What is maths?

[Lilia]

Shall we talk about the nature of maths?

As I see it, mathematics is a way of describing patterns of God's mind's workings within God's mind.

What would you say maths is?

How would you say it's different from any other means of representation of reality, such as art or the English language?

[HMD]

Well, Math and English are kinda different animals when it comes to describing the real world. Math is all about precision and those weird-ass symbols, making it a global deal with strict logic.

English, on the other hand, is more subjective, capturing feelings, stories, and stuff in a not-so-structured way. It's a bit more chill, but also, like, not as universal.

Math’s the go-to for exact numbers and science stuff, while English does the whole emotions and everyday life thing better. They both have their place.

Edited October 28, 2023 by HMD

[Lilia]

@HMD Hey there. I love the way you put it. I can see how people could be squabbling over the meaning of a word like 'happiness', but not about 'plus' or 'multiply'. At least somewhere there is peace. 

I wonder if maths could ever single out and describe a pattern of selective identification such as turning into a cartoon wolf.

Or can it only do patterns that belong to the same state of consciousness more or less?

[UnbornTao]

I'd say math's a human invention, a language.

[LastThursday]

I'd say maths is a language like any other. The difference is that its purpose is to reduce ambiguity and to be self-consistent. It is also largely about transformation. One "sentence" in the language of maths gets transformed into other "sentences", using a precise and self-consistent number of steps. That way you can "prove" things. It's also about the essence of capturing patterns in the world, by mapping symbols and operations onto those patterns and also their relationships. English language is about conveying information in generality, so has much wider scope.

[HMD]

@Lilia A pattern of selective identification ... Can you elaborate on that a little? 

[Lilia]

@HMD Perhaps you heard Leo mentioning in his blog once how he became a cartoon wolf. In that post, he claimed he was actually being that cartoon wolf, not just imagining what it would be like to be one. 

When I read that, I immediately recognised the kind of shift in consciousness he was pointing to. He meant literally becoming fragments of consciousness other than the physical body which he normally identifies himself with and feeling through their prism. From my perspective, I have experienced what it is like to become and be a consciousness of a comet, a rock forming in a cave, electricity, radiation, fog, seasons and various natural phenomena, a mitochondrion in a living cell, etc. For lack of a better word, becoming these phenomena, being them and feeling them as if from the inside would be selective identification.

It's like you're travelling in yourself, assuming different positions within yourself.

At first, I didn't know how to make sense of those experiences. They are very weird and unlike anything that my human mind ever knew. Now I can have them at will and often do so because it's fun and refreshing. 

So it looks like we're talking about a transformation of sorts. And maths is good at describing transformation.

So I wonder if there could be a pattern of changing state in that specific way that could be communicated mathematically, with minimum distortion.

[AerisVahnEphelia]

@Lilia on my first instinct, I would say you're absolutely correct about "maths".

notice it's just integer of symbols that you want to project a part of the infinite experience that you've upon them.

You can be good at maths, even makes breakthrough in maths and never even understand that 1+1= 2

 

[AerisVahnEphelia]

6 minutes ago, Lilia said:

@HMD Perhaps you heard Leo mentioning in his blog once how he became a cartoon wolf. In that post, he claimed he was actually being that cartoon wolf, not just imagining what it would be like to be one. 

When I read that, I immediately recognised the kind of shift in consciousness he was pointing to. He meant literally becoming fragments of consciousness other than the physical body which he normally identifies himself with and feeling through their prism. From my perspective, I have experienced what it is like to become and be a consciousness of a comet, a rock forming in a cave, electricity, radiation, fog, seasons and various natural phenomena, a mitochondrion in a living cell, etc. For lack of a better word, becoming these phenomena, being them and feeling them as if from the inside would be selective identification.

It's like you're travelling in yourself, assuming different positions within yourself.

At first, I didn't know how to make sense of those experiences. They are very weird and unlike anything that my human mind ever knew. Now I can have them at will and often do so because it's fun and refreshing. 

So it looks like we're talking about a transformation of sorts. And maths is good at describing transformation.

So I wonder if there could be a pattern of changing state in that specific way that could be communicated mathematically, with minimum distortion.

did it happen in a dream ?

[Lilia]

19 minutes ago, AerisVahnEphelia said:

did it happen in a dream ?

The things I mention happen in a waking state, although I can see how in a dream they may be also possible. 

[Lilia]

@HMD @UnbornTao @LastThursday @AerisVahnEphelia Thanks for your insights, guys.

Did you understand what maths was about (i.e. a language, a symbolic representation of transformation etc) when you were a kid? Back then, how did you explain to yourself what it was about?

[UnbornTao]

4 hours ago, Lilia said:

@HMD @UnbornTao @LastThursday @AerisVahnEphelia

Did you understand what maths was about (i.e. a language, a symbolic representation of transformation etc) when you were a kid? Back then, how did you explain to yourself what it was about?

No, as a kid I didn't really care but thanks for asking.

[HMD]

@Lilia oh I get it now. Well, this can be an interesting development if it actually happens. But I think mathematician are so close minded that it’ll take 1000s of years fir it to happen, if it happens at all. 

I think poets and novelists do this already to degree. They are really good at describing things from a different person’s (or sometimes, thing’s) persepective. 

And as a kid I saw math as a utilitarian tool which is important for society to funtion (Think about trading etc).

[Lilia]

2 minutes ago, HMD said:

I think poets and novelists do this already to degree. They are really good at describing things from a different person’s (or sometimes, thing’s) persepective. 

Oh yeah! 

There was this picture book that touched me very deeply when I was a kid. It was about geography. The first page showed a little guy exploring a globe. The globe had a pleased smile on its face. The story went:

'Petryk loves looking at his globe. The globe loves it when it is being looked at.' 

[HMD]

@Liliaimplicating that the globe is alive and conscious. And you were open-minded enough to let that impact you. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by HMD

[Breakingthewall]

Mathematics is a discovery. Reality is mathematical, and humans discover how it works. If a civilization arises in another galaxy, they will also discover mathematics, and it will be exactly the same, because there are no others.

[gettoefl]

what maths brings to the table:

precision, elegance, intelligence, scalability, universality, proof, abstraction, logic, symmetry, axioms, joy, computation, topology, paradox, optimization, impartiality, incompleteness (Gödel), applicability

source: one who pored over its tricks for a quarter century

[Lilia]

@Breakingthewall Do you think alien minds would do maths differently? 

I don't just mean picking different symbols for shared concepts like addition etc., but perhaps highlighting aspects of reality that humans have no access to due to the way a human mind is configured. 

[Lilia]

@gettoefl I love how joy found its way into this mixture.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Lilia

[Salvijus]

17 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Reality is mathematical

This