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shroomydan
exshroomerite
Registered: 07/04/04
Posts: 4,126
Loc: In the woods
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Is Math a Language?
#3484806 - 12/12/04 12:30 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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And if so is it a conventional language created by people, or a natural language which we learned from nature?
I'm leaning toward natural language.
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Pirate_Zero
the handyman
Registered: 09/09/04
Posts: 68
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: shroomydan]
#3484840 - 12/12/04 12:39 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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universe language.
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AreoZephin
Stranger
Registered: 12/11/04
Posts: 142
Loc: New Earth
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Pirate_Zero]
#3484953 - 12/12/04 01:21 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Math is an infinite universal language to me.
-------------------- The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.
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spudamore
Stranger
Registered: 06/12/03
Posts: 1,460
Loc: Australia
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Pirate_Zero]
#3484991 - 12/12/04 01:41 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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how do you know?
how do you know that other civilizations throughout the universe don't use a completely different method of math? or a completely different concept of numbers?
-------------------- suicide a permanent solution to a temporary problem
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AreoZephin
Stranger
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Loc: New Earth
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: spudamore]
#3485035 - 12/12/04 01:58 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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What do you mean?
Like one object equals four to them?
-------------------- The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.
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spudamore
Stranger
Registered: 06/12/03
Posts: 1,460
Loc: Australia
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: AreoZephin]
#3485041 - 12/12/04 02:03 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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don't know? how do you know that maths in our perception is the only one universally used?
-------------------- suicide a permanent solution to a temporary problem
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AreoZephin
Stranger
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Loc: New Earth
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: spudamore]
#3485091 - 12/12/04 02:20 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Math in our perception being the only one universally used seems more logical than anything else for the fact that if you see 2 large objects in the sky and numerous stars would have to take an intelligence to calculate the binary of it and break it down to the simplest numerical meaning for them. So eventually would have to have a 90% chance of using the same calculations, but different symbols and words, but the same answers from the calculations they achieve.
-------------------- The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.
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deafpanda
Stranger
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: AreoZephin]
#3485348 - 12/12/04 06:37 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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So long as they were in the same universe, with the same natural laws, then maths would be the same for them (obviously with different symbols).
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uriahchase
Skinny White Boy
Registered: 09/25/04
Posts: 675
Loc: SoCal
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: deafpanda]
#3485376 - 12/12/04 07:11 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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one plus one will and has always equaled two. math is the only thinmg that is always correct...and never changes. the only thing that has remained the same since forever! change affects everything EXEPT math. so id say it has always been a universal language. whether you say 2.54 centimeters and i say one inch its still the same.
--------------------
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are -Kurt Cobain Hotter than the left sink handle.
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phi1618
old hand
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: uriahchase]
#3485620 - 12/12/04 09:39 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
one plus one will and has always equaled two.
This presupposes that there are identical objects.
I'm not too sure about maths inherence in the universe. I think it is a formalization of man's ability to reason. It abstracts the reason from the object, so that you're just reasoning without an object.
Rationality is inherent in man, not necessarily the universe, but it is inherent in man because it works. If the universe were completely and utterly irrational, nothing like reason would ever develop. However, I don't really think math is or can make entirely clear the underlying structure of the universe.
I don't really know, though. There are some amasing things in math; it's somthing I'd like to understand better.
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Cyber
Ash
Registered: 06/14/04
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Loc: Dearborn Michigan
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: shroomydan]
#3485754 - 12/12/04 10:46 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
shroomydan said: And if so is it a conventional language created by people, or a natural language which we learned from nature?
I'm leaning toward natural language.
Math is just a language used to describe what we perceive in the universe. Nothing more, nothing less.
Our math is base 10, The Mayan math was base 20, There is math with base 4, etc. You have to translate our base 10 math to other bases to make it work. Thus is it a language.
#1) Our Math is not a constant in the universe. Hell science has shown that time is not a constant in the universe.
#2) Classical math breaks down at a quantum level. Thus we create a new math call Quantum mathematics. IE: If we take Heisenberg's view for granted, strict causality is broken or better: the past and future events of particles are indeterminate. One cannot calculate the precise future motion of a particle, but only a range of possibilities.
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Cyber]
#3485904 - 12/12/04 11:26 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Math is just a human interpretation of the universe, that involves using our perceptions and observations to create symbols to represent objects or forces or such, and then drawing equations from these perceptions and observations. It may be universal to human perception, but beyond our level, such as on the quantum level, and perhaps on other levels we have not perceived of yet, common math is not universal
I don't think it's the universe's language, it's just how we try to understand the universe that we perceive, just like any other human art
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Alan Stone
Corpus
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Ravus]
#3485937 - 12/12/04 11:37 AM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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I agree, math is an abstraction of the language of the way the universe works, just like science. The way the universe works is universal (tautology there, huh?), not our description thereof.
-------------------- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle
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shroomydan
exshroomerite
Registered: 07/04/04
Posts: 4,126
Loc: In the woods
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: shroomydan]
#3486222 - 12/12/04 12:49 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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It seems to me that physical phenomena is inherently quantified, and math is the language of quantity.
While the symbols which man uses to describe the quantities in nature are certainly conventional, it seems that the concepts which these symbols stand for are themselves not conventional.
If for example there exists a species of intelligent alien scientists, it seems that they would discover the same mathematics that we have, though the symbols they used would obviously be different. They would need some way to understand that a hydrogen atom has one electron and a helium atom has two.
It seems to me that math is also the base upon which other languages are built. Spoken languages rely on sounds, but sounds are merely vibrations in the air which can be described mathematically: frequency, amplitude, etc.
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InnerBeing
Yakuza Boss
Registered: 12/07/04
Posts: 413
Loc: Chinatown
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: shroomydan]
#3486472 - 12/12/04 01:58 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Can you communicate feelings with math? Are you able to say I love you with math? I would hardly call it a language.
-------------------- Kiss the ring Bitch!
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Cyber
Ash
Registered: 06/14/04
Posts: 1,476
Loc: Dearborn Michigan
Last seen: 10 months, 17 days
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: InnerBeing]
#3486555 - 12/12/04 02:15 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
InnerBeing said: Can you communicate feelings with math? Are you able to say I love you with math? I would hardly call it a language.
Lets See Using the numbers sent from the Keyboard to the computer 31 65 46 32 55 26 65 29 32 30 Using the Binary that the computer sees. 01001001 01001100 01001111 01010110 01000101 01011001 01001111 01010101 Using the ASCII Standard 73 76 79 86 69 89 79 85 It seems that you can say "I love you" with math. Hell you can use 1 number to represent a sexual act! 69 anyone? Try this. (x? + y? - 1)? = x?y? Now Plot the equation and see what you get. There are lots of ways to say "I Love you" in math
Edited by Cyber (12/12/04 02:18 PM)
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InnerBeing
Yakuza Boss
Registered: 12/07/04
Posts: 413
Loc: Chinatown
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Cyber]
#3486733 - 12/12/04 03:05 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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i never saw it that way....I guess math can communicate feelings....geez, this is kinda scary.
-------------------- Kiss the ring Bitch!
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Teragon
Noddy
Registered: 02/20/01
Posts: 36,253
Loc: Lost in the Patterns
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: shroomydan]
#3486797 - 12/12/04 03:25 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Good post. you too phi.
I'll leave you all with what my old WRITING professor used to say-
"Math is the most powerful language we have at our disposal."
-------------------- need that cash to feed them jones.
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tak
geo's henchman
Registered: 11/20/00
Posts: 3,776
Loc: nowhereland
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: Teragon]
#3487390 - 12/12/04 06:06 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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Binary was a system created by humans, it is a language. So is ascii, I do not see any math involved here, just a numerical language that you need to learn in order to know (not universal like math)
-------------------- The DJ's took pills to stay awake and play for seven days.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Is Math a Language? [Re: uriahchase]
#3487823 - 12/12/04 08:03 PM (19 years, 3 months ago) |
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one plus one will and has always equaled two. You can't know that in some other universe where the constructs of mathematics are different, that it is always the case that 1 + 1 = 2. It used to be conjectured that *all* statements in any given rigorously defined system that are true or false could be demonstrated by mathematical proof that they are true or false... until Kurt G?del's Incompleteness Theorems. These are meta-proofs, not within mathematics, but rather about mathematics itself. G?del showed that there are some statements in mathematics that are definitely true or false but which cannot be proven to be either true or false. It was a pivotal result that changed everything.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
Edited by Diploid (12/12/04 08:12 PM)
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