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Since the beginning of time, things merge. Subatomic "particles" into atoms into molecules into bigger molecules, all directed by physics. Biochemistry, is just
by 74B5 5y ago
Since the beginning of time, things merge. Subatomic "particles" into atoms into molecules into bigger molecules, all directed by physics. Biochemistry, is just chemistry, is just physics.
- zKqGcn 5y agoAnd physics is just applied mathematics! It's applied complexity all the way down.
- bloopernova 5y agoAnd physics is mathematics, correct?
- macromagnon 5y agoFrom one perspective, mathematics is the study of the methods of reasoning on abstract concepts. Theorems follow from any set of axioms that do not lead to any contradiction. In physics, one is usually only interested in results relating to the current universe we live in. In that sense, mathematics can be viewed as more general.
- goatlover 5y agoFor Tegmark, that's enough to argue reality is every possible universe of mathematics.
- solarengineer 5y agoI thought physics is described by mathematics.
- goatlover 5y agoIf it's all physics, where does the math to describe it come from?
- datashaman 5y agoaxioms
- GoblinSlayer 5y agoFrom imagination.
- goatlover 5y agoThe physics imagines math to describe itself?
- GoblinSlayer 5y agoHumans imagine math to describe physics.
- FabHK 5y ago> physics is mathematics, correct? Just applied linear algebra (or so claimed my professor of linear algebra...)
- goatlover 5y agoThat ignores emergent features, and that it's impossible for us to describe chemistry or biology only in terms of physics. Reproduction is one of the emergent features of biology.
- acceit 5y agoThat doesn't sound right to me[1]. Surely physics + enough detail is biology? Maybe it's not a level of detail we actually understand with contemporary science -- hence the addition of higher level abstractions like biology which are derived "top down" rather than "bottom up" (i.e., empirically) -- but "emergent systems" != "magic". [1]: me: a complete layperson.
- goatlover 5y agoWe should distinguish the field of physics, which is a human study, from the world, which it attempts to map or model on a fundamental level. We can say biology and chemistry are made up of the fundamental stuff of the world which physics seeks to understand, but that's different from saying chemistry and biology are just the science of physics. We have different domains for a reason. How that cashes out in the world itself are metaphysical questions of ontology, emergence, reductionism, mereology and Platonism/universals. Also the status of causality and laws of nature. But then again, philosophy is also a domain of human inquiry. The world is just whatever it is, however we think it best to describe. Problem is that our different domains of descriptions and questions don't always fit easily with one another. So to say it's all just the domain of physics is to mistake one map for the territory.