What is it about woo that upsets you?

[iceaura]

But that is all secondary to the underlying maths which drive the observable regularities in natural growth patterns.

It is primary - it generates those regularities.
Or as Einstein put it: God integrates empirically.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

You can click on ''watch thread'' and I think it serves that purpose? Don't think there's anything that narrows it down to the post level, though.

yeah thanks
i use that.
i can go into my watched thread list however that is very big and general which is
following a topic rather than a "to be researched/reading list"

"watched thread" loads alerts
alerts expire

a button on each post that allows to load post to favorite list would allow the ability to annotate rather than mosh-pit

 

[DaveC426913]

And why not?

What does it accomplish - what does it illuminate - to define it as "natural mathematical functions"? What can we learn from it, that we can't learn from a universe that operates simply by forces?
How would our understanding be lessened by rejecting this idea? Is it more than mere semantics?

 

[Write4U]

What does it accomplish - what does it illuminate - to define it as "natural mathematical functions"? What can we learn from it, that we can't learn from a universe that operates simply by forces?

The forces operate mathematically and are mathematically measurable.

How would our understanding be lessened by rejecting this idea? Is it more than mere semantics?

Because it is prejudicial.
If you reject the concept of a mathematical universe, because mathematics are a human invention, we must also reject every other manmade scientific theory which uses mathematics.

All science is manmade and unknown to the universe. That does not only mean the universe does not know us, it also means we don't know the universe.

This Territory and Map comparison is a lazy out and useless as a scientific instrument, unless we give weight to the inherent mathematical aspect of universal values and functions. Then we can draw an accurate representation of reality. (keeping in mind GR, when it comes to size and scale representation)

Today, 3D scanning and printing allows us to mathematically duplicate the territory, to an extremely subtle detail. Ever watched some of the new digital movies?

The length of a coastline,
Mandelbrot began his treatise on fractal geometry by considering the question: "How long is the coast of Britain?" The coastline is irregular, so a measure with a straight ruler, as in the next figure, provides an estimate. The estimated length, L, equals the length of the ruler, s, multiplied by the N, the number of such rulers needed to cover the measured object. In the next figure we measure a part of the coastline twice, the ruler on the right is half that used on the left.

Measuring the length of a coastline using rulers of varying lengths.

But the estimate on the right is longer. If the the scale on the left is one, we have six units, but halving the unit gives us 15 rulers (L=7.5), not 12 (L=6). If we halved the scale again, we would get a similar result, a longer estimate of L. In general, as the ruler gets diminishingly small, the length gets infinitely large. The concept of length, begins to make little sense.

What does it mean to say , "we can approximate" and then come up with a thousand different "approximations" of the universe? What does that do to help us understand?

I say; "the universe works mathematically" You say; "no it doesn't, because the universe does not recognize manmade mathematics". Mathematics...gone. But I say; "it has been proven"

Now let's extend this to all manmade theories.

You say; the universe works in accordance to GR. I say; "does it know it works in accordance to GR? It's human made science, no?" GR...gone. But you say; "GR has been proven"

You say; the universe works in accordance to QM. I say; "does it know it works in accordance to QM? It's human made science, no?" QM.....gone. But you say; QM has been proven"

You say; "the universe works in accordance to the Copenhagen Interpretation. I say; "does it know it works in accordance with Copenhagen? It's human made science, no?" Copenhagen....gone. But you say "Copenhagen has been proven"

See, if we reject all manmade science about the universe as being unknown to the universe, we really don't know anything about the universe and how it works, no?

Approximations are not evidence of understanding. It is no more than a "best guess" . We know where "best guesses" leads us. Mysticism. Mathematics affords relative precision at all levels. Fractal mathematics allows us to understand the universal mathematics at all levels.

OTOH, applied mathematics allow us to "duplicate" almost all universal phenomena, because that is how the physical universe works in reality.

Mathematics validate GR, QM, and Copenhagen and all other 'mainstream' theories of universal constants. It affords knowledge and understanding of how things work.

IMO, if we accept the concept of universal mathematical values and functions, the universe becomes a lot simpler and most mysteries disappear, except for still unkown universal mathematics.
And I'm sure there is still plenty of that.

 

[Write4U]

It is primary - it generates those regularities.

I agree mathematics are a primary aspect of the universe. Else there would be no order at all and we would not exist.

Or as Einstein put it: God integrates empirically.

I'm sure he meant Mathematics integrates empirically.......

Bohm would say; " The Wholeness and the Implicate order" (of the Universe) is a mathematical construct. "A self-referential fractal pattern"......?

Renate Loll: CDT (causal dynamical triangulation) This means that it does not assume any pre-existing arena (dimensional space), but rather attempts to show how the spacetime fabric itself evolves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_dynamical_triangulation

 

[Sarkus]

Write4U, the more you speak of "self-referential" the more you sound like Chris Langan and his CTMU. As to whether the latter is "woo"...

 

[Write4U]

Write4U, the more you speak of "self-referential" the more you sound like Chris Langan and his CTMU. As to whether the latter is "woo"...

Thanks for the reference. Never heard the name before. Will check it out.

David Bohm used the phrase in his hierarchy of orders, where he postulated an energetic self referential equation. He named it "Insight Intelligence". I see it as a quasi-intelligent mathematical equation.

I got the idea from the definition of a mathematical equation, where both sides are equal but from different relative perpectives. It sounded elegant to me, so I adopted it.....

p.s.
After listening to a first few words (prayer), I have a real problem with your comparison. I consider it total woo......

Mathematics are not intelligent, nor motivated by prayer.
And bi-directional implies a mathematical equation. Is that not defined by quantum "superposition"?

 

[Michael 345]

I agree mathematics are a primary aspect of the universe. Else there would be no order at all and we would not exist.

NO

Mathematics are only a grave name rubbing

Close to the real thing but lots of defects

 

[Write4U]

NO

Mathematics are only a grave name rubbing

Close to the real thing but lots of defects

The universe has defects? The universe functions mathematically defective?
You mean manmade mathematics or theories have defects, no?.....difference...

 

[Write4U]

Chris Langan and his CTMU

Wooo. IMHO
For a moment I thought you were talking about;

Lagrangian mechanics is a reformulation of classical mechanics, introduced by the Italian-French mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange in 1788.

In Lagrangian mechanics, the trajectory of a system of particles is derived by solving the Lagrange equations in one of two forms, either the Lagrange equations of the first kind,[1] which treat constraints explicitly as extra equations, often using Lagrange multipliers;[2][3] or the Lagrange equations of the second kind, which incorporate the constraints directly by judicious choice of generalized coordinates.[1][4]

In each case, a mathematical function called the Lagrangian is a function of the generalized coordinates, their time derivatives, and time, and contains the information about the dynamics of the system.

No new physics are necessarily introduced in applying Lagrangian mechanics compared to Newtonian mechanics. It is, however, more mathematically sophisticated and systematic.

Newton's laws can include non-conservative forceslike friction; however, they must include constraint forces explicitly and are best suited to Cartesian coordinates. Lagrangian mechanics is ideal for systems with conservative forces and for bypassing constraint forces in any coordinate system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_mechanics

Interesting model of a mathematical function;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constraint_(classical_mechanics)#/media/File:Friction_angle.png

The part of the universe that imposes no mathematical constraints, has a mathematical permission for becoming expressed in reality. The condition of "potential" (that which may become reality.)

Bohm's second level in his descending hierarchy of the Wholeness and the Implicate Order, is a state of "pure potential" (chaos), which probabilistically delivers another hierarchy, the "mathematically permitted implication of that which is to become a physical pattern. The Implicate Order, which is governed by mathematical permissions or restrictions (constraints).

The implicate (order) is the mathematically deterministic projection (superposition) of that which may become manifest in reality. Which also happens to be the definition of Potential.
.
p.s. Michael, note the color coded portion.................oops.....

 

[Michael 345]

The universe has defects? The universe functions mathematically defective?
You mean manmade mathematics or theories have defects, no?.....difference...

The grave rubbing has defects and with the way the age of the Universe is currently being debated seems like the mathematics involved has defects

If if if the mathematics for working out the age of the Universe was as exact as 1 + 1 = 2 we should be able to state with confidence the Universe began 13 billion years 3 weeks and 2 days on a Tuesday, back counting from our current calendar

 

[Michael 345]

p.s. Michael, note the color coded portion.................oops.....

Noted (I take it you mean colour )

But what is the black thing?

 

[wegs]

No worries, you're not alone, Write4U. Are you familiar with Max Tegmark?

 

[DaveC426913]

The forces operate mathematically and are mathematically measurable.

This is evident, regardless of your idea. What does your idea add?

If you reject the concept of a mathematical universe, because mathematics are a human invention, we must also reject every other manmade scientific theory which uses mathematics.

No we don't. Why would you think so?

This Territory and Map comparison is a lazy out and useless as a scientific instrument, unless we give weight to the inherent mathematical aspect of universal values and functions. Then we can draw an accurate representation of reality. (keeping in mind GR, when it comes to size and scale representation)

How does your idea go beyond what we already do? We look at the universe and use mathematics to understand and predict it.

Can you provide a specific, concrete example where thinking of the universe as inherently mathematical provides more information than understanding it through (human-made) mathematics?

Please, you don't need to fill your posts with long-winded diversions. Just keep on-point.

 

[exchemist]

No worries, you're not alone, Write4U. Are you familiar with Max Tegmark?

NAAAOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!.............please, please don't get him started.....

Teggers, a.k.a Shapiro, is his lodestone, his high priest, his POPE of the religion of natural mathematics that he subscribes to. We've had an almost non-stop diet of Tegmark for years now from Write4U. Aaargh.

 

[wegs]

NAAAOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!.............please, please don't get him started.....

Teggers, a.k.a Shapiro, is his lodestone, his high priest, his POPE of the religion of natural mathematics that he subscribes to. We've had an almost non-stop diet of Tegmark for years now from Write4U. Aaargh.

lmao!

I haven't been on here much, so mea culpa.

Keeping OT, do you think Tegmark is woo-ish?

 

[Seattle]

lmao!

I haven't been on here much, so mea culpa.

Keeping OT, do you think Tegmark is woo-ish?

In his off hours, yes. He does bring one idea to the table that is lost here with all the pages of nonsense and that is that if the Universe is itself mathematical and we just need to discover it then theoretically it's possible to learn things that are otherwise unknowable.

Currently we have mathematical models that are predictive and that are good models but that are always just close approximations. If they were exact and in this view of his of a mathematical universe that's where his woo points too, then a theory of what happened before the Big Bang or a theory of multiple universes may be revealed. It can't be tested directly but (in his view) if the part of the theory that can be tested all pans out then the part of the theory that we can't directly test (other universes) should be valid as well.

It's woo because it can't be tested and because it isn't actually even logical based on current experience. Quantum Physics and General Relativity work quite well in their intended realms but break down where they come together (singularities, no quantum theory of gravity, etc).

There is no reason to think this wouldn't occur in Tegmark's world as well.

He doesn't deal in woo in his daytime job so I think he is just amusing himself with woo in this case. I've read a book of his about this mathematical universe. The woo only comes into play in the last chapter as I recall.

By the way, if one lives in a bubble and isn't aware of much and someone else provides some addition points of view and knowledge, why consider that to be "lecturing"? In college we learned by going to lectures all the time. Isn't it a bit thin skinned to be asking questions but "accuse" one of "lecturing that provides some of the answers? It must be hard for one to learn who needs to control the way the knowledge is presented to them.

 

[exchemist]

lmao!

I haven't been on here much, so mea culpa.

Keeping OT, do you think Tegmark is woo-ish?

I do.

I think Peter Woit is spot-on where Shapiro/Tegmark is concerned: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6551

 

[Yazata]

We seem to have drifted away from the original question of what "woo" is and why it upsets so many people (the self-styled "skeptics"), to discussion of whether W4U's peculiar personal kind of metaphysics is in fact "woo". I suppose that it's often helpful to examine particular cases.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but are you saying Write4U that math would exist, even if humans didn't?

Science assumes that, doesn't it? Astrophysics presumes to describe what astrophysicists think happened in the early universe, long before human beings ever arrived on the scene. But despite that, the astrophysicists always seem to assume that their physical principles still hold good. And those physical principles are still expressed in mathematical form. The ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius was presumably still (pi r squared), even when the Earth was condensing from the Sun's early accretion disk. Science depends on those kind of assumptions.

I think math only exists as a process (invented by humans) to uncover the truths of the universe.

If that's so, then why would a valid mathematical proof concocted here in California still be valid in Exchemist's London? There's a objectivity to mathematical relationships that I find profoundly mysterious. I don't know how to explain it. I don't think that anyone does.

You keep inserting the word ''natural'' into your replies, so I'm not 100% sure.

W4U doesn't explain his underlying intuition very well.

I think that he's claiming that reality displays structure. He's also claiming that there's something "mathematical" about it. It seems to me that physics agrees. Otherwise, what's up with all those RPenner-style chalkboard hieroglyphs that theoretical physicists love so much? What relationship do the mathematical squiggles have to... physics? To physical reality?

Confusion starts to seep in when the word "mathematics" appears, because it's seemingly being used to refer to very different things.

On one hand, 'mathematics' refers to a system of symbols invented by human beings (number marks like Roman numerals etc.) that correspond to something (what?) that's more abstract: numbers themselves, geometrical shapes, abstract algebraic structures or whatever), and to the logical relationships that human beings intuit as holding true between these symbols compounded in various ways. I'm not sure that I agree that it's all a human construct.

There's that peculiar objectivity to it that I mentioned above. We assume that valid mathematics isn't just true for the person that invented it, it's true for everyone. I think that we can say that number systems (decimal, Roman...) are constructed, but numbers themselves seem (to me, anyway) to be something more objective. Logical systems are much the same. We invent a bunch of arbitrary symbols for variables and constants and logical connectives. We define our logical connectives various different ways. We construct different logical systems employing different sets of these things. Yet the technical properties that logicians try to prove regarding these various logical systems seem to me to be objective. If you construct a logical/mathematical system like this (your choice) then it's going to have those specific properties (not your choice).

And then there's W4U's structure of reality (that he insists on calling "mathematics" as well, confusing all the rest of us, and probably himself as well).

Probably the single thing that most contributed to the "Scientific Revolution" in the 17th century was the application of human-created mathematics in the formal-system sense, to simple physical processes like simple falling objects, pendulums, motion on inclined planes, and interestingly, the motion of the planets in the sky. These just happened to be physical phenomena whose underlying structure, the physical principles that govern them and that they exemplify, was simple enough that they could be effectively modeled using the mathematics (in the logical system sense) that the early moderns were familiar with. So Galileo, Newton and company produced successes that caught the imagination of their contemporaries. And physics was off and running.

So the underlying truth of physics as a science seems to me to be that human-created mathematics (or the abstract structure that it exemplifies) is isomorphic somehow (shares the same form) with the structure of how physical reality behaves. I don't know how to explain it, though I suspect that it has something to do with whatever makes abstract mathematical proofs objective rather than subjective. This allows us to use our human-created/discovered mathematics to model whatever is happening in physical reality.

Those models may be more or less accurate. They will almost always involve simplifications. There will likely be more than one model for a particular physical event, with different models having different advantages.

I get the feeling (sometimes) that this is all that W4U is really saying. There's something, some objective structure that our mathematical constructs imperfectly capture, that's also exemplified in physical reality. That's why physics works.

I don't want to let that rather uncontroversial idea push me off on weird metaphysical tangents. I certainly don't want to say that reality is nothing but "mathematics" while smearing the different senses of that word mentioned above together. But I'm happy saying that there's something about physical reality that our human mathematical ideas capture, and that's what makes our physics successful.

Regarding grand metaphysical conclusions, the best position to take is probably agnostic. We need to admit that reality is mysterious and we don't really begin to understand it. We find ourselves in a thick fog of the unknown with our tiny little intellectual flashlights like science, that don't penetrate nearly as far as we'd like. It's just foolishness to assume that we are seeing everything.

 

[wegs]

In his off hours, yes. He does bring one idea to the table that is lost here with all the pages of nonsense and that is that if the Universe is itself mathematical and we just need to discover it then theoretically it's possible to learn things that are otherwise unknowable.

Approximations to understanding the unknowable, sure, if that's what you mean.

It's woo because it can't be tested and because it isn't actually even logical based on current experience. Quantum Physics and General Relativity work quite well in their intended realms but break down where they come together (singularities, no quantum theory of gravity, etc).

There is no reason to think this wouldn't occur in Tegmark's world as well.

I agree.

He doesn't deal in woo in his daytime job so I think he is just amusing himself with woo in this case. I've read a book of his about this mathematical universe. The woo only comes into play in the last chapter as I recall.

It makes me wonder if we misconstrue an alternative way of approaching a topic, as woo. If the end result is still objective, if we all arrive at the same answers to these complex mathematical equations, but we simply arrive there differently, that's not woo, to me. That being said, even though math isn't an ''exact science,'' there's still generally a ''right'' answer.

By the way, if one lives in a bubble and isn't aware of much and someone else provides some addition points of view and knowledge, why consider that to be "lecturing"? In college we learned by going to lectures all the time. Isn't it a bit thin skinned to be asking questions but "accuse" one of "lecturing that provides some of the answers? It must be hard for one to learn who needs to control the way the knowledge is presented to them.

lol! I was being facetious with my bubble comment in Tiassa's thread, btw. And, I'm very happy to have healthy discussions, even debates, with people who don't feel the need to put down those in the discussion. Would that be you? Hmm.