Abstract
In this essay, I use a dialogue between characters from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to discuss the relationship of mathematics to physical reality. In it, I propose that there are two realities: representational and tangible. Mathematics belongs to the former. We can reconcile the two by taking Eddington’s stance that the universe is nothing more than our description of it.
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Notes
- 1.
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland he is simply referred to as the ‘Hatter’ and not the ‘Mad Hatter.’.
References
Lewis Carroll. Rhyme? and Reason?, Chapter: Four Riddles, I. MacMillan and Co., London, 1883.
Arthur Stanley Eddington. The Philosophy of Physical Science. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1939.
Stephen C. Kleene. Introduction to Metamathematics. North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, NY, 1971.
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Durham, I.T. (2016). The Raven and the Writing Desk. In: Aguirre, A., Foster, B., Merali, Z. (eds) Trick or Truth?. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27495-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27495-9_6
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