> On 31 Aug 2019, at 16:01, Philip Thrift <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 8:18:22 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> On 28 Aug 2019, at 07:14, Philip Thrift <[email protected] <javascript:>> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 11:12:58 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote: >> >> >> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 10:01:19 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 5:55:36 PM UTC-5, Bruce wrote: >> >> I came across a good article that is apposite to the discussion in this >> thread. Arnold Neumaier has an article on virtual particles at: >> >> https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/ >> <https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/> >> >> where he looks at the origin of much of the common mythology surrounding the >> idea of vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles. People should read this >> and take the lessons to heart -- all of this mythology arose from >> well-meaning, but ultimately mis-guided, attempts to explain the mysteries >> of quantum mechanics to lay people. The result was enduring confusion, that >> now affects even professional physicists. >> >> Bruce >> >> >> >> Very interesting fellow. Interesting article. I was intrigued reading the >> link there to his biography of himself being math to applied math ending up >> in computing and dabbling in physics. Sounded like me! >> >> Then >> >> Two years after my Ph.D., my formerly atheistic world view changed and I >> became a Christian. I got convinced that there is a very powerful God >> <http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/sciandf/eng/arms.html> who created the >> Universe, who controls what appears to us as chance, and who is interested >> in each of us individually. I understood (with Galilei, and later Newton and >> Maxwell) that God had written the book of nature in the language of >> mathematics. As a result of these insights, one of my life goals became to >> understand all the important applications of mathematics in other fields of >> science, engineering, and ordinary life. It is a challenge that keeps me >> learning all my life. >> >> https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/interview-mathematician-physicist-arnold-neumaier/ >> >> <https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/interview-mathematician-physicist-arnold-neumaier/> >> >> @philipthrift >> >> Are you suggesting, maybe tongue in cheek, that his analysis of virtual >> particles is suspect because he believes in a very powerful God? Do you >> believe in such a God? AG >> >> >> >> I've always been an atheistic materialist. I don't know if his "denial" of >> virtual particles is influenced by his theology or not, but this I know: >> >> One physicist says there are Xs. Another physicist says there are no Xs. One >> or both is BSing. Probably both. > > > I agree that one or both could be wrong. But why insinuate that they are > BSing? > > Also, sometimes, two different theories assert the same thing, but in > different ways, and that can include the “assumed basic ontology”. Mechanism > illustrates this completely, as you can take any terms of any > Turing-complete, without induction, without changing any conclusion about the > “same” reality. > > It is more the relations between the “objects” that counts. In fact, > eventually it is the relations between the relations which counts, which > imply the necessity for the mind to invoke the infinite, even if we do not > “reify” it into the ontology (like with the class of all sets is not a set, > or that Plotinus Number of the Numbers is not a number, etc.). > > Reality is independent of the theories. Different theories can handle well > different aspect of Reality. Sometimes they can handle well the same aspect > of Reality, yet in a completely different way, and this usually announce > fertile marriage between the theories. (Examples in mathematics exist between > braids and spin statistics, or group and particles theory, of topology and > algebra, etc). > > > > >> >> The luxury (or fun) of math and even applied math is it doesn't matter if >> whether you think of the entities of a theory being fictional or not. > > OK. > > > > >> It is useful or it isn't. (In pure math, useful doesn't quite matter as in >> applied math.) > > > For someone open to the idea that Reality might be Mathematical, if not > Arithmetical, if not sigma_1 arithmetical only, the distinction between > applied and pure mathematics makes no more much sense fundamentally. > > It becomes a bit like the difference between artificial and natural, once you > embed the researcher in the Reality that it researches. So that difference is > also natural, and indeed almost unavoidable when the universal machine > develops a big ego, and feel different. > > Monism favours that embedding of the “subject” into the “object”. QM without > collapse is essentially QM + the axiom asserting that the physicists obeys to > the physical laws. Similarly, with Digital Mechanism, Gödel’s work is an > embedding of the mathematician in the mathematical reality. > > Bruno > > > > > > I just mean when a scientist is BSing in the Feyerabend sense: It's when > existences or nonexistences of entities of a theory are written or spoken > about as being reality with the conviction of the Westminster Catechisms. > > I've decided that in the matter vs. math debate, to conclude that there is no > debate, if one just says that a study of math is just a study of matter, and > nothing more.
This will only obscure the difference between math and physics. But those science does not study the same things. Mathematics studies abstract relations, which are out of the category of space, time, and physical things. Physics is a theory of observable predictions. With mechanism, physics becomes a very special branch of machine theology, which is itself a very special branch of mathematical logic (itself a very special branch of mathematics). > > > https://twitter.com/philipthrift/status/1167548170714386433 > > .. > Jussi Jylkkä @JylkkaJussi > > It’s partly terminology, why couldn’t it be that pain is a mathematical > structure. If mathematical things are concrete, then how can we be sure what > those things are really like? In mathematics (as opposed to metaphysics and theology) we don’t care on the nature of things. We only reason from axioms that we share on some intuition that we have. Nobody knows, or even try to know, what is a number, or what is a set, but we do agree on some of their properties. When interested in the nature of things, we still have to accept primary things and primary laws between those things to account of the “other things”. Physics studies the physical reality. Math studies the mathematical reality. Metaphysics/theology studies the nature of Reality, and tackle the fundamental question “Is Reality Mathematical, or Physical, or theological or mental, etc.” and this without deciding the answer in advance, and trying to get observable consequences, so that the metaphysics can be improved/refuted. It is a just a bad habit that we use dogma in metaphysics (since long). The truth is that we don’t know, but there too we can build theories and test them. Somehow, since QM’s foundational problem, physics begin to handle metaphysical question, and to have to decide (even if momentarily) on some philosophical principles, like Mechanism (cf Everett) or non Mechanism (cf Bohr, von Neumann, Wigner, etc.). Bruno > > > Philip Thrift @philipthrift > Replying to @JylkkaJussi @flyrusca > > If mathematical structures equals matter, that's a kind of a cool "new" math! > > @philipthrift > > > > > > -- > 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] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/09115a43-7c24-4a6b-a8b0-c95abd57645c%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/09115a43-7c24-4a6b-a8b0-c95abd57645c%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/DB6291AB-A6B1-4437-963A-06A01C701559%40ulb.ac.be.
