A number caused my wife to become angry at me? It seems like I should have a talk with that number, and I should tell it to stop making my wife angry at me. And then I should have a talk with my wife, and I should tell her that I'm talking to the number that made her angry, so that it doesn't make her angry anymore. — Arcane Sandwich
Straw-men.A number caused my anger towards my doctor? It seems like I'm not a very reasonable person myself. I should probably apologize to my doctor. I will tell him that a number caused me to become angry at him. — Arcane Sandwich
Not the point.Doesn't seem like a very good test if I have to calculate something so basic like one plus one. — Arcane Sandwich
Moving the goal posts. You've given a new set of circumstances.What do I think will happen? Given those circumstances in the present moment? I don't know. Maybe I'll get a phone call from my doctor. Maybe my wife interrupts me, because she wants me to buy some fruit. A lot of things could happen in those circumstances. — Arcane Sandwich
Ok. What caused your brain to do that if not the visual of scribbles (numbers and operator symbols) and a goal to pass a test?What caused me to write a scribble? I don't know, I guess my brain is what caused it. — Arcane Sandwich
Straw-men. — Harry Hindu
Not the point. — Harry Hindu
Moving the goal posts. You've given a new set of circumstances. — Harry Hindu
Ok. What caused your brain to do that if not the visual of scribbles (numbers and operator symbols) and a goal to pass a test? — Harry Hindu
You typically want to think beyond the first thought that comes to mind when responding to posts on a philosophy forum. — Harry Hindu
Saying so doesn't make it so. I'm using real-world examples to prove my point that numbers do have causal efficacy. Numbers are ideas and ideas have causal efficacy, as I have shown using many real-world examples - your wife's behavior at the number of oranges you purchased, your behavior caused by the number of pills you took, and a SpaceX Starship on a launch pad blasting off into space. Another example is behavior caused by hallucinations and delusions. What else could explain their behavior except that they are hallucinating - having false ideas.How so? Numbers are not the sort of entities that have causal efficacy. That was my point, irony notwithstanding. — Arcane Sandwich
You're not playing along with better examples.It was a poor example, that's all I'm saying. — Arcane Sandwich
Then what is a number? A requirement of existence is that it has causal efficacy. Is a number the very scribble, "number"? If not, then what does the scribble, "number" refer to? How is it that you are here talking about numbers if numbers have no causal efficacy?But a scribble is not a number. The scribble "2" is a numeral, not a number. — Arcane Sandwich
Saying so doesn't make it so. I'm using real-world examples to prove my point that numbers do have causal efficacy. — Harry Hindu
Numbers are ideas and ideas have causal efficacy — Harry Hindu
What else could explain their behavior except that they are hallucinating - having false ideas. — Harry Hindu
You're not playing along with better examples. — Harry Hindu
Then what is a number? — Harry Hindu
A requirement of existence is that it has causal efficacy. — Harry Hindu
If not, then what does the scribble, "number" refer to? — Harry Hindu
How is it that you are here talking about numbers if numbers have no causal efficacy? — Harry Hindu
Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy. — Arcane Sandwich
Numbers don't exist as fictions, they exist as brain processes — Arcane Sandwich
So, numbers are fictions that don't exist as fictions. — jgill
Does The Maltese Falcon exist as fiction? — jgill
Word games — jgill
"collide" is motion.When matter and anti matter collide they are transformed into pure energy. — EnPassant
They could have divided it by other numbers, and it would have worked fine. Reality is describable with mathematics, but reality is not mathematical. Mathe is a language, which numbers, formulas and equations are its alphabets, words and sentences.It is only possible to do this if reality is intrinsically mathematical. — EnPassant
What about Combinatorics, Group theory, Set theory, Boolean algebra etc.?
The world is exactly the way these disciplines describe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorics — EnPassant
Any example you use proves my point, not yours, as how could you be here in this thread proving the existence of something that you claim has no causal efficacy? What caused you to type out the scribbles, "numbers", "1", "2", etc. if the idea of numbers has no causal efficacy? Do you even understand the mind-body problem?And I'm using real-world counter-examples to prove that they don't. — Arcane Sandwich
Santa Claus is a fiction yet look at all the images of Santa Claus and people dressed like Santa Claus during the holidays. What caused them to dress like that and to create images in Santa's likeness if Santa does not exist?Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy. If you want to say that all fictions are brain processes and that as such, they have causal efficacy, then I would say that you're failing to distinguish numbers as fictions and brain processes as facts. — Arcane Sandwich
Yet physics is based on mathematics. :roll:What else could explain their behaviour? A lot of things. Atoms, for example. Contemporary physics might explain it. You don't need numbers in your ontology to begin with. — Arcane Sandwich
Understanding that mind and body are causally linked helps to get past the mind-body problem.Well, I'm not going to make your case for you, I don't see how an ontology with numbers that have causal efficacy is better than an ontology in which that is not the case. — Arcane Sandwich
What does it mean for something to be useful if it has no causal efficacy?A useful fiction in the Nietzschean sense, which is ultimately a brain process. — Arcane Sandwich
You are contradicting yourself (and in the same post):Numbers don't exist as fictions, they exist as brain processes. — Arcane Sandwich
Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy — Arcane Sandwich
Yet you cannot explain how ideas cause you to behave in certain ways. If I told you a lie (a fiction) to manipulate you into behaving a certain way then the fiction had a causal effect on your behavior.Because other things have the causal efficacy that you're referring to: the cells of my body, the chemicals that I am made from, the subatomic particles that compose me. — Arcane Sandwich
So, numbers are fictions that don't exist as fictions. — jgill
Exactly.
Does The Maltese Falcon exist as fiction? — jgill
No, it does not. Unless, of course, you wish to distinguish conceptual existence from real existence, and to treat each as a different first-order predicate, and to declare that the existential quantifier has no ontological import. That is indeed what Mario Bunge himself does. — Arcane Sandwich
Do you even understand the mind-body problem? — Harry Hindu
What does it mean for something to be useful if it has no causal efficacy?
Numbers don't exist as fictions, they exist as brain processes. — Arcane Sandwich
You are contradicting yourself (and in the same post):
Numbers are fictions, and no fictions have causal efficacy — Arcane Sandwich — Harry Hindu
I have two apples. But I want to eat three — Arcane Sandwich
I have two apples. But I want to eat three. — Arcane Sandwich
Presumably, they will have seeds. All you need, is patience. — Wayfarer
You are being too literal. That mathematics is real does not mean every mathematical object is real. It means that real fundamentals can be understood in mathematical terms. — EnPassant
Look up the definition of "be" and you will see the definition is "exist". :roll:Numbers are fictions, without existing as fictions. — Arcane Sandwich
Look up the definition of "be" and you will see the definition is "exist". :roll: — Harry Hindu
I find it much easier and simpler (Occam's Razor and all that) to simply say that numbers exist as ideas, and to assert that numbers exist as anything other than ideas is a category mistake. — Harry Hindu
The same goes for Santa Claus. Santa is an idea and to assert that Santa is anything more than an idea is making a category mistake. — Harry Hindu
Look up the definition of "be" and you will see the definition is "exist". :roll: — Harry Hindu
Does the Merriam Webster dictionary have the final word in matters of first-order predicate logic and the ontology of fictional entities in general, and of mathematical objects in particular? That sounds like they have the Foundations of Mathematics all figured out then. I wonder why professional mathematicians don't read the Merriam Webster dictionary more often. I will contact them and I will tell them to read it. — Arcane Sandwich
Why do numbers have to count things? Complex numbers define space and geometric concepts. And if they do count things note that complex numbers are used in counting Reimann's zeros in the zeta function. — EnPassant
Are you saying you have the final word on the nature of existence? Are you saying that the matter of the ontology of existence has been settled?Does the Merriam Webster dictionary have the final word in matters of first-order predicate logic and the ontology of fictional entities in general, and of mathematical objects in particular? That sounds like they have the Foundations of Mathematics all figured out then. I wonder why professional mathematicians don't read the Merriam Webster dictionary more often. I will contact them and I will tell them to read it. — Arcane Sandwich
Not every idea is a fiction. Everything is a process. Non-fictional ideas "are just brain processes too". The difference is their relationship with the world, and what kinds of things you can accomplish by implementing them. Do you successfully get your starship to Mars, do you dress up in a way that others successfully recognize you as Santa Claus?But ideas are fictions. They're just brain processes. We pretend that they have some sort of autonomous existence, but they don't. Do the rules of chess exist as ideas, with causal efficacy, in your view? — Arcane Sandwich
But how could real people act like someone that does not exist, or does not have some sort of causal efficacy? How did they come to dress and act like that in the first place?But Santa Claus is a fictional character. He doesn't exist. Real people just pretend to be him, just like a professional actor pretends to be a character. Batman doesn't really exist, he's just a character played by different actors (i.e., Adam West, Christian Bale, etc.) — Arcane Sandwich
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