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Discrete math is the single most "observed property of reality", and nothing else comes even close.
by bmacho 1y ago
Discrete math is the single most "observed property of reality", and nothing else comes even close.
- swayvil 1y agoI for one never saw a "number 2" in the wild. But I'm a homebody.
- curtisblaine 1y agoI guess you saw two things in the wild though.
- alphazard 1y agoIf I handed you 1 apple, and then handed you another apple, you wouldn't be surprised to find that you had 2 apples. The same trick works with oranges and pears.
- verzali 1y agoBut not necessarily with rabbits. Can easily end up with dozens of 'em when you ony started out with two.
- brookst 1y agoWhoa
- FredPret 1y ago> If I handed you 1 apple, At this point I hold one object that we agree to label "apple". Note that even seeing it as a single object is a layer of abstraction. In reality it's a clump of fundamental particles temporarily banding together > and then handed you another apple, What's "another apple"? What does it have in common with the thing I'm already holding? We label this thing to be also an apple, but it's a totally different set of atoms, from a different tree, perhaps from the other side of the planet. Perhaps the atoms formed in stellar processes light years away from that of the other apple. Calling both of these things "apple" is a required first step to having two of them, but that is an of abstraction, a mental trick we use to simplify the world so we can represent it in our minds. I'm not a particle physicist but I hear electrons *can* be counted without any unwitting help from our lower-level neural circuitry.
- cwmoore 1y agoI’m not sure I am intended to understand what your problem is.
- FredPret 1y agoPersonally, I suffer from whatever it is that drives a person to think about what numbers mean. The numbers themselves aren't a problem, I'm just pointing out that our cognition involves many overlapping layers of abstraction, and we're doing mathematics and every other mental activity in one or more of those layers. That this seems to correlate strongly to real-world phenomena speaks well of the types of abstraction that nature has equipped us with.
- majkinetor 1y agoVery nicely said. However, what about virtual things, e.g. apples in a computer game.
- FredPret 1y agoThere are no virtual things! Every computer / imaginary apple is represented by real electrons on a drive / chemicals in a brain. Even if we are a simulation, we also have to ultimately be represented by something real.
- majkinetor 1y agoIt seems that there are no real things either. As far as we know, every real thing is represented by another real thing. Even electrons are made of quarks, which are probably made of other things we don't know yet. Addition is abstract phenomena based on math, which itself is abstract, so it can only function in abstract setup.
- swayvil 1y agoI wouldn't even go with particles. I'd call it a stream of sensations.
- swayvil 1y agoThere are a dozen leaps of abstraction occuring before you arrive at "2 apples". You are differentiating, classifying, etc.
- pixl97 1y agoZero, one, infinity.
- datameta 1y agoInfinity, aka 2 or more. I agree that those are truly three distinct classes of quantity/identity
- konfusinomicon 1y agobears shit in the woods so they're out there if you look in the right place
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoI've never seen gravity, but here I am, stuck to the ground
- hausrat 1y agoThe very notion of discreteness depends on subjective definitions of "objects". We take concepts of objects for granted because they make interacting with the world tractable, but it's really hard to define them outside of minds.
- feoren 1y agoNo, discrete math is exactly the same regardless of your definition of "object". It is completely independent of that. Discrete math is important to any theoretical beings that have any concept of "objects" whatsoever. It would be mostly irrelevant to entities that have no such conception, but those entities are not writing math papers.
- dcow 1y agoWhich is exactly why I initially suggested that the structure of primes has more to do with how theoretical beings count than with how the universe propagates state.
- random3 1y agoNo, the discreetness comes from physical experiments. I do see a problem defining something outside of one’s mind or outside the universe though :)
- IAmBroom 1y agoDiscreetness only comes from experiments carried out in secret laboritories. Pronounce "lah-BORE-i-tories", obviously.
- yunwal 1y agoAs far as we know, the universe is made up of discrete units and any other type of math is an abstraction over discrete math.
- Keyframe 1y agoI thought it was a smooth continuous manifold