Quote:
Originally posted by quiet
the argument only works if you agree that purely formal mathematics does infact exist outside of our minds. many people far, far smarter than me (Einstein is an example) look at this premise over and over. and what it's possible truth may indicate.
"simply doesn't make sense when looking at the previous points. There is no good reason why it would have objective existence, and, furthermore, it would raise more new problems than it would solve. For instance, where would we situate this objective mathematics?"
no one is trying to solve problems here (at least i'm not). because it brings up more problems than it solves, has absolutely nothing to do with it's validity.
again, most will agree with the first point. the second point, you more or less brush over. the third, you don't agree with(?). if you can fathom that purely formal mathematical theories exist without the human mind, or our particular universe, then we are talking about something potentially very profound.
however, if formal math is simply a reflection of the 'wiring' of our brains, then certainly, it may be more or less trivial 
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"the argument only works if you agree that purely formal mathematics does infact exist outside of our minds."
But you fail to provide any arguments for that. You state it, but that's it. The other 2 points might be considered arguments, however, those are pretty weak, as I think I showed in my previous post. And even if you do accept them, they still not prove anything about an objective existence of formal mathematics.
I brush over the third point because it's not a point, but an unfounded statement. All I could say is "I disagree", since you have given no good arguments to refute.
Now, the reason I brought up the fact that it raises more problems than it solves is that it's not only unfounded, it's useless. If it would be a solution to important scientific problems that until now seemed impossible to solve, it would most certainly be worth researching from a coherentist point of view.
Right now, however, it's just an unfounded statement that, in order to be true, would require many current beliefs to be false. While these beliefs may indeed be false, they have the advantage over your statement that they have relatively solid foundations and are part of coherent belief systems.
Another problem is that the statement of formal mathematics having objective existence is not falsifiable. It can't be tested, since you seem to use a rather loose definition of "existence". (what is existence? most believe it's a spatio-temporal thing, which seems hardly applicable to a concept like formal mathematics)
Furthermore, what Einstein thought about the subject is ofcourse irrelevant. Blaise Pascal was a christian, and so was Kant, does that mean God exists? Only arguments count, not opinions. (ofcourse, if Einstein would have arguments for the objective existence of formal mathematics, these would most certainly be relevant)
But, basically, all you are saying is "If X was the case, it would have large consequences". Now, if you had arguments for X, this would most certainly be an interesting statement. However, when only stating it, one might as well replace X with "the existence of aliens" or "the existence of leprechauns" instead of "the existence of formal mathematics". All would have large consequences, but without arguments, there is no reason to believe them to be true. (there actually are arguments for the existence of aliens, so when replacing X with "the existence of aliens" might actually create an interesting subject)