How is it that nominalism is mathematically unsound? Can anyone

Bumpiepoo

Give me one good reason to read this post.

Sell it to me, anon. Convince me to spend my time-money on your word-products. I'm a highly discerning ideas-consumer and frugality and shrewdness are part in parcel with that.

>make a computer run Coq
>don't look at it
>?????
>math independant of a mind

>>8274630
If you understand something I do not, and have the time to impart that knowledge with the rest of us, doing so would be generous which is what a self-actualized person generally strives to be.

If you are not only a discerning ideas-consumer but also a wise man, you know that another desires the knowledge you have presumably to put it to good use. If you value that end, sharing it with him would be putting that knowledge to good use on your own part. -- If you don't value that end, I lose nothing since I have nothing else to offer but what you don't value.

Although if you do have the knowledge I seek and you're willing to part with it, I could manage to give you a compliment.

File: backinmyday-parcels.jpg (35KB, 350x500px) Image search: [Google]

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>>8274630
>part in parcel
you sound like my Grandpa,
except less literate

>>8274722
It's an old southern or English dialect. I like it because it's full of janky phrases like "dull as ditchwater," and it reminds me of home.

>>8274525
>I don't even understand what it means to say that math can be independent of a mind, so I find it difficult to phrase the question in the title correctly. Saying that there is computation independent of a computer sounds like a white black, a North South, an existent nothing, or a left right.

It just means you're ontologically committed to the reality of mathematical entities and mathematics as a descriptive endeavor. Which in English means you're subscribing to the idea that the mind can make contact with an absolute mathematical reality which exists over and above human thought. It's up to you and your own metaphysical prejudices

>>8274711
Oh look, another lengthy block of text begging for more free handouts of valuable anon attention.

Look, I don't know where you're from, but these servers are in America, buddy. Home of the free doesn't mean home of the free shit readily handed to you by complete strangers on the Internet. Listen- LISTEN- I'm trying to help you. But you gotta help me. So take that novel you posted, condense it down into some configuration of no more than 15 syllables, and post it with a picture of a puppy so that I have something to look at between words.

You're welcome.

>>8274789

>the reality of mathematical entities and mathematics as a descriptive endeavor.

Well which is it? Are mathematical entities a reality or descriptive endeavors?

>the idea that the mind can make contact with an absolute mathematical reality which exists over and above human thought.

What does that mean? If it's over and above our thought, how can we make contact with it? Is it a mind or isn't it?

As I said in the OP, my prejudices are mostly as a dogmatic empiricist. Though I recognize and appreciate rationalism, I find it hard to understand why people subscribe to the idea that there are math ghosts that whisper to us, over the very simple idea that we just evolved rational tools to understand a rational universe.

Correct me if I'm wrong, sincerely, but it seems that rationalists are advocating that examining the tools we have evolved to understand a rational universe will somehow explain rationality in the universe. -- As if examining a clay pot will explain the nature of the water it's supposed to hold.

Please, help me make sense of this!

>>8274827
If you have anything worthwhile to share you will because you want to help people and put your knowledge to use.

>>8274833
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Puppy+pictures

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>>8274630
>I'm a highly discerning ideas-consumer
>spends his time on 4chan

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>>8274827
If math falls in a forest and there are no sapient observers to interpret it, did it prove Pythagoras' Theorem?

>>8274525
>I don't even understand what it means to say that math can be independent of a mind

There are mathematicians who have written books claiming this to be the case. That mathematics is the substructure of the universe itself or some such.

>>8274525
Before humans, there was one plant. Then two. Then three. No one was there to think about it.

>>8274903
But that's kind of begging the question.
If math is independent of minds, then what is it one is referring to when one refers to math?

As far as I can figure, like geometric points in space or abstract ideals, it is supposed that there is a divine abstract model that exists. But this divine model can only be supposed.

--- Let me refine my question. Can math ever be anything other than descriptive? if so, do you have an example? If not, who is doing the describing without a mind to compute the description?

>>8274525
>How can numbers be anything but computation?

I don't understand what this means. When I think of a number, I image the digits of the number represented using arabic numerals in my head. Sometimes, when the number x is small, I can think of some configuration of x objects (usually dots or sticks or whatever) in my head.

>>8275888
all of that requires computation. To imagine "1" as in contrast with "0" requires computation.

>>8275908
I don't know what you mean by "computation". Are you regarding brains as computers?

>>8275916
Yes, brains do compute. Do you not regard them as computers?

>>8275924
No. In all models of computation, repeating the same input will produce the same output. Brains don't behave this way because of feedback.

>>8275944
True, part of the brain does not behave this way.
That's why logicians had need to invent intuitionist and fuzzy logic.

Otherwise, How is it the brain is able to compute? Given the same input variables and correctly ordered thinking, a brain should always produce the same output. Isn't that what computation is?

>>8274925
>If math is independent of minds, then what is it one is referring to when one refers to math?

dude, stfu

>>8275956
>logicians had need to invent intuitionist and fuzzy logic.

No. Intuitionistic and fuzzy logic have nothing to do with this. Maybe you wanted to say control theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory

>>8275956
>Given the same input variables and correctly ordered thinking, a brain should always produce the same output. Isn't that what computation is?

That is deterministic computation.

>>8275971

But >>8275944 just said:

>In all models of computation, repeating the same input will produce the same output.

If that is deterministic computation, what models of computation are there that are non-deterministic?

>>8275968
my mistake. Thank you for your correction.

>>8275979
>If that is deterministic computation, what models of computation are there that are non-deterministic?

Non-deterministic Turing Machines. Literally do a Google search, it takes 2 seconds. Do we have to spoonfeed you everything?

>>8275944
>In all models of computation, repeating the same input will produce the same output.
Not all models of computation are like this. Examples: probabilistic and quantum models of computation do not yield the same output for the same input.

>>8275986
After reading the wiki entry non non-deterministic turing machines, I'm left unsatisfied.

From my understanding of the theoretical machine, it models a mind. The internal state of the machine computes things in a deterministic way, right?

Regardless, I'm still left puzzled about how some people theorize that math can exist independent of a computer. (a brain or otherwise.)

>>8276017
i misspoke

*is only able to be modeled by a mind*

>>8276017
>math can exist
What does this even mean? I don't think existence is a property of math.

>>8276031
Don't expect mathematically illiterate philosophers to be able to define what they're talking about. If they could they would just do math.

>>8276255
>>8276031
But that's exactly my question. How is it that some philosophers suppose that math exists? What does that even mean?

Be as snide as you'd like, I have no ego. I am only interested in answers.

>>8274925
>DIVINE abstract model