Maybe I am kicking the bucket here. What you are going to read (if you
dare)
is a highly speculative idea that came to my mind just when reading last
message
from John about quantum mechanics, Penrose and the complexity of Rosen.
Continue by your own risk ... and don't say I didn't advised you ...
Well, let's go. Most of the theories in physics try to see the world as
a great
empty space, populated by entities that we call particles. Those
particles
interact to each other, creating the world we live on. Most research in
modern physics is directed to the understanding of such particles. One
of
the most controverse theories trying to explain particles is Quantum
Mechanics.
But, if you notice, this conception of the world is intrinsecally
reductionistic.
We reduce matter to atoms, atoms to quarks, and (maybe) quarks to
superstrings.
WHAT IF the world is not an empty space populated by particles, but a
giant "cellular automata", where each point of the space is able to be
in
a state (among e.g. an infinite number of possible states, only to be
generic),
and the value of a state depends on its own value in previous instants
of
time and the value of its neighbour states in previous instants of time.
Not
exactly like a cellular automata, but something as a continuous cellular
automata. And the laws governing this big continous cellular automata
would be such that it allows for the creation of stable things as
particles
that move within this space and eventually chock to each other and
perform
something that would be chemical reactions, and so and so and so. Then,
particles would not be really particles, but only illusions of our
perception,
just as we can see happening in standard cellular automata.
IF this scenario could be posed, then a Holistic view of the world would
be
in terms of such cellular automata laws, instead the illusion of
particles
interacting that our perception gives us. And it would also explain
complexity, as we are biding our tokens in the wrong description of the
world. Properties of matter are a CONSEQUENCE of the basic laws
governing
this cellular automata, and not laws by themselves. This would explain
why
the world is complex, not mechanistic. And it would also explain why the
world
is not governed by mechanistic laws, because this mechanism is only an
illusion
given by the cellular automata behavior.
Other consequences not so desirable from this line of thought is the
return of
the idea of "ether", that science have banished from its repertoire of
models
from a long time.
Do you have any comments on this ??, ... , or it is just a delirium of a
friday's
evening ?
--
//\\\
(o o)
+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-oOO--(_)--OOo-=-=-+
\ Prof. Ricardo Ribeiro Gudwin /
/ Intelligent Systems Development Group \
\ DCA - FEEC - UNICAMP | INTERNET /
/ Caixa Postal 6101 | gudwin@dca.fee.unicamp.br \
\ 13081-970 Campinas, SP | gudwin@fee.unicamp.br /
/ BRAZIL | gudwin@correionet.com.br \
+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
\ URL: http://www.dca.fee.unicamp.br/~gudwin/ /
/ Telephones: +55 (19) 788-3819 DCA/Unicamp (University) \
\ +55 (19) 254-0184 Residencia (Home) /
/ FAX: +55 (19) 289-1395 \
+-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+