On Mar 14, 10:18 pm, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Perhaps using the term "existence" for mathematical objects is misleading.
> It doesn't mean they exist as separate objects in the real world, just that
> they exist as concepts. This is mathematical Platonism.
Yes, I understand. I guess I'm saying that nevertheless I can
conceive of a radical negation in which even Platonic objects have no
existence, conceptual or otherwise. Consequently AFAICS arguments for
Platonic 'necessity' are in fact derived wholly from contingent states
of affairs.
David
> On 3/14/07, David Nyman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 14, 9:44 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > On 3/14/07, Kim Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > > It is
> > > conceivable that the physical world might not exist, or God not exist,
> > or
> > > God exist but not make the physical world, but it is not conceivable
> > that
> > > circles or integers or the UD not exist as mathematical objects.
>
> > In what sense 'not conceivable'? I don't find it hard to conceive of
> > mathematical objects not existing, given that nothing else does
> > either. 'Nothing else' here simply but radically entails that whatever
> > you say you can 'conceive', my response is 'not that either'. This
> > 'nothing' precisely is the nothing from which *nothing* can come. Our
> > own existence contingently rules it out, which is what makes it so
> > hard to think about. Such a 'possibility', being in fact necessary in
> > 'all possible worlds', paradoxically abolishes the conceiver at the
> > moment of conception.
>
> Perhaps using the term "existence" for mathematical objects is misleading.
> It doesn't mean they exist as separate objects in the real world, just that
> they exist as concepts. This is mathematical Platonism.
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
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