OT: Objective moral truth

[deccan]

Suicide Junkie said:
With math, you can observe the results of adding 1+1 by putting one thing in a box and then adding one more.
Multiplication by making a grid x wide and y tall.

According to your idea, if you want to prove 10 + 1 = 11, you would need to draw 10 objects, add one more, and then count them all again to prove that there is really 11, and you would need to do that all the time for every number.

The "timelessness" and "idealism" of mathematics is such that you don't need to actually do any counting, just as you don't actually need to draw or make any triangles of various different sizes to prove the axioms of trigonometry for every size and configuration possible for all triangles.

YMMV, but I believe that the "correct" answer should be this:

The "timelessness" and "idealism" of mathematics has the same metaphysical / ontological status as, say, statements relating to the gameplay mechanics of SEIV, such as "Meson beams weapons are inferior to anti-proton weapons in Version 1.91 of stock SEIV". In that sense, both are contrived, fictional systems based on arbitrary, consistent rules and so are "timeless" and "ideal" with regards to the "real" world. Therefore, statements concerning mathematics and SEIV gameplay mechanics can be objectively judged true or false in terms of the respective system without arousing any "weirdness" suspicions of their "reality".

The real "mystery" if there is one is why mathematics "works" in the real world. I think the answer is that mathematical concepts can be "mapped" to real-world concepts in a way that makes sense in that particular context, but not every possible mapping makes sense, which is why we have sayings such that we can't compare apples and oranges. This is particularly evident in applications where the mathematics need to be specifically "tweaked" to fit the situation.

An example: Greg Egan's page describing Special Relativity explains how the mathematics of rotations of objects in 2D space is adapted to fit the context of rotations in space time.

But there are dissenting opinions on this. See this discussion for example on whether or not there are real philosophical issues on the subject of imaginary numbers.

Suicide Junkie said:
Is there any way to observe some sort of basic properties that could be extended into a general "objective morality"?

I'm not sure what you mean here. I could guess, but on a subject this exotic, it might be dangerously misleading.

[Fyron]

deccan said:
According to your idea, if you want to prove 10 + 1 = 11, you would need to draw 10 objects, add one more, and then count them all again to prove that there is really 11, and you would need to do that all the time for every number.

Nope. Think, proof by induction.

[deccan]

Imperator Fyron said:
Nope. Think, proof by induction.

To my mind and within the context of everything that I have already posted above, the proof by induction falls squarely in the realm of the transcendental in that it is not obviously true why it is valid even within an (arbitrarily) assumed naturalistic framework. In short, to employ it would be to rely on the possession of transcendental properties (timelessness, externality etc.) which was what I was trying to avoid doing in the case of mathematics in the first place.