On 5/18/2014 5:40 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 May 2014 10:06, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com <mailto:jami...@gmail.com>>
wrote:
Dear Liz, thanks for your care to reflect upon my text and I apologize for
my LATE
REPLY.
You ask about my opinion on Tegmark's "math-realism" - well, if it were
REALISM
indeed, he would not have had to classify it 'mathemaitcal'. I consider it
a fine
sub chapter to ideas about *realism* what we MAY NOT KNOW at our present
level.
Smart Einstein etc. may have invented 'analogue' relativity etc., it does
not
exclude all those other ways Nature may apply beyond our present knowledge.
Our ongoing 'scientific thinking' - IS - inherently mathematical, so
wherever you
look you find it in the books.
I assume the implication of what you're saying here is that the reason physics appears
mathematical is because that's the way we think. I suspect most physicists would say the
opposite - that we think that way because that's how nature works (or at least that's
how it appears to work so far). If one is going to take the position that maths is a
human invention, then one has the hard problem of explaining why maths is so
"unreasonably effective" in physics while no other system of thought comes close.
Not at all. A lot of math was invented to describe theories of physics. If you have some
idea of how the world is, e.g. it consists of persistent identifiable objects, or all
matter pulls on other matter; And you want to work out the consequences of the idea and
make it precise with no inconsistencies - you've invented some math (unless you can apply
some that's already invented - see Norm Levitt's quip).
I did not find so far a /natural spot/ self-calculating 374 pieces of
something. and
draw conclusions of it NOT being 383. Nature was quite well before humans
invented
the decimal system, or the zero.
And human invented the */decimal/* system long before they invented the binary system
because...
And please, do not call it a 'discovery'. Nowhere in Nature are groupings of
decimally arranged units presented for processing/registration.
I think I have one here ready to hand.
I'm not sure what you mean here. (I /think/ you may be confusing the fact that 1+1=2
with the statement "1+1=2") Regardless of the notation we happen to use, there are
numbers in nature - pi, the ratios of the strengths of various fundamental forces and
masses, etc. Also, various mathematical theorems have been discovered by different
people using different approaches, yet they reach the same result. And there are lots of
open questions in maths, some with a $1 million prize attached - it's obviously hard for
people to make discoveries in maths, or those prizes would have been claimed long ago.
All of which implies that maths is something that is discovered, and indeed could be
discovered independently in different cultures, times, places - and on different planets
or in different universes.
I think it only implies that some parts of math are "discovered" like counting (which was
discovered by evolution) and when people invented language and logically inference and
concepts like "successor" and "..." they "discovered" there was a lot more math they could
infer.
Unless you 'discover' within the human mind.
Well, yes, just like you will "discover" any concept within a mind, by definition. (Or I
guess within textbooks, in a codified form). The evidence seems fairly strong that you
will discover the same mathematical concepts within ANY mind which looks into the
subject, and has sufficient ingenuity to work out the answers to various questions,
because mathematical truths appear to be universal (e.g. Pythagoras' theorem didn't only
work for the Ancient Greeks, 17 will always be prime, the square root of 2 will always
be irrational, etc). Only minds can appreciate these facts, just as only minds can
discover the law of universal gravitation.
Which is a strange thing to say since it turned out there was no such thing as the law of
universal gravitation; it was just an approximation to another theory, general relativity,
which we're pretty sure is wrong but we just haven't been able to invent a better one. So
how is a non-existent law "discovered"?
Brent
Your closing phrase "doesn't mean that it isn't inherently mathematical" is
true as
to the content it states. It also does not mean that it may not be anything
else beyond.
Of course, there may always be something else beyond, even given a TOE we can't be sure
this isn't the case. (There is however no evidence whatsoever to suggest that 1+1 will
ever not equal 2.)
It was a pleasure to follow your argumentation.
Likewise, although I'm not sure I followed all of it.
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