mere correlation is not causation, descriptions can never provide complete explanations of reality since they only summarize relationships between things (correlations) without establishing an actual causal hierarchy (causation)
more complex things are explained by decomposing them into simpler things, so for a full explanation of reality mere data compression is not enough. we also need additional information about how a potentially infinite number of things could be ordered within a causal hierarchy. without this missing information no fully reductionist explanation of reality is possible, but this information can only be indirectly inferred by making generalizations from finite data
so this additional information about composition is wholly abstract (timeless) and it cannot be directly referring to any finitely specified observables situated in space and time. ergo, this information constitutes disembodied rules (laws of nature) that really must exist over and above any mere regularities in concrete observables
there is no real problem with the notion of disembodied platonic abstract things provided these are taken as the fundamental reality instead of the physical world. in this picture, the platonic things don’t interact with matter and energy at all, rather, the physical world is embedded within Platonia. this is the key insight of Tegmark
the deeper implication is that the laws of nature themselves are all that actually exist! to wit, the implication is that the laws of nature themselves ARE the actual ontological primitives of reality!
mere correlation is not causation, descriptions can never provide complete explanations of reality since they only summarize relationships between things (correlations) without establishing an actual causal hierarchy (causation)
more complex things are explained by decomposing them into simpler things, so for a full explanation of reality mere data compression is not enough. we also need additional information about how a potentially infinite number of things could be ordered within a causal hierarchy. without this missing information no fully reductionist explanation of reality is possible, but this information can only be indirectly inferred by making generalizations from finite data
so this additional information about composition is wholly abstract (timeless) and it cannot be directly referring to any finitely specified observables situated in space and time. ergo, this information constitutes disembodied rules (laws of nature) that really must exist over and above any mere regularities in concrete observables
there is no real problem with the notion of disembodied platonic abstract things provided these are taken as the fundamental reality instead of the physical world. in this picture, the platonic things don’t interact with matter and energy at all, rather, the physical world is embedded within Platonia. this is the key insight of Tegmark
the deeper implication is that the laws of nature themselves are all that actually exist! to wit, the implication is that the laws of nature themselves ARE the actual ontological primitives of reality!