- #1
Fra
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I finally started to read Smolin's Three roads to Quantum Gravity and only read the first two chapters so far. It doesn't contain any math, but it does seem to present a particular choice of reasoning on howto make progress on the matter, which I think is interesting in it's own because it may be a valuable guide in the world of theories and on a very early stage in the reasoning, it may hint us about flaws in reasoning.
I am not sure if anyone else is interested in such things but I will give it a try. My aim is to see if the logic of reasoning used in science can have any constructive outcomes.
In chapter 2 Smolin argues that that classical logic, that there is an objectivity to the notion of true and false, is not well designed for the task of quantum gravity. One of the reasons is that due to limited information of each observer (no observer can hold compelte information about everything in the universe at once), and prescription to establish truth or false, would be observer-dependent.
I agree with that.
But then Smolin seems to argue that a measure ofthe rationality of actions/decisions can be construced without the use of an "superobserver" knowing everything at all times. He says it's enough to assume that the observers are honest, and argues that in that way, two observers facing "the same information" will always make the same decision.
This makes me suspect, and I am curious to se how he builds onto this later in his reasoning. The problems I see is the feedback, that also "logic of reasoning" of a particular observer is evolved in the observer history. So it could still be that different observers facing the same information, responds differently, becase the very notion of "logic of reasoning" is different.
This is what I see as the basis for backgroudn independence at a fundamental level. There seems to be a feedback and self-reference between the way information is processed, and the evolution of the logic of information processing.
The reason I find common language analysis of very simple things interesting is that, I think differences in reasoning does have implications when you choose the mathematical formalism later. And at the later stages there is such much details and baggage that it's hard to analyse. Defects in the line of reasoning will propagage throughout the entire constructions.
Comments are appreciated.
/Fredrik
I am not sure if anyone else is interested in such things but I will give it a try. My aim is to see if the logic of reasoning used in science can have any constructive outcomes.
In chapter 2 Smolin argues that that classical logic, that there is an objectivity to the notion of true and false, is not well designed for the task of quantum gravity. One of the reasons is that due to limited information of each observer (no observer can hold compelte information about everything in the universe at once), and prescription to establish truth or false, would be observer-dependent.
I agree with that.
But then Smolin seems to argue that a measure ofthe rationality of actions/decisions can be construced without the use of an "superobserver" knowing everything at all times. He says it's enough to assume that the observers are honest, and argues that in that way, two observers facing "the same information" will always make the same decision.
This makes me suspect, and I am curious to se how he builds onto this later in his reasoning. The problems I see is the feedback, that also "logic of reasoning" of a particular observer is evolved in the observer history. So it could still be that different observers facing the same information, responds differently, becase the very notion of "logic of reasoning" is different.
This is what I see as the basis for backgroudn independence at a fundamental level. There seems to be a feedback and self-reference between the way information is processed, and the evolution of the logic of information processing.
The reason I find common language analysis of very simple things interesting is that, I think differences in reasoning does have implications when you choose the mathematical formalism later. And at the later stages there is such much details and baggage that it's hard to analyse. Defects in the line of reasoning will propagage throughout the entire constructions.
Comments are appreciated.
/Fredrik