Jesse Mazer wrote:
> 1Z wrote:
> >
> >The clue is our failure ot observe HP universes,
> >as predicted by Platonic theories.
> >
> >It a theory predicts somethig which is not observed,
> >it is falsified.
>
> But this is a bit of a strawman, because most on this list who subscribe to
> the view that every possible world or observer-moment exists (which is the
> idea that the 'everything' in 'everything-list' is supposed to stand for)
> would argue for some sort of probability measure on worlds/OMs which would
> assign much higher probability to worlds with regular laws than to Harry
> Potter universes.
They *need* that idea, certainly. The success of mathematical MW
theories
depends very much on being able to find a natural, intrinsic
justification for measure.
Physical MW theories are very much on the same side of the fence
as classical single-universe theories. In both cases, "measure" is
extraneous
to what is being measure. In physical MWI, measure is given by
Schrodinger's
equation, which is not justified platonically; it is justified
empirically. In single-world
theories , measure is 1 or 0 -- the Law of the Excluded Middle holds.
> Quantum theory predicts a nonzero probability of Harry
> Potter type events too (a bunch of random atoms could tunnel into the shape
> of a living hippogriff, for example), but our failure to observe such events
> in practice is not a falsification of the theory, since the theory predicts
> they'd be ridiculously improbable and we should not expect to observe such
> events on human timescales.
And mathematical MWI *would* be in the same happy position *if*
it could find a justification for MWI or classical measure.
However, in the absence of a satifactory theory of measure,
no-once can say that the posit of matter, of material existence
is useless. To have material existence is to have non-zero measure,
and vice-versa.
> >You are not going to get anywhere with the
> >UDA until you prove mathematical Platonism, and your
> >argument for that -- AR as you call it --
> >just repeats the same error: the epistemological
> >claim that "the truth -alue of '17 is prime is mind-independent"
> >is confused with the ontological claim "the number of 17 exists
> >separately
> >from us in Plato's heaven".
> But that is really all that philosophers mean by mathematical platonism,
> that mathematical truths are timeless and mind-independent--
nope.
"Platonists about mathematical objects claim that the theorems of our
mathematical theories - sentences like '3 is prime' (a theorem of
arithmetic) and 'There are infinitely many transfinite cardinal
numbers' (a theorem of set theory) - are literally true and that
the only plausible view of such sentences is that they are ABOUT
ABSTRACT OBJECTS "
(emphasis added)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/#4.1
> this is itself
> an ontological claim, not a purely epistemological one.
Quite. Did you mean that the other way around ?
> Few would literally
> imagine some alternate dimension called "Plato's heaven" where platonic
> forms hang out, and which is somehow able to causally interact with our
> brains to produce our ideas about math.
Some do. In any case, if numbers don't exist at all -- even
platonically --
they they cannot even produce the mere appearance of a physical world,
as Bruno requires.
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Received on Tue Jul 11 2006 - 15:07:40 PDT