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Yes it is. And it is called mathematical reasoning. You don't need to have some childish intuition to grasp the tunnel effect. It is enough to understand the co

Yes it is. And it is called mathematical reasoning. You don't need to have some childish intuition to grasp the tunnel effect. It is enough to understand the concept of an exponential function of complex arguments. Complicated problems need abstract reasoning not handwavy explanations. "Imagine two rivers which merge at some point and two boats floating down these rivers. Which one will be first? Think about it and solve your race condition problem." Pure nonsense. We have powerful ways to think about programs with programming languages. For physics this language is mathematics. If you want to understand something study the language. And bits like "Babies also intuitively grasp that objects exist even when you’re not looking at them, a concept called “object permanence” that goes against the classic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics [...]" are just sad. An observation in the physical sense and the observation of a newborn are not the same concept. Babies have a memory. Computers have memory. Therefore babies are computers.

calibraxis 12y ago
You might be interested in Chomsky's view which he mentions often (http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm): "Newton disproved them. He showed that the world is not intelligible to us. Newton demonstrated that there are no machines, that there’s nothing mechanical in the sense in which it was assumed that the world was mechanical. He didn’t believe it — in fact he felt his work was an absurdity — but he proved it, and he spent the rest of his life trying to disprove it. And other scientists did later on. I mean, it’s often said that Newton got rid of the ghost in the machine, but it’s quite the opposite. Newton exorcised the machine. He left the ghost. "And by the time that sank in, which was quite some time, it just changed the conception of science. Instead of trying to show that the world is intelligible to us, we recognized that it’s not intelligible to us. But we just say, ‘Well, you know, unfortunately that’s the way it works. I can’t understand it but that’s the way it works.’ And then the aim of science is reduced from trying to show that the world is intelligible to us, which it is not, to trying to show that there are theories of the world which are intelligible to us. That’s what science is: It’s the study of intelligible theories which give an explanation of some aspect of reality." I think this basically agrees with your point on mathematics; the theory itself may be intelligible.

calibraxis 12y ago

You might be interested in Chomsky's view which he mentions often (http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm): "Newton disproved them. He showed that the world is not intelligible to us. Newton demonstrated that there are no machines, that there’s nothing mechanical in the sense in which it was assumed that the world was mechanical. He didn’t believe it — in fact he felt his work was an absurdity — but he proved it, and he spent the rest of his life trying to disprove it. And other scientists did later on. I mean, it’s often said that Newton got rid of the ghost in the machine, but it’s quite the opposite. Newton exorcised the machine. He left the ghost. "And by the time that sank in, which was quite some time, it just changed the conception of science. Instead of trying to show that the world is intelligible to us, we recognized that it’s not intelligible to us. But we just say, ‘Well, you know, unfortunately that’s the way it works. I can’t understand it but that’s the way it works.’ And then the aim of science is reduced from trying to show that the world is intelligible to us, which it is not, to trying to show that there are theories of the world which are intelligible to us. That’s what science is: It’s the study of intelligible theories which give an explanation of some aspect of reality." I think this basically agrees with your point on mathematics; the theory itself may be intelligible.