On Friday, December 14, 2018 at 9:16:58 AM UTC-6, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > Mathematics is immaterial, but it makes no sense to say it is fiction, > unless deciding that Aristotle is true and Plato is wrong, but I would need > some evidences for this, which are literally never given. > > Bruno > > > "Mathematics is immaterial" is a conclusion or an assumption. If it is an assumption, then one can proceed within that context.
If it is a conclusion, then what is the basis of that conclusion? Fiction can be considered to be material. If all the traces of Sherlock Holmes stories were taken out by the sun exploding (the books, movies, TV show recordings, the brains with SH memories), there would be no more Sherlock Holmes (unless a SH story were sent on one of those human-made objects leaving the solar system [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_leaving_the_Solar_System ]). But suppose that "mathematics is material". That (I claim) is a better claim to support than "mathematics is immaterial". I don't get the "1+1=2" proof that math is immaterial. The immaterialist already presumes that math is immaterial, so "1+1=2" is the case in some immaterial (Platonic) realm (they claim), so therefor math is immaterial. Sounds like circular reasoning. The materialist sees "1+1=2" as something that applies when he (when he was a caveman) put a rock next to another rock. And so on. One type of objection might be that matter is a mystery, but math isn't. But I think complexity theorists (like Chaitin) have shown that math is a mystery too. So *mathematics* and *matter* are both mysteries (but that *matter is primary* is the best way to go, given everything). I agree with Galen Strawson at this point: The one thing that isn't a mystery is *consciousness*. - pt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
