Alternatively, all of nature can be explained by mathematics, rather then being based on it.
One, Mathematics is the language of nature. Two, Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three: If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature.
Edit: it’s a quote from this excellent movie, pi: https://youtu.be/yRjkQT9xLZs
mathematics is a human language/system.
nature just follows the laws and quirks this universe has. the plants, animals and subatomic particles will keep doing the same, regardless if we have a tool or theory that can describe what they’re doing.
sure, there are patterns everywhere in nature, but i would not go as far as to say that that makes mathematics a language of nature.
Eh, no. Mathematics is an hallucination of ours we are trying to desperately map onto reality. I say this as a mathematician. When you look out into our reality, you know what we see? A curved universe. There is nothing in our reality that is truely STRAIGHT.
YET, we creatures came up with such an natural thing as a straight line. Straight lines are a uniquely human hallucination. Its the logic we use to make sense of the world, but its a Rorschach test of our own making. You are attaching meaning to it because thats what our brains do. generate meaning out of chaos.
I need to look no further than pi, which is a number that represents our feeble attempts to push the round universe into our square heads. Its trying to represent the curved universe as a straight line (and visavers) - and reality said : LOL, NOPE!! YOU get a number that is more illusive than the irrationals. A never ending non patterned number.
All of nature is not based on mathematics. Mathematics is the language we use to describe nature. Thats like saying the Grand Canyon is BASED on book describing the Grand Canyon.
1.) No its not. Its our language, not nature’s.
2.) To a degree, yes. But thats because our brains are pattern seeking and pattern generating machines - not because nature follows a system WE made up.
3.) Did I mention Pi yet
Here
https://i.imgur.com/a5ueCi5.jpg
THIS is a graph of a discovery that I made in number theory. Does it look like it has a pattern to you? I think this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, because IT MAKES NO SENSE. which means, we still have a lot to discover and learn
Such a fascinating read, definitely changed my perception about mathematics and the world, I’m probably going to remember your view about the world time by time in the future. What makes your comment all the more interesting is that what I wrote was a quote from the movie “pi” which is about a mathematician. You’ve probably watched it but if you haven’t I really think you should check it out.
Hey Quazar,
Great point and post. Any math + philosophy reddits you know of on Lemme?
“Eh, no”. There are tons of actual patterns in mathematics, we didn’t invent the “laws of physics” we just slapped a framework on top for better understanding. Math isn’t a human invention, it’s our interpretation of how things work, and at the base of it all there are laws that govern “how things work” (even if we haven’t fully discovered all of them), it isn’t just randomness that we’re trying to apply patterns to.
Using your example of pi, calling it “chaos” is disingenuous, because it’s a single constant that has a massive number of applications. That’s not random or chaotic at all.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that this a quote from the movie Pi.
Here’s a link to the trailer. It has the quote in it. https://youtu.be/r0SC582sJvE
Literally everything ever has patterns that emerge as soon as you start looking for them. Math is only the “language of nature” in that the entire idea behind mathematics is that is must be consistent, otherwise it’s just useless.
Basically, math deroved from the universe (specifically our study of it), and not the other way around.
I would say there is no language of nature; there are things that happen, and we can approximate what happens using math. Math can be used to describe basically anything, so the fact that we can understand these things through numbers is not extraordinary.
So, what about the stock market? The universe of numbers that represents the global economy. Millions of hands at work, billions of minds.
Great movie.
Incorrect, of course the universal language we use to describe nature is everywhere in nature.
This reminds me of a comment, I read a long time ago.
It was something like this: “I played The Sims, and everything was business as usual, my Sims went to University, and got a degree in Computer Science until they proved they live in a simulation. I stopped playing Sims for that night.”
Also explains why the world is so fucked up and how fascism can take. Also explains why there so many assholes in the world. Most people at some point play evil when they played Sims. Weather it was the simple version and you cause tornadoes to tear through your city. Our the more modern versions. I seen clips were players would lock a character in a doorless room. Or take away the ladder in the pool and the character would drown.
There other examples but it maybe why Trump is so popular in America and why so many people that actually want the world to burn and enjoy fucking up the environment.
Some things I think about occasionally. So should you.
Nah I don’t think so. What people do in a simulation can approximate what they’d do in real life with no consequences but in real life there are always consequences. And most people need to see themselves as the hero in their own story so they won’t do things that they perceive as evil.
It seems to me that most individual people think they are right in whatever they’re doing. Including voting for Trump, being hateful, etc.
Someone building the simulation was like “yeah, let’s simulate diarrhea and make people have it just for funsies”.
Well of course does the universal language we developed describe things universally
