manifested from what — apokrisis

There is one way to answer this pertinent question. If every physical law is computable, then we can recreate reality (on a much smaller scale) here on earth...

And Godel's Incompleteness Theorem certainly comes into play here. How? Still working on it...

Once we get to the cosmic scale, then things turn mathematical. We can start looking for the inescapable truths of symmetry and symmetry breaking. That - as ontic structural realism now realises - becomes the larger context that restricts physical possibility in rather radical fashion. — apokrisis

Isn't that switching categories though? If we put a thing into a context of other things, to validate its existence, isn't it a category error to attempt to validate a thing's existence by putting it into a mathematical context? In other words, mathematics cannot validate a thing's existence, because it cannot give the thing context, because there is a categorical separation between physical things and mathematics.

Do I believe in the existence of a parallel universe and Many Worlds?

Sometimes I wonder if this world exists, and is for real. And if it is real, what kind of reality does it have that isn't shifting faster than it can be seen, let alone understood.
(Well maybe not exactly... It's an exaggeration, but only slightly. Occasionally, i feel sympathy with the familiar quote from the Buddha, on how to view the world:

As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space / an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble / a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightening / view all created things like this.)

Very interesting thread though. Thanks to all. Carry on!

....there is a categorical separation between physical things and mathematics. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you want to defend this particular categorical separation, go right ahead.

My point is that you can only do it via some kind of dichotomistic "othering". You will only have a metaphysically strong argument if you can describe the situation in terms of some mutually exclusive/jointly exhaustive pairing.

And so it is the kind of separation that in fact encodes a co-dependency. Each needs the other as the negation which underpins its own affirmation. And thus really any categorical separation is merely towards complementary limits. It becomes the disunity of a symmetry breaking which reveals the existence of a unitary symmetry.

So in this case, the maths stands for the eternally abstract. Which in turn means that "physical things" get reduced to the most impermanent notion of materiality - dimensionless fluctuations.

The argument is familiar to you. The proper opposition is not between substances (actual physical things) and (immaterial) ideas, It is between (physically general) potential - prime matter or Apeiron - and (mathematically general) forms.

The categorical separation I actually make - using systems jargon - is between constraints and freedoms. And then that separation in fact gets triadic or hierarchical development. That is how we end up with the hylomorphic "sandwich" of possibility, actuality and necessity.

So in the beginning there is just vagueness - the perfect symmetry of the ultimately indeterminate.

Then this gets broken. Constraints are habits or regularities - historically developed information - that break the raw symmetry and start to organise it.

But then constraints themselves encounter limits. Eventually you end up with the simplest state - like the U1 spin symmetry of electromagnetism. The symmetry of a circle. And where you get crisp symmetry emerging in that fashion, you get the baked-in freedoms of reality. You get the inertial degrees of freedom due to conservation laws as described by Noether's theorem.

Newtonian mechanics are the result of the emergent irreducibility of the freedom to move inertially in terms of translational and rotational symmetries. Relativity arises because Lorentzian symmetry is baked in for boosts or changes in energy scale.

So we have a "mathematical physics" that already tells its own story in terms of a triadic evolution. It all begins with "naked quantum chaos" - a perfectly vague symmetry of unbounded fluctuation. This symmetry is then broken by the emergence of spacetime - a Big Bang universe where dimensionality is reduced to just three global spatial directions, and filled by a cooling/expanding bath of radiation that gives everything an irreversible, symmetry-broken, direction in time.

But then as time develops, further more crisp symmetries, and thus symmetry-breakings, can manifest. The Universe gets cold and large enough for "massive particles" like protons and electrons to condense out of the radiation. We finally start to get the substantial classical things that you want to take for granted. That kind of stuff starts to pop out of the maths too.

So we already know a lot about how our notions of "maths" and "physical things" have an underlying unity, and how a disunity can evolve as further phase transitions due to cooling/expanding. Eventually things get stably broken because a particle like an electron is the mathematically simplest possible speck of matter. And then in the even longer term, all this matter will get swept up into black holes and radiated away to the coldest possible version of nothingness - the black body quantum sizzle of cosmic event horizons.

I mention all this yet again because this is modern metaphysics. It makes MWI seem the most Micky Mouse kind of philosophical contrivances. MWI nicked some of the maths of thermodynamics, but incorporates none of its deep ontology.

Incompleteness certainly has something to do with it. We know from quantum uncertainty that not every physical situation is measurable. So good luck with the reality of a simulation that can't reproduce classical level detail.

MWI is such a scam in that regard. It wants you to pay attention to physical situations with the simplest binary branch structure - a particle that might freely be spin up or spin down until someone has looked. How neatly the world divides into two.

Yet most emission interactions are wildly open-ended. When a photon is absorbed at point x in spacetime, then that directly creates the vast number of spacetime locales where the event will never occur. At the very least, there is a light cone sized sphere of places - a vast surface - where the said event counterfactually didn't happen.

So rather than two worlds, the simplest (being far less environmentally constrained) emission event would spawn a truly galactic number of alternative world-lines. It is a good job that MWI now uses decoherence's thermal averaging trick to treat this raging variety as differences that don't really make a difference in the big scheme of things.

But there is a basic dishonesty in claiming both wavefunction realism and then finding ways to ignore its full consequences due to the fact that "the observer don't care" about stuff that can be epistemically averaged away as not mattering.

It doesn't matter if a particular light ray from a distant star is absorbed by your eye, or by an eye on Alpha Centauri. Your eye is going to pick up some kind of thermal event from that distant star as it produces so many of them. And yet if we are to believe MWI, every possible version of the events exists as a real superposition. There is almost infinite branching the whole time, but only a select few of these branches - like spin up vs spin down - are treated as "separable". The rest are allowed to blur into an unmentioned bulk on good old epistemic grounds - the principle of observer indifference.

I of course agree with this epistemic view - in reading it from the other side. It is the point that decoherence is about a blanding away of the quantum uncertainty to leave only classical counterfactuality standing proud. We see a world of sharp black and white because grey gets averaged away. And then ultimately - at the quantum scale - there is a limit to this counterfactuality. That is what we are seeing when we ask non-commutating questions of nature like "where exactly are you/how fast and in what direction are you heading?".

So where MWI claims global irresolvability (no collapse), I instead focus on local remnants of irresolvabilty (so all of existence is the product of a relative state of collapse, it is only absolute collapse that is impossible).

And decoherence is a statistical mechanics add-on that lets you calculate the shrinkage of quantum weirdness to it limiting minimum. Yet MWI wants to read the maths the other way round - as a tool for the endless magnification of "real possibilities in superposition".

My point is that you can only do it via some kind of dichotomistic "othering". You will only have a metaphysically strong argument if you can describe the situation in terms of some mutually exclusive/jointly exhaustive pairing.

And so it is the kind of separation that in fact encodes a co-dependency. Each needs the other as the negation which underpins its own affirmation. And thus really any categorical separation is merely towards complementary limits. It becomes the disunity of a symmetry breaking which reveals the existence of a unitary symmetry. — apokrisis

I don't agree with this. A categorical separation is not a distinction of co-dependency or complementary limits. The opposing terms, which describe the limits, hot and cold, big and small, for example, are always within the same category. If we describe two distinct categories with two distinct words, these are not opposing terms of co-dependency or complimentary limits, as you suggest, because those necessarily fall within the same category.

The argument is familiar to you. The proper opposition is not between substances (actual physical things) and (immaterial) ideas, It is between (physically general) potential - prime matter or Apeiron - and (mathematically general) forms. — apokrisis

So here we have a categorical separation, the distinction between matter and form. But notice it is not a "proper opposition", it is not an opposition at all, it is a categorical distinction. The opposition, of being and not-being is contained within the category of form.

The categorical separation I actually make - using systems jargon - is between constraints and freedoms. And then that separation in fact gets triadic or hierarchical development. That is how we end up with the hylomorphic "sandwich" of possibility, actuality and necessity. — apokrisis

But constraints and freedoms are just the two limits of form, they describe the two complimentary limits, and as such, are of the same category.

So in the beginning there is just vagueness - the perfect symmetry of the ultimately indeterminate. — apokrisis

All right, now this is a different category, "vagueness". So we have one category which consists of constraints and freedoms, and another category which consists of vagueness. Have you any principles whereby you establish a relationship between these two categories? Is one prior to the other? It appears like your claim is that vagueness is prior, but how could constraints and freedoms emerge from pure vagueness? That doesn't make sense, there is a categorical separation between these two.

The opposing terms, which describe the limits, hot and cold, big and small, for example, are always within the same category. If we describe two distinct categories with two distinct words, these are not opposing terms of co-dependency or complimentary limits, as you suggest, because those necessarily fall within the same category. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are ignoring the fact that I said the category from which complementary distinctions originate is the third category of vagueness. All categorisation has this triadic (that is, semiotic) organisation in my book ... if not yours.

So we have one category which consists of constraints and freedoms, and another category which consists of vagueness. Have you any principles whereby you establish a relationship between these two categories? — Metaphysician Undercover

I just said that a symmetry breaking must reveal that there was a symmetry to be broken.

And if the breaking produces crisp division, then the originating symmetry must be the "opposite" of that - ie: radical indeterminacy.

So the argument has been supplied.

↪Wayfarer Yet still, you are not saying what you mean by non-physically real.

I may have a take on what Wayfarer is considering, but my terminology might be unpalatable in philosophical terms.

The implication as I see it is that this "probability wave" is an emanation from a portion of reality beyond the recognised membrane of our spacetime manifold. This portion may well have holistic presence as you suggest, perhaps transcendent of space and time, or reflective of such a state.

Personally the way I see it(apologies for the weird language) is as a reality in which space and time as we understand them are constructs, projections, like the two dimensions on a sheet of drawing paper, these are projectedthrough a substrate(again a construct) let's say the pre-noumenon forming a self contained field or membrane, or drawing on the sheet of paper. This is our spacetime manifold, as a holistic whole it exhibits probabilistic points, correlating to the symmetrical patterning of symmetry breaking of the whole(this whole might have fractal tendencies). This could also be viewed as a field or membrane projected between two poles in a pre-electromagnetism.

So as I see it particle physicists are trying to discern the probabilistic points in the projection I refer to, unaware of the pre-noumenon, or the reality in which the projection was constructed. l say constructed because I consider that the projection is an artificial fabrication conceived in a real world in which multifarious forms or species of projection, even fabrication are discussed, generated, and then individually put into practice on ocassion in a fabricated world, our world.

By analogy we are puppets and we are examining the strings which animate us wondering how they come into existence, unaware of the real world in which there is an author, a puppet maker, a stage, a puppet master and an audience. Let's say Punch and Judy.

When one refers to "the apple", that individual is referring to a particular instance of temporal continuity in which the similitude of an apple is of the essence. In order that one can refer to 'the apple", it is necessary that this similitude appears for a duration of time. What constitutes the "existence" of that apple is that this similitude persists through a duration of time. If the similitude seemed to flash upon the scene for a simple yoctosecond of time, then was gone, we could hardly assign "existence" to the apple. "Existence" requires that the described thing has a temporal duration — Metaphysician Undercover

The apple sitting on the table is the same apple that I pick up and take a bite out of a few seconds later. That is what is meant by identity.

It doesn't matter that the apple's atoms may be replaced by other atoms of the same kind over time or that the apple's appearance changes. Those aspects are not what our ordinary notions of identity and existence refer to.

Thank you, I think I understand now. One last question that is on my mind. Does Everettian QM obey causality? And if not what determines the evolution of the wavefunction? — Question

Everettian QM is better than that - it is fully deterministic. i.e. given the state of the system at any time, plus the laws of motion, the state at any other time is determined. This goes for the future, and the past.

The universal wavefunction is static. Here's some experimental evidence to support this view:

https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/quantum-experiment-shows-how-time-emerges-from-entanglement-d5d3dc850933#.t4rlu8hvu

This is an amazingly beautiful and powerful idea - the multiverse is at rest, and because of this it is in an eigenstate of its Hamiltonian. Different times are just special cases of different worlds, related by the laws of physics.

There is one way to answer this pertinent question. If every physical law is computable, then we can recreate reality (on a much smaller scale) here on earth... — Question

We know that every physical law is computable, and that any future law will be too. This is called the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle (not to be confused with the Church-Turing Thesis).

Even a fairly rudimentary quantum computer will have the sheer capacity to simulate billions of visible universes simultaneously. Programming it to do so, is another matter of course.

And Godel's Incompleteness Theorem certainly comes into play here. — Question

Pretty sure it doesn't.

The apple sitting on the table is the same apple that I pick up and take a bite out of a few seconds later. That is what is meant by identity.

It doesn't matter that the apple's atoms may be replaced by other atoms of the same kind over time or that the apple's appearance changes. Those aspects are not what our ordinary notions of identity and existence refer to. — Andrew M

Now my point, Andrew M. Appeals to identity do not support the real existence of the apple. "Identity" claims, asserts, or presupposes existence, but what we need here is the principles by which such a claim of existence is justified. Then we can apply these principles in an attempt to justify the existence of the particle, as an identified existent.

For example, suppose that you eat the apple. We must agree that at some point, the apple no longer exists. What comprises this passage from existence to non-existence of the apple? What distinguishes, or separates its existence from its non-existence. If we claim that it is our ability to identify the apple, as "the apple", which validates the existence of the apple, then we have nothing real, nothing objective here to support our claims of existence, we have only a subjective principle, that if the apple can be identified, it exists. Therefore to support our claims that the identified object, the apple, has real objective existence, we need to look for something real, inherent within the apple, which we can refer to for justification of its claimed existence. That's what Aristotle called the matter.

As implied in my discussion with you already and in my discussion with apokrisis, in modern physics we have switched this principle out. It is no longer assumed that matter, which is inherent within the object, is the principle which justifies the existence of the object. The existence of the object is justified by its relationships to other objects (relativity). That's what I discussed with apokrisis as "context". But then each context itself must be justified so we get a wider and wider context until we end up with the largest context, what apokrisis called the Cosmos.

In simple terms, we have an assumed "world", or "universe", and if the identified object has a valid position within this world, it has context and therefore existence. But the existence of that object is only valid within the context of that assumed world. So I asked apokrisis, what validates the existence of the "Cosmos", or in this case the "world" and the answer was "mathematics".

So here's the problem. The logical system at work here is set up with the premise that the existence of the object is justified if, or, "the object exists if", it has contextual relations with other objects (relativity). So any mathematics used will produce conclusions from this premise. If we desire to assume a "Cosmos", "universe", or "world", to objectify such relationships, and validate the existence of any particular object, that very premise, will not allow that the assumed "world" has existence except in relation to other worlds.

You are ignoring the fact that I said the category from which complementary distinctions originate is the third category of vagueness. All categorisation has this triadic (that is, semiotic) organisation in my book ... if not yours. — apokrisis

Let me get this straight then, you have one mother category "vagueness", and any other category is assumed to exist as a subset of this category.

The apple sitting on the table is the same apple that I pick up and take a bite out of a few seconds later. That is what is meant by identity. — Andrew M

The main contenders are:

1. Everett got it wrong due to my personal inability to comprehend.

2. Everett got it wrong because of my personal incredulity.

3. Everett got it wrong because I personally deny anything in a generic way, including apples.

Or, Everett got it wrong because the 'wave collapse' actually occurs.

Or, Everett got it wrong because the 'wave collapse' actually occurs. — Wayfarer

Do we have to go through Bell's and other associated theorems AGAIN?

Let me get this straight then, you have one mother category "vagueness", and any other category is assumed to exist as a subset of this category. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well yes and no, because vagueness would be the ground state - in being the state "beyond categorisation". And also, in the full semiotic view, categorisation is irreducibly triadic. So there is no ultimate monism - unless you want to talk about the "one thing" of the triadic semiotic relation.

In Peirce's scheme, you have the three categories of firstness, secondness and thirdness that would correspond to my "system" here of vagueness, dichotomisation and hierarchy. That is pure possibility "reacts" against itself and becomes divided towards its crisp polarities. Then having divided, the division can mix over all scales to form a hierarchically structured world.

If say discrete and continuous are the two ultimate ways things could be, then the more definite it becomes that things are categorisable as either discrete or continuous, then also you get all the various in-between states of connectedness, or disconectedness, that go along with that.

I realise that this triadic, three dimensional, approach to categorisation is difficult and unfamiliar. It allows "rotations" through an extra dimension that normal categorisation - based on strict dialectics - fails to see.

So what does that mean? It means you have to remember that the extra dimension is one of development or process that stands orthogonal to the dimension of existence or structure.

So your very words are: "...and any other category is assumed to exist as a subset of this category?". That is you are, for the moment, restricting yourself to a static structural view to the exclusion of the further possible developmental or processual view. And I would reply, yes, vagueness does kind of stand in relation to the crispness of dichotomous categories as "a mother". But then I would want to rotate the view to remind that vagueness is defined itself dichotomously as the dynamical other of crispness. And it is never left behind in the developmental trajectory as development consists of its increasing suppression.

So you are hooked on the need to make some pole of being the ground state - which then stays where it is so a (constructed) movement away from it becomes a possibility. That is how you understand prime matter, for example. You have to start with a concrete stuff that represents efficient cause.

But in my view, vagueness is itself only granted existence in terms of what develops. It is the context of any thing that happens - it is the potential. But then it is only that because something does happen. The results are the context which make vagueness "a thing".

The logic of this would be circular if it weren't in fact hierarchical or triadic. ;)

So the metaphor you want to use here is "the mother and her many possible children". That encodes a forwards in time, unidirectional, efficient causality, with an unrestricted future state. The general begets the particular. The one begets the many.

But that is a truth of a triadic metaphysics seen from just one angle. It is only one cross-section of the whole.

Switching away from the structural/static view to the developmental/dynamical view, we would say the vague begets the dichotomy of the general~particular, or the one~many, the whole~parts. And vagueness is itself - structurally - a subset of the greater relation which is the dichotomy of the vague~crisp. Vagueness is the particular child of that more general parent relationship.

It won't make any difference. The point that always comes up is the fact that Everett's metaphysic implies that the universe 'splits', that each separate outcome is real, that there really are 'many worlds'. Sometimes you will deny it, sometimes you will agree - even spelling the Worlds with a capital W. And this will never end, it the only topic of interest to you, everything you write ends up being about this, David Deutch, the Turing whatever it is, artificial intelligence, the quantum computer which will basically be like God. I don't think you show the least interest in, or knowledge of, the subject of philosophy as such, except insofar as it is related to this subject. So I won't be bothering you again, it's clear that nothing anyone says here is going to make the least difference to your belief system.

As for me, I have realised that to say anything meaningful about physics, requires that one does physics! I have posted on physics forums from time to time, but I think I am going to stop doing that, or saying anything about the subject in future. Life is too short.

So as I see it particle physicists are trying to discern the probabilistic points in the projection I refer to, unaware of the pre-noumenon, or the reality in which the projection was constructed. — Punshhh

It is hard to make sense of your post. But in a general fashion, physics does make use of this kind of "projection from a higher dimension" thinking. For any dynamical system - like some dancing sea of particles - you can step back to a higher level view that sees it as a now frozen mass of vectors or trajectories.

This is the trick that quantum mechanics relies on in invoking an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. There is room enough in Hilbert space for every alternative history. And reality can then be a projection of that frozen realm. If you look through it, you see the average state, the least action sum, that becomes what is most likely to actually happen.

But the ontological issue is whether the mathematical trick is just a mathematical trick or - as MWI might want it - the higher reality is the true reality, and the projection is merely some kind of localised illusion.

You get exactly the same issue arising in frozen block universe notions of time, based on special relativity. Or now with the AdS/CFT correspondence in string theory (where the 3D quantum play of particles is treated as projection of a gravitational string theory that sits on the holographic boundary of this "reality").

My own view of course is that it is simply a mathematical trick. It is how modelling works. And to get carried away by it is mistaking the map for the territory.

But folk find it weird and seductive to believe our physical existence is some kind of projective illusion. It's been a popular point of view ever since Plato and his shadows on the cave wall.

l say constructed because I consider that the projection is an artificial fabrication conceived in a real world in which multifarious forms or species of projection, even fabrication are discussed, generated, and then individually put into practice on ocassion in a fabricated world, our world. — Punshhh

And here you seem to be trying to introduce some mind behind the scenes and directing the action. So you are really stacking up theism on top of the mathematical Platonism. I'd call that doubling down on everything I would disagree with as a natural philosopher and systems thinker here. :)

It won't make any difference. The point that always comes up is the fact that Everett's metaphysic implies that the universe 'splits', that each separate outcome is real, that there really are 'many worlds'. Sometimes you will deny it, sometimes you will agree - even spelling the Worlds with a capital W. And this will never end, it the only topic of interest to you, everything you write ends up being about this, David Deutch, the Turing whatever it is, artificial intelligence, the quantum computer which will basically be like God. I don't think you show the least interest in, or knowledge of, the subject of philosophy as such, except insofar as it is related to this subject. So I won't be bothering you again, it's clear that nothing anyone says here is going to make the least difference to your belief system. — Wayfarer

It seems I must establish a sub-category:

1. Everett got it wrong due to my personal incapacity to comprehend.
1.1 Everett got it even more wrong due to the fact I have been humiliated on a public forum.

I have already covered.

4. Attribution of religion.

Thanks for reminding me though.

Thanks for the new devastating criticisms:

5. Capitalisation of Words. Devastating!

6. Mentioning David Deutsch. Maybe you don't care that I mentioned Wallace, Everett, Schrödinger, Hawking, and implicitly DWitt?

We officially have ad hominem as an argument against Everett!

7. You claim I have no interest in Philosophy. For real!

7. You claim I have no interest in Philosophy. For real! — tom

You must admit that you come across as having the one true interpretation of quantum physics when the interpretation issue is famously wide open. And also you fail to respond to specific challenges concerning the ontic commitments that one might reasonably have even under a broad church view of MWI.

Apologies if that was an ad hominem. Sorry about that, I got carried away by my own rhetoric. I will refrain from such remarks in future.

There is one way to answer this pertinent question. If every physical law is computable, then we can recreate reality (on a much smaller scale) here on earth...
— Question

We know that every physical law is computable, and that any future law will be too. This is called the Church-Turing-Deutsch Principle (not to be confused with the Church-Turing Thesis).

Even a fairly rudimentary quantum computer will have the sheer capacity to simulate billions of visible universes simultaneously. Programming it to do so, is another matter of course.

And Godel's Incompleteness Theorem certainly comes into play here.
— Question

Pretty sure it doesn't. — tom

Let me elaborate my reasoning. Let's say that some sufficiently complex computer of whatever origin is designed to simulate all the physical laws of the universe. Now, keeping Godels Incompleteness Theorem in mind we have a problem of affirming that every outcome of such a computer is determinate. How does a computer of such sort prove its own consistency in modeling deterministic behavior?

Let me elaborate my reasoning. Let's say that some sufficiently complex computer of whatever origin is designed to simulate all the physical laws of the universe. Now, keeping Godels Incompleteness Theorem in mind we have a problem of affirming that every outcome of such a computer is determinate. How does a computer of such sort prove its own consistency in modeling deterministic behavior? — Question

How does science prove anything? It doesn't!

Goldel showed that the overwhelming majority of mathematical truths can't be proved. Not sure why you think that truth is relevant to physics.

It is hard to make sense of your post. But in a general fashion, physics does make use of this kind of "projection from a higher dimension" thinking. For any dynamical system - like some dancing sea of particles - you can step back to a higher level view that sees it as a now frozen mass of vectors or trajectories

Yes, I realise this, but unfortunately, from my perspective, all these other realms are simply reduced to a set of mathematical relations and reification of mathematical and physical casual realities in this world. Rather like in my analogy of the puppet, the quantum physicist puppet, reifies a "higher dimension", constituted of strings, wooden bodies and the plot of the puppet show in which they find themselves. Never once considering that in that higher dimension, there aren't ropes moving wooden bodies and there isn't a plot of a show, but rather an infinite possibility of actions and autonomous biological bodies etc.

This is the trick that quantum mechanics relies on in invoking an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. There is room enough in Hilbert space for every alternative history. And reality can then be a projection of that frozen realm. If you look through it, you see the average state, the least action sum, that becomes what is most likely to actually happen.

Thats all very well, but the blinkers of what we know in this world and the mathematical consistencies we find here, are still being worn. Or in other words we just project what we already know, because we don't know anything else.

But the ontological issue is whether the mathematical trick is just a mathematical trick or - as MWI might want it - the higher reality is the true reality, and the projection is merely some kind of localised illusion.

Or that the true ontology is something else not thought about.

My own view of course is that it is simply a mathematical trick. It is how modelling works. And to get carried away by it is mistaking the map for the territory.

I agree, but we can't know if our world is a localised reflection, localised peculiarity, or the best of all possible worlds. Again we are blinkered.

And here you seem to be trying to introduce some mind behind the scenes and directing the action. So you are really stacking up theism on top of the mathematical Platonism. I'd call that doubling down on everything I would disagree with as a natural philosopher and systems thinker here. :)

.Well that depends on what I mean by mind* and a mathematical Platonism is an oversimplification. I know now your approach and I'm with you in the phrase, natural philosopher and I like these systems ideas. I'm with you all the way with the triadic approach, that's how I think, but I happen to have another world and philosophy of the "ghosts in the machine", which I overlay and integrate within the naturalism.

*for me mind is equivalent to being the way being is used around here. Or the living entity which is hosted, emerges from, the body. But mind is itself viewed as a material(subtle). So this mind you suggest I am introducing behind the scenes is nothing more than another material, operating in the same, in essence, way that the material of science operates. So I refer to a hierarchy of more subtle or higher minds, which are all materials in turn, embracing a hierarchical regression (eternal, not infinite) of materials which each appear as minds in the sphere below in the chain. The ghost in the machine is irrelevant other than in the introduction of agency and purpose into the system( sorry if this is meaningless).

If say discrete and continuous are the two ultimate ways things could be, then the more definite it becomes that things are categorisable as either discrete or continuous, then also you get all the various in-between states of connectedness, or disconectedness, that go along with that. — apokrisis

Your understanding of categorical separation is incompatible with mine. To me, if things are separated categorically, there is no crossing over or in between states, they are separated. Crossing over occurs in differences within the category. This is how I distinguish a categorical separation from a separation of opposition. The separation of opposition occurs within the category, like hot and cold, such that there are degrees of crossing over, in between. If the separation of hot and cold was a categorical separation, they would refer to different types of things, like temperature and size for instance, so there would be no such in between or crossing over.

My question to you, is do you respect that there is such a thing as categorical boundaries? It appears like you do not. You allow vagueness to be the principal, such that it permeates all boundaries, then there is fuzziness, degrees of separation, or in-betweenness even at the boundaries of categorical separations. This entails that the categorical separation becomes a separation of opposites, with degrees in between. In other words, there are no categorical separations. This allows your claim that mathematics permeates all boundaries, because there are no qualitative boundaries, they have been reduced to separations of degree, and these principles allow you to mix apples and oranges.

So take the above quote for example. You mention the separation between discrete and continuous as if it is a categorical separation. But if it were a true categorical separation, it signifies two different types of things, a qualitative difference. There could be no crossing over, such that a particular property of reality is both discrete and continuous, though there might be things which if we failed to understand them well, we wouldn't know which category to place them in.

Now, by saying that there are "various in-between states" you seem to deny that this is really a categorical separation, reducing it to a separation of degree (denying the qualitative separation between apples and oranges to speak metaphorically), such that you can justify your claim that the entire Cosmos exists in a context of mathematics. You have reduced the categorical separation between discrete and continuous to a separation of degree by assuming that there are in between states.

I realise that this triadic, three dimensional, approach to categorisation is difficult and unfamiliar. It allows "rotations" through an extra dimension that normal categorisation - based on strict dialectics - fails to see. — apokrisis

There is no "extra dimension" in your triadic approach, all you have done is reduced the categorical separation which by definition separates two incompatible types of things, to a single category. You are left with two opposing terms, such as hot and cold, with a separation of degrees in between. By redefining the names which dialectically indicate separate categories, to indicate a dichotomy of two opposing terms, rather than a categorical separation, you reduce the two categories to a single category.

But then I would want to rotate the view to remind that vagueness is defined itself dichotomously as the dynamical other of crispness. And it is never left behind in the developmental trajectory as development consists of its increasing suppression. — apokrisis

This indicates that you do this with all categorical separations. Even vagueness, which is the principle by which you dissolve the categorical separation into a separation of degree, itself has an opposing term, such that there is now a vagueness in the categorical separation between vagueness and crispness, then an infinite regress of vagueness is implied.

The logic of this would be circular if it weren't in fact hierarchical or triadic. — apokrisis

Actually, it's an infinite regress.

Well if physics is mathematics manifest in nature, then a computer modeling such a mathematical construct would have to face with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem also? That's at least how I understand the issue.

Well if physics is mathematics manifest in nature, then a computer modeling such a mathematical construct would have to face with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem also? That's at least how I understand the issue. — Question

IF that were the case, then what has Godel have to do with it?

But it's not the case.

IF that were the case, then what has Godel have to do with it?

But it's not the case. — tom

But, that is the case, because any formal system relies on mathematics and logic to rationalize it.

For the matter Tegmark's ultimate dimension of the multiverse is literally mathematics with the wavefunction existing in N dimensions of Hilbert space.

It doesn't require mathematics. But even IF it did, what implication does Godel hold for simulating reality, or any part of it?