🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5nkvou$e8g$1...@unlisys.unlisys.net>, wo...@berlin.snafu.de says...
> ba...@borealis.cs.uregina.ca (John  Bayko) writes:
> 
> >In article <5ni3s5$1s...@elmo.cadvision.com>,
> >    John W Hall <Digita...@cadvision.com> wrote:
> >>wo...@berlin.snafu.de (Wolfgang Schwanke) wrote:
> >>
> >>>Mathematics is a made up set of rules. Made up by humans.
> >>>It's not intrinsic to the universe.
> >>
> >>Maybe, but the number of clockwise spirals of sunflower seeds, and the
> >>number of anti-clockwise spirals in the same head, are adjacent
> >>numbers in the Fibbonacci Series.
> 
> >    Same with pinecones...
> 
> I don't know what that is all about. Anyway:
> 
> >    If mathematics is made up by humans, did the number of Earths
> >vary between 0 and infinity until the first neanderthal learned to
> >count to one?
> 
> You just introduced a new concept "number" in that sentence.
> It's an abstract and made up concept which is part of that
> human invention called "maths". You used that concept to
> describe what was going on in the real world, similar to language.
> But that doesn't make that language the same as the real world.

Actually most creatures can count, even without a set of names for the
numbers.  There was a recent study done that found a close correlation
between the complexity of the cortex(?) and the size of the herd/band/
group.  Using this correlation it was possible accuately predict the
optimum size for a large number of animal groupings.

It turned out that the group size was also the approximate number that
a given creature could count to.  eg. A lion could recognize the diff-
erence between 10 and 15  but not 25 and 30.  Using the correlation it
was determined that the optimum size for humans was about 300, the usual
maximum size for a village.  Beyond 300 or so, humans create bureacracies/
complex government systems to manage the numbers.  

Before anybody says anything about creatures that form large herds/flocks,
I believe that that they were also covered by networked relationships and
very simple rule based herding/flocking behavior patterns.  eg. follow the
creature in front.

> 
> That didn't stop the physical stuff from doing the same stuff it
> always does ... but there was nobody thinking about it in any abstract
> concept such as "maths". That means, until "the first neanderthal
> learned to count" there were no numbers.
> 
> [,,,]
> 
> >    In other words, mathematical relationships existed long before
> >humans did - the intensity of light still varied by 1/d^2 (or the
> >Earth would have been plasma), water was still 1/8 hydrogen by mass,
> >and pi was still pi.
> 
> Relationships existed, but they're not mathematical.
> You confuse our model of talking about the real world with that
> real world. It's a very good model at that, and the only
> one we have to express a lot of situations in daily life or in science.
> That fact makes it so essential to us, and that's why it's so hard
> to understand that maths is just our mental model of the universe,
> but not part of the universe.
> 
> Greetings
> 
> wolfgang

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