Lee Smolin's metaphysical principles

Originally Posted by Galteeth

I don't think you guys are disagreeing per ce, you'rem just talking about slightly different concepts.

frA is arguing that the only meaningful laws are those that can be inferred, and that these will not necessarily hold true at all times in all such situations.

vectorcube is saying that you can't do away with the notion of physical laws, perhaps thinking that was what fra was implying.

Originally Posted by vectorcube

In the discussion about modern conception of a multiverse, there would be still be regularities in the level of the multiverse, and that this regularies( we called physical laws) would hold in each individual universe. The question of why the physical law in our universe obtain, would shift to the question of why the regularies, and laws in the multiverse itself obtain. So, as you can see, the ultimate contingent of the world does not become smeller when we opt for a multiverse, but it only shifted the problem up a level.

Originally Posted by Fra

I see your reasoning here and yes there are different versions of realism or structural realism.

But I'll just say that I don't share this reasoning. I see other possibilities. In my view the "shifting" to a larger level (multiverse level) increases the complexity, but if the overall inside view constrains the inferrable regularities, then what happens is that you loose decidability and it limits the configuration space so to speak.

The next step for me, is that get consequences for the expected rational action of any system, and it thus makes a difference to interactions. The way a subsystem behaves (it's action) reflects that some things are undecidable from it's point of view.

I personally think that smolins ideas are not very attractive if you really make the conclusion that there must be a meta law describing the evolution of law or universes. If you take other views, I think the ideas gets more interesting.

This is why I wanted to note that this is not a unquestionable conclusion. As far as I know, Smolin was inconclusive, by my personal view is that there notion of metalaw is even inconsistent with the very spirit here. So either you reject all of it as baloney, which is fine, and alot of people do that, or you make some sense of it, but i think, thinking of metalaw is not the way to make sense of it for me at least.

/Fredrik

Originally Posted by vectorcube

i opt for realist view of law
...
I am a modal realist in philosophy, and i do believe in max tagmark` s level lV multiverse.

Originally Posted by vectorcube

A non-realist view do not give you comprehensibility. If you deny the existence of laws, then what do you have in it`s place?
We use laws all the time to make predictions. What are we left with if you substitute a vague description?

Originally Posted by Fra

Yes, I figured something your view is something like that from your responses. There are other tegermak fans on here as well and I don't want to start yet another argument against it.

As you probably already guessed, I do not share tegemarks reasoning.



I have tried to explain my conceptual position position to other realists on here before. But I definitely have answers to your questions of "what is in it's place" etc, they challange is to provide an argument in a form that is acceptable, from your point of view so to speak, which has proved tricky.

I might comment more later, but not that I do not deny existence of laws, I just claim that from the point of view of something that makes a real difference - the action of a system - the only importance is the inferrable laws, and the inferrable laws are relative to the inference system, and thus observer dependent, and thus evolving with the observer.

Objectivity is simply emergent consensus to the exten possible, in a local group of interacting observers, but there is always a residual disagreement, and this residual disagreement becomes not "relative law" but rather defining the symmetry groups and gauges that are part of describing interactins. Ie. the residual subjectivity is the set of observer frames, and the emergent objectivity is the symmetry transformation that allows for some kind of invariant formulation.

But even this objectivity is evolving, since it's constrained to the inferrability condition.

// Note that I am more radical, or perhasp more definite that smolins idea here, but I share the basic arguments of smolin against timeless law

The predictive power in my view is the fact that the action of such a system, depends on these things. The fact tht a system can not infer a particualr regularity in it's environment, means that systems action is invariant to the choice of regularity.

I think if you insist in tegemarks terms, my objections would amount to insisting that his mathematics is uesless or lacking predictive power unelss the computability and representation capacity is taken into account. Can you even define the say the set of all mathematics? it makes no sense ot me. Also a mathematical system tht isn't computable by a computer at hand (rather than imaginary computers larger than the universe itself) doesn't offer predictive power. The predictive power comes only when you actually complete a computation. Also the computational time is an issue.

With inferrability law, I more or less talk about the constraint on "mathematical regularties" that come from the limtis of complexity of the inside observer.

The size of somebodies brain pretty much sets a limit of what can be comprehended. I think there is an analogy to physical law, to the extent what regularities in the action one system can infere from another system.

Sorry to not have more at the moment. This is a bried motivation only. The ultimate exposition of this in terms of something that is doing real predictions is still owrk in progress in my part. I'm not aware of anyone else either that has more than fragments implemented.

As for Tegemarks resoninng, I would similarly ask how tegemarks idea can help solve open problems in physics, and the unification of QM and GR etc. This is the real question. all this prior to that are just motivation in different directions.

Not sure if that makes anything clearer, probably not

/Fredrik

Originally Posted by vectorcube

You seem to be saying something about transformational group, and observer dependent laws, and a whole bunch of stuff that do not fit to any any coherent view. You need to be more focus, or i can `t say anything. It seems you don` t really have a clear view of what you want at all. From what i can tell, it seem you steal some ideas from the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, paste it with group, and paste it with some vague ideas from smolin. I say this is probable the worst thing i read in this forum. The laws of nature i am talking about are very general, and so, there is not need to say all this things. In fact, the laws i am talking about would so general that any physical law you propose would be an instance. You can imagine a law that is dependent on observers, but that would be a single law.

Originally Posted by vectorcube

The laws of nature i am talking about are very general, and so, there is not need to say all this things. In fact, the laws i am talking about would so general that any physical law you propose would be an instance. You can imagine a law that is dependent on observers, but that would be a single law.

Originally Posted by apeiron

Can you expand on what you mean?

You've reference Lewis and an Ellis lecture on causation, both of whom personally I find pretty weak. Causation would be about the key thing I'm interested in these days, but academic philosophy - Lewis, Kim, Tooley - seems really out of touch with the progress in scientific approaches to causality (though Nozick, with Invariances, was OKish).

.

On observer based approaches to laws, I think the line that Fra and many others (CS Peirce especially) are taking here is that we need to make "observation" somehow the fundamental that we generalise. This seems the natural "fracture line" for making the most sense of reality.

The traditional approach to law, logic, etc, is to push the notion of observers (and meanings, and purposes) outside the model. This is "being objective", but it then makes a mystery of the "subjective" - all that gets routinely left out of the subsequent models.

So many people have tried to start again taking the observer~observed distinction as the basis of a systems view. It actually seems a very principled approach. The task is then to cash it out.

The great advantage I believe is that it aligns epistemology with ontology from the start. Both are developed from the same ground, share the same concepts. I think this gives the approach its extraordinary potential. The mind and the world may operate in basically the same way, so we can model the modeller and also the modelled with one logic, one causality.

Originally Posted by vectorcube

The only guy that i know that takes such a view is paul davis, and he is a physicists.
David chalmers believe "EVERYTHING" has some element of primitive mentality.

This is a pretty random set of responses that convince me you are not that widely read on these issues

Chalmers is nothing like an observer generaliser (he is panpsychic, not pansemiotic). Nozick was taking this approach.

Davies endorses some important systems science tenets, like the need to model top-down causality, but is not yet taking the further step of generalising observers.

Don't make the mistake here that observer = consciousness. One is something particular found only in socialised human brains, the other is so general that it encompasses all possible varieties of observer~observed relationships.

Concerning your own apparent frame of reference, the whole reductionist vs realist debate in recent philosophical approaches to causality is not a useful way to dichotomise the argument.

It is still fixated on atomism and Newtonianism so still conjures up the standard antithetical positions of dualism and platonism.

This is what I object to in Tooley, Lewis, Kim, Chalmers, et al. They are taking up valuable bandwidth in finding ways to preserve stale old thinking. Discussions people were earnestly having in the 1800s that should have long been consigned to the intellectual dustbin.

The fact that you are studying these guys and probably have never even read Peirce is telling.