Tegmark’s new paper… I have no comments for the moment. I didn’t read it.
Update: Just finished reading it. Bad philosophy. Sorry.
27
Sep
07
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Tempo Aberto
Livro de Ficção-científica escrito em Português por Christine Córdula (Dantas):
This is my first Science Fiction novel, entitled "Open Time" ("Tempo Aberto"), released in Portuguese. I am studying the possibility of translating it into English.
Click on the cover image to learn more about it: summary and preface (by clicking "Preview this book" over at the lulu site). Warning: all contents are in Portuguese.
A summary in English can be found here.
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I read the short paper, the longer one is tough to start, given that the abstract is silly.
Apparently, his philosophy is to equate the physical world with mathematics (yes, equate, not a sort of mapping between the two). He argues that this direct equality solves many problems. Actually, he seems to argue that such an equality solves the philosophical problem of whether there is an ultimate reality. Yes, there is one and it is pure mathematics. And everything is revealed! Isn’t it obvious?
I may have misunderstood it all (I’ve only read his shorter paper mentioned here). In any case, I didn’t find any of his arguments brilliant or convincing. Looks like a very bad philosophy to me.
The fact that we can describe physical phenomena through mathematical reasoning is something much deeper to me and equating both is no solution (again, to me). It’s like turning a difficult question into a trivial one as the best way to actually avoid it.
Well, as far as I know, any mathematical system is capable of being modeled by a physical system, (though building it might be kind of tough, given the number of dimensions we have to work with, etc.); so you might as well argue that all mathematics is equivalent to a physical system and conclude that mathematics doesn’t exist.
In any case, it doesn’t calculate the mass of anything.
Looking at the abstract, for a split second, I thought it was only meant for satirical purposes and not to be taken seriously. Looks like I’m wrong.