Le 19-mai-05, à 14:24, Patrick Leahy a écrit :
I find this a very odd question to be asked on this list. To me, one of the main attractions of the "everything" thesis is that it provides the only possible answer to this question. Viz: as Jonathan pointed out, mathematical objects are logical necessities, and the thesis (at least in Tegmark's formulation) is that physical existence is identical to mathematical existance.
You can look at my url for argument that physical existence emerges from mathematical existence. I have no clues that physical existence could just be equated to mathematical existence unless you attach consciousness to individuated bodies, but how?
Despite this attractive feature, I'm fairly sure the thesis is wrong (so that there is just no answer to the big WHY?), but that's another story.
I can argue that without accepting natural numbers you cannot justify them. So any theory which does not assumes the natural numbers cannot be a theory of everything. Once you accept the existence of natural numbers it is possible to explain how the belief in both math and physics arises. And with the explicit assumption of Descartes Mechanism, in a digital form (the computationalist hypothesis), I think such explanation is unique. Also, it is possible to explain why we cannot explain where our belief in natural numbers come from.
Sorry for being so short,
Bruno
Paddy Leahy
====================================================== Dr J. P. Leahy, University of Manchester, Jodrell Bank Observatory, School of Physics & Astronomy, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, UK Tel - +44 1477 572636, Fax - +44 1477 571618
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
