seer comments on Request for Steelman: Non-correspondence concepts of truth - Less Wrong

13 Post author: PeerGynt 24 March 2015 03:11AM

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Comment author: seer 28 March 2015 02:50:36AM 6 points [-]

So maths is physics.

Not quite, although I agree the approach I describe also applies to establish that the laws of physics exist.

But I can write an equation for an inverse cube law of gravity, which doesn't apply to this universe.

Yes, and if you and the alien both write down a cube law and predict what orbits would be like in a universe where it were true, you would reach the same conclusions.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 28 March 2015 11:09:34AM 0 points [-]

That doesn't establish that mathematics is true by correspondence,.

Comment author: seer 28 March 2015 07:04:33PM 6 points [-]

So what would you describe as the cause of the correlation in the orbits calculated by myself and the alien?

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 29 March 2015 09:05:01AM 0 points [-]

Running off the same axioms and references rules).

In a sense that means the same laws, but the laws are not independently existing entities that mathematical truths correspond to.

Comment author: seer 29 March 2015 05:50:44PM 6 points [-]

In the Philip K. Dick sense they are.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 30 March 2015 09:05:59AM 0 points [-]

In the PKD sense, they are not, because finitists and constructivists adopt different axioms able get different results,