What sort of thing is the universe? If it is a mathematical object, then at least we have an answer to the question, and it is not clear how to answer it otherwise. This seems to me to be strong evidence that the universe is a mathematical object.
People not being able to come up with any idea but that diseases are a curse of the gods is strong evidence not for diseases being a curse of gods but for the ignorance of those people. The most likely answer to that question is either something no one will think of for centuries to come or simply that the model of separating objects into “sorts of things” is not useful for deciphering the misteries of the universe despite being an evolutionary advantage on the ancestral savanna.
So, I don’t think that I would have the same kind of intuition about diseases and curses as I do about mathematical objects and existence, even if I didn’t know any possible cause of disease except for curse. But of course my introspection about that could be wrong.
I don’t think that I am separating objects into “sorts of things”. It is more like I am asking the question “what does it mean to be a thing?” and answering it “to be a thing is to be a mathematical object”.
“What kind of a thing is that existing thing” and “what is existence anyway” are rather orthogonal questions. If you reject MUH, you need to explain what breathes fire into the equations.
“Exists” is one of the words I tend to taboo. People usually just use it to mean “is part of the Everett branch that I am currently in” but there are also some usages that seem to derive their meaning by analogy, like the existence of mathematical objects. I’m not sure if there is a principled distinction being drawn by those kinds of usages.
Instead I would talk about whether we can sensibly talk about something. And I can imagine people trying to talk about something, and not making any sense, but it doesn’t seem to mean that there is a “thing” they are talking about that “doesn’t exist”.
People usually just use it to mean “is part of the Everett branch that I am currently in”
Not when they are asserting the existence of other branches. And most people have never heard of Everett branches.
“Exists” is one of the words I tend to taboo.
Consitently tabooing it and all its synonyms is pretty difficult, and you are not succeeding, since your said ““to be a thing is to be a mathematical object”.
You are coming to a pretty contentious conclusion, and doing so based on inconsistent tabooing—allowing yourself to use words like “be” when expressing what you believe, but
insisting on tabooing when challenged or asked to explain yourself.
or simply that the model of separating objects into “sorts of things” is not useful for deciphering the misteries of the universe
It’s problematic when applied to the universe , because “universe” is a very broad category. If you are going to say it is some specific thing chosen from an even broader category, then you have to explain why that thing and not something else—the more specific your model of the universe, the more bits of information are unaccounted for.
What sort of thing is the universe? If it is a mathematical object, then at least we have an answer to the question, and it is not clear how to answer it otherwise. This seems to me to be strong evidence that the universe is a mathematical object.
What does the phrase “mathematical object” mean?
This is discussed in Appendix A of Tegmark’s paper (I guess I am using “mathematical object” synonymously with “mathematical structure”).
People not being able to come up with any idea but that diseases are a curse of the gods is strong evidence not for diseases being a curse of gods but for the ignorance of those people. The most likely answer to that question is either something no one will think of for centuries to come or simply that the model of separating objects into “sorts of things” is not useful for deciphering the misteries of the universe despite being an evolutionary advantage on the ancestral savanna.
So, I don’t think that I would have the same kind of intuition about diseases and curses as I do about mathematical objects and existence, even if I didn’t know any possible cause of disease except for curse. But of course my introspection about that could be wrong.
I don’t think that I am separating objects into “sorts of things”. It is more like I am asking the question “what does it mean to be a thing?” and answering it “to be a thing is to be a mathematical object”.
“What kind of a thing is that existing thing” and “what is existence anyway” are rather orthogonal questions. If you reject MUH, you need to explain what breathes fire into the equations.
I am not sure why you seem to think I reject MUH?
That began with an ‘if’. If you accept the MUH, the problem you have is lack of evidence for it, or even evidence against it.
Ah I see. How could fire be breathed into equations? That concept doesn’t make sense to me.
Can you conceive of one thing existing and another thing not exisitng?
“Exists” is one of the words I tend to taboo. People usually just use it to mean “is part of the Everett branch that I am currently in” but there are also some usages that seem to derive their meaning by analogy, like the existence of mathematical objects. I’m not sure if there is a principled distinction being drawn by those kinds of usages.
Instead I would talk about whether we can sensibly talk about something. And I can imagine people trying to talk about something, and not making any sense, but it doesn’t seem to mean that there is a “thing” they are talking about that “doesn’t exist”.
Not when they are asserting the existence of other branches. And most people have never heard of Everett branches.
Consitently tabooing it and all its synonyms is pretty difficult, and you are not succeeding, since your said ““to be a thing is to be a mathematical object”.
You are coming to a pretty contentious conclusion, and doing so based on inconsistent tabooing—allowing yourself to use words like “be” when expressing what you believe, but insisting on tabooing when challenged or asked to explain yourself.
There I was using “to be” in the sense of equality, which is different from the sense of existence. So I don’t think I was tabooing inconsistently.
Consciously tabooing a term like “exist” is what I have been doing, as well. Makes a lot of things less confusing.
It’s problematic when applied to the universe , because “universe” is a very broad category. If you are going to say it is some specific thing chosen from an even broader category, then you have to explain why that thing and not something else—the more specific your model of the universe, the more bits of information are unaccounted for.