Atheists - prove it.

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Well, clearly you're not a chemist. The periodic table is not at all arbitrary; both progression across the table and progression down the table has dramatic significance in terms of progressive behaivors such as electronegativity and in qualitative differences such as the stability of the noble gasses and the reactivity of the alkali metals, which are so reactive that the do not naturally occur in elemental form. The periodic table is a profoundly beautiful description of the way matter exists in this universe, how types of matter are related to each other, and of the fundamental difference that numbers of protons make on the weight of the element, its size, its attractiveness to electrons, and on the level of the quantum arrangement of an element's electrons, all of which determine the behavior of that element.


You clearly don't know what you're talking about.


*snort*
Again, you mistake the model for the thing itself.

{snip disingenuous wordplay}


I am using adjectives only because I am typing words onto an internet forum. Go into a chemistry lab, and these things demonstrate themselves to you without any words at all being necessary.


What humans perceive as music is subjective; chemistry is not.


the counted one is less precise than the one of the proton that demonstrates that interger's existence. A counted one is nothing but an arbitrary point on a number line, equidistant from other arbitrary points; it is the model, and it is a very useful model - but it is nothing but a reflection of the universe, mirrored as best we can in our own heads. 91 (and to some extent you) seem to be claiming that this counted, conceptual, arbitrary "one" is somehow more real and outside of the actual, physical universe - and even more foolishly, that the existence of real ones is somehow dependent on conceptual ones!

Umm, they certainly meet the definition of abstract objects. If they are not abstract, then they are concrete, like a chair or an atom. They do not have physical reality outside of our minds but they do have ontological impact. Hence, they are defined as abstract objects and the question becomes one of how to explain their significance and existence.



This is your contention and your supporting argument is an impossible counterfactual. I just don't buy it, on your logic there is a possible universe that doesn't exist, if we accept logical contradiction as being acceptable. If something contains explicit logical contradiction, then it is fair to say it cannot exist. One your logic we would also have to accept married bachelors and square circles as being logically possible... way to deny the necessity of logic.



So your argument that a mind cannot be the grounding for abstract objects is that this view is inconsistent with naturalism. What EPIC question begging. The whole point of the argument is that it is incompatible with naturalism.

There are good reasons not be think that abstract objects exist at all, for example, Dr. William Lane Craig is a nominalist, so I am trying not to push this argument past its maximum but you just keep making bad objections.

An standard Hydrogen atom has 1 proton and 1 electron.

and a neutron.

even the subatomic particles probably have smaller components or is an effect of a non mass phenomena.

there is no natural integer as such though the concept of one is universal but relative to perspective.

Only the heavier isotopes. The most common isotope has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons.

There are three isotopes of hydrogen. Hydrogen atoms try to complete their first electron shell which is why hydrogen gas consists of molecules of hydrogen, two atoms per molecule each sharing its electron with the other.

rubeyn

It most certainly is. I don't know who "invented" the periodic table, but that person or people had to make some decisions as to the form and structure of how the elements are laid out. With only a little imagination another workable scheme could be devised. It just happens that the table as it is worked really well for it's inventor(s) and, subsequently, everyone else.


Let's assume this is true. Then if I cared or had a need to use the periodic table, I could read a book or consult a chemist/chemistry teacher to explain to me how it works, which column is the inert gases, where the halides are, and so on. Merely looking at a periodic chart is not going to tell me that if I don't already know.


OK...then describe the physical properties of any given number. I'm still waiting.

{snip disingenuous wordplay}


I can chemically test quantities of chemicals. I cannot chemically test qualities of "1." Still waiting...


Not the point. The point is that music, like numbers, doesn't really exist "out there." Chemistry is much more concrete. I often explain to my students when I teach them to read music that printed music is not really music but merely ink and paper. Sound waves are merely sound waves, and you only distinguish between "music" and any other random sound if you are able to detect some organic unity within the sounds you are hearing. That's the only way you know something is music--it has to be heard. While music is subjective, numbers are not, but rather make up a larger language with which we communicate many kinds of ideas. It's nearly impossible, for example, to compose a sentence without at least one indication of quantity. It's not wordplay at all. Numbers in and of themselves possess no physical makeup.


Why? 1x=proton cannot equal 1 because the proton itself can be demonstrated to be a sum of all of its parts. In music, the time signature 4/4 does NOT =1. As a matter of fact, fractions in math don't =1, either, when you put the "model" into practice. Time signatures are all equal divisions of a whole note, hence why the denominator is always a multiple (or division) of 2. 4/4 means the counted pulse is a quarter note and the equivalent of 4 of them will be present in every measure. 4/4 is still 4, 3/4 is 3, 2/2 is 2, and so on. Another example is the classic example of division using a pie. In reality, if you divide 1 pie into 4 equal parts, you can't get 1 back because you've already destroyed the pie. Rather than 1 pie, which you can't get back, you have 4 pieces. Sure, you can simplify. But, just as in music, 1/1 means something different than 4/4.


Nope. A number line, if we're talking about math class here, is a physical, symbolic REPRESENTATION of something that doesn't otherwise physically exist. The line itself doesn't "really" exist, either. For anything to have physical reality, it must be demonstrably present in three spacial dimensions, 4 if you count a temporal dimension.


Oh, absolutely. On this there is no objection from me.


Exactly.


"Numbers" don't care if the universe exists or not. They don't even care if a mind perceives them or not. But we couldn't perceive them to exist if they didn't really exist, unless you want to argue that we are all under some kind of mass hallucination. It remains, however, that there is no such "real" thing as a "1." Any time you point to what you call a "real 1," you are pointing to an apparently singular object based on some definition of what a whole object of that particular type is: 1 proton, 1 human being. What you are basically proving is that numbers manifest themselves indirectly in counted objects. You have yet to show me the physical property of an actual number itself.

Mendeleyev invented the periodic table we currently use. Since he worked well before a complete theory of atom structure and bonds was worked out, his accomplishment is a brilliant feat of empirical insight. He intuited an underlying structure and regularity and was able to predict that certain elements, when discovered would have particular physical properties. The reason for this structure was only understood with the invention of quantum physics.

My I suggest you acquaint yourself with the Pauli Exclusion Principle?

ruveyn

Well, LKL is right in the sense chemistry is not my greatest strength. Sure, I passed high school chemistry, but I was relieved when it was over and I think my teacher was relieved to see me go. But I do remember the usefulness and structure of the periodic table.

Mendeleyev didn't really invent the periodic table, at least not the way we know it. Our periodic table show groups vertically. Mendeleyev arranged groups horizontally. Our table is the culmination of a long period of refinement. It is not the only possible way of representing the idea of elemental periodicity.

My point was that there are different ways of displaying periodicity. I would even say that a rectangular chart is probably not really the best way to represent periodic qualities of elements, but rather some kind of circular or spiral model. The table as we know it is merely what some people thought was the "best-looking" representation. The final decision--rectangular layout, giving the actinides/lanthanides their own space, whether or not to keep a placeholder for those elements, and so on--is arbitrary. To suggest it is the ONLY way shows lack of imagination.

Numerical systems are arbitrary. We could pick base 6 as much as we picked base 10. Then numbers would be 1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,13,14,...

The axioms were not arbitrary. 3+3 would still be six, whether we represented six as 6 or 10.

Similarly, the rules about the placement in the periodic table were kind of arbitrary, but the placements themselves are not. Atomic number, classification, and other things affect the placement. If we called copper "red rock" it would still have the same atomic number.

Thanks for reading.

A bunch on nonsense gibberish. If you can just state something and not only that it will exist but it cannot fail to exist then why modern mathematicians talk about set theory. I have already thoroughly debunked you silly view in the same thread.

Right. What I was talking about was really a matter of aesthetics, the idea of how "nice" the periodic table looks. Those ARE arbitrary decisions.

The decision on HOW to organize elements on the table is also arbitrary, but I think the end result serves a particular need, not to mention it shows a correspondence between atomic structure and behaviors of those elements. But if all you wanted to do is show what metals are, what halides are, what inert gases are, and so on, you don't need to show that in a periodic chart. And the periodic table doesn't REALLY show that since at certain temperatures and pressures even hydrogen "acts" like a metal. It's certainly useful in more ways than for what was initially intended and, as ruveyn pointed out, was a tremendous accomplishment for its time.

All I'm saying is that nobody MADE Mendeleev describe periodic elements the way he did. The ordering of his original periodic elements is different than the one we're familiar with, though it fits the same purpose. At some point he had to make a decision on how to go about it--so ordering the elements on his chart really is arbitrary. He just arbitrarily chose to do it in a way that made sense.

Sets do not change the abstract nature of abstract objects, only how we interpret their ontological function. In fact, if we ever encountered an ontologically active but incomplete logical theory, then we would have fantastic grounds for thinking that they exist within a mind.

Once again, the model != the thing itself. The model is abstract. The thing is not.


Talk to a theoretical physicist if you have a problem with it. My scientific area of training was evolutionary biology, but I have heard enough physicists speak about these concepts (potential other universes more recently; timlessness, dimensionlessness prior to the big bang for decades) to accept that these are not fringe concepts in the physics community.


What, as opposed to your question-begging that 'the number one is abstract, existing only in the mind; the mind is outside of this universe; therefore, the number one exists outside of this universe!'?

Sure, I can agree with this part.


This part is not accurate. The organization of the elements into the groups that they are in is based on their intrinsic behaviors - behaviors that vary drastically from group to group. Yes, H does behave differently at different temperatures and pressures - but the pressures and temperatures that it takes to get it to behave that way are entirely consistent with its weight and the quantum place of its electron. How much pressure and heat it takes a given element to behave in a certain way is one of the many behavioral characteristics that determine the group that it exists in.


are you claiming that 'making sense' is arbitrary?! We arbitrarily choose to claim, in mathematics, that 3+3 =6 and 3*3 =9, and that was an "arbitrary" decision based on the individuals who 'invented' mathematics?!

Paging Orwell...

Do you have to torture the guy?