"Painius" wrote:

Mathematics is not "man-made" in any way, shape
or form. *It is a universal tool.

Just bein' rained in and feelin' ornery today, so please bear with. So
we're using a base-10 math system arbitrarily derived from our number
of digits. And we (well, the Arabs actually) ingeniously equipped it
with the utterly unique Zero multiplier..
which endows our math with its phenomenal power.
But 'What If' elsewhere in the cosmos there are
other math systems using other 'bases' (e.g., base there, base nine,
twelve, sixteen, or any other 'base')? And 'what if', instead of using
a multiplier like our Zero, another system instead uses the
'interlocking' (or 'overlapping') principle as in the octave, where
the last figure (or 'note') becomes the first of the next group? And
what if a system has no concept of Zero or the 'interlock' principle
at all, like the Roman system? And what if another system, instead of
being based on fingers or toes, is based on something like the
Periodic Table? How would all these possible systems be commonly
translated into a 'Universal Math'?
And hells bells, what if some highly advanced race
uses no math or digitization at all as we know it, but uses an
entirely holographic/holonomic means of perception?
These are a few issues that the 'Primacy of
Math' disciples oughta consider from time to time. Off soapbox. :-)

Everybody thinks Ptolemy misused math to show
that geocentrism was reality. Ptolemy was trying to
nail something down, but it wasn't geocentrism. He
used math quite well to give the people what they
wanted to hear! *

And to give himself a sense of...

* * * * * * * * * *i m m o r t a l i t y

Hear, hear. oc