On Sep 15, 6:08 pm, Brent Meeker <meeke....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> But the question is whether there would be any *functional* difference.
>
> Brent Meeker
Sure, if reductionism were true, half of physics wouldn't work.
Yudkowsky claims: "It is not that reality itself has an Einstein
equation that governs at high speeds, a Newton equation that governs
at low speeds, and a "bridging law" that smooths the interface.
Reality itself has only a single level, Einsteinian gravity."
Ref:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/excluding-the-s.html#more
But this another non-sequitur in a long long of misconceptions,
superficial analysis and non-sequiturs from him.
In his example, of course it's true there's only one correct equation
(the Einstein one), but this mathematical *equation'* references
*physics concepts* on several different levels of abstraction. It's
the *concepts* that are non-reducible, not the *equations*.
The physics of forces (Newtonian mechanics is not reducible to the
physics of simple geometric solids (Greek physics) , nor is the
physics of space-time fields (Relativity) reducible to the physics of
forces. Each of these (greek physics, newtonian mechanics,
relativistic physics) introduced new physical concepts which weren't
reducible to the earlier ones. It's not so much that new physics
concepts *replaced* the older ones, rather that the new concepts were
at * a higher-level of abstraction* than the old.
I
Also note that modern String Theory says that the fabric of theory
itself is composed of concepts of Category Theory, which are high-
level mathematical representations of lower-level ones.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list.domain.name.hidden
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscribe.domain.name.hidden
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
Received on Mon Sep 15 2008 - 03:07:27 PDT