{Quantum Muddle [continued]}[6th August 1983]

[Redbook2:297][19830806:2330c]{Quantum Muddle [continued]}[6th August 1983]

19830806.2330

[continued]

Aha, the quantum physicist says, but these* are subjective experiences (the mystic might deny that) whereas our world view emerges from the precision of mathematics (– a language of which I have only the most basic rudiments – although I am struggling onwards).

But what is mathematics? Surely it is a form of expression which develops within the minds of certain Men, satisfying a sense of precise harmony within those minds, and validated in scientific terms so far by its ability to predict the material event correctly in the sense that the event could be verified scientifically. This is the only objective, external or scientific proof that mathematics has ever (so far as I know) been subjected to by Men. (There is a paradox lurking here somewhere, but I am not sure that I am going to be able to sniff it out!)

Now mathematics, having been accepted as** valid because it has provided a valid description of aspects of reality before Science validated those aspects of reality experimentally, turns round and says that, so far as mathematics is concerned, the reality which it predicted need not have necessarily existed independently of the way Science verified them experimentally.*** For purely mathematical reasons, contrary to Science's own fundamental philosophy, mathematics makes a present to Science of its own supremacy – its faith in itself – in defining reality – but in doing so, cuts away the foundation of its own ability to make such a prediction or ruling affecting the material world.

*[See last previous entry]

 

**(scientifically?)

*** {Does it?}

[continues]

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