We need more discussion of Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis

Moderator note: This thread was split from another one, in which the material that appears in the first 40 or so posts below was off topic. The original thread is here:

Relationship of agnosticism to theist/atheism

I'm not sure who you are thinking of. Which poster here has supported Intelligent Design?

My own view on ID is that it is just regular old biblical creationism trying to masquerade as science. As it happens, my view was shared by a court of law that was asked to decide that issue in the US in 2005 (see Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District). But quite apart from that, there's no good evidence for ID.

On the mathematical universe thing, I think you'll probably find that many people on this forum will accept that the universe shows signs of "mathematical order". If it did not, we'd have a lot of trouble explaining why mathematical models of the universe work so darn well.

I don't know why you add the word "abstract". All mathematics is abstract, isn't it?

I think you might have be confusing opposition to your Tegmarkian religion with opposition to the idea that maths is useful for describing certain aspects of our universe.

Hopefully, I've helped to de-confuse you on this matter. Let me know if you have further questions. Sarkus, of course, might also want to respond, since you addressed him.

 

Write4U:

You seem to be saying that you would like to see more "tolerance" for the idea of "an abstractly mathematically ordered universe" on sciforums.

What would that look like, then? I mean, there's been plenty of discussion here about your ideas about that. Nothing has been censored. You haven't been put off talking about that subject. What more do you want, in the way of "tolerance"?

Are you suggesting that you would prefer it if your skeptics would disappear or all just accept your side of the argument? Is that what "tolerance" means for you?

I assume that "id" is a typo that should be "is".

Who has called Tegmark a charlatan?

Why did you post an off-topic quote that agrees with my point that all mathematics is abstract, and then ask "too much information for you?" Clearly, I was already there long before you started googling to try to find something that agrees with what I wrote.

Too much information for you, maybe? Try to keep up.

I disagree that mathematics is "universally applicable". This is what happens when you try to make a religion out of maths.

You don't remember any of our previous discussions about Tegmark and his mathematical universe claims, now?

Is this memory issue of yours part of the explanation of why you never learn anything from conversations on this forum? Is this why you endlessly repeat the same two or three talking points? You just don't remember what you've discussed previously?

How so?

Not from my end. But I'm trying to help you. I'm glad you're finding it interesting. In an ideal world, I would also like to see some evidence that you have learned something, though.

 

Write4U:

No.

Proof involves, at a minimum, a chain of logical reasoning from accepted premises to a conclusion. Attempts to understand are not proof of anything. But that's probably not what you were trying to say, so let's leave that to one side.

You seem to think that reading a scientific article automatically means that you understand it. But understanding does not automatically follow from the mere reading of a piece of text. Understanding requires a lot more work than that. Understanding means having the capacity to draw appropriate links between ideas. Understanding means having the capacity to generate new ideas from the information one has absorbed. Understanding is often demonstrated by being able to communicate the important aspects of the thing to somebody else, in your own words.

The same goes for "using excerpts". "Using" is a very broad term. If, by "using" you merely mean cutting an excerpt from one place and pasting it to some other place, then sure, you're "using" the excerpt. But that is also a far cry from understanding the content of the excerpted text.

One very important thing to keep in mind when you're trying to demonstrate your understanding of something is relevance. If you are "using an excerpt", there should be a clear connection between the excerpt and the idea you're trying to communicate, or the argument you're trying to advance.

Sadly, most of your cut-and-pasted "excerpts" do nothing at all to support any arguments you want to make. In fact, my observation is that most of your "excerpts" barely get beyond regurgitating simple definitions of scientific terms. And then, after posting such an "excerpt", you often go on to demonstrate that you don't understand even the definition that you have posted - or else that you are unable to draw any relevant connections between the definition and what you were previously trying to discuss or answer.

The problem here, Write4U, is not that readers of your post can't understand what you are saying. Your readers, for the most part, don't need you to cut and paste definitions of basic scientific terms that they already understand. In fact, the only value in such definitions would be if you came to some understanding of their meaning, such that you could then have a useful discussion with the people who already understand them. But you rarely, if any, do any mental processing on the definitions you post.

To take one example at random, consider the mathematical terms "function" and "value". People here have repeatedly tried to school you on the accepted meanings of those words. You have googled those words, and you have cut and pasted your "proofs" of how they are usually defined. And yet, you're still utterly unable to use the words "function" of "value" appropriately, when it comes to writing down your own ideas. Worse still, when anybody tries to correct (once again) your errors of usage of those words, you insist that your incorrect usages are, in fact, appropriate, and to try to support those claims you usually then re-post the basic definitions and claim that you understand them. And so, the cycle repeats. What's missing here is any learning on your part. What's missing is that you never actually reach the point where you understand. All you seem to have is a scrapbook full of miscellaneous words that you string together at random whenever you try to talk about technical topics.

You often claim that all these sources you quote explain your ideas better than you can. It might well be the case that some of your sources explain ideas better than you do, but they aren't your ideas. And almost inevitably, when we drill down even a little into what you write, we almost immediately find that your conceptions of things differ from those of your sources. This is usually because you don't understand what the sources are telling you. And then, annoyingly, you refuse to take action to correct your own specific errors after they are pointed out to you. Instead, you usually try to pretend that you didn't really make a mistake at all, or you try to change the topic to something irrelevant, often by cutting and pasting something unrelated.

Often, there is no need to read the full text of things you "excerpt", because it is clear from the parts you quote that the full text is most likely going to be irrelevant to anything you are arguing for. Often, the parts you quote don't even relate to any argument you're trying to advance. Or else, the full text only contains further explanation of a definition that is already well understood by everybody but you in the conversation.

Science is about more than "jargon". Scientific terms are not just words that are used to keep science as a sort of secret language, to shield the understanding of science from the uninitiated. Scientific terms are defined in precise ways so that we can all be on the same page when we talk about scientific concepts. Clearly, there is no point in having any discussion in which the parties are using the same word to refer to different things; that only makes for confusion and misunderstanding.

As far as using your own words is concerned, that's fine. But if you're going to throw a term like "quasi-intelligent" out there, it stands to reason that you must mean something by it. When you can't explain how "quasi-intelligent" is distinguishable from "intelligent", that begs the question of why you used the term in the first place. As for the word "permittive", which you have used in the context of a "permittive condition", it is not an adjective that exists in regular English. Therefore, if you want to use it, you need to say what you mean by this newly-coined word of yours. If all you mean is "permissive", there's already a word for that; we don't really need a new one. And wouldn't you want to avoid confusion with the word "permittivity", which has a very different meaning in science?

These particular matters were discussed with you previously, of course. But here you are, months later, apparently complaining that people are quibbling about "semantics" and that you should just be able to use words like "quasi-intelligent" and "permittive" without explaining what you mean by them. You're also trying to imply, I think, that the problem is not yours but your readers', because you hold that using those words is, for unexplained reasons, not wrong or obscure. Again, you're unwilling to learn anything from previous discussions, apparently.

Your readers can't access your ideas from somebody else's words. Nobody speaks for you but you. You can, of course, quote somebody else and say "I agree with everything Tegmark says here", or similar, but that's of very limited value if you're unable to demonstrate that you understand what Tegmark said there. Worse, if it turns out that things you say contradict what you quote, then there was no point in posting the quote in the first place; it was just a waste of time for anybody who wanted to know what you thought.

Einstein explained exactly what he meant when he used that term. He could do that because he understood what he meant. He defined his terms clearly for his readers/listeners. When he quoted other people, the quotes were relevant to arguments that he was making. He also used "scientific jargon" in which the meanings of words were the generally-accepted meanings in the communities with which he was communicating. And when he coined new words, he defined them.

 

Write4U:

The claim that your mother loves you is potentially possible, but it's not a scientific claim. Can we consider it?

Not exactly. He does not present his mathematical universe hypothesis explicitly as religion or an article of faith. It's a borderline case, though. The idea itself seems fundamentally flawed in several respects (which we have discussed previously), and yet Tegmark is not shy about spruiking it around. (Not that there's anything wrong with putting ideas out there, per se.)

His hypothesis lacks supporting evidence and might well be unfalsifiable, two features that it shares in common with religions.

Completely irrelevant. Lots of highly credentialled people say lots of very stupid things, from time to time. Being an expert in one field does not make one an expert in any other field, either. There are Nobel prize winners who have lost their shit (sometimes in their later years) and have taken to spruiking for different kinds of pseudoscience and pseudo-religious ideas. It is possible that Tegmark is making an early start on that sort of thing.

Really? Where can I find more information about the basic tenets of the model? Where can I find proposed or actual experimental tests of the model? What particular predictions does the model make that can be compared with the predictions of models that do not invoke a "mathematical universe" hypothesis? How can those be tested? Have they been tested? What were the findings?

Where can I see the maths of this mathematical, scientific model of the universe?

No. My mathematics is not a religion.

 

Write4U:

Didn't we already have that discussion? Please find the thread where you first asked about what the people here think about Tegmark's hypothesis. Read the initial responses there.

If you think these matters haven't been adequately addressed, I would be happy for you to create a new thread restricted to that specific topic. That means no microtubules, no Bohm, etc. Just a discussion about the merits and weaknesses of Tegmark's hypothesis.

If you do want to start such a thread, make sure that in your first post or two you provide:

• a brief summary of what your want to discuss. i.e an explanation of what "Tegmark's hypothesis" says, briefly.
• A brief summary of what you consider to be the merits of Tegmark's hypothesis, and why you think that.
• A brief summary of what you see as the greatest weaknesses of Tegmark's hypothesis. Or, better, a brief summary of the main objections that have been made of the hypothesis by Tegmark's critics.

That will provide a reasonable jumping-off point for the discussion. Don't forget to include the weaknesses. You will need to show that you understand the main objections to the hypothesis, even if you believe it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It looks like you've forgotten the initial discussions we had with you about this. I remember, for example, that I posted a few objections that had more to do with ontology than science, as such, but then again, I'd say that Tegmark's mathematical universe is less a scientific hypothesis than a philosophical thought experiment. Your opinion is obviously different.

Where? Here? I'd suggest that (a) you haven't been paying attention, and (b) it might have something to do with our posting guidelines, which frown on personal insults such as namecalling.

You think? Again, are we talking generally, or here?

Even here, I've seen a lot of theists apparently upset that their religious ideas haven't been given the respect they think they deserve.

I don't see how any of that is relevant to the question of what "tolerance" here, on this forum, you think is lacking.

My question to you was "Who has called Tegmark a charlatan?" Your response doesn't address the question.

All of this is way off-topic in a thread about the relationship of agnosticism to theism. In fact, I might have to move this whole tangential discussion to a different thread.

I told you some of my objections to Tegmark's ideas when you first asked. Please go back, find the relevant thread, and refresh your memory about what I said back then.

So your claim now is that I am in error - I have got something wrong.

Please tell me what I have got "too much wrong", Write4U. Be specific. Point out where I made the mistake.

Of course it does. The concept of God is hugely influential in society. It would be idiotic to ignore it.

I don't know what you're talking about. I have expressed no such preference.

I see. You judge all the comments about the "untenable scientific position" to be devoid of any scientific value, then, do you? Do you have any reasons for reaching that judgment? If so, probably best to discuss them in some other thread.

This appears to be an irrelevant throw-away comment. What are you talking about? Try to focus on the discussion at hand.

I asked you some questions about your memory, not your intellectual qualities.

I wrote some other stuff about how you never seem to learn anything discussions and how you seem to have trouble even recalling past discussions. Those are my observations, not psychological diagnoses.

Your claim is that I have confused religion with science. I asked you "how so?" Your answer here is not an explanation of how I am confusing religion with science. Demonstrate where and how I have confused religion with science, or retract your accusation, please.

Lots of people have tried to correct you on "hard facts" - myself included. You cannot complain that I don't use my own words. It is actually quite rare for me to directly quote other people on this forum, other than people I am directly replying to in a post.

I have not said that you are incapable of understanding anything. I have said that it is my observation that, often, you do not learn from people here who are kind enough to point out your errors about "hard facts". I could be wrong, I suppose, but it's a long shot. Maybe you do learn, but you want to keep pretending you don't because you can't bring yourself to admit that you were wrong in the first place. I think that's unlikely, however, since if you did learn you would not repeat the same errors - unless you do it out of some kind of twisted spite. But I don't get the impression that you're spiteful. I could be wrong about that too, I suppose...