by prozaic » Fri Nov 09, 2012 7:45 am
Killminusnine wrote:I'd say on the contrary it is pretty interesting that all possible universes exist. It has pretty meaningful consequences as a hypothesis for modal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and there's a (somewhat long and technical but very good) book defending this position ("modal realism"). It's called
On the Plurality of Worlds and it's written by David K Lewis. Masturbatory isn't how I'd describe his philosophy.
I mean that it is masturbatory in the sense that all metaphysical theories are. I would go as far as to say it (mathematical universe/modal realism) is
obviously true: our universe is "merely" a description of itself, there is no "quintessence of reality" suffused throughout. There is no other way of looking at it that is (to my mind at least) coherent and internally consistent.
The problem is that, like all metaphysical theory it generates no testable predictions. It does make for some great fiction, see my favorite scifi novel: Permutation City by Greg Egan.
anus mcgee wrote:I think we're all forgetting the big picture here: this comic isn't funny at all.
Well, I appreciate Zach's attempts to provide some intellectualism in his comics. But you're right, sometimes it feels like he wanted to do a strip about something he thought was cool and then forced a joke in post facto.
[quote="Killminusnine"]I'd say on the contrary it is pretty interesting that all possible universes exist. It has pretty meaningful consequences as a hypothesis for modal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and there's a (somewhat long and technical but very good) book defending this position ("modal realism"). It's called [url=http://www.amazon.com/On-Plurality-Worlds-David-Lewis/dp/0631224262/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352313387]On the Plurality of Worlds[/url] and it's written by David K Lewis. Masturbatory isn't how I'd describe his philosophy.[/quote]
I mean that it is masturbatory in the sense that all metaphysical theories are. I would go as far as to say it (mathematical universe/modal realism) is [i]obviously[/i] true: our universe is "merely" a description of itself, there is no "quintessence of reality" suffused throughout. There is no other way of looking at it that is (to my mind at least) coherent and internally consistent.
The problem is that, like all metaphysical theory it generates no testable predictions. It does make for some great fiction, see my favorite scifi novel: Permutation City by Greg Egan.
[quote="anus mcgee"]I think we're all forgetting the big picture here: this comic isn't funny at all.[/quote]
Well, I appreciate Zach's attempts to provide some intellectualism in his comics. But you're right, sometimes it feels like he wanted to do a strip about something he thought was cool and then forced a joke in post facto.