(September 12, 2018 at 9:43 am)polymath257 Wrote:(September 12, 2018 at 9:24 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Are you saying that any correspondence between mathematics and physics is purely accidental and that there is no essential relationship between them?
No. I am saying the correspondence is *exactly* the same as that between any other language and the real world. *WE* are the ones that use the language to describe the world, and thereby set up the correspondence. That isn't accidental, but it also isn't something deep about the universe (except, perhaps, that it has enough regularity to be described).
Unfortunately that is implicit in your response - that rule-based manipulation of arbitrary symbols has no essential relationship to reality other than what is arbitrarily assigned by a knowing subject. You are also implying that the apparent order of physical reality has no rational foundation.
<insert profound quote here>