On 17 May 2014 10:06, John Mikes <[email protected]> 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. > > 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. > 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. > 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. > 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. -- 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/d/optout.
