Has mathematics existed when the Universe was created or did humans invent it to comprehend the Universe? | Forum
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I'm of the school of thought that mathematics and its patterns occur naturally or randomly in nature. Numbers were invented to assign tangible value to concepts, in my opinion.I like your explanation.
MemberI talked to my husband today and he gave me another perspective. He talked about Kabbalah and numerology. Maybe numbers are beyond the Universe, existing before the Big Bang and we are just using them to describe what we know. We maybe discovered them but not invented them, the same way we discover rocks buried underneath the dirt.This is closest to my opinion.
I love mathematics - I think that it is possibly the only thing one can certify as one hundred percent true. Everything else about our existence - right down to the very presence of a universe around us, and the existence of a physical world - is subjective to some small extent, in that you rely on your senses to verify them. Your senses can, and often do, lie to you. Hell, your whole life could be nothing but a vivid hallucination. There is no way to know. It all comes down to - Cogito, ergo sum.
Thus, the only pure, objective truths we can draw from the universe are those that simultaneously can be drawn from within our own mind, and that can be verified by others within their own minds. The only area of study that lies in that intersection is math. 2 + 2 = 4. This is true, no matter who does the calculation, no matter when or where. No matter what symbols we use to define that problem and it's result, it will always be the same thing. Nothing, no single theory or fact or what-have-you can be definitively *proven* save for a mathematical fact. Everything else exists at various levels of dubiousness. Math is logic applied to itself within a vacuum - it is our one way to view the foundations of reality.
Mathematics is simply the way in which we conceptualize and express those things.
And a damn fine job it does to.
MemberA tricky, philosophical question. Math doesn't not inherently exist, it's a theoretical construct with which we are able to better understand the universe around us. But just in the same way that a picture of an apple would make a poor apple pie, crunching the numbers on the universe would make for a poor existence (depending on whether or not you like paper in your pie).I disagree. The whole point of mathematics, is that it doesn't require a context. It can be given a context, such as the one you imposed upon it. But in and of itself, it is pure and true. 2+2=4. The circumference (c) of a circle with radius (r) can be determined by the equation c = 2 pi r. The interior angles of a regular pentagon are all equal to 0.6 radians, and all add up to 3 radians. For a right triangle with legs length (a) and length (b) and a hypotenuse length (c) , their lengths relative to one another are given by the equation a^2 + b^2 = c^2. There are an infinite number of prime numbers. There exists no set of three positive integers (a), (b), and (c), that can satisfy the equation a^n + b^n = c^n where n > 2. These are all facts, true in and of themselves, requiring no context, no relation to any other subject. They are inherently true. There is quite literally no argument that can reasonably be made against them. They are true, because mathematics has determined them to be so, and math by the nature of what it is, lacks the ability to be wrong. Mathematicians? Fallible. Mathematics? Infallible.
As for assertions such as "2 + 2 = 4", it still requires a context. Sure we know mathematically that the the numerals add up in that manner but take "2 weeks + 2 weeks = 1 month" or "2 holes + 2 holes = 1 giant hole". As humans (and Satanists in particular) we need to accept the shifting nature of the universe and stop trying to pin it down.
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HFS,
First, there is the Platonic theory. Plato argued that math is a discoverable system that underlines the structure of the universe. In other words, the universe is composed of math and the more we understand this astronomical interplay of numbers, the more we can understand nature itself. To put it more bluntly, mathematics subsists independent of humans -- that it was here before we evolved and will continue on long after we're extinct.
The opposing argument, therefore, is that math is a man-made tool -- an abstraction free of time and space that merely corresponds with the universe. Just consider elliptical planetary orbits. While such an elliptical trajectory provides astronomers with a close approximation of the planet's movement, it's not a perfect one.
Several theories expand on this idea:
The logistic theory, for instance, holds that math is an extension of human reasoning and logic.
The intuitionist theory defines math as a system of purely mental constructs that are internally consistent.
The formalist theory argues that mathematics boils down to the manipulation of man-made symbols. In other words, these theories propose that math is a kind of analogy that draws a line between concepts and real events.
The occult/satanist theory, while less popular, even goes so far as to equate mathematics with fairy tales: scientifically useful fictions. In other words, 1 + (- 1) = 0 might enable us to understand how the universe works, but it isn't a "true" statement.
Who's right? Who's wrong? There's ultimately no way to know.
ISN
Rev. "Knife" Sotelo
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And, the mistake occurs in line 7.(a-b) = (1-1) =0, thus when it is divided out it creates a situation wherein the numerator is divided by 0, and dividing by 0 always returns an undefined answer.
I posit that math is the only thing that *can* describe universal truth.
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I'm of the school of thought that mathematics and its patterns occur naturally or randomly in nature. Numbers were invented to assign tangible value to concepts, in my opinion.This is exactly what I was going to say.
Whatever it is, mathematics serves the purpose of ending the seemingly endless chain of asking "why" by creating axioms. They are these things that we all have to accept to be true because they represent the simplest statements that all msthematics is built upon. There is no "why is a straight line the shortest distance between two points?" Answering that invokes other axioms and assumptions about dimensionality, etc.
It also serves the purpose of proving or disproving just about anything. If something is mathematically proveable or disproveable, it pretty much ends it for the same reason, axioms are magic.
