(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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