UP said that mathematics is universal. I believe it models only our perception and understanding, which are informed by our biological, evolutionary imperatives.
Reality itself is beyond us. All that we have at our disposal are our perceptions, which is what we are modeling when we "do math". Mathematics is not universal, it's a language that we use to communicate what we perceive to other humans.
It's speculative, whether an alien species, with a perceptual and cognitive system evolved entirely elsewhere under other pressures, would have an understanding that intersects with our subset of reality. I personally think it's unlikely. What that would mean is that we wouldn't be able to communicate, never mind trade technology and mathematical ideas.
> It's speculative, whether an alien species, with a perceptual and cognitive system evolved entirely elsewhere under other pressures, would have an understanding that intersects with our subset of reality. I personally think it's unlikely. What that would mean is that we wouldn't be able to communicate, never mind trade technology and mathematical ideas.
I mean, maybe, but this is conveniently unprovable, much like the flying spaghetti monster, since you are saying we could not communicate because our slices of reality don't intersect. I disagree and think that most likely we would live in a reality that was largely the same, but I guess we'll never know!
Reality itself is beyond us. All that we have at our disposal are our perceptions, which is what we are modeling when we "do math". Mathematics is not universal, it's a language that we use to communicate what we perceive to other humans.
It's speculative, whether an alien species, with a perceptual and cognitive system evolved entirely elsewhere under other pressures, would have an understanding that intersects with our subset of reality. I personally think it's unlikely. What that would mean is that we wouldn't be able to communicate, never mind trade technology and mathematical ideas.