[FRIAM] Thanks again Marcus

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Frank and Jon, 

 

I am touched by your attempts to bring me on board with respect to the “marcus” paper, but I have to confess that I don’t quite get it.  Recall that the story of my life is that I never did understand my brother, the mathematician.  Because he was my older brother, I may have confused adulthood with being a mathematician, and so assumed that understanding mathematics is something I would just “grow in to”.  But now he is dead, and I am older than he was when he died, I think I have to give up on that assumption.  

 

I guess I understand what a rational number is and that rational numbers are a subset of computable numbers.  And I guess I understand that a number which is computable to the Nth digit can be uncomputable to the nth plus one.  And I guess I understand that a number that is uncomputable, is PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, random.  (This last step worries me because it seems to confuse our inability to establish a fact with the existence of a fact to be established. )   But what I never could get my mind around was the relation of all of this to the notion of a “real” number.  And why it matters.  I suspect that for you, two, that is the easiest point to understand. 

 

Thanks for your kind indulgence.  I no doubt will have to leave this topic to you wizards, but perhaps I could take one more step with you before I send you on your way.

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2020 10:56 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Thanks again Marcus

 

Excellent, as Glen would say.  My explanation for Nick assumes applied mathematicians.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020, 10:45 AM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com> > wrote:

The isomorphism *isn't*, in some sense, enough. For instance, the rationals
can be philosophically different than the integers. Sure we can identify
them via diagonal argument, but when we want a field we don't reach for the
integers. I claim that something similar is happening here and that the
point of the article is missed when we jump to the isomorphism. Gisin would
have just talked about the rationals if he meant the rationals, instead, he
invokes Chaitin and computability on purpose. The truncation simplification
obfuscates the deeper point. He is making an ontological claim about the
universe and one that theoreticians of quantum theory may appreciate but
applied mathematicians will not. The subjectivity of an observer is forced
on us by classical logic. Here he constructs a physics over a completely
different topos and what follows is not needing to make the observer
interpretation. This point is significant enough to think about as being
*more* than just truncation, it establishes what can be meant by randomness
and the possibility that determinacy may be an illusion, even in macroscopic
physics.



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