What is 6÷2(1+2) = ? The Correct Answer Explained

Thank you @HereWeGoAgain .

I am honored.

Descartes is one of my heroes.

 

Information is a product of the mind.

My mind knows lots of information.

So does my cat's mind.

But like time and math, information is all in your head, only.

Q.E.D.

 

I did not and won't watch the vid.

So please tell me about the difference in your way and the vid's way.

Math is based strictly on definitions and these have not changed in decades if not centuries since Newton invented Calculus.

 

I thought math was supposed to be static too.

My way of doing it is the more conventional where a paranthesis implies multiplication: 2(1+2) is (2×1)+(2×2). But according the video, you first solve 6÷2 and then multiply it by (1+2) which is 3×3.

 

Unless you change the time honored definitions of the properties of mathematics then the vid is wrong and you are correct.

Never doubt yourself.

 

@Ritter I am adding you to my VIP list (following) because you seem pretty smart and rational.

 

Me too. When I first took philosophy, we studied Descartes, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato... and I fell in love with the logic. It was my first exposure to such intellectual rigor outside of mathematics. I was floored.

 

Okay, you just jumped on the crazy train. That is not even close to a proof. That is just a claim.

I cited experimental evidence that information is real. You cannot defeat empirical evidence with philosophical arguments.

 

When I took Philosophy 101 in college it was very smooth sailing from Thales (they skipped Hesiod erroneously) through Aristotle.

Up to that point I was the most impressed with Aristotle.

Then when we got to Descartes it completely unhinged my thinking.

Ultimately I embraced most of the Philosophy of Descartes, and other than his ontological proof of God and his mistreatment of animals he is still pretty much the foundation of my philosophical thinking.

 

If you think about it there is no such thing as time or math or information outside of the human mind.

Think about it harder @HereWeGoAgain and I am sure that you will have an Also Sprach Zarathustra moment about it too.

You are an extremely bright person and so you cannot possibly miss it.

 

Then how does a computer work? How does the CPU perform mathematical computation? How does the hard drive store information? There was no human brain in there last time I checked.

 

I do not build computers for a living.

I am a philosopher.

 

However I have heard that computers use electricity and the amount of the charge on a bit allows these machines to count.

Fundamentally they are no different than any other tool of humankind -- like a stone ax for example.

"For what is steel compared with the hand that wields it?"

James Earl Jones.

Conan The Barbarian (1982).

 

Yes, they count. They also do all forms of math. They also store information on the hard drive. All those things (except time) you said could not happen outside a human mind. Your "philosophy" is refuted by reality.

 

Computers are just tools -- nothing more.

They cannot think.

If you unplug one the electricity in them dies and they just sit there like the hunk of metal that they really are.

If you think computers actually think then you have been lied to.

 

A philosopher should know better than to use strawmen. I never said anything about thinking. The words used were math and information.

 

For a computer math is just electricity.

Same with information -- it is just electricity.

 

Therefore, since that electricity exists outside the human mind, your statement is refuted.

Guess what? The same thing happens to a human without electricity.

 

Well you are talking about the biology of the brain, sure.

But in Philosophy we consider the consciousness of the mind.

Surely electricity alone is insufficient to ponder morality and ethics.

 

Does philosophy also teach you to put forth as many red herrings as possible? The issue in question was about mathematics and information, not morality or ethics. I guess when your argument is found to be invalid, the "philosophical" thing to do is to muddy the waters.

 

Existence is a philosophical issue.

Time is a popular topic of Philosophy and the modern conclusion is that time does not exist.

It is merely a concept within the mind of humankind.

Here is an even tougher philosophical issue -- does the mind exist?

And is it independent of the human body?

 

Mathematics obviously does not exist.

It is merely a game that people play with numbers and definitions about numbers.

To assert that math exists is like asserting that chess exists, or checkers, or backgammon.

None of these exists.

 

Since math can be and is done without humans, you are wrong. Saying that something is "obvious" is not an argument. A more accurate thing to say would be that philosophy is a game people play with words. In your case, that game involves moving goal posts from "math" and "information" to "ethics" and "existence".

 

If humans are not doing math then it is not being done.

If a machine does math it is only because humans programmed it to do so.

The computer is just a tool like the stone ax.

 

You are talking absolute nonsense.

Things exist in this world and math is the way to model or describe them.

Take a single object. We had to come up with a term to describe the quantity of this object so we call it 'one'. Now, if we take another single object and pair it with a previous single object we have to come up with another word to describe this new quantity....we called it 'two'. Now, the act of putting those two single objects together to create a new quantity of objects needed a name...we call it 'addition'.

Bam....you have mathematics.

If what you were saying is true we'd literally be living in the stone ages. Math is why we are able to launch rockets, have cellphones, cars, buildings taller than 1 story, etc. If math didn't exist, we'd never be able to launch something into space and know exactly where it will be months/years from now. How do you think we're able to do that with such precision? IT'S ALL MATH.

Also, if you knew anything about which you speak, you'd know that they're not definitions, but axioms.

One more thing, you call yourself a philosopher, which to me means you don't actually know anything about this subject, you simply create the illusion of knowledge which, if you're lucky will fool a person or two but eventually a real mathematician will come on here (me) and blow your **** up.