math is not science

it's just logic

>>40
thats another axiom usually taken as self-evident, one that presumably was thrown out when descartes threw out all assumptions.

>>41
It would seem axioms are necessary for logical deduction though, so we'll have to assume he didn't. Or he may have considered it not of the outside world.

Gotta love 'ol Dessy, though;
Descartes: To find real truth, I must throw away all my assumptions, and discover the world in terms of only the most self-evident realizations.
Impartial Observer: Yeah, sure, sounds interesting. Go for it!
Descartes: But as I have no faith in the world around me, I doubt, and as I doubt, I think, and as I think, I am.
IO: Wow, that's pretty deep. But it kind of makes sense. I think you're on to something here.
Descartes: There is a God.
IO: Hey, wait, I'm not following you there. I think you missed a couple o...
Descartes: The human soul is separate from the body, and controls the body like a clockwork through the pineal gland.
IO: Dude, if you are high, just say so.

So yeah, no stranger to non-sequiturs.
Dude didn't need no stinkin' 'scientific method'.

^^you took the last two quotes completely out of context.

The second one out of context is particularly bad, and people taking that same part out of context is exactly why so many people interpret what he said as dualism.

Mathematical philosophy contains the secrets to getting laid

>>44

dick and pussy intersect iff pussy(slutty) is true amirite

>>43
Well, yeah, it's more fun that way. Still, now I'm curious. He did claim those things, so how is that not dualism?
And concluding the existence of God was pretty much the second step, right after the existance of the self. It's what he used to affirm the reality of his senses and the outside world, right?

We need a /phil/ board around here. Holy shit, can you imagine? The trolling/faggotry there would rival /newpol/.

>>46 because he always unified these things in the end. As a scientist, he stressed how important consistency is to logical thinking (see: the scientific method - utterly relies on objective consistency). The separation of science and belief (and soul and body) is dualism, and such is the antithesis of what he describes as logical thought through his method of thinking (and philosophy/science in general, in my opinion).

Yea he mentions god, but his description of god is so non-fundamentalist and so non-anthropomorphic that you could replace "God" with "the infinite universe" and it wouldn't detract from his philosophy much, if at all.

As for the reality of his senses, He used an analogy of candle wax in his second meditation to state that they aren't part of any objective reality (as they aren't), in the sense that the sounds and colors we take in are created in our own mind (as they are). His "dualism," if one might consider it that, is merely considering the relationship between our subjective senses' input and the objective world that our perceptions feed from.

>>47 good god it would be terrible.

>>48

What infinite universe?

49>> the one we live in.

>>50
You mean the one I live in, figment-of-my-imagination-san.

math is the language of science...
because with math... science is made easier...
you can put equations for cellular respiration... for photosynthesis... for chemical reaction and stuff like that

>>50

At any given point in time, the radius of the universe is finite.

>>53

Not metaphysically!

Everyone should have a mathematical philosophy, I swear its awesome

>>53 the matter in the universe is finite, yea, but the empty space in the universe is looking infinite to general relativity and string/quantum theory (especially if you take into account time, which is infinite, as the 4th dimension) and [at least most western] philosophy for that matter.

Regardless, Descartes description of god is very non-fundamentalist and if you want to draw conclusions from what he is saying you should look at the content and not the fact that he refers to the infinite as god.

>>53

even if the universe is expanding at the speed of light?

>>54
wut
>>56
"the matter in the universe is finite, yea, but the empty space in the universe is looking infinite to general relativity and string/quantum theory"

What the fuck are you talking about? There's no indication that "time" as we know it will go on "forever"

>>57
Yes. THE UNIVERSE HAS A CERTAIN RADIUS, AT THIS VERY SECOND. THAT'S HOW WE DETERMINE HOW LONG AGO THE BIG BANG HAPPENED.

The universe might well not expand forever, that depends on its average density, it might expand to a certain radius, then collapse back in on itself.

>>58

visible universe != universe.

if the edge of the universe is expanding at the speed of light, then thanks to mr einstein and his time dilation, it is instantaneously an infinite radius.

>>56
descartes believed in dualism and a supernatural mind because he didn't want to accept determinism as it applies to human nature.  i.e. he was a free will faggot.

>>59
no, in fact, that's completely wrong, because the speed of light is finite and constant.  in other words, it doesn't travel an infinite amount of space in any finite amount of time, which is less than what youre asserting with that shit you just pulled out of your ass.  to prove you wrong, i'm going to measure the distance the information on the fiber optice wire im about to transmit this information on is from my computer.  right now the distance its close to 0.  now i'm going to click reply, and you let me know if it gets to you in less than instanfuckingtaneously seconds.

>>56 - 60
Wow, you guys totally fail GR.

>>56
We don't actually know whether any of those are finite.  It is true that there are a finite number of particles in the visible universe, but we don't know if there is more outside.

>>58
You're assuming that space has a global positive curvature, which is not proven.  A negative or zero curvature would indicate an infnitely large universe.  The current data suggests that the world is incredibly close to zero curvature (ie flat).

As you said, a lot depends on the mass density and cosmological constant.

>>59
That is not how time dilation works.

>>60
Time varying metrics can cause things to separate faster than light (eg inflation theories).  Light is defined to travel along null geodesics.  Any particle that tries to follow photons will still be slower.

>>61
So are you saying the speed of light is not finite or constant?

If you are not sure you exist, you either have a severe mental disorder or you're trying to get attention.

>>58
>"What the fuck are you talking about? There's no indication that "time" as we know it will go on "forever""

No but if you factor in the relativity of time, the big bang was technically infinity years ago, meaning that even the universe ends, time has been forever.

>>64
you're pretty damn retarded.

>>64
Stating that:

14 billion years = ∞

... will get you thrown out on your ear from any university.  Good luck proving that.

The truth is that you're unable to distinguish between these things:

→ ↔

One is a bounded line, and the other is an unbounded line.  Both are "infinite" ... yet one still has a STARTING POINT.

>>66
you blatant, blatant faggot.

>>14 sex is complex Biology

>>66

14 billion years ago in time as it passes at the surface of the earth, yea. But Time is relative. According to Einstein's field equations, the presence of matter pulls on the geometry of space time, and a singularity, being infinitely dense, has infinite density - so the space-time continuum is stretched by an infinite amount.

>"will get you thrown out on your ear from any university"

I guess Stephan Hawking gets thrown out all the time then.

>>69
You must be talking about this:

http://www.scienceacademy.co.uk/page.asp?id=1516

... which is not what we're talking about.  If you change the definition of time as you approach the Big Bang, then you're outside the sense of the claim of 14 billion years.

An infinite quantity of infinitesimals still arrives at a finite number.  Again, make your claim in university and they'll toss you out on your ear.

How the fuck is that not what we're talking about?

All of this is a lie, the Earth is only around six thousand years old.

>>70
you blatant, blatant faggot

>>71
"Imaginary time"?  Time at a "right angle" to the timestream we experience?  14 billion years is not a piece of imaginary time -- whatever the fuck THAT is.  Again, when you change the definition of time, then your "infinity" assertion becomes nonsensical.

I never said "imaginary" time or "right angle," ever. Don't know where you pulled that from.

- Time slows down at points in space-time where gravitational pull is stronger.
-Gravitational pull shares a relationship to mass.
-The mass of the singularity at the point of the big bang was infinitely dense.

>>75
if you asked "how is that not what we're talking about" in reference to a link that he said "this is not what we're talking about" about, then, imo, you're kind of asserting that we were all talking about whatever was in that link.

just sayin'

>>62
After some thought, I can say that light speed is still constant and finite in all reference frames.  Because light travels along null geodesics, the 4-length of any path it takes is 0.  4-lengths are invariant, and hence equal in all inertial reference frames.  A 0 4-length means that it travels the same distance in space and in time (c=1 units).

>>70
An infinite # of infinitesimals is not always finite.  There are plenty of diverging integrals over a finite domain.

The article is too coarse; I'm not sure exactly how they're defining imaginary time, other than it being perpendicular (probably in the same sense that imaginary numbers are perpendicular to the real numbers).

>>75
Whose reference frame are you talking about?  A photon will see all of existence appear and disappear in an instant.  For something stuck in a black hole singularity, it is not even obvious if time can still be meaningfully defined.