Real Gone Cat

I have been giving this some thought. Our debate has nothing to do with the word "is", it's with the word "plus". I realized I have no idea what you m...

From the blurb you provided and What are "directly intuited realities"? Could it include pebble counting? Apparently, abstraction is the devil's work ...

Husserl and Klein want to take math back to pebble counting. And you have apparently joined in. Good for you. I'm not an intuitionist and have no inte...

So you want to take math back to pebble counting. Okay, let's try a thought experiment. If you hold a donut and someone hands you another donut, do yo...

You have stated, over and over, that "2+2 is 4" and "3+1 is 4". Without qualifying the "is". Go back and check. Now it's some great revelation that 2+...

If 2+2 is not 3+1 simply because they represent different partitions of 4, then 2+2 is not 4 either. If 2+2 is 4 because they have the same numeric va...

As a mathematician, I have to know : why do you think that saying “two plus two is four” will lead to confusion? How might one misconstrue “is”? There...

Wow. I encounter so many people on TPF who do not know basic math, it's striking. By your logic, if you kept all 4 donuts, that would be different fro...

You are aware that 2+2 = 3+1 ? Agreed that "2+2" is not the same thing as "4" - one requires three keystrokes, and the other just one. So if "is" mean...

Wait. I think I've got it now. You're thinking of "4" as the name of a set whose elements include "3+1", "2+2", etc. So a better sentence would be, "3...

So you've changed the meaning of "is" within a single sentence. Clearly 3+1 does not look like 2+2, but neither does it look like 4. To say "3+1 is 4"...

No. It's still a category error. "Two plus two is four" clearly implies numbers. "Two" and "two centimeters" are not the same. Adding units (cm, mm) c...

Explain yourself. Do you have some special mathematical definition of "is"? Why introduce this non sequitur? "2 + 2" has nothing to do with "two centi...

Some suggestions : A) non sequitur B) deflection C) being a member of the Republican party

:up: Thanks Had an exchange with Pie about this. As you are obviously aware, Euler was one of the greatest minds mathematics has ever known, but infin...

:up: re the math symbols. What surprises me is that Euler was so far ahead of his contemporaries in most areas, but seemed to have weird blind-spots f...

Found a reference citing the sequence as n -> infinity, with the claim that it eventually becomes negative. (don't know how to code math symbols, and ...

Can I ask you where you got this from? I know Euler played fast and loose with infinite series, but I can only find this bit about negative numbers me...

Sorry, I'm done. A basic math course might help. Then again, it might not.

I suppose it's a good thing that folks see math as "poetry" and such. But negative numbers? Really? Did you just discover them last week? Cognitive sc...

You may want to try a better example. ALL living things consist of cells. But how many varies from beastie to beastie. Some consist of one cell, some ...

What "intuition" are you looking for? And what is this "flipping" interpretation you seem to see? You keep providing perfectly fine interpretations of...

Maybe this helps : You admit -50 = 50 -100 Rewriting (using only multiplication of positive quantities), 50 - 100 = (1)(50) - (2)(50) By the distribut...

Friend, my admonition to you is the same as that for TDIF : when you see certain names pop up on math topics, run the other way. Otherwise, you're was...

<sigh> Time for a math lesson Given relation R and elements a, b, and c, we may define many properties, but there are 3 of interest, Reflexive Propert...

Friend, I think it's time to back away. You're debating with circle-squarers. It's like attending a flat-earthers' convention and joining a debate on ...

Pollyanna! Get with the times, man. The kids know there's no point to it all. They're joy-riding hotrods and smoking filterless cigarettes.

Re the OP : Once a month, I try to leave my mom's basement and meet people.

Been out all day - it's my son's (real world) graduation. Solipsism is not refuted by your undefended claim that there are multiple minds. There are t...

It seems that mental phenomena belong to minds. If not my mind, then a Hive Mind. If p comes into existence at the moment of being experienced, it is ...

Ah, the Hive Mind. The former is called solipsism. The latter is a form of materialism that just calls matter by another name.

So we're all Borg. Got it.

Your example falls flat. Of course the future is unknowable. But that is the case for both the realist and the idealist. The question is, does p exist...

When you observe another human being - call it their "brain activity" or behavior - what do you think is going on? Your notion seems to verge on solip...

Along those same lines, someone on TPF once raised the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment with reference to the half dead cat. I wryly asked if the ...

Oh, I didn't know Relativity was used to support idealism. My bad. I know anti-realists like to trot out QM as support, without really understanding i...

I'm sorry, still lost. What's the difference between "resolution" and "proof" in this case?

But not Relativity. It's effects are NOT dependent on the mind of the observer. Differences in observations are due to the position and speed of the o...

Not sure what you mean. What was the original error?

Which part? "Theory" or "relativity"? Before answering, you might want to check what each means.

Um, Einstein predicted it based on science. Confirming observations were made after the predictions.

If I may jump in, the differences in observations are a product of how reality works, not some property of the observers. It is a priori mind.

This may be a first for TPF - your admonition has me rethinking my position. I believe where there is an active healthy human brain there is a human m...

This somewhat echoes my earlier suggestion that what motivates idealists is a god complex. Idealism gives the illusion of control and purpose. It take...

You're right, numbers are real. But not for the reason you think. Numbers are not free-floating entities that minds find and interact with. Numbers ar...

Saw this after my post. I think it's important to note that the particular synapse pattern associated with "3" that accompanies the 3 apples I see tod...

A lot of folks are questioning your ideas, so I've been reluctant to pile on. But there's something I wish to explore. Let us consider an example. Whe...

But solipsism can never be proved false. The sentience of others would prove it false, so the sentience of others can never be proved true. Yet we mus...

The universe is stochastic. Determinism is a probability of 0 or 100. Every other probability allows for free will. How does that grab ya?

I'm interested in what motivates idealism. Berkely hoped to prove the existence of God via idealism. I think the contemporary idealist wants to prove ...