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Okay, I don't see how quantum mechanics can be wrong either? It was a fresh
new paper that came out and it didn't seem to go against him WY such just a
subtle interpretation difference. For me, philosophically, the validity of the
science, is our ability to do something with it. Back to the CAD application,
as they say.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
To: everything-list <everything-list@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Oct 27, 2014 09:48 AM
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to
dialectics?
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On 26 Oct 2014, at 16:47, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:
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And now in physics we have this-
<a target="_blank"
href="http://stardrive.org/stardrive/index.php/news2/science/14152-when-parallel-worlds-collide-quantum-mechanics-is-born";>http://stardrive.org/stardrive/index.php/news2/science/14152-when-parallel-worlds-collide-quantum-mechanics-is-born</a>
MWI worlds interact
</font>
</blockquote>
Then QM is wrong. Weinberg but also Plaga (on this list) showed that [QM is non
linear, but approximatively correct] is equivament with QM worlds can interact.
Bruno
<blockquote>
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-----Original Message-----
From: Bruno Marchal <
<a target="_blank" href="mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be";>marc...@ulb.ac.be</a>>
To: everything-list <
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Sent: Sun, Oct 26, 2014 10:13 am
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory
to dialectics?
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On 24 Oct 2014, at 19:35, Peter Sas wrote:
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Hi Brent,
On my account, beings (i.e. all things that are) lack intrinsic qualities
because they are defined through their differences from each other.
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I guess you love category theory, which is mathematics based on that idea. It
is also a quite functionalist and sort of constructivist view, like an employee
will be defined by its job, and not by the particular individual having that
job.
It works very well for many branch of math, but it is in trouble for computer
science, and some other branch of logic.
Some mathematical object can have intrinsic quality. Modal logic is a good tool
for handling this.
Note also that a "universe" is usually considered only for its intrinsic
quality. A universe has a priori no relation with something else, as everything
is or should be part of a universe, by definition.
I could argue that it is the same for a dreamer, of any closed system in which
we are interested.
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Thus a being is what it is simply by not being something else. So in
themselves, abstracted from their relations to other beings, beings 'are' just
nothing, indeterminate, hence they lack intrinsic qualities (all properties are
relational). If you like you can also say there are just relations and not
relata, or alternatively that there are only internal relations of which the
relata are functions. The next question would then be: but what kind of
relations are ontologically most basic? I would say: mathematical relations.
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That follows from the computationalist hypothesis. You can read the references
in my URL. Or the posts to this list. If we assume that the brain (or whatever
my consciousness supervene on) is Turing emulable, we must recover physics from
a special self-referential statistics on the computations. Physics becomes a
branch of machine's psychology, or better machine's theology (in the greek
original sense of the word) itself branch of arithmetic or mathematics.
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According to me, saying that a being is what it is because it differs from
something else is the same as saying that all being is mathematical. For if
beings lack all intrinsic qualities, they can only be distinguished
quantitatively, and that's basically what mathematics is about, isn't it?
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You are quick and a bit vague on this.
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This seems to me to be the reason why the whole of mathematics (and everything
that can be described mathematically) can ultimately be described in binary
terms, as compositions of the difference between 1 and 0, which is just
difference as such.
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I doubt you will get more than the numbers, or than the computable. In fact all
attempt to define mathematically the hole of mathematics fails. In fact,
already for the arithmetical reality, it follows from Gödel's incompleteness
that all axiomatizable theories will fail to unify it. The arithmetical reality
is inconceivably large.
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It seems to me that mathematics is what you get when you take a structuralist
view of things, where you say that a thing IS just its differences from
something else.
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You get category theory.
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I think this also the view Tegmark takes in his Mathematical Universe book,
although he speaks of "relation" instead of "difference":
"the only properties of these entities would be those embodied by the
relations between them... To a modern logician, a mathematical structure is
precisely this: a set of abstract entities with relations between them.
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That is more the view of an algebraist. A logicien studies such strcture as
model of theories (set of sentences or propositions). The algebraists and
categoricians study the relation between structures. The logician study the
relation between those relations and theories or machines (syntactical beings).
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Take the integers, for instance, [...] the only properties of integers are
those embodied by the relations between them." (p.259) "5 has the property that
it's the sum of 4 and 1, say, but it's not yellow, and it's not made of
anything." (p.268) " the entities of a mathematical structure are purely
abstract, which means that they have no intrinsic properties whatsoever..."
(p.264)
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We can doubt this, notably for the numbers where many particular numbers can be
individuated through its special property.
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So what is primary, "relation" or "difference"? I would say neither, both
terms seem equally primordial. For to be able to specify which relations hold
between, say, 5 and 4, you first have to specify how they differ from each
other, e.g. by saying 5 = 4 +1. But that's the same as saying what relations
hold between these entities? Thus it would seem that mathematical relations are
just relations of difference, indeed, ultimately the 'pure', binary difference
of 1 and 0.
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Brouwer founded mathematics on something similar, but he get the constructive
mathematics (and only one of a special kind). Most of the arithmetical reality
is bigger than what such subjectivist theories are about. Of course the ability
to accept the difference between 0 and 1 is fundamental and very important.
<blockquote>
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According to me, such a mathematical view of being as defined by difference
(ultimately 1 and 0) follows from reflection on nothing. Nothing is
inconsistent, hence it differs from itself. Being then is the (self-)negation
of nothing, hence it must be difference (not from itself but) from something
else. This then is what "being" means: to differ from something else, and as we
have just seen this is just what mathematics is about.
As for the fact that you and I both differ from Bruno but we are obviously not
the same, that's because you and I differ as well... If you like, in terms of
the above account, you could say Bruno, you and me are all qualititatively
indistinguishable units which nevertheless have different values only because
of our different positions in a quantitative structure, e.g. spacetime.
Spinoza famously said, and Hegel repeated it: every determination is a
negation,
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That is interesting, and, I think, well illustrated by formal provability
(which is on the determination part) and acts formally as a negation for many
propositions: like []<>t -> []f (proving self-consistency entails proving a
falsity). Also, the Löb rule or axiom shows also that provability is a form of
negation.
In fact even the simple formal implication is also a sort of negation p -> q is
really put for NOT p ... or q. But this is weaker than the illustration just
above.
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i.e. saying what something is is saying what it is not,
</div>
</blockquote>
OK, but the reverse is not true.
God and the protegorean virtues are defined only negatively. You can not define
them by saying what they are, only by what they are not. God is not this,
neither that, nor ... (cf the greek negative theologies).
<blockquote>
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i.e. a thing IS its difference form something else.
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OK, you might say God is what is different from all beings.
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You can call this dialectics, but according to me it converges with a
mathematical view of being, so to that extent there is a strong dialectical
aspect to mathematics. Or at least so it seems to me.
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OK.
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Then another question arises, which relates to the topic of consciousness and
how it fits in the physical (= mathematical) world.
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I stringly disagree with making the physical = to the mathematical. The
physical might have a mathematical origin, but the mathematical is larger than
the physical. mathematical objects are not physical objects. The beliefs in
physicc are mathematical object, and they should arise from some mathematical
special relation. In fact, to put it crudely, the physical might be the border
of the mathematical when seen from internal (to math) beings.
<blockquote>
<div dir="ltr">
If all beings are ultimately mathematical (quantitative)
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I would also be careful not to identify math and the study of the quantitative.
In computer science qualities arise from the intensional part of arithmetic,
where an object can refer to its own code, and see the difference with truth to
which he has some access, without being able to capture them in pure third
person relations.
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in nature,
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Well, what is that? (Especially if you agree that math is more fundamental than
physics).
<blockquote>
<div dir="ltr">
then where does quality come from? It would seem to me that quality is
precisely an intrinsic property, which does not depend on relation to something
else. Take as a thought experiment someone who right after birth was given red
colored glasses so that everything looks red to him, and he has been wearing
the glasses all of his life, so he has never seen any other color, all he sees
are shades of red. Obviously, then, it must be possible to be aware of red
without being aware of other colors.
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</blockquote>
I don't see why that would be necessary.
<blockquote>
<div dir="ltr">
Hence it is an intrinsic quality. In contrast, you cannot be aware of 1 without
being aware of other numbers, for knowing what "1" means is simply knowing that
1 is more than 0, that 1+1=2 etc. Ultimately, then, I think we can pose the
problem of consciousness in terms of the quantity/quality opposition. If
reality is ultimately mathematical (quantitative), how then are qualities
possible?
</div>
</blockquote>
By being some semantical fixed point. It is where the map is confused with the
territory, and that happens when the map is part of the territory. What is nice
is that such fixed points obeys logics already suggested for the Qualia (and it
generalizes a bit quantum logic). See for example the paper by J.L. Bell (the
logician, not the physicists).
Bruno
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