Re: Numbers

From: Georges Quénot <Georges.Quenot.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 11:00:15 +0100

John M wrote:
>
> Unfortunately my mailbox did not take more and wrote:
> == message truncated ===

Here follows a copy of the remainder:

...
Last but not least: this view has the advantage that we no
longer have to wonder how it comes that particles follows the
rules, how can a particle influence another particle and so on.
The situation reversed here too. There is no more necessary
magic involved.

This is the last but one speculation. The last one is that our
thinking and consciousness emerge from the operation of matter
(that particles are empty or not). This one is more common even
if not widely accepted. It might be the more puzzling one.
What can be said about it is that what needs to be explained
is not physical existence but the perception of a physical
existence. This is (much) weaker and comes quite easily from
the combination of all the previously mentionned speculations.
Indeed what we perceive comes from the "structures" occuring
from the applications of the rules and the same rules simply
makes what we perceive appear as a physical reality.

Finally, Stephen Hawking compeletely missed the point by asking
"What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes
a universe for them to describe?". He fooled himself just as
if he asked "Who created the world?". Common sense can be very
hard to escape to. There is no need for anything/anybody to
breathe fire into the equations: the fire *is* in the equations.

> > which then you want to assign to the numbers?

I do not understand what you mean here.

> > What I really asked: WHAT is the operator? without one
> > the numbers just 'sit there as numbers.

Not soo sure. The natural numbers jsut sit there bu so do also
the addition and multiplication as operators from NxN into N.
So do also the Hilbert space with all the operations that makes
it an Hilbert space.

> > Numbers do not
> > "decide" to add up or else themselves into complex
> > constructs (including 'ourselves') Do they?

Indeed they do not but who said they did or the needed to?
The addition operator may just sit there with the natural
numbers. The couple that contains the second and the first
also just sit there as a semi-group and so on. Nobody has
to do any operation for that. All the complex constructs
just sit there. The fact that we perceive them as constructs
is related to the way we think of them. We ca exhibit some
relations between them that appear to us as construction
processes but that does not mean that they need us to just
sit there all together.

>> >> SKIP
> > I feel that gap here:
>> >> Finally, it might be that one of the (possibly very) complex
>> >> objects in this world of numbers just happens to host us and
>> >> all that we see.
> >
>> >> But do we need to actually believe in any of these
>> >> speculations?
> >
> > I feel we have a discussion here. Do we just speculate
> > to entertain ourselves with unbelieved ideas, or some
> > of us take it seriously to speak about 'real' ideas?

I asked the question but I did not intend to suggest that
the answer should be "no". I find the above mentionned
speculations and the developments above them quite
entertaining. I am not sure that I am really willing to
believe into them but currently I did not find any better
alternative.

Georges.

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Received on Sat Mar 11 2006 - 05:01:42 PST

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