On 6/12/2016 10:27 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
William S. Cooper, "The Origin of Reason" makes an argument that
mathematics is a way of brains thinking about things that was found
by evolution, just like mobility, metabolism, reproduction,...and a
lot of other functions. Bruno doesn't like that story though because
it means mathematics only exists as instantiated in brains.
It is not a question of liking this or not. It is just that Cooper,
and many contemporaries, assumed some physical universe, and that this
assumption put the mind-body problem under the rug. It is like saying
God made it. They don't push enough their own Darwinian logic.
That's begging the question. You assume arithmetic; which sweeps the
mind-body problem under the rug by making the "body" part hard.
Everybody starts by assuming something. Assuming physics and providing
an evolution based account of the development of mind and minds
development of arithmetic is just as legitimate as starting with
arithmetic and trying to derive matter and mind.
Brent
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