Discordianism and the Mathematical Mind

[LHX]

In a word:   No.



Not until neurobiology and socioanthropology invents ways to numerize the process.

ok wait tho - dont numbers and numerology have their roots in society?

the number 2 wasnt lying on the ground waiting for people to find it

numbers are very flawed man

they may be useful as units of measurement - but their utility is limited

at best - they are place holders just like any other symbol


plus all those basic problems like zero and infinity

and the fact that there is infinite space in between any two digits

Which is precisely why it fascinates me so much more than science.  Because its socially constructed rules, at best, and thus can be overturned with different starting axioms.

exactly - that aspect of being able to constantly refine

pursue from a certain angle - and then back track or discard all findings in favor of persuing a different angle

[LHX]

could it be that these chaotic elements of human interaction have their basis in the chaotic elements of mathematics?


hard fast numbers can be seen as a fallacy or inconsistency in and of themselves

yeah I don't think so. Math and numbers are man-made.

Of course the thing about fractals is that things up close look just like things far away. If you understand how monkeys mate, you basically understand how humans mate. The patterns found in real life are also found in mathematics, but I don't think one arose from the other.

i disagree man - i think we can say that math sprung from real life

[LMNO]

Yes, but current high science (since einstein) are about removing the arbitrary and the subjective from the experiement.  Including the observer.  That's the basis behind einsteins special relativity, and almost all important physics since then.

Numbers are a human creation, but now humans are finding ways to remove themselves from their equations.

[LHX]

is anything coming of it?

[Triple Zero]

It's a tough sell, because scientists are finding "rules" for chaos.  That's what chaos theory is about.  Not how to deal with chaos, but finding rules of motion for seemingly chaotic events.

hm that's odd, because what i know of chaos theory, is exactly the other way around. maybe we're trying to say the same thing with different words, but:

chaos theory is not about finding "rules" for chaos. we already got the rules. or at least a pretty good approximation to these rules. it's just that these rules act on an enormous amount of separate particles/agents. this has the effect that the resulting system is incredibly (exponentially) sensitive to initial conditions, so it doesn't help to simulate these systems with computers cause it is impossible to build one fast enough with enough memory. (even taking into account Moore's law)

so instead of trying this, trying to find exact solutions, chaos theory is trying to deal with the chaos. we will use the rules (or approximations), simulate (more approximations) of the systems, and look very carefully what patterns emerge in these systems. the hypothesis is then, that while the exact events are different, the general rules on which these patterns operate can be known and predicted.
the emergence of general rules (which are very different from the partial rules of the separate particles/agents) in chaotic systems is (afaik) what chaos theory is about.

probably you were trying to say this, but with different words

and the fact that there is infinite space in between any two digits

this is not a fact. i've been trying to explain this a few times, but it only holds for numbers mathematicians call "Real numbers", which is pretty much a misnomer. because in reality, things are only finitely divisable. sure, we have found new and smaller "atoms" (indivisble units) a few time, but no physicist will tell you this will go on for ever.
you can have natural numbers (N), you can have fractions of natural numbers (rational numbers, Q), if you add to Q the irrational numbers, you will get R, the set of "real" numbers. unfortunately, irrational numbers do not exist in nature/reality, they only exist on paper or in a mathematical mind, and in reality only appear as approximations.

not strictly an argument to this point, but an interesting illustration:
Pi is an irrational number. It can be rounded to about 52 digits, making it a rational number, is enough to calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the currently known universe to the precision of one proton.

[LHX]

i see what youre saying 000, but it sounds a bit shaky

you are still rounding the number

and who knows how big a proton is

[LMNO]

http://www.desy.de/f/hera/engl/chap1.html

In 1956 Hofstadter and his collaborators measured the size of the proton for the first time, by using the world's biggest (at that time) linear accelerator to shoot high energy electrons at hydrogen (Nobel prize 1961).
They found a size of about 10-13cm, which is about 1/10 the size of a nucleus.

And yeah, numbers are pretty much an abstract concept.

[Triple Zero]

the point is

1) a proton is pretty fuckin small. like really really really really small:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Helium_atom_QM.svg
"A semi-accurate depiction of the helium atom. In the nucleus, the protons are in red and neutrons are in purple. In reality, the nucleus is also spherically symmetrical."
that's REALLY small. (ok an electron would be smaller)

2) the known universe (and by this i mean that sphere of what light has been able to reach us since the big bang) is pretty fuckin big

3) 52 decimals is really not very much. if you google for "Pi", you'll find you're gonna have a hard time to find a site whcih mentions less than 52 decimals, cause most of them list over 100.000 or so. those krazy japanese kids make a sport to memorize up to 500 (or so) of the things.

Pi has an infinite amount of decimals, but for all practical intents and purposes, you really need only the first 52 of them.

and LMNO:

They found a size of about 10^-13cm

fixt for not giving the poor physicists nightmares about HUMONGOUS protons 

but really, that Pi/proton/universe thing was just an illustration of the arbitraryness of irrational numbers. there's more solid arguments to the "they don't exist" theory, namely that it is possible to construct all of mathematics without them. (it's just that they provide useful shortcuts when you need to work with numbers, but that's what language symbols are for)