Dawkins

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This is precisely our disagreement. You are a materialist, I am not. This is a philosophical choice, not something science can say anything on one way or the other.

How do you explain the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics? This, I think, is the hardest problem for materialists -- explaining why math is so useful without resorting to platonism.

Science is a useful tool. It is not the be-all and end-all of human knowledge. You have to use the right tool for the right job. Tell me, do you drive nails with a hacksaw? Do you cut down trees with a Phillips screwdriver? Do you turn screws with a hammer? Why then do you attempt to approach philosophical and theological questions from the perspective of science?

Mathematical proposition which are interpreted in real world terms are not meaningless. The are meaningless only as abstract propositions, not as descriptions of the world.

Think of map. When the elements of the map are put into correspondence with locations of real places and topographical features a map is no longer merely squiggles on a piece of paper.

ruveyn

My point is not that math needs to be read has having meaning in the abstract, but that applying said standard forces one to accept that it does not (which many find counterintuitive).

In fact God is something significantly stronger than mathematical propositions in terms of meaning, because while mathematical propositions are a priori constructs, God describes a *potentially* observable external thing.

Then how come so many of the maps that mathematicians create just for the fun of it turn out to be accurate maps of real places?

That is an excellent question which to which no one (so far) has given a satisfactory answer. Read the following essay:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDram ... igner.html

"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Physical Sciences" by Eugene Wigner.

Wigner was one of the early giants of quantum physics. His essay is very thoughtful but it comes down to ".... suddenly, a miracle happens..." so to speak.

His essay ends thus:

"Let me end on a more cheerful note. The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. "

ruveyn

I am currently reading "The God Delusion". the first half of the prologue, called "deserved respect" was enough to encourage a critical self-analysis of my own beliefs. I am enjoying this book and will read or study more about Dawkins and what he has to say.