this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2025
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Look, I only heard about this concept, so maybe there's more to it, but branches of mathematics are just a set of rules that we create.
Sometimes these rules can be applied to real systems, in our reality, and that helps to describe and understand the universe.
But it's totally possible to come up with infinite nonsensical, useless mathematical systems that have nothing to do with the universe. The existence of these doesn't mean that we have or could rewrite reality.
If our universe is bound by the laws of mathematics (big IF), then any theorem discovered within it has to be consistent or incomplete w.r.t it.
If a theorem is discovered that upends math as we know it, then the repercussions could be cosmic.
Again, big if about the universe being bound by the laws of maths
Discovery a truth of the universe is not going to affect the truth of the universe.
You're appearing to claim something nonsensical. The sort of wow-bang nonsense one reads about in pop-science magazines.
(I'm going to abrasively emphasize the conjunctions more, because I feel they're being glossed over)
IF the truths of our universe are completely mathematically and axiomatically bound, THEN any proof derived within it might have a chance of upsetting a given axiom given the either incomplete or inconsistent nature of mathematics as declared by GΓΆdel, the ramifications of which COULD be dire in such a universe.
I'm NOT saying our universe IS mathematically bound. I'm also NOT saying that a newly discovered universal axiom WILL change the structure of such a universe.
I actually believe that maths merely describes our reality at varying scales.
I am presenting an interesting idea that for some reason is being taken quite literally, and now am having to get defensive about it as if it's a deeply-held belief of mine...
Yes, we understood what you were saying.
But your IF is followed by a nonsensical statement.
It's a precondition that can't be true.
Ah okay. Why not though? I thought mathematics as a whole suffers from a lack of proof of some of its axioms, which if disproven could spell trouble.