ROGER: Hi Brian Tenneson BRIAN: At least in the video (skip to 43:14), Tegmark estimates that our doppelgangers are 2^10^118 meters away which probably puts it past the range of direct testing and, consequently, makes it not falsifiable.
ROGER: Things not falsifiable need not be true. And things that are true need not be falsifiable if they are not always true (such as Popper is alive-- I think he died). His criteria do not hold water. BRIAN: Regarding (4), I think the disparity between you and Tegmark can be explained by having different definitions of universe and multiverse. Of course, if you have a metauniverse, then you'd have a metametauniverse, ad infinitum. There is only one "totality of all that exists" and I bet that if you were to explain what you mean by the One to him, he would agree that there is only one One. When he uses an aphorism like "multiverse" he may as well be saying "poly mega galaxy cluster" or some such. In other words I don't think Tegmark believes in multiple Ones. In his mathematical universe paper and ultimate ensemble paper, he posits that there is only one type of existence which would simplify things (a la Occam's razor). Instead of there being mathematical and physical existence, there is an identification between the two so they are seen to be one in the same. This merges the spaces "mathematical objects" with "physical objects". He argues this in those papers (though to me sometimes it seems to be merely a plausibility argument). ROGER: Tegmark is wrong there. According to Descartes, there are TWO types of existence, physical and mental. He defined physical existence as whatever is present in spacetime (that has extension in space). Mental existence has no extension in space. The One and indeed mathematics itself are not extended in space, and so are not physical. They exist in a completely different way (as Mind). They have no physical borders or location so that one cannot be sure if one has the physical "Totality". The rest that you discuss below then has meaning only to a materialist. Materialists don't follow Descartes so that IMHO their philosophy is bad science, it is a cult. BRIAN: Now if ME=PE, then one natural question is which mathematical structure is "the totality of all that exists" isomorphic to? In other words, what is the One? What is the universe? Or to abuse language a bit, what is the multiverse? This is a question that I've been thinking about for a while now and I'm really not sure. The current idea is to take the category of all mathematical structures C (which is large, unfortunately), and embed that into a category of functors defined on that category (a la Yoneda's lemma), in such a way that every mathematical structure is embedded within that category of functors (called a "cocompletion" of C), a sort of "presheaf" category. To have a single mathematical object that all mathematical structures can be embedded would give us an object that, in a sense, contains all structures. If one follows Tegmark's idea that ME=PE, then a definition for universe just might be a mathematical object (which by ME=PE is a physical object) that contains, in a sense, all mathematical objects (i.e., all physical objects). It's not super clear to me that the cocompletion of the category of all structures C exists though since C is not a small category and thus Yoneda's lemma doesn't apply. I would have to fine-tune the argument to work in the case of the category C I have in mind. If the cocompletion of C is the One, that which all mathematical structures can be embedded, then the parallel universe question would be a matter of logic and category theory; it would depend on how you defined "the visible universe" and "parallel" universe. On Tuesday, December 25, 2012 6:34:45 AM UTC-8, rclough wrote: Hi Brian Tenneson Tegmark has many many good ideas, but I am not a believer in multiverses, which only a strict mechanistic 19th century type can believe. Multiverses defy reason. Just off the top of head: 1) For one reason because of Occam's razor: it is a needless complication, and the universe (or its Creator) does not do needless things, because IMHO the universe is purposeful. 2) "Purposeful" meaning that Aristotle's end causes are needed for a final collapse, as they are for life, which is not mechanistic. 3) As in life/mind/consciousness/intelligence, which are also purposeful. 4) In order for there to be multiple universes, there would have to be multiple platonic Ones. But there can only be one One. 5) Multiverses are mechanistic and so in spacetime, but consciouss life and all that other good stuff are outside of spacetime. Would the minds of multiverses be mashed together ? And all particular lifes would have to terminate at the same time. 6) There is no non-Boltzmann physics which is required for a final collapse. Time has to begin to travel backwards as things reorganize, in which case the final collapse should be a reflection of the initial creation. That would be cool. 7) But each universes being differemnt, they would not be expected to all terminate at the same time. 8) One might conjecture also that the presence of life, consciousness and intelligence (which are all individual, personal, subjective) are not mechanical and so cannot be part of a multiverse. It's each man for himself. Along these lines, because of natural selection and different worlds not being all the same, evolution would not occur in parallel. 9) Besides, there are alternate possibilities for a quantum wave collapse. 10) In a related matter, one of the multiverse sites cited William James as a proponent. Because of his pragmatism, his multiverses arise because there is no fixed general in pragmatism for each particular. There are as many generals (additional universes) as you can think of. These obviously would not be parallel. [Roger Clough], [rcl...@verizon.net] 12/25/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Brian Tenneson Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-12-24, 13:11:46 Subject: Re: Fw: the world as mathematical. was pythagoras right after all ? What do you think of Tegmark's version of a mathematical Platoia? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/6WzRUmWbHY0J. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/qXpWpOqHJRYJ. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
