On Fri, 15 Sep 2006, Chuckk Hubbard wrote:
On 9/15/06, Mathieu Bouchard matju@artengine.ca wrote:
Something like the concept of the thing-in-itself can appear in mathematics and computer programming, but that's because those things focus on invention rather than discovery. (ok, discovery can happen there, but it always relies on things that have been purely invented before.)
I think mathematics and programming appear that way because they deal with things that are imaginary.
"Imaginary" matches my use of the word "invention".
In reality, five oranges, for instance, are not equal to another five oranges.
No, it depends on the meaning of the word "equal" - but that's a human concept: the oranges don't care about being equal or not. Likewise there is a hierarchy of equal signs in math, for when you want to deal with different levels of likeness. For example, modulo arithmetic introduces a different equality which is more slack than conventional equality.
The thing that can be measured and equated is the event, which doesn't exist.
Whether or not something "really exists" is a meaningless question. "real existence" does not exist. It's just a matter of pushing one's own definition of the word. I could try to come up with a more useful definition (words should be given useful definitions) and I can't think why it's of any importance to think of events as non-existing.
And then I'm not sure about your meaning of the word "event" either...
And I thought that events are things that are localized in time... silly me ;-)
Programs and equations don't exist, though, they occur.
If you're going to say things like that, I'm going to argue that you're just a bunch of molecules. Your distinction between existence and occurrence is useless.
_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju | Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada