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trollcatman
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20 Aug 2014, 4:32 pm

LoveNotHate wrote:
I showed you above how 1 + 1 can equal 1. You can test this on your calculator. Imagine in the real world you take 1 rod and connect it with another rod to make 1 rod. When you type 1 + 1 on your calculator it shows 1 + 1 = 2, because it functions in the abstract.


If you turn 2 objects into 1 object, and you then type 1+1 on your calculator, of course it will say 2. That is because you are changing the definion of the things you count along the way. You still have 2x1 rods, they are just stuck together.
And things like Pythagoras, pi, and fractals all existed before we found a way to describe them.



0_equals_true
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20 Aug 2014, 4:49 pm

Like a lot of philosophy of this kind, it is a lot of fluff about nothing. Argument based on semantics, and pseudo-distinctions is not great insight.

There are two fairly obvious way of looking at maths. Maths can model real life, and maths and be purely theoretical.

Without things like number theory and prime number you wouldn't have encryption used in mobile technology and online shopping. The only other alternative is quantum encryption, which is not viable at the moment except for a few banks, and institutions with the resources, and only a few select applications.

Our mathematical ability comes from out neurological ability in noticing and deciphering patterns. This is a an evolved ability. How our capability varies becuase not only is there a biological advantage in having it, but a biological advantage in having lot of different roles and abilities besides pure maths.

Thing like arithmetic and geometry basically hold true physical world. But the majority of maths is modeling, there is rarely a perfect model, but math can be involved in modeling most things.



Last edited by 0_equals_true on 20 Aug 2014, 5:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

DentArthurDent
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20 Aug 2014, 4:53 pm

ZenDen wrote:
Mathematics is only a language and tool.
................................................................

The more carefully you measure the better and more accurate the answer, assuming your math

is adjusted to match reality.

...........................


As is the same for all hypothesis, whatever the language used to describe the concept. If the hypothesis disagree's with reality then it is wrong, ie the concept is wrong not the language.

The idea that maths is not testifiable and does not predict and is therefore not science, is a very complex argument, pure math might fit this profile but certainly not the maths used in physics to predict and describe reality. If Math does not predict and is not testifiable then what the heck were they doing building CERN on the basis of the mathematical prediction that the Higgs Boson should exist.


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03 Sep 2014, 10:33 pm

LoveNotHate makes perfect sense to me with the mathematics anti-realism. What are numbers really? They're just abstract representations of our subjective perceptions of reality? We can't know reality with absolute certainty but we can make approximations.

1 + 1 = 2 is a representation of taking an object that we perceive to be a green apple and taking another object that we perceive to be a green apple and we call these such and we add them together in a process called addition and come up with a quantity called 2. We have 2 green apples in which we think they're green apples though. A dog doesn't see in color but greyscale I believe so wouldn't the dog see two grey apples instead of 2 green apples?

She's right about the rods. Let's say we have 2 rods and put them together. Do we have one rod or 2 rods. Why can't in this case 1 + 1 = 1? The output depends upon the parameters that are used and the rules we use to govern by.

The concept of undefined in mathematics more specifically in division is this. We have a/b=c In order for it to be defined we have to be able to multiply c by b and obtain a back right? By the nature of stating something that is undefined do we not have a definition onto itself? In Star Trek, the enterprise encountered a dimension of space that was artificially created that had no properties. Data made the comment that why can't this be a property or dimension onto itself?

Laws, postulates, theorems only hold up within the defined constraints we put them in through our own subjective interpretation of our environment.

LoveNotHate you are so right on this and I feel a connection with you on this. I am able to totally understand what you're saying and you make perfect sense to me.



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04 Sep 2014, 9:05 am

A $1,000 debt is collectable, no matter how "arbitrary" it might seem to philosophers. No matter if it's some artificial "construct."

TallyMan made a good point: If you go 10 meters over a 9-meter prominence, you WILL feel it--objectively and subjectively.



cubedemon6073
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04 Sep 2014, 10:04 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
A $1,000 debt is collectable, no matter how "arbitrary" it might seem to philosophers. No matter if it's some artificial "construct."

TallyMan made a good point: If you go 10 meters over a 9-meter prominence, you WILL feel it--objectively and subjectively.


1. Because we came up with the idea of debt and collecting.

2. Under conditions that exist you're right we would feel it. There are those who don't feel pain so they wouldn't feel it but they would still die though. What is death though? If matter and energy can't be created or destroyed then I have to ask do we really die or do parts of us exist as other things? Can one exist yet still not live? What does it mean to exist? Is living and being alive but a subtype of existence?



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04 Sep 2014, 10:43 am

It's arbitrary--but it's very "natural" in its impact.



Ectryon
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04 Sep 2014, 1:23 pm

If Dawkins is right and we see the world through order tinted spectacles then maths is just a system weve devised to make sense of a chaotic world. 1 sock + another sock apparently = 2 socks but what if the second sock has a thread missing? Surely its 1.x socks. Furthermore how do we even measure what a complete sock constitutes?

Ive heard of integers and floats as the continuum which makes more sense than the rigid discretising (nice word btw) we use. 3 stands for 3 discrete objects when in reality only in abstract mathematics can such a thing exist. My hand is not aself contained object because under a microscope there are layers of oil muscle foreign particles and so on. The same goes for anything except a vacuum and im pretty sure that thats a "controversial" concept


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04 Sep 2014, 1:28 pm

So, if math isn?t ?real??whatever that might mean?computers don?t work, and neither does this website, or the whole Internet for that matter. Why is this discussion even taking place?


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04 Sep 2014, 1:36 pm

Spiderpig wrote:
So, if math isn?t ?real??whatever that might mean?computers don?t work, and neither does this website, or the whole Internet for that matter. Why is this discussion even taking place?


I think you've just proven math does work.


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Ectryon
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04 Sep 2014, 1:36 pm

If Dawkins is right and we see the world through order tinted spectacles then maths is just a system weve devised to make sense of a chaotic world. 1 sock + another sock apparently = 2 socks but what if the second sock has a thread missing? Surely its 1.x socks. Furthermore how do we even measure what a complete sock constitutes?

Ive heard of integers and floats as the continuum which makes more sense than the rigid discretising (nice word btw) we use. 3 stands for 3 discrete objects when in reality only in abstract mathematics can such a thing exist. My hand is not aself contained object because under a microscope there are layers of oil muscle foreign particles and so on. The same goes for anything even a vacuum where there are quantum fluctuations


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04 Sep 2014, 1:40 pm

Spiderpig wrote:
So, if math isn?t ?real??whatever that might mean?computers don?t work, and neither does this website, or the whole Internet for that matter. Why is this discussion even taking place?



Its not that maths isnt real but that its an abstraction. We see this in quantum phenomena wbere the laws of logic upon which maths is formed break down. Our abstract system becomes more and more unwieldlly the further from the macro scale we travel


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04 Sep 2014, 1:43 pm

Well, even the numbers themselves are created and duplicated from forms in nature, so yes math is real.

And I love math too.

And people who love math and cannot do math tend to think very differently too.

One human's math does not exist for another human.

And that is the way the Universe works.

It's all relative, to Quote Einstein too. ;)

But no it does not take an equation to figure it out; just pattern recognition, per the source of math, is all of human nature that is required
to see the GOD of nature, that yes does include math too, but is not all inclusive of course, per math, for those who have eyes to see the so called
exclusionary parts, which more than apparently not all folks possess.

It is what it is.

IS IT.

IT is a metaphor for GOD, by a way, or path if you WILL; IT.


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04 Sep 2014, 1:44 pm

Spiderpig wrote:
So, if math isn?t ?real??whatever that might mean?computers don?t work, and neither does this website, or the whole Internet for that matter. Why is this discussion even taking place?



Its not that maths isnt real but that its an abstraction. We see this in quantum phenomena wbere the laws of logic upon which maths is formed break down. Our abstract system becomes more and more unwieldlly the further from the macro scale we travel


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04 Sep 2014, 1:52 pm

My hunch is that mathematics doesn't describe the universe so much as the universe IS mathematics. The entire universe is the expression of a complex formula such as a fractal. Noting is "real" as such; anything we call an object is just a mathematical object consisting of various mathematical properties that make it appear like a separate object within the larger formula; rather like there appear to be objects inside the Mandelbrot fractal. We are discovering various mathematical relationships (laws) about these objects and their interactions with one another, but yet can't see the big picture; the formula that describes the entire universe. I further suspect that this grand formula is "simply" an expression of nothing. i.e. trace the universe right back to the big bang and the very point prior to the big bang there was nothing, zero, zilch. But nothing can also be expressed as +1 + -1 or in ever more complex ways and relationships and I suspect our universe is simply the expression of one of these formula through time.


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Ectryon
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04 Sep 2014, 2:08 pm

TallyMan wrote:
My hunch is that mathematics doesn't describe the universe so much as the universe IS mathematics. The entire universe is the expression of a complex formula such as a fractal. Noting is "real" as such; anything we call an object is just a mathematical object consisting of various mathematical properties that make it appear like a separate object within the larger formula; rather like there appear to be objects inside the Mandelbrot fractal. We are discovering various mathematical relationships (laws) about these objects and their interactions with one another, but yet can't see the big picture; the formula that describes the entire universe. I further suspect that this grand formula is "simply" an expression of nothing. i.e. trace the universe right back to the big bang and the very point prior to the big bang there was nothing, zero, zilch. But nothing can also be expressed as +1 + -1 or in ever more complex ways and relationships and I suspect our universe is simply the expression of one of these formula through time.


But you're still thinking in terms of our conceptualised version of mathematics. I would say that our conception is maths is woefully inadequate because its based on a logic system which falls apart at the level of quanta. The really interesting stuff is all going on at the molecular level where our mathematics becomes clumsy. At the macro level where our consciousness tends to reside you have what appear to be discrete packets of matter but this is illusion. I think that the universe is information however and this information is just energy states. Thus when matter is sucked into a black hole some scientists believe that its state data is mapped 2 dimensionally on the surface. Maths is just the language we have invented to decode that. The universe simply is. Maths like language is a means through which we can understand reality on a raw level.


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And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high Hebrews 1:3