On 12 Sep 2014, at 03:36, 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.
Max ignores the FPI. he seems to (re)discover it in his book, (but he
knew my work so that is a bit weird, to remain polite), but he still
does not (like many) take it into account. In fact he has a less wrong
ontology (with respect to computationalism) but ignore the
computationalist mind-body problem. It makes both mind and body having
non mathematical appearance from inside a little clear mathematical
structure. He gives the correct fundamental role to math, but he is
still doing physics, and not the math needed to recover physics from
math.
Bruno
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