Comments on: Zero-point existence http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/ watching the world turn. Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:46:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Joel http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/comment-page-1/#comment-1260 Joel Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:22:05 +0000 http://ferrouswheel.me/?p=284#comment-1260 @Linas Y'know, I'd really like to share a couple of beers with you if we ever meet in person. You've got a wealth of knowledge about the lower/higher level stuff that I'm intensely curious about, but it takes a long time to get caught up on mathematics/physics without a deep background in it. I've never had problems learning maths, but without knowing the ideas behind the various theories you mention it's hard to make insightful comments on your post - I'll catch up eventually I hope ;-) @Linas Y’know, I’d really like to share a couple of beers with you if we ever meet in person. You’ve got a wealth of knowledge about the lower/higher level stuff that I’m intensely curious about, but it takes a long time to get caught up on mathematics/physics without a deep background in it.

I’ve never had problems learning maths, but without knowing the ideas behind the various theories you mention it’s hard to make insightful comments on your post – I’ll catch up eventually I hope ;-)

]]> By: Linas http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/comment-page-1/#comment-1255 Linas Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:28:41 +0000 http://ferrouswheel.me/?p=284#comment-1255 Sorry, I was drinking a beer just now; topos are sheaves of sets, not schemes. Anyway, another striking set of "near-coincidences" is the occurrence of arrows in "quivers", which are used to study Lie algebras important in physics, and arrows in Category theory, and arrows in reduction systems, and arrows in Petri nets, and arrows in monoidal categories. The "petri net" language is preferred and commonly used by comp sci types. Its not commonly known, but petri nets are essentially equivalent to monoidal cats (see for example trace theory and the "history monoid" as an example of parallel processing). But arrows are also used in reduction systems (e.g. beta-reduction in lambda calculus). And um... even in opencog, hypergraphs with truth values look more or less like quiver algebras .. and not by accident. So why should a device useful in the study of physics also "by accident" resemble a device used in computation? Can we classify opencog hypergraphs into An Dn E6 E7 E8? OK, so maybe this ah-ha-hallucination is just the beer is talking and not me ... but hey ... ya gotta wonder ... Sorry, I was drinking a beer just now; topos are sheaves of sets, not schemes. Anyway, another striking set of “near-coincidences” is the occurrence of arrows in “quivers”, which are used to study Lie algebras important in physics, and arrows in Category theory, and arrows in reduction systems, and arrows in Petri nets, and arrows in monoidal categories. The “petri net” language is preferred and commonly used by comp sci types. Its not commonly known, but petri nets are essentially equivalent to monoidal cats (see for example trace theory and the “history monoid” as an example of parallel processing). But arrows are also used in reduction systems (e.g. beta-reduction in lambda calculus). And um… even in opencog, hypergraphs with truth values look more or less like quiver algebras .. and not by accident. So why should a device useful in the study of physics also “by accident” resemble a device used in computation? Can we classify opencog hypergraphs into An Dn E6 E7 E8? OK, so maybe this ah-ha-hallucination is just the beer is talking and not me … but hey … ya gotta wonder …

]]> By: Linas http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/comment-page-1/#comment-1254 Linas Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:43:34 +0000 http://ferrouswheel.me/?p=284#comment-1254 BTW, when physicists claim that there's "no free will, its all pre-determined", that's just plain hogwash. It's based on faulty interpretations of the time evolution of dynamical systems equations. Now, physicists tend to be quite good at differential eqns, but honestly, I think that there are a bunch of finer details to ergodic/hyperbolic systems and the transition to chaos that most physicists have not studied. I.E. I am trying to say that I believe that some deep math provides an escape hatch. Now, this is just my belief, and I can at best hand-wave a giant pile of details about it, but my hand-waving is no worse than the typical physics "its all pre-determined" hand-waving. Basically, no one knows, no one can prove it either way, and anyone who makes such bold claims is either self-deluded or a liar. BTW, even if you buy into Nick Bostrom's simulation argument, and believe that you live in a simulated universe, you can still have free will. My hand-waving argument there goes like this: String theorists are enamored of a certain class of theories that involve a lot of algebraic geometry. (I understand thier love -- Wilson loops and hyperbolic surfaces and knot theory and HOMFLY and Kac-Moody and Chern-Simmons and quantum groups and Yang-Baxter and E8 and all of the connections between above and plain-old number-theory via elliptic curves -- its all quite mind-boggling and beautiful) Anyway ... Algebraic geometry provides the infrastructure on which string theory is built ... but it also shows up in the theory of Topos, originally developed by Grothendieck as a special case of Cartesian closed categories, and believed by many to offer a foundation for *all* of math. Now Grothendieck was pondering sheaves of schemes (a scheme is a certain "generalization" of an algebraic variety). Oddly enough the ideas of behind schemes, varieties and ideals & etc. have been extended to rather generic term-rewriting systems -- and term-re-writing is sort of a traditional comp-sci topic, having to do with computation strategies and computational complexity. It should also be observed that the (untyped) lambda calculus is the algebra generated by Cartesian closed categories. (And of course, lambda calculus is in a certain sense equivalent to Turing machines and computation -- but this is exactly why Topos's provide a foundation for math: theorems are provable, and thus are computable) So here we have this thing -- algebraic geometry, and it sits in the middle between the latest theories of physics, and the latest theories of computation. Hmmmmmm. Is that just an accident? Ya suppose? Or perhaps some superintelligence, when faced with the problem of coming up with an efficient computing platform for simulating universes, came up with quantum mechanics as the answer? Which is not to say the universe is a Turing machine or that the universe is being simulated on a Turing machine -- quite the opposite -- I am trying to imply that the universe is being simulated on a compute infrastructure that is more subtle than Turing machines, and that, in particular, this compute infrastructure allows free will. So there! There is more to computation than meets the eye. BTW, when physicists claim that there’s “no free will, its all pre-determined”, that’s just plain hogwash. It’s based on faulty interpretations of the time evolution of dynamical systems equations. Now, physicists tend to be quite good at differential eqns, but honestly, I think that there are a bunch of finer details to ergodic/hyperbolic systems and the transition to chaos that most physicists have not studied. I.E. I am trying to say that I believe that some deep math provides an escape hatch. Now, this is just my belief, and I can at best hand-wave a giant pile of details about it, but my hand-waving is no worse than the typical physics “its all pre-determined” hand-waving. Basically, no one knows, no one can prove it either way, and anyone who makes such bold claims is either self-deluded or a liar.

BTW, even if you buy into Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument, and believe that you live in a simulated universe, you can still have free will. My hand-waving argument there goes like this: String theorists are enamored of a certain class of theories that involve a lot of algebraic geometry. (I understand thier love — Wilson loops and hyperbolic surfaces and knot theory and HOMFLY and Kac-Moody and Chern-Simmons and quantum groups and Yang-Baxter and E8 and all of the connections between above and plain-old number-theory via elliptic curves — its all quite mind-boggling and beautiful) Anyway …

Algebraic geometry provides the infrastructure on which string theory is built … but it also shows up in the theory of Topos, originally developed by Grothendieck as a special case of Cartesian closed categories, and believed by many to offer a foundation for *all* of math. Now Grothendieck was pondering sheaves of schemes (a scheme is a certain “generalization” of an algebraic variety). Oddly enough the ideas of behind schemes, varieties and ideals & etc. have been extended to rather generic term-rewriting systems — and term-re-writing is sort of a traditional comp-sci topic, having to do with computation strategies and computational complexity. It should also be observed that the (untyped) lambda calculus is the algebra generated by Cartesian closed categories. (And of course, lambda calculus is in a certain sense equivalent to Turing machines and computation — but this is exactly why Topos’s provide a foundation for math: theorems are provable, and thus are computable) So here we have this thing — algebraic geometry, and it sits in the middle between the latest theories of physics, and the latest theories of computation. Hmmmmmm. Is that just an accident? Ya suppose? Or perhaps some superintelligence, when faced with the problem of coming up with an efficient computing platform for simulating universes, came up with quantum mechanics as the answer? Which is not to say the universe is a Turing machine or that the universe is being simulated on a Turing machine — quite the opposite — I am trying to imply that the universe is being simulated on a compute infrastructure that is more subtle than Turing machines, and that, in particular, this compute infrastructure allows free will. So there! There is more to computation than meets the eye.

]]> By: Joel http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/comment-page-1/#comment-820 Joel Mon, 18 May 2009 20:25:35 +0000 http://ferrouswheel.me/?p=284#comment-820 Nice, thanks. I've added that one to the list too. :) Nice, thanks.

I’ve added that one to the list too. :)

]]> By: Trond Nilsen http://ferrouswheel.me/2009/05/zero-point-existence/comment-page-1/#comment-811 Trond Nilsen Sat, 16 May 2009 22:34:57 +0000 http://ferrouswheel.me/?p=284#comment-811 I'd also recommend Kip S Thorne as someone to read - he was one of Wheeler's students, has written prolifically, and was the brains behind the theory of wormholes. I got my first intro to the ideas of quantum physics way back from his 'Black Holes & Time Warps'. That Broderick book looks real interesting, though.. I’d also recommend Kip S Thorne as someone to read – he was one of Wheeler’s students, has written prolifically, and was the brains behind the theory of wormholes. I got my first intro to the ideas of quantum physics way back from his ‘Black Holes & Time Warps’.

That Broderick book looks real interesting, though..

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