> > >> That is why I limit myself for the TOE to natural numbers and their > >> addition and multiplication. > >> The reason is that it is enough, by comp, and nobody (except perhaps > >> some philosophers) have any problem with that. > > > Yes. A couple of questions from a philosophical point of view: > > > Language gives meaning to the numbers as in their operations; > > functions, units of measurements (kilo, meter, ounce, kelvin etc.). > > I am not sure language gives meaning. Language have meaning, but I > think meaning, sense, and reference are more primary. > With the mechanist assumption, meaning sense and references will be > 'explained' by what the numbers 'thinks' about that, in the manner of > computer science (which can be seen as a branch of number theory). >
Not sure what you mean by “what the numbers ‘thinks’ ”. Are you stating that numbers have or represent some type of dispositional property? What of the opinion that ‘numbers’ themselves (without human consciousness to perform operations and functions) only represent instances of matter and forces with their dispositional properties? > > Numbers alone may symbolize some fundamental describable matter and > > forces but a complete and coherent TOE should include elevated human > > consciousness beyond the primitive which in itself requires a > > relatively sophisticated language to give meaning to the numbers and > > their operations. > > Hmm... You can use numbers to symbolize things, by coding, addresses, > etc. But numbers constitutes a reality per se, more or less captured > (incompletely) by some theories (language, axioms, proof > technics, ...). In this context, that might be important. > > Then, you are inferring, that ‘numbers’ can be and perhaps are ‘nouns’? If so, then numbers would be human mental objects that have properties of both functions and relations. Thanks > > > Would not any TOE describing the universe appears to require human > > sophisticated language using referent nouns, (and conjunctions, > > adjectives and verbs etc.) to give meaning to the numbers and their > > functions and operations? > > With the mechanist assumption, humans and their language will be > described by machine operations, which will corresponds to a > collection of numbers relations (definable with addition and > multiplication). This is not obvious and relies in great part of the > progress of mathematical logic. > > Bruno > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
