Someone wrote:

newolder wrote:

The world is globalized around the base 10 (for those not involved in nitty-gritty computer science, and even these people have to 'go outside' sometimes), and treating base 10 as a choice we've made doesn't change the fact that we have made it.

teh werld iz not like u seem to think it iz like.

Please describe how it seems I think the world iz.

you seem to think the world, or some bastardisation thereof, is globalized around the base 10.

In answer to the question regarding base 14, aside from the fact that my investigations have been haphazard and couldn't be repeated, there are a number of issues. The main one is that the assignment of a significance level to these coincidences is actually not a fully developed part of mathematics itself. Obviously, I wouldn't expect base-10 coincidences to translate directly to base 14 (Is 2357 prime in base 14, for example). In a way, each coincidence is a thing unto itself, except for how it connects to other coincidences. You can assign a kind of degree of surprisingness to the fact that e begins 2.718281828 in base 10, but there is no real probability of the likelihood that something like it exists in another arbitrary base. The short answer to whether I would expect, personally, that if I ever do this sort of full-bore analysis in base 14 I would find it comparable in this way to base 10 is No. In my opinion, the Sun disappearing is as likely.

By the way, one of the coincidences that I treat as relevant is that in octal (base 8), the whole part of (555+1/5)^5 has a 12-digit prime factor ending in 555655, since the core and initial impetus for the research I've done was the single coincidence (365+1/4)^4=17797577732+7^2/2^8 and octal 555 is decimal 365. The same is true for the simple fact that the base-3 representation of our 365+1/4 is 111112+1/11. I recently did find a nice coincidence in base 7 (involving Mersenne primes--you may want to try your hand at discovering it yourself and finding all of its coincidental features) that is the sort of counterweight evidence one can use to suggest base 10 doesn't have really more or more significant coincidences--and I certainly wouldn't advocate against seeking more--but I am confident all such items will come up short.

Someone wrote:

THWOTH wrote:42?

See above post.
Note: This was initially written without having read the most recent post, but it's apropos. Anyway, why would you think I might take certain styles of criticism personally if I don't deem them worthy of the word in the first place?

Perhaps you didn't get the reference in the number 42, perhaps you did. Nonetheless it was light-hearted and for broadcast as it were, not a direct comment concerning a specific point.

Regarding my recent post above; I merely wanted to re-iterate that when one offers an idea for wider assessment one does not get to control, limit or set the conditions by which that idea is to be assessed by others. For an idea to persists and enter the Pantheon Of Truths it must resist all rational sceptical challenges and not just a predefined list of challenges deemed acceptable or appropriate by its proponent.

Your thesis seems to fall into two main parts, the correlations and coincidences within your self-selected numeric sets and your - shall we say - more esoteric ideas concerning the origins of these coincidences. It is the linking of these two ideas that brings me again to the point I have been putting to you since joining this discussion: accepting that the numbers fall as you describe why are these particular numeric alignments significant and why? Your answers so far seem to have relied on the 'just because' explanation in which the 'you are not qualified to judge the evidence presented' justification often appears as a common component (though of course you cast this in slightly different terms, which I will come to later).

If we took the whole of humanity as a single set, and devised a method to measure the heart rate of all members of the population over a certain period, and correlated the resulting information into a workable data set, one should be able to point to the incidences in time where a certain proportion of the population's heartrate was synchronised over a defined period of time. Furthermore, given the sample of 5 billion+ individuals, a workable data set, and appropriate computational tools one could no doubt produce results demonstating the frequency within the test period where individual incidences of any single heartbeat were aligned or correlated in time between individuals. In short, such a hypothetical study could show that for any single incidence of any individual heartbeat event there would be certain co-incidental occurrence of heartbeat events within the population sample. This is fine as it goes, and directly measurable, in theory, and predicable mathematically if one had access to a suitable sample set, BUT what would this signify beyond the proportionate range of coincidental heartbeat events within the sample set?

This imperfect example is offered to suggest that your numeric coincidences, which are the correlations you have noticed between values within various sets, though occurring in actuality are just that; numeric coincidences.

coincidence n.


1. The state or fact of occupying the same relative position or area in space.
   
2. A sequence of events that although accidental seems to have been planned or arranged.
www.answers.com

It is quite clear that there is the appearance of order to be found in mathematics. In mathematical techniques things follow along in a structured and logical manner, certain relationships are defined and formalised, quantitative calculations are amassed, data is categorised and sorted, and so we might also say that mathematics brings order to enquiry as well as describing it. Mathematicians from the earliest Babylonian astronomers to the present day super-brains of computing have worked with and developed ever more complex and novel ways to relate sets of ideas to each other, and with its ubiquitous use within the branches of the sciences one might also say that mathematics is, to a very great extent, the fundamental language of Science, or perhaps that Mathematics is itself the science of order and structure.

Many of us here have, at this place and others, engaged with those most fervent members of the communion of the pious, the Creationist and Intelligent Design proponentist. Though both brands of believer hold dogmatically to claims for an extant super-natural agency by argument from self-declared authority, the IDist in particular, in proposing that evidences for super-natural agencies abound in the appearance of order or structure within the natural world, assert a position not dissimilar to your own. In either case, and in your case too I think, arguments for the meaningfulness and significance of this appearance of order are essentially teleological, that is; pertaining to an assumption that this apparent order and structure must be the result of the action of some intentioning agent as it could not otherwise arise by any other means. For this reason the teleological argument is sometimes referred to as the argument from "final causes."

Just as there occurs a coincidental alignment of heartbeats within the human population there are coincidental alignment of values within numeric sets. In fact one might ask how could there not be when the study of numbers and their relationship is the study of an infinite set - but in noticing the coincidental you have ignored and discarded the non-coincidental as meaningless and insignificant. This means that confirmation bias has led you to ascribe a specific meaning and significance to these alignments without further evidence beyond a 'just because' declaration.

As far as I can see (and I have been paying attention despite my earlier '42'), you have offered no evidence of either the intentioning agencies mentioned nor the direct link between them and your numeric coincidences. The argument that specific numeric coincidences appear ordered and are suggestive of design, and therefore necessarily inculcate the purported intentioning agencies in the designing, is invalid.

In this regard the innate scepticism and incredulity shown towards your unbelievable mathematics is not indicative of a lack of appropriate 'criticality' as you called it, but of the inherent weakness of your conclusion and the argument supporting it.

Apparently, if you expect a direct immediate response to all of the above, Thwoth, you're ignoring the fact that it is my intention to recast my argument so that people can understand it rather than having them attack a bastardized view of what I'm saying. Also, since it was this website's decision to ghettoize my part of a larger discussion I was trying to engage in by moving it to mathematics, it seems appropriate that I ask people to address the coincidences in purely mathematical terms before I make any attempt at the matter of the larger context. The decision to deal with mathematics first, if not only, was thrust upon me. Please allow me to spell out what all of the coincidences I know are, and then we can get into what I think they mean and whether it is right or wrong.

In that case, perhaps it would benefit you and your argument to start a new thread, perhaps in the mathematics section of the forum, and cast your thesis in terms of your own choosing. A fresh start to this topic may benefit all parties.

Just a thought.

I'd certainly entertain that idea if it were not going to be handled as 'But look! This is material identical to stuff that was in the Debunking section that died. Of course, we all know what that means.' I have no problem with a fresh start. In any case, I'm going to be about the business of compiling the material for days, since I'm running short on time to take care of urgent matters in my personal life.

Someone wrote:Actually, Weaver, you're the first person to tell me my mathematical observations aren't even true (here or elsewhere). You must be a real math whiz to beat out everyone else, but I think I can handle it if you give me ONE EXAMPLE of a mathematical statement I've made that's false and how you know it to be so.

Your "observation" that humans use Base 10 (and that this is "evidence" of your god) was what I thought you were refering to.

My apologies if I didn't understand your questions in specific detail - perhaps you could restate them clearly, instead of the fragments I replied to.

Weaver, I repeat the post to which you replied that everyone was telling me the questions in which had the answers 'No'.

Someone wrote:

Weaver wrote:

newolder wrote:i recall a poster from rdfdays, motherteresa, who elucidated signed binary to increase the scope enormously.

When I count on my fingers, I use binary.

One of the many very useful things my father taught me ...

Fine, you spend as much time as you like trying to change the global lingua franca. Right now, it is what it is.

Now, since my material has been doubly ghettoized; I'd ask that people get together in PM and work on the question of whether or not the coincidences I will be recapitulating 1) are true, 2) are mathematically significant, and 3) have any larger significance, in that order. Presumably, the content I present is that which you should be trying to debunk and not some sloppy estimate of what that content is or something else altogether.

'...I will be recapitulating...'

You will please note exactly what each of us said. Obviously, it serves no purpose to ask me to do what I've made clear I intend to do myself, aside from your using it as an opportunity to deride ideas that haven't really even been expressed and make your mistake look like my fault.
Whatever you specifically are doing over there (really over there, not in cyberspace), good luck. It doesn't sound pretty a lot of the time, though this is clearly not the place for a discussion (to the extent one really even exists).

I'm assuming that was in no way even partially a comment on my post, or that if it was it only dealt with my being (in a sincerely friendly way) off-topic.

It was a general note to everyone. That it came after any member's preceding post is purely coincidental. It wasn't aimed specifically at you, but like everyone else participating in the thread, your kind understanding about my request is most appreciated.

Okay, by moving this (once again) to Pseudoscience, some one or more people have told me something about what he, she, or they think of the subject (in addition to forcing me to change the directions I gave to a friend). I don't know how exactly I should expect this to play out differently or whether it will make much of a difference to how I argue (Does it significantly change who will see and respond to it or how?), but my immediate task here is the same (and will still take a while to restart). One thing is clear to me, though. It seems to render to me the right to highlight the material in some way.

Oh, I now think it's possible I didn't know this was already in Pseudosience (being under General Debunking). Since the premise underlying my conclusion that I had a greater-than-previously right to highlight the subject was wrong, I won't draw that conclusion (and I won't be expecting a different audience and set of respondents). I'm still contemplating a fresh start under Mathematics.

What don't you simply say what you want to say?

John

Following on from John....

Someone, if you accept that the mathematics is separate to your hypothesis/conclusion, being as it comprises the evidence for your conclusion, then you can surely delineate your thesis linguistically and use the mathematics to back it up as it were, to provide the appropriate examples here and there, as and when they are needed to support your argument? Providing a overview or abstract to your researches may be more fruitful than dumping all your data on the forum and expecting people to sift through it in order to find the meaning or significance in the numbers.

Just a thought....

Well, I still intend to give a coherent listing of my evidence (which you've preemptively characterized as a dump), and I essentially want to (first and foremost) address whether or not they form evidence of anything before a debate of what; but there is one coherent datum (characterizable as such because of its connection to the number 4) that could almost carry the weight of the argument on its back in my opinion, and there might be some merit (and little harm) in foreshadowing my view of meaning. So, I will repeat the item that appears to have caused Calilassaea difficulty earlier, and I will try to convey an overwiew of my thesis. Because I'm limited to a cellphone now and for the near future, it will be easier to complete this particular thought in the next post.

As you wish.

I've realized I did do an okay job of presenting the mathematics earlier, and so I will be requiring anyone who wishes to engage me on the topic to demonstrate an understanding of the first page of this thread. This currently does not include Thwoth. On a relevant note, it's recently been discovered that passing electricity through a certain part of the brain in one direction makes people better at math and in the other makes them worse, but please don't take this as an insult (because it's just a thought). I made one mistake (in an example of base-conversion arithmetic where I did something in my head, not in any of my reported coincidences) when I said 111 in base 10 is the same as 11111 in base 3. It's a peculiar error, but not relevant.. At any rate, I'm expecting to not find anybody I feel worthy of talking to on this particular topic if I'm to use history as a guide. I'm inclined to ask a question in human systems theory (the question being whether the time has come to treat the abstract question of optimizing all human behavior as approachable from a scientific perspective) when I re-engage. Ta-ta.

Someone,

I'm afraid that you don't get to exclude anyone from replying on this thread. It is a publicly accessible thread and not your private property. Members are not "required" to demonstrate anything nor profess to understand/agree with your opinions before engaging.

Durro

All that has been presented is a series of coincidences, combined with Someone working through a large number of arithmetic problems. There is no theory or hypothesis beyond Wow, this number is similar to other numbers - isn't that neat?

Advanced math skills are totally unnecessary, given that the math presented doesn't actually GO anywhere - it's just the numerical version of word salad.