The body too, is but numbers.

[Elmira]

100. 86. 250,000. 91. 52. Numbers. 2nd. 04/07/88. 1233. 76th. 17. 1660. Isn't it amazing how numbers shape our lives? 630 600 430. Sets of numbers dictate your future. You wake up to numbers. 5, the number of times you hit the snooze button. 8:36 A.M.; numbers that satisfy you. 8:39 A.M.; numbers at which you start your day. 8, the age at which you came so close to death. The engine screeched two inches from your body. You kept on walking… 40 contacts in your phone. 3 true friends. 1 person you can’t live without—yourself. You often realize nothing really matters. 10,10,10,10, letters in repetition. Such is life—an echo, dull, recurring. 911. 212. 90210. 1776. 2006. $150, the cost of your last pair of shoes. 10, the number of perfectly manicured fingers that are typing this sentence. 3.6 million starving children. You fall asleep to numbers. Countless numbers of raindrops hit your ceiling. 4, how many times the sun disappeared amongst the clouds the following day.


The body too is but numbers. Geometry, circles, angles. Numbers don’t just dictate our future, they form our existence. We are each made up of numbers, yet we are never really consciously aware of this fact. The latter is what makes this numerical concept so interesting. It’s intriguing, how much we don’t pick up on—yet how significantly these things relate to us. And yet…

Perhaps, numbers don’t exist. It's not that numbers rule our lives, but, rather, that we MADE numbers dictate our every thought, every move, every aspect of everything we do. The universe doesn't revolve around math, rather, we created math to revolve around our universe and explain that which we could not answer without the use of centralized concepts like numbers. We don't have to live by numbers if we don't want to, but we do it anyway. We, in essence, attribute to our own self-induced limitations.

Could it be that the we've convinced ourselves that the world revolves around this concept of counting that didn't exist until we brought it into being?


I've been wondering about nothing but numbers for the past month, as you can tell. I'm really excited to hear other people's opinion on the subject.

 

[FUK_BADBOY]

uhhive been wondering about how many numbers are gonna be on my paycheck for the past two weeks

 

[roaches]

wb

Life is pretty much a product of information.

Maybe the entire universe is.

Numbers are also information, the purest kind. Unless you want to be romantic, there's no better way to measure something than to quantify it.

If things aren't measured, then everything's the same. If everything's the same...

I can't imagine a universe like that.

This isn't an appropriate topic for a message board, though. Things like this should only be discussed in dorm rooms after large amounts of marijuana have been smoked.

 

[Rukas]

I dont think numbers didnt exist before we made them up, which is what you're getting at.

I mean, yes we did invent numbers, in terms of time and the calander and messurement, but we calibrated them to universal constents. There has always been 1 of something, or 2 of something, we just labelled it, if you get what I mean.

If you really want to bend your brain around something, consider that there is no such thing as time, we invented it to put an order to events, that really all things happen at the same time. Time is a way for our brain to deal with information one thing at a time, for lack of a better term.

 

[EDouble]

^its just numbers adjusted tho...from sun up to sun down earth revolvin round the sun etc. in with the bodies and heart beats. Timewas always there, numbers were aplied to it for organization

 

[Saint33]

I dont think numbers didnt exist before we made them up, which is what you're getting at.

I mean, yes we did invent numbers, in terms of time and the calander and messurement, but we calibrated them to universal constents. There has always been 1 of something, or 2 of something, we just labelled it, if you get what I mean.

If you really want to bend your brain around something, consider that there is no such thing as time, we invented it to put an order to events, that really all things happen at the same time. Time is a way for our brain to deal with information one thing at a time, for lack of a better term.

LOL @ bending your brain, its not that hard of a concept, we learnt it this year in grade 11 physics

 

[S O F I]

^Oh, really? Please do share your knowledge on the subject.

 

[Saint33]

thers not much to share, basically jus wut rukas said, time is made up by humans, to organise when certain events happen.

im sur thers more to it, but i still don think its that complicated of a concept

 

[Diaz]

If you really want to bend your brain around something, consider that there is no such thing as time, we invented it to put an order to events, that really all things happen at the same time. Time is a way for our brain to deal with information one thing at a time, for lack of a better term.

Yes, and imagine if there was no sun, there would be no "Day and Night". It would be the same time, all the time.

 

[HitEmUp21]

But there is two different things, like we can easily quantify something like two tangible things, but what about abstract things that aren't easily measured, for example: 'progress', 'happiness' etc.

Can everything be measured accurately?

 

[Jokerman]

Could it be that the we've convinced ourselves that the world revolves around this concept of counting that didn't exist until we brought it into being?

In 1921, Einstein was wondering a similar question. He wrote, "How is it possible that mathematics, a product of human thought that is independent of experience, fits so excellently the objects of physical reality?"

Well, Albert, that's because we are living in a mathematical universe. Whoever made it used math in its creation. And being a part of that creation, math is also inherently a part of us. Counting and an ability to conceptualize numbers, is hard-wired into our brains. We are literally born with a faculty for learning math, much like our ability to learn language.

So many times when mathematicians have come up with theories and abstract descriptions that don't seem to reflect anything in reality, time proves otherwise. In the nineteenth century, mathematician Bernard Riemann discovered an entirely new system of geometry, but no one knew that it was any more than just a mathematical curiosity until Einstein used it in his general relativity theory of gravity.

In the 1950s, physicists Chen Yong and Robert Mills became enraptured with an esoteric group of mathematical entities they subsequently called gauge fields. Yang and Mills were drawn to gauge fields because there was an inscrutable "rightness" about them, but no one knew that these splendidly elegant mathematical entities had any practical application until the 1970s. Now it's believed that virtually all of the forces of nature may be describable in terms of gauge fields.

Why is this so? Why, while sitting at a desk, is it possible to discover the universe in your head? Why, while exploring constructs of pure information in the landscape of our thoughts, do we encounter these resonances of familiarity? Why, in the words of the late physicist Sir Arthur Eddington, have we discovered a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown, and when we reconstruct the creature responsible for that footprint, we find that it is our own?

It's because when we look out at the stars, we see the same laws, the same tremendous organizations that also govern thought. We are connected to the universe, to the distant past, and no doubt to the remote future as well, in a way that goes far beyond unavoidable human bias.

 

[Cooper]

1.618 033 988 749 894 848

 

[ill-matic]

i agree with El

humanity has simply devised the most logically known method of explaining our environment - mathematics. it's what fits for us and it is what we are most familiar with so we have only utilised this solution. but then again we are possibly remaining ignorant to the other possible solutions which may or may not exist that would also explain our surroundings to the extent and accuracy of mathematics.

i believe that mathematics is simply just in a sense "one way of looking at it".

 

[Elmira]

^I like how you mentioned that we are possibly remaining ignorant to other possible solutions. I sometimes wonder if how we percieve the universe is the way it actually is, or if it's just the way our brain interprets the lightwaves and sound inputs...? Have we constructed an interpretation of a universe that, in fact, differs from what we think it truly is?

I dont think numbers didnt exist before we made them up, which is what you're getting at.

I mean, yes we did invent numbers, in terms of time and the calander and messurement, but we calibrated them to universal constents. There has always been 1 of something, or 2 of something, we just labelled it, if you get what I mean.

That's sort of like a "What came first? The chicken or the egg?," "Does a falling tree make noise in the forest?" thing. If noone was there to count them, weren't they just in being and not in numbers? Ah that confuses me; all this over-thinking has got to stop.

 

[Dirty_Sock]

While I believe that numbers play a big role in life as far as understanding the concept of time, measurement, etc. I don't feel numbers are necessarily the 'key' to understanding this universe.
There are more things to learn in life than how many numbers it takes to create the perfect shape of my body. While it is interesting to know that we can apply numbers to everything, I'd much rather know that life isn't about the 'theory of gravity' (although it is nice to know it). It's more about the 'theory of life'. And I don't mean "Did God make us or did nature make us?". More like "What is my boundaries?".
While scientists are discovering how the world turns, how the sun burns, etc. They should be trying to discover how miracles happen. Act of god or miracle of the mind. They should find out how telekinesis happens. Study how twins (not exactly a proven fact) have a "spiritual/mental" connection that allows them to sometimes know when another is hurt or in trouble. Scientists should study how people such as Nostradamus predicted the future. These are the things we should study. Not "how many stars are in the sky?" or "how many numbers does it take to create my shoe?".

 

[Elmira]

Well, Albert, that's because we are living in a mathematical universe. Whoever made it used math in its creation. And being a part of that creation, math is also inherently a part of us. Counting and an ability to conceptualize numbers, is hard-wired into our brains. We are literally born with a faculty for learning math, much like our ability to learn language.

It's almost like math is another aspect of our abilities that we have to pull into ourselves, but it is genetically coded there nonetheless. If you think about it, math doesn't make sense. Math in itself, is nonsense, and yet we understand it. Enchanting stuff isn't it?


Mr. Jokerman, dancing to the nightingale tune, is your yellow the same as my yellow? I'd like to elaborate on our perception of the universe, and read what you have to say.

Yellow isn’t really yellow, we know this as a fact. We feel it, we see it, and we think it is what we see, but who says the way our eyes interpret light is the way it actually is? Colors are just the exclusion of matter absorbing a particular light wave. We interpret it as yellow. So what does a pencil actually look like, especially if color doesn't exist anywhere but in our minds?

Is physical matter actually...physical?

 

[Dirty_Sock]

^lol. I had a question like that myself.

Isn't it possible that my yellow looks the same as my brown to someone else?

 

[Jokerman]

My yellow looks red. Maybe that's just my graphics card.

Color is a function of light and biology, so, in a sense, no two ppl see the same color exactly the same. However, most see it close enough to others so that we are talking about the same thing when we use words like yellow. What color an object is depends on the material in the object and the light it absorbs or reflects. That's a property of the object. How we perceive that property is a property of our eyes. It's really not arbitrary.

"Is physical matter actually...physical?"

Well, matter = energy. So matter is energy in a solid form.

 

[Diaz]

Yea, nothing really has an actual color. Just depends on the light. Just imagine if the sun was a black light, we'd all be blue LAWL

 

[Khaled]

i think numbers aren't there to explain anything, but rather to give a kind of order to the world. It's the only thing than can be applied to anything, concrete or abstract.
Scientists have long een trying to reduce all physical knowledge to one formula or at least one unified theory.

Also, infinity, time, these can only be conceived in terms of numbers. Mathemathics is the only thing that can make people go beyond known concepts through extrapolation.

So many times when mathematicians have come up with theories and abstract descriptions that don't seem to reflect anything in reality, time proves otherwise. In the nineteenth century, mathematician Bernard Riemann discovered an entirely new system of geometry, but no one knew that it was any more than just a mathematical curiosity until Einstein used it in his general relativity theory of gravity.

In the 1950s, physicists Chen Yong and Robert Mills became enraptured with an esoteric group of mathematical entities they subsequently called gauge fields. Yang and Mills were drawn to gauge fields because there was an inscrutable "rightness" about them, but no one knew that these splendidly elegant mathematical entities had any practical application until the 1970s. Now it's believed that virtually all of the forces of nature may be describable in terms of gauge fields.

Why is this so? Why, while sitting at a desk, is it possible to discover the universe in your head? Why, while exploring constructs of pure information in the landscape of our thoughts, do we encounter these resonances of familiarity? Why, in the words of the late physicist Sir Arthur Eddington, have we discovered a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown, and when we reconstruct the creature responsible for that footprint, we find that it is our own?

It's because when we look out at the stars, we see the same laws, the same tremendous organizations that also govern thought. We are connected to the universe, to the distant past, and no doubt to the remote future as well, in a way that goes far beyond unavoidable human bias.

:thumb: :thumb: