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aletheist

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Mathematics does not need philosophy, since pure mathematics is the science of drawing necessary conclusions about strictly hypothetical states of aff...
March 18, 2017 at 03:09
The existence of evil is insufficient to disprove the reality of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. However, by itself, this does not ...
March 16, 2017 at 19:19
I must confess that I am not very familiar with Kant or that particular terminological distinction. Peirce, on the other hand, was very familiar with ...
March 15, 2017 at 22:13
Rather than a deductive conclusion, Peirce's take was that the initial recognition of one's own existence as a subject of experience is a retroductive...
March 15, 2017 at 20:25
March 10, 2017 at 14:19
I am only talking about mathematics in this thread, not ontology; maybe you should start your own thread on "Continuity and Ontology." I am only talki...
March 05, 2017 at 13:49
That would be news to mathematicians. Not at the same time and in the same respect, hence no contradiction. It is not possible to divide it and still ...
March 04, 2017 at 23:47
The first four questions that I posed in the OP were as follows. Is contemporary mathematics inherently discrete, such that it is incapable of accurat...
March 04, 2017 at 20:16
I still suspect that this right here is what you are perceiving as contradictory, perhaps because you are locked into the standard rules of classical ...
March 04, 2017 at 17:31
As I have repeatedly made clear, I am discussing mathematics here, which has to do with ideal states of affairs; I am not saying anything whatsoever a...
March 04, 2017 at 16:47
That which cannot be divided at all is an individual, not a continuum - e.g., a point rather than a line. There has to be a way to distinguish these t...
March 03, 2017 at 21:47
Not really. To say that a continuum has no definite parts just means that it does not have any distinct, discrete, or indivisible parts. With this qua...
March 03, 2017 at 16:53
The "original ship of Theseus" is the one made up of the original planks. The "current ship of Theseus" is the one that has had all of its planks repl...
March 03, 2017 at 15:59
In reviewing Fernando Zalamea's paper, "Peirce's Continuum: A Methodological and Mathematical Approach," I came across his explanation of what we have...
March 03, 2017 at 03:27
Ah, thanks for the clarification; maybe we are on the same page after all. By "in-finite," do you mean indefinite, or something else?
March 03, 2017 at 01:30
No, consisting of members - no matter how many of them there are - means being discrete, not continuous. There are infinitely many natural numbers, in...
March 03, 2017 at 01:13
Your failure to understand it does not render it incoherent. I understand it, I just seem to be unable (so far) to explain it in a way that you will a...
March 03, 2017 at 01:09
Apparently not, given your subsequent comments. He understood all of that extremely well. His point was that consisting of members - whether finite or...
March 03, 2017 at 01:02
A true continuum is not a set or collection at all; it does not consist of discrete members. Who is Pierce? If you mean Peirce, it is clear from your ...
March 02, 2017 at 23:38
If and when you ever come to understand this, you will then finally understand what Peirce and I mean by a true continuum. You are now equivocating on...
March 02, 2017 at 23:34
As stated in the OP and several times since then, the real number line is not a true continuum as defined by Peirce, nor is anything else that consist...
March 02, 2017 at 23:09
Remember, I pointed out that this is false, because the concept of separate/broken/discontinuous is not necessary to the concept of parts. In any case...
March 02, 2017 at 22:57
As I said before, I am on board with doing what we can, but it will require reaching widespread consensus on both the problem and the solutions.
March 02, 2017 at 21:37
Of course not, but it is another matter to claim that this is the only or primary reason why we are seeing detrimental changes to the global climate. ...
March 02, 2017 at 21:25
This is a very important point. Identity is only possible within a context, where we can distinguish one "thing" from all of the other "things" that a...
March 02, 2017 at 20:01
Why are you so adamant about imposing your terminology on any discussion here? I was just trying to improve clarity by distinguishing "continuity" as ...
March 02, 2017 at 19:30
I think one reason for the shift in terminology from "global warming" to "climate change" is that the latter is less controversial; of course the clim...
March 02, 2017 at 18:03
Just to add another option to the table, Peirce's version of objective idealism understands mind as living and active, and matter as "effete mind, inv...
March 02, 2017 at 16:49
This "paradox" simply illustrates how identity is not an intrinsic aspect of macro-scale objects; it is something that we assign to them in accordance...
March 02, 2017 at 16:31
First of all, you keep referring to "a continuity" as if it were a thing. Continuity is a property, not a thing; a continuum is a thing that has the p...
March 02, 2017 at 15:55
My mistake, I did not follow the link to check your source; everything that you wrote right before the quote implied that it was directly from Peirce ...
March 02, 2017 at 03:07
Are you now taking up the argument that MU always insists on making? Pure mathematics has nothing to do with what is actual, physical, or computable. ...
March 01, 2017 at 22:47
That is fine, I was just playing around with another angle. I like how you stated this. I finally found where Peirce did make a trichotomy with vaguen...
March 01, 2017 at 22:35
There is no first real number after 0 with the standard order; there is an uncountable infinity of real numbers between 0 and any arbitrarily small bu...
March 01, 2017 at 21:07
Please just make your point, if you have one. The real numbers constitute an analytic continuum, not a true continuum as defined by Peirce (and others...
March 01, 2017 at 20:36
Right, there are no "missing" numbers; but that still means that the set of real numbers consists of individual numbers. A true continuum does not con...
March 01, 2017 at 16:25
Another thought. Vagueness: ¬(?x)(Px ? ¬Px) does not entail ¬ Generality: (?x)(Px ? ¬Px) does not entail (?x)(Px) ? (?x)(¬Px) Contingency: (?x)(Px ? ¬...
March 01, 2017 at 15:25
Numbers are intrinsically discrete; and it is not a matter of whether this discrete thing adequately represents the real numbers, but whether it adequ...
March 01, 2017 at 14:57
Kudos for quoting Peirce, but I still think that you do not properly understand him. That would be the same Book VI of Aristotle's Physics that I quot...
March 01, 2017 at 14:53
It took me a while, but I finally figured out Zalamea's notation, and thus his point about "failures of distribution": the concepts of vagueness and g...
March 01, 2017 at 04:07
Even while driving? Seems dangerous. :D I am not looking for a pat on the back; just saying that I am not blithely neglecting the kinds of concerns be...
March 01, 2017 at 03:08
I worry about anything that is characterized as "unquestionable," especially in the realm of public policy. But I also drive a hybrid vehicle, and bel...
March 01, 2017 at 00:48
Developments such as category theory, nonstandard analysis, and synthetic differential geometry or smooth infinitesimal analysis reflect dissatisfacti...
February 28, 2017 at 23:32
This is really the only point that I wanted to make. We do not (yet) know the global effects of widespread implementation of various "alternative" ene...
February 28, 2017 at 23:15
The point is that "clean" and "renewable" are buzzwords implying that anything that avoids burning fossil fuels is inherently and unquestionably less ...
February 28, 2017 at 23:13
If that were true, then you would not be arguing with me, because it is simply a fact that - going back at least to Aristotle - "continuous" means bei...
February 28, 2017 at 23:05
This brings up a question that I have long had about allegedly "clean" or "renewable" energy sources. There is no free lunch, so we are always redirec...
February 28, 2017 at 22:22
Thanks for the link. I knew that you did not invent it; you are just the one who introduced it to this thread. MU wrongly attributed it directly to Pe...
February 28, 2017 at 21:47
The continuum was not discovered via set theory, it was (and still is) modeled using set theory. Real numbers merely constitute an analytic continuum;...
February 28, 2017 at 21:40
As I keep telling you, mathematics does not rely totally on manipulation of the discrete; or at least, mathematics need not rely totally on manipulati...
February 28, 2017 at 20:48