[extropy-chat] mathscapes

[scerir]

> >Something a little bit more physical, or less epiontic,

[Damien]
> An interesting term. Do you mean it in Zurek's sense,
> where the ontic is entangled (so to speak) with
> the epistemic?

Well, yes. There are perhaps different kinds of epionticism.
But in general the number of authors believing that "reality"
is not just something that "kicks back", is increasing. 

It is not just a matter of "information", of translation of 
physics (and biology? etc.) in "information science".
"Information" is of course physical (Landauer). But physics 
is much reacher than information science (i.e. it is difficult 
to translate states like "quantum gloves" in information
language, usually lacking proper orientations).

It is a matter of "episteme", of "potentiality/propensity",
of "relational". "Fields in empty space have physical reality;
the medium that supports them does not. Correlations have 
physical reality; that which they correlate does not." [DM]

A simple - but not trivial - level of epionticism.....

"Do we need more spatial dimensions, no problem. Space is our
invention anyway, so we can use as many dimensions as we need.
If we want to use non-Euclidean geometry, no problem. Geometry
is our invention, too. In fact, all these models should not
be interpreted as elements of reality but merely our idiosyncratic
descriptions (pictures) of observations. The 10^100 possible string
theories supports the notion that there may be many models that
do an equally good job. Indeed, the lack of a unique model proves
my case." [VS]

Then, more technical levels like these.

"While the general superposition principle, from which nonlocality is
derived, requires nonlocal states (that is, a kinematical nonlocality),
most physicists seem to regard as conceivable only a dynamical
nonlocality (such as Einstein's spooky action at a distance). The
latter would even have to include superluminal actions. In contrast,
nonlocal entanglement must already "exist" before any crucially
related local but spatially separated events occur. For example,
in proposed so-called quantum teleportation experiments, a nonlocal
state has to be carefully prepared initially - so nothing has to
be ported any more. After this preparation, the relevant state "exists
but is not there". Or in similar words: the physical state is 
'ou topos' (at no place), although it is not utopic according to 
quantum theory."[DZ]

"During the recent decades, more and more superpositions have been
confirmed to exist by clever experimentalists. We have learned
about SQUIDs, mesoscopic Schoedinger cats, Bose condensates,
and even superpositions of a macroscopic current running in opposite
directions (very different from two currents canceling each other).
Microscopic elements of quantum computers (which simultaneously perform
different calculations in one superposition) have been successfully
designed. All these superpositions may be (or must be) observed as
individual physical states. Hence, their components "exist"
simultaneously. As long as no unpredictable events have occurred,
they do not form ensembles of possible states which would represent
incomplete information about the true state." [DZ]

"Entanglement is then achieved as a consequence of two facts: 
first, the impossibility to determine from the detection event 
which atom emitted the photon; second, the projection postulate 
in Quantum Mechanics, which indicates that after the detection 
the state of the atoms is projected onto the one which is 
compatible with the outcome of the measurement." [Cabrillo et al.]

"The superposition of amplitudes is only valid if there is no way 
to know, even in principle, which path the particle took. It is 
important to realize that this does not imply that an observer 
actually takes note of what happens. It is sufficient to destroy 
the interference pattern, if the path information is accessible 
in principle from the experiment or even if it is dispersed in the 
environment and beyond any technical possibility to be recovered, 
but in principle 'still out there' ". [AZ]

Finally, an epiontic mathscape, like this one.

"So in the end, everyone was right, in a way. Information is lost in
topologically non trivial metrics, like the eternal black hole. On the
other hand, information is preserved in topologically trivial
metrics. The confusion and paradox arose because people thought
classically, in terms of a single topology for spacetime. It was
either R4, or a black hole. But the Feynman sum over histories, allows
it to be both at once. One can not tell which topology contributed the
observation, any more than one can tell which slit the electron went
through, in the two slits experiment. All that observation at infinity
can determine, is that there is a unitary mapping from initial states,
to final, and that information is not lost." [SH]