News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Stephen Hawking's Final Paper Cuts the Multiverse Down to Size. Parent comment

Re:Stephen Hawking's Final Paper Cuts the Multiverse Down to... by deciplex on Thursday May 03, 2018 @01:38PM (#16987993)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

I get it, but I can't quite wrap my head around a mathematical universe with no substrate. As though any internally consistent ontology with self-aware structures (and, it seems to me, also those without) just "exists" apropos of nothing. What's doing the math?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking's Final Paper Cuts the Multiverse Down to... by kazinator on Thursday May 03, 2018 @02:20PM (#16988370)
Once you postulate a substrate, you then have to wrap your head around what is its substrate, and what is that substrate's substrate and so on. When you look at it that way, the no-substrate version looks better.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking's Final Paper Cuts the Multiverse Down to... by tim333 on Friday May 04, 2018 @08:18AM (#16993943)
Who invented all the digits of pi? They just are what they are without needing a substrate. It seems real because you are part of it like being in VR.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Stephen Hawking's Final Paper Cuts the Multiverse Down to... by deciplex on Monday May 07, 2018 @07:14PM (#17017268)
I said "what" is doing the math, not "who".
[ Parent | on HN ]