Glen writes:
< To what extent is "energy" a reductive projection of what's actually
(ontologically) extant? >
In the case of the physics of a crystal or a restricted Boltzmann machine (a
neural net), it could be a sufficient description...
< Given all that, and what you say ("... not the details of the
configuration"), I have trouble getting lost in the difference between the
reduction and the fully detailed *thing* that I'm predisposed to imagine is
"really" out there ... the thing being reduced. >
..but if a spin approximates something more than a spin, then the reduction
(interpreting energy) could be a lossy reduction. The assumption here is that
there is nothing `below' the spins of interest, all that matters is a spin as
it is coupled to other spins, and the consequences of that is revealed by
energy.
Marcus
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