Discover Interview with Tegmark

Discover has a nice interview with Max Tegmark

Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?
Unconventional cosmologist Max Tegmark says mathematical formulas create reality,

where he talks about all of his four levels of the multiverse. It's quite entertaining to read. I have previously written why I think the mathematical universe hypothesis is nonsense unjustified, to summarize it very briefly: just because we (i.e. human beings) don't know anything except maths without 'human baggage' it doesn't follow from this it is the only thing there can be. Call it The Principle of Finite Imagination: The capacity of the human brain is finite. It is very possible that we simply aren't able to understand 'what' the universe is or why it works how it works. For my general problems with reality, see comments to the Block Universe.

But anyway, despite my disliking of its content, Tegmark's paper is as courageous as entertaining and bestowed this photo series upon you. If I have to read that

Tegmark has pursued this work despite some risk to his career. It took four tries before he could get an early version of the mathematical universe hypothesis published, and when the article finally appeared, an older colleague warned that his “crackpot ideas” could damage his reputation.

and

Q: Right from the start you tried to get this radical idea of yours published. Were you worried about whether it would affect your career?
A: I anticipated problems and did not submit until I had accepted a postdoctoral appointment at Princeton University [...]

it sounds to me like there's something really wrong with the academic system. If young people are afraid of pursuing their interests because it might damage their career this is likely to result in a self-reinforcing deviation of the topics that are investigated from those that are considered interesting. How can you expect science to work under these circumstances?

Posted by Anonymous

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