Re: The Unreasonable Reverence of The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in theNatural Sciences
Posted by
Russ Abbott on
Apr 28, 2009; 7:11pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-Unreasonable-Effectiveness-of-Mathematics-in-the-Natural-Sciences-tp2714601p2735558.html
Awhile ago on this thread I said that mathematics is effective because there are regularities in nature. No one commented on that. There have been many comments discussing whether what goes on in our minds matters, but very little about what goes on outside our minds. It's amusing to poke fun at the way some people think, but I'm not sure it gets us anywhere.
Are there regularities in nature? If so, then why is it surprising that mathematics is useful for describing them? On the other hand, one might claim that even asking that question is imposing our (perhaps foolish) mental model of what we mean by regularities on nature. But taking that stance suggests that we can't get out of our minds at all and there is no point in having this discussion.
So which side are you on? Is it useful to share with each other what goes on in our (separate) minds? Is it possible that what goes on in our minds can be mapped onto what goes on in nature? Or is there no point in attempting to exchange thoughts since they are all just internal foolishness? Evolution suggests that it is not all just internal foolishness. If it were we wouldn't have evolved to have these thoughts. One could argue that that thought itself is just as much internal foolishness as any other. But then why bother to write it down and send it to this list?
-- Russ
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Steve Smith
<[hidden email]> wrote:
Very well said, methinks.
An approach needn't even lose it's utility to poke fun at it, it merely
has to lose "Universal Utility". I believe many folk remedies,
crafts, knowledge fall into that category. They become "vestigal"
knowledge for entire generations until circumstances drift far enough
(or abruptly enough) that they become the only or best (known) answer
to a given problem (again).
Come the revolution, we'll all be chewing willow bark and slippery elm
to relieve what ails us, and laughing at our forefathers who thought
all medicine had to be manufactured and shipped in a bottle. In the
meantime, such remedies seem somewhere between "quaint" and "absurd".
glen e. p. ropella wroteth circa early c21:
Thus spake Steve Smith circa 04/26/2009 06:06 PM:
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Why should nature give a fig for the tricks we play with our words?
The Anthropic Principle might have a play in this.
I think this is the fundamental reason for the unreasonableness. Math,
like any other language, helps us be goal-oriented. And anything that
helps us be goal-oriented will _seem_ true to us, regardless of whether
it is true or not.
This is the situation for just about any method: burning witches,
hunting Communists, making marijuana illegal, worshiping mythical
beings, meditating surrounded by crystals and incense, voodoo dolls,
murdering people in foreign lands, torturing enemy combatants, etc. If
it focuses our attention and allows us to maintain focus on some
objective, then, as a tool, it _is_ useful and will _seem_ true.
When it ceases to be useful, we will be surprised, sit back, and wonder
why we were so enamored with it before... and many of us will even poke
fun of and deride those people who still find it useful.
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============================================================
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