Do you think math is the language of the universe? Why or why not?
lucythetooth
2012/07/01 04:17:47
|
|
|||||
|
62 votes
|
|
63% | |||
|
13 votes
|
|
13% | |||
|
7 votes
|
|
7% | |||
|
17 votes
|
|
17% | |||
Top Opinion
-
2789847 2012/07/01 04:48:09Yes, it is, because...





















If it were universal, we'd be able to use it to communicate with dolphins and whales. And, for that matter, dogs and horses and garden slugs and slime mold.
It seems like the most likely way to construct a bridge of communication with another sentient species (which dolphins, at least, probably are), but it's far from "universal".
Numbers are just a mental construct. They can be incredibly useful, but they're just imaginary tools for creating maps.
It's a huge mistake to confuse a map with the territory it describes.
Or were you saying something totally different and I just read it wrong?
There are some obvious direct applications, like exchanging money.
And there are some more subtle ones. Driving a car involves a lot of physics, which uses the math as its language. So it is somehow related, but it's a pretty tenuous connection.
Our subconscious solves a lot of problems that can also be described by complex mathematical equations (like, say, catching a ball). But it doesn't think in numbers. It's a much more intuitive and less precise sort of thing.
Atoms most definitely do not "have a mathematic structure". I suppose they (theoretically, at least) have a structure that can be usefully described using math.
Just because we can calculate planetary movement doesn't really mean much. That's getting into physics, not really math. The planets would go happily spinning in their orbits even if no one had ever invented/discovered math.
I think of "math" as a really formal language that describes things on some sort of ideal domain where everything can be defined in concrete terms.
I think it falls apart when we try to translate it into the real world. This is probably just quibbling on my part. I probably spend too much of my time trying to translate.
Edit:
clarified sentence structure.
Also, mathematics is not actually able to describe *everything* in the universe, at least in a way that makes perfect sense to us: the idea of infinities, irrational numbers, imperfect ratios, the idea of limits (approaching a number but never actually reaching it), etc. And as the *real* world is overflowing with such imperfections that mathematics cannot perfectly describe - from the most massive black holes to the interactions of tiny particles that make up everything we can see, to very fabric of the universe itself - it cannot be the inherent "language" of the universe. Mathematics does not describe the world; it only estimates it.
Other cultures have machines creating machines to do the work, allowing the biological beings to explore, create, and become more than they were before. Of course, they don't have a greedy illuminati or cabal of the few who control and milk their own species for life's comforts to the demise of the masses.
The universe itself can be explained, described, comprehended and experienced from a variety of perspectives (or "languages," if you will), from science and mathematics, to religious belief, to philosophical disputations, to simple appreciation of its beauty, and to the awe we experience when contemplating the utter vastness and complexity of the universe.