somebody wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
> news:484363fb$1@news.povray.org...
>> somebody wrote:
> 
>> For example, there's no known mathematical model to indicate where a
>> specific electron is, and indeed if I understand correctly, experiments
>> show there cannot be one.
> 
> Some syntatically correct questions can be meaningless. What colour is the
> note C#?

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

>> I strongly suspect there's no possible mathematical model for "free
>> will" in its usual meaning.
> 
> The problem is that the usual meaning isn't. 

Again, I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

> Plus you have to be aware of
> and agree on the level of abstraction you are working with. An economical
> question becomes practically meaningless at subatomic level of the atoms of
> the cells of the human of the masses that create the demand. "Free will" is
> at best a crude concept at individual human level, and it goes downhill from
> there quickly at any other more fundamental levels.

Um, yes. That's kind of my point.

I take it you're retracting your statement:
> Easy. Mathematics can represent *anything*, since you get to make up your
> own axioms.

That's what I'm addressing, and nothing else. Mathematics can't 
represent "free will", nor can it represent where (say) the tenth 
electron to hit the screen will hit it in a particular well-defined 
experiment.

>> Experiments with gravity show the best theory we have for it is
>> incompatible with the best theory we have for atomic interactions. What
>> happens when someone proves that gravity is incompatible with quantum
>> mechanics? That there cannot be a GUT?
> 
> Unfortunately (or fortunately), you cannot disprove reality. 

Depending on your meaning of "prove", but yes, I think I know what 
you're trying to say here.

> The question is
> not whether or not there's a GUT (reality provides one working model at
> least)

That's the assumption I'm challenging. Please provide evidence that 
there is one completely describable model of reality possible.

There is reality. Then there's the Grand Unified Theory of reality, 
which expresses the behavior of the universe in mathematical terms which 
can be symbolically manipulated in a manner isomorphic to how reality 
works.

You can't disprove reality. But that doesn't mean there's any formalism 
that can express it.

>>> Whether that model can be simplified, and can have predictive powers
>>> or not is the question,
> 
>> If it doesn't have predictive powers, it's not an appropriate model.
>> It's merely a summary of the past rather than a model of the actual
> reality.
> 
> Past *is* "actual" reality. More so than future, less so than present.

Yes. But if you can't predict the future based on the past, you don't 
have a *model*. You have a mathematical description of the past that may 
or may not have anything to do with the future.

If I flip a coin four times in a row and get all heads, it's not a model 
of coin flipping to say "it always comes up heads."  If I 'predict' in 
2008 ever terrorist action for the years 2000-2006 using my mathematical 
formula, that doesn't mean it's good for 2010. If my equations match 
perfectly with the stock market for the last five years, that doesn't 
mean I'll make money next year.

> Modelling randomness is easy (in theory anyway). It just won't have
> predictive ability.

I would claim that if you can't predict, you don't have a model, you 
have a history book. If you can't take a model isomorphic to current 
reality, perform formal transforms on it, and have a model that is 
isomorphic to the reality you get after the modeled transforms are 
performed in reality, then you don't have a model.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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