"flipper" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 02:06:36 GMT, "Rich Wilson"
wrote:
"flipper" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:50:02 GMT, "Rich Wilson"
wrote:
mega-snip
I give up. There's no way you're ever going to see that you're wrong!
;-)
Of course not, since I'm not 
Oh yes you are :-)
I'd still be interested to know a few things about your view though:
Yeah? And what makes you think I'll answer yours after you snipped out
all of mine, eh? hehe
Dunno. Seems I was right though...
- If numbers exist, when did they start to exist? At the Big Bang? (aka
Monday if you happen to be a creationist :-) Or did, say, 5 start to
exist
the first time there were 5 things in the universe?
There couldn't even be one 'thing', much less 5, if the entire panoply
of what you claim doesn't exist didn't exist.
So you're saying all the numbers had to exist before any matter or energy
could exist?
Now you're back to the 'before and after' thing you said you didn't
mean the first time you said it.
There is no 'before' or 'after' as it's all speaking of the same
'things' and your question is like asking which came first, the apple
or the apple?
But you were trying to argue that numbers exist independently of the things
they may be applied to, weren't you?
Which gets back to the
question I asked you of just what it is you think constitutes 'real
things' if there are no EM fields, gravity, nuclear forces, or
anything else, that make up 'real things'.
If I had a definitive definition of "real" we probably wouldn't be having
this argument. (Can you have a non-definitive definition?). The idea of
"realness" starts off as being things we can physically sense,
Which is nothing more than the interactions of energy fields and
forces that you argue, further below, are not 'real'.
The basis of what you call "real" is not necessarily the smallest or
simplest thing in your scientific model.
At the moment, I can tell my keyboard is feel because I can feel it, I can
see it and I can hear it. What it's made of is irrelevant to that point.
Forces are a bit of a grey area for me... consider the thought process:
1. There are two planets.
2. The planets are attracting each other.
3. There is an attraction between the planets.
2 and 3 mean the same thing
Perhaps.
but 3 invokes an extra object
It's not an 'object'.
Ok , a "thing" then. There is an extra noun in sentence 3, representing an
extra thing.
- the
"attraction".
An observation, the essence of 'real'.
The observation was sentence 2. Sentence 3 is an interpretation of it.
The fact that it appears to be optional in that sentence
suggests to me it's a linguistic thing rather than a real object.
It's only 'optional' if one decides to discard the observed reality.
So you're saying sentence 2 is not an adequate description of the situation?
- When will they cease to exist?
- Who or what created them?
If you're religious, God, otherwise it's a random, but amusing, stroke
of luck. Or so Carl Sagen said.
...and finally, without contradicting any of your responses to my last
post...
- What are they made of?
That's an interesting question coming from someone who denies the
existence of all that 'makes up' things.
That's because I'm trying to find out how your ideas work.
I think you're jumbling man's 'understanding' and how he 'expresses'
it, or 'conceptualizes', with 'the thing' itself. "Apple" is a word
that expresses man's 'concept' of the thing but "apple" is not 'the
thing', it is language.
Yes, there's the real apple,
Which is what? An infinitely complex collection of particles and
energy fields, to name just a few, that you boil down to one nebulous,
almost meaningless, word. The 'real apple'', as you call it, is many
many things.
That's irrelevant. The apple, whatever it may be made of, is still there.
the mental concept of an apple,
Which ignores all the many many things that make up the apple.
Also irrelevant.
and the word
"apple".
A word that ignores all the many many things that make up the apple.
Ditto.
3 separate things.
Pardon the pun but, bad math
1+1+1=3. What's wrong there?
Similarly, '5' is a symbol
Yes, "5" is a symbol and there's an associated mental concept. Notice
there
are only 2 things this time...
Not so. Just as 'apple' applies to all those things which are apples,
numbers also apply to a multiplicity of things.
That doesn't answer my point.