esahione

Easy to say when you have a foundation that holds all your wealth and you only pay marginal income taxes. That's pure marketing. Anarcho-capitalism is a better idea.

I mean that rules could be constantly changing in an ad-hoc manner, in such a way that to an external observer that is not the decision maker, the rules would be chaotic and completely senseless. Like the dream: there's no rule to grasp.

And I don't think it's that far off from our universe: we are likely something akin to a thought in a Mind. Anyways good chat - I think there's a big gap between our understanding of what is possible and what is, and how it can be given it is what we observe.

There's no reason for atoms to even exist man. The fact they exist and that they follow a specific rule system that is based off of abstractions is absolutely mind-boggling. Your argument is also inching towards a kind of argument by lack of imagination.

I can imagine a world (maybe not ours) where there are no atoms, just ideas, in God's mind, and the ideas are interacting and are formed by something completely different than atoms. Like our dreams. Are there atoms in dreams? What about a dream of a person that turns into a bird and flies through the emptiness of space and disappears into a mist that starts dreaming of a person.......

So the question still remains and it is still open to discussion even if you insist that any universe must follow a rule-based system. Moreover, that would imply the existence of these rules in a kind of platonic sense. How would they give rise to a universe? This is not as simple as you make it to be, at all.

I think you're mistaken about philosophy; maybe early 20th century philosophy. Right now it seems like there's lots of interesting debates going on. But I'm just an observer.

Ok but isn't a formal system also an abstract logical structure? Why are atoms actually following truths from logical systems? The problem remains.

Wigner clearly delineates the problem on his famous paper about the applicability of mathematics. It's still a topic in philosophy to this day. I'm sure you appreciate that if it was a simple solution it wouldn't be a big deal.

Mathematics is constantly proving things true. Physics also has theorems, for instance, the Stone–von Neumann theorem.

The scientific method is a method for testing of hypotheses, yes, but that is simply one way of discovering what is true. Logic, testimony, written accounts and records, mathematical proofs, and so on are all other ways of discovering truth.

For instance, you cannot prove who was the Emperor of Rome at a particular date in the past with experiments. You must use historical record to do so. Unless you call your experiment opening a book - but that's not a controlled experiment. And even if all books said that Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome on March 16, 180 you still wouldn't be able to prove it mathematically or using logic. You're using inference to the best explanation in a form of Bayesian probabilities.

Even though it is a matter of fact that either he was or wasn't, there's no experiment you can run on that hypothesis that could tell you the truth.

On your point 2, "X=>Y" indeed means X implies Y, so given X is true, Y is true as well. It could mean causality, but it could also mean necessity. So saying "X is true means Y is true" can be applied to numerous different contexts, including one of causality. I let go of the apple, and the apple falls. This last statement being equivalent to every body that is not subject to forces follows the geodesic created by the spacetime manifold. Which can be put in a logical form X=>Y.

And on your first point: the natural world is clearly following mathematical truths, and that is the entire point of the conversation. The ask of "Why is nature consistent" implies something much much deeper about the nature of reality than what scientific experiments can show. It is a metaphysical question, not a scientific question.

Again, there's no apparent connection between logic and mathematical truths and the universe. Moreover, logic and mathematical truths are causally inert: they cannot be a cause to a physical effect.

Yet it appears like all physical effects are following such laws and rules. I.e, there appears to be something that breathes fire into our equations.

There's no causation line from abstractions such as mathematics to material effects. The fact material conditions follow abstract conditions is a very particular problem and different from the one you aim to solve with your reply.

"Why" is a question that is aims to answer the cause of a property or effect.

Why do apples fall from trees? Gravity. Why does gravity exist? Because matter bends space. Why does matter bend space? We don't know yet.

Ultimately, any X is either caused or uncaused. Not "X=Y", but either "Y=>X" or "X exists" - the latter being uncaused.

This is pretty basic philosophy.

Ok - but there was a why question, and now there's another one. Those are questions that we can and do answer. Therefore your initial statement is simply false.

The anthropic principle doesn't explain why it is, in actuality, intelligible. It's only a constraint on what couldn't be the case given we exist.

It's clearly a much deeper question, given even Wigner wrote a paper about it. He called it a miracle.

Look, ultimately, mathematics is abstract and the physical world is material. The fact that an abstract condition is able to affect material conditions is literally a miracle that can only be explained metaphysically.

That's absolutely not true. Science and mathematics are constantly placing forward why questions.

Placing an arbitrary barrier on the questions that can be asked is called dogma.

Example: Noether's Theorems explain why there are conservation laws. There are conservation laws because the universe observes certain symmetries.

God. Coming from a former atheist that became an idealistic theist after reading enough quantum mechanics and math.

Ultimately it's the only plausible explanation as to why mathematics applies to the physical world.

That's pretty different though: the structure of mathematics seems to be more related to truth than a chair.

Notice that even the universe follows that structure.