Mathematics is a language invented by humans to describe the quantitative aspects of the world just as natural language describes the qualitative aspects.
Laws of nature are properties of matter and energy that are independent of space and time. That is why they and the math for them work everywhere and all the time and is not a proof of anything.
Reality which is the behavior of matter and energy is just one aspect of the universe. For every reality you can come up with innumerable fiction. If we restrict the universe only to what we call real then we can throw out literature, poetry, laws as well as the dreams, hopes and most things human from our lives.
Scientists have a very narrow view of the universe. Even when they are seeing into billions of light years, they are just seeing more of the same - a couple of hundred elements and particles acting out a couple of hundred of their properties.
Posted by: Raza Husain | Oct 12, 2012 12:24:59 PM
I think the key question is: is our mathematics true in every possible universe?
String theory - which Smolin is not sympathetic to - proposes that it is. That the mathematics we use to model the universe is separate and outside the universe we live in, and can therefore describe all possible universes. Or not?
String theorists currently hold, via the multiverse idea, that mathematics is separate from the universe in which we live and therefore is capable of describing all possible universes.
I feel uncomfortable with this. Mathematics is unreasonably effective in the universe in which we live. But why wouldnt it be? We built it as a result of interaction with our own universe. We have not tested it, and cannot test it, in any alternate universe.
There are two issues here
1. we have absolutely no justification for asserting that mathematics is not simply a very abstract phenomem of the universe in which we live. It could be very different in another universe.
2. as Smolin points out, our models as expressed in mathematics, are necessarily only provisional models of where we live
This is tautological. The mathematics we use is a product of the universe in which we live. Separately from that we only have a partial understanding of the universe in which we live. We use the mathematics presented to us by our universe, to describe our universe. We have no right to say that our mathematics extends beyond our own backyard.
Posted by: JM | Oct 12, 2012 4:50:43 PM
They couldn't get an actual mathematician for a discussion on mathematics? Physicist doesn't quite count.
Posted by: Brandon | Oct 13, 2012 2:00:59 PM
Please read the following paper:
"Mathematics as an exact and precise language of nature"
arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511042
cogprints.org/4616/
philpapers.org/rec/ABBMAA
and in my monograph
"Philosophy of Science - a new perspective" IIAS, India, 2005
The only way to understand what mathematics actually is, we should use proper classification of "pure mathematics" as "gibberish" ( an honourable classification as to what a "language" really means )
and of "applied mathematics" as the proper language of nature and which scientists have been trying to acquire through the arduous task of doing what Nature demands of them. The scientists may however have to go from the "instrumental" stage to the "realist" stage in learning this language.
Syed Afsar Abbas
drafsarabbas@yahoo.in
Posted by: Prof. Syed Afsar Abbas | Jan 16, 2013 3:17:04 AM
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Comments
Bill Clinton in the link.
Posted by: Melisma | Oct 11, 2012 8:33:02 AM
What link?
Posted by: S. Abbas Raza | Oct 11, 2012 8:34:41 AM
Very Interesting Discussion
Posted by: Sundar | Oct 11, 2012 2:37:25 PM
Mathematics is a language invented by humans to describe the quantitative aspects of the world just as natural language describes the qualitative aspects.
Laws of nature are properties of matter and energy that are independent of space and time. That is why they and the math for them work everywhere and all the time and is not a proof of anything.
Reality which is the behavior of matter and energy is just one aspect of the universe. For every reality you can come up with innumerable fiction. If we restrict the universe only to what we call real then we can throw out literature, poetry, laws as well as the dreams, hopes and most things human from our lives.
Scientists have a very narrow view of the universe. Even when they are seeing into billions of light years, they are just seeing more of the same - a couple of hundred elements and particles acting out a couple of hundred of their properties.
Posted by: Raza Husain | Oct 12, 2012 12:24:59 PM
I think the key question is: is our mathematics true in every possible universe?
String theory - which Smolin is not sympathetic to - proposes that it is. That the mathematics we use to model the universe is separate and outside the universe we live in, and can therefore describe all possible universes. Or not?
String theorists currently hold, via the multiverse idea, that mathematics is separate from the universe in which we live and therefore is capable of describing all possible universes.
I feel uncomfortable with this. Mathematics is unreasonably effective in the universe in which we live. But why wouldnt it be? We built it as a result of interaction with our own universe. We have not tested it, and cannot test it, in any alternate universe.
There are two issues here
1. we have absolutely no justification for asserting that mathematics is not simply a very abstract phenomem of the universe in which we live. It could be very different in another universe.
2. as Smolin points out, our models as expressed in mathematics, are necessarily only provisional models of where we live
This is tautological. The mathematics we use is a product of the universe in which we live. Separately from that we only have a partial understanding of the universe in which we live. We use the mathematics presented to us by our universe, to describe our universe. We have no right to say that our mathematics extends beyond our own backyard.
Posted by: JM | Oct 12, 2012 4:50:43 PM
They couldn't get an actual mathematician for a discussion on mathematics? Physicist doesn't quite count.
Posted by: Brandon | Oct 13, 2012 2:00:59 PM
Please read the following paper:
"Mathematics as an exact and precise language of nature"
arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511042
cogprints.org/4616/
philpapers.org/rec/ABBMAA
and in my monograph
"Philosophy of Science - a new perspective" IIAS, India, 2005
The only way to understand what mathematics actually is, we should use proper classification of "pure mathematics" as "gibberish" ( an honourable classification as to what a "language" really means )
and of "applied mathematics" as the proper language of nature and which scientists have been trying to acquire through the arduous task of doing what Nature demands of them. The scientists may however have to go from the "instrumental" stage to the "realist" stage in learning this language.
Syed Afsar Abbas
drafsarabbas@yahoo.in
Posted by: Prof. Syed Afsar Abbas | Jan 16, 2013 3:17:04 AM
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