If the physical world can be fully reduced to mathematics, we don’t need chemists and physicist to tell us which mathematical objects we’re made out of. A mathematician would know that, unless there is something about an electron that can not be fully reduced to mathematics.
Mathematics is a broad field, with many specialties. A mathematician could only know which mathematical objects correspond to electrons if they studied that particular question. And our name for a mathematician who specializes in studying the question of which mathematical objects correspond to electrons is… Particle Physicist.
A physical theory can be wrong, that, I guess, does not shake your belief in an absolute reality. A normative theory, even mathematised, can also be wrong, but why should it shake my belief in an absolute morality?
It shouldn’t, because this is a straw man, not the argument that leads us to conclude that there isn’t a single absolute morality.
If you read a physics or chemistry textbook, then you’ll find a lot of words and only a few equations, whereas a mathematics textbook has much more equations and the words in the book are to explain the equations, whereas the words in a physics book are not only explaining the equations but the issues that the equations are explaining.
However, I haven’t fully thought about reductionism, so do you have any recommendations that I want to read?
My current two objections:
1. Computational
According to our current physical theories, it is impossible to predict the behaviour of any system larger than a dozen atoms, see Walter Kohn’s Nobel Lecture. We could eventually have a completely new theory, but that would be an optimistic hope.
2. Ontological
Physical objects have other qualities than mathematical objects. And values have other qualities than physical objects. Further elaboration needed.
It shouldn’t, because this is a straw man, not the argument that leads us to conclude that there isn’t a single absolute morality.
It is not a straw man, because I am not attacking any position. I think I was misunderstood, as I said.
Mathematics is a broad field, with many specialties. A mathematician could only know which mathematical objects correspond to electrons if they studied that particular question. And our name for a mathematician who specializes in studying the question of which mathematical objects correspond to electrons is… Particle Physicist.
It shouldn’t, because this is a straw man, not the argument that leads us to conclude that there isn’t a single absolute morality.
If you read a physics or chemistry textbook, then you’ll find a lot of words and only a few equations, whereas a mathematics textbook has much more equations and the words in the book are to explain the equations, whereas the words in a physics book are not only explaining the equations but the issues that the equations are explaining.
However, I haven’t fully thought about reductionism, so do you have any recommendations that I want to read?
My current two objections:
1. Computational
According to our current physical theories, it is impossible to predict the behaviour of any system larger than a dozen atoms, see Walter Kohn’s Nobel Lecture. We could eventually have a completely new theory, but that would be an optimistic hope.
2. Ontological
Physical objects have other qualities than mathematical objects. And values have other qualities than physical objects. Further elaboration needed.
It is not a straw man, because I am not attacking any position. I think I was misunderstood, as I said.