🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bzsrvt.167@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>    Is there a relationship between sets and Plato's Forms?

Some people think so; that is why the popular term for mathematical
realists is "platonists".  Plato's Forms were ideal exemplars of
mundane objects; sets do not have this character (the set of all
natural numbers is not a perfect natural number).  There is a
relationship between sets and form with a small f (to avoid calling
the objects of mathematics "abstract", which I think is
epistemologically misleading, I call them formal objects), but they
are not Forms in Plato's sense.  Moreover, the use of mathematical
objects is quite different from that of Plato's Forms.


>================================================================================
>	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
>you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
>tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
>                                                              AYN RAND
>================================================================================
>Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
>================================================================================


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu