A great quote from the great Moonbus made in the thread below:
Thread 204580
Why does 2+2=4? because we have defined addition that way within a closed, formal system. It tells us nothing at all about reality, much less point to a transcendent mind. Two rain drops falling on the ground next to two more rain drops do not make four rain drops. They make one puddle. Why is that? Because reality, unlike arithmetic, is not a closed, formal system. Pouring two liters of alcohol into two liters of water does not produce four fluid liters. Why is that? Because reality, unlike arithmetic, is not a closed, formal system. It is not possible to deduce anything at all about reality from mathematics alone, much less about any transcendent mind.
Why is it that checkmate is when the king is in check and cannot get out of it? Because we have defined it that way within a closed, formal system. Chess tells you nothing at all about reality. It's just a game we play.
Such is mathematics--it's a game we play with symbols which move according to rigid rules we have defined, albeit a more useful game than chess.
Your interlocutors in the video are making an elementary blunder, confusing the map for the territory, projecting their own (mathematical) models of reality as if they were part of reality itself. They're confusing the ladder, which they use to climb up the tree, for part of the tree itself.
@vivify saidNot really. Mathematics is a pretty good way to measure reality. Physicists use it all of the time with a darn good success rate. You just have to use math to measure the right things. Like weight instead of volume.
Moonbus is easily the closet thing RHP has to Carl Sagen.
https://the-wolfeden.com/Home/Weblog/Entry_2
2 drops plus 2 drops is 4 drops. When they hit the ground they are no longer drops, that is all. And 4 drops is not enough to make a puddle. Especially in coarse sand.
Let's say you determine the weight of beer and conclude the alcohol content and you are wrong. Does that prove reality does not exist? No. That only proves you overlooked other things that are dissolved in the beer, like sugar. The math was not flawed, it was a faulty assumption that was flawed. Human error.
Nuclear weapons exist. The math worked.
I could invent different numbers and they would still add up the same. 10 does not have to be the first 2 digit number. I could make 12 the first 2 digit number if I wanted to. # and * are 10 and 11 instead and 10 is really 12. And 100 is 144. Get it? Reality did not change. Only the symbols used in the math changed. It would not prevent a good nuclear physicist from making a nuclear bomb work.
And you spelled Sagan wrong. Moonbus is no Carl Sagan. Not even close.
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@Metal-Brain said"Pretty good way to measure reality". There is that pesky Incompleteness Theorem by Godel kind of puts the kabash on that, and then there is quantum mechanics where the math of it all takes in large groups kind of thing, spits out, This effect happens 33.4 % of the time and the like.
Not really. Mathematics is a pretty good way to measure reality. Physicists use it all of the time with a darn good success rate. You just have to use math to measure the right things. Like weight instead of volume.
https://the-wolfeden.com/Home/Weblog/Entry_2
2 drops plus 2 drops is 4 drops. When they hit the ground they are no longer drops, that is all. And 4 dr ...[text shortened]... king a nuclear bomb work.
And you spelled Sagan wrong. Moonbus is no Carl Sagan. Not even close.
Good luck getting ANY math to find the reality of any one of the particles QM deals with since there is this OTHER pesky universal law kind of thing that says you wanna know how fast something is moving AND we want the mass exactly too at the same time. QM kind of screws up that where are you and how much is your mass, you can get good estimates of how heavy something is but you can't pin down exactly where it was when the mass measurement was taken.
So the math of Godel and the math of QM only goes so far, very useful, no question about that but further and further away from what we can do now runs into stuff like Casimir effect, which shows the 'vacuum' of space, ANYWHERE in the universe is not empty by a long shot, crap is popping into and out of existence at an incredible rate and if you have say two very accurately polished metal plates and you have a way of getting them closer and closer, the Casimir thing starts a wee attractive force trying to slam them together and that is because the plates close to each other kind of shields those flash in and flash out particles to now see a difference in the push in the space between the plates and the push on the plates from the outside of that duo. so that force really rewrites the way we think about friction at picometer levels like lubing a ball bearing, bit of grease and it's happy, but doesn't work so well when things get small and the math gets to be worthless at those levels.
@sonhouse saidThere is nothing wrong with math. The only thing that is wrong is your assumptions. You assume the experiment is not overlooking anything. You assumed observation was not an interaction and it is. Photons have wave properties and so do electrons and since all atom have electrons all atoms have wave properties.
"Pretty good way to measure reality". There is that pesky Incompleteness Theorem by Godel kind of puts the kabash on that, and then there is quantum mechanics where the math of it all takes in large groups kind of thing, spits out, This effect happens 33.4 % of the time and the like.
Good luck getting ANY math to find the reality of any one of the particles QM deals with ...[text shortened]... y, but doesn't work so well when things get small and the math gets to be worthless at those levels.
It is the interaction that causes the probability because of wave interaction between the 2 wave functions causing wave interference. Observing is not seeing. it has nothing to do with the conscious mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference
@Metal-Brain saidMath and QM are TELLING us there is a limit to how much we can know. BOTTOM LINE.
There is nothing wrong with math. The only thing that is wrong is your assumptions. You assume the experiment is not overlooking anything. You assumed observation was not an interaction and it is. Photons have wave properties and so do electrons and since all atom have electrons all atoms have wave properties.
It is the interaction that causes the probability because ...[text shortened]... g. it has nothing to do with the conscious mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_interference
@vivify saidWe look at the universe and decide it is a closed system; it isn’t our thoughts about that shape it, our thoughts about it instead shape us. The universe does not bend to our notions about it. When contemplating the universe, we are only on safe ground when we confine our notions to the universe itself, which does not change with our thoughts about it. Truth is constrained by reality, while error is never constrained; it can bend, contradict itself, shape itself to our bias, and we are not the wiser. While reality can show us if we are correct when we line up true things with true things, that which is false is exposed, while living in a universe of our own making, we can produce all types of things that show us we are spot on, but if we make them up as we go, we will never see our errors for what they are.
A great quote from the great Moonbus made in the thread below:
Thread 204580Why does 2+2=4? because we have defined addition that way within a closed, formal system. It tells us nothing at all about reality, much less point to a transcendent mind. Two rain drops falling on the ground next to two more rain drops do not make four rain drops. They make ...[text shortened]... y're confusing the ladder, which they use to climb up the tree, for part of the tree itself.
@Metal-Brain saidYou do paraphrase Moonbus' text, I can't find a contradiction.
Not really. Mathematics is a pretty good way to measure reality. Physicists use it all of the time with a darn good success rate. You just have to use math to measure the right things. Like weight instead of volume.
https://the-wolfeden.com/Home/Weblog/Entry_2
2 drops plus 2 drops is 4 drops. When they hit the ground they are no longer drops, that is all. And 4 dr ...[text shortened]... king a nuclear bomb work.
And you spelled Sagan wrong. Moonbus is no Carl Sagan. Not even close.
Math is a tool, not a truth in itself.
And if you ever dabbled in partially differential equations (what is my day job) the idea of "the" correct solution to an arbitrary problem is soon frustrated.