A Conscious Universe

[Mudhammam]

"It's math only from here on in" in terms of technological, and therefore, experimental limitations, but it's not as if numbers exist distinct from material objects, allowing ourselves a conception of matter that involves force fields and empty space that jitters.

Relationships, including mathematical ones, certainly can exist and be described aside from the "real" things with which we associate them. That's what we do, for example, in computer simulation. Or maybe I misunderstand you?

Anyway, I'm not sure that scientists agree with you on this. For example, what's the location of an electron before you measure it? Does it have a definite location, or is it just a function that resolves at the instant of measurement?

All I'm saying is that mathematical relationships exist in human brains as a deductive formalization of objects; it's not as if the objects themselves are mathematical, as that is a meaningless division without intelligence sufficient enough to formalize such a language. On the other hand, when we speak of an object with the descriptive qualities we typically do, we are describing a phenomenon that exists and does so whether we are looking at it or not. In terms of QM, there many different interpretations so I wouldn't draw a whole lot on any particular one, as idealists often seem to do, but I like the interpretation that particles do not have a definite location until interacted with. That doesn't mean that a field is non-physical, it means that we can only describe its activity in terms of our formalized system.