That summation should put an end to this thread. But of course, we can argue about the pertinent meaning of each word in the last sentence. The short answer is "Yes". But what do you mean by "in", or "embedded", or "grounded"? :wink:I will add that the expression that mathematics is 'in the world' is meaningless, just as it would be to say that a carton of eggs contains the number 12. Mathematics gives us a common symbolic means to describe, quantify and understand the world in a way that is not just based on individual perception but is grounded in a shared understanding and inherited knowledge. — Wayfarer
The universe isn’t math unless the ‘same thing different time’ applies to natural phenomena rather than our pretending to hold it still so as to calculate it. — Joshs
The universe is not math unless the regularity of the laws of physics is true? I have not read "Our Mathematical Universe" but I am convinced Tegmark addresses that — Lionino
Truth as correctness comes from comparing a model of the phenomenon to the phenomenon. If they correspond then the model is ‘true’ to the observed phenomenon. — Joshs
abstraction may be involved in treating the model and the phenomenon as self-identical during the comparing process — Joshs
The question is whether we can come to a more fundamental understanding of modeler and phenomenon, subject and object than that which begins from the assumption that both hold still during the comparing process. Such an understanding does not invalidate mathematical truths, it shows them to be derivative and opens up new possibilities for understanding the world and ourselves — Joshs
the mathematics of the phenomenon is pretty much the phenomenon itself lato sensu — when a neutron decays into a proton and an electron, the only things happening are numbers changing — Lionino
“The most insidious manner of forgetting is the progressive "repetition" of the same. One says the same with a constantly new indifference; the mode of saying and interpreting changes.”
In the first place, what must be assumed about a phenomenon such that a number can be assigned to it? The phenomenon must be assumed to have a qualitative core that remains the same while we count increments of change within it — Joshs
But what if the quality we label as ‘this ball’ never persisted from one moment to the next as the same qualitative thing? — Joshs
What poststructuralist authors argue is that it is only by abstracting away, that is, by not noticing, the continual qualitative changes in the substrates of our counting that we end up with a universe of objects which appear to behave mathematically. — Joshs
The most insidious manner of forgetting is the progressive "repetition" of the same. One says the same with a constantly new indifference; the mode of saying and interpreting changes.
a behavior the requires a non-numeric language in order to understand it. The need for this language, and its advantages over mathematical forms of description become more clear in the social sciences than in the natural sciences. This is not because we understand these phenomena less well than we do the physical realm. — Joshs
You likely will not agree with any of this, but at least it may give you a better sense of why postmodernists have a bug up their ass about the mathematical grounding of science, truth as correctness and propositional logic. — Joshs
Numbers are not assigned to things, but they are all that things are, and our scientific theories seem to support this to a certain extent. Fundamental particles are in fact a collection of numbers, among which mass, electric charge, isospin, weak hypercharge, spin, lepton number. You may say these are the qualitative core(s), but that is a simple rebuttal that suffers from the same gaps as just stopping at the fact that they are quantitative. — Lionino
Ball would be a human label (baggage) emerging from a collection of things (atoms and such). It is always changing as everytime it bounces it loses atoms off its surface, but then we end up not in metaphysics but in a discussion of semantics — Lionino
a lot of philosophy relies on the validity of the idea of repetition and of identity. We can throw those out at a very fundamental level, but at some point we will have to grant them if we want to progress.
There is no such thing as tissues, just a collection of cells that are made of molecules. Yes, but we can't derive biological laws from chemical laws due to the sheer complexity and also to possible emergent features. We must grant that there is such a thing as tissues if we want to come up with medicine. — Lionino
you could say sociology comes from psychology, which comes from neurology, which... from physics. But you can't say the converse, that physics comes from biology or that chemistry from neurology. The more derivative a field is, the more baggage it has, specifically because it goes away from the foundations of the universe. Another issue is that sociology and psychology are very unreliable (papers have very low reproducibility) while physics is almost always reliable — Lionino
The poststructuralist can claim all he wants ("every change in degree is simultaneously a difference in kind"), but until he proves Π, I can just ignore him on this topic because it has explanatory power for me to do so. Mathematical universe is a theory about the universe, it takes our perceptions as they are, without doubting our modes of cognition as they appear, without taking phenomenology into account. — Lionino
Doesnt quantity require quality but not the reverse? — Joshs
Can there be a quantity without a quality, category, whole, entity, species to be counted? — Joshs
Put differently, when Tegmark says mass, electric charge, isospin, weak hypercharge, spin, lepton are numbers, don’t we have to ask what it is that continues to be the same again and again ( number) in these entities, qualities , categories, properties? — Joshs
such as Karen Barad, which are allowing physics to catch up with the thinking that has been available within philosophy and psychology for a while now. For a long time, physicists, including Hawking, denied the relevance of time for the understanding of physical phenomena. But Lee Smolen and others, thanks to their embrace of ideas from biology and philosophy, are showing the absolutely central importance of time for understanding physics — Joshs
philosophy to cognitive psychology — Joshs
our naive naturalistic attitude ( which physics remains stuck within) — Joshs
One form of progress relies on repetition of identity. Another form of progress relies on showing how the repetition of identity is derivative from differences upon differences. — Joshs
Ok, but let's say all is not a Spinozean God... — Lionino
How do we know whether quality or quantity is fundamental? Or rather two sides of the same coin? Does a quality, to exist, need not to show quantity too, being either one or many, zero being not existing?
The idea of the mathematical universe is not that quantity or quality are fundamental, but that all the properties that there are are mathematical. There are no non-mathematical properties, science seems to support this — Lionino
“Bergson presents duration as a type of multiplicity opposed to metric multiplicity or the multiplicity of magnitude. Duration is in no way indivisible, but is that which cannot be divided without changing in nature at each division.'On the other hand, in a multiplicity such as homogeneous extension, the division can be carried as far as one likes without changing anything in the constant object; or the magnitudes can vary with no other result than an increase or a decrease in the amount of space they striate. Bergson thus brought to light "two very different kinds of multiplicity," one qualitative and fusional, continuous, the other numerical and homogeneous, discrete. It will be noted that matter goes back and forth between the two; sometimes it is already enveloped in qualitative multiplicity, sometimes already developed in a metric "schema" that draws it outside of itself.
The mathematical universe does not address matters such as solipsism, différance, phenomenology or idealism. It takes our perception of things as they are and goes from there, just like science does. Just like the correspondence theory of truth assumes there exists an outside world to which beliefs would correspond to — Lionino
“Each individual object (each unity, whether immanent or transcendent, constituted in the stream) endures, and necessarily endures -that is, it continuously exists in time and is something identical in this continuous existence, which at the same time can be regarded as a process. Conversely: what exists in time continuously exists in time and is the unity belonging to the process that carries with it inseparably the unity of what endures in the process as it unfolds. The unity of the tone that endures throughout the process lies in the tonal process; and conversely, the unity of the tone is unity in the filled duration, that is, in the process. Therefore, if anything at all is defined as existing in a time-point, it is conceivable only as the phase of a process, a phase in which the duration of an individual being also has its point. Individual or concrete being is necessarily changing or unchanging; the process is a process of change or of rest, the enduring object itself a changing object or one at rest. Moreover, every change has its rate or acceleration of change (to use an image) with respect to the same duration. As a matter of principle, any phase of a change can be expanded into a rest, and any phase of a rest can be carried over into change.”
“Now if we consider the constituting phenomena in comparison with the phenomena just discussed, we find a flow, and each phase of this flow is a continuity of adumbrations. But as a matter of principle, no phase of this flow can be expanded into a continuous succession, and therefore the flow cannot be conceived as so transformed that this phase would be extended in identity with itself. Quite to the contrary, we necessarily find a flow of continuous "change", and this change has the absurd character that it flows precisely as it flows and can flow neither "faster" nor "slower." If that is the case, then any object that changes is missing here; and since "something" runs its course in every process, no process is in question. There is nothing here that changes, and for that reason it also makes no sense to speak of something that endures. It is nonsensical to want to find something here that remains unchanged for even an instant during the course of its duration.
“Can one speak in the strict sense of change in a situation in which, after all, constancy, duration filled out without change, is inconceivable? No possible constancy can be attributed to the continuous flow of appearance-phases. There is no duration in the original flow. For duration is the form of something enduring, of an enduring being, of something identical in the temporal sequence that functions as its duration…Objective time is a form of "persisting" objects, of their changes and of other processes involved in them. "Process" is therefore a concept presupposing persistence. But persistence is unity that becomes constituted in the flow, and it pertains to the essence of the flow that no persistence can exist in it. Phases of experience and continuous series of phases exist in the flow. But such a phase is nothing that persists, any more than a continuous series of such phases is.
We could have come up with a whole different numbering system than the one we have now. — L'éléphant
Sure thing.I noted in a You Tube "documentary" recently that there is a tribe in the Amazon that counts by 2s. Was that embedded? I think math, like Language, and everything else accessible to human mind/experience is a posteriori constructed by Mind and accepted if functional, rejected if not. — ENOAH
I think math, like Language, and everything else accessible to human mind/experience is a posteriori constructed by Mind and accepted if functional, rejected if not.
Constructed out of what? Or is it creation ex nihilo? — Count Timothy von Icarus
But more questions follow: "is math only in us? If so, where does it come from? What causes it?"
I guess this would probably depend on your views on perception. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Hence, to my mind, the only way of appraising all maths as strictly within us and thus as having nothing to do with the quote unquote "real world" is by appraising the "real world" to be fully devoid of quantity. — javra
If you replaced the word math, with symbols, or representations, would the above also hold true for you? — ENOAH
Quantity only exists in Nature because we displace Nature with quantity, etc. Think of quantity without reference to any form of representation, but on its own, in its allegedly pure and essential form as it supposedly inhabits Reality. You can't, that's absurd, right? The very thinking utilizes representations. Then why do we shy away from acknowledging that our uniquely human Conscious experiences are structured by representations and as such, they are not ultimately Real? — ENOAH
For Tegmark, platonic schema has the last word, where for Bergson qualitative change in nature does. — Joshs
Can one speak in the strict sense of change in a situation in which, after all, constancy, duration filled out without change, is inconceivable? No possible constancy can be attributed to the continuous flow of appearance-phases. There is no duration in the original flow. For duration is the form of something enduring, of an enduring being, of something identical in the temporal sequence that functions as its duration…Objective time is a form of "persisting" objects, of their changes and of other processes involved in them. "Process" is therefore a concept presupposing persistence. But persistence is unity that becomes constituted in the flow, and it pertains to the essence of the flow that no persistence can exist in it. Phases of experience and continuous series of phases exist in the flow. But such a phase is nothing that persists, any more than a continuous series of such phases is
But more questions follow: "is math only in us? If so, where does it come from? What causes it?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree. I noted in a You Tube "documentary" recently that there is a tribe in the Amazon that counts by 2s. Was that embedded? I think math, like Language, and everything else accessible to human mind/experience is a posteriori constructed by Mind and accepted if functional, rejected if not. — ENOAH
If, on the other hand, there is no quantity in reality, then this will entail the fact that there is no plurality of coexistent psyches: with this directly resulting in solipsism - wherein the one solipsist by unexplained means "fictionalizes" everything, quantity very much included. — javra
Hmm, I find the issue more intimately entwined with whether or not quantity in fact occurs within the cosmos.
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