Thinking About Mathematics

In light of my recent book being published, I have once again thought about mathematics. Honestly, I started thinking about it again on Friday afternoon at the end of the work week. I discuss the human endeavor of mathematics quite a bit in the book. Please note that I am not a mathematician. I just did a semester of calculus in college. I am fairly good at understanding statistical science as a part of my job. Although I am not a mathematician, I have deep respect for those who pursue the field as their career.

Recently, I came across two interesting comments about mathematics.

The blog (“Not Even Wrong” — good blog BTW) pointed to an arXiv article which reproduced a letter written by Richard Feynman in which his work on the path integral was discussed. The letter is complex. I understood some of it at times; I understood none of it most of the time. But the ending of the letter was interesting. Per Feynman: “I will work on your 2nd quantization, when I get time. I really believe it is correct – but is another example of the terrifying power of math. to make us say things which we don’t understand but are true.”

I also came across this lecture from Eugene Wigner as part of a lecture on math and science at NYU published in 1960. The 1959 lecture is titled, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” Towards the end of his lecture, he has this beautiful quote: “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”

So here we come to a conundrum as has been discussed by people more educated in the metaphysics of mathematics than I will ever be. See here and here.

Is mathematics the basis of all reality similar to the philosophy of Platonic forms? Such an idea has become a type of religion in the past as seen in the setting of Pythagoreanism. The metaphysical beauty of mathematics in and of itself has been described as mathology.

On the other hand, is mathematics just a human central nervous system construct? This concept would describe mathematics as intuitive theory or a psychological construct.

As a religious person who finds both process theology and open & relational theology helpful, I wonder if a way to consider mathematics is to combine both concepts: mathology + intuitive theory. Mathology could be construed as objective metaphysical reality. Intuition has subjective components such as considering beauty.

Mathology strikes me as Platonism; intuitive theory strikes me as accidental evolutionary formation. When combined, I see:

Aspects of process theology in which God desires novelty or creativity and…

Aspects of open & relational theology in which God desires such creatvity through divine love of all entities. This love is expressed as freedom of nature to create without intervention.

If I accept the ideas contained in Naturalismppp (see previous posts), then I can consider that:

a. The existence of present events is based on the pulse of creative energy from past events providing potentially infinite possibilities for all future events.

b. All of nature is in God. God is in time. God experiences all events in nature / the universe in real time.

c. Every entity has experience. Perhaps this experience is consciousness…perhaps not.

Naturalismppp is not woo. There is a long tradition of such theological writings.

So, perhaps the world has limitations in creation set forth by the rules of mathematics, and the world is based on such mathematics (mathology). There may be an infinity of such mathematical possiblities in such a propsal unless there are limits. I have previously written that such limits can be theologically defined as “lim Δ” or limits (lim) in place for any change (Δ). At the same time, we are all part of this mathematics since mathematics is simply a part of the nature of all entities — how ants walk, how bees make hives; how animals migrate; how stars form; how I am writing this essay right now. It is part of our substance or of our bodies

In other words, if one is to assume that God is all in all and in real time experiencing the entirety of gluons to galaxies, then mathematics is both subjective and objective as the essence of reality. It is equation based but also beautiful. It is proof solving but also mysterious. It is a metaphor for how God and every entity experience the world — the subjective and objective combined in an eternal dance.

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