If there is no God, how to explain mathematics?

[tom sarbeck]

U, I will look for your “A Hitchhikers Guide to Philosophy”.

 

 

[PopeBeanie]

Unseen wrote:

No trick

Not a bad philosophy, either. [… per this PhD-minus-a-few-degrees.]

[Unseen]

He saw the world as math before he learned the math that could describe it.

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

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Very interesting video Unseen. Similar to what I said on page 2,

Math is a language used to describe the Universe we exist in. I recall hearing a mathematician say that for her PhD she mostly did her math using symbols and seldom used numbers except to work the symbols.

I might get my next tattoo based upon his drawings…..this one is healing at the moment. I might use the compass as the starting point.

[tom sarbeck]

Nonsense, U.

The guy’s opening words: “The universe is math.”

Only by first studying math can he “know” that. He then “attaches” the limited math he knows to the limited universe he perceives.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[jakelafort]

Do our brains and in particular those of synesthetes with mathematical propensity reflect the nature of the universe?

[Davis]

tom sarbeck wrote:

Only by first studying math can he “know” that. He then “attaches” the limited math he knows to the limited universe he perceives. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

+1

[Davis]

Language comes naturally to us. The written word comes to us a lot sooner and more easily than advanced math. We learn it faster, retain it longer, make less mistakes with it and use it our whole lives. We can describe most of the universe as we know it through words, express ourselves through words…live every day with words. And yet…I’m not going to claim that the universe is made of words. Our words can be used to form a bad approximation of the universe. Mathematics may be more precise, but it does not come to us naturally, takes a lot of work, most of us don’t get past calculus, forget it quickly…it’s even hard many of us to add some three digit numbers in our heads. We can use math, just like words, to learn about and describe the universe, and as I said, numbers are far more precise and often more informative of the cold universe out there, but our bad math isn’t the universe. What a crappy universe it would be if it was remotely like the mathematics the high majority of humans can figure out.

[_Robert_]

most of us don’t get past calculus, forget it quickly…

Calculus is almost physics. I would call it the physics of perfection. Take integrals for example. That is about 1/3 of a typical text. It’s simply figuring the area under a curve by dividing the curve into so many (sideways 8) segments that each segment becomes a rectangle. Another third of “the calculus” simply deals with the rate of change; aka derivatives. The ideas can be expressed in a few sentences. It is unfortunate that this is often lost in all of the drills. Music is very similar. You just need the “key”. If you don’t get math or music it is because no one gave you the key. Almost everyone gets the language key. So they can live.

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

[_Robert_]

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that the relationships that we see in different areas of the natural world are analogous. Water in a raised tank is as electrical charge in a capacitor, a water valve is as a transistor, a necked-down pipe is like a resistor. The math is the constant. Math exists outside of the human brain just as a felled tree makes a sound if no one is there to hear it.

[Unseen]

tom sarbeck wrote:

Nonsense, U. The guy’s opening words: “The universe is math.” Only by first studying math can he “know” that. He then “attaches” the limited math he knows to the limited universe he perceives. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There’s no indication he took any math beyond what’s required to graduate from elementary and secondary school. I myself don’t believe that the universe IS math. I just offered the video as a way to stimulate further discussion, so thanks for further discussion.

I think that clearly mathematical relations come “built in” with the universe, however. Without that math, there’d be chaos and total unpredictability. The math is discovered through observation and extrapolation, but were it not there what would observations be of?

[Unseen]

Davis wrote:

Language comes naturally to us. The written word comes to us a lot sooner and more easily than advanced math. We learn it faster, retain it longer, make less mistakes with it and use it our whole lives. We can describe most of the universe as we know it through words, express ourselves through words…live every day with words. And yet…I’m not going to claim that the universe is made of words. Our words can be used to form a bad approximation of the universe. Mathematics may be more precise, but it does not come to us naturally, takes a lot of work, most of us don’t get past calculus, forget it quickly…it’s even hard many of us to add some three digit numbers in our heads. We can use math, just like words, to learn about and describe the universe, and as I said, numbers are far more precise and often more informative of the cold universe out there, but our bad math isn’t the universe. What a crappy universe it would be if it was remotely like the mathematics the high majority of humans can figure out.

We the mathematical relations not there, there would be nothing to describe.

[Unseen]

_Robert_ wrote:

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that the relationships that we see in different areas of the natural world are analogous. Water in a raised tank is as electrical charge in a capacitor, a water valve is as a transistor, a necked-down pipe is like a resistor. The math is the constant. Math exists outside of the human brain just as a felled tree makes a sound if no one is there to hear it.

Yes. If the math were not out there, there’d be chaos and nothing, really, to model or describe.

[tom sarbeck]

Unseen wrote: …I just offered the [Meet the Accidental Genius] video as a way to stimulate further discussion,….

U, I too enjoy stimulating further discussion, especially when discussion results in discarding the remaining scraps of theism in the minds of former theists. Would you like to discuss what  Xianity and the Big Bang have in common?

[Author]

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