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 <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 1/23/2014 7:33 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 24 January 2014 16:08, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> On 1/23/2014 5:46 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> On 24 January 2014 14:40, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> 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 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/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 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/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 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/groups/opt_out.
