WHAT ARE NUMBERS?
What Is It
Plato claimed that numbers exist in some mind-independent abstract heaven. Nominalists claim that there is no such heaven. Clearly, we can't see, hear, taste or feel numbers. But if there are no numbers what is mathematics all about?
John and Ken count on a great discussion with Gideon Rosen from Princeton University, co-author of A Subject With No Object: Strategies for Nominalistic Interpretation of Mathematics.
Listening Notes
What are mathematical objects? What kind of things are they? John claims that he has never seen a "three" or a "million". John mentions the notion of "ontology". The ontology of a particular thing refers to what it is made of, what its existence really entails.
Ken introduces Professor Gideon Rosen of Princeton University. John explains that school children are taught that numbers are just numerals. Plato on the other hand thought that numbers were non-physical, non-sensible things in a
realm beyond time and space. Ken challenges the Platonist view. If numbers belong to this Platonic realm, they can not be causally active. If numbers are not causally active, how can be aware of them? Rosen explains that there are two
answers to this question. One asserts that knowledge regarding numbers is acquired in a mysterious, para-psychological way. Rosen's view is that mathematical knowledge is required through doing mathematics.
Another view is that numbers are ideas in our minds. Rosen challenges this view. If "six" is just an idea, when I refer to "six", do I refer to the six in your mind or in my mind? There are infinitely many mathematical objects and most are not even thought of. Can there be "ideas" that no one has ever thought of?
Ken explains a third view: there are no numbers in the same way that there is no Sherlock Holmes. Mathematics is simply fiction with certain constraints. Rosen points out that according to this view, statements such as "there is an even number between 1 and 3" are all false, since there are no even numbers, which isn't that intuitive.
Yet another view is that numbers are just abstractions from physical magnitudes. John points out that different units lead to assignment of different numbers to the same measurement. Rosen argues that it is doubtful to think that numbers are part of the real world. There are infinitely many numbers but there isn't an infinite amount of any quantity in the real world.
Do mathematicians need to care about what numbers really are? Does the ontology of mathematics matter to the purposes of math and science? Rosen explains that mathematicians don't need to answer philosophical questions about
mathematics. They postulate the existence of numbers, in the fictional or Platonist sense, as a theorem, just as "2+2=4" is a theorem.
John_California.. . Friday, October 16, 2020 -- 8:51 AM
Many years ago, when my math teacher told me about imaginary numbers ("the square root of negative one" times "a real number") I was happy to see the new idea. He drew the complex plane for me. He used a dashed line for the imaginary axis, which seems appropriate. To me it felt like a world of possibilities was opening up.
Later, however, there was something that bothered me about it. I read that imaginary numbers are useful in solving some real-world problems, with practical applications in engineering. It took a long time to get used to that idea: that something "not real" ("imaginary") could be a valid number, similarly as "real numbers" or "natural numbers" (positive integers) are valid numbers; and moreover, that it could be useful when modeling the real world.
Finally today the thought came to me that any number has some similarities to a real thing in the world, and some differences from that thing. There is no need to feel uncomfortable about what is "real" or "not real" about numbers; just like everything else, they have similarities to, and differences from, other things. Also we can say that any number (even made-up fictional numbers like square
roots of negative numbers) might have some useful relationship with something in the real world (such as when solving problems in the above-mentioned engineering applications). And, even the most "natural" of numbers, such as the number 6 or the number 7, are abstractions, not entirely identical to the things in the "real" world that they are describing.
Aside from numbers based on the square root of negative one, there's another kind of "unreal" or "imaginary" number that we learned about even earlier in school: negative numbers. To me, the positive rational numbers seem "real" and all other numbers seem to be useful
fictions; that's just how _I_ feel about it. A negative number such as "negative 3" ("-3") cannot be visualized as easily as just "3". I can have 3 things to look at, but it's a little harder to imagine a negative 3 things to look at. But I can imagine that the level of water in a pool can be expressed as a positive number when it is above a certain level, and a negative number when it is below that level. So, "-3" has some relationship with reality, but it does not coincide with all reality in all ways. So it is with all numbers, even made-up numbers, and even the square root of a negative number.
Harold G. Neuman
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 -- 2:59 PM
Admittedly, this post is about numbers. And what those might be. I do not care much about the linguistics; semantics; syntax; or context of this matter. Suffice to say: numbers are important, because we DEPEND upon them. My response/remarks
to/on this are in a different vein. To wit: the pandemic. Those we label conservatives, usually thought of as republicans, largely say (46%,or so), they will not receive a Covid vaccine. My assessment of this involves what I call primitivity. No explanation required. These folks also seem to reject science and progress. Remember primitivity. It is important.
An overwhelming majority of democrats say they will get the Covid vaccine. They represent, I think, a segregation which is disturbing. Some have an explanation for this. I don't. Some have reasons. What? Others offer excuses. Hmm. ...No, that don't get it either.
This began with your query about numbers. Those are meaningful. But they obtain that, only because of us. They have no meaning to anything else. Yet. Try harder...and so on...
Primitive or progressive. What do you choose? Think better...
Numbers make sensibility of those things we cannot, through other means, account for. Numbers mean something more than 1,2,3,4, and so on. If this is not true, nothing can be. Which further means truth, as an objective, is meaningless. Therefore, the issue is dead? Don't you hate conundrums?
Me too. But, then again, paradox and tautology are no better...
Numbers are what count. Not, the tobacco. Numbers are the way we keep track of persons, places and things. Other cultures and civilizations did this sometime after we learned to say yes, no, maybe and, get away from me, we had to reach some agreement about
quantity. There could not have been equity or peace. Or anything else human, without the foregoing. Ideas of justice would have been unthibkable. This is not 'rocket science'. Not even internal combustion.. it as plain as the nose on your face. Let's not make it more. Let not overthink this . No point...
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