Ive always loved fundamental physics, and would probably be in that field had I not decided that artificial intelligence was even more awesome. In both cases though, my motivation is the same: to attack scientifically questions that had seemed forever in the realm of philosophy. In the past few months Ive spent time while at the gym or walking my dog scribbling and thinking more about the relationship between mathematics and reality. That led me to read this recent book, which Im now happy to recommend. Finally! I found someone with whom I agree on all counts. In particular: that there are many kinds of other universes out there, that we are probably alone in this one, that the only logical interpretation of quantum mechanics is that of Everett which implies that every possible random outcome actually happens in its own copy of the universe, and that the world is not described by mathematics but *is* mathematics. In other words we exist in the exact same sense as the function y = x^2 exists. And thankfully he explains it with much more knowledge and credibility than I ever could. In fact my hope had long been to address these questions by writing science fiction: many of the ideas he discusses are themes I had earmarked as plot devices. But Im not likely to become a science fiction writer, at least in this version of our universe. If you dont think were a mathematical function, Ill be happy to try and convince you over lunch :)
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 22:25:50 +0000
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