Math can’t Move Matter
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Seungbae Park
Abstract
Causal platonism asserts that mathematical objects cause neural states in human brains. I raise the following four objections to it. (i) Quantum entanglement does not show that one object can causally affect another, although one is nontemporal, nonspatial, and unchanging. (ii) Causal platonism can neither be justified a posteriori nor a priori. (iii) To postulate mathematical media to flesh out mathematical causation is to multiply mysteries beyond necessity. (iv) To say that mathematical causation is unintelligible and inexplicable is not to complain about causation in general.
Acknowledgments
Useful comments came from Dr. Benjamin Callard, Dr. Jody Azzouni, and the participants in the Fourth Taiwan Metaphysics Colloquium held at National Taiwan University in January, 2020.
References
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Math can’t Move Matter
- Sparks of New Metaphysics and the Limits of Explanatory Abstractions
- Implication as Inclusion and the Causal Asymmetry
- Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism
- Power, Capacity, Disposition and Categorical Properties: A Roughly Aristotelian Proposal
- Anti-Criterialism Does Not Result in an Unacceptable Consequence
- Truthmaking. Are Facts Still Really Indispensable?
- Discussing the Formal Components of Material Objects: A New Reply to Bennett
- Easy Ontology and Undecidable Sentences
- The Metaphysical Foundations of the Principle of Indifference
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Original Papers
- Math can’t Move Matter
- Sparks of New Metaphysics and the Limits of Explanatory Abstractions
- Implication as Inclusion and the Causal Asymmetry
- Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism
- Power, Capacity, Disposition and Categorical Properties: A Roughly Aristotelian Proposal
- Anti-Criterialism Does Not Result in an Unacceptable Consequence
- Truthmaking. Are Facts Still Really Indispensable?
- Discussing the Formal Components of Material Objects: A New Reply to Bennett
- Easy Ontology and Undecidable Sentences
- The Metaphysical Foundations of the Principle of Indifference
