The Language of Physics.

[Write4U]

And physics rule why stuff in space form the shape they do, as well as the way they move (interact) between themselves forming such patterns as they do

OK. lets look at the definition of pattern.

Patterns

A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated like a wallpaper design.

Any of the senses may directly observe patterns. Conversely, abstract patterns in science,
mathematics, or language may be observable only by analysis. Direct observation in practice means seeing visual patterns, which are widespread in nature and in art. Visual patterns in nature are often chaotic, never exactly repeating, and often involve fractals.

Is a fractal a physical thing?

Natural patterns include spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tilings, cracks, and those created by symmetries of rotation and reflection.

Patterns have an underlying
mathematical structure;[1] indeed, mathematics can be seen as the search for regularities, and the output of any function is a mathematical pattern. Similarly in the sciences, theories explain and predict regularities in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern

Patterns in Nature
Symmetry (Further information: Symmetry in biology, Floral symmetry, and Crystal symmetry)

Symmetry is pervasive in living things. Animals mainly have bilateral or mirror symmetry, as do the leaves of plants and some flowers such as orchids.[29] Plants often have radial or rotational symmetry, as do many flowers and some groups of animals such as sea anemones. Fivefold symmetry is found in the echinoderms, the group that includes starfish, sea urchins, and sea lilies.[30]

Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking sixfold symmetry; each flake's structure forms a record of the varying conditions during its crystallization, with nearly the same pattern of growth on each of its six arms.[31] Crystals in general have a variety of symmetries and crystal habits; they can be cubic or octahedral, but true crystals cannot have fivefold symmetry (unlike quasicrystals).[32] Rotational symmetry is found at different scales among non-living things, including the crown-shaped splash pattern formed when a drop falls into a pond,[33] and both the spheroidal shape and rings of a planet like Saturn.[34]

Symmetry has a variety of causes. Radial symmetry suits organisms like sea anemones whose adults do not move: food and threats may arrive from any direction. But animals that move in one direction necessarily have upper and lower sides, head and tail ends, and therefore a left and a right. The head becomes specialised with a mouth and sense organs (cephalisation), and the body becomes bilaterally symmetric (though internal organs need not be).[35] More puzzling is the reason for the fivefold (pentaradiate) symmetry of the echinoderms. Early echinoderms were bilaterally symmetrical, as their larvae still are. Sumrall and Wray argue that the loss of the old symmetry had both developmental and ecological causes.[36]

• 
  
  Animals often show mirror or bilateral symmetry, like this tiger.
  
  • 
    
    Echinoderms like this starfish have fivefold symmetry.
  • 
    
    Fivefold symmetry can be seen in many flowers and some fruits like this medlar.
  • 
    
    Snowflakes have sixfold symmetry.
  • 
    
  • Fluorite showing cubic crystal habit.

When I look at these patterns (shapes) I see no physics, I see ONLY mathematical forms!

Aside from shapes and patterns , physics consist of mathematical equations.
https://physics.info/equations/

A "shape" or "pattern" is not a physical thing, it is a mathematical thing which forms the shapes or patterns found in physical things!

 

[Write4U]

The Language of Physics

It is a difficult matter to settle upon a suitable idiom for an adequate description of language. It is one thing to insist that language should be regarded as a physical phenomenon. It is another to choose the physical vocabulary that is best suited to its description as such. As we have earlier remarked, the language in which philosophers speak of language can be ruled out for such a role. Terms such as meaning,
intention, belief, desire, and so on, by general consent, do not refer to observables.

Instead, we consider many intuitive notions about words in physics that are observable terms, some of which can apply to language. The vocabulary of physics is defined by the mathematics of physical models, whose application to language is not apparent. In this case, the natural language correspondents do have familiar, intuitive, non-theoretical physical interpretations, and do seem to have applications to linguistic phenomena.

Terms such as dispersion, elasticity, structure and dynamics, have a conversational use that is usually associated with spatial phenomena, occurrences that describe features of experience. Children dispersing in the courtyard, the elasticity of skin, the structure of a building, the dynamics of populations: all of these are familiar constructions, readily understood, at least for purposes of conversations but readily mathematizable without immediately obvious distortion.

These conversational uses are obvious in the examples that we have provided but their application to the description of language is more challenging. Somewhat less accessible are constructions such as the dispersion of (features of) a language, the elasticity of a vocable, morphological and syntactic structural changes in lexical vocabulary, dynamics of linguistic evolution.

But they all have correspondents in the idiom of physics; that is, the vocabulary finds a more precise definition, as well as a mathematics, within the various theoretical languages of physics.

Our question is: Setting aside its more casual uses, can any of the physical applications of such vocabulary add useful mathematical clarity to our understanding of linguistic evolution? Beyond that, can this detailed account reveal hitherto unacknowledged features of language?

http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/~thalie/PhD/node43.html#

 

[James R]

Write4U:

Okay, so you've told us what patterns are. (I think most of us already knew what a pattern was.)

The only question you have asked is whether a fractal is a physical thing. I'd say a fractal is a mathematical pattern. Physical things are things like rocks and people and water and elephants.

You also mentioned symmetry, which is another mathematical idea. We can find symmetries in nature.

You're right that you don't seem to have written anything about Physics yet - only mathematics. You have given us a laundry list of some things that exhibit symmetries. The physics (and/or biology) is what explains why they have those particular symmetries.

You claim that physics "consists of" mathematical equations, implying that physics is only mathematical equations. I disagree with you. Physics is a scientific description of the natural world that allows us to predict how physical systems will behave. Physics is the study of the most fundamental constituents of the physical world, from the smallest to the largest scales.

Mathematical equations are used in physics, but physics is more than just equations or maths.

 

[James R]

Our question is: Setting aside its more casual uses, can any of the physical applications of such vocabulary add useful mathematical clarity to our understanding of linguistic evolution? Beyond that, can this detailed account reveal hitherto unacknowledged features of language?

Does the linked article attempts to answer this question?

Have you read it?

 

[Write4U]

Write4U: Okay, so you've told us what patterns are. (I think most of us already knew what a pattern was.)

Can I take that to mean we agree?

The only question you have asked is whether a fractal is a physical thing. I'd say a fractal is a mathematical pattern. Physical things are things like rocks and people and water and elephants.

I agree.

You also mentioned symmetry, which is another mathematical idea. We can find symmetries in nature.

I agree.

You're right that you don't seem to have written anything about Physics yet - only mathematics. You have given us a laundry list of some things that exhibit symmetries. The physics (and/or biology) is what explains why they have those particular symmetries.

I beg to disagree with that. IMO, it is the mathematics of the physics that form the expressed symmetries in physical patterns.

You claim that physics "consists of" mathematical equations, implying that physics is only mathematical equations. I disagree with you. Physics is a scientific description of the natural world that allows us to predict how physical systems will behave. Physics is the study of the most fundamental constituents of the physical world, from the smallest to the largest scales.

I have no quarrel with the definition of "physics". It seems that you have a quarrel with mathematics as the ordering mechanics in the physical world.
But ask; How do you define "mathematics"?

Mathematics is the science that deals with the logic of shape, quantity and arrangement. Math is all around us, in everything we do. It is the building block for everything in our daily lives, including mobile devices, architecture (ancient and modern), art, money, engineering, and even sports.

i.e. All of Physical world, including spacetime itself. Mathematics is all there is as it relates to the Universe (not humans)

Mathematical equations are used in physics, but physics is more than just equations or maths.

Not really, physics is all about "relational values" and "mathematical processing functions".
The universe does not concern itself with physics. It functionally recognizes only extant "relational values" and "mathematical (algebraic) processing" of these values. Physical patterns are mathematical constructs.

Mathematics is;

a formal science – branch of knowledge concerned with the properties of formal systems based on definitions and rules of inference. Unlike other sciences, the formal sciences are not concerned with the validity of theories based on observations in the physical world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_mathematics

"Physics" is the observable (subjective experiential) result of mathematical self-ordering functions in the physical world.

Mathematics is the science that deals with the logic of shape, quantity and arrangement. Math is all around us, in everything we do. It is the building block for everything in our daily lives, including mobile devices, architecture (ancient and modern), art, money, engineering, and even sports.

https://www.livescience.com/38936-mathematics.html

My summation;
Physics is used by humans to explain the properties (values and functions) of the physical world, by means of symbolic mathematics.

Mathematics is used by the universe itself in its evolutionary process of self-organization and self-assembly of mathematical patterns (of various densities) in the "expressed" physical world, by means of "relational values" interacting via "mathematics (algebraic) functions".

 

[Write4U]

Does the linked article attempts to answer this question?
Have you read it?

Yes, I am the one who quoted it.
But that specific question deals with the mathematics of "language", not the mathematics of "physics'.

 

[Michael 345]

The universe does not concern itself with physics

Novel idea that a Universe run by Physics is not concerned with Physics

 

[QuarkHead]

My summation;
Mathematics is used by the universe itself

This is almost impossible to parse.
Mathematics is a human construct, and is often (not always) useful to describe the natural world. The universe, not being human (as far as we can tell) cannot "use mathematics".

in its evolutionary process of self-organization and self-assembly

I would like to see a reasoned argument for this assertion - it doesn't seem quite right to me

 

[exchemist]

This is almost impossible to parse.
Mathematics is a human construct, and is often (not always) useful to describe the natural world. The universe, not being human (as far as we can tell) cannot "use mathematics".

I would like to see a reasoned argument for this assertion - it doesn't seem quite right to me

Quite so. There is plenty of mathematics with no relation to the physical world, and there are plenty of things in nature that can't be described in mathematics.

This is just Write4U's religion. He is impervious both to argument and to the observation that we've all had a bellyful of this crap of his already.

 

[CptBork]

I'm not a logician and I still haven't even had a chance to go over the full proof for Godel's incompleteness theorem, let alone various other results in logic theory. However, I've heard it claimed that any kind of universe possessing consistent logical properties will necessarily be describable purely in terms of mathematical rules. Anyone know anything about such arguments?

 

[QuarkHead]

However, I've heard it claimed that any kind of universe possessing consistent logical properties will necessarily be describable purely in terms of mathematical rules. Anyone know anything about such arguments?

The premise being "any kind of universe possessing consistent logical properties" needs arguing.

Is ours one of them? (In the everyday use of the term "universe")

 

[exchemist]

I'm not a logician and I still haven't even had a chance to go over the full proof for Godel's incompleteness theorem, let alone various other results in logic theory. However, I've heard it claimed that any kind of universe possessing consistent logical properties will necessarily be describable purely in terms of mathematical rules. Anyone know anything about such arguments?

I haven't but it makes sense, seeing that mathematics is a highly evolved form of quantitative logic. However, there is a huge differences between a universe that is describable by mathematics and one that "is" mathematics.

 

[Seattle]

Quite so. There is plenty of mathematics with no relation to the physical world, and there are plenty of things in nature that can't be described in mathematics.

This is just Write4U's religion. He is impervious both to argument and to the observation that we've all had a bellyful of this crap of his already.

I agree with the gist of your point, especially as it relates to Write4U but what are the "plenty of things in nature that can't be described in mathematics"? In theory that is.

 

[QuarkHead]

what are the "plenty of things in nature that can't be described in mathematics"? In theory that is.

How about adding the qualifier "can't yet be described in mathematics"?

History (as far as I know it) is full of puzzles in nature that were resolved by scientists visiting the mathematics shop and coming home with just the thing they needed, straight off the shelf.

Could yet happen throughout, I think

 

[exchemist]

I agree with the gist of your point, especially as it relates to Write4U but what are the "plenty of things in nature that can't be described in mathematics"? In theory that is.

The characteristics of a glaciated landscape is one example I had in mind. Or the reactions of a ketone, say, in organic chemistry, would be another. Or almost anything in biology.

I mean, you could spend ages tortuously trying to construct a mathematical model of such things, but it would far more clumsy than a verbal description and some diagrams.

I do feel there tends to be a sort of worship of maths that is misplaced. It is one tool of human analytical thought, but there are others.

 

[Seattle]

The characteristics of a glaciated landscape is one example I had in mind. Or the reactions of a ketone, say, in organic chemistry, would be another. Or almost anything in biology.

I mean, you could spend ages tortuously trying to construct a mathematical model of such things, but it would far more clumsy than a verbal description and some diagrams.

I do feel there tends to be a sort of worship of maths that is misplaced. It is one tool of human analytical thought, but there are others.

I agree with your overall point. It's just a language and if enough information is available it can describe most anything but at the end of the day it's still just a human language and nothing more.

The only interesting thing I've gotten out of Tegmark's writing (for example) is not the part about math being reality but the idea that if a mathematical description were good enough it might explain the unexplainable. Meaning that something like what came before the Big Bang might be able to be explained if the rest of the equation were good enough to explain everything else. Not that it would be indisputable proof just that it might be the best that we could do and better than we are able to do at the moment.

I'm not doing the idea justice here but it is an interesting though, nothing more.

 

[exchemist]

I agree with your overall point. It's just a language and if enough information is available it can describe most anything but at the end of the day it's still just a human language and nothing more.

The only interesting thing I've gotten out of Tegmark's writing (for example) is not the part about math being reality but the idea that if a mathematical description were good enough if might explain the unexplainable. Meaning that something like what came before the Big Bang might be able to be explained if the rest of the equation were good enough to explain everything else.

I'm not doing the idea justice here but it is an interesting though, nothing more.

Yes, it seems to me maths is a language and, as such, a tool for description and analysis.

I haven't read any Tegmark (Shapiro) myself, having been put off by Peter Woit's criticisms of him and by various other things, such as his rather naked showmanship (even to the extent of changing his name to make it more unique and exotic, Shapiros being two a penny in the NE United States.)

I suppose that any really good model ought to make predictions in new areas. However I'm damned if I can see how we would submit a model that predicted something before the big bang to an observational test. (leaving aside the question of what "before" might mean, given that according to the usual model time itself started at the big bang.)

 

[Seattle]

Yes, it seems to me maths is a language and, as such, a tool for description and analysis.

I haven't read any Tegmark (Shapiro) myself, having been put off by Peter Woit's criticisms of him and by various other things, such as his rather naked showmanship (even to the extent of changing his name to make it more unique and exotic, Shapiros being two a penny in the NE United States.)

I suppose that any really good model ought to make predictions in new areas. However I'm damned if I can see how we would submit a model that predicted something before the big bang to an observational test. (leaving aside the question of what "before" might mean, given that according to the usual model time itself started at the big bang.)

I don't see how there could be any observation test either.

The idea, as I understand it, is simply that we would have more confidence of a models unobservable predictions if everything that we could observe was sound.

Currently models break down with singularities and infinities for example. What if GR and quantum models fit together seamlessly and made some prediction about what came before the BB? We would have more confidence in that prediction.

It's not an Earth shaking point IMO but I just found it interesting. The one book of his that I read wasn't controversial until the last few chapters.

 

[exchemist]

I don't see how there could be any observation test either.

The idea, as I understand it, is simply that we would have more confidence of a models unobservable predictions if everything that we could observe was sound.

Currently models break down with singularities and infinities for example. What if GR and quantum models fit together seamlessly and made some prediction about what came before the BB? We would have more confidence in that prediction.

It's not an Earth shaking point IMO but I just found it interesting. The one book of his that I read wasn't controversial until the last few chapters.

If there are no observations one could make to test it, then it is metaphysics and not science - though it could be an interesting speculation, certainly.

 

[Seattle]

If there are no observations one could make to test it, then it is metaphysics and not science - though it could be an interesting speculation, certainly.

Sure, it's whatever you want to call it but the better the math was in all other regards the more likely it would still apply to other (currently) untestable regions. It may even lead to future methods of testing. It's just an interesting thought, IMO.