On Sunday, January 4, 2015 10:03:25 PM UTC, John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 Bruno Marchal <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > > > By your post, it seems you do not believe in a primary biological >> reality or even a chemical universe. >> > > I don't know, give me some examples of "a primary biological reality" and > "a chemical universe" and I'll be able to tell you if I believe in them or > not. And remember I don't want definitions I want examples. > > > It seems that you believe that chemistry can be reduced conceptually to >> physics. >> > > Obviously. > > >> > This means that we don't need to assume some vital or chemical >> principles. >> > > As a practical matter when you get to the level of chemistry and biology > you do have to assume some approximations and statistical laws; even in > physics we'd be lost without statistical ideas like pressure and > temperature. > >> > Physical entities and physical laws can explain the chemical laws, >> which can explain the biological laws. >> > > Obviously. > > >> >Here the physical entities and laws are primary and the chemical and >> biological are not. >> > > I would agree that physical laws come before biological laws in a > objective chain of cause and effect, but "primary" means highest rank in > importance and so there is some subjectivity thrown into the mix, and so I > wouldn't necessarily agree that the laws of physics are more important > than the laws of chemistry or biology. > > > My question can be put in this way: do you think we necessarily need to >> assume physical entities, or are you open to the idea that the physical >> itself can be reduced to another field (like perhaps number theory, or >> mathematics, or some abstract psychology, or theology, of computer science, >> etc.)? > > > Sure I'm open to the idea, but as to which came first physics or > mathematics I don't know. I am a physics agnostic, but as I understand it > you are a atheist. > > > The fact that a book in physics use mathematical notions does not imply >> that the mathematical notions are physical. >> > > True, but it does not imply that the mathematics is not physical.either. > > > Book on gastronomy use english does not make the use of english an >> object of gastronomy. > > > English can describe food but food came before English. You seem to be > implying that mathematics is just a language that can describe physics. I > don't know if that's true but if it is then physics came before mathematics. > > John K Clark >
yester better years days g9ne by, I would hace waved and cheered rriom the sidelnes any statement such as that. but in recent times I've become superstitious as fuck -- 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.
