Thank you for one (of several) intelligent responses.
a necessary derivation of that universal physics is a vast quantity of space and time which we can not directly observe
This isn’t quite right. The only thing that makes the derivation “necessary” is your adjective “universal.” We could just as easily say that there is a supergalactic physics that explains all we can observe, and that same physics could plausibly explain what is happening in the space and time that we cannot or have not observed. Note that the unobservable realms are not merely those outside our past light cone, but also those within the limits of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, beneath the smallest structures that we can repeatedly observe, and, for all practical purposes, the space beyond the nearest nebula and/or the objects too dull for our Earth-bound telescopes to detect. It would be remarkably bad science to voluntarily choose to sample only one kilobyte from one address out of thousands of terabytes of data and assume that the kilobyte is representative. The fact that all known scientific resources are clustered in the same tiny portion of spacetime forces us to use such a sample, but it cannot and should not force us to assume that the sample is representative.
whose existence is in some fact dependent on the universal physics itself.
I don’t understand what you mean. Intelligent minds with an ability to manipulate matter or energy can ‘create’ patterns in that matter/energy by rearranging it according to the laws of physics. However, I cannot think of any sense in which physics itself could be said to create its own patterns. Physics is the pattern in which all known matter is currently arranged, but physics does not create the matter—it merely arranges it. Physics does not explain why there is something instead of nothing; it would be perfectly consistent with the laws of physics for there to be no electrons orbiting no protons over a volume of no space-time. How then can “everything that exists” be dependent on physics?
given any sequence of finite observations O, there is an infinite set of algorithms A that perfectly predict/compute the sequence O.
Right, but who says our observations are finite? What if important phenomenon, like, e.g., consciousness (cough) turn out to depend on infinitely small particles? What if the fate of the universe in a cosmological sense turns out to depend on what happens over infinitely long periods of time? There is no rule that I know of that says that the Universe is not allowed to clog its equations with infinities.
Physics is concerned largely with finding the minimally complex algorithm that fully predicts O.
A noble goal, but who says that sufficient simplicity to allow for computability is possible? Suppose our universe contains some true randomness beyond its initial seeding? Suppose that limits on our ability to gather information (particles that put effective distance between themselves and our present location at faster than the speed of light due to cosmic inflation; ineradicable error rates in technologically perfect computers) mean that while the universe is computable in principle, we cannot perfectly compute even a portion of our universe from the inside?
I don’t mean to suggest that it’s implausible that everything is governed by a universal physics. That’s a respectable hypothesis. I just get frustrated when people assert, without evidence that’s apparent to me, that physics will surely explain everything that we might wish to know. This is a remarkably bold claim for a discipline that predicts that most of what exists is “dark energy” but cannot say what dark energy is. Physicalism should be classed as a statement of faith, I think, and not as a justification for specific predictions about the hard problem of consciousness.
a necessary derivation of that universal physics is a vast quantity of space and time which we can not directly observe
This isn’t quite right. The only thing that makes the derivation “necessary” is your adjective “universal.” We could just as easily say that there is a supergalactic physics that explains all we can observe,
Physics is generally held to be universal, instead of just ‘supergalactic’. For one, there is the multiverse. But in general, the idea is, as I discuss later, to find the most parsimonious explanation for everything. This is the optimal strategy, and universality is a necessary consequence of this strategy. Any other physics or system which does not explain all observations is of course incomplete and inferior.
It would be remarkably bad science to voluntarily choose to sample only one kilobyte from one address out of thousands of terabytes of data and assume that the kilobyte is representative.
Not at all. You seem to be applying the analogy that at the cosmic scale the universe is some sort of probabilistic urn that generates galactic-sized space-time slices at random whim. It is not.
There are an infinite set of potential physics that have widely different properties in regions we can not observe. There are strong reasons why these are all necessarily inferior, by the principle of Ockham’s razor and the low-complexity bias in Solonomoff induction.
given any sequence of finite observations O, there is an infinite set of algorithms A that perfectly predict/compute the sequence O.
Right, but who says our observations are finite?
Elementary physics. There are a finite number of humans, the earth has finite mass, finite information storage potential, and we have finite knowledge.
What if important phenomenon, like, e.g., consciousness (cough) turn out to depend on infinitely small particles?
If you want to believe something like this is true before you begin, that consciousness is somehow different and special, then you are abandoning rationality from the start.
There are no privileged hypothesizes and no predefined targets in the quest for knowledge.
What if the fate of the universe in a cosmological sense turns out to depend on what happens over infinitely long periods of time? There is no rule that I know of that says that the Universe is not allowed to clog its equations with infinities.
Sure, infinities are possible, although they generally are viewed to signal a problem in physics when they come up in one’s math.
But that’s all besides the point: our observations are obviously finite. And furthermore, infinities are not at all an obstacle towards a universal physics.
Physics is concerned largely with finding the minimally complex algorithm that fully predicts O.
A noble goal, but who says that sufficient simplicity to allow for computability is possible?
There is no such complexity limit whatsoever to computability—it is not as if a phenomena has to be sufficiently ‘simple’ for it to be computable in theory (although practical computability is a more complex issue).
Suppose our universe contains some true randomness beyond its initial seeding?
True randomness comes up immediately in quantum mechanics. This isn’t an obstacle to computability, whether theoretical or practical. People unfamiliar with computing often have the notion that it must be deterministic. This is not so. Computation can be nondeterministic and randomness is an optimal strategy in many algorithms.
Beyond that, the randomness in quantum mechanics is typically squashed by the central limit theorem; a vast quantity of non-deterministic quantum events become increasingly deterministic at the macro scale.
while the universe is computable in principle, we cannot perfectly compute even a portion of our universe from the inside?
This is true—we can’t perfectly compute very much of our universe from within it, but perfect computation is highly overrated, and regardless this has little bearing on whatever original track we once were on.
I don’t mean to suggest that it’s implausible that everything is governed by a universal physics
It is trivially true, tautological—it is implied by the very meaning of universal physics.
It sounds to me that you have a mystery (consciousness) that you would like to protect.
I just get frustrated when people assert, without evidence that’s apparent to me, that physics will surely explain everything that we might wish to know.
This also is trivially true, and is the main point I have been attempting to communicate. Anything that you could possibly want to know can be explained by some model. This fact doesn’t require much evidence at all.
If there is some new series of observations that physical science can truly not explain, then it is physical science which changes until it does explain them.
I’ve lost interest in the conversation, partly because of your minor ad hominem attack (“sounds to me like you have a mystery that you would like to protect”), but mostly because I see your arguments as dependent on assumptions that I do not share: you see it as “obvious” that physics is universal and that theories favored by Solonomoff simplicity are automatically and lexically superior to all other theories, and I do not.
If you care to defend or explain these assumptions, I might regain interest, or I might not. Proceed at your own risk of wasting your time.
Sorry for the minor ad hominem, I jumped to the conclusion based on prior experience.
We can generate explanations for anything. Science has found that the universe appears to operate on a universal set of underlying principles—everything reduces to physics. We could have lived in a universe where this wasn’t so. But we don’t.
The computer I am working on right now is solid proof of physic’s success.
When you have two theories (algorithms) that both accurately prediction an observation sequence, you need some other criteria to guide you—and here ockham’s razor comes in to play.
There are always an infinite number of more complex theories that explain a series of observations, but only one that is minimally simple.
But again, I think the universality of physics stems just from the simple fact that there are an infinite number of algorithms (theories) that can explain any possible sequence of observations—so universality is always possible.
Thank you for one (of several) intelligent responses.
This isn’t quite right. The only thing that makes the derivation “necessary” is your adjective “universal.” We could just as easily say that there is a supergalactic physics that explains all we can observe, and that same physics could plausibly explain what is happening in the space and time that we cannot or have not observed. Note that the unobservable realms are not merely those outside our past light cone, but also those within the limits of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, beneath the smallest structures that we can repeatedly observe, and, for all practical purposes, the space beyond the nearest nebula and/or the objects too dull for our Earth-bound telescopes to detect. It would be remarkably bad science to voluntarily choose to sample only one kilobyte from one address out of thousands of terabytes of data and assume that the kilobyte is representative. The fact that all known scientific resources are clustered in the same tiny portion of spacetime forces us to use such a sample, but it cannot and should not force us to assume that the sample is representative.
I don’t understand what you mean. Intelligent minds with an ability to manipulate matter or energy can ‘create’ patterns in that matter/energy by rearranging it according to the laws of physics. However, I cannot think of any sense in which physics itself could be said to create its own patterns. Physics is the pattern in which all known matter is currently arranged, but physics does not create the matter—it merely arranges it. Physics does not explain why there is something instead of nothing; it would be perfectly consistent with the laws of physics for there to be no electrons orbiting no protons over a volume of no space-time. How then can “everything that exists” be dependent on physics?
Right, but who says our observations are finite? What if important phenomenon, like, e.g., consciousness (cough) turn out to depend on infinitely small particles? What if the fate of the universe in a cosmological sense turns out to depend on what happens over infinitely long periods of time? There is no rule that I know of that says that the Universe is not allowed to clog its equations with infinities.
A noble goal, but who says that sufficient simplicity to allow for computability is possible? Suppose our universe contains some true randomness beyond its initial seeding? Suppose that limits on our ability to gather information (particles that put effective distance between themselves and our present location at faster than the speed of light due to cosmic inflation; ineradicable error rates in technologically perfect computers) mean that while the universe is computable in principle, we cannot perfectly compute even a portion of our universe from the inside?
I don’t mean to suggest that it’s implausible that everything is governed by a universal physics. That’s a respectable hypothesis. I just get frustrated when people assert, without evidence that’s apparent to me, that physics will surely explain everything that we might wish to know. This is a remarkably bold claim for a discipline that predicts that most of what exists is “dark energy” but cannot say what dark energy is. Physicalism should be classed as a statement of faith, I think, and not as a justification for specific predictions about the hard problem of consciousness.
Physics is generally held to be universal, instead of just ‘supergalactic’. For one, there is the multiverse. But in general, the idea is, as I discuss later, to find the most parsimonious explanation for everything. This is the optimal strategy, and universality is a necessary consequence of this strategy. Any other physics or system which does not explain all observations is of course incomplete and inferior.
Not at all. You seem to be applying the analogy that at the cosmic scale the universe is some sort of probabilistic urn that generates galactic-sized space-time slices at random whim. It is not.
There are an infinite set of potential physics that have widely different properties in regions we can not observe. There are strong reasons why these are all necessarily inferior, by the principle of Ockham’s razor and the low-complexity bias in Solonomoff induction.
Elementary physics. There are a finite number of humans, the earth has finite mass, finite information storage potential, and we have finite knowledge.
If you want to believe something like this is true before you begin, that consciousness is somehow different and special, then you are abandoning rationality from the start.
There are no privileged hypothesizes and no predefined targets in the quest for knowledge.
Sure, infinities are possible, although they generally are viewed to signal a problem in physics when they come up in one’s math.
But that’s all besides the point: our observations are obviously finite. And furthermore, infinities are not at all an obstacle towards a universal physics.
There is no such complexity limit whatsoever to computability—it is not as if a phenomena has to be sufficiently ‘simple’ for it to be computable in theory (although practical computability is a more complex issue).
True randomness comes up immediately in quantum mechanics. This isn’t an obstacle to computability, whether theoretical or practical. People unfamiliar with computing often have the notion that it must be deterministic. This is not so. Computation can be nondeterministic and randomness is an optimal strategy in many algorithms.
Beyond that, the randomness in quantum mechanics is typically squashed by the central limit theorem; a vast quantity of non-deterministic quantum events become increasingly deterministic at the macro scale.
This is true—we can’t perfectly compute very much of our universe from within it, but perfect computation is highly overrated, and regardless this has little bearing on whatever original track we once were on.
It is trivially true, tautological—it is implied by the very meaning of universal physics.
It sounds to me that you have a mystery (consciousness) that you would like to protect.
This also is trivially true, and is the main point I have been attempting to communicate. Anything that you could possibly want to know can be explained by some model. This fact doesn’t require much evidence at all.
If there is some new series of observations that physical science can truly not explain, then it is physical science which changes until it does explain them.
OK, thank you for talking with me.
I’ve lost interest in the conversation, partly because of your minor ad hominem attack (“sounds to me like you have a mystery that you would like to protect”), but mostly because I see your arguments as dependent on assumptions that I do not share: you see it as “obvious” that physics is universal and that theories favored by Solonomoff simplicity are automatically and lexically superior to all other theories, and I do not.
If you care to defend or explain these assumptions, I might regain interest, or I might not. Proceed at your own risk of wasting your time.
In any case, thank you for a stimulating debate.
Sorry for the minor ad hominem, I jumped to the conclusion based on prior experience.
We can generate explanations for anything. Science has found that the universe appears to operate on a universal set of underlying principles—everything reduces to physics. We could have lived in a universe where this wasn’t so. But we don’t.
The computer I am working on right now is solid proof of physic’s success.
When you have two theories (algorithms) that both accurately prediction an observation sequence, you need some other criteria to guide you—and here ockham’s razor comes in to play.
There are always an infinite number of more complex theories that explain a series of observations, but only one that is minimally simple.
But again, I think the universality of physics stems just from the simple fact that there are an infinite number of algorithms (theories) that can explain any possible sequence of observations—so universality is always possible.