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God created the real numbers

(www.ethanheilman.com)
136 points Bogdanp | 4 comments | 29 Aug 25 15:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.664s | source
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getnormality ◴[29 Aug 25 20:01 UTC] No.45068734[source]▶
All math is just a system of ideas, specifically rules that people made up and follow because it's useful.

I'm so used to thinking this way that I don't understand what all the fuss is about, mathematical objects being "real". Ideas are real but they're not real in the way that rocks are.

Whenever there's a mysterious pattern in nature, people have felt the need to assert that some immaterial "thing" makes it so. But this just creates another mystery: what is the relationship between the material and the immaterial realm? What governs that? (Calling one or more of the immaterial entities "God" doesn't really make it any less mysterious.)

If we add entities to our model of reality to answer questions and all it does is create more and more esoteric questions, we should take some advice from Occam's Shovel: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

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1. ysofunny ◴[29 Aug 25 22:34 UTC] No.45070171[source]▶
unless you're a mathematician

then maths is really THE absolute best description available of language and nature.

but non-mathematical minds will simply wonder and be amazed at how "maths explains the world", a clear indication that somebody is not thinking like a mathematician.

> Whenever there's a mysterious pattern in nature, people have felt the need to assert that some immaterial "thing" makes it so. But this just creates another mystery: what is the relationship between the material and the immaterial realm?

the relationship between the material and the immaterial pattern beholden by some mind can only be governed by the brain (hardware) wherein said mind stores its knowledge. is that conscious agency "God"? the answer depends on your personally held theological beliefs. I call that agent "me" and understand that "me" is variable, replaceable by "you" or "them" or whomever...

oh, and I love (this kind of figurative) digging. but I use my hands no shovels.

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2. getnormality ◴[30 Aug 25 02:16 UTC] No.45071365[source]▶
I am a published PhD in mathematics.
3. mattxxx ◴[30 Aug 25 02:22 UTC] No.45071391[source]▶
> unless you're a mathematician

As a young math researcher, my mentor definitely did not believe that Math was the absolute descriptor of the universe.

You can definitely imagine a scenario where the world does not operate perfectly mathematically correct though Math still exists - as an abstract separate entity.

You can do this such that everytime you recognize a new quirk in the world, then you can invent some new math/logical framework to match/approximate the current understanding. I don't know if this is the reality of this world, but when you look at things like complexity theory you have to wonder "okay... maybe we designed a useful system rather than discovering a true law of reality"

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4. jakeinspace ◴[30 Aug 25 11:36 UTC] No.45073795[source]▶
At one point, many people would have said that quantum field randomness is non-mathe