From: fudley (fuddley@fastmail.fm)
Date: Fri Aug 13 2004 - 23:22:44 MDT
Most of the time I agree that all is number, but sometimes I backslide
and wonder if the explanation for what Eugene Wigner called the
unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is not more simple. Perhaps
(but probably not) mathematics is just a human invention, a shorthand
description of the world, a distillation of what works; if two rocks and
then two more rocks made three rocks then mathematics would be
different, but it doesn’t so it’s not. I feel in my gut that what I just
said is untrue but I can’t prove it.
John K Clark
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