On Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:36:59 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> > Any object can be inconsistently defined. I can define the moon by the set > of squared circles. > The set of squared circles is the empty set. The moon is not an empty set, it has a complex internal structure. Anyway, the word "define" has two meanings which need to be distinguished. "An object is *defined*" may mean: 1) "An object is *described*" (this usually means that there must be someone who defines/describes the object) 2) "An object is *constituted/formed*" (this doesn't require anyone to define the object, just as the fact that an object is composed of parts doesn't require a composer) When I say that an object is consistently or inconsistently defined, I mean defined in the second sense. That's the existential/ontological sense. An inconsistently defined object is not identical to itself, it is not what it is, it does not have the properties it has. Such an object is nonsense, it cannot exist, it is not really an object, it is nothing. The definition of an object in the first sense is true/accurate iff it corresponds to the definition of the object in the second sense. > - and this I mean in the absolute sense, regardless of theory: an object > that is not identical to itself is inconsistent in any theory. Such an > object cannot exist. All other objects can exist somewhere. > > > You are not using the (logical) terms in their standard meaning. It is > hard to follow. I don’t undersetand what you mean by object. > Sorry, by "object" I mean anything that exists. Not nothing. > > With mechanism, the axiom of infinity leads to an inflation of > predictions, which is not what we are experiencing > That may mean that we live in a finite mathematical structure. Still, that doesn't rule out the existence of infinite mathematical structures. If they are consistent, why wouldn't they exist? -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
