[joeberon]

Is "mathematics" a thing in our physical universe? Many people argue it's an abstract set of constructions with no physical reality in themselves. Sounds kind of outlandish and bizarre according to your criteria.

> Everything is physical and obeys the laws of physics which themselves are governed by the laws of mathematics.

If you define "physical" to mean "literally everything" then of course having something outside of Physics is logically impossible. That is a different definition to the work "physical" that we are working with in terms of the mind. In that case "physical" doesn't mean "literally everything" but rather more like "those things that correspond to an external, verifiable, objective reality". For you, ideas and concepts would be considered physical, but that is not the case for the definition of "physical" I mentioned, which is far more common in both religion and philosophy.

In this case we would say that ideas and concepts are not physical. So an easy answer to your question "Can you give me an example of anything that doesn't exist within this physical universe? I'm not familiar with the concept of a "thing" that isn't physical." would be literally any concept or idea. However since you have a universalist (and thus totally useless) definition of "physical", of course it is impossible for me to argue that there is anything outside of that.

PS. As a doctor in quantum physics myself, I can tell you that statistics and probability is certainly a way of modelling outcomes, and not in any way considered a fundamental element of reality.

[colemannugent]

I'm afraid I still don't understand. Are you arguing that there is some utility in considering "concepts or ideas" non-physical from an ontological perspective? Because I think we both agree they're solidly physical in the sense that a "thought" can be reduced to chemical signaling.

On the QM side, I'm pretty sure that you're incorrect in your postscript. It was my understanding that certain physical processes can only be understood though probability and that talking in terms of wavefunctions is the most correct way to do that.

[joeberon]

> Because I think we both agree they're solidly physical in the sense that a "thought" can be reduced to chemical signaling.

I don’t agree with that. I think there is an inseparable spiritual element that justifies the subjective experience.

For the QM part, that still does not mean that ontologically the probabilities have a physical reality. Google “interpretations of quantum mechanics”, we have very little idea of what quantum mechanics actually means yet. We can set up the problems and do the maths but no one even knows what exactly it means to do a measurement (again Google “measurement problem”). I am an expert in quantum mechanics (it is my job) so I would be happy to answer questions about it in the morning.