Arguing against symbols and units of measurement is like saying red doesn't exist. Red is just a word we came up with to describe a particular hue. Just like how we came up with the words two and four and million etc...

I might be missing the whole point of this debate, though.

The point of the debate is that 'red' exists whether we name it or not.

Indeed, there must be a lot of things we have yet to name. It has no bearing on their existance.

Where?

I always was led to believe that mathematics was the basis for all intelligent life since it plays into so many things we do daily it's almost a necessity to learn at least some basic form of mathematics. I've done some research and I have yet to find any reports of cultures that weren't able to add 2 plus 2. Where are your facts on this?

I believe there are things that science cant explain at the moment (Some of the Paranormal type stuff) but not in any supernatural being.

Brazil

You'll have to look around a bit more for any details on them, though. Wikipedia being what it is, I mean.

I am reading in that article Bob but I can't find anything that specifically states or even implies they don't have any idea about numbers/math.



That's the only thing I noticed so far, but to me that doesn't imply they don't have any knowledge of Mathematics or numbers at all. Instead I take it that they just don't have words to describe numbers, they can still comprehend what one or two of something is. That is still math/numbers, just in their most basic form.

Am I missing something from this article?

I don't know, this is just the case I always hear about. I mean, their native language has no numbers, meaning they don't use numbers (or didn't before they had outside contact). So...take from that what you will.

I don't know.. But I am fairly certain they can tell the difference at least between one tiger or two tigers.

Yes. The difference is whether they get eaten in peace, or their innards are fought over.

there is a certain way that the universe we live in operates. "laws of nature" if you will. humans dont define (as in enforce or create said "laws") the way the universe works with math, its already doing its thing. mathematics is simply a way for us to identify and understand the natural processes that are going on all around us weather we are aware of them or not.
the symbols assigned to math are in the most basic sense unimportant, but the underlying principles are universal.

Being Amazonians I suspect that the sight of a giant Asian cat in the South American jungle will confuse them too.

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." Wittgenstein Tractatus 5.6 1922

ditto

(Sorry for disappearing from the thread. I went on vacation for the weekend.)

I think Darth Alran has articulated the point I want to argue against, and also shown where some people are misunderstanding me.



First, to correct the misunderstanding: I don't care about the symbols assigned to math. I think everyone recognizes that they're arbitrary, so there's no point in arguing about that.


What I want to address is the notion of natural processes going on regardless of their awareness. It's easy to miscommunicate what I want to say, so I'll try to be careful:

-I agree with you that the universe would still exist even if humans weren't around to perceive it. (If a tree falls in a forest, it does make a sound--or, at least, the waves in air that a human would perceive as sound.)

-Any true statement that can be made about the universe would be true, even if no one had made the statement. (The "laws of nature" are statements about the universe; they would be true even if no one had made them.)

-A true statement can only be made if the universe is not completely chaotic. (If there we no regularity in anything, words would be useless. "This stone" refers to the fact that a certain set of molecules tend to move around together--it implies a certain regularity about the universe.) Language presupposes an ordered universe.

-Science is a collection of true statements and a method for generating more true statements. (Scientific "facts" and "laws" are true statements; the scientific method and theories are guides that we use in organizing and searching for those statements.)

-Out of the infinity of possible true statements, some are more useful than others. ("On Saturday, 6 June 2009, I weighed exactly 223.78 pounds" vs "I generally weigh about 225 lbs" vs. "The average American male weighs 191 lbs".) Some true statements are more general than others.

-As science advances, it gets more creative in coming up with general & useful true statements. (Aristotle: "Things fall"; Galileo: "Things fall with constant acceleration"; My freshman physics prof: "The equations describing gravitational and electromagnetic attraction have similar mathematical forms."; Salam, Glashow, and Weinberg: "The equations describing the EM and weak forces fit together in this way"; and so on.)

-These useful statements are true, but it can be misleading to think of them as "Truths of Nature".

-A more useful metaphor is this: true statements are tools in a kit, with which we measure and manipulate the universe. Some tools have a much wider range of applications than others.

-The fact that science has come up with some incredibly useful tools tells us only that science has had practice in what it does.

-To say that "those laws of nature existed before we discovered them" is like saying "the possibility of designing a spork existed even before anyone had invented one." (It's also like the Michelangelo quote about the sculpture already being present in the block of marble; he just had to dig it out.) They have a certain aesthetic appeal, but they don't tell us anything useful.

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-Humans are biologically hardwired to try to invent such tools (both literal tools, and "true statement" tools). It's our biggest evolutionary advantage.

-We receive positive reinforcement for making these tools by feeling pleasure once we've come up with a new one. (Just like we receive positive reinforcement for eating nutritive substances like fats and sugars.)

-Some people are in awe at the usefulness of our scientific tools, and they take that awe as evidence of a greater being (or a greater Truth). That's fine, but from a rational empiricist standpoint, it's illogical. Especially because we can explain that awe in other ways.


Ultimately, awe at the existence of useful and general scientific statements comes down to one of two things:

(1) Awe at the fact that true statements can exist at all. This is nearly (or exactly) the same as awe at the fact that things exist. This viewpoint translates to: "I believe in God because the universe exists."

(2) Awe at the sheer usefulness of some true statements. This amounts to awe at the fact that engineers get better at making tools over time. Since we're the engineers, but we attribute the fact that useful tools can exist to God, this viewpoint strikes me as being unwittingly full of hubris.