(June 9, 2020 at 3:31 pm)Grandizer Wrote: My understanding is that even the most advanced mathematics that is applied to reality is generally still based on aspects of reality that have been discovered/experienced, so of course when you then apply mathematical conclusions and theorems back to reality, it shouldn't be a surprise that often times there will be a successful mapping between mathematics and reality. I
While many important mathematical techniques and concepts were developed in large part precisely in order to serve the purpose of describing laws of nature, there are plenty other cases where mathematical concepts were first developed with no particular intended application, and then later found application in an unexpected physical domain. For example: Group theory and Manifold theory...
As Galileo said: "The great book of nature can be read only by those who know the language in which it was written. And this language is mathematics."
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
