Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis

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As are all metaphysical issues. But we're talking about science, and my understanding is that science limits its relevance to where it holds... i.e. it relies on the repeatability of the observation, and anything that is repeatable can be expressed mathematically, surely?

I would posit that anything that does not fit such a view would fall outside of science, would it not?

Absolutely. I raised this issue of selection bias (?) earlier. However, I think if we're talking specifically about science then it holds.

The principles of science. Repeatability, for example. Is there anything that can be repeated that can not ultimately be expressed in mathematical terms? Sure, if we hop outside of physics then such may not be the case.

What are some of the contentions within the remit of science? Again, just to be clear, at no point am I saying that maths is real. I think we agree that it is descriptive of what is going on.

I am referring to science, to physics (i.e. physical laws) and not to things that might be outside of science. Can you give an example of such a thing that might not lend itself while still being within the remit of science/physics?

Probability is mathematical, though. We can accurately describe the result probability of a perfect dice, can we not? And the inability to predict single occurrences does not mean that the whole is not still perfectly described by the mathematics.

 

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Antimatter was inferred and predicted from formulation, but in terms of human independent existence, antimatter was already there. But (retrospectively) "particle physics" was arguably extended by the former in itself, due to the fact that today we have superstring theory and other quantum gravity enterprises prospering in and influencing the discipline despite no evidence for them.

Tegmark is fundamentally a "parallel universes" buff. Probably has been since adolescence. That includes a "many worlds"[1] interpretation of QM, not just the multiple universes that fall out of one version of cosmological inflation, and so forth. ([1] But sans any version where an observer might still play a role, as in CI)

With respect to philosophy of time, he also favors an eternalism perspective. --> Presentism, the Growing-Past, Eternalism, and the Block-Universe (IEP)

And that's where this fixation with the universe being a "mathematical structure" comes in. A simplistic block-universe model, which is at least amenable to being visualized when stripped of one dimension, cannot accommodate the complex topology of his plural level "multiverse". Though physical, only abstract description could accurately represent his proposal. (The same could be said of what his "bird and frog" allegory of ordinary block time is trying to capture, but despite any imprecision it is again much more convertible to an intuitive "picture".)

The point I'm trying to make here is that because of Tegmark's preference for eternalism, his so-called venture into mathematicism is not compatible with other Platonistic or Pythagorean metaphysical speculations that might regard the universe as a process regulated by some prior-in-rank nomological stratum of mathematical "laws" or "forms" or "generative principles" or whatever. The latter seem to be crouched in a presentism view of time (wherein only our specious "now" is the extent of how the universe exists).

Even when he dabbles in a simulation allegory (like below), it radically departs from the usual simulation buff's conception of computation. There is no literal action or procedural routine of changes taking place where one step appears and is then destroyed/replaced by the next. All the differences or steps of the process co-exist in Tegmark's context.

Max Tegmark: [...] Suppose that our universe is indeed some form of computation. A common misconception in the universe simulation literature is that our physical notion of a one-dimensional time must then necessarily be equated with the step-by-step one-dimensional flow of the computation. I will argue below that if the MUH is correct, then computations do not need to evolve the universe, but merely describe it (defining all its relations).

[...] The temptation to equate time steps with computational steps is understandable, given that both form a one-dimensional sequence where (at least for the non-quantum case) the next step is determined by the current state. However, this temptation stems from an outdated classical description of physics: there is generically no natural and well-defined global time variable in general relativity, and even less so in quantum gravity where time emerges as an approximate semiclassical property of certain “clock” subsystems. Indeed, linking frog perspective time with computer time is unwarranted even within the context of classical physics.

The rate of time flow perceived by an observer in the simulated universe is completely independent of the rate at which a computer runs the simulation. Moreover, as emphasized by Einstein, it is arguably more natural to view our universe not from the frog perspective as a 3-dimensional space where things happen, but from the bird perspective as a 4-dimensional spacetime that merely is.

There should therefore be no need for the computer to compute anything at all — it could simply store all the 4-dimensional data, i.e., encode all properties of the mathematical structure that is our universe. Individual time slices could then be read out sequentially if desired, and the “simulated” world should still feel as real to its inhabitants as in the case where only 3-dimensional data is stored and evolved. In conclusion, the role of the simulating computer is not to compute the history of our universe, but to specify it.

[...] This paper has explored the implications of the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) that our external physical reality is a mathematical structure (a set of abstract entities with relations between them). I have argued that the MUH follows from the external reality hypothesis (ERH) that there exists an external physical reality completely independently of us humans, and that it constitutes the opposite extreme of the Copenhagen interpretation and other “many words interpretations” of physics where human-related notions like observation are fundamental.

In Section III, we discussed the challenge of deriving our perceived everyday view (the “frog’s view”) of our world from the formal description (the “bird’s view”) of the mathematical structure, and argued that although much work remains to be done here, promising first steps include... https://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646/​

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I am impressed with Plato.

Plato

 

Plato himself arguably combined the temporal stances of Heraclitus (proponent of presentism) and Parmenides (proponent of eternalism). The forms of his intelligible world were immutable, but the contigent and ever-changing shapes or configurations of things in the sensible world, that they governed, were not.

But Tegmark does not seem to be endorsing a dualist situation like that. The mathematical structure of his multiverse would embrace all of the incremental developments, each of which human experience would (erroneously) interpret as only briefly existing in a particular moment rather that perpetually co-existing as part of a higher-dimensional assemblage.

A "nomological stratum" like Plato's and possibly others is superfluous for Tegmark's conception, where existence literally is "material" rather than a sequence of temporary, ephemeral states outputted by an other-level process (whether computational or magical). Thus, it does not appear compatible with that particular school or category of speculation.
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Let me check my own reading comprehension here...

AKA - Predetermination?

 

"Predeterminism" would be rubbing shoulders with issues of free will and possibly even theology. I mean, such can arise in philosophy fisticuffs, but that's not Tegmark's provenance for it. And since he advocates a multiverse rather than the "simple" block-time view of one universe, it might be a nightmare sorting out how that affects whatever one's position is on free will.


Paul Davies: Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety - a timescape, analogous to a landscape - with all past and future events located there together .... Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into the present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow. --That Mysterious Flow

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Robert Geroch: "There is no dynamics within space-time itself: nothing ever moves therein; nothing happens; nothing changes. [...] In particular, one does not think of particles as 'moving through' space-time, or as 'following along' their world-lines. Rather, particles are just 'in' space-time, once and for all, and the world-line represents, all at once the complete life history of the particle." --General Relativity from A to B

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Paul Davies: "Peter Lynds's reasonable and widely accepted assertion that the flow of time is an illusion (25 October, p 33) does not imply that time itself is an illusion. It is perfectly meaningful to state that two events may be separated by a certain duration, while denying that time mysteriously flows from one event to the other. Crick compares our perception of time to that of space. Quite right. Space does not flow either, but it's still 'there'." --New Scientist, 6 December 2003, Sec. Letters

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Why the Flow of Time Is an Illusion
https://nautil.us/why-the-flow-of-time-is-an-illusion-237380/

INTRO: In his book Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, Max Tegmark writes that “time is not an illusion, but the flow of time is.” In this month’s issue of Nautilus, which looks at the concept of flow through various portals in science, we revisited our 2014 video interview with Tegmark.

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Hermann Weyl: "The objective world simply IS, it does not HAPPEN. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the life line [worldline] of my body, does a certain section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time." --Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science
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I would go further in two respects: one, there is no probability about it. They will. And two, the description will be as perfect as the understanding. If we ever understand it absolutely, the maths will describe it absolutely.

I would contend that this would place such things outside of science. I have no issue that there are such things that maths will not be able to describe, but they will be outside of science. Sure, this is my current belief, as far as it goes, and always happy to consider contradictory evidence.

Proof? Nah, this is science.

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Again, I'm not saying everything. There are things outside of science where this will not be the case - or at least the mathematics will only take one so far for such things.

Sure it could. Science can provide the mechanistic reasons, but not the experience itself, for example. They will remain outside of science, would they not?

Yes, the perfect dice is abstract, but the point is that if you understand something exactly then, even if the underlying nature of the universe is probabilistic (as we currently understand it to be) then this is still covered by the mathematics.

Sure, the close approximation serves for practical reasons. No dispute. But don't confuse practicality due to complexity with the principle.

I disagree. If something is inherently probabilistic then it is perfect to describe it as such, along with the various outcomes and likelihoods thereof.

Anyhoo - with regard Tegmark's MUH I don't think we're starting from too different a place.

 

The paper is all over the place, I will put some pointers and objections down you can have a look at. There is a lot I do not understand but seeing as he covered everything from mathematical formalism, Albert Einstein, Dirac, Wigner to Hawking that is not too surprising.
I also realised it was published in 1997 so 26 years ago, the book was published in 2014. Is there much in terms of follow ups? The paper itself has citations from his body of published papers, less than some more than others. I will give some info on that so you can get an idea of impact. I am with Woit at the moment although I admit I am not perfectly positioned to judge, only to my own abilities. I'll feedback.

 

Not that I really understand what Tegmark is saying, but it sounds more like philosophy than physics to me.

 

Exactly. Though he's using some affairs of physics as a diving board, it's a metaphysical proposal. That's why it's here, or alternatively could have been placed in philosophy (if the thread wasn't so wildly straying).
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“Reality is nothing but a mathematical structure, literally”

Tegmark, Wolfram and Conway are 100% correct( in principle) because my theory "quantum statistical automata" proves it.


Reality exists hence we say it is true. But what is really true besides that more than anything else which we can really trust, it is mathematical facts. So, to my mind I connect both since both seem to be a statement of truth. So I took a guess that reality is something akin to a circle (truth). The relations between the points give you a mathematical structure whereby you get PI which defines the structure of the circle.

the structure that leads to our reality is random numbers and certain unavoidable relations(and only possible ones) between them. that is all. It is the most generalized structure possible.

The system (I will not use the word model although you could with some caution) seems to mimic reality by exposing some of the very important essential features of Schrodinger equation, Dirac equation, QFT and Gravity! But only certain essential features of these theories, probably some heavy work and more elaborate simulations needed to map to the standard physics.

On the other hand the system exposes features of reality that standard physics is simply in no position to do so. Particularly, the Lagrangian of the system falls out from the simulation and you get the values of charge, mass, c, h_bar and other values, even the Fine Structure Constant. Not to mention the beautiful unified picture of space (its points are the crossing of the lines-dynamic-), time(change of state-does not actually exist-), mass, charge, and energy.

The other really big result which I obtain is the essence of Dirac equation included the notorious non-locality. When I try to simulate the 2D situation, I am forced to restrict my line throwing activity to only lines that can go between particles directly so as to keep the invariance of quantities calculated in case the frame is rotated. And Wala, I get two particles to interact through their width in the second axis and it does not matter if each is on the other side of the universe, they are both linked!!!! When I calculate spin (what I believe to be) one is up the other down.

Also I obtain gravity from the same system. I also have new simulation where I extract fine structure constant which I have not shown in my website yet. All simulations are written in JavaScript which you can run and modify. Some newer results like the electron proton ratio is also not implemented in the website.

https://www.reality-theory.net/index.htm
https://forums.fqxi.org/d/2451-real...hematical-structure-literally-by-adel-h-sadeq

 

Have you published in a scientific journal?

 

Yes, I am still around and yes I have continued developing the idea on and off mostly related to contests of FQXI. FQXI is an organization with members that belong to who's who in the Theoretical Physics community of scientists, and they have contests with different themes from time to time in which I have participated in most of them. Once the contests are announced I restart my work to develop an idea which has been brewed in my head but the contests forces me to start simulating and testing the idea to see if it has any merit or results. BTW, you can get( they accept) the craziest essays in FQXI's contest papers, so don't feel discouraged by what you get here

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I knew I had posted on on this forum before but took sometime to find it since you have alternative and pseudoscience. and it was late. But I just wanted to get a flavored answer to the MUH question.

If you want I can restart a thread and do my best to answer but my problem now is that I am a bit busy but I will do my best. Few months ago I started an idea which I believe it will finally extract Fine structure constant and the proton-electron mass ratio since I have deduced the simple formula that links both from my idea(theory!!). I have done that on google cloud with more that 32 vcpu but the work was stopped even though I was close, the main issue is the quality of the PRNG and the number of iterations. is a quite complicated issue (since my system is purely based on simulation) which is separate from the physics issue.

M_p/M_e= (27/2)*(1/(alpha) -1) -1/3 = 1836.152654. of course alpha =.007297352568 fine structure constant

 

No, because I feel I need more results and I doubt they will accept it since it is not a mainstream. Although it is easy to publish in open journals. But anyway I am interested in seeing more results from my idea than publishing. there are a lot things I need to show like what is exactly a photon and higher multiple electron systems and such.

 

More results? What results have you got so far?

 

By the way, over the years I have finally figured how to get gravity and special relativity to pop out of the system automatically. The simulations are now in the website programs which are based on JavaScript and are modifiable.

 

See my previous post. they are in the program simulation section.

https://www.reality-theory.net/a.htm