Why do we believe in math?

[wufwugy]

That hallucination aside, why do we believe in words?

Actually, I'm unsure how good of a question this is. Words are a little different than numbers in that it's easy to think of words as arbitrary. Numbers certainly can be arbitrary, but there seems to be a system of them that is not. That's what I wanna know why we think of them the way we do.

[Savy]

Actually, I'm unsure how good of a question this is. Words are a little different than numbers in that it's easy to think of words as arbitrary. Numbers certainly can be arbitrary, but there seems to be a system of them that is not. That's what I wanna know why we think of them the way we do.

Numbers and maths aren't arbitrary they are well defined. Give a single example of what you mean, if true it would change maths.

[wufwugy]

Numbers and maths aren't arbitrary they are well defined. Give a single example of what you mean, if true it would change maths.

Ignore what I said. What I was getting at is more along the lines of when something is not exactly defined. Words in colloquial language might not be exactly defined, but numbers in mathematics are. Granted, as far as I can tell, words in code are exactly defined, so the point I was trying to make could be useless. Do you think that numbers not being arbitrary lends to the idea that they are a fundamental nature?

[wufwugy]

Numbers and maths aren't arbitrary they are well defined. Give a single example of what you mean, if true it would change maths.

Oh I remember now why I said numbers can be arbitrary but some systems dont seem to be. I don't know this from my own investigation but it's something I think I have seen from people discussing math (mostly here): there are all sorts of systems of mathematics that are internally consistent yet don't reflect the physical universe. I don't know of what any of them are or even if my statement is correct, but I seem to recall that people have created internally coherent mathematics that are not coherent when applied outside of the system, or something to that effect.

[Savy]

Oh I remember now why I said numbers can be arbitrary but some systems dont seem to be. I don't know this from my own investigation but it's something I think I have seen from people discussing math (mostly here): there are all sorts of systems of mathematics that are internally consistent yet don't reflect the physical universe. I don't know of what any of them are or even if my statement is correct, but I seem to recall that people have created internally coherent mathematics that are not coherent when applied outside of the system, or something to that effect.

What is much more common place in maths is for someone to make a list of assumptions and you go from there. This isn't thought to be true it's jus tthought to be a usable approximation of what is going on.

An example is if you drop a ball from a height you can assume gravity to be 9.81 and you can make great estimations on the speed at the point it makes contact with the earth at pretty much any situation in which you'd drop a ball. Newtons laws of gravity is fucking great, it lets you make loads of predictions which are so accurate but if you don't understand it's limitations you are wrong just like the theory is. Hence why science still uses it for most situations but it certinaly doesn't for those that are known to be wrong such as GPS systems. Einstein loads of great shit comes from it but we know it's not true that doesn't mean it doesn't make loads of great predictions we can use it for.

All of those thing make assumptions and say them. These are very important because if the assumption isn't true it's wrong this doesn't mean it isn't useful. Ideal gas law is a great example of this.

Economic models are actually a great example of this in most cases. They make so many assumptions that they are basically nonsense in any actual real life scenario. They aren't wrong but to draw larger conclusions would be. You may recall economics nobel prize giving it to 3 lots of people who all said different outcomes were true because of the same thing and how this was retarded because obviously all three can't be true. Well none of them were ever saying they were always true.