Plato's Theory of Forms...

What is the basis for reason? And mathematics?

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raw_thought
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

One can argue that words (abstractions) do not refer to anything real and so are meaningless. The postmodernists do that. And there are arguments that "prove" that words are meaningless. For example, what is a tooth pick? Wood. What is wood? Cellulose fibers... if the chain of definitions is infinite means that tooth pick is undefined. Imagine that we explain the earths position by saying that it rests on an elephant and that elephant on an elephant....That does not explain why they are elephants and not lets say rocks. If the chain of definitions terminates, then the last definition has no definition and so therefore is meaningless. But that means that the penultimate definition is meaningless.... until we arrive at tooth pick and then tooth pick is meaningless. Google, symbol grounding problem wiki and third man. Also definitions assume the correspondence theory of truth (from now on reffered to as CTT). Is the CTT true? It must by its own definition refer to something. Another CTT? and that involves an infinite regress.
I used to love those atguments. It made reality exciting, like the Twilight Zone! However, now I simply accept that words are meaningful and that eeading books helps me understand reality.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

raw_thought wrote:One can argue that words (abstractions) do not refer to anything real and so are meaningless. The postmodernists do that. And there are arguments that "prove" that words are meaningless. For example, what is a tooth pick? Wood. What is wood? Cellulose fibers... if the chain of definitions is infinite means that tooth pick is undefined. Imagine that we explain the earths position by saying that it rests on an elephant and that elephant on an elephant....That does not explain why they are elephants and not lets say rocks. If the chain of definitions terminates, then the last definition has no definition and so therefore is meaningless. But that means that the penultimate definition is meaningless.... until we arrive at tooth pick and then tooth pick is meaningless. Google, symbol grounding problem wiki and third man. Also definitions assume the correspondence theory of truth (from now on reffered to as CTT). Is the CTT true? It must by its own definition refer to something. Another CTT? and that involves an infinite regress.
I used to love those atguments. It made reality exciting, like the Twilight Zone! However, now I simply accept that words are meaningful and that eeading books helps me understand reality.
What's your point?

I'm not saying that words are meaningless, I am saying that they do conform to some Ideal state beyond reality.
Meaning is implied by praxis.

And BTW, no post-modernist would state the ridiculous caricature except as a way to demonstrate the arbitrary connection between the signified and signifier. Plato would suggest that the word yearns for and towards a perfect state: how absurd.
Wyman
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Wyman »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote: The form of a circle requires an understanding of Pi. Because Pi is never resolved does that mean a circle is meaningless?
Surely the concept of pi is contained within the definition of the circle. The circle is a mathematical object which can be defined as a line which is equidistant from a point in a 2D space. Without such a definition pi has no meaning.
Such a thing does not exist except in the mind of the mathematician. I was playing devil's advocate. The fact that Pi is irresolvable is the best evidence we have that maths is just an invention and it is unworthy of us to base our ontologies on it rather than on what it tries inaccurately to model.
Pi is irrational. I've never heard of an 'irresolvable' number. The fact that you think that real numbers and analysis are problematic only shows that
your mathematical knowledge is back in the seventeenth century.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Wyman wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Obvious Leo wrote:
Surely the concept of pi is contained within the definition of the circle. The circle is a mathematical object which can be defined as a line which is equidistant from a point in a 2D space. Without such a definition pi has no meaning.
Such a thing does not exist except in the mind of the mathematician. I was playing devil's advocate. The fact that Pi is irresolvable is the best evidence we have that maths is just an invention and it is unworthy of us to base our ontologies on it rather than on what it tries inaccurately to model.
Pi is irrational. I've never heard of an 'irresolvable' number. The fact that you think that real numbers and analysis are problematic only shows that
your mathematical knowledge is back in the seventeenth century.
When your reason fails you resort to childish insults.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Obvious Leo »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:When your reason fails you resort to childish insults.
Inaccurate insults as well because he misses the mark by seven centuries. I get my philosophy of mathematics from the Persians who invented all our modern tools of it. The cloistered houses of learning In Europe stole these tools but in their Platonist zeal they didn't steal the correct understanding of what these tools actually do. Presumably they felt that they didn't need instruction in metaphysics from the godless heathen when they had Aquinas to tell them how to think and in my view western mathematical philosophy hasn't moved forward an inch from the Thomist position. The Persians understood perfectly well that mathematics do not model reality at all but merely a procedure of thought specified by the observer of it. This is why modern physics makes no sense. Physics assumes it is modelling the real universe but instead it is modelling a flawed procedure of thought.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Wyman »

I get my philosophy of mathematics from the Persians
It shows.
Obvious Leo
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Obvious Leo »

Wyman wrote:
I get my philosophy of mathematics from the Persians
It shows.
It's very generous of you to say so, Wyman, given that I regard most western mathematical philosophy as god-infested and infantile.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:But apples is NOT equal to apple,
Not only is one apple not equal to another apple, one apple is not even equal to itself once we make a subsequent observation of it. In a physical sense an apple is not an object at all but a PROCESS and furthermore an apple is a process which is occurring at the speed of light. Once a single electron within the apple jumps into a different orbit it is no longer the same apple, which rather leaves Plato swinging in the breeze.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Obvious Leo wrote:
Wyman wrote:
I get my philosophy of mathematics from the Persians
It shows.
It's very generous of you to say so, Wyman, given that I regard most western mathematical philosophy as god-infested and infantile.
Hobbes' Choice wrote:But apples is NOT equal to apple,
Not only is one apple not equal to another apple, one apple is not even equal to itself once we make a subsequent observation of it. In a physical sense an apple is not an object at all but a PROCESS and furthermore an apple is a process which is occurring at the speed of light. Once a single electron within the apple jumps into a different orbit it is no longer the same apple, which rather leaves Plato swinging in the breeze.
Who was it who said you cannot walk into the same river twice: you cannot even step into the same river once?
raw_thought
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

Numbers are words.
Actually, Derrida etc claim that words are meaningless. Meaning is constantly deferred. (their word)
As I said, I disageee with the postmodernists. I was merly presenting their position.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

You claimed that numbers are meaningless because no two apples are identical. I pointed out that words refer to abstractions. Yes, real things are not abstractions. But that does not mean that words are meaningless.
To be precise you claimed that 2+2=4 has no relation to reality. That is why I asked if there is somewhere where 2+2 does not equal 4
Actually, I am surprised. I never thought of you having a mystical side!
Scientists embrace math. Mystics reject it.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

Mystics believe that everything is one. There is no separation. That makes math unreal. For example,like Leo they say that distance (space) does not exist.
Obvious Leo
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Obvious Leo »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Who was it who said you cannot walk into the same river twice: you cannot even step into the same river once?
It was Heraclitus who was first credited with this metaphor and a more intuitive genius in metaphysics would be difficult to imagine. Some scholars regard him as the first true process philosopher but arguably Anaximander preceded him in this and in any event it could be said that all of the pre-Socratics were presentists. Interestingly on the other side of the planet Buddha and LaoTse were almost contemporaneous with the pre-Socratics and they were expressing very similar views with a more eastern cultural slant.

Greek philosophy basically died after Plato and Aristotle but these two schools were to continue to have a major influence on western thought after the monotheists hijacked the Roman Empire. As Hobbes pointed out Platonism is an intrinsically creationist thought system and it could be easily adapted to the new prevailing ideology, as demonstrated by Augustine of Hippo and those who followed in his footsteps.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

With respect,Leo,
Since you reject all models as only human narratives that do not reveal objective reality, what do you offer as a replacement? All we have are human narratives (models,words,etc). Or are you saying that all representations of reality are false? In other words we can never know anything about reality.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by Obvious Leo »

raw_thought wrote:With respect,Leo,
Since you reject all models as only human narratives that do not reveal objective reality, what do you offer as a replacement? All we have are human narratives (models,words,etc). Or are you saying that all representations of reality are false? In other words we can never know anything about reality.
False is too strong a word for me but essentially you've got my drift. Our narratives do not reveal reality but merely model it. The noumenon is quite literally unknowable and all we can do as humans is to model the patterns of self-organisation in nature which we observe. These models can make no statements about the truth value of our narratives but neither do they need to. Niels Bohr made this point quite eloquently in his Copenhagen interpretation of QM but sadly his cautionary warnings about the limitations of his science went unheeded by the logical positivists who followed in his footsteps. Our models simply cannot tell us what our universe IS and can only describe what it DOES. This is the gulf between physics and metaphysics which a unification model must bridge and this is what I claim to have done.
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Re: Plato's Theory of Forms...

Post by raw_thought »

But isnt any metaphysical theory also a model (human narrative )?
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