Le 26-nov.-07, à 04:17, marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden a écrit :
>
>
>
> On Nov 23, 8:49 pm, Torgny Tholerus <tor....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>> marc.ged....domain.name.hidden skrev:
>>
>>
>>
>>> As far as I tell tell, all of physics is ultimately
>>> geometry. But as we've pointed out on this list many times, a theory
>>> of physics is *not* a theory of everything, since it makes the
>>> (probably false) assumption that everything is reducible to physical
>>> substances and properties.
>>
>> I think that everything is reducible to physical substances and
>> properties. And I think that all of physics is reducible to pure
>> mathematics...
>
> You can't have it both ways. If physics was reducible to pure
> mathematics, then physics could not be the 'ontological base level' of
> reality and hence everything could not be expressed solely in terms of
> physical substance and properties.
Are you not begging a bit the question here?
>
> Besides which, mathematics and physics are dealing with quite
> different distinctions. It is a 'type error' it try to reduce or
> identity one with the other.
I don't see why.
>
> Mathematics deals with logical properties,
I guess you mean "mathematical properties". Since the filure of
logicism, we know that math is not really related to logic in any way.
It just happens that a big part of logic appears to be a branch of
mathemetics, among many other branches.
> physics deals with spatial
> (geometric) properties. Although geometry is thought of as math, it
> is actually a branch of physics,
Actually I do think so. but physics, with comp, has to be the science
of what the observer can observe, and the observer is a mathematical
object, and observation is a mathematical object too (with comp).
> since in addition to pure logical
> axioms, all geometry involves 'extra' assumptions or axioms which are
> actually *physical* in nature (not purely mathematical) .
Here I disagree (so I agree with your preceding post where you agree
that we agree a lot but for not always for identical reasons).
Arithmetic too need extra (non logical) axioms, and it is a matter of
taste (eventually) to put them in the branch of physics or math.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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Received on Mon Nov 26 2007 - 09:54:35 PST