What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists

Re:What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physic... by mattmanser on Thursday August 11, 2016 @04:11PM (#12271257)

I'm guessing mindcrime's talking about Cantor and Godel and the continuum hypothesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis

I remember learning about them in the philosophy of maths, but have no idea if they have any consequences in Physics. And like /u/lasfter I'll stop there before I embarrass myself.

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Re:What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physic... by yk on Thursday August 11, 2016 @06:01PM (#12271922)

Probably, but in my view Godel's theorem basically states that there are limits to axiom systems. (In much the same way that you can not write a web server without touching sockets.) My point is, if it would be necessary to switch to a stronger axiom system than ZFC in physics, then one would do that, without claiming that that stronger system is real.

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Re:What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physic... by mattmanser on Thursday August 11, 2016 @07:45PM (#12272531)

I honestly can't tell if this is utter gibberish or a real comment...

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Re:What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physic... by yk on Thursday August 11, 2016 @09:29PM (#12272926)

Yeah, I should stop commenting publicly on an ongoing thought process, before I figured out how to communicate that thought :/ Basically I am drifting towards hard mathematical anti-realism and towards a rather minimal scientific realism. (And when I saw the discussion I jumped the gun...)

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