(urth) barrington interview

Thu Oct 9 05:09:57 PDT 2014

And so you illustrate the point: physics comes from observing the universe,
whereas math comes from reason. Our reason could be different.
There is no such thing as multiplication outside our minds. There is a
thing in our minds called multiplication which enables us to make sense of
areas. Areas are physics, not math.

On 9 October 2014 13:01, Norwood, Frederick Hudson <NORWOODR at mail.etsu.edu>
wrote:

>  We have to be a little careful when we extend math to physics.  In a
> universe with different physical laws, we would have different physics, but
> the same math.  Math is the knowledge that can be arrived at by pure
> reason.  Physics requires reason plus observation.
>
>
>
> Of course, there is multiplication in the real world.  We call it area.
>
>
>
> Rick Norwood
>
>
>
> *From:* Urth [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] *On Behalf Of *António
> Marques
> *Sent:* Wednesday, October 08, 2014 2:58 PM
> *To:* The Urth Mailing List
> *Subject:* Re: (urth) barrington interview
>
>
>
> I like H Beam Piper! (I actually have read only a couple of stories I got
> for free from feedbooks back when Stanza was king, but I liked them.)
>
>
>
> The comparison with the periodic table is nice, but not convincing. No
> matter how one looks at it, there are things element-like out there, and
> anything remotely like chemistry will have to come up with them. But
> algebra isn't inherent in the structure of the universe. There is no such
> thing as multiplication on the real world. There is a thing called
> multiplication in our mind that is awesome at helping us understand the
> real world. It works quite well, but what it reflects is how our mind
> works. Of course, our mind being a tool to respond to the Universe, the
> math it produces had better work well and consistently. But it is still an
> internal tool, not a description of what's outside, even though it is
> essential to the descriptions of the outside that we develop (such as
> chemistry or physics).
>
>
>
>
>
> On 8 October 2014 18:20, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I am saying that an accurate description of the Universe is independent of
> the mind in which that description takes place, and that its structure will
> be similar to the structure of the Universe. Thus, any math developed by an
> alien species to describe the Universe (which is not subjective) will be
> similar in structure to our math.
>
>
>
> The symbols will vary. The structure will be similar.
>
>
>
> A good, if somewhat simple-minded, example of what I'm talking about is
> the short story "Omnilingual," by H. Beam Piper. (Bet you never thought
> _he'd_ come up on the Wolfe list, eh?) In it, a group of exoarchaeologists
> are trying to decipher the plentiful writings of an extinct alien culture.
> The first clue comes when they discover a periodic table of the elements -
> not exactly the same as ours, but of a structure with recognizable
> similarity to ours. The aliens don't have words like "Hydrogen," but they
> have the concept, because it's universal to any study of the physical
> Universe.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 10:01 AM, António Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> You are again making the structure of math dependent exclusively on what
> it tries to describe rather than on the circuitry that it runs on.
>
>
>
> On 8 October 2014 17:44, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Since any alien species we might meet is likely to have a biology based on
> the same physical laws as ours, I expect their math will be of a similar
> structure to ours. Such a species may have different senses, etc., as has
> been suggested, but they will still be observing the same physical universe.
>
>
>
> Unless, of course, you want to go with a totally subjective reality, and I
> just can't go there.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 9:36 AM, António Marques <entonio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not discarding anything. I'm not saying the crow can't compute. I'm
> saying we don't know how the crow's computation works, and specifically if
> it is anything like our own math.
>
> For the record, crows being close relatives, and octopi* essentially being
> only a bit farther away (tho I'm intrigued by a suggestion I've seen that
> Mollusks aren't even coelomates), I might bet that their equivalent of math
> isn't much different from ours. But unless they evolve to express it in
> some meta-language, we won't know.
>
>
>
> (*) Normally I wouldn't place this disclaimer here, but I think it's best
> to avoid any discussion on one of my favourite plurals, and metazoan
> phylogeny at that (we meatfolk are all so similar, really).
>
>
>
> On 8 October 2014 17:07, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Antonio - I think that *that* is the genetic fallacy. You are discarding
> the evidence of the crow because of where it comes from.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 8:38 AM, António Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> The point is that no one knows how the crow does his math. The crow may
> look at it in a way similar to our addition and subtraction, or in a
> different enough way. Again, what we're questioning is not the universal
> applicability of our math, rather its universality as a computing tool.
>
> No dia 08/10/2014, às 16:07, "Norwood, Frederick Hudson" <
> NORWOODR at mail.etsu.edu> escreveu:
>
>
> > Actually, crows can do simple math.  If four hunters enter a house and
> three come out, the crow can do enough math to avoid the house.  Four
> hunters in, four come out, the crow flies to the house.  Twenty hunters in,
> nineteen out, the crow flies to the house.  The crow can see the difference
> between three and four but not between nineteen and twenty.
> >
> > I do not believe there is an alien race for which four (the concept, not
> the symbol) is less than three.
> >
> > For a good science fiction story on this subject, read "Omnilingual" by
> H. Beam Piper.
> >
> > Rick Norwood
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Urth [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] On Behalf Of Lee
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2014 10:57 AM
> > To: urth at urth.net
> > Subject: (urth) barrington interview
> >
> >> Thomas Bitterman: Is there an argument against the universality of
> mathematics
> >
> >> that isn't  just the Genetic Fallacy?
> >
> >
> > By Genetic Fallacy I assume you mean this:
> >
> >> The genetic fallacy, also known as fallacy of origins, fallacy of
> virtue,[1]
> >
> >> Is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based
> solely on
> >
> >> something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context
> >
> >
> > My objection to the assumption that math is universally applicable is
> because
> >
> > math originates from the mind of one species on one planet in a very
> small
> >
> > corner of one galaxy in a universe of a (perhaps) infinite number of
> galaxies.
> >
> >
> > As I understand it, the Genetic Fallacy would apply if math had been
> found outside
> >
> > that original context. For example, if we found math being used by
> members of
> >
> > another species from outside our solar system or galaxy. Or if we had
> travelled
> >
> > to all corners of the universe and found math applicable everywhere, not
> just
> >
> > from the perspective of planet earth.
> >
> >
> > But currently (as far as I know) math is used only by that one species
> on that
> >
> > one planet.
> >
> >
> > I wouldn't claim it is impossible for math to be universal. I would only
> say that it
> >
> > seems unlikely to me. The fact that everything we encounter can be
> described
> >
> > mathematically seems most likely due to human limitations on what we are
> able
> >
> > to encounter.
> >
> >
> > In other words, we simply can't see what we can't see.  The assumption
> of a cosmic
> >
> > universality to our mammalian-evolved perceptions and thoughts seems
> unfounded
> >
> > to me.
> >
> >
> > Of course, if we are talking Special Creation and math as a special
> mastery for
> >
> > understanding the universe, as bestowed upon us by God, then that's a
> different story.
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> --
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>
>
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> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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