Re:IAmA theoretical physicist. Ask me anything (via reddit)
by pwhelan on Saturday June 05, 2010 @12:49PM
(#1407075)
Thanks. This is kinda difficult to wrap my head around though. I found this passage interesting:
"By this account, there are no metaphysical or epistemological problems special to mathematics. The only worries left are the general worries about non-mathematical physics, and about fiction in general. Field's approach has been very influential, but is widely rejected. This is in part because of the requirement of strong fragments of second-order logic to carry out his reduction, and because the statement of conservativity seems to require quantification over abstract models or deductions."
I will admit that I have a problem when fictionalism requires that we regard "2 + 2 = 4" as false (also from wikipedia). All in all an interesting idea.
"By this account, there are no metaphysical or epistemological problems special to mathematics. The only worries left are the general worries about non-mathematical physics, and about fiction in general. Field's approach has been very influential, but is widely rejected. This is in part because of the requirement of strong fragments of second-order logic to carry out his reduction, and because the statement of conservativity seems to require quantification over abstract models or deductions."
I will admit that I have a problem when fictionalism requires that we regard "2 + 2 = 4" as false (also from wikipedia). All in all an interesting idea.