Pavitra comments on Open Thread, August 2010 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: NancyLebovitz 01 August 2010 01:27PM

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Comment author: Pavitra 25 August 2010 10:01:45PM 0 points [-]

I don't think it works like that. Math is a conceptual construct, not something that has its own reality separate from either the thing it approximates or the mind that approximates with it.

I'm reminded of the person who thought that using the equations for relativistic rather than classical mechanics to model cannonballs would give the wrong answer.

Only things that happen are real. There's no Math Heaven inhabited by angelic equations in a separate magisterium from the world of the merely real.