cladking

What's the difference between disturbed dirt and concrete? If you plant seeds on the dirt they miught grow but they won't grow on the concrete. If you plant a body under the concrete it might keep someone from finding it or it might cause it to be the first place searched by police. A tree growing adjacent the hole will prefentially put roots into the disturbed dirt but will never grow into the concrete. If you fall on itr the dirt would be softer. Essentially there's no difference in the nature of the hole except to the degree it's filled with air, water, or any material. Each will have a different effect and this effect will change as time goes by and as conditions vary. Of course this reality goes beyond words. In every case you can use other constructs, other words, to describe it and you can use words that take other perspectives. Rather than a round hole full of concrete it can be described as a pillar of concrete flush on the soil. The means by which this came to exist can be described as well; the falling concrete shaft buried itself flush in the soil. But these realities are still different. Falling concrete will compress the soil in which it buries itself while a hole dug and filled with concrete doesn't do this. We can use words to describe any condition but they will often be misunderstood sionce each listener assigns meaning to the words as they appear. This process never works perfectly because words have so many definitions, connotations, and shades of meaning. We merely believe we understand one another yet each listener takes his own meaning. This understanding and misunderstanding is irrelevant to the reality. The words are mere constructs to try to communicate ideas. There are an infinity of ways to say this same thing. There exists concrete within a given radius of a vertical line extending below ground level. The world exists around a cylinder of concrete flush with the ground at a given point. We simply tend to see things from an infinite distance. We describe reality in terms of its effect on experiment taking a perspective from infinite distance. We see reality similarly to how we see a blueprint which is why the rules for drawing prints are the way they are. There is no one "right" way to see reality and reality has appearances outside of experimental results. The world is real for dogs just as it is for concrete. Dogs experience the reality and concrete does not. It depends entirely and strictly on your definitions because terms are constructs. The dirt can never become truly undisturbed just as a bell can never be unrung. Some clays can become rock hard again in as little as 40 years. Since clay is relatively homogenous it's quite legitimate to suggests it ceases to be disturbed in 40 years. But some test exists, will exist, or could exist which might show it's been disturbed even after the sun grows cold.

I believe all these questions are primarily semantics; what's real is real and we are merely using words, that are mostly constructs, to communicate this reality. A hole full of dirt is the same thing as a hole fullof concrete except for the difference between disturbed dirt and and concrete. A shadow is real and can be measured and defined (penumbra etc) by its blackness or the total obscured light. Without the light a true "shadow" can not exist. It can become a blast shadow and maintains its ability to stop projection. Words are simple tools for communication but words can get in their own way and impede communication. Words are concepts used to describe reality. Unfortunately neither language nor science is still tied directly to reality so such things are hard to see.

Languages by definition aren't mutually intelligible. If French were the same as English we could understand one another and the French wouldn't spend great effort trying to expunge English words. Even dialects of the same language are sometimes mutually unintelligible so there are thousands of languages all sharing some characteristics with others. It's not terribly unusual for me to overhear a conversation where the two parties are discussing different subjects! For ALL practical purposes they are speaking different languages despite the fact that they each believe they understand one another and most if not all of their words exist in the exact same dictionary. Ancient people described people using modern language as "confused". I'm just giving us the benefit of the doubt and suggesting we use different languages. None of us are necessarily confused but we have grave difficulty communicating with others. If there were a concept that couldn't be approached rationally (understood) then the individual who invented this concept would have to translate it for others. This is an absurdity. All concepts can be put into words but the chances of them being understood are sometimes very poor. And this applies to all non-human concepts: They are easily comprehensible only in natural logic which humans no longer possess. I fear you're going to find that this is virtually a null set because we invent explanations for everything. You can find an anomaly but it will be explained when you communicate it. We know why water runs downhill but its "wetness" is somewhat more ephemeral. Who knows why it's a holy thing or why animals drink it with contamination and don't get sick. You can invent countless explanations for such things but the reality will be far more complex.

Men and women speak distinct languages. Then there are distinct languages spoken by those who think intuitively and those who speak logically; poets and newsmen, singers and dancers, doers and dreamers, and scholars and laymen. Indeed, it might be saidd there are seven billion languages and growing. Invertebrates!!! I can't even get through to the cold blooded (like the wife).

Titor had a far greater hurdle than the others. I heartell "Piltdown Man" shouldn't have fooled the experts. The thing with Titor is that he had to make it up on the fly because he had numerous correspondants on message boards. He was just a little before my time but I've read many of these exchanges and his answers sound plausible and usually have the ring of truth to them. I'm sure I'd have been engaging him were I around at that time. I think the greatest hoax of "all" time was the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. I doubt it fooled many experts but it was very high quality. http://www.crystalinks.com/emerald.html

So far as I know the perpetrator has never been publicly identified. It was a very good quality hoax.

As you appear to mean your terms ALL nonhuman concepts can not be approached rationally. This is the root of our near total inability to communicate with animals. Of course if space faring aliens exist some or many of them will reason as we do. Shaka and Temba at rest.

It's language that is confused. It's people who are confused. It's not nature. If nature were confused the pebble might roll up the hill. But being confused doesn't preclude the possibility of communication; it merely makes it more difficult. Fruit is a living thing. How do you know one of the apples wasn't irradiated? If five people each wanted an apple to create an orchard then there would be four orchards. There is simply no one to one correspondance between the construct of "five apples" and the bowl of apples. You can't change this by choosing to see reality in such a way. You are stepping away from the apples and describing their existence. If you view the apples from the perspective of an apple or the trees on which they grew they look very different. The ones on the sunny side are sweeter and riper and the ones at the top are harder to pick. Some are wormier and some are malformed. Each probably began life as the result of a bird or a bee but already existed in its nascent form in another bowl of apples long long ago. You are simply choosing to see reality from the perspective of a specialist and the models of reality created by experiment. Metaphysics insists on this being the case because metaphysics simply doesn't even postulate the existence of reality but only of language. As such we have a science based on language which works because reality affects experiment. It can be quantified by math because math is based on natural logic which is reality itself. If you use this perspective to see reality then you naturally understand everything you see. The more you learn the more you're likely to spot an anomaly that has never been seen before. I suppose this is getting toward what you call waffling. It just surprises me how so many people have only one perspective and can't see what they don't know and can't understand. I look out on the world and understand just about exactly nothing at all. Yet I can make predictions that are often accurate. People ask me to explain the anomalies they observe. Sometimes I can. Indeed. We need a new language to discuss philosophy. We need a language where many of the words have a single definition and without connotation.

I understand your point and can even agree that it often looks like nature does math. A cat walks into the room and then another cat and there are two cats in the room. We find these elegant equations that describe aspects of reality by stepping infinitely far back through the isolation of variables and the effect of reality on experiment or through mathematics and it seems we understand the aspect we have identified. But it's obviously far more complex than this and this is what we simply choose not to see. Right off the bat the earth doesn't orbit the sun but rather the sun/ earth system orbits a point at its center of gravity. The earth is no simple thing with a name but is supremely complex just like every other real thing. If a pebble rolls down a mountain the earth accelerates toward that pebble taking it out of "orbit" and the everything must be recalculated. Even an electron deep in the earth's core must be hurtling through space while continually changing its orbit. An atom in the earth's core is affected by the pebble falling down the mountain and the earth's acceleration toward it. Of course it's far more complex than just this since there are an infinity of other forces that affect the earth from the moon to a pebble falling down a mountain on the second planet of Alpha Centari. Of course none of these events can occur in isolation of every known and every unknown law. The planet also has a relativistic weight with magnetic effects and must plow through a solar wind and only God knows what else. It's pretty hard for me to think of every grain of sand needing to do infinite calculations from moment to moment even if time were divisible into moments. It's far easier to imagine the universe as simply following a logic that is the same logic we have codified into mathematics. For me it's easier yet because there is another perspective I've found from the past. It's easy to see that language has been "simplified" so that it is useable but in the process of this change and the invention of modern science perspective has changed. We don't see things from the "inside" but rather we step infinitelyt far away and describe them through models and the constructs of language. Ultimately this is what our mathe is; a construct of language based on the same natural logic as the pebble rolling down the mountain. It would be impossible to make sense of the world without an operating system for the brain. It's this operating system that tricks us into believing five of something exists, we exist as a consciousness, and we understand existence. WYSIWYG. Of course what you see is defined by the operating system.

We all do it. But it does matter. It matters very much.

You couldn't be more wrong and the answer remains unchanged. Math does not exist in nature. Math is a human construct which is unreal and only works because it is based on the same natural logic as nature itself. There is no math in nature and nature doesn't even agree that one plus one equals two. You can't see this because you understand everything in terms of science and math so it simply doesn't exist for you. It doesn't matter how many examples I provide or how many perspectives because you believe in your heart of hearts that one plus one equals two. If you believed in the Almighty then everything you saw would support this belief. Indeed, no matter what you believe you are on your way to becoming that. This is caused by the operating system we use called modern language. I didn't say reality doesn't exist. I said the existence of reality is beside the point to science. "I think therefore I am" is sufficient. This is why you can't see the nature of language. It was your consciousness that gave you birth therefore language is beside the point to you. As such reality is defined by your beliefs which are derived from the effect of reality on experiment. Other people believe in other things. Everybody is on a different page as exemplified by this very thread. Science does not assume the existence of reality. Need I remind you that cosmologists now say there are an infinite number of pyramids built with an infinite number of ramp? How far outside of reality do we have to get before it becomes obvious? An infinite number of earths is as absurd as no earths or negative twenty earths. Reality isn't necessary to perform experiments or to derive theory. It was intentionally excluded because the inventors of science knew reality was subjective but theyt didn't know this subjectivity is chiefly the result of language which simply isn't reflective of either reality or a good means to discover or communicate reality. You can't see this because you know what you'll see before you look. I know you'll see your beliefs and scoff at ideas that don't reflect those beliefs. You know math exists in nature because you love elegant equations and getting the right answer. You love the way everyone can get the same answer and can't notice when they get the wrong answer. Nature can not do math and can (must) only count to one. People count and invented math for the purpose of counting. As an aside it's quite likely that our math wasn't invented so much as discovered from an ancient source. Ancient math went with ancient language probably but it was adaptable to modern language. It's this adaptation we use as the basis of math.

Why not? Science doesn't need anything to exist except experimental results and the definitions and axioms to define them. Indeed, it's the very lack of assuming reality that allows a thread like this to exist.

No. We can't hold a theory up against reality because science excludes the very existence of reality from its metaphysics. We see "reality" in terms of theory and we see what we expect. We see reinforcement of our beliefs almost all the time because this is how our minds work with its operating system called language. Instead the reality is we compare theory to experiment. Reality is only seen through its effect on experiment because this is the nature of science and its metaphysics. Our perception of "reality" is extrapolation of experiment which we call models. There's no such model because math is logic itself. It is our definition of natural logic that has been quantified. There are other forms of math because terms can be defined in other ways. So long as the logic is consistent with reality math will always "work". Two times two equals four just as two plus two equals four because they are identical statements. ! You think therefore you exist. You think of science so it exists as well. So what do you use to think and to define the terms of science? Science is no entity which merely needs to be fed and get its eight hours. It is a tool that works through definitions and axioms. It can't exist outside language any more than you can.

Math reflects the exact same logic as the basis of reality. Reality asserts itself through experiment and our models and understanding derive from experiment. Of course there is a correlation between reality and math. It doesn't have to be this way but language defines science and science and reality set the parameters for math.

This is the subject of the thread. You are merely assuming the conclusion by saying "we create mathematical predictions". These "predictions" are derived from models developed from experiment and then the logical structure of nature which we call "math" is applied to these models to make prediction. We aren't really "discovering" or "making" anything but rather describing the effects of reality on experiment. This is a remarkably narrow view of reality but people can't see that because of metaphysics and the nature of language. Humans are merely actors within the greater reality who can build on the knowledge of previous generations through language and its handmaiden; modern science. If you could stepoutside of what you "know" this would be painfully obvious to you. But the only thing people can see is what they know. This too is a form of assuming the conclusion.

We can't experience reality directly therefore things we discover are merely the effects on experiment we percieve as models. I'm not even sure what you mean by "things we make". The sun is in all probability a part of reality yet I don't see how we made it. The unified field theory probably "exists" (has a referent) in nature yet we've neither made nor discovered it.

No model is real. As a model, as a belief it is real just as belief in ghosts can be real but there is no referent in reality. The very words we use to discuss this are models. It doesn't matter how many experiments underlie a model or how many subtle predictions can be made through understanding it.

No! There's only one thing that exists; REALITY.

You seem to grasp much if not all of my point. But remember that the "reality" of "32" is as tenuous as the reality of "feet". "32" is here being defined as the unit measure of "g". Any distance the apple has fallen can simply be defined as "1" yet the acceleration is unchanged. This same thing applies to the apple as well since no two apples are identical. If you suppose a unit such that there are two in the displacement then where is the second apple? Is in in the earth's gravitational field or was it left behind at tranquility base? The acceleration is real and the apple is real but a unit must be defined as well as any other "apples". Everything else is just words and models we use to understand experiment and the perspective we have from language.

This is really a very simple point. There are an infinity of ways to make the point and they are all valid. A falling object accelerates at 32 ft/s/s. This applies to every falling object. The earth accelerates toward the object and the object accelerates toward the earth and closes the distance at 32 ft/s/s. There's nothing "magical" about this number. God didn't create the earth so this would fit His devine plan. There's no conference each morning to discuss variation in the acceleration due to gravity but rather is the result of the mass of the earth affecting a much smaller body. This number was the same when caveman walked the earth and if we all stumble off the mortal coil it will be the same when we leave. It wasn't measured or defined before we got here and the same will be true if we leave. It is the reality and is the result of our definitions and terms. It wasn't created by man and for all practical puposes it wasn't really discovered by man but rather it was simply quantified. We took an observation and exzplained it in terms of "gravity" and then quantified it. This doesn't mean we understand gravity but rather that we observe it and measure it. Even things we do "understand" aren't our doing but merely comprehensible to us because of their effect on experiment. We don't understand animals not because they are dumb or we are so smart but because they don't think like we do and don't use language the way we do. They need a way to see nature that is compatible with their means to manipulate nature. A bird doesn't need to know that a hawk can dive at 160 MPH. It needs to know if it can make it to the trees before the hawk gets to him. This is a complex calculation and if he gets it wrong there will be no more chicks for him.

Indeed. If you thought like I do then it would count for a great deal. There are many questions that science can't really address because the question or its terms lie outside of metaphysics. The topic of this thread is just one of these. Why don't you define it then? Just define it as the number of times a horse kicks when you ask him to do it three times and you'll have it made. Assuming the conclusion always works. Why not count the number of words in this post and maybe you'll understand the meaning of the word. Then count them backward and see if you get the same answer. ...Then define "count" such that even I can understand it.

"Bottlenose dolphins have shown the ability to choose an array with fewer dots compared to one with more dots." I'm not so much ignoring it as suggesting it is irrelevant. "Count" has a very specific meaning in modern language. It means to assign numbers randomly to members of a specific group consecutively such as there is a one to one correspondance between members of the group and the numbers where the largest number is the "count". This corresponds to nothing at all in nature or in the real world so is not done nor understood by animals. It is of no value whatsoever to animals. If birds are warning one another of multiple threats they will refer to the "first hawk", "second hawk", and "third hawk" and will treat them individually. They will not "count" hawks and I'm aware of no evidence that they do. No, I can't prove how an animal thinks but I can observe them and make deductions, guesses, and hypotheses. I can perform simple experiments or stage more complex observations. I don't know anything but I'm quite confident no one can prove any animal can "count".

It seems to me that if math is simply discovered by man and we can do differential calculus then there's no reason to suppose the brightest elephants or smart whales couldn't do algebra. Elephants can be taught to paint and we don't understand their communication but I'd wager you aren't going to even get them to do first grade math. There's no proof animals can even count. Yet it's obvious to all humans that we are far more intelligent than animals. Houston, there be a problem here. Maybe we're looking in the wrong direction with the wrong perspective. If we're so smart then why don't we understand the nature of gravity after 4750 years? Or are we waiting for this knowledge to become perfect?

This is a lie perpetuated by the quisling media. These aren't children being "caught in the crossfire". Most of them are gang members battling for turf and the lucrative drug trade. They aren't only murdering oner another but they are shooting little brothers of people who refuse to join as well as older relatives. These crimes are being forgiven in advance by the media who have other axes to grind and papers to sell.

Perhaps you don't understand that we are talking about a subject no one knows anything about. I'm merely trying to present an hypothesis based on logic and observation. Of course you don't believe math can be misapplied, logic can be essential to nature, or that language can reflect nature just like the wiring of the brain can reflect it. I understand your position probably far better than you understand mine, probably. I see this from an entirely different perspective than you and am reporting what I think I see. I could be wrong and your results may vary. Or are you just suggesting murmurating birds mustta seen a scarecrow?