[time 465] Re: [time 464] Parallel transport, etc....


Stephen P. King (stephenk1@home.com)
Thu, 22 Jul 1999 11:20:04 -0400


Dear Matti,

        Umm, I wish we could spend some time talking about the computational
issue. It is the crux of my reasoning! It is said by mystics that we are
the Universe "experiencing it-self". I find this notion to be directly
reflected in the fact that the behaviour of the world as it is observed
can not be considered as "existing a priori". The ideas involved in
Plato's cave are useful in illustrating that the experience's of
individuals are "mere shadows of an external Reality", but the
ontological status of this "Reality" is very much in need of discussion!
Reality can not be an a priori given! (See Kant's discussion of "a
priori synthetic", he has to appeal to divinity to allow for them!
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Meta/MetaBurg.htm)

        Here is the comment of experts:
***
On 29 Apr 1999 08:08:52 GMT,
Peter Hines wrote:
> I vaguely remember that the problem for the next dimension up (4-manifolds)
> is Turing machine equivalent, so no classification procedure can exist
> (although this was a long time ago - I'm not sure about that).

This is true; it's because a 4-manifold can have an arbitrary group
as its fundamental group, and the question of whether two infinite
groups
are equivalent is undecidable.

- Cris Moore, Santa Fe Institute
***

        This property of "equivalence" is, to me, what an observation is all
about! The notion that "observations" are mappings between subsets of
the Universe U seems appropriate (it gives us a way to account for the
existence of non-equilibria!) and thus the consideration that properties
of objects are given only in the context of a finite mapping between
subsets of U seems to follow.
        It seems that Time is a subjective notion derived from the sequences of
observations that each subset of the Universe goes through in its
"experiencing of itself". To postulate that the properties are given
prior to the observations is to postulate that somehow the Universe
pre-computed the classification of the 4-manifold involved in all
possible experiences. (It seems obvious that any experience involves a
spatial-temporal framing, thus a 4-manifold!)
        I am trying to advance the notion that what we are trying to model in
physics is the very computation of the Universe! To assume that it is
already somehow "out there" is to assume that knowledge can be gotten
for free, and this is clearly WRONG!
        I will respond to the [time 464] post in detail shortly. :-)

Later,

Stephen

PS, I got your responce about the embeding space as I wrote this and my
point is very more strongly in my mind!



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