Citeren meekerdb <[email protected]>:
On 7/2/2012 6:15 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 5:35 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 7/2/2012 2:09 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
To summarize our conversation up to this point:
BM: Do you really not see any difference between tables and
chairs and people
and numbers,
JR: Chairs and people are also mathematical objects, just
really complex ones
with a large information content. This is the necessary
conclusion of anyone
who believes physical laws are mathematical.
BM: No, it's a necessary conclusion of anyone who cannot
distinguish a
description from the thing described.
JR: I think the identity of indiscernibles applies: If no
distinction can ever
be made (by observers within a mathematical universe and
observers within a
physical universe) then there is no distinction. You are
using "physical" as an
honorific, but it adds no information.
BM: I can point to a chair and say "This!"
JR: Yes, but how do you know you are pointing to a "physical
chair", rather than
a "mathematical chair"?
BM: I know I'm pointing at a chair. I don't know what at
'mathematical chair'
is. Can you point out how it is different from a chair?
I think we both agree that if the universe follows
mathematical laws, then
observers can make no distinction between whether they exist
in a platonically
existing mathematical object, or a physical universe. If
you agree with this,
then there is no fundamental ontological difference between
chairs, people, and
numbers, that I can see.
No. The mathematical laws of physics (e.g. the standard model)
leave initial
conditions undetermined, Which is equivalent to saying every
solution to the Schrodinger equation is true.
It's true that they are solutions. It doesn't follow that they exist.
they assume inherent randomness (symmetry breaking), No where in
the math of quantum mechanics is there anything that suggest
collapse of the wave function.
Except that's the only way to get a definite result. Otherwise your
instruments say, "Well it was probably + and probably -."
A strict interpretation of the the math leaves only MWI (or
alternatively, as Ron Garett points out zero-universes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEaecUuEqfc ).
How did you decide the Born rule wasn't math and wasn't part of QM?
The randomness is explained directly by first person indeterminacy
in a reality containing all possibilities.
Maybe. But it's not clear that it explains the Born rule.
they don't specify why they are the laws of physics instead of
some others. Many physicists hope that they will one day find a
reason that our laws of physics are unique, some justification why
the one they find themselves in is the only one that can be, but
this seeming to be a pipe dream. Many physicists dislike anthropic
reasoning, perhaps because it spoils their dream of finding a TOE,
but disliking something shouldn't carry any weight in assessing a
theory's validity.
I could say the same about the Born rule and disliking that some
things happen and some don't.
So the ontological difference is that some things exist and some
don't. This
distinction doesn't exist in Platonia: exist=having a consistent
description. In
physics exist=a member of the ontology of the fundamental model.
What's wrong with Platonia being a fundamental model?
No predictive power: everything exists, everything happens.
The way conventional physics avoids that is by making ad-hoc
assumptions and by imposing ad hoc boundaries that according to the
physical model itself don't exist. E.g. it is very hard to escape the
Boltzmann brain problem in most complete models of the universe. So,
the predictive power of physics is achieved by imposing additional
unphysical ad hoc rules.
Of course, with these additional ammendments, physics is still very
successful. To me this suggests that we shouldn't dismiss any attmepts
to make a "Platonia model" work, just because you would need to impose
some additional ad-hoc rules for doing computations, that don't fit in
well within the Plationia philosophy. It could be that such additional
rules could be explained later.
Saibal
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