Liz, As far as I know, Max does not have a theory. He just has a hypothesis with nothing theoretical to back it up. One aspect of his hypothesis is that the creation of matter requires math that is both consistent and complete. Whereas Godel has seemingly to me proven that such math does not exist. Is that true? Rich
On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 10:19 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 9/11/2014 6:36 PM, LizR wrote: > > Obviously I haven't read the PDF file with Chs 1-8, which may take me a > while - but I do (mildly) take issue with this assertion. > > Mathematics is merely a description of nature. Nature can operate > mathematically (adverb), but cannot be claimed to ‘be’ the mathematics. > Being predictive with/using mathematics does not prove nature is made of > it. I deal with nature itself. Not maths. When you realise this you end up > with dual aspect science. A 3 tiered epistemic framework practical for > science > > > This is of course the position that science has taken for the past few > centuries without realising that there was any alternative. However, now > that Max Tegmark (and of course Bruno) have argued that there is an > alternative, simply *claiming* that nature cannot be made of maths no > longer cuts the mustard. It's true that maths being predictive doesn't > "prove that nature is made of maths" because as we know, science doesn't > set out to prove anything, especially not sweeping ontological claims. But > it still seems quite possible to me, at least, that Max may be onto > something, because as he points out his theory explains the "unreasonable > effectiveness" of maths in physics - so I will be interested to hear some > counter arguments that explain this effectiveness on a non > universe-is-maths basis. So far I've seen a bit of handwavium, but > generally I've been underwhelmed by the alternatives presented to explain > this, which leaves Max's theory out in front in terms of explanatory power, > as far as this particular issue is concerned. > > Not that there aren't problems with Max's theory, of course. (It's mind > boggling for a bear of little brain like me to attempt to grasp how it > could possibly actually work....) But it does seem plausible enough to > deserve decent counter-arguments. > > > One counter argument is to note that math has been "unreasonably > effective" in Ptolemaic astronomy, Newtonian physics, fluid dynamics, > non-relativistic quantum mechanics, and other theories which we now think > were mere approximations. This seems much more consistent with mathematics > being descriptive rather than prescriptive. > > I'd say mathematics is just a matter of being very precise about axioms > and what you infer from them so that you find lots of interesting > consequences but don't fall into contradiction. > > Brent > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
