On 31 Jul 2011, at 19:31, benjayk wrote:
Bruno Marchal wrote:
The notion of a TOE usually is used in a reductionist sense, as a
theory that can be used to predict everything.
A TOE should do that, in principle at least.
Of course it should be able to predict everything which is
predictible, in the right condition. No one asks for a TOE which can
predict things which are not predictible. No TOE can predict that you
will feel to be, just after the duplication, in W or in M.
OK. But what is predictable may be quite limited in the end.
Predicting is not the goal of the TOE. It is just a little obligation
to be accepted as a scientific theory, so as to be refutable.
The goal is more like searching a bigger picture, rational, and which
help, first in formulating the mind-body problem, and then in solving
it as far as possible.
Is there a
result showing that it is possible at all to derive precise physical
laws
from COMP and a bet on our substitution level?
Yes. And you don't need to know the substitution level, although a
comparison of the physics derived from comp, and the physics inferred
from measurement might suggest higher bounds for our substitution level.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
I am critical of the very notion of a TOE. It doesn't make much
sense. Even
current physics clearly shows that results of experiments can't be
predicted
precisely. So is the TOE supposed to give a perfect probability
distribution? But what is this even supposed to mean?
The exact contrary. Comp is not just a change in
'perspective' (Aristotle -> Plato), but the discovery of a creative
bomb (the UM).
With comp we begin to know that we don't know what we are doing. We
can (machines can) understand that by trying to control it, we make
it
less controllable. A bit like a mother with a baby. That is not
something entirely new, but here it appears in the 3-theories.
Right. That's why we could almost say COMP is an anti-TOE.
Comp leads first to a ROE (Realm of everything: the ontologic part of
the TOE, which here is given by the truth of elementary (sigma_1)
statements).
Then it shows that we can only scratch the truth, concerning that ROE.
Concerning the UMs and the LUMs, they are born universal dissident:
they can refute *all* theories about themselves, unless they are too
fuzzy (which makes them allergic to fuzzy theories too).
Bruno Marchal wrote:
So no theory
can explain everything. But we can show the necessity of there being
a gap.
OK. You are right. I will abandon the label TOE, for TOAE. Theory of
almost everything.
Well, but the part that is unexplainable doesn't seem to be small at
all.
Frankly it explains almost nothing (which is the most we will ever
explain,
as there is infinitely much to explain!).
Well, you have admitted not having study the details, but normally it
explains a lot: indeed God, belief, knowledge, observation and
sensation, and all this including all reason why we cannot completely
understand what happens to be introspectively unexplainable. Ad
normally, in principle, it explains the origin of the physical laws,
without assuming anything physical.
If anything, it shows there is an
infinite hierarchy of ever more efficient theories.
Theories, or machines. Those are terrestrial finite creatures. It is
he tree of arithmetical life, if you want. It is transfinite, very big.
Which is quite an astounding result, don't get me wrong, but let's
not make
the mistake of adjusting to the immodesty of the reductionist
materialists.
This way you may not be taken as seriously, but being modest and
honest
seems more important to me.
The modesty is in the reiterared act of faith of saying "yes" to the
doctor, and accepting the classical Church thesis. All the rest
follows from that: from the explainable to the ineffable.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
But *that* fact, that there are mysteries, is no more a mystery.
At the cost that the very foundation of our theory is mysterious! We
use a
mystery to explain that there are more mysteries. Which is the best
we can
ever do - how exciting!
You are right. It is like that. Numbers hides and partially single out
a very deep mystery.
Bruno Marchal wrote:
And in that sense, comp provides, I think, the first coherent
picture of
almost everything, from God (oops!) to qualia, quanta included, and
this by assuming only seven arithmetical axioms.
I tend to agree. But it's coherent picture of everything includes the
possibility of infinitely many more powerful theories. Theoretically
it may
be possible to represent every such theory with arithmetic - but
then we can
represent every arithmetical statement with just one symbol and an
encoding
scheme, still we wouldn't call "." a theory of everything.
So it's not THE theory of everything, but *a* theory of everything.
Not really. Once you assume comp, the numbers (or equivalent) are
enough, and very simple (despite mysterious). The many more powerful
theories are internal views *in* the number realm, but strictly
speaking they are introducing the complexity, and should be compared
to event taken "place" in the number realm. I still don't know how far
LUMs might be deluded by geographical or historical contexts.
The key points are that physics become explainable, and that the
qualia acquires a precise theoretical ground, and that the big picture
is the reversal of the actual Aristotelian paradigm, making us more
open minded for the spiritual values, without the fairy tales and the
superstition. Comp explains also why, when you give God a name, shit
happens, and it described the kind of caution you can develop with
that (although it is hard not to fall in the trap, and there is no
universal guaranties against that).
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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