eujay comments on Closet survey #1 - Less Wrong

53 [deleted] 14 March 2009 07:51AM

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Comment author: eujay 14 March 2009 07:01:33PM 1 point [-]

Not falsifiable, but more parsimonious than thinking that something 'acts out' the reality that we see. Other explanations of reality leave behind a material residue. A bit like saying that water is made of wet stuff, fire is made of hot stuff, etc. True explantions 'destroy' the things that they explain. And I favor the theological argument that the foundation of reality must be something necessary. Mathematical Platonic reality does the job perfectly.

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 15 March 2009 04:33:38AM 6 points [-]

Well, the bit about platonism may be. Tegmark, I believe, came up with a notion along the lines of "well, if all mathematical structures are in some sense 'real', then we just need to somehow parameterize the set of all mathematical structures that could contain beings 'like us', then compare our observed universe to the 'most average' structures. If we differ significant'y from that, it's evidence against the proposition."