Re: CAUSATION IN PHYSICS

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> > I don't know who first said it, and I don't even know that
> > I'm quoting it
> > correctly (please help me if you DO know), but consider:
> >
> > "Mathematics describes all possible universes.  Physics describes THIS
> > universe."
>
> A small quibble here.  When one works on a Kaluza-Klein theory with a 5
> dimensional universe and another person is working on a string theory with
> an eleven dimensional universe, I'd say both people are doing physics but
> one or both of them is not describing this universe.  I admit that they are
> both likely to be trying to understand this universe, but the models are
> aren't the universe and vice versa.

Both are *efforts to describe* this universe. The statement that "models
... aren't the universe" is a truism that I push in this group when railing
against reification. All of us should be ever conscious that physics is
only the pursuit of description of the universe. We can never expect to
reveal ultimate truths. That is what distinguishes us from the religious.

Leigh