On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 9:11:03 AM UTC-5, Tomas Pales wrote:
>
> I am generally sympathetic to Tegmark's mathematical multiverse idea, but
> I have two comments/criticisms to it:
>
> 1) I am not sure whether Tegmark is aware of the so-called "instantiation"
> relation. In philosophy, the instantiation relation is the relation between
> a general and a particular object, where the particular object is an
> instance of the general object. In other words, the general object is a
> property of the particular object. Example: general triangle (or triangle
> "in general") is the property of any particular triangle, and any
> particular triangle is an instance of general triangle. Another example:
> number 2 is a general relation that is instantiated in the particular
> relation between any two objects. I am not sure whether Tegmark realizes
> the difference between general objects and their instances, because he said
> something like: when we probe matter we only find numbers (and hence
> reality is just mathematics). But numbers cannot be found in our world; you
> cannot find number 2 sitting on a tree or in the atomic nucleus. You can
> only find instances of number 2, as relations between particular objects.
> Mathematical objects are usually thought to be general objects, but in that
> case there is more in reality than mathematical objects: there are general
> objects *and* their instances. And in our physical world there are *no*
> general objects, only their instances. If we want to say that there are
> mathematical objects in our physical world, we should include among
> mathematical objects also non-general objects, that is, objects that have
> no instances. (By the way, there is a hierarchy of generality: more general
> objects are instantiated in less general objects and those are ultimately
> instantiated in non-general objects. Non-general objects are often called
> "concrete", while general objects are also called "abstract".)
>
> 2) While I agree with Tegmark that reality contains all mathematical
> objects (both general and non-general), I think there is also a
> non-mathematical aspect of reality. That's because mathematical objects are
> relations or structures of relations, but relations cannot exist without
> objects between which they hold. While it is true that relations can hold
> between other relations, there should also be objects that are
> non-relations, which ultimately make sense of all relations. These
> non-relations are the non-mathematical objects and they (or at least some
> of them) may be the qualities of consciousness (qualia) - because (1) they
> have an unanalyzable/unstructured nature, and (2) they stand in relations
> to other objects (relations or non-relations) that we call "correlates of
> consciousness".
>
> Tomas
>
"reality contains all mathematical objects"
Ironically, Tegmark doesn't believe that at all. He says infinite
mathematical entities are "ruining physics".
- http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/02/20/infinity-ruining-physics/
The only thing to conclude is that Mad Max published his mathematical
universe hypothesis as a joke!
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis
- pt
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