More assumptions and labelling.

You'll never understand... even if I were to attempt to explain it... which I actually have and am doing... each person has to find their own path to enlightenment.

We will just go around and around in circles... until your mind can step outside.. there's no point... at which point I won't need to explain. :cool:

Independent thought is one thing, your self delusion is something else entirely :lol1:

Oh dear, that's some mental gymnastics. :lol1:

You're just so far beyond being helped it's not even funny.

Dismissing... another tactic... talk about total submission... your mind is lost in the fog.... sold for a pittance.

More tactics... dismissing and labelling... but you're not even aware of what your doing or why you do it.

SOLD er.... :idea:

Fill in the blanks.

Edit to add; Ridicule... another useful weapon... always a good crowd puller... especially and specifically for the weak minded. :notworthy

You sad man. I'm guessing your applications to join the armed forces were rejected out of hand (not even the Navy would take you?) and you've resented it ever since. Your refusal to accept that 1+1 = 2 wouldn't have helped much either :lol1:

Rumbled.
You're so insightful... amazing... how do you do that? :lol1:

Yeah you're right I wanted to go skiing and see the world from inside an armoured personnel carrier, but I couldn't pass the dumb @$$ do whatever they tell you believe everything they say test. :lol1:

Oh wait I did go skiing and see a good proportion of the outside world and I wasn't looking through a slit in a tin can when I did it. :thumb:

I thought as much. Your inability to understand the simplest maths and your desire to take an APC skiing would have sealed your fate. A one-man army like you would have been such an asset: to the enemy :thumb:

Well, actually you just assumed I did, I know you're not superior. If you had the intellect you'd realise when I wrote in reference to your "superior intellect" you'd see it for what it was, that I was being facetious.

Denying proven facts or concepts alone is not independent thought. Had you provided a plausible explanation to the contrary, then I might agree with you. But as it stands, you haven't come up with anything plausible, therefore there is no reason for us to believe you are what you say you are. Whilst you may do your own thinking, clearly, that isn't necessarily a good thing nor a particularly strong point on your part. :lol1:

You're getting even funnier now.

You seem quite obsessed with the idea that I wanted to join the forces.

I'm not the sort of person that does what people tell me, I'm too independent and I really don't like stupid people... considering most people are stupid I'd find it even more difficult being stuck with them in the Alps or a desert somewhere.

I don't respond well to being told what to do by idiots.. which is why I changed jobs so much in my younger days until I found a job where they just gave me a car and some tools and let me get on with it.... did that job for about 20yrs then went self employed and then moved out to Croatia where I live on my own.

Get the picture... I'm a leader not a follower, but even when given the role of a leader I still don't like it as those following are for the most part... stupid... I'm happy to just do my own thing and let the rest of the world get on with it.
:thumb:

Don't kid yourself that you're a leader, you're not. I wouldn't follow someone like you into Sainsburys much less into danger, you're too full of your own p!ss and importance to command respect.

And the more you deny it the more certain I am that you were a failed Armed Forces applicant. It explains a lot.

:brickwall

You're a quality idiot, I'll give you that.

I wouldn't want you or anyone else for that matter to follow me anywhere, god knows I have enough of it on here let alone in real life.

I don't have now nor ever had any desire to be in the armed forces, seriously I don't understand why anyone would want to actually go out and kill somebody... regardless of what bollocks someone told me... that's another human being just like you that your killing.... why... because they don't agree with your boss. :cuckoo:

Sorry to disappoint you but I never applied for any of the forces... if it makes you feel any better... I did once upon a time want to be a lawyer after watching many episodes of Petrochelli when I was maybe 10. :lol1:

You're just another fool that thinks by going to war you're some how a hero, reality check... you're just a mug that bought into the bull $h1t that people peddle... and now you want to some how associate me with that... well sorry fool... I get that it's all you understand but I aint buying that $h!t... you want to go be a hero... fine by me... go die for foolishness... not my business or problem pal... I'll just carry on as I always have... doing my own thing.

And seriously... if you got in...need I say more... it's not exactly rocket science stopping a bullet with your head. :lol1:

Yeah, but what values would you give to 2, plus and 4?

Lol... Another fool.

So now you think you'r so smart that your pathetic attempt at ridiculing me went un noticed :lol1: I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Then you try to somehow quantify that by using your brain washed concepts to try and get me to partake in your less than basic educational techniques.

I should warn you that I'm married to a university professor. :lol1:

In true reality... none what so ever... it's a learned response... in effect... made up bollocks to quantify an entity... much like religion... man made concept.

Edit to add: don't get me wrong... it works...and why wouldn't it, it needs to be plauseable and explainable... but only within context.

I've said it before... education is social conditioning, maths, english, latin, philosophy, religious education, it's all about conformity, designed simply to make you do as you're told, hold certain views, enact particular patterns of behaviour and ultimately act as a single entity and do as you're directed whilst under the illusion of being free.

It has now become self perpetuating... so there's nothing that can be done about it.

Which is ultimately why I try and have as little to do with society as possible.

Most people are too conditioned to even realise what has already happened to them.

But hey I'm an un-educated fruitcake, so what do I know. :thumb:

You're wrong and you probably know it, it's just that HUMONGOUS chip on your shoulder won't let you admit it. Education is to knowledge as restaurants are to food - a convenient and sometimes necessary means of obtaining something none of us can do without. Sure, some of us might for whatever reason prefer to make as little use of them as possible, but only a very sad, boring and closed-minded individual would try to argue that the world would be entirely better off if they completely disappeared or had never existed.

To get back to the OP's original question, I offer in response "not entirely" ;)

See more conditioning... you're trying to label me so as to be able to dismiss me... and you don't realise what it is you're doing or why you're doing it.

I'm the guy with the 'HUMONGOUS' chip on his shoulder :luxhello: He's a wrong un... ergo Non-conformist... ergo bad person that doesn't want to do as he's told... naughty boy. :lol1:

Then you make up something and try and attribute it to me. :notworthy

Another perfect example of of conditioning and still I already know you won't even begin to be able to comprehend what you've just done or why you did it.

Ditch, what you're talking about isn't original, it goes back thousands of years. I do hear you about human constructs, but how, for example, would you, me and others have this exchange without the construct of language and how would my phone (and whatever device you're using to facilitate the conversation) exist without there having been invention? You seem to think you're on to something, but I can assure you you're not.

Would you have us mute? Do you regret the first cave paintings? The wheel? What about old Pythagoras and Euclid et al? Should they have kept their findings to themselves for fear that one day humans may be able to stand on the shoulders of those giants and explore space? In fact, what on earth are you on about?

Interested to read more, as always.

It seems to me mathematics is an invention that allows us to discover the natural world

So the question is constructed in an overly simplistic manner

The natural world is what it is, humanity need tools to adequately understand the true nature of it

Mathematics is simply part of that toolset, hence invented

The discovery of Quantum Mechanics or Newtonian Physics would have been impossible without the invention of mathematics

So for instance the concept of Infinity was a mathematical invention

https://www.britannica.com/topic/infinity-mathematics

Infinity, the concept of something that is unlimited, endless, without bound. The common symbol for infinity, ∞, was invented by the English mathematician John Wallis in 1657. Three main types of infinity may be distinguished: the mathematical, the physical, and the metaphysical.

It's the evolution of mankind ultimately, I have no regrets and I wouldn't change a thing... it is what it is.
Why when someone holds a different opinion does it have to have a negative connotation attached to it is the question you should be asking yourself.

I don't think I'm onto anything new, I often say to people just by the fact that we are able to have this conversation and understand one another, it's all the evidence we need to prove social conditioning.

Life is just a matter of arriving at a place you're happy with, some get there, others never do... most wander around in blissful ignorance, which is probably the best situation to be in.

Yes, so what was your original point about then?

I take your point, but infinity isn't a natural or real number; it's an abstract concept.

it's an abstract mathmatical concept

I have no problem with you labelling me as a fool, better to be the fool than to be the one who engages the fool. :lol1:

But it didn’t go unnoticed, you responded! :lol1:

I wasn’t quantifying anything, I was drawing a conclusion! :lol1:

As if that fact somehow gives you some sort of “advantage”! :lol1: Given what you’ve said of education, going by your rationale, she is the highest form of the dumb unthinking socially conditioned conformist. :lol1: Being associated to someone in education does not make one educated nor imply intelligence.

For someone who labels himself as a “free thinker” you don’t seem to do much thinking; being free of thought is not the same thing! :lol1:

Yes, so we're close to the nub of the argument. Truth is, good men disagree on what constitutes an object and what abstract concepts are constructed in order to prove the existence of that object. Your infinity 'proof' of invention rather than discovery is philosophically awkward as, by its very nature, infinity cannot be objectively quantified; it always poses the problem of regress.

I'm of the view that, and I'm sure this comes as no surprise, we humans are on a journey of discovery, a journey that may lead, as Hawking famously put it, to understanding "the mind of God". That that mind exists is self-evident to me and I hope we can scratch its surface with the discovery of the unifying 'theory of everything'. Having said that, it seems to me that finite humans cannot truly fathom the infinite and the eternal, we can merely 'do the math'. We've a long way to go. Next week: consciousness.

I don’t think Maths was “discovered”, more that what starts off as a basic cognitive process leads onto the comprehension and a greater understanding in relation to what we observe. Also it’s no more invented than the first time a log was used roll something along a path giving rise to the invention of the wheel, the log was always there.

Going back to this question: “How could mathematics simply exist?”

I’ll counter with this: “if a tree falls and there is no one to hear it, does it still make a sound?” Ignoring all living creatures, sound is something that humans experience. Outside of this, the vibrations of the air would still exist.

Let me put it another way: If you had asked how could God simply exist? I'd have answered was there a God before you discovered God?

So it's a two-way street?

Maths and God are quite different. God is eternal. Now, and you've touched on a fascinating theological point, did I discover God? No. I'm a Calvinist and therefor subscribe to predestination (election). If I felt and or thought that I'd done some of the 'work' I would be an Armenian.

Martin Luther (one of John Calvin's famous contemporaries) said that the paradox of free will was unfathomable and I agree.

I'm satisfied that God called out to me like a shepherd would his sheep and that He brought me in to His fold. I've no merit.