Is math the language of nature or just a human construct?

[Hume]

In “Defending the Axioms,” Maddy describes the way we’ve gone from mathematics being seen by Plato as an eternal form, like truth or beauty, to identifying math and science as almost one discipline, or at least equals working together, from the time of the scientific revolution onward, to beginning to accept that math and the real world might diverge significantly, thanks to the introduction of new mathematical concepts like n-dimensional spaces and negative numbers in the first half of the 19th Century.

And then on to 20th Century empiricism in which the practices of the scientific method are brought to bear on mathematical questions.

Is math the language of nature or just a human construct?

Scientists still debate whether our mathematical models of the universe objectively exist

www.salon.com

 

[Into the Night]

Math is not science. Redefinition fallacy.
Math is not religion. Redefinition fallacy.
Science is not a "method" or "procedure". Redefinition fallacy.

Go learn English.

 

[Cypress]

Anything represented in our base 10 Indian-Arab numeric system is a human interpretation, but as spatial relationships or ratios, pi, the Pythagorean theorem, and the universal gravitational constant were objectively true billions of years ago, and were discovered by the evolution of our conciousness.

 

[Hume]

Anything represented in our base 10 Indian-Arab numeric system is a human interpretation, but as spatial relationships or ratios, pi and the universal gravitational constant were objectively true billions of years ago, and were discovered by the evolution of our conciousness.

Why does it take time to discover if it always existed?

 

[Cypress]

Why does it take time to discover if it always existed?

You're letting anthropomorphic bias infect your thinking

 

[Hume]

You're letting anthropomorphic bias infect your thinking

I am a human. No human thinks without being human.

 

[Kafka]

Anything represented in our base 10 Indian-Arab numeric system is a human interpretation, but as spatial relationships or ratios, pi, the Pythagorean theorem, and the universal gravitational constant were objectively true billions of years ago, and were discovered by the evolution of our conciousness.

Huh?

 

[Cypress]

Huh?

Do you believe Pluto didn't objectively exist until we discovered it?

Now, apply that same logic to the Pythagorean theorem or the universal gravitational constant.

 

[Hume]

Do you believe Pluto didn't objectively exist until we discovered it?

Now, apply that same logic to the Pythagorean theorem or the universal gravitational constant.

Pluto is a physical object. Math is not a physical object.

 

[Kafka]

Do you believe Pluto didn't objectively exist until we discovered it?

No, no I totally get the idea that these concepts have been objectively true since the beginning. I'm just trying to figure out what the whole first phrase about base 10 numbers being a "human interpretation" means in relationship to the second part of the post.

 

[Cypress]

Pluto is a physical object. Math is not a physical object.

You're letting physicalism and strict empiricism bias your thinking.

Pi and the universal gravitational constant were objectively true ten billion years ago, before any human conciousness was around

Things can be objectively true without existing physically

 

[Hume]

You're letting physicalism and strict empiricism bias your thinking.

Pi and the universal gravitational constant were objectively true ten billion years ago, before any human conciousness was around

Things can be objectively true without existing physically

Pluto exists as physical object. Are you denying this?

 

[Kafka]

Things can be objectively true without existing physically

I'm struggling with your continued reliance on this point. It _seems_ on the face of it that it has some "meaning" but I can't really point to what that meaning is.

In reality what you are saying when you say "pi" exists without being a physical thing, I can sorta see your point but not really given that pi is really little more than an "identity". It literally IS just a ratio of the circumference and diameter of a circle. Without that ratio being pi it simply is NOT a circle.

It is like saying that 1+1 = 2. It is a near tautological claim. It doesn't necessarily point to something beyond space and time. It is a mere descriptor of what something is.

Like saying a blue thing is blue. That doesn't necessarily mean that there is some ineffible something beyond space and time.

 

[Cypress]

No, no I totally get the idea that these concepts have been objectively true since the beginning. I'm just trying to figure out what the whole first phrase about base 10 numbers being a "human interpretation" means in relationship to the second part of the post.

Think man, think!

If there are other advanced alien civilizations, do you believe they use the Hindu-Arabic base 10 numeric system? Or is base 10 a human construct to interpret/translate universal mathmatical truths?

 

[Kafka]

Think man, think!

If there are other advanced alien civilizations, do you believe they use the Hindu-Arabic base 10 numeric system? Or is base 10 a human construct to interpret/translate universal mathmatical truths?

Oh, so you're differentiating what is written vs what it represents. Got it.

Not sure it's particularly meaningful in any real sense, but I totally agree. We made up our number systems.

I still see a lot of mathematics (like Pi) as being little more than definitions and possibly even nearly tautologies. Certainly identities.

The fact that a single item and a single item taken together result in two items doesn't seem to indicate to me some deeper truth. The fact that when you arrange a series of points equidistant around a central point will always and forever define a number (pi) doesn't seem to make pi particularly metaphysical or supernatural. Just another identity.

 

[Bai Lan]

In “Defending the Axioms,” Maddy describes the way we’ve gone from mathematics being seen by Plato as an eternal form, like truth or beauty, to identifying math and science as almost one discipline, or at least equals working together, from the time of the scientific revolution onward, to beginning to accept that math and the real world might diverge significantly, thanks to the introduction of new mathematical concepts like n-dimensional spaces and negative numbers in the first half of the 19th Century.

And then on to 20th Century empiricism in which the practices of the scientific method are brought to bear on mathematical questions.

Is math the language of nature or just a human construct?

Scientists still debate whether our mathematical models of the universe objectively exist

www.salon.com

math has been turned to bullshit too, by the cultural marxists.

 

[Kafka]

math has been turned to bullshit too, by the cultural marxists.

Oh jeeeezus...

I know this is a technical topic and that means you won't have anything meaningful to add, but could you just this once sit it out?

 

[Bai Lan]

Oh jeeeezus...

I know this is a technical topic and that means you won't have anything meaningful to add, but could you just this once sit it out?

I'm afraid not.

again, good minds are wasted on too much theoretical bullshit.

 

[Kafka]

I'm afraid not.

again, good minds are wasted on too much theoretical bullshit.

Just because "life of the mind" kind of stuff doesn't work for you doesn't mean it is a waste for everyone.

 

[Bai Lan]

pi is just a fraction.

two measurements. one divided by the other.

nothing is actually infinite or magical. it's not a new source of energy......

it's just a strange facet of base ten.

you don't have to reduce the fraction.