On Sunday, October 21, 2018 at 9:28:21 AM UTC-5, Philip Thrift wrote:
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> 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
>>
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> "reality contains all mathematical objects"
>
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> 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/
>
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> 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
>
BTW, on "non-relations [which] are the non-mathematical objects and they
(or at least some of them) may be the qualities of consciousness (qualia)",
that is what I try to address in
https://codicalist.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/experience-processing/
where there is information processing (which is all mathematical
processing) and something else: experience processing.
- pt
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