Re: The Asymmetry of Identity

On Oct 29, 3:47 pm, John Jones <jonescard...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Mitch Harris wrote:
On Oct 28, 3:30 pm, John Jones <jonescard...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Mitch Harris wrote:
On Oct 27, 5:26 pm, John Jones <jonescard...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
2=sqrt(4) wouldn't mean anything, unless sqrt4 is used to come up with
another number. Nobody wants sqrt4, a reference, for its own sake.
Maybe -you- don't. What about sqrt(9801)? -Somebody- may want to refer
to that, use it, all for its own sake.
Sqrt.x where x is any number has no real-time, everyday significance. 2
has a significance.

Don't you think that's a bit short sighted, in both ways?
- sqrt(2) is significant as the length of the hypotenuse of a
isosceles right triangle. That's pretty 'everyday', at least for
carpenters.

My point was only that carpenters, and anyone else for that matter,
don't use things like sqrt. 2, or 4 times 2, etc, except to find a
number they can do something with.

and my point is that as far as everyday-ness goes, there's nothing
special about a numeral (like '2' or '100', or a string of symbols
like '5+17' or 'sqrt(2)', one can use them as is, or one can try to
analyze them a bit further to get meaning that wasn't already evoked
by the symbols. '100' is the length of a football field or better
analyzed 10 sets of ten. 'sqrt(2)' is at first that hypotenuse, or can
be further analyzed as '1.414..' (which can be further analyzed). '2'
is hard to analyze because it so immediately evokes things in us that
it is hard to do anything more.

So contrary to your point, you don't always use a string of
mathematical symbols -just- 'to find a number they can do something
with'. You can use it as is, or maybe the number is actually too much
by itself and needs to be analyzed (and frankly there's nothing
special about number...(there's the idea that Kronecker was actually
kidding when he said 'God made the numbers, all else is the work of
man') number happens to be the thing they teach at school so we can
balance our checkbooks; there's graphs, and logic, and geometric
figures, etc, etc, etc, which are all non-number things.).

- does 100 have everyday significance? not really that much, no one
ever -really- counts out 100 things (ecxpet when you're 6 years old
and discover that it's possible).

I would make a distiction between unwieldy numbers like 100, and
mysterious things like 10 times 10.

Multiplication is mysterious?

Nobody wants 10 times 10.

There's no accounting for taste.


An object that is given through a reference to itself has
no properties.
no -other- properties, at least none that have yet been specified.
I meant no properties at all. Anything measuring or viewing itself
measures and sees nothing.

Right. -You- meant that, and I meant that your desription of such an
object certainly does have at least one property, that of referring to
itself. You might also then mean that that is not a true property
('not a true Scotsman'), but I think it is a perfectly fine property.

I might call a 'particular' reference a property. But I can't see any
reason for saying that selfreference is a property.

'This sentence is false': the self-reference there is a glaring
property of that sentence (in addition to all the other properties it
has).


Acts of self-reference are not surveyable.
What does that mean? DO you have some sort of technical or otherwise
specific meaning for 'surveyable'?
An act of self-reference, like the brain viewing itself and eliminating
its material properties and gaining consciousness, is not reportable. A
report reports external properties.

Is that what 'surveyable' is supposed to mean? 'reportable'? 'has
external properties'? What does 'internal'/'external' property mean
here? Is this circular? (i.e. by definition 'surveyability' = 'non
self-referring'). What does surveyable or reportable mean without
reference to self-reference?

Properties that are referenced or assigned to an object are surveyable
or examinable, of course, like height and weight, and we can report our
survey to others. Sometimes they are referred to as "external
properties". On the other hand, authors often call manifestations
arising from self-reference as "internal properties"'.

OK.

However, this
stretches the definition of 'property', for anything that manifests in
self-reference is not surveyable like an external property is
surveyable. I gave the example of consciousness as an unsurveyable
manifestation. And this is true, as we know. I cannot look upon my own
consciousness, nor can anyone else - it is not surveyable or reportable.

That's a matter of psychological research methods and the definition
of consciousness. Even animals are considered to have some semblance
of what we call consciousness. Our tests are getting cleverer.

Mitch
.

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