What do you think my answer to this will be?

I dont know. I ask because if your answer is no, relations exist in the relationship between both the mind and the world, my next question would be - where does that relationship (between mind and world) exist?

If your answer is yes, relations exist only in the mind, my next question is do you believe the world and relations between objects existed prior to the existence of minds?

So you're leaning towards mathematical nominalism. Mathematical ficitonalism would require you to take a stand on this one and declare that because mathematical theories are false.

Do you believe that if there were an intelligent alien species somewhere else in the universe, that if they had a number system, it would be equivalent to ours so that they might say (perhaps in a different notation) that "1 + 1 = 2"?

I have no real evidence to support either conclusion, yes or no.

I would lean toward no. Math is just one out of perhaps trillions of ways of analyzing data. The alien may use math, but it may use a different method of organizing data, as counting could be incomprehensible to them.

Whether one object and another object makes two objects or whether it makes BLU depends on your system of organising progression or addition. Nevertheless there is an underlying system of progression (counting). The system is entirely mental?

All beings have to organize or at least navigate data to survive. Counting is really nothing more than parsing or distinguishing, then treating the abstracted forms as concepts. There's no 'twoness' of two leaves, just an array of subatomic particles. That humans see two leaves makes us human, it doesn't mean there are two leaves.

To answer your question it is a filtering method (what kant called I think synthetic judgement, although it's been a while). Mental, yes, perceptual.

I call bs on that. Are you disputing that there are 2 kinds of charges regardless of who the hell you are?

Are you rejecting that a Hydrogen atom needs an electron and a proton to create a bound state that involves two fermions?

Are you rejecting that there are two kinds of Helium atoms He3 and He4?

What the hell?

Bs on leaves too. A new dicotyledon plant has 2 leaves at the beginning and not one!



You see two kinds of leaves here also, the embryonic and the first adult ones.

There are 2 sex Chromosomes two.

2 is a very clear concept in nature that has absolutely nothing to do with the human brain.


Are you rejecting the clear distinction between a single star and a binary star system?

Are you rejecting the distinction between a planet and its satellite?

There is evidence that counting is a fundamental skill of intellect.

* Humans from different cultures have independently come up with basic counting systems.
* Anumeric cultures (cultures where there is no counting -- a few of them may still exist), but they did not exhibit significant technological advances, so it seems to be a limiting factor in technological progression.
* We also know that many animals have shown themselves to be able to count: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150...that-can-count

You wanted to know the consequences of believing numbers are not real. These are the types of questions that people who believe that need to confront and explain. How is it that different human cultures have independently come up with ideas like counting and even advanced concepts like prime numbers? And why are the animals doing it?

Whether there is a "two-ness" of leaves first begins with whether you believe there are leaves. Under your some other arrangements of information, leaves just don't exist.

So you're right that there is some work to do there. But then we can push further. Do you believe there is a "one-ness" of anything in the universe? That "one proton" is an actual thing? Even if we might disagree on the exact choices for how to organize data, we can all still count them within our own organizational schemes, and that counting process seems consistent across all such schemes.

I would also disagree that seeing two leaves makes us human. Other creatures seem to acknowledge number and type of objects.

What if nature is only comprised of irrational numbers, and we only invented rational numbers to study nature.

I think there always has to be two of something, I'm siding with OP that two in itself doesn't necessarily exist.

For example two of nothing is nothing, no 2 in there.

Two leaves is something different than two balls.

It's practical to assume numbers exist though.

It doesn't hurt my 'argument' to say that animals can count; we are very closely related to many animals with our DNA so it makes sense that they would have similar types of mechanisms for dealing with reality.

Also saying that counting is a skill that proves intellect is a sort of tautology as we're using it to compare with other humans. Some people might be amazing at distinguishing shades of yellow. This characteristic isn't exactly favored by our education establishments, so it isn't measured in a test.

I think your last point is the hardest to deal with. I'm trying to imagine a world where counting is unnecessary. And it would have to be a world made up of one substance. (If all were one, there would be no need for the concept, one).

If all were one, then we would not be different, and there would be nothing to count, but then we couldn't be having this conversation. Unless it's all an illusion, or our minds are feeding us bad information, or both.

I think for numbers to exist there have to be gaps between things. What are numbers in essence but the spaces between objects? If all substance is really one like, say, some mystics think, then numbers wouldn't really exist, in the way that sawdust wouldn't exist if there was no wood.

Came to think about a possible allegory: money. Could we say it doesn't exist in reality? You are exchanging services with other people, money is just some virtual thing in between.

In the same way numbers could be just "found up". At least they maybe don't exist "to the same grade" (is it possible to say that?) as matter and energy.

If a whole can be subdivided we dont deny the existence of the subdivisions. We also dont deny the existence of emergent properties.

When you divide the whole into subatomic particles for example, why stop there? Why not subdivide it further into particle fields and/or probability distributions?

What you're doing is you're arbitrarily choosing one specific unit of analysis and denying the others. In the process you're subdividing the 'one' while denying the existence of subdivisions.

Furthermore, even at the subatomic unit of analysis there are clear divisions between one type of particle or another. Denying these, but accepting the subdivision that takes you down to subatomic particles is again - subdividing something while denying the existence of subdivisions.

"Yellow" doesn't seem to have similar properties to mathematical objects. It is extremely difficult to argue that yellow-ness as a property in the same manner as one-ness can be.

You're right that the argument by analogy is limited, but it is stronger than the criticism. From an empirical point of view, you have zero examples of the thing you posit exists, whereas there are many examples of the thing that we knew exists.

You are also speculating on a particular role of DNA in counting, which I think is a significant leap on your part. There's a lot to unpack there on your side.

So you're welcome to speculate as you will, but this is an inherent challenge of your position.

Do you accept or reject that there are gaps between things? According to your first sentence, if things are not all identical (and it appears to be true that not all things are identical), then we have a basis upon which to believe numbers exist.

Im not sure there are any gaps in spacetime. Also, I doubt there are any straight vectors, flat surfaces, or uniform objects.

It should be all pi.

This is a circular definition.

ex·ist
1. have objective reality or being.

re·al
1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.

I'd say exist means "not a continuum".

A bit like talking about gaps earlier itt.

Math exists independently of human brains. In fact human brains exist because of math. The way we develop math surely depends on the brain but the connections are real.

I have claimed before that math is not independent of Physics either. You need the world (or a rich enough world) to exist first before you can have Math and then use it to describe or create other worlds. Math and Physics will be unified one day because of this.


If there is a chance for intelligence in this universe it is precisely because it is mathematical in its laws. So what on earth is the deal about unreality?

Maybe irrationals or infinity are not realizable in nature though as i have argued before.

The quantization of states in some bound system is not an artifact of the human brain. The way we do quantum mechanics is our way of having through our senses developed the theory but the math of the theory is indisputable in experiments on a lot of the details of the theory. Sure the perfect mathematical description of the theory may be undone eventually at some highly refined level but not at so many basic levels tested already

How can you deny number 2 when you face matter antimatter duality? Are you kidding me?

A civilization could have existed before us and develop math to describe the same universe we have in common and you think it is in our mind?

Yellowness doesn't seem different to me than oneness. It's a property of a substance.

When you say that I don't have examples of the thing I posit, I don't know what you mean. I'm not positing the existence of things, I'm saying things don't exist. And you don't have any empirical examples of numbers existing.

As to your last point, I already pointed out that is the real issue. I think, and I could be wrong, that math is just a system of distinguishing things. Math is "gap science." So if things are different, math exists. If all is one, math doesn't exist. I don't know the answer. I know that some religions posit that all the world is one substance, based on mystical visions of certain founders. I'd like to think it's true. It definitely seems plausible to me. I haven't read spinoza but I think he has a system where the world is one substance broken into attributes.

When I said exist, I meant not imagined or supposed.

When I said real, I meant not imagined or supposed.

You have a significant argument to make here. You were arguing earlier that one-ness is a property of our perception, not a property of substance.

The "thing" that you are positing to exist is the following:

You are positing the existence of a method of organizing data in which counting is an incomprehensible process. I'm saying that we have lots of examples of independently derived organizational systems and they all have some sense of counting (at least for small numbers). You have zero examples of organizational systems in which counting is incomprehensible, and positing the existence of aliens that could potentially have a different system is a weak counter.

My point is that you seem to acknowledge that things are different from each other. You don't seem to deny that leaves are different, for example, since you acknowledge this concept of "two leaves" (even though a leaf itself may be an organizational construct). Playing up a religious pseudo-philosophic of the one-ness of the universe to deny mathematics is absurd given that even within cultures that have adopted some sense of one-ness of the universe they *STILL* developed mathematical thought.

I don't assert to know the answer. I disagree with your analysis and argumentation as being robust enough to carry even a small part of your position forward. It seems much more like denialism because you have yet to actually put forth any argument whatsoever to support your view. It's just a base assertion and an unwillingness to actually confront the consequences of your position.

Incidentally, even if the universe is one, that still seems to suggest that the number one exists.

But if everything is interwoven probability functions? A continuum. That would suggest that discrete numbers don't exist on a basic level. And if 1, 2 and 3 etc. don't exist, then math doesn't exist?

If there is only one thing, it seems to me that the concept 'one' would not be intelligible. Which of us is right?

I don't know. This is also of lesser interest to me than the other thread of conversation. Most of this is embedded in you making an arbitrary distinction of "one substance with many attributes." In some form, you're allowing distinctiveness, and that allows us to understand gaps between things and hence counting is a reasonable thing to have happen.

But under the everything-is-one mantra, do you think "zero" makes sense? I don't see why one could fail to conceive of the absence of something even if everything is the same substance.