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/lit/ - Literature

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10042718 No.10042718 [Reply] [Original]

Is the universe fundamentally just mathematics?

>> No.10042723

Yes

>> No.10042736

>>10042718
No. Our universe is fundamentally composed of water.

>> No.10042745

Very dumb. Math is language. Yhe whole universe could be described in english, but would you ask if the universe is fundamentally english? Obviously many aspects of the universe are quantitative, so can be described by universal mathematics. But many other things are qualitative, and so math cannot describe them at all.

>> No.10042958

>>10042745
Math is not language. You are confusing human description of a phenomena with the phenomena itself.

>> No.10043127

>>10042958
Please show me a naturally occurring number 1

>> No.10043137

>>10043127
Not him, but how does that prove that mathematics is a language?

>> No.10043151

yeah.

>> No.10043158

>>10042958
Math is literally abstraction upon abstraction. Just very precisely define ones.

>> No.10043162

>>10043137
What else could it be?

>> No.10043170
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10043170

>>10043162
The relations between non spatio temporal objects

>he doesn't believe in the theory of forms

>> No.10043204

>>10043137
Sans language, that question cannot even be asked. Op's question looks swell, but it means nothing.

>> No.10043228

You can transcribe a lot of things into equation and other mathematical formulas.
The Universe isn't fundamentally hungarian, just because I describe it using that language.

>> No.10043258

Mathematics is an abstract structure that must be concretely instantiated. Causal structuralism/structural realism/dispositional essentialism is a viciously circular or regressive metaphysical position.

>> No.10043264

>>10043258
Go on...

>> No.10043274

>>10042718
Yes. Math is objective. 1 E 1 no matter what

>> No.10043476

>>10042736
thale meme

>> No.10043487

>>10043127
Number 1 is a definition applied to anything defined by oneness. And oneness is not a device of language but a referenced object of language. You're conflating the sense and thoughts with the reference.

>> No.10043498

>>10043487
Oneness is not a number however

>> No.10043512

>>10043487
things aren't naturally defined. something is defined by us. the concept of oneness is a product of your perception in your attempt to use maths to describe what you perceive as reality. it's nothing more than a language

>> No.10043525

This is probably a question I should ask /sci/ instead, but is there a good flow chart or reading order to read math books?

Like, if you read a calculus book, where do you go after that? etc. etc.

>> No.10043684

>>10042958
>description for phenomena.
The laws of physics and mathematics are descriptions. Math sets forward a way of describing by introducing a unique vocubalry of the number. The primary distinction between math and other languages is that the words of math are non-synonymous, while almost everything within can be defined in terms of any other. The problem is ut cannot say anything about redness, even though it can tell us about where red comes from. As demonstration, the laws of math do not hold as is when utilizing different number bases. Whole new patterns emerge when you try to describe the world in base 12 vs base 10. What makes Math seem different is that it is axiomatic, whereas most languages are disorganized. Math is no one's native language.

>> No.10043779

>>10043487
Read Frege

>> No.10043788

>>10043525
Sci wiki. Don't even make a thread because the wiki is good stuff

>> No.10043818

>>10043476
that was pretty witty.

>>10042958
this is pretty dumb.

>> No.10043820

>>10043127
A person could show you an infinite number of naturally occurring number ones - and two, and three, and any number. "Number, number, all is number..."

You should read Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy." An underwhelming book, for me, and not focused on the topic at hand, but Russell covers it none the less, and very well. Roger Penrose and many others cover this topic as well.

>> No.10043833

>>10043684
>math is no one's native language

It is everyone's. The idea that "whole new patterns" would emerge is again, from Man's point of view. In reality, the patterns merely are. Math simply is. The way we think about and communicate mathematically, is what is human language.

>> No.10043837

>>10043818
And the Athenians thought Socrates a great evil.

>> No.10043840

>>10043127
Your thought of the abstract concept of 1 is an observation of the naturally occurring 1.

>> No.10043841

>>10043833
>It is everyone's

Dude in a lot of primal groups they don't have a word for anything over 3 of something. They just give up and starting call it a lot

>> No.10043846

>>10043840
Thats really fucking dumb, its like saying my thought of a unicorn is an observation of the naturally occuring unicorn

>> No.10043850

>>10043512
Us creating definitions does not imply that those definitions do not reference some real abstract object.

>> No.10043863

>>10043850
>real abstract object
what did he mean by this

>> No.10043864

>>10043525
After a certain point, mathematics is no longer linear in the sense you go from textbook to textbook. I would get a solid foundation in the basics (calculus and linear algebra mainly, though there are prerequisites to those) and then go learn whatever piques your interest. And yes /sci/ wiki is helpful. Also Google "How to become a pure mathematician." And use math.stackexchange.com for questions - some of the questions have textbook recommendations.

>> No.10043887

>>10043841
That's just a primitive form of math, the same way our concept of math is primitive compared to what we will know about it in another few thousand years. It's a language that we are continually developing.

>> No.10043894

>>10043846
Unicorns exist metaphysically.

>> No.10043917

>>10043841
You're still viewing this from a human point of view, but, in any case, that one and two exists for them holds my point. You're simply observing a primitive state of mathematical description.

>> No.10043923

>>10043917
>You're still viewing this from a human point of view

As opposed to what, a cat's view?

>> No.10043924

>>10042718
All of science is built on top of the principles of mathematics.

Biology
----------
Chemistry
----------
Physics
______
Mathematics

>> No.10043925

>>10043833
Of course it is from man's point of view. That's how language works. The universe has no rule for how a circle is made. The very concept of a circle is man's creation. Are there objects which can be described as circles? Yes, just as there are objects that can be described as blue, or large, or sultry. No one is born knowing match. It takes effort to distinguish quantities. And to say that something is quantitative is only to say that it can be distinguished as individual from among a set of similar things. Consider zero. Nothing is not a thing. It took a long time for anyone to start to think about and describe nothingness. It was not believed to be real. Everything needed to be something. But then, a definition for nothingness was created. Once that thought existed, people could start thinking about it. And once it was given a mathematical definition, zero, it could be used in math, where it has been invaluable. But still, nothingness is not a thing. You will not find it anywhere. Patterns, by their nature, are not existing to be found, but are rather called forth by the human mind based on the way we choose to look at the world. Pythagoras's theorem does not exist outside man's mind. The concept of a triangle does not exist outside of man's mind. That language describes a physical object, does not make the language the same as the object. Math is a system of referents, and the system one uses will change the patterns one sees, because the patterns belong to the system, not the referred. It is not the world that creates the rules for what is poetic in English. Rather it is English that creates rules about how the world can be poetic in English. The same sentence in French may have the same meaning, but will lack poetry, will lack the same pattern. That a pair of things is both one entity and two entities should make this abundantly clear to you.

>> No.10043926

>>10043887
>the same way our concept of math is primitive compared to what we will know about it in another few thousand years

How the fuck do you know that?

>> No.10043932

that's a fun book to read.
I read that shit.
Don't know where it wound up.

>> No.10043933

>>10043850
Obviously not, you retard. But the existence of the referred does not make it the same as the referent. That there are abstractions that can't be quantified does not mean they don't exist, but rather that math is limited.

>> No.10043938

>>10043925
I don't have time to read your whole post, or answer it in depth now - I actually only came back to modify my post; I'll be back later though.

>That's how language works

Precisely. You're already coming at this from a linguistic point of view. You must relinquish your belief and start from the bottom.

By "man's point of view" I mean, more precisely, the human domain. You must observe the natural domain.

Anyway, that you think an entire field of mathematical philosophy which has been debated and studied by philosophers and mathematicians alike for millennia can be so easily dismissed is truly baffling. You should read more erudite discussions on platonic views of mathematics and leave all this linguistic nonsense behind.

>> No.10043943

>>10043923
Sure. Imagining a cat's point of view would be useful.

I'll go through the exercise with you at a later time - should this thread survive.

>> No.10043966

>>10043924
That's not true at all. Science is built on logic. All of these things are different applications of logic. But they are all quantitative applications, which leaves open the entire qualitative application of logic outside the possibilities of science. Math is only seen as more fundamental, because it is the most abstract application of logic, but many theories of match originate from geometry, and geometry is simple physics. Likewise, chemistry can be seen as a diminutive of physics, but likewise all the properties of physics are determined by chemistry. Biology can certainly be seen as chemistry and physics, but of the four you listed, it relies the least on match. One does not need any math to distinguish between a tibia and a fibia, nor to know what the heart does. Almost all the preliminary definitions of biology lack any quantitative meaning, in it is only their geometry that allow them to be quantified for both physics and chemistry.

>> No.10043968

>>10042736
Excuse me but it's fire

>> No.10043994 [DELETED] 
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10043994

>>10042958

>> No.10044004

>>10043938
>dismissed

Who is dismissing anything? You are the only one dismissing anything here. You wish to be rid of the entire spectrum of qualitative existence, simply because you do not understand the terms. Weird that you would reference Plato, when he taught mathematics as a BRANCH of philosophy, not the source of reality. To say that the universe has physical and measurable parts is not to say that it is only physical and measurable and all else is an illusion. It is impossible to think in any other way than language, because language is a codification of thought. You cannot think something if you do not have a way of defining it. Mathematics is inherently a system of definitions, i.e. a language. This is not coming from a "linguistic" point of view. This is the philosophic view. The metaphysics of math are semiotic. Mathematical formulas hold the same structures as logical formations in any other language. The primary difference is the way these languages relate to themselves. Math is so rigidly structured and defined that it has many ornate and recursive patterns. If you measure the universe with a meter stick, of course everything's going to come out looking like a transformation of the meter. Somehow, though, it is only the student of math who finds this wondrous. No student of German would be amazed to find that German can be used to describe everything.

>> No.10044035

>>10043264
This: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SKlRTfkUieWFVuTXpBcGpVRm8/edit

is a good introduction to the debate. But basically, the world cannot be relational at a fundamental level but must 'bottom out' somewhere.

>> No.10044068

>>10042718
>Detect a phenomenon
>Write number about it
>DUDE LMAO THIS NUMBER ACTUALLY TELLS US ABOUT THE EVENT :DDD"

I swear on me mum Scientists are the stupidest fucking bunch of them all.

>> No.10044091

>Reads a Reddit Post on Alfred North Whitehead Once: The Book

>> No.10044132

>>10043127

This retort is deeper than you think.

>> No.10044322

If you are a scientific realist you must be a mathematical platonist as well

>> No.10045157

>>10044132
How so?