Wayfarer

New experimental findings cast doubt on DeBroglie ‘pilot wave’ theory

New Yorker.

Oh, the difference between life and non-life. Is that all? Why didn’t you say so? :roll:

Only, why did you ask the question in the first place. :sad:

Rocks are insentient.

I think one of the foundational process traditions is Buddhism. Buddhists differentiate themselves from the Brahmins, because the latter taught that t...

I noticed amongst Trumps customary lies, confabulations and self-pitying remarks in his Sixty Minutes interview, the casual accusation that the scient...

:up:

I think the title of this thread is unfortunate, but wanted to make a comment on the story at its centre. This morning's news is that Trump has deploy...

Phew. Natural selection saves the day, again.

I don't deny that the ability to do maths evolved, but does that mean you can justify mathematical proofs with reference to biology? I mean, how do yo...

In that phrase Rovelli is explicitly arguing on the basis of biological evolution - that mathematics is specific to 'creatures like us'. He is saying,...

It's not weird. I don't think the Western tradition of philosophy, and science, for that matter, is basically materialist in orientation. My view is t...

Machinery is a metaphor here. Surely the point about the axioms of arithmetic etc is that they're true for no further reason, they are apodictic, not ...

‘Exist’ - that is the whole issue here. Again - does the number seven exist? If you point to a symbol, then, sure, that exists. But the number itself ...

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I think one thing that your analysis is missing is the understanding of what actually constitutes knowledge in Plato's philosophy. As is often said, P...

I read the Rovelli paper, and also the book that I mentioned. Rovelli's concluding paragraph in the paper is as follows: I am question that the idea t...

Concerning the question of the sense in which numbers can be considered real. On a recent overseas trip, I picked up a copy of a new book on the recen...

Pardon me for barging in. The point is, there are more than correlations between mathematics and nature; as Galileo said, and surely this is a Platoni...

My understanding exactly. And this same reasoning applies to all manner of transcendentals such as universals - they are also 'real but not existent'....

Platonism - and Aristotle - both assume an hierarchy, but it's from a top-down, not bottom up, perspective. 'The Platonic view of the world – the key ...

That would naturally flow from representative realism, in that there is a tacit assumption that the mind 'mirrors' or 'represents' the world, which ul...

Well you have to make allowances for the reading age of the audience, who are, after all, only ‘apes on a rock’.

Doesn't the fact that basic mathematical truths are the same for anyone who can count demonstrate that they're independent of particular thinkers? Wha...

Indeed - that's the point. And you're right in saying they're not 'perceived' in a literal sense, but are 'grasped by reason' - seen by the mind's eye...

In any case, the sense in which Platonism says that numbers (etc) are independent of particular minds, is simply based on the observation that they ar...

Plato has Socrates ask if there are forms of mud, hair and dirt.

It's not difficult to explain, although it might be difficult to accept, or to understand. From Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics. There's an...

I can't help but wonder how much of the motivation is driven by this: As Raphael Demos notes in Plato: Selections: which is a familiar sentiment aroun...

That's a pretty accurate paraphrase but as I said, this is not peculiar to you. As the original analogy suggests, it is the common lot of mankind (mys...

It is nevertheless the case that physics nowadays comprises mainly mathematical models - e.g. ‘the standard model’ - and they surely do. Which is not ...

I think the existence of atoms is questionable, in the sense of them being anything like the fundamental constituents of things. And I'm in pretty goo...

Right - but I'm not saying it is simply ‘dreamed up’ by us; it is not simply 'in the mind' but always has an irredeemably subjective pole or aspect - ...

But to look at them *is* to treat them as objects of analysis. And we do that so instinctively that we don't quite see that this is what we are doing....

Look at your point one. It is comparing ‘objects’ and ‘agents’. So, you’re trying to argue on the basis of differentiating ‘the object’ on the one sid...

And the contrast is actually between the existence of phenomena and the existence of numbers, laws, and so on. So phenomena, generally speaking, are c...

I do! I think people overlook this all the time. But this doesn't allow for the fact that we can discover genuinely new and previously-unknown things ...

Exactly the kind of point I’m trying to make. Many things - using the word 'things' a bit loosely - such as numbers, grammatical rules, and so on, are...

The 'reification of not-believing' is a bit of an awkward phrase, but it's definitely on target. It manifests in secular culture as rejection of ideas...

Thanks for the interesting review. I read a long excerpt from that book when enrolled in Buddhist Studies, but it's not in the university library so h...

But what if it only appears absurd, because philosophers have lost the ability to make sense of it. And that goes right back to the debates between re...

I just something off about the conception of 'multiplicity of minds'. Compare it to water - there are many bodies of water, and different forms of wat...

The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Etienne Gilson Philosophy as a way of life, Pierre Hadot Central Philosophy of Buddhism, T R V Murti (although ...

Certainly not. The whole point of the example of number, is that numbers are indeed the same for any mind capable of counting. That is why quantificat...

In any case, ‘mind’ is kind of a collective noun; when we say ‘the mind’ we’re assuming were saying something that is applicable to all minds, the ‘la...

If I ask you for two bananas, do I know what to expect?

‘Real but immaterial’ suits me. There are ornate arguments deployed against the reality of number, because if it is true that they’re real but incorpo...

Although it seems obvious to say, "Truth is correspondence of thought (belief, proposition) to what is actually the case", such an assertion neverthel...