🚀 go-pugleaf

> >Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
> >> Mathematics is a made up set of rules. Made up by humans.
> >> It's not intrinsic to the universe.
> 
> Maths is like chess: A logical game with arbitrary rules, who have
> lots of complicated and interesting logical consequences, but who
> are all based on the arbitrary set of rules. Most of the counter
> arguments I've read here ignore that fact, and take the arbitrary
> definitions for granted.
> 

There is nothing arbitrary about mathematics.  Mathematics is a conceptual
abstraction of objective reality.  Mathematics is the science of identity
(existence).  It uses a system of symbols to represent and communicate
these concepts.

The concepts of mathematics are "discovered" more than they are "invented".
 They are founded on the fundamental principle of existence:
non-contradiction.  The concepts of mathematics are universal and would be
the same for any reasoning being in any time, place, or possible universe. 
They represent that that IS. 

For example the concept of the number 5 represents a set of five ( one and
one and one and one and one) of something, it can be five of anything but
it is implicit that in using the concept abstractly there is ultimately a
objective referent from which the concept was abstracted.  One can observe
five birds and five rocks and five galaxies and deduce that although birds,
rocks, and galaxies are quite different there is something (quantity) that
conceptually unites these three sets of existants.

The power of mathematics, and all conceptual thinking, is in its ability to
extend the application of man's mind beyond the limits of its perceptual
mechanism.  One can imagine a foot or ten feet or perhaps even ten miles,
but one cannot imagine ten light-years or ten billion light-years but with
the power of math to represent vast quantities or complex relationships as
units such things though still unimaginable can be validly applied.  Like a
bulldozer extends the power of man's muscles, mathematics extends the power
and range of man's mind and his understanding of the universe.

The philosophical error Wolfgang is making is to forget that concepts
always refer to existants.  The moorings that tie a concept to existence
are always implicit though many often cut these moorings in an attempt to
deny the validity of reason and to negate objective reality and the
efficacy of a rational mind to apprehend that reality.  The motives for
doing so are nihilist, destructive and evil.

When one considers the power of mathematics to describe, predict and
control physical reality (space probes have been sent to fucking Neptune
for Christ's sake!) for any one to propose that these concepts are merely
imaginative human fabrications with no basis in "ultimate" reality is
outrageous.

Aloha,
Chris Lieding
sam...@mauigateway.com