CaptainQuasar said:
How so? Mathematics doesn't fail to work at a quantum level so I don't see what the macroscopic world thing has to do with it - unless you're restricting your scope of consideration to the more easily-human-comprehensible mathematics that are most straightforward at a macroscopic level (which is what I meant about focusing on learning devices).
Yes, mathematics does fail (on all levels) to describe things if you use the math alone. Mathematics doesn't really say anything about reality unless a human is there to ascribe meaning to the operations and values.
Before your thing was that mathematics is a consequence of self-consciousness - where did the connection to the macroscopic world come in? What if you put a brain in a vat and only gave it sensory input from quantum-scale measurement instruments - would that mind be unable to comprehend mathematics? I just don't see that there's any reason that would follow.
You're dramatically simplifying the human brain and you're thought experiment is vague. You might have been better of not to include this paragraph. Brain in a vat is a story about a boy who couldn't accept reality, so came up with arguments as to why it's not real.
Well, it's also very natural of you to think that the subject you're studying puts you in closer touch with the “real” universe than any other field of study. Belief that our occupations have significance and reveal truth, there's something we crave too.
That's just where your repeated fallacy is coming from. I don't. I think physics and math are both inadequate in this regard. You're the one who seems to attribute some omnipresent property to mathematics. Humans have a very narrow scope of perception and even then our brains are always adjusting them. (For instance, most indoor lighting is pea green, but your brain adjusts for this for better vision)
Ah, well, if you don't think making the sort of declaration that Einstein and Bohr and Heisenberg were unwilling to make is strident, you won't mind me asserting that the universe is deterministic and therefore everything about it obeying mathematical rules I've been saying must be true.
Why would I mind? You can assert what you want. I find it only fitting that we both make our own assertions based on our own experiences.
Everyone developing quantum mechanics was confused and maddened by it in one way or another (reading some of their philosophical mindlings on it) I don't necessarily trust your opinion of what Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg think either, since people often like to claim that Einstein was religious, too.
"God does not play dice"... well, this is what stopped the progress of QM. Einstein refusing to believe that their is randomness in the universe. It kind of hurt his feelings and made him depressed.
Even when you say “spontaneous decay of atoms” - there isn't anybody out there claiming for certain, or even proposing an experimental test to show, that atomic decay is uncaused, is there? That would seem rather unscientific to me.
There would be no way to prove it as far as I can tell. Our discussion is largely philosophical though... and it may seem this is the source of disagreement here. This deterministic vs. non-deterministic bit.
I find it strange that physicists and others match up “deterministic” and “non-deterministic” with “Newtonian” and “QM” - both of those pairings seem like leaping to conclusions to me. The reason I think the universe might be deterministic has nothing to do with Newtonian mechanics - it's because stopping at “oh, that part's just uncaused” is silly, it's deus ex machina. Even if some phenomenon at some level is uncaused we'll never know for certain because you wouldn't be able to analyze or investigate something like that - the answer will never get better than “we don't know.”
Well... it's like this. The whole point of science is to be able to determine things. For a long time we expected this. We, as humans, naturally assume 'cause and affect' (that's why we invent gods and supernatural phenomena)
QM seems to imply that there may be no such thing as cause and affect. And you may argue that this is a shortcoming of human perception and that we'll never be able to know about cause and effect... but then that would be a non-deterministic system simply because we can't determine it. That's good enough for me. It's useless for me build a theory based on the perception of a space alien that sees causes and affects that I'll never be able to see and therefore, have nothing to say about.
But anyways, even if you're willing to close the case on the count of determinism versus non-determinism - I don't think it really matters. Even if it's a non-deterministic universe where things conform to statistical distributions rather than discrete values (which I never asserted was part of it, anyways), I still don't buy your thesis that mathematics is somehow an unreal thing unconnected to reality that it just so happens any self-conscious mind may develop.
Truth be told, there's probably no such thing as deterministic and non-deterministic. There's no reason why there should be a conflict between them. (Consider... a path-independent integral... we may arrive at some deterministic end because of the brute force (large number of particles in the universe) but the path we take to get there is non-deterministic because of the spontaneity of identical particles.
In what way am I displaying an obsession with perfection? If you're simply defining math as being an obsession with perfection, it's rather circular logic to say that I'm obsessed with perfection because I like math.
Because you keep associating negativity when I talk about imperfection (which I happen to be proud of, personally).
I don't blame math for physics failures as you might have read, and I don't mean fail in the emotional way that you ascribe to it. In my opinion, you have to play with an idea for a finite amount of time, and apply it, and keep playing with, and it will never ever be perfect, but it will asymptotically approach perfection. (If, of course, the idea of perfection is a) accuracy and b) not having to switch the math with hand-waving in the middle of the theory to make it consistent with observation)
This perfection I describe is not important to me. The math doesn't have to be exclusive. As long as theory makes predictions within a given accuracy, it's fine.
Physics would get nowhere with math alone, but it wouldn't get anywhere without math. Math is the best thing we got... it's a very articulate language, and we need to articulate on the order of our observations and predictions.
The important part of physics is observation (which is interaction). If you can't physically interact with something, then it may as well not exist. I'm not talking about math here, because (as I've stated) math is very real and does exist, and does have a physical interaction (in our brain).
The issue here, of course, is when people think they can't interact with something, but it's in fact just a very weak interaction.
NOTE:
I also notice you tend to think I'm using an argument as a point to persuade you or something, when in fact, I'm not. For instance, the last three paragraphs (to me) don't seem to make a point one way or another... It's just interesting stuff that's popped up in my mind as a result of this discussion (i.e. the point of the discussion).
