Re: Is the universe a set? Probably not.

From: Christoph Schiller <christoph_schiller.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 01:46:04 -0700
('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is) Russel Standish wrote:

- My understanding of QM is that it is based on a set (the Hilbert space
- of "wavefunctions") that is neither a space-time set nor a particle
- set. It has infinite dimensionality while space-time sets are finite,
- and is continuous while particle sets are discrete.

- Let me know if I'm missing something here, but I would have thought
- that this does kill your argument.

I think there are several ways to see that the Hilbert space falls
under the argument nevertheless.

Different wavefunctions differ by the values of the corresponding
observables, and for these observables the argument still holds;
in fact, there are minimum measureable values for most observables.
(I do not dare to say "all", because I would need to
look into the matter in more detail.)

In addition, wavefunctions can be seen as functions over
space and time, so that the minimum measureable intervals
which make it impossible to say that space and time are sets,
allows to deduce that it is impossible that Hilbert spaces
are sets.

Thanks for the point - I hadn't thought of it in this way yet.

                        Christoph Schiller



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Received on Tue Oct 24 2000 - 01:46:36 PDT

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