Essay Abstract

„The essence of mathematics lies precisely in its freedom" (Georg Cantor) Starting from Cantor's insight into the nature of infinity and transfinite numbers, my aim is to show that, after Godel's and Turing's results, mathematics cannot be grounded on logic alone but rather, the essence of mathematics as the formal language of physics lies precisely in its logical empirical necessity. It is the dynamic interaction between these three realms of reality, mathematics as freedom of thought at the most abstract level, its inherent logical laws, as manifested within the unity of the classical Aristotelian and Fregean logical principles and the empirical, ontological necessity as existentially given at the most concrete level as laws of physics, which ultimately leads to genuine knowledge and deep understanding of reality.

Author Bio

I'm an independent researcher interested mainly in the multifaceted aspects of science, technology and epistemology, trying to understand the true links between space, time, matter and life and what are the future implications of those links for mankind.

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As to the direction that mathematics as a language of physics should take to further align with physical observation, I agree with your conclusions. In this respect, this is probably the most pragmatic essay I have read. Thanks

    Dear Mihai,

    "Examining itself" and make interpretations is, in my opinion, a quality of Consciousness. Not only examining itself but also examining the surroundings, the "reality" around us and concluding that you are at the centre of these observations is the same quality of consciousness. The next step is communicating these observations.

    I like your remarks about ancient philosophers. Of course in your opinion, it is Pythagoras that is the one who parallels with your interpretation of reality. I agree with you that mathematics has a possibility that our material emergent reality does not offer, it has NO boundaries there is an infinity of infinities to think about. In our minds are endless probabilities. Our minds are Conscious!

    I think that "shut up and calculate" (David Mermin, not Richard Feynman) is not the only way we can approach the essence of our reality. It is also the "thinking" (that includes the infinities of mathematics) that lies at the base of our researches. It was our thinking that created mathematics, so mathematics emerged from our consciousness. ALL the scientists that you are quoting were first thinking of a problem and then taking their conclusions. However, each conclusion (also yours and mine) are only temporal solutions to the problems we are encountering with the finding of the reference of reference (the "I").

    In my essay, I mentioned the discussion between Hilbert and Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer, so I hope you will find some time to read it and leave a remark.

    I liked your analysis and your axiomatic method.

    You can find my essay here .

    best regards and success

    Wilhelmus de Wilde

      "... in physics the mind is always constrained by the facts of observation, measuring, and experiment." How is important is the following?

      Sanejouand, Y-H. "About some possible empirical evidences in favor of a cosmological time variation of the speed of light." EPL (Europhysics Letters) 88, no. 5 (2009): 59002.

      arXiv preprint

      I have speculated that the fundamental basis of nature is an Einstein-Friedmann-Riofrio-Sanejouand duality principle -- if dark matter particles exist then the Einstein-Friedmann model is correct -- if dark matter particles do not exist then the Riofrio-Sanejouand model is correct -- am I wrong here? Who might be the world's greatest living Romanian physicists? Who might be the best string theorists in Romania?

      4 days later

      Dear Wilhemus,

      Thank you for your comments on my essay which is nothing more, in essence, than a modest attempt to offer a brief panoramic view on the history of logic, mathematics and physics during their most important turning points. What you say in your essay about Brouwer is evidently quite interesting in the contexts of what followed, after Brouwer's lost debate with Hilbert in the late 20s, intuitionism vs formalism as foundation/ground of mathematics. Godel's results proved unambiguously, at least from philosophical point of view that mathematics cannot be grounded on classical and its algebraic calculus extension,formal logic. Actually, the vindication of Brouwer's intionitisc logic by Heyting and Heyting algebras started, strangely, even long before the debate, namely with Łukasiewicz's non-classical, 3-valued logic (true, false and possible), and n-valued logic which somehow introduced the possible/probable paradigm into the logical structure of thinking in a formal/mathematical way even before quantum mechanics made it intrinsic to its Bohr/Born Copenhagen interpretation, taking classical Aristotelian logic to a different new level for the first time in 2500 years!!... Later on, in the 40s, Grigore Moisil attempted ( a la Boole and DeMorgan, 100 years earlier) to give an algebraic calculus to Łukasiewicz's n-valued and infinitely-many-valued logic, creating what is nowadays known as Łukasiewicz-Moisil algebars. Moisil logic based on Łukasiewicz-Moisil algebras and Zadeh's fuzzy logic (real-valued (0, 1) logic), a particular case of Heyting algebras, was shown to be also possible form a purely logical approach within Brouwer's intuitionistic logical system, pointing thus to a deeper connection to quantum mechanics and quantum computing than formal/symbolic logic in Hilbert's sense as foundational set theory and its axiomatic system, used for mathematical consistency and completeness. It is perhaps no random accident that Hilbert space (infinitely dimensional Euclidean space) which such a pivotal concept in quantum mechanics, Łukasiewicz infinitely-many-valued logic discovered more or less during the same time (1910s) and its subsequent connections to Łukasiewicz-Moisil logic and Heyting-Brouwer's intuitionism has led to quantum computing and deeper links with the quantum reality, mathematical intuition and the infinite potential for creativity of the human mind.

      All the best,

      Mihai Panoschi

      Thanks for your comments Jack. I wouldn't say it's a pragmatic essay in philosophical sense as I can't really see any concrete application coming out of it. However, since it's just a historical,temporal perspective on the evolution of human thinking since ancient Greeks, our very roots of scientific thinking and discovery, it could possibly have an inspirational and heuristic value in phenomenological sense, i.e. as a mere description of how things have developed, in themselves, within this assumed interconnected world of only three fundamental realms of the human mind ( classical and symbolic logic, mathematics and physics)without any preconceived ideas, just by letting the masters talk to us again through time...

      As to whether mathematics should be more aligned to physics who is to say that the ultimate truths about our universe and ourselves is to be found in physics alone?...Certainly the Greeks didn't think that way and perhaps that's why they invented other approaches too that are still with us today...

      All the best,

      Mihai Panoschi

      a month later

      Dear Prof Mihai Panoschi,

      Wonderful essay please....

      Your words.............Nowadays, there are two conflicting theories in physics: the standard model of particle physics and general relativity. Many parts of these theories have been put on an axiomatic basis, even if the Standard Model is not logically consistent with General Relativity, indicating the need for a still unknown theory of Quantum Gravity................

      You may please visit my essay for a different set of 'Axioms'......."A properly deciding, Computing and Predicting new theory's Philosophy "

      Best wishes to your essay

      =snp

      12 days later

      Mihai,

      I think you made some important distinctions regarding GR, the standard model, quantum gravity and the role of math: generalized functions,path integrals and such. More cogent examples and guidance with images would have been helpful for people like me who have only a nodding acquaintance with such things. I have some familiarity with Feynman images in physics. It is a good topic to show the math-physics relationships and their importance. It was a bit of schooling for me. I hope you get a chance to check out my essay: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3396.

      Regards,

      Jim Hoover

        13 days later

        Mihai,

        I have commented on you essay but discovered I have not rated it yet. Time grows short so I am now rating it, being your 5th rating. My reason for mentioning this is that many ratings are 1s or 2s w/o comments. I remember I enjoyed reading your essay a few weeks ago.

        Jim Hoover

        Dear Mihai,

        you gave a nice to read and much to short overview over the history of the relation between logic, mathematics and physics. I could feel, that you had so much more to say on each single topic. An I hope we have the chance to read some more from you sometime.

        A mystery in mathematics, that is puzzling me recently, is the richness of structure inherent in simple axioms. For instance from counting, we can get, addition, then multiplication, prime factor decomposition and cryptography. I really don't understand, where this richness is coming from. Was it already in the natural numbers?

        For the connection between mathematics and physics, I increasingly use the view, that the meaning of some propositions or words lies in the imagination of what we can do, ie. physical actions we can undertake (like counting matches). Hence the truth and meaning of these propositions depends on the laws of physics, which again have to be described by the math. This would lead to the intuitionistic logic, I suppose.

        However, I would agree with Hilbert, that man should not be expelled from the Cantor's paradise of freedom.

        Luca

        PS: In my essay I discuss the structure and meaning of concepts of physical theories. You might have a peak.

          Mihai,

          Hope you have time to check mine out before the deadline: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3396

          Jim Hoover.

          Dear Luca, thanks for reading my essay and commenting on it in such a positively high note. Meantime I've read and rated your essay and I'll leave some comments too as to what I found interesting or problematic in it. As to your question posed in this paragraph that I quote

          "A mystery in mathematics, that is puzzling me recently, is the richness of structure inherent in simple axioms. For instance from counting, we can get, addition, then multiplication, prime factor decomposition and cryptography. I really don't understand, where this richness is coming from. Was it already in the natural numbers?"

          I can only say that if you read the classic monograph of Dedekind 'What are the numbers and what are they for?' it should certainly through a brighter light and enrich on your current concepts and ideas about the concept of number and set. Then you'll realise that even though he iteratively started from N to Z, Q and then defining R with his famous irrational cuts and then onto C he was not happy with the fundamental role taken for granted to N and tried to logically ground N on more abstract concepts of sets and mappings and which ultimately and jointly with Cantor and Cantor's more Platonistic approach led them to modern set theory that was further axiomatised successfully by Zermelo and Fraenkel but not only them. Obviously clarity and precision in the ZF axiom system and as you say richness of axioms and set theory concepts was something that was discovered after much work was done by Skolem, Russell, Von Neumann, Weyl, Hilbert, Ackerman, Tarski and not lastly by Godel and Turing to which our theme refers, and this is only before the 40s.

          As to the role that intuition and imagination play in maths or physics I think that these is such a rich subject that it definitely deserves and essay contest of its own in the future, not to mention intuitionistic logic and its connection with multi-valed logic or Brower's famous ban on the principle of excluded middle and reductio ad absurdum method of proof in mathematics. Best regards!

          Hi Jim, and thanks for reading and rating my essay. Meantime I've done the same on your essay although I remember giving it a first glimpse earlier on when it first came out. You're right, images do help our mind reasoning but then again too much reliance on that and it could also lead into errors too. That's why the modern abstract approach to maths and less reliance on geometric intuition has borne fruit in abstract algebra or topology not to mention that the tradition started also in physics as far back as Lagrange's Analytical Mechanics in 1787...in which he famously stated that in this book you shall find no diagrams!!...I'm glad to hear that after reading it it left you with a positive impression of learning something new or maybe even adding a bit more clarity and precision to your former concepts and ideas. After all, that's why science is there for not to discover absolute truths but to lead us asymptotically towards them on a more secure road...