What is it about woo that upsets you?

iceaura said:
Empirical. Not mathematical. Whether the nonhuman universe has - somewhere, somehow - chosen to describe its operations mathematically is unknown.
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Why should the universe describe anything? All it needs do is function in a fundamental way. Tegmark claims it is all mathematical, and human maths seem to confirm the mathematical nature of natural phenomena.

The new thing this brings to the table is that heretofore every one rejects the notion that the universe itself functions mathematically. To me this sounds like a major qualitative paradigm shift.
No slime mold employs algebraic functions. Those are part of human mathematics.
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The formal descriptions are human. A slime mold merely needs to use algebraic functions, unaware that it does so. But if you do some reading on the slime mold, you will see that this single celled (compound) organism can act in a very precise mathematical manner depending on its hive mind quorum sensing.
To me this is a fascinating aspect how brainless organisms still follow mathematical regularities. Where is that information hidden, stored or encoded? In the spacetime fabric itself? Tegmark says yes and it sounds logical to me.
That hardly means math "doesn't work". Probability theory and chaos theory and so forth are perfectly sound mathematics, and the precision available from quantum theory is the highest we have.
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Yes, and they suggest that mathematical pattern form spontaneous from chaos, albeit in a probabilistic way, which is quite reasonable, being that they emerge and form from chaotic conditions, which are highy sensitive to change.
Livermore, California — One of the unsolved mysteries of contemporary science is how highly organized structures can emerge from the random motion of particles. This applies to many situations ranging from astrophysical objects that extend over millions of light years to the birth of life on Earth.
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The surprising discovery of self-organized electromagnetic fields in counter-streaming ionized gases (also known as plasmas) will give scientists a new way to explore how order emerges from chaos in the cosmos. This breakthrough finding was published online in the journal, Nature Physics on Sept. 30.
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how-order-arises-in-the-cosmos.jpg
Plasmas stream from the top and bottom to form large-scale electromagnetic fields.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-explore-how-order-emerges-from-chaos-in-the-cosmos/

Something mathematical going on here? Are there any natural laws involved or is it just all purely random?
 
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billvon said:
So we create some new math to better describe those things. And that math works - until we find another level where that new math doesn't work. And then we create more.
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But is that not how formal proofs of natural laws are applied? You present it in mathematical form and test it physically until the mathematics of the observed phenomena have been identified and codified. Proof of a naturally occurring universal function or phenomenon? Is this not how Einstein proved light bends in agravitational field, but which was observationally confirmed (proved) much later?
 
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iceaura said:
What you have to explain is why you are calling stuff that does not resemble human mathematics "mathematics".
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A pattern is mathematical in essence and it does not need to resemble a codified number . It just needs to become expressed in a particular way.

Have you seen the beautiful pattern dynamically emerging from a function of 4/3?

Have you heard the sound emerging from the wave harmonics of 4/3? (A "perfect fourth" in just intonation corresponds to a pitch ratio of 4:3)

Did you know that acid rock rhythm is based on 4/3 (4 beats/3 beats)

Did you know that the volume of a sphere is 4/3 of a particular cylinder? (V = 4/3 π r^3)

4/3 is not just a human symbolic number, it is a relative value which becomes expressed in nature in several specific forms.
It is the human codified symbolic representation of the essence, the natural potential contained in a particular relative mathematical value.
 
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Write4U said:
Do you think that these phenomena happen randomly or that their is still an underlying order to these values and functions, as yet unknown to us?
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There is an underlying order to the universe. That is not the same as there being underlying mathematical functions. The functions merely express that order.
But if Tegmark's Mathematical Universe offers nothing new, then why the resistance to the concept?
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I have no issue using math to explain the universe.
 
Write4U said:
There you have it. These phenomena may seem spooky and probabilistic to us, but would it make a difference if we knew they do have a strict ... order to them and it is us who are still lacking knowledge of the mathematics involved.
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Correct. The universe behaves in ways we have yet to model.
Yeah, we're pretty sure it will turn out to have causes and effects.
Saying 'it's math' does not get us any further. It's just as spooky and probabilistic as it was before you put the label on it.

An unknown is still an unknown, saying 'it's gonna be math' doesn't change that.
 
billvon said:
There is an underlying order to the universe. That is not the same as there being underlying mathematical functions. The functions merely express that order.
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That is the famous chicken or the egg problem, no? I submit that the order emerged from the mathematical functions, not the other way around.
I have no issue using math to explain the universe.
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I have no issue with Tegmark proposing that the universe is mathematical in essence.....:)
 
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Write4U said:
Except it turns everything around.
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How?

How would we do things differently? I mean, we already observe phenomena and try to model it using math. And, yes, we assume the universe works in an ordered - and ultimately understandable - way (that is the foundational assumption of science). So what would change?

I wonder, if by spookiness and mysticism, you are targeting more anti-science hobbies like astrology and numerology? I think we can all agree here (except one or two) that astrology, magic and mysticism is to be spurned.
 
Speaking of woo:

https://nypost.com/2019/05/03/nepal-refutes-indias-yeti-claim-says-prints-wear-likely-from-bear/

I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people are hell bent on keeping this ridiculous Big Foot legend alive. What upsets ME about this particular woo story, is that there is a perfectly sound explanation of where the footprints came from, but noooo. We have to offer woo as an alternative. It could be a Yeti. No, it can't! :mad:

Why is woo offered as an alternative in this story???

There's no reason to bring woo into this story, AT ALL.
 
DaveC426913 said:
How?

How would we do things differently? I mean, we already observe phenomena and try to model it using math. And, yes, we assume the universe works in an ordered - and ultimately understandable - way (that is the foundational assumption of science). So what would change?

I wonder, if by spookiness and mysticism, you are targeting more anti-science hobbies like astrology and numerology? I think we can all agree here (except one or two) that astrology, magic and mysticism is to be spurned.
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OK, let me have a stab at the difference. Tegmark changes the concept of a physical universe to a concept of a universe consisting of relative values, information, some of which express themselves as physical patterns, but also as forms of quasi-intelligent consciousness of various kinds.
Tegmark’s approach is to think of consciousness as a state of matter, like a solid, a liquid or a gas. “I conjecture that consciousness can be understood as yet another state of matter. Just as there are many types of liquids, there are many types of consciousness,” he says.
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He goes on to show how the particular properties of consciousness might arise from the physical laws that govern our universe. And he explains how these properties allow physicists to reason about the conditions under which consciousness arises and how we might exploit it to better understand why the world around us appears as it does.
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https://medium.com/the-physics-arxi...r-like-a-solid-a-liquid-or-a-gas-5e7ed624986d

Which would explain the ability of non-brained organism to behave in a quasi-intelligent mathematical manner.

Which also leads us to Hameroff and Penrose.....(wegs, I think you'll like Roger Penrose).


Note that the quantum wave collapse (Bing) is audible on the recording of microtubule activity!
And rather than the mainstream assumption that consciousness causes wave collapse (by observation), quantum wave collapse actually causes consciousness, the Bing.

This is referred to as "Objective Reduction". This my kinda woo......:rolleyes:
http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/roger-penrose-on-why-consciousness-does-not-compute
 
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