Mathematics and Morality

Samuel Monosov · #1 Feb 12, '12, 10:59 am

It seems to me that mathematics and morality are very similar. As a Spinozist/Platonist, I believe that numbers and other such quantities really exist and are part of the universe, and that mathematical concepts, truly fundamental physical laws, and also moral principles could not have been any other way than they are.

If God created the universe, he could not have made it with different mathematical, physical and moral laws than it has.

But maybe God is not necessary. Maybe the universe is self-caused or came about from some pre-universe, or some other explanation.

I'm not interested in arguing about Cosmological Arguments here. There's another thread I started to ask questions about that.

My questions follow, and given that I'm not a philosopher, try to keep answers simple.

What separates moral law from mathematical law?
Why do moral principles require the existence of God?

If moral principles come from God's will, could he have willed them differently? If not, why not? If so, aren't moral principles therefore arbitrary?

If moral principles come from God's nature, why is God's nature really necessary for an explanation? Why not simply say that morals come from the nature of our universe, and have an existence much like mathematical and physical laws do?

Come and speculate with me. Be patient, because I'm not very intelligent, and have not studied philosophy. I'm just a scientist wondering about very big questions.

runningdude · #2 Feb 12, '12, 12:48 pm

Well, actually the Catholic Church has adopted the "Natural Law" theory of morality. This theory basically states that moral behavior is complementary with one's physical and spiritual nature. It then follows that morality necessitates God, because God is necessary for the existence of the natural world.

Ancient1 · #3 Feb 12, '12, 12:59 pm

God cannot oppose His own nature. But God is eternal and the universe is not, it is created and ultimately finite, no matter how morally or mathematically ordered.

Dakota Roberts · #4 Feb 12, '12, 1:05 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voting4Life

I heard it put this way. Its like finding a watch on the beach, a theist would look at the intricate parts and realize that someone made it. An atheist would think that over millions of years it just formed somehow.

I think you might find this video interesting

Samuel Monosov · #5 Feb 12, '12, 1:14 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by runningdude

Well, actually the Catholic Church has adopted the "Natural Law" theory of morality. This theory basically states that moral behavior is complementary with one's physical and spiritual nature.

How do we know what our spiritual and physical nature is? What is a spiritual nature?

Quote:

It then follows that morality necessitates God, because God is necessary for the existence of the natural world.

And that's what we're talking about over at the Cosmological Argument thread. Thanks.

Samuel Monosov · #6 Feb 12, '12, 1:16 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ancient1

God cannot oppose His own nature. But God is eternal and the universe is not, it is created and ultimately finite, no matter how morally or mathematically ordered.

Maybe mathematical principles are independent of both God and the universe. Maybe they exist eternally on their own, or maybe there is a larger structure, a multiverse or cosmos, upon which these fundamental principles are indelibly constructed, and exist eternally and necessarily as they are.

littlepilgrim · #7 Feb 12, '12, 1:26 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel Monosov

If God created the universe, he could not have made it with different mathematical, physical and moral laws than it has.

I don't see any reason why he couldn't have made the world with different mathematical and physical laws. He could have decided to make say the speed of light slower or the gravity constant larger and had the world be a different place. These things wouldn't be what we think of as constants unless he had made them so. I don't think being who He is He would have made the moral laws differently since he is good and what we call the moral law is the essance of His being. It would never be good to kill. The mathmatical and physical laws are not part of Him since He is pure spirit

Quote:

But maybe God is not necessary. Maybe the universe is self-caused or came about from some pre-universe, or some other explanation.

I'm not interested in arguing about Cosmological Arguments here. There's another thread I started to ask questions about that.

Ok guess I have to go find that one now to reply to this part

Quote:

My questions follow, and given that I'm not a philosopher, try to keep answers simple.

Neither am I so I hope they will be.

Quote:

What separates moral law from mathematical law?

Above in blue

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Why do moral principles require the existence of God?

I would say that they require the existence of God because they are not material/physical properties and since we mostly all agree on them they aren't just made up fiction. Therefore they help us to know that we have souls and aren't just atoms randomly placed. It is imposible for a purely physical cause to make something spiritual so requires something spritual that didn't already exist to make it which we call God.
(very bad but the best I can do since I have no more training in this than you do.

C.S. Lewis does it much better

)

Quote:

If moral principles come from God's will, could he have willed them differently? If not, why not? If so, aren't moral principles therefore arbitrary?

If moral principles come from God's nature, why is God's nature really necessary for an explanation? Why not simply say that morals come from the nature of our universe, and have an existence much like mathematical and physical laws do?

I think I did the best I could with these again above in blue...

One last thing, I think there are different types of mathmatical laws as well. Some are more physical laws (pi) but some are more our creation to make calculations easier and to provide consistancy with other things (i). Forget where I was going to go with this when I started

oh well, I'll think about it later and repost.

Quote:

Come and speculate with me. Be patient, because I'm not very intelligent, and have not studied philosophy. I'm just a scientist wondering about very big questions.

None of us are very intelgent but I am glad God gave me a intelect capable of speculating at all since I find it so much fun.

Charlemagne II · #8 Feb 12, '12, 1:48 pm

It is true that the universe is mathematically ordered. We know this from our discoveries of mathematical equations in nature. But did nature create those mathematical laws, or did God? According to Paul A.M. Dirac, Quantum Physicist, “God is a mathematician of a very high order and He used advanced mathematics in constructing the universe.”

If the universe always existed, the problem remains: what intellect devised these mathematical marvels? Did they devise themselves? Highly unlikely.

So the question comes down to this: If God created the mathematical laws, why would He not also create all the other laws, including the moral laws that spring from natural law? If you want to re-write natural law morality, you run into all kinds of problem. Sodomy, for example, is an agent for acquiring AIDS. Adultery is an agent for acquiring a divorce. Robbery is an agent for acquiring jail time. Etc. etc.

People who want to set up their own moral universe do so at the peril of falling into the immoral or amoral abyss of their own making. The law of moral gravity will not be denied.

exnihilo · #9 Feb 12, '12, 2:00 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel Monosov

What separates moral law from mathematical law?

I'm not a philosophy of math expert but moral law has to do with human actions that are the result of free will. More specifically it has to do with our duty to act or not act in certain ways. Math laws are descriptions of the world of numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel Monosov

If moral principles come from God's will, could he have willed them differently? If not, why not? If so, aren't moral principles therefore arbitrary?

You are talking about the Euthyphro Dilemma. Yes, if moral principles do come from God's will then yes he could have willed them differently. If so then yes moral principles are arbitrary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel Monosov

If moral principles come from God's nature, why is God's nature really necessary for an explanation? Why not simply say that morals come from the nature of our universe, and have an existence much like mathematical and physical laws do?

The Christian answer to the dilemma is to say that the moral law comes from God's nature. They are from his essence. Therefore they are not arbitrary.

You raise a common objection. Morality is about commands and accountability. To have commands you need a commander. To have accountability you need a judge and entity that can punish or reward. Thus we need a being or a person. The universe is not a being or a person so it could not be the source of moral law.

Samuel Monosov · #10 Feb 13, '12, 1:20 pm

Littlepilgrim, thanks for your response. It gave me something to think about.

I especially enjoyed:

Quote:

Originally Posted by littlepilgrim

None of us are very intelgent but I am glad God gave me a intelect capable of speculating at all since I find it so much fun.

Me too

Samuel Monosov · #11 Feb 13, '12, 1:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by exnihilo

You raise a common objection. Morality is about commands and accountability. To have commands you need a commander. To have accountability you need a judge and entity that can punish or reward. Thus we need a being or a person. The universe is not a being or a person so it could not be the source of moral law.

Maybe morality is about laws and principles. Maybe it's more about the way we evolved and our physical and psychological makeup. Some things make us happy and some things do not.

I have a strong intuition that these laws and principles have a deeper root than our psychology, and may be much like mathematical principles. These principles describe our psychological desires and something about the neurochemistry in our brains, but the principles are deeper and more eternal than all that.

Nevertheless, I don't see why they'd have to be connected to a commander. Why is another person necessary for morality?

wcknight · #12 Feb 13, '12, 2:24 pm

The only way that Math and morality are even remotely related is that each is searching for absolute truth. Either it is OR it is NOT. Either God exists or He does not. Either a mathematical theory is true or it is not. Whether a moral question is right or is wrong. (with morality, there may be some gray areas, in math there is very
very little gray area, only mathematical paradoxes have no real answer)

Sometimes the language in each may be similar, as each may have theories, principles, guidelines, but that is only because we as humans are limited in how we describe things. We use similar terms in many different fields of study.

I've never really heard of any "laws" in mathematics, that term is more likely to apply in Physics. We are more like to deal with rules or guidelines to handle certain processes, (one such rule is in algebra, when you add something to one side of an equation, you must add the same thing to the other side of the equation to maintain the equality - a rather simple minded rule BUT very useful in solving equations).

I suppose on a very basic level when you break a mathematical rule, you will be wrong, and when you break a moral rule/law you will be equally wrong. The analogy really does not go much further than that, and I feel that was forced to begin with.

It would be interesting to see IF a parallel exists with Mathematical duality theory, which says that one can solve a system of equations, by solving its inverse (and they -the solutions- will be the same)... Can we find moral correctness by finding evil incorrectness.

**Bookcat** · #13 Feb 13, '12, 2:51 pm

(I will have to leave math to others...not my area...but couple of quotes of interest for you)

"Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love."

--Pope Benedict XVI (Encyclical on Hope)

"We believe in God. This is a fundamental decision on our part. But again the question has to be asked: is this still possible today? Is it reasonable? From the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary. And if this were so, he would also become unnecessary in our lives. But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success - inevitably it would become clear: something is missing from the equation! When God is subtracted, something doesn't add up for man, the world, the whole universe. So we end up with two alternatives. What came first? Creative Reason, the Creator Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, yet somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless. As Christians, we say: "I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth" -I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason."

Pope Benedict XVI (Homily in Regensburg 2006)

Charlemagne II · #14 Feb 14, '12, 7:24 am

wcknight

The only way that Math and morality are even remotely related is that each is searching for absolute truth.

To begin, you have the TEN commandments of Moses. Then you have the TWO commandments of Jesus that contain the TEN of Moses. Then you have: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which is sort of an equation, isn't it?

The Catholic Church loves numbers:

SEVEN sacraments (related to morality)
SEVEN gifts of the Holy Spirit (related to morality)
THREE essential virtues of Faith Hope, and Charity (related to morality)

The NUMBER of times we commit a sin must be included when confessing it.

Every paragraph in the CCC, which guides our moral life, is numbered.

Etc.

Hypnotoad · #15 Feb 14, '12, 7:44 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by littlepilgrim

The mathmatical and physical laws are not part of Him since He is pure spirit

I would say Mathmatical and Physical Laws are a part of Him since they are truths and since God is said to be Truth itself.

I think a God is necessary because a source of authority is necessary since laws can only exist and be enforced if there is an authority to create them and ensure they're followed and upheld. I mean laws would be pretty pointless if we didn't have police, judges, officals, etc.