Maths is a language that describes patterns that do exist in the universe. 4 isn't an object it's a way to speak about certain patterns of the universe. The sentence "4 is even" or "2+2 =4" are true statements about patterns that we observe in the universe. A pattern isn't an object but that doesn't make it any less real. In fact, you could argue that the very concept of "an object" is a human invention and doesn't actually exist in the real world anyway. A cat is just a collection of fundamental particles arranged in a certain pattern with no clear boundary between the cat and the rest of the world. After all, is the hair a part of the cat? It's not made of living matter and the cat constantly sheds it. Are the particles of oxygen and carbon dioxide in its blood a part of the cat? What about the bacteria that lives in it?
@Br Ramesh thank you! Will check it out! My current perspective, also because of obe experiences and spirit encounters I had is non dual - and because it is, I am always excited to hear other people's perspectives and experiences
That's basically what it is, yes. And it's not too far off from any other language. People ask if mathematical objects exist, but fail to realize that no object exists in an absolute state. Take a sheet of paper and decompose it atom by atom. At which point does it stop being a sheet of paper? Or zoom in onto your skin to a microscopic level. It will get pretty tough to decide where you "end". Or take animals. What makes a species a species? Just us saying so. The axolotl has no clue that it is an axolotl (and most likely wouldn't care). The world is a continuum. There are no discrete "things". Defining objects is a matter of discretization. And that's an arbitrary process. A priori, it doesn't really matter how you do it. What really exists, what's actually _really there_ are the connections between those discrete instances: the relations, implications, causality - the _direction of the flow_ in the continuum. Depending on your chosen discretization, those relations might become clear or might be obscured. And it is unclear whether there can exist a discretization that doesn't obscure anything. This is what every language is, including math. We need to do this because that's how our brains work: they cannot grasp the continuum, therefore need the instances. This is the exact point where the universe works differently. Since it doesn't need to name things, it doesn't need to discretize. That's why mathematical proofs are true, even though the objects they're about do not exist. Because the proof actually doesn't _need_ the objects; it traces out the continuum. _We_ need the objects to write down the proof, but the proof remains true regardless if you write it down or not.
That's a mainstream position regarding math! I'd say you fall under the conventionalist school of thought. We make maths to describe the world we live in, and as long as we crafter the correct math for it, it'll be useful to study that world. This seems very intuitive if you think about, for example, classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. To some degree, very different maths describe the same phenomenom, one failed at some points so we crafted a better one that actually worked.
Well yes, in the basic sense that logic is a biological function to help us survive.... but precise mathematical logic, which can be counterintuitive, is essentially detached from anything physical. And yet the rules of logic itself (same as linguistic logic) are drawn from our experience as organisms on earth... and once you think like this, then everything we know breaks down. It really can make your brain explode!
@@nocomment2468 that summed it up brilliantly. Math, logic and language are tools created by humanity meant to interpret our world. These things are a product of our brains, not necessarily an inherent part of the universe. Math predicts reality --as we know it-- but the universe doesn't care if its adding something, subtracting something or even following our rules at all. It simply fallows its patterns. Irrespective of whether they make any sense to us.
Math is a language. English is a language. English doesn't physically exist in the real world, it's a human made concept, that can be used to describe physical world. The fact that we know an Elephant is an Elephant, is because we assigned the English word Elephant to describe an animal that is the Elephant. Now, another human language uses another word to describe the same Elephant, you can describe an Elephant in Spanish using the Spanish word Elefante, but, it is still referring to the same real physical thing that is the Elephant. In the same way, Math is also a language, that we have used to assign to physical phenomenons. Just like how the word Elephant is not a real physical thing, but the animal that it describes is real, Math is not a real physical thing, but the phenomenons that it can describe are real. If we discover something new, we invent a new word to describe it, if we discover a new phenomenon or observe something new, we can use math to describe it.
Some symbols represent themselves. Square symbol can represent a square, equalateral triangle... They have structural rules they must follow. There's only five 3d platonic solids. The tetrahedron, cube, octahahedron, dodecrahedron, and icosehedron. There's only five because anything with more sides. The angles are to large and will not fold together perfectly to create a 3d solid. Anything less than the tetrahedron leaves nothing to fold and is 2d. Seems right there, there is a bases for geometric mathematical language.
@Dan U I would argue, that other languages are also naming things, before they are discovered, or rather they name things, that are theorized about with math. The Higgs-Boson or graviton are great examples. Both had been theorized about a lot with math and with words and were named before they were measured.
Yeah, I think the difference relies on math's (not uncommon) predictions about the physical word. For example, in English it does not makes sense if I talk about a Gdhfocomerk, because we don't know what that is. But math kind of allows us to prove that a Gdhfocomerk should exists because bananas exist, using mathematical properties and related logical statements that must hold true because... Well, because we consider them true. Rather than a language, I see it more like an English encyclopedia about reality that we keep discovering new pages. In this sense, I think it is more than just a language and a symbolic system. And that intrigues me, how a complex and deep logical structure could be built to allow unequivocal descriptions and predictions of the reality. And then, when we face some obstacles to describe reality with the mathematical tools we have at our disposal, we can simply use logic to build extra tools to help us explain it (just as Newton's calculus). And it everything amusingly sustain itself.
your statement might be true but incomplete. yes math can be thought of as a language but not a language to describe physical realm since mathematical theories often preceed their practical use. Mathematics are rather a systematisation (if such word exist) of the way the human mind has evolved to think and link things. For example the number 2 is the expression of the idea that all pairs have a common link that the human mind can grasp. And this explains why the laws of nature seem to perfectly fir into mathematical terms, indeed we only can understand the properties of nature through the fabrics or our mind which are systemised by humans in what is called math.
@Dan U But you could find a footprint of a large bipedal ape in a forest in Canada and you would have to invent a name for this yet undiscovered animal. I think that's what op is trying to say with his imperfect analogy (as all analogies are). We invent abstract symbols to represent real phylsical objects or phenomena, and by developing this abstract system, it gets more complex and allows us to start making assumptions about reality and truths that are not directly observable. If you see a footprint, you assume it's made by a foot, and if you can't find any foot that can make that kind of footprint, then it must be a new foot. That's actually how math works most of the times. But math is special because it's the most complex language we have right now, and it's the only one that is abstract enough to allow us to predict the existance of objects or phenomena that are impossible to be discovered otherwise. Think of neutrinos or black holes, which are invisible but we know they exist because we observe how they interact with matter (and this interaction is at a level so abstract that we need a code, math, to figure it out, because it's invisible to our senses). I actually agree with Joe Scott, I think a better language will evolve naturally. If we wish to become an intergalactic species, we need to be able to divide something by zero, we need negative mass, we need the unified theory, and all these things test the limits of our current math.
Two kinds of people - those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who don't. By the way, here's my newest dumb joke: Hey Joey, did you hear about the mad scientist who crossed people and birds? Naw, Petey, I didn't. Yeah, he created Crow-Magnon man. Here's another one: Hey Joey, did you hear about the old rock star who became a Biblical scholar? Naw, Petey, I didn't. Yeah, Herman's Hermeneutics. Hee-haw!
Clever point. Although it might be important to consider... A) Point #1 could have been an A. B) Point #2 could have been a B. C) Etc. Et Cetera D) A + B ≠ C | B + B ≠ D I'm not strictly a Fictionalist myself, but I do fall somewhere inline between the Physicalists & Psycholigsism. Numbers are simply Useful Constructs, Mathematical Equations are most often accurate descriptors of Something about reality but numbers are still a Construct.
@@nathanieljohnson4118 I agree. Math exists within a frame of logic. If math doesn't exist, then you cannot prove logic does either. If logic doesn't exist, a Fictionalist premise proved by the same logic that math is therefore fallacious on it's face. In response to a claim logic exists but math doesn't, I say check your premise or admit that the logic you proved it by doesn't exist either...
It's only a symbolic representation for simplicity. They could have used a cat for 1., a dog for 2. etc. There is no meaning beside the optic difference in those numbers
"They could have used a cat for 1., a dog for 2. etc. T They would still be symbols for the numbers. "There is no meaning beside the optic difference in those numbers" Bullshit. The meaning would still be numerical and with the same values as one and two. Funny how no can support that sort of BS. You didn't either. Do you really think that two rocks would not be two rocks if we didn't exist? So they would become four rocks or a cat if we did not exist. No. The principles are not dependent on the existence of any sentient being. Ethelred Hardrede
Ethelred Hardrede You clearly did not get the point. If you create a list and you use symbols as dividing points, that symbols don't have a numerical meaning. It does not matter if you interchange them as long as you do not want the symbols to represent an order. In this case there was a long text, divided into parts. The numerical meaning of the numbers in front of those parts is completely irrelevant, because it only matters, that the symbols (numbers) are there so you can reference specific parts in the text. They could have used 9. then 5. then 7. and it would have the exact same effect. Except it would have probably triggered someone's OCD, because of lacking "order".
Ekhart " You clearly did not get the point." You did not make your point. "nd you use symbols as dividing points, that symbols don't have a numerical meaning." That is not what you wrote the first time. So you failed to make the point you intended to make. Not my doing. Doesn't change the OP. "The numerical meaning of the numbers in front of those parts is completely irrelevant, " That is quite different that what is in the video. The first list IS inherently numerical the second is a sequence that is order dependent and thus numerical. "hey could have used 9. then 5. then 7" Its not that way in the video. The bullets are order dependent. "Except it would have probably triggered someone's OCD, because of lacking "order"." BS, its order dependent. No OCD is involved. The OP stands as correct. You did not make the video nor did you make you point the first time. THIS time you made it but its not relevant to the video. Which remains crap. Math is not physical, as it is not dependent on our universe nor is it fiction as we cannot just make up our own rules. Its a false dichotomy. A fallacy. Ethelred Hardrede
Mathematics is a language, so maths expressions, just like words, don't "exist". But the things they represent exist and these languages let us do useful things with the things... clearly!
I'm not sure I understand your question, but all mathematical expressions are representations of abstract concepts, which can be translated to reality, just like any sentence. The "sentence" itself is just a bunch of ordered stuff (ink, bits, pressure waves). A "receiver" can extract meaning if know how to decode it... otherwise is just stains, magnetic fields or vibrations... just noise.
"Mathematics is a language, " No, its a system of principles and they are not dependent on any language. The map represents the territory, the words REPRESENT the principles of math/logic.
Or Math can be said to be similar to a language, while symbols such as "x" and "y" can be arbitrarily ascribed to any phenomena. I think it could be said that...wait I'm not saying anything new am I. But I lean more towards the "Physicalist" doctrine as expressed in the video (It just makes the most logical sense to me). And I agree with Gonzalo. Math is a certain type of language with literal meaning. Ethelred Hardrede. What is the distinction here between the laws and rules that govern things such as the placement of commas in the English language compared to an algebraic movement of a variable from one side of an equation to another? If you get down to it I bet you'd reach the conclusion that if a comma was in the wrong place you could be saying something entirely different, the same with the variable in the equation. Also, when you read an equation out loud you say the synonyms/phrases that the mathematical symbols portend, indications that it is a language. Just as the map represents/describes the territory, mathematical symbols represent/describe physical phenomena, words can do the same. Heck if we wanted to we could speak to each other with equations. The mathematical logic is just part of the underpinnings that give meaning to a sentence/paragraph/equation--a quanta--of a language.
Josh "Or Math can be said to be similar to a language, " Many things can be said, that does not make them correct. "Math is a certain type of language with literal meaning. " Which is not the case for languages. They are rarely literal. Nor does math HAVE any meaning in the real world, much of the time. We ASSIGN meaning to equations. " What is the distinction here between the laws and rules that govern things such as the placement of commas in the English language " The distinction is that its purely arbritary in English. IF you were to start over you would get a different language with different rules for commas. With math/logic only the symbols would change, the rules would still be the same as there are NOT dependent on us. "If you get down to it I bet you'd reach the conclusion that if a comma was in the wrong place you could be saying something entirely different," But you could have an entirely different structure, math will have the structure, not matter the symbols. "lso, when you read an equation out loud you say " You are mistaking the language for the principles. That is like mistaking the words for the reality of science. "mathematical symbols represent/describe physical phenomena" Wrong and utterly so. Those symbols represent non physical principles, and it not based on the physical. " Heck if we wanted to we could speak to each other with equations. " It would be VERY different from ANY language, including artificial languages, such as Esperanto. " The mathematical logic is just part of the underpinnings that give meaning to a sentence/paragraph/equation--a quanta--of a language." No language has that kind of structure. We force the principles of math/logic on the specific jargon that we use to deal with math/logic. It is very artificial and unlike normal language. Ethelred Hardrede
I'll try that with my landlord. Tell him that I'm a mathematical fictionalist, and that numbers aren't real. And therefore the back rent I owe him is also not real! I am sure that he will go for that!
Tell him money isn't real, and it doesn't mean anything. That's true, but it doesn't matter, because all of humanity just accepts at face value that money is real, in other words, we agree to the social contract that includes money. If we didn't, the system would come crashing down. (And y'know, I'm kindof okay with everyone giving up on money because i think it's useless and stupid and just creates a class-based society. But that's just me xD)
:) Money is simply an abstract accounting method for keeping track of abstract numbers. Who says adults are bad at pretending. Pretend is what we have made life all about!
Todd Walker sounds like he is sceptical of the truth your professor's comment but, as a relatively philosophically acquainted but mathematically quite novice person, I think it sounds insightful. It at least draws a possible distinction we can make when someone says "was that bit of maths invented or discovered"... perhaps then, all maths is, ultimately, invented, but, superficially speaking, discovered.
1:18 "You can discover a rock: it was something that was always there. And you can invent a lightbulb, because it was something that didn't exist before. Which one is it with math?" The procedure for creating a lightbulb would always have worked. 'Inventing' is discovering a procedure. I think that's what math is.
@N M Exist means "being". As in your there. If you weren't there you couldn't be able to have this conversation or this thought process at all, because in order to do anything you need to exist. Therefore you exist. The real interesting thing to ponder is does what you think to be real in the universe actually just a simulation or perhaps a different universe from where you came from that is so similar you didn't you realize you traveled their or anything different. Of course that doesn't disprove reality either, because in order for a simulation to work it needs to be in reality or be in another simulation, but the first simulation would need to be in reality still.
While I’m all for psychedelic substances and the use thereof, I have to point out that psychedelic experiences are tied to the substance. In other words if you do X drug, you’ll most likely experience Y thing. So it wouldn’t be a new way to see the world. It’s just a different way.
Dalton Leblanc ate lsd in my room and saw aztec-like patterns, at lsd on the beach and my visuals became like colorful inkblots infinitely forming on themselves. wild
I think the fatal flaw in mathematical fictionalism argument was at line 5 (@6:36) where they assume abstract objects don't exist. We can't yet prove abstract objects exist. That doesn't necessarily mean abstract objects don't exist.
Abstract objects don't exist as part of nature, but they do exist as software objects (as part of a software universe). All softwares exist stored in memory systems (like a book or a cortex). Software systems look like separate universes - that's why fiction writers (and mathematicians) create their worlds using them.
John Weck "Software objects" have nothing to do with this. Software is in fact real physical object because it's represented by physical phenomena: memory and CPU. But I would say even the abstract objects exist. Solely because they are observable. Although they are observable in a different way than physical objects.
Software means structure/information stored in a memory system. Minds and writing are software systems. All mind abstractions are software. All writing and knowledge are stored in memory, so they are software entities as well. Software creates its own universe, that's why game worlds are made of software. All softwares exist, but they exist as separate universes. So for instance, magic is not real in nature, but it's real in the Harry Potter literary universe (a software universe). Mathematics works the same way. Software objects are observable. To avoid confusion, you need to specify which universe you are talking about. Thanks for listening. ;)
I see your point. But I don't agree that a piece of software creates its own universe, and furthermore that our minds themselves being software entities create their own universe. I don't agree with the general notion that observer creates reality, I think it's the other way around. First, maybe it's just semantics but I don't think it's very useful to think about it as a collection of separate universes. I my view there is only one universe which contains everything that exists. So this kind of global universe can't be even created, it just exists. There are only horizons which limit the conscious observer to a specific part of the universe -- the part in which it can exist as a conscious observer. Second, I think all observable (imaginable) abstract objects are real but they are not automatically the same as the physical objects which can be observed through our senses. The physical objects are a very very special case, because our observable part of the universe is a very special case. So i don't think we can just say that "magic is real in Harry Potter" in a sense that there's a place very similar to ours except that there's magic and flying brooms. You would need to thing through what exactly that means to down to the quantum level, down to the absolute detail. Can't be done by a finite human mind nor by machine. For the same reason I think it's very difficult to create consciousness which is even more special than most physical objects. Definitely not as easy as melting few wires together or writing a video game character. (Furthermore, I think what you wrote applies more to information in general not software specifically. Software is a specific type of information with a specific purpose - to control a machine. Information is more general and from a physical perspective every physical system can be thought of as a bunch of information. What we call "memory" is just a physical system with some practical (but ultimately arbitrary) characteristics like how easy it is to read/write/protect information in it. This blurs the distinction between software and hardware which is concept in Von-Neumann machine architectures. But for example in "wetware" like biological neural networks and hormonal control mechanisms it is already much less distinct. But my point here is - you cannot have software without the physical substrate.)
Greetings. Our universe can be sub-divided into sections that look like separate universes. So, you don’t make a new space-time, just a pool of isolated structure. That pool of structure is most of what you need for a new universe. The physical "substrate" (this term is confusing - there's no substrate here) for all softwares is the containing memory system hardware. The hardware contains the software - the software does not extend from the hardware. The software is not high-level hardware. All softwares have levels of organization, just like nature, just different levels of organization. The atomic unit if any software system is the smallest information unit of the containing memory system (like a bit for computers). Genomes use nucleotides to do the same thing in the DNA memory system. Writing uses letters to do this. For minds, psychologists go down to memories (software), and that’s it - they don’t examine some neurons to solve a mind software problem (like a delusion). All software systems are highly decoupled from their containing hardware (software never mixes with hardware). If this weren’t true then the memory system would never work. For instance, the contents of books would start mixing with the surrounding universe yielding junk when you try to read it. This never happens. In fact, you have to add information gateways (like memory mapped input and output) to talk to any of these systems. Without that they would be completely isolated universes. There’s nothing arbitrary about the design of memory systems (and they all have the functions you mentioned). You can also erase the software as well, and if you do so you will destroy the software universe, or erase any mind, and force any system to zero intelligence. Neural networks are not mixing hardware and software, which is impossible. The neural net is building a hardware memory system, and then you fill that memory with learned software. All learning is actually software building. The more software you have, the smarter you are (this is why older people are always smarter). Reality means perception. Perception means you are creating an information gateway from minds to a universe. That’s how the mind software connects to nature (including software universes like a game-world). When you play in a game world it feels like you are really there. The physical objects in the world are not the same thing as the software objects that mirror them in your mind. This is just like mountains in nature and mountains in a game-world. If you had big enough memory system, you could create a software duplicate made of pure information (pure structure). To make similar objects you just need similar structures, and that’s all software is, pure structure.
Math isn't "something we made up". Math is a way of describing things, like adjectives or adverbs. You can't hold a "slowly" or an "above" or a "hot", any more than you can hold a "1/2" ... or a "sit". Yes, methods of describing things ("languages") are "made up" ... but Math is based on empirical (and shared) observations ... so until the world around us changes character, the "language" of Math will be a valid way of describing things. Stop confusing Nouns with Adjectives.
We creates those descriptors based off of shared observations like how u can make a lightbulb out of shared observations of electricity passing through a wire
Math is in deed something we made up. Cause math is a Language. And you cannot always describe physical things with maths... In paper everything is Infinite (an Apple or an Orange) cause you can always, ALWAYS divide all its parts in two... but in the Physic world we know an Apple is not Infinite. It will come a time when you cannot divide it more. ... Also did you know that there are more Numbers between 1 and 2 than all the others numbers (which are infinite) ...there is a mathematical equation to prove it, look it up... imaging how crazy is that... a mathematical equation telling you that there is something bigger than infinite... and that my friend is the problem with number and maths ... and this problem, this imperfection is just because one thing: Its a Man-Made.
"The Fictionalist Argument" - as defined in 5:34 by the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy, anyhow - is a truly convoluted and disastrously incomprehensible kludge of assumptions boldly drawn from false premises. I'm not saying that "Mathematical Fictionalism" itself is necessarily false. Maybe math is entirely _invented_ ... but I am saying that the argument (and the "proof") should be defined by a mathematician, not by a failing English major.
". Invention doesn't exist - there is only discovery." No, an invention is based on discoveries. Time exists was discovered, wheels discover but gears and clocks were invented. The difference is in choosing what discovered principles can be used to do things. The discoveries do nothing on their own. Putting them together to do work is an invention.
Your example of a gear and a wheel is a perfect example of the hypocrisy. I love how you say the gear was invented and the wheel was discovered - when the distinction couldn't be more arbitrary. We tend to say things are invented, at point of human development where some tangible object that humans can interact with are produced. We don't attribute the centuries of scientific discoveries and that inevitably led to the invention's viability, we call that all discovery. But the moment a physical thing is witnessed, it's invention. As Newton said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants". As Edison said, "Ideas come from space". All things that are useful to our society will inevitably be discovered as useful. The lightbulb always existed as a practical means of creating light. It's "existence" was in its very practicality. It was just a matter of time before that reality was discovered and put to practical use by whoever happened to be living in the right place at the right time with the motivation to make that tiny extra push.
barnacle "Your example of a gear and a wheel is a perfect example of the hypocrisy. " That is a perfect example of an ad hominem. "I love how you say the gear was invented and the wheel was discovered - when the distinction couldn't be more arbitrary." That is arbitrary based on a refusal to think it out. " We tend to say things are invented, " BS, neither of us are WE. "We don't attribute the centuries of scientific discoveries and that inevitably led to the invention's viability, " That is YOU, not me, I not only mentioned it, that was part of the reasoning I gave. " But the moment a physical thing is witnessed, it's invention." More bullshit. Not related to anything I wrote or reality. Its your own crap. ". As Newton said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants"." People said it before him and he did not believe that when he wrote it. He refused to acknowledge any specific person because he was pissed of at the person that came up with idea that forces decrease as the square of the distance. In any case he did NOT CLAIM that he DISCOVERED the Newtonian telescope. He invented that, AFTER the discovered laws of optics. The laws of optics are a DISCOVERY, his telescope was something he INVENTED based on laws. No one discovered it. Wikipedia - Newtonian telescope "Newtonian telescope design The Newtonian telescope, also called the Newtonian reflector or just the Newtonian, is a type of reflecting telescope invented by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), using a concave primary mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror. Newton's first reflecting telescope was completed in 1668 and is the earliest known functional reflecting telescope.[1] The Newtonian telescope's simple design makes it very popular with amateur telescope makers.[2]" INVENTED. There is NOTHING arbitrary in that designation. YOU showed nothing arbitrary in my previous example yet YOU ARBITRARILY falsely claimed that it was arbitrary without even trying to support that claim. ". As Edison said, "Ideas come from space". They don't so he was wrong on that. They come from knowledge and the mind of the inventor. Plus a lot of work in many cases. "". All things that are useful to our society will inevitably be discovered as useful. " Literally that was a meaningless noise. It is just saying: A=A "ul. The lightbulb always existed as a practical means of creating light." You do know that it did not exist in the 1700's? So it did NOT exist as practical means of creating light until several things were invented and Edison's team DISCOVERED a suitable filament. ". It was just a matter of time before that reality was discovered No it was a matter of time and a lot of work before it was INVENTED. It was not discovered. The vacuum was discovered. The filament material was discovered. The glass that the tube was made from was a discovery but the tube itself was an invention. We DISCOVER the properties of the universe we live in. We INVENT the tools we make using the knowledge that was obtained in those discoveries. Think it trough this time instead making up lies about what I wrote, hypocrite. Its time to learn that you were wrong. Sorry but even I sometimes screwup. Its not often but it happens. Not this time. Look, you can either hold your breath or you can learn. No one every loses an online discussion IF THEY KEEP AN OPEN MIND AND DO NOT LOSE THEIR TEMPER. The worst that can happen is that they will learn something. Which is winning, not losing. It is time for you to win new knowledge. Ethelred Hardrede
I can pick up a bunch of pebbles, then pick up a bunch of sea shells. I can pair up each pebble with a sea shell, and get rid of the extra sea shells. I can then get sticks and match up a stick with each pebble and sea shell set. It doesn't matter how many pebbles I had, 2, 5, 20, it doesn't matter. But whatever that number is, it has a numberness to it that can be matched to anything that is real or imagined. I don't have to give it a name, or a symbol, but doing both of those things makes it easier. It's easier to write a symbol for fiveness in the sand with a stick than to have a set of five pebbles to match other things with. Numberness is a property we recognize, we know when there are only 11 eggs in the carton. Animals know when another animal gets more pieces of food than they did. So that's just counting stuff. We can count forces, and velocities, too. We can add sets of things, which is multiplication. Division is just finding how many smaller sets are in a larger set. Numbers are just counting, and math is just rearranging the counts. Numberness is there if you notice it, but it's also there if you don't notice it. That's true because a person who notices can point it out to someone who hadn't before. Numberness does not govern the universe, it just allows measurements to be made that can be used to make guesses and experiments testing those guesses. I don't believe there is anything metaphysical, or even surprising about math.
I really liked the example of pointing out numberness to someone who "did not notice numberness" before. But I think this hypothetical situation just points out (to me, at least) that it it impossible, it could not have taken place. I'd argue that perceiving numberness is a quality of consciousness - it is like perceiving time or space. It is impossible not to perceive them if you are human, I'd even venture to say if you are an animal. It might be that plants perceive space and time much differently than us (seeing that they cannot really travel through space like us, maybe they perceive it just as "immutable" as the flow of time is to us). In any case, I think that numberness does not exist in the universe outside of consciousness - it is a way of perceiving the world, and thus requires a subject that perceives. Numberness tells us more about our consciousness than it does about the universe.
"Numberness tells us more about our consciousness than it does about the universe." BS, the principles of 'numberness' are not dependent on anyone noticing them. They are valid with or without anyone noticing. Woo will not change that reality. Get your head out of Noam Chomsky's ass. Its a bad place to be, though better than in his woo filled head.
Please, be polite. Talking like that adds nothing to your argument (which, by the way, you didn't make - you just stated that everyone else is wrong without providing any proof or argument). It also makes you look very butthurt, which, I guess, is not what you intended. I have no idea what or who "woo" is, so you'll have to enlighten me. Also, I don't know what Chomsky thinks about mathematics. Finally, I have no clue why the idea that math doesn't exist outside our heads offends you so. Numbers are not physical phenomena. Rocks, air, atoms, photons etc. exist as material objects, they can be empirically observed and their qualities described (using, for example, math). Numbers, on the other hand, do not exist as material objects, they cannot be empirically observed, tested, experimented upon, etc. We use numbers to describe material objects and physical processes, but numbers aren't themselves material or physical. There is straightforward empirical evidence that rocks, atoms etc. existed long before humans, or any form of life at all, came to be - there is none (and can be none) for numbers. You can not use physics or chemistry or biology to describe the number "2", it just can't be done. From a purely scientific point of view it is impossible for numbers to exist outside consciousness because they are, well, not physical objects. Saying that numbers somehow exist independently of consciousness is straight-up metaphysics, platonism of the highest degree.
Kat "Please, be polite." " It also makes you look very butthurt, Hypocrite. "I guess, is not what you intended." Your perception is does not bother me at all. It was a just a mindless rant over the us the term BS and ass. "I have no idea what or who "woo" is, s" That is not my problem. It is your failure. Look it up. "Also, I don't know what Chomsky thinks about mathematics." Again that is your problem not mine. "Finally, I have no clue why the idea that math doesn't exist outside our heads offends you so" You are the one that is offended. I am not offended at all. You are projecting. Math is not dependent on your head. Nor on anyone's head. " Numbers are not physical phenomena." I made no such claim. ", they can be empirically observed and their qualities described (using, for example, math). Numbers, on the other hand, do not exist as material objects, " Numbers DO have properties that can be described. It does not matter if thy are not material objects. Neither are words. "hey cannot be empirically observed, tested, experimented upon, etc' People do that all the time. We are not limited by your inability to do what others can and have done. ". There is straightforward empirical evidence that rocks, atoms etc. existed long before humans,' Yes, do you have an actual point? "You can not use physics or chemistry or biology to describe the number "2"," Nor can you with words but words and numbers can be described. Numbers are not dependent on words nor on rocks. Nor on you. Four rocks remain four rocks whether anyone counts them or not. "From a purely scientific point of view it is impossible for numbers to exist outside consciousness because they are, well, not physical objects." Wrong. Write them down and no consciousness is needed to retain them. "Saying that numbers somehow exist independently of consciousness is straight-up metaphysics, platonism of the highest degree." You seem a bit butthurt about concepts that have validity with or without your existence. Plato was as found of woo as Chomsky. The principles of math/logic are not dependent on your existence. Nor can you just plain make them up. IF they depended on YOU they could do anything. 2 + 2 could equal 5 but that is not the case. Whether you admit it or not, 2+2 does not equal 5 even if all sentient life vanishes from the universe. Deal with that THAN you may have a clue on the subject. So far you only have woo and a tendency to complain if your woo is questioned. Ethelred Hardrede
What you're asking is "Is thought real?" Descartes development of mathematics, integration with science and most everything, along with establishing notation (x, y, x²) was born of a desire to describe our thinking and its connection with our bodies and the things around us. Math is a description of thought.
This is the closest comment that I've seen to what I believe. Math is purely a set of defintions that are consistent with eachother. Essentially a description.
Base 10 is completely arbitrary, but "numbers" like pi or e aren't. Pi will always be the ratio between a circle's diameter and it's radius. e will always be the limit of the function (1+1/n)^n. The beautiful part of math is that equations like e^i pi=-1 exist.
the equation itself doesnt exist,... the fact of the equation being an accurate descriptor does exist(which is what I think you were getting at). This is the problem with philosophical assholes who want to just confuse everyone.
@@xhelloselm does not exist the equation would be an abstract tool/idea designed for and by humans to understand and measure something- not the real thing. Math has never been anything more than an imperfect abstract tool.
Funny story, I was in second grade and I asked my second grade teacher during math, why one and one is two? She said because one plus one equals two... I said why? who? said one is one? And she thought I was being a smart a** , and made me sit in the corner.....???? Public schools???
Damn. I wish I was your second grade teacher at that time. I would've definitely had a discussion with you based on your and my theories. I wouldn't care how old you were, people who question reality have my attention, at any age. We know much more than we did 100 years ago, and even more than 100 years before that, and we are constantly learning as a species about the Earth and the universe. So we really need people who will question what we know, or rather what we believe to know, and who will, later in life, learn reality without a shadow of a doubt, and make a discovery humanity didn't know about nor would've learned for a while without those people's questioning of what we know.
not just public schools, sadly - I went to, I suppose, private school (hadn't really thought about it in those terms, but yeah)(my dad was a firm believer in a good education - his dad was an author & university lecturer, my dad was chair of PTA etc, very involved) - I got in so much trouble over the years for 'asking questions'. my mum told me a few years back that both my primer 1 and primer 2 (elementary 1 & 2) teachers hated me - thought I was both dumb and a smart arse - I was just genuinely curious (soon learnt to shut up!!!) - would have got into far more trouble over the years if wasn't my father's daughter (very small school, regularly sent to principals office (always scared, lol) - just to act as a courier for paperwork for my dad didn't help that my kindy (kindergarten, umm US daycare?) was Steiner* (vividly remember a debate at kindy - asked what I was drinking by one of my peers - I said it was lime juice - (Rose's Lime Cordial**) - was told by first one peer then another, eventually a whole group it couldn't possibly be - because it wasn't "green" * educationcentral.co.nz/a-steiner-education/ Rose's Lime Juice / Cordial is a British thing (though I'm a kiwi/New Zealander - we have it here - you can see the bottle here: -ua-cam.com/video/WFC-CxHs-_k/v-deo.html (that is very very concentrated - you only need a tiny amount - side by side comparison you might be able to tell a glass (or in my case bottle) of it - from plain water, but only just - but to my peers, unless it was "green" it couldn't possibly be "lime"
@@juliaconnell I think a lot of educators frown upon students that ask so many questions like that because they don't really know how to answer them. And too many of them make assumptions about things, thinking they know the answer, when they themselves don't. I taught my 9th grade physics teacher how an AC system on a car worked, because she didn't know. How she did not, I'm not too sure of. She understood how pressure increases cause a ride in temperature and pressure drops cause a drop in temperature, but she didn't understand how a car's AC system worked. Baffled me. I explained it to her, and she basically gave me a look like "I'm the teacher and you're the student. You don't know anything." I think that is a lot of the problem. Too many people are closed minded and stubborn to learn anything from someone younger than them. As if age has anything to do with knowledge.
@@juliaconnell I think private school teachers may be worse in some aspects. I'm sure they believe that they are in a higher class of instructor in order to get a job at a private school, and therefore they know more than anyone who had less of a pedigree. They don't realize that knowledge can be obtained from anywhere, and money and class doesn't determine intelligence.
@@VicinalElk44104 it's a sad state of affairs isn't it? when people who are supposed to be nurturing and educating young people are so threatened by them - if you diverge from the 'textbook' in any way, shape or form you get stomped on - I found this even at university
Quick correction. The Fibonacci sequence was actually first recorded in India by a guy who studies music with math. In the West we call it Fibonacci because Fibonacci commented on it and provided his own example of rabbits. In one of my math classes I was told that the sequence was named after Fibonacci by some french dude decades after Fibonacci died.
One of the measures of "quackiness" of a math or physics paper is how many things in that paper are named after the author of the paper -- mathematicians and physicists typically don't name things after themselves, but let others name those things, if found important enough. This practice sometimes causes things to be "misnamed", but that's typically left to the historians to sort out. While I appreciate mathematical history, I'm also inclined to think that proper attribution isn't crucial, so long as we know what we're talking about!
@@soheil527 They find it in a lot of Indian (Sanskrit) Poetry. Back then poets would express math's in usual language, this is long before our standard notation. In the seventh century, Virahanka wrote a text Vrttajatisamuccaya in which he discussed what we today call the Fibonacci numbers. The topic goes deeper then just the sequence, as the topic goes deep into number theory.
@@alpheusmadsen8485 I think it is, because by associating historical significance we can often get clues to where to find the mysteries. History can leave behind a trails and patterns which we can use to study things. I think things are lot more crucial than we realize and we should attribute correctly regardless.
In regards to the first question you asked of why anything exists in the first place; the way I see it, the only reason why anything exists in the first place is because it has to. Because the opposite of existence is non-existence, and non-existence already doesn't exist. It never was and never will be, and can only continue not existing when in the presence of what already does exist. The question why does anything exist, is a question that exists inside of existence and is dependant on anything existing at all for the first place in order for the question to be asked at all. Existence isn't subject to the question, the question is subject to existence. It's like asking what does something look like behind your field of vision; it doesn't look like anything, not even darkness (darkness being one's field of vision being blocked), and will only continue looking like nothing, in the existence of what can be can be seen by one's field of vision.
non-existance doesnt exist? Is this suppose to be a paradox? I agree that questioning existence is an effort in futility, but proving non-existence is just as easy as proving existence. I hold up my hand, there is no apple in existence in my hand. No apple HAS to exist in my hand, nor will it ever. It just is or it isnt. There may for example, at some point exist an apple in my hand.... it wont be the same apple that didnt exist tho. For some reason, people have trouble accepting this idea.... I suspect it is due to peoples insecurity bred by human nature. They find this concept sad and disheartening for some reason... empty.... this is odd to me, they should be glad they won the lottery of life, instead of questioning it like ungrateful inbreds.
@@MrMeow-iq7kq A lot of humanity, particularly the ascientific and more emotionally inclined, are entirely incapable of tolerating a meaningless existence as it becomes more apparent. What baffles me is this even applies to atheist groups, who proclaim meaning and value in a meaningless world. This is also why we have dramatic philosophers. We all are born and live and die assuming we're special as compared to the ant we kill, but the impact of the death of the ant is equal to that of ours. The faster we all accept a fact somewhat akin to that, hopefully we wont continue running around like a bunch of jackasses killing eachother and just do some science.
Abstract objects exist in the domain of abstract objects. Real objects to the extent that we can detect their effects - no one has ever seen an electron, but physicists are quite certain that such objects (particles) exist. The ultimate test of a physical theory is whether it predicts results that can be detected.
Yep, dude is a beast. I fell in love with this channel quite awhile back. Been hooked ever since. Joe made Monday's manageable. I hate going back to work, but I love finding a new answers with Joe notification.
Because that's not Thors hammer, Thors hammer got broke in that stupid feel good movie that made Infinity wars look so sad, Loki died, Hamdole died Groot got culled and so did you or me since half of everyone got culled, was it you cos it wasn't me I just wrote this so it must've been you so this was redundant and I should waste my time doing something else with someone else just for a chance of a response which in my case would be a win, which I really need right now, so badly. Well that's what I think and so should you and don't take things so seriously and no I'm not high, tomorrow maybe but not today and that's okay. Cheers
In my musings across the infinite landscape that is the internet, I watched a video about The Great Filter that mentioned a scientist, or possibly an author that used to do thought experiments from the perspective of an alien. Which got me thinking about mathematics from an alien perspective. Can there really be an alternative form of mathematics, something literally alien to our own (and not just because of a difference in symbols or language or number system), something that quite literally would be a different way of expressing aspects of our universe that may in fact have lead them to such advancement? Unfortunately, I don't think that there is. And it's not just because I cannot think of one, but it's partly because of how what we have now is an evolution of trial and error processes that have lead to the invention/discovery of these amazing formulas and equations that express and quantify so many things that we can observe, and further solidify those things with experimentation. There's also the fact that anybody who's who would most certainly know of the fundamental forces and would, without a doubt, understand the the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Take the hydrogen atom for instance. 1 Proton, one electron. How else could something like that be described that could possibly be still rational, and time and time again, proved to be quantifiable by some measure or experiment? You might come up with something that only works for the hydrogen atom and that would be it. When introduced to helium, that rule most likely would break down and could not be continually applied elsewhere. I ran out of steam there on my thought, but I think it does capture some of what I was trying to say. Which is that I find it hard to believe, that if in fact there are aliens out there, we would be able to communicate with them on some level. Math would be the best bet.
No, math is just us slicing the universe into ever larger and smaller piece to be measured, we discovered Planck length, the smallest anything can be, lol math is used to measure, aliens would have to measure to build anything complex, the reason I know math is just us using a system to measure is the quest to build smaller transistors, we built the most complex machines to do math, its useful you can do math without numbers, fold a piece of paper in half, and the rip it in two, that going to be the same on an alien world
@@robertdimaggio9086 go study axioms in principia Mathematica from Newton or the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell your education seems to have missed something
@@nunobartolo2908 You're wrong. Math existed before mathematical axioms. How could you possibly deny this? In this comments section, people keep assuming that math and logic are the same thing, and mocking people who say otherwise. This is all mixed up. You don't need any axioms to do math, and an axiom is AN ASSUMPTION in the first place!
Well as an amateur mathematician (who aspires to attain my Phd someday), I suppose I should give my 2 cents. There are many ways people describe mathematics: As a science (though it doesn't follow the scientific method) As a language (though theoretically you could use an entirely different set of symbols, syntax, and grammar to describe it) As an art (though is an art for which only the artists can understand its beauty still an art?) As a philosophy (though math seems to have FAR more agreement than philosophy) As an invention (though it doesn't seem to function by design, but rather logical consistency demands its function) As a discovery (though would it have existed without the mathematician?) And so on The truth is mathematics is unlike anything else. It's more true, more precise, more abstract, more practical, and more consistent than anything and here's why: **Math is the threshold of reason itself.** It's the reason why reason exists. Everytime you argue, debate, explain, experiment, justify, or deduce, your mind is making mathematical assumptions about the consistency of the world we live in. And let's just agree that the world IS consistent, because otherwise this would be an entirely different debate. Then the practicality of mathematics becomes obvious. Of course it underpins all science, because science is all about continuing to ask "why". And if you ask "why" enough times, you have to break down your assumptions into simpler, more concrete assumptions, and eventually you arrive at your fundamental assumptions: MATH
All, but your language descriptor is spot on. As how languages are defined, math certainly fits the definition. Look up Chomsky’s hierarchy of languages. We learned formal definitions of language in upper level computer science classes.
I think I'm thinking of something a little deeper than what Chomsky is calling a language. Math is more about the underlying truth (essentially what the language is talking about, not the language itself). Though I'll admit my knowledge is pretty limited. I'd be quite interested in learning more about the relationship between formal language and mathematics
+Jason Martin, Math also covers the concept of probability, which actually describes the inconsistencies of the world we live in. As such I think you could even state that the world merely needs to be largely consistent
No, math is just a description. Which accurately models reality. Four rocks can be shared as two each with two people. That is True. 4:2=2. Also True. These are statements describing a truth. Humans are mammals. That is true. But there's no reason to Express that in the Abstract Language of english.
Math, like any language, is an abstract way to describe events or things in the universe. If it was not real and therefore not adopted, then our society and its advances would not exist. You may not be able to touch a number but its impact on the physical is just as real as picking up two objects and combining them to make a third unique piece. Loved the video. I often used this topic to show how an abstract concept can determine our physical reality.
Maths was the only thing I had trouble with in college, the problem was it was a hard fail of the whole course I took if you didn't pass it. Being the last person in the class and seeing the anxiety and horror on my face, my wonderful maths professor sat next to me and gave me the answers, explaining why they were the answers, but he made sure I passed my course.
Late to the party, just found your channel but since you did spark some thoughts ill share them anyway.Personaly i think of math not as a thing that exists but a language we came up with to describe the reality we perceive. Things in our reality interact with each other and thus we discover ways to describe those interactions - new equations. The main problem i see with this view is that it would be the only language i know of that goes on like "eh, we'll make up some new words and put them on a shelf, someone in the future might find a use for them" like pure, "career" mathematicians did for a long time now as far as i heard, making the language interact with itself to come up with solutions we dont know the questions for yet which sounds kinda far fetched. In a sense i think we both discover the interactions in our world, and invent the "words" to describe them. But math itself is something we made up to fit what we see, not something that was always there, and we try really hard to make it as objective and universal as we can. With decent results, too.
Math teacher: Turn in yesterday's homework assignment. Student: UA-camr Joe Scott said Math is BS, therefore the assignment was BS. Math teacher: *stern and annoyed look* Well, I assure you this detention you're receiving is not "BS".
Student skips detention, then sets off on a journey to avoid the consequences of skipping detention, encountering many wondrous things in this journey, among which are musings about existence and invention and discovery.. Student (years later): Thank you for attempting to punish me with detention. It changed my life. Teacher: Who are you?
This didn't go where I expected it to. I thought you'd talk about the hunt for a rigorous foundation of maths that Godel proved was impossible. That Mathematical Fictionalists attempt to use logic (which itself has no physical basis) in an attempt to claim that numbers are not real because they're not physical objects makes me think that they're trolling everyone.
I think Gödel's theroms more proved that any formal axiomatic system was no stronger than Number Theory and that any proofs it could provide were limited in a similar way.
"What makes math real" "where did math come from" etc etc. Its called a human intellect. It is a tool/concept based on another tool/concept called logic. These tools give our minds the ability to observe and describe natural phenomena.
NO. The human intellect perceives relationships between observed things, and uses math to describe those relationships. But the relationships, and thus the math, would exist whether or not they were observed by human intellect. It's just mental masturbation to insist otherwise.
-Well, if we start with the only thing that is certain - I think, therefore I am (something exists - you). This must always be true, because if it wasn't we wouldn't be able to think it to begin with. -From this we can determine that if one thing exists, then so too must the concept of one. -That there must also be more than one thing, or no action would be possible on the first to allow for more than 1 state of existence or any meaningful enough state that observation could be derived. -From this, we can determine that at least whole numbers are a fundamental measure of components of the universe, at least in the sense that discreet, countable objects exist within it. -Then, if any object's state can change and they are to interact with one another, the interactions between them must also be countable. -That any interaction between 2 objects must transfer some value, or there would be no interaction. We can assume whatever value is transferred, that it must also have a counting component, because if not, the value would be fundamentally undefined and the objects would both also inherit this undefined component, making them no longer real either. -From this we can assume that any measurement we make of objects or the interactions between them must then be mathematically intelligible or the objects and their interaction would need to be mathematically undefinable, meaning they could not exist. Somehow, it seems how we observe objects or causality (interactions) is really the confusing part. The incredibly confusing and complex behaviour of objects in space, where space is relative to each object individually and how they distort it through gravity, where locality isn't real and objects can seem to exist in more than 1 place or state at a time, where wave forms are properties of objects and interactions are always defined by discreet quantities... Maybe much simple concepts are playing out under a the confusing veil of space that's presented to us. That actually there is no space or time and interactions can only be described as instant and discreet, but out view gives them distance and time is derived by the order that they happen....
I, like you, am seriously math impaired, but I see Math as an arbitrary abstract construct formulated to describe an define the observable, much like language. The advantage of Math is that the components are not as subject to interpretation as are words.
The nexus of your problem with maths is this assertion it's arbitrary. It is any thing but arbitrary. It is basically fixed unchanging system of correct rules and logic, which must be followed to arrive at a correct solution. The rules don't change.
So how come physitis say that math brakes down in extreme situations, were the rules do change like Quantum physics or black holes? With black holes they say the results they get are impossible like an infinity of infinities as one quote I have heard..
Modelling things mathematically, generally speaking requires some understanding of the thing your trying to model. For things like boundary conditions, initial conditions and what assumptions can be made to make it solvable without invalidating the result. I'm an engineer so my expertise is centered around modelling physical systems not theoretical physics. But I'm guessing the problems their having relate to not properly characterizing the interactions (physic's) of the system their trying to model. This would link into the fact that we don't have a unifying theory for general relativity and quantum physics, basically there remain's ALOT about the universe we simply don't know or understand fully. I would assume they are producing theories based on known data about how the physics works and then constructing mathematical models to fit these theories. That the math's trend to infinity or otherwise don't correctly show the relationship's present in the real system would suggest that their theory is at least partially incorrect/incomplete in some capacity.
If math was arbitrary then it wouldnt be the same regardless of where on earth it developed. The symbols you use to depict it change but it is a fixed pattern. The symbols used throughout time varied ie. roman numerals, numbers, bead graphs, dots etc.
Dylan Sullivan math wasn't developed the same all over the world. Apparently the Polynesians had a binary number system that wasn't understood until years after colonisation. It required translation just like language. Math is just a tool we use to explain our environment. Math is unreasonably effective because if it is incorrect than it isn't math. It is a set of rules.
They use "3" and "6" as shorthands for their arguments. They could just copy paste the entire paragraphs in here, but that would super annoying to read. Their usage of the numerical symbols doesn invalidate their argument.
And a naked and abused Captain Piccard, under the hot lights of a cardassian interrogation, begins to falter...right before the enterprise shows up 2 save the day.2
The analogy is software. We code in compiled or assembled symbolic statements (artificial languages like C, HTML or Assembly) to describe a given problem that eventually become a binary file. The binary file (or image file) is loaded into memory and executed by the CPU. the CPU needs to find op codes (in binary) and parameters (in binary) to do the processing. Math is another artificial language used to describe problem (the Universe, the bridges to build) and our brains are the CPU.
Don't struggle. Try this easy math hack: Surprise the problem math with liquid nitrogen spray - that slows it right down. Then you can just sneak up and pants it, so it can't come after you when it thaws. Then point and giggle from a safe place. No one likes an abstract bully.
Math is just how human try to translate what the universe is....however, as human had evolved only for merely 250000 years, inaccuracy in the interpretation is still very high!
We had a saying back when I was getting my BSc in Math: Biologists must answer to Chemists, Chemists must answer to Physicists, Physicists must answer to Mathematicians, but Mathematicians must only answer to God. :-)
Maths is true given a set of axioms. Its true within the axioms. Now not all of these axioms will apply in the real world. Like you can't have an imaginary number of apples, in other applications though imaginary numbers are applicable. Numbers and math cease to exist outside of these axioms. These axioms themselves are neither true or untrue (unless applied to a certain real world problem), they are just abstractions.
Love Music I take it to mean that numbers don’t exist as real objects. We came up with them. However, numbers do describe the physical universe so in that sense they are true, even if they are the product of our brains.
@@akbaer60 I agree except I would say that True is something that can be demonstrated. False things can make sense, and sometimes True things don't make sense at face value. So, the 'trueness' of something can't necessarily be confined to whether or not one understands it.
The answer is that it's a combination of both, in the following manner: 1) That Platonism is true. There is a "space of forms" in which abstract concepts exist. 2) The space of forms, is infinitely large, and observer dependent and therefor arbitrary. Together this means the following : That the objective reality that exists is infinitely large. We as finite human observers, can only describe this object in a way that is arbitrary as every reference frame can only give a specific local interpretation of that object. This is why someone can look at the same object IE: White Light, where one person can say "The light is homogenous: one color" whereas at a different scale, another observer can say "the light contains all colors and is therefore heterogenous" which are two different descriptions of the same object. It's not obvious that Scale Invariance which is a symmetry property, would be observer dependent...but here is another example : You have a square, and you rotate it 45 degrees. You would perceive this square now, as a diamond. But did the object change? Well not really, your perspective of the object is what changed. If you had another observer, one that was 45 degrees offset from you, that observer would see a square and not a diamond. Again, these two observers would disagree with what they are seeing, and is thus another instance where the objectivity of that same object is dependent on our perspective. Inevitably, there is an infinite number of transformations we could make, and an infinite number of possible observers that could perceive that same object, in their own way. So to repeat, what exists is this infinite, abstract object (in the previous example, the square that can be viewed under any arbitrary transformation) and how we describe that object, can only be done from the perspective of a finite observer. When you think about just how arbitrary these transformations can be, the full extent is that any conceivable transformation you can think of would be valid, and thus the universe of abstract objects must also be at least as big as this (infinite).
Math is a mental construct that can describe the physical world. Going down philosophical rabbit holes with regard to the nature of numbers is silly. They are an abstract reality. Using the logical proofs (a form of math by the way) to disprove math exists the way the fictionalists do is just intellectual trolling. Those guys can go suck a prime number. Math may be a universal language that we could use to communicate to other species that we are intelligent, so long as we don't use anthropomorphic mathmatical constructs based on the number of fingers and toes we have. Primes would be good. Pi would be good. Fibonaccis, and fractals.. Those are things that other species would have to understand in order to have gained the ability to speak across the distances of space. However, I do believe we have yet to stumble across the right mental constructs to define a unifying understanding of everything. I don't think we can do it with the math that we're using right now. Perhaps some kind of matrix math or nuclear geometry. We can scratch the surface with what we have now, but all it does is highlight the need for a new paradigm.
To answer whether numbers (or math) are real, you have to have some kind of clear definition of “real”. There’s lots and lots of confusion and convoluted thinking here. If we take “real” to mean something we can experience ourselves, something phenomenological, then no, numbers are clearly not real. But if we are speaking more broadly about reality as a system and body of knowledge which best represents the world around us (by making predictions etc.) then numbers and math constitute the *language* of that system. So at the very least, we cannot understand reality without numbers (and math). To say this another way: All knowledge (including numbers and math) is conjecture based on belief; But some systems of conjecture and belief work a lot better than others, and the one that works the best is as close as we can currently get to understanding reality, and that system is expressed in terms of numbers and math, including their foundational axioms (completely unfounded and unjustifiable root beliefs which reason requires us to make in order to be able to explain things in the first place).
Do you not experience numbers when you count? You can directly observe numbers (and other abstract objects) in a similar way you observe physical objects. I'd say they are pretty close to being real..
"are real, you have to have some kind of clear definition of “real”. " Many definitions are not a good fit for what is being thought about. Clear definitions only exist for things that have no fuzzy thinking involved and in this case I do not mean fuzzy in the sense of woo or new age bullshit. I mean things like dirty vs clean, they are fuzzy concepts and fuzzy logic is used to deal with them. Yes fuzzy logic is a real thing. Ten percent dirty vs 90 percent clean, is that dirty? Or clean? The best I have seen for reality is from a guy that was not all that connected upon occasion. "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Phillip K. Dick And reality often went away for Dick's brain, too damn many drugs. Ethelred Hardrede
+Satanic Warmaster It's the feeling anyone gets when observing 6 separate objects. It's a different feeling than observing any other number of objects. You can divide those objects into 2 groups by 3, or 3 groups by 2. If you observe an another separate object in addition to those 6 you get 7, if you stop observing some of those original 6 you get 5, etc. The point is all these properties are objective, not subjective - they exist independently on any observer, even though they are not concrete physical objects you can observe directly with your senses. The numbers are the same for everyone, they don't change in any way, they just exist.
+kyjo72672 The notion or concept of quantities and numbers do exist, but not physically, e.g. you don't "feel" nor "experience" numbers themselves. You can "experience" physical objects but not numbers or quantities (since they're abstract). They have no meaning unless assigned to something concrete, such as trees, buildings or whatever that can have quantities or numbers.
8:34 You made a seriously flawed argument. "Infinite" is a concept, not an actual number; you're not trying to hold a non-countable "infinite things" in your head, instead you are holding the concept of infinity in your head.
eqlipse333 infinity is a number in the extended reals. And the omegas are ordinal numbers (which are also infinite). Infinity takes on many different forms so context is key.
I hate the term infinite.... theres conceptually infinite, theoretically infinite, and numerically infinate. Yet in the end, they are all finite in practice.
Classical modern Mathematics is based entirely on set theory which is based on the ZFC axioms. One of them states, that there exists an infinite set. Without that axiom, it would be impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an infinite set. Having that one infinite set gives rise to a whole new universe of infinite sets. Actually, there are different „sizes of infinity“. Give me an infinite set and I can find another one that is even bigger (Cantors thm). A good place (for non mathematicians) to get a first grasp of these concepts are Cantors diagonal theorems. Edit: another interesting occurrence of „infinite numbers“ is nonstandard analysis where the real numbers get extended to a bigger set. We obtain new reals, some of them are greater than all the old ones and some are smaller (or rather their absolute value), we call these infinite and infinitesimal, respectively. These concepts make formal definitions of derivatives and integrals close to the original ideas with infinitesimal small numbers possible :)
I can tell you how I know it. I watched a few of the MANY videos on the topic, right here in good ol' UA-cam land because I'm a thinking and curious person unlike yourself who is just someone with an internet connection.
I think the correct view of math is "symbolism". You can't hold an infinite number of things in your head or on a page, but you can hold a symbol that represents the idea of infinity. Also concerning the "unreasonable effectiveness" of math, it is basically a "theory of anything". Anything can be modeled by math, so that's why it works. It's universal in the sense that it's impossible to come up with data that can't be fit using some math tool or other. Rules and postulates are invented, theorems are discovered.
Universal language: violence. Justification: ” I’ll give you five good reasons. One, two, three, four, five.” - Lucy Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Which was derived from: ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.” - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Math might be something like a collapsed wave function. I honestly don't know if I'm using that right. I just watched your "Delayed choice quantum eraser" video and the dust in my head hasn't settled yet. But, I do know that there are observable, measurable things that might behave differently when they're observed and measured. The ideas that math or time aren't real always make me want to ask if inches are real? They all seem to just be ways of measuring/information gathering and understanding observable things. They are methods that can be more subjective or objective. I'd guess that the more objective, the more accurate, but either is still observation. Total amateur spitballing. "You can't understand a process by stopping it," somebody smarter than me said.
I've always thought of (been taught I'm sure) that math is a language that we have created to explain the physical world. So I'd say math can't be said to be true or false, real or fictional. It either does or doesn't accurately represent the world as we currently understand it.
When I was a kid back in the 60s a math teacher, on the first day, threw a question at us: "does 1+1 ever not equal 2?". I did an eye roll 🙄 and thought.... "why TF did i pick this class!" His answer, "... 1 chainsaw + 1 Buick does not equal 2 chainsaws or 2 Buicks, therefore 1+1 in this case doesn't equal 2". I always feared higher math, but after Einstein's opening speech I was terrified! In the end he explained matter of chainsaws and Buicks and it made sense. I don't remember the answers but I'm now a retired machinist and mechanical engineer so I did well with the math.
@Mr. Gang Banger So to establish the circumference of a circle by using (ø * pi) is an unproven formula? I have no idea what you're referring to when you said engineers don't "necessarily understand them". I agree we don't need to understand formula to know it works, but the formulas do work and many were proven centuries ago. The physics of math works good enough we could send a Tesla sized "robot" 3 billion miles to Pluto and calculate a gravity boost to swing it past another tiny 20 mile diameter object a billion miles further.... successfully! That's equivalent to shooting a poppy seed at a basket ball from LA to NYC , ricochet off and swinging by a peanut in Greenland. I'm no astrophysicist, but we do these things often and we're actually pretty good at it!
@Mr. Gang Banger well you cant prove anything from physics, because there is no mathmatical way to combine a concept with a physical observation in a way that creates a proof. However, you can prove abstract mathmatical concepts and derive them yourself.
@@Iconoclasher although in general I agree with you, the circumference of a circle is a pure maths idea that physics purely borrows to describe things.
I've been thinking about this ever since I learned the fractional relationship exhibited by quarks. Sadly mathematics may be as high as are intellect can carry us. (Far higher than ants and birds for sure). We may not be capable of the next higher level of abstraction.
It gets hard to understand writings of e.g. Machiavelli if you're illiterate or work as a salesman if you can't understand basic math. Numbers don't exist in the nature any more than alphabet or ideograms, but they enable us to understand things around us.
@@mikitz Like any language, math is a system of signifiers. The difference is that the in language the signified are thoughts, and in math the signified is reality.
I had a dream the entire sky glitched to a Windows error message screen and everyone around me was freaking out but I was calm and thinking ...OK so we are in a computer program, that makes sense and it makes a lot of things I've wondered about make sense. I was comfortable with it in my sleep but upon waking..not so much? If my dream was reality then who programmed our world and lives? Was it living beings or a computer? Do humans even exist anylonger, did they ever? I decided to stop thinking about it. Now when I read about crypid sightings I think of them as being similar to end bosses and the idiots I encounter when out and about as really poorly programmed NPCs. Lol Maybe the sky will glitch someday, I'm OK with it.
Oof, that escalate to solipsism really quickly. Put it this way: uncritical acceptance of cryptid "sightings" is one of those things that makes me think less of a person's intelligence, but I don't think you want others to consider you a poorly programmed NPC-or an NPC at all for that matter. Bear in mind that, even if cryptids did exist, they might be more like Feebas than Sephiroth.
I’ve always viewed math as “man made”. We did not discover match on the moon and bring it to earth and learn. We invented every equation in order to fit OUT narrative
I think math is a bit of both, it’s an intrinsic property of the universe and we use it as the language to understand everything around us. Math can be used to predict the position of stars, dates of eclipses and astronomical events thousands of years in the future. The equations we “made” help us understand the patterns and rules but these patterns, rules and equations have existed billions of years before us and will continue to exist long after we’re gone. A few million years later alien ships that explore our solar system can still use math to predict the position of planets around the sun and perform orbital mechanic calculations to land on earth. We maybe did not discover math on the moon, but we sure as hell didn’t create it
Very good! I am not a Physicist but I have a theory that our universe is limited by a Mathematics layer, defined by the formula of the sum of the infinite terms of the geometric progression: S = a1/1-q There is another limit in the question about time: the time is curved inside the Mathematics layer or a straight line with two lids. In the second case, it is the Perfect Time represented by the number 0 in red, surrounding the black hole, also limited inside the Mathematics layer from the top and bottom. The universe 'begin' from the Birth formula: 0+x=1 implying that x=1. I have put the word 'begin' in quotations because there is, in theory, no beginning. Some sort of creationism, defined by the Schroedinger statement: dead and alive on the precept: 'If nothing is nothing, how can nothing exist?'. Thank you, Lúcio Jorge Lourenço
Al Gore invented math in order to invent the internet more than 1 decade ago buddy. Actually it is a little known fact. Due to reasons unknown, Al Gore was tragically denied the glorious fame such genius was owed...
They use mathematical methods to attack the validity of math. It seems clever but it is fundamentally flawed. Especially since they focus on one aspect of math (numbers and number symbols) while ignoring all others (math is more about logic than about numbers, assuming you've progressed beyond elementary school).
Not certain what the mathematical fictionalists would claim here, but I should point out that Modus Tollens is a valid logical claim (if ~p -> ~q), and the contrapositive of Modus Ponens (if p -> q). Neither argument is a product of mathematical reasoning and they stand on their as formal logical arguments.
Fun topic and great video :) Regarding the topic of discovery: As a person who has experience with paten law, I can share that mathematical equations cannot be patented. The reason behind this is that it is considered (by people way smarter than me) that a mathematical equation exists in nature, even before it is "discovered" as you put it in the video. P.S. Side note, mathematical equations in the form of an algorithm and/or coding may be patented in some jurisdictions but not in others. In those jurisdictions, where a patent cannot be granted, algorithms and/or coding are protected under other intellectual property rights. (e.g. author's rights)
Math is a language ... Hence math is created, like words are created according to innate symbolic rules in our brain. Math is simply a way to communicate specific 'stuff' about our experience of the world. Math has nothing to do with the actual world, and everything to do with our brain.
My neighbour is a professor in abstract mathematics, here at the university of Orebro, Sweden. I am an accountant, and fairly good at money connected math. But my neighbours math? I dont understand it. On the other hand, my neighbour are clearly worse then me at calculating things like accumulated interest. Its all math, but kind of exist in different universes.
People can easily be good at mathematics but poor at arithmetic, just as one could be a great architect but a clumsy carpenter. Different skillsets, which should not be lumped together as they are by many in our culture.
Math was created by humans. And everything we create, we do on some more or less consciously defined purpose. So your math and professor's math are maths that have different purposes.
"Discover" is also just a descriptor for the human experience. The rock existed before your first encounter with it. Also, the rock wasn't 'always there'. It has a beginning date, even if that goes all the way back to the BB.
@@k.harris3336 I can't - it's complete nonsense. It cannot be made sense of. Well ... I guess I went and half explained it, but that's as far as anyone is going to get. Don't get fooled by any superficial semblance of coherence.
Start with the empirical foundations of empiricism itself. There are none, and by implication, empiricism is “bs,” as you say. One of my undergraduate tasks was to create an internally consistent algebraic system, which, while it contained provable theorems within the system, did not track reality at all. However, mathematics does track reality fairly well, and is consistently used to further science and engineering. So while it is merely an ideal, it is an ideal that works. And it’s not stupid if it works.
If I had to describe math, I would describe it like a language. It is a foundation made up or created to describe the quantity of things. But beyond the foundation are discoveries of new types of math that goes off of the created foundation. Will it be the universe's universal language to easily use and talk to other life, if we find other life, maybe not. Like I said in the first sentence, it is like a language. No 2 languages are alike and we can't expect their number system to be the same as ours or that it is communicated the same. So you can call it both made up and real, just depends on what part of the math you are talking about.
I 100% thought you would bring up Kurt Gödel. With his Incompleteness Theorem: This describes mathematics's limits, as to how there are an infinite number of axioms (true statements) we cannot prove. And so mathematics may always never be able to explain everything. Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. For any consistent system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out, the consistency of F cannot be proved in F itself. plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/#SomForThe
All we have are the counting numbers: 0,1,2,3, etc and a few basic operations. The rest of mathematics is just a form of shorthand for things we cannot do. Counting numbers may correspond to groups of objects in the physical world e.g. apples. If we have 5 apples, we can add 2 apples to get 7 apples, 5 + 2 = 7. We can give away three apples, 7 - 3 = 4. But we obviously cannot now give away 6 apples as we now only have only 4 apples. What we do is replace 4 - 6 with the equivalent 0 - 2 and then replace with the shorthand notation -2. We cannot have -2 apples or -2 of anything. We use a shorthand notation to remember what we wanted to do in the hope that we may get more apples in the future. Then we can give away the 6 apples as desired. Similarly, if we have 12 apples, we can divide the apples into 3 equal groups of 4 i.e. 12/3 = 4. However, we cannot divide 12 apples into 5 equal groups, 12/5. This is physically impossible unless we change our apples by cutting them up. Then we are no longer dealing with objects that are apples but objects that are pieces of apples. We use another equivalence that 12/5 is the same as 24/10 and we use another shorthand notation 24/10 = 2.4. We then hope that in the future we will get more apples such that we can divide our apples into 5 equal groups. Similarly, we can take the square root of 9 to get 3. Square root is just a special case of division. But we cannot take the square root of 8. We just use another shorthand √8. We hope that we will be able to multiply √8 with another √8 and then we can get back to the number 8. Same deal with √-1. We just hope that we will get another √-1 to multiply it by. In mathematics we just have addition of two numbers, subtraction of a smaller number from a larger number, multiplication of two numbers (repeated addition), and division of number by one of its factors (repeated subtraction). These are things we can do in the real world with physical objects. All other operations are impossible. When we can’t do an operation, we just use shorthand notations to “remember” the operation in the hope that at some latter time we can eliminate the impossible operations and return to the counting numbers that represent real world objects. We can use tricks such as replacing meters with millimetres or nanometres or the Planck length to eliminate impossible divisions. But this is just the same as cutting our apples in halves and having 12 apple halves as opposed to 6 apples. We have then redefined our physical objects. Even the symbols used for the counting numbers are just a shorthand notation for repeated addition in that 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, etc. When someone tells you the Universe is mathematical, remember that all the mathematics you have ever seen just starts by assigning counting numbers to groups of objects and applying the operations mentioned in the last paragraph. The rest is just a form of shorthand for things that can’t be done, but we hope will eventually be possible.
Josh Belcher yep. It’s jump cuts and they are for exactly that, and to cut out breathing and stuff. Same reason Phillip Defranco and other people who use this similar style do it.
@@CePrimeXII Women seem to get all wet before multiplying, yet get all watery just before a division. Paradoxical indeed. Ah, the calculus of the heart.
Mathematics is a tool , you get a blank stick, you evenly space out some markings on the stick, you now have a ruler, with this ruler you can measure how many of your spaced out markers an object measures. Now here is what math really does, it saves you from having to measure all of an object or all of a trajectory and we have discovered various short cuts, that is what math is essentially(for the most part), a toolbox of shortcuts. If you know the length of 2 sides of a square or rectangle you know its surface area, if you can get 3 measurements, you can know its surface area and its volume, so instead of having to measure the whole square or whole rectangle from every angle you take 3 measurements apply the shortcuts like multiply a x b x c and you have the full measurements of the object without having to do all the hard work. So numbers only exist as abstractions in our mind but they relate to real world objects except for the concept of infinity that is an abstraction of an abstraction as is zero, probably makes no sense but that is my best understanding right now.
"If you know the length of 2 sides of a square or rectangle you know its surface area, if you can get 3 measurements, you can know its surface area and its volume" And this shortcut exists regardless of whether humans are there to believe in it. It has been discovered.
Irtehpwn: This is how I see it too. Mathematics has been evolving for thousands of years, as a tool in agriculture and engineering for example. Mathematical axioms are selected because they provide calculations that correspond to properties of the natural world, so it should be no surprise there are mathematical descriptions that precede observations of natural phenomena they happen to correspond to. We get different maths when we use different axioms, which are just as valid, just maybe a bit less useful.
@@easlern its how we made simulations before computers, in a way. Now that we have computers we can plug in the math and produce a visual representation of it and a dynamic model, tweak all that till it matches reality and we have an accurate model of reality. Also note we can simulate/model realities that are not like ours, look to computer games as an example. I never saw this reply till now.
@@CBaskins420 I am not entirely sure i grasp imaginary numbers yet, but as far as i can tell, they would be an abstraction of an abstraction like, infinity and zero. Useful imaginary conceptual tools.
There is an aspect of math, that is very useful for all other understanding. The concept of "the axiom." The Axiom is a statement of what IS true. Basically, it is how you are CHOOSING to see the world. If you change the Axiom, you change the math. There is a perfect example of this: Euclidean Geometry (the Geometry you might remember from High School), & Non-Euclidean Geometry (one of which is the Geometry of painting like the Last Supper.) So, we know parallel line do not intersect, ever (by definition) [Euclidean Geometry]; however, if you are standing on a set of railroad tracks and stare off to the horizon, it appears that the tracks intersect at infinity. (Perspective Geometry/ a Non Euclidean Geometry) You changed one Axiom: Parallel lines don't intersect, and you changed the math. Therefore, math is finding out based on certain assumptions, what can you prove to be true. Of course, you always have the possibility of a false solution, think back to working with the quadratic formula. Basically, the answer can violate the rules set up for doing the math aka a contradiction.
Okay, but on the fictionalist argument, step 5 makes a heck of a leap: How do we know there are no such things as abstract objects? And why isn't "math is a language" a position? If I say "then" has four letters, it doesn't mean that the word "then" exists as a physical object. Likewise, if I say "cat" has three letters, it doesn't mean that the feline is somehow comprised of three letters, only that the English word that represents it does. In the same way, math is a language by which we describe ratios and relationships in a logical fashion; the question, then, is not "Does math exist?" but "Why is the universe so logical and ordered that the language of math perfectly describes it?"
Very good, and the possible answer is that since our very existence including our brains and their workings are part of the universe, ultimately we are driven to find/form the pathway to describing that which we are a part of.
That's exactly how I see it! Math is not a real thing on its own. It's a "language" that helps us understand the nature of the universe. Just like verbal languages. I can say "the white dog," but are white and dog real things? No, they just allow me to understand and explain the nature of the creature sleeping next to me on my bed! I don't know if this is in keeping with Einstein's theories, but I've also thought that time does not really exist. It's simply an abstract measurement we have between two events. But time itself does not exist as an independent thing. Then again, I completely suck at math and have had to take all of my college math courses twice in order to pass them, so what do I know? 🤓
@Redske1eton I've always wondered about that - "is your white my white?" For example, how people like different flavors of food. Does my chocolate taste like your vanilla? How do we account for different preferences if we all perceive things, like colors and flavors and scents, the same way?
Math(s) doesn't need to have "come from somewhere" to be an intrinsic part of reality. Our reality, the universe, our consciousness, is one substance. To deny the existence of Math(s) is to deny the existence of all. ;)
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Have you heard about the mathematician who hated negative numbers?
He’d stop at nothing to avoid them.
It took me way too long to get the joke🤦♂️
Matthew well played sir........well played
He must hate temperature
@Muckan hahahahaha
Nice!
Maths is a language that describes patterns that do exist in the universe. 4 isn't an object it's a way to speak about certain patterns of the universe.
The sentence "4 is even" or "2+2 =4" are true statements about patterns that we observe in the universe. A pattern isn't an object but that doesn't make it any less real.
In fact, you could argue that the very concept of "an object" is a human invention and doesn't actually exist in the real world anyway. A cat is just a collection of fundamental particles arranged in a certain pattern with no clear boundary between the cat and the rest of the world. After all, is the hair a part of the cat? It's not made of living matter and the cat constantly sheds it. Are the particles of oxygen and carbon dioxide in its blood a part of the cat? What about the bacteria that lives in it?
This is what I thought watching the video. Crazy how people have a hard time understanding it.
According to materialist view, our whole conversation is not real.
The problem begins when people who are materialists use math.
@Br Ramesh Explain to me then the materialist description to our conversation. If you wish of course.
@Br Ramesh thank you! I have a lot more questions of course, but I will google them :)
@Br Ramesh thank you! Will check it out! My current perspective, also because of obe experiences and spirit encounters I had is non dual - and because it is, I am always excited to hear other people's perspectives and experiences
"You can't hold a number" Uh have you ever seen Sesame Street?
Check mate.
Atheists. :D
If you were so inclined, you could hold a number two in your hand.
You can't hold any abstract concept.
@Prowler Cam not exactly
I just always thought of math as a language...a mental way to “see” and describe anything that might physically exist...
That's basically what it is, yes. And it's not too far off from any other language.
People ask if mathematical objects exist, but fail to realize that no object exists in an absolute state. Take a sheet of paper and decompose it atom by atom. At which point does it stop being a sheet of paper? Or zoom in onto your skin to a microscopic level. It will get pretty tough to decide where you "end". Or take animals. What makes a species a species? Just us saying so. The axolotl has no clue that it is an axolotl (and most likely wouldn't care).
The world is a continuum. There are no discrete "things". Defining objects is a matter of discretization. And that's an arbitrary process. A priori, it doesn't really matter how you do it.
What really exists, what's actually _really there_ are the connections between those discrete instances: the relations, implications, causality - the _direction of the flow_ in the continuum. Depending on your chosen discretization, those relations might become clear or might be obscured. And it is unclear whether there can exist a discretization that doesn't obscure anything.
This is what every language is, including math. We need to do this because that's how our brains work: they cannot grasp the continuum, therefore need the instances. This is the exact point where the universe works differently. Since it doesn't need to name things, it doesn't need to discretize. That's why mathematical proofs are true, even though the objects they're about do not exist. Because the proof actually doesn't _need_ the objects; it traces out the continuum. _We_ need the objects to write down the proof, but the proof remains true regardless if you write it down or not.
That's a mainstream position regarding math! I'd say you fall under the conventionalist school of thought. We make maths to describe the world we live in, and as long as we crafter the correct math for it, it'll be useful to study that world. This seems very intuitive if you think about, for example, classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. To some degree, very different maths describe the same phenomenom, one failed at some points so we crafted a better one that actually worked.
Well yes, in the basic sense that logic is a biological function to help us survive.... but precise mathematical logic, which can be counterintuitive, is essentially detached from anything physical. And yet the rules of logic itself (same as linguistic logic) are drawn from our experience as organisms on earth... and once you think like this, then everything we know breaks down. It really can make your brain explode!
@@lonestarr1490 where's Joe to see this amazing answer.
@@nocomment2468 that summed it up brilliantly. Math, logic and language are tools created by humanity meant to interpret our world. These things are a product of our brains, not necessarily an inherent part of the universe. Math predicts reality --as we know it-- but the universe doesn't care if its adding something, subtracting something or even following our rules at all. It simply fallows its patterns. Irrespective of whether they make any sense to us.
Math is a language.
English is a language.
English doesn't physically exist in the real world, it's a human made concept, that can be used to describe physical world. The fact that we know an Elephant is an Elephant, is because we assigned the English word Elephant to describe an animal that is the Elephant.
Now, another human language uses another word to describe the same Elephant,
you can describe an Elephant in Spanish using the Spanish word Elefante,
but, it is still referring to the same real physical thing that is the Elephant.
In the same way, Math is also a language, that we have used to assign to physical phenomenons.
Just like how the word Elephant is not a real physical thing, but the animal that it describes is real,
Math is not a real physical thing, but the phenomenons that it can describe are real.
If we discover something new, we invent a new word to describe it,
if we discover a new phenomenon or observe something new, we can use math to describe it.
Some symbols represent themselves. Square symbol can represent a square, equalateral triangle... They have structural rules they must follow. There's only five 3d platonic solids. The tetrahedron, cube, octahahedron, dodecrahedron, and icosehedron. There's only five because anything with more sides. The angles are to large and will not fold together perfectly to create a 3d solid. Anything less than the tetrahedron leaves nothing to fold and is 2d. Seems right there, there is a bases for geometric mathematical language.
@Dan U I would argue, that other languages are also naming things, before they are discovered, or rather they name things, that are theorized about with math. The Higgs-Boson or graviton are great examples. Both had been theorized about a lot with math and with words and were named before they were measured.
Yeah, I think the difference relies on math's (not uncommon) predictions about the physical word. For example, in English it does not makes sense if I talk about a Gdhfocomerk, because we don't know what that is. But math kind of allows us to prove that a Gdhfocomerk should exists because bananas exist, using mathematical properties and related logical statements that must hold true because... Well, because we consider them true. Rather than a language, I see it more like an English encyclopedia about reality that we keep discovering new pages. In this sense, I think it is more than just a language and a symbolic system. And that intrigues me, how a complex and deep logical structure could be built to allow unequivocal descriptions and predictions of the reality. And then, when we face some obstacles to describe reality with the mathematical tools we have at our disposal, we can simply use logic to build extra tools to help us explain it (just as Newton's calculus). And it everything amusingly sustain itself.
your statement might be true but incomplete. yes math can be thought of as a language but not a language to describe physical realm since mathematical theories often preceed their practical use. Mathematics are rather a systematisation (if such word exist) of the way the human mind has evolved to think and link things. For example the number 2 is the expression of the idea that all pairs have a common link that the human mind can grasp. And this explains why the laws of nature seem to perfectly fir into mathematical terms, indeed we only can understand the properties of nature through the fabrics or our mind which are systemised by humans in what is called math.
@Dan U But you could find a footprint of a large bipedal ape in a forest in Canada and you would have to invent a name for this yet undiscovered animal. I think that's what op is trying to say with his imperfect analogy (as all analogies are). We invent abstract symbols to represent real phylsical objects or phenomena, and by developing this abstract system, it gets more complex and allows us to start making assumptions about reality and truths that are not directly observable. If you see a footprint, you assume it's made by a foot, and if you can't find any foot that can make that kind of footprint, then it must be a new foot. That's actually how math works most of the times. But math is special because it's the most complex language we have right now, and it's the only one that is abstract enough to allow us to predict the existance of objects or phenomena that are impossible to be discovered otherwise. Think of neutrinos or black holes, which are invisible but we know they exist because we observe how they interact with matter (and this interaction is at a level so abstract that we need a code, math, to figure it out, because it's invisible to our senses). I actually agree with Joe Scott, I think a better language will evolve naturally. If we wish to become an intergalactic species, we need to be able to divide something by zero, we need negative mass, we need the unified theory, and all these things test the limits of our current math.
"No I'm not high, this is me completely sober" should be one of your t-shirts!
Lol I like it...but I'd rather not wear a shirt that makes me a liar.
i’d like a t-shirt like that.
"no I'm not that high, this is just me soberish"?
Id buy one. Strictly for wearing at work though.
...or in the presence of cops.
I'd buy that.
There are three types of people in this world: those who can do the math and those who can't.
Hahaha, brilliant!!!
Two kinds of people - those who think there are two kinds of people, and those who don't. By the way, here's my newest dumb joke: Hey Joey, did you hear about the mad scientist who crossed people and birds? Naw, Petey, I didn't. Yeah, he created Crow-Magnon man.
Here's another one: Hey Joey, did you hear about the old rock star who became a Biblical scholar? Naw, Petey, I didn't. Yeah, Herman's Hermeneutics. Hee-haw!
I dont get it plz explain
@@hwiatslgeord2887 Do the math.
karan
I don’t either. All I see is 2 types in that statement.
LOL. I love how "fictionalists" use numbers to list how numbers aren't real.
He numbered them...
And logic, which is what math is.
I think they were smoking too many “modus tollens” in their dorm rooms when they came up with their “proof.”
Clever point. Although it might be important to consider...
A) Point #1 could have been an A.
B) Point #2 could have been a B.
C) Etc. Et Cetera
D) A + B ≠ C | B + B ≠ D
I'm not strictly a Fictionalist myself, but I do fall somewhere inline between the Physicalists & Psycholigsism.
Numbers are simply Useful Constructs, Mathematical Equations are most often accurate descriptors of Something about reality but numbers are still a Construct.
@@nathanieljohnson4118 I agree. Math exists within a frame of logic. If math doesn't exist, then you cannot prove logic does either. If logic doesn't exist, a Fictionalist premise proved by the same logic that math is therefore fallacious on it's face. In response to a claim logic exists but math doesn't, I say check your premise or admit that the logic you proved it by doesn't exist either...
Ironic that a numbered list argues that numbers don't exist. 🤔
Bwahahaha xD
It's only a symbolic representation for simplicity. They could have used a cat for 1., a dog for 2. etc. There is no meaning beside the optic difference in those numbers
"They could have used a cat for 1., a dog for 2. etc. T
They would still be symbols for the numbers.
"There is no meaning beside the optic difference in those numbers"
Bullshit. The meaning would still be numerical and with the same values as one and two. Funny how no can support that sort of BS. You didn't either.
Do you really think that two rocks would not be two rocks if we didn't exist? So they would become four rocks or a cat if we did not exist.
No. The principles are not dependent on the existence of any sentient being.
Ethelred Hardrede
Ethelred Hardrede You clearly did not get the point. If you create a list and you use symbols as dividing points, that symbols don't have a numerical meaning. It does not matter if you interchange them as long as you do not want the symbols to represent an order. In this case there was a long text, divided into parts. The numerical meaning of the numbers in front of those parts is completely irrelevant, because it only matters, that the symbols (numbers) are there so you can reference specific parts in the text. They could have used 9. then 5. then 7. and it would have the exact same effect. Except it would have probably triggered someone's OCD, because of lacking "order".
Ekhart
" You clearly did not get the point."
You did not make your point.
"nd you use symbols as dividing points, that symbols don't have a numerical meaning."
That is not what you wrote the first time. So you failed to make the point you intended to make. Not my doing. Doesn't change the OP.
"The numerical meaning of the numbers in front of those parts is completely irrelevant, "
That is quite different that what is in the video. The first list IS inherently numerical the second is a sequence that is order dependent and thus numerical.
"hey could have used 9. then 5. then 7"
Its not that way in the video. The bullets are order dependent.
"Except it would have probably triggered someone's OCD, because of lacking "order"."
BS, its order dependent. No OCD is involved.
The OP stands as correct. You did not make the video nor did you make you point the first time. THIS time you made it but its not relevant to the video. Which remains crap. Math is not physical, as it is not dependent on our universe nor is it fiction as we cannot just make up our own rules. Its a false dichotomy.
A fallacy.
Ethelred Hardrede
Nah, math is real. Math is real cause I failed a midterm in it yesterday...
You go back in there. Tell that teacher maths don't exsist so you need an A.
Sorted
failure is real so math is real
@@paulgoogol2652 Failure is real...math is not...that is jokes aside off course...
@@Summon256 Failure is subjective, therefore, not real.
Lmao XDD
Mathematics is a language, so maths expressions, just like words, don't "exist". But the things they represent exist and these languages let us do useful things with the things... clearly!
I'm not sure I understand your question, but all mathematical expressions are representations of abstract concepts, which can be translated to reality, just like any sentence. The "sentence" itself is just a bunch of ordered stuff (ink, bits, pressure waves). A "receiver" can extract meaning if know how to decode it... otherwise is just stains, magnetic fields or vibrations... just noise.
I concur. The equation is discovered, but the representation is invented.
"Mathematics is a language, "
No, its a system of principles and they are not dependent on any language. The map represents the territory, the words REPRESENT the principles of math/logic.
Or Math can be said to be similar to a language, while symbols such as "x" and "y" can be arbitrarily ascribed to any phenomena. I think it could be said that...wait I'm not saying anything new am I. But I lean more towards the "Physicalist" doctrine as expressed in the video (It just makes the most logical sense to me). And I agree with Gonzalo. Math is a certain type of language with literal meaning.
Ethelred Hardrede. What is the distinction here between the laws and rules that govern things such as the placement of commas in the English language compared to an algebraic movement of a variable from one side of an equation to another? If you get down to it I bet you'd reach the conclusion that if a comma was in the wrong place you could be saying something entirely different, the same with the variable in the equation. Also, when you read an equation out loud you say the synonyms/phrases that the mathematical symbols portend, indications that it is a language. Just as the map represents/describes the territory, mathematical symbols represent/describe physical phenomena, words can do the same. Heck if we wanted to we could speak to each other with equations. The mathematical logic is just part of the underpinnings that give meaning to a sentence/paragraph/equation--a quanta--of a language.
Josh
"Or Math can be said to be similar to a language, "
Many things can be said, that does not make them correct.
"Math is a certain type of language with literal meaning. "
Which is not the case for languages. They are rarely literal. Nor does math HAVE any meaning in the real world, much of the time. We ASSIGN meaning to equations.
" What is the distinction here between the laws and rules that govern things such as the placement of commas in the English language "
The distinction is that its purely arbritary in English. IF you were to start over you would get a different language with different rules for commas. With math/logic only the symbols would change, the rules would still be the same as there are NOT dependent on us.
"If you get down to it I bet you'd reach the conclusion that if a comma was in the wrong place you could be saying something entirely different,"
But you could have an entirely different structure, math will have the structure, not matter the symbols.
"lso, when you read an equation out loud you say "
You are mistaking the language for the principles. That is like mistaking the words for the reality of science.
"mathematical symbols represent/describe physical phenomena"
Wrong and utterly so. Those symbols represent non physical principles, and it not based on the physical.
" Heck if we wanted to we could speak to each other with equations. "
It would be VERY different from ANY language, including artificial languages, such as Esperanto.
" The mathematical logic is just part of the underpinnings that give meaning to a sentence/paragraph/equation--a quanta--of a language."
No language has that kind of structure. We force the principles of math/logic on the specific jargon that we use to deal with math/logic. It is very artificial and unlike normal language.
Ethelred Hardrede
I'll try that with my landlord. Tell him that I'm a mathematical fictionalist, and that numbers aren't real. And therefore the back rent I owe him is also not real! I am sure that he will go for that!
1000 may not be real, but 1000€ is.
You could add that the Fiat currency he/she asks for is simply based on a promise of value.
Tell him money isn't real, and it doesn't mean anything. That's true, but it doesn't matter, because all of humanity just accepts at face value that money is real, in other words, we agree to the social contract that includes money. If we didn't, the system would come crashing down.
(And y'know, I'm kindof okay with everyone giving up on money because i think it's useless and stupid and just creates a class-based society. But that's just me xD)
That would imply that money is "real". How come I haven't seen any since lockdown started?
:) Money is simply an abstract accounting method for keeping track of abstract numbers. Who says adults are bad at pretending. Pretend is what we have made life all about!
6:54 "Numbers aren't real!"
*Uses numbers to organize argument*
I "discovered" math when I studied it in college. I invented math (according to my professor) whenever I tried to prove my discoveries.
You should have gone to a real school lol.
Todd Walker sounds like he is sceptical of the truth your professor's comment but, as a relatively philosophically acquainted but mathematically quite novice person, I think it sounds insightful. It at least draws a possible distinction we can make when someone says "was that bit of maths invented or discovered"... perhaps then, all maths is, ultimately, invented, but, superficially speaking, discovered.
My math teacher became a good friend. I can always count on him.
Lolol good one
my math teacher fixed my glasses with her thumbnail
I love that the fictionalists numbered their reasoning as to why numbers aren’t real
1:18 "You can discover a rock: it was something that was always there. And you can invent a lightbulb, because it was something that didn't exist before. Which one is it with math?"
The procedure for creating a lightbulb would always have worked. 'Inventing' is discovering a procedure. I think that's what math is.
James Hutchings brilliant! .org
@N M killed it
Well said, James
You broke my mind
@N M Exist means "being". As in your there. If you weren't there you couldn't be able to have this conversation or this thought process at all, because in order to do anything you need to exist. Therefore you exist. The real interesting thing to ponder is does what you think to be real in the universe actually just a simulation or perhaps a different universe from where you came from that is so similar you didn't you realize you traveled their or anything different.
Of course that doesn't disprove reality either, because in order for a simulation to work it needs to be in reality or be in another simulation, but the first simulation would need to be in reality still.
"We need a new way to see the world..." - PSYCHEDELICS
Or dissociative
While I’m all for psychedelic substances and the use thereof, I have to point out that psychedelic experiences are tied to the substance.
In other words if you do X drug, you’ll most likely experience Y thing.
So it wouldn’t be a new way to see the world. It’s just a different way.
All of my trips have been different. Set and setting effect the trip more then the psychedelic used
JRE?
Dalton Leblanc ate lsd in my room and saw aztec-like patterns, at lsd on the beach and my visuals became like colorful inkblots infinitely forming on themselves. wild
The Universe doesn't have to "show it's work" before doing something, so math is our process to understand nature.
Fact
Well said.
It's a placeholder for a concept of understanding.
Lol okay, so where do I need that stupid algebra or calculus? C’mon.
"Nothing really exists unless you can prove the math."
The characters in my head say the funniest shit.
@@PopeUrbanX I would do that, wouldn’t I?
I think the fatal flaw in mathematical fictionalism argument was at line 5 (@6:36) where they assume abstract objects don't exist. We can't yet prove abstract objects exist. That doesn't necessarily mean abstract objects don't exist.
Abstract objects don't exist as part of nature, but they do exist as software objects (as part of a software universe). All softwares exist stored in memory systems (like a book or a cortex). Software systems look like separate universes - that's why fiction writers (and mathematicians) create their worlds using them.
John Weck "Software objects" have nothing to do with this. Software is in fact real physical object because it's represented by physical phenomena: memory and CPU.
But I would say even the abstract objects exist. Solely because they are observable. Although they are observable in a different way than physical objects.
Software means structure/information stored in a memory system. Minds and writing are software systems. All mind abstractions are software. All writing and knowledge are stored in memory, so they are software entities as well. Software creates its own universe, that's why game worlds are made of software. All softwares exist, but they exist as separate universes. So for instance, magic is not real in nature, but it's real in the Harry Potter literary universe (a software universe). Mathematics works the same way. Software objects are observable.
To avoid confusion, you need to specify which universe you are talking about.
Thanks for listening. ;)
I see your point. But I don't agree that a piece of software creates its own universe, and furthermore that our minds themselves being software entities create their own universe. I don't agree with the general notion that observer creates reality, I think it's the other way around.
First, maybe it's just semantics but I don't think it's very useful to think about it as a collection of separate universes. I my view there is only one universe which contains everything that exists. So this kind of global universe can't be even created, it just exists. There are only horizons which limit the conscious observer to a specific part of the universe -- the part in which it can exist as a conscious observer.
Second, I think all observable (imaginable) abstract objects are real but they are not automatically the same as the physical objects which can be observed through our senses. The physical objects are a very very special case, because our observable part of the universe is a very special case. So i don't think we can just say that "magic is real in Harry Potter" in a sense that there's a place very similar to ours except that there's magic and flying brooms. You would need to thing through what exactly that means to down to the quantum level, down to the absolute detail. Can't be done by a finite human mind nor by machine. For the same reason I think it's very difficult to create consciousness which is even more special than most physical objects. Definitely not as easy as melting few wires together or writing a video game character.
(Furthermore, I think what you wrote applies more to information in general not software specifically. Software is a specific type of information with a specific purpose - to control a machine. Information is more general and from a physical perspective every physical system can be thought of as a bunch of information. What we call "memory" is just a physical system with some practical (but ultimately arbitrary) characteristics like how easy it is to read/write/protect information in it. This blurs the distinction between software and hardware which is concept in Von-Neumann machine architectures. But for example in "wetware" like biological neural networks and hormonal control mechanisms it is already much less distinct. But my point here is - you cannot have software without the physical substrate.)
Greetings. Our universe can be sub-divided into sections that look like separate universes. So, you don’t make a new space-time, just a pool of isolated structure. That pool of structure is most of what you need for a new universe. The physical "substrate" (this term is confusing - there's no substrate here) for all softwares is the containing memory system hardware. The hardware contains the software - the software does not extend from the hardware. The software is not high-level hardware.
All softwares have levels of organization, just like nature, just different levels of organization. The atomic unit if any software system is the smallest information unit of the containing memory system (like a bit for computers). Genomes use nucleotides to do the same thing in the DNA memory system. Writing uses letters to do this. For minds, psychologists go down to memories (software), and that’s it - they don’t examine some neurons to solve a mind software problem (like a delusion).
All software systems are highly decoupled from their containing hardware (software never mixes with hardware). If this weren’t true then the memory system would never work. For instance, the contents of books would start mixing with the surrounding universe yielding junk when you try to read it. This never happens. In fact, you have to add information gateways (like memory mapped input and output) to talk to any of these systems. Without that they would be completely isolated universes. There’s nothing arbitrary about the design of memory systems (and they all have the functions you mentioned). You can also erase the software as well, and if you do so you will destroy the software universe, or erase any mind, and force any system to zero intelligence. Neural networks are not mixing hardware and software, which is impossible. The neural net is building a hardware memory system, and then you fill that memory with learned software. All learning is actually software building. The more software you have, the smarter you are (this is why older people are always smarter).
Reality means perception. Perception means you are creating an information gateway from minds to a universe. That’s how the mind software connects to nature (including software universes like a game-world). When you play in a game world it feels like you are really there.
The physical objects in the world are not the same thing as the software objects that mirror them in your mind. This is just like mountains in nature and mountains in a game-world. If you had big enough memory system, you could create a software duplicate made of pure information (pure structure). To make similar objects you just need similar structures, and that’s all software is, pure structure.
Math isn't "something we made up". Math is a way of describing things, like adjectives or adverbs. You can't hold a "slowly" or an "above" or a "hot", any more than you can hold a "1/2" ... or a "sit". Yes, methods of describing things ("languages") are "made up" ... but Math is based on empirical (and shared) observations ... so until the world around us changes character, the "language" of Math will be a valid way of describing things. Stop confusing Nouns with Adjectives.
Yup I agree. Maths describes....that’s it. So now that’s solved 👍🙂
Ianguage itself was made up by man.
We creates those descriptors based off of shared observations like how u can make a lightbulb out of shared observations of electricity passing through a wire
Math is about symbolism which describes logical relationships. "Symbolism," "logic," "relationship,"...all mind stuff.
Math is in deed something we made up. Cause math is a Language. And you cannot always describe physical things with maths... In paper everything is Infinite (an Apple or an Orange) cause you can always, ALWAYS divide all its parts in two... but in the Physic world we know an Apple is not Infinite. It will come a time when you cannot divide it more. ... Also did you know that there are more Numbers between 1 and 2 than all the others numbers (which are infinite) ...there is a mathematical equation to prove it, look it up... imaging how crazy is that... a mathematical equation telling you that there is something bigger than infinite... and that my friend is the problem with number and maths ... and this problem, this imperfection is just because one thing: Its a Man-Made.
"Infinity" is a concept, and in order to entertain the concept, you do NOT need to hold infinite objects within ones mind
Are you sure though
Wow you haven’t aged at all since college. Way to go😂
Thanks man
Was math discovered or invented ? The answer is YES.
"The Fictionalist Argument" - as defined in 5:34 by the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy, anyhow - is a truly convoluted and disastrously incomprehensible kludge of assumptions boldly drawn from false premises.
I'm not saying that "Mathematical Fictionalism" itself is necessarily false. Maybe math is entirely _invented_ ... but I am saying that the argument (and the "proof") should be defined by a mathematician, not by a failing English major.
I have always found this question utterly stupid. Invention doesn't exist - there is only discovery.
". Invention doesn't exist - there is only discovery."
No, an invention is based on discoveries. Time exists was discovered, wheels discover but gears and clocks were invented. The difference is in choosing what discovered principles can be used to do things. The discoveries do nothing on their own. Putting them together to do work is an invention.
Your example of a gear and a wheel is a perfect example of the hypocrisy. I love how you say the gear was invented and the wheel was discovered - when the distinction couldn't be more arbitrary. We tend to say things are invented, at point of human development where some tangible object that humans can interact with are produced. We don't attribute the centuries of scientific discoveries and that inevitably led to the invention's viability, we call that all discovery. But the moment a physical thing is witnessed, it's invention. As Newton said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants". As Edison said, "Ideas come from space". All things that are useful to our society will inevitably be discovered as useful. The lightbulb always existed as a practical means of creating light. It's "existence" was in its very practicality. It was just a matter of time before that reality was discovered and put to practical use by whoever happened to be living in the right place at the right time with the motivation to make that tiny extra push.
barnacle
"Your example of a gear and a wheel is a perfect example of the hypocrisy. "
That is a perfect example of an ad hominem.
"I love how you say the gear was invented and the wheel was discovered - when the distinction couldn't be more arbitrary."
That is arbitrary based on a refusal to think it out.
" We tend to say things are invented, "
BS, neither of us are WE.
"We don't attribute the centuries of scientific discoveries and that inevitably led to the invention's viability, "
That is YOU, not me, I not only mentioned it, that was part of the reasoning I gave.
" But the moment a physical thing is witnessed, it's invention."
More bullshit. Not related to anything I wrote or reality. Its your own crap.
". As Newton said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants"."
People said it before him and he did not believe that when he wrote it. He refused to acknowledge any specific person because he was pissed of at the person that came up with idea that forces decrease as the square of the distance. In any case he did NOT CLAIM that he DISCOVERED the Newtonian telescope. He invented that, AFTER the discovered laws of optics.
The laws of optics are a DISCOVERY, his telescope was something he INVENTED based on laws. No one discovered it.
Wikipedia - Newtonian telescope
"Newtonian telescope design
The Newtonian telescope, also called the Newtonian reflector or just the Newtonian, is a type of reflecting telescope invented by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), using a concave primary mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror. Newton's first reflecting telescope was completed in 1668 and is the earliest known functional reflecting telescope.[1] The Newtonian telescope's simple design makes it very popular with amateur telescope makers.[2]"
INVENTED. There is NOTHING arbitrary in that designation. YOU showed nothing arbitrary in my previous example yet YOU ARBITRARILY falsely claimed that it was arbitrary without even trying to support that claim.
". As Edison said, "Ideas come from space".
They don't so he was wrong on that. They come from knowledge and the mind of the inventor. Plus a lot of work in many cases.
"". All things that are useful to our society will inevitably be discovered as useful. "
Literally that was a meaningless noise. It is just saying:
A=A
"ul. The lightbulb always existed as a practical means of creating light."
You do know that it did not exist in the 1700's? So it did NOT exist as practical means of creating light until several things were invented and Edison's team DISCOVERED a suitable filament.
". It was just a matter of time before that reality was discovered
No it was a matter of time and a lot of work before it was INVENTED. It was not discovered. The vacuum was discovered. The filament material was discovered. The glass that the tube was made from was a discovery but the tube itself was an invention.
We DISCOVER the properties of the universe we live in. We INVENT the tools we make using the knowledge that was obtained in those discoveries.
Think it trough this time instead making up lies about what I wrote, hypocrite.
Its time to learn that you were wrong. Sorry but even I sometimes screwup. Its not often but it happens. Not this time.
Look, you can either hold your breath or you can learn. No one every loses an online discussion IF THEY KEEP AN OPEN MIND AND DO NOT LOSE THEIR TEMPER. The worst that can happen is that they will learn something. Which is winning, not losing.
It is time for you to win new knowledge.
Ethelred Hardrede
I can pick up a bunch of pebbles, then pick up a bunch of sea shells. I can pair up each pebble with a sea shell, and get rid of the extra sea shells. I can then get sticks and match up a stick with each pebble and sea shell set. It doesn't matter how many pebbles I had, 2, 5, 20, it doesn't matter. But whatever that number is, it has a numberness to it that can be matched to anything that is real or imagined. I don't have to give it a name, or a symbol, but doing both of those things makes it easier. It's easier to write a symbol for fiveness in the sand with a stick than to have a set of five pebbles to match other things with. Numberness is a property we recognize, we know when there are only 11 eggs in the carton. Animals know when another animal gets more pieces of food than they did. So that's just counting stuff. We can count forces, and velocities, too. We can add sets of things, which is multiplication. Division is just finding how many smaller sets are in a larger set. Numbers are just counting, and math is just rearranging the counts. Numberness is there if you notice it, but it's also there if you don't notice it. That's true because a person who notices can point it out to someone who hadn't before. Numberness does not govern the universe, it just allows measurements to be made that can be used to make guesses and experiments testing those guesses. I don't believe there is anything metaphysical, or even surprising about math.
Well said, to sum it up, the mathematical framework is a set of concepts derived from the concept of addition alongside experiment.
I really liked the example of pointing out numberness to someone who "did not notice numberness" before. But I think this hypothetical situation just points out (to me, at least) that it it impossible, it could not have taken place. I'd argue that perceiving numberness is a quality of consciousness - it is like perceiving time or space. It is impossible not to perceive them if you are human, I'd even venture to say if you are an animal. It might be that plants perceive space and time much differently than us (seeing that they cannot really travel through space like us, maybe they perceive it just as "immutable" as the flow of time is to us). In any case, I think that numberness does not exist in the universe outside of consciousness - it is a way of perceiving the world, and thus requires a subject that perceives. Numberness tells us more about our consciousness than it does about the universe.
"Numberness tells us more about our consciousness than it does about the universe."
BS, the principles of 'numberness' are not dependent on anyone noticing them. They are valid with or without anyone noticing.
Woo will not change that reality. Get your head out of Noam Chomsky's ass. Its a bad place to be, though better than in his woo filled head.
Please, be polite. Talking like that adds nothing to your argument (which, by the way, you didn't make - you just stated that everyone else is wrong without providing any proof or argument). It also makes you look very butthurt, which, I guess, is not what you intended.
I have no idea what or who "woo" is, so you'll have to enlighten me. Also, I don't know what Chomsky thinks about mathematics.
Finally, I have no clue why the idea that math doesn't exist outside our heads offends you so. Numbers are not physical phenomena. Rocks, air, atoms, photons etc. exist as material objects, they can be empirically observed and their qualities described (using, for example, math). Numbers, on the other hand, do not exist as material objects, they cannot be empirically observed, tested, experimented upon, etc. We use numbers to describe material objects and physical processes, but numbers aren't themselves material or physical. There is straightforward empirical evidence that rocks, atoms etc. existed long before humans, or any form of life at all, came to be - there is none (and can be none) for numbers. You can not use physics or chemistry or biology to describe the number "2", it just can't be done. From a purely scientific point of view it is impossible for numbers to exist outside consciousness because they are, well, not physical objects. Saying that numbers somehow exist independently of consciousness is straight-up metaphysics, platonism of the highest degree.
Kat
"Please, be polite."
" It also makes you look very butthurt,
Hypocrite.
"I guess, is not what you intended."
Your perception is does not bother me at all. It was a just a mindless rant over the us the term BS and ass.
"I have no idea what or who "woo" is, s"
That is not my problem. It is your failure. Look it up.
"Also, I don't know what Chomsky thinks about mathematics."
Again that is your problem not mine.
"Finally, I have no clue why the idea that math doesn't exist outside our heads offends you so"
You are the one that is offended. I am not offended at all. You are projecting. Math is not dependent on your head. Nor on anyone's head.
" Numbers are not physical phenomena."
I made no such claim.
", they can be empirically observed and their qualities described (using, for example, math). Numbers, on the other hand, do not exist as material objects, "
Numbers DO have properties that can be described. It does not matter if thy are not material objects. Neither are words.
"hey cannot be empirically observed, tested, experimented upon, etc'
People do that all the time. We are not limited by your inability to do what others can and have done.
". There is straightforward empirical evidence that rocks, atoms etc. existed long before humans,'
Yes, do you have an actual point?
"You can not use physics or chemistry or biology to describe the number "2","
Nor can you with words but words and numbers can be described. Numbers are not dependent on words nor on rocks. Nor on you. Four rocks remain four rocks whether anyone counts them or not.
"From a purely scientific point of view it is impossible for numbers to exist outside consciousness because they are, well, not physical objects."
Wrong. Write them down and no consciousness is needed to retain them.
"Saying that numbers somehow exist independently of consciousness is straight-up metaphysics, platonism of the highest degree."
You seem a bit butthurt about concepts that have validity with or without your existence. Plato was as found of woo as Chomsky.
The principles of math/logic are not dependent on your existence. Nor can you just plain make them up. IF they depended on YOU they could do anything. 2 + 2 could equal 5 but that is not the case. Whether you admit it or not, 2+2 does not equal 5 even if all sentient life vanishes from the universe.
Deal with that THAN you may have a clue on the subject. So far you only have woo and a tendency to complain if your woo is questioned.
Ethelred Hardrede
What you're asking is "Is thought real?"
Descartes development of mathematics, integration with science and most everything, along with establishing notation (x, y, x²) was born of a desire to describe our thinking and its connection with our bodies and the things around us. Math is a description of thought.
Aren't you putting Descartes before terHorst?
This is the closest comment that I've seen to what I believe. Math is purely a set of defintions that are consistent with eachother. Essentially a description.
"No I'm not high, this is me completely sober" should be my motto.
"No I'm not high"... not something I would readily admit.
Me totes!
I say that when I'm high around my mom
"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." - George E.P. Box
+jimbo jones Uh no... i think it was actually Trump who said that? like, a lot of times, even?
Therefore, that statement is wrong.
Base 10 is completely arbitrary, but "numbers" like pi or e aren't. Pi will always be the ratio between a circle's diameter and it's radius. e will always be the limit of the function (1+1/n)^n. The beautiful part of math is that equations like e^i pi=-1 exist.
the equation itself doesnt exist,... the fact of the equation being an accurate descriptor does exist(which is what I think you were getting at).
This is the problem with philosophical assholes who want to just confuse everyone.
@@MrMeow-iq7kq The equation does exist. It has always been true, regardless of whether we have already discovered it.
@@xhelloselm does not exist
the equation would be an abstract tool/idea designed for and by humans to understand and measure something- not the real thing.
Math has never been anything more than an imperfect abstract tool.
I think the real issue is the perfect circle that pie defines doesnt exist, anywhere in the known universe to my knowledge
Maybe Base 10 has to do with how many fingers we have?
Funny story, I was in second grade and I asked my second grade teacher during math, why one and one is two?
She said because one plus one equals two... I said why? who? said one is one? And she thought I was being a smart a** , and made me sit in the corner.....???? Public schools???
Damn. I wish I was your second grade teacher at that time. I would've definitely had a discussion with you based on your and my theories. I wouldn't care how old you were, people who question reality have my attention, at any age. We know much more than we did 100 years ago, and even more than 100 years before that, and we are constantly learning as a species about the Earth and the universe. So we really need people who will question what we know, or rather what we believe to know, and who will, later in life, learn reality without a shadow of a doubt, and make a discovery humanity didn't know about nor would've learned for a while without those people's questioning of what we know.
not just public schools, sadly
- I went to, I suppose, private school (hadn't really thought about it in those terms, but yeah)(my dad was a firm believer in a good education - his dad was an author & university lecturer, my dad was chair of PTA etc, very involved) - I got in so much trouble over the years for 'asking questions'. my mum told me a few years back that both my primer 1 and primer 2 (elementary 1 & 2) teachers hated me - thought I was both dumb and a smart arse - I was just genuinely curious (soon learnt to shut up!!!) - would have got into far more trouble over the years if wasn't my father's daughter (very small school, regularly sent to principals office (always scared, lol) - just to act as a courier for paperwork for my dad
didn't help that my kindy (kindergarten, umm US daycare?) was Steiner* (vividly remember a debate at kindy - asked what I was drinking by one of my peers - I said it was lime juice - (Rose's Lime Cordial**) - was told by first one peer then another, eventually a whole group it couldn't possibly be - because it wasn't "green"
* educationcentral.co.nz/a-steiner-education/
Rose's Lime Juice / Cordial is a British thing (though I'm a kiwi/New Zealander - we have it here - you can see the bottle here: -ua-cam.com/video/WFC-CxHs-_k/v-deo.html (that is very very concentrated - you only need a tiny amount - side by side comparison you might be able to tell a glass (or in my case bottle) of it - from plain water, but only just - but to my peers, unless it was "green" it couldn't possibly be "lime"
@@juliaconnell I think a lot of educators frown upon students that ask so many questions like that because they don't really know how to answer them. And too many of them make assumptions about things, thinking they know the answer, when they themselves don't. I taught my 9th grade physics teacher how an AC system on a car worked, because she didn't know. How she did not, I'm not too sure of. She understood how pressure increases cause a ride in temperature and pressure drops cause a drop in temperature, but she didn't understand how a car's AC system worked. Baffled me. I explained it to her, and she basically gave me a look like "I'm the teacher and you're the student. You don't know anything." I think that is a lot of the problem. Too many people are closed minded and stubborn to learn anything from someone younger than them. As if age has anything to do with knowledge.
@@juliaconnell I think private school teachers may be worse in some aspects. I'm sure they believe that they are in a higher class of instructor in order to get a job at a private school, and therefore they know more than anyone who had less of a pedigree. They don't realize that knowledge can be obtained from anywhere, and money and class doesn't determine intelligence.
@@VicinalElk44104 it's a sad state of affairs isn't it? when people who are supposed to be nurturing and educating young people are so threatened by them - if you diverge from the 'textbook' in any way, shape or form you get stomped on - I found this even at university
Quick correction. The Fibonacci sequence was actually first recorded in India by a guy who studies music with math. In the West we call it Fibonacci because Fibonacci commented on it and provided his own example of rabbits. In one of my math classes I was told that the sequence was named after Fibonacci by some french dude decades after Fibonacci died.
One of the measures of "quackiness" of a math or physics paper is how many things in that paper are named after the author of the paper -- mathematicians and physicists typically don't name things after themselves, but let others name those things, if found important enough. This practice sometimes causes things to be "misnamed", but that's typically left to the historians to sort out.
While I appreciate mathematical history, I'm also inclined to think that proper attribution isn't crucial, so long as we know what we're talking about!
who was that indian guy?
@@soheil527 They find it in a lot of Indian (Sanskrit) Poetry. Back then poets would express math's in usual language, this is long before our standard notation. In the seventh century, Virahanka wrote a text Vrttajatisamuccaya in which he discussed what we today call the Fibonacci numbers. The topic goes deeper then just the sequence, as the topic goes deep into number theory.
@@alpheusmadsen8485 I think it is, because by associating historical significance we can often get clues to where to find the mysteries. History can leave behind a trails and patterns which we can use to study things. I think things are lot more crucial than we realize and we should attribute correctly regardless.
In regards to the first question you asked of why anything exists in the first place; the way I see it, the only reason why anything exists in the first place is because it has to. Because the opposite of existence is non-existence, and non-existence already doesn't exist. It never was and never will be, and can only continue not existing when in the presence of what already does exist. The question why does anything exist, is a question that exists inside of existence and is dependant on anything existing at all for the first place in order for the question to be asked at all. Existence isn't subject to the question, the question is subject to existence. It's like asking what does something look like behind your field of vision; it doesn't look like anything, not even darkness (darkness being one's field of vision being blocked), and will only continue looking like nothing, in the existence of what can be can be seen by one's field of vision.
non-existance doesnt exist? Is this suppose to be a paradox?
I agree that questioning existence is an effort in futility, but proving non-existence is just as easy as proving existence.
I hold up my hand, there is no apple in existence in my hand. No apple HAS to exist in my hand, nor will it ever. It just is or it isnt. There may for example, at some point exist an apple in my hand.... it wont be the same apple that didnt exist tho.
For some reason, people have trouble accepting this idea.... I suspect it is due to peoples insecurity bred by human nature. They find this concept sad and disheartening for some reason... empty.... this is odd to me, they should be glad they won the lottery of life, instead of questioning it like ungrateful inbreds.
@@MrMeow-iq7kq A lot of humanity, particularly the ascientific and more emotionally inclined, are entirely incapable of tolerating a meaningless existence as it becomes more apparent. What baffles me is this even applies to atheist groups, who proclaim meaning and value in a meaningless world. This is also why we have dramatic philosophers. We all are born and live and die assuming we're special as compared to the ant we kill, but the impact of the death of the ant is equal to that of ours. The faster we all accept a fact somewhat akin to that, hopefully we wont continue running around like a bunch of jackasses killing eachother and just do some science.
I was a math teacher for over 25 years. Math might be all BS but without math, we would not have the modern technological society we have today.
Actually language is key to make society work, thus technologies to be created and transferred to future generations.
@@MP-ei4kd math IS a language.
But is that good thing, we don't really know :p
Omg why does literally every math teacher I've had use this argument??
@@StephJ0seph Maybe, because it is true.
Abstract objects exist in the domain of abstract objects.
Real objects to the extent that we can detect their effects - no one has ever seen an electron, but physicists are quite certain that such objects (particles) exist. The ultimate test of a physical theory is whether it predicts results that can be detected.
I just wanted to say that I love your videos. I found your channel the other day and I've already seen most of your content. Keep up!!
Thanks!
Yep, dude is a beast. I fell in love with this channel quite awhile back. Been hooked ever since. Joe made Monday's manageable. I hate going back to work, but I love finding a new answers with Joe notification.
This video is BS! How can that shelve hold Thor's hammer without collapsing?
It's made out of Orichalcum.
Mjölnir weighs about 40 lbs. A sturdy enough shelve could easily hold it in place. The only reason no one else can carry it is because of it's magic.
Obviously, because it is worthy, just as Thor is. Duh!
Because that's not Thors hammer, Thors hammer got broke in that stupid feel good movie that made Infinity wars look so sad, Loki died, Hamdole died Groot got culled and so did you or me since half of everyone got culled, was it you cos it wasn't me I just wrote this so it must've been you so this was redundant and I should waste my time doing something else with someone else just for a chance of a response which in my case would be a win, which I really need right now, so badly. Well that's what I think and so should you and don't take things so seriously and no I'm not high, tomorrow maybe but not today and that's okay. Cheers
Ikr?
In my musings across the infinite landscape that is the internet, I watched a video about The Great Filter that mentioned a scientist, or possibly an author that used to do thought experiments from the perspective of an alien. Which got me thinking about mathematics from an alien perspective. Can there really be an alternative form of mathematics, something literally alien to our own (and not just because of a difference in symbols or language or number system), something that quite literally would be a different way of expressing aspects of our universe that may in fact have lead them to such advancement?
Unfortunately, I don't think that there is. And it's not just because I cannot think of one, but it's partly because of how what we have now is an evolution of trial and error processes that have lead to the invention/discovery of these amazing formulas and equations that express and quantify so many things that we can observe, and further solidify those things with experimentation.
There's also the fact that anybody who's who would most certainly know of the fundamental forces and would, without a doubt, understand the the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Take the hydrogen atom for instance. 1 Proton, one electron. How else could something like that be described that could possibly be still rational, and time and time again, proved to be quantifiable by some measure or experiment? You might come up with something that only works for the hydrogen atom and that would be it. When introduced to helium, that rule most likely would break down and could not be continually applied elsewhere.
I ran out of steam there on my thought, but I think it does capture some of what I was trying to say. Which is that I find it hard to believe, that if in fact there are aliens out there, we would be able to communicate with them on some level. Math would be the best bet.
No, math is just us slicing the universe into ever larger and smaller piece to be measured, we discovered Planck length, the smallest anything can be, lol math is used to measure, aliens would have to measure to build anything complex, the reason I know math is just us using a system to measure is the quest to build smaller transistors, we built the most complex machines to do math, its useful
you can do math without numbers, fold a piece of paper in half, and the rip it in two, that going to be the same on an alien world
Math is a high level programming language for a logic compiler
As a programmer...No, not even close.
@@robertdimaggio9086 go study axioms in principia Mathematica from Newton or the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell your education seems to have missed something
Actually no. Very different. I understand where your coming from but seriously no.
@@nunobartolo2908 You're wrong. Math existed before mathematical axioms. How could you possibly deny this? In this comments section, people keep assuming that math and logic are the same thing, and mocking people who say otherwise. This is all mixed up. You don't need any axioms to do math, and an axiom is AN ASSUMPTION in the first place!
A compiler doesn't have a programming language _for_, it! You aren't programming the compiler, you're programming the machine!
The comments here are a good indication that science needs philosophy.
Doesn't track with me, but ok. 😂
Doesn't everything?
@@simplyhuman3982 not really 😂
Philosophy is the basis of mathematics
@@alexcastel2244 no, if anything logic is.
Well as an amateur mathematician (who aspires to attain my Phd someday), I suppose I should give my 2 cents.
There are many ways people describe mathematics:
As a science (though it doesn't follow the scientific method)
As a language (though theoretically you could use an entirely different set of symbols, syntax, and grammar to describe it)
As an art (though is an art for which only the artists can understand its beauty still an art?)
As a philosophy (though math seems to have FAR more agreement than philosophy)
As an invention (though it doesn't seem to function by design, but rather logical consistency demands its function)
As a discovery (though would it have existed without the mathematician?)
And so on
The truth is mathematics is unlike anything else. It's more true, more precise, more abstract, more practical, and more consistent than anything and here's why: **Math is the threshold of reason itself.** It's the reason why reason exists. Everytime you argue, debate, explain, experiment, justify, or deduce, your mind is making mathematical assumptions about the consistency of the world we live in.
And let's just agree that the world IS consistent, because otherwise this would be an entirely different debate. Then the practicality of mathematics becomes obvious. Of course it underpins all science, because science is all about continuing to ask "why". And if you ask "why" enough times, you have to break down your assumptions into simpler, more concrete assumptions, and eventually you arrive at your fundamental assumptions: MATH
Our senses + language + math = consistent world ?
Bumblebee 9337 yeah basically. I might say it like this:
Observation+ consensus+ repeatability+ math= consistent reality
All, but your language descriptor is spot on. As how languages are defined, math certainly fits the definition. Look up Chomsky’s hierarchy of languages. We learned formal definitions of language in upper level computer science classes.
I think I'm thinking of something a little deeper than what Chomsky is calling a language. Math is more about the underlying truth (essentially what the language is talking about, not the language itself). Though I'll admit my knowledge is pretty limited. I'd be quite interested in learning more about the relationship between formal language and mathematics
+Jason Martin, Math also covers the concept of probability, which actually describes the inconsistencies of the world we live in. As such I think you could even state that the world merely needs to be largely consistent
No, math is just a description.
Which accurately models reality.
Four rocks can be shared as two each with two people. That is True.
4:2=2. Also True.
These are statements describing a truth.
Humans are mammals. That is true. But there's no reason to Express that in the Abstract Language of english.
This is the physicalist argument that he described in the video
Math, like any language, is an abstract way to describe events or things in the universe. If it was not real and therefore not adopted, then our society and its advances would not exist. You may not be able to touch a number but its impact on the physical is just as real as picking up two objects and combining them to make a third unique piece. Loved the video. I often used this topic to show how an abstract concept can determine our physical reality.
Maths was the only thing I had trouble with in college, the problem was it was a hard fail of the whole course I took if you didn't pass it.
Being the last person in the class and seeing the anxiety and horror on my face, my wonderful maths professor sat next to me and gave me the answers, explaining why they were the answers, but he made sure I passed my course.
I need that teacher now
Late to the party, just found your channel but since you did spark some thoughts ill share them anyway.Personaly i think of math not as a thing that exists but a language we came up with to describe the reality we perceive. Things in our reality interact with each other and thus we discover ways to describe those interactions - new equations. The main problem i see with this view is that it would be the only language i know of that goes on like "eh, we'll make up some new words and put them on a shelf, someone in the future might find a use for them" like pure, "career" mathematicians did for a long time now as far as i heard, making the language interact with itself to come up with solutions we dont know the questions for yet which sounds kinda far fetched. In a sense i think we both discover the interactions in our world, and invent the "words" to describe them. But math itself is something we made up to fit what we see, not something that was always there, and we try really hard to make it as objective and universal as we can. With decent results, too.
Math teacher: Turn in yesterday's homework assignment.
Student: UA-camr Joe Scott said Math is BS, therefore the assignment was BS.
Math teacher: *stern and annoyed look* Well, I assure you this detention you're receiving is not "BS".
Student skips detention, then sets off on a journey to avoid the consequences of skipping detention, encountering many wondrous things in this journey, among which are musings about existence and invention and discovery..
Student (years later): Thank you for attempting to punish me with detention. It changed my life.
Teacher: Who are you?
This didn't go where I expected it to. I thought you'd talk about the hunt for a rigorous foundation of maths that Godel proved was impossible.
That Mathematical Fictionalists attempt to use logic (which itself has no physical basis) in an attempt to claim that numbers are not real because they're not physical objects makes me think that they're trolling everyone.
I think Gödel's theroms more proved that any formal axiomatic system was no stronger than Number Theory and that any proofs it could provide were limited in a similar way.
"What makes math real" "where did math come from" etc etc. Its called a human intellect. It is a tool/concept based on another tool/concept called logic. These tools give our minds the ability to observe and describe natural phenomena.
NO. The human intellect perceives relationships between observed things, and uses math to describe those relationships. But the relationships, and thus the math, would exist whether or not they were observed by human intellect. It's just mental masturbation to insist otherwise.
@x3n0: I like that!
@BrightBlueJim: I like that too! So many ways to look at things.
Just smoked a bowl, and the beginning of this really blew my mind man!
-Well, if we start with the only thing that is certain - I think, therefore I am (something exists - you). This must always be true, because if it wasn't we wouldn't be able to think it to begin with.
-From this we can determine that if one thing exists, then so too must the concept of one.
-That there must also be more than one thing, or no action would be possible on the first to allow for more than 1 state of existence or any meaningful enough state that observation could be derived.
-From this, we can determine that at least whole numbers are a fundamental measure of components of the universe, at least in the sense that discreet, countable objects exist within it.
-Then, if any object's state can change and they are to interact with one another, the interactions between them must also be countable.
-That any interaction between 2 objects must transfer some value, or there would be no interaction. We can assume whatever value is transferred, that it must also have a counting component, because if not, the value would be fundamentally undefined and the objects would both also inherit this undefined component, making them no longer real either.
-From this we can assume that any measurement we make of objects or the interactions between them must then be mathematically intelligible or the objects and their interaction would need to be mathematically undefinable, meaning they could not exist.
Somehow, it seems how we observe objects or causality (interactions) is really the confusing part. The incredibly confusing and complex behaviour of objects in space, where space is relative to each object individually and how they distort it through gravity, where locality isn't real and objects can seem to exist in more than 1 place or state at a time, where wave forms are properties of objects and interactions are always defined by discreet quantities... Maybe much simple concepts are playing out under a the confusing veil of space that's presented to us. That actually there is no space or time and interactions can only be described as instant and discreet, but out view gives them distance and time is derived by the order that they happen....
I, like you, am seriously math impaired, but I see Math as an arbitrary abstract construct formulated to describe an define the observable, much like language. The advantage of Math is that the components are not as subject to interpretation as are words.
The nexus of your problem with maths is this assertion it's arbitrary. It is any thing but arbitrary. It is basically fixed unchanging system of correct rules and logic, which must be followed to arrive at a correct solution. The rules don't change.
So how come physitis say that math brakes down in extreme situations, were the rules do change like Quantum physics or black holes? With black holes they say the results they get are impossible like an infinity of infinities as one quote I have heard..
Modelling things mathematically, generally speaking requires some understanding of the thing your trying to model. For things like boundary conditions, initial conditions and what assumptions can be made to make it solvable without invalidating the result. I'm an engineer so my expertise is centered around modelling physical systems not theoretical physics. But I'm guessing the problems their having relate to not properly characterizing the interactions (physic's) of the system their trying to model. This would link into the fact that we don't have a unifying theory for general relativity and quantum physics, basically there remain's ALOT about the universe we simply don't know or understand fully. I would assume they are producing theories based on known data about how the physics works and then constructing mathematical models to fit these theories. That the math's trend to infinity or otherwise don't correctly show the relationship's present in the real system would suggest that their theory is at least partially incorrect/incomplete in some capacity.
If math was arbitrary then it wouldnt be the same regardless of where on earth it developed. The symbols you use to depict it change but it is a fixed pattern. The symbols used throughout time varied ie. roman numerals, numbers, bead graphs, dots etc.
Dylan Sullivan math wasn't developed the same all over the world.
Apparently the Polynesians had a binary number system that wasn't understood until years after colonisation. It required translation just like language.
Math is just a tool we use to explain our environment. Math is unreasonably effective because if it is incorrect than it isn't math.
It is a set of rules.
Fictionalists: "From (3) and (6) by modus tollens, it follows that..."
Also fictionalists: 3 and 6 don't exist.
DAMMIT!
They use "3" and "6" as shorthands for their arguments. They could just copy paste the entire paragraphs in here, but that would super annoying to read. Their usage of the numerical symbols doesn invalidate their argument.
I was more concerned that modus tollens is a piece of mathematics
"And if the party says that it is not four but five - then how many?"
'George Orwell, 1984
Is it just me or is this guy simp leftist shill?
@@Politicallyhomeless957 You mean Orwell? Yeah, he was socialist.
And a naked and abused Captain Piccard, under the hot lights of a cardassian interrogation, begins to falter...right before the enterprise shows up 2 save the day.2
This argument says nothing about the actual number; only about the relationship between people and parties.
@@rajasmasala Until he saw the results of socialism, then he wasn't, and everything he wrote afterwards destroyed socialist concepts.
The analogy is software. We code in compiled or assembled symbolic statements (artificial languages like C, HTML or Assembly) to describe a given problem that eventually become a binary file. The binary file (or image file) is loaded into memory and executed by the CPU. the CPU needs to find op codes (in binary) and parameters (in binary) to do the processing.
Math is another artificial language used to describe problem (the Universe, the bridges to build) and our brains are the CPU.
This episode should be called "Questions with Joe"
True.
@@joescott The Thinker statue is a model Joe Scott!
I struggle with math, too, but reading in the history of math has helped me feel much less intimidated by it.
Don't struggle. Try this easy math hack: Surprise the problem math with liquid nitrogen spray - that slows it right down. Then you can just sneak up and pants it, so it can't come after you when it thaws. Then point and giggle from a safe place. No one likes an abstract bully.
Math is just how human try to translate what the universe is....however, as human had evolved only for merely 250000 years, inaccuracy in the interpretation is still very high!
We had a saying back when I was getting my BSc in Math: Biologists must answer to Chemists, Chemists must answer to Physicists, Physicists must answer to Mathematicians, but Mathematicians must only answer to God. :-)
And even then, it's difficult to find a mathematician that humble! ;-)
I literally had to screenshot your comment because that is just an awesome saying.
And God needs answers?
God made the natural numbers, and all else is the work of man
-Kronecker
@@DavoidJohnson Yes, God only needs one answer.
Read the short story "The Last Answer" by Isaac Asimov. It is remarkable.
The Fictionalist argument, which results in obvious nonsense, shakes my belief not in maths but in philosophy.
All it says is that math is not real, and is efficient still in describing the universe
This is why math is "unreasonably efficient"
Maths is true given a set of axioms. Its true within the axioms. Now not all of these axioms will apply in the real world. Like you can't have an imaginary number of apples, in other applications though imaginary numbers are applicable. Numbers and math cease to exist outside of these axioms. These axioms themselves are neither true or untrue (unless applied to a certain real world problem), they are just abstractions.
Good for you bud
Why does bad philosophy shake your belief in philosophy?
It's ok. Philosophy can be too much for some people, no shame.
The video seems to conflate "real" and "true"; they actually mean two different things.
Can you please expand on this. Somewhere, in the dusty recesses of my brain, I remember this from college...
Love Music I take it to mean that numbers don’t exist as real objects. We came up with them. However, numbers do describe the physical universe so in that sense they are true, even if they are the product of our brains.
@@learntocrochet1 here's how i see it, real is something that exist, true is something that makes sense.
@@akbaer60 I agree except I would say that True is something that can be demonstrated. False things can make sense, and sometimes True things don't make sense at face value. So, the 'trueness' of something can't necessarily be confined to whether or not one understands it.
Leibniz's explanations on Truths of Reason vs Truths of Fact describes this idea nicely. Definitely worth a read
I e-mailed this to my math teacher. He’s chill he’ll probably laugh.
Yeah, but what if he DOESN'T?
The answer is that it's a combination of both, in the following manner:
1) That Platonism is true. There is a "space of forms" in which abstract concepts exist.
2) The space of forms, is infinitely large, and observer dependent and therefor arbitrary.
Together this means the following : That the objective reality that exists is infinitely large. We as finite human observers, can only describe this object in a way that is arbitrary as every reference frame can only give a specific local interpretation of that object.
This is why someone can look at the same object IE: White Light, where one person can say "The light is homogenous: one color" whereas at a different scale, another observer can say "the light contains all colors and is therefore heterogenous" which are two different descriptions of the same object.
It's not obvious that Scale Invariance which is a symmetry property, would be observer dependent...but here is another example : You have a square, and you rotate it 45 degrees. You would perceive this square now, as a diamond. But did the object change? Well not really, your perspective of the object is what changed. If you had another observer, one that was 45 degrees offset from you, that observer would see a square and not a diamond. Again, these two observers would disagree with what they are seeing, and is thus another instance where the objectivity of that same object is dependent on our perspective.
Inevitably, there is an infinite number of transformations we could make, and an infinite number of possible observers that could perceive that same object, in their own way. So to repeat, what exists is this infinite, abstract object (in the previous example, the square that can be viewed under any arbitrary transformation) and how we describe that object, can only be done from the perspective of a finite observer. When you think about just how arbitrary these transformations can be, the full extent is that any conceivable transformation you can think of would be valid, and thus the universe of abstract objects must also be at least as big as this (infinite).
Math is a mental construct that can describe the physical world. Going down philosophical rabbit holes with regard to the nature of numbers is silly. They are an abstract reality. Using the logical proofs (a form of math by the way) to disprove math exists the way the fictionalists do is just intellectual trolling. Those guys can go suck a prime number. Math may be a universal language that we could use to communicate to other species that we are intelligent, so long as we don't use anthropomorphic mathmatical constructs based on the number of fingers and toes we have. Primes would be good. Pi would be good. Fibonaccis, and fractals.. Those are things that other species would have to understand in order to have gained the ability to speak across the distances of space. However, I do believe we have yet to stumble across the right mental constructs to define a unifying understanding of everything. I don't think we can do it with the math that we're using right now. Perhaps some kind of matrix math or nuclear geometry. We can scratch the surface with what we have now, but all it does is highlight the need for a new paradigm.
Alchemyst
Liked just for "they can suck a prime number" :D
To answer whether numbers (or math) are real, you have to have some kind of clear definition of “real”. There’s lots and lots of confusion and convoluted thinking here. If we take “real” to mean something we can experience ourselves, something phenomenological, then no, numbers are clearly not real. But if we are speaking more broadly about reality as a system and body of knowledge which best represents the world around us (by making predictions etc.) then numbers and math constitute the *language* of that system. So at the very least, we cannot understand reality without numbers (and math). To say this another way: All knowledge (including numbers and math) is conjecture based on belief; But some systems of conjecture and belief work a lot better than others, and the one that works the best is as close as we can currently get to understanding reality, and that system is expressed in terms of numbers and math, including their foundational axioms (completely unfounded and unjustifiable root beliefs which reason requires us to make in order to be able to explain things in the first place).
Do you not experience numbers when you count? You can directly observe numbers (and other abstract objects) in a similar way you observe physical objects. I'd say they are pretty close to being real..
So kyjo72682, what does the number 6 feel like? How big is it? What's it look like?
"are real, you have to have some kind of clear definition of “real”. "
Many definitions are not a good fit for what is being thought about. Clear definitions only exist for things that have no fuzzy thinking involved and in this case I do not mean fuzzy in the sense of woo or new age bullshit. I mean things like dirty vs clean, they are fuzzy concepts and fuzzy logic is used to deal with them. Yes fuzzy logic is a real thing. Ten percent dirty vs 90 percent clean, is that dirty? Or clean?
The best I have seen for reality is from a guy that was not all that connected upon occasion.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Phillip K. Dick
And reality often went away for Dick's brain, too damn many drugs.
Ethelred Hardrede
+Satanic Warmaster It's the feeling anyone gets when observing 6 separate objects. It's a different feeling than observing any other number of objects. You can divide those objects into 2 groups by 3, or 3 groups by 2. If you observe an another separate object in addition to those 6 you get 7, if you stop observing some of those original 6 you get 5, etc. The point is all these properties are objective, not subjective - they exist independently on any observer, even though they are not concrete physical objects you can observe directly with your senses. The numbers are the same for everyone, they don't change in any way, they just exist.
+kyjo72672 The notion or concept of quantities and numbers do exist, but not physically, e.g. you don't "feel" nor "experience" numbers themselves. You can "experience" physical objects but not numbers or quantities (since they're abstract). They have no meaning unless assigned to something concrete, such as trees, buildings or whatever that can have quantities or numbers.
8:34 You made a seriously flawed argument. "Infinite" is a concept, not an actual number; you're not trying to hold a non-countable "infinite things" in your head, instead you are holding the concept of infinity in your head.
eqlipse333 infinity is a number in the extended reals. And the omegas are ordinal numbers (which are also infinite). Infinity takes on many different forms so context is key.
Exactly. Anyone can wrtie down a number that you tell them to write down, no matter how large it is. Tell me a number, and I can write that number +1.
I hate the term infinite.... theres conceptually infinite, theoretically infinite, and numerically infinate. Yet in the end, they are all finite in practice.
Classical modern Mathematics is based entirely on set theory which is based on the ZFC axioms. One of them states, that there exists an infinite set.
Without that axiom, it would be impossible to prove or disprove the existence of an infinite set.
Having that one infinite set gives rise to a whole new universe of infinite sets. Actually, there are different „sizes of infinity“. Give me an infinite set and I can find another one that is even bigger (Cantors thm).
A good place (for non mathematicians) to get a first grasp of these concepts are Cantors diagonal theorems.
Edit: another interesting occurrence of „infinite numbers“ is nonstandard analysis where the real numbers get extended to a bigger set. We obtain new reals, some of them are greater than all the old ones and some are smaller (or rather their absolute value), we call these infinite and infinitesimal, respectively. These concepts make formal definitions of derivatives and integrals close to the original ideas with infinitesimal small numbers possible :)
I can tell you how I know it. I watched a few of the MANY videos on the topic, right here in good ol' UA-cam land because I'm a thinking and curious person unlike yourself who is just someone with an internet connection.
I think the correct view of math is "symbolism". You can't hold an infinite number of things in your head or on a page, but you can hold a symbol that represents the idea of infinity. Also concerning the "unreasonable effectiveness" of math, it is basically a "theory of anything". Anything can be modeled by math, so that's why it works. It's universal in the sense that it's impossible to come up with data that can't be fit using some math tool or other. Rules and postulates are invented, theorems are discovered.
"There are no such things as abstract objects" -- but we just demonstrated that there are, by giving an example!
call me a pedantic prick if you like, but I think the difference is that the example is an abstract concept, not an abstract object that you can poke
Universal language: violence.
Justification: ” I’ll give you five good reasons. One, two, three, four, five.” - Lucy Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Which was derived from:
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.” - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Math might be something like a collapsed wave function. I honestly don't know if I'm using that right. I just watched your "Delayed choice quantum eraser" video and the dust in my head hasn't settled yet. But, I do know that there are observable, measurable things that might behave differently when they're observed and measured. The ideas that math or time aren't real always make me want to ask if inches are real? They all seem to just be ways of measuring/information gathering and understanding observable things. They are methods that can be more subjective or objective. I'd guess that the more objective, the more accurate, but either is still observation. Total amateur spitballing.
"You can't understand a process by stopping it," somebody smarter than me said.
Three isn’t a thing. It is the set of all sets that contain 3 objects.
I've always thought of (been taught I'm sure) that math is a language that we have created to explain the physical world. So I'd say math can't be said to be true or false, real or fictional. It either does or doesn't accurately represent the world as we currently understand it.
When I was a kid back in the 60s a math teacher, on the first day, threw a question at us: "does 1+1 ever not equal 2?". I did an eye roll 🙄 and thought.... "why TF did i pick this class!" His answer, "... 1 chainsaw + 1 Buick does not equal 2 chainsaws or 2 Buicks, therefore 1+1 in this case doesn't equal 2".
I always feared higher math, but after Einstein's opening speech I was terrified! In the end he explained matter of chainsaws and Buicks and it made sense. I don't remember the answers but I'm now a retired machinist and mechanical engineer so I did well with the math.
It does equal two objects.
@Mr. Gang Banger
So to establish the circumference of a circle by using (ø * pi) is an unproven formula?
I have no idea what you're referring to when you said engineers don't "necessarily understand them". I agree we don't need to understand formula to know it works, but the formulas do work and many were proven centuries ago.
The physics of math works good enough we could send a Tesla sized "robot" 3 billion miles to Pluto and calculate a gravity boost to swing it past another tiny 20 mile diameter object a billion miles further.... successfully!
That's equivalent to shooting a poppy seed at a basket ball from LA to NYC , ricochet off and swinging by a peanut in Greenland. I'm no astrophysicist, but we do these things often and we're actually pretty good at it!
@Mr. Gang Banger well you cant prove anything from physics, because there is no mathmatical way to combine a concept with a physical observation in a way that creates a proof. However, you can prove abstract mathmatical concepts and derive them yourself.
@@Iconoclasher although in general I agree with you, the circumference of a circle is a pure maths idea that physics purely borrows to describe things.
I've been thinking about this ever since I learned the fractional relationship exhibited by quarks. Sadly mathematics may be as high as are intellect can carry us. (Far higher than ants and birds for sure). We may not be capable of the next higher level of abstraction.
platonists: NUMBERS ARE REAL!!!
fictionalists: NUMBERS AREN'T REAL!!!
engineers: I don't care, numbers work, so imma user 'em
Math is just a language. Nothing more nothing less.
It gets hard to understand writings of e.g. Machiavelli if you're illiterate or work as a salesman if you can't understand basic math. Numbers don't exist in the nature any more than alphabet or ideograms, but they enable us to understand things around us.
@@mikitz Like any language, math is a system of signifiers. The difference is that the in language the signified are thoughts, and in math the signified is reality.
Yes, but probably closer to ‘language is made up of mathematics’ or something
Language can change over time, math cannot.
@@AlexanderWeixelbaumer The sole act of language changing is evolving and so does math as well as our understanding.
I had a dream the entire sky glitched to a Windows error message screen and everyone around me was freaking out but I was calm and thinking ...OK so we are in a computer program, that makes sense and it makes a lot of things I've wondered about make sense. I was comfortable with it in my sleep but upon waking..not so much? If my dream was reality then who programmed our world and lives? Was it living beings or a computer? Do humans even exist anylonger, did they ever? I decided to stop thinking about it. Now when I read about crypid sightings I think of them as being similar to end bosses and the idiots I encounter when out and about as really poorly programmed NPCs. Lol
Maybe the sky will glitch someday, I'm OK with it.
I wish I could remember my dreams. ua-cam.com/video/gWIi6Pytde8/v-deo.html
Oof, that escalate to solipsism really quickly. Put it this way: uncritical acceptance of cryptid "sightings" is one of those things that makes me think less of a person's intelligence, but I don't think you want others to consider you a poorly programmed NPC-or an NPC at all for that matter. Bear in mind that, even if cryptids did exist, they might be more like Feebas than Sephiroth.
What was the error message.
To be running on a Windows machine is truly a nightmare!
I’ve always viewed math as “man made”. We did not discover match on the moon and bring it to earth and learn. We invented every equation in order to fit OUT narrative
I think math is a bit of both, it’s an intrinsic property of the universe and we use it as the language to understand everything around us. Math can be used to predict the position of stars, dates of eclipses and astronomical events thousands of years in the future. The equations we “made” help us understand the patterns and rules but these patterns, rules and equations have existed billions of years before us and will continue to exist long after we’re gone. A few million years later alien ships that explore our solar system can still use math to predict the position of planets around the sun and perform orbital mechanic calculations to land on earth. We maybe did not discover math on the moon, but we sure as hell didn’t create it
Very good! I am not a Physicist but I have a theory that our universe is limited by a Mathematics layer, defined by the formula of the sum of the infinite terms of the geometric progression: S = a1/1-q There is another limit in the question about time: the time is curved inside the Mathematics layer or a straight line with two lids. In the second case, it is the Perfect Time represented by the number 0 in red, surrounding the black hole, also limited inside the Mathematics layer from the top and bottom. The universe 'begin' from the Birth formula: 0+x=1 implying that x=1. I have put the word 'begin' in quotations because there is, in theory, no beginning. Some sort of creationism, defined by the Schroedinger statement: dead and alive on the precept: 'If nothing is nothing, how can nothing exist?'. Thank you, Lúcio Jorge Lourenço
Al Gore invented math in order to invent the internet more than 1 decade ago buddy.
Actually it is a little known fact.
Due to reasons unknown, Al Gore was tragically denied the glorious fame such genius was owed...
Do mathematical fictionalists believe that modus tollens is valid, since it is a product of mathematical reasoning?
They use mathematical methods to attack the validity of math. It seems clever but it is fundamentally flawed.
Especially since they focus on one aspect of math (numbers and number symbols) while ignoring all others (math is more about logic than about numbers, assuming you've progressed beyond elementary school).
Not certain what the mathematical fictionalists would claim here, but I should point out that Modus Tollens is a valid logical claim (if ~p -> ~q), and the contrapositive of Modus Ponens (if p -> q). Neither argument is a product of mathematical reasoning and they stand on their as formal logical arguments.
BOOM charles dropped the Logic Bomb, My man!
"they stand on their as formal logical arguments.
Which can be used in formal binary logic. Yes math and logic are equivalent.
@@charleslovejoy3738 modus tollens is not "~p -> ~q" and the contrapositive of modus tollens is not modus ponens but ok
Dutch! i think dutch is the universal language in the universe :)
euh nee da is het Antwerps
Yes... and trailers are starships...
Zeker weten!
You mean smoking weet?!
Joren Baplu En daarom maken we de Westerschelde niet dieper voor jullie
Fun topic and great video :)
Regarding the topic of discovery:
As a person who has experience with paten law, I can share that mathematical equations cannot be patented. The reason behind this is that it is considered (by people way smarter than me) that a mathematical equation exists in nature, even before it is "discovered" as you put it in the video.
P.S. Side note, mathematical equations in the form of an algorithm and/or coding may be patented in some jurisdictions but not in others. In those jurisdictions, where a patent cannot be granted, algorithms and/or coding are protected under other intellectual property rights. (e.g. author's rights)
Math is a language ... Hence math is created, like words are created according to innate symbolic rules in our brain. Math is simply a way to communicate specific 'stuff' about our experience of the world.
Math has nothing to do with the actual world, and everything to do with our brain.
Yeah there is no metaphysical realm where letters exist, just because we have assigned letters to certain phonetic sounds.
My neighbour is a professor in abstract mathematics, here at the university of Orebro, Sweden. I am an accountant, and fairly good at money connected math. But my neighbours math? I dont understand it. On the other hand, my neighbour are clearly worse then me at calculating things like accumulated interest.
Its all math, but kind of exist in different universes.
People can easily be good at mathematics but poor at arithmetic, just as one could be a great architect but a clumsy carpenter. Different skillsets, which should not be lumped together as they are by many in our culture.
Bean Counter
Edward Davies yup, and I am a bit tired of it. Especially today, when I have used most of the day trying to fixing the f***&%&$*###%% computer.
Mathematics is about problem-solving. Let the computers do the computing.
Math was created by humans. And everything we create, we do on some more or less consciously defined purpose. So your math and professor's math are maths that have different purposes.
Math is just a language.
This leaves us still with the problem he described. Its just another word for the same thing.
"Discover" is also just a descriptor for the human experience. The rock existed before your first encounter with it. Also, the rock wasn't 'always there'. It has a beginning date, even if that goes all the way back to the BB.
I always suspected math was BS. Right from first grade. Like everything else that's over my head. It's BS. Reality is I am a stable genius.
whynottalklikeapirat glad to know another stable genius! I’m always telling people that, but they laugh at me when I address the UN. 🤔
@@mgmcd1 Haters will be haters. But not stable. And not genius.
whynottalklikeapirat explain how it’s bs if u don’t mind
@@k.harris3336 I can't - it's complete nonsense. It cannot be made sense of. Well ... I guess I went and half explained it, but that's as far as anyone is going to get. Don't get fooled by any superficial semblance of coherence.
Start with the empirical foundations of empiricism itself. There are none, and by implication, empiricism is “bs,” as you say. One of my undergraduate tasks was to create an internally consistent algebraic system, which, while it contained provable theorems within the system, did not track reality at all. However, mathematics does track reality fairly well, and is consistently used to further science and engineering. So while it is merely an ideal, it is an ideal that works. And it’s not stupid if it works.
If I had to describe math, I would describe it like a language. It is a foundation made up or created to describe the quantity of things. But beyond the foundation are discoveries of new types of math that goes off of the created foundation. Will it be the universe's universal language to easily use and talk to other life, if we find other life, maybe not. Like I said in the first sentence, it is like a language. No 2 languages are alike and we can't expect their number system to be the same as ours or that it is communicated the same. So you can call it both made up and real, just depends on what part of the math you are talking about.
I 100% thought you would bring up Kurt Gödel. With his Incompleteness Theorem:
This describes mathematics's limits, as to how there are an infinite number of axioms (true statements) we cannot prove. And so mathematics may always never be able to explain everything.
Any consistent formal system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out is incomplete; i.e., there are statements of the language of F which can neither be proved nor disproved in F. For any consistent system F within which a certain amount of elementary arithmetic can be carried out, the consistency of F cannot be proved in F itself.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/#SomForThe
Question remains, though, is the completeness or closure of a system necessarily/inextricably tied to its ontology?
All we have are the counting numbers: 0,1,2,3, etc and a few basic operations. The rest of mathematics is just a form of shorthand for things we cannot do.
Counting numbers may correspond to groups of objects in the physical world e.g. apples. If we have 5 apples, we can add 2 apples to get 7 apples, 5 + 2 = 7. We can give away three apples, 7 - 3 = 4. But we obviously cannot now give away 6 apples as we now only have only 4 apples. What we do is replace 4 - 6 with the equivalent 0 - 2 and then replace with the shorthand notation -2. We cannot have -2 apples or -2 of anything. We use a shorthand notation to remember what we wanted to do in the hope that we may get more apples in the future. Then we can give away the 6 apples as desired.
Similarly, if we have 12 apples, we can divide the apples into 3 equal groups of 4 i.e. 12/3 = 4. However, we cannot divide 12 apples into 5 equal groups, 12/5. This is physically impossible unless we change our apples by cutting them up. Then we are no longer dealing with objects that are apples but objects that are pieces of apples. We use another equivalence that 12/5 is the same as 24/10 and we use another shorthand notation 24/10 = 2.4. We then hope that in the future we will get more apples such that we can divide our apples into 5 equal groups.
Similarly, we can take the square root of 9 to get 3. Square root is just a special case of division. But we cannot take the square root of 8. We just use another shorthand √8. We hope that we will be able to multiply √8 with another √8 and then we can get back to the number 8. Same deal with √-1. We just hope that we will get another √-1 to multiply it by.
In mathematics we just have addition of two numbers, subtraction of a smaller number from a larger number, multiplication of two numbers (repeated addition), and division of number by one of its factors (repeated subtraction). These are things we can do in the real world with physical objects. All other operations are impossible. When we can’t do an operation, we just use shorthand notations to “remember” the operation in the hope that at some latter time we can eliminate the impossible operations and return to the counting numbers that represent real world objects. We can use tricks such as replacing meters with millimetres or nanometres or the Planck length to eliminate impossible divisions. But this is just the same as cutting our apples in halves and having 12 apple halves as opposed to 6 apples. We have then redefined our physical objects. Even the symbols used for the counting numbers are just a shorthand notation for repeated addition in that 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, etc.
When someone tells you the Universe is mathematical, remember that all the mathematics you have ever seen just starts by assigning counting numbers to groups of objects and applying the operations mentioned in the last paragraph. The rest is just a form of shorthand for things that can’t be done, but we hope will eventually be possible.
Math is a measurement and measurements are concepts used to tell distance, time, speed, etc which are also concepts that we use to explain things
Do you really have to cut after every single sentence and move an inch or two back..
Josh Belcher yep. It’s jump cuts and they are for exactly that, and to cut out breathing and stuff. Same reason Phillip Defranco and other people who use this similar style do it.
It's very annoying.
1+1=3. I can prove it. I have kids.
robert stout Two people liked this comment
Its more like 2+1=3
Nick Goetz r/woosh
@@mobdoxx1065 lol na l got the joke. Just like being an ass
_Hello, I sucked at maths at college and now I'm going to philosophise at length about math_ I'm listening to a member of my own tribe.
This is like arguing about “is water wet?”
not only it is wet, but it's so wet that it makes things wet as well xD ....because it is made of water wetness!
Water is not wet.
@@CePrimeXII You're absolutely right, because: "*Moisture* is the essence of wetness. And Wetness is the essence of beauty." - D. Zoolander, 2001.
@@CePrimeXII Women seem to get all wet before multiplying, yet get all watery just before a division. Paradoxical indeed.
Ah, the calculus of the heart.
it's not. for something to be wet it has to be covered with water but you can't cover water with water... therefore water by itself is not wet
The best thing to say is that the patterns that mathematics identifies exist, whereas the tool that reveals them (maths) does not.
Mathematics is a tool , you get a blank stick, you evenly space out some markings on the stick, you now have a ruler, with this ruler you can measure how many of your spaced out markers an object measures. Now here is what math really does, it saves you from having to measure all of an object or all of a trajectory and we have discovered various short cuts, that is what math is essentially(for the most part), a toolbox of shortcuts. If you know the length of 2 sides of a square or rectangle you know its surface area, if you can get 3 measurements, you can know its surface area and its volume, so instead of having to measure the whole square or whole rectangle from every angle you take 3 measurements apply the shortcuts like multiply a x b x c and you have the full measurements of the object without having to do all the hard work.
So numbers only exist as abstractions in our mind but they relate to real world objects except for the concept of infinity that is an abstraction of an abstraction as is zero, probably makes no sense but that is my best understanding right now.
"If you know the length of 2 sides of a square or rectangle you know its surface area, if you can get 3 measurements, you can know its surface area and its volume"
And this shortcut exists regardless of whether humans are there to believe in it. It has been discovered.
Irtehpwn: This is how I see it too. Mathematics has been evolving for thousands of years, as a tool in agriculture and engineering for example. Mathematical axioms are selected because they provide calculations that correspond to properties of the natural world, so it should be no surprise there are mathematical descriptions that precede observations of natural phenomena they happen to correspond to. We get different maths when we use different axioms, which are just as valid, just maybe a bit less useful.
@@easlern its how we made simulations before computers, in a way. Now that we have computers we can plug in the math and produce a visual representation of it and a dynamic model, tweak all that till it matches reality and we have an accurate model of reality. Also note we can simulate/model realities that are not like ours, look to computer games as an example. I never saw this reply till now.
Well said. One question I have is regarding imaginary numbers "i"
@@CBaskins420 I am not entirely sure i grasp imaginary numbers yet, but as far as i can tell, they would be an abstraction of an abstraction like, infinity and zero. Useful imaginary conceptual tools.
There is an aspect of math, that is very useful for all other understanding.
The concept of "the axiom."
The Axiom is a statement of what IS true. Basically, it is how you are CHOOSING to see the world.
If you change the Axiom, you change the math.
There is a perfect example of this: Euclidean Geometry (the Geometry you might remember from High School), & Non-Euclidean Geometry (one of which is the Geometry of painting like the Last Supper.)
So, we know parallel line do not intersect, ever (by definition) [Euclidean Geometry]; however, if you are standing on a set of railroad tracks and stare off to the horizon, it appears that the tracks intersect at infinity. (Perspective Geometry/ a Non Euclidean Geometry)
You changed one Axiom: Parallel lines don't intersect, and you changed the math.
Therefore, math is finding out based on certain assumptions, what can you prove to be true.
Of course, you always have the possibility of a false solution, think back to working with the quadratic formula. Basically, the answer can violate the rules set up for doing the math aka a contradiction.
Okay, but on the fictionalist argument, step 5 makes a heck of a leap: How do we know there are no such things as abstract objects?
And why isn't "math is a language" a position? If I say "then" has four letters, it doesn't mean that the word "then" exists as a physical object. Likewise, if I say "cat" has three letters, it doesn't mean that the feline is somehow comprised of three letters, only that the English word that represents it does.
In the same way, math is a language by which we describe ratios and relationships in a logical fashion; the question, then, is not "Does math exist?" but "Why is the universe so logical and ordered that the language of math perfectly describes it?"
Very good, and the possible answer is that since our very existence including our brains and their workings are part of the universe, ultimately we are driven to find/form the pathway to describing that which we are a part of.
That's exactly how I see it! Math is not a real thing on its own. It's a "language" that helps us understand the nature of the universe.
Just like verbal languages. I can say "the white dog," but are white and dog real things? No, they just allow me to understand and explain the nature of the creature sleeping next to me on my bed!
I don't know if this is in keeping with Einstein's theories, but I've also thought that time does not really exist. It's simply an abstract measurement we have between two events. But time itself does not exist as an independent thing.
Then again, I completely suck at math and have had to take all of my college math courses twice in order to pass them, so what do I know? 🤓
@Redske1eton I've always wondered about that - "is your white my white?" For example, how people like different flavors of food. Does my chocolate taste like your vanilla? How do we account for different preferences if we all perceive things, like colors and flavors and scents, the same way?
Math(s) doesn't need to have "come from somewhere" to be an intrinsic part of reality.
Our reality, the universe, our consciousness, is one substance. To deny the existence of Math(s) is to deny the existence of all. ;)
Indeed. It seems reasonable for a universe to be a sub-manifold in the domain of mathematics.