This was basically the ending of Anathem, if I recall, and it deeply sucked.

Quantum suicide lottery technique:

Spin the quantum chamber, shoot self 5/6 times or collect $1000000 1/6 of the time.

Result:

5 worlds out of 6 you’re dead, in one you have a million dollars.

So what? This only seems interesting if you believe you have exactly one soul that can execute horizontal universe jumps on death.

Maybe I’m missing something.

I think your fears are over-warranted. Leibniz, Boole, and Gödel all saw God in their work.

Mathematics is a language, yes. It’s not that great of a language, because while it tries to be unambiguous, it largely fails in this respect due to lack of foresight and reasons of legacy (all of these ambiguities can be resolved with a little context). Nonetheless, it is a language with a set of syntactical symbols, a set of rules on how to compose the symbols, and a set of mappings or morphisms to the underlying semantics, or the meaning of the symbols. One should make efforts not to confuse the syntax for the semantics in the same way one should avoid idolatry. It is a grave error to confuse an idol for the thing in itself.

You’re probably aware that the semantics of mathematics is universal. One can change the symbols and even the set of compositional rules, while retaining the underlying meaning. Take for instance the Curry–Howard correspondence, which describes an isomorphism between typed lambda calculus and classical logic. In other words, it shows that universal computation (imperative) and mathematics (declarative) are equivalent.

It is in this light that we can understand mathematics to be a human language that captures and distills in a declarative manner the higher-level computational thought-processes of our own minds. Minds that are embedded within our reality. We can also configure a small subset of matter within this world into a machine, a computer, that obeys the same rules of universal computation, independent of mind. What this tells us is that the fabric of reality, has the quality of Turing completeness (at least in the bounded sense). If it didn’t, it would be impossible to build such machines.

We can exploit different physical phenomenon and utilize different material substrates to build computers. You can build a mechanical computer with gears and pulleys. A computer that relies on fluid pumps, fluid pressure, and gravity. An electronic computer with semiconductor switches. A biological computer that exploits RNA recombination. In each, the semantics of universal computation–of mathematics–are the same. And yet, each form of computer we can create behaves in a similar manner from a thermodynamic and morphodynamic point of view. Like the reality they are embedded within, they are engines of entropy. Orthograde processes that give rise to a rich hierarchy of contragrade processes that are not be found via reduction of the system into its underlying constituent material components, but only exist within the system as a whole. Contragrade processes that are substrate independent, immaterial, and in a teleological sense, intrinsically oriented toward the rules of universal computation and thus mathematics.

What better tool to use when describing properties or modeling “hidden variables” that are hypothesized to not interact with our bubble of causality?

absolutely right. I think its Kgaard who says that Christianity used to be believable, but now isn’t, because of the wonders of Science. This is, of course, nonsense on stilts. The ancients were not confused on the nature of reproduction or the finality of death. The virgin birth idea and the resurrection doctrine were never ‘ believable.’ I think its Paul who explicitly states that what he is preaching is folly to the Greeks and blasphemy to the Jews. The main Christian doctrines were unbelievable enough that Tertullian could make an apologetic out of it. “Credo qui absurdum”–it must be true because its too bizarre for anyone to have made up.

But, I don’t think it holds a candle to Groundhog Day, which was a classic.

(Admin, I apologize for sullying what is probably your most suggestive post in months with sophomoric piffle.. I’ll return with value added comments as soon as the bourbon wears off.)