Oh well, I will remove my AR hat for now and put on my poet's hat. It's much more becoming in any case.
On 24 January 2014 16:46, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/23/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 24 January 2014 16:08, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> I'd say a finitist form of arithmetic is a good description of some >>> aspects of reality - but don't try to add raindrops or build Hilbert's >>> Hotel. >>> >>> OK. So are there some fundamental aspects of reality that can't be >> described by mathematics? >> >> >> Probably not. Or it might depend on how complete a description is >> required (notice that not all true sentences of arithmetic can be >> described). Mathematics is just axiomatized language, a way of making >> sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition. There might be >> something that can only be described fuzzily; poets have lots of >> candidates. Maybe consciousness is one. But it's like asking is there >> something science can't investigate. Maybe, but we won't know without >> trying. >> > > It's just that so far, after about 500 years, we haven't managed to find > *anything* that looks remotely fundamental to the operation of the > universe that can't be described to fairly high precision by maths. I guess > this is what has led some people to wonder if there's more to it than just > "a way of making sentences definite and avoiding self-contradicition". > > > I think you're squinting through you math glasses. Everything that we can > describe and predict with high precision is described by math (for the > reason I gave). So of course whatever we think is the most fundamental > theory is going to be described by math - they alternative would to that it > was described in say, poetry and metaphor. But then we'd say that's vague > and we need precise predictions to test this alternative theory. > > > > (I guess other people think we cherry pick the stuff that's mathy, and > there are vast swathes of non-mathematical stuff out there just waiting to > be discovered...) > > > Sure. It's the part Bruno dismisses as "geography": the messy contingent > stuff that biologists describe in notebooks or we treat statistically. We > *think* it can be explained in terms of the fundamental math (Schrodinger's > equation, GR, QFT) and so we tell ourselves we've got the really real > equations, and aren't they mathy! But we also know we've thought that > before and been wrong, and besides they aren't even consistent with one > another (hence Susskind and the firewall debate). > > > Brent > > > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- > 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
