I'll never understand how someone otherwise so apparently intelligent can be so religious. Weird, the systems that we spent massive amounts of energy designing to precisely describe reality do that better than all the ones that we threw out along the way!
Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
41–50 of 322 posts
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#42I am not sure of the implications. Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? Maybe it's both, and it isn't a contradiction between invention and discovering? We describe things having a certain radiation wavelength as having the color yellow. In that sense, yellow it's an invention. That doesn't mean the radiation doesn't exist. But to complicate things a bit, some things don't exist unless we observe th…
> Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? It impacts whether mathematics should be patentable, since patents generally covers inventions, but not discoveries.
Patents cover inventions that are applications of knowledge. For example, chemistry is certainly discovered, but applying the use of a certain molecule as a glue or as a drug is very much patentable. Physics is also discovered, but a special lever system that is a direct application of Newtonian mechanics is patentable. The knowledge that a certain mathematical formula could be written and has certain properties is not patentable, but a device that employs that formula as an algorithm for, say, predicting stock prices, is (in certain countries at least).
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#43I am not sure of the implications. Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? Maybe it's both, and it isn't a contradiction between invention and discovering? We describe things having a certain radiation wavelength as having the color yellow. In that sense, yellow it's an invention. That doesn't mean the radiation doesn't exist. But to complicate things a bit, some things don't exist unless we observe th…
> Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? It matters for philosophical inquiry. Does philosophy matter? It matters for people who find it valuable, the same way art, music or literature matters.
>It matters for philosophical inquiry.
I was thinking more of tangible implications. Maybe there are some.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? It matters for philosophical inquiry. Does philosophy matter? It matters for people who find it valuable, the same way art, music or literature matters.
You think logic, the art of making distinctions, the study of critical thinking and the foundation of mathematics only matter in the same way art does?
I’d say they don’t matter nearly so much as art. The most cosmically significant export of humanity to date is Voyager’s golden record.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#45I am not sure of the implications. Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? Maybe it's both, and it isn't a contradiction between invention and discovering? We describe things having a certain radiation wavelength as having the color yellow. In that sense, yellow it's an invention. That doesn't mean the radiation doesn't exist. But to complicate things a bit, some things don't exist unless we observe th…
If it is discovered, then it means there exists math which we don't have to 'invent' and can simply be found like some buried treasure.
I am not sure discovering is easier than inventing.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think logic, the art of making distinctions, the study of critical thinking and the foundation of mathematics only matter in the same way art does?
I’d say they don’t matter nearly so much as art. The most cosmically significant export of humanity to date is Voyager’s golden record.
Good thing the founders of modern science, mathematics, ethics and political theory didn't share the same opinion.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does it even matter if Math is invented or discovered? It matters for philosophical inquiry. Does philosophy matter? It matters for people who find it valuable, the same way art, music or literature matters.
You think logic, the art of making distinctions, the study of critical thinking and the foundation of mathematics only matter in the same way art does?
It's the same kind of activity - creation.
The significance of the creation (if it has any at all) is not necessarily the concern of the creator.
Some people do Mathematics for its sheer beauty.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think logic, the art of making distinctions, the study of critical thinking and the foundation of mathematics only matter in the same way art does?
It's the same kind of activity - creation. The significance of the creation (if it has any at all) is not necessarily the concern of the creator. Some people do Mathematics for its sheer beauty.
You could say the same about structural engineers.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#49If you only look at mathematics I think it's simply:
- Axioms are invented
- Conclusions are discovered
The magic part for me is that some axioms have been chosen so well that their conclusions are confirmed in the real world.
Re: Roger Penrose – Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? [video]
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d say they don’t matter nearly so much as art. The most cosmically significant export of humanity to date is Voyager’s golden record.
Good thing the founders of modern science, mathematics, ethics and political theory didn't share the same opinion.
Ridiculous hubris, to claim to speak on their behalf, to claim to know the opinion of so many and diverse minds, and in such a crude misdirection to boot.