On 6/5/2015 12:22 PM, John Clark wrote:
On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 , meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>> It's very relevant if you want to know what is a simplified
approximation of
what. And we both agree that a electronic computer is vastly more
complex than
it's logical schematic, so why can we make a working model of the
complex thing
but not make a working model of the simple thing when usually it's
easier to
make a simple thing than a complex thing? The only answer that comes to
mind is
that particular simplified approximation is just too simplified and
just too
approximate to actually do anything. That simplification must be missing
something important, matter that obeys the laws of physics.
> The trouble with this argument is that the laws of physics are
mathematical abstractions.
Mathematicians are always saying that mathematics is a language, but what would be the
consequences if that were really true? The best way known to describe the laws of
physics is to write then in the language of mathematics, but a language is not the thing
the language is describing.
I agree the laws of physics are descriptions we invent; but even so they are abstractions
and not material and what they define is only an approximation to what happens in the
world. That's what makes them useful - they let us make predictions while leaving out a
lot of stuff.
Brent
A book about Napoleon may be written in the English Language, but the English Language
is not Napoleon and mathematics may not be the physical universe.
Or maybe it is. As I've said many times I'm playing devil's advocate here, maybe
mathematics really is more fundamental than physics but if it is it has not been proven.
John K Clark
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