The logic of numbering physical things

It may seem that there is a natural way of grouping objects in the universe for the purpose of calculating cause and effect. For instance, one atom is made up of a certain number of electrons, protons, and neutrons which are separated by relatively large distances from other atoms. This may suggest a natural group of a certain number of things.

However, it should be recognized that you can arbitrarily select groups for the purpose of determining their effect on other arbitrary selections. For instance we can take a number of neighboring atoms and half of another and determine what effect that group of thing will have on some other group of things. For example, we can take the mass and charge of that arbitrary group and calculate what the electrical or gravitational effect will be on a distant object.

In short, no matter how you arrange things ( in groups) you can still determine how it will cause an effect on other things. So cause and effect which has a premise-conclusion type of relationship (or a logical relationship) does not depend on how you group things into numbers. The same effect will result no matter how you arrange it.

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