Ok. I’ll declare it: I accept David Lewis’ unlimited possible worlds – modal realism [philosophy] as the best and most complete map possible upon which to draw.
Basically, if it could, it did. If it should, it will. Everything possible is true and false and inbetween.
Lewis’ multiverse is *not* the same as Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe but it’s big enough to contain it. Lewis’ multiverse is *not* the same as the multiverse concept in quantum physics but it’s big enough to contain it.
In this philosophical stance, Doctor Who is really traveling through time and space, gliding through possible worlds, changing history in some possible world not so far away from our own universe.
These Universes do not and cannot interact. We can talk about them – we already talk about them.
“What I could have done?” You did.
Was it “you” on this World? No. But you did or rather your counterpart did.
I like this theory, born in 1986 by Lewis because it’s big enough to contain it all.
Now, Lewis has it as a concrete reality. I don’t have to but I can treat it “as if true”.
Why is this useful?
It simplifies possibilities.
Your probability cloud? It stretches across multiple Universes. Simple. Now you can count them if you like.
You have 7 possibilities? You can easily follow each of those 7 possibilities in 7 different worlds. Easy.
Which one is this one? Simple. The actual one. The others have counterparts. They’re you and not you. But you care about them because they’re also you even though you have no contact with them.
Why should you have done [x]?
Because in another universe you did [x].
But that [x] could have ended up in 17 different results that you can imagine.
That’s fine. There are 17 other Universes similar to the Universe in which you did [x] that had 17 other outcomes from there.
It simplifies things. The map is big enough to contain it all without having to feel tied down to this one.
You don’t have to feel bad that your wishes didn’t come true. They did come true.
It clears things up.
You can even inspire yourself by returning to a route you wanted to follow but instead a counterpart you did in another Universe. So, you figure out what that counterpart you did [when you think, “What would I have done if ?”] and you do that here.
It takes the pressure off you here in any case because you on World 0 is not responsible for what World 9823 does but you’re responsible for what you on World 9823 does if you do what World 9823 does here on World 0.
It simplifies truth and lies. It’s all true… somewhere.
We already talk this way. “His facts might be true in his world but not this one that I’m in.” You can treat them both as true and you can measure the distance between his world and your world.
Being Philosophy and not Physics also takes the pressure off.
You can chose to describe physics multiverse effects as belonging only to this Universe or spread it across multiple Universes if you like. There’s room on the map.
I think that’s what I like about it the most: It doesn’t take anything away from anybody. If you want to say “There is only one Universe” you’re also right for as there is no physical interaction between Lewis’ Universes, you’ll only have direct access to one Universe which is this one.
What if this Universe has provable other Universes connected: “leaky” Universes (they leak information)?
In that case, they are STILL properties of *this* Universe – which would then be a Universe with other leaky Universes attached that are unrelated to Lewis’ other Universes because his Universes are not connected in any way.
I’m liking this. It’s big enough to encompass all possibilities without being restricted to mathematics-only (such as Max Tegmark) and it makes it possible to speak about “degrees of truth” or “How close to true” something is by showing how many Worlds away something is from this one.
No matter your results, you’ll still be in this one, even if not-actual ideas belong in another one.
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Makes it better doesn’t it? Somewhere ‘out there’ ,it’s happening.
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Yeah – they’re definitely all related. Sliders was a 90s TV show whose whole premise was on that, and I’ve seen parallel universes used as plot devices for a long time. [and when you think about “dream sequences”, there’s also parallel universes]. That’s what I like about this: It covers all of it.
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I’ve been fighting declaring it “best” for a long time because I couldn’t reconcile it with the physics’ multiverse ideas. [I waver on them. I tend to see them as handy mathematical devices in order to allow more flexibility in calculations, but not as representing this world, yet other times, I hear something convincing about them].But once it dawned on me that they’re ultimately STILL talking about this Universe when doing multiverse stuff and that their multiverse stuff doesn’t necessarily have to have ANYTHING at all to do with Lews’ plurality of worlds I could relax and say< ‘ok, yes, I’m ok with this”.It takes me a long time to finally say “I accept” stuff. Last thing I remember accepting was Embodied Cognition and that was a couple of years ago now.
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I live in my head and even as a kid couldn’t understand why this world didn’t match up properly, especially myself. Why did my imagined self not match up to the self others’ see? I couldn’t accept “imagination is a fiction” because it’s that same imagination that allows for planning and such. I use my imagination constantly in very pragmatic and practical ways, as well as going off to other places.So, I always intuitively believe in multiverse just not always the way that I was seeing it coming out of physics.But philosophically and intuitively? I always believe it to be true. “This isn’t my world – I just live here” is so often my theme song.
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His encompass mathematics. This can encompass non-mathematical probabilities.
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ol well in this Universe, counter-factuals can land you in jail.I think of it being more useful in psychology in understanding how far off from this universe the person is.
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I’m not misunderstanding. Probability has a particular definition in the realm of mathematics. But probability has a broader definition outside of mathematics.Mathematics is based upon sets of axioms and proofs.Not every system is based upon a set of axioms and proofs.
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Ok.“David Lewis’ plurality of worlds is outside of the reach of math” is true.
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“mathematics is not a fundamental property of the universe” is true.Is there room for that statement to be true in any of Tegmark’s universes?
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I take it you see the descriptive ability of mathematics to be absolute, for any case that cannot be described mathematically simply equates to 0.It sounds like closed-world assumption. If it cannot be described mathematically, it doesn’t exist.I’m saying yes it can. Is there room for that?
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Lewis’ plurality of worlds concept has room for nonsensical universes.
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Tegmark’s is *almost* as big as Lewis’ but Lewis’ doesn’t require mathematics of any kind to be at the root.
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“God said, “Let there be light”?” there’s room for that under Lewis.
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IGUS – intelligence gathering and utilizing systems, such as humans, have hidden processes. Black box.There’s inputs, the IGUS does what it does, then outputs.We’re not privy all of the inner workings of IGUS, their experiences, their imaginations, their histories, the factors they put together in order to draw conclusions.We’d need to have a computer larger than the Universe itself with full access to everything as it happens to predict every output of an IGUS.Or at the very least, full access to that life form from inception and all of their inner workings as they’re happening in real time in order to even THINK of predicting every output.We didn’t have it, therefore our predicting capabilities are limited to whatever stereotypical patterns we follow.
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I was referring to this. The cross-connections even between completely uncorrelated facts. They’re invisible and inaccessible and unpredictable. These are limitations of information. Limitations of information also means limitations of mathematics or of any system to “know everything”.–
Figure 10. Information gathering and utilizing systems (IGUS) provide a general conceptual frame for systems which, like most living organisms, receive data on their environment from sources possibly far away in space and time, store and process them forming cross-connections even between completely uncorrelated facts, to trigger effects that again can be spatially and temporally very remote from the IGUS.
Figure 10. Information gathering and utilizing systems (IGUS) provide a general conceptual frame for systems which, like most living organisms, receive data on their environment from sources possibly far away in space and time, store and process them forming cross-connections even between completely uncorrelated facts, to trigger effects that again can be spatially and temporally very remote from the IGUS.
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Heisenberg is related to this, yeah. Between Heisenberg and Godel’s incompleteness, Laplace’s demon (the magical creature that could know all the positions of all the particles and energies etc in order to predict everything) was destroyed.The only way around Laplace’s demon *might* be a multiverse but because of Godel, mathematics isn’t it or at least not provably so.
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There’s limitations to objective analysis, yes.
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Yeah. Mathematics is great for describing things in a ‘skeletal way” and even in fantastic detail. But like any descriptive system, it’s a map of the territory.Imagine a multitude of maps from every perspective about a territory from the perspective of every possible viewpoint and combination thereof, through every intelligence gathering system and all of their biases they bring with them, all working to describe a terrritory?Then you might get somewhat close.
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Math can’t be used to prove math. That requires philosophy. This doesn’t mean Philosophy can do what math does. But it means that math is fundamentally incomplete.It can be 99.9-repeating% repeating but never reach 1.
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We can’t exclude ourselves from this stuff.
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hat it’s humans who are creating and utilizing math that has to be included for it to be complete.Until some aliens come along, there’s no divorcing ourselves from it completely.
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This was the big letdown in quantum mechanics. We’re part of the problem and can’t get ourselves out of it. Before that, it seemed like we had it all figured out. And we almost did and do. But we’re not separate from the process of creating these truths.
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I’m looking around and see no other information gathering and utilizing systems.You may believe that mathematics exists in a platonic realm. That’s fine. I’m cool with that. But at that level, it becomes an article of faith.
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The platonic realm is where mathematics plays out and also where God hangs out and pure ideas hangs out. Maybe it’s real. I don’t believe it is but perhaps in some universe.
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Well, I’m not doing full justice to Lewis’ plurality here.
He believed they have a concrete reality. I’m using it as a stand-in for reality so that there’s nothing that can’t be mapped out in SOME universe somewhere by whatever means – mathematics, in a court room where someone is describing “what really happened” but it competed with someone else’s account, etc.
He believed they have a concrete reality. I’m using it as a stand-in for reality so that there’s nothing that can’t be mapped out in SOME universe somewhere by whatever means – mathematics, in a court room where someone is describing “what really happened” but it competed with someone else’s account, etc.
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If you look up Lewis Tegmark Multiverse on google, you’ll find a lot of people comparing and contrasting them, as they’re REALLY really similar.
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Tegmark : Math :: Lewis : Philosophy
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Thanks for sticking with me through it. I didn’t mean to be so hard on you or Tegmark honestly. I’ve just been fighting an internal battle with multiverse concepts for a while and you got to hear it. 
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I don’t think Tegmark is wrong. That’s what I like about this concept. He can be right. Also, Doctor Who’s TARDIS can fly between them. Everything can be true, just not here. I like the space it gives and the very few requirements.Anyway, g’nite and I appreciate our conversation. You drew things out of me that I didn’t know were there, and I learned a bunch from you and about my own thinking in the process.
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Oh, no no. What’s good about this is each Universe is entirely separate from each other. No interactions whatsoever.It’s more of a way to ‘map’ “would, could, should” – fictions.
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This is where a mathematical multiverse falls short: A mathematical multiverse places mathematics at the beginning, a priori. In my mind, replacing God.In this methodology, was World 0 (home, this Universe, the actual Universe) created by God or math or logic or [x]?The debate can continue. There’s nothing in this view that says God didn’t create this Universe. There’s nothing that says it wasn’t mathematics. There’s nothing that says it wasn’t logic.In short what happens elsewhere, really doesn’t need to concern us at all, if those other places even exist.
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For each possibility, there’s a universe for it. No limitations.We’re still in this one. There’s no getting out of it. But our understanding of this is often flawed, likely so.In this formulation, one can say “Your ideas are similar to this Universe, but not this Universe”. In the end, it’s more of a gimmick than something that needs to be concrete. But it’s a nice big map to work with.
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Oh I know. This is philosophy though, not physics or mathematics.I’m not a huge fan of Tegmark’s influence because I don’t believe *this* Universe is mathematics. Maybe there’s one that is: the one in his mind. The one he constructed and proved. The one that many people adore and believe in.But rather than calling him an idiot or fool or misguided, instead I can say he’s talking about some other Universe that’s similar to this one, just not this one.
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I think the 2nd statement is misleading because it implies some future action in some unknown Universe.The first formulation is better because it’s present, “now” based.
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What’s limiting spacetime? Mathematics is an idealized compression mapping human-derived patterns that work with our cognitive systems in describing the mechanisms of this Universe as best we can.
But does everything give way to mathematics? I don’t think so, because uniqueness.
One can model with (draw / paint / map) mathematics but in its fullness, I cannot conceive of any language that would describe the entirety of it in such a way that could describe all of it, unless that system was around in the beginning, the middle and the end in all places from all perspectives in every configurations, mathematical and non-mathematical.
We’re starting late in the game. Maybe if we started our own Universe and tracked it mathematically, we could have a mathematical universe.
What mathematics in physics is doing is creating a narrative. It’s a strong narrative and much of it is provable by NON-mathematical means such as observation and experimentation.
But while I find it a useful tool, I can’t see it being the alpha and omega of all. it’s good for us now, in this present timeframe, as humans on this planet with the needs we have from our perspective.
But because there’s truly no such thing as two apples, I can’t give mathematics the credit it wants here.
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