Reality is mathematics / Mathematics is reality ?

Is calculation a process?
Newton calculating with astronomical observations, is separate from say, the orbits of planets?

Which is to say, independent of the motion of same?

 

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Three questions
Yes
Yes
Yes

Prey tell if you do NOT consider it a process what would you name it?

If you do not consider it seperate, considering the planets were in orbit long before Newton came along, are you saying Newton's calculations are entwined with the orbits?

Surely all Newton's, as are every other persons observations, seperate from the subject being observed?

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I count two contradictions in one post:

**I should clarify: it is only a contradiction in the way W4U uses it: when he says "the universe functions", he means "it calculates".

He has asserted this many, many times. In fact, it is his central thesis.

 

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Calculate is a transitive verb, which means it is a function, it performs work.

Only to draw a distinction between "intentionally" performing work and passively performing work., i.e processing of information = performing work.
The universe is not just an open space without potential or dynamics. On the contrary, its geometry imposes mathematical potential of many kinds. Moreover the universe is not a static space. Fundamentally it consists of dynamic fields from which physical objects with specific values emerge. This process is mathematical in essence, i.e. abstractly, while enfolded as potential, and unfolded as physical patterns in reality.

I am forced to go to ridiculous lengths to make it clear that my concept of universal values and functions have nothing to do with human symbolic interpretation of observed values (potentials) and functions (information processing).

This is why I stress that the universe does not use numbers per se, but does process values which are translatable by humans into symbolic numbers. And clear proof of consistency of universal mathematical processing functions is obvious in the predictable processing results (products) in strict accordance to specific extant values.

Behold a naturally emergent product from universal carbon mathematics.

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Graphene is an atomic-scale hexagonal lattice made of carbon atoms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

Did humans have anything to do with the emergence of this strict mathematical structure?
Or is this atomic pattern fashioned by a universal processing (function) of specific values?

How about potential universal mathematical templates? A hexagonal pattern is an abstract platonic solid.

And for that matter, why do we speak of Platonic solids, when we speak of ideal abstract patterns? Solids are patterns? Yes, they are (very dense patterns). Just like graphene....

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That's Tegmark as I understand it.

 

Reality is mathematics / Mathematics is reality ?
Reality is Mathematical? Yes, IMO.

(Human)Mathematics is reality? No, IMO. The universe does not function symbolically.

Mathematics - Wikipedia

 

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There are two things about this separation you cite. One is that Newton obviously can't calculate without the observational data, so someone has to do some observing.
So he can't be so independent as to calculate "separately", a thing that depends on observations. The use of separate here means Newton is free to calculate independently, once he has a set of data points.

The other thing is that he wants to derive a formula from the calculations, which explains motion, an explanation which isn't independent from observation either.

But the formula is separated from this motion, because it's not the motion or the observer of motion, it "stands alone" but isn't meaningful without motion or observers. So it isn't separated from either, in a philosophical sense.

 

Imagine a universe without a "wave function".......???

The thing about universal mathematical functions is that without a mathematically permittive/restrictive environment none of this would materialize.

Instead, these mathematical imperatives, such as the wave function, seem to be part of the universal dynamic potentials as long as the dynamics between certain values are in accordance to permitted mathematical functions.

Apparently, the Universal fabric supports these permittive /restrictive functional processes.
And that is the reason why we can describe these processes with our symbolic languages.

 

Agree - observe then calculate - from PREVIOUS known data

But when data does not match observations ummmm
there must be another planet out there

Bingo poor ol Pluto turned up without being observed - never made it onto the subject list

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Never heard of reverse engineering?
Mathematics is the prime tool used to reverse engineer with.

Btw I understand your point and fixation too I might add. It is just that you need to find another word for it.
I have argued in the past for the notion of innate, passive, intuitive universal intelligence. A universe that has evolved intelligently to what it is today. Not by design but purely due to a "sustainability" imperative. (Aka Darwinism)
Our own human intelligence being merely an inferior reflection of that which we observe about ourselves and that which surrounds us.
This doesn't however grant the universe a mathematical (calculation) capacity.

 

The wobble was the observed gravitational anomaly.....the rest was calculus to project the possible mathematical path where the planet could be found.

 

Bohm called it: "insight intelligence". I'm sure he meant a self-referencing system rather than a motivated conscious being.

Absolutely, as gross macro expressions in reality we are no longer able to experience the very smallest values and functions, but our sophisticated brain is able to imitate the self-referential functions of the universe. Turns out that the self-referential insight intelligence is a pseudo-intelligence, symbolically named by us as "Mathematics".

Yes, it does, in fact it must.
Imagine a universe without a wave function and its attendant mathematics?

Or if we deleted the "wavefunction" from every scientific document on earth, would all universal wave functions stop?
Lights out!.....................

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Another fundamental mathematical dynamic aspect of nature: Magnetism

 

So we establish, somewhat tentatively, perhaps intuitively that calculation is a process, it isn't "instantaneous". Humans calculate with observations: the inputs are transformed into an output--the definition of what computation is.

What about communication? Is it a process? It must be--no matter how you encode (the information in) a message, you can't transmit it to a receiver faster than c. The "value" of c is a real number of metres per second (physical units!); propagation is a process, q.e.d. Therefore communication which is based on physical propagation (of some energy), is too.

What about the question then, does the universe communicate? Are there senders and receivers?
We are, but we're also sentient. We can build non-sentient devices that communicate. Does the universe do the equivalent?

Sure, why not?

 

From some recent research, I am getting a feeling that some informational processes happen in a domain which does not recognize spatial dimensions. Entanglement happens there?

In pure chemistry I believe that <--chiralty--> is the physical computational function allowing for building of complex patterns.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)

However, for practical functional information sharing in biological organisms, evolution devised a very efficient nano-scale computer, the microtubule, nature's quantum computer in living organisms. It controls cell division! The absolutely required fundamental computational function in living organisms for cell division and self-replication, a computational function.
The formation of self replicating polymers is a computational function at nano scale.

This remarkable construct can be found in just about every organism imaginable. From single celled paramecium to human brains, the microtubule seems to be a "common denominator" allowing for a host of computational functions.

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https://www.nature.com/scitable/content/microtubules-the-basics-14673338

Note; the illustrated "shrinking microtubule" is responsible for Alzheimer's disease and the resulting diminished mental processing capacity (thinking).

This page may illustrate the remarkable properties of this tiny machine, which resides in all eukaryotic organisms by the millions.

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http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/a/a_12/a_12_m/a_12_m_con/a_12_m_con.html

 

I'll leave Write4U to his mumbo-jumbo, except to point out that chirality is nothing to do with computation of any kind but simply means handedness, as in left handedness or right handedness. From the Greek for hand, χεῖρ.

In some molecules it is possible to arrange the groups bound to a given atom in ways that are mirror images of each other. An example is a carbon atom bound to 4 different substituents. The central atom in such arrangements is known as the chiral centre and the two arrangements are said to be "enantiomers" or "optical isomers" (they tend to rotate the plane of plane-polarised light in opposite directions).

And that's it.

P.S. Diagrams here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry)

 

And very similar to the phenomenon of "polarity" in magnetism. Left likes Right, but does not like Left. Right likes Left, but not Right. Positive likes Negative but not Positive. Negative likes Positive, but not Negative.

But if this is not a random process but is forced by physical potentials, it becomes a form of natural computational function, no?
Is this not what allows the formation of self-replicating polymers, a self-referential computational process?

I come from the perspective that all deterministic Cause <-> Effect processes are a form of natural computational processes. Not so mumbo-jumbo, IMO.......

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The question "does the universe compute?", is apparently offensive somehow to lots of people, in the same frame we have the question "is thermodynamic entropy equivalent to information entropy?", equally irksome.

But some mathematicians and logicians have, ignored, the objections and "done it anyway" in the sense information entropy has quickly been adopted, by cosmologists, by the physical sciences, electronics engineering, . . . It's an accepted paradigm. What we call information always has a physical basis, it must be able to be transmitted "as" energy in some form to qualify.
"In some form" is in the same context as special relativity, where because light propagates at a constant speed in vacuo, energy and mass are equivalent, up to a constant.

Therefore the conjecture is that information and energy are also equivalent, but the equivalence is . . . context-dependent.

 

The universe doesn't calculate, it is merely a permittive condition which allows for mathematical imperatives to function based on inherent physical potentials of objects and fields. Chaos theory allows the formation of Patterns.
Mathematical imperatives are formed by extant compatible potentials, even within a condition of pure chaos.

IMO, the emergent particles from the inflationary plasma, due to the cooling of energetic quanta, is a precise mathematical computational process, resulting in precise atomic structures. The Elements.

We speak of computer printing of physical patterns. Must we ask if this is a unique human endeavor, or is it possible that the universe possesses this ability as well through the probabilistic evolutionary process of rearrangement and refinement of physical patterns and properties over time?

 

Are Universal laws (constants) a natural programming language? I think so. What else is there??????

 

No, physical constants are like limits. For instance, any reasonable device we could call a computer has a thermodynamic limit. Try overclocking your CPU without adding extra cooling.
The speed of light is a limit. Avogadro's constant is a different kind of limit, it isn't bounded by thermalization of that number of particles, but by a number only.

The number of "things" in Avogadro's constant number, if the things are say, carbon atoms (but this needn't be true, you could build a computer with the same number of bits in it), then the limit is bound to the mass of carbon atoms.

But that's it. Avogadro's number is a number of particles (of sand, planets in a large enough galaxy so it has exactly that number, even if we still don't know its value exactly . . .)

As to physical laws, yes you could consider that it's possible to "rewrite" laws of physics so they are like a set of instructions. Laws of composition of instructions a computer then carries out, but of course, natural "computing systems" can "execute instructions" in parallel. Sometimes this looks chaotic.

Actually, in general you get that a lot. Given a "system of particles" in a stable state, and enough time, the system will tend to become unstable.