> On 1 Sep 2019, at 13:57, Philip Thrift <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Sunday, September 1, 2019 at 6:26:17 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >> On 31 Aug 2019, at 16:01, Philip Thrift <[email protected] <javascript:>> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Saturday, August 31, 2019 at 8:18:22 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >>> On 28 Aug 2019, at 07:14, Philip Thrift <[email protected] <>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 11:12:58 PM UTC-5, Alan Grayson wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 10:01:19 PM UTC-6, Philip Thrift wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Tuesday, August 27, 2019 at 5:55:36 PM UTC-5, Bruce wrote: >>> >>> I came across a good article that is apposite to the discussion in this >>> thread. Arnold Neumaier has an article on virtual particles at: >>> >>> https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/ >>> <https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/vacuum-fluctuation-myth/> >>> >>> where he looks at the origin of much of the common mythology surrounding >>> the idea of vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles. People should read >>> this and take the lessons to heart -- all of this mythology arose from >>> well-meaning, but ultimately mis-guided, attempts to explain the mysteries >>> of quantum mechanics to lay people. The result was enduring confusion, that >>> now affects even professional physicists. >>> >>> Bruce >>> >>> >>> >>> Very interesting fellow. Interesting article. I was intrigued reading the >>> link there to his biography of himself being math to applied math ending up >>> in computing and dabbling in physics. Sounded like me! >>> >>> Then >>> >>> Two years after my Ph.D., my formerly atheistic world view changed and I >>> became a Christian. I got convinced that there is a very powerful God >>> <http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/sciandf/eng/arms.html> who created the >>> Universe, who controls what appears to us as chance, and who is interested >>> in each of us individually. I understood (with Galilei, and later Newton >>> and Maxwell) that God had written the book of nature in the language of >>> mathematics. As a result of these insights, one of my life goals became to >>> understand all the important applications of mathematics in other fields of >>> science, engineering, and ordinary life. It is a challenge that keeps me >>> learning all my life. >>> >>> https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/interview-mathematician-physicist-arnold-neumaier/ >>> >>> <https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/interview-mathematician-physicist-arnold-neumaier/> >>> >>> @philipthrift >>> >>> Are you suggesting, maybe tongue in cheek, that his analysis of virtual >>> particles is suspect because he believes in a very powerful God? Do you >>> believe in such a God? AG >>> >>> >>> >>> I've always been an atheistic materialist. I don't know if his "denial" of >>> virtual particles is influenced by his theology or not, but this I know: >>> >>> One physicist says there are Xs. Another physicist says there are no Xs. >>> One or both is BSing. Probably both. >> >> >> I agree that one or both could be wrong. But why insinuate that they are >> BSing? >> >> Also, sometimes, two different theories assert the same thing, but in >> different ways, and that can include the “assumed basic ontology”. Mechanism >> illustrates this completely, as you can take any terms of any >> Turing-complete, without induction, without changing any conclusion about >> the “same” reality. >> >> It is more the relations between the “objects” that counts. In fact, >> eventually it is the relations between the relations which counts, which >> imply the necessity for the mind to invoke the infinite, even if we do not >> “reify” it into the ontology (like with the class of all sets is not a set, >> or that Plotinus Number of the Numbers is not a number, etc.). >> >> Reality is independent of the theories. Different theories can handle well >> different aspect of Reality. Sometimes they can handle well the same aspect >> of Reality, yet in a completely different way, and this usually announce >> fertile marriage between the theories. (Examples in mathematics exist >> between braids and spin statistics, or group and particles theory, of >> topology and algebra, etc). >> >> >> >> >>> >>> The luxury (or fun) of math and even applied math is it doesn't matter if >>> whether you think of the entities of a theory being fictional or not. >> >> OK. >> >> >> >> >>> It is useful or it isn't. (In pure math, useful doesn't quite matter as in >>> applied math.) >> >> >> For someone open to the idea that Reality might be Mathematical, if not >> Arithmetical, if not sigma_1 arithmetical only, the distinction between >> applied and pure mathematics makes no more much sense fundamentally. >> >> It becomes a bit like the difference between artificial and natural, once >> you embed the researcher in the Reality that it researches. So that >> difference is also natural, and indeed almost unavoidable when the universal >> machine develops a big ego, and feel different. >> >> Monism favours that embedding of the “subject” into the “object”. QM without >> collapse is essentially QM + the axiom asserting that the physicists obeys >> to the physical laws. Similarly, with Digital Mechanism, Gödel’s work is an >> embedding of the mathematician in the mathematical reality. >> >> Bruno >> >> >> >> >> >> I just mean when a scientist is BSing in the Feyerabend sense: It's when >> existences or nonexistences of entities of a theory are written or spoken >> about as being reality with the conviction of the Westminster Catechisms. >> >> I've decided that in the matter vs. math debate, to conclude that there is >> no debate, if one just says that a study of math is just a study of matter, >> and nothing more. > > > This will only obscure the difference between math and physics. But those > science does not study the same things. Mathematics studies abstract > relations, which are out of the category of space, time, and physical things. > Physics is a theory of observable predictions. > > With mechanism, physics becomes a very special branch of machine theology, > which is itself a very special branch of mathematical logic (itself a very > special branch of mathematics). > > >> >> >> https://twitter.com/philipthrift/status/1167548170714386433 >> <https://twitter.com/philipthrift/status/1167548170714386433> >> >> .. >> Jussi Jylkkä @JylkkaJussi >> >> It’s partly terminology, why couldn’t it be that pain is a mathematical >> structure. If mathematical things are concrete, then how can we be sure what >> those things are really like? > > > In mathematics (as opposed to metaphysics and theology) we don’t care on the > nature of things. We only reason from axioms that we share on some intuition > that we have. Nobody knows, or even try to know, what is a number, or what is > a set, but we do agree on some of their properties. > > When interested in the nature of things, we still have to accept primary > things and primary laws between those things to account of the “other things”. > > Physics studies the physical reality. > Math studies the mathematical reality. > Metaphysics/theology studies the nature of Reality, and tackle the > fundamental question “Is Reality Mathematical, or Physical, or theological or > mental, etc.” and this without deciding the answer in advance, and trying to > get observable consequences, so that the metaphysics can be improved/refuted. > > It is a just a bad habit that we use dogma in metaphysics (since long). > > The truth is that we don’t know, but there too we can build theories and test > them. > > Somehow, since QM’s foundational problem, physics begin to handle > metaphysical question, and to have to decide (even if momentarily) on some > philosophical principles, like Mechanism (cf Everett) or non Mechanism (cf > Bohr, von Neumann, Wigner, etc.). > > Bruno > > > > > Even if mathematical physics only ranges over a subset of mathematics > > > https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-deconstructed-standard-model-equation > > <https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/the-deconstructed-standard-model-equation> > > > but mathematics by itself can range over all mathematical-fictional worlds, > it is still (so far, until AIs take their place) only human brains that have > fabricated those worlds (in writing!).
Physics does not range on a subset of mathematics. It is not a mathematical structure among all the others. With mechanism, the physical reality emerges from the whole arithmetical reality, in way enforced from the mechanist hypothesis, making it testable (and verified up to now thanks to QM without collapse). Here is an image. You can imagine the entire mathematical reality by the volume of an infinite sphere. The physical reality is the border of that sphere, its surface, as seen from inside the sphere. That surface does not exist (as the shore is supposed to be infinite), but it is still apparent. That is only an image, but it can been made more precise once you understand well the first person indeterminacy. The mind is more like "all computations", and the physical reality is given by a *first person* statistic on the leaves of all (halting) computations. The goal is too explain as many things as possible, and thus assuming as less as possible. As I tend to believe in the existence of my laptop-computer, I am obliged to believe in at least one universal system. We cannot prove the existence of a universal system without assuming one. I use arithmetic because it is the simplest one. Then, with mechanism, I can explain why we cannot assume more than a universal system. It leads to a contradiction, (or redundancy). It is not just that elementary arithmetic explains where the beliefs in real number, analysis and physics come from, it is that with mechanism, there is no other explanation available, and it determines the entire physical realm, so we can test mechanism by comparing it to the physical data and current theories. Bruno > > @philipthrift > > -- > 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] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/fef78245-5b9d-4666-8816-91c3d0e69ae7%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/fef78245-5b9d-4666-8816-91c3d0e69ae7%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/B62520BC-6E1B-4943-923D-6A3588C00ED4%40ulb.ac.be.
