What’s the difference between my finger and the air next to it?
If we were to look at a small enough scale, the atoms of my finger would be indistinguishable from the atoms in the air next to it. And really given current knowledge that atoms and their electron clouds are mostly space, what’s the difference? What makes my finger a finger shaped thing different from say the table I touch, or the air next to it?
[quote=“cuthbertj, post:1, topic:7723, full:true”]
What’s the difference between my finger and the air next to it?
Density! Your finger is denser than air
If we were to look at a small enough scale, the atoms of my finger would be indistinguishable from the atoms in the air next to it. And really given current knowledge that atoms and their electron clouds are mostly space, what’s the difference? What makes my finger a finger shaped thing different from say the table I touch, or the air next to it?
Molecular pattern densities ranging from fluid gases to fluid liquids to solid crystal minerals.
That is true but that is not the reality we live in. Humans can only observe a very small portion of the total range of pattern densities.
Consider that a large collection of H2O molecules has several different states of existence in nature, that we can actually observe and copy for our own uses.
In the normal temperature range of humans this number of H2O molecules becomes fluid with an emergent property of “wetness”
The same number of H2O molecules exposed to 0 C and lower becomes a solid with an emergent property of crystallization
And the same number of H2O at higher than 100 C becomes a gas with a fluid property but not an emergent property of “wetness”.
Each state is determined by the number and density of the self-organizing mathematical patterns of H2O.
Good info but that just pushes things back a little. What makes this little bit of density different from this other little bit of slightly different density? What makes my finger not the table I’m touching?
The pattern the molecules are arranged in. This is why there is a scientific term;
“density pattern”.
What is the difference between density and pattern?
Concentration is the spread of objects in a given area, density is the frequency of objects in a given area, and pattern is the arrangement of objects in a given area.
When you pull your finger out of your ass, even if it might look clean when wipe it with a tissue, the air next to it will still smell like shit. 
Feeling philosophical lately - good conversations on other threads. 
So we’re down to patterns. And that always reminds me of Plato’s Eternal Forms. How is it that molecules form into these patterns? How is it that some form into the pattern of a dog versus a tomato? (And the answer can’t be ‘because of the laws of physics’, because that just pushes it down again - how is it that the laws of physics are such that these molecules form into a tomato… etc.)
Those are the growth codes contained in the DNA. Chromosomes are the program with “grow” and “stop growth” codes. There is no other mysterious force at work.
This is also the time when small errors creep into the execution of copying chromosomes during mitosis and result in very small or large growth deviations. This causes some organisms to acquire small advantages or disadvantages which are then tested for survivability in the environment via the process of natural selection.
These transcription changes has resulted in the extraordinary variety in species, each successfully adapted to an aspect of their environment.
Evolution via natural selection is a stochastic mathematical process that tests organisms for successful pattern arrangements and emergent sentience in most species from single-celled bacteria to complex mammals and everything in between.
You’ve just pushed the same thing back further. How is it that the laws of physics form DNA, that then go on to do all the incredible things DNA does? And by the way, I’m not anti-science or anything silly like that.
Remember Hazen’s explanation of the importance of chirality in biochemistry, another mathematical function.
In the end it is all mathematical and when you think about it mathematics is a quasi-intelligent guiding force, that brings order out of chaos.
(This is why so many people believe in a god. Mathematics looks like a demi-urge, a creative agency).
The argument is always about the existence or non-existence of a creator agency. Nobody ever considers that there is a third option of a quasi-intelligent logical operand, generic mathematics. No worship required, just ability to count… 
In the end it is just chemistry and chemistry interacts according to natural mathematical laws of relational values.
O + HH = H2O = water/ice/vapor, mathematically dependent on temperature (a mathematical function)
I find no mystery in the evolution of quasi-intelligent interactions of inherent relational values in biochemistry evolving into a form of self-aware biological networks, given sufficient environmental resources and time.
Note the term; Environ-mental. Is the environment quasi-intelligent?
Seems to me…
Except that as I think I asked before…this math you think is central, isn’t it just a human system that can be applied to areas other than the physical world, for example to economics and data science? Which to me implies the math is just a man made tool, not the underlying reality.
The other thing too is, there needs to be something to differentiate the cosmic “mud” so to speak into something other just an undifferentiated blob going through random processes. What sparked that original differentiation? That’s what interests me. And I’m not going for the whole creator thing, that’s just a man made story. There’s something deeper going on.
[quote=“cuthbertj, post:10, topic:7723, full:true”]
Except that as I think I asked before…this math you think is central, isn’t it just a human system that can be applied to areas other than the physical world, for example to economics and data science? Which to me implies the math is just a man made tool, not the underlying reality.
No, logic is not a human invention, it is a property of spacetime.
Mathematics is a logical function and is how the universe processes the naturally occurring generic values (potentials) of elements.
H2O is a mathematical string consisting of 1 oxygen atom + 2 hydrogen atoms = H2O. In addition Oxygen and Hydrogen atoms have different generic relational values (potentials). Nature does not deal in numbers but in “relational values” (potentials).
Humans have recognized these relational values and how they interact mathematically. This allowed human to symbolize and codify these values and their interactive processes in the human science of “mathematics”.
The other thing too is, there needs to be something to differentiate the cosmic “mud” so to speak into something other just an undifferentiated blob going through random processes. What sparked that original differentiation? That’s what interests me. And I’m not going for the whole creator thing, that’s just a man made story. There’s something deeper going on.
Exactly, and that deeper inner workings is the regular processing of relational values via generic mathematical functions. In science its called the “black box function”
Schematic depiction of a function described metaphorically as a “machine” or “black box” that for each input yields a corresponding output
This is the schematic representation of universal generic mathematical interactive functions between inherent generic relational values (potentials).
This logical guiding principle is described in Chaos Theory where regular patterns spontaneously self-organize and emerge from random chaotic relational values.
Note; Quantum Theory rest on the existence of relationships between “quanta of generic values”
Humans always get hung up on the symbolic representation and declare that humans invented mathematics. We did not invent mathematics, we invented human symbolic mathematics. Generic mathematical functions worked long before humans came along and represented (codified) them with symbolic numbers and processing functions that represent interactions between relational values and differential equations.
Think of it as algebra, where human letters represent the generic mathematical relationships of different values and functions.
We don’t say that letters cannot represent values because we “know” that algebraic letters represent generic mathematical values.
Looks like you’re in a loop now. You never answered my question - if math is absolute, baked into the universe, then how can the same math be applied to strictly human areas such as economics and data science? I used to hold that belief, thinking man how cool that Einstein used tensors (what a cool word) to express so much. Until I found out that tensors are generic math tools that can be applied to non-physics. 
Human maths are symbolic representations of generic natural logical functions based on the interchange of inherent relational values and potentials of physical objects.
Many cosmologists stipulate that they are not inventing maths but that they are discovering the mathematical nature of spacetime. Hard to argue with that real world observation.
I didn’t read all of Write4’s post, but one rather simple explanation i heard is that first, before humans, there are things that exist, like a group of four things. Then, we come along and observe that, then make a symbol to represent it, 4, and all the other things we do we with math.
And it’s not just numbers, ratios are in nature, gravity causes things to move in certain ways. All that happens without us.
Exactly!
This is why I have dropped using the term “numbers” and use the term “inherent relational values” .
Everybody agrees that things existed before humans and everyone agrees that these things had certain patterns and inherent relational values that interacted with each other in very specific and predictable logical ways.
And these interactions of relational values has proven to be via a logical definable process which we have symbolized and named mathematics.
Mathematics is a human term for Universal relational processing of inherent values (potentials) that are part of Universal physical interactions.
You continue to avoid my question: If math is absolute, baked into the universe, then how can the same math be applied to strictly human areas such as economics and data science?
And i’m not talking about simplistic things like numbers, logical operations, I’m talking about the complex math that physicists actually use. Calculus, derivatives, differential equations, vectors/tensors etc.
[quote=“cuthbertj, post:16, topic:7723, full:true”]
You continue to avoid my question: If math is absolute, baked into the universe, then how can the same math be applied to strictly human areas such as economics and data science?
Because generic maths apply to everything that requires processing of inherent relational values. It’s all the same. Generic mathematics is a logical function. That is why it is Universal!
And i’m not talking about simplistic things like numbers, logical operations, I’m talking about the complex math that physicists actually use. Calculus, derivatives, differential equations, vectors/tensors etc.
The universe does not function in accordance with human symbolic mathematics. Human mathematics is the symbolization of Universal generic maths. Universal mathematics have existed since the beginning of spacetime geometry., and perhaps even before then as a purely metaphysical potential.
a + a = b is a universal logical equation.
That is why we can symbolize it as 2 + 2 = 4 and that applies to every “equation”
math·e·mat·ics, noun
the abstract science of number, quantity, and space. Mathematics may be studied in its own right ( pure mathematics ), or as it is applied to other disciplines such as physics and engineering ( applied mathematics ).
“a taste for mathematics”the mathematical aspects of something;
“the mathematics of general relativity”
Mathematical function
Schematic depiction of a function described metaphorically as a “machine” or “black box” that for each input yields a corresponding output
You look at a complex string and you ask how the universe could “execute” such a thing, but that is not how it works.
According to Tegmark there are only some 32 relational values ((numbers) that interact via 4 mathematical processing (+, -, x, 
functions in accordance with a handful of universal constants. This process occurs at quantum speed.
Example: the Higgs boson cannot exist independent of interaction with other particles. So we never are able to observe the Higgs boson in reality, but we can observe its effects on “mass”, because the Higgs interaction with other particles gives mass to those particles.
Along comes Peter Higgs who figures out the mathematics of the process and tells Cern how to program the collider so that the boson must become visible for an instant. Cern programmed the maths, turned on the collider and presto, the boson became expressed for just an instant before it decayed back into simpler elements and disappeared from this reality.
This experiment does not only prove that we can imitate natural dynamic processes, but also that nature functions via generic mathematical processes that can be artificially imitated. That is why human maths are so “reasonably effective”, when we do them right.
For one moment we artificially created something that mathematically cannot exist independent of some complex interaction with something else, and those relational values can be symbolized via human symbolic mathematical “equations” and practically applied!
Okay well you continue to avoid my question. And btw, 1 + 1 = 2 only holds in certain contexts, and is not universal or baked into the universe. It’s a human invention too. I’ll give you an example: If I have one raindrop in each of my palms, and pour them into a cup, how many raindrops are there in the cup? (Context is counting, not volume).
Math recognizes context. Volume and quantity are different. The human part is labeling them.
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/20966
" So mathematics is made up. Numbers, symbols, equations, rules, procedures. All invented—and by humans, not gods. What is factually true, what we didn’t invent, are facts about quantities, patterns, and relations between. Mathematics is an invented tool for computing what those facts are, from available data. With certain inputs, and a certain algorithm (procedure) for processing (computing) that information, we get certain outputs."
If you do not account for all the values you are not doing mathematics.
In maths the equation would read 1 + 1 = 1 x 2 = actual value 2
