In 1959/60, Eugene Wigner, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, made the statement, “The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and … there is no rational explanation for it.”
This enigma was the subject of a conversation posted on YouTube last month between Sergiu Klainerman, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, and Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski, from the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, hosted by Peter M. Robinson from the Hoover Institution.
Inspired by this conversation, I have written a 42-page essay titled ‘Demystifying the Mystery of Mathematics’, which provides a rational explanation for the enormous usefulness of mathematics in science and our daily lives. It does so by bringing God into mathematics and science, where God is Ultimate Reality, as I described last month in ‘Unifying All Models of God in Cosmic Gnosis’.
This is essential if we are to solve another mystery: What is causing scientists and technologists, aided and abetted by computer technology, to drive the pace of scientific discovery and technological development at unprecedented exponential rates of acceleration?
It is essential to recognize the need to answer this question because we cannot intelligently manage our business affairs without a profound understanding of what causes us to behave as we do. For instance, Maria Ressa, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said last month, “We cannot solve problems we cannot agree exist.” We cannot collectively and calmly face our existential crises “without first rebuilding our shared reality”.
Our shared reality is Consciousness, which shows us that we humans are all dependent on each other for our health, well-being, and survival for as long as possible. So, faced with the near-term extinction of our species, it no longer makes sense to fight each other for a slice of the finite financial pie.
In particular, it is vitally important to resolve the conflict between the proponents of intelligent design, who know that the creative power of Life drives evolutionary processes, including human learning, and atheistic Neo-Darwinists, who do not recognize that the so-called supernatural is entirely natural.
This we can do through the universal system of thought that has evolved from the semantic modelling methods underlying the Internet. By recognizing that opposites are never separate in Ultimate Reality, we can develop a paralogical view of mathematics, as the holographic art and science of patterns and relationships, at the heart of our reasoning processes.