If there is no God, how to explain mathematics?

[Simon Paynton]

What is the meaning of “value”?  It implies “content” of some kind.  Perhaps, that content is meaning, in the sense that it signifies something real to which the value is connected – the group or set of instances of something.

[tom sarbeck]

jake, “math is in fabric of the universe….”?

Where did you find this ‘fabric’?

Does it, like the relativists’ fabric, resemble a sort of trampoline?

[tom sarbeck]

Has anyone noticed the many attempts in this discussion to attach something concocted by humankind (math, rules, limits, logic, etc) to the universe?

The universe pays no attention.

Humankind have also—again and again—concocted and tried to attach to the universe a beginning and an end.

There too, the universe pays no attention.

Do you feel unnecessary?

 

[jakelafort]

Davis, i am not equating mathematics with physical laws, rather i am asserting that anything and everything is described by mathematics.  Whether our understanding of math is flawed is irrelevant.

Language is a bad analogy.  Language is an aesthetic construct.  Language lacks the universality of math.  Incas, Aztecs,  Chinese and Sumerians discovered and utilized the same math because math is inherent and inescapable whereas language is a form of communication that depends on locale and external influences.

I agree that we as humans are limited by our neural networks and other sentient life may have a better engine and therefore mechanism to understand the universe.

The idea that the universe does not give a shit is no different than a rock does not care if two amorous passersby have coitus in the crevice.

 

[jakelafort]

Tom,

Espied it in the gloaming

as i was a roaming

a form descended of ether

had mathematics as its keeper

[Unseen]

@Davis: So Pi is significant only to humans and wouldn’t be noted and/or used by intelligent aliens(?).

That doesn’t pass the snicker test.

[_Robert_]

I dig that poem, jake

[_Robert_]

@Tom

Do you feel unnecessary?

Not yet, but I am working on that.

[_Robert_]

I agree with Davis on some level, however it’s like he has it backwards. Math deals with perfection. Circles, triangles, spheres, exponentials, infinite series, periodic waveforms. It goes on and on. Approximations of these things appear in nature and that’s where physics comes in. So let’s not blame math. It’s our application that is faulty. If approximations of mathematical ideas did NOT appear all over the physical universe I would agree that math is just a language. This is not the case however….nature exhibits itself in all sorts of mathematical ways over and over again, ad nauseum. The greatest revelation I made during my technical education was the fact that the same math applied to seemingly different problems. That the water flow released from a holding tank into a pipe to turn a water wheel was the same math as figuring the electrical current flow resulting from a transistor being turned to light a lamp. It’s all so very beautiful.

 

 

[tom sarbeck]

Unseen, do you know what else doesn’t pass the snicker test?

Aliens.

–

 

[jakelafort]

Thanks Robert

[jakelafort]

Tom i had a gf who did that…ask a question and answer it before i could answer her.

[tom sarbeck]

Unseen, adding 112 and 545 in octal or hex is also a snap.

No column adds to more than 7 so none requires a carry.

[_Robert_]

I always give my age in hex

[Davis]

We shouldn’t mistake the word for the object, the numbers for the phenomena, the model for the reality or abstract concepts and explanations for everything-and-all. That is…when we are answering existential questions.

If unseen had asked any other question then yes, most of us would agree, the universe works like clockwork, works very much in a reliable way with rules that can be modeled mathematically and we might as well take the phenomena for the numbers/models. I agree. The universe may as well be mathematical. You and I certainly act that way and go about our lives taking that for granted.

But the question was an extremely abstract existential one. If the universe is mathematical and there is no God then [follow questions asked by religion apologists that attempt to leave us no choice but positing a divine intelligent agent]. Two ways to deal with this question are:

1. Is the universe really mathematical?

2. Even if the universe was mathematical…why would we need some great being for this to have emerged.

I think that the second question is valid and I’ve never read an apologist’s response that was remotely satisfactory. It could have emerged in an infinite amount of ways that required nothing divine.

As for the first question…on an existential level, is the universe mathematical? Is there a series of falsifiable tests that we can carry out, here on this tiny rock in a remote part of our galaxy, that, assuming the experiment goes well…gives us sufficient confidence to say…okay…yes…the universe is mathematical? And please don’t suggest questions like measure the moon and its gravity or quote Godel’s theorem. We are talking the universe…not the observable part of it to humans and not just the limited ways we can perceive it and the limited ways we can test our models…but the “universe” and everything in it. I don’t believe there is one. And this is one of the reasons most people are disappointing by metaphysical answers to existential problems and I agree…it’s a pretty boring branch of philosophy because all it tends to do is point out our limited understanding of things and our ignorance. Not a lot of people like that and I couldn’t agree more. It’s boring shit. And disappointing. Though yes, I’d be as pleased as punch to find out that we can mistake the numbers/model for the universe. Happy days.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Davis.

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