The brain is more than the sum of it's parts. It doesn't know infinity by counting but by a general, more philosophical method — Gregory

What is this "[...]general, more philosophical method"?

And aren't souls finite? — Gregory

Good question! What do you think?

Egregore — Gregory

What's that?

But my point is that consciousness can take numbers and say "they go on forever" without there being an actual infinity in thought — Gregory

Yup, I understand that, but "they go on forever" is a potential infinity, not an actual one (physically uninstantiated). Yet, here we are, contemplating actual infinities; this should be impossible (how can a finite brain hold in it, infinity). That's like a man being able to conceive of menstrual cramps! Impossible, men lack the equipment to do that. It just doesn't add up (for me).

You are the one who says there is no physical infinity. Prove your statement. :roll: — jgill

Well, I haven't found any infinity that's actual. There!

Too, you have it easier. You need to furnish as proof only one infinity that's actual. Kindly do so. Thank you very much.

Consciousness is a 0 that comes from a one. You've never read Sartre? — Gregory

Pray continue...

Consciousness can think of infinity — Gregory

And...

Descartes said that the idea of God requires a soul for it to be understood. You're saying even understanding infinity requires more than matter. — Gregory

:up: Yep, that's about the gist of my argument. That Descartes said something similar is amazing (am I in such illustrous company?) and also not amazing (read the next sentence). God = $\infty$ according to Georg Cantor of set theory and infinity fame.

Anyway, what's wrong with my and Descartes' argument? If no child could've moved the washing machine and the washing machine has been moved, surely an adult was involved!

Your argument is like Descartes's in the Replies. — Gregory

How?

But I think it fails — Gregory

Why?

Very uplifting words! :up:

Do you suppose people who recommend aporia (bafflement) as a healthy state of mind were conflating it with "awe and wonder". The latter (awe and wonder) seems to be more appealing than the former (aporia). Perhaps the one is a synonym for the other. Sabrá Mandrake!

Matter doesn't use atoms as numbers in its counting. In fact the brain thinks by abstracting when it comes to infinity — Gregory

Matter does use atomic counting. For example water is a ratio (2 molecules of H : 1 molecule of O).

The second sentence of your post is a truism.

There are no actual infinities; there are no physical infinities
— Agent Smith

Speculation presented as fact. A no no for philosophers. — jgill

Name an actual infinity, prove it exists! It's a simple procedure.

Look at your favorite coffee mug, now describe it. You use words to describe right? Did it have the properties you used before you described it or did they come into being when you did it? Now imagine try to describe something without the words to do it. Impossible right?

That is what math does. Describes the properties of things using numbers instead of words. — Sir2u

Indeed, description is only possible once we develop the language to do it with and math is a language, but more too.

When and if I invent a language, the words, their definitions, can't be arbitrary i.e. if I coin a word and define it as I please, the properties listed in my definition will not/should not magically appear in the world. Will it/should it? The words "leprechaun", "elf", "fairy" are such kinds of words - their extension is empty. If math were invented, many of the concepts in it would be similarly affected - they would not apply to the real world.

There are no actual infinities; there are no physical infinities.
— Agent Smith

Sez you. — T Clark

Name one example of an actual infinity.

When you say "there are no actual infinities" I assume you mean that we space-time humans have no sensory experience of unboundedness — Gnomon

To tell you the truth, we do experience unboundedness: the surface of our earth, a 3D spheroid, is unbounded, yet its area is finite. I suppose unboundedness is the closest we can get to an experience of actual infinity.

a Virtual Particle can be substituted for a Real Particle in calculations. — Gnomon

Are you saying a real and virtual particle bear a salva veritate relationship with each other? That is to say, at least mathematically, in equations, the two could be swapped for each other and the equation/math wouldn't be able to tell the difference? Interesting!

Potential Perfection and Actual Imperfection. — Gnomon

That's why Materialists think, "if it's not physical, it's literally inconsequential". But they seem to forget the power of Potential — Gnomon

Aristotle claimed that there are two kinds of infinities:

1. Potential (the set of natural, even or odd numbers for example).

2. Actual (the set of actual infinities is the null set).

Put simply my OP is in line with Arisitotle's own thoughts about actual infinities - they don't exist.

As for the Idea of infinity - residing in the world of Platonic Forms - I dunno what that would look like. What is the Form of infinity?

Very often, the sign is in no way similar to the thing which it signifies. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree and disagree. Language (the written word) began their jounrey as pictograms (the letter resembled, physically so, the object it symbolized). For example the letter A, if inverted, looks like an ox/bull, the referent of A. The letter A looked more "oxy", but now, after multiple transformations (reflection, stretching, squeezing, etc.) it looks nothing like an ox/bull.

If physical symbols are thoughts materialized, my concern is there doesn't seem to be a mathematical law that governs/determines the transformation of thoughts into physical words (spoken/written), very uncharacteristic of matter & energy (the physical world).

You pass your thoughts to another person by speaking them or writing them down. When they are spoken or written down they are "changed into matter". — Metaphysician Undercover

:up: That's one way, yes!

However, I was hoping there was a more scientific way to do that. There doesn't seem to be anything mathematically precise about it. For example I could think about divine and write _god, god, GOD; something's not quite right.

time — javi2541997

Yep, infinity & time are related in the sense that an infinite task will take an infinite amount of time.

What comes to mind is the apocryphal tale of how the inventor of chess pulled a fast one on the king he presented his invention to. He simply asked that he should be given an amount of grain based on this formula: 1 grain of sand on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, so on such that each square contained twice the number of grains than the square preceding it. The king, not having the slightest clue, agreed to do so.

It turns out the total number of grains required was a mind-boggling number - not only the kingdom, the whole world didn't contain so much grain. The inventor was promptly executed! :rofl:

Death solves all problems. No man, no problem — Joseph Stalin

What I'm driving at is this:

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand.
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land!

Our first meeting with infinity began with +1 like so:
1
1 + 1 = 2
2 + 1 = 3
3 + 1 = 4
4 + 1 = 5
5 + 1 = 6
.
.
.
$\infty$

Death solves all problems. No man, no problem — Joseph Stalin

Death, then, must be genius of the highest order! Life, then, a total schmuck!

Jokes aside, death can be a valuable ally against Algos (pain) unchained/unleashed: oh how welcome Thanatos must be in fiery hell!

Update

I can hold something classified as physical, say a cigarette, in my hands. I can manipulate (turn, twist, roll, bend, etc.) it quite easily and demonstrably so.

However, I can't do the same with a thought. I can't reach into my head, and pull out a thought; I can't pass it from one hand to the other; I can't turn or twist or roll or bend it in/with my hands, can I?

Are thoughts energy? Energy too isn't something I can handle, literally speaking. It's, in that respect, very thought-like, oui? Energy, however, can be converted into matter (E = mc²) i.e. I can, using the right tools, transmute pure energy into matter and then move it around with my man-paws.

So, in theory, if thoughts are energy, we can change it into matter. I wonder how much my thoughts on physicalism would weigh? How much space would it occupy? :chin:

The question that needs to be asked is "how can last Thursdayism be disproved?"

Our only evidence that the world wasn't created last Thursday is our memory (individual, collective, inanimate) of events that occured way before last Thursday.

The catch is memories can be implanted/erroneous (false memories, confabulation, Mandela effect, and so on).

Out goes the window, memory. What's left? I must mention inanimate memory here separately only if to prolong the nevitable.

Motor vehicle accident forensics, for instance, relies on inanimate memory: a red car collides with a black one and each car "remembers" the color of the other car (paint flakes, dents, scrapes, etc.). The world, many things in it, give us the impression that it's been around for at least 4.5 billion years (radioactive dating).

However, someone capable of inserting false memories must surely be capable of more: falsifying or manipulating the geological data for example. Forgers are known to have artificially aged paper/wood/etc. in order to dupe unsuspecting customers. In other words, inanimate memory too is no longer sufficient to disprove Last Thursdayism.

There's a biblical saying that the wisdom of God is folly to the world ('For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.') It has been interpreted to support crass anti-intellectualism by fundamentalism but I think the meaning is more subtle than that. The figure of the 'stupid wise man' is a cross-cultural meme, often appearing as a vagabond or itinerant wanderer, turning up in stories as seeming fools who in the end reveal their wisdom through some deed or gesture. (It's even echoed in the Lennon McCartney song The Fool on the Hill.) — Wayfarer

:fire:

Squares with how goodness and naïvety are confused with each other. Is it wise to be good or is it folly extremum? Satyam (verum) Shivam (godliness/bonum) Sundaram (pulchrum)?

Hitler was never considered a fool, evil yes, but no, never an imbecile. Yet, if one gives it some thought, Hitler comes off as a complete idiot. That's the flip side of the coin.

Zen is often depicted in popular culture as easy-going and spontaneous. In its original cultural setting it's an arduous path. Yes, it is possible to get some insights into such states, sometimes they even arise spontaneously, but in practice Zen requires considerable discipline and commitment. It bears some similarity to what is called 'flow', attaining a sense of complete unity with what you're engaged in, but I think there's a lot more to it in that in the Zen context. (One of the first books I read about it was the well-known D T Suzuki book The Zen Doctrine of No-mind.) — Wayfarer

Yeah, theory and practice, not the same! I think Zen proponents tend to present their audience with a much simplified version of Zen so as not to spook them. Makes sense. Let the fish bite the hook first, the line and sinker for later.

Gnosis has a more specific meaning than knowledge. Actually there's really nothing that maps against gnosis in secular culture - perhaps advanced knowledge of scientific principles might be comparable, but gnosis is an existential discipline, not a third-person objective science. You can possess extraordinary degrees of knowledge about a lot of subjects whilst still not obtaining gnosis. It is usually understood to be understanding the factors that bind you to ignorance but again there's nothing that really maps against that in secular Western culture. — Wayfarer

:fire:

I'll get back to you if I have any further questions.

G'day mate!

I don't know if this qualifies as successful reductionism but in chemistry class, thousands of years ago, the fact that ice floats on water was explained to me in terms of Hydrogen bonding. I felt quite satisfied with the answer: the H bonds meant that water molecules, quite literally, kept each other at a distance and this results in an increase in overall volume for the same mass of liquid water, making ice less dense than liquid water; hence, said my teach, ice floats on water.

Can this be done for all phenomena?

Consciousness, thus far, has been resistant to such a treatment. Nobody has been able to convincingly explain how electrochemical events in the brain produce thinking/thoughts. We know the two are correlated (brain experiments prove that), but how exactly is still a mystery.

No, it was only describable. — Sir2u

You mean to say the universe wasn't mathematical before humans got here? The earth was not revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit determined by the mathematical laws of gravity before humans came into existence!? :chin:

I'm sorry, I don't follow.

You riddler, you! :smile: You beat the Sphinx didn't you?

:ok:

What I've been told is that the universe follows some rules (the laws of nature) that are fundamentally mathematical. Physics and chemistry books, less so biology ones ( :chin: ) are chockablock with math equations. That's a big clue, no, as to the nature of the universe? It, at the very least, looks (very) mathematical.

As for you removing a Lebesque function (whatever that is), from a university basement, it's mere quibbling or word play. If it makes you happy...

:up:

So ignorance is not simply a state of not knowing, but is to be construed as an absence of wisdom (vidya). The distinction between knowledge and wisdom clearly matter to the concept of aporia, it (aporia) being a term applicable to the wise fool. The wise fool is ignorant, yes, but s/he is, at the same time, much the wiser for it. What makes a wise fool both wise and fool? Pray tell.

The cloud of unknowing? Sounds interesting.

That is associated with the 'negative way' of contemplative meditation - self-emptying or putting aside all discursive thought and reasoning. — Wayfarer

I consider these meditative techniques as, inter alia, means of experiencing nonexistence while existing given how much existence to us seem completely predicated on thinking (about something) - we've been inured into believing that until and unless there's something (objects of thought) in the vessel (mind), the vessel (mind) doesn't exist. It's like being trapped in the middle of a dark room with only a football for company. One kicks the football and when it bounces off the walls of the room, one happily concludes "oh yes, there's a room, I'm in it." Without the football (thoughts), I would never have figured out that there's a room (the mind). Does the mind (the room) persist/exist even when there's no football (no thoughts)? That's the million dollar question insofar as philosophers of mind are concerned! I mentioned the so-called Mu/Wu mind state in Zen. Do you have any comments on that?

Gnosis, as appears in the OP, is simply knowledge. I'm aware that gnosis has a more specific meaning in some circles and am willing to discuss it. You compared gnosis to insight and I find that very appealing, somehow it feels right to me. It squares with your take on ignorance as not simply unknowing, but avidya (absence of wisdom), insight being a mark of wisdom in my humble opinion.

In my mind, this argument started with the idea that everything we deal with on a day to day basis is at human scale, the scale of baseballs and baloney sandwiches. — T Clark

:ok:

What do you make of theoretical physics, by and large an extension of math, math itself a very abstract (mental) subject/field?

I'm sure you're aware of it, but the existence of some "physical" objects like quarks and the God particle (the Higgs-Boson) were deduced from mathematical models of the particle world. That is to say, our minds seem to be in the know about objects and goings on at scales that are clearly not human (we normally can't see quarks or Higgs-Bosons).

On the larger point you made, I agree: each level of organization of matter & energy, as represented broadly in the sequence physics $\rightarrow$ chemistry $\rightarrow$ biology $\rightarrow$ psychology has its own unique, level-specific entities (particles in physics and chemistry, cells in biology, and minds in psychology) which operate under, yet again, tier-specific rules. The reductionist enterprise is a waste of time, something like that.

I don't understand the question. — 180 Proof

:chin:

It's not a joke, he's saying that your semantic mess is ridiculous. — SkyLeach

Pray tell, how is what I wrote/said ridiculous? :smile:

I want to run something by you since you seem to know your way around the philosophy of math.

I recall a video im which Michio Kaku says (paraphrasing) "In blackholes, the (relevant) equations when used result in this: $\infty = \infty$ and then physicists can't make head or tail of it. Math breaks down"

If $\infty$ does that to math, is $\infty$ mathematical?

Reasoning encounters a point beyond which it cannot go. — Fooloso4

:up: Mu/Wu. Analysis paralysis, not exactly, but close enough for government work.

Plato's dialogues typically end in aporia. — Fooloso4

:up:

Much like all threads in this forum and others too I suppose. No resolution but more confusion.

It is an inquiry and examination into how best to live knowing that we do not know what is best. — Fooloso4

:up:

How does aporia bring about ataraxia and ataraxia lead to eudaimonia?

Mu!

Zen practice — T Clark

Mu/Wu!

Possible! Different illnesses, sometimes, have identical symptoms.

:ok:

Yes, it has only been possible to describe it (the mathematical nature of the universe) very recently, geologically speaking that is, but the universe was/had to be mathematical before we learned how to describe it, no?

I'm beginning to have doubts about this though - the reverse extrapolation into the past leads us to the big bang singularity (the mathematical models we have seem to, as physicists like to say, break down). Does this mean the universe wasn't mathematical? What if retracing a series of logical syllogisms finally led back to a contradiction or meaningless statement? What then?

happiness — javi2541997

This is what I found on Wikipedia:

In Pyrrhonism aporia is intentionally induced as a means of producing ataraxia. — Wikiepedia

Achieving ataraxia is a common goal for Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism, but the role and value of ataraxia within each philosophy varies in accordance with their philosophical theories.

Aporia is somehow supposed to (magically?) lead us directly to the doorstep of Epicurus (re: hedonism). How that's achieved is a mystery to me! Like I said, aporia is not exactly my idea of fun!

On balance, it's more painful than pleasurable, and I don't quite see how that's a description of equanimity, tranquility (ataraxia).

It appears that journey through ataraxia (the way of the warrior, bushido?) is, again somehow, supposed to end at eudaimonia aka happiness!

A fool is ignorant, a real fool is confused and who wouldn't want to live in paradise, a fool's paradise?

Like it or not I guess it is the system which fits our necessities the most. I don't say we have to live in an economical jungle but in a world where the free market is respected as much as the public administration.
I guess that could be the perfect equilibrium — javi2541997

Yup it fits and fits well, like an iron maiden. The maiden embraces and kills us in the process. Love! :roll:

Capitalism is just evolution, possibly gone wrong for the way it rewards (fierce) competition. It's aut cum scuto aut in scuto (Spartan women :roll: ) or, in more familiar terms, the law of the jungle. I want to go to Egypt! :chin:

Ignore, isolate, exclude... — Possibility

:up:

"Reason exists without spatiotemporal location". Ok, but what's a (5^th) dimension?

Maybe today is Friday if a day lasts 13.8 billion years! I believe time for god is not the same as time for humans.

It's a ridiculous analogy. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I didn't get the joke!

We often treat actions with noun phrases. Even the word “action” or “process” are nouns, but not persons, places or things. Maybe this confuses us—it confuses me. However in every scenario the thing is the one performing the action, and we can only observe the action by observing the thing. This is because the thing and the action are the same.

So it is with thought, I think. The physicalist can only measure the thing and it’s movements. Man and his thought are one and the same, at least until it is reified through some form of expression or other. — NOS4A2

:up:

But entertainment is easier than instruction. — Bitter Crank

Also more appealing to the (exhausted and bored) masses (us). We don't want information/instruction, we want to have a good time. Therein lies the rub: here I (we) am (are) blaming the media for shirking their responsibility, but the fact of the matter is, I (we) make them like that.

As for your second paragraph: if it bleeds, it leads!