this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
161 points (92.6% liked)

Memes

45450 readers
2448 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 46 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Alternatively, all of nature can be explained by mathematics, rather then being based on it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah I was gonna say, mathematics is the human interpretation of naturally occurring proportions

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

draws a straight line

"Fuck you, God"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This could be a new modifiable copypasta

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Such a fascinating read, definitely changed my perception about copypastas and the Fediverse. I'm probably going to remember your view about copypastas time by time in the future. What makes your comment all the more interesting is that what I wrote was a comment from the post which is about a maths. You've probably seen it but if you haven't I really think you should check it out.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey Quazar,

Great point and post. Any math + philosophy reddits you know of on Lemme?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Gimme dem philosophy subs!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Then why I, as part of nature, is dumb as shit in math? Checkmate matheists

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would say all language are natural. Even mathematics.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Esperanto, Volapük and Elvish beg to differ 😛

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Art and humour are inevitable consequences of sentient animals having the capability to create them.

I think of it like squares and rectangles. Everything created by humans is natural, but only a fraction of natural things are created by humans.

There is a natural progression from some particles colliding at the beginning of the universe all the way to low effort memes being posted on Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're operating with a RIDICULOUSLY overbroad definition of "natural" that includes pretty much everything artificial 🤦

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it not natural for humans to create artificial tools?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The action may come naturally, but the tools are by definition man-made and thus artificial.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes. Man-made and artificial things are natural.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't tell if you're a troll or you genuinely don't know how language works, what words mean 🤦

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My bad. I didn’t know philosophy was unwelcome here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My bad, had to mention it was a quote, I kinda wanted people to search and discover that gem of a movie for themselves

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Economics is not math, its a religion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The guy I'm replying to and i are quoting a movie about a troubled mathematician searching for a pattern in the stock market.

That aside, I disagree with your assertion that economics is a religion. I agree it's not math though. It uses math to form models for predictive/descriptive purposes, as do a lot of disciplines.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Incorrect, of course the universal language we use to describe nature is everywhere in nature.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Someone building the simulation was like “yeah, let’s simulate diarrhea and make people have it just for funsies”.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The Sims new dlc

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

-boner code is buggy and triggers for no reason sometimes

-whatever ship it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Three tress just sitting there in someone's yard

HOLY SHIT, Look at that, there's exactly three trees, its like it's reality is based on math or something :O

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well of course does the universal language we developed describe things universally

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

But... We invented mathematics in order to understand nature

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Our "universe" simultaneously is and is not a simulation because reality is relative to the seer. It's a fun thing to think about but pointless due to our limited understanding on what would make one universe 'real' and another a 'simulation', since really they're one and the same, just at different scales. It is interesting to think about though whether or not our universe has a parent universe which it exists inside of. And if so how deep that nesting goes. If our universe isn't contwined inside something else, does that mean our universe simply is everything? No way to really know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I sometimes like to think that, for another being, the earth is the size of an atom, and that humans are kind of like bacteria

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I like to think our universe is just a snow globe on some alien kid's shelf.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, if we are in a simulation, there is very likely an admin ;)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You have been permabanned from UNIVERSE v.0.9.5 for Harrassment.

This action was automatically completed by Automoderator. To appeal your ban, please fill out this form.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Dang that form is amazing

load more comments
view more: next ›