[ExI] Another reason why Platonism can't be true

[Jason Resch]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2026 at 8:45 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 22/02/2026 11:41, John K Clark wrote:
> > ... it's impossible to process data without physics
>
>
> Very good point. And further, it's impossible for information to even
> exist without some kind of physical embodiment.
>

Physical embodiment is only necessary for some information to be learned by
you. But I don't see from this fact you reached the conclusion that
information can only exist physically. It is like saying you know other
universes (besides this one) can't exist, because information can only
exist in this one. How do you even begin to reach such a conclusion? It
reminds me of an old argument that there could be no other planets, since
only Earth was at the center of this mysterious force of gravity, and other
planets, lacking the benefit of gravity, would have nothing to hold them
together. The crux of the question is whether information is a property
thats universal across all structures, or if it is for some reason,
confined to only exist among quarks and leptons. But why should it be? We
can speak of the information complexity of abstract objects, like the
Mandelbrot set, or Game-of-Life configurations, for example.


>
> That's all that needs to be said, really.
>
> 1) It rules out the existence of a 'Platonic realm' containing all of
> maths, because maths is full of things that need to be calculated in order
> for them to be known.
>
> Unless you claim that all the results of all the calculations that are
> possible, already exist (an infinite number).
>

That is the claim, yes.  See page 45 here, about how LISP computers,
defining the final execution state of any LISP program, exist in pure
number theory: https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0404335


>
> And then, 2) you'd need to explain how this infinite amount of information
> can exist without any physical embodiment.
>

This is akin to someone who has lived within a virtual reality simulation
their whole life saying "it is impossible for information to exist without
some kind of virtual embodiment," and then concluding on this premise, that
"for some hypothetical physical world (underlying this virtual reality) to
exist, you'd need to explain how all that physical information can exist
without any virtual embodiment."

Certainly, within the level one occupies (be it a physical universe, or a
virtual reality simulation) one will only encounter information at that
level they inhabit. But it would be a mistake to extrapolate from that fact
that no other lower levels exist beyond our outside the level one
findsoneself. As I asked John, what powers all the computation, what stores
all the information, the universe uses to compute its evolution? If you say
the universe itself, then the universe is a structure that can compute and
store information on its own. Why should the universe be the only structure
with these properties?


>
> If that were somehow possible, what would then be the point of the
> physical world? Why would it even exist? That would be the biggest
> violation of Occam's Razor possible.
>

Not at all. The universe is the structure that emerges with the least
information complexity required to explain your present state of conscious
experience. This is an outcome of algorithmic information theory. See this
paper for details about how much of physical law can be extracted purely
from starting with the assumption of observer states and seeing what
algorithmic information theory implies for what typical observers will see:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01826 It is fascinating.


>
> There's no information processing, or even any information to be
> processed, without the physical world.


Again, try to apply this reasoning for the observer stuck in a virtual
reality.


> Any possible 'platonic realm' would have to be another physical world, but
> with an infinite information capacity (and probably no time dimension).
>

The experience of time is a subjective phenomenon, an illusion. Spacetime
itself does not evolve. You can thus view the entire universe as a sort of
static four-dimensional object.

Jason
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