Or chs 9-14 of course! (In fact I hadn't even opened your 2nd email when I wrote that...)
I will do my best to have a look at the book, and if I have any sensible comments I'll get back with them. On 12 September 2014 13:36, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > Obviously I haven't read the PDF file with Chs 1-8, which may take me a > while - but I do (mildly) take issue with this assertion. > > Mathematics is merely a description of nature. Nature can operate > mathematically (adverb), but cannot be claimed to ‘be’ the mathematics. > Being predictive with/using mathematics does not prove nature is made of > it. I deal with nature itself. Not maths. When you realise this you end up > with dual aspect science. A 3 tiered epistemic framework practical for > science > > > This is of course the position that science has taken for the past few > centuries without realising that there was any alternative. However, now > that Max Tegmark (and of course Bruno) have argued that there is an > alternative, simply *claiming* that nature cannot be made of maths no > longer cuts the mustard. It's true that maths being predictive doesn't > "prove that nature is made of maths" because as we know, science doesn't > set out to prove anything, especially not sweeping ontological claims. But > it still seems quite possible to me, at least, that Max may be onto > something, because as he points out his theory explains the "unreasonable > effectiveness" of maths in physics - so I will be interested to hear some > counter arguments that explain this effectiveness on a non > universe-is-maths basis. So far I've seen a bit of handwavium, but > generally I've been underwhelmed by the alternatives presented to explain > this, which leaves Max's theory out in front in terms of explanatory power, > as far as this particular issue is concerned. > > Not that there aren't problems with Max's theory, of course. (It's mind > boggling for a bear of little brain like me to attempt to grasp how it > could possibly actually work....) But it does seem plausible enough to > deserve decent counter-arguments. > > -- 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.
