tjohnson

I understand very little of what you are saying here and can only tell you that in General Semantics mathematics and applied mathematics are considered two very different things and from reading the interminable posts showing the confusion between the two in this forum I would highly recommend trying a different approach.

In the long run the earth will probably be a cold black stone in space so I guess nothing really matters in the long run. It's a good way to justify all sorts of behaviour. I have to beat you but it's for your own good, etc.

2 objects combined with 2 objects gives you 4 objects yes, this is applied mathematics. This forum has numerous postings by people who seem to have no knowledge of the difference between mathematics and applied mathematics.

I would be very interested to see you empirically demonstrate that 2+2=4.

Are you for real? Where does 'self-defense' enter the equation when you are nuking another country? Perhaps you don't understand the difference between 'defense' and 'offense', I know the difference is subtle.

Not so, Ba'al Chatzaf, ' G, A, T, C ' ARE merely 4 letters, you speak about what they represent, not what they ARE.

Life amongst crazy people is certainly a hazardous propostion.

The trouble is you can't know for sure he is coming to murder you until he does. If you are wrong you could start a war.

Speak for yourself.

From the Wikipedia article; 'Proof that someone is a synesthete is easy to come by, and hard to "fake." The simplest test involves test-retest reliability over long periods of time. Synesthetes consistently score higher on such tests than non-synesthetes (either with color names, color chips or even a color picker providing 16.7 million color choices). Synesthetes may score as high as 90% consistent over test-retest intervals of up to one year, while non-synesthetes will score 30-40% consistent over test-retest intervals of only one month, even if warned that they are going to be retested"

Korzybski defined man as a "time-binding" class of life, which means we are able to pass symbolic, structural knowledge from one generation to the next. Many would argue that animals exhibit some rationality and language skills yet none can time-bind.

That's interesting. Korzybski wrote his 'philosophy' but no novels but A.E.VanVogt wrote 3 novels based on GS., the World of Null-A series. It was these Sci-Fi books that got many people interesed in GS, me included. This subsequently got L. Ron Hubbard interested and eventually spun off scientology. So it seems novels are a good way to spark interest but one shouldn't take then too seriously.

Micheal, If you read that definition of numbers I posted you may see that numbers are symbols we use to express unique, specific (exact) symetric and asymetric relations. If I say 1+1=2 then it's mathematics but if I add 1 apple and 1 apple and get 2 apples then it's technically applied math now. It would be possible to teach children about group theory (as Bob so kindly introduced us to above) without ever applying it to counting, adding etc, real objects, but it would take a radical adjustment in our education system and attitudes since the emphasis is usually on applying math . Mathematics is not usually valued for itself, most people think "where will I ever use this?" and dismiss it as useless. Tom

Korzybski, 1879-1950. Rand, 1905-1982, I would say that puts them a good generation apart but what difference does that make? I don't know what you mean about being 100 years behind, he wasn't doing mathematics, he was creating general semantics.

Here is Korzybski's general semantic definition of mathematics. - "Mathematics consists of limited linguistic schemes of multiordinal relations capable of exact treatment at a given date." and for the numbers ; " 0 and 1 represent unique and specific symetrical relations and all other numbers, also unique and specific asymetrical relations". In brief, the numbers 0 and 1 are used to represent the symetrical relation of equality as in if a=b then a-b=0 and a/b=b/b=1. See http://www.esgs.org/uk/art/sands-ch18.pdf for a full discussion.

Definitions are a dime a dozen, it's undefined terms, or postulates that are important. I think (after Korzybski) of 'science' as the structured experience of the human race. Science is an attempt to explain what is going on (WIGO) around us and it is shared around the world with other scientists. Mathematics wouldn't really fit in there since it doesn't deal directly with WIGO, only indirectly. I would say mathematics is the main tool of science.

Michael Ah.. yes, that explains alot. I used to be a surveyor so I know a little about measurement in the topographical sense. There is a field of study called geodesy which is devoted to measurement and modelling of the shape of the earth and although it uses mathematics extensively it is, again, applied mathematics. Perhaps Rand did not distinguish between the two? I also have an Honours Mathematics degree in which I would go weeks or months without ever applying a single theorem to 'real' life, so I think I know the difference

I already expressed my opinion on that, counting is not 'knowing mathematics', it is doing arithmetic. Mathematics doesn't start until you define mathematical objects and start learning how to manipulate them.

Yes, it's primitve all right, it's called guessing how far to jump, and the more you do it the better you get at it. But what has this to do with the relationship beween mathematics and nature? Animals don't know any mathematics, do you think an animal could define a derivative of a function, for example?

I don't see how there could be much doubt that mathematics is some kind of language. The question is, in it's pure form, not applied, what does it represent? It represents various exact relations and structure and so is available for any scientist to use if they find an application for it.

So what knowledge does one find in literature, aesthetics, ethics, politics?? There is an interesting concept in general semantics called 'orders of abstraction'. In this context a propositon cannot include itself as an argument, but must be a proposition (abstraction) of higher order. It is modelled after Russell's theory of types. So I can make a statement about any field of study but I exclude the current statement to avoid a 'vicious circle'. Another way of looking at it is that knowledge of the world is mathematical but 'knowledge of knowledge' is not necessarily so.

When you say it's 'open' does this imply that some day it will be 'closed'? Do you think that other theories, like QM will not be 'open' some day? It is not a mystery why mathematics is useful in modelling nature, it's because it is a language devoted to relations and structure, which is the only possible content of 'knowledge'. If you look at any field of study the only 'knowledge' in it will be some application of mathematics.

Ah, but I think it IS the right answer.

You believe in economics professors?? It's curious that in N. America it seems our only weapon for fighting inflation seems to be raising interest rates. Inflation goes up, raise rates. Inflation goes down, lower rates. Can I get my PHD now??

How does know what they mean, without a definition? Both could be defined, and in math terms normally are defined, and often need to be, because mathematicians often define terms differently from non-mathematicians (which is a very unfortunate habit they share with most other people: when people come up with a new concept they should come up with a new term for it--either a new word or a new combination of old words--but people are frequently lazy about that and grab a term that already has a meaning). You cannot define every word in a given context, try it! Take any sentence and pick a word in it and define it. Then using the definition pick another word and define it. Keep doing this and you will find youself defining in circles and this means that at very basic levels of language we have to trust the person understands us. If we can't agree on some undefined terms then communication is not possible. In my mathematical definition of a circle above there is no need to define 'point', it understood what it means, on objective levels.