Yeah, this.

I think there's some confusion here between language (communication) and reality. I'm talking about the former, not the latter.



I'm sorry you think "zeal" and "truth" cannot coincide, or "religion" and "truth" for that matter. I never said he was wrong, just that he spoke passionately about unquestionable perfection (which isn't usually associated with moral relativism to my knowledge). See here:



Hmm...seems Mort already made the emphases for me. But as I said before, I'm talking about communication and not reality. As Mort even said before, communication is a two-way process, and the language of mathematics is not at this time and day an effective tool of communication for a number of ideas one wishes to express, even for the most "fluent" mathematicians speaking to each other.

Of course mathematics isn't a useful tool for communication. No one thinks it is.

Mort asked what the "weakness" of (the language of) mathematics were, and I did what I could to address it. Again, I think there was confusion on what exactly was being addressed. I think we're on the same page now though.

Well, perhaps not useful for conveying meaning, but certainly has its uses in communication, like ASCII, audio codecs and all sorts of stuff.

I don't consider myself a grammar nazi, but I would like to see more people put more care into their typing. Personally, I hate the typical Internet talk and acronyms that people use so much. Like instead of typing out "what are you doing," some people type out "wut r u doing?" Something like that often annoys me to no end.

Moral relativism is what it says it is; the relativity of morality. Nothing else. It doesn't conflict with an aesthetic appreciation of the intense beauty of mathematics, or passion of any sort. It is the realisation that you cannot go from a 'something is' type statement to a 'something ought to be' type statement. There is no way to rationally link the two. A statement about reality is very different from a judgement on morality. This doesn't mean you cannot make 'something is' type statements rationally (or even that you cannot make 'something ought to be' type statements, with various qualifications), only that you cannot link them. You cannot use one to justify the other. The two can exist, but separately.

Now, you may be forgiven for thinking that moral relativism may correlate with some degree of solipsism. That may well be the basis for certain relativistic arguments, the denial of an objective reality. I don't really need to do that; I believe an objective reality exists but the physical framework is unrelated to any sort of moral framework. Moreover, while solipsism is entirely rational and sound, it certainly does conflict with a passion and appreciation of mathematics. My worldview does unfortunately make the assumption that an objective reality exists (but that's a fairly loose assumption that covers pretty much every worldview possible!), but actually mathematics doesn't even require this. This entire existence could all be an illusion, but this illusion is still perfectly described by mathematics and it just requires that I (the person having this illusion) is unfathomably intelligent. I'm not, so we can discount that possibility.

When something is discovered in Physics, the scientist will be celebrated and his name will go down in textbooks and he will remembered for decades, maybe even hundreds of years. But the most powerful feature of science, is that, eventually, this scientist will be proven wrong (or proven to be a 'special case' of something bigger, or a limiting case, or something). There will be more accurate evidence, eventually the names 'Newton', 'Einstein', 'Feynman', 'Schrodinger' (insert dots at your leisure) will be lost to the history books.

But when something is discovered in mathematics, it will always be true. Pythagoras' theorem will always be true, and has always been true. We don't need to have observed every triangle and measured its sides, we don't need to keep researching 'new' triangles and measuring their sides evermore accurately. This proof doesn't even require you to observe any triangles, it doesn't require you to measure anything. It doesn't depend upon time, it doesn't depend upon accuracy, and most importantly it doesn't depend upon you.
It is true because it must be true. It must be true because it has been proven to be true, and this truth relies upon nothing. Science deals with fact, while mathematics deals with truth. The distinction is somewhat blurred occassionally, especially in the work that I as a theoretical physicist do (especially the ****ing phenomenological theories), but because of this distinction it is always possible (and usually pretty easy) to clearly state the physical limitations of any theory. The mathematics has no limitation, but the physical system does (together with whatever approximation you the theorist makes) and this is always measurable. If mathematics were not perfect, we simply wouldn't be able to use it the way we do.

I once believed mathematics was simply a tool we used. The experimentalists have their spanners and when their equipment is broke, they whack it with a spanner. The theorist has his equation and when the equation is broke, we whack it with mathematics. In my second year undergrad course, I can probably pinpoint the very day, my entire view of everything changed. I realised that mathematics makes such deep, profound statements about the nature of existence. A single equation basically changed my life;

I'll let you work out why.

Apologies for making assumptions on your stance on moral relativism, Mort.

Euler's Identity is pretty freakin' awesome, even for a mathematically-dumb guy like me.

I loled.