Re: Are there things that don't evolve?

1. I think it may said that mathematics evolves. New techniques and
tools emergy, conjectures are proven or disproven, philosophical insight
development continues. So the discipline is evolving. Perhaps there is
an underlying God-view mathematics that is complete and not subject to
change, but that is not mathematics as we know it.

2. The fundamental physics that rule the universe, the actual
interactions and their nature, may not change, but our understanding and
ways of expressing them sure does. I'm thinking of the milestones of the
concept of reality and the development and use of matrix notation, just
as examples. That said, I agree with you on this one, though some of the
discussions as to how God interacts with our environment poke at this
notion.

JimA

Philtill@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/25/2006 8:07:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> gregoryarago@yahoo.ca writes:
>
> help put the thread back on track.
>
> Can you give an example or examples of things that don't evolve?
> Are there things that don't evolve?
>
>
> Off the top of my head, I can think of two things that don't evolve
> (not counting supernatural things). These are:
>
> 1. logic and mathematics. While the "body" of mathematical research
> does grow and evolve over time, the mathematics itself as an abstract
> concept does not evolve; it is only discovered. Things discovered
> ages ago are exactly the same today as they were back then, because
> the logic itself has not changed one iota.
>
> 2. the fundamental physics that rules the universe. While there is
> discussion that maybe the fine structure constant does change over
> time very slowly, so perhaps some of the "constants" of physics do
> evolve, nevertheless there is a firm belief among physicists that even
> this kind of evolution can be understood by appealing to more
> fundamental laws that themselves do not evolve. This is closely akin
> to #1, because of the close relationship between reductionistic
> physics and mathematics.
>
> Personally, I think that the laws of physics in the universe are
> analogous to an axiomatic system in mathematics. There are a certain
> number of physical "axioms" that science seeks to discover through
> reductionism. By the strength of this analogy I think that there must
> be an infinite mind behind the universe, because no axiomatic system
> can be complete and provably consistent without first performing an
> infinite number of logical deductions (analogy to the incompleteness
> theorem) and so I think the non-evolution of logic and physics is
> closely related to the non-evolution of God's infinite mind.
>
> God bless!
> Phil Metzger
>
Received on Sun Mar 26 01:10:12 2006