"Would 2 plus 2 still equal 4 if the Universe ceased to exist?"

Topics: science, religion, philosophy

Asked by spikejones 11 months ago

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Do human beings discover or invent Mathematics?

Crucial philosophical question this. Are the rules of Maths, God's fingerprints on the Universe? As it were.
Thus the number 2 would still exist as a concept without their being 2 of anything. Point in favour: scientists predict the existence of things, using Maths, then go out and look to see if they exist in reality.

Point against: Maths is a tool invented by scientists as a kind of language. Like a language, it replicates the reality around it. If there were no human race, there would be no languages, and Maths is a kind of language.

Your call.

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"Invention"

by FuzzyGold on Feb 16 2009 (11 months ago)

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Many mathematical theories have flaws and are thus essentially false.

Proposition 1 of Euclid's Elements has an invalid proof. There is nothing in the Postulates that says that the two circles must intersect at even one point. This error was not even conceivable until modern times after the theory of real numbers and continuity were developed.

Much of the early work in Calculus was flawed because it was incorrectly assumed that a continuous function could only have a finite number of places where it was not differentiable.

Naive Set Theory was show invalid by Russells Paradox.

Can Euclid's Elements be pre-existent if it is false?

If false theories pre-exist and are "discovered" there is no way to determine if they are true or false. Both true and false theories must be given equal weight. But that does not happen!

It is necessary to take the position that math theories are invented.

This allows them to have inherent flaws that can be removed by correction of the theory. The only discovery in mathematics is finding an inherent flaw in a theory.

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"Would"

by skep on Feb 16 2009 (11 months ago)

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it matter?

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Latest post on this question's discussion board:

Math was my most difficult subject in school. I am a very logical person, so you think I would have enjoyed math. But math is so ABSTRACT (yes, abstract), where numbers go on into infinity, some equations fall apart, other equations must have a number added to them randomly to work out; some equations give two or more answers, etc. It was so infuriating to me! On top of that, there is very little wiggle room for error. I intuitively know it exists, although I can't grasp its concepts.