Thread: What was the first number?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Was there a first number or group of numbers, did they all come into existence simultaneously, or have all of them always existed? Are there other possibilities to consider?

Are you not reaching for an epistemological debate over the existence of numbers vs semantics? Numbers are used to represent things. Are you saying that "numbers" exist independently of variable representation?

~

Remember... I am not talking about symbols. I am talking about what the symbols represent.

Numbers are symbols.

They represent a quality of a group of objects.

The only question with any sort of meaning related to yours is 'which was the first number which could be correctly applied in the history of the universe to a group of objects'. There is no real answer to this, you could assign all sorts of numbers to different qualities of the beginning of the universe.

The groups of objects which numbers describe are real. The numbers themselves are not real (real in a physical sense, not technical mathematical sense).

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

What exactly do you have in mind in terms of what the symbols represent?

My first inclination is to declare that numbers don't exist in the first place.

This is where I say, "Why didn't they just make pi = 3? Or 1 for that matter? It would be so much easier to use."

The realities of how many things there are in a given category exist independently of human language. So far, you have left 1 post in this thread. There are all kinds of things we can call that number, but it is what it is.

By they way, hello again. I haven't talked to you in forever, but I keep seeing you in the distance in the hallway. Now here I am and there you are, so...

Originally Posted by O'nus

Are you not reaching for an epistemological debate over the existence of numbers vs semantics? Numbers are used to represent things. Are you saying that "numbers" exist independently of variable representation?

No, I don't want that debate. I just wanted to clarify. But it looks like that debate is inevitable.

The number of fingers you have on your right hand is what it is, but we Western humans call it "5" and "five" and "5.00000" and stuff. Without us, it still is what it is. (If you have fewer than five fingers, I apologize.)

UM, the question you're trying to ask is as meaningless as asking what's north of the north pole.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

UM, the question you're trying to ask is as meaningless as asking what's north of the north pole.

Why? Because numbers are nothing more than bizarre things that humans made up?

Why didn't they just make pi = 1?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Why? Because numbers are nothing more than bizarre things that humans made up?

Why didn't they just make pi = 1?

pi does equal 1 in some spacetime geometries.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

pi does equal 1 in some spacetime geometries.

Well, in our space-time geometry, why don't we just make pi = 1? Or will it still be the case that the circumference of a circle is 3.14... times its diameter in every single case?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

Well, in our space-time geometry, why don't we just make pi = 1? Or will it still be the case that the circumference of a circle is 3.14... times its diameter in every single case?

Sure. That doesn't mean it's a number. And even if it was, there's no reason to believe that some numbers "came first". Why couldn't they have all appeared simultaneously?