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A remarkable cultural manifest
By koantum, Section Reviews Posted on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 05:43:38 PM PST
A Mystic (Piet Hut), a Secularist (Mark Alford), and a Fundamentalist (Max Tegmark) debate the nature of reality in the context of the "vicious triangle" math -> matter -> mind -> math. (Matter somehow embodies math, the mind arises from matter, and math is a product of the Mind). A must-read for science writers and journalists.

On Math, Matter and Mind to appear in Foundations of Physics http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510188 "A key message for non-physicists reading this paper is... that they should be deeply suspicious of any self-proclaimed popularizer or other ambassador claiming to speak on these matters on behalf of the consensus of the theoretical physics community." A summary: According to the Fundamentalist, Math is the foundation, Mind is the "feel" of information being processed, and there should be no Mind-Math link since Math is not a creation of the human mind. According to the Secularist, there should be only the Mind-Math link since Math is a creation of the human mind. According to the Mystic, the three M's co-emerge from a source beyond the three M's, and the three arrows of Penrose's diagram should be replaced by a trio of arrows that point from that source to the three M'. The highlights of the debate can be found at this blog: http://koantum.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/a-remarkable-cultural-manifest/

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· http://arx iv.org/abs/physics/0510188 · http://koa ntum.wordpress.com/2006/07/28/a-remarkable-cultural-manifest/ · More on Physics · Also by koantum