Marc:
your considerations are enlightening. I am no mathematician so I try to
evaluate your (and others') remarks in a "broader" sense - and get diverse
thoughts.
Your question is more and more relevant and less and less explained by those
who "live" in math. Tom wrote: math is invariant, but is it still? The world
is NOT invariant, it is a ceaseless process of change and we take snapshots.
Math puts explanatory logic on such snapshots, so far (?) invariance-wise,
staying within.
(Goedel stepped further and I suspect: Bruno as well).
So I had to conclude: mathematicians are conservative, not advancing with
the trend of a dynamic view of 'everything' - unless my above hint to "newer
math" holds. I could not explain (1st person) (to myself) WHAT such math
could be.
Or: what the 'new' sense of "NUMBER" may be, everything is no answer. Then I
do not need a new statement. Then I have an old noumenon: with a new word.
I would leave that to the dictionary-writers.
About your time-dimension(S): in THIS UNIVERSE a time-concept arose by the
inside view according to the restricted qualia forming our world. Not
differently from space and the combination of these: movement, referring in
abstraction: to change. So we have the 'right' to formulate multiple
concepts for them.
Mathematics, the invention of the human mind (after Bohm) is a stage in our
epistemic enlightenment and is the product of restriction since we (humans)
use a materially (figment!) limited tool: the human brain, for thinking. It
is not restrictive to the ...(?) existence? nature? everything? even:
reality? beyond us.
I leave it open that 'other' universes, composed by other qualia, may have
'other' concepts than ours. Time etc. Logic etc. Math on 'variant' units,
unrestricted variables and dimensions (whatever these are)
I use 'timelessness' as a variation: thought is atemporal, aspatial. We CAN
think in those restrictions, but also transcending them. So several
time-dimensions are not so 'radical' for me. I may not be able to
'concretize' them, but not excludable.
Your use of causality is also universe-bound. In a total interconnectedness
I figure a continuous change of everything with influence of everything on
everything (is it culminating in Hal R's nothingness?) so all changes are
deterministic even if we cannot follow all angles. Change comes from change,
influence changes influence.
We "pick" causes in our limited model-view, looking for influences and
origins 'within' our (boundary-enclosed) topical? model we can think in.
Then we find a most likely "cause", just disregarding the 'rest of the
world' with its combined entailment, outside our observational limitations.
I do not base my speculations on ideas of (maybe ingenious) earlier thinkers
too much (how much? good question) because the epistemic cognitive inventory
at "their" time was meager, humanity is continuously increasing the 'stuff'
we can think in, with, about, for, by etc. and do not restrict myself by
'accepted' limiting rules - maxims? like e.g.. the 'expanding universe' and
its consequences all the way to e.g. the Everett to Tegmar type multiverse
or even the Flat Earth as center of the universe (according to Einstein it
may (or may not) well be it, since movements are relative, no matter how
complicated it may be), adding to that the limited model view of our
physicists (including Q-science).
The figment of our traditionally built edifice of a physical world and its
'rules' is very impressive and practically exploitable, including 'math' (in
which I, too, do differentiate between the 'ideal' (pure?) 'Math' and the
applied 'math' (using
(Robert Rosen's capitalization) applying the former's results to the latter,
with limited model-quantities derived from the (scientific?) physical view.
Thank you for triggering the formulation of these thoughts of mine by your
post.
I am not ready with my speculations to discuss them with people well versed
in worldviews based on foundation of different knowledge-base 'sciences'.
John Mikes
----- Original Message -----
From: <marc.geddes.domain.name.hidden>
To: "Everything List" <everything-list.domain.name.hidden>
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 5:56 AM
Subject: Re: Only Existence is necessary?
>
>
> Ah, waht is mathematics?
>
> I suspect humans could spend their life-times pondering this profound
> question and never fully understand.
>
> I'm a mathematical realist in the sense that I think mathematical
> entities are real objective properties of reality and not just human
> inventions, but I've come to seriously doubt the Platonist idea that
> mathematics is static and timeless. Rather I now favor the idea that
> mathematical truth can evolve with time. See Greg Chaitin for some
> ideas about this.
>
> As some of you may, know, I've suggested some radical ideas about time
> on this list: namely the idea that there may be more than one time
> dimension, in the sense that there may be more than one valid way to
> define cause and effect relations.
>
> My big big idea is that mathematics could be a sort of 'higher order
> causality' ,or, if you like a 'higher dimensional time'. This is
> possible if some mathematical truths are not static, but can evolve
> with time.
>
> Suppose that causality itself had a two-level structure, with
> 'mathematical time' on the top level, and what we think of as physical
> time on the bottom level. This two level time structure is compatible
> with David Bohm's interpretation of QM where reality indeed has a
> two-level structure - both the wave function and the particle are
> equally real but correspond to different levels of reality.
>
> The two-level time structure could also explain the difference between
> the 1st person and 3rd person perspectives and resolve the puzzle of
> flowing time versus platonic timelessness.
>
>
> >
>
>
> --
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>
>
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Received on Fri Jun 23 2006 - 08:38:40 PDT