The eye of mathematics, the eye of physic, the eye of the spirit,

For years I struggled to reconcile my belief in science with my attraction to the spiritual. Science had no room for the spirit. It is simply not necessary. Yet I had myself experienced things that were profoundly affecting for which science's explanations were weak and unsatisfying. The two remained in conflict.

Finally, about ten years ago I read an essay by Ken Winbur, whose writings had been part of Bobbi's PhD program. His argument, as well as I can remember it, was this.

We know that we can look at the world through the eye of physics and the eye of mathematics, and while the two seem connected, in fact they are not. Physics is entirely empirical. There is not a single physical fact that can be proven by mathematics. It is all experiment and measurement. While mathematical models can have great predictive power in physics, the fact is that they do not prove anything. There are many branches of mathematics that have no yet-known relevance to physics. The ones that correlate are selected by a process of elimination and experimentation, not because they represent the order of physical reality.

And similarly there is not a single mathematical proposition that can be proven by physics. Mathematics stands on its axioms, logic, the rules of logical reasoning and not by reference to the physical world. Domains of mathematics have been constructed so that they are useful in physics, but that is a by-product of their construction and their selection. There are infinitely many mathematical domains with no physical utility and only a small number that help us understand reality.

So the eye of physics and the eye of mathematics are independent of one another. In each domain knowledge is built and truth is determined by carrying out a process and observing results. In physics we say something is "true" if one can carry out this experiment under these conditions and reliably get this result. The process and or result may involve mathematical calculation, but that is part of the experiment.

In mathimatics we say something is "true" is we can provide a series of steps--a mathematical proof--which will lead to a particular result. The process of reasoning or the domain of application might have its analogies in physics but that is incidental.

So too with the eye of the spirit. In some corners of the world of the spirit (and in fake physics and bad mathematics) there is intuition and faith or its equivalent. But in world to which I am attracted, you can find "truth" in similar ways. Something is true if you can devise a an experiment which if performed under certain conditions will give you a predicted result. This is true for me in Buddhism, Scientology, and other domains of the spirit that do not call themselves religion.

Mathematics cannot prove or disprove physics. Physics can not prove or disprove mathematics. And the world of the spirit can not be proved or disproved by either. These three domains stand each alone, each independent, and each bearing its own truth.