Ah, waht is mathematics?
I suspect humans could spend their life-times pondering this profound question and never fully understand. I'm a mathematical realist in the sense that I think mathematical entities are real objective properties of reality and not just human inventions, but I've come to seriously doubt the Platonist idea that mathematics is static and timeless. Rather I now favor the idea that mathematical truth can evolve with time. See Greg Chaitin for some ideas about this. As some of you may, know, I've suggested some radical ideas about time on this list: namely the idea that there may be more than one time dimension, in the sense that there may be more than one valid way to define cause and effect relations. My big big idea is that mathematics could be a sort of 'higher order causality' ,or, if you like a 'higher dimensional time'. This is possible if some mathematical truths are not static, but can evolve with time. Suppose that causality itself had a two-level structure, with 'mathematical time' on the top level, and what we think of as physical time on the bottom level. This two level time structure is compatible with David Bohm's interpretation of QM where reality indeed has a two-level structure - both the wave function and the particle are equally real but correspond to different levels of reality. The two-level time structure could also explain the difference between the 1st person and 3rd person perspectives and resolve the puzzle of flowing time versus platonic timelessness. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---