[FOM] Unreasonable effectiveness

[Dennis E. Hamilton]

I've read Wigner's argument, as I recall, but I am not certain what the thesis might be.

However, Albert Einstein's 1921 perspective is readily available and Stephen Hawking found it worthy of collection in his 2007 compilation of Einstein's essential scientific work.  There are links and my own appraisal at <http://orcmid.com/blog/2010/02/abstraction-einstein-on-theoryreality.asp>.

 - Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: fom-bounces at cs.nyu.edu [mailto:fom-bounces at cs.nyu.edu] On Behalf Of Timothy Y. Chow
Sent: Saturday, November 2, 2013 08:41
To: fom at cs.nyu.edu
Subject: [FOM] Unreasonable effectiveness

In 1960, Wigner argued for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics 
in the natural sciences, and his thesis has been enthusiastically accepted 
by many others.

Occasionally, someone will express a contrarian view.  The two main 
contrarian arguments I am aware of are:

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