Is there a materialist explanation of mathematics?

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In the absence of mathematics, how much science would there be?

I find it difficult to understand how people can believe that progress in science and technology are evidence in support of materialist philosophy, unless they are unaware of the important role of mathematics in the history of science and in present-day science.
 
Mathematics is one of the ways human beings make sense of the world. It doesn’t really exist substantially outside of ideas. You can not walk outside and see “two”. But you can ascribe that idea to a group of ducks, since they have an apparent number of instances.
 
blase6 said:
Mathematics is one of the ways human beings make sense of the world.
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Science is one of the ways that human beings make sense of the world. However, we cannot conclude that science tells us more about how human beings think than about how the universe actually operates.
blase6 said:
It doesn’t really exist substantially outside of ideas.
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Substance and material are very similar in meaning. I believe that the positive, whole numbers (that we represent using the symbols: 1, 2, 3, etc.) do exist. Of course, they are intangible, rather than material. However, it does not follow that they are merely inventions of human beings.
 
There is no materialist explanation of mathematics. When you open somebody’s brain the numbers 3, 9, and 24 do not fall out on the table.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
There is no materialist explanation of mathematics.
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Not true. The method of differential calculus, including differentiation and integration, consists of a mathematical representation of certain natural processes and therefore is most productively understood in the materialist real world situation where this method finds its application.
 
Tomdstone said:
Not true. The method of differential calculus, including differentiation and integration, consists of a mathematical representation of certain natural processes and therefore is most productively understood in the materialist real world situation where this method finds its application.
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Matter contains atoms. How many atoms constitute the number 3? How many atoms here ∞ ?

Because the universe is finite, there is no such thing as a material infinite, so there is no materialist explanation for infinity.
 
Tomdstone said:
is most productively understood in the materialist real world situation where this method finds its application.
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It sounds as though you are talking about the role of examples in learning and teaching particular mathematical topics. In a real-world situation, there is an enormous mass of details that could be determined and described, and that would not be of interest or help to students. I suspect that what you actually have in mind is a conceptualization of a real-world situation.

You started your post with the words “Not true.” However, I do not see that there is actually any disagreement if you are talking about learning and teaching particular mathematical topics. The title of this thread is seeking a materialist explanation of mathematics itself, not a demonstration of how examples can be helpful in learning particular mathematical topics.

A materialist explanation of mathematics would explain – within a framework of materialist philosophy – what mathematical facts are and how it is possible to acquire knowledge of them.

It is obvious that if some people are experiencing difficulty in learning elementary facts about fractions of positive integers, then it would be no solution for them to try to study neuroscience and electro-chemical reactions in the brains of people who are thinking about fractions. They do not have the mathematical background needed to understand neuroscience.

However, it seems that some people imagine that – although that approach would fail – it would involve looking in the right place. According to materialist philosophy, mathematicians somehow succeed by looking under a lamp-post where there are no mathematical keys. Somehow they find the keys where there are no keys. Meanwhile, people who do not understand elementary mathematics cannot find mathematical keys by studying neuroscience, but they are allegedly looking where the keys are.

Maybe the distinction is: light for the mind versus light for the eyes. Of course, “light for the mind” is a metaphor, but some people seem to think that mind is a metaphor, and that only such material things as brains can actually exist.
 
I’m not sure I understand the question. An account or description of how mathematical languages and notations were formed isn’t an argument for or against a materialist philosophy.

But check out the book “Where Math Comes From.” I think the first few chapters will be sufficient for getting the ideal behind the book. For more modern math notations the writings of the people that invented them are still around.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Because the universe is finite, there is no such thing as a material infinite, so there is no materialist explanation for infinity.
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The meaning of Infinity varies with the domain to which it is applied. Often times it is a notation for a large but not endless quantity compared to the scale at which one is working. Of course there are other uses.
 
Originally Posted by Charlemagne III:
“Because the universe is finite, there is no such thing as a material infinite, so there is no materialist explanation for infinity.”
ThinkingSapien said:
The meaning of Infinity varies with the domain to which it is applied. Often times it is a notation for a large but not endless quantity compared to the scale at which one is working. Of course there are other uses.
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Among those other uses of the word or notation is the meaning “not finite.” That meaning is rather obviously what Charlemagne III had in mind. I conclude that “finite, but large” is not what Charlemagne III had in mind.
 
PseuTonym said:
It is obvious that if some people are experiencing difficulty in learning elementary facts about fractions of positive integers, then it would be no solution for them to try to study neuroscience and electro-chemical reactions in the brains of people who are thinking about fractions.
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Neuroscience and electro-chemical reactions are not, strictly speaking, mathematical subjects. But fractions are. Fractions can be explained by looking at a pie and then dividing it up into fractional pieces. So the mathematics of fractions does have a materialist explanation.
 
Ive always thought it interesting how mathematics proves things about our world and ourselves. I read an article awhile back where this brilliant guy was saying thru certain mathematical equations, he said humans are capable of self-teleportation, and some other crazy things!

While I dont think we are at the point of being able to understand, or access this right now, anything is possible in the future.
 
PseuTonym said:
In the absence of mathematics, how much science would there be?

I find it difficult to understand how people can believe that progress in science and technology are evidence in support of materialist philosophy, unless they are unaware of the important role of mathematics in the history of science and in present-day science.
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Mathematics is the language of the code/absolute truth with the application of how the physical reality/illusion could look like. Our physical reality is not the only one.
 
PseuTonym said:
Among those other uses of the word or notation is the meaning “not finite.” That meaning is rather obviously what Charlemagne III had in mind. I conclude that “finite, but large” is not what Charlemagne III had in mind.
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I understand that, but many uses of “infinite” in math don’t necessarily conform to what Charles had in mind. The word was used in response to a statement about Calculus. He may find that another usage of the word is more applicable to what had been seen as an unexplained phenomenon in Calculus. The use of an infinity sign in a mathematical expression isn’t an indication that the person is saying some physical quantity is not finite.
 
PseuTonym said:
It sounds as though you are talking about the role of examples in learning and teaching particular mathematical topics. In a real-world situation, there is an enormous mass of details that could be determined and described, and that would not be of interest or help to students. I suspect that what you actually have in mind is a conceptualization of a real-world situation.

You started your post with the words “Not true.” However, I do not see that there is actually any disagreement if you are talking about learning and teaching particular mathematical topics. The title of this thread is seeking a materialist explanation of mathematics itself, not a demonstration of how examples can be helpful in learning particular mathematical topics.

A materialist explanation of mathematics would explain – within a framework of materialist philosophy – what mathematical facts are and how it is possible to acquire knowledge of them.

It is obvious that if some people are experiencing difficulty in learning elementary facts about fractions of positive integers, then it would be no solution for them to try to study neuroscience and electro-chemical reactions in the brains of people who are thinking about fractions. They do not have the mathematical background needed to understand neuroscience.

However, it seems that some people imagine that – although that approach would fail – it would involve looking in the right place. According to materialist philosophy, mathematicians somehow succeed by looking under a lamp-post where there are no mathematical keys. Somehow they find the keys where there are no keys. Meanwhile, people who do not understand elementary mathematics cannot find mathematical keys by studying neuroscience, but they are allegedly looking where the keys are.

Maybe the distinction is: light for the mind versus light for the eyes. Of course, “light for the mind” is a metaphor, but some people seem to think that mind is a metaphor, and that only such material things as brains can actually exist.
Click to expand...
The real materialist world consists of some events which are described by mathematics. For example, we see pies being cut up and think of fractions; the mental contemplation of distance, velocity and acceleration resulted in the development of differential and integral calculus. The base 10 system comes from the fact that humans have 10 fingers. Of course the Mayans used base 20 because they included the toes. Even today the French will say quatre vingt for 80. Once a base of mathematics has been constructed from these elementary materialist observations, the mathematician then gets more and more abstract with algebras, transfinite cardinals, differential forms, wedge products, change of bases, Riemann surfaces, laurent series. shift operators, etc. Even though these concepts may have been developed at least partially without reference to the real world, in the end, mathematics has been shown to have great power in explaining materialist phenomena.
 
Numbers are infinite but are all negative left of zero. Whats negative time?
 
Tomdstone said:
Neuroscience and electro-chemical reactions are not, strictly speaking, mathematical subjects.
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According to materialist philosophy, there are no such things as positive integers. Of course, it is not possible to study what does not exist. Therefore, according to materialist philosophy, the best that one could do is to study the thoughts of people who are thinking about positive integers or other mathematical objects.
Tomdstone said:
Fractions can be explained by looking at a pie and then dividing it up into fractional pieces. So the mathematics of fractions does have a materialist explanation.
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In using the phrase “materialist explanation” in the title of this thread, I had no intention of referring to an explanation that simply happens to make reference to material objects, such as pies.

I had and still have a question, and I used words in an attempt to formulate my question.

For you, I now rewrite the question:

On the assumption that the only actually existing things are such material or physical entities as matter, energy, space, time, etc., how does one explain what a mathematical fact is? Similarly, given a materialist framework of philosophy, how does one explain how people acquire knowledge of mathematical facts, in the sense of original research and not merely study of the results of research that was conducted by others?
 
According to materialist philosophy, there are no such things as positive integers. Of course, it is not possible to study what does not exist. Therefore, according to materialist philosophy, the best that one could do is to study the thoughts of people who are thinking about positive integers or other mathematical objects.
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Than explain gravity and energy

So, what follows from this?

1]When something is material, it is composed of matter and energy.

2]Gravity, as defined by science, is a force or law of attraction not composed of matter and energy.

3]Therefore, gravity is immaterial.
On the assumption that the only actually existing things are such material or physical entities as matter, energy, space, time,
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This is obviously wrong as per right above.
 
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