The natural sciences—including physics and biology—were all disciplines directed at a natural world. The worlds they described were concrete, approachable through the senses to achieve a "first-order approximation," then through other methods of detection provided by technology, perceiving the "invisible world" to achieve a "second-order approximation."
Among these world-facing disciplines, however, there were two special... cultures? Or rather, "ways of thinking"?
They were "empiricism" and "deduction."
Practitioners of the empirical path gathered feedback from the world through action after action, then used that collected information to consider how "nature" operated.
Supporters of the deductive path, on the other hand, used rules of logic to deduce the laws of nature.
Lord of Yuanli was, in essence, a deductionist.
The Mathematician Lord was as well.
At this level, they could be said to have taken the path of the "void."
Perhaps because their lines of thought were similar, they also shared many similarities in their understanding of "mathematics."
Lord of Yuanli held an extremely high position within the Myriad Dharma Sect, even surpassing the sages of the School of Numbers of the Middle Ages.
Yet in essence, Lord of Yuanli did not regard mathematics as the essence of the world.
To him, mathematics was the finger pointing at the moon, the precious raft for crossing a river, not the "other shore" itself.
The Mathematician Lord was the same.
Though he was the most gifted and brilliant mathematician, the Mathematician Lord firmly believed that mathematics was not the root of the world, but a system constructed by people.
It was humanity's creation.
But some cultivators of the School of Separation, led by Wang Qi, did not think so.
Wang Qi believed that mathematics was a real, self-existing entity.
Of course, that was not to say these two views were wholly irreconcilable.
Take a