X-Message-Number: 25455
From: 
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:45:09 EST
Subject: information without objects

RBR seems to reject Platonism, but even though Plato lived about 2,500  years 
ago, some of his views are still debated and maintained by some  respectable 
people.
 
Can information or relationships exist without physical manifestation? It's  
an unsettled question, and it would be just foolish for anyone to claim to 
know  the answer. 
 
The most obvious case concerns numbers. Can they exist in the abstract?  Many 
would say, obviously yes. Numbers (integers) have qualities, and  

relationships to each other, independent of any particular examples or  
instantiations. 
(This is part of the motivation for the patternists.) The  universe is 
"physical" (whatever that means), but nevertheless there is reality  in the 
relationships between numbers. 
 
If there is a multiverse, could a universe exist in which it was not true  
that 
2 + 3 = 5? Many would doubt that possibility, which would seem to imply  that 
arithmetic is more "real" than matter or the laws of physics. 
 
As Dr. Haftka says, we'll probably know more in 3005.
 
Robert Ettinger


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