On 6 June 2015 at 07:22, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 , meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > >> It's very relevant if you want to know what is a simplified >> approximation of what. And we both agree that a electronic computer is >> vastly more complex than it's logical schematic, so why can we make a >> working model of the complex thing but not make a working model of the >> simple thing when usually it's easier to make a simple thing than a complex >> thing? The only answer that comes to mind is that particular simplified >> approximation is just too simplified and just too approximate to actually >> do anything. That simplification must be missing something important, >> matter that obeys the laws of physics. > > > >> > The trouble with this argument is that the laws of physics are >> mathematical abstractions. >> > > Mathematicians are always saying that mathematics is a language, but what > would be the consequences if that were really true? >
I'm not sure that mathematicians say this (well, Galileo did, iirc, but generally they don't). > The best way known to describe the laws of physics is to write then in the > language of mathematics, but a language is not the thing the language is > describing. A book about Napoleon may be written in the English Language, > but the English Language is not Napoleon and mathematics may not be the > physical universe. Or maybe it is. As I've said many times I'm playing > devil's advocate here, maybe mathematics really is more fundamental than > physics but if it is it has not been proven. > I doubt anything could prove this if it's still being debated even though physics has been based on maths for 300 years. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
