Quote:
Originally Posted by GoshisDead  A method is simply a path to a destination. There is no natural exlusion of multiple paths to a single destination. As far as real world practicum, all roads lead to Rome. |
Exactly the point I would have made - I think that to assert that mathematics and science reveal "truth" is to misunderstand mathematics and science.
Mathematics is symbol processing - that's all ... as luck(?) would have it, sometimes symbol processing is isomorphic with elements of the real world - this is "applied mathematics" (as contrasted with "pure mathematics" which is mathematics for its own sake) ... and each time mathematics makes a novel prediction about the real world, that prediction needs to be tested - that is, the assumed isomorphism needs to re-validated.
Science is a method for bettering our useful understanding of the world - that's all ... it's an imperfect method - that's why I say it can only help us better our useful understanding ... that is, if we were to stumble across the truth of life, the universe, and everything (at last estimate, 42), science would not release a bevy of balloons and confetti to announce "You found it!!!" ... in fact, if having found the truth we were unable to make use of it, we might instead move on to alternative theories that were more useful (general relativity and quantum mechanics, though incompatible with one another as theories of the world, are more useful than 42).