I’ve been thinking about what you said and rather than assuming you are just resisting what I’m trying to say, it occurred to me that maybe I need to dig a bit deeper to express my point.
The for some mathematical equations order of operations impacts the outcome of the result.
One could argue that 10=10 no matter how you arrived at that number.
However, if the equations are intertwined with other equations through variables, this may no longer be the case. And, the more formulas are intertwined together the less likely that is to be the case.
Am I making sense?
No this doesn't make sense, and it doesn't address my helium point. Let me give you the short answer and then the long answer.
You seem to be hinting at two sorts of equations:
10·
x÷
x=10 for all nonzero
x
√100=10
The first equation is true. It's pretty much that simple and there's nothing more to say, really. The second equation is true. The fact that √100=-10 as well does not change this. I'm not sure what equation you have in mind that would show that 10 is "kind of 10 but not really."
Here's the formal answer:
Mathematics is nothing but assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow. (As an aside, nothing can actually be proven from assumptions and definitions... but that's an issue for another day.) And while mathematics is a language, it differs from common language.
In common language, all words are defined in terms of other words. This technically leaves everything undefined, and there is no way to avoid this issue (hence my nihilism). Mathematics deals with this problem in its own way: instead of having everything circularly defined, mathematical symbols are defined in terms of undefined, primitive symbols.
For example, consider the ordered pair (0, 1). First, let's define an ordered pair (
a,
b) in terms of the set: (
a,
b)={
a, {
a,
b}}. An ordered triple (
a,
b,
c) would be {
a, {
a,
b}, {
a,
b,
c}}. So you can see how an ordered
n-tuple would be constructed.
But what about 0 and 1? How are they defined?
We define the natural numbers as follows:
0={}=Ø
1={Ø}
2={Ø, {Ø}}
and so on.
Simply put, anything that is actually "10" will be encoded into a set like this with 10 elements. If there is a variable present, then whatever we're discussing is not 10.
But what is a variable and what is Ø? These are primitive symbols. They have no actual meaning. Intuitively we understand the notion of the variable and of the set: that the first is a placeholder for some number and that the second is a collection of things. But a placeholder for a number doesn't mean much until we know what a number is, and a number is defined in terms of sets. A set is a collection of elements. What's an element, though? An element is a member of a set. To avoid this circularity, sets are left undefined and element are defined as members of sets.
So the reality is that it's worse than what I told you above. I said that mathematics is nothing but assumptions, definitions, and the conclusions that follow. But the definitions themselves are ultimately undefined. So really, mathematics is nothing but assumptions, meaningless symbols, and "conclusions" that "follow." Mathematics is literally just the pushing of symbols... and yet the world of mathematics is rich with more wonders than we can imagine.
But even still, 10=10.
Ok, instead of essence, let’s look at it as data. Could you be summarized in a data set? I mean a massive exhaustive data set that included everything about you. Everything you ever did, every thought you ever had, every particle your body ever consisted of, etc. I mean everything. That combination of data would be an accurate description of who you are/were. In fact, if it was “possible” to “run” that data again, it would be you. Even if the data was deleted, that combination of data would still be you. You could argue that the data is abstract, but it still exists. That data combination is simply a fact.
Data is ultimately meaningless as I showed above, but even if we were to ignore that, it's still the case that data which characterizes me completely isn't actually me. Similarly, consider a definition of a ball that completely characterizes what a ball is. Is this definition a ball? No. It's just a definition. Data is not physical reality.
Well, except data might be physical reality. I would say that we probably do exist in a simulation, and that we are probably lines of code. But then what you'd really be describing is metadata, and not the data that is me. Metadata is not the same as the data it's describing.
In any case, the fact that you could run the code that characterizes me while I sit there and watch it all happening pretty much disproves your idea.
I think I addressed this in the earlier post as well.
Not that I saw.