Is math real?

Here I thought it was 56295141.3
And here you've touched on another good point - the representation will likely be hugely different as well. They might read right to left, down to up, mirror image, use base 54, use sounds instead of printed digits - who knows! But the concept will still be there unless there's physical laws that will change in other parts of the universe (unlikely, but no impossible.)
 
that's a really good point,
we use base 10, as it's natural to us, we have ten fingers, ten toes, early counting systems could easily take advantage of this.
if an alien race had 8 fingers on each hand (assuming they only had two hands) then they'd probably use base 16.

getting the concept of number systems used would be fascinating... (just the counting base to start with, then you'd have to assume different symbols).
 
Those are merely questions of syntax, so to speak. If you know how to program, you know how to program. Software programming is a universal language to translate human commands to computer commands. Mathematics is the same thing. We may use base 10 and certain symbols, but even though aliens could use different bases and symbols, it's still mathematics. It's like we program in Visual Basic and they program in Java. It would just take a bit to learn the new syntax.
 
But what if they program in Soil? How can our Java interface with their soil?
Are you talking about soil as in earth or is there a programming language called soil?
 
As in soil on earth. What I mean't was... what if the way their minds work is so vastly different to ours that the way they do thngs makes no sense what-so-ever to us - and vice-versa.
 
As in soil on earth. What I mean't was... what if the way their minds work is so vastly different to ours that the way they do thngs makes no sense what-so-ever to us - and vice-versa.
To be interstellar travelers, there must be a method to their madness.

Plus using soil would be hugely inefficient. Compared to our Semi-Conductors even...
 
As in soil on earth. What I mean't was... what if the way their minds work is so vastly different to ours that the way they do thngs makes no sense what-so-ever to us - and vice-versa.
It's still all going to boil down to a different method of doing the same kind of things, because they'll be governed by the same physical laws.

Of course, we're assuming here that they haven't come up with an alternative, completely different system that explains the universe and its laws just as well but without using anything like we know of. I guess at the end of the day that's all our system is describing, the universe as we perceive it.
 
Of course, we're assuming here that they haven't come up with an alternative, completely different system that explains the universe and its laws just as well but without using anything like we know of. I guess at the end of the day that's all our system is describing, the universe as we perceive it.

Absolutely true. If they see things as though they were looking with our eyes through a fishbowl, then they'd perceive objects to move in a circular path rather than in a straight line. It's all about perspective.

+REP

edit: Gotta spread.
 
+REP

edit: Gotta spread.
It's mutual, I'm in the same situation ;)

It's all about perspective.
This really sums it up, and kind of moves into a philosophical viewpoint but it's true - we can only really seek to explain what we perceive through maths, science, or whatever else. The fact that a lot of things slot into place nicely though is I think a strong suggestion that what we're perceiving and explaining is related to reality. Heck, if we hadn't got quantum mechanics right on at least some vague level, computers wouldn't even work!
 
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