Numbers, what are they?

[Skip]

If the universe were chaotic instead of orderly, life couldn't exist. If life couldn't exist, humans could never have evolved. If humans had not evolved, there would have been nobody to conceive of gods. Therefore, the orderliness of the universe is responsible for Jehovah, Quetzalcoatl and all their nasty ilk. But without numbers, gods couldn't multiply.

[Belinda]

If the universe were chaotic instead of orderly, life couldn't exist. If life couldn't exist, humans could never have evolved. If humans had not evolved, there would have been nobody to conceive of gods. Therefore, the orderliness of the universe is responsible for Jehovah, Quetzalcoatl and all their nasty ilk. But without numbers, gods couldn't multiply.

Before that maybe there was chaos which changed and then time began And then crystals began to make patterns, and piles of sand could be only that shape and no other, and stone masons developed the arch because they could. And so forth as possibility crystallises into probability. Probability will finish when all probabilities have happened; or not as the case may be. Thereafter no further creations can take place, and all will revert to chaos. Then the oscillation will happen again. I wonder if it will all happen just the same as the previous time.

[Skip]

God plays a re-run? Nah!

[Belinda]

God plays a re-run? Nah!

Theologians differ about creation ex nihilo. If God made it all out of Himself then no re-run would be needed.That would be nicer. Maybe Immanuel is right.

[Skip]

Maybe Immanuel is right.

I thought you were my friend....

[cicero117]

If the universe were chaotic instead of orderly, life couldn't exist. If life couldn't exist, humans could never have evolved. If humans had not evolved, there would have been nobody to conceive of gods. Therefore, the orderliness of the universe is responsible for Jehovah, Quetzalcoatl and all their nasty ilk. But without numbers, gods couldn't multiply.

What if I counter your argument by stating that because of God, orderliness of the universe is created.

Because, how can an order be maintained when there's no one controlling it?

[Skip]

Because, how can an order be maintained when there's no one controlling it?

How can there be any cohesive entity or any concept of control without order?
Presumably, one of those had to come first, unless they mutually created each other, which sounds like a good idea and also suggests the wonderfully symmetrical ending of god and order in a climactic mutual conflagration...
But if one did come first, and if god is a cohesive entity, and cohesion requires order, Order seems like the better candidate for primacy. But mathematics is still a latecomer.

[Immanuel Can]

Because, how can an order be maintained when there's no one controlling it?

It's not just the problem of "maintaining," C. The question is, "How can highly-complex, rationally-ordered, intelligible things come out of sheer nothingness?"

An analogy for you, if I may.

Go and find a big, desk-sized hole punch, and tip all the little round punch-outs of paper into a pile in your hand. You'll probably have a few hundred paper dots, at most. If you throw those up into the air, what are the chances they're going to fall to the ground and spell out "Cicero117" perfectly? How many times would you have to do that in order to get "Cicero117" to form perfectly out of them? Not very likely, right?

But that's only some few hundred variables. The universe is composed of quintillions of atoms...more than can be counted. And yet they all accidentally "fell" into their arrangement by chance?

But it gets worse. For in your paper-punch-hole experiment, there were already bits of paper in existence, and your hand beneath them, and the concept "cicero117" in existence, even before your experiment began. So to make a really functional experiment, don't just need untold quintillions of paper-punchouts, but you need them to appear from nothing -- spontaneously -- then without your help, scramble themselves into a form immeasurably more complex, but no less intelligible and rational than the words "Cicero117."

The conclusion? Order does not "just appear" out of chaos. And matter does not "just appear" out of nothing. And anyone who thinks it can, should go to Las Vegas, find a casino, and put their life's savings on one number; because doing that is far more -- vastly more, infinitely more, in fact -- likely to issue in a win than their belief that the rationally-intelligible universe just popped itself into being out of nothing is likely to be true.

[Skip]

It's not just the problem of "maintaining," C. The question is, "How can highly-complex, rationally-ordered, intelligible things come out of sheer nothingness?"

Obviously, it can't.

Go and find a big, desk-sized hole punch, and tip all the little round punch-outs of paper into a pile in your hand. You'll probably have a few hundred paper dots, at most. If you throw those up into the air, what are the chances they're going to fall to the ground and spell out "Cicero117" perfectly?

1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000 +/-5%
Of course, the odds against the pre-existence of a handy big desk for Cicero117 to find, that happens to have an unemptied hole-punch sitting out on top and nobody present to say "Hey, put that down!" before he can litter are 100,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. Not really - it's only 100,000 - 1 : far, far more likely. But, of course, Cicero117 would have had to come about by some fairly improbable route, and he'd have to want to do the experiment and be willing to enter some office building, get off at the right floor and approach that particular bid desk just at the moment when that unemptied hole-punch is sitting out in plain sight, and now we're getting into some seriously long odds.

But that's only some few hundred variables. The universe is composed of quintillions of atoms...more than can be counted. And yet they all accidentally "fell" into their arrangement by chance?

Hell, no! They had an agenda. And now, they have accomplished that monumental undertaking, they're about ready to pack it in. According to one rumour, they're all converging on TON 618.

The conclusion? Order does not "just appear" out of chaos. And matter does not "just appear" out of nothing.

No, of course not!
What just appears out of nothing is gods who then make some chaos and slap it into quadrillions of a hole-punches and some expendable paper.

[Belinda]

Because, how can an order be maintained when there's no one controlling it?

It's not just the problem of "maintaining," C. The question is, "How can highly-complex, rationally-ordered, intelligible things come out of sheer nothingness?"

An analogy for you, if I may.

Go and find a big, desk-sized hole punch, and tip all the little round punch-outs of paper into a pile in your hand. You'll probably have a few hundred paper dots, at most. If you throw those up into the air, what are the chances they're going to fall to the ground and spell out "Cicero117" perfectly? How many times would you have to do that in order to get "Cicero117" to form perfectly out of them? Not very likely, right?

But that's only some few hundred variables. The universe is composed of quintillions of atoms...more than can be counted. And yet they all accidentally "fell" into their arrangement by chance?

But it gets worse. For in your paper-punch-hole experiment, there were already bits of paper in existence, and your hand beneath them, and the concept "cicero117" in existence, even before your experiment began. So to make a really functional experiment, don't just need untold quintillions of paper-punchouts, but you need them to appear from nothing -- spontaneously -- then without your help, scramble themselves into a form immeasurably more complex, but no less intelligible and rational than the words "Cicero117."

The conclusion? Order does not "just appear" out of chaos. And matter does not "just appear" out of nothing. And anyone who thinks it can, should go to Las Vegas, find a casino, and put their life's savings on one number; because doing that is far more -- vastly more, infinitely more, in fact -- likely to issue in a win than their belief that the rationally-intelligible universe just popped itself into being out of nothing is likely to be true.

Immanuel Can, I am surprised at you for trotting out that lame old 'irreducible complexity' argument for intelligent design.'Cicero117' is a complex phenomenon like the human eye is a complex phenonenon. Yet the human eye evolved by simple stages beginning with a skin cell that was more sensitive to light than other skin cells.

In the same general sort of way 'cicero117' evolved from the human ability to speak with the voice, which in turn evolved from the human anatomy. Evolution is a process happening over a geological time scale.

You do your God no service for using Behe's argument which is not endorsed by science.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can, I am surprised at you for trotting out that lame old 'irreducible complexity' argument for intelligent design.'

Heh. Oh, B....you're so transparent! Are you really going to lead off with the old "shame" routine, "I'm surprised at you, you naughty boy..."

Sorry, not buying. No, it's not actually the irreducible complexity argument (which is not merely Behe's by the way, but I see your information isn't very good). That one is actually a very, very good argument. I'm surprised you've never thought about it long enough to realize how strong it actually is. It's actually empirically observable at a basic level to absolutely everyone, in fact...even to you, should you open your eyes and realize you stand in an irreducibly complex world.

But no, the argument is much more mathematical-empirical here. It's that it's not remotely reasonable to posit mere "chance + time" as an agency capable of producing the astronomical numbers of relations we empirically observe. And even the most sanguine scientist, if he's remotely frank, would have to admit that chance + time is an absurdly high-improbability hypothesis; he's perhaps just going to hope (in blind faith) that somehow, somebody, someday, will be able to invent a defensible explanation that he knows he presently lacks.

The complexity argument is a next-step argument, a follow-up. It comes into play only once the high-improbability argument has found some solution. Which, of course, it never has.

Cicero117' is a complex phenomenon like the human eye is a complex phenonenon. Yet the human eye evolved by simple stages beginning with a skin cell that was more sensitive to light than other skin cells.

Seriously, B? You're going to just assume your conclusion, and hope I won't notice that's all you're doing? That's just the classic fallacy of "begging the question," and no more. Are you going to try to sell me on the monkey-too-man theory next? (What did happen to that one, by the way? )

Evolution is a process happening over a geological time scale.

The problem with that claim, B., is that it makes the chance that mere chance was at work far less, not greater.

For if you suppose we got a lucky break somehow, and the two amino acids you have to assume popped into existence out of nothing met each other any joined somehow, then that is an act of astronomical good fortune. But it's just one. However, after that, since the time scale is drawn out by you, you have to imagine that not only that one unfathomably fortuitous event took place by chance, but that a quintillion other such miraculous "chances" also continued to happen, over billions of years, so that the whole process could just "work out by accident."

And this is what you think happened?

Honestly, B. If you're going to rely on imperious shaming to carry your argument for you, you should choose an argument that a person with a modicum of understanding would at least find remotely tenable.

[Skip]

Honestly, B. If you're going to rely on imperious shaming to carry your argument for you, you should choose an argument that a person with a modicum of understanding would at least find remotely tenable.

And what a waste of effort that would be!

[jayjacobus]

Numbers are a frame of reference for amounts.

amount = quantity

Without numbers amounts are imprecise.

You mean, if you didn't know numbers, three goats might really be four goats, or two and half goats, and you couldn't tell?
No, I'm pretty sure that amounts/quantities were the same before humans named them and will still be same when humans are extinct.

Using numbers in a sentence is an example, not a definition.

Unless the sentence is a definition, i.e. : A number is a verbal symbol for a quantity. A numeral is a visual symbol for a quantity. Mathematical signs are visual representations (symbols) of mathematical operations that express interactions and relationships between quantities. The verbal counterpart of these symbols are 'plus' 'times' 'square root', etc.

Saying that numbers are words, which are symbols, is not a definition because all words are symbols, not just numbers.

I already said that. Words are verbal symbols for real things, places, persons, processes, relationships and ideas. The numbers are the words we use for quantities.

A mathematician uses numbers in geometry, algebra. calculus, etc. but without a way to specify amounts each subject would be meaningless.

This is absolutely true. Also true: if humans had not invented the language of mathematics, there could be no disciplines of algebra, geometry, calculus, etc. And then where would the mathematicians be, eh? They might have to go herd goats and never be quite sure how many they had.

Neither amount nor quantity is a number. A number is a reference for amount and quantity.
A number is a word. A word is not a number.
You can change the reference to goats from 3 to 4 but you haven't created a goat.
What you post do not define numbers. They are somewhat true but irrelevant.

[Skip]

Neither amount nor quantity is a number.

Really? Well, duh!

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can, I am surprised at you for trotting out that lame old 'irreducible complexity' argument for intelligent design.'

Heh. Oh, B....you're so transparent! Are you really going to lead off with the old "shame" routine, "I'm surprised at you, you naughty boy..."

Sorry, not buying. No, it's not actually the irreducible complexity argument (which is not merely Behe's by the way, but I see your information isn't very good). That one is actually a very, very good argument. I'm surprised you've never thought about it long enough to realize how strong it actually is. It's actually empirically observable at a basic level to absolutely everyone, in fact...even to you, should you open your eyes and realize you stand in an irreducibly complex world.

But no, the argument is much more mathematical-empirical here. It's that it's not remotely reasonable to posit mere "chance + time" as an agency capable of producing the astronomical numbers of relations we empirically observe. And even the most sanguine scientist, if he's remotely frank, would have to admit that chance + time is an absurdly high-improbability hypothesis; he's perhaps just going to hope (in blind faith) that somehow, somebody, someday, will be able to invent a defensible explanation that he knows he presently lacks.

The complexity argument is a next-step argument, a follow-up. It comes into play only once the high-improbability argument has found some solution. Which, of course, it never has.

Cicero117' is a complex phenomenon like the human eye is a complex phenonenon. Yet the human eye evolved by simple stages beginning with a skin cell that was more sensitive to light than other skin cells.

Seriously, B? You're going to just assume your conclusion, and hope I won't notice that's all you're doing? That's just the classic fallacy of "begging the question," and no more. Are you going to try to sell me on the monkey-too-man theory next? (What did happen to that one, by the way? )

Evolution is a process happening over a geological time scale.

The problem with that claim, B., is that it makes the chance that mere chance was at work far less, not greater.

For if you suppose we got a lucky break somehow, and the two amino acids you have to assume popped into existence out of nothing met each other any joined somehow, then that is an act of astronomical good fortune. But it's just one. However, after that, since the time scale is drawn out by you, you have to imagine that not only that one unfathomably fortuitous event took place by chance, but that a quintillion other such miraculous "chances" also continued to happen, over billions of years, so that the whole process could just "work out by accident."

And this is what you think happened?

Honestly, B. If you're going to rely on imperious shaming to carry your argument for you, you should choose an argument that a person with a modicum of understanding would at least find remotely tenable.

No, I really do sometimes think you are a serious theologian. Theologians can understand the principles of evolution by stages and degrees. There was design , yes, but not intelligent design; it was design based on mathematical principles not design by an intelligent Being.

Countless occasions when the following did not happen :

he two amino acids you have to assume popped into existence out of nothing met each other any joined somehow, then that is an act of astronomical good fortune.

it was indeed astronomical good fortune and each leap ahead took place within geological time scales.