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torekp comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong Discussion
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From what I read, the procedure for reasoning about non-mundane things is used to avoid drawing any conclusions whatsoever, much less contradictory ones. It's intellectual cowardice masquerading as deep wisdom. (Sorry for dissing your mom, loup-vaillant.)
I largely agree with Cyan, but with a little more empathy for your mom's viewpoint. For example, you write:
So you throw out a description and a quantifier, and slap a label on the result. Doesn't that sound a little similar to naive set theory? Maybe it's not as straightforward as it looks.
I'm not actually resistant to defining "reality" your way; I think it's not actually a step toward sets that don't contain themselves. But it takes some sophistication to see that, and your mom might lack the formal skills to discriminate innocent-looking "logic" that leads to paradox from innocent-looking logic that doesn't. Note that she needn't have studied set theory to have run into similar exercises in labeling and deductive argument that subtly lead to insane results.