On 3/6/2012 06:59, meekerdb wrote:
On 3/5/2012 9:34 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 10:42 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 3/5/2012 8:28 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 7:24 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 3/5/2012 4:57 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 12:26 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net
<mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:
On 3/5/2012 10:03 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
On 05.03.2012 18:29 meekerdb said the following:
On 3/5/2012 3:23 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
The experiment takes an operational approach to what Pi means.
During the initial stage of the experiment mathematicians
prove the
existence of Pi.
When mathematicians 'prove the existence' of something they are just
showing that something which satisfies a certain definition can be
inferred from a certain set of axioms. In your example the
mathematicians may define Pi as the ratio of the circumference to the
diameter of a circle in Euclidean geometry. But what does that mean
if geometry is not Euclidean; and we know it's not since these
mathematicians are in the gravitational field of the Earth.
Mathematics is about abstract propositions. Whether they apply to
reality is a separate question.
Brent
I agree that this assumption might not be the best one. I will think
it over.
However, I do not completely understand you. How the geometry of
physical space in which mathematicians reside influences the
definition of Pi? Mathematicians will consider just Euclidean
geometry, that's it. In my view, whether the physical space Euclidean
or not, does not influence the work of mathematicians.
Exactly. Hence mathematics =/= reality.
This is like comparing the kidney of a whale to a liver of a whale, and
deciding whale=/=whale. You can't compare one limited subset of the
whole
(such as the local part of this universe) with another subset of the
whole
(euclidean geometry), and decide that the whole (of mathematics) is
different
from the whole (of reality).
The same mathematicians in the same place could 'prove the existence'
of the
meeting point of parallel lines or that through a point there is more
than one
line parallel to a given line. So no matter what they measure in
their bunker
it will be consistent with one or the other. So you can only hold that
mathematics=reality if you assume everything not self-contradictory
exists in
reality;
Okay.
but that was what the bunker thought experiment was intended to test.
I fail to see how the bunker experiment tests this. The bunker
experiment seems to
assume that mathematical reality is or depends upon a physical
representation.
You've essentially made it untestable by saying, well it may fail
HERE but
somewhere (Platonia?) it's really true.
People used to say Darwin's theory was untestable, because evolution
was such a
slow process they thought it could never be observed. Some on this
list have
argued that the hypothesis has already survived one test: the
unpredictability in
quantum mechanics.
That specific retrodiction came from Bruno's hypothesis which is that
universes are
generated by computation. What is computable is much less than all
mathematics.
The existence of all mathematical structures implies the existence of
all programs, which is observationally indistinguishable from Bruno's
result taking only the integers to exist.
That they are observationally indistinguishable is vacuously satisfied
by them both being unobservable.
I find the existence of all consistent structures to be a simpler
theory. If the integers can exist, why cant the Mandlebrot set, or the
Calabi–Yau manifolds?
I didn't say that things descriable by those mathematics *can't* exist.
I just said I don't believe they do. Yaweh *could* exist (and according
to you does) but I don't believe he does.
Comparing everything-type theories with a random personal deity with
contradictory properties is a strawman.
If instead we found our environment and observations of it to be
perfectly
deterministic, this would have ruled out mechanism+a single or finite
universe. Further, there is a growing collection of evidence that in
most universes,
conscious life is impossible.
There's a popular idea that most possible universes are inhospitable
to conscious
life: a theory that might well be false under Bruno's hypothesis in which
consciousness and universes are both realized by computation.
In Bruno's theory, "physical universes" are considered observations of
minds.
Hmm? Is that right? The UD* certainly must generate lots of programs
without human-like consciousness, e.g. this universe in which dinosaurs
weren't killed off. So I'm not clear on why there wouldn't be infinitely
many universes without conscious beings.
Dinosaurs could very well be conscious, but not self-conscious, sort of
like in-a-moment experience with very few memories or continuity.
Consciousness should not be confused with
self-awareness/self-consciousness. A mathematical object with no
conscious observer has no one to see it from the inside, thus it's
merely abstract (but for a mathematical monist or a non-eliminitavist
computationalist that would just be a program or structure empty of
observers). Of course, said structure could also find itself studied by
mathematicians, or simulated on computers or merely within other
structures (such as observer physical objects).
Where I use the term, I refer to independent structures (both seen and
unseen).
In any case it doesn't warrant the conclusion that all possible
universes exist.
No, it doesn't prove they all exist, just that there are perhaps
infinitely many universes almost exactly like this one.
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by "independent structures".
Independent of what? I don't see that referring to independent
structures has anything to do with whether they exist.
Which, while not proving everything exists, is certainly something we
would expect to find if indeed everything exists.
Of course it is trivial to say that an everything theory successfully
predicts the existence of what we observe to exist. The question is
whether it does the converse. Can it predict that we don't see some
(almost all) things.
I'd say that it could. A theory like COMP predicts many possibilities
outside any modern physical theories, some such things are very much
testable, but not falsifiable (because the only way we have of testing
something is by observing it and if we are part of the experiment, that
leads to tricky philosophy of science problems, which can be remedied by
thinking of reality as shared computations by a large population of
observers, not an inescapable 3p reality).
If this world was a Harry Potter magical irreducible universe or
something equally weird like purely Newtonian physics, yet with physical
(non-simulated brain), I would say that could refute COMP. Why? COMP
leads to an increase of possible continuations and so do other
everything-theories. Which essentially means that if such a theory is
true then certain types of experiences are more probable than others,
while others are utterly unlikely (but not impossible). This is yet
another way to test these types of theories.
There are all these reasons and arguments that are compatible with and
suggestive of the idea that all is out there. I haven't seen one
offered piece of evidence from you that would suggest the idea of
mathematical reality is false. So tell me: for what reason(s) do you
reject the hypothesis?
I don't reject it; I just don't accept it. It seems to ill defined to be
testable.
I find it 'everything' theories more plausible than 'something' theories
- why? Ask the question "why these particlar laws of physics?" or "is
there any reason to suppose only this box in which we happen to be
exists and no other boxes which we have not observed exist?". The
'everything' theory is always simpler by Occam or other heuristics which
prefer theories of reduced complexity. The Jahweh 'theory' has way too
high complexity.
A skeptical person would not believe anything they did not experience,
but then their position would be irrealist or merely instrumental - they
refuse to try and guess what's underneath and only predict by their
experience and nothing more. A realist (but sometimes also monist or
even idealist) position would assume that something is going on
underneath and understand what it is instead of just refusing to ask
that question.
This can also be considered as confirmation of the theory that there
exists a
huge diversity in structures that have existence. Just because one
proposed test
will not work should not imply a theory is untestable.
A final thought: Consider what our universe would look like if you
were a being
outside it. You would not be affected by the gravity of objects in
our universe,
for gravity only affects physical objects in this universe. You could
not see the
stars or galaxies of our universe, for photons never leave it. There
would be no
relativity of size, or time, or distance between your perspective and
that within
our universe. You could not say what time it happened to be in our
universe, or
whether the world had even formed yet or long ago ended. You could in
no way make
your presence known to us in this universe, for our universe is bound
to follow
certain fixed laws. In summary, outside our universe there is no
evidence we even
exist; our entire universe is merely an abstract, immutable and timeless
mathematical object.
That's a complete non sequitur.
From the outside, one could study our universe through the window of
math and
computer simulation,
I could study a mathematical or computational representation, but
that's not the
same as studying our universe - unless you beg the question.
Clearly we will not get proof of the mathematical universe hypothesis
by seeing other universes and mathematical objects through telescopes.
Different universes are independent in such a way that we can only
access them as we access all other mathematical structures.
Ask yourself WHY they are inaccessible. Isn't it because if they were
accessible then there would be contradictory facts in the world. And why
can't there be contradictory facts? Because ex falso quodlibet. But
"quodlibet" is what has already been hypothesized. (on the other hand
see Graham Priest's "In Contradiction").
Also, if your model is perfect, there should be no difference between
studying the model and the object it represents. In the future, we
will be able to discover, emulate, and visit other universes by
discovering them in math, and using sufficiently powerful simulations,
know what it is like there, or whether or not life is possible.
Except if we are studying them or simulating them, then we can interact
with them and (necessarily?) change them.
Changing them means looking at different structure than before - either
at the structure including your changes or the structure in which you're
contained and the inner structure you're simulating.
Interacting with something means they are within the same structure.
Observing merely means simulation or inference.
That we cannot affect them from our current location does not make
them any less real.
"Affect" and "observe" are two different things (at least classically)
and if we can neither affect or observe that makes them rather like
Russell's teapot. We can't be sure it doesn't exist, but there's no
reason to think it does.
There are far better reasons to consider 'everything'-type theories.
Most people don't care about theories about unicorns and ponies, but
they do care about theories about why we exist or why physics behaves
like this or that or why we have this or that experience.
That our universe is an immutable, abstract, timeless object to a
being in a different universe does not imply we are any less real,
I'm not sure what being "an abstract object to a being" means, but I
don't think it implies we are any more real.
that our experiences don't matter, or that the existence of the
structure that is our universe is without consequence. Immutability
says nothing about an objects reality; we cannot affect the past,
Unless the past was identical with the present then something has mutated.
or portions of our universe sufficiently far away, yet most would say
these exist. Moreover, that other universes are currently inaccessible
to us does not necessarily imply that they will always be immutable
and inaccessible to us. There is always some non-zero possibility that
when you wake up tomorrow, you won't find yourself in this universe,
but one very far away.
So you say, but I'm betting not...and so are you.
What if you find yourself in a situation which greatly reduces your
measure? I would say that would be grounds for unusual expectations.
There's also a variety of thought experiments (some eventually
realisable as actual experiments) which would let you test at least COMP
or MWI (partially).
The existence of all structures reconfirms, in a stronger senses,
quantum immortality. If all the other universes are out there, then
given mechanism, a we are all immortal. Unlike the immortality implied
by quantum immortality, we can even survive destruction of this
universe, waking up in a different one where the present one was just
a very long dream.
I'm not sure I've survived the past year.
I would partially agree with you here (especially with the ending
quote). I don't bet on a very strong continuity myself. I change each
passing moment, and I experience discontinuity while sleeping or
otherwise being unconscious. However, as most humans we have
*expectations* and we unconsciously have such inductive beliefs in a
continuity, and we consciously predict and model some of our
experiences. Some may say that subjective probabilities are a mess and
we shouldn't do them (and thus also ignore UDA/COMP), but I believe in
my own subjective experience (I can't doubt it, although I can see why
eliminativist theories are consistent if we ignore the mind) and I do
know that I care about my future subjective experiences. If you really
want a more precise definition of what 1p-you is, imagine an infinite
directed graph where edges are Observer Moments and this 1p-'you' (or a
history) is like a partial path between 2 points (with some small
length, always losing some of the past and gaining some of the future,
like a fuzzy sliding-window). Taking the disconnected OMs view does not
make as much sense for a creature that cares about their future states
and has mostly correct local expectations (consciously known or not).
Brent
The person I was when I was 3 years old is dead. He died because
too much new information was added to his brain.
-- Saibal Mitra
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
