Could this symmetry affect the world? — Danileo

Can you say "interchangeable parts"?

I think I am unsure to know exactly what you mean, could you rephrase what you said please

Approximate symmetry certainly affects the world.

Consider the uncommon Scottish haggis: it has 2 long legs on one side, and 1 short leg on the other, and this allows them to run around the hills in one particular direction. Nature has contrived that the male and female of the species are complementary such that they run around in opposite directions, thus enabling regular meetings of opposite sexes. And if it were otherwise, the species would be even more rare and exotic than it is.

yea approximate symmetry rules the world, but pure symmetry is not, as everything is affected by particles symmetry is impossible

You know particles are just little parts?

There is symmetry in music. Listen to Bach’s Prelude in C Major (2:44 min) and enjoy the symmetry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frxT2qB1POQ

Can you say "interchangeable parts"? — tim wood

I think I am unsure to know exactly what you mean, could you rephrase what you said please — Danileo

As you note, every thing is essentially different. At the same time, to a mind, different things are the same, or symmetrical, or balanced, or consistent, or whatever. That is, mind assigns qualities. And your question is if this "could... affect the world?" And in this recognition of "symmetries" is evidence of what on reflection seems to be a part of mind's interaction with the world, certainly including the minds of animals, and likely any being that has a mind.

What I had in mind at first was the manufacture of rifles with interchangeable parts: that certainly changed the world.

yea why you mentioning that?

nature has semi-symmetry like birds singing, maybe batch was copying birds

There is also symmetry in movement. I love to swim, and when I mentioned to my doctor how good it makes me feel, not just physically but mentally, she said it is because of the symmetrical motion of my limbs in the water, which pleases my brain.

Yea I like to walk, another symmetrical motion, but I don't do it perfectly. And thinking about myself walking symmetric, brings my unsymmetric body to the equation, breaking the symmetry.

↪unenlightened
yea approximate symmetry rules the world, but pure symmetry is not, as everything is affected by particles symmetry is impossible — Danileo

In mathematics, metric spaces are sets of points and a measure of distance between them: d(x,y)
such that d(x,y)=d(y,x), symmetry. In the real world, is the distance between my front door and my mailbox the same as the distance between my mailbox and front door?

how do you know is the same distance

↪jgill
how do you know is the same distance — Danileo

23 steps out, 23 steps back.

In the real world, is the distance between my front door and my mailbox the same as the distance between my mailbox and front door? — jgill

If this is a symmetry, then "symmetry" has distinct meanings. I think of symmetry as involving two distinct parts. which are identical. Here we have one thing looked at from different perspectives.

Symmetry (function)

“What is the sum of 2 plus 2?”

Isn’t the number all of us say in answer to this question not only symmetrical, but identical?

Is it even possible that your answer be the slightest bit different than mine?

So now, does the answer possibly affect the world? What if we asked this question to tally up the parachutes needed on a crashing airplane? Do two minds exchanging symmetrical notions of “4” affect the world in which say three or five people need parachutes?

I'm going to remember this as a good example for explaining symmetry.

Like I thought, two different meanings. I think the op uses the word in the following way:
"the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis."

the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts — Metaphysician Undercover

Lol! It seems to me that "exactly similar" is an oxymoron or close to it.

Similarity is either in the mind of the beholder, being what he or she says it is, or it is a property that calls for pretty careful definition. E.g., two potatoes, certainly two people, may be both similar and quite different at the same time.

Lol! It seems to me that "exactly similar" is an oxymoron or close to it. — tim wood

I think that's exactly the point made by the op. "Symmetry" is a sort of self-refuting idea, which we allow to have existence in our minds, but it is denied from reality. Like many ideals (perfections) we conceive them, but they do not have real independent existence.

To even have "two potatoes" or "two people" requires that there are similarities between particulars such that there are potatoes, people, etc. If people are not sure if potatoes, ants, or people exist "outside the mind," I don't really know how they are able to avoid full blown solipsism and all-encompassing radical skepticism. Afterall, if there aren't potatoes and ants, then presumably there aren't people either, and all "other people" would also be "generated by the mind."

Plus, if every mind is "constructing its own world," there are either symmetries between these worlds, or else each person effectively lives in their own, isolated world.

addition is quite another controversy, I think when you got two and you add another two the addition is occurring in the world.