[ExI] The "Unreasonable" Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences

[scerir]

Damien Broderick
> I'm inclined to think that "17" is the name of an operation,
> not of a thing.

"17" can be many things at the same time.
A good paper about the "nature" of numbers
(within spacetime, or outside spacetime) 
might be this one:
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/mbalagu/Mathematical%20Platonism.pdf

s.

"The question of realism, as Kreisel long ago put it, 
is the question of the objectivity of mathematics 
and not the question of the existence of mathematical 
objects". - Putnam