Is the geometry of the world the source of what we call math ?

[granpa]

I'm not sure how serious you are (if you are serious at all) but if I understand you right then basically you would classify 'things' by how they are discovered rather than by their characteristics.

a triangle isn't a three sided polygon its a figure invented by some prehistoric man and passed down through the ages.

 

[2foolish]

I am trying to figure out what in the world you guys are talking about! I personally believe math and most geometric figures were invented by man (no triangles exist outside of Earth etc.) Infinity is only conceptual... ??

You're missing the point "geometry" is a concept that is made of actual stuff and it was derived from somewhere. i.e. geometric figures exist outside of your mind. The information about the subject of geometry/math as we are taught it was conceived by someone else. In other words you didn't come up with it yourself and for someone to have come up with it, there was a process by which the person or people came up with it recorded. The whole point was to understand the process by which knowledge (bits of information) comes into being in the first place, where it comes from, what it's made of, etc, and the process that enables it (transmission/reception/detection).

This is about the information the senses receive from the world through light and energy. i.e. you can only detect something is in front of you because you've received information that it exists. The missing concept is - collision detection, or refraction/reflection, and transmission of information via photons to receptors in the eye, etc.

 

[2foolish]

well we are talking about 2 different things here. when I say 'outgrowth' I mean that the axioms that form the basis of that particular field are based upon the underlying (and simpler) field.

Yes but all mathematical fields rely on concepts of this is not that, i.e. distinctions on a surface or in an image, they rely on our pre-computed, pre-converted sensory data, which we received from the outside world via the senses. This is my point, what we call math is a re-arrangement of pre-existing stuff into distinct patterns. Next is the problem that axiom's themselves are made of logic, i.e. pre-axiomatic logic. The structure of an axiom has to be formed made of something somehow.

when you say 'outgrowth' you are referring to the process in which it is discovered by the mind.

When I say outgrowth, I mean derived, received, communicated. Our math is a reflective/instanced expression of world geometry, i.e. the concept of distinctions re-arranged into different patterns.

yes we are born with certain instinctual skills like vision and the ability to process spatial data. that primes the pump so to speak

But that's the whole point, there is pre-computed math, i.e. subsurface data that the whole of what our conceptions of math sits upon, i.e. pre-logic-data that forms thoughts and structures within our minds.

The fact that you can shape, detect and modify your own thoughts proves they are made of actually existing stuff. To deny it leads to contradiction.

 

[granpa]

but the brain can reprogram itself through introspection. a sort of internal error correcting system.

 

[ronjanec]

I did not mean that I classify things by how they are discovered: A thing is a independent physical existence existing somewhere that is made of some form of physical material and has its' own individual phyical characteristics.

I was trying to say there are no pyramid type structures existing anywhere else in the physical universe besides earth. The point was also invented by man and does not exist anywhere else in the physical universe and this means the physical universe could not begin in a the structure of a point like many have said.

Yes geometric figures are made of actual stuff and exist outside the mind if man produces them like the pyramids and the point. (The geometric figure of the sphere exists independent of man)

I apologize for not making myself clearer.

 

[granpa]

once again. if that's the answer then what's the question?

 

[ronjanec]

An interesting question would be how could the physical universe have begun in the geometric form of a point when man invented the point like most other geometric forms and the point could not exist in the physical universe before this in any form...

 

[granpa]

I did not mean that I classify things by how they are discovered: A thing is a independent physical existence existing somewhere that is made of some form of physical material and has its' own individual phyical characteristics.

and 'things' that don't exist? unicorn?

 

[Hurkyl]

Actually it is, an act of observation is an act of detection, is an act of interaction - contact. ...

Blah, blah, blah. You've said a lot and none of it relevant to the charge levied against you -- your approach is not that of formulating theories and testing them empirically, and thus it fails to be scientific.

There is nothing wrong with using unscientific means to study a subject for which the scientific method is inappropriate or otherwise impractical -- but pretending it's science just makes you look foolish. That said, I'm not convinced the scientific method is neither inappropriate nor impractical...

No it isn't, you just don't have the research background. You're thinking about one interpretation of boolean logic (the one you were taught), incorrect concepts (the interpretation of logic you were taught) ...

Or maybe... just maybe... it could be that I have some expertise in this area and really do have some clue what I'm talking about? But white honestly, no expertise is needed to see that my statement was correct: the successor function is a one-to-one binary relation on natural numbers, whereas boolean logic is not. Thus, your claim that "The successor function is in fact what boolean logic is," when taken literally, is obviously false.

One of the primary indicators of a crackpot is when they respond to criticism by accusing everyone else of incompetence.

You're missing the point, if you were to calculate it out it would continue on forever, i.e. expanded the expression. for instance I can store 0.333 repeated in a computer as
1/3, but that does not make it's decimal expansion any less real.

I'm confused -- you appear to be acknowledging the fact that it is possible to store, in finite space, a number whose decimal representation is nonterminating... but you also appear to be sticking to your claim that one needs infinite space to store pi...

My first point was things are made of stuff in the real world, they don't go 'on forever' if you transport infinite numbers to the outside world and unpack them (calculate them fully, instead of just expressing them as stored function). That was my point with pi and making it with real stuff, i.e. doing the calculations with physical objects.

Except you've at least two problems:
1. You've confused the number pi with an abstraction -- that numbers can be represented by infinite strings of decimal digits.
2. You are insisting upon a particular means of representing infinite strings of decimal digits, despite the fact better representations are available.




Shifting gears a bit...

when you consider that for you to even have a thought, or a perception, you use binary logic (is a surface there yes or no? did it make contact, yes or no?, etc ,etc)

At the psychological level, there is plenty of reason to believe humans do not use binary logic exclusively, or even predominantly. To invoke a saying: "The world is not black and white, but instead made of shades of gray". At the biological level, the brain appears to be operating mainly through electromagnetic fields.

You repeatedly make assertions like this: I'm going to insist that you attempt to argue your case.

 

[ronjanec]

A Unicorn does in fact exist at least in this conversation and I would classify this as a imaginary thing.