1 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | January 27, 2020
Hello everyone! I have one question related to the philosophy of science and mathematics:
(1) Is the universe ultimately a mathematical model? (cf. Tegmark)
(2) Why is mathematics so useful (has so vast and unparalleled application in quantitative fields, etc.)? Is it an accident or merely a matter of trial and error?
Any relevant papers or books or websites etc discussing these topics?
Thanks!
Comment by hackinthebochs at 29/01/2020 at 05:41 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Why is mathematics so useful
The universe has regularity at various scales, i.e. the universe is structured. Math being the general study of structure, math is necessarily useful at studying the universe. For math to not be useful at studying the universe, the universe would have to be entirely random at all scales.
Comment by [deleted] at 28/01/2020 at 18:02 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
(1) Is the universe ultimately a mathematical model?
No, what we will find is ways of using mathematical structures in the description of the physical world. This doesn't mean that the physical world is a mathematical model, just that mathematical models can be good explanations of it.
(2) Why is mathematics so useful (has so vast and unparalleled application in quantitative fields, etc.)? Is it an accident or merely a matter of trial and error?
My guess is that this is a consequence of the reach of the language of mathematics as a theory. If you regard the whole of mathematics as a useful theory to describe reality, the numerous discoveries made in the field since it's invention, including it's applications in other fields of knowledge, are manifestations of the property of the initial theory that David Deutsch calls the "reach" of the theory. This is the amount of phenomena that a theory is able to describe, which is always indeterminate, since there is no guarantee that it won't be able to explain anything beyond what we know it can at any given moment.