Metaphysical Paradoxes

Add your own or talk about those under discussion.

To start off with, I have a couple of strange thoughts about infinity. I'm not sure how original they are.

Firstly, a metaphysical problem: infinite lifespans. We don't have much trouble with the concept of immortals; they are born like us, and imagining what it would be like to be one is just a matter of extrapolating from our current life experience. But what about the other direction? What about an immortal being which, additionally, has always existed? Meeting and conversing with such a being seems plausible. But what about being that being? Intuitively it seems like it's 'impossible for its consciousness to ever reach this point in time'. Why is this so different from the classic conception of an immortal? What about objects in general? Could you encounter a rock which had existed forever? Or a clock?

Secondly, a moral problem: infinite beings. We think killing is immoral in what we presume to be a finite universe. But what if we discovered that the universe was infinite? Would it be moral to destroy a planet with life on it? If you did so, you would not have reduced the amount of life in the universe at all. This is not controversial; refer to the Hilbert's Hotel analogy if you're confused. You could just find another planet with life on it (in fact you could find an identical planet) and put it where the old one was, and then replace the new empty space with another planet, and so on with different planets forever, leaving you with exactly the same arrangement as before you destroyed the planet.

Developing the tangent about there being infinite identical planets: to what extent is it correct to say that they are individual? Would there be multiple copies of your consciousness? Or just the one? How is this any different from encountering a mirror?

I can address the first problem with a little more confidence than the second, as morality is a very complex issue and I don't think absolutist ethics needs to share the same plate as metaphysical concepts.

Consider the number 0. This is the end result of every equation, perfect balance. This doesn't mean nothing exists in 0, rather it contains an infinite potential. The same can be said of the universe or omniverse or whatever. Everything other than 0 is a temporary phenomenon being experienced with an illusory sense of time making it appear as if a succession of events are happening when in reality it's all just an equation going back to 0.

So 0, therefore, is the only immortal. It's the only thing which always existed and always will exist. Everything else is just one of the potential imaginations or equations. "Gods" are not immortal. They came from something and will return to something. Only that whole is immortal. When people refer to the supreme being, that is typically what they are talking about. Which is why when people begin adding qualities to the supreme being, they're wrong. Qualities are impermanent potential.

My quick reaction to the first problem: You seem to pose two perspectives, an outside-in and an inside-out one. The outside-in part asks how an object could have an infinite history or future, and what would be the implications (could such an object even reach our point in time). Such questions are tied to the history and fate of the universe... I have encountered rocks (and people even) who's particles have a history as old as the universe. Any questions about the history of those particles before the birth of the universe (approaching infinity) is captured by questions of the birth of the universe itself.

The inside-out perspective asks why one is intuitive and the other is not. If you're actually talking about biological lifespans, then both are absurd. So rather than asking why an infinite history is not intuitive, you should ask why an infinite future is intuitive. I think the answer to this is that the intuition of an infinite future is one of the evolutionary carrots we are programmed to chase. The logic of survival doesn't include any target duration. Reproduction is experienced as a surrogate for immortality. There are lots of non-functioning (in a biological fitness sense) by-products of the immortality drive. I think the quest for fame is such a by-product. The epic heroes never did anything without making sure a bard was around to write a song about it (or nothing we know about today... which is precisely the point).

The belief in and striving for immortality is the proximate mechanism that drives the ultimate evolutionary mandates of both survival and reproduction. Striving for fame and remembrance after death is a behavioral by-product. So while there are good evolutionary reasons for why the absurdity of immortality should seem intuitive, there is no evolutionary reason why the absurdity of reverse-immortality should seem intuitive.

Well, that's an interesting perspective, but I very much doubt that it would have such an explicit biological basis. Evolution and fitness explain many aspects of human behaviour but the idea that it explains everything is a common fallacy; adaptations (in this case the human mind) often come with necessary but undesirable or neutral side effects (case in point, try to explain the modern human behaviour of looking at pornography in terms of fitness and natural selection). This is an issue of conceptualising things outside our experience. Your explanation would make sense if we could only conceptualise things that we have evolved over tens of thousands of years to be able to conceptualise, but that just isn't true, our brains don't work like that at all. We have evolved conceptualisation because on the whole it gives us an extremely potent edge over other species, but the adaptation is a general one, and we can use it to do all sorts of things that didn't drive its evolution. We can use our imagination to conjure up a virtual infinitude of things, most of which are patently not for biological fitness; unicorns, floating castles, non-Euclidean geometries, infinite towers... hell, we can even conceptualise self-emasculation; and we can also rationalise about all of these things. To be honest I think your explanation is pretty unambiguously blown out of the water by an abundance of counter examples from reality.

Of course, all mental activity has a neural basis, and so the answer will in some sense be physical. But it won't be in such an obvious manner; the paradox will arise as an epiphenomenon of the way our rationality functions.

By the way, I think I could make clearer what the actual paradox is. It isn't just that it's hard to build an intuitive picture for; it seems counter to our rational expectations. An argument would go something like this: the immortal must be experiencing a specific moment. But it would have had to experience an infinitude of moments before that, and so it would never reach that moment (by definition of infinity) and cannot be experiencing it; which is a contradiction.

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Originally Posted by Xei

We can use our imagination to conjure up a virtual infinitude of things, most of which are patently not for biological fitness; unicorns, floating castles, non-Euclidean geometries, infinite towers... hell, we can even conceptualise self-emasculation; and we can also rationalise about all of these things. To be honest I think your explanation is pretty unambiguously blown out of the water by an abundance of counter examples from reality.

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Yeah but just because you can conceptualize something doesn't mean it's intuitive. Non-Euclidean geometry and elf-emasculation aren't particularly intuitive. I think evolutionary reasoning can be at least a solid foundation for explaining our more pervasive and intuitive inclinations, allowance for flexability after than foundation notwithstanding. You said in the OP: "Intuitively it seems like it's 'impossible for [an infinitely-old] consciousness to ever reach this point in time'. Why is this so different from the classic conception of an immortal?"... what is the classical conception of self-emasculation? Don't fucking do it! That's the intuitive version. I'm just playing with the idea that some sort of foreward-facing immortality drive is this category.

Maybe this doesn't get at the paradoxical part of your question, though. As you said it's not really an intuitive issue, it's a ratonal one.

Which suggests the question: what is the boundary between reason and intuition?

Unfortunately one often gets mistaken for the other as people have the abhorrent tendency to react dismissively to concepts which are counter-intuitive without first applying proper reasoning.

I would define intuition as the result of the unconscious conditioning of our neurons while reason is a cognitive assessment through our neural patterns which enables us to change these neural pathways when we realize we are not being reasonable.

One requires conscious thought, the other is automatic.

Extended substance is likely constituded by the unextended substance ultimately.

Unfortunately I'm not into French poetry and stuff so that will definitely require some explication.

There is no logical problem I can see with something having existed infinitely in the past. The argument has been brought up that it would have to have 'experienced' an infinite number of moments, and therefore never could have reached the current moment. But isn't that paradox analogous to an argument like "you can never reach the number 0 because if you start counting forward from -∞ you never get to 0", which is obviously false? Of course you can't start counting at -∞. That would be the wrong way to go about it. You just know that there are an infinite amount of numbers before 0, as you know there would be an infinite number of moments before the previous moment in which the immortal object exists.

What it would be like to experience being something immortal is a bit different, hard to imagine, but again I don't see much of a problem with it. How it would feel would depend on how the being's memory was handled. If it were like us, I'd guess that it would forget most of its experiences. If its memory had limited capacity, it would probably forget everything up until a certain number of years back, and so the being itself wouldn't feel immortal. Having an infinite number of memories might produce logical problems though.

For some reason thinking about a clock made me a bit more uncertain than a rock, but I suppose it shouldn't pose any problems either. Inquiring about the state of the clock at a given time would be like inquiring about the y-component of a sine graph at any negative x-value. If it's 12:00 now, exactly 6*10^9999 years and 1 hour ago it was 11:00.

The answer to the morality question would depend entirely upon the reason that killing life is immoral. If God said it's immoral, then yes, it would still be immoral. If it's immoral because destroying life produces a lack of life, then it would no longer be immoral. If it's immoral because the individual life itself has some inherent value, based on whoever's judgment, then it would probably still be immoral.

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

There is no logical problem I can see with something having existed infinitely in the past. The argument has been brought up that it would have to have 'experienced' an infinite number of moments, and therefore never could have reached the current moment. But isn't that paradox analogous to an argument like "you can never reach the number 0 because if you start counting forward from -∞ you never get to 0", which is obviously false? Of course you can't start counting at -∞. That would be the wrong way to go about it. You just know that there are an infinite amount of numbers before 0, as you know there would be an infinite number of moments before the previous moment in which the immortal object exists.

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I don't really get what is meant by 'being able to reach' a number? Could you explain it? And in any case, numbers are just conceptual entities; you aren't inhibited by physical reality, which tends to be a lot more restrictive.

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What it would be like to experience being something immortal is a bit different, hard to imagine, but again I don't see much of a problem with it. How it would feel would depend on how the being's memory was handled. If it were like us, I'd guess that it would forget most of its experiences. If its memory had limited capacity, it would probably forget everything up until a certain number of years back, and so the being itself wouldn't feel immortal. Having an infinite number of memories might produce logical problems though.

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That's what I meant about meeting an immortal; I considered elaborating. Given a certain point, it seems like you can conceptualise what it would be like to be the immortal at that point. You would be in the present moment, and your memories would recede into some vanishing point.

The issue is whether the concept of meeting such an immortal at some point is well-defined to start with.

The definition of something having a measure of infinity is essentially, given any point, you can find a point greater than it. In the context of the standard conception of immortals as existing for infinity, once they are born, given any point in their life, you understand that given an interval of time after that, they'll still be alive.

I think this is the crucial point: something existing for infinitely long does not mean it encounters the point '∞'; it's a local concept.

We don't have any problem with the idea that something will go on to keep experiencing moments infinitely, because by definition, all this means is that at any point you encounter it, it has only had a finite life span, and has not had to experience an infinitude of moments to reach you. It never actually becomes an infinitely old being.

The other case is totally different; at any point you meet it, you can name a point in the distant past, and the being will be older than that. In other words, at any point you meet it, it has had to experience an infinitude of moments to reach you; it actually has 'reached' ∞, which we take to be impossible.

So the first being always has a finite age, and the second being always has an infinite age.

So in effect, this paradox is just a corollary of a simpler, more general problem: can something be infinitely old?

(All of the above applies in the obvious way to the questions about objects, too).

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The answer to the morality question would depend entirely upon the reason that killing life is immoral. If God said it's immoral, then yes, it would still be immoral. If it's immoral because destroying life produces a lack of life, then it would no longer be immoral. If it's immoral because the individual life itself has some inherent value, based on whoever's judgment, then it would probably still be immoral.

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What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Xei

what is the boundary between reason and intuition?

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Uncertainty?

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Originally Posted by Xei

I don't really get what is meant by 'being able to reach' a number? Could you explain it?

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Counting forwards from -∞, one will never encounter the number 0 (nor any finite number) because it doesn't make sense to count forwards from -∞. This is because, as you've said, ∞ is just a concept, not a real number. An argument brought up against immortal beings that have always existed, is that they would have to have experienced an infinite number of moments in the past, and therefore could never have gotten to the current moment. Essentially, this argument is assuming that the being would have to have started somewhere (at some -∞ time) and so could never have reached 0. But this is flawed thinking, because the being would start at some -∞ time, it just always existed. (Unless I'm misunderstanding the point of the argument completely).

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Originally Posted by Xei

And in any case, numbers are just conceptual entities; you aren't inhibited by physical reality, which tends to be a lot more restrictive.

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But we're talking about conceptually, right? Ignoring the fact that time did have a beginning (if that's true), in the scenario being considered, some universe would have to have always existed.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I think this is the crucial point: something existing for infinitely long does not mean it encounters the point '∞'; it's a local concept.

We don't have any problem with the idea that something will go on to keep experiencing moments infinitely, because by definition, all this means is that at any point you encounter it, it has only had a finite life span, and has not had to experience an infinitude of moments to reach you. It never actually becomes an infinitely old being.

The other case is totally different; at any point you meet it, you can name a point in the distant past, and the being will be older than that. In other words, at any point you meet it, it has had to experience an infinitude of moments to reach you; it actually has 'reached' ∞, which we take to be impossible.

So in effect, this paradox is just a corollary of a simpler, more general problem: can something be infinitely old?

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I get your point now, and I don't see why it couldn't be. Why do we consider it to be impossible for something to be infinitely old? ∞ is a concept, not a number, but there are still no logical problems with saying that something has existed infinitely into the past. And it might even be said that that thing has existed for an infinite amount of time, but that way of saying it might be misleading, since it isn't any concrete 'amount of time'. It could just be said that, at any point in the past, the being existed before that.

It's probably impossible to conceptualize, so it's probably best to seek logical inconsistencies. And if there are none, maybe it would be possible (conceptually, assuming some alternate reality).

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Originally Posted by Xei

What do you think?

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A while ago I probably would have leaned toward the last one, that I place value on the life itself, and so it's immoral to destroy it, even if some other identical life came to replace it. Saying otherwise would be like saying I have no problem with killing myself as long as an identical copy of me could replace me.

Now I really don't know. Would it be immoral to destroy a planet far away, thriving with life, which we'll never actually interact with personally? Even ignoring the infinite copies situation, I'm not sure how I'd answer that. Why place value on anything? It all comes down to emotion, what we personally feel should be valued. Nothing has any objective value, apart from us deciding that we're going to behave as though it does because that makes us feel better in some way. But this is a different topic.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Add your own

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I find my precognitive dreams to be the most baffling metaphysical paradox I have experienced.

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Originally Posted by Phion

Uncertainty?

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You don't seem very certain?

Could you give an example of each?

Nice to see you again by the way.

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

I get your point now, and I don't see why it couldn't be. Why do we consider it to be impossible for something to be infinitely old? ∞ is a concept, not a number, but there are still no logical problems with saying that something has existed infinitely into the past. And it might even be said that that thing has existed for an infinite amount of time, but that way of saying it might be misleading, since it isn't any concrete 'amount of time'. It could just be said that, at any point in the past, the being existed before that.

It's probably impossible to conceptualize, so it's probably best to seek logical inconsistencies. And if there are none, maybe it would be possible (conceptually, assuming some alternate reality).

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I think you're basically right. I never really believed in the paradox; in fact it's a classic example of what I would call questions beyond the scope of human cogency. But I always find it fun to pinpoint the source of our inadequacy, and in fact I think these things can give important insights into how the mind works.

Here's a very similar issue: you're sat at a train station in space. In situation A, there is a train there. The space train soon departs, travelling at a speed of 88mph in an infinite straight line, for the infinite future. In situation B, a train arrives, having travelled at 88mph for the infinite past.

Do you think there's any difference in the intuitive plausibility of these scenarios? If so that's very interesting, because they are literally exactly the same scenario as far as physics is concerned. I think A is fine and B seems absurd... the biological source of this symmetry breaking is rather intriguing.

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A while ago I probably would have leaned toward the last one, that I place value on the life itself, and so it's immoral to destroy it, even if some other identical life came to replace it. Saying otherwise would be like saying I have no problem with killing myself as long as an identical copy of me could replace me.

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This comes back to my tangential question of identity. When it comes to consciousness it becomes unbearably paradoxical. There are watertight reasons to think that you shouldn't be afraid of ceasing to exist if that event occurred; there are also watertight reasons to think the opposite.

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Now I really don't know. Would it be immoral to destroy a planet far away, thriving with life, which we'll never actually interact with personally? Even ignoring the infinite copies situation, I'm not sure how I'd answer that. Why place value on anything? It all comes down to emotion, what we personally feel should be valued. Nothing has any objective value, apart from us deciding that we're going to behave as though it does because that makes us feel better in some way. But this is a different topic.

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I guess I would simply appeal to induction, which I see as the source of all knowledge. We feel that we shouldn't kill or cause pain to the life that we see, so by induction alone, we apply the same principle to all life. What if you had to make such a judgement about somebody on Earth who you haven't met so far (and, maybe, happen never to meet)? You perform the same step.

Infinity is difficult to conceptualize vividly, but it can still make sense logically. Imagine floating in space and looking ahead. You are looking at infinite distance. Now imagine the infinite distance behind your head. Ininite time works, or would work, the same way.

Was it ever the case that 2 + 2 =/= 4? The truth of it is timeless/eternal. It never began.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Infinity is difficult to conceptualize vividly, but it can still make sense logically. Imagine floating in space and looking ahead. You are looking at infinite distance. Now imagine the infinite distance behind your head. Ininite time works, or would work, the same way.

Was it ever the case that 2 + 2 =/= 4? The truth of it is timeless/eternal. It never began.

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It makes sense logically but the examples you gave aren't good. Floating in space, you don't see infinitely ahead. Even if you could see every object from which you could draw a straight line to your eyes with no interference, eventually there would come a distance at which you couldn't see, because other objects would block any objects past that point. So you wouldn't be seeing an infinite distance.

2 + 2 = 4 is true outside of time, and if you say that fact is infinite you're using some other definition of infinity.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Here's a very similar issue: you're sat at a train station in space. In situation A, there is a train there. The space train soon departs, travelling at a speed of 88mph in an infinite straight line, for the infinite future. In situation B, a train arrives, having travelled at 88mph for the infinite past.

Do you think there's any difference in the intuitive plausibility of these scenarios? If so that's very interesting, because they are literally exactly the same scenario as far as physics is concerned. I think A is fine and B seems absurd... the biological source of this symmetry breaking is rather intriguing.

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I agree that intuitively the situations seem different. Perhaps we aren't properly imagining the future extending infinitely, and instead we just think "in 1000 years the train will still be traveling, in 10000000 years it will still be," etc. It's easy to imagine that the train is here right now, at a concrete point in time, and to ignore whatever 'infinitely into the future' means because that will happen later and we don't really need to think about it, so situation A is easier to imagine. But while considering the train already having traveled infinitely in the past, we're forced to imagine that the train has already undergone all of that traveling. The ∞ part seems more real since the train has already experienced it before the present moment.

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Originally Posted by Xei

This comes back to my tangential question of identity. When it comes to consciousness it becomes unbearably paradoxical. There are watertight reasons to think that you shouldn't be afraid of ceasing to exist if that event occurred; there are also watertight reasons to think the opposite.

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What are those reasons?
To me it just seems that I don't want to die because I don't want to die. That's hardwired into my brain. The 'I' is the instance of the brain itself, not 'me or any identical copy of me', the survival instinct just doesn't work like that.

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

Why do we consider it to be impossible for something to be infinitely old? ∞ is a concept, not a number, but there are still no logical problems with saying that something has existed infinitely into the past. And it might even be said that that thing has existed for an infinite amount of time, but that way of saying it might be misleading, since it isn't any concrete 'amount of time'. It could just be said that, at any point in the past, the being existed before that.

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One problem with this is that assuming that the being remembered enough of its experiences causes it to have an infinite amount of information. We can try to solve this by stipulating that it has only a finite amount of memories. However information disappearing would seem to be very bad for causality.

This isn't a problem going forward.

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Originally Posted by Xei

You don't seem very certain?
Here's a very similar issue: you're sat at a train station in space. In situation A, there is a train there. The space train soon departs, travelling at a speed of 88mph in an infinite straight line, for the infinite future. In situation B, a train arrives, having travelled at 88mph for the infinite past.

Do you think there's any difference in the intuitive plausibility of these scenarios? If so that's very interesting, because they are literally exactly the same scenario as far as physics is concerned. I think A is fine and B seems absurd... the biological source of this symmetry breaking is rather intriguing.

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Specifically, if some recording device starts at t=0 then at any t going forward, it's only recorded t amount of time. Coming from the past, it has an infinite recording.

So for these things to make sense, it seems necessary to assume that there can be an infinite amount of information about the universe.

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Originally Posted by Xei

You don't seem very certain?

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Making a distinction, or attempting to describe some transitory process between our agency for reason and intuition is outside the scope I'm willing to flesh out anytime soon I'm afraid.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Could you give an example of each?

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By each, I'm assuming you mean examples of situations where this distinction or process is evident. I'm sure there are quite a few; opening a parachute without an altimeter, flying a jet during a dog fight, formula one racing, etc.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Nice to see you again by the way.

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Feel good to be back!

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

It makes sense logically but the examples you gave aren't good. Floating in space, you don't see infinitely ahead. Even if you could see every object from which you could draw a straight line to your eyes with no interference, eventually there would come a distance at which you couldn't see, because other objects would block any objects past that point. So you wouldn't be seeing an infinite distance.

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It involves looking at something that is infinite. No object marks the end of what you are looking at. You are thus looking infinitely ahead. You don't have to have objects going forever to do that. The point of this is conceptualization any way. My examples illustrate the concept of infinity in a way that some people can understand it.

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Originally Posted by Dianeva

2 + 2 = 4 is true outside of time, and if you say that fact is infinite you're using some other definition of infinity.

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2 + 2 = 4 is true within time and external to time, and time is not the final dimension any way. 2 + 2 = 4 is a reality, and it never began as a reality. It has no beginning, and it exists now. That makes it eternal, not merely in a this fourth dimension sense. That makes it infinite.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

2 + 2 = 4 is true within time and external to time, and time is not the final dimension any way. 2 + 2 = 4 is a reality, and it never began as a reality. It has no beginning, and it exists now. That makes it eternal, not merely in a this fourth dimension sense. That makes it infinite.

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Until you show me a 2 and you show me a + and you show me a =, I have to maintain that these things are all in your head.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

That makes it eternal, not merely in a this fourth dimension sense. That makes it infinite.

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I believe the word you're looking for is atemporal. However, to coin the concept of eternity and infinity is to reference time itself, or an interval, bedding our relationship between something countable (like a set of ideas) and something intangible (like immortality). Where either facet can exist independently of time, but also relies on time to form the concept in the first place.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Until you show me a 2 and you show me a + and you show me a =, I have to maintain that these things are all in your head.

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They are not objects, but 2 is this many. * *
Two more is this many **.

Together they form (symoblized by +) this many * * * *.

However, I cannot show you i of them or of anything else.

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Originally Posted by Phion

I believe the word you're looking for is atemporal. However, to coin the concept of eternity and infinity is to reference time itself, or an interval, bedding our relationship between something countable (like a set of ideas) and something intangible (like immortality). Where either facet can exist independently of time, but also relies on time to form the concept in the first place.

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It would perhaps involve another dimension or dimensions, but something existing without a beginning or end is eternal/infinite. Something existing the entirety of an infinite time line would be eternal, but I do not think that is a requirement.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

They are not objects, but 2 is this many. * *
Two more is this many **.

Together they form (symoblized by +) this many * * * *.

However, I cannot show you i of them or of anything else.

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So to paraphrase, two doesn't actually exist in any sense that has meaning within the rational materialist model?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

So to paraphrase, two doesn't actually exist in any sense that has meaning within the rational materialist model?

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That is not true. Two is not a material object, but it is an amount that pertains to material objects and often is an amount of material objects. I know you are trying to make an imaginary numbers issue comeback, so I will tell you that what I said about two does not applyl to i.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

One problem with this is that assuming that the being remembered enough of its experiences causes it to have an infinite amount of information.
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So for these things to make sense, it seems necessary to assume that there can be an infinite amount of information about the universe.

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This is actually a pretty weak argument because we're pretty much assuming that there is an infinite amount of information about the universe to even be talking about an object that has been travelling forever.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

That is not true. Two is not a material object, but it is an amount that pertains to material objects and often is an amount of material objects. I know you are trying to make an imaginary numbers issue comeback, so I will tell you that what I said about two does not applyl to i.

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I'm not trying to bring the complex numbers back. I'm trying to convince you that what you're saying about two doesn't apply to two.

If something exists within the rational materialist frame work and isn't a material object, then what is it?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

If something exists within the rational materialist frame work and isn't a material object, then what is it?

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A measure of material objects. What is the difference between * and **?

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Originally Posted by Xei

Add your own or talk about those under discussion.

To start off with, I have a couple of strange thoughts about infinity. I'm not sure how original they are.

Firstly, a metaphysical problem: infinite lifespans. We don't have much trouble with the concept of immortals; they are born like us, and imagining what it would be like to be one is just a matter of extrapolating from our current life experience. But what about the other direction? What about an immortal being which, additionally, has always existed? Meeting and conversing with such a being seems plausible. But what about being that being? Intuitively it seems like it's 'impossible for its consciousness to ever reach this point in time'. Why is this so different from the classic conception of an immortal? What about objects in general? Could you encounter a rock which had existed forever? Or a clock??

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I think the asymmetry comes from giving the concept of time too much reality in an eternal place where an immortal could live. In such an eternal place, time is only artificially ascribed by and relative to observers. An immortal observer could ascribe time to events of the past to infinity, but I don't think saying it has lived infinitely long would be correct because that's like trying to use infinity as an objective amount of time in an eternal universe. The symmetry appears again when you see time only as a measurement of observers, the immortal could measure his memory in eternity to infinity.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Secondly, a moral problem: infinite beings. We think killing is immoral in what we presume to be a finite universe. But what if we discovered that the universe was infinite? Would it be moral to destroy a planet with life on it? If you did so, you would not have reduced the amount of life in the universe at all. This is not controversial; refer to the Hilbert's Hotel analogy if you're confused. You could just find another planet with life on it (in fact you could find an identical planet) and put it where the old one was, and then replace the new empty space with another planet, and so on with different planets forever, leaving you with exactly the same arrangement as before you destroyed the planet.?

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It depends on their relation to the whole; if they're about to attack a friendly, productive species out of greed, it would be morally sound to destroy them. If they are that friendly, productive species in cooperation with the well-being of the rest of the universe's civilizations, I couldn't believe nothing would be changed by dragging the replica to the same place, so I would call it immoral.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

A measure of material objects. What is the difference between * and **?

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But what is this "measure of material objects" made out of?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

But what is this "measure of material objects" made out of?

---

electrical impulses?

So "two" is a set of electrical impulses. Does that mean that "two" only lasts as long as those electrical impulses or does it last longer?

I guess it lasts as long as any other conceptual entity in our mind.

So it lasts only as long as the electrical impulses that it's made out of.

Is the "two" in my head the same as the "two" in yours?

Yes, we have similair enough faculties/experience and training.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

But what is this "measure of material objects" made out of?

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It is not physical, so it is not made out of anything physical. It is made out of mathematical and other metaphysical principles. It is just intertwined with the physical. It is revealed in the physical, and the physical is rooted in it.

Now please answer my question. What is the difference between * and **?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It is not physical, so it is not made out of anything physical. It is made out of mathematical and other metaphysical principles. It is just intertwined with the physical. It is revealed in the physical, and the physical is rooted in it.

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So you have to step beyond the rational materialist model to claim that two is real. Thanks, that's all I wanted to know.

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Now please answer my question. What is the difference between * and **?

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'*' occurs before the 'and' while '**' occurs after it.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

So you have to step beyond the rational materialist model to claim that two is real. Thanks, that's all I wanted to know.

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Step beyond it? Not exactly. The rational materialist model is very much involved in the reality of two.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

'*' occurs before the 'and' while '**' occurs after it.

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That's cute. Now try answering the question in the context in which you know I asked it.

...*?

Did you know Euclid wrote a ~200 page proof proving 1 + 1 = 2?

I've never heard that and I'm pretty certain it isn't true, the Greeks didn't look at maths like that.

It was proven after a large number of pages of underlying work by Russell and Whitehead however, when they grounded arithmetic on logic and sets.

Oh. Hey, I have that book.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phion

I believe the word you're looking for is atemporal. However, to coin the concept of eternity and infinity is to reference time itself, or an interval, bedding our relationship between something countable (like a set of ideas) and something intangible (like immortality). Where either facet can exist independently of time, but also relies on time to form the concept in the first place.

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It would perhaps involve another dimension or dimensions, but something existing without a beginning or end is eternal/infinite. Something existing the entirety of an infinite time line would be eternal, but I do not think that is a requirement.

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Dimensions themselves are countable, are they not?

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Originally Posted by Phion

Dimensions themselves are countable, are they not?

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Yes, but that doesn't mean there is an infinite number of them. I think the timelessness or "eternity" of 2 + 2 = 4 could involve infinity in a dimension that is not time but is somehow like time.

Mathematically speaking, adding dimensions to equations is a fairly "trivial" exercise (n-dimensional manifolds or euclidean space) just not very easy to visualize.

If you want to you guys can argue about it in the thread I made just for that discussion http://www.dreamviews.com/f77/mathematics-123090/, could be interesting.

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

Yes, we have similair enough faculties/experience and training.

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I missed this before.

So the two in your head is the same as the two in mine. If "two" is a set of electrico-chemical phenomena in my head then this would, upon expanding the definition of "two", say "A set of electrical/chemical phenomena" in my head is the same as "a set of elecrical/chemical phenomena" in your head.

Are you satisfied with this statement?

How many heads do the two of you have collectively?

Two. What's your point and will you make it?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Until you show me a 2

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

How many heads do the two of you have collectively?

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Two.

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:chuckle:

So what is this "two" that you claim to have shown me made out of? How would an electron behave in a collision with a two?

:laugh:

Also,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phion

Dimensions themselves are countable, are they not?

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not necessarily.

One could create a space with dimensions indexed by the reals. For example, take the real line. Let's represent functions as vectors with one coordinate for each point on the real line. The value of that coordinate is the value of the function on the real number indexing that coordinate.

So the coordinate x of the vector f is just f(x).

This is a vector space with coordinate-wise operations and we have that f(x) + g(x) = (f + g)(x) and cf(x) = c(f(x)) so the vector operations are capturing the notion of adding and scaling functions according to the usual definitions.

This space has a non-countable amount of dimensions. One doesn't usually need this much information. For special classes of functions one can make due with a countable basis. The basis for wave functions in QM is countable for instance.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

So what is this "two" that you claim to have shown me made out of? How would an electron behave in a collision with a two?

:laugh:

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You tell me. You just admitted that you believe it exists. Do you think it's an object? I don't. I think it's an amount.

:whistle:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

not necessarily.

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It's like saying the sky tends to be blue. You're defining vector operations in terms of single variable function notation, a non sequitur. Stating the fact that vectors are scalable does not equate to a two-dimension plane being infinitely dimensional, that's nonsense. If you want to define a vector in more than two dimensions, you need to state that implicitly, not substitute them with arbitrary function principles that don't apply to vectors.

What I think you mean to say is that all terminal vectors are similar if their cosine or dot product are the same.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You tell me. You just admitted that you believe it exists. Do you think it's an object? I don't. I think it's an amount.

:whistle:

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Ok. So you have to go beyond the rational materialist model to claim that it exists, right? Or what material substance is an amount made out of?

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Originally Posted by Phion

It's like saying the sky tends to be blue. You're defining vector operations in terms of single variable function notation, a non sequitur.

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This is similar to UM's rejection of the complex numbers. Who says it's a non-sequiter? A mathematician can define anything a mathematician could want. In particular, it's possible (and perhaps usual in set-theoretic treatments) to regard an n-dimensional vector space, V, on a field k, as the set of k-valued functions on the set S = {0, 1, ..., n-1}, if one wants to index starting from zero, or S = {1, 2, ... n} if one wants to index starting from one. This should be a trivial exercise, check it out. It essentially amounts to verifying that these functions constitute an abelian group under function addition and that multiplication by scalars distributes over addition of functions.

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Stating the fact that vectors are scalable does not equate to a two-dimension plane being infinitely dimensional, that's nonsense. If you want to define a vector in more than two dimensions, you need to state that implicitly, not substitute them with arbitrary function principles that don't apply to vectors.

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I never said that two is the same as infinity, that would be nonsense. You mentioned that dimensions had to be countable and that's not the case in priniciple. It just makes things easier. The vector stuff applies perfectly to functions as functions are perfect examples of vector spaces and vector spaces are interesting examples of functions. In particular, the best way to remember the vector space axioms is to remember that a vector space is just an embedding of a field into the endomorphism ring of an abelian group. That captures the whole tedious list. You just need to know what an embedding, endomorphism, field, ring, and abelian group are but you should know those things anyways.

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What I think you mean to say is that all terminal vectors are similar if their cosine or dot product are the same.

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Sounds old fashioned. What's a terminal vector? It doesn't make sense though because the dot product takes two vectors. But you've only referenced two vectors so what does it mean for them to have the same dot product? This seems like saying that 3 and 4 have the same product, 12. You can use a function of two arguments to define relationships on sets of two objects, not on individual objects. You want at least four vectors if you want to talk about doing this.

Maybe Phion is visualising the space of single variable functions to be the plane because you can draw them on a plane (which is incorrect, of course).

First of all, none of this have anything to do with metaphysics or paradoxes. We're now beginning to talk about pure mathematics, more specifically abstract algebra. The non sequitur I mentioned was, again, in reference to you poor choice of analogy and building an argument on top of a false premise. Further, It does not follow that functions are vector spaces, nor vector spaces are functions. Also, if you really knew as much about the complex plane you covet so much you'd be using it in your treatment of vectors and their representation. Although you're in the ball park, this is useful for applications in fractals and chaos which can be described in set notation (ie. a Julia set).

While I'm familiar with the type of mathematics your throwing around so freely, personally I have never done any work with object mapping and transformations, and probably won't anytime soon. That doesn't matter however, because you're being transparent and beating around the bush! Dimensions are not an interval, dimensions are not a countable vector space, but are determined by the vectors that compose said space; dimensions determine how those vectors behave in a given vector space as well as how they are re-mapped. This is not paradoxical in any way, shape or form.

Allow me to re-interpret your meaning. A vector is co-terminal regardless of the magnitude of that vector if they share the same angle, allowing them to overlap, if that clarifies anything. I don't see how you can't understand a scalar relationship between vectors while claiming to understand advanced mathematics. I'm not going to go some diatribe about this, but it seems to me that there are some gaping holes in your logic here, and it's detracted from the OP altogether.

With respect I find it very hard to see how anything you're saying bears upon what Philosopher said. You made the statement 'dimensions are countable'... there was no analogising, Philosopher simply replied with a counterexample. And the counterexample is correct if dimension has its mathematical sense; the set of single-valued real functions with the operations specified do form a vector space, and that vector space does have uncountable dimension.

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Originally Posted by Xei

With respect I find it very hard to see how anything you're saying bears upon what Philosopher said.

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He has got a nack for over-generalization to be sure.

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Originally Posted by Xei

{snip}...there was no analogising,...{snip}

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

electrical impulses?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

{snip}...How would an electron behave in a collision with a two?...{snip}

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That kind of thing.

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Originally Posted by Xei

{snip}... And the counterexample is correct if dimension has its mathematical sense;... {snip}

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It looks to me like he's trying to clarify the affect dimensions have on algebraic structures. Which is cool and all, but I fail to see the relevance of dimension theorem for vector spaces in the discussion, aside from cardinality.

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Originally Posted by Xei

{snip}...the set of single-valued real functions with the operations specified do form a vector space, and that vector space does have uncountable dimension.

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Maybe it's simply my taste for formalism, but that doesn't sit well with me.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Ok. So you have to go beyond the rational materialist model to claim that it exists, right? Or what material substance is an amount made out of?

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No. It is a material property, not a material object. It is an amount... of material stuff. Amounts are not objects. They are of objects.

What do you think 2 is?

Well, I think at the very least he thought it relevant to where the discussion had reached, as he knew something which directly contradicted a statement in that discussion. My original post wasn't so much about the paradoxes themselves as it was intended to inspire these kind of talks about the epistemology of infinity and the like.

With respect to formalism, I'd say that's the easiest philosophy of all to reconcile an uncountable dimensional vector space with. In fact I don't see any problems at all, it is all very well grounded and could be reduced without too much fuss to a set-theoretic foundation.

With this basis, we could talk about damn near anything; lattices, tilings, etc. We might need a change of basis here... :P

I'm pretty sure the failure of Rational Materialism to encompass 2 or indeed any mathamathical entity reflects an issue with Rational Materialism, not Maths. This belief of mine is solidified by the fact that Rational Materialism would be impossible to conceive of without Maths and the universal possible application of maths in the physical world. Of course I can't prove that it isn't just some enormous coincidence that maths sincs up so well with the world but I dare say the burden of proof is on the other party.

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Originally Posted by Phion

He has got a nack for over-generalization to be sure.
That kind of thing.

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None of the material that was quoted has anything to do with our conversation. In particular the question of if two is "real" is entirely orthogonal to the question of how many dimensions a vector space can have. A vector space can have any cardinal number of dimensions because one can always take a set of that cardnality and consider the set of all functions from that set into an arbitrary field to be a vector space over that field. You said something to the contrary and seem to like math so I thought you'd appreciate a cool trick that provides a counter-example for any statement along the lines of "A vector space can only be X big."

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Maybe it's simply my taste for formalism, but that doesn't sit well with me.

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It's precisely formalism that makes these kinds of things apparent. It's amazing how often we find ourselves talking about some number of apparently distinct things and really we're talking about the same thing. Functions are sets and sets are functions and vector spaces happen to be special cases of this. I just relied on that to correct an incorrect statement.

I'm still waiting on somebody to say something intelligent in defense of the "reality" of numbers.

PS: Thanks for the "over generalization" compliment. While I wouldn't have chosen that precise terminology, I do consider it the mark of a genius amd am deeply moved that you notice.

Also, the fact that two doesn't exist by any meaningful sense of the word and is yet so objectively useful is pretty paradoxical if one stops to think about it for a minute.

Phil, you said there are two heads in a set of two people. You tell me this time... What is "two?" Explain its meaning.

I'd be glad to give you a full explaination of what I have to say when I'm done my paper on it, but it would be something along the lines of our conception and decision of sameness.

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

I'd be glad to give you a full explaination of what I have to say when I'm done my paper on it, but it would be something along the lines of our conception and decision of sameness.

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So it depends on human conceptualization? If humans went extinct, there would no longer be two planets closer to the Sun than Earth?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

So it depends on human conceptualization? If humans went extinct, there would no longer be two planets closer to the Sun than Earth?

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An excerpt taken from the Tao Teh Ching, as interpreted by Hua-Ching Ni, Chapter One (also one of my favorite translations):

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Tao, the subtle reality of the universe
cannot be described.
That which can be described in words
is merely a conception of the mind.
Although names and descriptions have been applied to it,
the subtle reality is beyond the description.

---

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

What is "two?" Explain its meaning.

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The result of an unary operation with arity one.

Imma come back and necro this thread in a about month, I'll see you guys later.

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Originally Posted by Phion

The result of an unary operation with arity one.

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What is "one?"


Phil, I'm glad you like the first page of Tao Te Ching, but you are dodging my question. You have already named the principle "two" by making it the answer to a question. What is "two?"

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Phil, I'm glad you like the first page of Tao Te Ching, but you are dodging my question. You have already named the principle "two" by making it the answer to a question. What is "two?"

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It's a twol that we use to slice the universe into distinct pieces to make it easier to think about. Can I take it that you've accepted my point that postulating that everything is made out of matter cannot support thinking of "two" as being real?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

What is "one?"

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Nullary operation with arity zero.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

It's a twol that we use to slice the universe into distinct pieces to make it easier to think about. Can I take it that you've accepted my point that postulating that everything is made out of matter cannot support thinking of "two" as being real?

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That says something about two, but it's not a distinct definition for the particular number. What is two, as opposed to three or nine?

I think it's a principle, not just a way of slicing the universe. I agree that it's not made of matter, and I don't think matter is the only stuff that exists. There are principles, forces, energy, dimensions, space, etc.

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Originally Posted by Phion

Nullary operation with arity zero.

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It's just an operation?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It's just an operation?

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It's all about context.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

That says something about two, but it's not a distinct definition for the particular number. What is two, as opposed to three or nine?

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That's all I wanted to say. Two is an uninteresting, specific example. Or will I have to jump through all these hoops to convince you that three doesn't exist next?

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I think it's a principle, not just a way of slicing the universe. I agree that it's not made of matter, and I don't think matter is the only stuff that exists. There are principles, forces, energy, dimensions, space, etc.

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You've already lost me. I'm very conused. What's a principle and what's it made out of? Forces, energy, dimensions and space are probably examples of principles though so there's no need to add them onto the list.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

That's all I wanted to say. Two is an uninteresting, specific example. Or will I have to jump through all these hoops to convince you that three doesn't exist next?

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You have yet to tell me what two is, and I have asked you many times now. You told me what we do with numbers in general, but even that was vague. You said they are a tool we use for cutting the universe up in a way that we can understand it better, but you didn't say how. What is two?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

You've already lost me. I'm very conused. What's a principle and what's it made out of? Forces, energy, dimensions and space are probably examples of principles though so there's no need to add them onto the list.

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We didn't add them to the list. They were already on it. Numbers are principles, and they are not made of matter. They can be subdivided into other numbers, but they are principles and not physical objects. They still exist.

What is two? Explain its numerical nature in terms other than other numerical natures. I am not looking for "one less than three" or anything like that. I am using two as an example of a number to get a perspective on what numbers are, so explain what two is without using another number to define it. You already said it is real. So.... What is it?

The only thing in the universe we can know for certain is that we percieve.
The broadest possible term that we can describe what our perceptions are is information.
Math encompasses all information and operations on that information.
It doesn't matter if it takes the form of numbers and operators or the grammatical constructs of language.
Since the only way we can percieve the material world (and this encompasses instruments too) is through information.
Hence numbers are in fact more "real" then anything in the material world because while we can have false perceptions, we can't really question the existense of the elements that constitute all of our perception.

Just my 2 cents.

What's information?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You have yet to tell me what two is, and I have asked you many times now. You told me what we do with numbers in general, but even that was vague. You said they are a tool we use for cutting the universe up in a way that we can understand it better, but you didn't say how. What is two?

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I already told you that I'm not going to define two. It can be done in multiple ways, none of which are at all relavent.

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We didn't add them to the list. They were already on it. Numbers are principles, and they are not made of matter. They can be subdivided into other numbers, but they are principles and not physical objects. They still exist.

What is two? Explain its numerical nature in terms other than other numerical natures. I am not looking for "one less than three" or anything like that. I am using two as an example of a number to get a perspective on what numbers are, so explain what two is without using another number to define it. You already said it is real. So.... What is it?

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You can ask me to define two but you can't ask me to do it without referring to other numbers. What does it matter? Would it prove some point either way if I do or do not refer to other numbers in defining it? Also, what do you mean by "numerical nature"? Is that real too? Why don't you define two without referring to other numbers. If you did that in a satisfactory way, it would probably make me look like a real dumbass.

@Xei
As far as information goes, I would regard it as answers to questions. A question imposes a partition on the set of possible universes (as long as each can only assume one state simultaneously) with one section containing all the universes which are in a state that yields a particular answer to a question.

For example, think of our universes as being ordered sets of six symbols, five of which are 0 and one of which is 1. So they'll be something like 010000, 001000 and so on. There are six such universes. Take the question "Is the 1 in the first three spots?" This partitions the universe into the "yes" partition and the "no" partition, i.e {100000, 010000, 001000} and {000100, 000010, 000001}. So we could call it a binary question. Likewise for "Is the 1 in the first spot?"

As we ask questions, we are taking the intersection of the partitions on possible universes induced by those questions.

So I would regard information as being a set of possible universes that is kept as the "running" intersection induced by various questions.

We can think of usless questions as being those such that one partition induced by it contains that running intersection. For example, if we ask "Is the 1 in the first three spots" and get the answer yes, then we know that we're in one of the universes {100000, 010000, 001000}. The question "Is the 1 in the fourth spot" creates the partions {100000, 010000, 001000, 000010, 000001} and {000100}. The first partition contains our running intersection and so it's useless to ask "Is the 1 in the fourth spot?" after asking "is the 1 in the first three spots?" and getting a positive answer. Had we gotten a negative answer, then it would be useful and {0001000, 000010, 000001} intersects with but is not contained by {000010}.

This is an example of the general fact that the set of possible answers to a question is determined by what is already known. In this formalism, the set of possible answers to a question is the set of its partitions that intersect our running intersection. A question becomes useless when only one of its answers intersect our running partition because we can regard the answer as being known.

Is that at all clear?

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Originally Posted by Xei

What's information?

---

I would describe the quantum of information as being a point that occupies a dimension, a dimension as being defined as a parameter in which to describe something. So you could say in my system dimensions are the space in which information can manifest. Getting anymore elemental then this is impossible: as humans are beings composed of information, they would be unable to concieve of anything that goes beyond it even if something beyond it exists.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

As far as information goes, I would regard it as answers to questions. A question imposes a partition on the set of possible universes (as long as each can only assume one state simultaneously) with one section containing all the universes which are in a state that yields a particular answer to a question.

For example, think of our universes as being ordered sets of six symbols, five of which are 0 and one of which is 1. So they'll be something like 010000, 001000 and so on. There are six such universes. Take the question "Is the 1 in the first three spots?" This partitions the universe into the "yes" partition and the "no" partition, i.e {100000, 010000, 001000} and {000100, 000010, 000001}. So we could call it a binary question. Likewise for "Is the 1 in the first spot?"

As we ask questions, we are taking the intersection of the partitions on possible universes induced by those questions.

So I would regard information as being a set of possible universes that is kept as the "running" intersection induced by various questions.

We can think of usless questions as being those such that one partition induced by it contains that running intersection. For example, if we ask "Is the 1 in the first three spots" and get the answer yes, then we know that we're in one of the universes {100000, 010000, 001000}. The question "Is the 1 in the fourth spot" creates the partions {100000, 010000, 001000, 000010, 000001} and {000100}. The first partition contains our running intersection and so it's useless to ask "Is the 1 in the fourth spot?" after asking "is the 1 in the first three spots?" and getting a positive answer. Had we gotten a negative answer, then it would be useful and {0001000, 000010, 000001} intersects with but is not contained by {000010}.

This is an example of the general fact that the set of possible answers to a question is determined by what is already known. In this formalism, the set of possible answers to a question is the set of its partitions that intersect our running intersection. A question becomes useless when only one of its answers intersect our running partition because we can regard the answer as being known.

Is that at all clear?

---

Does this mean that puns are wormholes? :P

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I already told you that I'm not going to define two.

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Thanks any way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Why don't you define two without referring to other numbers.

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"Two" is an amount that is defined as this many * * of a given unit.

What is the relevance of this? You tell me. You kicked off this part of the discussion with this comment...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Until you show me a 2 and you show me a + and you show me a =, I have to maintain that these things are all in your head.

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Defining 2 might help you explore that idea, but you have the right to play dodgeball.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

"Two" is an amount that is defined as this many * * of a given unit.

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This many asterisks or what the fuck are you talking about? What's a unit? Do you know what two is by the standards you're trying to establish? Of course you don't. Your'e being snaky and dodgy and I might as well be talking to a creationist. A prostelytizer of course I have nothing against the people that just believe it out of convenience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

This many asterisks or what the fuck are you talking about? What's a unit? Do you know what two is by the standards you're trying to establish? Of course you don't. Your'e being snaky and dodgy and I might as well be talking to a creationist. A prostelytizer of course I have nothing against the people that just believe it out of convenience.

---

Yes, that many asterisks. I'm glad you get it.

Check out this link. I think it can solve a lot of your problems.

Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Yes, that many asterisks. I'm glad you get it.

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Oh ok. That many asterisks. Generally numbers are taken to be more general things that can refer to any kind of object.

You're assuming those asterisks are objective entities, which is silly. Without human perception they don't have any true distinction.

So would you care to give an actual definition or do you just want to roll with "definition" by example?

How can you objectively say they're both "asterisks"? They're a temporary stream of photons, probably differing in intensity at any moment. It's all in our perspective and relatively shallow standards that they are actually an object. Since such a false sense of object or separate entity evolved for survival, don't you think it's possible numbers and math only exist underlying that neurological ability? If elementary particles are truly elementary and eternal or if space and time are granular, then I would question the objectivity of math again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

You're assuming those asterisks are objective entities, which is silly. Without human perception they don't have any true distinction.

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They are objective entities. They are photon patterns, as you said. The fact that their intensities may not be the same does not mean they do not have defining patterns. They both qualify as asterisks. They are what they are even when they are not perceived. There are two of them.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...w=1280&bih=868


Philly, I have explained what two is in several ways, and you are flat out pretending not to understand what I am saying. Now it is your turn to define "two" for the first time. You keep screwing with me for more elaboration although you straight up said you are not going to define it. I didn't realize self-projection hypothesizing could be such a valuable asset in dodgeball.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

They are objective entities. They are photon patterns, as you said. The fact that their intensities may not be the same does not mean they do not have defining patterns. They both qualify as asterisks. They are what they are even when they are not perceived. There are two of them.

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They have defining patterns because of our limited perspective that rounds them to look the same, they are not objective entities. You're reasoning is honestly kind of disappointing right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

They have defining patterns because of our limited perspective that rounds them to look the same, they are not objective entities. You're reasoning is honestly kind of disappointing right now.

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There is a common pattern that, though it involves a certain degree of variation in certain measures, allows us to have the common perception. A Toyota Corolla and a Honda Accord are not exactly the same, and we don't even perceive them as being exactly the same, but they both fit a pattern that qualifies them as cars. Computer screen asterisks function in a similar manner. Tell me this... Do those things on the computer screen you are referring to qualify as asterisks? We both seem to know what you are referring to. Why might that be?

Your personality is honestly kind of disappointing right now.

More on 2...

https://www.google.com/search?um=1&h...w=1280&bih=868

Hey Philly, show me i of something. Anything.

They're all human definitions. Cars are an assembly of atoms, no two are exactly the same. Objectively, they are unique and temporary phases of atoms. We call them cars and count them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

They're all human definitions. Cars are an assembly of atoms, no two are exactly the same. Objectively, they are unique and temporary phases of atoms. We call them cars and count them.

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And they have qualities that fit a certain range of characteristics which qualify them under our definition of "car," and it is possible to have two of them. If you won two cars in a sweepstakes, would you know what that means? Would it mean anything? What would it mean? There would be two actual objects you won. Right?

Yes, I'm just saying that without human perspective, it's more difficult to see separate things and hence numbers as objective than you might have thought.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

Yes, I'm just saying that without human perspective, it's more difficult to see separate things and hence numbers as objective than you might have thought.

---

I know we come up with the words and definitions. That does not mean the realities behind the words and definitions are dependent on us.

http://digimind.com/blog/wp-content/...2/number2c.png
http://digimind.com/blog/wp-content/...2/number2c.png


This video expresses it well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmfSEuq1F3w

The realities behind the same word are actually unique and different.

This video explains it well Abstract Objects Vs. Arrangements - YouTube

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wayfaerer

The realities behind the same word are actually unique and different.

This video explains it well Abstract Objects Vs. Arrangements - YouTube

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The realities are different in some ways, but they are enough the same to be forms of the same general type of thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

The realities are different in some ways, but they are enough the same to be forms of the same general type of thing.

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Who decides this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Who decides this?

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Nobody. There are two of these :lol: :lol: even if we don't say there are two of them. We might define what qualifies as one of those, but they are still there even when we are not analyzing them. How many of them are in this post? Serious question. How many of them are in this post?

Did you see the video I posted? I really think you should watch it.

Sesame Street - Baker #2 - YouTube

I'm still waiting for you to show me i of something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I'm still waiting for you to show me i of something.

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We're not talking about complex numbers, we're talking about your complete ineptitude in debate and your ability to completely ignore the point of a question.

However, if ** is two of *,

then

*
*

is i of

**.

At any rate, I'm done talking to you. Please fuck off and don't ever get your job back as a math teacher.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

We're not talking about complex numbers, we're talking about your complete ineptitude in debate and your ability to completely ignore the point of a question.

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Could you be a little more vague, Dr. Ad Hominem? I think it's interesting that you throw out such a bizarre accusation when I have been so detailed in my on-point responses and you have been just acting like a two year old (Yes, there is such a thing.) having a temper tantrum instead of countering my points. It is you who said this...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I already told you that I'm not going to define two.

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That's how much of a participant you have been in this debate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

However, if ** is two of *,

then

*
*

is i of

**.

---

There are square root of -1 ** when you post them vertically? :rolllaugh: That is such ridiculous symbolism. You might as well say there are :muffin:of * when you post them like this *...**. It's just made up bullshit. Did you understand the Sesame Street video? I can explain it to you if you want me to.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

At any rate, I'm done talking to you. Please fuck off and don't ever get your job back as a math teacher.

---

My, how frustrated and personality disturbed you really are. Stop acting like an i year old!

I said I wasn't going to define two because it's entirely irrelevant to the point. The question is are numbers "real" or are they just something that we make up to describe the universe. The definition of "two" as opposed to "three" is besides the point and there are many ways to do either, all no doubt well above your head. But you know what two is anyways so why should I waste my time.

As far as it being ridiculous symbolism, it's precisely how one gets a square root for -1. Watch this.

Take +**. Multiply it by i to get

*
*
+

Then multiply that by i again to get

**+

Now surely even you will not be such an annoying obstructionist to claim that **+ is not -1 times +**. But if i²+** = **+ and -1+** = **+ then we can apply cancelation (inverses are unique) to get i² = -1.

Your whole problem is that you won't get it out of your head that numbers have to represent quantity. This whole "numbers are quantities of discrete objects" thing is your own problem and your own hang up. Numbers represent dilations and rotations. -1 is a rotation by pi/2 in the positive sense and i is a rotation by pi/4 in the positive sense. If one rotates by pi/4 twice one rotates by (wait for it...) pi/2, i.e. it's the same as rotating with -1. The fact that numbers can be used to represent quantities is besides the point and is largely a historical accident of their origins in the human mind.

Show me half an apple. Is it one half of one apple or is it one half apple? What happens if one eats the other half? How can you claim that it's half of an apple when there is no other half? If one cuts an apple in half, is it two half apples or one apple? Show me 1/2 of anything.

What if you're looking at a table and a chair? Is it two pieces of furniture or one of each? If it's two pieces of furniture, are you claiming that the universe intrinsically knows what furniture is for there to intrinsically be two of them? Once we define "furniture" then we can decide how many pieces of furniture there are. There's nothing fundamental about it. You're the one making an extraordinary claim and so you're the one that needs to provide evidence for the existence of two or at least answer basic questions about it.

And if you come back with "how many is **" I'm going to ask you how the sky is so pretty without god. So find a new bullshit line to call "on point". The reason it's bullshit is that my answering "two" has no bearing on if "two" exists as an objective entity or if it exists as a convention of human thought.

That's a pretty long post you left after saying this...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

At any rate, I'm done talking to you.

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:chuckle:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I said I wasn't going to define two because it's entirely irrelevant to the point. The question is are numbers "real" or are they just something that we make up to describe the universe. The definition of "two" as opposed to "three" is besides the point and there are many ways to do either, all no doubt well above your head. But you know what two is anyways so why should I waste my time.

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Capatin Dodgeball, we are discussing the nature of two in order to analyze the nature of numbers, and you won't answer my very simple and key question of what two is. Your answer to the question would possibly get us somewhere more constructive, but you are dodging. Your definition doesn't have to be that long. Come on, have the balls to be responsive. Stop being a chicken. Your chicken nature is really frustrating you and making me laugh. Do you really want that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

As far as it being ridiculous symbolism, it's precisely how one gets a square root for -1. Watch this.

Take +**. Multiply it by i to get

*
*
+

Then multiply that by i again to get

**+

Now surely even you will not be such an annoying obstructionist to claim that **+ is not -1 times +**. But if i²+** = **+ and -1+** = **+ then we can apply cancelation (inverses are unique) to get i² = -1.

Your whole problem is that you won't get it out of your head that numbers have to represent quantity. This whole "numbers are quantities of discrete objects" thing is your own problem and your own hang up. Numbers represent dilations and rotations. -1 is a rotation by pi/2 in the positive sense and i is a rotation by pi/4 in the positive sense. If one rotates by pi/4 twice one rotates by (wait for it...) pi/2, i.e. it's the same as rotating with -1. The fact that numbers can be used to represent quantities is besides the point and is largely a historical accident of their origins in the human mind.

---

Ditch the strawman. I never claimed that numbers are quantities of discrete objects. I claimed that they are discrete quantities. Understand? Your above explanation is all about a symbolic game that mathematicians made up. It is not about real world quantities. Get it? You can multiply a pair of coordinates by Flying Spaghetti Monster. Does it mean the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real? -1, pi, and fractions of them are real. i is not. It is a fiction principle, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Let's multiply unicorn by Zeus. If you multiply the product by 1/Zeus, you get unicorn. Fuck you if you don't believe me! I hate you for disagreeing! I won't answer your question!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Show me half an apple. Is it one half of one apple or is it one half apple? What happens if one eats the other half? How can you claim that it's half of an apple when there is no other half? If one cuts an apple in half, is it two half apples or one apple? Show me 1/2 of anything.

---

It is half of what was originally a complete apple that grew on an apple tree. If by "apple" you mean "any amount of apple," then your definition excludes fractions of an apple. You can have half a quantity, but you cannot half half of a label that is defined with the premise that there cannot be fractions of it. Your idea of "apple" in this case is not a quantity. If you want to see half of a fully developed apple as it grew on the tree with skin all over it (a quantity), here you go...

http://www.sxc.hu/pic/m/s/sh/sh0dan/..._closeup_2.jpg

What about it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

What if you're looking at a table and a chair? Is it two pieces of furniture or one of each? If it's two pieces of furniture, are you claiming that the universe intrinsically knows what furniture is for there to intrinsically be two of them? Once we define "furniture" then we can decide how many pieces of furniture there are. There's nothing fundamental about it. You're the one making an extraordinary claim and so you're the one that needs to provide evidence for the existence of two or at least answer basic questions about it.

---

One table, one chair. Together, they comprise two pieces of furniture. It has nothing to do with what the universe knows. Those objects are there, no matter who knows or doesn't know about them. We come up with the symbols, but the objects are there whether we define them or not. If we call those objects pieces of furniture, then there are two of what we called pieces of furniture, and they are still there as two of what we were talking about even when we are not paying attention to them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

And if you come back with "how many is **" I'm going to ask you how the sky is so pretty without god. So find a new bullshit line to call "on point". The reason it's bullshit is that my answering "two" has no bearing on if "two" exists as an objective entity or if it exists as a convention of human thought.

---

Oh no, please don't threaten me with asking pro-creationist questions in response to my questions about what the fuck two is when we are discussing what the fuck two is.

How many *'s are there in **? Define "two."

The Noisy Chicken - YouTube

chicken sounds - YouTube

PhilosopherStoned you could have been a better sport with this. 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. I think what Universal Mind is trying to show is that you are missing the point of what real means. He asked you to define two because if you could define it then it would have to be real. 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. 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. So how about we pick the conversation up from there. What makes something qualify as real or not real.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

PhilosopherStoned you could have been a better sport with this.

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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?

Quote:

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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.

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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.

Quote:

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I think what Universal Mind is trying to show is that you are missing the point of what real means.

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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.

Quote:

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He asked you to define two because if you could define it then it would have to be real.

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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.

Quote:

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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.

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He's the one that's saying that "two" is an intrinsic feature of the universe (inb4 slight rewording and claim of strawman)

Quote:

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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.

Quote:

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So how about we pick the conversation up from there. What makes something qualify as real or not real.

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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?

Thanks, MadMonkey. Well said. The truth about this discussion is pretty simple. Philly got stumped, and he is having a long winded temper tantrum about it.

I asked him to define "two" because his answer would prove that he actually believes it is real. He knows that, and he is leaving very long and insulting posts instead of just defining "two" in a discussion about the nature of two. If he could define "two" without proving himself wrong, he would do it. He would also tell me how many * are in ** if he could do it without shooting himself in the foot. He is very transparent.

Hey Philly, I bet you can't answer my questions without showing that two is a reality. What is the definition of "two?" How many *'s are in **? Grow some balls and answer the questions. We are discussing the nature of two. Let's get to the bottom of it. Are you having phobias?

This discussion is going a little off topic; I don't really mind but if it's going to continue please don't use childish baiting techniques like calling somebody 'stumped' or 'captain dodgeball'.

While I don't agree with Phil's tone, I have to agree with him. How does defining the number 2 makes you believe it. I can define with mathamatical precision the properties of a tachyon but that doesn't somehow lift it from its-at best- hypothetical status. Also I hate to be inflamatory to you UM but who the hell do you think you are dismissing a vast portion of maths just to accomadate your impoverised view of numbers. By the way imaginary numbers are used by electrical engineers all the time. I think this is becoming almost like a battle between idealism and materialism except ironicly with the participants sitting in the wrong desks.

I think the problem is more to do with the fact that nobody bothered to define 'real'. If you define something properly, the question generally becomes trivial as it is just a matter of checking the definition. But at the moment it's like two people arguing whether there is a crane on top of a building, one of them angrily pointing to the clear scaffold structure and lifting mechanism, the other protesting that it doesn't have any wings.

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" - Wittgenstein.

I guess though that both of them are afraid of giving their definitions of real because that would mean no more long angry tirades and smart comebacks. Personally I think its a stupid argument anyway. neither party is learning anything from each other and no one is going to change their mind.

Now I'm trying to come up with a paradox that can steer this thread back on topic but I got nothing. Even the old 'if a tree falls in a forest and no ones around to hear it, does it make a sound?' can easily be resolved by clarifying your definition of a sound (subjective perception means no, objective phenomena means yes).

I'd never actually realised that before, really that's the canonical example of a 'philosophical problem' which is actually meaningless and easily solved by the analytic approach. I'll add that to the analogy bank for later.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

This discussion is going a little off topic; I don't really mind but if it's going to continue please don't use childish baiting techniques like calling somebody 'stumped' or 'captain dodgeball'.

---

:lol: You can be so uptight. I'm sure people you see in real life tell you that too. Also, it's interesting that those are the only two insults you mentioned. Can you think of others? I'm sure you are aware of the fact that I am not the one who initiated the insults in this discussion. You should aim your insults at the person who did.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

While I don't agree with Phil's tone, I have to agree with him. How does defining the number 2 makes you believe it. I can define with mathamatical precision the properties of a tachyon but that doesn't somehow lift it from its-at best- hypothetical status. Also I hate to be inflamatory to you UM but who the hell do you think you are dismissing a vast portion of maths just to accomadate your impoverised view of numbers. By the way imaginary numbers are used by electrical engineers all the time. I think this is becoming almost like a battle between idealism and materialism except ironicly with the participants sitting in the wrong desks.

---

Who do I think I am? I think I am a person in a PHILOSOPHY forum who is asking philosophical questions that are not being answered. Do you ever question anything mainstream?

This discussion turned into a Monty Python sketch a while back. The discussion has turned into long one about the relevance of two questions when the questions could just be answered very quickly. It is absolutely absurd. This is not a court case where people need to be having anxiety attacks over possible self-incrimination. This ""Objection! Irrelevant! Here's my dissertation on how they are irrelevant," nonsense is so unnecessary and outlandish. We are having a philosophical discussion/debate on the internet.

However, I will address the courtroom incriminating statemement avoidance dance for a moment. The questions being dodged are EXTREMELY relevant. We are discussing the nature of 2, and I am trying to get a definition of the word from the person I am debating. Doesn't that make sense? Of course it does. I am also using my own illustration of the word and trying to get the other person to tell me what label it has. I am not trying to prove the reality of 2 based merely on the fact that it can be defined. The Flying Spaghetti Monster can be defined, but it is not real. That is not what this is about. I think that Philly's answers to my questions will illustrate my point about the reality of 2. I challenged him, and he backed down. In addition to laying good foundation for the discussion (defining the term we are debating), the questions I have been asking are stump questions. In other words, I don't think Philly can answer them without supporting the points I have made. His brief answers would do a lot for the discussion. They would help us get some perspective on the words "real" and "two."

I'm sure you were aware of the debate technique before I explained it to you.

As for the definition of "real," I don't recall dodging questions about the definition of it. Do you, honestly? It means "having existence as something physical, or a property or measure that has the potential of pertaining to something physical." More specifically, we are debating what numbers are real. Such numbers are actual quantities. They do not have to be quantities of physical things. They can be quantities of properties and other things that merely pertain to or are manifested by the physical, such as thoughts, waves, fiction characters, etc., but they have to be actual quantities. 2 is a quantity. i is not a quantity. You can't have i of anything.

Philly came at me earlier in this thread with the claim that 2 is not real. So I have asked him 2 very relevant questions that get right to the heart of what 2 is. Let's see if he gets up the intellectual courage to answer them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

:lol: You can be so uptight. I'm sure people you see in real life tell you that too.

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No, they don't, I'm a pretty chilled person. Now stop being an arse, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

No, they don't, I'm a pretty chilled person. Now stop being an arse, thanks.

---

Well, that's considerate of them. Don't be an arse and expect me not to be one back. Thanks.

Asking you to stop pointless insults in my thread is not being an arse, can you please either grow up and accept my request with grace or just go away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

Asking you to stop pointless insults in my thread is not being an arse, can you please either grow up and accept my request with grace or just go away.

---

This discussion is really getting deep. Thank you for that. Calling me an arse is being an arse. I already told you... If you have a problem with insults in your thread, bitch at the person who initiated them and don't make them yourself.

Now that Xei asked us to end this conversation on his thread, I have no intention of continuing except to provide a few rebuttals. This is mostly for Xei and RationalMystic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I asked him to define "two" because his answer would prove that he actually believes it is real. He knows that, and he is leaving very long and insulting posts instead of just defining "two" in a discussion about the nature of two.

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0 is the empty set, i.e. {}.
1 is the set that has 0 as it's member, i.e. {{}}.
2 is the set that has 1 and 0 as its members {{} {{}}}.

Or two is just the same two that we've been talking about. How does that prove that I believe that two is real? It doesn't. Had you ever attempted to answer my question about how the definition of two determines if it's real or not, you would already have known that.

Quote:

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He would also tell me how many * are in ** if he could do it without shooting himself in the foot. He is very transparent.

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I already did. I said something along the lines of "two, what's your point?" Again. There's two asterisks, what's your point? Oh yeah. You don't have one.

Quote:

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Are you having phobias?

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Just my typical one of stupid people.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

I think the problem is more to do with the fact that nobody bothered to define 'real'. If you define something properly, the question generally becomes trivial as it is just a matter of checking the definition.

---

Not quite. First off, he's saying that two exists outside of time and is made out of concepts so he's implicitly defined the relavent subset of his definition of real. If I did believe in things that exist "outside of time" and are "made out of concepts" I still wouldn't believe that two is real. On the other hand, I'm saying that it's not real unless it's made out of matter. While it's true that he specified his definition of real before I did, mine is the defacto definition and so I felt no need to specify until asked. It is interesting to note that even accepting his definition of real, I still don't believe that two is real while accepting my defintion of real forces the issue.

Second for a clear defintion to reduce a debate to triviality requires some degree of intellectual honesty from the participants. I don't believe that UM has this. So even with an agreed upon definition, he wouldn't concede, he'd just find some dead horse to beat on and claim that slight rewordings are strawmen. Note that after I gave my definition of real, he didn't address it but continued with his shenanigans. Of course with someone else, definitions might be more useful and this debate would be over. This is pretty much just about dumping the heaps of ridicule on UM that he deserves. I'll kindly GTFO your thread unless it goes back on topic and I have something to add. Thanks for humoring me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" - Wittgenstein.

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Great quote from a great thinker.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

I guess though that both of them are afraid of giving their definitions of real because that would mean no more long angry tirades and smart comebacks.

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See my answer to Xei. Both definitions were essentally already given. This is actually not about the definition of real if we roll with UM's take on it in that even accepting his definition of real, one is left with the reality of two un-resolved.

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4...dkidedited.jpg

I have no more understanding of what it means to "exist outside of time" than I do of what it means to exist outside a Klein bottle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

0 is the empty set, i.e. {}.
1 is the set that has 0 as it's member, i.e. {{}}.
2 is the set that has 1 and 0 as its members {{} {{}}}.

---

He talks! I'm mighty proud of you, son. Now, is what you said the truth, or is it fiction?

By the way, apostrophes don't belong in possessive personal pronouns. That knowledge will help you in your quest to assert intellectual superiority.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Or two is just the same two that we've been talking about. How does that prove that I believe that two is real? It doesn't. Had you ever attempted to answer my question about how the definition of two determines if it's real or not, you would already have known that.

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You just said what 2 is but did not mention anything about a fictitious nature. If I were to define the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I would mention the fact that it is a character. Here are some other examples. Zeus: the chief god in Greek mythology. Unicorn: a fictitious mammal that resembles a horse and has a single horn in the front of its head. i: the imaginary unit, which represents the fictitious concept of the square root of -1. I think you gave a weak definition because you defined it only by using other numbers and their sets, but at least you got up enough balls to say something. If you give a thorough definition, one that involves what numerical nature is (which I asked for early in the thread), you will show even more your belief in the actuality of 2 because you will have to relate it to that which pertains to the physical world.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I already did. I said something along the lines of "two, what's your point?" Again. There's two asterisks, what's your point? Oh yeah. You don't have one.

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Yeah, you did say that a while back, and then you backed away from your position that 2 is real. By saying that there are two asterisks, you are saying that two is real. You said how many asterisks there actually are. That suggests reality. The asterisks are obviously there, and you used "two" to describe their nature. Unless you were being facetious somehow, you just admitted that 2 is a reality and illustrated how it is a reality.

Something very interesting about this is that you came at me in this thread with criticism of the "real number" system. Recently in another forum, you were going off about how imaginary numbers are real/actual. I took the position that they are not. We had an extremely long debate about that. Now you are saying that 2 (a "real number") is not real (Unless I put "real" in quotes, I am not using the word in the standard mathematical sense of "real numbers" versus "imaginary numbers." I know you have the position that those terms are misleading, and I don't want to confuse "real numbers" with the broader and more philosophical use of the term.). So, i is real and 2 is not? Is that your position? Yet you told me about where there are 2 asterisks, but maintained your position that 2 is not real. Are you sure you have really thought through this? It appears that you are just trying to oppose me no matter what. I'm flattered. ;)

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Just my typical one of stupid people.

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I know you honestly believe that I am stupid. Your sincerity is overwhelming. However, Xei doesn't want people being insulting in his thread, and you expressed your desire to respect Xei's wishes in this thread. I'm sure he will say something to you about it.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

This is pretty much just about dumping the heaps of ridicule on UM that he deserves.

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Golly, I didn't realize that. You weren't transparent enough. I am sorry to tell you that you don't mean as much to me as I do to you. I know Xei is pissed about the fact that your side of this discussion was all about being insulting. Do you by any chance have small man's complex?

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Originally Posted by Xei

I have no more understanding of what it means to "exist outside of time" than I do of what it means to exist outside a Klein bottle.

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Time is only the fourth dimension. Existence is much broader than that. The reality of 2 would remain even if time ceased to exist. 1 + 1 = 2, no matter what. It is a fact that was never created and will never be destroyed.

Ok I at first thought that PhilosopherStoned was just being grumpy but you really are a dick. That weasely go at a little grammer disprecency sealed my suspician. If the definition of "real" is being made of matter then a number cannot be real. This is the definition with which Phil is standing by in this debate yet you're completly ignore. I'm not saying that your definition is of less value but it is a different definition. Also try not to throw shit like this as its an objective fact

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the reality of 2 would remain even if time ceased to exist. 1+1=2 no matter what. It is a fact that was never creates and will never be destroyed

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

Ok I at first thought that PhilosopherStoned was just being grumpy but you really are a dick. That weasely go at a little grammer disprecency sealed my suspician.

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Did you happen to catch where he called me stupid? Did you? He said it. So my pointing out his punctuation error later was legitimate! Biased prick. You are not rational.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

If the definition of "real" is being made of matter then a number cannot be real. This is the definition with which Phil is standing by in this debate yet you're completly ignore. I'm not saying that your definition is of less value but it is a different definition.

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This debate between me and him is a sequel to a debate we had in the science and math forum. In that debate, he argued at great length that imaginary numbers are real.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

Also try not to throw shit like this as its an objective fact

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Also try to counter my points if you disagree with them. Prove that the entirety of existence is completely limited to the fourth dimension. Stretch your imagination as far as it can go and try to come up with some off the wall situation in which 1 + 1 =/= 2. Go for it. What does time have to do with the basis of the equation? Please tell me.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

This debate between me and him is a sequel to a debate we had in the science and math forum. In that debate, he argued at great length that imaginary numbers are real.

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How is that relevant to what RM said? If PS once argued that i is real and is now arguing that 2 is not real, that just demonstrates different definitions of 'real' in those arguments. Sorry for the tautology but apparently it's necessary: this argument is this argument. Not a different one. PS here defined 'real' as being made of physical matter; things which 2 describes can be real, but 2 itself is not. This seems patently true so I'm not sure where the source of disagreement is.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Time is only the fourth dimension. Existence is much broader than that. The reality of 2 would remain even if time ceased to exist. 1 + 1 = 2, no matter what. It is a fact that was never created and will never be destroyed.

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This hasn't helped me, yet. What exactly does the 'reality of 2' mean? Sorry if you are repeating yourself but I did use the search function for 'real' on this thread and I couldn't see any attempt at a definition.

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Originally Posted by Xei

How is that relevant to what RM said? If PS once argued that i is real and is now arguing that 2 is not real, that just demonstrates different definitions of 'real' in those arguments. Sorry for the tautology but apparently it's necessary: this argument is this argument. Not a different one. PS here defined 'real' as being made of physical matter; things which 2 describes can be real, but 2 itself is not. This seems patently true so I'm not sure where the source of disagreement is.

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Once argued? It was a few weeks ago, and he has not backed away from it although we have been discussing imaginary numbers in this thread. You took his side in that debate, so why are you arguing with me? Also, Philly's definition of "real," which he just posted like yesterday, is not a correct definition. I have explained that. Is this a make up definitions game?

2 days is a real amount of time, a couple has 2 people in it, and there are 2 turtles and 2 pies in that Sesame Street video I posted. Days are real, and the turtles and pies were real when the video was made. (Other turtles and pies are real now.) There were exact quantities of the turtles and pies. Are you saying quantities don't exist, or are you saying they don't vary?

The conclusion to draw from the debate I had with the 2 of you (You and Philly: 2 people) a few weeks ago combined with this debate is that the 2 of you believe that i is real and 2 is not. Do the 2 of you still stick to both positions, or did you change your minds at some point?

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Originally Posted by Xei

This hasn't helped me, yet. What exactly does the 'reality of 2' mean? Sorry if you are repeating yourself but I did use the search function for 'real' on this thread and I couldn't see any attempt at a definition.

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2 is a quantity. If you think there is no such thing as a quantity, go ahead and tell me. Do you think quantities vary? They do, and there are words/symbols for the various quantities. One such quantity is 2. 2 as a quantity of *'s is this many: **. Here are 2 more highly acclaimed educational videos that might help.

1. Sesame Street - Jazz #2 - YouTube

2. Sesame Street - 2 step (HQ) - YouTube

Did you count how many videos I posted? Is it a real quantity?

I posted my definition of "real" is on this page.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

It means "having existence as something physical, or a property or measure that has the potential of pertaining to something physical."

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That is my explanation. Here is Dictionary.com's:

re·al

adjective

1. true; not merely ostensible, nominal, or apparent: the real reason for an act.

2. existing or occurring as fact; actual rather than imaginary, ideal, or fictitious: a story taken from real life.

3. being an actual thing; having objective existence; not imaginary: The events you will see in the film are real and not just made up.

4. being actually such; not merely so-called: a real victory.

5. genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic: a real antique; a real diamond; real silk.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/real?s=t

Barrack Obama is real; Superman is not real. Cincinnati, Ohio is real; Atlantis is not real. Al Pacino is real; Michael Corleone is not real. Richard Dawkins is real; God is not real. Knowledge of the existence of 2 is real; knowledge of how to travel faster than the speed of light is not real. Oject speeds of 2 miles per hour are real; object speeds beyond the speed of light are not real. Intelligence is real; omniscience is not real. Your thoughts are real; your kitchen counter's thoughts are not real. Do you see a pattern here? The pattern is real.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Did you happen to catch where he called me stupid? Did you? He said it. So my pointing out his punctuation error later was legitimate!

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Yes I did happen to catch that. I agree with him. A punctuation error has very little correlation with intelligence where as your conduct in an argument (which has been terrible so far btw) has a lot.

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This debate between me and him is a sequel to a debate we had in the science and math forum. In that debate, he argued at great length that imaginary numbers are real.

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I don't care if he was arguing that imaginary numbers were real in another thread.
This is a different thread with a different topic and with a completely different definition of real, namely something that consists of matter. Also I wouldn't keep raging against imaginary numbers if I were you. Your definition of something real being something composed of matter OR a concept involving matter means that you cannot reasonably refute their existence within the framework of your definition of the word.

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Also try to counter my points if you disagree with them. Prove that the entirety of existence is completely limited to the fourth dimension. Stretch your imagination as far as it can go and try to come up with some off the wall situation in which 1 + 1 =/= 2. Go for it. What does time have to do with the basis of the equation? Please tell me.

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I don't need to prove that the "entirety of existence is completely limited to the fourth dimension", you need to prove to me that something exists that doesn't. Also if you want, here's one: Take a water drop and another water drop. Drop one onto another, what do you get? A water droplet. There I have "proven" that 1+1=1! And as for the last question, I'll answer it with another question: Have you ever experienced the result of an equation outside the constraints of time?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Also, Philly's definition of "real," which he just posted like yesterday, is not a correct definition. I have explained that. Is this a make up definitions game?

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Words did not descend from the heavens. They are just names, created by humans for utility. There is zero point in arguing that something constitutes a 'correct' definition, just like mathematicians never argue over a 'correct' notation. Whatever you use is just a shortcut for the concepts that are the actual substance of the argument. Few people may agree that a certain definition is ubiquitous or even common, perhaps so few that it doesn't appear in a publication like a dictionary, but the only thing that is relevant is that the participants in a discussion are using the same words to refer to the same concept.

I don't see any of the above being controversial and it is a discussion of zero worth, so let's terminate stuff about 'correct' definitions here and just be content to be clear with one another.

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The conclusion to draw from the debate I had with the 2 of you (You and Philly: 2 people) a few weeks ago combined with this debate is that the 2 of you believe that i is real and 2 is not. Do the 2 of you still stick to both positions, or did you change your minds at some point?

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Was my previous explanation somehow inadequate? I have not changed my position. The definition you gave of real in the previous discussion is not the same as the one which I briefly used in this thread. Yesterday I was saying there is a crane on top of the building and now I'm saying there isn't a crane on top of the building, but my position hasn't changed. Again I don't want to invest time in something so trivial, let's just restrict the discussion to the only bit of relevance, which is below.

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It means "having existence as something physical, or a property or measure that has the potential of pertaining to something physical.

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What does 'having existence as something physical' mean? Most people use 'having existence' and 'real' as synonyms. Indeed, if you refer to wiktionary, the word real is explained as 'something in existence', while the word existence is described as 'that with the property of being real'. Of course, this achieves nothing.

Could you also describe how I determine whether something is a measure.

I realize now that Universal Mind is being a troll and how PhilosopherStoned was reacting was justified. Sorry about that. :/ This whole conversation has been going in circles for a long time although I think it has been entreating and learned a few things.

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Originally Posted by Xei

What does 'having existence as something physical' mean? Most people use 'having existence' and 'real' as synonyms. Indeed, if you refer to wiktionary, the word real is explained as 'something in existence', while the word existence is described as 'that with the property of being real'. Of course, this achieves nothing.

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By some definitions of existence something can exist even if it is not real. i exists even though it is imaginary and only exists inside of our heads. I think that is part of the definition that Universal Mind is trying to use for real. If it exists only if we perceive it (like superman and i) it is imaginary. If it exists even even if we don't perceive it, it is real. Still some believe that all numbers are imaginary even under that definition. It is a different definition that isn't compatible with PhilosopherStoned's in the first place.

As far as mathematics not holding up outside of the dimension of time, I don't see why it wouldn't as long as its not imaginary. I myself have not decided if I think numbers are real or imaginary. Although actually pointing to a situation outside of time were it might apply would be very hard if not impossible because we are inside of the dimension of time I don't see what the connection is.

Now that I think about, theres an easy way of disproving the primality of the number 2 within the domain of maths itself.
The numbers 1-9 are artifacts of our mod9 numeric system. However there are other modular systems possible and they are used frequently. For example measuring seconds is done with a mod59 system. If you use a mod1 system, you follow the number 1 with 10 so the number line progresses like this: 1,10,11,100,101,110.111,1000...
This makes proving that 1+1 does not nessesarily equate to 2 a cinch as under this equally valid numeric system 1+1=10.

As a an interesting cultural synchronocity of this, the Hopi clan of native americans do not group entities together like western people, they treat all percieved objects as distinct from one another. For example a western person would say that there are two trees on the hill wheras a hopi would say that there is a tree on the summit if the hill and a tree on the edge of the slope. Interestingly this cognitive distinction is instilled in their very language. Since the hopi's (and many other native american tribes's) language is polysynthetic, they can encode a single word with great detail in form and spacial oriontation. Xei will probably recall me going on about this in the overpopulation thread.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

Yes I did happen to catch that. I agree with him. A punctuation error has very little correlation with intelligence where as your conduct in an argument (which has been terrible so far btw) has a lot.

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So there is a correlation. I pointed out a flaw to screw with him about an intellectual imperfection because he has his nose in the air and has been acting like a juvenile delinquent. Your conduct in this thread also has been terrible. You and the intoxicated, self-proclaimed philosopher both initiated rudeness with me. I did not initiate it with either one of you. My hostility has been in response to yours. That makes mine much more legitimate than the 2 of yours. It's interesting how you don't have a problem with the intoxicated babbler's initiation of rudeness yet have a problem with the fact that I have been returning it. That is not rational. You seem really determined to play the role of sidekick. That's really pathetic. Now stop whining about conduct. I feel like I am teaching kindergarten children when it's okay and not okay to be mean and teaching them what 2 is.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

I don't care if he was arguing that imaginary numbers were real in another thread.
This is a different thread with a different topic and with a completely different definition of real, namely something that consists of matter. Also I wouldn't keep raging against imaginary numbers if I were you. Your definition of something real being something composed of matter OR a concept involving matter means that you cannot reasonably refute their existence within the framework of your definition of the word.

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It was that argument which led straight into this one. The intoxicated babbler decided to bring the very recent issue to this thread. Also, as I said, his very new defintion is not the true / standard definition. My definition of "real" does not encompass imaginary numbers. I didn't say "concept involving matter." Atlantis is a concept involving matter, but it is not real. Read again. You're being a slow pupil.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

I don't need to prove that the "entirety of existence is completely limited to the fourth dimension", you need to prove to me that something exists that doesn't. Also if you want, here's one: Take a water drop and another water drop. Drop one onto another, what do you get? A water droplet. There I have "proven" that 1+1=1! And as for the last question, I'll answer it with another question: Have you ever experienced the result of an equation outside the constraints of time?

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Numbers are quantities, not objects. Putting 1 water drop on another 1 and getting 1 water drop does not prove that 1 + 1 = 1, Little Johnny. It proves that water drops, which are not quantities, can be combined into 1 water drop that has the volume of the 2 original water drops combined. :roll: If the 2 water drops have the same volume, the new water drop has 2 times the volume of either of the original 2.

Our universe has at least 10 dimensions, and it is only 1 universe. The first 3 dimensions are are components of the fourth but are individual entities themselves. 1 + 1 = 2 in those dimensions. Take a screen shot of this page and look at this **. You will see that 1 + 1= 2 is true in the 2nd dimension. The truth of it is not dependent on the 4th dimension.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Words did not descend from the heavens. They are just names, created by humans for utility. There is zero point in arguing that something constitutes a 'correct' definition, just like mathematicians never argue over a 'correct' notation. Whatever you use is just a shortcut for the concepts that are the actual substance of the argument. Few people may agree that a certain definition is ubiquitous or even common, perhaps so few that it doesn't appear in a publication like a dictionary, but the only thing that is relevant is that the participants in a discussion are using the same words to refer to the same concept.

I don't see any of the above being controversial and it is a discussion of zero worth, so let's terminate stuff about 'correct' definitions here and just be content to be clear with one another.

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Language involves standard definitions. Without understandings involving common/official meanings, I could conclude that you are very possibly not even talking about numbers, reality, or even defintions. You would have been talking about wrestling on top of a refrigerator for all I know. Dictionaries exist for a reason.

By the way, when I said "2" all of those times, I meant "couch."

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Originally Posted by Xei

Was my previous explanation somehow inadequate? I have not changed my position. The definition you gave of real in the previous discussion is not the same as the one which I briefly used in this thread. Yesterday I was saying there is a crane on top of the building and now I'm saying there isn't a crane on top of the building, but my position hasn't changed. Again I don't want to invest time in something so trivial, let's just restrict the discussion to the only bit of relevance, which is below.

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It is not that your explanations were inadequate. It is that they contradict each other. Let's cut to the chase. Pick a definition of "real," the one you agree with today, and answer these questions. However, keep in mind that I am talking about the more general metaphysical sense and not the official "real" versus "imaginary" numbers labels that are in math textbooks. You already said that those terms are bogus, while I completely disagree. I mean "real" in the sense of what has been argued about in this thread.

1. Is 2 real?
2. Is i real?

Let's clear that up once and for all.

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Originally Posted by Xei

What does 'having existence as something physical' mean? Most people use 'having existence' and 'real' as synonyms. Indeed, if you refer to wiktionary, the word real is explained as 'something in existence', while the word existence is described as 'that with the property of being real'. Of course, this achieves nothing.

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Well, that's inadequate on Wiktionary's part. I didn't use that source. I agree with the defiintions they use, but they should elaborate instead of presenting such loops. Something physical is something made of matter. I think I have defined "real" quite enough, and I even posted a dictionary definition.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Could you also describe how I determine whether something is a measure.

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It must be a quantity of something physical. Properties such as mass, volume, distance, and speed involve measures, i.e. 30 grams, 48 miles, 172.83 cubic inches, etc. I think maybe you should use a dictionary. It would answer a lot of your questions.

I am double posting because the edit function is frozen.

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

I realize now that Universal Mind is being a troll and how PhilosopherStoned was reacting was justified. Sorry about that. :/ This whole conversation has been going in circles for a long time although I think it has been entreating and learned a few things.

By some definitions of existence something can exist even if it is not real. i exists even though it is imaginary and only exists inside of our heads. I think that is part of the definition that Universal Mind is trying to use for real. If it exists only if we perceive it (like superman and i) it is imaginary. If it exists even even if we don't perceive it, it is real. Still some believe that all numbers are imaginary even under that definition. It is a different definition that isn't compatible with PhilosopherStoned's in the first place.

As far as mathematics not holding up outside of the dimension of time, I don't see why it wouldn't as long as its not imaginary. I myself have not decided if I think numbers are real or imaginary. Although actually pointing to a situation outside of time were it might apply would be very hard if not impossible because we are inside of the dimension of time I don't see what the connection is.

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A troll? You need to explain that. Did I step on your tail at some point?

Concepts are real. What they are of are not always real. The idea of Superman is real. Superman is not real.

Read what I just wrote about dimensions.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

Now that I think about, theres an easy way of disproving the primality of the number 2 within the domain of maths itself.
The numbers 1-9 are artifacts of our mod9 numeric system. However there are other modular systems possible and they are used frequently. For example measuring seconds is done with a mod59 system. If you use a mod1 system, you follow the number 1 with 10 so the number line progresses like this: 1,10,11,100,101,110.111,1000...
This makes proving that 1+1 does not nessesarily equate to 2 a cinch as under this equally valid numeric system 1+1=10.

As a an interesting cultural synchronocity of this, the Hopi clan of native americans do not group entities together like western people, they treat all percieved objects as distinct from one another. For example a western person would say that there are two trees on the hill wheras a hopi would say that there is a tree on the summit if the hill and a tree on the edge of the slope. Interestingly this cognitive distinction is instilled in their very language. Since the hopi's (and many other native american tribes's) language is polysynthetic, they can encode a single word with great detail in form and spacial oriontation. Xei will probably recall me going on about this in the overpopulation thread.

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That illustrates nothing but variations in language, not the nonreality of 2 as we define it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

By some definitions of existence something can exist even if it is not real. i exists even though it is imaginary and only exists inside of our heads. I think that is part of the definition that Universal Mind is trying to use for real. If it exists only if we perceive it (like superman and i) it is imaginary. If it exists even even if we don't perceive it, it is real. Still some believe that all numbers are imaginary even under that definition. It is a different definition that isn't compatible with PhilosopherStoned's in the first place.

As far as mathematics not holding up outside of the dimension of time, I don't see why it wouldn't as long as its not imaginary. I myself have not decided if I think numbers are real or imaginary. Although actually pointing to a situation outside of time were it might apply would be very hard if not impossible because we are inside of the dimension of time I don't see what the connection is.

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The line thats in bold pretty much explains the biggest problem with UM's argument. How can you observe something outside of your own sphere of existence. We live in a world thats in constant flux. Even if you don't treat time as an actual dimension and just as a measure of change then you're in difficult territory. Even if we somehow managed to cool a noble gas atom to absoute zero (which is already impossible), you will still have the endless uncertain dance of the electrons around the nucleus, the fluntuations of the electromagnetic attraction between the nucleus and the electrons that such movement will create and thats without taking into account the raging quantum activity that will prevail at plank's scale. We can't observe timelessness.

Also why isn't there an option to like your comments but there are for everyone else?

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

The line thats in bold pretty much explains the biggest problem with UM's argument. How can you observe something outside of your own sphere of existence. We live in a world thats in constant flux. Even if you don't treat time as an actual dimension and just as a measure of change then you're in difficult territory. Even if we somehow managed to cool a noble gas atom to absoute zero (which is already impossible), you will still have the endless uncertain dance of the electrons around the nucleus, the fluntuations of the electromagnetic attraction between the nucleus and the electrons that such movement will create and thats without taking into account the raging quantum activity that will prevail at plank's scale. We cannot obserb timelessness.

Also why isn't there an option to like your comments but there are for everyone else?

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I explained how to understand the first 3 dimensions independently. Dimensions beyond the 4th can only be understood in terms of equations.

You asked me earlier who I think I am to question imaginary numbers, but here you are questioning the existence of 2 and of 1 + 1= 2. Interesting.

As for why I don't have a like option, all I can say is that the site is having technical issues. I would have to log in as somebody else to see it for myself because, as far as I know, I can't give likes to my own posts.

As I said I would I am ignoring the discussion about definitions because it is boring and pointless, and your questions can be easily answered by referring to my previous posts, or indeed to anybody else in this thread, all of whom seem to understand.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Well, that's inadequate on Wiktionary's part. I didn't use that source. I agree with the defiintions they use, but they should elaborate instead of presenting such loops. Something physical is something made of matter. I think I have defined "real" quite enough, and I even posted a dictionary definition.

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You'll notice I ignored the dictionary definition. This is because it wasn't a definition, it was several definitions. Definition 5, for instance, has nothing to do with what you mean (presumably), as 2 is clearly not real under that definition. That is of course the whole reason that it's important you personally specify exactly what you mean. So I'll stick with the definition that you were using, unless you want to change it.

You haven't defined real 'quite enough' because the entire purpose of words is to act as shortcuts for your interlocutor (see above), and I, your interlocutor, don't yet know what you mean.

I'll take a stab at what your definition of "having existence as something physical" means: something with the potential to affect my senses.

This is kind of tangential because you yourself don't believe that 2 has physical existence (your definition was two-pronged and as far as I can tell it was your intention that 2 be classed as real by virtue of satisfying the second about measure rather than the first about physical existence), but this is interesting so by all means continue.

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It must be a quantity of something physical. Properties such as mass, volume, distance, and speed involve measures, i.e. 30 grams, 48 miles, 172.83 cubic inches, etc.

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What's a quantity? What things are physical?

Your ostensive definition seems to be getting somewhere, but what about things like amount (of trees, clouds, etcetera)?

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Originally Posted by Xei

As I said I would I am ignoring the discussion about definitions because it is boring and pointless, and your questions can be easily answered by referring to my previous posts, or indeed to anybody else in this thread, all of whom seem to understand.

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Great, drop the definitions issue. You were making it an issue. I'm glad you decided to move on and no longer need me to define common words for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

You'll notice I ignored the dictionary definition. This is because it wasn't a definition, it was several definitions. Definition 5, for instance, has nothing to do with what you mean (presumably), as 2 is clearly not real under that definition. That is of course the whole reason that it's important you personally specify exactly what you mean. So I'll stick with the definition that you were using, unless you want to change it.

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Back to definitions already? All 5 defintions together illustrate the concept. They do not contradict each other.

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Originally Posted by Xei

You haven't defined real 'quite enough' because the entire purpose of words is to act as shortcuts for your interlocutor (see above), and I, your interlocutor, don't yet know what you mean.

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I don't know what else to tell you. I have defined it a ridiculous amount, and you knew the meaning of the word before this discussion even started.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

I'll take a stab at what your definition of "having existence as something physical" means: something with the potential to affect my senses.

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It's not that simple. Use multiple dictionaries.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

This is kind of tangential because you yourself don't believe that 2 has physical existence (your definition was two-pronged and as far as I can tell it was your intention that 2 be classed as real by virtue of satisfying the second about measure rather than the first about physical existence), but this is interesting so by all means continue.

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That is correct. 2 does not have physical existence. It is a measure of physical existence. You can't touch a 2, but you can touch 2 turtles and you can pick up something that weighs 2 pounds. Why is that difficult?

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Originally Posted by Xei

What's a quantity? What things are physical?

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You need more definitions? Am I your dictionary? I already said that physical things are made of matter. This is getting boring.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

Your ostensive definition seems to be getting somewhere, but what about things like amount (of trees, clouds, etcetera)?

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There can be 2 of those also.

You ignored my most important questions.

1. Is 2 real?
2. Is i real?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Back to definitions already? All 5 defintions together illustrate the concept. They do not contradict each other.

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...yes they do.

Definition 5 is 'not counterfeit'. Fake silk is something it gives as explicitly not real. Definition 3 is 'not imaginary'. Clearly fake silk is not imaginary, and hence real.

Seriously, why did you make me do this? What you said is so trivially wrong.

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I don't know what else to tell you. I have defined it a ridiculous amount, and you knew the meaning of the word before this discussion even started.

It's not that simple. Use multiple dictionaries.

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Clearly made redundant by the above.

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That is correct. 2 does not have physical existence. It is a measure of physical existence. You can't touch a 2, but you can touch 2 turtles and you can pick up something that weighs 2 pounds. Why is that difficult?

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It isn't at all, it's totally trivial.

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You need more definitions? Am I your dictionary? I already said that physical things are made of matter. This is getting boring.

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On the contrary, I can see why Socrates got such kicks. What's 'matter'?

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You ignored my most important questions.

1. Is 2 real?
2. Is i real?

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Like I said, you can answer this by simply reading my posts. Clearly you aren't going to do so, so to eliminate this issue I will write a couple of redundant lines of text just for you.

It depends on the definition of real. If we take Definition 5 from your dictionary, neither are real. If we take the mathematical definition, 2 is and i isn't. If we define real as 'useful for modelling reality', both are real. If we take PS's definition of 'having physical existence', neither are real. If we take Definition 3, or your definition, which look roughly similar, I don't know yet as they haven't been sufficiently explicated for me.

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I never said "concept involving matter"

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But this is what you essentially said. You said that numbers are a quantity of something physical. A measure is a concept. All concepts can be conveyed through numeric values.. If numbers truly exists in a timeless reality, that means that every instance of a number already exists. This means that all concepts involving matter are real. You are right in one sense though. Despite what you've said, your definition of real means that ALL concepts must be real including Atlantis. This is because what we conceive has two elements: our perceptions and manipulation of those perceptions. Since all conception consists of either percieving physical reality or manipulating that perception (all possible manipulations already being commited by the timeless numbers), this means that all concepts must be real.

Also your rebuttal of the mod1 approach is invalid. The mod1 approach to numbers is the most fundumental numeric system possible. All other numbers are just constructs (i.e concepts) built upon 1's though I guess your system defines those as real. You are placing false significence to the mod9 system. Whats more is you seem to not understand that by being able to signify each increment with a new placeholder, the very idea of 2 being primeval ceases to work. Don't dismiss such an important distinction as trivial just because you fail to understand it.

The water drop example was more of a joke but illustrates an important point: the concept of 2 is largly a mental construct. For example lets go back to the water drop analogy in more detail. Lets add the water drop to the other water drop. Now there are numerous ways of looking at our end result. You can say as you did that we end up with a water drop with twice the volume. However since its bound by shared surface tension and intramolecular bounds its still one water drop. We could also look at it and treat the new water drop as a different entity. If numbers exist outside of time, doesn't this also mean that they are free of the bounds of cause and effect? Calling it a brand new water drop is easily posssible because the timeless nature of numbers allow you to compartmantize the time line that you use in your evaluation. Also I'm not your pupil you prick and I was wondering why I couldn't like madmonkey's comment.

With respect to the mod thing... for a start I'm not sure if it is 'mod'. Maybe it's a different terminology but I would call that 'base'. Also the base number is the number at which it comes back to 0 rather than the penultimate number; so we use base 10, and 1011010101010 and the like are base 2. Base 1 is really the most fundamental base. 5 would be written as 11111, for instance. Reals are fine too. You can write sqrt(2) in this system as 1 + 1 / (11 + 1 / (11 + 1 / (11 + ... ))) which is rather cool.

But I would contend that in any sensible definition of real, the reality of 2 is independent of the way one writes it (such as base), as it's just a different representation of the same mental structure.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

A troll? You need to explain that. Did I step on your tail at some point?

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I called you a troll because you hijacked this thread and drove it off-topic just to continue a personal grudge with PhilosopherStoned.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

This is getting boring.

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I agree. I think we have figured out we are trying to say the same thing in different ways and its time to move on.

One last thing that I have been thinking about because of this thread is what about quantities of quantities. If you were to "count" the number of distinct "real numbers" you would wind up with a distinct quantity of infinite length. Even all the numbers between 0 and 1 would be infinite. You can't even wright them order because you can't point to the smallest number after 0 to start with so can you count them?

Anyone else got any metaphysical Paradoxes to get this discussion back on topic.

That's actually a well-studied area of mathematics, and you have actually come pretty close to the basic concepts, which would have made you rather revolutionary in 1880! :P

What counting actually 'is' is finding a correspondence with a set. When you count 5 sheep, you are creating a one-to-one correspondence between each sheep and an element of the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. We say anything in correspondence with this set is of size '5'.

We can do this with infinite collections of objects, too. What about the even numbers, {2, 4, 6, ... }? We can put them into one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers, {1, 2, 3, ... } by halving them. We therefore say that the even numbers are the same size as the natural numbers, and we refer to this size as aleph 0, which is the smallest infinity, or else we say the objects are 'countable'.

It turns out that fractions are countable; there are the same number of fractions as there are natural numbers.

There is a bigger infinity, as you suggested: the real numbers (the continuous number line), although the reason you gave isn't quite right. Yes it's true that you can't order them from smallest to largest in the way that you said, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to order them in some other way (ordering here means putting into one-to-one to correspondence with the naturals). Indeed, you can order fractions in this way. But, as it turns out, you can't order the reals like that. The reason is something called the 'diagonal argument', which I made a post about a while back:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f77/differ...4/#post1498898

I have a feeling UM will dismiss this all as a 'crock of shit'.

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Originally Posted by Xei

With respect to the mod thing... for a start I'm not sure if it is 'mod'. Maybe it's a different terminology but I would call that 'base'. Also the base number is the number at which it comes back to 0 rather than the penultimate number; so we use base 10, and 1011010101010 and the like are base 2. Base 1 is really the most fundamental base. 5 would be written as 11111, for instance. Reals are fine too. You can write sqrt(2) in this system as 1 + 1 / (11 + 1 / (11 + 1 / (11 + ... ))) which is rather cool.

But I would contend that in any sensible definition of real, the reality of 2 is independent of the way one writes it (such as base), as it's just a different representation of the same mental structure.

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I am simplifing things a lot but I still think I've made my point. Also a paticular mod system can have distinctive mathamatical patterns that only exist within that system. For example if you take the mod9 (or base10 if you like) decimal system and starting from the number 1 continuosly double, you end up with the repeating pattern 1,2,4,8,7,5 (any number that exceeds 9 is digitally reduced). This pattern also holds even in reverse if you begin halfing. Another example is the repeating 24 digit pattern found in the fibernacci sequence. Of course numerologists often get excited by this but the moment you switch to a different base, the patterns collapse and out comes new ones. So in my opinion the existence of 2 (or any number besides 1) is not independant of its representation.

I see that using a different base may make reveal a pattern in a sequence, but of course that pattern can be stated in any base, and I don't see how the conduciveness to insight is related to existence.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I see that using a different base may make reveal a pattern in a sequence, but of course that pattern can be stated in any base, and I don't see how the conduciveness to insight is related to existence.

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Yeah maybe I'm confusing application with reality. I think that this thread has become so confused that I'm not even sure what we're arguing about. I have to admit that I find modular arithmetic really cool and I might just start a thread talking about some of the cool patterns you can find with digit reduction. I'm sorry for bringing it here.

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

I called you a troll because you hijacked this thread and drove it off-topic just to continue a personal grudge with PhilosopherStoned.

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False. Philly drove it off topic by saying 2 is a bullshit concept. I can show you exactly where that happened. I argued back, and now there is a mob of people wanting to argue with my insane idea that 2 is real. Where did you get your misconception?

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

I agree. I think we have figured out we are trying to say the same thing in different ways and its time to move on.

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Tell that to the bandwagon you joined.

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

I
One last thing that I have been thinking about because of this thread is what about quantities of quantities. If you were to "count" the number of distinct "real numbers" you would wind up with a distinct quantity of infinite length. Even all the numbers between 0 and 1 would be infinite. You can't even wright them order because you can't point to the smallest number after 0 to start with so can you count them?

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You can say how many there are, but you cannot count them 1 at a time. How is that relevant?

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Originally Posted by Xei

...yes they do.

Definition 5 is 'not counterfeit'. Fake silk is something it gives as explicitly not real. Definition 3 is 'not imaginary'. Clearly fake silk is not imaginary, and hence real.

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They all mean the same thing, but in different specific ways. They all mean "actual." Things can be actual in terms of existence, legitimacy, and other things. Fake silk is not imaginary, but its existence as true silk is imaginary. That is how it is not real silk. Do you see the connection?

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Originally Posted by Xei

Seriously, why did you make me do this? What you said is so trivially wrong.

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I don't recall asking you to miss my point.

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Originally Posted by Xei

On the contrary, I can see why Socrates got such kicks. What's 'matter'?

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Except he didn't do it for the purpose of being dodgy. ;) What is what? What is is? :roll:

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Originally Posted by Xei

...
Like I said, you can answer this by simply reading my posts. Clearly you aren't going to do so, so to eliminate this issue I will write a couple of redundant lines of text just for you.

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I have read all of your posts, word for word. You have not been clear on those two very simple and key questions.

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Originally Posted by Xei

It depends on the definition of real. If we take Definition 5 from your dictionary, neither are real. If we take the mathematical definition, 2 is and i isn't. If we define real as 'useful for modelling reality', both are real. If we take PS's definition of 'having physical existence', neither are real. If we take Definition 3, or your definition, which look roughly similar, I don't know yet as they haven't been sufficiently explicated for me.

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Then what has been the point of all of your arguing? I said i is not real, and you disagreed with me. I said 2 is real, and you disagreed with me. By my defintion of real, the one that the five dictionary definitions illustrate together in their totality, 2 is real and i is not.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

But this is what you essentially said. You said that numbers are a quantity of something physical. A measure is a concept. All concepts can be conveyed through numeric values.. If numbers truly exists in a timeless reality, that means that every instance of a number already exists. This means that all concepts involving matter are real. You are right in one sense though. Despite what you've said, your definition of real means that ALL concepts must be real including Atlantis. This is because what we conceive has two elements: our perceptions and manipulation of those perceptions. Since all conception consists of either percieving physical reality or manipulating that perception (all possible manipulations already being commited by the timeless numbers), this means that all concepts must be real.

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A measure is more than a concept. Your interpretation of what I said is invalid. Again, concepts are real but what they are of are not always real.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

Also your rebuttal of the mod1 approach is invalid. The mod1 approach to numbers is the most fundumental numeric system possible. All other numbers are just constructs (i.e concepts) built upon 1's though I guess your system defines those as real. You are placing false significence to the mod9 system. Whats more is you seem to not understand that by being able to signify each increment with a new placeholder, the very idea of 2 being primeval ceases to work. Don't dismiss such an important distinction as trivial just because you fail to understand it.

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Perhaps you didn't explain your point well enough, but what you said did not invalidate 2 as a reality. You seemed to present merely a different way of classifying/naming it. This many ** is this many ** under any legitimate system. And yes, I do define numbers like 1 and 2 as real. So did the mathematicians who classified them as "real numbers."

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

The water drop example was more of a joke

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Oh, okay. Right. Sure, man. All right.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

but illustrates an important point: the concept of 2 is largly a mental construct. For example lets go back to the water drop analogy in more detail. Lets add the water drop to the other water drop. Now there are numerous ways of looking at our end result. You can say as you did that we end up with a water drop with twice the volume. However since its bound by shared surface tension and intramolecular bounds its still one water drop. We could also look at it and treat the new water drop as a different entity. If numbers exist outside of time, doesn't this also mean that they are free of the bounds of cause and effect? Calling it a brand new water drop is easily posssible because the timeless nature of numbers allow you to compartmantize the time line that you use in your evaluation. Also I'm not your pupil you prick and I was wondering why I couldn't like madmonkey's comment.

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2 is not a mental construct. It is just that communicating about it requires language, which requires definitions. Numbers are not free from cause and effect in general, but they can exist indepently from temporal cause and effect relationships, though they are involved in them. They are not involved in them solely. Again, it is true that you can converge 2 water drops as 1 water drop. That does not mean that 1 + 1 = 1 any more than the fact that 1 number + 1 number = 1 (other) number proves it. You are dismissed from class for now.

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

Anyone else got any metaphysical Paradoxes to get this discussion back on topic.

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Yes. This statement is false. Is that statement false?

I think the nature of it disproves the law of the excluded middle.

Are truth and falsehood real?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

They all mean the same thing, but in different specific ways. They all mean "actual." Things can be actual in terms of existence, legitimacy, and other things. Fake silk is not imaginary, but its existence as true silk is imaginary. That is how it is not real silk. Do you see the connection?

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What does 'actual' mean?

How can a set of definitions for A possibly not contradict each other if one of the definitions says object X is A and another definition says object X isn't A? That is the definition of a contradiction.

Do you think there is no such thing as a homonym?

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Then what has been the point of all of your arguing? I said i is not real, and you disagreed with me. I said 2 is real, and you disagreed with me. By my defintion of real, the one that the five dictionary definitions illustrate together in their totality, 2 is real and i is not.

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Quote the post where I disagreed with you. And don't pull any nonsense where I was using PS's definition of real.

At the start of this conversation I said that both parties hadn't defined real sufficiently, and that the question would be trivial once they had done so, and there wasn't any real argument. Since then all I have ever done is ask you to clarify your definition of real. I'm still not satisfied. Those five definitions don't illustrate anything in their totality. They are not supposed to, because they are patently mutually contradictory. Question: is fake silk real? Yes or no.

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Originally Posted by Xei

What does 'actual' mean?

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What does "does" mean?

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Originally Posted by Xei

How can a set of definitions for A possibly not contradict each other if one of the definitions says object X is A and another definition says object X isn't A? That is the definition of a contradiction.

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It doesn't say that. It expresses different forms of C.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Do you think there is no such thing as a homonym?

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I believe there is such a thing. Homonyms are real, yet they are not made of matter. The word "real" is not a homonym. It is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses several submeanings.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Quote the post where I disagreed with you. And don't pull any nonsense where I was using PS's definition of real.

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Here is the "nonsense."

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Originally Posted by Xei

PS here defined 'real' as being made of physical matter; things which 2 describes can be real, but 2 itself is not. This seems patently true so I'm not sure where the source of disagreement is.

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You used his definition of the word. The definition is false, and you expressed support for it. By the reasoning you used there, 2 is not real. In making that point, you were disagreeing with me. If he had defined 2 as "made of ice cream," would you have expressed such support?

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Originally Posted by Xei

At the start of this conversation I said that both parties hadn't defined real sufficiently, and that the question would be trivial once they had done so, and there wasn't any real argument. Since then all I have ever done is ask you to clarify your definition of real. I'm still not satisfied. Those five definitions don't illustrate anything in their totality. They are not supposed to, because they are patently mutually contradictory.

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No, they are not contradictory. They are all forms of being actual.

Well this is probably completely irrelevent by now and perhaps someone has already said it but I wanted comment on the OP; the issue with an infinite being having to experience infinite moments in order to reach the present assumes that an infinite being necessarily experiences time as a linear sequence of discreet instances which isn't the only possibility.



And to make a half hearted attempt to jump into the topic du jour; 2 is both real and a mental construct.....

They're participating in masturbatory regressive reasoning.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

And to make a half hearted attempt to jump into the topic du jour; 2 is both real and a mental construct.....

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I agree with that. What I meant was that 2 is not merely a mental construct. All concepts are mental constructs, but many are also direct interpretations of reality.

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Originally Posted by Phion

They're participating in masturbatory regressive reasoning.

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That's funny. But if you are serious in saying I am doing that, please explain the regressive reasoning part.

You can't interpret reality, since that implies that the mental construct is outside of reality. The mental construct of 2 itself is a part of reality that is used to represent many physical phenomena (known as pairs) that we as humans percieve. The designation of "2" is entirely dependent on an observer to seperate their perceptions into discreet phenomena and then to assign likeness threshholds in order to make a judgment on groupings. For instance, am I holding 2 apples or 1 green apple and 1 red apple or 1 pair of apples or n number of apple cells or n number of atoms or 200 cubic centimeters of apple and air or 1 lumpy depression in my palm? Feel free to ignore me if I'm just rehashing an argument that everyone is tired of already.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

You used his definition of the word. The definition is false, and you expressed support for it. By the reasoning you used there, 2 is not real. In making that point, you were disagreeing with me. If he had defined 2 as "made of ice cream," would you have expressed such support?

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Like I said before, the 'false definition' argument is fatuous and pointless and I won't be engaging in it. All I will be doing is clarifying the definitions that people have chosen to use.

I was not disagreeing with you, nobody else in this thread is having such titanic struggles with such a simple concept. For the nth time, words are shortcuts for more verbose concepts. Even if nobody had used a word in a specific sense before, it doesn't matter, as long as the participants in the conversation understand what it means. Mathematicians do this loads in proofs; for example they may define a word like 'nice' to refer to some abstract property of an object and then use it from then on in the proof. Nobody gets confused and starts saying 'but a lecturer in another course said nice meant something different', or 'but the dictionary says nice means appealing and that has nothing to do with what you said'. Most people have no problem understanding that words are simply symbols used for utility.

When I said '2 is not real', the explicit form of this statement, which I made perfectly clear, is '2 is not made of physical matter'. Which you don't disagree with.

If PS for some reason wanted to define 2 as the adjective 'made of ice cream'... okay? What would be the problem? Of course, any argument we had about 2 would be about ice cream and nothing to do with this conversation about numbers.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

No, they are not contradictory. They are all forms of being actual.

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Hmm, this doesn't look like either the word 'yes' or 'no'. In fact you just flat out deleted the question from my quote. How bemusing. I thought you hated 'dodgeball'.

This crossed my mind as possibly being a metaphysical paradox today. If some of the more educated people here with regards to science, mathematics and philosophy think that this is complete nonsense then please say so and why. If it is wrong & I appear completely stupid please leave out any insults as it is getting very tiresome, I have spoken to members recently that avoid Extended Discussion because of this which is a real shame. Anyway, We all know that the numbers 1 & 2 exist and are real quantities. If I have two coins in my pocket and I am unaware of the amount of coins in my pocket I can pull out each coin and count 1 coin, then 2 coins. I can say, 'Yes I have 2 coins'. But if there are an infinite amount numbers between the numbers 1 & 2 then because of the nature of infinity after 1 we can never get to the number 2... This idea perplexes me and hence why I have added it in this thread.

I don't think it's very clear what you mean. Specifically, what does it mean to 'get to' the number 2?

At any rate, number systems are just models for various phenomena. In this case, namely discrete objects, we can model it most simply with the naturals, which don't have any numbers between 1 and 2.

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Originally Posted by Xei

I don't think it's very clear what you mean. Specifically, what does it mean to 'get to' the number 2?

At any rate, number systems are just models for various phenomena. In this case, namely discrete objects, we can model it most simply with the naturals, which don't have any numbers between 1 and 2.

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I thought someone may ask this after I made the post. If there are an infinte amount of numbers between the numbers 1 & 2 then in essence we can never reach the number 2 by counting metaphysically because there are an infinite amount of numbers in between 1 & 2.

Sure, I can definately count the number of coins I have in my pocket. I have 2.

But counting metaphysically from 1 to 2 can be seen as being impossible if we count using the smallest incremental amounts using the decimal base number system.

To illustrate: By counting ('get to' in your reply) in the smallest incremential amounts possible starting with just one decimal place to keep it simple 1.1 leads to 1.9, almost 2, would then eventually lead onto 1.99 and then onto 1.999.

This would go on ad infinitum, so in theory we can never reach the number two by counting in the smallest incremential amounts possible to count upwards from 1 to 2 if we use the fact that there are an infinite amount of numbers between 1 & 2. Therefore we can say that we can't really count from 1 to 2. But... yes I can as I have two coins in my pocket. Note the seeming metaphysical paradox.

I don't understand what a natural number is, although I have heard the term before, and no doubt would explain why my post has no validity. Its been fun though thinking about it :)

A natural number is just the set of numbers that cultures naturally come up with at first, namely the counting numbers, {1, 2, 3, 4, ... }. Sometimes the naturals are also taken to include 0.

My point was that different kinds of number are conceptual structures which are used for different purposes. The most obvious choice for counting things is the naturals, which by definition don't have any numbers in between 1 and 2. Such numbers are not necessary for the consistency of a certain number system.

I think you could make your point easier if you considered something naturally modelled by the reals, such as walking from point 0 to point 1.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

The mental construct of 2 itself is a part of reality that is used to represent many physical phenomena (known as pairs) that we as humans percieve.

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What you're getting at is called the problem of negative existentials, and it's been around for a very long time. Stating something like "pegasus does not exist" might be a true statement until you see that you're denying the existence of the idea of the thing, and not the thing itself, thereby creating a false statement. This kind of reasoning can be ultimately self-defeating, since the idea of pegasus subsists.

When you focus on the non-properties of something you're opening up a floodgate of negative facts that doesn't necessarily make what you're questioning to be the case true, rather than what is not the case. By proving the non-existence of an earthquake in Rome, are you proving the same non-earthquake in India? Do things change over time or over space? It depends on how much you want to dismiss, and how much you want reality to rely on metaphor. How much credit does you intellect give to your experience to trust as witness?

Would you rather first learn to speak or to see as a child? On the surface, names are the easiest to understand because their meaning is whatever bears the name, unless you begin using the name also as a quantifier, then the name becomes a function in the sentence, not something that is being named; "nobody" as a name, for example.

Don't allow missteps in reasoning, and lack of linguistic clarity trick you into hopeless abstraction or absurdity.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

You can't interpret reality, since that implies that the mental construct is outside of reality. The mental construct of 2 itself is a part of reality that is used to represent many physical phenomena (known as pairs) that we as humans percieve. The designation of "2" is entirely dependent on an observer to seperate their perceptions into discreet phenomena and then to assign likeness threshholds in order to make a judgment on groupings. For instance, am I holding 2 apples or 1 green apple and 1 red apple or 1 pair of apples or n number of apple cells or n number of atoms or 200 cubic centimeters of apple and air or 1 lumpy depression in my palm? Feel free to ignore me if I'm just rehashing an argument that everyone is tired of already.

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The mind is part of reality, but there is a whole lot more to reality outside of the mind. You are interpreting my posts. I am not typing them in your mind. I am typing them in my bedroom.

If you are holding 2 apples and pass out, no longer having any concept of the apples, what happens to the 2 apples? Are there suddenly more or fewer apples? Are there zero?

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Originally Posted by Xei

Like I said before, the 'false definition' argument is fatuous and pointless and I won't be engaging in it. All I will be doing is clarifying the definitions that people have chosen to use.

I was not disagreeing with you, nobody else in this thread is having such titanic struggles with such a simple concept. For the nth time, words are shortcuts for more verbose concepts. Even if nobody had used a word in a specific sense before, it doesn't matter, as long as the participants in the conversation understand what it means. Mathematicians do this loads in proofs; for example they may define a word like 'nice' to refer to some abstract property of an object and then use it from then on in the proof. Nobody gets confused and starts saying 'but a lecturer in another course said nice meant something different', or 'but the dictionary says nice means appealing and that has nothing to do with what you said'. Most people have no problem understanding that words are simply symbols used for utility.

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I'm talking about a definition that was pulled out of somebody's ass... after he used a different one in Part 1 of this debate, which he decided to rekindle in this thread. I'm proud of you for taking up for that. However, what you are not getting is that my definition of "definition" is "horsey."

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Originally Posted by Xei

When I said '2 is not real', the explicit form of this statement, which I made perfectly clear, is '2 is not made of physical matter'. Which you don't disagree with.

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Yes, and more specifically, it is not made of ice cream.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

If PS for some reason wanted to define 2 as the adjective 'made of ice cream'... okay? What would be the problem? Of course, any argument we had about 2 would be about ice cream and nothing to do with this conversation about numbers.

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Then what you should say is, "Uh, PS, that's not what 'real' means," instead of being his philosophy forum attorney.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

Hmm, this doesn't look like either the word 'yes' or 'no'. In fact you just flat out deleted the question from my quote. How bemusing. I thought you hated 'dodgeball'.

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WTF? The first word is "no." :?

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Originally Posted by mcwillis

We all know that the numbers 1 & 2 exist and are real quantities.

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Not everybody here is aware of that. :lol: I'm still working on getting some people there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Then what you should say is, "Uh, PS, that's not what 'real' means," instead of being his philosophy forum attorney.

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I haven't acted as anybody's attorney, the only point I have been making is that both sides would resolve their argument if they defined exactly what they each meant by 'real'. The only reason I'm still talking to you is that you seem dogmatically opposed to providing a functional definition. I don't know why.

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WTF? The first word is "no." :?

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Dodgeball again? You are intelligent enough to know that this response makes no sense. The question was, 'is fake silk real, yes or no'. You didn't attempt to answer it.

Let's assume that you keep refusing to answer it because you can't. In that case, all that means, is that for your definition of A, there are certain objects X for which X can be said to be A according to the definition and X can also be said to be not A according to the definition.

This is in fact fundamentally what it means to not be well-defined (dictionary definition 3). Checking that a new definition doesn't do this is a regular exercise in mathematical proof (for example, proving that the quotient group is well-defined).

Patently one will never be able to determine the answer to 'is 2 real or is 2 not real' if one cannot in general determine the answer to 'is X real or is X not real'.

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Not everybody here is aware of that. :lol: I'm still working on getting some people there.

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Don't fool yourself UM, you're refusing to even jump the first basic hurdle and give a consistent definition of 'real'.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xei

I haven't acted as anybody's attorney, the only point I have been making is that both sides would resolve their argument if they defined exactly what they each meant by 'real'. The only reason I'm still talking to you is that you seem dogmatically opposed to providing a functional definition. I don't know why.

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Why would you even bother typing something so obviously wrong? I gave my defintion, I gave it again, and I posted a dictionary set of defintions and said I am using what the overall definition is illustrated by the totality of the 5 subdefinitions. You know that PS used a crock of shit definition, so it is really bizarre that you would advocate it and use it as a debate point.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Dodgeball again? You are intelligent enough to know that this response makes no sense. The question was, 'is fake silk real, yes or no'. You didn't attempt to answer it.

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You were not clear on this. You quoted something I said that began with "no" and said I did not have "yes" or "no" in it. You should have quoted what you said I didn't answer. Yes, fake silk is real in the sense that I have described "real." The subdefinition involving actuality as applied to genuineness is a minor illustration that helps create the overall picture, but it alone does not involve the overall "real" we are discussing. In that subdefinition sense, fake silk is not real. In the sense that you know I have been illustrating and explaining, it is. Take even those 5 subdefinitions and apply them to existence. That is the metaphysical sense of the word. That is what we are discussing.

Very importantly, I gave my own single definition and later brought it up again just for you. We do not need to keep splitting hairs over this.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Let's assume that you keep refusing to answer it because you can't. In that case, all that means, is that for your definition of A, there are certain objects X for which X can be said to be A according to the definition and X can also be said to be not A according to the definition.

This is in fact fundamentally what it means to not be well-defined (dictionary definition 3). Checking that a new definition doesn't do this is a regular exercise in mathematical proof (for example, proving that the quotient group is well-defined).

Patently one will never be able to determine the answer to 'is 2 real or is 2 not real' if one cannot in general determine the answer to 'is X real or is X not real'.

Don't fool yourself UM, you're refusing to even jump the first basic hurdle and give a consistent definition of 'real'.

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Lord have mercy. Are you really this lost? A broad meaning can be applied in specific ways that are different from each other. I didn't realize that would confuse you so much. Do I need to dig up my own wording of the definition we are using in this debate and explain the overall illustration principle again? I will give it to you yet again.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

As for the definition of "real," I don't recall dodging questions about the definition of it. Do you, honestly? It means "having existence as something physical, or a property or measure that has the potential of pertaining to something physical." More specifically, we are debating what numbers are real. Such numbers are actual quantities. They do not have to be quantities of physical things. They can be quantities of properties and other things that merely pertain to or are manifested by the physical, such as thoughts, waves, fiction characters, etc., but they have to be actual quantities. 2 is a quantity. i is not a quantity. You can't have i of anything.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Barrack Obama is real; Superman is not real. Cincinnati, Ohio is real; Atlantis is not real. Al Pacino is real; Michael Corleone is not real. Richard Dawkins is real; God is not real. Knowledge of the existence of 2 is real; knowledge of how to travel faster than the speed of light is not real. Oject speeds of 2 miles per hour are real; object speeds beyond the speed of light are not real. Intelligence is real; omniscience is not real. Your thoughts are real; your kitchen counter's thoughts are not real. Do you see a pattern here? The pattern is real.

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

They all mean the same thing, but in different specific ways. They all mean "actual." Things can be actual in terms of existence, legitimacy, and other things. Fake silk is not imaginary, but its existence as true silk is imaginary. That is how it is not real silk. Do you see the connection?

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If you are still confused, read this post as many times as you need to.

By the way, this debate is about whether or not 2 is real. :chuckle:

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Yes, fake silk is real in the sense that I have described "real." The subdefinition involving actuality as applied to genuineness is a minor illustration that helps create the overall picture, but it alone does not involve the overall "real" we are discussing.

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Correct, it fake silk is real. But it also isn't. The definition says that that which is counterfeit is not real. Is fake silk counterfeit? Yes. Therefore the definition tells us that fake silk is not real. That's how definitions work. That's what the dictionary says. I'm not going to argue about this, it's just bloody stupid. It's right there for everybody to read. Just accept that the concept of a 'holistic dictionary definition' is ill-defined and move on. We cannot possibly use a definition that says something both is and isn't real if we wish to determine whether 2 is real.

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Very importantly, I gave my own single definition and later brought it up again just for you. We do not need to keep splitting hairs over this.

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Yes, you did give your own definition. I asked you to clarify and you refused to, on the basis that we should just use the dictionary definitions. As the dictionary definitions are inconsistent, clearly we need to go back to clarifying the single definition that you originally gave. I believe I had asked you to clarify the term 'quantity'.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Correct, it fake silk is real. But it also isn't. The definition says that that which is counterfeit is not real. Is fake silk counterfeit? Yes. Therefore the definition tells us that fake silk is not real. That's how definitions work. That's what the dictionary says. I'm not going to argue about this, it's just bloody stupid. It's right there for everybody to read. Just accept that the concept of a 'holistic dictionary definition' is ill-defined and move on. We cannot possibly use a definition that says something both is and isn't real if we wish to determine whether 2 is real.

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If the dictionary is honestly confusing you that much, which I don't think it is, you can just disregard it. In case you truly are trying to understand what "real" in the metaphysical sense means, I will explain it to you one more time. After that, you are on your own. I think you are probably just stagnating the conversation on purpose because you know I have a point about the nature of numbers. You and I go back a little bit on the topic.

I posted all five Dictionary.com definitions because they have a common thread. I was trying to paint a picture for you. However, I thought you would take that big picture and common thread and apply them to the word "real" as it is used in the metaphysical sense. If that did not work, then forget it. I think you know I am not making an issue of whether 2 is fake or counterfeit. I already explained to you that I am talking about actuality as it applies to being in the realm of existence, not actuality as it applies to being specifically in the realm of genuine money or commercial products. Those subdefinitions apply to more specific principles but involve the broad concept. Like I said, if that confuses you, never mind it. Just focus on my own worded definition. If the words in it confuse you, get a dictionary and focus on context, like you should have done in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Yes, you did give your own definition. I asked you to clarify and you refused to, on the basis that we should just use the dictionary definitions. As the dictionary definitions are inconsistent, clearly we need to go back to clarifying the single definition that you originally gave. I believe I had asked you to clarify the term 'quantity'.

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I have posted several paragraphs worth of clarification-- my own definition, the dictionary's set of definitions, my explanation of the dictionary's set of defintions, a list of pairs of real and unreal things, and a whole lot of other elaboration. You know what the fuck we are talking about. You are a math student at Cambridge, so you know what a "quantity" is. If you need further understanding, use the dictionary + context tip I gave you. Check your math textbooks for meaning too. I'm sure you'll understand it quite well.

What do you mean by "the?" I just looked it up in an online dictionary and got tons of defintions. How am I supposed to know what it means? I am still waiting for you to define "does" and "is."

Argument Clinic - YouTube

If I pass out I will not be holding anything as they will surely fall out of my hand. Is that what you meant by "are there zero?"

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to witness, does it make a sound? Are compression waves traveling through air still considered sound if their are no ears to translate them into brain waves? I feel like we have been involved in this same debate for several years now.

Have you ever passed out? I did once this past year. I blacked out and collapsed and had a mild seizure from standing up too quickly while being dehydrated. It wasn't the same as falling asleep; my body was still taking in information but I wasn't able to process it. The first thought I was able to process was that someone must be playing radio static very loud which I later realized was actually the sensation of the carpet against my face. If I had been holding two apples during this experience (and miraculously managed to hold on to them) then while I was out, not only would there not be two apples in my hand, but there wouldn't exist apples or objects of any kind at all. Perhaps you watching me would say that there were still two apples but then you would be an observer capable of seperating your perceptions into discreet phenomena and applying likeness values to them.

Can you show me two apples that exist independently of any observers?

I for one don't have the hubris to proclaim that everything ceases to exist without myself, or consciousness in general, existing. Then again, I'm not even sure what this 'self' actually is...

The statement 'everything ceases to exist without myself' is meaningless by the verifiability criterion. Namely: is there any observation I could make which would have a consequence for this statement?

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Originally Posted by Universal Mind

If the dictionary is honestly confusing you that much, which I don't think it is, you can just disregard it.

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No, it really is. It is my firm belief that a very large number of philosophical arguments arise from problems of language. This has been the driving philosophical insight since around the start of the 19th century and is a very serious position. Being tricked by homonyms is one of the chief causes of these problems. The perennial 'does a falling tree make a sound if there's nobody there' is an excellent example; the argument is completely and utterly futile, clearly stemming from the interlocutors having vague definitions of what 'sound' means. Once they define what they are talking about properly, for instance, 'the tree makes waves of air molecules', or, 'the tree does not make waves of air molecules which are perceived by a person', no sane person could disagree with whatever it was that they were saying. They only thought they had a disagreement because they were using the word 'sound' to mean inconsistent things, that is to say, there were objects X for which X could be said to be A and also not A by consulting the two subdefinitions. Clearly different meanings of the word are common enough for the argument to arise, so arguing about what the word 'sound' 'actually means' is even more pointless, the meaning of words are decided upon by whoever uses the word.

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In case you truly are trying to understand what "real" in the metaphysical sense means, I will explain it to you one more time. After that, you are on your own. I think you are probably just stagnating the conversation on purpose because you know I have a point about the nature of numbers. You and I go back a little bit on the topic.

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If you think about this it doesn't actually make sense. I mean, firstly, as I have said before, I have not once said that 2 is 'not real' according to your definition. That is not my position. In fact when you've sufficiently clarified what you mean, I expect that 2 will be real. Despite my consistently trying to clarify, you still seem to believe that my agreeing that 2 was not real by PS's definition somehow suggests I will also think 2 is not real by your definition, when in reality those conversations were about utterly different things, and were only connected via a homonym, which is nothing.

And secondly, as it was my position in the discussion you referred to that complex numbers are real, it makes no sense that I would want to disprove your position that 2 is real, given that 2 is a complex number. Under no sensible definition of 'real' could one conclude that complex numbers are real but natural numbers aren't.

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I have posted several paragraphs worth of clarification-- my own definition, the dictionary's set of definitions, my explanation of the dictionary's set of defintions, a list of pairs of real and unreal things, and a whole lot of other elaboration. You know what the fuck we are talking about. You are a math student at Cambridge, so you know what a "quantity" is. If you need further understanding, use the dictionary + context tip I gave you. Check your math textbooks for meaning too. I'm sure you'll understand it quite well.

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One doesn't actually study the philosophy of mathematics in a mathematics degree. In fact we pretty much totally ignore it and get on with doing maths. Nowhere have I been provided with a definition of 'quantity', or even something like 'number'. These concepts are in fact notoriously difficult to define and one finds many mutually contradictory attempts at definitions... which is why I am still waiting on you. No I don't know what we're talking about, I can envisage various totally different meanings of 'quantity', under which various objects would sometimes be included and sometimes excluded.

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What do you mean by "the?" I just looked it up in an online dictionary and got tons of defintions. How am I supposed to know what it means? I am still waiting for you to define "does" and "is."

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It's a legitimate request, although I don't think it's a sincere one. 'Does' means different things depending on the context. In the context in which you found it, it was simply a grammatical framing device for the question 'what does X mean'? It meant the same thing as 'define X'. As to what 'define' means, that can only be defined ostensively.

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Originally Posted by Xei

No, it really is. It is my firm belief that a very large number of philosophical arguments arise from problems of language. This has been the driving philosophical insight since around the start of the 19th century and is a very serious position. Being tricked by homonyms is one of the chief causes of these problems. The perennial 'does a falling tree make a sound if there's nobody there' is an excellent example; the argument is completely and utterly futile, clearly stemming from the interlocutors having vague definitions of what 'sound' means. Once they define what they are talking about properly, for instance, 'the tree makes waves of air molecules', or, 'the tree does not make waves of air molecules which are perceived by a person', no sane person could disagree with whatever it was that they were saying. They only thought they had a disagreement because they were using the word 'sound' to mean inconsistent things, that is to say, there were objects X for which X could be said to be A and also not A by consulting the two subdefinitions. Clearly different meanings of the word are common enough for the argument to arise, so arguing about what the word 'sound' 'actually means' is even more pointless, the meaning of words are decided upon by whoever uses the word.

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I totally agree, but I think you know by now what my point about the reality of numbers is. I have clarified it to the point of beating a dead horse.

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Originally Posted by Xei

If you think about this it doesn't actually make sense. I mean, firstly, as I have said before, I have not once said that 2 is 'not real' according to your definition. That is not my position. In fact when you've sufficiently clarified what you mean, I expect that 2 will be real. Despite my consistently trying to clarify, you still seem to believe that my agreeing that 2 was not real by PS's definition somehow suggests I will also think 2 is not real by your definition, when in reality those conversations were about utterly different things, and were only connected via a homonym, which is nothing.

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No, it is just that he used a made up definition.

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Originally Posted by Xei

And secondly, as it was my position in the discussion you referred to that complex numbers are real, it makes no sense that I would want to disprove your position that 2 is real, given that 2 is a complex number. Under no sensible definition of 'real' could one conclude that complex numbers are real but natural numbers aren't.

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My issue has not been with complex numbers. It has been with imaginary numbers. 2 is only a complex number because it is 2 + 0i. The number I have been using as an example of a fictitious number is i.

Claiming that i is real and 2 is not is exactly what PS did, and I called him out on it. Why didn't you? What I was saying to you is that it is odd how you didn't call him out on that but instead started taking up for how 2 is not real by his suddenly new and made up definition.

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Originally Posted by Xei

One doesn't actually study the philosophy of mathematics in a mathematics degree. In fact we pretty much totally ignore it and get on with doing maths. Nowhere have I been provided with a definition of 'quantity', or even something like 'number'. These concepts are in fact notoriously difficult to define and one finds many mutually contradictory attempts at definitions... which is why I am still waiting on you. No I don't know what we're talking about, I can envisage various totally different meanings of 'quantity', under which various objects would sometimes be included and sometimes excluded.

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You might never have had to write a definition of the word "quantity," but I know the word has been used in your studies and you have had to understand its meaning.

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Originally Posted by Xei

It's a legitimate request, although I don't think it's a sincere one. 'Does' means different things depending on the context. In the context in which you found it, it was simply a grammatical framing device for the question 'what does X mean'? It meant the same thing as 'define X'. As to what 'define' means, that can only be defined ostensively.

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I was being satirical. Asking me to define every major word in my point was unnecessary.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

If I pass out I will not be holding anything as they will surely fall out of my hand. Is that what you meant by "are there zero?"

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to witness, does it make a sound? Are compression waves traveling through air still considered sound if their are no ears to translate them into brain waves? I feel like we have been involved in this same debate for several years now.

Have you ever passed out? I did once this past year. I blacked out and collapsed and had a mild seizure from standing up too quickly while being dehydrated. It wasn't the same as falling asleep; my body was still taking in information but I wasn't able to process it. The first thought I was able to process was that someone must be playing radio static very loud which I later realized was actually the sensation of the carpet against my face. If I had been holding two apples during this experience (and miraculously managed to hold on to them) then while I was out, not only would there not be two apples in my hand, but there wouldn't exist apples or objects of any kind at all. Perhaps you watching me would say that there were still two apples but then you would be an observer capable of seperating your perceptions into discreet phenomena and applying likeness values to them.

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I have debated that here in the past, and some of it was with you. The universe is not dependent on our observations. The universe was here long before we were, and it will be here long after we are gone.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Can you show me two apples that exist independently of any observers?

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No, it is of course impossible to observe something without it being observed. We can, however, use logic to analyze hypotheticals.

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Originally Posted by Xei

The statement 'everything ceases to exist without myself' is meaningless by the verifiability criterion. Namely: is there any observation I could make which would have a consequence for this statement?

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There have been a number of meaningless statements throughout this thread, and from an empiricists' point of view you'd be correct about what I said, but to the extent that [philosophical] analysis is concerned you've missed the essence; our knowledge is subject to experience, and without experience everything is meaningless. Here we rely heavily on synthetic statements in order to derive some meaning in an otherwise un-meaningful debate, but for only the sake of argument the meta-physic is not completely dead, nor is the distinction between theoretical and observational philosophy particularly meaningful. There's an apparent over arching positivism here wreaking of quaint correlations and weak presumptions about verification of assertions, although it seems the real paradox lies in our innate, humanly truth value.

I hate to burst all of your bubbles but you're all figments of my imagination.

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Originally Posted by RationalMystic

I hate to burst all of your bubbles but you're all figments of my imagination.

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To me, reality is subjective to some but not to others. It is not subjective to me, to me, but it might be subjective to me to you. That might not be the case with Bob. It depends on Marsha's perspective, etc.

<<<In situation B, a train arrives, having travelled at 88mph for the infinite past.>>>

a tain can go into the future infinitely, yet at any point that you see it it is not infinity because it started. In the situation B of the train, it might have always been traveling as far back as you go, but if the moment it stops is connected to the infinite past wouldn't that have made it not infinte anymore and therefor make the situation impossible? Wouldn't that make infinity impossible unless there are other variables i have yet to come up with?

Yet that makes me think of how the universe could pop up from nonexistence unless it has always existed or how god could even exist if no one created him.

If it was possible for the universe to pop up out of no where then that means the possiblity exists and has existed for infinity. If god wasnt created then that means he might always have existed? If god happend out of nowhere that means the possbility existed always. This also makes me think that if god poped up out of no where through infinite possibility that that might mean that god and the universe are the same thing out of posibility.

The last one was just a random thought that I need to look into.

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Originally Posted by Name

Yet that makes me think of how the universe could pop up from nonexistence unless it has always existed or how god could even exist if no one created him.

If it was possible for the universe to pop up out of no where then that means the possiblity exists and has existed for infinity. If god wasnt created then that means he might always have existed? If god happend out of nowhere that means the possbility existed always. This also makes me think that if god poped up out of no where through infinite possibility that that might mean that god and the universe are the same thing out of posibility..

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The funny thing about this is the way we have to ask the question is sort of contradictory. You ask when was the universe created or were did the universe come from but those two questions ask about the variables space and time. Space and time only exit within the universe. The question of when did the universe start would have to be a function of another variable entirely, one that we can't even comprehend. I find it funny how our language is confined in some ways that make it hard to talk about metaphysics without being contradictory. I think that was one of the problems with the discussion on the reality of 2.

Ive heard many explanations of time, infinity, etc. When i was young, probably around 6 or 7, i knew that time travel was possible. I didnt know how, but i knew i could figure it out. I was a odd child i guess, at least from my point of view. but anyways, think about this= There is two possibilities, 1: Time is moving, and we are standing still or two: We are moving, and time is standing still. I read somewere that a demon of sorts had created time to "limit" the universe. If you believed in it, and worked around it then time is real. My explanation of time is this = Imagine yourself grabbing a pen, and stricking a surface softly, every time your heart beats(pretty consitent), while watching the sun. You know exactly were the sun was when you first strike the surface, and you count how many times you strike that surface until the sun rotates all the way around the earth and back to the exact place is was in. That would be time. Now on to immortality and mortality. It is physically imposible to be immortal on this physical plane/dimension. Stone buildings dont last forever so neither will your skin. If by some odd happening, you dont age whatsoever(maybe the duplications of cells, with the disposal of the old constantly) it is possible to be immortal. Now pertaining to rocks, and other physical elements= We are all made of stardust, we are made of the earth, and there is not one chemical in your body that didnt come from somewere in the sky. Everything but something that "grows" like a plant or a human, is more than trillions of years old(or however old the f***in universe is). Well thats my 2 cents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EGDCh75SpQ

Infinity is a term and should stop trying to be applied to our unniverse as true infinty in our unniverse does not exist.
When the events of the big bang occured it happened in a space which contained no "laws", as matter stretched out and increased in size a plane was created - time. This plane is not 2-dimensional it has no dimension but it carries our 3-dimensional world as a law. Every way particles react in our unniverse is governed by the plane which was created by the big bang in the sense that we live in a 3-dimensional world but in another unniverse (If one existed) there could be 4-dimensions. One of the rules of our plane is that its limit is the speed of light and that everything is relative. These two concepts help our understanding of infinity and immortality. For instance the faster an amount of mass goes the more time is stretched around this entity to ensure that light travels at 300000km per second so that time seems equally fast to it (relativity). A great way to show that infinity does not exist in a physical form to us is through wormholes. One could argue that infinty does exist as an infinite amount of energy can be stored in a wormhole, but think of the nature of a wormhole - A wormhole's speed and mass have caused it to break the limits set by our plane and create a hole in it, therefore beyond the event horizon of the blackhole we are not dealing with our own plane but with something unknown which does follow our laws therefore we cannot say that it is energy once it has passed this point. Same with immortality, If one was to use time dilation and break the speed limit they would no longer exist on our unniverses plane becuase it does not allow for this.
Its hard to explain but I hope I got my point across.

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Originally Posted by MadMonkey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EGDCh75SpQ

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I can't stand to listen to things like this anymore... I need to write my paper! :panic: