On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 00:08:15 GMT, davidsmyth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Could there be a universe where the rules concerning number theory >would be different than in this universe? Conventional wisdom of course says that logic and hence number theory are independent of physical reality. Suppose you asked in 1822, whether the rules concerning plane geometry would be different in other universes. Then the answer would have been that a system of axioms and hence geometry are independent of physical reality. However in 1823 Bolyai and Lobachevsky independently realized that entirely self-consistent "non-Euclidean geometries" could be created in which the parallel postulate did not hold. Today, the discussion would be quite different. For geometry, the cosmology of universes with a range of curvatures are now considered reasonable. In his book, The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Hughes mentions works which assert that the rules of logic may be empirical. I find your question stimulating, in that an implication of logic being empirical is the charming speculation as to whether there could be universes which operate with different versions of the distributive law. References: quant- ph/0001074 An Epistemological Derivation of Quantum Logic John Foy math. HO/9911150 Machines, Logic and Quantum Physics David Deutsch and Artur Ekert John