[time 987] RE: [time 985] Re: [time 983] RE: [time 978] a fundamental question on QM time


Koichiro Matsuno (kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp)
Fri, 12 Nov 1999 16:55:22 +0900


Dear Stephen and All,

   At 6:36 on 12 Nov 99, Stephen Paul King <stephenk1@home.com> wrote:

>Have you considered a slightly more
>mathematical treatment of this picture?

   I did some work on cell motility in biology to see how the leftover or
the moving obstacle develops in time. What I tried was to retrieve the
movement in the past progressive mode from the video-taped record of a
flagellar movement registered in the present perfect mode. The non-frozen
leftover driving the subsequent progressive movement is in a form of
constantly migrating inconsistencies. Of course, there is no room of
inconsistencies in stasis, otherwise no descriptive or mathematical endeavor
for representation would be feasible. Any local act for a consistency turns
out to be a cause for disturbing the preceding consistency in the
neighborhood. This migration process of local inconsistencies can be
formalized on a paper and concretized at least on a computer.

>I see Mach's Principle and true concurrency
>hiding here!

   Agreed. Mach's principle dressed with constantly migrating
inconsistencies, that are real in progress but remain virtual in the
product, is the picture I have in mind. Is there any serious attempt
supplementing general relativity by Mach's principle carrying such migrating
inconsistencies?

>The distinction between general and singular universals is, I also
>think, important. I would like to better understand your thinking about
>the relationship and differences between concrete particulars and
>singular universals. I tend to think of experiences as particular
>observations that could be considered in an abstract sense as
>measurements, or following D. Finkelstein, experiments.

   Right. Measurement is about the material process of one party being
constrained by another in whatever way. Thus, one party can identifiy
another to the extent of being constrained by the latter. However,
measurement as a movement distinguishes between measurement in progress and
measurement in the product. Representation is always associated with the
latter measurement in the product. At this point, migrating inconsistencies
come to the surface again. If migrating inconsistencies remain in
measurement in the product, there would be no hope of expecting
representation since any representation remains consistent in itself and
passively immobile on its own. Perhaps, we may require a underlying scheme
of experiencing and transforming that further upholds measurement. What is
implied is that any material body experiencing migrating inconsistencies
comes to transform itself into a consistent body even for a very short
while. Measurement in progress on any material body is about experiencing
migrating inconsistencies and then transforming itself into a consistent
body, while measurement in the product is nothing but the transformed body
serving as a representation to be presented to any material bodies in the
neighborhood. Nonetheless, every material body subsequently comes to
experience those representaitons presented from its neighborhood again in
the form of migrating inconsistencies because there is no global coordinator
beforehand. Representation is destined to be updated. Measurement in the
product is only part of what measurement is all about.

> The making of a universal statement in the present tense by any finite
>entity seems to indicate automatically that the entity considers his
>statement as an accurate representation of the universal and this seems
>to follow the way that observers in general always have their own
>standards with which to make observations. It seems to me that there
>exists a tacit solipsism inherent in this notion that is not problematic
>if we remember that there exists more than a single observer. The
>"crowd" metaphor is applicable!

   Right. There is no representation unless the updating scheme is equipped.

>The crowd is not an individual at the
>same level as any person that makes it up, but crowds of persons can be
>considered as individuals in comparison with each other.
> Perhaps this line of thinking will help deal with a difficulty that
>Lance and I have encountered with the mathematical notions of sets and
>classes!

   Although I am not familiar with what you have talked about, I
deliberately avoided referring to the notion of classes in the above.
Classes are associated with general universals.

> A question: Are conservation laws necessarily general universals in the
>sense that they apply equally to all possible agents/observers in a
>strict quantitative sense or merely qualitatively? For example, in the
>case of the conservation laws that involve time reversal symmetry, is
>this only absolute in the limit of all possible clockings?

   Briefly, conservation law in stasis or in representation is an
abstraction and accordingly, a general universal. This is in fact an
abstraction in the sense that migrating inconsistencies are abstracted out.
If we understand whatever conservation law in the form of a representation,
there would be no possibility of appreciating constantly migrating
inconsistencies. A supreme example dismissing those migrating
inconsistencies is time-reversal conservation laws, in which globally
synchronous time is introduced as a global coordinator for the purpose.
Now, here is one exception. That is the first law of thermodynamics. It
states the transformation of energy, say, between thermal and mechanical
energy while its total quantity is conserved. The first law already
incorporates into itself both activities of experiencing and transforming.
Precisely for this reason, we can expect to approach its representation even
for a very short while before its inevitable next updating without
committing ourselves to unnecessary abstractions, .

> Peter Wegner would say that "observers perceive only the observational
>equivalence classes to which objects belong and not the objects
>themselves". I think that the notion of a record as it relates to it
>remaining in present perfect mode needs to considered carefully. Perhaps
>Barbour's ideas about "time capsules" can seed this thinking... so long
>as we recognize the error of assuming that the subsets of the Universe
>can have time even if the whole has none...

   I believe I can understand your caution. If we consider a particular
representation without paying much attention to its inevitable updating, the
sturdy problem surrounding a thing-in-itself, its representation and
classification may become unavoidable. My strategy at this moment is to keep
a distance as much as possible from this tough question.

> It looks like the "non-frozen leftover" is analogous to the "missing
>information" that is always needed to complete in the Goedelian sense
>any model of the Universe.

   I can follow you on this point.

>The idea of a perpetual indefiniteness
>driving time "forward" is very close to my thinking that there is a deep
>relationship between the "tendency of closed system to go to
>equilibrium" and the asymptotic approach to Goedelian completeness by
>logical systems. I see this implicit in Pratt's thinking
>(http://boole.stanford.edu/chuguide.html#ratmech), but am still having
>trouble articulating this idea clearly.
>
   Thanks for your info. Give me some time to catch up with.

   Cheers,
   Koichiro Matsuno



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