Math is one attempt among many to describe the universe.

Okay, you have failed to support your contention that the success of science implies that "mathematics and the material universe are inextricably related", so I reject that claim.
Nevertheless, were you able to support that claim, it's difficult to see how that would be consistent with the title of this thread. It would mean that mathematics is essentially correct, as a description, by virtue of direct correspondence. It short, your thread title would seem to have been a mistake and your actual meaning to be 'mathematics is the only successful attempt, while there are many other unsuccessful attempts, to describe the universe'. But if that's what you meant, why all the cloak and dagger procrastinating?

 

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Well mathematics is far far more than measurement, and the use of mathematics in science goes far beyond using it as a framework for measurement. The fact that mathematics can be used to describe reality is both surprising (in the sense that it is not self-evident) and significant. Why should an abstract arbitrary set of procedures (a mathematics starts with a set of axioms and rules and is the set of all true propositions that are well formed statements) yield theorems that have connection to external reality? Another way of asking this question is why is external reality capable of being described by mathematics? There is no a priori reason why this should be so.

It is one of the greatest wonders of the universe to me that it is so, not just superficially, say with the correspondence between counting objects and the natural numbers, but with much subtler and complicated matters. The fact that the gravitational influence of one body on another can be described in straightforward mathematical terms and yet the use of that very simple expression in conjunction with the calculus is capable of describing any number of natural phenomena to a high degree of precision is astonishing. Why should gravity go as the inverse square of distance - why not to the -3.765402 power, or a different relationship in the UK and the USA or something on Fridays and something else on Sundays; or something entirely disorganised, unintelligible and undescribable?

Physics is rife with cases where an abstract mathematics was developed and where some years or decades later physicists found that it could be used to describe some aspect of reality. Examples abound from complex numbers to non-Euclidean geometries, symmetry groups and quaternions. This is a matter for wonder.

 

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1) you have still to explain what you mean by "mathematics and the material universe are inextricably related"
2) you are still asking me questions, not giving me logical structures which imply your claim
3) you are still describing your psychological justification for a belief.

In a word, you're hand waving. I have years of experience with posters on internet fora making claims which they cant substantiate. I have asked you to explicate what you mean by "mathematics and the material universe are inextricably related", you have had ample chance to do so. Experience strongly suggests that the reason you haven't done so is that you have no clear meaning in mind. If there were an implication that you could demonstrate, this could have been done as soon as I asked for it, so I assume that there is no such implication of which you're aware.
All I've got so far is that you have some weird belief that you cant clearly communicate and that you're awestruck, either in accord with or tangential to this belief. But so what? Why should I or anyone else give a shit? In fact, I still have no idea of what this thread is for, other than for you to state that you're gobsmacked by the fact that maths is useful.

 

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Max Tegmark has theorized the ultimate ensemble theory, whereby he postulates: All structures that exist mathematically also exist physically.

His theory is a form of radical Platonism where some mathematical universes are complex enough to contain self aware entities that perceive themselves to be existing in a real physical world.

That does raise the question about math and reality. Why and how is math so useful for modeling the actual world?

 

"Why and how is math so useful for modeling the actual world?"

Humorous answer --> . . . Let's see. . . h-h-h-m-m-m . . . let me "count" the ways!

 

Compare classical, constructive and inconsistent mathematics. Each uses a different logic from the others and within each there are structures which dont exist in the others. (Though this might depend on what Tegmark has in mind when he says "structure".) There is no non-circular way to decide, within mathematics, which of these three is correct or true. So although it's easy to say things like "all structures that exist mathematically also exist physically", it's not at all clear that such assertions even make sense.

 

Tegmark does not include inconsistent mathematics in his definition of the ultimate ensemble theory and the MUH.

 

How does he justify that decision?

 

I will search for the links when I have completed 20 posts

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In the wikipedia article for "Mathematical Universe Hypothesis" Tegmark appears to use the definition of mathematical structure from model theory:


"The notion of a mathematical structure is rigorously defined in any book on Model Theory", and that non-human mathematics would only differ from our own "because we are uncovering a different part of what is in fact a consistent and unified picture, so math is converging in this sense."

 

I dont see how that justifies arbitrarily excluding inconsistent maths, and it doesn't make things any clearer as to what it is that he proposes has physical existence.
Here's an introduction to model theory, which begins by defining "structure": http://publish.uwo.ca/~jbell/models1.pdf
Any idea of what Tegmark is trying to say?

 

The ultimate ensemble theory

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http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9704009v2.pdf

 

In a footnote on page 6, he states ". . . . inconsistent systems are too trivial to contain SASs. . . . ", which is false and if it weren't, would be circular, as a justification for limiting himself to classical systems. So, I think his thesis fails pretty much from the outset.

 

to describe the Universe , which is physical , can be explained by mathematics to a certain extent

the thing is , is that , mathematics assumes that all the equations are right , a consequence of logical thinking

mathematics is also the consequence of physical things

so mathematics while important , needs the manifestation of physical things to become a ology


meanwhile you can also understand the Universe by visualization of the physical dynamics of as well