Book Excerpt: 'Are Numbers Real?'

Numbers..... What are they? There was a time when the number Zero was feared.

Life is odd...

It never does what you think it will does it.

My doctor told me to take a F-ck it all and call her in the morning.

that was a joke, you can laugh now... or not.
www.livescience.com...

ave you ever wondered what humans did before numbers existed? How they organized their lives, traded goods, or kept track of their treasures? What would your life be like without them?

Numbers began as simple representations of everyday things, but mathematics rapidly took on a life of its own, occupying a parallel virtual world. In "Are Numbers Real?," Brian Clegg explores the way that math has become more and more detached from reality, and yet despite this is driving the development of modern physics.

Below is an excerpt from "Are Numbers Real?" (St. Martin's Press, 2016). Not entirely surprisingly, infinity is a topic that never fails to stimulate the mind. Thoughts about the nature and existence of infinity go back all the way to the Ancient Greeks. They were certainly aware that a sequence of numbers like the positive integers, the simple counting numbers would go on forever.

If there were a biggest integer—call it max—then there surely could always be max + 1, max + 2, and so on. But the whole idea of infinity made the Greeks uncomfortable. Their word for it, apeiron, suggested chaos and disorder.

Geometry is the basis with which we experience reality.

a reply to: JesusXst

Numbers are just humanity's attempt to quantify the realty we experience.

That being said if there is ever going to be a universal language it will most lightly take the form of mathematics.

I think Arabs reintroduced the notion of zero to the western world around the time of the crusades if memory serves.

originally posted by: Darkmadness
Geometry is the basis with which we experience reality.

If.. Reality is what we believe it is.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: JesusXst

Numbers are just humanity's attempt to quantify the realty we experience.

That being said if there is ever going to be a universal language it will most lightly take the form of mathematics.

I think Arabs reintroduced the notion of zero to the western world around the time of the crusades if memory serves.

Yes you're correct on all accounts.

Yes to Quantify
Yes to Universal Linguistics
Yes to the Arabs reintroducing Zero

Numbers are a symbolic notation created by man and ascribed to information.

originally posted by: JesusXst

originally posted by: Darkmadness
Geometry is the basis with which we experience reality.

If.. Reality is what we believe it is.

Its a mental construction of ideas and projection of self.

As our projection of self increases so does that of the depth of the geometry of reality.

Self actualization is actually one of the most important aspects of any spiritual path.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Possibly a flawed form of notation to some degree.

Take apples for example, one apple plus another apple equals two apples right?

Yet the apples will somewhat differ from one another in both mass and dimension.

Seems to me the way we quantify things leaves a lot to be desired, then again im not a mathematician.

a reply to: andy06shake

Is it possible that our perspective on math could potential be a limit to our experience of the reality is presents?

a reply to: Darkmadness

Anythings possible, lets just say its not humanity's imagination that is limiting our understanding of reality or what ever it is we experience.

Science and physics seems to be the key through as apposed to superstition and religion.

a reply to: andy06shake

Take apples for example, one apple plus another apple equals two apples right?

Yet the apples will somewhat differ from one another in both mass and dimension.

There are 2 instances of the apple.

There are also numbers for the volume and the weight of the apples.

Depends on what is being described.

a reply to: andy06shake

I agree.

I believe that science is actually a magickal practice used to create and control paradigms.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

That may be true, but without it, Humanity wouldn't have come as far as it has.

a reply to: Darkmadness

This...
I agree with.

a reply to: Darkmadness

Yet the Human paradigm has changed very little throughout the ages while science has progressed to the point where it is increasing at an almost exponential rate. Even the information age in which we live has done little to change the human paradigm. We still think the same way and act in the same nonsensical childish manner to anything we find different.

a reply to: roadgravel

Yet we generally don't ascribe any of that other additional information, we just see two apples.

Just seems to me in our attempt to quantify and place value on things, something is somewhat lost in translation.

But like i said im not a mathematician and mathematics is our best attempt yet at understanding reality.

Numbers seem to be something they invented to screw us over with. Look at the numbers used to describe the value of gold, you can't eat it, you can't even make a tool out of it because it is too soft. So they invented gold coins out of it to promote the deception with numbers even farther. Think about this, value is a man made creation.

Those ancient people knew that three was more than one. If you tried to tell a caveman your one steak was better than his three steaks, you were in his stew pot for supper.

a reply to: JesusXst
Real Numbers are real, and Imaginary numbers are imaginary. However, imaginary numbers can do a good job of describing things in the real world, like complex power supplied by the electric company, which has to do with how much real power you get versus other types of power which can be calculated using imaginary numbers.

Real, Reactive, and Apparent Power

The apparent power is the vector sum of real and reactive power
Engineers use the following terms to describe energy flow in a system (and assign each of them a different unit to differentiate between them):

Real power (P) [Unit: W]
Reactive power (Q) [Unit: VAR]
Complex power (S)
Apparent Power (|S|) [Unit: VA]: i.e. the absolute value of complex power S.

So to the extent that imaginary numbers are used in the description of things in the real world like certain types of power, I suppose one could say that they aren't entirely imaginary or at least that they are a useful tool for the real world, but even real numbers are an abstraction until they are correlated with something in the real world.

It is interesting though that some mathematicians enjoy manipulating numbers without concern about whether they have any real-world correlation so some mathematics can get fairly abstract. That doesn't mean it stays that way though, some physicist might come along and find a use for it, like all of the higher dimension math that was developed before physicists understood some new applications for it.

a reply to: JesusXst

Yes, the Indians originated the Arabic number system we use today.

a reply to: andy06shake

I see it as what details are seen a important at that instant. The specifics of apples are not important if it's just how many are there.