Quantum Field Theory is a framework that maps translations between quanta and Bordism/Cobordism is a framework that maps translations between manifolds. Both frameworks not only fundamentally similar in the way they understand their objects but they can be used to solve the same physical problems. Mathematics is full of examples like this in which patterns and outcomes are conserved. In witnessing this phenomena I often find myself thinking fatalistically about the question of Mathematics being invented or discovered as the phenomena conservation alludes to a sort of platonic potentiality running under all discovery.
Are you purposely using long words?
I choose words based on the meaning they convey not by their length.
I'd be careful about praising measurement systems just because they consistently measure things.
I consider all frameworks (what you are calling measurement systems I think) fundamentally as descriptive and I praise them only in so far as they can describe the phenomena they concern themselves with in a meaningful and useful way. Given all of these descriptive theories can do no more than give attributes to empirical objects I view them epistemically limited.
Even though we can do amazing things like power a home through a nuclear reaction, or fly a plane on autopilot, I'm always humbled by how little we still know. That's not to demean science—I think it's incredible what we can do with what we have. I tend to keep in mind what we don't know. For all of our knowledge, we barely understand consciousness (the essence of what we are). We don't understand simple things like why observing quanta should make it behave differently. I'm definitely not feeling Plato's forms on this wavelength.
What do you mean by thinking fatalistically about math? Even if we didn't do geometry, surely we'd still be counting things, right?
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12/9/2020 3:14:34 AM
Even though we can do amazing things like power a home through a nuclear reaction, or fly a plane on autopilot, I'm always humbled by how little we still know. That's not to demean science—I think it's incredible what we can do with what we have. I tend to keep in mind what we don't know. For all of our knowledge, we barely understand consciousness (the essence of what we are). We don't understand simple things like why observing quanta should make it behave differently. I'm definitely not feeling Plato's forms on this wavelength.
I agree with this attitude and I find it unfortunate that the Scientific Community, especially the Physicists, have become so arrogant
What do you mean by thinking fatalistically about math? Even if we didn't do geometry, surely we'd still be counting things, right?
Mathematics is extremely diverse and there are branches that have disconnected foundations meaning that those foundations imply something specific which becomes a subject. There are multiples types of Calculus for instance, the one every STEM student learns in college called Real Analysis and another one called Nonstandard Analysis. Both Calculus’s solve the same problems and fundamentally look the same but are built on completely different assumptions and axioms which leads to the use of Limits in one and Hyperreals in the other.
When I say fatalistic I mean that when constructing a set of axioms on top of a set of assumptions the mathematical structure in some sense already exists. I used the word platonic to allude to a set of crystallized forms that are predetermined. There are multiple types of Calculus’s, Algebras, and types of analysis that are fundamentally different at their roots but not only take on the same forms but also lead to the solving on the same problems.
Quantum Field Theory and Bordism is an extreme version given the former is a means of quantization and the other is a type of Geometry. They are extremely different at their roots, yet the only real difference is the objects of study - one being quanta and the other being manifolds.
Are you purposely using long words?
I suspect the reason people tend to get this impression about Alice, is that she's immersed in this type of language, but language is not her forte. So while she's borrowing words and, to a lesser extent, sentence structure from dense, intellectual text, she wields it awkwardly. It comes across as stilted and unnatural. Which can make it look a bit like one of those people whose intellectual prowess consists of a thesaurus, even though that's not what's going on in this case.
From a conversation with someone on discord, the context is a conversation about determinism and morphological structures.
Bob: Do you see the world as deterministic? And the fate of humans?
Alice: Yes, in Spenglerian terms I believe in morphologies that begin in potential and take shape through sequences of actualization's, as such there is a fate to all things tied to their initial potentiality. I do not mind the morphology being pseudorandom.
Bob: How would said potential be assessed? Couldn't the case be made that, prior to any actualizations, the potential is purely entropic?
Alice: It depends on the being/morphology the potential is attached to. In general, no matter how complex the system, there are initial conditions that possible actualization's stem from but the more complex system the more complex any causal chain becomes. From that complexity the memory of a system can be lost in either direction, past or future. So if a system is to complex its memory can become in complete, that is initial or final conditions cannot be known, only current conditions of the system can be known. If the system is not complex, as an example a the coming into being of a gamma particle along with its decay, the system has complete memory and as such you can know the entire morphology from anywhere in the causal chain.
Memory of systems seemingly are deeply affected by entropic forces, though I am not sold on the idea.
I summary: It depends on the system in question, its complexity, and its memory.