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Comment by rendall | Hacker News Reader

> Mathematics exist independently of biology or perception of reality.

Even the concept of "number" itself is almost certainly an artifact of perception that enabled our ancestors to survive our niche, planetary environment, and not an inherent feature of objective reality.

Aliens, evolved to survive in another environment entirely with a different set of initial conditions, almost certainly would not have the same, nor even any, understanding of "number".

Would we consider such aliens a civilization or some kind of insensate "process"?

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Um no.

I'm so over this deconstructionist "reality is your perception" line.

Numbers are a thing. In fact they're one of the most basic observable things about the universe. And the concept if a number holds up all the way down to the quantum level. I.e. space and time are discrete and therefore space and time can both be COUNTED. Counting is literally one of the most basic and early achievements of human cognition and were gonna act like we just made it up?

Absolute silliness.

> I'm so over this deconstructionist "reality is your perception" line.

What makes you completely reject that? I don't think it has as much to do with deconstructionism as it does embodied cognition. We keep learning more and more about how biology and physiology and evolutionary pressures affect and inform cognition and thus perception. I was recently reading about how there have been scientific studies that seem to suggest that certain animals seem to experience time differently that we do. So you could say "time is a thing", but yet, it appears that it is not the same thing across lifeforms. There are animals that sense gravitational and electromagnetic fields, something we cannot do. Would it make sense to them to say "all beings can read these fields because we do"?

I think the problem is that it is all too easy to fall into the trap in thinking that alien lifeforms would be like us. There's a multitude of evidence of that here on Earth in the variety of life, despite even coming from the same origin.

This is a great rebuttal, and gestures towards what I was getting at. Thanks.

> There are animals that sense gravitational and electromagnetic fields, something we cannot do.

That actually proves the fact that reality is not simply someone's perception. (We humans do not perceive these fields, and so it took scientific advances for us to discover them as part of the objective reality.)

Yes, thank you. This line of reasoning is so painfully flawed and in a lot of cases outright dangerous or unhealthy.

There is an objective reality that exists beyond our perceptions. But our perceptions are based on that objective reality to some extent. We're not just making shit up. That doesn't make any sense.

> "reality is your perception"

You imagined what I meant so vividly that you literally made up a quote!

Try responding to what I actually wrote, and if it's unclear, asking with some humility.

I'm not even sure what your objection is, exactly. Nothing you wrote contradicts what I wrote.

> I'm so over this deconstructionist "reality is your perception" line.

Kant would have a field day with this statement

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