Category Archives: Philosophy
At the beginning of the week, I mentioned I’m reading Our Mathematical Universe (2014), by Max Tegmark. His stance on inflation, and especially on eternal inflation, got me really thinking about it. Then all that thinking turned into a post.
It happened again last night. That strong sense of, “Yeah, but…” With this book, that’s happening a lot. I find something slightly, but fundamentally, off about Tegmark’s arguments. There seems an over-willingness to accept wild conclusions. This may all say much more about me than about Tegmark, which in this case is perfect irony.
Because what set me off this time was his chapter about human intuition.
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24 Comments | tags: human consciousness, human mind, intuition, Max Tegmark | posted in Opinion, Philosophy, Science
Bang!!
I’m reading Our Mathematical Universe (2014), by Max Tegmark, and I’ll post about the book when I finish. However, he got my attention early with the topic of eternal inflation. That got me thinking about how there are some key unanswered questions regarding the Big Bang and inflation of the non-eternal sort.
Inflation certainly does need some explaining. It may be related to dark energy, as both seem to do the same sort of thing (push space apart). The putative physics of inflation is bad enough; eternal inflation is (in my view) fairy tale physics.
For one thing, eternal? Seriously? Infinite something from nothing?
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26 Comments | tags: big bang, eternal inflation, inflation, Max Tegmark, reality, the multiverse, universe | posted in Philosophy, Science
I was surprised to discover I’ve never posted about the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics — I would have sworn I had. I’ve mentioned it a few times, and I know I’ve discussed it in comment sections, but it seems I never tackled the subject explicitly for the record.
It’s been on my mind lately because others have talked about it. Sean Carroll’s book promoting it generated a wave of discussion. The final push for me was Jim Baggott’s Farewell to Reality, which consigns MWI to the “fairy tale physics” heap.
Since I quite agree, this seems a good follow-up to yesterday’s post.
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13 Comments | tags: Copenhagen Interpretation, Many Worlds Interpretation, measurement problem, MWI, Schrödinger Equation, Schrödinger's Cat | posted in Philosophy, Physics
My voracious reading habit has deep roots in libraries. The love of reading comes from my parents, but libraries provided a vast smörgåsbord to browse and consume. Each week I’d check out as many books as I could carry. I discovered science fiction in a library (the Lucky Starr series, with Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French, is the first I remember).
Modern adult life, I got out of the habit of libraries (and into book stores and now online books). But now the Cloud Library has reinvigorated my love of all those free books, especially the ones I missed along the way.
For instance, Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (2014), by Jim Baggott.
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13 Comments | tags: Farewell to Reality, Jim Baggott, library, Many Worlds Interpretation, MWI, theoretical physics | posted in Books, Philosophy, Physics
I’ve been slowly going through the NPR Tiny Desk Concerts. Most of the musicians and groups are unknown to me (it’s been decades since I even attempted to keep up with music). Truth is, most of the acts are interesting, but don’t really grab me. Maybe one in ten engages; none have made me a new fan.
Which is a whole other story. I mention it because many of these music makers are sweet, gentle, loving people who just want everyone else to be sweet, gentle, and loving. It’s a common sentiment. Banish the bad forever!
But balance is required. There is a Yin-Yang aspect to life.
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50 Comments | tags: civilization, greatness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, humanity, Yin and Yang | posted in Basics, Philosophy
One of the great philosophical conundrums involves the origin of numbers and mathematics. I first learned of it as Platonic vs Aristotelian views, but these days it’s generally called Platonism vs Nominalism. I usually think of it as the question of whether numbers are invented or discovered.
Whatever it’s called, there is something transcendental about numbers and math. It’s hard not to discover (or invent) the natural numbers. Even from a theory standpoint, the natural numbers are very simply defined. Yet they directly invoke infinity — which doesn’t exist in the physical world.
There is also the “unreasonable effectiveness” of numbers in describing our world.
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8 Comments | tags: math theory, mathematics, natural numbers, nominalism, numbers, Plato, Platonic, Platonism, rational numbers, real numbers, Theory of Mathematics | posted in Math, Philosophy
I cracked up when I saw the headline: Why your brain is not a computer. I kept on grinning while reading it because it makes some of the same points I’ve tried to make here. It’s nice to know other people see these things, too; it’s not just me.
Because, to quote an old gag line, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… perhaps you’ve misunderstood the situation.” The prevailing attitude seems to be that brains are just machines that we’ll figure out, no big deal. So, it’s certainly (and ever) possible my skepticism represents my misunderstanding of the situation.
But if so, I’m apparently not the only one…
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41 Comments | tags: algorithm, brain, brain mind problem, computationalism, consciousness, human brain, human consciousness, human mind, Matthew Cobb, mind, Theory of Consciousness | posted in Philosophy, Science
In this corner, philosopher John Searle (1932–), weighing in with what I like to call the Giant File Room (GFR). The essential idea is of a vast database capable of answering any question. The question it poses is whether we see this ability as “consciousness” behavior. (Searle’s implication is that we would not.)
In that corner, philosopher and mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), weighing in with his Incompleteness Theorems. The essential idea there is that no consistent (arithmetic) system can prove all possible truths about itself.
It’s possible that Gödel has a knockout punch for Searle…
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24 Comments | tags: algorithm, Incompleteness Theorems, John Searle, Kurt Gödel, The Chinese Room | posted in Philosophy, Science
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about (philosophical) idealism. I qualify it as philosophical to distinguish it from casual meaning of optimistic. In philosophy, idealism is a metaphysical view about the nature of reality — one that I’ve always seen as in contrast to realism.
What caught my eye in all the talk was that I couldn’t always tell if people were speaking of epistemological or ontological idealism. I agree, of course, with the former — one way or another, it’s the common understanding — but I’m not a fan of the various flavors of ontological idealism.
It seems downright Ptolemaic to me.
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34 Comments | tags: Cogito ergo sum, excluded middle, idealism, panpsychism, Ptolemy, realism, reality, René Descartes, solipsism, virtual reality | posted in Philosophy
Venus emerging from the sea.
I’ve been thinking about emergence. That things emerge seems clear, but a question involves the precise nature of exactly what emerges. The more I think about it, the more I think it may amount to word slicing. Things do emerge. Whether or not we call them truly “new” seems definitional.
There is a common distinction made between weak and strong emergence (alternately epistemological and ontological emergence, respectively). Some reject the distinction, and I find myself leaning that way. I think — at least under physicalism — there really is only weak (epistemological) emergence.
But I also think it amounts to strong (ontological) emergence.
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107 Comments | tags: determinism, emergence, ontological anti-realism, ontology, pi, real numbers, reductionism | posted in Philosophy
Logos con carne 