NP Alabama Pi

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, desert search for techno allah wrote:

> 
> jporter writes:
> >definitely seem to be a lost middle ground. Your post reminded me of a NY
> >Times article from Feb 10, 1998, that's been lying around on my bedroom
> >floor: *Useful Invention or AbsoluteTruth: What is Math?* by George Johnson.
> >At last, an excuse to pick it up.
> >
> >I won't reproduce it here, but the gist: There seems to be growing support,
> >among those who think about such things, that Pi (and other versions of
> >Platonic Idealism) ain't so absolute, after all. Not that Math is a
> >"relativistic free-for-all," but it may very well be a human invention- a
> >manifestation not just of our brains but of our bodies, and the "grounding
> >metaphors" [George Lakoff- quoted in the art.] that link them.
> >
> >Bottom line: Math works, but that doesn't mean it's the absolute truth, even
> >though many scientists (crypto-Platonists, no doubt!) appear to operate as
> >such.
> 
> Most mathematicians, if pressed, seem to profess some kind of platonism.
> Most mathematicians aren't philosophers, though; aside from their knowledge
> of the scientific method and its dovetailing with empiricism, most
> natural and social scientists probably know very little about epistemology,
> as well. So try not to hold it against us as a profession. :)
> 
> There are others, though, who stake out other positions similar to
> those below.
> 
> The idea that mathematical truths are not absolute is not a new one.
> Hilbert's program pursued the idea that mathematics was, to put it
> bluntly, only a game played with symbols. John Stuart Mill saw the
> truths of mathematics as highly verified empirical generalizations
> (unfortunately his arguments were poor, so they were mostly discounted
> by his contemporaries and later folks like the logical positivists) -
> i.e., not 100%-certainly true. More contemporary work has been done
> to revive ideas in these spirits, after the trouncing given to
> them by people like Russell - so they're far from dead.

Isn't there the thought kicking around that math is built into nature
somehow rather than being a mere mental construct evolved in, or invented
by, Man (not to exclude Woman) in order to make sense out of nature. Do
some people look at things this way? Is God a mathematician? Or,  would
math to Him seem just a low-level round about way humans go about earthly
business.

Seems like if God were a mathematician physical constants and such
could have been round numbers. Preferably one or zero.

Just wondering . . . 

			P.