Re: OT:Thanksgiving

On 10 Jan, 13:21, "Pete Dashwood" <dashw...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"tlmfru" <la...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

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Judson McClendon <ju...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Howard Brazee" <how...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Judson McClendon" <ju...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But IMHO, you can take it to the bank that
when the dust clears, causality will remain. It had better, because
causality is the fundamental principle on which science is based. You
can't have a "how" or a "why" without causality.

Causality appears to work, although there is no math requiring it.

Wow, Howard, that is one of the most casually misleading statements I
have ever seen! Consider: if the math "works" it's because there is a
cause that the math represents. If there's no cause, there is no
correlation,
no math, zip. Things happen, no reason, no rhyme, no "how" no "why".
Science *implies* cause. Without cause, there *can be no* science,
because there *is no* why or how. Causality is *necessary* to a degree
nothing else is necessary.

You are getting into some perilously difficult territory here.  There is
any
amount of mathematics that appears to have no connection with the "real"
world (and I'll let anyone else supply examples): yet it "works" because
it
takes a set of axioms and postulates and proceeds to generate conclusions
in
accordance with certain rules.  How does this relate to "cause"?

A simpler example: if math (as a subset of science), as you say, depends
on
"cause": can you define "one"?  No, you can't, neither can anyone else..
Yet
we all know what it means!  This is an example of a concept which is
crucial
to our understanding of the world and is perhaps crucial to its very
existence: yet it seems to exist in and of itself, without reference or
meaning.

Multiplicative Identity?

Any true Algebra has it.

"There exists a value such that when a member of the set is multiplied with
it, the result is unchanged."



Another example: Godel's work has proved that we can't even prove that the
entire structure of mathematics actually works - or, more precisely, that
it
is wholly and completely consistent and contains no statements that can't
be
proved or disproved.

So they say. I've often wondered about that. Never had time to check it
out... :-)



There has always been a very deep indecision between Platonic ideals and
the
real world.  There's a string of five 5's somewhere in the expansion of
pi -
a hundred thousand or so decimal places out.  Did it exist before pi was
calculated that far?

No. It doesn't exist now, until you calculate it...

cf... If a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a
sound?


That completely destroys the whole basis of science. If you personally
don't hear the tree fall then you have no evidence worthwhile that the
tree fell or made/did not make any sound. How can you build on the
work of giants if first you must revisit the groundwork?
.

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