Emphasis added to Bridgman quote below Aug. 25, 2021.
From: Bob Bernstein <bob@fanatick.org>
To: Gary Parker <gary.parker@gmail.com>
Subject: Percy Bridgman: Absurdly Brilliant
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2021 20:34:15
User-Agent: Alpine 2.23.2 (DEB 509 2020-10-04)

"It may perhaps be hopeless ever to expect a mathematical formulation of the observer; the fact that the theory is itself a creature of the brain of the observer who is trying to formulate a theory which shall include his own brain would lead one to expect mathematical difficulties."

The Nature of Physical Theory p.121.

I believe Bridgman's bottom-line insight is:

"...what we mean by physical reality is to a large extent a matter of convention and convenience." ibid. p.120.

A tad underwhelming one might say, but in saying that I am only showing my own hand of cards in this game. In this next paragraph from the same work Bridgman NAILS ME:

nb. "Jeans" -- cited below -- was an English physicist and astronomer working during the period of these earth-shaking developments in physics e.g. relativity and quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jeans

"The feeling that all the steps in a mathematical theory must have their counterpart in the physical system is the outgrowth, I think, of a certain mystical feeling about the mathematical construction of the physical world. Some sort of an idea like this has been flitting about in the back-ground of the paraphernalia of the thinking of civilization at least since the days of Pythagoras, and every now and then, perhaps after some particularly striking mathematical success, it bursts forth again like a crop of mushrooms after a rain, as in the recent fervid exclamation of Jeans that "God is a mathematician." This mystical feeling involves, I think,a feeling for the "real existence" of principles according to which this universe is run. We have seen how meaningless is the contention that principles exist independent of the mind in which they are formulated. What Jeans might have said is that Man is a mathematician, and reflected that it is no accident that he forms nature in his own image." p.67.

I very much regret that Bob Castiglione of the RIC philosophy department is not alive to (continue to) join me in these explorations.

-- 
What can be asserted without evidence can be
dismissed without evidence.

                          Hitchens' Razor