Georges: please, hgave merci on me! 'my' English is
the 5th of my acquired languages, so to read - and
realize what it stands for - that long a post is
(almost) beyond my mental endurance.
I try to pick some of your remarks as non-conform to
how I feel. Consider please the rest as agreed. (At
least for now - ha ha - which means the <G> I wrote, a
usual WEB-abbreviation for <Grin>.
I will leave those passages of yours which I want to
address and will try to respond to them right there,
in
UNMARKED lines, while your copied text-line carry a >
.
Thanks for taking so much time to respond.
John M
--- Georges Qu�not <Georges.Quenot.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> John M wrote:
> > SKIP
> I don't understand what "on the level" can mean (and
>especially with quotes).
Matching the sophistication of your thoughts I think.
I also implied the thinking 'level' of the
list-topics.
> I think I have the same kind of feeble thinking tool
> as you have. However I am not sure that common sense
>is of much help for questions like "why is there
>something?". Rather it is likely that it would
confuse >us on such topics. It simply did not evolved
for that. >Our common sense is more a handicap than a
good guide >to understand quantum mechanics. The
situation is even >worse here. My common sense also
says that to me. Of >course it does not follows that
nothing (or everythng) >makes sense.
QM is not for me: it is a linear way to perpetrate the
reductionist model of physical sciences in ways not
too approachable for common sense - as you said.
Q-science: IMO (=in my opinion) an extension of the
QM-nightmare.
A physicist once retorted: "I can live with paradoxes"
well, I cannot. I rather rely on MY common sense, even
if it is "not on the level".
I skip older discussion parts about my numberculus,
the 'homunculus' of the numbers' self-activity.
> --(meaning: Georges-text):
> I would not say that. I don't believe that numbers
> are "there" for any purpose. They just are there (or
>exist). But> their existence might be all that we
need >to explain the (perceived) existence of
everything >
>else.
Right you are: not the 'numbers' are there for any
purpose, we use the idea of numbers in our logic for
explanations substituting paradoxes with other ones.
My question: "Are they (numbers) really there?" 0r
they only exist in our sophistication and usage? Do we
ever 'perceive' a counted item in our 1st person
impact? Or we just get percepts and in our view
'number' them?
*
> [JM earlier]:
> > What else must be there to provide such existence
> -
wrong word: it should ask: what else MAY be there...
*
>
> We come here to the hard part of the story. My point
> is that nothing else needs to be there to provide
>such existence (this is a speculation indeed).
>I will try to keep it simple. Let's assume that
>numbers exist (this is a speculation at that point),
Of course they exist: we invented them so they exist.
> not only natural numbers but also real numbers,
> Hilbert spaces and all the "higher level objects"
>that "comes with".
As you said above: "this is speculation indeed".
>
> Let's also consider the possibility that the
> universe in which we live strictly follows some
>"mathematical rules" and that it is completely
>determined by them (this is another speculation).
I don't think this is attributable to English: in all
languages people speak in reverse: The universe (or
whatever Bruno may call it) does not FOLLOW any rules
that humans derive from their ways of thinking -
explaining the (easily misunderstood) observations. We
observe, evaluate (right or wrong) and deduct "rules"
(again right or wrong). As long as they do not bounce
into contradiction, we pride ourselves by "nature is
following our rules". When the tachyons showed higher
speed than 'c' the verdict was "wrong observation",
not a speed exceeding Einstein's assumed limit for
nature.
>
> This is equivalent to say that this universe is
> isomorphic to one of the above mentionned "higher
level objects".
Nice words. Do they mean something?
>
> The last and hard point is that, from a mathematical
> point of view, all the objects that are isomorphic
>one to another are the same mathematical object (just
>as there is only one set of natural numbers, no
matter >how is is built) and, if the universe is
isomorphic to >a mathematical object, it could just be
this
> mathematical object.
I think I can decipher what you wrote (?), firstly:
"from a mathematical point of view" (if not, not).
Isomorphic requires the ONE set of characteristics we
are 'allolwed' to use, while 'nature' is unrestricted.
Then do not miss your "IF" - and 'if not'?
I still do not understand "mathematical object" but
that is the feebleness of my common sense mind.
>
> Let's consider an outrageously simplified view of
> the universe as particles interacting with each
>others according to a set of mathematical laws. The
>mathematical structure of the universe is likely to
be >much more complex than that but the following
might >still be correct when applied to a more complex
>structure.
I don't know about 'particles', they are the figments
of the explanations for ununderstood phenomena. Try to
reduce them into their ingreients: no particle is
left,
unless you call a (hypothetical?) quark a particle. I
"made" macromolecules for 50 years: now I see that
there are no such 'things' - only we assume them for
effects (phenomena?) we think to perceive. No atoms
either. But they have their mathematics.
>
> The problem with the idea that the universe could
> simply be a mathematical object is that our common
>sense strongly suggest that a physical universe has
to >be different from a mathematical object because
there >is to be "something in the particles" to
> "make them real". ...
I skip the rest, this is NOT my way of thinking, so I
do not discuss it here.
>...
>...why should there be some "magical substance"
> inside the particles? Isn't that enough that they
>follow the rules? What more could bring the presence
>of "something else" inside the particles? What the
>idea of an "internal substance" could add to any
>explanation? Isn't this idea just irrational and
>similar to the concept of "soul" in a dualist view?
>Isn't even that a kind of dualism?
I like that a lot, thank you Georges.
Unfortunately my mailbox did not take more and wrote:
== message truncated ===
John
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Received on Fri Mar 10 2006 - 17:41:37 PST