[FOM] Falsify Platonism?

Jon Awbrey jawbrey at att.net
Fri Apr 30 13:44:45 EDT 2010


Lucas,

A followup to your last suggestion:

Lucas Kruijswijk wrote:
 >
 > Although, I do have a private idea.
 >
 > If it turns out that in the formalizations of mathematics, the entity (human or computer)
 > that performs the mathematics, can not be fully separated from the mathematics it performs,
 > then Platonism is falsified, since Platonism assumes a mathematical world, independent from
 > the entities that are using it.
 >
 > Or in other words, if thinking about ourselves is
 > crucial for mathematics, then Platonism is falsified.

Any form of realism attributes a measure of "independence" to the realities in
question, whether they be physical objects, mathematical objects, or other minds.
In mathematics, "independent" means something like "orthogonal" or "uncorrelated",
not absolutely disconnected, mutually exclusive, or totally separated, and I think
this is very suggestive for the forms of independence worth having in this context.

Jon Awbrey

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