I think this is stupid. Embarrassingly stupid. But I can’t stop thinking it.
Many people are thinking about it, it is fun to think about it. I don’t think it is stupid. The worst case scenario is that it is bad science fiction but good fantasy.
Steven Landsburg seems to be taking the idea very seriously as well. The basic tenet of his new book seems to be that mind is biology, biology is chemistry, chemistry is physics, physics being math. Mind perceives math, thus the universe exists physically. Erase the “baggage” and all that’s left is math.
All sorts of people think about this idea:
There is something almost mystical about this: any sequence of digits, for example, randomly conceived in the mind, must correspond to a sequence of digits in the unknowable expansion of Pi (in that realm over 10^1000 digits into the expansion), based on the laws of probability.
Many people are thinking about it, it is fun to think about it. I don’t think it is stupid. The worst case scenario is that it is bad science fiction but good fantasy.
Steven Landsburg seems to be taking the idea very seriously as well. The basic tenet of his new book seems to be that mind is biology, biology is chemistry, chemistry is physics, physics being math. Mind perceives math, thus the universe exists physically. Erase the “baggage” and all that’s left is math.
All sorts of people think about this idea:
— Garth Kroeker, Irrational Numbers Metaphor
Also see:
The mathematical universe: the map that is the territory
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Is mathematics invented or discovered?
Nature by Numbers
The Dust Theory