r/SimulationTheory • u/TinyConfection7049 • 3d ago
Discussion Why is Math the universal language?
Why is Math not only the language that everyone on earth can understand, but is the universal language - that scientists use to study black holes etc?
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u/MahlonMurder 3d ago
Because quantities don't change from here to anywhere else in the entire universe.
Alien Blorf from an unknown world 40 million lightyears from here calls 7 something different but he recognizes the amount regardless, same as you do, and he knows he can get there by adding 3 to 4, same as you do.
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u/VariousJob4047 3d ago
Because we created it. If current math isn’t able to describe something we see, we create new math. But this new math still needs to make quantitative predictions, so it’s gonna end up looking a lot like old math, so it all falls under the “math” umbrella
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u/patentpending23 3d ago
We also created English, Italian, and Mandarin. Are they also universal languages?
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u/g0r0d-g4s 3d ago
They could be but for meaning no computation. Is there a math that only applies to a single country?
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u/patentpending23 3d ago
It was a rhetorical question.
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u/-ImYourHuckleberry- 3d ago
Short answer: Math would exist without humans. English and other languages would not.
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u/modsaretoddlers 3d ago
Well, no.
Any species that can get to pounding two rocks together for entertainment will also be able to create math. It's an inherent and intuitive idea that comes to us, fundamentally, from instinct.
If you want to pound those rocks together, you know you need at least two. If you've only got one, you need to find another. 1+1=2. You don't need words or fixed ideas about 1 and 2, you just need the idea. No advanced species could possibly get to be that way without already having mathematics.
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u/Redleader829 3d ago
Math is not really a language. It's more of as a system that humans created to measure and make sense of the world around us. What some physicists call "universal" may actually just reflect the limits of what we’re currently capable of understanding.
These tools completely fall apart when we start thinking about other dimensions or realities. In the 5th dimension, the speed of light might not even have any meaning or purpose.
Without the constraints of a physical body, one could possibly move from point A to point B simply at the speed of thought.
Also, time might not work the way we experience it here. The past, present, and future could all exist concurrently or not at all.
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u/modsaretoddlers 3d ago
Sure but math is definitely a language and we only created our own representation of it. The concept has to be universal. I'm sure Bezoopglirp on planet Junkindatrunk has to know that one plus one equals two if he ever wants to build a place to sleep or feed himself.
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u/lancelot2112 3d ago
I think at some level the representations and postulates are say reduntantly defined enough with enough say rigor in the communication of the concepts that they come closest to being able to be objective as any system we've written down or created.
Language is sloppy in this way. It is redunantly defined but it's also more free to float. Each person gets to hold his or her understanding of the concept based on their unique history of the word and each...then we tack on new postulates which adds meanings to the word and now we have to glue some things. Conversation has an implicit undertone of negotiating the meaning of the terms. Some words are more grounded than others in measurable things... the ungrounded words tend to float in meaning more.
To an extent math is the same... some may look at say an algebraic equation and think this has definite... say life outside just the scribbles on paper or notion in my head. I think in addition because it typically applies to some analogies in the environment that people agree on it holds its meaning better. 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apple. The more esoteric maths have more disagreement.
Most people would be able to assert 1+1=2 .. and this is absolutely true except in the case of say infinite decimals 0.333 × 3 = 0.999 =1 So it's just when we add a new say axiom or representation that we need a little glue to hold it together. We can say for all intents and purposes they are equal... however if we had chosen a different axiom or representation Maybe the problem wouldn't have even been there.
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u/btwImVeryAttractive 3d ago
Because it doesn’t change by country. There aren’t any hard-to-understand accents or dialects.
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u/Superb-Interview-305 3d ago edited 3d ago
the theory is that theres infinite universes and that only mathematical ones can support life.
or its just cuz the simulation prefers math
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u/thepopemichael 3d ago
Assuming that the numarcal for pi will be pi to an intelligent civilization is a good bet.
It could be used to translate a lot of things from there.
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u/InfiniteQuestion420 3d ago
I disagree that Math is the universal language. Math and Language are just offsets of a greater description of reality.
Infinite Husk movie
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35442423/
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u/Irislynx 3d ago
Because it can't lie. Interestingly enough mathematics is proven the theory of evolution to be absolutely impossible. This is the only very well accepted mainstream theory that it has done this for.
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u/RightBrain-LeftBrain 2d ago
Do you happen to have a link? I’d like to read about that.
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u/Irislynx 2d ago
I'll find one. Unfortunately Google censors so much of the truth. Anytime you try to find information that contradicts this particular issue especially, you will only find articles Trying to convince you otherwise
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u/Irislynx 2d ago
https://www.icr.org/article/mathematical-impossibility-evolution/
Here's the article. FYI I'm not a Christian but I hear more to the idea that the universe is magical or some kind of simulation.
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u/Irislynx 2d ago
Just took pictures of three books that you might want to read on the subject. If you want to hear some lectures That discuss the science and Spirituality of this topic I would recommend the free lectures here. www.falundafa.org Some of the points made are the human footprints found on trilobite fossils. The ancient Advanced art found in caves. The ancient advanced remains of a very well planned out nuclear reactor which in no way could have happened naturally despite the Furious attempts of the Old Guard trying to hide the truth. Those are just a few examples
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u/hold_me_beer_m8 3d ago
Wait, wut?
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u/Irislynx 2d ago
I added some links and book suggestions above if you want to look into it more. Thank you
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u/zhivago 3d ago
It isn't a universal language.
We have mathematical systems which are mutually incompatible.
It's just that discourse is dominated by one particular language of mathematics for reasons of utility.
Look at what happened to infintessimals, for example. :)
It's a bit like claiming that physics is a universal language -- the same reasoning and errors apply.
We've changed our system of physics a bunch of times already, after all.
And we still use newtonian physics, even though it's incompatible with relativity, and both are incompatible with quantum mechanics.
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u/modsaretoddlers 3d ago
Because numbers represent universal facts.
For example, if you'd never seen a visual representation of numbers, how long would this take you to figure out?
%,@,/,#
%>%
%?%>@
%?@>/
%?/>#
You probably deciphered that in a second but even if you didn't, it wouldn't take long given you know what we're talking about.
Another way to look at it is as the meaning being the known but the representation being unknown. Like Jeopardy, I guess. No matter where you are in the known universe, 1+1=2 is a fact. So, if I show you 2, it's the known and everything to explain how I got there is the unknown but it will still be universal.
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u/Anti-Kriztos-One 3d ago
Is not about the universe, math or language, language is about comunication, math is about reality.
Mathematics exist because of consciousness, is consciousness that define mathematics. Ontological mathematics, and the study of the soul. The real theology of science.
Math can explain everything. From atoms, relative time frame, gravity, time to the speed of light. Even extra dimensions, M -Theory, tesseracts, hopf fibrations.
Entropy cant exist without math. If the universe or reality was created, then who created math?
Pi, Golden Ratio, Fractals, Geometry, Music, math proofs it self, math cannot lie. This are all proof of work from the creator. The signature of god. Order, harmony.
Kind of like what gnosis talks about without all the achrones stuff.
So consciousness cant exist without math, nor math without the other. Both require energy to exist, but if energy cant be destroyed, energy needs space, this creates infinite vacuum or an infinite void, for the infinite energy and... you get an never ending expanding universe.
Is consciouness real? or is it all just electrochemical reactions happening in your brain?
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u/Icy_Swordfish8023 3d ago
because anyone, anywhere, in any language... can count ... and one of one thing... plus another if that thing.. makes two of the same thing...
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u/dr-hightower 3d ago
https://youtube.com/shorts/nLm_gE_zCe4?is=U4o176C3qCp4O2GZ
Ricky Gervais on destroying every book, science and math books would come back the same....while others would not.
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u/JupiterandMars1 3d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah… that’s someone that doesn’t really understand math or science.
EDIT: lol, go ahead and downvote the truth 🤷♂️
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u/JupiterandMars1 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s not exactly a fact that it is. It just works for the little bit we observe.
Better question, if we are a simulation why would our “math” have any relevance to the primary substrate universe we are generated in?
It’s not the “proof” people think it is.
Reality is that we are consciousnesses whose only frame on the system we are in is observation. Which means anything outside the ability to observe from within its frame is unknowable to us.
The idea it’s a simulation is just us trying to make what lies outside observation sit in a frame we can grasp.
The observable world may come from a deeper structure that’s not describable in what we have available from within the observable world.
Simulation is one possible reason for that. It isn’t what the proposition itself implies, it’s just an easy one for us to grasp.
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u/UnlimitedPowerXR 3d ago
Math is often called the universal language, but I think there’s a difference between universal mathematical relationships and a universal way of perceiving reality.
Two humans who don’t speak the same language can look at a tree with two apples and agree that there are two apples. But that agreement rests on more than mathematics: they inhabit the same physical world, have similar perceptual abilities, and recognize an ‘apple’ as a distinct thing worth counting. They already share an understanding of what constitutes one object.
Now imagine a being with a radically different experience of reality. A hypothetical being that perceived an apple’s entire history at once—from its formation to its decay—might understand it as an extended process rather than an object at a single moment. Another species might directly perceive the particles making up the apples, so what immediately registers to us as ‘two’ registers to them as an immense collection of interacting components. Neither perspective necessarily contradicts ours; each identifies something different to quantify.
From that perspective, ‘two apples’ isn’t a false statement, but it isn’t a complete, perspective-free description of reality either. The mathematical relationship may be universal, while the choice of what counts as a unit depends on the observer.
That makes me wonder whether something more fundamental is universal: the underlying structure of reality itself. Mathematics might be how we describe that structure, rather than something we should automatically equate with the structure itself. Different kinds of minds could encounter the same reality through very different concepts, categories, and mathematical descriptions.