I am starting a new thread which begins with some quotes by myself and to continue the conversation with Bruno.
> I figure this is especially of interest because of the references to > Tegmark's works. > From a logician's standpoint, it may be of interest that I show that > there is a structure U such that all structures, regardless of > symbol set, can be elementarily embedded within it. > From a physicist's point of view, at least one who might subscribe > to Tegmark's 4-level hierarchy of parallel universes, a structure > with this property might be of interest under the hypothesis that > reality is a mathematical structure. If we suppose that reality is > something which is all encompassing, then the structure with the > aforementioned property could be said to be all encompassing. > Now that I have this structure in hand, I can try to go further by > looking at the structure from a model-theoretic point of view. This > task to further the investigation will be undertaken soon. > Here is a link http://www.alphaomegadimension.info/media/A_Mathematical_Structure_Isomorphic_to_Reality_ver_5-12_anon.pdf > Any feedback is encouraged, critical or otherwise. [quote] Let us call universe, the ultimate reality. Then I agree with this: if the universe is a mathematical object, then NF is the best tool to attempt a description of that universal object. The universe, when being a mathematical object, has to belong to itself, so we need a theory à-la Quine, instead of the usual Zermelo- Franekek or Von Neuman Bernays Gödel. In that sense it improves the raw description Tegmark makes of level 4. [end quote] "Belong" in the context of the paper is elementary embedding. Since every structure is elementarily embeddable within itself, there is no violation of any kind of foundation axiom and no anti-foundedness assumption is required. Also, the universal set is barely used; what's more important in my paper is the stratified comprehension theorem. The universal set is invoked in any mention of power set such as for relations. It would be nice to say something like the universal set V is what is isomorphic to reality. However, the argument presented entails that a baggage-free complete description of reality (ie, a TOE) is a mathematical structure instead of a mathematical set. Once this "ultimate" structure is found, I think the means to finding it (eg, NFU) are largely irrelevant in the same vain as the Dedekind cut construction of the reals is largely irrelevant when actually dealing with real analysis at least in the sense that Dedekind cuts are rarely mentioned when you do calculus. [quote] Such universal machine cannot know in which computational history she would belong, still less in which mathematical structure she belongs, but below its level of substitution, she belongs to an infinity of universal history (number relations, combinators relation, Horn clause relations) 'competing' in term of a measure of credibility. [end quote] Well if the paper is accurate, she can know that as herself, being a mathematical structure, she is elementarily embeddable within U as argued in the paper. Elementary embedding is not literally belonging as in "is an element of", so I'm not sure if this directly contradicts the hypotheses you are using. However, this statement of yours is not inconsistent with my paper. I would presume that one could say that she is in a sort of intersection of all structures containing (ie elementarily embeddable within) herself, which is the smallest structure she is embeddable within. I know that "intersection" is vague at this point regarding math structures. For example, what is the "intersection" of a lattice structure and the complex number field? It would have something to do with intersecting the universes, functions, and relations involved. [quote] So with mechanism the physical is not something mathematical among the mathematical, it is a very special structure which sums on all mathematical structures is a way specified by computer science and the logic of self-references. It is based on distinction of different internal sel-referential views. [end quote] A major shortcoming of the paper appears to be the lack of explanation for the physical. Then again, this is a description of the level 4 universe, and not lower levels so one would view this as a piece of the puzzle that is meant to complete the picture painted by Tegmark in his works. In truth, it is a house of cards and if the level 4 universe does not fit, then everything in the paper falls apart as then the underlying hypotheses would be false. But that remains to be seen. [quote] Also, I am not convinced by your argument that from the premise "there exists a reality completely independent of us human" it follows that reality is a mathematical structure". You beg the question by identifying a baggage free description with a mathematical structure. A physicalist argues in general that baggage-free description is what him provides: particles, waves, fields, and that mathematics is an approximate language conveying human ideas on those things. Your proof seems to me just a platonist act of faith. [end quote] The human baggage of concepts like particle, waves, and fields are in that these concepts are defined based on observations made by humans, with tools or whatever. Therefore, these concepts are not baggage- free and not consistent with reality being independent of humans, which is an assumption I make. You make a good point in that it is possible that there could be other baggage-free objects out there and thus the conclusion that reality is a mathematical structure would have to be weakened to just the conclusion that a complete description of reality (ie a Toe) is --something-- which is baggage-free. A mathematical structure, being baggage free, is quite a tempting choice for being a description of reality independent of humans due to the generality of what a mathematical structure could be (eg, every group, ring, field, algebra, etc. are mathematical structures). Another weakened alternative is that there are many different complete descriptions of reality and this mathematical structure concept is one of the many. Yet another way to weaken the conclusion is to consistently state that the mathematical structure isn't literally reality but is isomorphic to reality, ie, sharing intrinsic properties. [quote] You miss the importance of the consciousness problem, concerning physics. [end quote] Indeed, the nature of the structure U in the paper is not investigated. The arguments in the paper are regarding a complete description of reality without specifying what that complete description is. The conclusion that reality is isomorphic to a mathematical structure does not depend on which complete description of reality one is referencing. In essence, what that complete description is is bypassed. [quote] Mechanism makes it possible to reduce the mind-body problem to a reduction of physics to number self-reference theory. The splitting of such theory into the deductive and the inductive part of those logics makes it possible to derive a notion of both quanta and qualia. [end quote] It sounds like this number self-reference theory would be connected to a mathematical structure and as such would be elementarily embedded within the U of the paper. Once again, I am reminded that the nature of U isn't investigated which is why the paper is in that sense unfinished. I have some plans as for what to investigate but mostly it will turn into a study of U from a logic standpoint. However, if I can include this reduction you're mentioned, which I have no knowledge of, then that would add much substance to the paper. [quote] Mechanism makes the inference of consistency (a part of consciousness) a key ingredient in the making of the physical realities, which appear to be first person plural sharable computations. [end quote] These computations certainly sound like they involve some mathematical structure such as arithmetic, ie, the structure whose domain is a set of numbers, whose function symbols would include successor, and relation symbol which would reference comparison (eg "less than"). [quote] Mechanism intertwined completely the level 3 and 4, in an highly mathematically structured way. This answers a criticism by Deutch on that kind of everything theory, because mechanism makes physics the mathematical non trivial border of the universal (lobian) person. It makes mechanism testable. And indeed indeterminacy, non locality and non)-clonability are 'easily' derivable. The person, alias any universal system, becomes Löbian when it can prove its own Sigma_1 completeness: it proves p -> Bp for all p Sigma_1, so that Bp -> BBp, B(BB->p)->Bp, etc. Such machine are aware of their incompleteness. I see a reference on incompleteness in your reference, but none in your text. [end quote] I'm trying to understand your notation. Is p a statement and B a predicate something along the lines of "believes"? If that machine can prove p->Bp I take that to mean that it can prove that if a statement is true then it believes that statement. In other words, prove that its own set of beliefs is closed under consequence. Am I right? [quote] Your paper is a nice little paper. I am not a NF expert, so I cannot judge the originality, but I took pleasure reading it, and you have probably reawaken my taste for NF. Nice presentation of first order logic, too. [end quote] Thanks. I am very indebted to you for giving so much feedback. In terms of originality, I am far from an expert and it will be interesting to see what your friend knowledgeable in NF says. In my opinion, there is nothing deep about my paper in terms of the tools I use to get the result. However, I do show the existence of a set consisting of all structures which may be of interest outside physics and the structure U might also be interesting to logicians. Again, I have yet to investigate U, even basic questions like uniqueness. The big hurtle I was shooting for was to answer the question posed by Tegmark: which structure is isomorphic to reality? So what it amounts to is that the nature of reality might be equally impenetrable as the nature of U. I do hope that analyzing U will give insights into the nature of reality. [quote] You might consult the archive of this list, or my url, but assuming mechanism, and even strong weakening of mechanism, entails that you cannot make the physical, nor the mental, a purely mathematical thing, except in a necessarily informal way (mentioning the logician notion of standard model of arithmetic, for example). Both the mental and physical, or the coupling first person/its third person possible computations, emerges from the purely (first order) arithmetical relation existing among numbers, or combinators, or lisp programs. But it only "emerges" from inside, and that inside, including the first person", can never completely self-reflect itself in it completely (which justifies a tree of transfinite progression and diversification, some very deep one like most probably ours). [end quote] But does mechanism imply that physical and mental --can not-- be isomorphic to a mathematical structure, even if it implies they are not literally mathematical structures? [quote] You might improve your theory by addressing concrete problems, like why physics has this shape? why qualia? why quanta? are there really constant in physics? why superposition?, why complex numbers? why dream, why pleasure, why symmetry, why irreversibility (if any?), why suffering, etc. [end quote] These things certain would improve the theory and this is an analysis of the structure U which I haven't done of course, only existence. For such things as physics, dreams, pleasure, symmetry, etc., it would help to prove that they are isomorphic to mathematical structures and perhaps that can be done without elaborating on the nature of those structures. Of course, knowing the full properties of said structures would make the theory more complete. As it stands, the only things I can see to investigate are logic- related and I would love to figure out a way to investigate it with focus not on the logic properties of U but also being on concrete issues like those you mentioned. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
