2D, you get a circle. Say you have mass, which is relatively unaffected by anything else, you also have gravity and a random little force in some arbitrary direction, this will result in an effect, which we call rotation. Given enough time, this will evolve into a circle. Given you have already rotation, then you're looking for the form with which rotation becomes the identity function, voila you have again a circle. None of those involves humans existing and caring about roundness. They are all properties of the universe.
- resource_waste 1y agoWhat about the area that isnt part of the circle, is that a property of the universe? What about when I drop crumbs on a table and they scatter, is there something special about their location? Is there something more special about a circle than a triangle? Or a square? And when you say its a property of the universe... what shape is that property? What color is it? If I give you a microscope, can you point me to the property? If it the same kind of property as gravity? Is it the same kind of property as when I say 'Capitalism is the most efficient economic system'? Anyway, this is a question of ontology. You have an almost religious view of mathematical existances, but so do most non-philosophers. Plato corrupted us. For further reading, Ontology is the greater branch, but William James's Pragmatism is only a 2.5 hour audiobook and basically caused the divide between your traditional Ontology, and analytical philosophy.
- 1718627440 1y ago(As a preface, I like the discussion. I've known about moral relativism, but I've never heard the positions you are defending here.) > What about the area that isn't part of the circle, is that a property of the universe? Yeah a circle as an abstract concept about the shape of a boundary. The outer area is as much defining the circle as the inner. > What about when I drop crumbs on a table and they scatter, is there something special about their location? Yes, if you compare them to the original location, you maybe get some information about the speed, or about the size of gravitational force or the material of the table or the material of the crumbs. > what shape is that property? What color is it? I don't get that part, why should it be? > If I give you a microscope, can you point me to the property? If you give me an electron microscope I can show you the "shape" of an atom. A single atom is also a property of the universe, but that is not the kind of property we are talking about. But it is strange that they all look alike, isn't it? And that the shape is somehow similar to what the behaviour of the universe is, if you breath into soap water. That's what a circle is. It is a property about the universe. It exists also in the universe, but it is not a single thing. > You have an almost religious view What makes that religious? It seams like you conclude from the fact that there are a lot of (not sure if infinite) properties of the universe, that none is really important? I don't agree with that. Also some properties are more truthy than others, not because they are somehow better or anything, but because you can infer all the others from them, because others are rehashes and combinations of them.
- dr_dshiv 1y agoCircles are easier to mathematically encode than crumbs, which are super complex. Ease of encoding will be relevant to any living information processors. You are speaking like you are afraid that there are real fundamental structures in the cosmos. And, that this has religious implications.