(urth) barrington interview

Lee severiansola at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 9 06:40:46 PDT 2014


>Antonio Marques: And so you illustrate the point: physics comes from 

>observing the universe, whereas math comes from reason. Our reason 

>could be different. There is no such thing as multiplication outside our 

>minds.


I could generally, theoretically agree with this, though in the real world,

I question the idea of "pure reason". How can a human mind possibly

reason if it had been deprived of all external sensory input since 

birth/conception of the person in question. I don't think we are 

built to function that way.


>Rick Norwood:  In a universe with different physical laws, we would have 

>different physics, but the same math.  Math is the knowledge that can 

>be arrived at by pure reason.



Again, I question this concept of "pure reason" as a real world item.

How could a human mind ever engage in "pure reason", unpolluted 

by any real world experience or perception?



 I submit that math was, in its original conception and in its 

continued use, the combination  of real world perception and experience

and internal logic/reason, like everything else in our brains.



And this is the essential reason I question the universality of math. Because

math is inextricably tied to the human, real world experience on planet earth,

and thus is inherently limited by it.



A theoretical mathematician may feel he/she is working purely in the realm

of symbolic logic and reason but it cannot be so.  The adult human brain is a 

product of millions of years of evolution on planet earth combined with decades

of personal experience and perceptual input from the person's life. 



The suggestion that the human brain can somehow  decide to operate independently 

from its evolution and the personal experience which molded it is like saying a 

automobile could suddenly, spontaneously reject its engineering and construction and 

start running on nuclear fusion power technology. I don't see how it can possibly make 

sense.



(is suggesting a car can't spontaneously become a nuclear fusion device an example

of "Genetic Fallacy"?)



Even if, maybe, by some wild random chance, humanity, in math, actually did stumble 

upon the one universal describing system, that all possible intelligences must agree upon.

I still don't see how we could possibly know that. How are in the position to make that 

judgment?



 Human beings are not universal.  All we know is our own intelligence and what we can "see"

 from our own planet.. To me it seems the height of hubris to think the system we invented

here a few thousand years ago applies everywhere, to everything and every form of intelligence.



(A little voice in my head is saying someone will argue that we didn't invent math; it is 

something we discovered. If so I'll just say "I disagree" and leave it at that) 		 	   		  


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