Re: Off topic response to an off topic message--> was:Re: Software Engineering and Dreamers

[cgrussel@bradford.ac.uk (Vibrating Bum-Faced Goats)]

Dann Corbit (dcorbit@solutionsiq.com) wrote:
: Jon S Anthony <jsa@alexandria> wrote in article
: <JSA.97Jun2174143@alexandria>...
: > In article <5mmvgj$61k@squire.cen.brad.ac.uk> cgrussel@bradford.ac.uk
: (Vibrating Bum-Faced Goats) writes:
: > 
: > > Mathematics exists in the mind alone.
: > 
: > You would get some pretty heated disagreement over this from many
: > mathematicians and philosophers (you would also get a number lining up
: > on your side...)  Of course, this just punts the problem to the issue
: > of "what is mind" - which is even more inflammatory.

Oh dear. In an attempt to give my view of an apparant stretching of a 
word's definition I seem to have done the same thing. :^)

: Here is some real flame bait [addressed primarily to Mr. 'Vibrating' ;-)]: 

Actually Vibrating is my first name. You may call me Vibrating but for 
correctness above it would be Mr.Goats. :^)

: If math exists in the mind alone, does a stupid person and a smart one have
: a different set of mathematics rules that apply to them?  What about a
: planet with no people on it, and we are not aware of it?  Must it plummet
: into its star, since there is no math available to make it obey the inverse
: square law?  

Well, I recently posted this in another newsgroup 
(rec.sport.rugby.league, strange as it may seem) which may answer the 
question:

>> <Pedantic mode on>
>>
>> Immeasurable phenomena do not disappear with a puff of logic, they remain
>> unquantifiable (if there is such a word) until such time as a means of
>> measuring that phenomena is discovered.
>>
>> <Pedantic mode off>

In otherwords, just because we do not know of something or are unable to 
comprehend it does not mean such a thing does not exist. 

<Dogs doing calculus in their heads to catch balls snipped for brevity ;^) >

Now then, the defintion I attribute to mathematics I laid out like 
this: 

>> Mathematics exists in the mind alone. It is the process of discovering 
>> and describing precisely by symbolic means various kinds of facts and 
>> relationships. It is the process of implementing a rich "language" which 
>> enables scientists to express their ideas and engineers to model the 
>> behviour of their phenomena-harnessing implementations of those ideas.

What I'm trying to say here is that it could be argued (by me amongst 
others) that the relationships between objects and phenomena exist 
anyway. Mathematics is the ongoing creation of a extraordinarily rich and 
diverse language which enables us to express those relationships. A 
mathematician is creating a tool for scientists and engineers alike. It 
may require a mathematician to make use of that tool at times but, at 
it's very core, tool creation is what I believe to be the essence of maths.

I don't see it as being different from any other language in that it 
enables us to get a particular idea or point of view across. It often 
does so with more success than I do with English, but there I digress. :^)

Distant unknown planets do not crash into their sun because no one there 
has *discovered* the inverse square law. That relationship continues 
to exist in a form unexpressable to the local inhabitants. 

That is what I meant by saying "Mathematics exists in the mind alone". 
The relationships and properties are already there but the language 
used to describe them is a human creation.

: The universe does not revolve around the human race.  The human race is a
: miniscule part of the universe.  We do not manufacture the mathematical and
: physical laws.  Why must people constantly place themselves as the bright,
: shining core of existence?

I do not, not by any stretch of the imagination. I'm quite sure that my 
comprehension of the universe we live in is inexplicably small in 
relation to the size of that universe. As such I'm quite happy to be 
talked out of a point of view if I can be convinced I'm on the wrong 
track. 

Cheers,
Chris.

--
Chris Russell           | Bradford Bulls - Wembley 1997
Electronic Imaging Unit | 
University of Bradford  | Tough on St.Helens
TEL: +44 1274 385463    | Tough on the causes of St.Helens.