[ExI] Why do the language model and the vision model align?

[Jason Resch]

On Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 7:27 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 4:16 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> *>> Which is more fundamental, the English language word "c-o-w" or the
>>> thing with four legs that can produce milk? *
>>>
>>
>> *> I see you remain confused*
>>
>
> *And I see you have not answered my question.  *
>

I answered it previously when I agreed there is math the human invented
language, and there is the separate (plausibly fundamental) mathematical
reality. The format of this question is leading, as it continues under the
frame that math can only refer to math as the human invented language,
which is why I referred you to look at the triangle.

Consider the question of the organization of reality, and how we agree on
layers 8 - 4.

Humans have ideas about all kinds of things, including ideas about physics
and ideas about math. Okay? We agree on this much I think.

When I talk about the plausibility of mathematical objects as plausibly
being fundamental I am speaking of layers 1 & 2, not layer 8.

8. Human ideas about math and physics
7. Human Ideas
6. Human minds
5. Human brains
4. Our physical universe
3. All existing universes in a multiverse
2. All computations playing out in all possible ways
1. Mathematical truth

You are trying to use the word "math" to refer only to "ideas of math," but
this is as mistaken as the idealist who uses the word "physics" to refer to
only "ideas of physics."

For some reason, you do not want to ask any deeper questions about what may
underlie the physical universe. Perhaps you want it to be an unanswerable
brute fact, and simply accept that it will forever be a mystery why the
universe has quantum mechanical laws, what breathes fire into the
equations, why these laws and not others, why there is anything at all, why
the universe is comprehensible, etc.

But if you are willing to venture just a little deeper, to ask a question
you were not previously inclined to ask, you will find that out
understanding of physics can expand much deeper and can answer all these
aforementioned previously unanswerable questions, and more.




> *> by the circularity inherent to the triangle.I suggest taking a look at
>> the paper I linked.*
>>
>
>
> *I already had and I was not impressed by Penrose’s triangle. Mind is just
> what the brain, which needs to be made of matter to work, does.*
>

And that's where you hit a wall and stop asking further questions. Other
great physicists, however, do not stop there. They ask questions like:

 Why is there something rather than nothing?
-- Leibniz

Why is the universe so comprehensible?
-- Einstein

Why is the universe so mathematical?
-- Wigner

How come the quantum?
-- Wheeler

Why these laws and not others?
-- Smolin

Why does infinite logic underlie physics?
-- Feynman

What breathes fire into the equations?
-- Hawking

Are you curious about any of these questions? If so I can provide you
plausible answers. However it will require you to expand your ontology
beyond the matter you can see.

That you are willing to do this for the quantum multiverse to explain the
measurement problem gives me hope that you might similarly accept an
expanded ontology of it solved other fundamental problems in physics.

* And chimpanzees, which are  made of matter, can produce mind, but they do
> not have math. And the rest of the paper was equally unimpressive, which
> wasn't surprising because the 3 authors (none of whom is Roger
> Penrose) admit right at the start that they don't agree even among
> themselves and "hold three divergent views".*
>

Yes and that was exactly their point: physics itself makes no claim that
physics is the most fundamental thing there is. And so, the three authors,
all of whom are physicists, can disagree on the answer to this question.
You however, do not seem to appreciate this fact, and seem to believe that
if one believes in physics, one must further believe that physics is the
most fundamental thing in reality. But that runs counter to the opening
statement of the paper: three physicists disagree about what is most
fundamental.


>
> *>> Without access to reality by way of experiment, mathematics can't
>>> explain anything physical, except perhaps for the second law of
>>> thermodynamics. *
>>>
>>
>> *> It can also explain:*
>>
>>    - *Why there is an ontology of parallel states (e.g. many-worlds)*
>>    - *Why the universe follows the Schrödinger equation*
>>    - *The linearity of quantum mechanics*
>>    - *Why Occam's razor works so reliably*
>>    - *Why the universe has a beginning (a time which we can't retrodict
>>    to earlier states)*
>>    - *Why the universe has time*
>>    - *Why physical laws are simple*
>>    - *Why physical laws, can at best, only offer probabilistic
>>    predictions*
>>    - *Why laws are computable*
>>    - *Why there is general relativity*
>>
>> *What theory in physics are you aware of that can explain these facts?*
>>
>
>
> *I only have answers to 3 of those questions.  Occam's razor is simply a
> matter of economy, we don't have access to infinite computing capacity
> therefore it is wise to look for the least complex way you can to find an
> answer to a puzzle, and as a result of that fundamental laws tend to be
> simple.*
>

What we find is a bit stronger than that. Consider these statements:

"A very interesting question to me is: is the universe more complicated
than it needs to be to have us here? In other words, is there anything in
the universe which is just here to amuse physicists?
It’s happened again and again that there was something which seemed like it
was just a frivolity like that, where later we’ve realized that in fact,
“No, if it weren’t for that little thing we wouldn’t be here.”
I’m not convinced actually that we have anything in this universe which is
completely unnecessary to life."
-- Max Tegmark in “What We Still Don’t Know: Why Are We Here” (2004)

"In this paper I show why, in an ensemble theory of the universe, we should
be inhabiting one of the elements of that ensemble with least information
content that satisfies the anthropic principle. This explains the
effectiveness of aesthetic principles such as Occam’s razor in predicting
usefulness of scientific theories."
-- Russell Standish in “Why Occam’s Razor” (2004)

So it's not just that things here and there tend to be simple. It's that
the laws appear to be, information-theoretically, as absolutely simple as
they could be under the constraint that we exist. That is: there's not one
extra particle, one one extra force, that could be done away with without
either dooming our existence, or making the laws more complex. This is the
conclusion of Tegmark and Standish as it pertains to Occam's razor.


* And if there are any physical laws that are not computable then we
> wouldn't be able to find them, therefore any laws that we do find are going
> to be computable. *
>

This would be a valid argument if there were things that happened which we
could not explain with any laws. However, our standard model of physics can
explain virtually everything. And all of it is computable.

The remaining gaps, say dark matter, or quantum gravity, are gaps mainly
due to a lack data at those scales. Very few believe the gap is due to the
existence of a fundamental uncomputable physical law. If that assumption is
correct, then a complete physical theory of everything would be fully
computable, and not being able to find uncomputable parts would have no
bearing, as there would be no uncomputable parts.



> *As for the other questions on your list, forget about finding the
> answers, *
>

This is a very unscientific attitude.

*without access to physical reality you wouldn't even know what questions
> to ask.*
>

We are led to believe in this greater ontology precisely because the
properties of the physical reality we can see so strongly suggests it.

* The most profound question of all is not on your list, it is "**Why is
> there something rather than nothing?**", *
>

If you keep asking "why?" in response to any answer, eventually you reach a
point where no further answers are possible:

"For the question to be properly, fully answered, we need a sufficient
reason that has no need of any further reason—a ‘Because’ that doesn’t
throw up a further ‘Why?’ [...] It must be something that exists
necessarily, carrying the reason for its existence within itself; only that
can give us a sufficient reason at which we can stop, having no further
Why?-question taking us from this being to something else."
-- Leibniz

Why does the universe exist?
> Because it is part of an infinite multiverse.
Why does an infinite multiverse exist?
> Because all computations exist.
Why do all computations exist?
> Because they follow from true relationships among Diophantine equations.
Why are there true relationships among Diophantine equations?
> Because certain mathematical truths hold
Why do mathematical truths hold?
> Because 2+2=4, and not 5
Why does 2+2=4?
> It just is.

For me, reaching "because 2+2=4" is a satisfactory stopping point. A
"because" that throws up no further why.

If you are happy with stopping at "it just is" when someone asks why the
universe or multiverse exist, I am happy for you.


*but if you didn't have access to physical reality you wouldn't even know
> there was something that needed explaining. *
>

True, but irrelevant.

Jason


>
>>
>>> *Also, consider a mathematical model of a hurricane and a real physical
>>> hurricane, is the physical hurricane modeling the mathematical
>>> representation or is the mathematical representation modeling the physical
>>> hurricane? ** You'd expect the real deal to be more complex than a mere
>>> model, so if you're right then the physical hurricane should be simpler
>>> than the mathematical model that is running on a computer, but that is not
>>> the case. It is never the case, the mathematical model always uses
>>> approximations, the physical hurricane never does.   *
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> *Even large finite numbers can't exist in our heads. Computers have
>>>>> calculated 105 trillion digits of π, but if you want to calculate the
>>>>> circumference of the observable universe from its radius to the greatest
>>>>> accuracy that physically makes sense, the Planck length, you'd only need
>>>>> the first 62 digits. So I think the 63rd digit has less reality than the
>>>>> 62nd, and the 105 trillionth even less.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *> We could also say that physical laws depend on or are downstream of
>>>>>> higher mathematical laws. So if physics laws can be said to exist, then in
>>>>>> the same sense these mathematical laws (i.e. rules) can also be said to
>>>>>> exist.*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *I believe it is probable that mathematics is the language of physics
>>>>> but is a language nevertheless, if that is true then you've got it
>>>>> backwards, physics is more fundamental than mathematics. The English word
>>>>> "cow" cannot produce milk and it exists only within the mind of a human,
>>>>> but the thing that can produce milk exists within the human mind and
>>>>> outside of it too.  *
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> * >  To advocate a bit for Platonism, I am wondering how you would
>>>>>> class the existence of mathematical truths and objects.*
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *If Jane, Susan and John find 9 cupcakes and they decide to divide
>>>>> them up equally  among themselves, how many cupcakes does each person get?
>>>>> The answer to this word puzzle is 3, it is a mathematical truth, however
>>>>> none of those 9 cupcakes are physically real. Mathematics is capable of
>>>>> generating puzzles of arbitrary difficulty and complexity, however that
>>>>> doesn't necessarily mean they have any reality outside of the mind that is
>>>>> attempting to solve the puzzle.  *
>>>>>
>>>>> *>  when one of our useful mathematical theories says it is true that
>>>>>> "$1000 - $995 = $5" also tells us that 9 is non-prime because an integer
>>>>>> factor of 9*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Here is another word puzzle, Jane, Susan and John decide to arrange
>>>>> those 9 cupcakes into a square (or a rectangle), would that be physically
>>>>> possible? The answer is yes. Here is yet another word puzzle Jane, Susan
>>>>> and John decide to arrange 11 cupcakes into a square (or a rectangle),
>>>>> would that be physically possible? The answer is no. But none of these word
>>>>> puzzles has any bearing on the existence of cupcakes, we could've just as
>>>>> easily been talking about unicorns instead of cupcakes. *
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> *> It is no different from the physicists who takes general
>>>>>> relativity serious and who concludes, based on the measured curvature of
>>>>>> the universe, that there exist regions space far beyond the cosmological
>>>>>> horizon. They are so far away that we will never be able to see them. But
>>>>>> these regions must exist if our theory of GR is true.*
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *That is a perfectly logical argument, and that's why I think those
>>>>> who say that the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is not
>>>>> science because we could never see those other worlds is invalid. I think
>>>>> those other worlds must exist if quantum mechanics is true. Probably.   *
>>>>>
>>>>> *> "A 53rd Mersenne prime exists." Is such a statement true?*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *I don't know but I do know that the existence or non-existence of
>>>>> a 53rd Mersenne prime makes a difference only within the mind attempting to
>>>>> find it or attempting to prove it doesn't exist. The planets will continue
>>>>> on with their orbits unchanged regardless of what the answer to that word
>>>>> puzzle turns out to be. *
>>>>>
>>>>>
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