Ability to do calculus in head, origins?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Math describes the dog, but the dog is not performing mathematical calculations. Is a raindrop doing math in order to maintain as close to a perfect sphere as it possibly can?

That's what I'm wondering. For a non-scientist, non-mathematician like me, the obvious answer is "no, it's not." But it does raise a few questions for me.

I recognize that math is tool we can use to describe things in nature (like raindrops or bubbles or acceleration). But humans use all sorts of tools to describe things in nature, and nature isn't dependent on our description of it.

Is a plant conducting photosynthesis to get energy from the sun? Isn't the term"photosynthesis" just a tool of ours to describe what's naturally occurring? The plant obviously doesn't know that what it is doing is something we call photosynthesis -- but
it's still doing the thing we're describing, right?

So why can't we say that a raindrop is doing the math? Isn't it still doing the thing that we're describing using math? This all may simply be something within the definition or fundamentals of math that is lost on me. KN mentioned induction, but I'm not familiar with that term in this sense.

Originally posted by Traveling Again
That's what I'm wondering. For a non-scientist, non-mathematician like me, the obvious answer is "no, it's not." But it does raise a few questions for me.

I recognize that math is tool we can use to describe things in nature (like raindrops or bubbles or acceleration). But humans use all sorts of tools to describe things in nature, and nature i ...[text shortened]... me. KN mentioned induction, but I'm not familiar with that term in this sense.

Here is a link to an interesting article about how basemen catch those fly balls:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/01/22/for.most.outfielders.luck.has.nothing.do.with.catching.flies

Originally posted by Traveling Again
That's what I'm wondering. For a non-scientist, non-mathematician like me, the obvious answer is "no, it's not." But it does raise a few questions for me.

I recognize that math is tool we can use to describe things in nature (like raindrops or bubbles or acceleration). But humans use all sorts of tools to describe things in nature, and nature i ...[text shortened]... me. KN mentioned induction, but I'm not familiar with that term in this sense.

I think "doing the math" means mentally analyzing something using math. Thus raindrops and plants are not "doing the math" as they have no minds.

Originally posted by Traveling Again
That's what I'm wondering. For a non-scientist, non-mathematician like me, the obvious answer is "no, it's not." But it does raise a few questions for me.

I recognize that math is tool we can use to describe things in nature (like raindrops or bubbles or acceleration). But humans use all sorts of tools to describe things in nature, and nature i ...[text shortened]... me. KN mentioned induction, but I'm not familiar with that term in this sense.

The way I see it, being a formalist, mathematics is a language. Mathematical objects do not exist outside its syntax and so require semantics to be meaningful outside its own rules of inference. Mathematics, when applied to the world, is then merely descriptive and so the raindrop is not doing math. Not anymore than it is speaking English!

Originally posted by Palynka
The way I see it, being a formalist, mathematics is a language. Mathematical objects do not exist outside its syntax and so require semantics to be meaningful outside its own rules of inference. Mathematics, when applied to the world, is then merely descriptive and so the raindrop is not doing math. Not anymore than it is speaking English!

Yet, here is this dumb oil drop doing seemingly intelligent things:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527443.900-what-a-mazesolving-oil-drop-tells-us-of-intelligence.html

Originally posted by sonhouse
Yet, here is this dumb oil drop doing seemingly intelligent things:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527443.900-what-a-mazesolving-oil-drop-tells-us-of-intelligence.html

Seemingly being the key word. Regardless, that's not really an argument.