Re: Name the thesis: "Formal sentences capture informal ones"

From: Stephen Harris (cyberguard1048-usenet_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/30/05


Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:20:20 GMT


"William Elliot" <marsh@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:20050129205439.M3897@agora.rdrop.com...
> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 tchow@lsa.umich.edu wrote:
>
>> (*) Formal sentences (in PA or ZFC for example) adequately express
>> their informal counterparts.
>>
> A formal sentence could have an unintuitive or even incomprehensible
> informal counterpart

I have a question. Quantum theory uses a formal mathematics in order
to make predictions. All of the major interpretations use the same
mathematics. So don't the interpretations (which often seem contradictory)
of quantum theory stand as an "informal counterparts" to the formal
mathematical basis? I'm thinking there would be several informal
mathematical intuitions each one mapping to one formal quantum basis--
I think somebody else mentioned something like this without an example.



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