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03 aug 06 "Can everything be explained with numbers?" everything except consciousness and its concepts (such as "numbers"). but things like "thoughts" and "feelings" can be. let's take something most would think is certainly inexplicable with numbers: love (the act of love). love is a sexual response to an attractive mate, followed by acts of care, motivated by reproductive needs (pair bonding provides better parenting), as well as social needs (friendship bonds increase survival rate, as one is more likely to defend someone he cares about). this is all behavior -- both cognitive (brain-based) and physical (visible action-based). the brain is made of tissues which generate electrical signals and store configurations of chemicals (neurotransmitters). tissue, utlimately, is made of subatomic particles, which can only be described mathematically -- they're too small to "see", so their physics needs to be defined in order for them to be assigned any definitonal properties at all. and the language of physics is math. consciousness is problematic, because we don't know what its origins are; one could say "in the brain", but this seems reductionist and oversimple. thoughts have been shown to have effects on the physical brain (certain thoughts cause certain areas of the brain to generate electricity), but the awareness that "this is me, this is my brain, and this is my body" imply a sort of "pure experience" that is independent of any thoughts, or cognitive processes. if we expand consciousness to an all-inclusive consciousness that is truly independant of the individual mind-brain, then everything becomes a manifstation of consciousness, or simply a part of it. from this perspective, nothing can be explained with numbers, since we're equating everything with the great mystery, and possibly the godhead. consciousness is the awareness that there is existence, that things are "real". this can't be reduced to mathematical description, because we aren't even sure what it is in the first place. all we can be sure about is that it does exist, because we can all feel it. most of the other things most people consider mysterious (like love) amount to cognitive behaviors, that are ultimately explainable with numbers. but consciousness is a different beast, even though we don't know what this beast might look like. furthermore, the fact that we don't know what it looks like is what ensures it's indefiniablity with numbers, and perhaps even language (a few philosophers have thrown it out altogether). "concepts" aren't reducable to numbers, either, unless you consider them to be an actual pattern of thoughts. someone thinking about justice on one certain occasion is reducable to numbers, but the overal concept of "justice" isn't, because it doesn't exist in space or time. unless something is "real", the language of math is granted no access. consciousness is the most fundamental example of this non-reality, but any general concept (that not-coincidentally arises from this consciousness) fits as well. of course, if we reduce "justice" to a set of actions, then it, too, is number-friendly, because those actions are real. ultimately, this becomes an existential question: does something "exost" if it's not "real"? justice manifests in certain specific actions, and it is the word you see on this screen. to this extent, it's describable. but the concept of justice is not. a problem here is that we can reduce anything we see to a concept -- "the concept of x" (of cars, of dogs, of humans, etc). these are the building blocks of consciousness -- not the particular thoughts ("i am thinking of a dog at this moment"). here's a good one: "i am thinking of the concept of concepts") -- this is real, a thing, that can be described physically, and ultimately, mathematically, because all it is is a series of electrical and chemical processes in the brain. but the concept itself, not the thought of the concept, remains as mysterious as (and perhaps synonymous with) consciousness. this is realm-of-ideas stuff: a world of concepts that exist independent of human thought; does a concept exist outside of the people who are conceiving of it? perhaps mathematicians don't care for plato. those same philosophers who are inclined to cast a "thumbs-down" on platonism also cast a "thumbs down" on consciousness, i bet. ultimately, this question amounts to: "is consciousness and its concepts real?" well, it depends on how you define "real". you might say "sure they're real -- i'm thinking about them right now". but what is this "them" that you are considering? does the "them" exist in the realm-of-ideas? the realm-of-ideas is consciousness, and consciousness is god. is god real? does god exist? if everything can be explained with numbers, then god is dead. and i'm not talking about "pissed-off yahweh of the desert" here -- i mean "god" as in "the sum of all reality as a single entity worthy of praise and reverence". i'm going to give my "proof" of god's existence again (the preceding implies the next). quanta behave randomly quanta are the little bits of reality described by quantum mechanics. this blog is "number one" of six hits on google for the search terms "pop quantum mechanics". so, consciousness might be "everything". does "everything" exist? sure. so yes -- everything can reduced to, explained with, or described by "numbers" (mathematics, you meant). those things that cannot be (consciousness and concepts -- also, the concept of consciousness, which is all it might be, anyway) are essentially descriptions of "all that is" (or bits of it -- like our old example, "justice"). that is if i'm right. if i'm full of sh*t, then consciousness and concepts are "things" that don't exist, ie, aren't describable in a specific, rigorous way that ultimately manifests in mathematics. |
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