I'm going to avoid the theistic debate and speak materialistically(for a change?). I re-introduce Conway's game of life. vid Here's a version you can play with, linky Simple rules: -An unpopulated space becomes populated if it has 3 neighbours. -Lonliness,populated cell with one or no neighbours dies -Overcrowding, populated cell with four or more neihbours dies -Survival, populated cell with 3 neigbours survives. A search of the forum shows a solitary mention of this topic, so i'll include it. What i'm interested in is the last line stated in the vid: We are the result of atoms, time, and mathematics. I disagree. The atoms and time part, I will accept, for now(I'm viewing this materialistically afterall). My issue is with mathematics, I feel mathematics(and the science that uses it) is only a description, not a recipe.
I think Math gives us some type of language to understand the physical world around us. I agree with you there that it's a description and not a recipe. Atoms and the mass around us are the ingredients. I wouldn't include time. I feel like its a man made concept...
The only reason math is a description is because we don't understand all the rules yet. It's incomplete, but the rules of the universe seem be based in math, just a more complex math then we yet have discovered. As for time being a man made concept, no more so than math. Time exists. We can measure its passage, things happen from one moment to the next. When man is gone the universe will continue and time passed before man was here. Fossils are the result of time. Time as man percieves it, meaning minutes and seconds, are man made, as is the notation for the number two but time itself, just like the amount "2" exists without man counting it.
Wow. You described exactly how I was thinking about it, except I couldn't put it into the right words. Thank you
Clocks and calendars are man-made, like thermometers and geiger counters. The phenomena of time existed without measurement, until one was designed. Like the patterns that emerge from this game, all it takes is a grid that frames the phenomenae and it becomes regulated by structured rules that had no names, until recently. I just wonder how many inter dimensional phenomena exist for which there is no measurement yet.(i.e.paranormal)
Theres something that holds our universe together. Holds our planet, solar system, galaxy, everything in our universe and keeps them in check. I wonder what rules it follows...
math is strange..i just noticed something odd today...doesn't computer code and all that good stuff derive from a series of 1's and 0's? all that matrix stuff lol...well i was reading about natural plant fertilizers and came across human urine, and apparently when it is diluted at a rate of 1 parts to 10, it becomes a naturally almost perfect fertilizer. i don't know if anyone else sees the connection, but it looks like 1's and 0's make the natural world work. just a silly observation
I wouldn't bet on that. 1+1 still equaled 2 before man uttered the first A flat. Cosmically speaking, who knows, but I'm pretty sure that as long as something has existed there has been 'math' or numbers. If you have more than 0 of something, it becomes something, and something is a pure expression of mathematics. We all are. Even just existing makes you a number
It's too easy thinking of the laws of nature (the math bit) as something imposed upon the universe. Something apart that governs how things behave. This way of thinking seems almost like an carrover from religion. Just substitute "laws of nature" with "god". But the laws of nature is not apart from nature. It is intrinsic in the very fabric of space. The interaction between particles (possibly even tinier pieces of matter, like strings) is the calculation, the change in energy/matter-state is the result. Leading to new calculations and so on. In it's most basic form, the universe really is one big computer. Matter is information, the bits. Energy is the transmitters of information, the pathways the bits follow. The rules are as they are for the reason that is the way a universe of matter must be.