3 ms·

Mathematical models answer all sorts of 'why' questions: why is the sky blue? why do the planets move the way they do? Why does biological altruism exist in a D

Mathematical models answer all sorts of 'why' questions: why is the sky blue? why do the planets move the way they do? Why does biological altruism exist in a Darwinian world?

mensetmanusman 2y ago
They are answering ‘how is the sky blue’ not ‘why’ the universe has a mind (in the form of human) to experience the blueness :)
- mannykannot 2y ago
  Any toddler can ask "why" ad nauseam (at least it seems that way to adults in the vicinity) - and that is a good thing - but answering is the clever part. Strangely, some philosophers seem to shy away from answering. Philip Goff, for example, whose forays into popularizing include "Galileo's Error", merely declares that consciousness is fundamental, without explaining the second thing about what that means, and he is not, apparently, at all interested in following through; in fact, he seems to think that is a job for scientists - the same scientists who have made the error of adopting mathematical models, apparently - who should gratefully accept his insights and do something (what?) with them. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599229/galileos-error-by-philip-goff/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599229/galileos-err...
  - amelius 2y ago
    Even Feynman didn't like to answer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA
    - mannykannot 2y ago
      There are some apposite comments here: @matthewsawczyn6592:If this man ever talks to toddlers, the conversation will be infinite. @thisismonitor4099: He actually did. He talked to me when I was a toddler at a physics conference in Greece and i remember it well. However, at the time I thought my father (another physicist) was smarter than him:)... Well he asked me if I knew my numbers (I did) and then talked a bit about them, and I told him my father taught me and that he was the smartest man in the world - lol he agreed:) He was a very kind man to children indeed and he certainly had no airs about him given that this guy was a 1 on the Landau scale and that probably no one else at the conference was better than a 3 so he would have been 100 times more influential than anyone else ...
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > but answering is the clever part. Regurgitating memorized ideological theories as if they are facts is not particularly clever in my books, but opinions vary. > who should gratefully accept his insights and do something (what?) with them. Well...they could practice their epistemic humility and control over their conscious processes, wonder whether their ideology and models are missing anything important (to the future well-being of the existence of humans on this planet), etc. Or they could carry on as is.
mistermann 2y ago
Whether the answers are comprehensive and correct is not necessarily knowable though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency Luckily, most people cannot care.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  Are you consistent in your skepticism, or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only?
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > Are you consistent in your skepticism I aspire to it, but the degree to which I am successful I cannot know. > or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only? I have no problems with math, it is science that bothers me (the "models" part above). How about yourself? Have you any doubts about the adequacy of your ~ideology?
    - mannykannot 2y ago
      Would you care to articulate what's bothering you? I'm afraid I have been unable to discern anything that would be specific to science, even when taking into account the article on the difference between necessity and sufficiency that you linked to.
      - mistermann 2y ago
        Here's a hint: would you care to answer my question?
        mannykannot 2y ago
        Oh, that's no bother at all: I try to keep an open mind, while expecting putative explanations of any sort to actually make some progress on explaining something. As far as I know, it's not a named ~ideology of any sort, just a reasonable response to incomplete knowledge. As it would be neither informative nor fair to speculate about what's on your mind, this isn't giving me any hint as to what's bothering you, so would you now care to answer my question?
nitwit005 2y ago
Imagine I said "rain is made of matrices". There is a problem with that statement. Your rain model might function using matrices, but that's not what rain is.
- mannykannot 2y ago
  It would not be a useful thing to say (at least on its own, without a great deal of context and further explanation) and nothing I wrote above suggests otherwise.
- criddell 2y ago
  When you keep digging deeper, you might conclude rain actually is matrices. What is rain? Falling water. What is water? H2O. What is H and O? Atoms. What are atoms? A collection of particles. And particles? Excitations of a quantum field. And a quantum field? A distribution of operators. So maybe rain is made of matrices. At least, this is my understanding of the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis.

Mathematical models answer all sorts of 'why' questions: why is the sky blue? why do the planets move the way they do? Why does biological altruism exist in a Darwinian world?

mensetmanusman 2y ago

They are answering ‘how is the sky blue’ not ‘why’ the universe has a mind (in the form of human) to experience the blueness :)

mannykannot 2y ago
Any toddler can ask "why" ad nauseam (at least it seems that way to adults in the vicinity) - and that is a good thing - but answering is the clever part. Strangely, some philosophers seem to shy away from answering. Philip Goff, for example, whose forays into popularizing include "Galileo's Error", merely declares that consciousness is fundamental, without explaining the second thing about what that means, and he is not, apparently, at all interested in following through; in fact, he seems to think that is a job for scientists - the same scientists who have made the error of adopting mathematical models, apparently - who should gratefully accept his insights and do something (what?) with them. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599229/galileos-error-by-philip-goff/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/599229/galileos-err...
- amelius 2y ago
  Even Feynman didn't like to answer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    There are some apposite comments here: @matthewsawczyn6592:If this man ever talks to toddlers, the conversation will be infinite. @thisismonitor4099: He actually did. He talked to me when I was a toddler at a physics conference in Greece and i remember it well. However, at the time I thought my father (another physicist) was smarter than him:)... Well he asked me if I knew my numbers (I did) and then talked a bit about them, and I told him my father taught me and that he was the smartest man in the world - lol he agreed:) He was a very kind man to children indeed and he certainly had no airs about him given that this guy was a 1 on the Landau scale and that probably no one else at the conference was better than a 3 so he would have been 100 times more influential than anyone else ...
- mistermann 2y ago
  > but answering is the clever part. Regurgitating memorized ideological theories as if they are facts is not particularly clever in my books, but opinions vary. > who should gratefully accept his insights and do something (what?) with them. Well...they could practice their epistemic humility and control over their conscious processes, wonder whether their ideology and models are missing anything important (to the future well-being of the existence of humans on this planet), etc. Or they could carry on as is.

mistermann 2y ago

Whether the answers are comprehensive and correct is not necessarily knowable though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency Luckily, most people cannot care.

mannykannot 2y ago
Are you consistent in your skepticism, or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only?
- mistermann 2y ago
  > Are you consistent in your skepticism I aspire to it, but the degree to which I am successful I cannot know. > or do you reserve it for mathematical answers only? I have no problems with math, it is science that bothers me (the "models" part above). How about yourself? Have you any doubts about the adequacy of your ~ideology?
  - mannykannot 2y ago
    Would you care to articulate what's bothering you? I'm afraid I have been unable to discern anything that would be specific to science, even when taking into account the article on the difference between necessity and sufficiency that you linked to.
    - mistermann 2y ago
      Here's a hint: would you care to answer my question?
      - mannykannot 2y ago
        Oh, that's no bother at all: I try to keep an open mind, while expecting putative explanations of any sort to actually make some progress on explaining something. As far as I know, it's not a named ~ideology of any sort, just a reasonable response to incomplete knowledge. As it would be neither informative nor fair to speculate about what's on your mind, this isn't giving me any hint as to what's bothering you, so would you now care to answer my question?

nitwit005 2y ago

Imagine I said "rain is made of matrices". There is a problem with that statement. Your rain model might function using matrices, but that's not what rain is.

mannykannot 2y ago
It would not be a useful thing to say (at least on its own, without a great deal of context and further explanation) and nothing I wrote above suggests otherwise.
criddell 2y ago
When you keep digging deeper, you might conclude rain actually is matrices. What is rain? Falling water. What is water? H2O. What is H and O? Atoms. What are atoms? A collection of particles. And particles? Excitations of a quantum field. And a quantum field? A distribution of operators. So maybe rain is made of matrices. At least, this is my understanding of the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis.