Write4U
Valued Senior Member
From post # 75
https://www.webmd.com/brain/pseudobulbar-affect#1
Your link from Wiki carries more weight than my link from WebMD?....
The Language of Physics.
- Thread starter Write4U
- Start date
From post # 75
https://www.webmd.com/brain/pseudobulbar-affect#1
Your link from Wiki carries more weight than my link from WebMD?....
I don't see a single mathematical form in those pictures. They are all of physical objects.
Unless it was "better" precisely because it excluded those regions from its domain of reference.
In high school art class I was taught a way of describing a tree that made it easier to draw one - the main trick was to organize the foliage into three regions or clumps, either mentally or by sketching their general outlines on one's paper, canvas, or whatever.
It worked. It would not work for drawing Arctic willows, of course - some kinds of trees were excluded.
Define "fundamental essence".
Many of the patterns alleged to be "mathematical" in natural objects are derivative, happenstance consequences of the circumstances of growth and formation.
A good example might be the elliptical orbits of planets - as Feynman showed in the famous lecture, and others have shown in different ways, the ellipse a planet's orbit orbit traces in space is a consequence of the constraining and causative physical circumstances of its travel path. The mathematical form of its eventual orbit is derivative, circumstantial, not fundamental in the usual sense.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Of course but if it specifically excluded that domain it wouldn't be an example of what I was referring to.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
on an anthro psyche culture note
very interesting to outline concepts of leadership control that attempts to create culture rather than lead it
religion being the biggest social engineering dictator
possibly modern narcissistic personality disorder(as a function of modern behavioral issues)
culturing a complex mix of what appears to be semi narcissistic personality among dictatorship leadership models
i think this is where evangelicals go wildly off the tracks insinuating that such systematic formulation must be designed by a higher power with absolute power
almost like a game of hide the sausage with power & control and self accountability
the indoctrinated fear of creating a cult of followers requires this terrible fear and abject illogical process to be so maintained and installed on such a deep level.
while i do not discount the idea of intelligent design via higher technology aliens genetic engineering variant forms of life all be them with various errors mistakes and possibly required flaws
that is not a substitute for a god aspect to undermine the basic principals of science.
chance favors a pre determined form of codification via perceptual function of relative communication metaphors
has someone asked if fibonacci is chicken or egg ?(does the language define the science or does the science define the language?)
this is getting way past my pay grade
so is an algorithm applied to de-code a chaos function to assert a result that is simply probabilistic ? ([generic guise]in which case the maths is a language and expressed as perception?)
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By fundamental essence I mean that everything in nature consists of elementary objects whose properties and interactions can all be described mathematically. As a consequence of these fundamental properties, we see emergent mathematical behaviour on macroscopic scales which our ancestors evolved to use to their advantage. For example, subatomic interactions lead to molecular interactions, resulting in pressure vibrations transmitting through the air with relatively consistent frequencies and speeds. Our ancestors evolved ear drums to detect these pressure vibrations, and their brains evolved to recognize the different frequencies and relative amplitudes of the vibrations, and to associate them with various causes. Simultaneously their brains also evolved to recognize the location and distance of a sound source based on the differing arrival times of the pressure waves at each ear and the overall volumes.
As Einstein said, the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is in fact comprehensible. If religiously-minded folks want to believe that mathematical patterns in the universe point towards a divine creator, then they're also arguing that this creator didn't need to be much more intelligent than a man like Stephen Hawking. God only needed to know enough math to describe everything more or less as we now know it, the rest just comes down to raw processing power and disk space.
As to aliens if indeed they created us- if Hollywood has taught me anything it's that they will have made us to look like weakened retarded versions of themselves, but otherwise we will have very similar limitations on spatial and situational awareness, we will breathe almost the exact same atmosphere as they do on their home world, 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 10 fingers and toes (give or take a couple), they poop just like we do or at least have decorative butt cracks, etc. etc.
Working backwards, "nature is mathematical .. and our brains evolved to recognize that"; what if evolution is also mathematical (it certainly is algorithmic or a process)?
"we are not imposing a mathematical reality on nature because of the way we perceive it"; again, what if perception is mathematical (certainly it's a process)?
If nature is mathematical "in essence", then the emergence of life, and neurological brains, must be too.
You mean the other way around.
- - -
How can something that is 1) derivative, a consequence of simplification and abstraction; and 2) an approximation, true only within a range of time and space and allowed error;
be an "essence"?
Mathematics is derivative because humans derive it from observations of the universe, right? Is that because the universe is "essentially" mathematical, or is it because human brains function in an "essentially" mathematical way?
The abstraction and simplification would be a function of humans observing things; brains are only capable of handling so much input.
I don't quite grasp the intent of point 2). Is the number 2 only "true" within a range of space, time, and allowed error?
Let's talk about the word spontaneous.
As far as we can understand, through observation and theorizing, the universe began spontaneously. Setting aside the problem of the nonexistence of time until the universe "began", hence of "spontaneousness", where an event is not definable, we observe that lots of things just happen.
Life just happened, for instance, as far as we can understand. There must have been spontaneous chemical reactions, because life depends on them.
So, is mathematics a "spontaneous" part of that, as well? It doesn't sound like a well-formed question.
Now that there are brains in the universe, is all the mathematical formalism and the symbolic languages, a spontaneous "reaction", so to speak.
As far as we can understand, through observation and theorizing, the universe began spontaneously. Setting aside the problem of the nonexistence of time until the universe "began", hence of "spontaneousness", where an event is not definable, we observe that lots of things just happen.
Life just happened, for instance, as far as we can understand. There must have been spontaneous chemical reactions, because life depends on them.
So, is mathematics a "spontaneous" part of that, as well? It doesn't sound like a well-formed question.
Now that there are brains in the universe, is all the mathematical formalism and the symbolic languages, a spontaneous "reaction", so to speak.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Yes. Physicists find some mathematics useful in describing physical processes, while other mathematics remains just formal concepts in mathematicians' heads or scrawled in hieroglyphs on their chalkboards. W4U needs to address why that is.
So a vital thing that W4U still needs to do if he wants to turn his obsession into a plausible metaphysics, is provide some sort of account of the actualization process necessary to hypostasize some mathematics so as to make it tangible, causally interactive and physical.
I agree again.
One could make the same kind of assertions that W4U makes regarding language more generally. Physical reality is describable by language. Hence (insert smoke and mirrors here) physical reality IS language. This one is popular with a certain kind of literary theorist for whom everything becomes a 'text'.
The philosophical idealists (like George Berkeley and some of the Kantians) argued that physical reality is known through perceptions, hence physical reality IS perceptions. (Picture 'Brains-in-vats' and Morpheus saying, "What IS reality? If reality is what you can touch, see or feel, then reality is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain.") In this version, reality is reduced to psychology instead of mathematics.
It's certainly true that mathematics is very useful (to physicists anyway, perhaps less so to biologists) in describing physical reality. So I would fully agree with W4U that there's something about physical reality that mathematics somehow captures, that mathematics is somehow isomorphic with. But that obviously doesn't imply that physical reality is nothing but mathematics. There's just something about physical reality that some (not all) mathematics successfully models.
The book on my shelf is six inches high. That doesn't mean that my book is identical with "six inches high" or that anything six inches high is my book. There's more to my book than that.
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I'm not 100% sure that I agree with that. Is mathematics simply invented or is it discovered?
Why is it that mathematicians all around the world agree on mathematical proofs? There certainly seem to be something objective about mathematics.
As far as I'm concerned, the nature of mathematics, how human beings even know about it, and what its relationship is to physical reality are still open questions. I don't think that anyone really knows.
And these metaphysical questions arise at the basis of physics and the rest of science.
This is one reason why W4U's claims tend to annoy me. He just floats in the air above what to me are deepest and most fundamental questions and acts like he already possesses the answers.
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Could it possibly be that we are all human? Just a thought.
Sure, which seems to suggest that mathematicians are objective. Any problem with that?
Of course they don't now - this whole silly thread is a "chicken and egg" argument - it is not even worthy of the title "metaphysics"
Ok, mathematics is a human construct. Mathematics is not physical.
But for mathematics to be a human construct, like a building is, you need physical thoughts in a physical brain.
I can't for the life of me imagine how or why humans would bother with mathematics if the universe wasn't mathematical. Divine inspiration? Let's invent some numbers for the hell of it? I don't think so.
Even if it could be demonstrated somehow, that a brain with sufficient cerebral cortex could invent mathematics by having some kind of epiphany, entirely independent of the world external to that brain, you still have a physical brain which is certainly not independent.
Then there's the evidence that brains function in a mathematical way, that isn't a chicken and egg, it's neurological research.
But for mathematics to be a human construct, like a building is, you need physical thoughts in a physical brain.
I can't for the life of me imagine how or why humans would bother with mathematics if the universe wasn't mathematical. Divine inspiration? Let's invent some numbers for the hell of it? I don't think so.
Even if it could be demonstrated somehow, that a brain with sufficient cerebral cortex could invent mathematics by having some kind of epiphany, entirely independent of the world external to that brain, you still have a physical brain which is certainly not independent.
Then there's the evidence that brains function in a mathematical way, that isn't a chicken and egg, it's neurological research.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I agree. Its all mathematical. From the very subtle implication of "enfolded sub-atomic values" to gross explication in, for us, "unfolded physical reality". (David Bohm)
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Mathematics, or a science of numbers and values, developed because trade was happening, there was a need to keep records.
Later, astronomy was an important reason mathematics developed, largely for religious reasons the predictions of celestial events (phases of the moon, eclipses etc) was the driving factor.
Trading goods meant developing more efficient ways of counting, which happened only because humans needed it to. Likewise, religious needs propelled astronomy and astronomers to an elite status, generally.
Mathematicians were astronomers and also prophets and soothsayers, for instance, back in the early days.
I would hazard that the modern version of mathematics (devoid of religious import) has only been around since the Renaissance, perhaps.
Later, astronomy was an important reason mathematics developed, largely for religious reasons the predictions of celestial events (phases of the moon, eclipses etc) was the driving factor.
Trading goods meant developing more efficient ways of counting, which happened only because humans needed it to. Likewise, religious needs propelled astronomy and astronomers to an elite status, generally.
Mathematicians were astronomers and also prophets and soothsayers, for instance, back in the early days.
I would hazard that the modern version of mathematics (devoid of religious import) has only been around since the Renaissance, perhaps.
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I believe this was suggested by David Bohm, with his concept of a hierarchy of Implicate and Explicate (mathematical) orders from the very subtle (fields) to gross expression in physical nature as measurable physical patterns.
IMO, Mathematics is not only the language of the Universe (see the old philosohers) but it's the language of abstract Logic itself.
Logic allows for an orderly expression of an infinity of potential self-ordering patterns from processing relative data of inherent relational values, via algebraic functions.
Input --> function --> Output
IMO, that's what is implicated in Chaos Theory.
This does not mean that all potential patterns are formed or ever will form, unless mathematically implicated (allowed function) by a prior state.
The human mind is not so restricted. It can imagine all sorts of theoretical mathematical abstractions, based on "what if" potential scenarios. In a permittive condition everything is possible but always subject to the physical mathematics of the inherent abstract values and processing functions, the deterministic aspect of physics.
It is remarkable that several theoretical mathematical equations later were found to apply and used in descriptions of newfound measurable natural phemonena.
IMO, these mutually reinforcing equations are proofs of an abstract mathematical reality and our evolving deep understanding of that logical system.......
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
But that is true only of human mathematics. Natural mathematics have existed since the beginning.
It's what brought us here.
