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Article 3793 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@boucher.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Intercourse with the Forms (was re: Intelligence Testing)
Message-ID: <1992Feb16.203711.8888@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 17 Feb 92 01:37:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Feb16.203711.8888
References: <1992Feb6.214010.14199@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> <1992Feb7.073841.8573@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Feb10.232000.23821@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 52
Nntp-Posting-Host: boucher.harvard.edu

In article <1992Feb10.232000.23821@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> 
dlyndes@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov writes:

[DL]
>|> But the problem remains: namely
>|>
>|>(1) platonism explains mathematical ontology and truth quite nicely but
>|>    fails to explain its utility and epistemology, while [...]

[Mikhail Zeleny, MZ] 
>|> This is hardly a problem, provided that one is serious about the causal
>|> role of the Forms.  Epistemology and pragmatics haunt half-baked Platonists
>|> only; the truly insane among us find that there's nothing wrong with
>|> anamnesis, let alone the erotic epistemology of the later Plato.

DL:
>Quite so.  I have no arguments.  Only an uneasiness about causal relationships
>with the forms.  As a side issue, since you seem to be the resident
>platonist (or at least the most forthcomming), how might the form-matter
>kind of causality be integrated with the rest of physics, and should
>it be integrated?

Since the Forms exist outside of the space-time continuum, it isn't at all
clear to me that the question of our causal interaction with them belongs
to the purview of physics.  I don't believe that we should expect that in
the long run biology and psychology will mutate into branches of physics;
after all, a similar reduction of mathematics to logic has failed for
well-known reasons.

>[...]

>-- 
>+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
>| David K. Lyndes                     | "In 50 years, if we're nice to them,  |
>| Barrios Technology                  |  computers will keep us around as     |
>| email: dlyndes@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov |  pets." --anon.                       |
>+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
>| The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer nor of God. |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


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