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Brandor, a few things 1. There is a difference between a partial model, and a complete simulation. If you take for granted that, as can be verified, the brain contains on the order of 1e11 neurons, then you have to admit that there is no way that the human brain can produce anything that can meaningfully be interpreted as a simulation of the universe's maybe 1e80 elementary particles. At best a brain can simulate a small area of the universe at a very coarse grain, based on the current information being provided to it. I think that it would be safe to assume that in some sense, the rest of the universe still "exists" outside of ones individual perception, thus the limited brain simulation provides no explanatory value for occurrences in the world outside of these bounds. Hence it is in no way a 'universe simulation'. (If alternately, you are presenting some sort of solipsist argument (namely that experience in the brain is all that truly exists, and the greater universe is created through our perceptions) then I don't see why you are bothering to comment on the nature of reality beyond this as mathematical/simulated/anything, so kindly shut up about it.) 2. Precedes is almost certainly not the right word, since time is a mathematical construct in any such theory, so how can it be 'prior in time' to anything else? 3. In any case Tegmark's theory MAY have explanatory value: Why a universe, and why this universe? (It may also have no explanatory value, I don't know, that's part of this debate). But I don't see how it can be dismissed as a "proof of God". I do see the similarities that may lead you to believe it is, as it is in some sense akin to the 'first cause' argument of Aquinas and others. But, it is not an identical argument. It attempts to describe a mechanism by which 'reality' or 'existence' can come about, and also attempts to seek testable predictions of said mechanism (however tenuous these may be). 4. As for the tautology argument, it is reliant on the rather ill-defined statement "Math is the language of physics". What does this mean? If it is making the claim that all of physics can be perfectly described by a mathematical model, then including this axiomatically is what leads to your tautology. That is precisely the question that is being asked, and the mathematical universe hypothesis trivially follows from the its affirmation. If no complete mathematical model can ever be created, then the mathematical universe hypothesis is rejected. I agree that there may be difficulty in the testability of this, because if we come across something in reality that we cannot describe mathematically, when do we decide that it is a failure of math itself, rather than a failure of our limited capabilities? Note: I am referring to the simpler hypothesis that "Our universe is fundamentally a mathematical structure" rather than the extended "All mathematical structures 'exist' as a reality. That argument is more nuanced and probably much more poorly supported. mrParkbench fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 20:54
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BrandorKP posted:Simulation is a imitation of a real world process. That the adjectives lovely and localized apply (and I agree they do) don't make our perceptions not a simulation. Simulation is very specifically not limited to imitations of real world processes, no. We humans are very much not limited to that, for example, in the simulations we create we can easily imagine something different than that imitation. The simulation we're talking about, a whole-universe simulation, would also not necessarily have to reflect any real world processes. We could simulate a 2D world, while being in a 3D world, as an easy proof of this. What is your background, other than 'religious nut'? Your thinking is all over the map. quote:To come, exist, or occur before in time. His arguement is that math comes before, exists before, physical reality. It's the right word. That describes Tegmark's thesis. Add to that, Tegmark thinks multiverse theory describes “the ultimate nature of reality” You seem to be talking about time as though you understand what time is, which is a gigantic leap. I cannot, however, think of any idea of 'time' where the word 'before' has meaning, except some sort of mystical way of looking at the universe, which I'm guessing is what you've got. quote:He claims his ideas make this testable prediction: "physics research will uncover further mathematical regularities in nature". I'd say that prediction isn't just true of his theory but other theories. It's 'testable' in that if it were not to occur it would disprove his prediction. It does not, on its own, make it fully testable, but it is a testable condition. I actually have to disagree with him about that prediction, actually, because I think that discovery of mathematical irregularities would actually be a better proof of a simulated universe--places where the simulation was hardcoded by a coder working late at night, creating special exception after special exception. Black holes as bugs. But again, there is absolutely no importance to the question of whether we are in a simulation or not. The important question is if we have free will. I also don't think his theory, or any other theory of simulated universes, shows a way to ever stop and declare you're in the real.
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Feb 10, 2014 21:52
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quote:The question that Beane and co ask is whether the lattice spacing imposes any kind of limitation on the physical processes we see in the universe. They examine, in particular, high energy processes, which probe smaller regions of space as they get more energetic Sorry if it's been answered already, but how do you go from "space/time isn't continuous" to "we live in the matrix"? Why can't this hypothetical quantization of space/time be an natural characteristic of the universe? And how do you proof that it's not natural?
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Feb 10, 2014 22:36
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1. I don't disagree it's partial lovely incomplete model. And I do think reality exists outside that model. The point I'm making is that when we ask the question of if the universe as we perceive it could be a simulation, we have to answer yes. This is a different question from can we simulate the entire universe (which I would answer no). 2. The way I read Tegmark is that he's saying that physical reality is a repercussion of possible solutions of M-theory. He's literally asserting the math comes first and that physical reality arises from the mathematics and further that this can be proven from physical reality! Again I would maintain precedes is the right word and I won't cede this point unless you can quote Tegmark contradicting it. I've read his Scientific American article and chunks of the book and that this is the impression I came away with. Here's my Tegmark quote showing this: "Our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics … Not just aspects of it, but all of it, including you." and ""our external physical reality is a mathematical structure." 3. "It attempts to describe a mechanism by which 'reality' or 'existence' can come about." Right that's pretty clearly talk about what is gennetos (that which is generated and has existence) and what is agennetos (that which generates, but is not generated itself). Math as the "mechanism by which 'reality' or 'existence' can come about" is math as the agennetos, as the unoriginate. He's just rehashing the ontological proof, with a smidgeon of cosmological proof thrown in. Edit: So as to be clear about what I'm implying. Talk about agennetos is talk about God the Father. 4. Exactly, the only scenario in which the "testable premise" is falsifiable is if there is ever a total complete theory of everything. Following we'd have to be able to know that to if it's going to be falsifiable. Reality in that case would have to be fundamentally abstractable by observing minds or else we reject mathematical universe hypothesis. The man is arguing that the goddam forms exist (as math) and that we can prove they exist from inside physical reality. Difficulty in the testing, seriously? He says the complete model "must be defined in a form "devoid of any human baggage like 'particle', 'observation' or other words". Good luck testing a model devoid of word and concepts. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 22:55
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BrandorKP posted:1. I don't disagree it's partial lovely incomplete model. And I do think reality exists outside that model. The point I'm making is that when we ask the question of if the universe as we perceive it could be a simulation, we have to answer yes. This is a different question from can we simulate the entire universe (which I would answer no). That was a really bizarre and obtuse way to make that point, then. Your habit of stating things that aren't true--like that simulations have to be imitations of reality--as soon as they get disproved and just jumping onto a next statement with 'what I really meant to say is X' is tiresome. quote:The way I read Tegmark is that he's saying that physical reality is a repercussion of possible solutions of M-theory. He's literally asserting the math comes first and that physical reality arises from the mathematics and further that this can be proven from physical reality! Not sure what isn't clear about how talking about what comes 'first' when talking about time is incoherent. You don't seem to be getting a very fundamental thing: 'first' and 'before' are both time-oriented words. Saying 'before time' doesn't make sense because without 'time' you can't have 'before'.
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Feb 10, 2014 23:00
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Quidam Viator posted:All conceptions of truth and falsity exist within a defined frame. This is how we segregate levels of theory and are even able to do science at all: we define the boundaries of our system or our experiment and write the rest off as ceteris paribus. The reason we don't consider anything outside of this framework "real" is that it is 100% true that, as humans, it will never be possible for us to prove anything in any other way. To put it differently, it will never be possible to prove something is true with any method other than the scientific method. This doesn't necessarily mean that science will reveal all, but I don't think that anyone aside from techno-fetishists ever claims that it will.* But everything that we can ever truly claim to proved will have been proved by the scientific method. *In a similar vein, I think that the assumption that technology will keep exponentially increasing as long as humans continue to live is completely baseless. Particularly stuff like Moore's law; the fact that computing power has increased so fast in a matter of decades does not in any way mean that it will do so for decades more (actually, hasn't it already slowed down, at least when looking at individual CPUs? isn't that a large reason we've moved towards utilizing an increasing number of cores?). Human society is very young, and there's no reason not to think that we'll run into some physical limits at some point. An analogy (that I'm sure isn't the most apt, but at least gets across my point) might be something like aviation. Planes made travel a hell of a lot faster than it was before they existed, and the speed of planes rapidly increased in the decades since the first were made. But there are physical limitations to how fast a plane in the atmosphere can reasonable go. We can increase their speed through engineering, but no reasonable person would ever say that the potential speed of airplanes is limitless. While this is certainly not quite the same as computing (since I'm sure people knew some of these limitations since before the first airplane even worked), the point about seeing fast gains soon after a technology is developed (as we make all of the comparatively "obvious" gains that our contemporary technology in other areas allows/allowed us) still holds. As does the point that there absolutely *are* physical limitations to computing power; it's not like this stuff takes place in the aether, and is why why stuff like quantum computing is discussed as a way to break those barriers.
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Feb 10, 2014 23:19
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BrandorKP posted:stuff 1. So your response is totally irrelevant. The simulation that your are taking about is entirely different in kind to the simulation being referred to in this discussion. This is why your summary of the OP argument is such a poor representation. It amounts to reformulating the argument as "If I can kinda sorta model part of the universe in my mind, then my model of the universe is fundamentally Mathematical in nature" which i think is trivial. The argument I put forward is more like "If we can create a model which is isomorphic to the universe, then the universe is fundamentally Mathematical in nature" 2. Actually M-theory has no place in the discussion, don't know where you are reading that from. M-theory is a single possible model (group of models) for one type of universe, the mathematical universe hypothesis explicitly states that ANY possible model will suffice. Your provided quotation says nothing about temporality. You are reading into something that is simply not there and your purported 'evidence' does not support it. The point being 'time' is totally irrelevant to this discussion. Tegmark himself discusses the reality structures in which 0 time dimensions exist, so how can his theory be dependent on math's precedence in time... In any case I think this is nit picking on a single word that you used in an unconventional way, that you are for some reason trying to defend, but I would agree if you would say that the theory claims that reality 'logically follows from' rather than is 'preceded by' mathematics. 3. Right, I agreed that there parallels, but that does not imply there are no differences. It is Aquinas and other theists who attach the embodiment of 'God the Father' to the first cause/prime mover, which is what I think fails the argument. I would agree with the argument that there must be SOMETHING at the causation end. The cosmological proof of God does NOTHING to show what this could possibly be, and naming it God The Father has no explanatory value. The Mathematical universe hypothesis may have explanatory value, hence it is an entirely different beast. 4. Basically correct which is why I have said several times that I don't think the argument is scientific. As you say, if we ever are able to produce a unified TOE, the test is passed. At the very least this makes the counter-theory 'The universe cannot be described completely using mathematical structures' a falsifiable one. But in principle I think that most scientists would take it to be a foregone conclusion that we can fully describe physics. At this point, it's a matter of interpretation. The question ends up being: "The laws of physics which describe the universe are entirely isomorphic to a well-defined mathematical structure. Thus, is there any MEANINGFUL sense in which we can claim that the universe DIFFERS from the mathematical structure itself?" I believe the answer is no. So the universe IS a mathematical structure. mrParkbench fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 23:53
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It kind of sounds like his argument is trying to pull a fast one on what actually is conceivable. It sort of is the same thing that was used--by Dennet, I think?--against the idea that p-zombies are conceivable. Basically p-zombie advocates, by claiming that p-zombies are conceivable, assume the conclusion that something besides material exists in our minds. Similarly Tegmark might be pulling a fast one by asserting that our reality is conceivable as a simulation therefore it is.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:23
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Obdicut posted:That was a really bizarre and obtuse way to make that point, then. Your habit of stating things that aren't true--like that simulations have to be imitations of reality--as soon as they get disproved and just jumping onto a next statement with 'what I really meant to say is X' is tiresome. But what I said is true. Simulation is from simulō to make like, to imitate, copy. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simulo#Latin The root of the word simulate is to imitate. You all seem to have this fallacy of only perfect simulation as simulations going on. Obdicut posted:Not sure what isn't clear about how talking about what comes 'first' when talking about time is incoherent. You don't seem to be getting a very fundamental thing: 'first' and 'before' are both time-oriented words. Saying 'before time' doesn't make sense because without 'time' you can't have 'before'. I want you to tell me what you think this means: "Our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics … Not just aspects of it, but all of it, including you." - Tegmark Sure as hell looks like the guy is asserting physical reality as an emanation of math to me, and that means math precedes physical reality in his ontology. mrParkbench Let's cut the bullshit right down to the core. You're asserting this "the universe IS a mathematical structure.". That this statement is testable/provable and also that it is also explanatory. This just looks like neoplatonic mysticism with a veneer of science (because of the testable/ explanatory assertion) that you also simultaneously deny ("I don't think the argument is scientific"). So I'll ask you the same thing as Obdicut what does this statement Tegmark makes mean to you: "Our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics … Not just aspects of it, but all of it, including you." Math is a construct we came up with. The man is asserting a thing we made is reality itself. Oddly enough I'd be cool with that if it were a revelatory assertion. But it's not, it's a from evidence assertion.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:39
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BrandorKP posted:But what I said is true. Simulation is from simulō to make like, to imitate, copy. I can't believe you're seriously quoting the 'root' of a word at me to prove a point. The root of 'poo poo' and 'sword' is the same. Who cares? It's semantically meaningless. You said that simulations imitate real life. I pointed out that, no, they don't have to at all. This is still true. They can imitate precisely unreal things. You said something wrong. quote:"Our reality isn't just described by mathematics – it is mathematics … Not just aspects of it, but all of it, including you." - Tegmark Topology is destiny. quote:Sure as hell looks like the guy is asserting physical reality as an emanation of math to me, and that means math precedes physical reality in his ontology. Do you still not get that 'first' or 'before' implies that you already have time existing? You can't have before time, because you need time to get 'before'. I have no clue why you have such a problem with this simple concept. quote:Math is a construct we came up with. The man is asserting a thing we made is reality itself. Oddly enough I'd be cool with that if it were a revelatory assertion. But it's not, it's a from evidence assertion. What the hell do you mean by 'construct'? Again, what is your background other than 'religious nut'?
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Feb 12, 2014 00:47
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BrandorKP You continue to conflate the argument that I am making, and the argument that Tegmark is making. I think the thoughts are somewhat along the same lines, but while Tegmark attempts to force it to become SCIENCE (which I very strongly doubt) I am maintaining, as I have from the beginning, that it amounts to an ontological thought experiment. Read every post that I have made so far and that distinction should be pretty clear. You don't think that this kind of thought experiment can have explanatory value? Do interpretations of quantum mechanics have explanatory value? Waveform collapse is something that certainly appears to happen, and within the theory it's not truly possible to test the many worlds interpretation, but I think the debate is still merited. In any case it is true that this is essentially philosophy rather than science. "Math is a construct that we came up with" is a very poorly defined claim, but I think most mathematicians and philosophers would agree that our mathematical exploits amount to the investigation and elaboration of truths that would hold whether or not humans existed (mathematical realism). You can feel free to argue otherwise, but by taking the claim for granted, you are the one who is bullshitting. And if you do take it as your starting point why are you even participating in this thread?
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Feb 12, 2014 01:05
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BrandorKP posted:But what I said is true. Simulation is from simulō to make like, to imitate, copy. It's not a fallacy, Brandor, it's the context of the thread. You don't seem to understand that words can have contextual meanings, and this is one of those times. What you're trying to talk about is not, in any way, what anyone else is talking about, or what the people following along, like me, are interested in reading about. There are good topics to be discussed here, and you are making GBS threads on all of them. BrandorKP posted:Let's cut the bullshit right down to the core Ha. Aha. Ahahahahahaha! mrParkbench posted:I am maintaining, as I have from the beginning, that it amounts to an ontological thought experiment. Parkbench, I'm still curious as to what good you think such a thought experiment has. What can we learn? Even if we figure out that this is a simulated universe, how would you expect us to act differently. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 01:51
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BrandorKP posted:
It looks to me like he is stating that math literally is everything, there are no claims as to mathematics coming "before" anything. Actually a congruency is implied, meaning, that if mathematics is reality then both exist because of the other. Also one without the other would be meaningless.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:15
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First, I think we all agree Tegmark is wrong.Obdicut posted:Do you still not get that 'first' or 'before' implies that you already have time existing? You can't have before time, because you need time to get 'before'. I have no clue why you have such a problem with this simple concept. Again I said this before, precedes in a ontology. That doesn't necessarily mean before in time. Before in order or rank more basic, the broader more encompassing category of being. Think more exists more fundamentally. Obdicut posted:Topology is destiny. This why we disagree I think he's saying math is reality itself. "Topology is destiny", is a fundamentally different statement. It's like saying the shape and order of how things are now determine how they will be in the future. Topoology is destiny, is just restating causality. That's very different from saying math is reality. Again he's literally saying that: "Our reality ... – it is mathematics By construct I mean a thing we created or made. An idea we cobbled together over time to use as tool. Not a natural object. I think both math and physics are constructs. My education was systems engineering (with a nuclear minor), but these days I mostly dig into various code federal references (49 CFR mostly) and a couple of international regulatory codes applying mostly to shipping. I'm married to a feminist with a masters of early church history who is Lutheran. My employment leads me to interact with nearly every nationality and ideology one could come up with. On top of that the leftists in the forums here have changed my opinions on many things. Hence, all over the goddamn place. MadMattH posted:It looks to me like he is stating that math literally is everything, there are no claims as to mathematics coming "before" anything. Actually a congruency is implied, meaning, that if mathematics is reality then both exist because of the other. Also one without the other would be meaningless. I agree and that's what I'm trying to get Obdicut and Mrparkbench to see. But I do also think he implies a primacy of math (even as he states that it is equal to physical reality!), he does this with the level(s) of universe(s) stuff. He sets up a hierarchy and our physical reality is like the third or fourth universe down. That hierarchy present in his cosmology is part of why I feel so strongly about the word precede(s) being applicable and it's also why I used the word emanation. Tegmark is even going so far as to say that we are conscious math he puts us in the hierachy. mrParkbench posted:Do interpretations of quantum mechanics have explanatory value? Depends on the interpretation. The root problem is that I think the interpretations other than Copenhagen do something objectionable. Copenhagen dodges the bullet this way: "wave functions are not real, wave-function collapse is interpreted subjectively". Other interpretations (many worlds among them) some of them say the wave function is real. That's a reification. Synonyms of to reify are to deify or idolize. Have you ever looked at the title of books putting forward multiverse interpretations they often look like this: "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" or "The Hidden Reality" or "Many Worlds in One". Reification of the wave function leads people to do things like: Anthropomorpize the universe, talk about secret hidden realities, and to argue for monism. As for conflating your stance and Tegmark's. I think we agree that Tegmark is forcing this to be SCIENCE and that's a problem. But you're doing something similarly objectionable. You're saying you're a mathematical realist. And you're saying this isn't scientific (ruling out empiricism as root for mathematical realism) so that basically leaves Platonism. So does an interpretation of reality that reifies a platonic form have explanatory value? I do answer that yes, it might (religious nut after all). But to say yes there raises questions: What else does that and how do those ideas behave in the world? If you don't have an empirical/scientific justification for asserting a platonic form is concrete/real what is the nature of your justification for that claim? What if the concretized platonic form isn't a true platonic form, what if it's a idea created by people, what is it then? and this last one is the important one, and it's why I'm being a dick What do you risk by doing this? Who What Now, We've argued many times, you should know where I'm headed and the place I think Tegmark will go as a final consequence of asserting that an idea is reality. Well he goes there, it's how he ends the book. "To teach people what a scientific concept is and how a scientific lifestyle will improve their lives", after that statement he then talks about what strategies scientists should go about using when they evangelize.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:32
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BrandorKP posted:First, I think we all agree Tegmark is wrong. I don't think I've read what he's said long enough, or understand associated issues well enough, to think that or not. I'm surprised you think yourself capable of judging it after such a hurried and shallow investigation. I don't think the question of whether or not we are in a simulation is really at all important, as I said. I think the only associated issue of importance is if we have free will or not, which doesn't depend on whether we're in a simulation or not. quote:This why we disagree I think he's saying math is reality itself. "Topology is destiny", is a fundamentally different statement. It's really not, but it wasn't meant to be a serious answer. That you can't understand 'before time' is incoherent means I don't think we can actually have much of a conversation on this. quote:By construct I mean a thing we created or made. Mathematics is not something we created or made, it's something we observed. Some mathematical techniques are things we invented. quote:My education was systems engineering (with a nuclear minor), but these days I mostly dig into various code federal references (49 CFR mostly) and a couple of international regulatory codes applying mostly to shipping. Okay. You really should be able to grasp a concept as simple as why 'before time' is an incoherent statement. And again: You said that simulations imitate real life. I pointed out that, no, they don't have to at all. This is still true. They can imitate precisely unreal things. You said something wrong. It's actually now even weirder because I know you had training as a systems engineer, the idea of simulation of an unreal system should be completely obvious to you.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:37
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BrandorKP posted:Who What Now, We've argued many times, you should know where I'm headed and the place I think Tegmark will go as a final consequence of asserting that an idea is reality. Well he goes there, it's how he ends the book. "To teach people what a scientific concept is and how a scientific lifestyle will improve their lives", after that statement he then talks about what strategies scientists should go about using when they evangelize. Yes, I know where you're going with this, because you seem to actually get off by tying your inane theology into the most asinine and inappropriate things, and it turns every thread into "Everyone argues in circles with Brandor because he's a disingenuous pseudo-intellectual". And it always starts like this, you completely abusing the definitions of words as if you expect us to drop to our knees in amazement and realize that, yes, you have used some of the same words we're using. But literally no one is buying it and no one finds it interesting. Just make your own thread about your epistemology and stop trying to be the Johnny Appleseed of DnD.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:38
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Look Obdicut Tegmark is putting math as the object of a ontological argument. He's treating it as first thing in a chain of being, that implies it's eternal. That's a problem. That's a definable thing (math) being treated as eternal. I'm not arguing that this is coherent. I don't even think it's possible. I think only a "no-thing" can be there (I roll apophatic in this area). All I'm saying is, that's what his assertion of: "math is reality" necessarily implies. It implies a thing, math, proceeds. Yes that's incoherent. I personally think it's even more problematic than just being incoherent. To me for him to say math is reality, is to say math is God. You are objecting to the idea that something can be before time. It's worse than that! to say "Math is reality" implies Math is eternal and immutable (unchanging)! But he's definitely saying it. And immutable math is even an assumption he makes explicitly to reach his conclusion! We're talking past each other here. You're saying "that's incoherent". What I'm saying is: Tegmark is saying it, because it's a inescapable consequence of his assertion that math is the ground of reality. By ground of reality, I mean the source of all being or anything that exists. This is a consequence of asserting that anything is the ground of reality, if reality is a predicate (a property things have). I'm being quick to judge it because things like this have been said before, many, many, times over. It's not a new discussion that has to be carefully thought out. It's an old discussion where all the initial axioms have already been taken to their final conclusions. Edit: Who What Now, I see you're back to ad homs again. Edit2: VVV Double ad hom nice, dude go for the hat trick. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 18:41
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BrandorKP posted:
And? That's the only time you ever respond to anything, so if I have to use some naughty language to get you to maybe actually read and reply to something other than whatever part of someone's post you feel works as the best springboard for whatever angle you're going for then so be it. You've already said that you're just trying to lead other posters by the nose to your Logos bullshit by, surprise surprise, continuing to misuse and misrepresent definitions and arguments despite multiple posters calling you out on this and explaining in exhaustive detail why what you're doing is intellectually dishonest, all of which you have conveniently ignored. Again. And every post asking you pointed questions you've also ignored. Again. Just like every other thread where you don't understand the first thing about the topic but still feel like you need to proselytize to us. It got old years ago and you don't even have the decency to shake things up.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:59
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BrandorKP posted:I agree and that's what I'm trying to get Obdicut and Mrparkbench to see. But I do also think he implies a primacy of math (even as he states that it is equal to physical reality!), he does this with the level(s) of universe(s) stuff. He sets up a hierarchy and our physical reality is like the third or fourth universe down. That hierarchy present in his cosmology is part of why I feel so strongly about the word precede(s) being applicable and it's also why I used the word emanation. Tegmark is even going so far as to say that we are conscious math he puts us in the hierachy. If he states it as being equal to reality then mathematics couldn't precede reality, they would have to exist equally. Reality couldn't emanate from mathematics because they are the same thing. There also couldn't be a primacy of math (or reality) for the same reason, if they are equal and literally the same thing then one of the two cannot be more important. It's not math plus something else equals reality, it's math alone equals reality. If one of the two were to change in any way the other would also change in an equal manner. If math stopped being math, reality would stop being reality. Same thing works in reverse, if reality stopped being reality then math would stop being math. If there was a primacy of math or if reality emanated from math then math could exist without reality, but he's saying they are the same thing so they cannot exist independently. Saying one precedes the other makes no sense. Us being concsious math is implied anyway by saying reality is mathematics, us being part of reality and assumedly conscious of it.
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Feb 12, 2014 19:18
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Yeah he's definitely stating it in that way. But then he does stuff like this: he comes up with these elaborate hierarchies within mathematics. And then he fits physical reality and us as minds into specific parts of math. An inconsistency or a paradox is implied by that he is doing both of these things. He's saying they are one in the same thing, but then he's also saying that physical reality and consciousness also only fit into specific parts (specifically the ones they can exist in) (edit: and I haven't seen him specify which parts those are!) of the math hierarchy he's come up with. That means he's got relationships between the different categories in math and implied directions to those relationships. Edit2: I guess what I'm trying say is I look at his drawing of the relationships within math and I cannot shake the similarity of it to something like this: 
Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 19:55
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Two charts look superficially similar in appearance but are not meaningfully alike in any other ways? Well I'm convinced.
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Feb 12, 2014 20:27
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Both purport to be relational drawing of the inner categories of existence or being. I'm also implying the first is has the characteristic of being kindof "esoteric" by making the comparison.
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Feb 12, 2014 20:42
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Simply because two things are similar in appearance doesn't mean that they are at all similar in meaning or validity. Green Eggs & Ham and War and Peace are both books, they have covers, pages, spines, the whole nine yards. But that doesn't mean that they have the same message, nor does it mean that their messages are equal.
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Feb 12, 2014 20:49
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I mean the Kabbalah is an a priori construct and that so are the mathematical relations in that chart. It's just that one does a very good job describing the physical world and one does a very poor job.
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Feb 12, 2014 21:31
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BrandorKP posted:I'm here to hallucinate about kabbalah and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of gum Brandor I see lines connecting things, that's about it.
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Feb 12, 2014 21:44
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SedanChair posted:Brandor I see lines connecting things, that's about it. Brandor has written dissertations on the symbolism of Neon Genesis Evangelion and it's attachment to the Logos concept on less.
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Feb 12, 2014 23:11
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Who What Now posted:Brandor has written dissertations on the symbolism of Neon Genesis Evangelion and it's attachment to the Logos concept on less. Off topic, but seeing you guys talk like that I wonder if Brandor speaks about himself in 3rd person. Anyhow, back to the topic: http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html Note the crazy part. Anyway there are mutiple links on that page to Tegmark's stuff. BrandorKP posted:Yeah he's definitely stating it in that way. But then he does stuff like this: I think you are reading too much into it. He's not saying that all of physical reality fits only into parts of that math diagram, he's saying that what we percieve as reality from actual physical evidence isn't the whole picture (but still exists even if we can't percieve it). Back to the basic statement, it should be stated that the totality of reality is being equated to the totality of mathematics not just the parts of reality that we physically percieve. From his website: quote:The Mathematical Universe The 1996 paper and his quote about it: quote:The original 1996 paper: Is "the theory of everything" merely the ultimate ensemble theory? Bolding mine. By discovering more about mathematics, we thereby discover more about reality because they are the same thing. It's all just a more specific view of saying that by discovering stuff we know more about existence.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:35
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MadMattH posted:Off topic, but seeing you guys talk like that I wonder if Brandor speaks about himself in 3rd person. He doesn't speak about himself in the third person, but he talks about his personal theology as if he wasn't the only one that subscribed to it. Curiously if you ask him any direct questions about it he'll ignore them.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:43
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The issue with the claim may be that there may be problem with having access to transient states. A transient state is a state where process variables are changing and a system has not reached a steady state. Even in a counterfactual where we acquired a complete explanation of future and present states through mathematics in a deterministic way, and ontologically mathematics and actuality had been connected to enable that, you would still have the problem of accounting for past changes where transients had a effect in setting those up. This means that unless we fix the total state of the system to a time-slice., we explanatory access. This may have some useful causal abilities though and only under a system where there where strong emergent upshots or reverse causation, would you lose causal traction. You would lose however, access to a transient state and strong access to those objects in an ontological sense in that state.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:48
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Ok I missed a bunch, but Brandor I think I'm done treating your posts seriously. You come in with what seems to be good faith arguments and a meaningful interpretation, but then you start playing word games and introducing your own little definitions, and expect other people to follow and agree. See I can prove things too! The Quantum wavefunction is real, but this implies that it is not imaginary. Therefore the quantum wavefunction cannot contain imagingary numbers. But Quantum mechanics requires the use of complex numbers in its formulation, so it's obviously meaningless. Also it's God because God is the only thing that contains all qualities and thus is simultaneously real and imaginary. You also haven't explained why you find non-Copenhagen interpretations objectionable, except for weird-sounding book titles. Ogodei_Khan posted:This means that unless we fix the total state of the system to a time-slice., we explanatory access Finally, someone talking sense!
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Feb 13, 2014 02:12
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If the universe has no properties indicating it is a simulation, it is impossible to decide whether it is a simulation or not and Occam's Razor urges us to decide it is not a simulation. We need to find properties that indicate the universe is a simulation, such as the linked article that hypothesized cosmic rays would be more likely to travel along certain trajectories in a 3-dimensional simulation. If we imagined a conscious character in a video game, programming errors could be explained as properties of that character's universe. A sentient Pac-Man could come up with an explanation for the way he can touch the edge of a ghost without dying, but there are no in-universe explanations for the way the game explodes upon reaching level 28. Trying to show that the universe is a simulation means trying to find phenomena that are best explained by that hypothesis. Philosophically I think conscious can be generated by purely physical processes, since I don't believe in a soul and so I believe that consciousness is created physically in the human brain.
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Feb 13, 2014 03:09
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"'"The simulacrum is true." --Ecclesiastes'--Baudrillard" Also, BrandorKP posted:Depends on the interpretation. The root problem is that I think the interpretations other than Copenhagen do something objectionable. Copenhagen dodges the bullet this way: "wave functions are not real, wave-function collapse is interpreted subjectively". Other interpretations (many worlds among them) some of them say the wave function is real. That's a reification. Synonyms of to reify are to deify or idolize. You don't know the meaning of any of those words in any context or connotation, do you? deptstoremook fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 09:00
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deptstoremook posted:You don't know the meaning of any of those words in any context or connotation, do you? I was a nuclear minor at a federal service academy. My atomic/modern physics profs worked at Brookhaven ( I got the see the RHIC senior year which was really cool). My nuclear engineering profs were navy nuke. I did quite well. I modeled a nuclear reactor cycle with an attached hydrogen generation plant in Simulink senior year. I did labs where we modeled the square of the wavefunction in a potential well and then observed the predicted quantum tunneling. I took math as high as differential equations 2. Ad Homs are not arguments. And they only encourage me. To assert the wave function is real is to make an abstract concrete. To assert that math is reality is also to make an abstract concrete. MadMattH posted:Back to the basic statement, it should be stated that the totality of reality is being equated to the totality of mathematics not just the parts of reality that we physically percieve. And that's still hugely massively problematic. Look at the repercussions, you, I, and we in the thread are math. Things, "it"s, are math. Math is being asserted as super-personal, that is as omnipresent, as universal, as true and fundamentally inseparable from reality. It's just natural law, a form (math) as the order of the universe. And that leads into my response to this: mrParkbench posted:You also haven't explained why you find non-Copenhagen interpretations objectionable, except for weird-sounding book titles. I want you to look at your statement here: "So the universe IS a mathematical structure." and to compare it to this one: "I understood that the natural world operated according to fixed laws." Basically both those sentences are saying the universe has rules that we can know. Universal rules we have access to. That seems pretty innocuous right? But where does the line of thought go next? It goes next to places like this: "Through my studies, I came to realize that there were, like wise, laws that govern human well being." The small thing, the simple assertion of math as true and real, that assertion that there is a natural law, never stops there. Something always gets built on it. When one says the square of the wave function is more than just a equation that makes useful predictions about the probability of detecting a particle in a particular place, one makes that small step. What will be built on it? What has been built on it in the past? How do the things built on it eventually end up looking? SedanChair posted:Brandor I see lines connecting things, that's about it. Neo-platonic mysticism with the ideal forms re-skinned as math is stilling going to roll like neo-platonic mysticism. Seriously look at some of this stuff, it's almost straight up "All in math!" Give it some time I'll bet it gets into the really nutty territory eventually (and that's what I was implying). Mr. Tegmark says his proof is one in the manner of Euclid. Have you ever look at the commentaries on Euclid. poo poo gets crazy. "She wants to penetrate within herself to see the circle and the triangle there, all things without parts and all in one another, to become one with what she sees and enfold their plurality, to behold the secret and ineffable figures in the inaccessible places and shrines of the gods, to uncover the unadorned divine beauty and see the circle more partless than any center, the triangle without extension, and every other object of knowledge that has regained unity." - Proclus I can't help but think that's where this goes next. Kabblah is another variant of neo-platonic mysticism when it goes nuts. So is libertarianism. Who What Now posted:Brandor has written dissertations on the symbolism of Neon Genesis Evangelion and it's attachment to the Logos concept on less. You know "Air on the G String" is Bach cantata right. Bach wrote his cantatas as part of liturgical services. What's the position of the cantata in a liturgical service? Before the sermon and then again after the service before communion. The second cantata precedes the climax of the service, communion. And that's what it precedes in NGE, an orgiastic climax where all go into one. One doesn't structure a movie like a church service accidentally. Seriously dude NGE is an origenistic apocatastasis structured like a church service as horror. 
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Feb 13, 2014 20:33
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BrandorKP posted:I can't help but think that's where this goes next. Kabblah is another variant of neo-platonic mysticism when it goes nuts. So is libertarianism.  What does either have to teach us, besides that people try to take shortcuts to knowledge?
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Feb 13, 2014 20:38
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BrandorKP posted:I was a nuclear minor at a federal service academy. My atomic/modern physics profs worked at Brookhaven ( I got the see the RHIC senior year which was really cool). My nuclear engineering profs were navy nuke. I did quite well. I modeled a nuclear reactor cycle with an attached hydrogen generation plant in Simulink senior year. I did labs where we modeled the square of the wavefunction in a potential well and then observed the predicted quantum tunneling. I took math as high as differential equations 2. Well then I take issue with your commutation of the form reification with deification and idolization; reification refers as you mention correctly to the function of making-real an abstract or symbolic entity, but it doesn't necessarily imply, and usually doesn't include, a manifestation in a physical object. "Thingification" is a decent english gloss. To idolize means to imbue an artifact with the sense of the divine, spiritual, or supernatural; and to deify is usually used in the sense of imbuing those same characteristics in a human. Possible faint connection between deify and reify, but not enough to equate them. I think if your claim rests on weight of these three words, and the presumption that they are identical, you need to reexamine your foundations. deptstoremook fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 21:26
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BrandorKP posted:And that's still hugely massively problematic. Look at the repercussions, you, I, and we in the thread are math. Things, "it"s, are math. Math is being asserted as super-personal, that is as omnipresent, as universal, as true and fundamentally inseparable from reality. It's just natural law, a form (math) as the order of the universe. And that leads into my response to this: There are no repercussions, that is the point. If mathematics is reality then, of course, we can use it to describe reality. They go hand in hand, they are not seperate but one thing. That doesn't mean that there is some huge meaning in it. Nothing had to choose math as being a way to describe reality.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:15
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BrandorKP posted:I was a nuclear minor at a federal service academy. My atomic/modern physics profs worked at Brookhaven ( I got the see the RHIC senior year which was really cool). My nuclear engineering profs were navy nuke. I did quite well. I modeled a nuclear reactor cycle with an attached hydrogen generation plant in Simulink senior year. I did labs where we modeled the square of the wavefunction in a potential well and then observed the predicted quantum tunneling. I took math as high as differential equations 2. Absolutely none of this is related to the topic, or to your theology that you're trying to dry-ram into the discussion. If you can't even understand why nuclear physics has nothing to do with any of this then just stop wasting our time. BrandorKP posted:You know "Air on the G String" is Bach cantata right. Bach wrote his cantatas as part of liturgical services. What's the position of the cantata in a liturgical service? Before the sermon and then again after the service before communion. The second cantata precedes the climax of the service, communion. And that's what it precedes in NGE, an orgiastic climax where all go into one. One doesn't structure a movie like a church service accidentally. Seriously dude NGE is an origenistic apocatastasis structured like a church service as horror. Goddamnit, Brandor, nobody gives a poo poo about your opinions of anime. I was making a joke, not inviting you to poo poo up the thread on an even broader scale. How about you actually address my real points to you about your dishonesty instead of ignoring them like the intellectually lazy poster you are?
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Feb 13, 2014 22:39
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BrandorKP posted:That seems pretty innocuous right? But where does the line of thought go next? So...you are using a slippery slope argument in a discussion about ontology? 
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Feb 14, 2014 06:58
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This is like the modern day equivalent of listening to a bunch of enlightenment thinkers arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin.
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Feb 14, 2014 07:14
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Cool to see this topic in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/is-the-universe-a-simulation.html?hp&rref=opinion I have wondered about the surprising applicability of math in physics. It is definitely odd on the face of it that we should have such facility with theoretical mathmatics and then discover later on that our previous theoretical advances are the key to understanding some physical phenomenon. Descartes found the natural explanation for this in a God who grants us the innate ability to understand the world he created. What's suggested here isn't all that different...
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Feb 15, 2014 04:17
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