The illusion of Matter

[Alchopwn]

On 11/15/2020 at 5:04 AM, Mellon Man said:

How do we know 1+1=2? 

1+1=/=2 as there are no two identical objects.  It is a useful abstraction to propose that identical things exist, but they don't.  What we get however, if we pursue the line of reasoning that begins with 1+1=2 is the means of measuring the cosmos, and that becomes a tool of exquisite precision.

[Alchopwn]

On 11/15/2020 at 5:04 AM, Mellon Man said:

There is now evidence for my suspicion. 

I am giving you a second chance to read the post you quoted again. If you wish to maintain above, just reply yes. I have marked certain parts in bold, please consider these, before making a decision. 

I am giving you more rope, please don’t misuse it.

I don’t need you to explain what philosophy is. The same applies to science. 

P.S I hope the cherry picked quote, leading to out of context quotation, was a genuine error. 

No, please, hand me my ass on this.  What have I said that was so incontrovertibly wrong within your understanding of the topic?   I may just learn something.

[Harte]

On 11/28/2020 at 3:40 AM, Alchopwn said:

1+1=/=2 as there are no two identical objects.  It is a useful abstraction to propose that identical things exist, but they don't.  What we get however, if we pursue the line of reasoning that begins with 1+1=2 is the means of measuring the cosmos, and that becomes a tool of exquisite precision.

! rock plus 1 rock equals two rocks.

The rocks don't have to be identical.

This is counting.

Harte

[Alchopwn]

On 12/2/2020 at 10:21 AM, Harte said:

! rock plus 1 rock equals two rocks.

The rocks don't have to be identical.

This is counting.

Harte

Hang on.  Are the rocks the same size or the same kind of rock?  Are they the same shape?  How can you claim there are 2 rocks when in fact there is a rock and another quite different rock?  If I have a tiny flint arrowhead and a boulder of quartzite sitting in the warehouse that provides my Boolean set, do I really have 2 rocks?  That is a generalization and not a fact.  Worse still, at a certain level all mathematics is based on this style of generalization.  This owes its origins to one of the original uses for maths, which was the division of land for purchase for agriculture back in the bronze age.  They didn't understand soil quality and the proximity to services wasn't something they factored into price according to the cuneiform of the time.  They treated a given area of land as equivalent to all other blocks of land.  This sort of ceteris paribus thinking is not qualitative and thus on closer inspection, not factual.  In fact it is an abstraction, and mathematics might be described as a series of useful logical abstractions, that can be applied to the real world, but are we going to label apples and oranges as fruit and say we have 2 pieces of fruit now, ignoring all qualitative differences?

Mathematics is based on unspoken categorical generalizations and arguably they are a form of prejudice.  It is all somewhat similar to the Ship of Theseus at a certain level.  For example, if, I have 2 bananas and on an empty stomach I consume one, keep the skin, and then pipe my feces into that skin and undetectably glue it shut is it still a banana?  Or does it only cease to be a banana when you say 1 +1=2 only to discover that you are covered in number 2 when you peel the banana?  Arguably it is a banana until it is peeled, but it is still atomically and to overt appearance the same banana it ever was, except it is a prank banana.  Do you still have 2 bananas?  If all the wood in the ship of Theseus has been replaced, is it still the ship of Theseus?

Or what if one of your bananas is a wild banana from the original cultivar that looks nothing like the presently marketed yellow bent bananas we know and love?  Many an adult would see a wild banana and not be able to identify it, so is a common market banana and a wild banana still 1+1=2 bananas?

Or how about a squashed banana?  Is the banana that has been run over by a trolley on aisle 7 still a banana? Or is it now shrinkage?  The fact is a rock is not necessarily a rock and a banana is not necessarily a banana and 1 + 1 is potentially a matter of some qualitative conjecture.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Alchopwn

[+Desertrat56]

11 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

Hang on.  Are the rocks the same size or the same kind of rock?  Are they the same shape?

Counting does not have anything to do with set theory.

[XenoFish]

15 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

Hang on.  Are the rocks the same size or the same kind of rock?  Are they the same shape?  How can you claim there are 2 rocks when in fact there is a rock and another quite different rock?  If I have a tiny flint arrowhead and a boulder of quartzite sitting in the warehouse that provides my Boolean set, do I really have 2 rocks?  That is a generalization and not a fact.  Worse still, at a certain level all mathematics is based on this style of generalization.  This owes its origins to one of the original uses for maths, which was the division of land for purchase for agriculture back in the bronze age.  They didn't understand soil quality and the proximity to services wasn't something they factored into price according to the cuneiform of the time.  They treated a given area of land as equivalent to all other blocks of land.  This sort of ceteris paribus thinking is not qualitative and thus on closer inspection, not factual.  In fact it is an abstraction, and mathematics might be described as a series of useful logical abstractions, that can be applied to the real world, but are we going to label apples and oranges as fruit and say we have 2 pieces of fruit now, ignoring all qualitative differences?

Mathematics is based on unspoken categorical generalizations and arguably they are a form of prejudice.  It is all somewhat similar to the Ship of Theseus at a certain level.  For example, if, I have 2 bananas and on an empty stomach I consume one, keep the skin, and then pipe my feces into that skin and undetectably glue it shut is it still a banana?  Or does it only cease to be a banana when you say 1 +1=2 only to discover that you are covered in number 2 when you peel the banana?  Arguably it is a banana until it is peeled, but it is still atomically and to overt appearance the same banana it ever was, except it is a prank banana.  Do you still have 2 bananas?  If all the wood in the ship of Theseus has been replaced, is it still the ship of Theseus?

Or what if one of your bananas is a wild banana from the original cultivar that looks nothing like the presently marketed yellow bent bananas we know and love?  Many an adult would see a wild banana and not be able to identify it, so is a common market banana and a wild banana still 1+1=2 bananas?

Or how about a squashed banana?  Is the banana that has been run over by a trolley on aisle 7 still a banana? Or is it now shrinkage?  The fact is a rock is not necessarily a rock and a banana is not necessarily a banana and 1 + 1 is potentially a matter of some qualitative conjecture.

Triggered much over a simple bit of math.

[Alchopwn]

On 12/4/2020 at 2:37 AM, Desertrat56 said:

Counting does not have anything to do with set theory.

Counting IMPLICITLY uses categories, and categories can be represented mathematically as Boolean sets.  For example, if I have an apple, an orange and a banana, I have 3 pieces for fruit, but objectively those three pieces of fruit aren't even the same species and are quite different. Let's face facts, the whole definition of what qualifies as a "fruit" is a bit of an obsolete linguistic artifact with precious little scientific value, and is likely to be quite ancient. Every time we say we have a given number of something we are IMPLICITLY superimposing a Boolean set as a form of abstract generalization on the things we label as being numerically "together".  It is an implicit assumption of counting that the things being counted form part of a group, but the things within that grouping can be quite arbitrary if considered qualitatively.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Alchopwn

[Alchopwn]

On 12/4/2020 at 7:03 AM, XenoFish said:

Triggered much over a simple bit of math.

No.  I am making a point about the assumptions implicit in mathematics that everyone takes for granted and I am using examples and humor to illustrate my point.  The fact is, 1+1=2 is almost always a generalization without any basis in fact. if we actually bother to investigate the two things being categorised as being the same and thus being added together.  Only the abstract "numbers" themselves can be added together without issue, and they in fact do not exist outside of our imaginations.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Alchopwn

[Horta]

Get what you're saying and can't disagree, though probably much of what is taken for granted could similarly fall prey if really pondered.

What is fascinating with numbers though, is that there are cultures who don't really have them (well they probably do now thanks to mixing with westerners). Their counting system goes... one...greater than one. That's it, apparently lol.

[Harte]

5 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

No.  I am making a point about the assumptions implicit in mathematics that everyone takes for granted and I am using examples and humor to illustrate my point.  The fact is, 1+1=2 is almost always a generalization without any basis in fact. if we actually bother to investigate the two things being categorised as being the same and thus being added together.  Only the abstract "numbers" themselves can be added together without issue, and they in fact do not exist outside of our imaginations.

How many angles are in a scalene triangle?

None?

That is, the angles certainly aren't the same and could either be all acute, one obtuse and two acute, or one right angle and two acute angles.

The idea of counting can be as amorphous as it needs to be. You can count sheep, you can count cattle, you can count goats, or you can count livestock. Whatever you're counting, the same algebraic rules apply whether the objects counted are the same. You get to pick the categorization you want to use. It doesn't affect the way a countable set works.

But it's true that all mathematics is abstract. There is an unaddressed question as to why it can be applied to reality at all.

Harte

[XenoFish]

8 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

1+1=2 is almost always a generalization without any basis in fact.

You have one apple and I hand you another, how many apples do you have? Do you still have 1 apple or do you now have 2 apples? Not that complicated. 

[Horta]

Can't be sure but going by the thread so far, any theoretical triangle would have three inner angles, as would one with perfectly straight lines. As perfectly straight lines don't really exist, neither do genuine physical triangles. They're just an approximation for convenience, the precise number of angles would probably depend on the precision you could measure to, and might be impossible to calculate in reality. lol.

[lightly]

The sky is blue...because we have agreed that it is blue.    There is one sky, because there is one sky.    < the difference between abstraction and fact.  ??

[XenoFish]

39 minutes ago, lightly said:

The sky is blue...because we have agreed that it is blue.    There is one sky, because there is one sky.    < the difference between abstraction and fact.  ??

I think the moral of the story is that we're all making it up as we go along. 

[lightly]

59 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I think the moral of the story is that we're all making it up as we go along. 

Yup, a lot of it..but my simple point is that some things just ARE....and were, before we ever existed.    Reality really doesn't need us....to BE real.    If your a strict materialist..  Matter, what ever it IS, was 'here' long before it was ever Realized.   ??

and was no 'illusion' or we would not have evolved.  ??

    ..I tend to believe that ,somehow, realization(Energy) precedes matter(Energy).    But that's a whole other can of worms.

[+joc]

16 hours ago, lightly said:

Yup, a lot of it..but my simple point is that some things just ARE....and were, before we ever existed.    Reality really doesn't need us....to BE real.    If your a strict materialist..  Matter, what ever it IS, was 'here' long before it was ever Realized.   ??

and was no 'illusion' or we would not have evolved.  ??

    ..I tend to believe that ,somehow, realization(Energy) precedes matter(Energy).    But that's a whole other can of worms.

Matter is NOT an illusion.  The idea that it is made of things that don't really exist is the illusion.  This is not a computer program we are in...this is reality.  I bent over the other day to pick up a water hose and when I bent over, I inadvertently stuck a small branch from a bush in my right eye.  That was no illusion.

It's like this...hit your thumb with a hammer and feel the pain.  Reality.  Think...about hitting your thumb with a hammer.  Illusion.  The illusion is the thought process and how we define matter.  A tornado is just wind swirling around. Matter is just electrons swirling around.  The other thing I think people tend to loose sight of is the idea of 'dark matter'.  It's all very, very real.  It's always been here.  Where ever here is...there is matter. Here matters.

[Alchopwn]

On 12/5/2020 at 10:07 PM, Harte said:

The idea of counting can be as amorphous as it needs to be. You can count sheep, you can count cattle, you can count goats, or you can count livestock. Whatever you're counting, the same algebraic rules apply whether the objects counted are the same. You get to pick the categorization you want to use. It doesn't affect the way a countable set works.

Yes, I agree.  We pick the categorization, but how often do we critique the categorization?  In statistics, quite a lot actually, in fact, as statistics have become politicised.  In other forms of mathematics the underlying assumptions are seldom questioned and are merely manipulated.  It is an important piece of mathematical philosophy that numbers are in face imaginary, and only become tangible when we choose to assign them to categories of objects.  Every category can, however, be criticised, even if the mathematical process thereafter cannot.

[+Liquid Gardens]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:07 AM, Harte said:

There is an unaddressed question as to why it can be applied to reality at all.

Because its purpose is to describe reality, which lucky for us has consistency?  All language is abstract; if I have two red apples in my fridge is the 'two' more abstract than 'red'?

[+Desertrat56]

17 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Because its purpose is to describe reality, which lucky for us has consistency?  All language is abstract; if I have two red apples in my fridge is the 'two' more abstract than 'red'?

If someone needs 10 potatoes for dinner they count 10 potatoes, the only category is potato.   Counting is not the same as set theory, though what is called set theory is more natural than counting.  Watch 2 and 3 year olds playing, they sort by color or by size for fun, exploring shapes and attributes of things.  Counting comes later, unless you think them parroting "1,2,3,4,5, 6,7, 8,9,10" is counting.  It isn't.  When you ask a 3 year old to bring 4 forks to the table they may know how many 3 is but 4 is not there yet so they bring 3 forks.  That is normal, knowing how many is different than repeating a memorized string of words.   Some 3 year olds can "count" to 20 but they still only know how many 3 or 4 is. Eventually they do get that they have 5 fingers on each hand and how many 5 is, etc.

[+Liquid Gardens]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

If someone needs 10 potatoes for dinner they count 10 potatoes, the only category is potato.

Whether or not that is true is I think a different question. There is considerable conversation within philosophy about mathematics I agree, so I was just throwing out what I thought was an obvious response to Harte's statement. 

To make a more obvious comparison, what is the difference between 'there is an unaddressed question why math can be applied to reality at all' and 'there is an unaddressed question why chemistry/biology/physics can be applied to reality at all'?  The latter seems to have a pretty obvious explanation and I think has been 'addressed' in a way that I think in large part applies to math; it's not just a coincidence that the Pythagorean theorem accurately describes reality (approximately of course), it's formulation was dependent on it and is what it is intended to ultimately describe.  I'm not a mathematician though, so I'm not sure how things like imaginary numbers (all I remember about these is that they allowed you to take square roots of negative numbers, I think) would fit in with reality or if that is more along the lines of what the 'unaddressed question' is.

[+Desertrat56]

17 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Whether or not that is true is I think a different question. There is considerable conversation within philosophy about mathematics I agree, so I was just throwing out what I thought was an obvious response to Harte's statement. 

To make a more obvious comparison, what is the difference between 'there is an unaddressed question why math can be applied to reality at all' and 'there is an unaddressed question why chemistry/biology/physics can be applied to reality at all'?  The latter seems to have a pretty obvious explanation and I think has been 'addressed' in a way that I think in large part applies to math; it's not just a coincidence that the Pythagorean theorem accurately describes reality (approximately of course), it's formulation was dependent on it and is what it is intended to ultimately describe.  I'm not a mathematician though, so I'm not sure how things like imaginary numbers (all I remember about these is that they allowed you to take square roots of negative numbers, I think) would fit in with reality or if that is more along the lines of what the 'unaddressed question' is.

Actually, my response was more towards what Harte said than what you said.   I have a good foundation in math but I am not a mathematician.  I learned so that I could help my children so I started with the basics and had a very good teacher who explained the difference between saying a list of numbers and actually knowing how many 4 is.  If you don't understand that, any conversation about the natural inclination towards people counting and using numbers is moot because the terms are not properly defined.  And understanding how babies and small children relate to what we call math is what the conversation was yesterday, I am behind a bit.

If you don't have a good understanding of math physics is difficult to understand, math is the foundation of how we express all the other sciences.  As for applying anything to reality can take you down a rabbit hole as we can't even agree for the  most part on what reality is.  You can take the scientific outlook that if it can be measured it is real, and you can take the mystical outlook that if you feel it, think it, it must be real somewhere.   How do you reconcile those two attitudes?  (measuring requires numbers)

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by Desertrat56

[Harte]

8 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Because its purpose is to describe reality, which lucky for us has consistency?  All language is abstract; if I have two red apples in my fridge is the 'two' more abstract than 'red'?

While mathematics originally started out describing reality, for hundreds of years now there's been plenty in math that's not known to relate to anything we've ever seen or imagined in reality.

Harte

[Mr Walker]

11 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

If someone needs 10 potatoes for dinner they count 10 potatoes, the only category is potato.   Counting is not the same as set theory, though what is called set theory is more natural than counting.  Watch 2 and 3 year olds playing, they sort by color or by size for fun, exploring shapes and attributes of things.  Counting comes later, unless you think them parroting "1,2,3,4,5, 6,7, 8,9,10" is counting.  It isn't.  When you ask a 3 year old to bring 4 forks to the table they may know how many 3 is but 4 is not there yet so they bring 3 forks.  That is normal, knowing how many is different than repeating a memorized string of words.   Some 3 year olds can "count" to 20 but they still only know how many 3 or 4 is. Eventually they do get that they have 5 fingers on each hand and how many 5 is, etc.

There is a lot of variation between children, as in reading. 

I have a young relative whose parents say can multiply and divide numbers up to20 in his head and he hasn't even started school yet (but both his parents work with numbers )   Most children have a lot of unrealised potential, because parents and early childhood carers don't extend them 

I was at book club last night and met a young female teacher who read "lord of the rings"  when she was  8years old, in her fourth year at school  I said I was pleased to hear tha t, because I and my siblings all read it by then and people wouldn't believe it was possible.

  Part of the educational challenges my parents set us as pre schoolers (under 5)  was to memorise objects on a tray  (first only a dozen or so, but eventually  up to100)  with only a few seconds observation  We also had to be able to say how many there were. Then mum or dad would take one or two away or add one or two, we had to say which were missing or added and how many were now on the tray.

Never saw it as learning, just fun time with mum and dad.   

[Mr Walker]

On 12/2/2020 at 9:51 AM, Harte said:

! rock plus 1 rock equals two rocks.

The rocks don't have to be identical.

This is counting.

Harte

As long as they are definitely rocks, and  you  have established the parameters of a rock from a non rock   

If one is a tektite, is it still a rock. If one is  a piece of petrified wood, is it a rock, and if one is a piece of pumice, is it a rock?   

[Mr Walker]

9 hours ago, Desertrat56 said:

Actually, my response was more towards what Harte said than what you said.   I have a good foundation in math but I am not a mathematician.  I learned so that I could help my children so I started with the basics and had a very good teacher who explained the difference between saying a list of numbers and actually knowing how many 4 is.  If you don't understand that, any conversation about the natural inclination towards people counting and using numbers is moot because the terms are not properly defined.  And understanding how babies and small children relate to what we call math is what the conversation was yesterday, I am behind a bit.

If you don't have a good understanding of math physics is difficult to understand, math is the foundation of how we express all the other sciences.  As for applying anything to reality can take you down a rabbit hole as we can't even agree for the  most part on what reality is.  You can take the scientific outlook that if it can be measured it is real, and you can take the mystical outlook that if you feel it, think it, it must be real somewhere.   How do you reconcile those two attitudes?  (measuring requires numbers)

 

Reality is that which would exist even if humans did not. However  feelings/ thoughts are measurable, using advanced technologies. Thus the y are also  actually physical things, and real. BUT the constructs of our minds may not be real as the y do not exist in permanent form outside our mind eg a dragon

The human thought  construct of a dragon is real and measurable, recordable and transferrable, but the dragon itself  is not real