Born to do Math 104 - Human Beings as Mathematical Structures (1)

In-Sight Publishing

Born to do Math 104 - Human Beings as Mathematical Structures (1)

Scott Douglas Jacobsen & Rick Rosner

January 15, 2019

[Beginning of recorded material]

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Nature can be described via mathematics. In this sense, as humans are inescapably a part of nature, humans can be described via mathematics, in principle. That is to say, human beings, in some sense, are mathematical structures in the sense of nature existing as a mathematical structure and human beings existing as a part of nature. This seems like an unavoidable modern conclusion of philosophy and science: human beings are mathematical structures.

Rick Rosner: You have mentioned this before. Biology boils down to physics. Physics boils down to quantum physics. Quantum physics is highly mathematical. When you boil it down, it is the physics of information; the physic and math of information. Information is the most featureless thing that you can have.

The most basic information you can have is a choice between two things. But you can probably go below that too, where you have a fuzzy choice between two fuzzy things without a clear choice between two things. But it almost boils down to nothing.

You can build back up from there into humans and the world around humans. The reason that humans do not seem mathematical is that we are so macro. In economics, there is microeconomics dealing with little things like one person buying this stick of gum or this candy bar.

Macroeconomics is the largescale behavior of economic systems. Quantum mechanics is micro with all the weirdness of the quantum world at the micro world. But the macro world makes sense to us because we are macro beings living in the macro world.

I have been messing with micromosaics, recently. Carole likes micromosaics. I guess I do too. They are like these thin pieces of glass, like a millimeter across. Some are less than a cubic millimeter. I think that these things are so small and should not contain so many atoms.

But if you do the math, a cubic centimeter - what's a mole? 6*10^23, so a cubic centimeter contains 10^23 atoms roughly. A cubic millimeter still contains close to 10^17th atoms. So, even this thing that is as small as you want to deal with in regular macro life, it still contains a billion, billion atoms.

We are super macro. It also that we are organic, i.e., soft, squishy, and wet and mucousy. None of that has the clean sharp purity of math. When you think of math, you think of things that are super symmetrical and pretty well behaved. Things that are limited, perhaps, in extent.

When you think of parabolas, every parabola looks like every other frickin' parabola. Every circle looks like every other circle. Every ellipse looks like every other with some tilting. You have these simple structures. There is nothing, at least on the surface, on 3. The threeness of something seems simple.

A die, the kind that you throw, is only having 6 different outcomes; unless, it gets wedged against a wall with no face on top. But if you're throwing craps and one die, there are only 6 possible outcomes. But humans with our huge number of components and 4-billion-year evolutionary history that makes us complicated; there's not a lot of simplicity in our form, or in our behavior.

It is basically because of our bigness and the number of components. Our duration, our evolutionary history, our extent in time. Everything is macro and macro is messy. You can boil it all down to math. Every single interaction in the human body can be characterized by quantum mechanics.

At the smallest level, you can find these interactions that boil down to simple possibilities. Is this blood cell going to capture oxygen molecules or not? Hemoglobin can exist in two states, generally. Either folded up having absorbed oxygen atoms and expanded, where the hemoglobin has four holes for oxygen molecules.

You put it in an oxygen-rich environment. Under the laws of quantum physics, it will pop open and grab four oxygen atoms. The first gym I ever belonged to; it was owned by a guy who started as a graduate student at the University of Colorado to see if you could actually see the moment when a hemoglobin molecule goes from having grabbed no molecules to having gone open and grabbed four oxygen molecules.

It was something that happened, at least with the technology then, or seemed to happen instantaneously. When the hemoglobin went from empty to full of oxygen, there was never a point when you saw it has two oxygen atoms.

I do not know if that is still the case. Even though, the hemoglobin molecule consists of, maybe, 50 atoms to make this mechanism. But it still governed by laws of quantum physics and can exist in basically only one or two states.

[End of recorded material]

Authors[1]

Rick Rosner
American Television Writer
RickRosner@Hotmail.Com
Rick Rosner

According to semi-reputable sources, Rick Rosner has the world’s second-highest IQ. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writer’s Guild Award and Emmy nominations, and was named 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Registry.

He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmy Awards, The Grammy Awards, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He has also worked as a stripper, a bouncer, a roller-skating waiter, and a nude model. In a TV commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the World’s Smartest Man. He was also named Best Bouncer in the Denver Area by Westwood Magazine.

He spent the disco era as an undercover high school student. 25 years as a bar bouncer, American fake ID-catcher, 25+ years as a stripper, and nude art model, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. He lost on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire over a bad question, and lost the lawsuit. He spent 35+ years on a modified version of Big Bang Theory. Now, he mostly sits around tweeting in a towel. He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and daughter.

You can send an email or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.



Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor-in-Chief, In-Sight Publishing
Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.Com
In-Sight Publishing

(Updated September 28, 2016)

Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com, Scott.Jacobsen@TrustedClothes.Com, Scott@ConatusNews.Com, scott.jacobsen@probc.ca, Scott@Karmik.Ca, or SJacobsen@AlmasJiwaniFoundation.Org.

He is a Moral Courage Webmaster and Outreach Specialist (Fall, 2016) at the UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality (Ethics Center), Interview Columnist for Conatus News, Writer and Executive Administrator for Trusted Clothes, Interview Columnist for Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), Chair of Social Media for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, Councillor for the Athabasca University Student Union, Member of the Learning Analytics Research Group, writer for The Voice Magazine, Your Political Party of BC, ProBC, Marijuana Party of Canada, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, Harvest House Ministries, and Little Footprints Big Steps International Development Organization, Editor and Proofreader for Alfred Yi Zhang Photography, Community Journalist/Blogger for Gordon Neighbourhood House, Member-at-Large, Member of the Outreach Committee, the Finance & Fundraising Committee, and the Special Projects & Political Advocacy Committee, and Writer for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Member of the Lifespan Cognition Psychology Lab and IMAGe Psychology Lab, Collaborator with Dr. Farhad Dastur in creation of the CriticalThinkingWiki, Board Member, and Foundation Volunteer Committee Member for the Fraser Valley Health Care Foundation, and Independent Landscaper.

He was a Francisco Ayala Scholar at the UCI Ethics Center, Member of the Psychometric Society Graduate Student Committee, Special Advisor and Writer for ECOSOC at NWMUN, Writer for TransplantFirstAcademy and ProActive Path, Member of AT-CURA Psychology Lab, Contributor for a student policy review, Vice President of Outreach for the Almas Jiwani Foundation, worked with Manahel Thabet on numerous initiatives, Student Member of the Ad–Hoc Executive Compensation Review Committee for the Athabasca University Student Union, Volunteer and Writer for British Columbia Psychological Association, Community Member of the KPU Choir (even performed with them alongside the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra), Delegate at Harvard World MUN, NWMUN, UBC MUN, and Long Beach Intercollegiate MUN, and Writer and Member of the Communications Committee for The PIPE UP Network.

He published in American Enterprise Institute, Annaborgia, Conatus News, Earth Skin & Eden, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, Gordon Neighbourhood House, Huffington Post, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Jolly Dragons, Kwantlen Polytechnic University Psychology Department, La Petite Mort, Learning Analytics Research Group, Lifespan Cognition Psychology Lab, Lost in Samara, Marijuana Party of Canada, MomMandy, Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society, Piece of Mind, Production Mode, Synapse, TeenFinancial, The Peak, The Ubyssey, The Voice Magazine, Transformative Dialogues, Treasure Box Kids, Trusted Clothes.

Endnotes

[1] Four format points for the session article:

1. Bold text following “Scott Douglas Jacobsen:” or “Jacobsen:” is Scott Douglas Jacobsen & non-bold text following “Rick Rosner:” or “Rosner:” is Rick Rosner. 
2. Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott. 
3. Footnotes & in-text citations in the interview & references after the interview. 
4. This session article has been edited for clarity and readability. 

For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:

1. American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf. 
2. Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf. 

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Based on a work at www.in-sightjournal.com and www.rickrosner.org.

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