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Author | Topic: Is mathematics a science? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: My graduate studies was done at an institution that was predominantly algebraists, with a small geometry/toplogy contingent. Yet, somehow, I managed to leave without learning any more algebra than was necessary to pass the qualifying exams. Weird place.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3669 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
I could never understand the algebraic topologists who had no need to draw pictures. How they could calculate smash products without at least a sketch? I guess that I could never quite beat the physicist out of me
The only way that I could convince myself that we weren't all deranged in applied maths and theo physics was to walk next door into pure maths and math' statistics It almost made me feel normal. Then again, if you want REALLY weird, you want to try Oxford and Penrose's crowd. Off the planet!
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3669 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
That the axiomatic conditions that mathematical reasoning depends on are ultimately arbitrary? Of course, and the Platonic Realm holds all of them
their position seems to be based more on a need for their work not to simply be logic puzzles and symbol games rather than an actual "math" that exists somewhere in the universe. Odd comment. It's those of us in theo physics that tend to get converted to at very least a weak Platonism because we keep finding all of the maths supposedly reserved for "logic puzzles and symbol games" firmly embedded in the universe. The 1st Law of String Theory: no area of mathematics is sacred
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
What I meant by "weird" was the way people didn't seem very interested in discussing their research -- which is why I, not being an algebraist, could avoid learning any algebra. It seems very different than when I was studying physics -- where everyone was always talking about their research -- but maybe this is more typical of departments of mathematics.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: Yeah, I can see how the illusion that your work has something profound to say about reality is even stronger for the theoretical physicists.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3669 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
Oh yeah? Well, what about all the stuff you wouldn't have without us theo physicists? Wormholes? Warp drive? Teleport? Holodeck?
Hmmm... that's Star Trek isn't it? It's so hard drawing a distinction sometimes
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: I understand. Everytime I read the news, I feel like I'm in a film noir.
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nwr Member Posts: 6410 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Chiroptera writes:
That's a strange way of putting it. Are you saying that microevolution cannot lead to macroevolution given enough time? Yow! No, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that microevolution cannot lead to macroevolution unless there is selection.
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
I would think that the selection process would be the person writing the proof.
Not being a Platonist, I would say that theorems don't prove themselves.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
Isn't selection already a part of the definition of all evolution?
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nwr Member Posts: 6410 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Isn't selection already a part of the definition of all evolution?
Selection is part of the mechanism, not part of the definition. Presumably one could have micro-evolution as a result of neutral drift (as in the neutral theory).
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nwr Member Posts: 6410 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
Chiroptera writes:
Sure. It's artificial selection.
I would think that the selection process would be the person writing the proof. Not being a Platonist, I would say that theorems don't prove themselves.
Not being a platonist, I would agree. I suspect platonists would also agree. I guess they might say that the proof exists in some platonist sense, but needs to be discovered.
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5058 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Some day I expect the shapes of the symbols in rings will affect biological signing but still it is the multiple "///" tones that matter in e/c. I really dont know that this must be not math. It seems like math when a notion of theoretical biology is sustained. I dont think that that the "////" can be blinking lights as Stu Kaufmann was motivated to think (that he could not "do" Kant etc).
Now that I know yous gls are really good math people I might try to figure out how the 70s' advances in group theory might be science via math in biogeography. Later. Weyl wrotequote: I always considered Mandelbrot's discussion of the word "fractal" to point to this problem of what FORM other than 'normal' such sounds heard in science might be maths for.
quote:both quotes of Weyl, page 35 in PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE I am torn between determining transfinte e-numbers or reflecting on groups further for the permutable subtraction I think evolution remands biologically from n! no matter the divisions. I really do think that whatever that "math" is it is pure in itself no matter how it sorts difference of natural and artifical selection in the statistical normal distribution approximation.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1493 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Everytime I read the news, I feel like I'm in a film noir. Well, maybe your problem is the way you read the news by having someone toss spinning newspapers right at your face:
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5058 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
Hey froggy,
What would happen if some one other than me (rhetorically speaking (I am not spitting venom here) figured out what Brown's letters "S" and "T" mean in terms of my annotation on his questioning? The three strokes I attached in my side comments WOULD NOT BE LEIXICALLY a language or even a part of it but only a pure mathematical thought that would have implementations differently than is currently being taught in biology because of evolutioanry influence I contenD. I met and spoke with Brown on a few occassions and even talked with him about set theory once. Compared with other mathematicians at Cornell (some coming from Harvard etc except one who left for Berkely) he is really an OK kind of guy. The back cover of the book contains my notes on how to relate group operations to biology but this is done in terms of human teleology. Weyl clearly indicated(I speaking for the entire book PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE, not a part or trap of it inversly) that teleology could connect into math DIFFERENTLY than evolution by force as it was DISCUSSED in the late 40s. I suppose I will only lurch you if I show how the "business cycle" of teaching evolution is only the alternative "phase" of matter that Wright explicitly did not include & show that macroevolution is not within a collective aggregate of that supply. Oh, well......I suppose I will have to do that by enlaring this "thumbnail" above but that is not math as science but science as itself. If Theus ever decides to respond I'll pick that up with 'him'. The "apriority" of which you write seems to me, if I understand you well enough, to be the result of probabalisms (no matter how reflected on) not any DETERMINATION made from a prior mathmatical mind whether only revealing a statstical regularity or regularity as law etc (in nature by nuture etc etc). So,,, I have to disagree with you and agree with some others in this thread.
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