Is Symmetry a non-physical property?
If we observe nature carefully, everything appears as an original form, different from the rest. One cherry blossom can be similar to one another, but never reaches the point to be exactly equal.
Until it gets to the mind, where nature effects do not have longer acquaintance and symmetry could be perfectly imagined.
Could this symmetry affect the world?
Until it gets to the mind, where nature effects do not have longer acquaintance and symmetry could be perfectly imagined.
Could this symmetry affect the world?
Comments (23)
Consider the uncommon Scottish haggis: it has 2 long legs on one side, and 1 short leg on the other, and this allows them to run around the hills in one particular direction. Nature has contrived that the male and female of the species are complementary such that they run around in opposite directions, thus enabling regular meetings of opposite sexes. And if it were otherwise, the species would be even more rare and exotic than it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frxT2qB1POQ
There is also symmetry in movement. I love to swim, and when I mentioned to my doctor how good it makes me feel, not just physically but mentally, she said it is because of the symmetrical motion of my limbs in the water, which pleases my brain.
In mathematics, metric spaces are sets of points and a measure of distance between them: d(x,y)
such that d(x,y)=d(y,x), symmetry. In the real world, is the distance between my front door and my mailbox the same as the distance between my mailbox and front door?
23 steps out, 23 steps back.
If this is a symmetry, then "symmetry" has distinct meanings. I think of symmetry as involving two distinct parts. which are identical. Here we have one thing looked at from different perspectives.
Symmetry (function)
Isnt the number all of us say in answer to this question not only symmetrical, but identical?
Is it even possible that your answer be the slightest bit different than mine?
So now, does the answer possibly affect the world? What if we asked this question to tally up the parachutes needed on a crashing airplane? Do two minds exchanging symmetrical notions of 4 affect the world in which say three or five people need parachutes?
Like I thought, two different meanings. I think the op uses the word in the following way:
"the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis."
I think that's exactly the point made by the op. "Symmetry" is a sort of self-refuting idea, which we allow to have existence in our minds, but it is denied from reality. Like many ideals (perfections) we conceive them, but they do not have real independent existence.
To even have "two potatoes" or "two people" requires that there are similarities between particulars such that there are potatoes, people, etc. If people are not sure if potatoes, ants, or people exist "outside the mind," I don't really know how they are able to avoid full blown solipsism and all-encompassing radical skepticism. Afterall, if there aren't potatoes and ants, then presumably there aren't people either, and all "other people" would also be "generated by the mind."
Plus, if every mind is "constructing its own world," there are either symmetries between these worlds, or else each person effectively lives in their own, isolated world.