| > The point is that whatever system enables the math to work is irrelevant to what ever uses theories will have for this math. Additional explanation from someone who (also?) used to do research, with papers and all: we actually used objects we knew did not exist to do actual science. By "do not exist" I mean "they are make-believe theoretical objects that do not exist per se, but they are good models for things that do exist". Science and engineering is full of these things. Holes in transistors: they don't exist, they're actually a certain type of electron shifting their positions in a particular way, but the math would get a lot hairier (at no gain!) if you treated them as electrons. Electrical charges in classic electromagnetism aren't electrons at all -- they're small dots with charge on them, but the math would get a lot hairier (at no gain -- again!) if you didn't treat them like this. Being able to model a phenomenon is very important, and being able to model it simply is, for lack of a better word, God-given. Phenomenological models (i.e. models that model only the behaviour, not the inner working of a certain phenomenon) are as good as any other model, as long as you bear in mind that they are phenomenological: you can use them to reason about certain effects, but not necessarily about what causes them. Before anyone jumps in to point out this is bullshit and that there's really more to life, I just want to remind everyone that we've been building buildings and bridges and shit based on a phenomenological model. Classical mechanics knows absolutely shit about how gravity works -- it just tells you useful stuff about what it does -- and I'll personally grab all the beer in the world for someone who finds an actual material point. |