Re: WHY DOES ANYTHING EXIST

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 15:19:55 +0200

Le 19-mai-05, à 14:24, Patrick Leahy a écrit :

>
> I find this a very odd question to be asked on this list. To me, one
> of the main attractions of the "everything" thesis is that it provides
> the only possible answer to this question. Viz: as Jonathan pointed
> out, mathematical objects are logical necessities, and the thesis (at
> least in Tegmark's formulation) is that physical existence is
> identical to mathematical existance.

You can look at my url for argument that physical existence emerges
from mathematical existence. I have no clues that physical existence
could just be equated to mathematical existence unless you attach
consciousness to individuated bodies, but how?


>
> Despite this attractive feature, I'm fairly sure the thesis is wrong
> (so that there is just no answer to the big WHY?), but that's another
> story.

I can argue that without accepting natural numbers you cannot justify
them. So any theory which does not assumes the natural numbers cannot
be a theory of everything. Once you accept the existence of natural
numbers it is possible to explain how the belief in both math and
physics arises. And with the explicit assumption of Descartes
Mechanism, in a digital form (the computationalist hypothesis), I think
such explanation is unique. Also, it is possible to explain why we
cannot explain where our belief in natural numbers come from.
Sorry for being so short,

Bruno


>
> Paddy Leahy
>
> ======================================================
> Dr J. P. Leahy, University of Manchester,
> Jodrell Bank Observatory, School of Physics & Astronomy,
> Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 9DL, UK
> Tel - +44 1477 572636, Fax - +44 1477 571618
>
>
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Thu May 19 2005 - 09:31:25 PDT

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