On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 01:24:19PM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote: > From: *Russell Standish* <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> > > > > On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 10:17:01AM +1100, Bruce Kellett wrote: > > > > > > My feeling is that we observe that the world has certain symmetries, > > then we > > > design our theories to reflect these symmetries, because theories that > > > incorporate the observed symmetries work better. Since the starting > > point is > > > observation, we have some prospect of learning something other than the > > > nature of our thought processes. > > > > > > Bruce > > > > My claim is that there are always symmetric theories. Assuming some > > horrible > > non-symmetric world, we can make a symmetric theory by a suitable > > transformation of variables - in rather the same way we can see a > > computation in a rock by a suitable transformation of variables. > > I think that in general it requires a little more than just a transformation > of variables. If we fail to see rotational symmetry in the world around us > (same laws in all directions), then we would have to postulate some oriented > field, or some interaction that depended on position and/or direction. To do > it by a transformation of variables you would require the variables > themselves to reflect this non-symmetric field. > > > > What do you say to the proposition that evolution might have equipped > > us with the facility to see those symmetries "intuitively", since it > > makes computing things about the world easier? > > I don't think that actually changes anything -- what that means is that > those symmetries existed in the world, and evolution took place in the > context of those symmetries. So it is anything but an arbitrary imposition > by our minds on a non-symmetric world.
Of course - I never claimed that. Just that the symmetries observed tell us more about what we've evolved to see in our environment rather than an intrinsic property of the environment. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Senior Research Fellow [email protected] Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
