On 17 May 2014, at 10:10, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
But it is worth to reflect on the mere idea of "Agnosticism" that
comes from Kant and his approach to metaphysics. Kant did not invented
it, but it is was the logical consequence of his philosophy and almost
every western agnostic is kantian despite that he does not know this
fact.
It is very important to follow historically the development of that
way of thinking to know what this philosophy mean and what more things
besides God (a lot, and very important) you are living without.
Very generaly, we can say that a believer M is agnostic with respect
to a proposition A if M does not believe A *and* does not believe ~A.
If G is for God exists, someone agnostic obeys ~[]G and ~[]~G. He does
not believe in God and he does not believe in the inexistence of God.
Either because he is not interested in the question, or because he
waits for more information, and better precision, or he believes may
be that it is in God nature than humans can't decide, whatever.
Atheists, or at least strong Atheists, are believer, as they tend to
believe or assert the non existence of God (instead of the "I don't
know" of the agnostic).
Many are believing, or taking for granted, in a primitive material
universe, but in science, i think we should be agnostic on this too,
especially in front of the debate on the meaning of QM, and the mind-
body problem.
I understand that agnosticism about space and time can be related to
Kant, but for "god" , "matter", "energy", that seems to me less clear.
Bruno
2014-05-17 0:06 GMT+02:00, John Mikes <[email protected]>:
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 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 please,
do not
call it a 'discovery'. Nowhere in Nature are groupings of decimally
arranged units presented for processing/registration.
Unless you 'discover' within the human mind.
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.
It was a pleasure to follow your argumentation.
John M
On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 7:36 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
On 5 May 2014 08:42, John Mikes <[email protected]> wrote:
In "my" agnostic vocabulary the 'real' includes lots of
'inconnues' that
may change whatever we THINK is included - as historic examples
show.
I still hold mathematics an exorbitant achievement of the H U M
A N
mind
What do you think of Max Tegmark's argument for "mathematical
realism" -
that all the clues we have so far indicate that nature is inherently
mathematical, and that if we ever find a ToE, and it turns out to be
"just
a bunch of equations", then there will be no reason to think the
universe
is anything other than those equations - as he puts it, "how they
look
from
the inside" ?
Obviously this is speculative, of course, in that we don't have a
ToE
yet.
But everything we have learnt about reality so far does appear to
indicate
it has (in some sense) a mathematical nature. If this trend
continues and
we eventually discover a TOE, and it is mathematical, would you
agree
with
Max that maths isn't an invention of the human mind, but something
we
have
discovered about reality? (That it is even, perhaps, ALL that
reality
is?)
The facts WE can calculate from Nature do not evidence a similar
calculation how Nature arrived at them. (See the early (even
recent???)
explanatory errors in our sciences). We are nowhere to decipher
Nature's
analogue(?) ways (if *'analogue' *covers them all, what I would not
suggest).
Relativity is analogue, quantum mechanics is (perhaps) digital.
However,
assuming that nature is analogue - i.e., continuously
differentiable -
doesn't mean that it isn't inherently mathematical.
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