Mathematics grows. We know this because it is still growing and expanding today.
But it grows from the mind of one genius to another. It doesn't grow on it's own.
One rare individual realized he or she could use a symbol to represent a quantity. And so on and so on.
There was no "first person" who knew math. There was the first person who invented a tiny bit, then a next who built upon it and invented more, and so on.
Everything that we think of, and everything we know is because of our environment. Our genes, nutrients, memories, education etc. is the environment that forms and influences thoughts. Neural networks are the "catalyst" or the "processor" for the environmental inputs.
I have explained this many times.
The brain accepts an input from outside of the brain. The input triggers a process. The process is what we think.
This isn't an explanation of any kind. It is saying something magical happens.
No, this is a very real and mechanical way to explain how it all works.
What input from the outside are you talking about?
Anything that affects the mind is an input: gravity, sound, light, temperature, radiation, etc. The more obvious influences are sound and photons.
Whether you like it or not, this is dualism.
If we invent Santa Clause does that somehow create a dualism?
Humans invent things that have no real world existence. Children do it all the time.
Sometimes these inventions have use, like numbers and mathematics.
Talking about dualism is an unnecessary distraction.
Please read, especially what I put in bold.
"In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical—or mind and body or mind and brain—are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world,
and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world .
This is from,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/ .
How can you tell me that what I put in bold is just a "distraction" from you saying, " Like abstract art it is a transformation of elements of the world, in a mind, into something not in the world".
No, I keep saying that elements of our thoughts of numbers exist in the real world. Just like we have no idea what a banana actually is, I have no idea what these inputs into the brain are
I know a banana when I hold it, look at it, and eat it.
You can't know anything any better.
This where you are completely wrong. You know your chemical reactions to the banana. Everything that you experience from a banana is just a faint echo of the actual banana. But, like my argument goes, there is an element that carries through to your experience of the banana. And like numbers, we know that the banana exists.
How do you get from 3 coconuts to just plain 3 without a mental transformation?
You are assuming some kind of platonic realm. That's fine, but it's not science and there is no evidence of such a thing.
My position is anti-Platonic.
I am talking about platonism with a lower case p.
No, I don't think that humans only reflect the world.
Where in the world in the tooth fairy?
She is out there, but she is not exactly what we think she is. She might be a watermelon growing out of a textbook.
