Friday 23 January 2009

Complete replacement rather than competition? And initial conditions looked at, from a chaos perspective.

Threads connected with these thoughts

- Evolutionary process more detailed than previously believed, study shows
- Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now.


I read in Darwin was wrong...ish


"Instead, that model adopts a linear approach, theorizing that a population acquires such adaptations successively, one after another. Rather than a competition occurring, the model posits a complete replacement of one generation by another better-adapted generation."

A linear approach? Adaptations acquired successively, one after another? Bifurcations? The model posits a complete replacement of one generation by another better-adapted generation? Generations in each bifurcation point, of a linearly developed evolutionary tree, present all the 'initial conditions' for the next stage of evolution to take place? 'Initial conditions' in the context of chaos? The sensitive dependence and all that, that will determine the next better-adapted generation? The complete replacement of the generation past, reminiscent of what takes place when a paradigm shift happens? Along the lines of 'anything adhered to before a paradigm shift is completely forgotten, abandoned, thrown overboard'.

Competition is a hogwash?

It's worth more than a furtive look.

The same goes for what is mentioned in this article as well

'Evolutionary process more detailed than previously believed, study shows'

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Sub-atomic particles having zero rest mass. Universe, an infinitesimally thin sheet?

.... mass itself an emergent product?

I read in New Scientist of 3 February 2001, article 'Mass medium' pp. 22-25, in page 25 excerpt titled 'Mass delusion'

"Most theories that attempt to unify the forces of nature, showing them to be facets of a single "superforce", treat all subatomic particles as having zero rest mass. So they need an extra ingredient-the Higgs boson."

Sub-atomic particles having zero rest mass? Sub-atomic particles? What our universe is made up of? Having zero mass? Mass which fills the universe? What makes it appear to us, as an enormous void full of massive objects? Compact, solid? But the stuff of these massive objects, the sub-atomic particles, have zero rest mass?

So, the whole universe can easily fit in a sheet of infinitesimal thickness?

As what I thought in "Observer to Planck length distance, fractal? Why we perceive continuity, out of the energy packets (quanta), the physical world is made out of?", post

"For any effect, the world we live in, the reality for us, might unravel in infinite fractal dimensions inside thin sheets, as thick as A4 paper."

Sunday 11 January 2009

Chaos traces in Ed Fredkin's digital philosophy?

Exciting aspects, in what I have read in Cellular automaton models in Digital Philosophy website which compels me to write them down, raw as they are.

The following extract from Chapter 1 Cellular automaton models

"Our thesis is that some CA model may be, in effect, programmed to act like physics. We call such models digital mechanics (DM). In short, DM is a discrete and deterministic modelling system which we propose to use (instead of differential equations, for example) for modelling phe­nomena in physics. We are driven in this direc­tion by many heuristics; primarily by the concept, borrowed (and extended) from automata theory, of the universal machine [3] Any ordinary com­mercial computer would be a universal machine, except for the fact that it does not have an infi­nite memory. In this paper, we shall extend the meaning of the term "universal machine" to in­clude the universal cellular automaton (UCA) or other kinds of general purpose computers that have large but finite memories; this would include any commercial computer. A universal machine can exactly mimic the behavior of any other finite computer, provided its memory is just a very little bit larger than the target machine."

referring to the universal cellular automaton model, as being based on the concept of the universal machine, which can exactly mimic 'behaviours' applicable to wider and varied settings?

Is it directly related with the universality principle prevalent in chaos, or is it a simple circumstantial connection? Intended or unintended? It is worth pursuing that line of thinking.

And further

"By "complexity" we mean some combination of: a large number of states per cell, a complex CA rule, neighborhood (spatial connectivity and dimensionality), boundary condition or initial con­dition."

the mention of 'boundary condition or initial condition', brings into mind chaos's 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions', and that notion combined with the statement

" RUCA also exhibit unusual and counterintuitive behavior that is a consequence of perfect reversibility combined with extreme quantization."

where the 'unusual and counterintuitive behavior', being the hallmark of chaos developing states, as well as from the phrase 'a consequence of perfect reversibility combined with extreme quantization', the mention of 'extreme quantization', strengthening the ties of the RUCA model with chaos via its sensitive dependence on the minutiae of changes in initial conditions.

Which is further exacerbated in the paragraph

"RUCA reversibility is very different than the intuitive notion of microscopic reversibility that relies on continuity to ensure that no effect gets lost no matter how infinites­imal it becomes."

initial conditions preserved no matter how 'infinites­imal' they become.

Remarks that sink deeper into my mind the chaotic origins of reality.

Fractal corridors? Existence, reality, universe is built by?

Fractal corridors?

... harboring even cosmic strings?

... by which Mach's principle acquire substance? The ties of each atom, each quantum particle with every other atom in the universe?

... constraining energy, ever since the big bang, separating it into the different kinds of fundamental forces existing now in the universe?

... giving substance to Ed Fredkin's idea of a universe built out of automata? Ed Fredkin's cells being fractal pockets?

Wednesday 7 January 2009

Fractal universe, fractal reality?

I read in New Scientist of 3 February 2001, article 'Mass medium' pp. 22-25, in page 24

"Rather than being empty, the vacuum is a choppy sea of randomly fluctuating electromagnetic waves. We don't see or feel them because they pop in and out of existence incredibly quickly, appearing only for a split second. These fleeting apparitions are called virtual photons."

'In and out of existence'? What is that existence? How can we fathom it? Describe it, define it. Is it reality proper, and specifically its lowest level? As space being there, created to accommodate, to contain infinitesimal particles, their energy halo, their fields? A space, a reference frame, within a more fundamental space as it comes out from what Ed Fredkin says, in New Scientist of 21 June 2003, article 'In the beginning was the Rule' pp. 32-35, in page 35,

"Fredkin says such objections arise because other people do not understand the concept of space he is working with. 'The space of physics isn't defined by the cellular array', he says. 'It's defined by the paths that free particles take in the cellular array'."

The space Ed Fredkin came up with, working on his theory based on cellular automata, is more fundamental, underlying the space physics study, including the 'existence' of virtual particles, that pop in and out it. 'It' being existence. What if, following the leads given above, assume that the virtual particles primarily exist in the fundamental space, Ed Fredkin proclaims. By virtue of their designated name, 'virtual' particles, therefore attribute the underlying fundamental space as 'virtual' space, where they reside and from there, they make their fleeting appearances in the 'existence', physics observes and measures.

Invade our familiar space, and reveal their existence more likely, than pop in and out of existence. What if, the cells in Ed Fredkin's digital universe, are fractal cells, virtually fractal corridors, extremely thin, or thin enough to accommodate photons, permeating the universe, indicating its nature, a fractal universe, a fractal reality.

The virtual particles teeming the vacuum, simply being the cross-sections of universe's fractal corridors passed by, in the endless motion of particles within.

Saturday 3 January 2009

Convention? What kind of convention is that? Agreement or compromise?

"By convention there is color, by convention there is sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in realty there are atoms and space.

—Democritus
"

Convention? What kind of convention is that? Agreement or compromise?

Convention? Like interpretation? How the mind instantiates 'realty'? Or, how human minds, as a 'populace' agreed to look upon 'realty'? A second stage act following a first stage act of a single human mind observing 'realty', and after that, it passes its concluded thoughts about the observations, as it sits down with other mind-bearers to agree to a common approach. On how to interpret the conclusions amassed, provide a name-symbol, and use it to depict what is conceived? The stuff of concepts? Reaching an accord? At least that is how reason should work.

Or is it convention within a single mind, that makes the 'atoms and space' realty into something that agrees with its unit make-up, its senses and its body? And since, its senses and its body, are what it has to work with, it can not do anything else, but use them. Convention being more like a compromise? Its unit make-up, a result of endless processes between the 'atoms and space', that realty is, have confined the individual in a level of existence, isolated from all other levels above and below, trapped, bound by impenetrable boundaries? Only its mind is left out free to roam at any level, up or down, and beyond? Traverse right down to the bottom levels, even further below than 'atoms and space' lay?

The space of the DM is certainly not the space of the RUCA.

Why is the mind capable to traverse impenetrable boundaries? Is it because what lies down there, is made out of the stuff, the mind is made up from?