FOM: Comment on Hersh and Riis

[Kanovei]

<Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 11:42:28 -0500 (EST)
<From: Soren Riis <sriis at fields.fields.utoronto.ca>

<Hersh wrote:

>        The key observation is that in our world there are not two
> but three main kinds of reality. 
> Mind and matter are familiar.  But they
> do not help with our puzzle, because mathematical objects are not
> material, and they are not mental, in the sense of being
> part of anyone's private subjectivity.

<I suggest Hersh begin to give proper credit for his ideas. This 
<observation is certainly found in Carl Popper's writings. Popper 
<talk about World 1, World 2 and World 3. Examples of World 3 objects
<are numbers, theories, designs, works of art, institutions etc.

The funny thing is that Hersh could better give credit to 
any textbook on marxist philosophy, of the sort I had to 
study to pass obligatory exams in philosophy at Moscow State  
near 1970, where the concept of the "social consciousness" 
(comprising all sorts of ideas) had been developed in all  
detail and, by the way, without such massmedia-oriented 
labels as "world-n". 

Vladimir Kanovei