Your question ought to be addressed to professional philosophers.
Who cares what philosophers think? What of professional mathematicians?
Do professional philosophers ever debate over Tegmark's MUH? Or is it not really on their radar? — Douglas Alan
As I understand modal realism, it doesn’t so much imply that everything is necessary
I also think that the mathematical nature of the universe lends itself very nicely to a panpsychist view of phenomenal consciousness.
If there is existing Philosophical literature that addresses any of this, I would be greatly interested — Douglas Alan
I actually have a degree in Philosophy — Douglas Alan
The mystery of why the contingent facts are what they are reduces simply to which world we happen to be located in. And there's no mystery in that. — Douglas Alan
We're just going to have to disagree on this. For me, it's a Moorean fact that real phenomenal consciousness cannot arise from nothing but pure math. — Douglas Alan
I tried to explain MUH to him after the talk, I was having a hard time until I described it as "radical Platonism". — Douglas Alan
You can add to these the cites for the 2003 paper Parallel Universes, which is perhaps the first publication where he broached the idea (the "mathematical universe" would be what he calls "Level IV universe" in that paper): — SophistiCat
But in my journeys, I haven't noticed many philosophers who champion Modal Realism. — Douglas Alan
As for why MUH would be incompatible with phenomenal consciousness, as I already stated, I believe it to be a category mistake to assert that phenomenal consciousness is purely mathematical. Clearly Tegmark disagrees with me. I suspect, however, that most philosophers would agree with me. — Douglas Alan
Weird, I could swear that that paper was from 2002 or earlier, as I clearly remember referencing it in a college paper I wrote in early 2002. — Pfhorrest
Where can I do that?
Btw, I didn't ask what people's opinions here are. I was trying to ask if anyone knows of any published debate amongst professional philosophers on the subject.
Well, professional philosophers actually work right across the street from where I work, and sometimes I have gone and bugged them. But since they're rather busy, they're often not so chatty. Unless I sit in on a class, which I could do were I feeling very motivated.
They don't actually charge, and I've yet to have one object to letting me sit in on a class for free. In fact, in one class, the professor was even willing to grade my papers, even though I wasn't paying. (Or rather assign the job to his graduate student.)
I suppose I might also write to David Chalmers to ask if he can point me at any literature. He might actually answer me, since I have a Philosophy degree from MIT and wrote a graduate-level term paper on a published critique of his 2Dism. — Douglas Alan
Platonism, (...) separate(s) the mathematical or ideal from the physical, — Pfhorrest
Plato does think they are actually existing, but in some different realm from the physical things that exist in space and time, — Pfhorrest
But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I will describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul. — Phaedrus
As I said, most philosophers would share your reservations about MUH, but not necessarily for that reason (the more common criticisms would be the same ones that are leveled against structural realism). — SophistiCat
Some, like Dennett, just don't accord "phenomenal consciousness" the kind of autonomous metaphysical status that philosophers like Searle, Nagel and Chalmers think it ought to have. — SophistiCat
"Mathematicism" seems to be the usual term used in philosophy circles, so maybe that would get more people's comprehension. — Pfhorrest
And IMO it's more Pythagorean than Platonic, though I've heard it described as "radical Platonism" too. — Pfhorrest
But I don't like that: I'm strongly anti-Platonist, as he separates the ideal from the physical, and debases the physical as not living up to the ideal, while I don't see mathematicism (whether ancient Pythagorean or modern Tegmarkian) as doing that. — Pfhorrest
It's much like how I'm strongly anti-dualist but partial to something like (a more Berkeleyan, not Platonic) idealism, because it doesn't say that the mental is something apart from the physical, but that the physical is subsumed within the mental; — Pfhorrest
Tegmark reduces everything that exists to only the ideal. What can be more ideal than pure math? — Douglas Alan
To me, math is real and it is not ideas. — Douglas Alan
All of math would exist even if there were never any intelligent beings to discover it. — Douglas Alan
To be honest, idealism doesn't really make any sense to me. Not unless we were to stipulate a form where the fundamental building blocks of physical existence are phenomenal or proto-phenomenal, and everything that's "physical" arises directly from that. — Douglas Alan
All of math would exist even if there were never any intelligent beings to discover it. — Douglas Alan
These two statements seem to be in contradiction. — Pfhorrest
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