Agree, to the extent we're talking rather direct evidence. It's like trying to distinguish between "poof magic" and "God did it". Quite impossible.
> and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way.
Disagree. It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it.
> All current evidence is that it's a fantasy
You mean, current evidence speaks again the level IV multiverse hypothesis? Or something else? Anyway, please name three.
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> [The idea of a timeless universe is] a little different from the idea that reality is an incarnation of pure mathematics.
As far as I know, we try to express the laws of physics with pure mathematics since Newton, if not earlier. I think it at least indicates a hope that reality may be accurately described by pure math. Provided we can, good luck trying distinguishing that, and "being an incarnation of math. No way we can test it from within.
> In case, the fact that ideas have been around for some time has little bearing on their validity.
Of course. I was merely pointing out that this idea was more ordinary that you made it out to be. To me, it is not sensationalist at all. It's something I more or less independently thought about in my teen years.
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I maintain that Occam's Razor always suggest that the true explanation is simpler than the one we currently have. We're not logically omniscient. For any sufficiently complex explanation, there is always this nagging doubt that we missed something. Since by Occam's razor, the simpler explanation is the best explanation, the mere possibility of the existence of a simpler explanation is enough to suggest we're not there yet.
But it's no more than that, a suggestion. With enough double and triple checking, computer-verified proofs… we can be rather sure we did find the simplest explanation.
In the case of our current understanding of physics, we quite know for sure that we are missing something. In my opinion, that makes Occam's Razor's suggestion all the stronger.
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> By your premise, actual simplification would not be surprising, but claims have no necessary correlation to actual simplifications.
I was just saying that when I hear someone claiming something that I don't find very surprising, I generally take that as serious evidence that the claim is true. I may not believe them, but they would at least get my attention.
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> There are certainly cases where basic mathematical principles are expressed in a very direct way in the universe. Probability in quantum mechanics is one example,
Nope, not this one. :-) Quantum mechanics has to do with complex amplitudes, whose square determine the Born statistics. Plus, the wave function as we know it is deterministic. The relation to probability theory is tenuous at best. It serves more at hand-waving your way to the Copenhagen Interpretation, instead of biting the bullet and posit a collapse theory.