Reality is a Set of Points

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Spellbound, Apr 9, 2015.

  1. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Reality is the real numbers. Mathematics comes about by observing nature. Reality. All the objects within reality can be counted by the real numbers. Hence, the real numbers are real which is why we can say things like "reality consists of this many objects."
     
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  3. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    The abstract mathematical reality is nevertheless real itself. It does not only exist on paper or the mind. Although we create mathematics using the mind, it has real meaning in the physical world. If it were truly detached from it then observation and characterization of things or objects and their interactions existing in the real world could not be explained by mathematical equations. Therefore, mathematics is real.
     
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  5. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Are you talking about Planck scales? I personally believe reality is continuous. But Quantum theory would suggest otherwise. What is your opinion?
     
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  7. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I think an armadildo is reality.
     
  8. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    It is! Good for you!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    You're posts are starting to become relevant!
     
  9. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    The human brain has two hemispheres; left and right. The left side of the brain is rational and differential, while the right side of the brain is emotional, intuitive and integral. In essence, the left side of the brain differentiates the mathematical curves of reality, while the right brain integrates the mathematical curves of reality; data.

    In differentiation, we find the slope at a given point on the curve. The left side of the brain is useful to science, because it allows us to isolate phenomena, so we can investigate these. The specialization of science is an artifact of the left brain differentiation of data sets into smaller and smaller points and slopes; specialization has its own angle for the data.

    In integration, we find the area under the curve, from point A to point B. This process of the right brain allows us to develop theory that integrates a range of differential data points; A to B. Theory starts as an intuitive hunch, like the idea of a grand unified theory of force; integrate from gravity to nuke. This then has to be worked on over time from the left brain; slope summation.

    Religion is more right brained. This can be inferred by the observation religions attempt to define a one size fits all theory for reality, that integrates all the data from alpha to omega. These theories are more intuitive; based on faith. Religion is not as good, as science, with differentiation or finding slopes on the curves of reality; define each unique data point. Religion is more about sensing that full scale integrations are possible due to right side of the brain being used.

    I would guess calculus, itself, is a projection from the human brain showing how our human brain processes the points and mathematical curves of reality. In the end, our view of reality has to be consistent with the brain function, to create collective affinity.
     
  10. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    We neither live nor exist in anything like Euclidean space. Euclidean space exists only in the minds of mathematicians, along with ideal points, straight line segments, and parallel lines which never meet.

    In this reality, laser beams obey the inverse square law, and also bend around gravitating bodies. An atom gets its mass from energy in inertia-less space, and fixed length line segments may contract depending on relative states of motion. A 'solid' in this universe is mostly empty space, not precisely described by Euclid's geometry. There is no absolute or fixed space or time. Clocks run at different rates EVERYWHERE. None of these differences between reality and what was in his mind ever seemed to trouble Euclid, who didn't know any better, or the later mathematicians who built on his work to construct ever more complex mathematics and geometry with only the vaguest binding to anything real. This is principly why mathematicians need to come to terms with the real limitations of their imaginary and sometimes delusional constructs. There is a huge difference in the absolute truth of any symbolic construct and what it may mean when an attempt is made to apply it to any non-absolute truth applied in the real world, which is the rule rather than the exception, in actual fact.

    Counting is only an adjunct to cognition. If it were not, simple calculators would have taken all our jobs a long time ago. For this, we should be grateful bean counters do not rule the world. Or do they?
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2015
  11. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    There are a number of professionals who would disagree with you. See Alphanumerics response from two years ago in the thread Spacetime is reality.

    As well as this...

    - Reality -
    Is Everything Made of Numbers
    ?
     
  12. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder if all is one since reality is one. Meaning that it is indeed homogenous and separation is an illusion. That all numbers in reality is really one. I.e. that there is only one reality that everything we see is built up from.
     
  13. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    Simplistic pop-science bullshit. In case you haven't seen the latest research.

    http://www.livescience.com/39373-left-brain-right-brain-myth.html
     
  14. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Quantitative symbols originally represented sets of objects, units of measurement, or distinctions of some kind (those groupings also accordingly served as the count of their members). The particular, varying empirical content of such sets (pebbles, goats, olives, footstep-lengths, etc) was stripped away by the abstract placeholders so that only the common generic characteristic that such sets shared was represented for manipulation. This is what made mathematical or proto-mathematical practices unique: That these signs and their quantitative properties and regulating rules and relationships could float and develop on their own; be divorced from the phenomenal affairs of the world that spawned them. Astonishingly, many (if not most) of the products engendered by that purely intellectual enterprise could be re-connected or find application again with the empirical reality.

    Thus these symbols and the formal systems which govern their manipulation and progressions are artificial. But in their origin era they were used to represent locally real items and circumstances; and were and can still be brought back into useful connection with the world by non-purist mathematicians or the practical builders, craftspeople, engineers, economists, scientists, etc. Indeed, perhaps the only thing holding the Platonists, Pythagoreans, or mathematical realists at bay are any offspring which have fallen out of the "evolution" of the quantitative science that [yet] seem to lack correspondence to or utility with our concrete environment and the rest of the cosmos.
     
  15. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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  16. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to me to once again be making the same basic logical error you seemingly make in most of your posts. You confuse the "is" of class-inclusion with the "is" of identity. So you repeatedly announce that some x is real (a member of the expansive class of everything that exists) and then assume that implies the 'is' of identity, so you falsely and absurdly announce that reality is x.

    It's true that mathematics aids us in understanding reality. In some way that isn't currently understood, mathematics seems to share some formal isomorphism with the fundamental principles of nature that physicists hope to conceptually model. That's why mathematics has proven so useful in science. There's seemingly an identity of underlying abstract structure.

    But the same thing can be said about maps. A map shares some limited geometrical isomorphism with the territory it represents.

    But it would be the height of foolishness to announce that the territory is the map.
     
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  17. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Yazata, this is by far the finest post of any kind I've ever seen on General Philosophy.

    I had no idea some folks actually try and make syllogisms from identity vs class-inclusion like Spellbound seems to keep doing, but that is certainly one dynamic of dealing improperly with absolutes.

    By any chance, could you recommend any additional reading on just this aspect of philosophy?
     
  18. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Reality is analogous to the horse and math is analogous to the cart. In game engine physics, math allows one to defy the law of reality, so the game can be more fun; infinite lives. This shows what can happen if we place the math cart before the horse; one might assume a reality that is not there. If we place the horse first, to pull the cart, this adds constraints to math cart, so it can better reflect reality. Math is the hammer and not the carpenter.
     
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  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Math, like language or a hammer is, as you say, a tool. The tool is not the art, nor the construction you can accomplish with it. And no tool is perfect for every job either.
     
  20. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    It is logically sound to equate whatever is real with reality since reality is equivalent to whatever is real. It's a generalization without which science and mathematics could not exist.
     
  21. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    It's circular logic performed with meaningless symbols which explains exactly and identically nothing, mathematically or otherwise, either about the reality it supposedly represents or otherwise.
     
  22. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    'Q' is a letter in the alphabet. But the alphabet isn't the letter Q.

    If an individual is a member of a larger class, the larger class doesn't become logically equivalent to, let alone synonymous with or identical to, the individual.

    Grammatically, the word 'is' typically indicates a subject-predicate relation. It doesn't necessarily imply logical equivalence, synonymity or ontological identity at all.

    'The book is on the table' attributes being on the table to the book.

    But to say that 'on the table' is logically equivalent to or means the same thing as 'the book' is absurd.

    A and B are logically equivalent if they can be substituted for each other in any proposition, without changing the proposition's truth value. That obviously isn't the case here. ('The coffee cup is on the table' is T, but 'The coffee cup is the book' is F.)

    We need to go in another direction. We need to understand what we are saying about the book, we need to understand what it means for something to be on the table.

    Your repeated 'X is real', hence 'reality is X' assertions tell us nothing about what reality is or what it means for something to be real.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2015
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  23. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Reality is the totality of what is real, not just a part.
    But you are committing, and continue to commit, a compositional fallacy (I.e. you are applying the nature of a part of reality to the entirety of reality).
    Since this error of yours is real, and that reality includes this error, you would undoubtedly conclude that "reality is an error"? And more specifically: "Reality is an error committed by Spellbound".
     
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