Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras
View Post
Then you really don't know very much about Pythagoras. He studied math for religious reasons. He was not interested in practical applications, and he would quite honestly have been disgusted by any assertion to the contrary. He had ideas about the divine nature of number and proportion which fueled his study. This is why the Pythagoreans quite famously refused to accept that there could be any magnitude which is incommensurate with shorter magnitudes (a concept which we now call "irrational numbers") despite the fact that there is a fairly simply proof which shows that the Pythagorean position is incorrect.
I literally quoted your exact words and even provided the direct context of those words. How did I misquote you?
Allow me to try a different tack, here. This entire direction of our discussion arose when you said that metaphysics could not be utilized to discuss the question of whether actual infinities can exist in reality.
Do you now agree that metaphysics is the study of the underlying foundations of reality?
If so, do you now agree that the study of the underlying foundations of reality is fairly useful in determining whether or not a thing can exist in reality?
Comment