>2010

Whoops. My bad, I completely forgot that all outsourcing of both manufacturing and services jobs has taken place in the last four years.

>"the economy isn't getting worse, look at this outdated chart"

I said the economy isn't getting worse as a result of outsourcing or internal labour competition, which the graph supports.

>"if the economy is getting worse, it's because it's in trouble"

No, I said if the economy is showing a disequilibrium in various sectors of employment there is most likely a supply-side issue causing it.

Hey Meta, have you read anything by Douglas Hofstadter, and if not, why?

I've been wanting to read GEB for ages.

It's the reason our economy is FAILING

Since when?

Present me with a single shred of evidence which shows labour competition is destroying the economy.

It's destroying our economy.

Obviously not:


If these workers end up in jobs which generate less value than their former jobs it I) doesn't negate the consumer surplus of the replacement labour and II) is actually indicative of structural, supply-side issues in the economy.

you got it

it matters, in meta's case, because anyone who makes axiomatic truth statements like that can also make axiomatic truth statements about other, bigger things, as well--like the existence of god, for example

i think the idea of an unquestionable truth simply rubs meta the wrong way

Essentially. The only epitemological system which you can use to judge truth, which has any value, is one which is functional. One which uses valid axioms to judge propositions.

Schools like Presuppositionalism and Reformed Epistemology are just fucking worthless.

Well, as long as it was a murder-suicide at least the situation didn't have any excessive risk.

1

dat blatantly flawed epistemology tho

The amount of people expecting me to be older in this thread is disturbing.

i'm arguing for the existence of the adjectival nature of... numbers

Well in that case I don't disagree. Prime's formulation of your position on the ontological nature of numbers wasn't exceptionally obvious, and I just felt like laying this out as a sort of "foundation" for thinking about numbers and then move from there. I wasn't explicitly criticising what I thought was your conception of the philosophy of mathematics.

The very fact that you can make up this example shows that numbers do exist as abstract objects, at least to some degree.

Time for more word games.

I'm not denying the existence of abstract objects as some empirical bundle of properties that engenders a kinda, sorta substance. Tennis, indeed, is an abstract object but only because its empirical properties make it so. I'm not arguing against abstract objects in this sense. I'm arguing against the concepts of metaphysics and ontology and epistemology which seek to show the existence of literal objects which simply lack spatiotemporal extension.

The idea that numbers really, actually exist as abstract objects is often a staple of things like Christian apologetics and more Platonic/Schopenhauerian philosophies. I think, however, that this is false.

The idea generally goes that mathematical objects exist; mathematical objects are abstract; and mathematical objects are independent of intelligent agents. Essentially, if humans were extinct then these abstract mathematical objects would still 'exist'. There is, in essence, a transdimensional holding pen of numbers which isn't spatiotemporal. Numbers, under this paradigm, are discovered and not invented.

However, I can quite easily define a mathematical set and label it. If I label a set as the "set of all Huragok". A property of this set is that there is an individual Huragok named Virgil, so whenever we speak of a set of Huragok then Virgil is necessarily included. For any existing Huragok, also, there is another Huragok which constructed it: the constructor.

The constructor of Virgil, however, must also be a Huragok to fit the definitions involved in the set. So for every constructor, there is another constructor. So:
- Virgil
- Virgil-constructor
- Virgil-constructor-constructor
- Virgil-constructor-constructor-constructor
- So on, so forth; we have essentially defined a never-ending train of Huragok.

Now, I'm just making this up (well, Bungie made it up). It was pulled out of somebody's ass. We could've defined two Huragok as necessary for the construction of a single, resulting Huragok, and we'd see a two-stemmed branch extending from Virgil. It's entirely up to me what defines a mathematical set.

Are the Huragok an invention, or a discovery? Do Huragok exist in their own abstract transdimensional way? If the answer is yes then any arbitrary set of elements I define also necessarily exists in their own abstract, transdimensional way. If the answer is no, then numbers too do not exist.

I have literally just demonstrated the process involving the creation of numbers, and all we need to do is alter just how we've defined the set and the elements within. Changing it from a set of Huragok to a set of integers, and changing Virgil to one and constructor to addition (denoted by +). So we get:
- 1
- 1+
- 1++
- 1+++
- 1++++ (ad infinitum)

Counting is just the process of streamlining the informational transaction of additions/increments to the original. So it just becomes:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

This is arbitrary; I've defined this into existence. That is the entirety of mathematics, rules and definitions and axioms. If we're going to say that this exists, then all forms of rules and definitions exist too--such as the rules of blackjack. Following the rules of blackjack just means you're doing blackjack, and it's the same with mathematics.

Even assuming the existence of numbers in this Platonic way, how would you even demonstrate this? There is no metaphysical three which governs the threeness of a collection of oranges. In the same way the empirical togetherness of the properties of oranges define the substance of an orange, it is the same with numbers and a collection of oranges; three is an empirical property of an orange and another orange and another orange.

Math is literally just a conceptual framework for managing information.

m8

do u even null hypothesis

So you're telling me you really are just a edgy teen acting smart online?

As if I've ever hidden that.

I don't necessarily agree with this scale, but I'd place myself at 6.

Holy shit what a badass.

I wish our Queen did this.