Abstract
In this paper, I will argue that with the emergence of digital virtual worlds (in video games, animation movies, etc.) by the animation industry, we need to rethink the role and authority of mathematics, also from an ontological point of view. First I will demonstrate that the application of mathematics to the creation and description of the digital, virtual worlds behaves in many respects analogously to the application of mathematics to the description of real-world phenomena from the viewpoint of the history of science. However, from other aspects, the application of mathematics significantly differs in this virtual world from the application to real-world fields. The main thesis of my paper is that the role of mathematics in the digital animation industry can be ontologically different from its usual role. In the application of mathematics to digital virtual worlds, mathematical concepts are no longer just modelling tools, forming a subordinated, computational basis, but they can direct and organise, and even create non-mathematical theory, something that we can call, for example, digital physics and biology. I will study this new, creative role of mathematics through some concrete phenomena, specifically through gravity. Our conclusion is that the animation industry opens an entirely new chapter in the relationship between (digital) sciences and mathematics.
Highlights
Philosophies 2022, 7, 22. https://The common belief is that when we talk about applying mathematics, the application of mathematical principles and practices obviously presupposes some other non-mathematical field, the discipline to which we apply this knowledge
I study how mathematics behaves in a completely new application medium that still correlates with the real world in some way and significantly differs from other viewpoints—and this is the digital virtual world: the world of virtual reality, video games and animation movies
Can we describe the phenomenon of the emergence of video game properties on pure physical properties of the computer? Is it overall an intentional system? Do digital virtual worlds of video games and animation movies form causal worlds? For an exhaustive discussion of these issues see [5], where the authors argue that properties of that virtual world cannot be fully explained by the emergence upon the physical properties of the computer
Summary
The common belief is that when we talk about applying mathematics, the application of mathematical principles and practices obviously presupposes some other non-mathematical field, the discipline to which we apply this knowledge. The main thesis of my paper is that applying mathematics in the animation industry, in the description of the digital virtual world(s), the above-mentioned—and somewhat richer—new concept of applied mathematics is very strongly validated In this application the extended concept appears in its purest form, in this application mathematics directs and organises, but creates non-mathematical theory, its role is ontologically different to what we normally think about applied mathematics. The essence of the problem is whether computer simulation scientific experiences can or cannot be considered of equal importance and validation power to real-world experiences The reason why this otherwise valid question is not detailed here is the fact that in virtual worlds we usually do not simulate any real situation from a mathematical point of view, so in an epistemological sense we do not want to get information and knowledge with the help of a computer, but we rather create information and knowledge with it. An exception to this may be a narrow segment of games that want to mimic real-life conditions as faithfully as possible (e.g., visualising realworld cars from their computer-aided design models in speed race-type games), to which we will briefly return
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