From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@msx.upmc.edu)
Date: Tue Jun 18 2002 - 08:11:41 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
A mathematical formula does not contain real people. A book does not
contain real people. A map does not contain real towns with real
people. A photograph does not contain real people. Merely describing
people with words, math or pictures does not mean they are consciously
living outside of any physical reality.
This argument is just word play. It confuses the map with the
territory.
### It depends on whether you think math is the map, or the territory. Since
in most cases it is the mathematicl structures that are discovered first
(and then applied to physics, sometimes quite serendipitously), it is quite
reasonable to think that they are not inventions, but discoveries -
independent of the minds that contain their representations, just like the
land of America was there long before anybody mapped it. The mere
description of physical reality using mathematical means is just an
afterthought for the pure mathematician.
Rafal
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