Actual Infinities

[I_am_not_mafia]

Isn't there a third possibility - that the objects (the world) indeed exist outside of the mind, but are not in their nature the same as the representations of them in our minds -  e.g. they may inspire logic and reason, because evolutionarily, logic and reason are successful strategies for interacting with them - but that does not mean that they themselves possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason?

Exactly. What we perceive in our brains isn't what is out there. Signals coming from receptors in the eye are reduced in size, extrapolated and compressed (for want of better words) through the different stages of the visual cortex so they can be carried by relatively few axons. This is then passed to the thalamus which then compares it to what we have observed before and builds up a picture.

But if you're going to speculate that an external object can "possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason" then you need to figure out how this is possible the mechanism by which this occurs. The only features that I can think of is complexity and order.

[Alex K]

Guys, answer me this.
If there's a planet 65million light years away, and they had a powerful telescope and could view our earth, would they see dinosaurs walking about right now?

Here's my take on that -

By asking the question: what happens right now 65 million light years away? you open a fantastic can of physical and philosophical worms. Strictly speaking, there appears to be no empirical way to demonstrate that what one would usually call the present, as well as the near past, have already occurred 65 million light years away, and therefore, we do not know. (This is connected to this crazy clock synchronization convention advanced creationists love, in which light speed towards us is infinite, and away from us 2*c. It is an unfalsifiable convention.)
Of course, the most parsimonious and occamy version is that indeed, we are not in a special place, and therefore we simply assume that everything in our time slice has already happened everywhere else, but if you examine this statement closely, it is questionable whether it actually means anything at all if according to current physics, there is no conceivable way to distinguish it from the situation where these remote things have not yet happened. You have to ask yourself - what does this statement actually mean - that something has already happened - for things that cannot in principle affect us, it is not clear at all if you ask me.

And if they recorded what they saw and played it back on massive Samsung lcd tv and we built a huge telescope to see them clearly as they have, would we also see the dinosaurs walking around our own earth on their tv?

Yes, that is philosophically unproblematic because it all happens in our past light cone - but I would rather ask our friends 32.5 million light years away for that favor, you'll get a bigger picture that way

[ignoramus]

OK.
You know, all we have to do now is find some sentient intelligent beings who live about 4 billion light years away to build a big ass telescope and look at earth and tell us how the fuck we evolved! In particular, to keep an eye out for aliens, or a man making stuff out of some dirt...

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Guys, answer me this.
If there's a planet 65million light years away, and they had a powerful telescope and could view our earth, would they see dinosaurs walking about right now?
And if they recorded what they saw and played it back on massive Samsung lcd tv and we built a huge telescope to see them clearly as they have, would we also see the dinosaurs walking around our own earth on their tv?

*mind blown*

I have never thought about it like that

Edit:
*mind blown again*
You're a fucking genius

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

What if time were just an illusion given by chemical reactions?
Seriously,think about it,imagine earth where no chemical reactions are taking place.Time would have stopped right?
Maybe time really isn't a *real* and complicated thing as how we built it up to be.Maybe and most probably it is just an illusion that chemical reactions give us

just saying..
okay,continue.

So time doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe.  Sounds legit.

Wat?

Edit:
Assuming you are making fun of what I think about time and are speaking in those parameters then you're assuming that no chemical reactions take place elsewhere in the universe. I'd like to know the source of your assumption and if possible a proof.

[Mudhammam]

Isn't there a third possibility - that the objects (the world) indeed exist outside of the mind, but are not in their nature the same as the representations of them in our minds - e.g. they may inspire logic and reason, because evolutionarily, logic and reason are successful strategies for interacting with them - but that does not mean that they themselves possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason?

Yes, that would sound to me to be very similar to the agnosticism of Kant. Then, are we left with something like John Wheeler's view that the history of life and the universe, as understood by modern science, is in some manner reverse causation effected by the conscious mind? I think for myself I'd rather just confess that I don't really understand the nature of abstract objects, principles, universals, etc. :-P

[Alex K]

Isn't there a third possibility - that the objects (the world) indeed exist outside of the mind, but are not in their nature the same as the representations of them in our minds -  e.g. they may inspire logic and reason, because evolutionarily, logic and reason are successful strategies for interacting with them - but that does not mean that they themselves possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason?

Yes, that would sound to me to be very similar to the agnosticism of Kant. Then, are we left with something like John Wheeler's view that the history of life and the universe, as understood by modern science, is in some manner reverse causation effected by the conscious mind? I think for myself I'd rather just confess that I don't really understand the nature of abstract objects, principles, universals, etc. :-P

And why does that crazy stuff follow from what I said? ^^

[Mudhammam]

Humans invented the scientific method and it's still being finessed today. Humans invented logic. There are many different forms of logic that have been invented to try and deal with situations where previous forms of logic have failed. For example, fuzzy logic. They also invented Maths. There are many arbitrary rules in Maths that show that it was invented and new forms of Maths are being invented today for specific purposes. In the same way that new computer algorithms are being created for specific purposes.

If you wiped out the human race then all those frameworks would also be wiped out.

Humans invented the symbols. They did not invent the correlation that exists between what those symbols represent - which are abstract objects - and the operations of nature. That nature can be described as a mathematical structure may say just as much about the world and the nature of abstract entities as it does about our ability to engage it via mental processes.

[Mudhammam]

Yes, that would sound to me to be very similar to the agnosticism of Kant. Then, are we left with something like John Wheeler's view that the history of life and the universe, as understood by modern science, is in some manner reverse causation effected by the conscious mind? I think for myself I'd rather just confess that I don't really understand the nature of abstract objects, principles, universals, etc. :-P

And why does that crazy stuff follow from what I said? ^^

Because what you said implied that those objects don't exist in themselves as they appear in relation to our perception - and the theories we have arrived at first and foremost depend on sense data, and the logical necessity that either follows or in the very least corresponds to it so well.

[Alex K]

Which logical necessity are we talking about here?