Hi Brent, On my account, beings (i.e. all things that are) lack intrinsic qualities because they are defined through their differences from each other. Thus a being is what it is simply by not being something else. So in themselves, abstracted from their relations to other beings, beings 'are' just nothing, indeterminate, hence they lack intrinsic qualities (all properties are relational). If you like you can also say there are just relations and not relata, or alternatively that there are only internal relations of which the relata are functions. The next question would then be: but what kind of relations are ontologically most basic? I would say: mathematical relations.
According to me, saying that a being is what it is because it differs from something else is the same as saying that all being is mathematical. For if beings lack all intrinsic qualities, they can only be distinguished quantitatively, and that's basically what mathematics is about, isn't it? This seems to me to be the reason why the whole of mathematics (and everything that can be described mathematically) can ultimately be described in binary terms, as compositions of the difference between 1 and 0, which is just difference as such. It seems to me that mathematics is what you get when you take a structuralist view of things, where you say that a thing IS just its differences from something else. I think this also the view Tegmark takes in his Mathematical Universe book, although he speaks of "relation" instead of "difference": "the only properties of these entities would be those embodied by the relations between them... To a modern logician, a mathematical structure is precisely this: a set of abstract entities with relations between them. Take the integers, for instance, [...] the only properties of integers are those embodied by the relations between them." (p.259) "5 has the property that it's the sum of 4 and 1, say, but it's not yellow, and it's not made of anything." (p.268) " the entities of a mathematical structure are purely abstract, which means that they have no intrinsic properties whatsoever..." (p.264) So what is primary, "relation" or "difference"? I would say neither, both terms seem equally primordial. For to be able to specify which relations hold between, say, 5 and 4, you first have to specify how they differ from each other, e.g. by saying 5 = 4 +1. But that's the same as saying what relations hold between these entities? Thus it would seem that mathematical relations are just relations of difference, indeed, ultimately the 'pure', binary difference of 1 and 0. According to me, such a mathematical view of being as defined by difference (ultimately 1 and 0) follows from reflection on nothing. Nothing is inconsistent, hence it differs from itself. Being then is the (self-)negation of nothing, hence it must be difference (not from itself but) from something else. This then is what "being" means: to differ from something else, and as we have just seen this is just what mathematics is about. As for the fact that you and I both differ from Bruno but we are obviously not the same, that's because you and I differ as well... If you like, in terms of the above account, you could say Bruno, you and me are all qualititatively indistinguishable units which nevertheless have different values only because of our different positions in a quantitative structure, e.g. spacetime. Spinoza famously said, and Hegel repeated it: every determination is a negation, i.e. saying what something is is saying what it is not, i.e. a thing IS its difference form something else. You can call this dialectics, but according to me it converges with a mathematical view of being, so to that extent there is a strong dialectical aspect to mathematics. Or at least so it seems to me. Then another question arises, which relates to the topic of consciousness and how it fits in the physical (= mathematical) world. If all beings are ultimately mathematical (quantitative) in nature, then where does quality come from? It would seem to me that quality is precisely an intrinsic property, which does not depend on relation to something else. Take as a thought experiment someone who right after birth was given red colored glasses so that everything looks red to him, and he has been wearing the glasses all of his life, so he has never seen any other color, all he sees are shades of red. Obviously, then, it must be possible to be aware of red without being aware of other colors. Hence it is an intrinsic quality. In contrast, you cannot be aware of 1 without being aware of other numbers, for knowing what "1" means is simply knowing that 1 is more than 0, that 1+1=2 etc. Ultimately, then, I think we can pose the problem of consciousness in terms of the quantity/quality opposition. If reality is ultimately mathematical (quantitative), how then are qualities possible? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
