2014 Nobel Prize For Chemistry

[JimC]

Maths is ultimately physics. Without the physical, all you have is zeros.

Not in Plato's cave...

Even in Plato's cave. The prisoners mistake the shadows for real things, but clearly, without real things there'd be no shadows. There's no shadow of a doubt about that.

In Plato's cave, the "real things" are mathematical idealisations whose existence is somehow deeper than their physical substantiations...

[Hermit]

Maths is ultimately physics. Without the physical, all you have is zeros.

Not in Plato's cave...

Even in Plato's cave. The prisoners mistake the shadows for real things, but clearly, without real things there'd be no shadows. There's no shadow of a doubt about that.

In Plato's cave, the "real things" are mathematical idealisations whose existence is somehow deeper than their physical substantiations...

Yes, that was Plato's argument. He also used to argue that the idealisations have a very real existence somewhere out there in the ontological sky. Do you think the analogy of the cave actually demonstrates any of that?

[pErvinalia]

How about the constipated mathematician who worked it all out with a pencil..?

But he wasn't that good, he couldn't budget.

[JimC]

Maths is ultimately physics. Without the physical, all you have is zeros.

Not in Plato's cave...

Even in Plato's cave. The prisoners mistake the shadows for real things, but clearly, without real things there'd be no shadows. There's no shadow of a doubt about that.

In Plato's cave, the "real things" are mathematical idealisations whose existence is somehow deeper than their physical substantiations...

Yes, that was Plato's argument. He also used to argue that the idealisations have a very real existence somewhere out there in the ontological sky. Do you think the analogy of the cave actually demonstrates any of that?

The analogy is certainly not proof, but I'm happy to grant the possibility of the existence of an underlying mathematical space, at a "deeper" level than the physical universe...

Depending, of course, on the definitions one uses for "existence" and "deeper"...

[pErvinalia]

*cough* wibble *cough*

[JimC]

*cough* wibble *cough*

I'd see someone about that cough - sounds nasty...

[Hermit]

Maths is ultimately physics. Without the physical, all you have is zeros.

Not in Plato's cave...

Even in Plato's cave. The prisoners mistake the shadows for real things, but clearly, without real things there'd be no shadows. There's no shadow of a doubt about that.

In Plato's cave, the "real things" are mathematical idealisations whose existence is somehow deeper than their physical substantiations...

Yes, that was Plato's argument. He also used to argue that the idealisations have a very real existence somewhere out there in the ontological sky. Do you think the analogy of the cave actually demonstrates any of that?

The analogy is certainly not proof, but I'm happy to grant the possibility of the existence of an underlying mathematical space, at a "deeper" level than the physical universe...

Depending, of course, on the definitions one uses for "existence" and "deeper"...

So your claim that there can be mathematics without an underlying physical world is based on your happiness with the idea? Great.

[JimC]

My happiness is immaterial...

[piscator]

So is the set of all sets that are not members of themselves...