Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Math > God
I owned my Christian friend today by telling him that 1+1=2 and even God has to bow down to that truth or else he is incorrect..
does 1+1=2 or logical truths...dominate all reailty?
Is that why Buddhism will be discovered everywhere throughout the universe, forever.. because it is a logical truth that people will inevitably be steered towards by logical conlusions??
and if you say well perhaps quantum mechanics don't adhere to that shit, well maybe they do, in a deeper way than we understand now so wait for that
does 1+1=2 or logical truths...dominate all reailty?
Is that why Buddhism will be discovered everywhere throughout the universe, forever.. because it is a logical truth that people will inevitably be steered towards by logical conlusions??
and if you say well perhaps quantum mechanics don't adhere to that shit, well maybe they do, in a deeper way than we understand now so wait for that
0
Comments
More to the point, why do you feel compelled to challenge your friend's spiritual views?
its okay to let a child believe in santa claus,
but since we are a bit too old for that, it may be beneficial to his existence if he realized.
or...ALL OF THEM until we stop rebirthing.. if u wanna be a stickler for semantics
And, conversely when westerners think of Christians they are prone to think of the typical "Bible thumper" yelling about the devil, accusing you of sin, and demanding you change to their way...
Don't know about you, but I'd rather the image of Buddhists remain as the solemn Dalai Lama... You know what I mean?
(I'm really not accusing you of being a Buddhist "bible thumper" just trying to help you remember why people usually are initially drawn to Buddhism
My wife's grandmother was a really unintelligent woman. She married an abusive alcoholic and it wasn't until she had a child she realized she had to leave this man. So she left him. Then she realized she was an unfit mother and gave custody of her only son to her deeply flawed parents. Her son never really forgave her for this.
She managed to work hard and kicked an addiction to alcohol and tobacco and invested in real estate and then proceeded to rent the real estate out to tenants who couldn't or wouldn't pay rent yet she never evicted anyone.
When she died her funeral was attended only by immediate family and really they were only there out of a sense of obligation.
This was a woman who completely expended herself to serve others and a higher purpose, but who was always viewed as stupid for it. None of the people who took advantage of her had the decency to show up at her funeral, but there are dozens of families who are better off today because of her selfless generosity.
Was she logical? No, not even remotely. Was she greater than Math? Damn right she was. You and I are not even worthy to look at her shoes let alone try and fill them. We may possess a higher IQ, we may pay our bills on time (she never could bother to remember such things), but if we aren't as selfless and compassionate as her, what good is our intelligence and logic?
To demonstrate why 1+1=2 isn't universally true but rather a human abstraction;
If I add 1 glass of water to 1 glass of water in a bowl, I'll have 1 bowl of water, not two glasses of water. 1+1=1
It is a logical truth for human beings that suffering comes from having an unreal view and expectations of the world. Aliens might not think in the same way as humans.
It appears that your understanding of Christianity (and maybe theism in general) is pretty limited. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity (that is, arguably, the oldest version of Christianity), the darkness that Moses faced on the mountain is seen as an allegory, alluding to the idea that one must abandon reason to meet God, that God cannot be approached or held by our rational minds. Sufism is also, in a sense, anti-rational.
What do you think zen koans are all about? They certainly aren't used to give people the comfort of rational certainty. Quite the opposite.
>Is that why Buddhism will be discovered everywhere throughout the universe, forever.. because it is a logical truth that people will inevitably be steered towards by logical conlusions??
Funny, I've read this on Muslim and Orthodox Christian forums, where people feel they've found the 'Truth' by following their logical conclusions. It's easy to convince ourselves that we have 'the Truth', all logical and consistent, and just as easy to de-convince ourselves when contrary evidence arises. There are excellent arguments for both atheism and theism, for example. I guess what I'm saying is that Buddhism isn't 'the Truth'. The Buddha even likened his teachings to a raft that is to be abandoned after one crosses to the other shore. In my opinion, mystics of other traditions have 'crossed to the other shore' on different rafts.
"He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know."
Lao Tzu
Until you try to divide by 0 or comprehend the nature of ∞.
Just a thought.
Truly, two people separated by a common language
Because the British don't know how to use English, which is why we broke away from them.
You know you have to specify your sources here. How do we know you didn't just make that up, or maybe it's just your opinion.
Sheesh.
This ^.
einsteins theory of relativity breaks down at the sub atomic level. this doesnt mean his formula isnt universal, it broke down because there were forces going on he didnt know about. now we have quantum mechanics to explain it.
Math is a lens with which to look at the world. As such, it is an abstraction.
With quantum mechanics it's not just a matter of previously unknown forces. It's also probabilistic, not deterministic. With black holes...who knows. But the point should be we can never be truly sure just how far our abstractions can serve us, in advance.
IMHO, mathematics and science are systems of observation of the world and the universe and are therefore no better or worse than other systems of observation, except as regards their relative correctness. They are abstractions, just like interpretations are abstractions and languages, including the language of mathematics, are just abstractions. The observations of the laws of quantum physics and other sciences are just that- observations. As an observation, a mathematical formula or construct has no more or less validity than the the observation that "I just farted". It's all abstraction and language. Instead of fingers pointing at the moon, we have fingers pointing at the black hole.
Sorry, the fact that it breaks down on the sub-atomic level does, by definition, mean that his theory is not universal. If it were we wouldn't need quantum mechanics to describe the sub-atomic world. In reality both theories, general relativity and quantum theory, are both wrong as they can't be combined. But that doesn't mean they're useless, because a theory is simply an explanation that fits the observations. When the Theory of Everything is discovered, general relativity and quantum theory will become the obsolete forerunners.
:om:
The argument assumes that God is beyond or separate from logic. The counter-argument is that God is not separate from logic, just as He is not separate from existence. If logic is an attribute of God's nature, then mathematical logic is dependent on God and not the opposite.
*nod* Asking whether God can subvert 1+1=2 is like asking whether he can make a rock so big he can't lift it, or whether he can make round squares. Or whether he can eat so much secret sauce even he gets sick (the <i>Simpsons</i> version).
One way of looking at it is that he's limited, and therefore not completely omnipotent. A counter-argument says that he dictates, or dictated the laws of the universe (including math, physics, etc) and abides by said laws himself (which IMO is really quite self-restrained, and sporting, of an omnipotent being :winkc:).
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_omnipotence">paradox of omnipotence</a> is an oldie-but-a-goodie. I took a class in religious studies at my uni called "The Problem of Evil" which explored many of these arguments and counter-arguments..easily one of the most intriguing and fun courses I've taken, and I highly recommend taking it or something like it to <strike>religion nerds</strike> anyone interested in this sort of thing.
Just guessing, but maybe as an abbreviation of 'mathematics'? They just keep the plural..
cutting something in half does not give you two of those things because you have not created more of it. you have only separated it into fractions of what it used to be.
x=1.999..
10x=19.999..
9x=10x-x=19.999..-1.999..=18
9x=18
x=18/9=2
1.999..=2
That confused me a lot the first time I saw it.
It's just because x is trying to represent an infinite amount of 9's which isn't properly represented and thus the problem gets screwed up. It is possible to find problem in mathematics, but it's more complicated than that.
Objection-1: Is this talk of the "truth" of reality about reality itself or merely about our appraisal of the structure of reality?
How can one judge which observer of "reality" has relatively unclouded judgment to be able to see through the symbols handed down through his culture to the thing-in-itself? —leaving aside the question of how much the symbols and layers of societal values super-add an even more complex corpus of things to deal with. It seems to me that making ultimate reality have to coincide with our own mirroring of reality (our reason) rather begs the question: How long do you think you can sit so smugly on that High Horse?
Moreover, everything depends on the perspective of the appraiser. For the person dealing with numbers, 1 + 1 does indeed equal 2; however, for the person dealing with those two digits as mere numerals, 1 + 1 = 11. Likewise, if a person has had mystical experiences, he will no doubt be convinced of a certain outspoken atheist's ignorance —in the same way that someone from England would regard as ignorant someone who scoffed at the idea of the existence of such a country.
The approach to this first problem, I believe, is largely governed by temperament/ability, with a lot of societal input, largely linguistic and mathematical.
Objection-2: If we're talking about the real by means of abstractions (i.e., words), how can we get everyone on the same page? In other words, how can Experience —as individual and varying and unique as it is for each of us— be communicated so that we can be assured we're even talking about the same things or "realities" in the first place? How can we know whether we are?
This question is problematic to me and seems to be the reason people seem to be talking past each other all the time. More often than not it seems to me that most people are simply incapable of really emptying their minds of their own busy thoughts to be able to let new ones in and actually hear them.
The approach to this second problem, I believe, is largely governed by an individual's search for truth, relevance, and deeper companionship. It is, therefore, best served by a flexible and caring approach. It differs from the rather more manipulative and assertive approach I outlined in my first objection in degree of focus, rather than in kind. Both approaches can use real measuring tools, but the second approach focusses more on the measurers than on the measured, to some degree.
0.999.. is 1 no matter how you look at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...#Digit_manipulation
Here's a 29 page paper if you want to look at it more in-depth:
http://www.math.umt.edu/TMME/vol7no1/TMME_vol7no1_2010_article1_pp.3_30.pdf
And some more references for good measure:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.1501
http://www.tikalon.com/blog/blog.php?article=zero_point_nine
Think about it like this. 1/9 is 1 with an infinite amount of 1's after the decimal. It can NEVER accurately represent the fraction, as there is no such number as infinity. 1/9 only exists in fraction form. It is impossible to represent with decimals. That's why 1/9 in decimal form times 9 doesn't equal 1 like it does in fraction form. They're not the same numbers.
It's the same as 1/3 x 3 =.999... if you put it in decimal form. It will always work like that if you use a concept of infinity, because there is no such number.
You can prove anything if you're going to use the concept of infinity. Take the number infinity. Then take the number 10 x infinity. They're the same, therefore 10=1
Decimal form or not, it's the same number.
If there's no such number as infinity, then how many steps will it take to reach the end of the room if you take half of your previous step every time? If there's no infinity, then how dense is the singularity of a black hole?
infinity is a theoretical number. it's only a concept. Because there's always infinity+1
Thinking is underrated.
I agree. People on here act like thinking is like bad or something. You can't understand anything without thinking.
Anyway, I was only trying to throw off people who claimed Math>God, since 'God' has a whole heap of puzzles for us which mess around with our understanding of logic.
I object! The first mathematician was no fool!
I so disslike math so I bring some learned bias in my words please excuse me.
God Buddha Vishnu Shiva are irrelevant. Its our personal evolution and progress on and on that's the way as I can only define it. Its not important so much to convert but to teach! Wisdom is to be given away not hoarded its the best way to keep going and not die off like the do do bird
I know that's hard to believe. That's because it's very difficult for humans to admit we're NOT onto something bigger than ourselves. It's only difficult because we don't have any idea how unfathomably HUGE things are.