See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255569778_Actual_Causes_and_Thought_Experiments
For details --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 12:29 PM Frank Wimberly <[email protected]> wrote: > Some of you know that in my last position at Carnegie Mellon I was working > on causal reasoning. We made a distinction between probabilistic causation > (smoking causes cancer) and actual causation (dropping the bottle caused it > to break). In the former case we used graphical models, specifically > parameterized Bayes networks to model the causal relationships among a set > of variables. In the latter case a simple directed graph suffices. In the > Wolfram, Gorard, Sorkin work do they make this distinction? > > Frank > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Thu, Oct 31, 2024, 8:46 AM glen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Since we're talking about Sabine and anastomosis, I found this video >> interesting" >> >> This Theory of Everything Could Actually Work: Wolfram’s Hypergraphs >> https://youtu.be/-yzdjziS-bo?si=w5av9XcTUqjodJ5V >> >> "The idea that the laws of physics are a sort of computation has a rather >> basic problem. It's incompatible with Einstein's theories of general >> relativity and it's not a small mismatch. You see, any type of computation >> works in steps. If it doesn't, then calling it a computation is really just >> a weird way of talking about the laws of physics that we already use. A >> computation has some sort of update rule. [snip] The problem with this idea >> isn't just that Einstein's theories don't use graphs. But that we know you >> can't use graphs to even properly approximate them. The gaps in the graphs >> and the updates in time steps can't be hidden away. They will always be >> observable. And we haven't observed them. [snip] As a consequences, you >> can't approximate general relativity with a graph while respecting all its >> symmetries." >> >> She then mentions her paper: A No-go theorem for Poincaré-invariant >> networks <https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.06070>, which I'm incompetent to >> read. She continues: >> >> "The new Wolfram approach uses what they call 'hypergraphs'. Instead of >> just using graphs to describe space-time and particles in them, they >> collect these graphs into groups. So the hypergraph is really a collection >> of graphs. The points in this graph describe space-time and can also >> describe matter in the space-time, depending on their properties. But the >> lengths in the hypergraph are not physical. They have no length. They just >> quantify the relations between the points. And since they have no length, >> there's no problem with them becoming shorter or longer for different >> observers. It's actually a clever idea. I had an exchange with the guy who >> works for Wolfram Research who did most of this work, I think, Jonathan >> Gorard, in 2020. I came to the conclusion that this is indeed possible. But >> it's been done before. This is exactly the idea an approach called 'Causal >> Sets' put forward by Rafael Sorkin. As the name suggests, in this approach >> space-time is a set of points, like the points in the hypergraph. And these >> points have causal relations, which you can depict with arrows. So that >> gives you a graph. And this will, indeed, respect Einstein's theory. If you >> look at what they've [Gorard et al] been doing after that announcement in >> 2020, they've worked more on the relation between Wolfram's hypergraph and >> causal sets. Most of this work has been done, it seems, by Jonathan Gorard. >> He has also looked at how to use that to do general relativity and how it >> prevents singularities, which the causal sets people never figured out how >> to do. [snip] However, the causal sets people already showed that it's >> possible to put discretized versions of differential equations on these >> graphs. So maybe it isn't as difficult as it sounds. So when I look at this >> today, I honestly think this research program is going very well. And I >> think it's about time that physicists pay a little more attention to it." >> >> [Gorard et al] >> https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=ItG_Nz0AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate >> >> >> On 10/30/24 17:21, Stephen Guerin wrote: >> > On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 12:32 PM glen <[email protected] <mailto: >> [email protected]>> wrote: >> > >> > The idealists will never stop idealizing and then reifying their >> ideal. To Engineer is Human. But those of us who know (or merely >> confidently believe) reality is made up of a diverse non-wellfounded set of >> ... what? ... urges? ... nano-agents? ... IDK, whatever, will always >> anastomose that built environment ... or at least reclaim it like a hermit >> crab squatting in a tin can. >> > >> > >> > I like the visual and deeper concept, Glen. A kind of wuwei attitude. >> > >> > sequeing impermanence of political structures to over-reified software: >> > >> > Today at lunch, John Zingale lamented that the residence time of code >> in the system seems to be decreasing. Perhaps Anastomotic Computing is the >> next big thing. :-) >> >> >> -- >> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ >> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> >
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