On 23 May 2014 10:51, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 5/22/2014 3:23 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 23 May 2014 08:57, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> On 5/22/2014 12:59 PM, John Clark wrote: >> >> >> Why not? No physicist is going to take your theory seriously or even >> call it a theory if you can't calculate with it, if you can't get numbers >> out of it so it can be checked with observation. Why is the proton 1836 >> times as massive as the electron? Why is the neutron almost the same but >> not quite, why is it 1842 times as massive as the electron? Why do >> independent protons have a half life of an infinite number of minutes but >> independent neutrons have a half life of 10 minutes 11 seconds? >> >> >> See, JKC knows why the world of physics is described by mathematics - >> no other kind of description is as explicit and predictive. >> > > I'm still not convinced that it isn't "out there" though. Anyone who > became interested in the same mathematical problems would get the same > answers, as far as I can see, regardless of whether they are living in a > universe with protons 1836 times as massive as electrons, or one made of > completely different constituents. I want a more convincing answer for why > maths kicks back than all this vague hand wavy stuff - yes it's explicit > and predictive, but why? Why does it work? > > It still seems unreasonably effective to me. > > Maybe it's just a difference of perspective. Einstein said, "The most > incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." > Given that it's comprehensible, that it is described by mathematics seems > completely unsurprising. So the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics > just derives from there being some regularities in the universe - not that > it is completely regular or lawlike; we pass off a lot of stuff as > "randomness" or "geography". I had this argument with Vic Stenger when he > was writing "The Comprehensible Cosmos" because he wanted to say that every > 'law' of physics was just a realization of physicists insistence that their > descriptions of nature must be point-of-view invariant. And indeed it made > a very nice summary of modern physics. But I pointed out that it was a > fairly flexible formula because you had to chose what variable was to be > invariant and under what transformation. So maybe the existence of such > variables and formula is "unreasonable" - or maybe it's implied by some > combination of Bruno's UD and anthropic selection. >
I agree that it may be a difference of perspective. The MUH is attractive beause it not only explains why there is something rather than nothing (and gives my favourite answer - "there isn't!") but it also has an answer to the geography and randomness arguments, in that it provides (redundant amounts of) multiverses in which every physically possible history and geography is inevitably realised. I must admit I find it rather satisfying although that doesn't make it right of course. On the other hand, I find arguments along the lines of "we generate physics because we demand certain types of answer from nature" unsatisfying, indeed they strike me as postmodernism in disguise, which I'm personally averse to. Obviously if they are backed up by a suitable amount of theory and evidence I am prepared to change my mind (so comp for example tends towards physics emerging from psychology, and comes with a detailed logical argument and ontology, so I would certainly not reject it because I find it strange!) Speaking of the UD, however, that is based on the assumption that (a subset of) maths is "primitive" - so if you want to invoke it, you are immediately taking up a position that involves reified maths, surely? (Or at least arithmetic.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
