[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophy Of Maths
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:29:15 +0000 (GMT)
I realise you are probably all by now spending your Saturday evening indoors
sharpening your pencils ready to enter this great debate. (I am not - I use a
pen, and sharpening really messes it up; as for the computer keyboard, the
sharpener can't even get proper purchase).
The article is fairly excellent imo (would anyone bother the list with less,
unless it were a palindromic pastiche of Dylan?). But not infallible.
Consider:-
"Clearly, objective knowledge (world 3), that is, the objective contents of
theories, can exist only if those theories have been materially realized in
texts (world 1), which cannot be written nor be read without involving human
consciousness (world 2)."
This is not quite Popper's view, and for a number of reasons. One of which is
Popper's explicit claim in _Schilpp_ that there is a W3.3 i.e. 'objective
knowedge' that has thus far (and perhaps forevermore) never been 'thought' or
'been in anyone's consciousness' (W2); nor has it been "materially realized in
texts" or 'physically embodied'(in W1).
As a subsidary question to the broad topic raised: let us say '^%' is the
symbol for 'an infinity of numbers'. By writing '^%' have I thereby physically
instantiated 'an infinity of numbers'? Or have I merely instantiated a symbol
for 'an infinity of numbers', whereas that infinity cannot (in a finite
physical realm) ever be instantiated?
"Start with something basic even on the big questions." - Brian Clough.
Donal
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