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Do Numbers Exist?
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 Do Numbers Exist?
January 3, 2014 at 2:15 am
(This post was last modified: January 3, 2014 at 2:16 am by MindForgedManacle.)
In short, what is your take on the ontology of mathematics? If that flew over your head, I've found this video helpful as an short intro.:
Only 1 and 0. Probably
I'm no philosopher... so my 2 cents are worth as much as any ramblings....
Aren't numbers just representations of quantities, even if fractional? Pi can be seen as such a fractional number... somewhere between 3.14 and 3.15. Imaginary numbers are then just useful constructs, but don't really represent a number... They're best represented on a 2-D plot... hmmmmm.....  RE: Do Numbers Exist?
January 3, 2014 at 6:33 am
(This post was last modified: January 3, 2014 at 6:37 am by bennyboy.)
Of these three, I'd say that fictionalism is clearly bullshit, nominalism is insufficient, and Platonic numbers don't meet the definition of "exist" that we normally use. Frankly, though, I prefer the Platonic view, when taken abstractly rather than literally.
I think a kind of numerical realism should be considered: that rather than numbers being representative of things, all things are a representation of an underlying mathematical reality. For example, if you were to calculate a wave, you'd find no such thing really exists: there are the lateral motions of large numbers of discrete objects, from which we infer a "best fit," i.e. a mathematical function. If you "zoom" in on a flat surface, you'll see no such surface actually exists: what exists are a bunch of atoms, or a bunch of wave functions if you zoom in even further. So which is more "real," the physical particles whose positions roughly approximate the mathematical perfection of a wave function, or the wave function itself? I'd argue that the math is more real, and that physical objects are expressions of the math, rather than vice versa. 
Numbers are just labels we give to quantity.
If we assume that-- Humans are the only animals on Earth with the capacity to grasp quantity (which I'm somewhat doubtful of) and-- Earth is the only planet in the whole universe that contains any sentient life (which I'm also doubtful of), then if humans cease to exist, numbers also cease to exist. RE: Do Numbers Exist?
January 3, 2014 at 6:25 pm
(This post was last modified: January 3, 2014 at 6:25 pm by bennyboy.)
(January 3, 2014 at 9:18 am)LostLocke Wrote: Numbers are just labels we give to quantity. But relationships like PI, the sine wave, and the golden ratio will still be present.
A sine wave is an inherent shape, like a cube or a sphere.
In the above situation, humans ceasing to exist, PI and the golden ratio will also cease to exist. RE: Do Numbers Exist?
January 3, 2014 at 8:15 pm
(This post was last modified: January 3, 2014 at 8:17 pm by bennyboy.)
(January 3, 2014 at 7:08 pm)LostLocke Wrote: A sine wave is an inherent shape, like a cube or a sphere.No, they won't, because they are expressed in the way things relate to each other. The symbols for them will no longer exist, but the relationships which they represent will remain. Those are the real numbers-- not the symbols, but the relationships which they represent. And those numbers are more perfect and real than the things which we observe to so crudely represent them in space and time. Unless, that is, you believe the existence of anything depends on a mind capable of experiencing it. But that's probably a different discussion.
It's just a relationship.
There's nothing more "perfect" about it than if another race, or even sentient species, decides that say a rectangle with one side that's 10x longer than the other is "perfect". It's only 'perfect' because we decided it was 'perfect'. 
Numbers do not exist. They are an invention of man so we could understand and adapt to the world around us.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.
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