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Originally Posted by
MadMonkey
PhilosopherStoned you could have been a better sport with this.
I definitely could have. If I had a shred of respect for UM I would have. Do you honestly not see how incredibly dull he's being here?
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You are arguing how real the number two is. Universal Mind asked you to define two and you kept going between saying that you can define it but are not going to to saying its impossible to define to trying to be insult him.
When did I say it's impossible to define. I challenged him to do it in response because any answer he comes up with is going to be inadequate and he wouldn't understand any answer I gave if he can't even understand complex numbers.
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I think what Universal Mind is trying to show is that you are missing the point of what real means.
UM is trying to play dodge ball so that he can feel right. I'll be damned if he's going to tell me about what real means.
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He asked you to define two because if you could define it then it would have to be real.
Is a unicorn real? I can define that. It's a horse that's growing a horn out of its forehead. What do you mean by real? He's specifically asserting that two is some real quality that exists outside of time, that is not made of matter and that is made of other concepts.
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It is just as real as any chair or apple regardless of who is asking the question or whether the universe has the ability to think or whatever bs.
He's the one that's saying that "two" is an intrinsic feature of the universe (inb4 slight rewording and claim of strawman)
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You may very well be using slightly different definitions of what the word "real" means and the conversation might have progressed to that point if you just answered his simple question.
You define two. Everytime I post some long, complicated post, nobody reads it. I'm done wasting my time. Defining numbers in a correct manner can be tricky, subtle, non-illuminating and is entirely besides the point here. We have an example: two. Is it real or not? Our mechanism of definition is nothing more than giving ourselves the ability to formally manipulate it.
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So how about we pick the conversation up from there. What makes something qualify as real or not real.
For the purposes of this conversation, it's made out of matter. That's the basic definition of real. Anything beyond that requires an addition to the rational materialist model which is the defacto model because it's the one that everyone uses regardless of if they claim to or not.
On the whole, UM's argument is non-existent. He says numbers are quantities. Why? That's not how mathematicians usually view them (inb4 someone comes in with some highschool text book claiming the converse: I'm talking about real mathematicians). So now he claims that 90% of mathematics is made up bullshit because he's too stupid/lazy (probably both) to understand it. Ignore the tone and look at his argument patterns. He's a moron, a troll or both.
For example I said that he claimed that numbers are "discrete quanties of objects" and he's claiming that that's a strawman when he straight up says in the next sentence that he's claiming that they're just "discrete quantities" (i.e. forget rational numbers and real numbers, he doesn't believe they're numbers either). Yet a cursory reading of my post shows that at no point does the argument that I advanced depend on them being quantities of objects. What I was actually rejecting was the notion that they're discrete quantities of anything. So I rejected his actual position and yet he comes back calling that a strawman (because it sounds good I imagine which is also typical newage/creationist criterion).
Now let's look at your post. You come in saying that I could have been a better sport and then assert agreement with his fundamental position. I think that you're applying double standards because you agree with his side of the argument. I've answered every one of his questions. I even told him that I'd define two if he told me how it matters. It doesn't matter. He's just using it as a dead horse to beat on to make it look like I'm playing dodgeball and you're falling into it because you want to agree with him and avoid being wrong. So you'll overlook his slimy argument techniques (same ones as creationists and newagers) while calling me out on being appropriately blunt and direct with him. Why don't you tell him to either answer my question (how does the definition of two determine if it's real or not) or tell him to fuck off it?
I could have been using the same argument techniques as him this whole time.
So UM, why does it matter how we define two? Don't we already know what it is? Captain Dodgeball. You've been dodging that question for how many posts now?