Subject: Re: [lojban] More damn imaginary world stuff

From: "James F. Carter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:47:22 -0800 (PST)

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, michael helsem wrote:
> >From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
> > (--snip--)
> >Are you saying that it is impossible that the laws of physics are arranged
> >such that any other arrangement requires a logical contradiction? Can you
> >show me an alternate arrangement that is logically consistent? Since we
> >don't have our complete picture yet, we are not yet sure if any other
> >alternate arrangements are logically possible.
> 
> IIRC, there was somebody who reformulated the existing "physical
> laws" according to INFORMATION rather than energy, in the 70's (i
> blush to admit i read this in Analog); being tautological & a pain
> in the gizzard to think in terms of, it never caught on: but this shows that 
> another Physics than the one we know, is indeed possible in this same 
> universe...

Arthur A. Eddington, "The Mathematical Theory of Relativity" (2nd ed.),
Cambridge, 1924, sect. 47 p. 106: (The success of thermodynamics) "...
suggests striving for an ideal -- to show, not that the laws of nature come
from a special construction of the ultimate basis of everything, but that
the same laws of nature would prevail for the widest possible variety of
structure of that basis."

Some of my research indicates that any model of reality built on a
Hausdorff space (i.e. you can always distinguish two non-identical
points) has laws similar to Einstein's theory of relativity.

"Information Mechanics" is indeed very interesting. I chased down an axiom
that I couldn't swallow, but the fact that so much realistic stuff comes
out of that model, suggests that the flaw is repairable.

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: [email-masked] http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)