[Lyta_Underhill]

I don't think the purpose of science ever changes.

I had not meant to imply that the purpose changes; merely the laws derived from said rigorous observations. Of course, now, experimental methods do change!

But are you really prepared to say that mathematics is aesthetics? Surely aesthetics depends upon the peculiar structure of the human brain, not just upon the logical structure of the world.

I am not prepared to equate the two; however, I would say that there is an aesthetic character to mathematics. That does not make it necessary for the two to be equal, but merely that the exercise of mathematics seems to satisfy an aspect of the human psyche that longs for order in a quantifiable and observable way. In that way, mathematics satisfies an aesthetic requirement.

The original discussion involved the possibility of some kind of meaningful connection between the music of the Ainur and the vibrations of superstrings in the early universe. I stand by my opinion that such connections are nothing more than coincidents.

I believe the original topic was a wider consideration of the connections (coincidental or meaningful) between concepts in physics and the Music of the Ainulindale. String Theory is an elegant way to look at the universe, but I do not understand its intricacies well enough to draw any parallels myself. I suppose I just decided to shift to the variable idea of possibilities and analogies for the Music that do not specifically address the physical concepts, but the concept that physics could be another way to explain the Music (not necessarily that the Ainur would have considered such a thing but that we, as having access to physics as it is currently, would think of such a thing). I couldn't begin to explain it, though!

Note also that the song of the Ainur is explicitly compared with the music of "harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and . . . countless choirs singing with words".

I can't argue with that! I don't seek to destroy or bring the myth down to material level, but to rhapsodize upon it, rather to speculate that those who wrote the histories might compare the Music to such things, because those are the things they know and can understand. Certainly the aforesaid instruments would have to be extraordinary to produce the Music as it would filter into Arda as the sound of water and wind on the mountains, etc. I wonder at the cosmic nature of these 'instruments,' and wonder if the songs played upon them could have a mathematical aesthetic such as you have said, permeates the entire world, for everything can be reduced to mathematics.

Forgive me for veering slightly off the topic, but these two views sound contradictory. The first view, that physics exists to be discovered, seems to me to be the very opposite of the rather constructivist view that the rules change in response to how we go about investigating them.

The problem here may lie in my abysmal sentence structure, rather than my expressed meaning. My point in the first view is not that physics exists to be discovered, but that the universe does, and physics is an applied art to the end of that discovery. I did not mean to say physics was around from the beginning. It is a developed art/science, a discipline. The second point referred to observed behavior and not necessarily the rules themselves. Certainly there are precautions and indirect methods to skirt the problem of observer affecting an experiment; my point was not that the laws themselves change everytime we look at something. I hope that was clearer; not sure though! I can't think of anything else at the moment, but I hope eventually to be able to add something new!

Cheers!
Lyta