Let us assume Feynman was wrong.

[camboy]

That's an over simplification.

No it isn't.

Read this for a discussion of the many problems with Bohm theory: http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/01/bohmists-segregation-of-primitive-and.html

Oh God - you're a Motl fanboy. Look - you must know that hiding behind Lubos's skirts really is the last refuge of the scoundrel. We all know he simply attacks anything that isn't string theory on principle in such a vicious one-sided way basing his knowledge (it seems) on glancing through poor-quality Wikipedia articles.

In fact his criticisms of pilot-wave theory are all either incorrect, or matters of (loudly expressed) opinion. There was a Ph.D. student (Maaneli) who bravely took him on during some of his earlier anti-Bohm rants and he suggested Lubos might benefit from reading the literature. Sadly the suggestion was not followed.

If, instead, you want a 'discussion of the many problems with Lubos Motl', then read http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html" .

Stealing one of the more relevant quotes on the page:

To paraphrase John Baez, it isn't easy to ignore Lubos, but it is always worth the effort.

 

[dx]

No it isn't.



Oh God - you're a Motl fanboy. Look - you must know that hiding behind Lubos's skirts really is the last refuge of the scoundrel. We all know he simply attacks anything that isn't string theory on principle in such a vicious one-sided way basing his knowledge (it seems) on glancing through poor-quality Wikipedia articles.

In fact his criticisms of pilot-wave theory are all either incorrect, or matters of (loudly expressed) opinion. There was a Ph.D. student (Maaneli) who bravely took him on during some of his earlier anti-Bohm rants and he suggested Lubos might benefit from reading the literature. Sadly the suggestion was not followed.

If, instead, you want a 'discussion of the many problems with Lubos Motl', then read http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/lubo-motl.html" .

Stealing one of the more relevant quotes on the page:

To paraphrase John Baez, it isn't easy to ignore Lubos, but it is always worth the effort.

I don't see any physics in this post.

 

[camboy]

I don't see any physics in this post.

Look - we're trying (admittedly not very successfully) to prevent this turning into a discussion about pilot-wave theory. What do you want me to do? - go through Lubos's voluminous anti-Bohm posts and pick out one by one all the errors, misunderstandings, and distortions and explain them. I didn't think so. I don't have the time to write such a post, and you don't have the time to read it. If you have an actual physics issue you want to raise, please feel free to do so.

And I think it's a bit rich of you to say that - for the first time if you look back - there is no physics in my last post. The post from you that I was responding to says 'that's an over-simplification' (with no physics argument to say why you think this) and - effectively - 'Lubos Motl doesn't like it' (a content-free assertion of authority). In fact now I come to think of it almost all your contributions to this thread have been along the lines of 'not everyone agrees with it' and in fact, whilst continually criticizing pilot-wave theorists you haven't come with an argument of your own at all to state why you don't like it. Do you actually understand what it is or am I missing something?

 

[dx]

And I think it's a bit rich of you to say that - for the first time if you look back - there is no physics in my last post. The post from you that I was responding to says 'that's an over-simplification' (with no physics argument to say why you think this) and - effectively - 'Lubos Motl doesn't like it' (a content-free assertion of authority).

I didn't just say "Lubos Motl doesn't like it". I gave you a link to a page where he gives his reasons.

In fact now I come to think of it almost all your contributions to this thread have been along the lines of 'not everyone agrees with it'

Yes, and that was the only contribution I intended to make, before you started creating straw men.

and in fact, whilst continually criticizing pilot-wave theorists you haven't come with an argument of your own at all to state why you don't like it.

I explicitly stated in my original reply that I don't want to get into a discussion of pilot-wave theory, and all I was saying was that not everyone agrees with it. That was my only point.

 

[camboy]

I didn't just say "Lubos Motl doesn't like it". I gave you a link to a page where he gives his reasons..

..in the form of a loud, confusing, and largely incorrect rant.

I explicitly stated in my original post that I don't want to get into a discussion of pilot-wave theory, and all I was saying was that not everyone agrees with it. That was my only point.

Well indeed - Mr. dx.

Not a very good point though, is it?

 

[Demystifier]

To conclude:
Perhaps what Feynman meant was correct (we shall never know), but what he actually said was clearly wrong, because some people (who are professional physicists by the way) claim that they know a possible mechanism.

 

[Dmitry67]

All you're really saying is that we can never know for certain whether any 'interpretation' we place on mathematics has any bearing on what 'really exists'. This is about as obvious a statement as one can make on the issue. Clearly one can never know this.

The point is - what viewpoint is convenient for understanding the behaviour of the systems we are trying to model mathematically?

Yes and no, there are 2 different things: interpretation and the "machinery". Many, but not all interpretations explicitly describe the machinery behind, like "knowledge of an observer collapses the wavefuction" or "wave guides the particle inside" et cetera. When I hear about the "knowledge of an observer" I always think about the "gigantic tree named Yggdrasil, whose trunk supports Earth" (c) - the example I gave above.

Why "observer's knowledge" is supposed to be less complex object then Yggdrasil or a turtle staying on a whale?

So, why I say that machinery and interpretations are not the same? Because not all who adopt the MWI or "Shut up and calculate" accept Max Tegmark's "Mathematical Universe Hypotesis" (MUH).

So there is a difference from what you say "we can never know for certain whether any 'interpretation' we place on mathematics has any bearing on what 'really exists'" and MUH.

As a MUH proponent I can say that:
1. It is know about not being possible to know for certain what machinery behind is right: it is about an absence of any machinery (except formulas).
2. Physics IS mathematics on the fundamental level, so the there is no difference in principle between the mathematics (adequate to our universe) and "what 'really exists'"

But over and over people ask "what is a wavefunction? what is space made of? are virtual particles real?" trying to discover wheels and rubber bands behind the curtain.

 

[Fra]

Assume Feynman was wrong, please give me a deeper representation of the situation.

I think Feynman was just stating the fact that no one did in fact have a deeper explanation. I think that was correct. That doesn't mean however that this will always be the case.

I can acknowledge my instant ignorance at the same time that I defend my ability to learn.

What you seem to be asking for is a derivation of QM from more basic principles. What more basic principles could there possibly be? By definition basic principles apply to a broad range of situations, and not just a few. And I suppose that the most basic principles that apply to everything are the principles of logic and reason. I don't believe that anyone is going to argue that there is anything in reality that does not comply with reason, is there? So I have to wonder if the laws of physics (QM, in this case) can be derived from logic. If physics could be derived from logic, then that would be the completion of physics. We would no longer be able to question where physics came from since the answer would be that it comes from reason itself, and how do you question that?

I think most sane persons would agree that scientific knowledge doesn't follow deductively from logic. But some people think that the scientific process as well as physical processes itself is to be thought of as inducive information processes.

Not the answer, not even close, but a good start and thought provocations mad enough to be brilliant...

From Inference to Physics, Ariel Caticha
"Entropic dynamics, a program that aims at deriving the laws of physics from standard probabilistic and entropic rules for processing information, is developed further. We calculate the probability for an arbitrary path followed by a system as it moves from given initial to final states. For an appropriately chosen configuration space the path of maximum probability reproduces Newtonian dynamics."
--http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1260

The Information Geometry of Space and Time, Ariel Caticha
" Is the geometry of space a macroscopic manifestation of an underlying microscopic statistical structure? Is geometrodynamics - the theory of gravity - derivable from general principles of inductive inference? Tentative answers are suggested by a model of geometrodynamics based on the statistical concepts of entropy, information geometry, and entropic dynamics. The model shows remarkable similarities with the 3+1 formulation of general relativity. For example, the dynamical degrees of freedom are those that specify the conformal geometry of space; there is a gauge symmetry under 3d diffeomorphisms; there is no reference to an external time; and the theory is time reversible. There is, in adition, a gauge symmetry under scale transformations. I conjecture that under a suitable choice of gauge one can recover the usual notion of a relativistic space-time."
-- http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0508108

In that paper ha raises the idea

"...The connection between physics and nature could, however, be less direct. The laws
of physics could be mere rules for processing information about nature..."

He continuous and develops a tradition from ET Jaynes, the author of the book

Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
-- http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf

He also has a related reasoning in

"Consistency, Amplitudes and Probabilities in Quantum Theory"
-- http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9804012

I do not personally quite like that paper however. His choice of reasoning is not unique IMO, and the complex formalism is imlplicitly assumed.

But Ariels general idea is that the laws of physics doesn't follow from deductive logic, but possibly from inductive reasoning... and I think it's close. Close to the ideas on evolving law in the other thread.

/Fredrik

 

[friend]

I think most sane persons would agree that scientific knowledge doesn't follow deductively from logic.

I see no basis for this statement. Are we going to say at some level of physics that it does not comply with logic? If not, and everything does comply with logic, then everything is actually derived from logic. For otherwise, you have the situation where you stop at some particle or situation saying there is no reason for it. But to say that EVERYTHING is reasonable is equivalent to saying that everything can ultimately be derived from reason.

However, perhaps you meant that general principles do no predict specific event. I would have to agree with that. That seems to be the nature of generality - not to be specific. Even the laws of physics as we presently know them do not predict specific events - like my typing these words right now. They are just as much generalities as logic itself.

But Ariels general idea is that the laws of physics doesn't follow from deductive logic, but possibly from inductive reasoning... and I think it's close. Close to the ideas on evolving law in the other thread.

General principles, however, could predict the probability of specific events. Based on principle alone it might be possible to predict how LIKELY specific events might be. Remember that if it is not possible to deterministically say that a specific event has truly happened or not, then it is not possible to count the frequency of occurances and calculate the probablities. So inductive logic comes from deductive logic.

 

[p764rds]

Check Max Tegmarks "Mathematical Universe"
Just equations, and nothing else.

Yes, and those 'equations' implemented in 1s and 0s, data, numbers, - call it what you like. In a Von Neumann-like machine. We are clever enough to design/model a 3d universe prototype (i.e. a bad one) and with quantum computers a better one until eventually... complete the sentence yourself.

 

[Dmitry67]

Yes, and those 'equations' implemented in 1s and 0s, data, numbers, - call it what you like. In a Von Neumann-like machine. We are clever enough to design/model a 3d universe prototype (i.e. a bad one) and with quantum computers a better one until eventually... complete the sentence yourself.

Again, you are trying to find wheels behind the reality.
'Equations' are not 'implemented'. They just exist.
You don't need any Von Neumann machines for the natural numbers to exist. Natural numbers do not require any underlying substance.

 

[p764rds]

Again, you are trying to find wheels behind the reality.
'Equations' are not 'implemented'. They just exist.
You don't need any Von Neumann machines for the natural numbers to exist. Natural numbers do not require any underlying substance.

A particle made of equations? The 'wheels' for that is a Von-Neumann-like machine in 'information space' outside normal 3 space (which itself is a data creation and does not exist in the normal sense we think about).
There are many physicists who already realize that something like this - or similar - is going on, its just that its not in their daily work schedule, so they suppress it - and who is really interested anyway (apart from us geeky folk with weird ideas)?

 

[Dmitry67]

A particle made of equations?

You still not getting the idea.
The reality is not "made of" equations
The reality is a mathematical system, the reality is equations.

Does Mandelbrot's set need a computer constantly calculate it over and over again to exists? Does number 11 become less prime when no computer is verifying that it is really prime in an infinite loop? Mathematical structures just exist, and then don't need any machines to 'calculate' or 'simulate' them.

 

[benk99nenm312]

Yes, and those 'equations' implemented in 1s and 0s, data, numbers, - call it what you like. In a Von Neumann-like machine. We are clever enough to design/model a 3d universe prototype (i.e. a bad one) and with quantum computers a better one until eventually... complete the sentence yourself.

Since this is a free, argumentative thread, I will share my thoughts accordingly.

This is the same thing people have said for a while now. This is a problem with modern physicists. They think in equations, and they neglect what the equations mean. Eventually, they lose the notion of a picture, or a conceptual idea. Numbers are what we use to represent nature. They are not nature itself.

 

[Fra]

I think most sane persons would agree that scientific knowledge doesn't follow deductively from logic.

I see no basis for this statement.

The most sane persons was a provocative stretch, but the I think it should be clear that the scientific method is not a deductive process.

Of course this is an old philosophical problem, the problem of induction. Popper wanted to turn the scientific method into a deductive one, since he thought induction was not valid. Unfortunately he didn't succeed. He ignored the hypothesis generation, which again is a kind of induction.

Though something further classifications appear and it's called abduction, which is a sort of induction where you try to infere the best causal explanation for observer phenomena.

With scientific knowledge isnt' deduced, but rather induced (or abduced) I mean that the inference of laws and general principles from experiemence is a form of a risky argument, it is not a certain argument.

Popper tried to forget about the induction of hypothesis and instead just focues on the falsification, which he first imagined as deductive, either the prediction matches observations, or it doesn't. Then even that is hard due to uncertainty and experimental error, than he agreed to turn into a probabilistic deduction. Which really is a deductive form of induction. But even that makes no sense IMHO because to make a probabilistic dedcution, ie. make deductions rather than inductions, and assign each deduction a probability, you first have to - from experience - infere a probability space! And again, this is not deductive, is risky arguments.

However, perhaps you meant that general principles do no predict specific event. I would have to agree with that. That seems to be the nature of generality - not to be specific. Even the laws of physics as we presently know them do not predict specific events - like my typing these words right now. They are just as much generalities as logic itself.

I mean both. I mean that general principles do not predict specific event. And you then suggest that it still predicts the probability exactly.

Then I have two issues with that.

- To first make a deduction (from general principles), you have to establish the correctness of the general principles. Usually these are inferred from our experience with nature, which again isn't deductive.

- The next problem is exactly what the significance of probability is, when in certain cases it's obvious that it's practically impossible to repeat the experiment, and in particularly to repeat and collect the data an infinite amount of times to get a certain statistics. In that case, what does probabiliy mean? Usually we can think of it in a bayesian sense, but even that leaves issues, unless you pull out of nowhere a master space.

So inductive logic comes from deductive logic.

I was not too careful about my notion, there are different names around here but I was actually talking about induction as a risky reasoning in general.

You seem to talk about induction here as probabilistic deduction. Given the probabilistic formalism, it's true that it's deductive. But the probabilistic general framework isn't given. It contains implicit assumptions and ergodic hypothesis etc. So in the end, it's still not a foolproof and 100% deductive argument - where back to induction.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

I think the solution to the problem of induction isn't to focus on wether it's valid, it's to descrie what induction IS, and as I see it it's an evolving process, which evolves by induction, but (uncertain) induction, not deductive probabilistic one, because the probabilistic framework contains implicit information that is only induced, not deduced.

So my original comment was that, I think it should be clear that scientific predictions as well as the inferece of physical law from nature are not riskfree processes, thus not deductive.

/Fredrik

 

[dx]

Fra,

Einstein said in one of his essays, "Physics constitutes a logical system, whose basis cannot be distilled, as it were, from experience by an inductive method, but can only be arrived at by free invention. The justification (truth content) of the system rests in the verification of the derived propositions by sense experiences, whereby the relations of the latter to the former can only be comprehended intuitively."

 

[Demystifier]

As a MUH proponent I can say that:
1. It is know about not being possible to know for certain what machinery behind is right: it is about an absence of any machinery (except formulas).
2. Physics IS mathematics on the fundamental level, so the there is no difference in principle between the mathematics (adequate to our universe) and "what 'really exists'"

But over and over people ask "what is a wavefunction? what is space made of? are virtual particles real?" trying to discover wheels and rubber bands behind the curtain.

I like the way you said it.
But let me explain how I view this from the point of view of different interpretations:

Copenhagen: equations AND observers

Many world: equations AND "frogs" who somehow see only a tiny part of the solutions of these equations

Bohm: equations AND some additional equations (that remove the need for observers and frogs)

MUH: equations AND additional equations AND more additional equations AND more and more additional equations ... until you exhaust the infinite set of all possible equations

In particular, MUH contains Bohm as a special case.

 

[Fra]

Fra,

Einstein said in one of his essays, "Physics constitutes a logical system, whose basis cannot be distilled, as it were, from experience by an inductive method, but can only be arrived at by free invention. The justification (truth content) of the system rests in the verification of the derived propositions by sense experiences, whereby the relations of the latter to the former can only be comprehended intuitively."

This seems like a reasonable way of putting it. However, I suggest that the notion of "free invention" and "intuitive comprehension" can be improved and formalised, as a sort of game of risky reasoning and learning by feedback.

Popper considered that the logic of hypothesis generation belongs to pscyhology of scientists brains, and he didn't seem to think further analysis was relevant. Instead he focused on, given a hypothesis, how can it either be falsified or corroborated.

The scientific problem of induction is based on the general almost unquestionable observation, that science infers laws and general principles from experience interacting with nature. The problem is howto describe this process? Popper thought that the inductive description isn't valid, so he came up with the deductive step of falsification, and dismissed the biggest problem to human pscyhology. Not a very satisfactory resolution.

Still, it's correct that induction such as (we've only seen white swans; therefor "there are no white swans in nature") is not a valid or satisfactory universal abstraction; no one would question that. But there is a more sophisticated way of seeing this inference - like a game. And consensus is emergent among players, in an evolving perspective. This takes on to abstract the very core of the problem that some pople dismiss to "free invention" or "human phsycology". After all the human brain is nothing but a physical system, so I don't see how a scientist can accept to dismiss such a crucial problem to "human mind" and then be satisfied.

The more inductive approach however, and in particular the version I am advocating, suggest that there is a very important feedback between the corroboration/falsification tests and the logic by which new hypothesis is generated. So the ambition is higher than than of Popper. As I see it, we are questioning the PHYSICS and the physical basis of hypothesis generation, which when you think of it, is closely related to the physical basis of expectations and information. Here we are close to QM, which suggest that different observers, having different information, have different expectatins and therefore behave differently!

The deductive focus, focuses on falsification (which is the simplest part). The inductive focus, is on how the hypothesis generator evolves (the deep part). Here comes the evolutionary view, as a possible resolution to the scientific problem of induction: Is this induction valid? Well, what doe valid me? IF it means, is it true, then NO. Instead, this is a game, a game we have no choice but to play.

In this context, the various ideas of evolving law and connecting physical interactions with the "laws of inference" (which are obviously evolving, just like physical law) are interesting.

Part of the key is I think that inference is sujbective, and thus attached to a physical observer. The different observers difference in reasoning upon incomplete information, results in disagreements, which in turn results in physical interactions. So there is an idea how to infere and classify physical interactions and phenomenology from classification evolving interacting learning models.

This a new way of reasoning that also comes with a new abstraction of the scientific method. It can even be said to have the ambition to unify the description of a scientific processes, with a physical processes.

The abstraction and simplification used by Popper is very simplistic. It's not "wrong", it's just
too simlpe, and I think we can get even more enlightened by analyzing the parts that Popper dismissed to self organisation of complex systems such as the human brain.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

This isn't to suggest that subatomic particle have "humamn level brains" to reason with. OTOH, what I mean is that the "reasoning" taking place in subatomic physics is pretty much one-2-one with the PHYSICAL processes and interactions that is going on there. This evolving process is the same as the evolving microstructures and how they communicate at this level. This construction would start at the very smallest level, down to the Planck scale or whatever the scale turns out to be.

Like Ariel puts it, mybe the laws of physics governing the interaction of parts of the universe, are simlpy the parts of the universe acting upon incompete information on the others? If that is so, then this route of analysis is likely to bear fruit.

/Fredrik

 

[Ilja]

well, at least there are some good news: I mean, the relatively recent discovery of the Quantum Decoherence. It demonstrated that most or all 'classical' behavior can be derived directly from the 'pure' (interpretation-less) QM

It cannot. Decoherence needs some "decomposition of the universe into systems", which is not part of pure QM. http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:0903.4657"

 

[Dmitry67]

Copenhagen: equations AND observers

Many world: equations AND "frogs" who somehow see only a tiny part of the solutions of these equations

Bohm: equations AND some additional equations (that remove the need for observers and frogs)

MUH: equations AND additional equations AND more additional equations AND more and more additional equations ... until you exhaust the infinite set of all possible equations

I almost agree, except

1. MUH does not imply that the number of equations is limited. It is a well-justified HOPE. In fact, if the number of equations is infinite then MUH would lose all its charm for me.

So your claim (that the number of equations is infinite) is just your thought and not a part of MUH.

2. it does not contradict your description of MWI, but I was not absolutely confinced by MWI before I learned MUH. MUH implies that interpretation must be NULL - it can talk, however, about 'how the observers inside would percieve such universe' - but it does not change the basics.

So, if we forget about the frogs (imagine that in an Universe carbon syntesis was impossible and no life is created, or let's talk about our early universe) then what is left:

Copenhagen: ***FATAL ERROR*** can't not continue without any observers
Many minds: ***FATAL ERROR*** for the same reason
Many world: core QM equations
Bohm: core QM equations AND some additional equations
+ for example Objective collapse theories: core QM equations + objective collapse equations

Thank you for your patience :) Now apply the Occams razor. What is left? :)

So I imply that:
1. MUH + Occam = MWI
2. MWI = Null interpratation (shut up and calculate) + wordy stuff about 'what observers would see' derived from core QM.

 

[Ilja]

Copenhagen: ***FATAL ERROR*** can't not continue without any observers
Many minds: ***FATAL ERROR*** for the same reason
Many world: core QM equations
Bohm: core QM equations AND some additional equations
+ for example Objective collapse theories: core QM equations + objective collapse equations

Thank you for your patience :) Now apply the Occams razor. What is left? :)

So I imply that:
1. MUH + Occam = MWI
2. MWI = Null interpratation (shut up and calculate) + wordy stuff about 'what observers would see' derived from core QM.

Many worlds is core QM equations + unspecified "decomposition into systems" + some strange "containment"-relation between points in Hilbert spaces.

 

[Dmitry67]

Many worlds is core QM equations + unspecified "decomposition into systems" + some strange "containment"-relation between points in Hilbert spaces.

It is true that quantum decoherence is defined in terms of some degrees of freedom system, while that system is arbitrary.

But QD itself is used to define how the 'universe' looks like to that system X. So think about the QD as a function of a system.

If you don't care about the observers, then you don't care about it.

So your claim is true but it is a pure tautologie: to talk about what systems see we need to define systems somehow.

 

[Demystifier]

1. MUH does not imply that the number of equations is limited. It is a well-justified HOPE. In fact, if the number of equations is infinite then MUH would lose all its charm for me.

But according to Tegmark, MUH says that ANY logically consistent mathematical structure exists. There is certainly an infinite number of such structures.

But of course, you don't need to agree with Tegmark.

 

[Dmitry67]

But according to Tegmark, MUH says that ANY logically consistent mathematical structure exists. There is certainly an infinite number of such structures.

Yes, but (I HOPE) the number of equations of our particular Universe is finite

 

[friend]

Fra,

Einstein said in one of his essays, "Physics constitutes a logical system, whose basis cannot be distilled, as it were, from experience by an inductive method, but can only be arrived at by free invention. The justification (truth content) of the system rests in the verification of the derived propositions by sense experiences, whereby the relations of the latter to the former can only be comprehended intuitively."

This is because the scientific method used is to conjure up equations to fit the data collected by experiments. After we have what we think is an adequate equation that predicts the data, we see if we can find more fundamental structure in the equations and assign physical meaning to them. By this process we will never know if we've got the most fundamental theory.

But if a theory can be derived on principle of reason alone, and it results in equations that we are accustomed to, how could anyone object to it? How could they then after deny that physics is derived from logic?

 

[dx]

This is because the scientific method used is to conjure up equations to fit the data collected by experiments. After we have what we think is an adequate equation that predicts the data, we see if we can find more fundamental structure in the equations and assign physical meaning to them. By this process we will never know if we've got the most fundamental theory.

But if a theory can be derived on principle of reason alone, and it results in equations that we are accustomed to, how could anyone object to it? How could they then after deny that physics is derived from logic?

That's not quite what Einstein meant. He was talking about the conceptual foundations of physical theories. Like the concept of force. That is not something that is uniquely determined by experience, but is a creation of the mind.

 

[p764rds]

Since this is a free, argumentative thread, I will share my thoughts accordingly.

This is the same thing people have said for a while now. This is a problem with modern physicists. They think in equations, and they neglect what the equations mean. Eventually, they lose the notion of a picture, or a conceptual idea. Numbers are what we use to represent nature. They are not nature itself.

I am not sure where you are coming from, but IMO numbers are able to implement mathematical equations. For example the computer we are on now is doing all its 'thinking' and data retrieval using numbers (well, binary numbers - 0s and 1s in effect). But the numbers are only the cogs in the machine, as you know.

(I would say that 'nature', and us, are totally in numbers, its just we think its a 3 Dimensional space - I think you do not agree with that though - yet )

 

[benk99nenm312]

I am not sure where you are coming from, but IMO numbers are able to implement mathematical equations. For example the computer we are on now is doing all its 'thinking' and data retrieval using numbers (well, binary numbers - 0s and 1s in effect). But the numbers are only the cogs in the machine, as you know.

(I would say that 'nature', and us, are totally in numbers, its just we think its a 3 Dimensional space - I think you do not agree with that though - yet )

Yet? I'm so very sorry, but you will find that I am one of the most stubborn people on the planet. I do not change my views. I think I actually posted this because I misinterpereted one of the other posts, but since we are on the subject, I will keep going.

You say that nature is totally in numbers. You say that we just think that it is 3 dimensional space. You seem to harbor a view where numbers are the truth, and the concept of space and time is a creation of man. This is flat out wrong. I am very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it is the exact opposite. Numbers are a creation of man, to represent what we see. When we look at the universe at a whole, we don't see a set of equations. We see a star, or a galaxy, that follows laws that we can represent with equations.

If you are not totally convinced, then you will be thinking of QFT, and how it regards particles to be excitations in a field. And by the way, a field is just an equation too. If you look beyond its mathematical interpretation, it is no different from the word ether. Obviously, QFT is not perfect. This tells us that, thankfully, we are not governed completely by numbers. Concepts have to be considered when you deal with physics.

This discussion is a popular one. I'm sorry, but I regard this as a very basic, yet imortant subject. How hard is it to see why I'm right? Is it hard to admit that? Do you really think you are sitting on the number 7? The universe is represented with math. It is not math itself.