On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 4:29 PM, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 9:43 PM, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > > >* Leibniz: "Why is there something rather than nothing?"* > > > > By "nothing" Leibniz meant a vacuum, today we know far more about the > vacuum than he did. Nothing, that is to say zero, is far too precise a > number for quantum mechanics, it permits a violation of the law of > conservation of energy and mass but only for a very short time. Empty space > is not empty, it is a sea of virtual particles popping into and out of > existence. This may seem like a theologian talking about how many angels > can dance on the head of a pin but it is not because it can be detected > experimentally. And if you have an infinite amount of time to play around > with even some jaw droppingly unlikely things will happen, maybe even the > Big Bang. > The quantum vacuum (an absence of non-virtual particles) is not "nothing". It has an energy, mass, dimensionality, curvature, does it not? How can nothing have mass energy or dimensionality? > > You could argue that all modern science has done is prove the vacuum is > not nothing and although Leibniz was wrong about that the question remains > valid, but I would say expecting science to explain how a nothing that is > so nothing that it doesn't even have the potential of ever becoming > something is unreasonable. Even a omnipotent omniscient God couldn't do > that, it would be like asking Him to make a rock so heavy he can't lift it. > This is giving up. I think we can, and have explained why there is something rather than nothing. Even if no *thing* existed, there would still be a difference between "1 = 0" and "0 = 0". There would still be a difference between "7 is composite" and "7 is prime", and you can continue this up to far less trivial truths about much bigger numbers, such as solutions to the Diophantine equation that simulates the time evolution of the Schrodinger equation for all possible initial conditions, and the solutions to that equation contain the entire evolution of our Hubble volume, and the Milk way, and solar system, earth, you and me. There is something rather than nothing because nothing is impossible, something had to be, as a consequence of uncaused, eternal, immutable, transcendent, infinite truth. "the primary cause caused to be" ―The first sentence of Genesis in the Septuagint (early Greek bible) “What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the World.” ― Albert Einstein > > >> > >> *Hawking: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?* > > > The equations are a description of how the physical world reacts in > certain specific situations written in the language of mathematics and > contain no fire. > I think Hawking was asking "What makes the machinery of physics run?" Computationalism can explain this. Consider the first person views of conscious gliders in Conway's Game of Life. From their point of view, the evolution of their game moves forward, according to discrete and simple rules. But they would wonder why. The answer is their brain states are being updated along with the same computation that yields successive states of the evolution of the game. Each successive state has the memories of the previous states, and so on. At each point in time, they consider the game to be evolving forward. > > > > >> *Feynman: "It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we >> understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of >> logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a >> region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that >> be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of >> logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do?"* > > > That is exactly why I think the field of Quantum Computers has such > enormous potential. > But can you explain it? Computationalism can, as the infinite set of computations that realize your mind, all of which exist platonically at a level of finer detail than is relevant/necessary for the implementation of your mind. > > >> *>Wheeler: "Why these equations, and not others?"* >> > > Like the English language both fiction and nonfiction can be written in > the Mathematical language and both can be grammatically correct, > mathematicians are interested in both but physicists are only interested in > the nonfiction stories, > > >> > >> *The existence of all possible computations may be one possible avenue >> for this. * >> > > That's not the answer that's the problem. How can you pick out the one > correct calculation from the infinite number of incorrect calculations if > you don't have physics to help you? > If there is only correct calculation to be found, was it out there before I built the machine to help me identify it? Do you think the 10^(10^120)th binary digit of Pi has a definite, but yet unknown value? If so, then it exists independently of some physical process that works to display a result on a monitor as a set of activated pixels, and therefore doesn't need to be picked out or simulated by us (or anyone) in order to exist. > > >> >* * >> *It's not truly doing something math is not, if you take the view that >> math is what is ultimately "doing physics".* >> > > As you point out, the answer a Turing Machine spite out depends on its > program not what its made of, you can make one with silicon or vacuum tubes > or mechanical gears or even Lego blocks, but you can't make one out of pure > numbers, it you could be Intel wouldn't need silicon, and it does. > I've given counter examples already. Look at my first and second post in this thread. > > >> >>> >> >>> Definitions are made for our convenience, they do not create physical >>> objects. >>> >> >> > >> Physical theories are also made for our convenience and they do not tell >> physical objects what to do. >> > > Yes, but physical theories do tell **us** what those physical objects > will do under a certain range of conditions, outside of that range we ned > to find a better theory. > You deleted my comment that showed the analogy between physical theories and mathematical theories. Why? If you're just going to sweep inconvenient questions under the rug and pretend they were never asked what's the point of spending time writing a replying to you? > > >> >> >>> there are an infinite number of ways integers and the relations between >>> them could have been defined, >>> >> >> *>If they were defined differently, they wouldn't be the integers, but >> some other thing.* >> > > > But why did mathematicians pick that definition instead of one of the > infinite number of alternative ones it could have chosen? Because physics > told them that was the most eloquent one to use in writing nonfiction > stories about the world. There is nothing wrong with with fiction, it has > its charms, but that was not the sheep herder 10,000 ago who invented > numbers was thinking about, he just wanted to manage his flock and be able > to determine if one was missing. And physicists have decided to concentrate > on the nonfiction and let mathematicians get on with their literary > pursuits and weave their beautiful fictional tales . > > *>* >> *Is reality not "kicking back", when: It tells us there are things that >> are true about the integers which are not part of our starting definitions?* >> > > Godel discovered that reality is telling us that if our mathematical tale > contains no plot holes then there is no way to expand the story so that it > includes everything all the characters are doing when they are off stage. > As for determining if the story is fiction or nonfiction that can only be > determined by physical experiment > > *>If arithmetical law breaks down, and 0 starts to equal 1, then a >> Turing machine will do something very different than what would otherwise >> be predicted.* >> > > > Arithmetic doesn't tell matter what to do, matter tells mathematicians the > best way to construct arithmetic. > > >> >** >> *I think you understand my point: "software" can never be certain of the >> "hardware". * >> > > I understand what you're getting at and agree with it but I would add > although it can't know specifics it can know there must be something hard > enough in the hardware that it can poked andbe changed and a bit of > information can be stored in it. There is nothing hard in the integer "7" > so the is no way to poke it and change it, and without change there can be > no intelligence. Although the integer "7" is eternal it has no memory,and > without memory there can be no consciousness. > (k^2 - kx - x^2)^2 - 1 = 0 --> (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, ... ) In this Fibbonacci relation, F_n = F_(n-1) + F_(n-2) Can we then say, that each element has a "memory" of its two previous successors? If that analogy is too much of a stretch for you, what about the "Game of Life" equation, which contains as its solutions the states of an evolving game of life simulation. To compute this evolution, we need a memory of the state to track its evolution. These arithmetical relations do have a memory, as you can't explain their effectiveness as universal computers without their having a memory. If you hold that computation requires a memory, but that numbers have no memory, how do you square this with the proven universality of certain fixed equations? > > > >> >>> A mathematical object is just something that has been defined in the >>> language of mathematics, >>> >> >> > ** >> *But humans weren't free to define Quarks any way they choose.* >> > > Yes exactly, physics told humans there is only one way to define a Quark > if they want to be consistent with experimental results. Physics is like a > straightjacket that stops us from doing many things and that includes going > down blind alleys. But pure mathematicians are free to do anything, that > means they are in in a infinite landscape with no hints from physics or > from anything else about which direction would be most fruitful to travel. > > > >* * >> *Any civilization that must make rational decisions to increase its >> chance of survival is confronted with the logic of true and false. ("e.g. >> 'If we don't store food for winter we will starve.') If that civilization >> reasons logically about true and false, they will develop notions of "and" >> "or" "not", etc. This leads trivially to the notion of counting "not" >> operators. An even number of nots is equivalent to 0 nots, and any odd >> number of nots is equivalent to 1 not. This notion of counting leads >> directly to the same integers we know and love* >> > > I agree completely, if you want to physically survive in the physically > world you'd better use the integers we have in dealing with physical > problems and not one of the infinite number of different ways p-adic > arithmetic would let you define integers even though they would every bit > as logically consistent as the integers we know and love today. > > > >> >>> If we're very lucky we might be able to describe those meta laws >>> mathematically (although almost certainly not with the mathematics we have >>> now) >>> >> >> *>Why not? * >> > > Well for example the mathematics of String Theory have gotten so complex > that nobody knows how to proceed, we need new mathematical that lets us cut > through the mess and untangle things so it can actually make a prediction > that can be tested. Who knows maybe some p-adic numbers could be useful in > doing that, but even then we'll still use regular old integers when we want > to count sheep or figure out if the bridge will collapse if we try to cross > it. > I see what you mean now. > > > >** >> *If there were 0 physical universes, then wouldn't 0 have meaning? * >> > > Yes, but Quantum Mechanics > says you can't have zero energy and if there is energy something exists, > nevertheless zero remains a useful fiction because things can get mighty > damn small. > > > >* * >> *Can zero have meaning without the contrast of 1? * >> > > If zero has a meaning that exists then one thing exists, and if the > meaning of zero is "nothing exists" then then what zero is saying is untrue. > > You started with "0" universes exist", "0" is "1 thing", so then 1 exists. Now 1 and 2 exist, etc. Even in your framework where you need certain numbers of things to count for numbers to have meaning, you can't help numbers from getting in and procreating until they've filled the number line. > > > >> If you have 7 things, then you have 7! = 5040 ways of choosing subsets of >> those things. So does 5040 have meaning in a universe with 7 physical >> things? >> > > > As far as we know neutrinos are the most numerous thing in the observable > universe, there are about 10^89 of them, the power set of 10^89 neutrons is > a vastly larger number even then that but its still finite. and so is the > power set of the power set and any finite number of iterations after that, > and so it doesn't even scratch the surface of the set of all integers, much > less all the real numbers from to 1, which makes me suspect the real > numbers are like zero, a useful fiction. > > > So you believe there is a largest prime? 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