Rusty's Postulate

[RustyBert]

Rusty's Postulate: Any mathematical system that is used by both physicists and economists cannot be considered as reflecting the real world.

I've been reading up on advanced physics. I claim zero expertise other than a general knowledge of vectors, matrices, etc. from college. I do know that both physicists and economists used many of the same advanced mathematical tools, such as vectors, tensors, "spaces", and so on in their work. Both groups talk as if those tools actually correspond in some real way to the thing they are investigating - the physical world in one case, and human behavior in the other, and that they have predictive value.

No matter how complex the math may be, at some point it has to refer back to the things being modelled.

SO...how can it be that the same exact tool can relate to say particles in space AND humans buying stuff at malls?

(Of course I'm being a little tongue in cheek calling it my postulate. But hopefully I've explained the question.)

[Impenitent]

the same way WD40 relates to multiple surfaces...

-Imp

[Walker]

the same way WD40 relates to multiple surfaces...

-Imp

Aging males do know the inconvenience and danger of the swollen postulate, but knowing isn't everything.

[RustyBert]

Any serious answers (though I do like the ones so far)? My point is, in Physics forums you see people talking as if these tools they use somehow correspond to reality. And yet some of the same tools are used by economists. How can they actually "model" both real physical systems AND irrational emotional human groups? Apples and oranges. I guess my point is, at some level the math goes off the rails in physics as do the physicists using the tools. It's as if they've made what's called a Category Mistake.

[EchoesOfTheHorizon]

Just how they project information systematically.

I like to start from the roots of knowledge and build up to the modern, so hit a lot of ancient mathematics and physics. I stumble on a lot of what Descartes wrote, because I not only can't read French, but also Liebniz's chicken scratch. Seriously, the most learned man of letters in Europe at the time couldn't write legibly.

What I have generally come away with is a distrust of calculus. Not to say it isn't pragmatically useful, but the unfolding presumptions for how it works, doesn't always jive with my instincts, and I can spend days to years tearing up a concept compulsively. Makes me into the smallest of minorities, a minority of one, but so be it. People make the mistake that I just am too lazy to sit down and learn it, lacking discipline, when nothing the more opposite can be the case. I'm having a extensive dialogue with the founders of modern man.

Our ability to perceive things isn't the same as analysis. We assert logic upon what we observe, if it is something worthy of action. There is no Noumena in this process, it is all purely internalized, at every stage once it has been oriented to in that briefest of first nano-seconds upon seeing or hearing it. From that point on, we are processing it, filtering it, adding to it.

But you have only so many neural networks in which to process ideas. It isn't surprising at all the massive overlap. Also isn't surprising that our mathematics isn't so specific as to invalidate ideas of physical objects with concepts within economics that have no concrete, obvious relation. When you sacrifice reality in the drive to pure mathematics, everything in time will fall in line, and a Theory of Everything will emerge, or seem to just about to emerge. It really shouldn't be the case, but we have limited human networks, so it is.

[Eodnhoj7]

Rusty's Postulate: Any mathematical system that is used by both physicists and economists cannot be considered as reflecting the real world.

I've been reading up on advanced physics. I claim zero expertise other than a general knowledge of vectors, matrices, etc. from college. I do know that both physicists and economists used many of the same advanced mathematical tools, such as vectors, tensors, "spaces", and so on in their work. Both groups talk as if those tools actually correspond in some real way to the thing they are investigating - the physical world in one case, and human behavior in the other, and that they have predictive value.

No matter how complex the math may be, at some point it has to refer back to the things being modelled.

SO...how can it be that the same exact tool can relate to say particles in space AND humans buying stuff at malls?
Because the same space the composes physical reality and the abstract (ideas through advertising, etc.) has a particulate nature. I had a thread in metaphysics I think called Relativity, Atomism and Negation. It's a little abstract by the standards here, however addresses the nature of space in that manner.

Space is a unifying median of all reality...no matter how "different" those realities may appear.

(Of course I'm being a little tongue in cheek calling it my postulate. But hopefully I've explained the question.)
It's your postulate... maybe if you develop it enough you can try getting it published.

[EchoesOfTheHorizon]

How do you claim "the same space" when abstracting space differs from our various sensations of physicality, realmess? Space isn't a real thing anymore more than infinity, it is a irrational state of mind most of the time we largely accept, but full of contradiction. If phenomena can act upon it, and we know this, then it is a pephenomena within the observer. By default. Space isn't the external, it is the presented, the presumed, internalized. "Thatness" is a internal aspect of cognition, pure mind.

[Eodnhoj7]

How do you claim "the same space" when abstracting space differs from our various sensations of physicality, realmess?
Neutral Space as Synthetic/Composite in nature...much in the same form as + and - or 1 and 0 both manifest "possibility" as "ψ".


Space isn't a real thing anymore more than infinity, it is a irrational state of mind most of the time we largely accept, but full of contradiction.

Actually Infinity observes "totalitly" and in these respects maintains rationality by maintaining structure as ever present. Space being the foundation for reality is evident through the curvature which forms both abstract and physical realities. Space is embodied under the universal nature of the point and line, with any form of gradations as "curvature" in themselves being composed of further points and lines that act as unifying medians.

Essence of reality is founded within the nature of space as a mirror through the point and line. As a mirror what we understand of mathematics, as space in root structure, is strictly a reality which mirrors existence and maintains this reality through that same mirror effect.

I observed the contradictory nature of measurement scales observed in the stoic thought/zeno's paradox on a seperate thread. The stoic concept of reality is strictly a mind in a perpetual state of movement as the measurement scales they apply are strictly relativistic in nature....A measurement exists relative to another measurement, as evidenced in zeno's paradoxes where measurement "contradicts itself" (as infinity is a contradiction in your terms) by justifying itself only as ad-infinitum. In these respects, stoic forms of measurement are only justified if and only if their is contradiction present as an ever fluxuating structure.

?

If phenomena can act upon it, and we know this, then it is a pephenomena within the observer. By default. Space isn't the external, it is the presented, the presumed, internalized. "Thatness" is a internal aspect of cognition, pure mind.

The internalization of phenomena inevitably leads to the concept of "external". If "External" is not a reality then all internal phenomena are mere contradictions as "externality" exists as an approximate of "internality".

A simple question occurs in the respect that if there is not external reality then where did "external" as a concept manifest itself? If it is strictly internal thought alone, than the stoic concept of a rational mind is an impossibility.

In reality what understand of mind is breaks down to "dimensionality" with this dimensionality corresponding to the mind as having internal, external and extradimensional natures inherent as "mind" itself. Rationality is purely dimensionality, in certain respects, and in this respect can maintain infinite structure without contradiction.

[Dapplegrim]

Rusty's Postulate: Any mathematical system that is used by both physicists and economists cannot be considered as reflecting the real world.

I've been reading up on advanced physics. I claim zero expertise other than a general knowledge of vectors, matrices, etc. from college. I do know that both physicists and economists used many of the same advanced mathematical tools, such as vectors, tensors, "spaces", and so on in their work. Both groups talk as if those tools actually correspond in some real way to the thing they are investigating - the physical world in one case, and human behavior in the other, and that they have predictive value.

No matter how complex the math may be, at some point it has to refer back to the things being modelled.

SO...how can it be that the same exact tool can relate to say particles in space AND humans buying stuff at malls?

(Of course I'm being a little tongue in cheek calling it my postulate. But hopefully I've explained the question.)

Good point!

Mathematics, as a pure logical system, is entirely abstract. In order to apply it to the real world, a mapping is required between the elements of the abstract system and the elements (or objects) of the real world. This mapping is somewhat hit and miss. Some mappings make sense and are useful, while others are not. For example calculus is useful for predicting planetry orbits. Mandelbrot sets are not useful for counting sheep.

[EchoesOfTheHorizon]

I'm not skipping your reply a Eod, I'm just going to deal with it wherever we we talking about the problems you had with Aristotle and Zeno's Paradox, since it isn't going to benefit anyone talking about it everywhere.... the infinity issue pertains to it. Paper somewhere by a Dutch professor (modern Dutch) on this, I'll look it up for you tomorrow.

What I'm more worried about is the presumption that all mathematics is abstract, from the last poster, Drappledrim.

Humans and most larger animals like birds can count naturally to four. We can observe and know shapes early on, and detect patterns. If it comes without nurture, grasping up down, left right, foreward, backwards..... how to count your instinctive numbers, is it inherently abstract? I'm not saying any of them can't be abstract, what I'm saying is, do we consciously have to abstract it to make use of it? Has anyone ever said we abstract mathematically subconsciously? Seems always a lucid aspect to even surrealist meandering in near dream states, that of interpretation, but if you cut the lucidity out of it, the interpretation, could a creature like a frog use say.... trajectories without any abstract thinking, to catch the fly with it's tongue?

How do we really know what parts of the brain are doing abstract thinking or not, how it relates to consciousness? Can older aspects of the mind that arise automatically, but still requiring calculation, knowing what we term mathematical objects, like regular shapes, always be considered abstract? Are bees doing abstract math when they build a bee hive?

This might be a nature vs nurture question, but also besides that, of how thinking works in our brain when it comes automatically.

[surreptitious57]

How do we really know what parts of the brain are doing abstract thinking or not how it relates to consciousness

We have a very good mapping of the different parts of the brain and what functions they perform
The part of the brain that is specifically responsible for abstract thinking is the pre frontal cortex

[EchoesOfTheHorizon]

Yes, but it doesn't mean you are conscious of it all. I for example, often will work on a problem as if a invisible hand is guiding me in laying out the math problem. I don't always know why I am placing the sequence out as I am, but it makes sense after a I do, like it all fits together.

I'm not talking about a mere Subconscious/Conscious switch that can be explained by personality specialization, but something truely unconscious, like seeing a formline cross another, forming angles.

We had to be taught Acute and Obtuse in school. However, we see it just fine, just wouldn't have a name for it. It comes to us naturally, and it is reasonable to think we have some built in knowledge of angle. Not necessarily something like degrees, but we know angles more acute are sharper.... so can get us out of a jam, like being stuck by a bush if we see a rock a certain acute shape nearby. A lot of learning goes into preparing a child for their enviroment, but I think even feral children get the basics about projectiles, digging with rocks, light and shadow, acoustics, tracking. Not everything is learned from a clean slate, we had a start inherent in our nature for many aspects, starting in the beginning. We couldn't start down the road to learning unless at least a little was built in naturally.

[Eodnhoj7]

As far as I am aware, Rusty's Postulate is dealing with the inherent dualism between "abstract" and "physical" realities and the majority of its tension derives from this paradox.

The question really breaks down to whether math is an abstract or physical reality.

There is no contradiction if it is viewed as both in the same time in different respects.

[EchoesOfTheHorizon]

You can have a paradox and no logical contradiction, has more to do with the mode of mind and the inability to see another; but he doesn't seem particularly bothered between Concrete and Abstract thinking interchanging in mutual support as much as two separate systems are needed for two very different things categorically. The abstract and concrete "problem" is one of category for him, they should differ have a different language.

Honestly, they should be much more specialized, but are not taught that way as much. Statistic courses apply to both. In our culture, movies such as the Matrix, you can download specialized knowledge instantly, each based on a apparent need, on a special situation.... with a program behind it. Trinity calling up on a phone that she already knows X from having learned Y, and just needs to learn how better to apply herself isn't going to make for some good Sci-Fi as she learns to reorient her past downloads and experiences in a new format.

I used to guard a farm, that wasn't a farm, in Hawaii (owner liked doing anything illegal, and I didn't know his whole operation of taking tradesmen in to build a industrial complex on farmland was illegal when I first took the job) and the tradesmen would often have trouble conceptually grasping what was being taught. The granite countertop guy taught a carpenter how to operate his tools to cut holes for sinks in a countertop slab.... took him a week it was all similar to the skills he already had, just he decided in his head it was a completely different kind of labor, different kind of saw (lots of water used in it) and so on..... once he grasped it, he could do it instantly. Our insistence on a divide doesn't necessarily branch across abstract and concrete divides, but out insistence on differences.

And that carpenter left Hawaii making $200,000 bucks for a few months installing cabinets in Denver for a housing development project. Was a pretty stupid man, didn't even have a ID so couldn't get off the island in the beginning. But it emphasizes how the thinking is spread across things we don't generally concern ourselves with, we keep a lot separated that we shouldn't, but do anyway.

[-1-]

the same way WD40 relates to multiple surfaces...

-Imp

Aging males do know the inconvenience and danger of the swollen postulate, but knowing isn't everything.

Plus, most males are familiar with Nasty's Prostitutes. (That's how I first read the question, automatically. I had to do a double-take to get it right.)