I realize this is a stretch as a proper physics article, but I figured this is the right crowd.
It was a fun article, thanks for posting.
I would’ve expected the article to lean more into the concept of a “thing” already being kind of optional. A thing is just a cloud of atoms that happen to exist in a relatively stable constellation.
But what if an alien race actually rather perceives things as just such a cloud or as some sort statistical peak, because they simply perceive the world very differently (e.g. from x-rays, smells or sound waves).
For them, a flock of sheep wouldn’t be 23 individual sheep. It would probably just be one big cloud of sheep material. I mean, maybe they would count the number of liters or assign some sort of number to the statistical significance, but maybe they also just have different names for different cloud sizes and such.
I have always felt that the fact that the things we count are not actualy the same invalidates the whole idea of numbers, until…
Understanding fundamental particles requires accepting the fact that some things are exactly the same. There is no subjective categorization goin on when we say a helium atom has 2 electrons.
As it turns out, numbers and counting are real, even though we had no way to know that when we started. Also turns out, Wolfram is a bit of a nut.
