Bruno: to describe what OTHERS did does not mean (in my vocabulary) that "I KNOW (agree?) the same domain as it was handled. I 'know' (or may know) the efforts to derive science by human scientists.
Does NATURE have regularities indeed? or our scientific observation assigns returning facets and calls them regularities as long as they are not contradicted? OK, maybe I should use "EVENTS" instead of regularities. And please do not make me a Straw-Man by repeating what I wrote. Your sentence: *"Humans *might have learned a lot in mathematics by looking at nature, but this does not prove that nature precedes logically mathematics."* I have not included "logically" and may write: Q.e.D. On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 15 Jun 2015, at 21:53, John Mikes wrote: > > Brent concluded ingeniously: > > > *They have a theory for why THIS might be so no matter what THIS is. You > just have to find the right mathematics to describe it and miracle of > miracles the mathematics is obeyed!Brent* > > May I step a bit further: by careful observations humanity (or some > 'higher' cooperating intellect maybe?) derived the connotions we call > 'theories', math, even axioms to make them fit. Then we fall on our > backside by admiration that they fit. Don't forget the historic buildup of > our 'science' etc, stepwise, as we increased the observational > treasure-chest of Nature. > So Nature does not "obey" mathematics, mathematics has been derived in > ways to follow the observed regularities of Nature. > > > I thought that you were agnostic, but here you talk like if you *knew* > something, which I don't. > > Even assuming Nature, the question remains: why does it have regularities? > Why does it look like it obeys mathematics? To say we derive mathematics > from nature does not really address the question. > > *Humans *might have learned a lot in mathematics by looking at nature, but > this does not prove that nature precedes logically mathematics. I have > given argument that the contrary might have happened: nature might belong > to the imagination of the Löbian machines or numbers. We know that such > imagination is lawful, and obeys strict constraints. > > Bruno > > > > > > JM > > > On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 2:45 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 6/14/2015 2:49 PM, LizR wrote: >> >> On 15 June 2015 at 08:22, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> I'm not saying it's ineffective. I'm saying it's not a mystery why >>> it's effective. >>> >> >> Because the universe appears to operate on principles that map very >> well onto some parts of maths, >> >> >> I think that's an illusion of selective attention. Remember how Kepler >> thought the size of the planetary orbits were determined by nesting the >> five Platonic solids. An impressive example of the effective of >> mathematics - except it turned out there weren't just five planets. Now we >> regard the orbits as historical accidents and predicted by any >> mathematics. Instead we point to fact that they obey Newton's law of >> universal gravitation to great accuracy. Another impressive example of the >> effectiveness of mathematics...except it's slight wrong and Einstein's >> spacetime model works better. >> >> and may even map exactly (we have no reason to think not - every >> improvement in measurement so far indicates this, >> >> >> Except when they don't. >> >> but there will always of course be room for doubt - just room that's >> been getting steadily smaller over the last few centuries). >> >> But you haven't said why it does so. I may not agree with Bruno or Max >> Tegmark, but at least they have a theory for why this >> >> >> They have a theory for why THIS might be so no matter what THIS is. You >> just have to find the right mathematics to describe it and miracle of >> miracles the mathematics is obeyed! >> >> Brent >> >> *might* be so, and I haven't seen any definitive demonstration of >> mistakes in their theories as yet (there are lots of suggestions that may >> become definitive with more work, of course). >> >> So far, your answer to the question of the "unreasonable effectiveness" >> of maths is basically "It works that way because it works that way, I can't >> explain it - but trust me, it isn't worth explaining." >> >> -- >> 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. >> >> >> >> -- >> 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. >> > > > -- > 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. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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