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Originally Posted by asaris
if we agree that we have one antelope and another antelope in front of us, we have to agree that we have two antelope in front of us.
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But isn't it possible to see things differently? What you see as antelopes I might see as two more specific things, Mr. T and T.J. Hooker. I only get to your level of perceptive analysis if I dull my senses, perhaps my sight, so that they look the same from a distance. But there are other ways of looking at those objects without labelling or counting them the same way as you. I could see them as two organisms, or as two million carbon atoms, or as zero uranium atoms, or as a subpart of the earth's ecological system, or as a heat emitting source, or as a light reflecting source, or any number of other ways that don't recognize them as antelope and don't recognize that there are two of them.
Through communication perhaps we can arrive at a common understanding that you are referring to two antelope, but there's no reason to assume that it's any more true than an opposing view of them as different objects, or as the same object.
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Originally Posted by stompy
If you use the method, for example, to describe the volume of a sphere and I say 4/3*pi*r^3, if you have another method, great, but in the end we're saying the same thing.
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But this assumes that there really is such a thing as a sphere, and not just our perception of a sphere.
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Originally Posted by stompy
If it wasn't a truth, then half the things we have or use today that are heavily dependant on mathematics couldn't exist. Could there big a bigger picture? Sure, but for now, it works.
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I think you mean if it wasn't accurate then half the things... That's partially true. But remember it's only really accurate on our scale. Larger or smaller scales don't respect our cognitive distinctions.