Welcome To The Desert Of The Real
Okay, so there I am in the first tutorial, happy with discussions about the lack of universal truths in the Universe - lots of evidence from physics and so on. But then, I posit, quite confidently I might add, that this may very well be true of physics, biology and chemistry, but it is certainly not true of mathematics. To wit, in mathematics we have proof and once something is proven then it is proven for ever! To which Jason responds, “what if the proof is proven to be wrong?” “Then”, I respond, “it wasn’t proven in the first place.” “But, then, can this not be true of all proofs?” “What?” I say. “No”. I am hoisted by my own petard. “You should read the PhB thesis, ‘Is mathematics cumulative’ (http://bunny.xeny.net/philosophy-of-maths/Parsonage%20-%20Philosophy%20of%20Mathematics.pdf),,) Chipu chips in. So I did read it and (with apologies to W.H Auden)…
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message [Maths] Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
[Maths] was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Which is to say I suddenly found myself in Plato’s cave staring at the event horizon of a black hole, wondering if - in contradistinction to Hawking’s Black Hole paradox - everything in the Universe, or the universe, was just a holographic projection of reality. What is real? What is truth? (I should have taken the blue pill!)
But then I remembered Buddhism’s Lankavatara sutra and was no longer concerned, for “nothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise.”
Michael O’Byrne
I love this!
Jason
