On 12 Sep 2014, at 04:19, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/11/2014 6:36 PM, LizR 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.
One counter argument is to note that math has been "unreasonably
effective" in Ptolemaic astronomy, Newtonian physics, fluid
dynamics, non-relativistic quantum mechanics, and other theories
which we now think were mere approximations. This seems much more
consistent with mathematics being descriptive rather than
prescriptive.
I'd say mathematics is just a matter of being very precise about
axioms and what you infer from them so that you find lots of
interesting consequences but don't fall into contradiction.
?
Basically all mathematiciens having serach for a mathematical
unification of mathematics, like Church with lambda calculus, or Frege
with sets, or Curry with combinators have been driven toward
inconsistent theories. Each time the mathematical reality kicked back
and called for more modesty. Your view is called conventionalism, and
in my opinion made unsustainable by Gödel and Co. Even Einstein, a big
conventionalist in math, get some doubt after discussing with Gödel.
Then with comp, the existence of a physical universe dopes not make
more sense than a creationist god. It simply does not work.
Bruno
Brent
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