Does the universe adhere to ZFC?

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Kuznetzova
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Does the universe adhere to ZFC?

Post by Kuznetzova »

Does the universe adhere to the axioms of ZFC?

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(marginal crash course:  All known systems of mathematics can be re-stated in the language of Set Theory. The particular Set Theory which underlies all our human branches of math is called Zermelo-Fraenkel-Choice Theory.  Or "ZFC" for short.   From wikipedia you will see that ZFC is literally nothing more than a hodge-podge collection of axioms.  If you don't know what an "axiom" is, then do your own homework. )  
So mathematics has been wildly successful in describing and predicting the physical world that we live in. "Wildly successful" is understatement. Mathematics is suspiciously, and eerily good at describing the physical world. The successes of Quantum Mechanics can not be understated. I, Kuznetzova, agree that Quantum Mechanics is the most successful scientific theory ever created by human beings in all of history.

The theories of physics are always describing those universal, unchanging, eternal laws of the world. That is a fine endeavor, but the world we inhabit is not an isomorphic grid of quantum particles zipping around aimlessly. Our universe is full of FACTS. Our world is made up of a near-infinite collection of particular, contingent, and temporary facts. Let me list a few of these particulars, to illustrate.

Pretend my name is Matt Segall and I live in San Fransisco. I have a cat. The cat's hair is brown. There are two trees outside my window. Both of them are oaks. They are located 20.26 meters from my house, and not somewhere else.

Those are particulars. Facts of the current moment. I can ask a philosopher, what was the origin of these facts? The philosopher will respond in the usual manner. He will say these "facts" are actually only ever configurations of matter. Configurations come and go. Right now the configuration of matter is a homo sapien named Matt Segall and a brown domestic shorthair, and some oak trees outside the window.

Philosopher will continue: Configurations of matter in this universe can be traced back to the beginning of the universe, directly after the Big Bang. Before the universe expanded rapidly with inflation, there were some random quantum fluctuations. Those fluctuations got smeared out during expansion, and later gave rise to the clumpiness and anisotropic distribution of galaxies in our universe. Much much later, matter coalesced around a star and gave rise to the Earth. Later the material on that earth started making copies of amino acids. Fast forward 3.5 billion years, and in a place called San Francisco, the matter is in its current configuration. In short, all particular facts find their origin in the primordial "Quantum Fluctuations" of the early universe.

We can now ask the philosopher: Why those particular quantum fluctuations and not others?

In response to this, very strange concepts creep into the conversation. The philosopher will respond that there is Frozen Configuration Space of all possible universes out there; a super infinite set of all quantum universes existing right now. They are as totally real and totally physical as our universe is. This is not a mathematical abstraction. This is a forcible claim that there must exist a real multiverse, and that it is "infinite". Our situation in this universe is that we have been plucked randomly from this infinite set of universes.

Now, while the above fairytale may be perfectly rational in terms of set theory, there is no reason in particular to think that it is physically rational at all. That is to say, I deride this answer as "fairytale" precisely because of its mystical irrationality. Furthermore - many secular humanists walk around in their daily lives believing this mathematical fairytale is perfectly reasonable!

I understand full-well that mathematics has been a suspiciously powerful tool to describe physics. I admitted to this above. But can we, nay, SHOULD we extrapolate this success and start strutting around claiming that all of existence must adhere with the laws of math? Why should the universe adhere to our little homo sapien math system? I can see no reason why this would be the case at all. I think ZFC is good for upright walking hominids on planet earth to derive their mathematics theorems from. But the basis of ZFC is a collection of axioms, whose truthfulness is accepted completely on faith.

Perchance there are other more exotic systems of axioms, quite alien to ZFC, which more accurately depict our universe, and other universes as well. Why reject this idea? Why should we believe that the physical world must adhere to the axioms of ZFC?
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