1Z wrote: > > Georges Quénot wrote: > >>peterdjones wrote: >> >>>Georges Quénot wrote: >>> >>>>peterdjones wrote: >>>> >>>>>[...] >>>>>(To put it another way: the point is to explain >>>>>experience. Physicalism explains non-experience >>>>>of HP universes by saying they don't exist. MM appeals >>>>>to ad-hoc hypotheses about non-interaction. All explanations >>>>>have to end somewhere. The question is how many >>>>>unexplained assumptions there are). >>>> >>>>I would like to understand your view. How do *you* solve >>>>the "HP universe" problem? In your view of things, amongst >>>>all the mathematical objects to which a universe could be >>>>isomorphic to, *what* does make only one (or a few) "exist" >>>>or "be real" or "be physical" or "be instanciated" and all >>>>others not? >>> >>>In your view, what means that only mathematical objects exist ? >> >>I can try to answer to this but I do not see how it helps >>to answer my question. It is hard to explain what it means >>to someone that resist the idea (that must be like trying >>to explain a mystic experience to a non believer). >> >>It is just the idea that there could be no difference between >>mathematical existence and physical existence. > > > Then why do we use two different words (mathematical and physical) ? > > >>I would say >>that it > > > "it" meaning mathematical existence IS different to physical existence. > ? > > >>makes sense only in the case in which the three other >>mentionned conjectures also make sense and could be true. > > > I don't see why the mathematical realism needs to be true. > The difference between mathematical existence and physical > existence could consist in physical things exisitng, and mathematical > objects not exisiting. > > >>I believe that we have a diffculty here because we have very >>different intuitions about what mathematical objects can be >>and about what a mathematical object corresponding to a >>universe hosting conscious beings could look like. I already >>mentionned three possibilities to deal with the HP universe >>"problem" in this context. I understood that it did not make >>it for you because of this difference between our intuitions. >> >> >>>All explanations stop somewhere. The question is whether they >>>succeed in explaining experience. >> >>Do you mean that it is "just so" that the "mathematical >>object" that is isomorph to our universe is "instantiated" >>and that the "mathematical objects" that would be isomorph >>to HP universes are not? > > > We can go some way to explaining the non-existence > of HP universes by their requiring a more complex > set of laws ( where "we" are believers in physical > realism). However, we are bound to end up with > physical laws being "just so". However -- so every > other explanation ends up with a "just so". In physical > MWI it is just so that the SWE delimits the range of possible > universes. In Barbour's theory it is just so that Platonia > consists of every possible 3-dimensional configuration of > matter, not every 7dimensional one, or n-dimensional one. > In Mathematical Monism, it is just so that , while very mathematical > object exists, no non-mathematical object exists.
You would like this book by Vic Stenger: http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/nothing.html Vic defends the view that physical laws are based on point-of-view-invariance; that is a constraint we place on what we call a law. As such, they are not really laws constraining nature, they are symmetries that are an absence of 'law' (i.e. structure). Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
