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Article 4763 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: mathematical realism
Message-ID: <kt6s84INNgpd@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 92 19:01:24 GMT
References: <ksschhINNnst@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <atten.701704311@groucho.phil.ruu.nl>
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In article <atten.701704311@groucho.phil.ruu.nl> atten@phil.ruu.nl (Mark van Atten) writes:
>silber@orfeo.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Silber) writes:
>
>
>> Some theoreticians, Goedel for insatnce, say that 
>> intuition about universal, platonic mathematical reality
>> is the key to their discoveries.  This may well be true,
>> but it still does not establish the truth of the 
>> separate objective existence of mathematical objects.
>
> This is not true! I cannot offer a full reply (as I have no references at
>hand), but I can give some hints at such a full reply.
>
>1. It is hard to see how one can be 'objective' without there existing objects
>of some sort. (This was pointed out by Hao Wang in his fab book 'Reflections
>on Kurt Goedel')
...
>3. The question of the objective existence of mathematical objects is an exact
                                                                       ????????
>replica of the question of the objective existence of physical (material)
 ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
>objects in physics. See the 1964 postscript to Goedel's  paper 'What is Cantor's continuum problem?'

Thanks for the Hao Wang references,
I suppose my naive predilection is for, not 'materialism', but
physicalism (mass-energy-ism).  All of OUR logic depends on the
allowable physical combinations which our brains and ultimately 
fundamental particles can enter into.  Now if in fact the
physical hierarchy of this universe is made out of quarks etc that
can combine in certain ways, this does not establish mathematics.
Isn't the idea of 'map' or 'function' a fundamental concept which
we use in our mathematics?  I don't see how maps, functions, or even
elementary numbers and arithmetic have explicit objective existence
just because the universe says that ''three''-quarks may combine to make
a proton.  ( But perhaps I will get some new ideas from Wang et al.)


