Re: Not So Spooky...Just Geometry
You see, this is where I get confused...because they ARE separate, and yes in a very real sense.
Well, of course the left eye is a different thing to the right eye, but that doesn't mean that they are two things that need to be integrated into a whole, as they are simply two small componants of a much larger machine.
The eyes are sensory devices, and the integration of the information from both eyes gives a complete visual picture, with depth perception.
Ah, but here you're talking about the integration of information from them both, not about the integration of the objects in and of themselves. And I certainly can't see what this has to do with symmetry any more.
The need as expressed with the genitalia is for the sex organ to act as the integrator of the gonads. Without the uterus and vagina, the ovaries and ovum would not be able to achieve their function. Without the penis and urethra, the testes and semen could not achieve their function.
But again, this has nothing to do with symmetry. If the penis was on one hip on one side of our bodies and the testicles on the other, they would still be interdependant. And, you can equally say that the penis is dependant on the mouth or nose, as if you couldn't breathe, the penis couldn't achieve it's function then.
Yes, our organs are interdependant, but I don't see how it follows that this is a product of nature's tendancy towards symmetry in the design of mammals.
Now this is where I come in and state that "precision" is nothing but a human construct. The need to measure something with better and better precision is a human fetish. Nature is decidedly fuzzy, and I would say fractally so.
On the whole, I'd say you're right.
I agree with this, but you could say this about any form of language. The letters in this post are nothing but abstractions. Yet they convey meaning (information).
That is, in fact, the basis of semiology. Yes, we derive meaning from arbitrary symbols. They can be letters (and Saussure did initially derive the concept to look at language), words, crucifixes, cowboy hats...absolutely anything. And, my point is, that although they may be things from which we can derive meaning, that does not mean that they have meaning in and of themselves. There is nothing about the word/letters "dog" that actually suggest a dog, but that is how we percieve it. someone from Peru, say, could look at the same letters and not derive the same meaning. Maybe a better example would be "pain". You and I may think of hurt, or Chronohistorian. A French man would most likely think of bread. The words and letters themselves do not have meaning, we give them meaning. In the same way, crucifixes have no menaing, cubes (or any other Platonic solid) have no meaning, cowboy hats have no meaning, numbers have no meaning, coincidences have no meaning...nothing does, really, other than what we give it.
Human perception is continuous, but certainly not always linear.
If you've ever suffered a blackout, passed out, or taken a hallucinogenic drug, you probably wouldn't say that perception necessarily was continuous.
I believe if you look more deeply into fractals (and wavelet transforms), you will see that these mathematical constructs have shown such a good match to natural processes, that the scientific community seems to be in agreement that dimensionality is continuous, and not discrete...and that the discrete level of dimensionality we call "3-D" is really the human construct to simplify the inherent complexity.
You kow, I've never heard that from a scientific perspective, and I can't find anything online about it. My dad's a physicist, so I'll ask him about it when I see him next.
But this is also a bit of a catch-22, because when it comes to discovery and innovation, being able to conjecture a "what if", and then run with it to develop experimental means to gather empirical evidence, has often shown to be the path of great discoveries. Copernicus was troubled by the complexity of the epicycles required to explain retrograde motion in the earth-centric model that was the accepted belief. He started with "what if the earth was NOT the center of the universe? What if the sun was the center?"
I don't think that's quite the same thing, though. Copernicus saw what he thought was a flaw, and worked to solve that flaw. That's different from arbitrarily deciding that the universe has fractal dimensions. I need some kind of evidence before I could make such a leap, and that they can be mathematically mapped is not such evidence.
Our senses do not readily tell us that there is any relationship between position, velocity, and acceleration. Yet Newton had that "gut feeling" that there was something there, and that the relationship could be explained. Calculus was the result. Did he "know" it? Depends on how you define "knowing". Newton might say he "knew" it, but he also admitted that he really just pursued his intuition. Intuition is a funny, mysterious, and powerful thing. I often wonder where is comes from, and why it is often so strong.
Actually, I would say that the kowledge that position, velocity and acceleration are related was not only obvious, but more or less innate. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to throw a ball accurately. You don't need to know the equasions, or how they relate to each other, or anything fancy like that, but the actual physics itself is widely known.
And, as for intuition, I believe that intuition is simply the unconsious mind working harder than the consious mind, and solving the problem before the rational one does. I've done it a few times where I've solved a crossword clue, and then gone back and worked out what they little bits of the clue are and how they relate. Or, I've solved the Conundrum on
Countdown just by glancing at it, rather than having to think about what letters might form the ending of the word, and whether the two "t"s are together or seperate.
But it's a bit of a leap to say that is in any way indicative of there being more dimensions than we can percieve.
That's quite an accident, given what we know (so far) about the rareity of life in the universe.
Well, yes. But so is my birth from the specific sperm and ovum from which I grew. Not just with the likelyhood of those two elements coming together, but my parents bumping into each other. Their parents living in the same part of the country.
Their parents meeting how they did, and so on back for as long as you like. If you look at it like that, the chances of me being born are practially zero. Yet here I am.
Now I could accept that a SINGLE "accident" could occur that would have added heat energy to some process that resulted in initiation of simple life here on earth. But would it not require a series of "accidents" to continually overcome increasing entropy in order for life to establish a firm foothold, and eventually beget the human organism? So how would you reconcile "accidental" life with the 2nd Law?
That's a Creationist argument, based on a misunderstanding of the Law. The over-all entropy of a closed system increses. The entropy of a sub-system within that system can decrease, as long as another system compensates. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in no way goes against the theory of evolution.
Claude Shannon, the father of information theory (and a guy my dad worked with at AT&T Bell Labs) was the first one to infer this link.
Interestingly enough, I was going to mention Shannon in my last post, but as an example of my POV.
HERE is one link that, while not technically deep, does contain some interesting discussions on the topic.
That's a somewhat partisan site, is it not? To quote:
[...] it is hard, when paying attention to the intricacies of manifest existence, to imagine that it all came about by chance, that there was no guiding force of any kind orchestrating the beautiful complexity of it all.
No, it's not hard at all. It seems to be the most logical explaination.
The idea that there is no empirical evidence of divine intelligence leads to a rather depressing and uninspiring appraisal of life and of existence.
Speak for yourself. I find it neither depressing nor uninspiring. And, here, I think it's very telling. Deriving meaning from that which does not inherantly have meaning, because they
want to believe that there is meaning. The bias is right there.
And for something with quite a bit more mathematical rigor, HERE is a paper that discusses the relationship between information theory and thermodynamics.
I'd have to go through that when I've got more time, and when I've had a bit more coffee.
Now if I REALLY want to scare you I can also tell you that several theoretical physicists are putting forth a theory (based on equivalence of thermodynamic and information entropy) that our perception of the universe being 3-D is actually an illusion. The results of their work seem to indicate we all might be living in a 2-D hologram, and that our ability to extract information from the randomness of our holographic universe is what leads to our perception of 3-D.
Hmmm. I'll believe it when it's been tested and proven. I don't have
Scientific American, but I do have access to loads of issues of
New Scientist, and, of course, there's the websites for these mags (as well as ones like
Nature). If you can give me some more info (such as the scientists names), then I can have a dig around looking for it.
So, where would that leave superstring theory?
