Quote:According to Occam's Razor the simplest theory is more likely to be correct (although tell that to Einstein). If it was physics, you would derive the number experimentally, and then call it a constant - ah, isn't that much simpler than having an irrational number? Of course it is! According to physics the simpler option is preferred - according to Mathematics, physics can get stuffed because Pi is one of the most complicated numbers known to man.
Pi doesn't actually exist in nature (there are no perfect circles, only very good approximations). Nature isn't "written in a mathematical language". That was Galileo's idea, and while he was right in his use of mathematics to make science simpler, mathematics is just a tool we use to understand reality. A very effective tool (if used wisely) but still, just a tool. The perfect mathematical forms and numbers are pure speculation.
Quote:If the universe is 13.7 billion years old, this means that for the first 10 billion years, while it couldn't support life, it was expanding - ultimatly to the size it is now. Thus, the size of the universe is a direct side-effect of its ability to support life
It's other way around: the ability to produce life is a side-effect of the size of the universe.
Quote:My example on Pi is that you can't derive the number from physics - despite the fact that it is used in physics.
So? Mathematcs is just a tool to express a theory in a simple and effective way. Its results are always supposed to be approximation of reality, not reality itself.
Quote:What if you had something else absolutely essential in physics, that can be derived no other way except through physics - how would you ever know if your theory on it is actually correct, or, if it is simply a good approximation?
What do you mean?
Quote:Think about this. Supposedly, the laws of quantum mechanics give rise to the laws of chemistry which themselves give rise to the laws of biology which give rise to the laws of evolution. Typical reductionism 101. So what if the big bang is an event which gives rise to the laws of quantum mechanics? That would mean there's something more fundamental to nature upon which the laws of quantum mechanics work.
Probably. It'd be called Great Unifying Theory, if someone was able to come up with it.
Quote:nor can they work backwards from the laws of quantum mechanics to arrive at the fundamental law of nature.
Do you know how the laws of quantum physics were discovered?
