On Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 5:57:59 PM UTC-6, Brent wrote: > > > > On 1/2/2019 10:30 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: > > I have no reason to believe that all of mathematics (numbers, ..., > > (mathematical) Turing machines, ...) is nothing more than language - > > which is something generated by material beings. > > But do you have some reason to believe that it is more than a language? > > One could cite its universality among beings which otherwise speak many > different languages. We have used it in an attempt to communicate with > aliens, who presumably have very different languages. > > Brent > > That is related to the "indispensability" question: Why is math useful?
In my version of the solution https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/08/26/mathematical-pulp-fictionalism/ The key concept is that matter has codicality: It has a programmatic, or codical, nature. It follows repetitive behavior that can be described programmatically. (Possibly, matter that does not have this nature would fall apart and could not form a universe.) - pt -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
