The Ethics Meetup – Why can mathematics be used to understand the world?

Hello Ethics & Philosophy Fans!

UPDATE: we have a topic for the Meetup, which is this Sunday, June 28 at 5 PM – 7 PM Pacific Time.

We're meeting on zoom this month; shortly before the meeting starts, I'll send a Zoom invitation with the link and some discussion notes.

If your plans to attend have changed, please update your RSVP.

The winner of the email vote and the topic for Sunday is:

WHY CAN MATHEMATICS BE USED TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD? In fact, math describes nature so well that it appears indispensable. Yet it's not at all obvious why or how this is possible, or why mathematics does the job so much better than any natural language does. Could modern science exist without mathematics? Consider, too, that nearly all mathematical concepts have been created (or discovered), independently of natural science, by mathematicians working on riddles in mathematics.
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READINGS for the topic – I have three short readings for you this time. Inspire and clarify your thinking on the issues by reading these!

http://plus.maths.org/content/philosophy-applied-mathematics
The philosophy of applied mathematics. This five-page article from mathematician Phil Wilson is exactly on our topic: “A stunning fact: the world can be understood mathematically.” It appeared in Cambridge University’s Plus magazine, a magazine of mathematics. The many comments posted below the essay are worth skimming over, as Wilson responds to several of his commentators.

https://www.essentiafoundation.org/why-mathematics-works-the-mind-reality-connection/reading/
Why mathematics works: The mind-reality connection. Science writer Brian Fang writes this 3-page article from the Essentia Foundation website. “Brian Fang discusses the many instances in which mathematics developed without empirical motivation turned out to precisely describe the physical patterns of nature. Why would primates evolved to hunt and gather develop the cognitive ability to unveil the underlying mathematical structure of the cosmos? He argues that the most plausible explanation is that nature is itself the expression of mind-like structures also directly present in the human intellect. Mathematical introspection is thus an exploration of the underlying mental landscapes of the cosmos as a whole.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreasonable_Effectiveness_of_Mathematics_in_the_Natural_Sciences
This 4-page Wikipedia entry summarizes the main points of a famous article by physicist Eugene Wigner titled, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. It also briefly discusses several of the responses and objections to Wigner’s arguments.
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FYI, we talk about the topic from 5 PM – 7 PM, though a number of people stay on for several more hours and talk about the topic and/or about whatever else comes up in a looser, freewheeling conversation.

Don't forget, if you have some philosophical question or issue that you want to talk about at a future meeting, email it to me!

Brian