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> Why would sand need numbers to exist? I can pile up sand without ever knowing how many grains of sand are in the piles. But those grains of sand you are pili

> Why would sand need numbers to exist? I can pile up sand without ever knowing how many grains of sand are in the piles. But those grains of sand you are piling already exist ;P In a universe where quarks only collect in groups of four sand would fail to exist it needs baryons.. or whatever name you want to ascribe, yes it is scientifically known and recognised that naming conventions are arbitrary and often localised but naming stems from consistent behaviour In a universe without baryons to claim sand exists would be making up a new substance that uses 3 quarked particles Or if you add a fourth quark to one proton in a grain of sand it would cease to be sand So the number of quarks that collect and how they structure determines the existence of sand Similar to how a beach is formed based on the number of grains of sand anyway the root of the issue is confounding to me.. how often has physics been disproven and replaced by implementing mathematics? for me physics is behavior, mathematics is existence

danbruc 10y ago
Okay, let me try it from an different angle. Imagine a completely empty universe. What would be the meaning of seven?
- criddell 10y ago
  Is time passing?
  - danbruc 10y ago
    Without anything in the universe that could change over time and therefore indicate the passing of time that seems to be rather inconsequential to me at first glance, if it is even meaningful to talk about time in such a universe. I'd say I leave that to your choosing. Also have as many space dimensions as you like and whatnot, I don't want to be to picky. I just want to take away all the objects you could use to implement sets with and on top of which you could then continue to build more structures.
- justifier 10y ago
  if you are attempting to draw out salinger's orange peels(o), i would argue the tree makes a sound if you are sincerely asking.. i suppose i'd answer: well the same as the state of the universe: empty; now what would be the meaning of the concept that the term, or symbol, seven refers to? well, still 7, but such a universe would lack the necessary representations to express it my mathematical research begins in an 'empty universe' and questions the most base of assumptions necessary to get to a representation of, for instance, 7 an empty universe actually contains enough information to express all information utilising mathematics: the current empty 0, and the potential any state replacing the empty state 1; if time.. when emptiness begins and ends.. is allowed to be considered (o) http://materlakes.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2013/2/25/50973306/Nine_Stories_by_J_D__Salinger.pdf http://materlakes.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2013/2/25/50973... > "Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window." ... "They float very nicely," he said without turning around. "That's interesting." ... "I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there, and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist. That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--"
  - danbruc 10y ago
    Let me try to be more precise, I probably did a pretty bad job explaining what I really want to argue for. I want to argue that whenever you think that there is some math already contained in the universe, it is actually you accidentally introducing it without noticing it. Look, trees! One, two, three, ... See? There are numbers in the universe. And look, I can add the number of trees in this wood and that wood. It is of course tempting to conclude that the math was already there. But I argue that it was not, that it is you inventing it. It is your concept of object identity that defines what a tree is and when two trees are the same or different trees, you divide the world into different objects. It is your concept of grouping objects into sets. It is your concept of pairing the elements of two different sets to compare their cardinalities. It is your concept of including one more element in a set that defines what counting means. It is your concept of combining two sets that defines what addition is. That are all things you can do with objects in the universe, but nothing of that is inherent. If you look carefully enough, all the things that look like math already exists in the universe actually require you making use of a lot of abstract man-made concepts. Many of them, like object identity and counting, are just so deeply ingrained in us that you don't notice that you are using them if you don't pay careful attention. That is I asked for the empty universe, I wanted to take away all the objects on which you could accidentally impose structure. If math were truly fundamental, if Platonism were true, then seven should still exist in an empty universe. I don't see how this would be true in any meaningful way. If we added a mathematician to our empty universe, he could invent math. He could come up with the idea of objects and identity and set of objects and he could think about operations with those objects and consequences of the definitions he made. But it would all have no relation to the otherwise empty universe, it would be a game of formal rules, mostly manipulating strings of symbols. If the mathematician had great imagination, maybe he could imagine actual things existing in the universe, how he could label them with those numbers he invented, and how he could visualize addition by moving things around.

danbruc 10y ago

Okay, let me try it from an different angle. Imagine a completely empty universe. What would be the meaning of seven?

criddell 10y ago
Is time passing?
- danbruc 10y ago
  Without anything in the universe that could change over time and therefore indicate the passing of time that seems to be rather inconsequential to me at first glance, if it is even meaningful to talk about time in such a universe. I'd say I leave that to your choosing. Also have as many space dimensions as you like and whatnot, I don't want to be to picky. I just want to take away all the objects you could use to implement sets with and on top of which you could then continue to build more structures.
justifier 10y ago
if you are attempting to draw out salinger's orange peels(o), i would argue the tree makes a sound if you are sincerely asking.. i suppose i'd answer: well the same as the state of the universe: empty; now what would be the meaning of the concept that the term, or symbol, seven refers to? well, still 7, but such a universe would lack the necessary representations to express it my mathematical research begins in an 'empty universe' and questions the most base of assumptions necessary to get to a representation of, for instance, 7 an empty universe actually contains enough information to express all information utilising mathematics: the current empty 0, and the potential any state replacing the empty state 1; if time.. when emptiness begins and ends.. is allowed to be considered (o) http://materlakes.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2013/2/25/50973306/Nine_Stories_by_J_D__Salinger.pdf http://materlakes.enschool.org/ourpages/auto/2013/2/25/50973... > "Someone just dumped a whole garbage can of orange peels out the window." ... "They float very nicely," he said without turning around. "That's interesting." ... "I don't mean it's interesting that they float," Teddy said. "It's interesting that I know about them being there. If I hadn't seen them, then I wouldn't know they were there, and if I didn't know they were there, I wouldn't be able to say that they even exist. That's a very nice, perfect example of the way--"
- danbruc 10y ago
  Let me try to be more precise, I probably did a pretty bad job explaining what I really want to argue for. I want to argue that whenever you think that there is some math already contained in the universe, it is actually you accidentally introducing it without noticing it. Look, trees! One, two, three, ... See? There are numbers in the universe. And look, I can add the number of trees in this wood and that wood. It is of course tempting to conclude that the math was already there. But I argue that it was not, that it is you inventing it. It is your concept of object identity that defines what a tree is and when two trees are the same or different trees, you divide the world into different objects. It is your concept of grouping objects into sets. It is your concept of pairing the elements of two different sets to compare their cardinalities. It is your concept of including one more element in a set that defines what counting means. It is your concept of combining two sets that defines what addition is. That are all things you can do with objects in the universe, but nothing of that is inherent. If you look carefully enough, all the things that look like math already exists in the universe actually require you making use of a lot of abstract man-made concepts. Many of them, like object identity and counting, are just so deeply ingrained in us that you don't notice that you are using them if you don't pay careful attention. That is I asked for the empty universe, I wanted to take away all the objects on which you could accidentally impose structure. If math were truly fundamental, if Platonism were true, then seven should still exist in an empty universe. I don't see how this would be true in any meaningful way. If we added a mathematician to our empty universe, he could invent math. He could come up with the idea of objects and identity and set of objects and he could think about operations with those objects and consequences of the definitions he made. But it would all have no relation to the otherwise empty universe, it would be a game of formal rules, mostly manipulating strings of symbols. If the mathematician had great imagination, maybe he could imagine actual things existing in the universe, how he could label them with those numbers he invented, and how he could visualize addition by moving things around.