Posts by James Lee77

fadedbison17 said:Exactly! That's my point! 👍
What's the point of using the word 'difference' if there isn't someone around to actually understand what that means??
Well, by that logic—what's the point of the word 'number' if there's nobody there to grasp the concept!

Then how can the Sun have anything to do with math—humans are the ones looking at the Sun, describing it, and making distinctions!?

And does the 'Sun' even exist, or is it just a label humans use to mark an object?
Can we two even talk about the Sun just because we learned what it was earlier?
Is the only reason we can chat about numbers, helium, hydrogen, and the Sun because we're people and these are just our labels for things?

Man, you are such a philosopher. 😉

So, basically, you're saying that only humans create the distinction between The Sun and the Crow.

Without us, all of it—The Sun, the crow, hydrogen, helium... it's all just one big, undifferentiated... what? A thing in itself? Matter? Objective reality?

fadedbison17 said:Next you'll be fighting for the civil rights of atoms 🙂

Look, man, I'm a human being—you get that, right? Seriously, I'm asking.
I know how to count, so I can tell you clearly—yeah, the difference between atoms is just the number.
If you try asking sun anything, it won't answer because sun doesn't talk, or count, or do any of the stuff people do. You're mixing up two different things, and that's how you end up with weird conclusions like numbers existing without people or sun doing math.

So, basically, there's a distinction between stuff humans do (counting, categorizing) and stuff sun does (shining, heating up... I'm no physicist, you know).

The mere fact that you can actually tell a hydrogen atom from a helium atom should be enough to make you realize that *you* are the one doing the counting and the distinguishing...

No, you're totally mixing them up. And the point isn't that the sun counts 😵 it's that numbers still exist even when nobody is counting them.

So, we've got a distinction between things humans do (counting, categorizing) and things the sun does (shining, heating... I'm no physicist, you know).

The mere fact that you can actually grasp the difference between a hydrogen atom and a helium atom should be enough to make you realize that *you* are the one doing the counting and the distinguishing.

Beautifully said, Christopher.
So, what, there's zero difference between objects unless a human is there to distinguish them? Are you really sure that's what you're trying to say?

fadedbison17 said:Counting is a human thing—something we learn...
Los Angeles can't count.

🙏

But I guess the real question isn't really "can Los Angeles count," it's more like "do numbers even exist if nobody is there to count them?"

It’s kind of like asking "does Los Angeles still exist if nobody is looking at it?" You'd probably say "yeah, obviously." But when it comes to numbers, you seem to be saying they don't actually exist.

So here's the thing—if Los Angeles exists regardless of whether anyone perceives it, and if it's made of hydrogen and helium, and if the whole city undergoes a massive change once all that hydrogen turns into helium (which means the difference between hydrogen and helium matters for the object we call Los Angeles, which you admit exists)... Then I gotta ask: what actually makes hydrogen different from helium? If that difference is just a number, then it feels like numbers define how Los Angeles exists, even when there isn't a single human around to count anything.

Mark Torres14 said:I disagree. Crows objectively exist. Numbers don't—they're just relationships between objects. A number is nothing more than a human approximation of those relationships, which means the concept of a "number" doesn't exist as an independent object.

But even saying something is a "crow" is already establishing a relationship. Like, when you say "this here is a crow," you're basically saying this specific object has a certain relationship to other things that lets us group them all together under the label "crow."
It’s kind of the same deal with "two"—it just means these objects have a specific relationship where we can call any similar setup "two."

So, I guess all concepts are just "relationships"—and "two" is just as much a relationship as "crow" is.

Without pointing out relationships, maybe you could just say "this thing" (or like, "an object")—but anything else you add, whether it's "crow," "magpie," or "two"... that's all just defining relationships.

ironmarlin1 said:What exactly do you mean when you claim that numbers are inherent to nature? Are you simply asserting their existence? And honestly, why wouldn't we apply Occam’s razor here to limit ourselves—or perhaps expand our scope, depending on how you look at it—strictly to sets?

I don't really care about the specifics here—I just used a number as the simplest example. What I'm trying to get at is that math deals with stuff that is inherently part of nature (it’s not just some random thing humans made up). Basically, I mean math deals with things that are totally real, rather than just being a matter of convention.

Arthur Anderson49 said:See, you're assuming the core issue is just about numerical values. But wouldn't it be more likely that Los Angeles perceives things in a completely different way?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, what else would I be doing? The subforum's literally called "thought topics free from dogma." Look, I can't really know how the Sun "perceives" things—we aren't exactly speaking the same language, right?—but maybe you, or anyone else here, could try explaining what you actually mean by the difference not being about quantity. 🤷

But look, the sun doesn't need to learn how to count just to tell the difference between helium and hydrogen. I mean, the whole thing basically boils down to the number of protons anyway.

So, yeah, numbers exist on the sun even if there aren't any people there to "learn" them.

Mark Torres14 said:I didn't realize that's what you were getting at when you asked that. 🤷Now your question sounds even stupider, if you'll excuse my language.😁
We're talking about objective existence and objectivity here, not how many protons are floating around.

The whole idea was that numbers—and really, all of math—aren't actually built into nature, but are just something humans project onto the world to describe it.
But look, if there's a real difference between hydrogen and helium out there in the universe, and that difference is nothing more than a difference in the number of something, then that theory totally falls apart.
Basically, numbers exist just as much as crows do.

fadedbison17 said:Glad we're finally on the same page! 😉

So, what's the deal with the difference between hydrogen and helium?
Honestly, I can't give you an answer because I don't know. Sounds more like a question for a physicist... 😉

Well, just say so. 🤷 I thought that was just common sense, but whatever, no biggie.

Alright, so basically, the massive difference between hydrogen and helium comes down to the number of protons in the atom's nucleus. Everything else just flows from that—if there's one proton in the nucleus, it's hydrogen, and if there are two, then it's helium.

And that difference stays the same whether anyone is actually around to count them or not.

fadedbison17 said:Alright, let me pipe down for a second and actually listen... so, walk me through it, will ya?
Give me a concrete example of how numbers are just "inherent" in nature... please.

To that specific question, I can only say: "Is hydrogen the same as helium if there isn't a human there to tell them apart?" You gotta realize that there had to be a human to make the distinction in the first place just to even ask the question you're asking now. If there's no human to differentiate, there's no question, so talking about the "content" of the question doesn't even make sense—but I think you're getting at something else, so I'll try putting it this way: a phenomenon happens regardless of whether a person notices it or what they decide to call it. If someone calls a "concentration camp" a "college," it doesn't change what's actually happening in that camp.

Here's another one, hope I don't overcomplicate it: Before Galileo Galilei, people believed in a flat earth. If I'm reading you right, your question is basically: "Was the earth flat before humans noticed it was round?"
Reality doesn't depend on people (who are just abstractions)—it's the other way around.
Hope you catch my drift...

Man, I feel like I've been beating this drum for five posts now with my specific example: what's even the actual difference between hydrogen and helium?

To that specific question, I’d just say: "Is hydrogen even different from helium if there isn't a human around to tell them apart?" I mean, can you really grasp that there had to be a person capable of making that distinction in the first place just for you to even ask the question? If there’s no one there to perceive the difference, then the question itself doesn't exist, so talking about what it actually means feels kind of pointless. But, I guess what you're actually getting at is something else, so let me try explaining it this way—the phenomenon is still gonna happen regardless of whether a person notices it or what they decide to call it.

Exactly. There’s a massive difference between hydrogen and helium, and it doesn't matter what you call them or how you try to distinguish them—the physics stays the same. We know that because once Phoenix burns through all its hydrogen and is left with nothing but helium, the whole star is gonna swell up way bigger.

So, if there actually is a difference between helium and hydrogen—regardless of whether we can even wrap our heads around it or not—then what exactly is that difference?

Reality doesn't actually depend on people—which are basically just abstractions anyway. It’s more like everything works the other way around, I guess.
I hope you get what I'm getting at.

That’s exactly my point, though. Like, what's actually the big difference between hydrogen and helium?

Mark Torres14 said:In an abstract sense, no. Abstractly, you could call hydrogen helium and vice versa. Abstraction is one thing, but a distinguishing factor is another. If you answer "yes," your question makes zero sense—unless you meant to say abstraction is what we use to tell one object apart from another.

🤔

Let me try saying this more simply. Okay, so there's hydrogen, and there's helium.

Are they actually different from each other even when there isn't some human around to notice the difference?

fadedbison17 said:Hehe, I’m just trying to be as precise as possible since you’re so brief—you don't really give me much to work with—so I'm always trying to pull the thread back to the main point and tie it to your question... I can't exactly read your mind, right? 😉

Yep!
[Just to be super clear—since I might have used a word that wasn't quite right—abstractions don't "exist" on their own. They're just descriptions we use to label things that *do* exist, and we can split them up into categories like concrete or complex.]

Alright, here's my answer to that literally since you haven't specified what part you're digging into.

1.) abstract or concrete.
2.) abstract or concrete.
3.) yeah. The whole point of abstractions is to help us tell things apart.
4.) your question is a complex abstraction 🙂 Just kidding! The answer could be both concrete and abstract.

The questions are pretty vague, so this is basically the best I can do.

Give me a bit more context on what you're thinking, otherwise we could be going in circles forever!!!

It’s pretty obvious what I want to talk about—I want to show you that numbers are just built into nature itself.

Yeah!
[Just to be more exact, because I think you might be tripping over a specific word I used that wasn't quite right—abstractions don't actually exist. Abstractions are just descriptions we humans use to label things that *do* exist. And we can split abstractions into, like, concrete ones and complex ones.]

But I’m asking you about stuff that actually exists. Like hydrogen and helium as physical things that exist (assuming they do). 🤷

1.) abstract or concrete.

I have no idea what that even means. 🤷

The whole point of abstractions is to help us tell things apart.

But do things actually differ on their own? Is hydrogen even different from helium if there isn't a human around to tell them apart?

Mark Torres14 said:1. Concrete
2. Concrete
3. No
4. Complex

I don't get it. I mean, hydrogen and helium both exist, but they aren't different from each other? 🤔

fadedbison17 said:I think we're talking past each other here... I didn't say the number 2 doesn't exist—I just meant it’s a complex abstraction compared to a concrete abstraction like, say, a crow. Again, you gotta read my answers in context, and the context was "Does the equator exist without humans?" My point was that things like the equator (or pi) are complex abstractions built on top of concrete ones. So, if there are no humans around to use those abstractions, there's nobody left to even ask the question "Does the... exist?" which makes the whole question a bit of a contradiction in itself.
The debate just falls apart if we jump out of context. There's no point in grabbing one single word and obsessing over it—we won't get anywhere that way. You'll be talking about your stuff and I'll be talking about my "inner world" and we'll just end up totally misunderstood... so why bother?

I don't know how you view epistemology (you know, the branch of philosophy dealing with knowledge) or what principles you live by, but I think this whole argument basically boils down to that.

I tried explaining some basics that either you missed in my writing (maybe I wasn't clear enough?) or maybe you're just not interested because you want to push your own version of epistemology. But since you're mostly asking questions instead of stating positions, it's pretty easy to see why I'm not following you...

That said, this book actually really helped me wrap my head around epistemology (like, how humans gain knowledge, where it comes from, etc.). If you're curious, I highly recommend it— Objectivist Epistemology.

fadedbison17, you're reminding me of Ljub. I'll ask a super direct question and he'll write this massive post about everything except what I actually asked. 🤷

So, yeah, there are complex abstractions—like numbers—and concrete abstractions—like a crow.

Is hydrogen a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction?
Is helium a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction?
Are those two abstractions different?
Is the difference between those two abstractions a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction?

fadedbison17 said:But what do you actually mean by "Is hydrogen an objective reality?" Can you put that in different words? To me, it sounds just like asking "does hydrogen exist"—which doesn't make much sense... I think maybe I missed your point.

You’re basically saying that the number 2 doesn't exist, but a crow does.
So here's the thing: is hydrogen more like a crow (something that's actually out there) or more like the number 2 (just an idea)?
Second question: is helium more like a crow or more like the number 2?
And thirdly: is the difference between hydrogen and helium more like a crow or more like the number 2?

fadedbison17, I feel like you didn't actually answer anything there. So, if you're up for it, here are some even simpler questions just to clear things up:

- Is hydrogen an objective thing?
- Does helium objectively exist?
- Is there an objective difference between hydrogen and helium?
- And if there is, what exactly is that difference?

Arthur Anderson49 said:I’m totally convinced they could! Honestly, we could describe them in ways that wouldn't even look mathematical to us. You can explain basically anything in nature—even our own logical frameworks—using several different accurate methods. Just look at the classic wave-particle duality debate, for instance.

It's just like describing a hunt: saying a hunter aimed his rifle, pulled the trigger, and took down a rabbit is just as technically accurate as saying some pale wizard pointed a thunderbolt staff at the rabbit and cast a death curse that left the poor thing dead on the spot.

But that wave-particle stuff is huge because you actually need both perspectives to get the full picture. It’s not just that one is as good as the other and you can pick whichever you want or just ignore one—it's more like you absolutely need both to make sense of it.

Think about Keplerian laws for a second. This isn't just about building some model that roughly fits the data or whatever. We're talking about uncovering this insane reality of the natural world. You literally can't express that fact without using concepts like squares and cubes. To me, that's a total giveaway that squaring and cubing are built right into nature itself, rather than just being something humans force onto the world to make our math work.

fadedbison17 said:I’m pretty much on board with most of what MrBeast is saying—plus I’d throw in some thoughts on the math side of things.

The number 2 doesn't actually exist, let alone pi.

Super basic example—you see two crows and say that symbolizes the number two. But that number isn't a physical thing; humans just invented it to make thinking and talking easier. All a person actually sees is one crow and then another crow. If I go full deep-dive on the epistemology of it—a person sees one entity with certain traits (it's black, has wings, etc.) and another entity that looks similar but is distinct from everything else they know.
They aren't "two identical crows," it's just that the word 'crow' refers to a concept representing an entity. We see multiple similar entities, and to save ourselves the mental headache, we don't think "one crow, then another crow," we just say "2 crows." This gets even more obvious when the number is bigger, like ten. It's way easier to communicate "10 crows" than "one crow, and another crow, and another crow..." and so on...

As for pi, it's way more complex than a regular number, and it's pretty clear it doesn't exist in reality as a tangible thing. You can't just look at something and say—that's pi! Pi is a higher-order abstraction that relates to other abstractions (which are also abstract, just like simple numbers like 2, 3, or 4...).

Now, I'm not crazy enough to end it there and act like the symbol PI doesn't exist or isn't useful.
The point is that humans invented numbers—they figured out how to measure stuff, compare things, work out ratios, and eventually arrived at the symbol for PI and what it represents.
Basically, people learned to create concepts (distinguishing things), and once they realized those basic concepts weren't enough to describe what they wanted to differentiate, they expanded their knowledge and created new labels to grow their understanding. That's how PI was "born." And that's how the equator was "born."

Sure, you could argue—Pi was always there, just like the equator. But if there's no observer to distinguish things, create concepts, and think, how would you even think to ask if the "equator" exists without an observer, or if PI exists without an observer? The question itself is a contradiction.

One more little thing—

"If a tree falls down in a forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

When you break it down into the core physics, it's clearer: when a tree falls, it creates air pressure disturbances (which is what sound is). If those waves have nothing to hit (like a human ear), the physical event still happens regardless. Hearing is just the phenomenon that occurs when those air disturbances hit an ear mechanism—so if there's no ear, it doesn't mean the event (the air disturbance) didn't happen.

But wait, did natural laws actually start that way? Like, did Newton invent his laws or just discover them? Are the laws of physics actually objective things? And I wonder, are these laws fundamentally mathematical, or could they be expressed without math? Could Newton's law of gravity even be explained without using equations?

MrBeast, do you think natural laws actually have anything to do with nature itself? Or maybe even with math?

Man, this is great. Here I go again, supposedly "forcing my opinion" on everyone. What’s the deal? There are ten people posting in this thread, everyone’s sharing their thoughts, and I’m just doing the same—yet somehow, I’m the one "imposing" things... 🤔

But hey, whatever, let's move past the whole "forcing an opinion" thing and get to the point: if you haven't realized yet that the reasons behind faith aren't rational, then here's some news for you. They just aren't rational. If they were, faith would be like math—just an inevitable conclusion for anyone who thinks about it long enough. But faith isn't like that. Even the guy who wrote the most famous arguments for God, Thomas Aquinas, didn't think those proofs could actually convince someone who wasn't already a believer.

That doesn't mean believers are stupid, even if that's what you're implying. It just means that demanding rational proof is totally missing the mark. And no, that doesn't mean believers are irrational—part of what we're talking about regarding faith is actually quite rational. But the core of it, the absolute essential part that makes someone a believer? That can't be explained through logic. Then again, it can't be disproven by logic either. It simply doesn't fall under the umbrella of rationality.

Anyone can figure this out pretty quickly just by talking to a believer. Honestly, insisting on rational evidence after realizing this isn't a logical debate feels like nothing more than pure provocation to me. And the goal of that provocation? I already told you: "Aha! You (again, and again, and again...) can't give a rational explanation for your faith, therefore you're stupid, therefore I'm smart."