Higher Forms
Friday, February 14th
From Gordon Gillespie in Aeon this week:
Mathematics provides the most impressive proof that a true understanding of the world goes beyond the discovery of causal relationships – whether they are constituted by natural or cultural forces. It is worth taking a closer look at this proof. For it outlines the bond that connects mind and nature in particularly bright colours. Kant understood this bond as a ‘transcendental’ one. The late Wittgenstein, on the other hand, demonstrated its anchoring in language – not in the sense of a purely verbal and written practice, but in the sense of a comprehensive practice of actions the mental and bodily elements of which cannot be neatly separated. In the words of Wittgenstein, ‘commanding, questioning, recounting, chatting are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, and playing.’
Mathematics too is part of this practice. As such, like every science, it is inseparably rooted in both nature and the human mind. Unlike the other sciences, this dual rootedness is obvious in the case of mathematics. One only has to see where it resides: beyond causality.
One reason to think that we aren’t Boltzmann brains, emerging from a truly random universe to observe a reality that itself has been arranged solely by random forces, is the unprecedented number of patterns in our world. There are natural laws — laws of causality, yes, but also mathematical laws that are true in their own right but manifest throughout the world. In a truly random universe, why would anything adhere to law, or a pattern, or any sort of predictable structure?