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“Mathematics is limited by the physics because physics constrains our brains” only works if you hold the philosophical view of physicalism. People who hold that

“Mathematics is limited by the physics because physics constrains our brains” only works if you hold the philosophical view of physicalism. People who hold that view believe that the current physical model of reality is all there is and the utmost absolute truth. Materialistic monism is a popular but not particularly robust view in my opinion, because those models can never be complete and always evolve in directions guided by the applications and predictions our minds seek. (Other views are available.) I would encourage more people to apply the same principle at the higher level, changing “our brains are limited by physics, hence our mathematics is limited by physics” to “our model of reality, including physics, is limited due to our minds operating within that reality”. In other words, the model that makes you think your consciousness comes from neurones and is thus limited by physics is itself a product of your consciousness, and conclusions you make based on that model (such as “mathematics is limited by physics”) should be taken with a grain of salt (not just as possibly wrong but, worse, not-even-wrong) because you can’t construct a complete model of a system from within said system. But the kicker is that this logic itself is rooted in mathematical reasoning (see Gödel’s incompleteness theorem), so take it for what you will.

ezion 3y ago
The whole idea of materialism is simply a bad and inconsistent worldview. If you start under the assumption that materialism is true you have to also eat the idea that free will doesn't exist, and that you can't trust any of your thoughts since they are: 1. Out of your control, since it's all physics. 2. Created by a brain that evolved to survive, not to create logic. Thus the idea of materialism itself would be just an illusion created by your brain's need to survive. This implies it is a self-defeating worldview from the get-go - because you've reached a contradiction: the brain generates the thoughts in a deterministic fashion and you cannot trust your brain, so you cannot trust the thoughts you have about the material reality including materialism. And the armchair philosophers misunderstand Godel literally all the time, including this time. All it says is that there are statements that are true that cannot be proven within the constraints of a finite set of axioms. It's not a limitation of math, it's a limitation of what can be proven true within the confines of a set of axioms. Meaning there could be another set of axioms under which the limitation to prove that such a statement is true disappears. But it doesn't make math any less true. This article was written by someone with very poor philosophical training.
- smcameron 3y ago
  > The whole idea of materialism is simply a bad and inconsistent worldview. Isn't your argument an example of Appeal to Consequences?[1] It appears that you don't accept materialism not because you can show that it's incorrect, but because you don't like the implications? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences
  - ezion 3y ago
    Uhh... I proved that it's false because it leads to contradictions. That is literally a reductio ad absurdum - a proper proof. It's a transcendental argument against materialism. In addition to it, I personally reject materialism because it fails to describe the universe properly, in particular the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the beginning of all material universe - creatio ex nihilo. However, if there was a mathematical structure that sets the framework for the physical laws, there's a reality that transcends the material universe and exists prior to it. It's the only logically consistent worldview in my opinion. This has even further implications but, you know, you can figure it out yourself.
    - strogonoff 3y ago
      From my vantage point, if we take “as little magic as possible” to be a quality of an elegant model, then naive materialistic monism, which requires granting magical existence to really many things (you know, matter with all those atoms, neurones, etc.) and arbitrary rules for their behavior, while often denying existence to consciousness (the only thing we can directly access is an illusion type of argument), certainly doesn’t strike me as particularly elegant. Why we assume that an elegant model has a higher chance of being correct, or is otherwise somehow better, in the first place—it seems to be pretty much implied that beauty and elegance are desirable traits of a model—is a good and on topic question, but perhaps too much for this particular thread.
    - chongli 3y ago
      creatio ex nihilo “At first there was nothing, then out of nothing the Big Bang happened and the universe began” is a popular misconception of the Big Bang theory. It’s completely wrong. The Big Bang theory does not attempt to explain what things were like “before” the Big Bang. It’s not a theory of creation at all! It only offers a model starting with the inflationary epoch, when the universe was already expanding rapidly. Prior to that, our existing theories break down and we need a different physical theory (commonly called the Grand Unified Theory or GUT). We don’t have it so we can go no further back. The point is: back in the inflationary epoch the universe was all there, it was just much smaller. The point of the theory is to try to explain the extreme uniformity (isotropy) in the distribution of galaxies, gas, dust, and light we observe in the universe today (among other things, such as dark matter). It’s a much better model in terms of its simplicity and predictive power than any steady-state model of the universe that has been proposed. But it’s got nothing to do with creation!
Zababa 3y ago
There is a meme that carries more or less the same idea: https://i.ibb.co/3CNSCq2/103.jpg https://i.ibb.co/3CNSCq2/103.jpg
- strogonoff 3y ago
  Love it. Some might take it as undermining knowledge or [some branches of] philosophy, but to me rather the opposite!
oszai 3y ago
A Big Curveball Here Mathematics has been Likened to a Language and Through the Likes of Galileo the Language of the Universe. But Language Came First, in Order to have a Permutation of the Languages an Individual Could Speak. Would it not Follow that On the Hunt one Could Described a Series of Logical Steps that Much up to Logic, without Being Called Logic. To Predictably Bring down the Bison? Or Know Logically that they Could Frighten the Bison to Run off a Cliff and save themselves the Trouble of the Hunt in the First Place. That it would be Counter Intuitive to Describe the Hunt Mathematically, but the Hunt also had to Be Something that could be Repeated. So What other form of Language Prose exists regardless of Written Language that Allows for Something to Be Repeated? A Story, but how is the Story Composed to Pass down the Lesson to Frighten the Bison to Save the Trouble of the Hunt? But So too what Mechanism in those People would Recognize that Running the Entire Heard off the Cliff would Lead to Waste and Depreciate the Yearly Yield of this Strange Tradition? Logic without a Name. So Mathematics is a Late Understanding of Language that Provides a Condensed Symbol System to Perform Operations based on Some Mathematical Logic. Proven by Some Test we Call Theorems. To Inform that these Symbols are Not just Random Symbols, but Correspond to Reality via Some linking from the Individual doing the Maths to the Process where the Maths is used to Inform what Was Once the Hunt, but is now used in the Creation of a Product instead. Just a Slice on a Document Filled with Other Language to Inform the Creation of the Product where Math is Just an Additional Quality that informs that Processes Outcome. Interesting to Note Math was a Late Addition to Computer Science.
- Chinjut 3y ago
  What is this capitalization?
- webnrrd2k 3y ago
  I voted this post down because it reads like an incoherent LLM creation.
  - oszai 3y ago
    All part of a New ongoing Turing Test, placed Such Near where People would Most likely engage with Content on the Basis of Logic and Not Judgement. Noticing that no Comments went beyond the Format which is Designed to be Difficult to Read on Purpose. And no Comment associated with the Contents of the Post. That and it's a Format Designed for a Parser. Disappointing Really

ezion 3y ago

The whole idea of materialism is simply a bad and inconsistent worldview. If you start under the assumption that materialism is true you have to also eat the idea that free will doesn't exist, and that you can't trust any of your thoughts since they are: 1. Out of your control, since it's all physics. 2. Created by a brain that evolved to survive, not to create logic. Thus the idea of materialism itself would be just an illusion created by your brain's need to survive. This implies it is a self-defeating worldview from the get-go - because you've reached a contradiction: the brain generates the thoughts in a deterministic fashion and you cannot trust your brain, so you cannot trust the thoughts you have about the material reality including materialism. And the armchair philosophers misunderstand Godel literally all the time, including this time. All it says is that there are statements that are true that cannot be proven within the constraints of a finite set of axioms. It's not a limitation of math, it's a limitation of what can be proven true within the confines of a set of axioms. Meaning there could be another set of axioms under which the limitation to prove that such a statement is true disappears. But it doesn't make math any less true. This article was written by someone with very poor philosophical training.

smcameron 3y ago
> The whole idea of materialism is simply a bad and inconsistent worldview. Isn't your argument an example of Appeal to Consequences?[1] It appears that you don't accept materialism not because you can show that it's incorrect, but because you don't like the implications? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences
- ezion 3y ago
  Uhh... I proved that it's false because it leads to contradictions. That is literally a reductio ad absurdum - a proper proof. It's a transcendental argument against materialism. In addition to it, I personally reject materialism because it fails to describe the universe properly, in particular the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the beginning of all material universe - creatio ex nihilo. However, if there was a mathematical structure that sets the framework for the physical laws, there's a reality that transcends the material universe and exists prior to it. It's the only logically consistent worldview in my opinion. This has even further implications but, you know, you can figure it out yourself.
  - strogonoff 3y ago
    From my vantage point, if we take “as little magic as possible” to be a quality of an elegant model, then naive materialistic monism, which requires granting magical existence to really many things (you know, matter with all those atoms, neurones, etc.) and arbitrary rules for their behavior, while often denying existence to consciousness (the only thing we can directly access is an illusion type of argument), certainly doesn’t strike me as particularly elegant. Why we assume that an elegant model has a higher chance of being correct, or is otherwise somehow better, in the first place—it seems to be pretty much implied that beauty and elegance are desirable traits of a model—is a good and on topic question, but perhaps too much for this particular thread.
  - chongli 3y ago
    creatio ex nihilo “At first there was nothing, then out of nothing the Big Bang happened and the universe began” is a popular misconception of the Big Bang theory. It’s completely wrong. The Big Bang theory does not attempt to explain what things were like “before” the Big Bang. It’s not a theory of creation at all! It only offers a model starting with the inflationary epoch, when the universe was already expanding rapidly. Prior to that, our existing theories break down and we need a different physical theory (commonly called the Grand Unified Theory or GUT). We don’t have it so we can go no further back. The point is: back in the inflationary epoch the universe was all there, it was just much smaller. The point of the theory is to try to explain the extreme uniformity (isotropy) in the distribution of galaxies, gas, dust, and light we observe in the universe today (among other things, such as dark matter). It’s a much better model in terms of its simplicity and predictive power than any steady-state model of the universe that has been proposed. But it’s got nothing to do with creation!

Zababa 3y ago

There is a meme that carries more or less the same idea: https://i.ibb.co/3CNSCq2/103.jpg https://i.ibb.co/3CNSCq2/103.jpg

strogonoff 3y ago
Love it. Some might take it as undermining knowledge or [some branches of] philosophy, but to me rather the opposite!

oszai 3y ago

A Big Curveball Here Mathematics has been Likened to a Language and Through the Likes of Galileo the Language of the Universe. But Language Came First, in Order to have a Permutation of the Languages an Individual Could Speak. Would it not Follow that On the Hunt one Could Described a Series of Logical Steps that Much up to Logic, without Being Called Logic. To Predictably Bring down the Bison? Or Know Logically that they Could Frighten the Bison to Run off a Cliff and save themselves the Trouble of the Hunt in the First Place. That it would be Counter Intuitive to Describe the Hunt Mathematically, but the Hunt also had to Be Something that could be Repeated. So What other form of Language Prose exists regardless of Written Language that Allows for Something to Be Repeated? A Story, but how is the Story Composed to Pass down the Lesson to Frighten the Bison to Save the Trouble of the Hunt? But So too what Mechanism in those People would Recognize that Running the Entire Heard off the Cliff would Lead to Waste and Depreciate the Yearly Yield of this Strange Tradition? Logic without a Name. So Mathematics is a Late Understanding of Language that Provides a Condensed Symbol System to Perform Operations based on Some Mathematical Logic. Proven by Some Test we Call Theorems. To Inform that these Symbols are Not just Random Symbols, but Correspond to Reality via Some linking from the Individual doing the Maths to the Process where the Maths is used to Inform what Was Once the Hunt, but is now used in the Creation of a Product instead. Just a Slice on a Document Filled with Other Language to Inform the Creation of the Product where Math is Just an Additional Quality that informs that Processes Outcome. Interesting to Note Math was a Late Addition to Computer Science.

Chinjut 3y ago
What is this capitalization?
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I voted this post down because it reads like an incoherent LLM creation.
- oszai 3y ago
  All part of a New ongoing Turing Test, placed Such Near where People would Most likely engage with Content on the Basis of Logic and Not Judgement. Noticing that no Comments went beyond the Format which is Designed to be Difficult to Read on Purpose. And no Comment associated with the Contents of the Post. That and it's a Format Designed for a Parser. Disappointing Really