Why don’t you give me the answer and see if I agree with you.
What is “strictly human”? Calculus shows us how to escape earth’s gravity. Gravity is always there. The rules of how to navigate it apply to all particles. We’re different in that it matters if we survive doing it or not, but otherwise the math is the same.
I so like this little exchange between Steven Colbert and Ricky Gervais.
See you guys keep using examples from physics and the physical world. I’m talking about math applied to economics, which is strictly a human/social endeavor (yes we’re all made of atoms, but economics as math is used, relates to people and markets, supplies, etc not particles). Or data science, which is data-computing centric, not dealing with the physical world.
So if the same math can be used in these two categorically different arenas of research, the math itself is not tied to either one inherently, and is only a man-made tool.
The human part is defining the context. And of course my example is simplistic. So in the context of economics, a tensor means one thing, and in the context of physics it means another. Point is, the mathematical concept of a tensor is not intrinsically tied to physics. It’s just a man made tool, and not some “universal thing” that exists outside the realm of humans, as write4u seems to think. And some other civilization might try to figure out how things work in an entirely different way that bears utterly no resemblance to the man-made tools we use. Earlier, or maybe in another thread, I mentioned the movie Arrival, which centers around communication. That’s a good analogy to what I’m talking about with regard to math. In the movie the “aliens” communicated in a way that bore no resemblance to how humans communicate, using sounds, and symbols (letters/word), etc. They had no sense of sentences, beginning and ending thoughts (that sentences communicate for humans), no sense of time even. I.e. unrecognizable as communication!
You suggested Calculus and a couple other applications. Not sure what you’re looking for. That it applies to different disciplines, tells me it is an underlying fact of everything. Economics is how we calculate how we convert nature into our junk food and gourmet vegetarian dinners. We didn’t need it when we just picked berries, but the facts we’re still functioning, but now we need to feed people who don’t work the fields.
[quote=“cuthbertj, post:24, topic:7723, full:true”]
See you guys keep using examples from physics and the physical world. I’m talking about math applied to economics, which is strictly a human/social endeavor (yes we’re all made of atoms, but economics as math is used, relates to people and markets, supplies, etc not particles). Or data science, which is data-computing centric, not dealing with the physical world.
“Data” is another word for “value”.
So if the same math can be used in these two categorically different arenas of research, the math itself is not tied to either one inherently, and is only a man-made tool.
False equivalence… Whatever you are talking about can be reduced to the processing of “inherent relative values” .
Numbers are the human symbols for inherent “values”. The universe deals with the processing of generic relational values.
What you are citing is a typical example of anthropomorphization that seeks to separate human symbolic values from naturally occurring relational values.
There is no difference. Human; “quid pro quo” describes the exact the same mathematical equation as Newton’s 3rd Law ; “for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction”.
The difference lies only in the application of human symbols to duplicate the natural mathematical functions.
Everything in the universe has a mathematical aspect attached to it. Mathematics are an inherent potential of a logical spacetime geometry.
1 Like
In a sense, we did use it.
Cultivation and conservation are inherently mathematical functions.
We didn’t have a science of economics. It can be used to share fairly, or to exploit. We’ve always made that choice, just without showing a formula or having a podcast.
How about “double entry” bookkeeping?
Now the science of Accountancy. MS (Master of Science in Accounting)
Trump! 
In physics, calculus is used to make predictions about various physical objects. If I apply this much force to something with this weigt/mass etc it should end up at point X. That’s using math to make predictions about physical objects. In economics they could use the same math but to predict how a market might respond, i.e. a human activity, human as in people making choices, depending on their mood, etc. Totally different from an inanimate object. SO - my point is, if math can be used in those two totally different arenas of investigation, then the math itself cannot be inherent in either. Put it another way, if I said my hammer can only be used to pound nails in because it is inherently related to nails, then anyone trying to use a hammer for anything other than pounding in nails would fail, they wouldn’t be able to, because hammers (according to my) are only for hammering nails. And of course I’d be wrong.
Oh and bottom line, just a few guys having a philosophy discussion without anyone calling anybody names. 
1 Like
I’m listening to a book by Anne Lamott, Imperfect Birds, about a girl who is smart, plays tennis, and has a drug problem. She says how amazing it is that in this 4 dimensional universe, somehow it all can come together in a perfect backhand.
In nature one might compare 'mood" to temperature. All it does is make the equation a variable.
John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015)
was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, differential geometry, and the study of partial differential equations.[2][3] Nash’s work has provided insight into the factors that govern chance and decision-making inside complex systems found in everyday life.
John Forbes Nash Jr. - Wikipedia.
Exactly! You’ve proven my point. Math is just a tool that can be applied to many areas, which means it’s not intrinsically tied to any of the areas. If it were, then Nash’s work would NOT be able to be applied to governance, etc. Of course that doesn’t mean math isn’t valuable, and it doesn’t mean that regularities don’t exist in either physical reality (physics) or human reality (governance, etc.) that can’t be examined by math.
Math is great, I wish I could understand a tiny fraction of the heavy duty stuff physicists and guys like Nash did. What I don’t like is physicists in particular who think that what they’re doing with math is some divine thing special to what they do. (My personal hero Einstein was one of those, so it really pained me when I figured out that even he was off in this regard.)
Btw, if you haven’t seen it already, A Beautiful Mind is a great movie about Nash.
What it does prove is that at a fundamental level everything can be represented with mathematics. Universal functions are based on fundamental logical algorithms that can be represented with human symbolic mathematics.
This logical argument is clearly observable wherever we look. Except for quantum which is still beyond our ability to observe, everything we observe can be represented mathematically., because it is logical.
The Universe is not illogical. If it were it would not, could not exist.
I don’t see how "applied to " means “not tied to”.
If I say to you, this hammer can only be used to pound nails in. That’s the only area of activity it can be used for. And I continue with ‘this hammer is built such that the only thing you can do with it is pound nails in, any other thing you try to do will fail because hammers pound nails and nothing else.’ Or high level, I’d be claiming hammers can only be used for carpentry, nothing else, not sewing, not cooking, etc.
Okay that’s what I’m claiming is the truth. So you take a hammer and start stirring a pot of soup with it, i.e. you use it to cook.
You’ve proven me wrong - hammers can in fact do something other than pound nails in. Hammers are NOT instrinctly “tied to (as far as the things you can do with them)” nails. In fact you can do lots of things with hammers other than pounding in nails.
That’s roughly what I’m saying about math. If math were instrinctly tied to/related to the in-animate physical world, it would simply not be useful at all with economics, governance/policy theory, etc. If hammers were instrinctly tied to nails, when I went to use the hammer to stir the soup if would not work, I don’t it’d pop out of your hand or something. (Obviously stretching the analogy a bit here.)
Where write4u misses is that he thinks the fact that there is an underlying order or pattern to things implies that math, the math physicists in particular use, is somehow baked into the universe. Patterns and order are definitely there, obviously. But the mathematical tools humans come up with are arbitrary, work well of course, but are not baked in.
Ever heard of kinetic energy? A hammer applies kinetic energy and there are different weight hammers to drive different size nails or spikes into wood, or specialty hammers for jewelry or cooking utensils like a wok.
Sea-otters use the concept of “hammer and anvil” to break oyster shells.
Or a pile driver to drive foundation piles into the ground.
Or jackhammers to break concrete.
The moon was created when the kinetic impact of Thea broke off a piece of the earth.
A hammer is just a human tool to artificially apply kinetic force where it is needed.
All very scientific. It’s called “applied science” of natural laws.
c’mon cuthbert, you know better.