So it makes sense that there is some conceivable pattern for every finite list of numbers (things, etc) that could either be disproved or not disproved (never proved of course; nothing is ever proved in science, just not disproved) by the addition of another element. Sure, we may not be smart enough to come up with conceivable patterns for really long sets of elements, but it seems like as long as that set is finite, such a pattern must exist.
I don't know why this is interesting. It just is. I wish I could remember my topology. It's like the concept of a cover or something... anyway, as the world is mostly finite (leave infinity for math and physics groping for solutions), there should be a pattern to everything.
That's kind of comforting, even though of course most of those patterns are probably wrong. But who would ever know if the additional element is never given, if the pattern is never explicable?
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Because of my occupation working with machines, I daily place my well being to the machine's perfection (standing in front of a grinding wheel spinning at 1000s rpm); therefore, I trust in order and patterns in the universe (but always aware of the 2nd Law)...Another good post, by the way...
thanks. yeah, i find it interesting how we so easily trust our lives to the math that goes into machines, and more scarily, to the error that is inherent in the translation from math to machine.
Guess our human lives are like the quantum universe, chaotic, random (seemingly?), but the world around us has order and is full of understandable patterns...at least, that's my experience; I understand mach's, don't understand people...
well we certainly behave like that... i mean, how else would predictable cultural patterns arise from unpredictable individual randomness? I can't predict at all what *you'll* do, but i can predict to a degree of certainty what an entire civilization would do...
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