[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Neil

  • From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:05:24 -0000

--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "iro3isdx" <xznwrjnk-evca@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "jrstern" <jrstern@> wrote:
>
> > That's an extreme platonistic interpretation.
>
> I can handle idealized things quite well as a fictionalist.
> I see no need to invent a platonic realm.

A realm by any other name.

But, I am not telling you to not invent realms,
but I am describing how one does things like have
a thought about realms.

You start by producing some symbols like, "Take this realm".

No, it does not explain why those words eventually result in
a theory that explains X, Y, and Z.

The question it addresses is, "What is it for an agent
to have some ideas about a realm?", or "What does it take to
be an agent, that has ideas about a realm (or anything else)?"


> > Any formalist interpretation, that mathematics deals with symbols,
> > I can better express in physicalist, algorithmic terms.
>
> I doubt that.

It's a restatement of the Church/Turing thesis in physicalist terms.


> You can physically describe the behavior in terms of making
> physical marks.  But you cannot account for the use of those marks
> as symbols.

But I, and millions of others, do this every day, when we program
computers.  Yes, I know, we leave our magical vibrations on the
marks, such that even in our absence, the symbols we've made,
when the computer is plugged in and operating, do the right thing.

Searle calls it derived intentionality.

Fodor calls virtually the same thing, um, his own theory of concepts,
or something like that.

What horribly unlikely (and regressive, and essentialist)
explanations!

Now, what of our man Wittgenstein?  Well, per Sean's last post to
me, we can take Wittgenstein at his later word, which I think is
an extreme, eliminativist empiricism, that neither abstractions
nor generalizations nor rules, explain discourse, belief, analysis.


> The big problem with formalism, is that you cannot use it to make
> sense of why mathematicians do what they do.  You have ruled out
> discussing the content of the mathematician's thought, and in
> doing so you have ruled out questions of motivation.

Have not ruled it out at all,
have only noted the very simple matter
that the discussion itself is a physical particular.

All the rest is an attempt to flesh out what that means.

Josh



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