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> The universe is _literally_ a real number machine I am wary of this. Just because you have a good predictive model based on math, and the math can be made ri

> The universe is _literally_ a real number machine I am wary of this. Just because you have a good predictive model based on math, and the math can be made rigorous using ZFC / Cauchy sequences / infinite decimals / etc., doesn't mean that any of those rigorous mathematical concepts are literally running the real universe. Personally I don't think there's any reason to believe that any numbers, even zero and one, have any existence outside of being concepts in our heads.

oezi 4y ago
I don't get what you say in the last paragraph. Isn't the mapping of zero and one to nothing and something kind of the easiest thing (e.g. one photon or no photon)? For the first paragraph it is my understanding that the universe is discrete/quantizied and it is not running on 'real numbers'.
- civilized 4y ago
  > I don't get what you say in the last paragraph. Isn't the mapping of zero and one to nothing and something kind of the easiest thing (e.g. one photon or no photon)? You can map and mapping is useful, but the map lives in your head and isn't the territory. > For the first paragraph it is my understanding that the universe is discrete/quantizied and it is not running on 'real numbers'. This is a widely believed folk myth among software engineers, but it isn't supported by evidence. There are some speculative theories that try to solve some problems in physics by quantizing space, but right now they are no more empirically supported than other speculations.
  - lo_zamoyski 4y ago
    Worth a read: 1. "Russell’s No Man’s Land" [0] 2. "The hollow universe of modern physics" [1] [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/russells-no-mans-land.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/russells-no-mans-la... [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-hollow-universe-of-modern-physics.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-hollow-universe...
  - oezi 4y ago
    Mh, but I thought it was widely held that there are things such as the Planck constant which constitute bounds on divisibility. There rather seems to be no indication to believe conversely that the universe works on real numbers. Which makes at least intuitive sense that there isn't anything which contains infinite information.
    - civilized 4y ago
      There is such a thing as the Planck constant. It doesn't constitute a bound on the divisibility of space. It is a length scale below which we do not expect our current physical theories to make good predictions. See https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-11-01_NutshellReadMore.html https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-... > Which makes at least intuitive sense that there isn't anything which contains infinite information. There are no real numbers outside of human beings' minds. The information in a number, real or otherwise, is a theoretical mathematical concept from human minds for which there is no evidence in nature. There is no definitive evidence that nature confirms to either continuous or discrete math at the smallest scales, but for now, if you look at theoretical physics papers, you will see integrals and derivatives, not sums and differences.

oezi 4y ago

I don't get what you say in the last paragraph. Isn't the mapping of zero and one to nothing and something kind of the easiest thing (e.g. one photon or no photon)? For the first paragraph it is my understanding that the universe is discrete/quantizied and it is not running on 'real numbers'.

civilized 4y ago
> I don't get what you say in the last paragraph. Isn't the mapping of zero and one to nothing and something kind of the easiest thing (e.g. one photon or no photon)? You can map and mapping is useful, but the map lives in your head and isn't the territory. > For the first paragraph it is my understanding that the universe is discrete/quantizied and it is not running on 'real numbers'. This is a widely believed folk myth among software engineers, but it isn't supported by evidence. There are some speculative theories that try to solve some problems in physics by quantizing space, but right now they are no more empirically supported than other speculations.
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago
  Worth a read: 1. "Russell’s No Man’s Land" [0] 2. "The hollow universe of modern physics" [1] [0] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/russells-no-mans-land.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/russells-no-mans-la... [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-hollow-universe-of-modern-physics.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-hollow-universe...
- oezi 4y ago
  Mh, but I thought it was widely held that there are things such as the Planck constant which constitute bounds on divisibility. There rather seems to be no indication to believe conversely that the universe works on real numbers. Which makes at least intuitive sense that there isn't anything which contains infinite information.
  - civilized 4y ago
    There is such a thing as the Planck constant. It doesn't constitute a bound on the divisibility of space. It is a length scale below which we do not expect our current physical theories to make good predictions. See https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-11-01_NutshellReadMore.html https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-... > Which makes at least intuitive sense that there isn't anything which contains infinite information. There are no real numbers outside of human beings' minds. The information in a number, real or otherwise, is a theoretical mathematical concept from human minds for which there is no evidence in nature. There is no definitive evidence that nature confirms to either continuous or discrete math at the smallest scales, but for now, if you look at theoretical physics papers, you will see integrals and derivatives, not sums and differences.