Hi Bruno Marchal It all boils down to this: is something that is mathematically true necessarily physically true ? This question can be restated as "are mathematical truth and pragmatic truth the same ?" IMHO No, because theory can be wrong but what works works.
[Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 12/26/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-12-26, 05:30:24 Subject: Re: Ten top-of-my-head arguments against multiverses On 25 Dec 2012, at 15:34, Roger Clough 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. I disagree. The multiverse is just the literal reading of the SWE. To get 1 universe from the SWE you need to add a complication in the form of a collapse or a reduction principle. Occam asks us to chose the simpler theory, not the simpler ontology. Note that with comp we get both. The theory is the laws of + and *, and the ontology is the standard model of arithmetic: (N, +, *). But then in the 1p plural and singular we get the many dreams from which multiverses or quasi-multiverses emerge. 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. Not really. The ONE is "known" to let the multiple emanates from "him/her/it". The one remains one, but from inside and/or machine's epistemology you get the many internal views. 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. I have not yet find one, and besides, this would contradict the comp hypothesis. 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. Parallel worlds are not really parallel. It is only a manner of speaking. The "real" structure is still unknown and is plausibly rather complex. Bruno [Roger Clough], [[email protected]] 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 [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?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 [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?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- 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?hl=en.
