Closer to Truth

In the last post, I mentioned an autodidact (Eric). Those types like to learn (which is not life-long learning, folks) in a self-directed manner. I am going to use him across all of the blogs (for instance, Eric lived simply; he did not have a mansion, large car, etc. -- yet, he is of the type that I've talked about where we could run finance better than it is now). That task is still pending.

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Let me, first, re-introduce an important concept (mentioned here many times): quasi-empirical arguments. Wikipedia has a nice write up on the subject, for starters. See this 7'oops7 post on motivation.

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Truth,
even big T' aspects

I ran across "Closer to truth" today and wanted to get it brought to the fore. In one of the videos that I saw, Wolfram talked about his ideas on an oft-debated mathematical topic: is it invented or discovered?

You see, if the former, how could one be other than quasi-empirically oriented? From my own experience and from many comments that I've read, some practitioners (of the teaching ilk) seem to assume the latter which is accessible to special types of minds (which may be partly so - another topic of interest, as Truth is available to all).

One has to pop out to about 7:45 on the video for the quasi-empirical portion - or listen to that point to hear the preparatory matters). I've referenced Wolfram before (other contexts); it's nice that he understands the limits (perhaps, his computational focus brings this to the fore).

I'll be getting back to this topic, in the the context of computability in the world, and more.

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This is one example video; I expect that there will be more to use (and big "T" Truth is covered, to boot, by the series).

Remarks:

05/21/2013 -- Penrose has a good take on the question. Mathematics, in so far as its involved with nature, was there long before humans came around. The humans are those who are the inventors of mathematics? Sounds silly, right? Of course, one has to note the different connotations of "mathematics". Humans worked out the language aspect (how the essence is conveyed and shared), no doubt, over a long period of time.

Modified: 05/21/2013