How math interprets biology and life, and the cosmos (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, December 14, 2013, 23:10 (3997 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/11/27/to-what-extent-do-we-see-with... > 
> > QUOTE: "The proposals from both Deutsch and Chaitin share the view that mathematics is integral to biological processes. Perhaps they each represent an evolution of thought in science, where the distinction between what was once considered mechanical action and thoughtful action becomes less clear and where thoughtful action is understood as part of the life of the universe"
> > 
> > dhw: I found some of this hard to follow, but the conclusion you have quoted above rings all kinds of bells. It also has a wonderful ambivalence. If there is no clear distinction between mechanical action and thoughtful action, we can end our long debate on the nature of the cell (it is both mechanical and thoughtful), and if the principle extends to the life of the universe, we can embrace panpsychism, in which "each spatio-temporal thing has a mental or 'inner' aspect" (Oxford Companion to Philosophy). Of course it still gets us nowhere nearer solving the mystery of how thought originated.
> 
> My take-away is that mathematics discovers so much and predicts so much and fits the processes so well.-So I catch you at this again! I've missed hanging out here, I wish I could do it more!-Mathematics by itself doesn't do any of these things. Math as a "thing-in-itself" is a study of logical structures that may or may not have any physical reality in any universe, using a precise language--the most precise language man has ever invented. -That the natural sciences have been able to use the logical structures of mathematics to explain SOME things about the universe isn't shocking. Here's a different way to look at it: A scientist observes a phenomena, writes down a sentence, and then experiments until his sentence allows him to predict the outcome. There's no magic and no mystery here, unless we consider trial and error to be magical and mysterious!-I've said it a couple times before: We ought not be shocked that the most precise language ever invented explains things precisely! Dawkins falls into this all the time, an amazement that the universe is comprehensible. Well, I would posit that if the universe was incomprehensible, we really wouldn't know the difference, because we simply would have evolved with this "new normal." (Consider the old book "Flatland.") -I agree with dhw here, I think you inadvertently stepped into a trap. If we cannot differentiate between mechanical and thoughtful action, what does this mean for your creator argument? You rightly agree that it muddies the waters, but it muddies them worse for you than it does for those of us on the fence, because you're undermining your own conviction that you can "know intelligence when you see it!" If intelligence is "thoughtful action" and the lack of intelligence is "mechanical action," and you posit that we can't tell the difference... then we cannot know "thoughtful action" when we see it.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"