Science And Math Was: Python's Lisp heritage

[Laura Creighton]

> On Mon, Apr 22, 2002 at 12:57:38PM +0100, Gon?alo Rodrigues wrote:
> 
> > You should understand that this is a philosophical viewpoint. The
> > mathematical field is roughly divided in the Platonist field, those who
> > believe that mathematical objects exist somewhere out there in space (to
> > quote Sun Ra) in a Wonderful World of Platonic Ideas, and the formalist
> > field of those who believe mathematics is essentialy a game we play on
> > paper with symbols with no "real" meaning attached to it besides the
> > convenience in describing natural phenomena.
> 
> To put this another way, ask yourself where you stand on this
> question: is mathematics discovered or invented?
> 
> -Andy

Those aren't the only two choices out there.  From the 'saving your
cake and eating it too department' -- All mathematics is
invented, but the human mind is only capable of inventing things that
in some way correspond to 'things out there' (whatever that means,
given that this perfectly corresponds to some religious thought on 
the nature of the soul, which is generally though of as 'in here'
rather than 'out there').  Here we start approaching Steven Pinker's
Theory of Language, as expounded in 'the Language Instinct' or Chomsky's -
see 'Language and Problems of Knowledge' or 'Rules and Representations'.

Given that people have been attacking Chomsky as practicing something
which is fundamentally non-scientific (by which they mean that it
is impossible to construct experiments to falsify his claims) for
half a century now, it is possible that the 'saving your cake and
eating it too' assertion is both false and not provably false.

Laura Creighton