Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik
From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: intelligence and the initial conditions of the universe (BANG!!!)
Message-ID: <1490@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 8 Aug 89 12:44:26 GMT
References: <2182@hub.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 19

In article <2182@hub.UUCP>, silber@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes:
> Intelligence and its instantiation as reasoning must be conditioned by
> the initial conditions of the universe; if the universe had started as
> a continuous distribution of matter, there would have been no discrete
> sets (?), hence no numbers. if the initial conditions had decreed a different
> set of discrete elementary particles, there would have been a different
> number theory, different primes, or perhaps no primes at all (?)

It is not necessary for the fundamental structure of the universe to be
discrete to have observed discreteness.  If we have discrete planets or
stars, or rocks, or plants, or animals, or intelligences, we have the 
notion of discreteness.

We use mathematics to describe the universe.  The mathematics is independent
of the universe.  How it is used to describe it is not.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)