A Musinf upon the Nature of Fundamental Objects vis-a-vis the Point and the Plane by Vinay Seth

Dear Vinay,

You ask a number of questions, that, I believe, are all aimed at the same point, which is our comprehension of the 3-dimensional world we live in:

"So I would propose that a 'primitive notion' such as a Point is a fictitious entity that is somehow related to how the human brain makes sense of the world on a biological level.

Is it even possible to come to an understanding of the world without fictional cognitive categories? Could we somehow come to comprehend the world through its actual organizational structure, instead of comprehending it through human-made fictional categories as we are doing now? Can we really understand the world as it is, rather than in terms of its abstractions created by the human mind?

I have argued above that the fundamental building blocks of Geometry are fictional ideas born of the human mind. Are the fundamental objects just a creation of our mind to understand a seamless whole, owing to the cognitive limitation of the human mind?"

First, I would point out that one can watch very young children move blocks of various shapes in puzzles, and do so perfectly, long before they even have names for the pieces. So I don't think that they are operating on 'fictional categories' at all. I believe that they perceive ontological reality.

My essay Deciding on the nature of time and space treats this problem in a novel fashion. I hope you will read it and comment.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Vinay

The problems with the particle and space that you have highlighted were solved by Rudjer Boskovic in his Philosophy of Nature... 2.5 centuries ago.

So if you are really interested in solving the issues highlighted in your essay you should study his work.

Regards,

Branko

Dear Seth. Simple well crafted structured essay delving on very pertinent crucial questions on existence.Keep up.Rated you accordingly.Is cognitive bias, notoriously responsible for the 3 Us? kindly read my opinion here https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3525.Thanks and all the best in the essay contest.

I too struggle with the idea of 'primitive' notions. Doing things like Euclid did, talking about points as having "no part", doesn't work that well, like you point out. Modern mathematical treatments of geometry are more careful, acknowledging that you have to take some things for granted, i.e. I can't tell you what a point or line 'is', but I can tell you all sorts of facts about both of them and their relationships as long as we both agree that they follow certain rules. For example, whatever points and lines really 'are', if we agree that any two distinct points uniquely specifies a line, then we can show this or that result follows from that assumption.

It's pretty deep to wonder about the relationship between the real world and our idealizations of it. We can make mathematical models of how things like atoms behave, but how do those models relate to real atoms? Are they different because our imaginations are limited? Are they different because human understanding requires significant simplification? Can we do better, or are we always restricted to simplified representions of the world?

Keep wondering about all this! All these threads are fun and productive to follow, regardless of what their answers might be.

John

Dear Vinay Seth

You tried to develop a cognitive system for humans and for universe. I tried with point masses and gravitational force vectors. On every point mass there will be UGF ( Universal Gravitation force) creates a resultant force vector that moves the mass. This UGF, varies with position in space and Time, and is not constant.

Dynamic Universe model calculates UGF on every mass every moment, all masses are different.

For full details have a look at my essay "A properly deciding, Computing and Predicting new theory's Philosophy"....

According to Dynamic Universe model, probably this overall UGF is the Consciousness of the Universe...

Best wishes to your essay

=snp

The most difficult question is another. There is space, it is a void around us. There is a void. And here is the point - is it there? Or is it completely a work of our mind? I also thought about it. I have a hypothesis. A point is a puncture in the metric. This is real NOTHING. There really are points around us! They live some kind of their own life ..................................................................

Probably, we think only thanks to them.)))

Since we are thinking about points, we will give you a high rating. Honor our essay. Let's continue the conversation)))