Your brain can perceive things that aren’t there and also not perceive things that are there.
All it can do is make a best guess based on the electro-chemical data that is being processed. On a moonless night Reality looks a lot different than when there is a full moon or when there is a cloudy or sunny day. The appearance of reality changes from POV of the observer, which is a 3lb lump of protein sitting in a dark silent skull and connected to reality only by sensory data, being transported via neural networks .
I am not saying that reality does not exist. I am saying that we have access to only an incredibly small portion of reality and we must basically guess at that vast unobservable world that exist at all levels from atoms to galaxies.
The hypothesis of a mathematical world helps a lot in the predictive part of science.
It allowed us to actually see a Higgs boson. How do you visualize a boson?
Well, it all depends, are we talking about actual experts who understand what they are talking about, or a bunch of people mesmerized by vague ideas, without any actual clue about the math being used?
I have never dismissed mathematics as being an absolutely awesome tool for doing science. I do dispute the notion that mathematic is the thing itself, it’s makes no sense to me, how could be a product of math?
Every time you and others pound there drum I hear a decided dreamy philosophical aspect. It’s fine and good, I just happen to a human who’s pissed that we never got around to figuring our how we are actually connected to this Earth and how to nurture it, rather than destroy it as fast as possible, while we’re all busy with our individual journey’s to comprehend the outer limits.
We are destroying our children’s future and people want to masturbate over the idea that time does exist, or heck go whole hog, Reality as we know it doesn’t exist either. Yippy. So why the heck worry about a thing. Burn it up fast as possible.
The fact that no body else seems to get it - just makes me think what I’m saying is more needed even than I’d have imagined. Why does understanding ourselves our bodies and within our biological living Earth never deserve more than lip service??? Before moving on to the heavens or nascar.
Math as the thing itself, doesn’t help. Pretending our sense’s produce hallucinations because our brains are capable of doing so, doesn’t make any more sense either.
It’s too late, but still winding down from a heck of marathon, good night
But you seem to be stuck on the concept of a “physical thing”, whereas I am stuck on the concept of functional relational values which we have been able decipher and symbolize into a language we have named mathematics.
Note that there is general agreement on the concept of mathematical values and functions are the same everywhere, which IMO, suggests a mathematical essence in the behavior of universal forces.
Well what else would you expect?
We do exist within a cohesive Physical Reality, how else can you imagine that being?
I don’t diminish mathematics as the best language for understanding how physical reality operates.
But, the grand but, it seems to me you continue mistaking math for the thing itself.
I’m insisting mathematics is but a human inspired lens with which to study nature. A Neo-sense organ that the human species evolved over the past ten thousandish years.
I look at the world and stuff of atoms and creatures and their constant interactions, it’s beyond mathematics - calling it precision would do the thing more justice - Just like any god there be, is beyond the shadow plays people believe in.
W4u, I keep wondering why it’s so important to you?
I find the claim that nature itself is a reflection of some superseding mathematical intelligence, (or …?)
What would confirmation look like?
What would constitute confirmation?
What difference would such a confirmation make to our daily lives or personal mental health in trying times?
Or to our understanding of our place within an evolving physical reality that is embedded within time moving forward?
You just defined the mathematical essence of universal functions, and then you ask if the universe functions in accordance with mathematical values and functions which would indicate a quasi-intelligence.
And that would also answer if AI can evolve sentience.
I understand your desire to focus on earthly matters. It is what we humans are dealing with every day.
But in the grand scheme everything is connected and what is true on earth is true in the universe.
If the nature of earth can be described with mathematics then the universe can be described with mathematics.
Mathematics need not be sentient to guide an orderly evolutionary process. All they need be is Logical.
That’s quite the statement.
It’s like not noticing that Earth has special conditions not witnessed anywhere we have looked and we have looked in a lot of place with amazing instruments.
That’s the problem with philosophy whether mathematical or abstract, it gets lost in itself.
Yeah and a hammer doesn’t need to be sentient, all it needs to be, is hard and heavy.
[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:48, topic:8112”]
It’s like not noticing that Earth has special conditions not witnessed anywhere we have looked and we have looked in a lot of place with amazing instruments.
I think you may be trapped in the dichotomy of extreme conditions (fine tuning) necessary for life, rather than the probability of some form of life evolving (fine tuning) to prevailing conditions.
According to Hazen the earth is an average planet. It has water, minerals, surfaces, and a dynamic environment ranging from moderate heat to moderate cold.
He speculates that life on other planets is highly probable.
A tool is, as the tool does.
It is a logical truth and it is mathematically deterministic.
Hazen is definitely a hero of mine, but calling Earth an average planet is disingenuous at best. I’d like to see Hazen’s quote in context.
Also there is a big difference between life forming and creatures forming, don’t be sweeping that under the rug, as though it was a triviality.
Do you expect to see humanson other planets? Yes, the odds against that are indeed astronomical. But we are talking about abiogenesis, the evolution from chemical interactions in a dynamic environment into biochemistry and organic life.
Sounds like philosophy talking.
It is demonstrable. All of the biological sciences are about deciphering the “values” and “mathematically” ordered functions that produced abiogenesis on earth and is entirely possible to do the same thing on other planets that are somewhat similar to earth.
@socrat44, the universe wasn’t created by chance alone, it was created by chance within necessity, i.e. eternal, infinite nature. But you’re right, if God grounds being He must according to the prevenient laws of nature. As @citizenschallengev4 says.
@mriana, you’re right of course, time is infinite and therefore so is negentropy. There have always been universes.
@citizenschallengev4, Einstein wasn’t talking about biology. He was still wrong.
@lausten, Fermi’s Paradox is bunk. Space is ever so, ever so… big. Fermi is a non-problem like [the] mind-body. So, wherever it has rained for the past five billion years, there’s life. And on trillions of worlds it built rockets and radios. They can’t get you anywhere, can’t hear a thing. There are trillions of dead interstellar space probes. At least ten drifting in our galaxy. Easily ten million. Even at that many, what are the odds of one drifting Solward any given million years? At 0.1% of SOL? Let alone our blink of a hundred thousand years of telescopes at very very best. We don’t need to toy with Drake. Radio? Doesn’t work. Never will. Watt??? Yeah despite 13 of 'em used by the Voyagers to phone home from beyond the heliopause. Useless. Forever useless. No civilization ever gets to waste $trillions trying. That’s the correction of Fermi’s fallacy.
At 10M inhabited worlds in the galaxy over a billion years, the average distance between them is about 1000 LY. It would take a million years of drifting for a probe to traverse that. The chances of one world’s scrap being detected by another, one in a million. On a good day. Bottom end it’s 10 dead probes over a billion years. One in a trillion. i.e. no chance. Which is actually more like the probability of detecting one of the ten million, cubic meter probes rounding the sun at 0.001c.
Because I’d say “sciences are about deciphering the “values” and “mathematically” ordered functions” is plenty true because their’s no other language for them to use.
Not because that electron flow is a mathematical function - although perhaps now we’re tripping over the lightening/thunder question, it’s neither, it’s both.
The way you speak of math sounds to me like the way people speak of god, or the ultimate answer. I don’t buy into that because I’m convinced it’s all slightly beyond our ability to fully comprehend even if we can paint some mighty interesting and probably quite accurate impressions.
Would you agree that there is a some inherent fundamental ordering agency. It seems clear to me that this quiding principle already is evident as patterns emerging from chaos (Chaos Theory).
That does not mean it needs to be worshipped, but does need to be recognized and respected (and intentionally used for our own purposes… )
It won’t respond to prayer but does provide measurable potentials , that has allowed us to practice the art of science.
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