From: tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: invention of time
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 17:23:49 GMT

In article <snodgras.716184184@crash> snodgras@crash.cts.com (John Snodgrass)
writes, commenting on Keith Ramsay's article:
>      You should write a book on your interpretation.
[stuff deleted]
>      That's your interpretation, which, though one might question the need
>such a generalization serves, seems perfectly acceptable, providing one
>admits that 'time' is just an abstraction invented, a sort of mnemonic for
>a certain variable -- and that the equations make no pretense at describing
>the _real_ universe.

From your articles it appears that you distinguish between

(1) Manipulating mathematics to predict and control the environment; and
(2) Interpreting these equations as telling us what the physical world
    really is (e.g., a Newtonian clockwork, or a Riemannian manifold).

For example, in the case of Newtonian mechanics, you grant that people
can manipulate the equations to obtain some degree of control over their
environment.  On the other hand, you think it is invalid to project these
mathematical equations onto reality (i.e., to think that nature is really
mathematical).

Now let us assume for the sake of argument that it is wrong to think of
the universe as a Riemannian manifold, or of wave functions as actually
existing, etc.  From this all we get is a rejection of a particular way of
INTERPRETING the mathematics of relativity and quantum mechanics, i.e., a
rejection of (2).  But what about (1)?  You have not presented an argument
yet that shows that manipulating the mathematics of relativity leads to a
loss of the ability to predict and control.  It is perfectly possible to
reject (2) and retain (1), as Newtonian mechanics demonstrates.

When you assert that there is no such thing as relativity, it SOUNDS like
you are rejecting not only the interpretation but the use of the associated
mathematics to predict and control.  You've more or less claimed that one
day we will finally realize that the mathematics of relativity is useless
for prediction and control.  But this has not happened to the mathematics of
Newton, even though most scientists have rejected the mechanistic world-view
associated with it.  Even if the world finally rejects the projection of
mathematics onto reality, the world may still retain all the mathematics of
relativity and quantum mechanics.

So perhaps you can answer these two questions.

(a) Do you think that one can EMPLOY the mathematics of relativity without
    necessarily illegitimately PROJECTING it onto reality?  (Since you seem
    to accept Keith Ramsay's interpretation of relativity as somewhat
    plausible at least, I think your answer to this is yes.)
(b) Is such employment doomed to failure, and if so, why?  (Here you must
    give an explicit example of a failure of the mathematics of relativity
    to predict some phenomenon---arguing against the mathematization of
    reality establishes only a rejection of (2) and not (1), if your answer
    to (a) is yes.)

If in (b) you argue that relativity will eventually fail in some extreme
domain (just as Newtonian mechanics fails in certain extreme domains), then
I suspect that many scientists will agree with you.  This is a far cry from
saying that there is "no such thing as relativity" however.
-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech