[ExI] Simulating the brain (was Question for the psych squad?)
John Clark
johnkclark at gmail.com
Wed Jul 12 14:25:13 UTC 2017
On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 11:46 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> *>…* question: which is more fundamental, physics or mathematics? I
>> don't know the answer to any of these questions I'm just asking. John
>> K Clark
>
>
>
> >
> Math is more fundamental and more real in my mind.
>
At one time it was to my mind too, but now I'm not so sure. And after all
my mind is just the way matter behaves when it is organized in a
johnkclarkian way.
> >
> Physics exists as a way to approximate the perfection of mathematics.
> That whole 10^80 atoms in the universe thing seems so confining and
> approximate, never liked it. The math can soar with the eagles, no need to
> worry over the chronon, the Planck length, any of that icky real-universe
> stuff.
>
True, but that icky stuff can be important. The
Taylor series expansion of PI doesn't
really contain
enough information to calculate the
10^100^100^100 digit of PI
(or even the first digit) because it takes for granted something it very
much needs, matter.
The
Taylor series
doesn't explain how to produce matter or its equivalent energy (by way
of E=MC^2), and nobody has ever observed a calculation being made without
matter or, as far as I know, even proposed a theory about how that might
occur. Perhaps the Taylor series is just the way atoms that
are organized as brains that obey the laws of physics think
about
something they invented called
PI.
I have another question, we say a meteorologist's mathematical model of a
hurricane
is a approximation of a real physical hurricane, so why don't we also say
a mathematical circle is a approximation of a real physical circle made by
a blacksmith?
I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here so m
aybe I was right the first time and math really is more fundamental than
physics, but it's not as obviously true as I once thought.
John K Clark
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