On 17 October 2014 08:43, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > If the physical world didn't exist and there wasn't 4 of anything and > never has been, would 2+2=4 have any meaning? And even if it did would it > matter, who would be around to understand that meaning? You have always > just assumed that mathematics is more fundamental than physics and maybe it > is, but with the recent discovery that information is physical we can at > least question that assumption. It's also odd that computers need to be > made of matter not abstract stuff from Platonia before they can actually do > anything intelligent and presumably before they can become conscious; but I > don't think anyone knows yet which is more fundamental, the real numbers or > superstrings. >
That seems a bit harsh. I don't think Bruno "has always just assumed" anything. Also, the argument that someone has to be around to appreciate the truths of arithmetic seems a bit specious - there was no one around in the big bang that we know of, yet it would appear any maths that might be involved in physical processes managed to work OK. By the way, what is the "recent discovery that information is physical" ? I've kind of assumed that information was known to be physical, or at least instantiated physically, ever since Beckenstein and Hawking did their stuff with the storage limits on physical volumes, and suchlike. -- 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.
