On May 8, 3:56 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> marc.ged....domain.name.hidden wrote:
>
> > 'The Laws of Physics' don't refer to human notions (they certainly
> > are not regarded that way by scientists
>
> They are by the scientists I know.
The *knowledge* we have of the laws of physics are human notions. But
the laws of physics *per se* are not. See other post. Think computer
science and information. Our concepts are information and so is
reality. So in the case of useful concepts there has to be a partial
match between the information content of the concepts and the
information content of reality. This means we can infer properties
about reality from our concepts. The distinction between map and
territory is not absolute. A simulated hurricane for instance, has
*some* of the exact same *information content* as a real hurricane.
>
> >- the whole notion of an
> > objective reality would have be thrown out the window if we thought
> > that there were no objective laws of physics since as mentioned,
> > physics is the base level of reality), but are precise mathematical
> > rules which have to be (postulated as) *universal* in scope for the
> > scientific method to work at all.
>
> Sure, they are precise mathematical systems, which the scientist hopes and intends to describe (part of) an objective reality. But the map is not the territory and scientists know it.
See above. And read Tegmark's paper! ;) In the case of mathematics
the distinction between map and territory is breaking down. Remember
what we agreed on earlier - math is *both* epistemological (a map we
use to understand reality) *and* ontological (the territory itself)
>
> Brent Meeker- Hide quoted text -
>
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Received on Tue May 08 2007 - 01:52:33 PDT