norm

This is one of the weird thing about pure math (including computability theory.) We are OK with proving or assuming the existence of a number logicall...

That's been the case in my experience too. For applications, though, the dual numbers are actually important today. Some of the autodifferentiation po...

I can understand your hesitation. As long as one demands a 1-to-1 map between individual mathematical inventions and metaphysical correlates, it's har...

I don't like obscurantism either, but I've seen great thinkers called obscurantists because they are difficult, perceived as political foes, or becaus...

IMV, it's an illusion/assumption that important things can be said clearly. Yes, you can tell me that the dishes are done. That's pretty clear. But ta...

Thanks for the reply. I remain skeptical about any of us knowing these things full well. Personally I attribute that the deceptiveness of familiarity,...

All this 'obscurantism' and 'nihilism' stuff reminds me frankly of conspiracy theory. Am I a cultural marxist too? We all do it to some degree. It's.....

Excellent quote! Yes! And yet it's hard to get people immersed in the game to see how strange it is. Conventions of an obsolete genre are taken for gr...

I'm suggesting that within that pursuit we come to question the intelligibility of the project itself. When we start, we think we are playing cosmic c...

Thanks. He's cranks out all sorts of goodies. He'll put a grim smile on your face. In the most recent translation I've seen (Tancock) the quote is: If...

The bad way is catching yourself blaming or despising someone (maybe an annoying stranger) and remembering how one did that stuff when young or still ...

The good way works in both directions. I read lots of old books and sometimes a line captures my reality so well on such an important point that I exp...

Yes. In good and bad ways.

... Maybe it means that the part of us that understands the sayings is the universal part that we all have in common. The flame leaps from candle to c...

Yes. Start with that and the familiar world which doesn't even have to reduce to mind or matter or anything else. Why take such a project for granted?...

:up: emph added

This is great quote, but an issue occurs to me. Hume refers to 'he' in the ordinary language way, as a unity, a person. He also uses 'I' in the normal...

That we can't be wrong about it is a warning sign, not a feature. Is whether mind exists an empirical question? It's obvious because of the way we use...

There is a difference between silence and an explicit refusal to answer. I agree. But let's also consider why 'no comment' might be used. If someone c...

If you look at the definition of a limit, it's actually timeless. For all epsilon > 0 , there exists a delta > 0 such that ETC. So there is a leap fro...

I like this string. It's maybe how we first think of the line. This idea would require a radical change in the foundations, sounds like even set theor...

Yes, and I can relate to theimpatience of someone who wants to talk about something now. Chances are that this thread will inspire some serious readin...

That's a well made video. FWIW, I do like the continua-based approach. Have you looked into smooth infinitesimal analysis ? It seems similar. One issu...

:up: Yeah, and there's maybe insufficiently critical use in general of 'physical' and 'mental.' The tendency is perhaps to talk about talk when one th...

To me it's less wrong (but not quite right) to say that we know that there is language. Just because we have the words 'I' and 'mind' don't mean that ...

:up:

Just some input: for me the fear is deterioration of character and mind. I can accept getting frailer and weaker within limits. I've seen people paral...

For me it's complicated. If life had a meaning, it wouldn't be worth living. It's the abyss that makes things rich. I do value a background sense that...

Morbid brothers of the void! I like that Viking stuff where you float away on the ice. Dying alone is beautiful, I say! And I mean it. It's so deeply ...

I was joking! Though I did read Hubbard's crazy sci-fi as a teen. 'The true religion is no religion.' That sums up my actual position. (It's an overst...

Yes, I know. But what you are missing is the metaphor. 'Trust me guys, if you just do then you'll see how right I am!' It's like asking a stranger to ...

'Nihilist' is another one of those words. I don't have high hopes for you understanding me, but it's the shallowness of all these cartoon words that I...

Excellent point. And this reminds me of friends who could not give the party a break, who did not do the 'banal' stuff to keep a woman* or a job (who ...

Excellent description. I think that this can morph into a strange brew of confession-and-accusation. I am this, but I am also not this. I think of our...

I think of Julian Sorel worried about keeping a straight face on his way to the guillotine. How to breed a creature capable of making (and keeping) pr...

Consider though that ellipsis are just shorthand that lazy mathematicians use for one another. In this case, it should be obvious how the sequence pro...

I'll try to find time for it & definitely give some friendly feedback.

I very much agree (creative intuition is why it's beautiful and fun). I also agree with what you said about foundations. We never even covered constru...

I only have a moment just now, but I'll respond to the point above. It seems to me (consider Hume's problem of induction) that humans just are 'irrati...

Well I'd hate to have not read some of the books I've read. I could have done without many other things, but give me the best books. So I agree with y...

That's quite a bouquet! But why choose 'ontology is primary' over 'epistemology is primary'? A case could be made for each. Another case could be made...

Nice! I know someone who really is into that. Cool guy, but I just can't go there with him. For religion I choose....nothing at all. It's free, and I ...

How much is this going to cost me? Do you get a cut for every referral? I'll stick with scientology for now.

Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers?

Well, yes! I'm certainly open to that view. Irrational numbers are fictions, constructions. The Cauchy sequence construction sorta-kinda says that a r...

You're not wrong. I don't think we're crazy. We're just different. I sometimes talk to my wife about it, and she doesn't really like the subject. Mayb...

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm talking about ideas in Wittgenstein, Heidegger,...others. Groundless Grounds is an excellent single book on...

I think you misunderstand where I'm coming from. It's not a denial of mind but a 'denial' of the individual mind, of the single mind. This is a hyberb...

It may be pointless for me to keep trying but: earnest summaries like 'there is no truth' are basically worthless to me. 'Words have no concrete meani...

Here's one example. If you follow the construction of the real numbers in set theory all the way from the construction of the natural numbers, you wit...