Mathematics: Not the right language

[Vishal]

Hi. This will seem quite silly to the erudite crowd but please read through.

 

What if Mathematics is not the appropriate language to discover the true nature of the world we observe? It seems evident that current theories reliant on classical math are hitting up agains a barrier of "unity" and are unable to proceed further. I suspect this is because classical math is fundamentally binary in nature. It was developed to describe the world at a visual, observable scale and it did so with extraordinary success. However, what if a non-binary or non-discrete method is developed to cope with the probelm? An analog-math as opposed to a binary-math perhaps. A system akin to an analog wave with smooth increases and decreases. A system that relies on the spiral-geometry rather than linear algebra.

 

Furthermore, What if we have reached a very real barrier in our scope of understanding? What if we MUST accept things "a posteriori" rather than "a priori"?

 

The planck's constant is immeasurably small. Yet we try to describe the nature of matter/energy at that scale. It seems obvious to me that we will forever then be lost chasing our own tail.

 

We should rather be understanding "what we can do with zero point energy", rather than bickering amoungst ourselves about "why we can't transalate it into our language".

 

The potential benefit to mankind by studying and exploring the workings of the Hutchison effect and zero point energy clearly outweigh the need to describe it according to traditionally accepted theories. It is almost like the current Einsteinian science has transcended science itself and become a belief system. A religion almost.

 

 

I would love to hear what you have to say.

[Vishal]

[...]

 

mod note: duplicate thread moved from other section and deleted. No need to post things multiple times.

[ajb]

Hi. This will seem quite silly to the erudite crowd but please read through.

 

What if Mathematics is not the appropriate language to discover the true nature of the world we observe? It seems evident that current theories reliant on classical math are hitting up agains a barrier of "unity" and are unable to proceed further. I suspect this is because classical math is fundamentally binary in nature. It was developed to describe the world at a visual, observable scale and it did so with extraordinary success. However, what if a non-binary or non-discrete method is developed to cope with the probelm? An analog-math as opposed to a binary-math perhaps. A system akin to an analog wave with smooth increases and decreases. A system that relies on the spiral-geometry rather than linear algebra.

 

I am not sure what else you could use to describe nature. Mathematics is always evolving, so it could be quite correct to say that we don't yet have the tools or language to describe nature. But I think it would still be called "mathematics".

 

You need to define what you mean by "classical mathematics". Classical mathematics usually means "working in the category of sets". There are plenty of instances where in physics you are not doing this. For instance supermanifolds and noncommutative geometry are "pontless".

 

Furthermore, What if we have reached a very real barrier in our scope of understanding? What if we MUST accept things "a posteriori" rather than "a priori"?

 

I don't believe that. Maybe right now the ideas of unification of the forces of nature are outside of our immediate grasp, but there are plenty of open problems to work on in physics and mathematics.

 

The planck's constant is immeasurably small. Yet we try to describe the nature of matter/energy at that scale. It seems obvious to me that we will forever then be lost chasing our own tail.

 

Well, quantum mechanics which fundamentally relies on Planck's constant has not yet failed any experimental test. We seem able to describe things at the quantum level very well, apart from gravity.

 

 

We should rather be understanding "what we can do with zero point energy", rather than bickering amoungst ourselves about "why we can't transalate it into our language".

 

If one can calculate it, then it is my language.

 

 

The potential benefit to mankind by studying and exploring the workings of the Hutchison effect and zero point energy clearly outweigh the need to describe it according to traditionally accepted theories. It is almost like the current Einsteinian science has transcended science itself and become a belief system. A religion almost.

 

John Hutchinson's experiments have never proved repeatable. Therefore, they are not part of science.

 

Theories becomes accepted when they have been shown to describe nature with in a range of physical parameters (such as energy scales) to a desired degree of accuracy.

 

Science is not "blind" like religion. Moreover it evolves.

[swansont]

Math is not binary. Planck's constant is not immeasurably small. ( I have a vague recollection of determining it in modern physics lab a few decades ago). Those are errors of fact.

 

Science is not a religious belief system. That's just a smear tactic. Hutchison effect and ZPE possess all the hallmarks of quantum snake oil. The burden-of-proof ball is in your court.

[iNow]

Yeah. Strikes me as more of a limit and/or definitional issue, not a systemic one... and I'm not even a mathematician.

[Graviphoton]

Numbers are a secondary language. It is perfect as an abstract language. As Aj pointed out, there is really no other way about it... conceptually.

[ajb]

Numbers are a secondary language.

 

We can do a lot of work without numbers. Though I think all associative algebras have a representation as matrices with numbers as their entries. But, they of course exist independent of the representation.

 

For example the Grassmann algabra with n-generators is generated by n "Grassmann numbers", [math]\theta^{A}[/math] s.t. [math]\theta^{A}\theta^{B}= - \theta^{B} \theta^{A}[/math], can be represented by [math]2^{n}\times 2^{n}[/math] matrices. Though I never think of it that way.

[Graviphoton]

Oh, yeh. Quite right.

[Zephir]

...what if mathematics is not the appropriate language to discover the true nature of the world we observe?

Not to discover, but describe. This is not the same.

 

In general, the consecutive logic of formal math rigor isn't good for description of multicomponent heavilly paralelized nature of reality, where every object is composed of many others by recursive way.

 

Therefore, the formal logic will always remain an approximation of fuzzy reallity. Indeed, the same can be said about causality itself - even the best description of reality will fall into quantum uncertainty following from Goedel theorem for countable sets. Until these sets will remain finite, we cannot use the finite number of rules (postulates, axioms) in their description.

 

Does it mean, the math is deadly wrong and the intuitive approach is better? Not at all, they're just the dual parts of the same reality, which is both deterministic, both chaotic by equal ways. We should learn them both and/or to specialize and cooperate. The Aether foam model illustrates, how the stochastic particle field with paralellized energy spreading cooperates with predictable density fluctuations (1D manifolds, where the energy spreads as a consecutive wave) by tight and predictable way. This is because every chaotic system contains an insintric causality in the multinomial distribution of its density gradients. If we cannot observe them as a chaos, we couldn't observe them at all. Therefore every reality appears exactly like the human creatures itself, because if it wouldn't appear so, we couldn't interract with it. Such insight makes every observable reality a bit antropocentric.

 

Currently, the theorists doesn't cooperate with free thinkers (and vice-versa) very much, but I hope, the situation will improve gradually. We will be forced to behave exactly by the same way, like the reality, which we are all trying to understand - or we could never understand it completelly.

[Mr Skeptic]

To Vishal: It seems to me that you'd have to use math to describe anything in a qualitative way. If something can be described, but not by current math, then a new branch of math is formed to describe that. Math and logic are just formalized thought. Any thought you have could theoretically be described mathematically, even if we need to build a computer model of your brain to describe it.

 

Suggesting that something cannot be described mathematically is suggesting it can't be described.

[stingray78]

Math evolves, check "the new science" of Wolfram. I personally dont like it but check it out anyway:

http://www.tubepolis.com/play.php?q=new%20science%20wolfram&title=A%2BNew%2BKind%2Bof%2BScience%2B-%2BStephen%2BWolfram&engine=1&id=_eC14GonZnU&img=http%253A%252F%252Fi.ytimg.com%252Fvi%252F_eC14GonZnU%252Fdefault.jpg

[thedarkshade]

Mathematics is the language that scientists have always used to describe the physical universe. Out knowledge of the universe has evolved and along with it our ability to describe it in a mathematical way. It is (I believe) every scientist's dream to come up with a mathematical model that would fit at describing a physical phenomena. And that would be because of the accuracy for which mathematics is so so well known. Any knowledge that comes from mathematical models that fit with explaining physical phenomena, are accurate because of the accuracy of mathematics. I cannot imagine, though you have to leave room for innovations, science without math in it.