What do you mean by “complexity”? I realize you have an intuitive idea, but it could very well be that your idea doesn’t make sense when applied to whatever the real universe is.
For my purposes, complexity is: involving (in the broadest sense of that word) more than one (in the broadest sense of that word) thing (in the broadest sense of that word). And remember, I’m not talking about the real universe, but about the universe as it appears to creatures capable of thinking.
Um, that seems like a stretch. Just because some aspects of the universe are subject to mathematical analysis doesn’t necessarily mean the whole universe is.
I think it does, if you’re granting me that such a world could be distinguished into parts. It doesn’t mean we could have the rich mathematical understanding of laws we do now, but that’s a higher bar than I’m talking about.
You can always “use” analysis the issue is whether it gives you correct answers. It only gives you the correct answer if the universe obeys certain axioms.
Well, this gets us back to the topic that spawned this whole discussion: I’m not sure we can separate the question ‘can we use it’ from ‘does it give us true results’ with something like math. If I’m right that people always have mostly true beliefs, then when we’re talking about the more basic ways of thinking (not Aristotelian dynamics, but counting, arithmetic, etc.) the fact that we can use them is very good evidence that they mostly return true results. So if you’re right that you can always use, say, arithmetic, then I think we should conclude that a universe is always subject to analysis by arithmetic.
You may be totally wrong that you can always use these things, of course. But I think you’re probably right and I can’t make sense of any suggestion to the contrary that I’ve heard yet.
For my purposes, complexity is: involving (in the broadest sense of that word) more than one (in the broadest sense of that word) thing (in the broadest sense of that word). And remember, I’m not talking about the real universe, but about the universe as it appears to creatures capable of thinking.
I think it does, if you’re granting me that such a world could be distinguished into parts. It doesn’t mean we could have the rich mathematical understanding of laws we do now, but that’s a higher bar than I’m talking about.
You can always “use” analysis the issue is whether it gives you correct answers. It only gives you the correct answer if the universe obeys certain axioms.
Well, this gets us back to the topic that spawned this whole discussion: I’m not sure we can separate the question ‘can we use it’ from ‘does it give us true results’ with something like math. If I’m right that people always have mostly true beliefs, then when we’re talking about the more basic ways of thinking (not Aristotelian dynamics, but counting, arithmetic, etc.) the fact that we can use them is very good evidence that they mostly return true results. So if you’re right that you can always use, say, arithmetic, then I think we should conclude that a universe is always subject to analysis by arithmetic.
You may be totally wrong that you can always use these things, of course. But I think you’re probably right and I can’t make sense of any suggestion to the contrary that I’ve heard yet.
One could mathematically describe things not analysable by arithmetic, though...
Fair point, arithmetic’s not a good example of a minimum for mathematical description.