Re: Platonism

From: Eray Ozkural exa (examachine_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: 29 Nov 2004 14:30:45 -0800

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message news:<41aa8360$19$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>...
> In <320e992a.0411261232.41252e2e@posting.google.com>, on 11/26/2004
> at 12:32 PM, examachine@gmail.com (Eray Ozkural exa) said:
>
> >But unfortunately there can be cases in mathematics that are not even
> >*indirectly* derived from observations, that are solely the result of
> >thought experiments
>
> Gedanken experiements are for Physics.

I disagree. You imagine a world with rules, and then you think.
Without a world-description, anything goes, and there is nothing to
prove. These are metaphysical thought experiments, though, they do not
have to directly correspond to physical quantities or anything like
that. The best example for that is logic. It's what some
mathematicians call intuition.

To claim that intuition is not experimental in this subjective sense,
seems to me quite wrong. What is mathematical intuition, if it is not
in the business about conceiving of mathematical scenarios and
evaluating their use?

> >and are indeed incompatible even with the basic features of our
> >universe.
>
> I assume that you have faith in that, because it is not the sort of
> claim open to objective verification.

No, I have faith in behavioral predictions of the standard model.

Regards, 

--
Eray Ozkural

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