"D. F. Siemens, Jr." wrote:
> .....................................
> If God created mathematics, which ones among the various alternatives?
> Integer arithmetic, real numbers, imaginary numbers, mixed numbers (and
> the sophisticated analytical ways to handle the latter), infinite
> numbers, modular numbers (in infinite variety). Absolute geometry,
> Euclidean, Lobachevskian, Riemannian, analytic, and various extensions in
> terms of dimensions and techniques, etc. Newton's fluxions, Maclaurin's
> redoing these as geometric theorems, differential calculus, integrals,
> partial differentials, and a variety of more sophiticated versions. What
> is provably true in some of these is provably false in others. And Goedel
> and others have proved that there unprovables. Is the deity behind this
> confusion, along with complexity theory (aka deterministic chaos)? On
> what basis can you render a decision of divine involvement?
It seems to me that posing the question in this way is kind of like
challenging a person who aserts that Shakespeare was a playwright to say
whether he wrote "Richard the Third" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Or put the matter another way. Eliding for the moment all questions
about God's relation to time, do you really think that when Bloyai &
Lobachevsky discovered non-Euclidean geometry, Gd said, "Boy, I wish I'd
thought of that !"?
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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