Nicholas Thompson wrote at 07/11/2011 05:58 PM: > But before I say why -- again -- could you tell me how (if?) you think > mathematics is different from science.
Don't bother saying it again. I read, understood, and agree with what you've posted. Similarly, I've already posted what I think philosophy is and how it's different from math. But perhaps you didn't see it due to the mailing list problems. So, here it is again: Philosophy is to math as it is to any other discipline. Introspective mathematicians will sporadically engage in philosophy in order to sort and arrange the fundamental concepts of their discipline ... just like a chair maker will engage in philosophy to sort out the fundamental issues of chair making. Philosophy is _obvious_ when discussing he fundamentals of any discipline. The paper I asked people like Owen and Doug to comment on: http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo/Preprints/MG-LESz-rp_preprint-v5.pdf seems to be doing that. It's clearly a philosophy paper trying to deal with some fundamental physical principles. There are plenty of similar, philosophical, papers dealing with the foundations of math. As with any discipline, the closer to the center you get, the more philosophy you see. It's true that some mathematicians, perhaps even most, spend their whole lives wandering around the outer layers, never considering the fundamentals. But many of us, from musician to ditch digger, agree with Socrates/Plato that: "Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us you will not be able to live quietly, without talking? Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you. If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because that means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for man, you will believe me even less." That's why I prefer plumbers who have a philosophy of plumbing over the lazy yahoo who just wants to get paid and go home to watch American Idol or play XBox. ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
