[NTLK] OT: A Future That is a Singularity - Evolution

[Andy Taylor]

On 30 Mar 2010, at 11:40, Ryan wrote:

> I need to research time more, but from my undertanding, is time not an
> entity itself? And math can make predictions about things. In that way
> it addresses time.


What I meant, Ryan, when I was burbling on about "Mathematics sits  
outside of time" is this:
In Physics, Biology, etc., we can meaningfully talk about 'actions'  
and their 'consequences'. Some stuff happens after other stuff. This  
is not the case in Mathematics; "if A then B" does not mean "if you do  
A then B will happen", its means "if A is true, then B is also true".  
As such, the totality of mathematical statements exist in a single  
instant of time (or outside it if you prefer). In that sense, where  
mathematical modelling makes a prediction, what it is doing is saying  
"if you find that X is/was/will be true, then Y also is/was/will be  
true".
Subtle, but I think true!

Thanks, Bob, for the wikipedia link.
I love that aspect of mathematics and its apparent underlying truth.  
The way that what Galois  was thinking up in the early 1800s turns up  
over a century later to underly the operations on sub-atomic  
particles. Etc, etc, etc.
But does it mean that anything mathematically  true must find its use  
later in a physical interpretation - Do mathematicians have a carte  
blanche to wander off at tax-payers expense, secure in the knowledge  
that the fundamental utility of their work is not only assured but  
ultimately the responsibility of others to dis-cover and real-ise?!