As a hopefully brief addendum to my last post, I mentioned something about Fourier analysis over different logical contexts, but this is potentially a misdirection.
Quantum mechanics via traditional Fourier theory, wave equations and the rest gives certain interpretable results about the very small and these results are colored by the initial assumptions regarding Coulomb potentials on spherically symmetric point particles, what it means to have identical particles, etc. This theory, from my perspective, is a great theory in that it does an overwhelmingly bang-up job of providing predictions that have been verified over and over again. To the degree that we wish to narrowly speak of quantum theory in terms of this historically dominant and honorable perspective, we will arrive at the limits we always do regarding what it means to be here or there, with such and such momentum. We will continue to imagine the objects of our inquiry as points or waves and ask how our picture is possible. However, new perspectives are being developed, and these tools are also available to describe the behavior of the very small and so are part of quantum theory more broadly defined. Further, they are likely to paint a picture of the very small from a different perspective than we have classically come to paint. Before I am blind-folded and lined up against some wall for flagrant post-modernism, and while for me (a lover of models great and small) verifiability is just a matter of taste, I also expect verifiable predictions from any grand scientific theory worthy of the name. Jon ps. Thank you Eric for your contribution regarding the role of metaphor (for better or worse) in the guiding of scientific inquiry. -- Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
