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In my understanding, that’s exactly what math is, a language. And various modes of thought have utilized the language of mathematics to communicate ideas that w

In my understanding, that’s exactly what math is, a language. And various modes of thought have utilized the language of mathematics to communicate ideas that were otherwise not possible or not consistently able to arrive at same conclusions. This is very interesting. What is language? When does language evolve? Is language itself consciousness? Whenever there’s a leap in language is it because something had to be constructed to help assign an abstraction to a coordinate in space where thoughts exist? It appears we’re languages all the way down. Or analogicalmachines? Lol. Lots to unpack here - some with what many would call not nice Consequences. What happens when a minority elite (unsure how else to describe it?) disciplines require a language that the majority lack the finesse to use? Example: math used in physics, or programming in computation. If the languages being used introduce more complexity without the ability to reduce net complexity then it damages the communication of the specie using it. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit on our trajectory as a species. Complexity in language leads to information silos which leads to various existential risks based on information and miscommunication. Also interesting coercion / authoritarian emergence comes out of those creating a new language to reason about an abstraction which leads to a success that negatively impacts those which do not know the language and if the space to understand said language is sufficiently far enough you have much room for manipulation. Also, who gets to say which language is the right one? What happens when a new language is created that is more advanced and the majority disallow it preventing an evolution? Interesting dynamics.

ahelwer 6y ago
We don't have to stumble around blind here. Philosophy has long pondered the nature of language. A more recent idea is that a language as we think of it - English, French, etc. - does not exist per se; rather we engage in "games" with each other which are languages in themselves. For example, when I buy something from a shop I am playing the "purchase an item at the cashier stand" game. Both the cashier and myself know all the valid moves in the game - they say the price, I provide a method of payment, etc. Some of these moves involve use of a limited subset of English words, but even if I'm in a foreign country where the cashier doesn't speak English we can usually make it work. This interaction is a language in itself. If I were to walk up to the cashier and try to play the "negotiate salary for a full-time position" game, only confusion would result - I would be speaking the wrong language, even though I'm emitting sounds which we both find familiar. Much confusion and anguish in the world results from people playing the wrong language game with each other - for example, one person playing the "venting frustrations" game while another plays the "provide advice" game. In this analysis, the "explain quantum phenomena" game is just a language where the rules are especially strange and prone to pitfalls. Deploying vocabulary from mathematics, a system with very well-defined and mutually-understood rules, enables us to navigate this space.
- dfischer 6y ago
  Yes, I see humanity engaging in games and LARPing as an interaction between those who are aware of the game being defined by arbitrary rules, and those who don’t. Most don’t realize it’s arbitrary. I’ve thought about what you said recently and it comes down to “well-defined” being relative. Usually to those that are defining it. It’s not objective. Additionally that’s enforcing or coercing a game unto others that they may not wish to engage with or may not be able to conceptualize it. Some people prefer characteristics over others. Have predispositions to likings and not likings. Using a language is in of itself agreeing to a game. If a thing requires consent of will to proceed as a rule, it’s a game. Language, or any system of rules would be part of agreeing to a confined space of possibilities and “game-space” Interesting to ponder nonetheless at a different abstraction. I keep trying to go “deeper” behind the language itself, I arrive at signal and then we’re in a puddle of discrete and non discrete values. Fun.
- jackcosgrove 6y ago
  Growing up my father would often describe a successful person as someone who "knew the lingo" of whatever they were successful at. As a smartass teenager I thought he was oversimplifying things and discounting other factors which didn't involve, what sounded to me like, being a BS artist. Turns out dad was right.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  An alternative definition is that language is a set of referents to a collectively constructed "picture" of reality. Wilfrid Sellars has done work on this. I say alternative because it shifts the focus away from person-to-person interaction and more towards impersonal social processes that construct what we think of as "objectivity". That's not to say what you're referring to isn't also an important part of the picture so to speak.
Koshkin 6y ago
Mathematics (and logical reasoning in general) is almost impossible without a language, but in and of itself mathematics is not and cannot be reduced to being just a language. A language is invented, math is discovered. On the other hand, in science (and inside mathematics itself) the word “language” is often used in a relative sense, in which even chemistry, for example, can be called “a language.”
- throwaway17_17 6y ago
  Your assertion that math is discovered is just an axiomatic statement. Your argument relies on it as bedrock. If I don’t except that axiom and prefer to start from math being invented by conscious minds then we can never get anywhere. I think the entire ‘meaning of mathematics rests on assuming one of these axioms. I can not accept a claim that mathematics is discovered, therefore, calling math (which I personally view as a logic) a language is perfectly valid.
  - mnl 6y ago
    > I can not accept a claim that mathematics is discovered Why? Finding out that Pi is irrational and then transcendental are discoveries. I won't be able to make anything work if I fork mathematics to make it rational. Same thing that finding out that if you tie a string to a stake and then go around keeping it tight, you have to walk a distance that is two times pi times the length of the string to get where you started. I don't need a language for that, just more pieces of string.
    - throwaway17_17 6y ago
      Pi is a concept that is divorced from reality, Pi is irrational because a chain of logical inferences and applications result in the definition. The definition of Pi is predicated on a geometric description of a circle which is distinctly non-physical. The entire meaning of Pi is based on a logical chain of defined symbols, that while meaningful to some conscious thinker are not observations of physical reality. The geometric conception of a circle as an infinite collection of points, which are inherently not physically possible objects, exhibits a ratio between its radius and its diameter, which is called Pi, and that ratio needs to be expressed by a number which is definitionally irrational (the definition of which is predicated on a definition of Natural numbers (via a definition of the Real numbers)). These symbols are merely the language we use to describe logical relations between various symbols, that while possibly applicable, with prediction and accuracy preconditions, to physical reality, are merely a logic used to describe natural numbers and the properties thereof. It is this complete logical decoupling from any physical, observable reality, that I cannot accept mathematics as anything other than an, ideally, internally consistent, logic used to define and discuss symbolic logical objects. And I am of the opinion that logics are merely invented by conscious beings as means to systematize areas of discourse and to derive internally consistent inferences and implications built there on. I would agree that if irrational numbers were prohibited from being inferred in the logical system of math then some things would not work within the logic. Because a change in the axiomatic or inferential rules of a logic are changed the logic as a whole changes. But, if, as you describe it, math was forked to be limited to rationals, and the precision of those radicals was calibrated to be on the order of 1/10 of a Planck length, I am not convinced that any equation attempting to describe 3 dimensional space would be inaccurate. However, I could wrong.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Great book on this: Anathem
- dfischer 6y ago
  Thanks I will check it out.

ahelwer 6y ago

We don't have to stumble around blind here. Philosophy has long pondered the nature of language. A more recent idea is that a language as we think of it - English, French, etc. - does not exist per se; rather we engage in "games" with each other which are languages in themselves. For example, when I buy something from a shop I am playing the "purchase an item at the cashier stand" game. Both the cashier and myself know all the valid moves in the game - they say the price, I provide a method of payment, etc. Some of these moves involve use of a limited subset of English words, but even if I'm in a foreign country where the cashier doesn't speak English we can usually make it work. This interaction is a language in itself. If I were to walk up to the cashier and try to play the "negotiate salary for a full-time position" game, only confusion would result - I would be speaking the wrong language, even though I'm emitting sounds which we both find familiar. Much confusion and anguish in the world results from people playing the wrong language game with each other - for example, one person playing the "venting frustrations" game while another plays the "provide advice" game. In this analysis, the "explain quantum phenomena" game is just a language where the rules are especially strange and prone to pitfalls. Deploying vocabulary from mathematics, a system with very well-defined and mutually-understood rules, enables us to navigate this space.

dfischer 6y ago
Yes, I see humanity engaging in games and LARPing as an interaction between those who are aware of the game being defined by arbitrary rules, and those who don’t. Most don’t realize it’s arbitrary. I’ve thought about what you said recently and it comes down to “well-defined” being relative. Usually to those that are defining it. It’s not objective. Additionally that’s enforcing or coercing a game unto others that they may not wish to engage with or may not be able to conceptualize it. Some people prefer characteristics over others. Have predispositions to likings and not likings. Using a language is in of itself agreeing to a game. If a thing requires consent of will to proceed as a rule, it’s a game. Language, or any system of rules would be part of agreeing to a confined space of possibilities and “game-space” Interesting to ponder nonetheless at a different abstraction. I keep trying to go “deeper” behind the language itself, I arrive at signal and then we’re in a puddle of discrete and non discrete values. Fun.
jackcosgrove 6y ago
Growing up my father would often describe a successful person as someone who "knew the lingo" of whatever they were successful at. As a smartass teenager I thought he was oversimplifying things and discounting other factors which didn't involve, what sounded to me like, being a BS artist. Turns out dad was right.
andrewjl 6y ago
An alternative definition is that language is a set of referents to a collectively constructed "picture" of reality. Wilfrid Sellars has done work on this. I say alternative because it shifts the focus away from person-to-person interaction and more towards impersonal social processes that construct what we think of as "objectivity". That's not to say what you're referring to isn't also an important part of the picture so to speak.

Koshkin 6y ago

Mathematics (and logical reasoning in general) is almost impossible without a language, but in and of itself mathematics is not and cannot be reduced to being just a language. A language is invented, math is discovered. On the other hand, in science (and inside mathematics itself) the word “language” is often used in a relative sense, in which even chemistry, for example, can be called “a language.”

throwaway17_17 6y ago
Your assertion that math is discovered is just an axiomatic statement. Your argument relies on it as bedrock. If I don’t except that axiom and prefer to start from math being invented by conscious minds then we can never get anywhere. I think the entire ‘meaning of mathematics rests on assuming one of these axioms. I can not accept a claim that mathematics is discovered, therefore, calling math (which I personally view as a logic) a language is perfectly valid.
- mnl 6y ago
  > I can not accept a claim that mathematics is discovered Why? Finding out that Pi is irrational and then transcendental are discoveries. I won't be able to make anything work if I fork mathematics to make it rational. Same thing that finding out that if you tie a string to a stake and then go around keeping it tight, you have to walk a distance that is two times pi times the length of the string to get where you started. I don't need a language for that, just more pieces of string.
  - throwaway17_17 6y ago
    Pi is a concept that is divorced from reality, Pi is irrational because a chain of logical inferences and applications result in the definition. The definition of Pi is predicated on a geometric description of a circle which is distinctly non-physical. The entire meaning of Pi is based on a logical chain of defined symbols, that while meaningful to some conscious thinker are not observations of physical reality. The geometric conception of a circle as an infinite collection of points, which are inherently not physically possible objects, exhibits a ratio between its radius and its diameter, which is called Pi, and that ratio needs to be expressed by a number which is definitionally irrational (the definition of which is predicated on a definition of Natural numbers (via a definition of the Real numbers)). These symbols are merely the language we use to describe logical relations between various symbols, that while possibly applicable, with prediction and accuracy preconditions, to physical reality, are merely a logic used to describe natural numbers and the properties thereof. It is this complete logical decoupling from any physical, observable reality, that I cannot accept mathematics as anything other than an, ideally, internally consistent, logic used to define and discuss symbolic logical objects. And I am of the opinion that logics are merely invented by conscious beings as means to systematize areas of discourse and to derive internally consistent inferences and implications built there on. I would agree that if irrational numbers were prohibited from being inferred in the logical system of math then some things would not work within the logic. Because a change in the axiomatic or inferential rules of a logic are changed the logic as a whole changes. But, if, as you describe it, math was forked to be limited to rationals, and the precision of those radicals was calibrated to be on the order of 1/10 of a Planck length, I am not convinced that any equation attempting to describe 3 dimensional space would be inaccurate. However, I could wrong.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Great book on this: Anathem

dfischer 6y ago
Thanks I will check it out.