If there is no God, how to explain mathematics?

[tom sarbeck]

FYI:

“If the red shifts are a Doppler shift . . . the  observations as they stand lead to the anomaly of a closed universe, curiously small and dense, and, it may be added, suspiciously young.

“On the other hand, if red shifts are not Doppler effects, these anomalies disappear and the region observed appears as a small, homogeneous, but insignificant portion of a universe extended indefinitely in both space and time.“

— Edwin Hubble, 1937 Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices

[Strega]

The laws of physics and the functions of mathematics are like grids that we overlay on the universe so we can use grid references to talk about specific parts.  The universe itself doesn’t care.

[tom sarbeck]

Strega, thank you.

[jakelafort]

Strega, i dont get why you and others have said the universe does not care.  A rock or bottle of gatorade does not care either.  An entity must be sentient before it can care, no?

I don’t get either the position that math and physics is an artificial construct.  Instead it is there and will be there with or without our appreciation of it.  Sure,  loads of our cosmology is perhaps tantamount to mythology.  Our reaching for the stars does not reduce or alter the mathematical nature of reality.

[Simon Paynton]

@jakelafort – I think you could say the same about God.

I disagree that without a human observer then mathematics is absent.  The potential for mathematical entities exists, in the same way that the potential for real phenomena exists.  But yes, mathematical entities require an imaginer to imagine them.

[jakelafort]

Simon i never said that without a human observer mathematics is absent.  I said the opposite.

[Strega]

It’s like claiming inches would exist even if there were no human.  Yes, distances of what we call an inch would exist, but not in any unique way.  We invented mechanisms (maths, physics, etc) to quantify and understand stuff.  Because ‘stuff’ is determinable, that doesn’t give our mechanisms of determination any objective status, outside of human comprehension.

[Strega]

@jakelafort saying the universe doesn’t care, is another way of saying it is unaffected, unmoved, and oblivious to the thing being referred to.

[jakelafort]

Strega, i still think it is weird for atheists to say the universe does not care.

As to your statement i agree.  Or do I?  Really not sure. Perhaps other sentient life has a similar abstraction .  But you are not addressing the nature of reality .  Is the cosmos only possible if it is imbued with mathematics, if mathematics explains it?

My position is yes.  We have extracted the tool from the universe but the universe operates and is subsumed by and in math.

[Davis]

Strega wrote:

Because ‘stuff’ is determinable, that doesn’t give our mechanisms of determination any objective status, outside of human comprehension.

Wow. Strega summed up my multiple endless paragraphs of babble…and she did it all in one sentence. Bravo!!!

[Davis]

Strega wrote:

@jakelafort saying the universe doesn’t care, is another way of saying it is unaffected, unmoved, and oblivious to the thing being referred to.

^^^^^^^ What Strega said  ^^^^^^^^^

[tom sarbeck]

jake, you will someday free yourself from your own torture chamber (in which you are the only torturer).

 

[jakelafort]

Tom, who appointed you swami?

[tom sarbeck]

jake, I’m not hindu. I’m also not religious. I am however a male teacher.

 

[jakelafort]

Tom i know you are a male…Tom gives that away…I know you are an atheist…the site gives that away….but if you think i was calling you a swami for realzies your acumen is lacking and you ought to look for a different profession.

[Author]

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