Hi Tim, I never have seen someone so electronically sensitive (except perhaps my french director thesis ... ;-)
You know how much I have enjoyed your posts, and you know how many mathematical structures we share the taste for. (categories, modal logic, Baez stuff ...) But, indeed, apparently we disagree somewhere. But this is certainly not a reason to leave the list, ...unless you believe we are dogmatical? I think the disagreement occurred on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. For example, when you told (to Hal Finney) ...
I would say "nothing" about the past prior to a measurement being made.
...you really talk like Bohr. The whole point of Everett is that measurement is not something special. So my feeling is that you have not yet really acknowledged the enormity of the quantum. I would suggest you to read the original papers by Everett(*). In my opinion NOBODY has ever been as clear and honest as Everett on quantum mechanics. But the misunderstanding between us is perhaps deeper. Everett deduced the MANY (branches, relative-alternative states, worlds, histories, .... call it like you want) FROM the Schroedinger Wave Equation (SWE) + the computationalist theory of mind. Perhaps it is comp which trouble you (you would not be the first!). My thesis basically illustrated that most of the weirder aspect of the quantum are not really consequences of SWE but are already consequences of comp. (and that is relatively easy to show, actually I show more, I show that the whole quantum must follow from the comp hyp). In that case, i.e. the misunderstanding concerns comp, everybody will learn something if you told us where in the "universal dovetailer thought experiment (UDA)" you suspect a flaw. I think that most of us have a scientific attitude, that is they are modest and agnostic on the fundamental issues, and just try to figure out what the others are trying to say and how to clarify the difficulties, and even sometimes just to clarify where we disagree. I told you that you came a little too early with your toposes concerning the mathematical development of the "everything" type of TOE. But, in case you leave the list I would say you would leave it a little too early concerning the understanding of the main fundamental issues. Don't force us to wait for another reality for having the pleasure to discuss with you ... Bruno At 20:20 -0800 14/01/2003, Tim May wrote:
In looking over the traffic, the archives, and the responses I have gotten, it's clear that I mistook this list ...
<snip> (*) Still hard to find? Tell me and I send you a photocopy. -- http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
