The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 Daniel Shechtman (Israel)

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to

In quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Daniel Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter.

...it brings to mind Max Tegmark's Level IV parallel universe model which posits that observables are manifestations of mathematical structures which actually do exist beyond space/time.

Indeed — and such a fascinating insight! It is actually amazingly "platonic," too. To me, Tegmark's mathematical structures directly correlate with Plato's forms, which are inherently mathematical, and the (divine) Idea of which they are manifestations.

In Plato's creation myth, the Demiurge — who is not the One God "Beyond" the Cosmos, but seemingly a sort of agent of the Divine — "persuades" the pure, unlimited potentiality of Chora (i.e., matter) — which, being unformed and random is literally "no-thing" — to accept "formation," to conform to a "limit," such that it can become a "some-thing" existent in actual Reality. The Demiurge is motivated to create all things according to the very standards of truth, goodness, beauty, and justice — that is, according to the divine Idea, in a manner consistent with the true nature of the One God.

The point is, the creative "forms" of Plato's Demiurge, who acts for the One God "Beyond" the Cosmos, are mathematical/geometrical in nature. [It is generally agreed that Plato was a student of Pythagoras, for whom number and geometry were the keys to unlocking all the "mysteries" of the universe.]

"Random" matter can manifest no particular existence until or unless it can be "persuaded" to accept formation by such means. I gather Plato's insistence that the Demiurge works by means of "persuasion" — peitho — indicates his reluctance to believe that we live in a completely deterministic universe.

Anyhoot, I find Plato's creation myth (found in the Timaeus) to be eminently fascinating. Somehow I draw a correspondence/resemblance between his Chora and the pure potentiality of the quantum world....

I greatly admire Max Tegmark, a mathematician of the Platonist "school." He is no mathematical formalist like, say, David Hilbert, or Bertrand Russell.

I imagine that if, in fact, such mathematical structures exist beyond the 4D spacetime that humans normally experience, they must do so from yet another "timelike" dimension "above" the four nominal dimensions of human direct experience....

Anyhoot, to my way of thinking, these are fascinating conjectures.

They are also entirely beyond the reach of the scientific method.

But does this fact make them necessarily "untrue?"

I don't think so.

Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for bringing Max Tegmark's Level IV parallel universe to mind!

Depends on how strictly you define "experience." I think we can broaden our experience through our faith in and openness to God and the depth of our interest. As we agreed, mathematics is a language which helps us see and express relationships among the "observables" and to some extent to predict future relationships. As we do those things aren't we experiencing them?

From the Pythagorean Theorem to the Fibonacci numbers we are simply observing preexisting patterns, or forms. Do those observations evoke a sense of awe or just an amused recognition like, "Hey, look at that! That's weird!" If the latter, that is normal. If the former, we are beginning to peel away the layers of reality.

As we learn about DNA, RNA, nutrition, etc., we are also looking deeper into reality, if we care to. My point is that all this already exists but we are slowly learning about some of it. As some is revealed more will be revealed, but it is already there. We are just experiencing it at different times and in different ways.

That reminds me of one of my favorite definitions: Expert - One who knows a lot about a little, or more and more about less and less.

Anyhoot, to my way of thinking, these are fascinating conjectures.

They are also entirely beyond the reach of the scientific method.

We can thank Free Will and decisions made in the Garden of Eden for that. God set it all in place and gave us the secret to it all. We just keep looking for it in all the wrong places. We concentrate on the nouns, the observables, and ignore God, the Verb. Concentrating on the nouns is not bad for that leads to our earthly, physical progress. Ignoring God the verb leaves us wondering in the wilderness in search of that which surrounds us.

The Bible is a wonderful allegory which leads us to the answers. We simply need to let it lead us.

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