Dan1
April 23, 2006, 10:23am
1
StevenA:
"Interactions between energy/matter create reality/time. Spacial dimensions are heuristics perceived by correlations between these interactions - when two things interact, we perceive them as being at the same spacial location for that instant. The perception of 3-D space is simply the most natural model for 2-D senses over time. Self organizing algorithms, like Kohonen networks can extract spacial correlations from information and this process likely works in both sense of vision and touch.
The perception of space is a learning process. Individual atoms wouldn’t seem to have any ability to perceive 3-D space … they simply interact at various times and at various orientations with other energies. Maybe these interactions occur in potentially 11 dimensions, but these other dimensions aren’t entirely independent and unrelated. Even the 3 spacial dimensions we typically refer to are largely redundant and not truly 3 independent coordinates - there is no universal X,Y,Z marker in space but it’s simply a natural interpretation of how 2-D visual senses + time are interpreted. If you use a more natural reference for dimensional orientation, like gravity, you’ll find that most things at a specific potential in a gravity well are very similar, no matter what direction you go (i.e. 100 miles from the center of the Earth in any arbitrary X, Y or Z direction appears similar and the same is true of a black hole or orbital of atoms or planets etc.) We probably live in a universe best described as having 1.3 independent dimensions, or something like that as most of the 3 dimensions we perceive aren’t independent, but are correlated. For example, we could say one second of speech in CD audio format is a 44,100 dimensional object because it could be described as 44,100 waveform samples (CD audio standard format), but if there are truly only a small number of truly significant and independent components that describe it usefully, then for intelligeability it would seem better to simply describe the word and possibly tonal structure instead of individual audio samples taken at 44.1 KHz. Speech can be easily compressed into many fewer dimensions with virtually no loss in perceived audio quality. 44.1 KHz is simply a factor of the hardware sampling, just like 3-D is the representation that 2-D + time senses naturally perceive. but these are oversampled representations with much redudancy that causes confusion over what the irreducible core of reality is.
I won’t claim I know exactly how to extract an irreducible spacial coordinate system for everything but it seems that the 3 dimensions we normally perceive are likely more a learned macroscopic approximation largely driven by how our senses operate than a representation of the “fabric” of the universe. I’m just trying to point out that there’s likely a smaller, but more informationally dense representation for things that would describe observed phenomenon better except that this isn’t easily seen as we don’t have an intuitive understanding of such a perspective. It doesn’t seem impossible that the structure of the universe could actually not even be regular on a small scale but that the macroscopic linearities we envision are simply approximates of smaller, irregular and possibly even stochastics actions that are diffused in a rather even manner on a larger scale.
Then again, I might be adding unnecessary complexity … but there does seem to be an obvious redundancy in spacial dimensions that seems to be generally overlooked. Basically, I think the ideas of a “thinner” holographic universe, at least in functionality, offer some incredible possibilities and could tie together microscopic and macroscopic characteristics - if the universe exists as a smaller “seed” of interactions that’s fractally unfolded, then characteristics seen at a small scale would be seen on a larger scale as well. Are similarities and regularities seen at various scales simply products of overactive imaginations or are they created by a fundamental process of the universe that uses the past as a seed to grow the future?
Maybe I’m searching for a holy grail that doesn’t exist, but if we can understand how a molecular chain of 1,000 atoms self-organizes and even simulate it in some reasonable time on a computer, it seems there should exist a scalable set of physical rules that doesn’t require an entire rewrite when, for example, we want to model the weather - if the spiral arms of galaxies appear physically similar to the arms of a hurricane, it’s almost guaranteed they operate by similar processes. This would seem to apply to orbits of planets as well (galaxies are composed of orbitals). Do electron shell orbits operate similarly except that EMF forces interact on a larger magnitude?
I’m probably getting old but there seems to be a recursive structure that likely applies on all scales of observation. We just haven’t been looking for nesting/recursion in the universe but once you begin looking in that direction the signs appear obvious."
Dan:
Interaction = Change = Comparison = Relativity = Math = Infromation = Body = Mind = Thougth = Interaction = Change = Comparison = Relativity = Math = Information = Body = Mind = Thought (etc.)
You Humans are so facinateing the way you have to break everything into it’s basic form and even farther before you understand it. You make everything so much more complicated than it really is or rather has to be.
Your hunger for knowledge and the lengths some of you are willing to go to, to achieve that goal is rather astonishing.
For you this seams to be a boon rather than a curse.
But in any case, I concure with both on some level.
Maybe you should try finding a Theory that allows both of them to exist in the same pattern and form. And makes use of both there complications and simplicities.