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

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:41 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 10:26 AM 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.*
>>
>
> *No, you STILL haven't answered my question. Which is more fundamental,
> the English word  "c-o-w" or the thing with four legs that can produce
> milk? I think the thing with four legs is more fundamental. Do you
> disagree? *
>

The cow just more fundamental than our ideas or language describing cows.
Just as the physical universe is more fundamental than our human ideas and
theories about physics. And just as the integers are more fundamental than
our symbols like "1" and "2".


> *> 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*
>>
>
> *How can you speak about layers 1 & 2 when you only have access to layers
> 6,7 and 8?*
>

For the same reason we can speak of layer 3.

The quantum mechanical properties of this universe strongly suggests it is
part of (at least) a quantum multiverse. Likewise the inflationary
conditions of the early universe strongly suggests it is part of an
infinite eternally inflating universe among countless other bubbles. And
similarly, the extreme fine tuning of forces and constants required for
life to be possible strongly suggests our universe is one of a huge number
of physical universes ruled by other laws.

We can't see or measure these other universes, but our observation of the
properties of this universe strongly suggests they exist.

Do you disagree with any of this reasoning so far? If so please identify
where I have departed from your agreement, and for what reason you hold a
different position.


* And Information is physical, there is no way you can have "all
> computations playing out in all possible ways", or even compute 2+2,
> without a physical universe.*
>
* You need hardware,*
>

Have you ever stopped to ask what hardware computes how an electron behaves
in any given situation? This requires much more computation than can be
found within the electron itself. Or consider a photon, which is physically
trapped in 0-time, it can't change and therefore it can't compute anything
on its own. But somehow, *something* behind it computes for it and updates
its position with time. This computation isn't being done by the photon.

You might say "it's being done by the universe," but I would again ask what
computational substrate powers all the 10^106 operations per second that
occur within just the observable part of our universe? If you say, the
universe needs no hardware, it computes on its own, then I would flip that
back to you: what sorts of  structures are such that they can compute on
their own without needing any other hardware of their own?

My own answer to that question is "particular mathematical structures, by
their very nature, can compute on their own." The physical universe happens
to be an example of such a mathematical structure that computes on its own,
but it is by no means unique in that regard.

Note that answers Hawkings's question: "What breathes fire into the
equations and makes a universe for them to describe?"


* that's why Nvidia is more valuable than any software company, in fact it
> is the most valuable company in the world. And whatever level you wish to
> put brains and minds into you've got to put them into the same level
> because the only difference between the two is that one is a noun and the
> other is an adjective, mind is what a brain does.*
>

> *> I suggest taking a look at the paper I linked.*
>>
>
> *I already had and I was not impressed by the paper and Penrose’s triangle
> was even more mundane. Mind is just what the brain does, and a brain needs
> physics to work. *
>
> *> And that's where you hit a wall and stop asking further questions.
>> Other great physicists, however, do not stop there. They ask questions*
>>
>
> *There is nothing wrong with scientists asking profound questions, but
> unfortunately very few of them have found profound answers, usually not
> even mediocre answers.  *
>

That's why what I am trying to tell you now is important. Very recent
discoveries reveal that we now have plausible answers to many of these
profound questions. Yet you seem incurious about them.



> *> Are you curious about any of these questions?*
>>
>
> *Sure.*
>
Wonderful!


>
>> *> If so I can provide you plausible answers.*
>>
>
> *Well what are you waiting for, do so! I'll settle for just one, and then
> I'll start a campaign to try to get you the Nobel Prize for physics. *
>

The discoveries are not mine, I simply am trying to get the word out by
writing about them.
See the work of Marchal, Standish, Mueller, and Wolfram as they are cited
in this brief article:
https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/resch-s-platonic-functionalism

Note that it took a century after Copernicus before heliocentrism was
widely known. It's been 65 years since Everett and many physicists still
don't accept many worlds. These discoveries which I speak of are between 5
and 25 years old. We're still in the phase of getting the word out. You
have been on a mailing list with 2 out of 4 of these people for decades and
you still pretend these ideas are alien to you.

This is the attitude that forces ideas to take a century to break into the
minds of people, perhaps Planck was right about science proceeding as the
old generation dies and it takes a new generation raised under new ideas
for them to be accepted. I'm hoping you remain flexible in mind enough to
consider these ideas and give them a fair consideration. The pay-off is
huge.


>
>> *> physics itself makes no claim that physics is the most fundamental
>> thing there is.*
>>
>
> *I don't think physics is making a claim about itself of any sort, but I
> have no hesitation in making claims and I claim that physics is more
> fundamental than mathematics. This is not a value judgment, I'm not saying
> one is more important than the other, I'm just saying that you can deduce
> pure mathematics from physics but it's impossible to deduce physics from
> pure mathematics, except perhaps for the second law of thermodynamics.  *
>

I am glad you see that at least one thing in physics can be deduced from
pure mathematics. Now for the big one: see Russell's work in deducing the
Schrodinger equation from pure mathematics. Surely, you will admit, if that
can be done, something so elemental to physics as quantum mechanics, that
is an incredible discovery. It answers a question that Wheeler struggled
all his life to answer "How come the quantum?"


> *>> 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?*
>>
>
> *A muon is identical to an electron except that it's 207 times more
> massive and it only lives for 2 *10^-6 seconds before decaying, and a tau
> particle is identical to a muon except that it's 3477 times more massive
> than an electron and it only lives for 2.9*10*-13 seconds; and both the
> muon and the tau have their own special type of neutrino associated with
> them. As far as we know none of those 4 particles plays an important part
> in the operation of the universe; as one scientist famously asked "who
> ordered that?".*
>

But can these 3 energy states for half-spin particles be removed without
making the laws themselves more complex? That's the challenge (which you
cut off in your reply).



> *>> 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 standard model can say absolutely nothing about Dark Energy or Dark
> Matter, and together they make up about 94% of the cosmos. It also cannot
> explain why there's so much more matter than antimatter, or why the
> neutrino has mass, or what's going on at the very center of a Black Hole or
> at the singularity at the start of the Big Bang. *
>

I mentioned those exceptions, and I also said hardly any one believes the
answer is because those are uncomputable.

*It also cannot explain why there is an arrow of time other than to say
> it's because the universe started out in a very low entropy state, but why
> it started out in such a low state today's physics can't say. *
>

There is another answer hardly anyone pays any attention to, which does not
require the universe to begin in a low entropy state. It requires only that
the maximum entropy state at a given period of time, increases more quickly
than the universe can reach equilibrium with that maximum entropy state.
Note that this happens naturally in an expanding universe.

See the work of David Layzer:
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/layzer/growth_of_order/

If you want to discuss this separately I would advise creating a new thread
with a different subject.


>
>
>> *>>As for the other questions on your list, forget about finding the
>>> answers, *
>>>
>>
>> *> This is a very unscientific attitude.*
>>
>
> *It is neither scientific nor unscientific, and it is not an attitude,
> it's simply acknowledging the undeniable logical FACT that it's impossible
> to provide an answer if you don't know the question.  *
>

I have a clear list of questions. You think they're unanswerable, but you
refuse to engage with the ideas that I share, and continue in your denial
that they're worth pursuing.



> *>> 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:*
>>
>
> *I agree, an iterated sequence of "why" questions either goes on forever
> or they terminate in a brute fact, and I think it's a brute fact that
> consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed
> intelligently. And it's impossible to process data without physics.  I
> strongly suspect that some things about physics are also brute facts and
> that's why experimentation is so important in science, brute facts can be
> discovered but they cannot be deduced. *
>


It is ridiculously bad-faith how you blithely delete the central part of my
answer and argument and pretend it was never said.



>
> *>> if you didn't have access to physical reality you wouldn't even know
>>> there was something that needed explaining. *
>>>
>>
>> *> True, but irrelevant.*
>>
>
> *Irrelevant?!  *
>

Yes, it's a given if the universe weren't here, we wouldn't be here to ask
questions. But how is that fact relevant to our positions?

*You wanted to know why quantum mechanics was linear, but if you didn't
> have access to external physical reality you would have no way of knowing
> there was a thing called "quantum mechanics" and there was another thing
> called "Schrodinger's Equation" which implied the existence of other
> worlds.  And if you knew about nothing except mathematics then you'd never
> even be able to understand what the strange word "time" means because
> unlike the physical world, mathematics is timeless, it doesn't change.    *
>

Perhaps you've missed the entire basis of my argument, which is that we can
justify a belief in a mathematical reality empirically, by seeing what
predictions such an ontology implies for our observations, and comparing
those predictions against what we see. It operates the same as any other
theory in science.

If it were just a question of philosophy of mathematics it wouldn't matter,
I wouldn't be especially interested in it, and I wouldn't bother with
trying to convince you or anyone else one way or the other. But as it turns
out, it is a theory that makes a number of empirically testable
predictions, and thus far, every prediction we are able to confirm has been
confirmed. This result is, as you say, Nobel prize worthy, but it belongs
to those who have pioneered the results, whom are cited in that article
above.

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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