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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: durantz]
#14016417 - 02/23/11 09:02 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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Nobodies missing your point.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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eyeplanted
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: durantz]
#14016698 - 02/23/11 09:46 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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I can see how maybe we didn't invent numbers.
I think of a single unit of water molecule, and it actually isn't a single thing at all. It is 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen.
Then I think of the number 5 and it actually isn't a single thing at all either. It is 3 plus 2.
So yes, if you look at everything in the sense that it takes a certain specific quantity of another thing to make up another thing then no we did not actually invent numbers. Because I question how water could be formed, without the sense of a certain required quantity of hydrogen and oxygen?
-------------------- Actual events may not have happened.
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: eyeplanted]
#14016952 - 02/23/11 10:29 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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A quantity is, but a number names it. It's still there without the name. We created those names. Answer Diploids question.
I'm not denying that there is a pattern. I'm denying that the pattern needs numbers to exist.
Show me the number in a pine cone. Bet you can't.
Show me the number in an equation that models the pine cone. Bet you'll find it that time.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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durantz
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Icelander]
#14017068 - 02/23/11 10:49 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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Quote:
A quantity is, but a number names it. It's still there without the name. We created those names
Well done Icelander you just repeated what we've been saying for the last 2 days...
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: durantz]
#14017095 - 02/23/11 10:54 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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mushiepussy

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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Icelander]
#14017338 - 02/23/11 11:38 PM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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Numbers are our way of measuring constants in dimensions.
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deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: mushiepussy]
#14018118 - 02/24/11 02:57 AM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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Numbers are sophisticated mental concepts that express relationships in reality. As such they exist only in mind.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
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nuentoter
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: deCypher]
#14018376 - 02/24/11 05:41 AM (13 years, 10 days ago) |
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so then we all agree that numbers have always existed but since i dont have a prelanguage term for them i will call them numbers now so that you know what i am talking about. the only thing icelander has convinced me of is that humans created language to describe the things we see. but to say that we created the math that creates molecules and patterns in nature is kinda ridiculous, if you made all humans disappear right now suddenly DNA in horses wouldn't fall apart because math ceased to exist.
also you say that patterns exist without numbers, no they exist without words, but without numbers then how can you differentiate a singularity from nothingness, or from multitude? a pattern is a repeating sequence of single things set up in a certain repeatable way. go and do replicate this yourself with a bunch of pencils or apples or rice grains whatever, make an exact replicating pattern, but dont count anything. see how well it turns out.
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The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know. - @entheolove "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keefe I think the word is vagina
Edited by nuentoter (02/24/11 05:46 AM)
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durantz
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: nuentoter]
#14018676 - 02/24/11 08:07 AM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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Neutoner I don't think you should be talking anymore... it seems to be falling on deaf ears... sadly 
I totally agree with what you are saying but it seems that we are the only ones.
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: nuentoter]
#14018742 - 02/24/11 08:34 AM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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.
Edited by DieCommie (11/14/16 11:37 AM)
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durantz
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: DieCommie]
#14018770 - 02/24/11 08:40 AM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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Was that just a really long winded way of saying what we've been saying all along; that maths describes already existing phenomena?
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: durantz]
#14018796 - 02/24/11 08:47 AM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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Quote:
that maths describes already existing phenomena?
It can, but it doesn't always. You can invent whatever math you like, and it may or may not describe existing phenomena.
I'm curious, do you know a significant amount of math? Its kind of a rude thing to say... but I have found that those have not studied any more than beginning math are more likely to think math always existed and that we discovered it rather than inventing it. Im curious what kind of background people have.
Edited by DieCommie (02/24/11 08:53 AM)
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: nuentoter]
#14018829 - 02/24/11 08:57 AM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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so then we all agree that numbers have always existed
no we don't  That's like saying language has always existed.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Smitington
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Icelander]
#14019976 - 02/24/11 01:24 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: I'm curious, do you know a significant amount of math? Its kind of a rude thing to say... but I have found that those have not studied any more than beginning math are more likely to think math always existed and that we discovered it rather than inventing it. Im curious what kind of background people have.
gtfo. Also, please stop coupling numbers with math. Numbers are the building blocks of math, but math is not numbers. Please reread the thread title.
To everybody saying "show me a number in nature", here is my response:
To show you a number by this idea, I would have to show you some arbitrary number, say two. Two is the idealization of a quantity of two, therefore I can never show you two in nature, just as I can never show you apple in nature. I can show you an apple, but I cannot show you that which is our idealization of apple, because it does not exist. As somebody already has said, there are two fighting definitions here for what a number is. If you believe that numbers are purely a human construct, then you must also believe that apples are human constructs, otherwise you sound like an idiot.
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DieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Smitington]
#14019989 - 02/24/11 01:27 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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An apple is a human construct. There is no inherent differentiation between an apple and the tree it is attached too. It takes a human (or other consciousness) to arbitrarily define where the apple begins and where the apple ends. That is not to say that the apple requires consciousness to exist, rather to be defined as an apple requires consciousness.
Also, stfu with telling me what I can and cant do. Ill couple numbers with math all I want, numbers have no meaning outside of a mathematical structure.
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: DieCommie]
#14020062 - 02/24/11 01:43 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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once again
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Smitington
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Icelander]
#14020137 - 02/24/11 01:59 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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Quote:
DieCommie said: An apple is a human construct. There is no inherent differentiation between an apple and the tree it is attached too. It takes a human (or other consciousness) to arbitrarily define where the apple begins and where the apple ends. That is not to say that the apple requires consciousness to exist, rather to be defined as an apple requires consciousness.
Just as two apples do not need consciousness to exist.
Quote:
DieCommie said: Ill couple numbers with math all I want, numbers have no meaning outside of a mathematical structure.
except for the sake of this topic.
Quote:
Icelander said:
once again
I assume that was directed at me for putting an elitist in his place.
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Smitington]
#14020182 - 02/24/11 02:07 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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gee I must have missed that, can you link me to it?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Smitington
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Icelander]
#14020463 - 02/24/11 02:58 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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I took commie's comment about math experience as a sign of elitism, perhaps it wasn't meant like that, but I feel as though math has absolutely nothing to do with this topic, therefore I still see very little relevance in his statement. This is a topic of reality vs. how we understand reality, and although he made good points about math, I feel they would have been better suited for a thread titled "What came first - people or math?"
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Icelander
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Re: What came first- people or numbers? [Re: Smitington]
#14020622 - 02/24/11 03:34 PM (13 years, 9 days ago) |
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I take the question to mean "what came first the human or the word?"
Of course something existed before humans but it's an unknown. We made up words so we could operate better within the unknown.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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