On 11 May 2015 at 05:49, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 10:41 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > Before I get started I want to remind people that I'm playing devil's > advocate here, maybe mathematics really is more fundamental than physics > but I've been taking the opposite stance in the last few posts because > nearly everybody on this list assumes the question is settled, and it > isn't. > > Sure. I certainly don't assume it's settled, indeed at every opportunity I ask for a proof or demonstration or even a logical reason why it may not be. But so far all I've heard is along the lines of "we select the part of maths that works to describe physics" as though that made it reasonable that it does. Which of course doesn't even address the question of why does reality have this structure - based on symmetries and equations, apparently. Obviously if reality is primary material it may come down to something like (for example) a crystal which can only be arranged in certain ways, and the fundamental question becomes something like "why does 3D space have the property that you can only pack the Planck cells into it THIS way?" But even then you need some basic properties that "just work" in that they respect some form of logic. Where does *that* come from? Answers on a postcard.
PS in the 70s it seemed quite amusing that Douglas Adams gave the ultimate answer as "42" - but now, at least on this list, its starting to look like that may have been kind of prescient after all. -- 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.
