Hello again Joel. I think I can agree with you, in a pragmatic sense, with what you state below. I agree that any useful TOE should be able to be implemented on a (large enough) computer. This computation can then SIMULATE the relevant or important aspects of the universe we observe, or all aspects of other possible universes, with their APPARENT real-number continua and infinite sets. Godel's theorem prevents us from simulating all aspects of our universe.
Adopting that perspective, we should be able to justify that a simulation of our universe does not appear overly fine-tuned. At least that would suit my aesthetic tastes. Fred > > I'm simply trying to get people to confront the truth that we humans are > incapable of devising Theories of Everything that are NOT run on a universal > computer. That's all. > > Many will say, "Of course! We know that!". > > And then they go on, as if nothing happened, talking about the probabilities > of items in infinite sets, and "independent tosses of a fair coin", and > "quantum indeterminacy", and "the continuum of the real numbers", as if > these things exist! > > If we cannot program it... it's not a Theory of EVERYTHING. It's just a > description. > > Let us take the realist approach and focus on the things we can actually > compute fully. > > Joel > > >
