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To scientists, tech is anything they aren't interested in yet. When it is found that some unexamined problem is intractable, tech is sometimes elevated back to more than mere engineering.
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To everyone else, tech is product development and the assumption that any unexamined problem can be solved by putting the right people on it. Both are arrogant in their own ways.<br>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> on behalf of Jon Zingale <jonzingale@gmail.com><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, September 17, 2022 1:15 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [FRIAM] Wolpert - discussion thread placeholder</font>
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I am often confused by what people imagine "tech" to be, and then I<br>
wonder what the forward-looking name for luddite is. From my twisted<br>
perspective, the newest consumables merely add noise, produce another<br>
roll of the dice, and leave us only able to speak about the distance we,<br>
via this stochastic process, are "expected" to be from some origins.<br>
Mostly when I see new consumables I am confused about the excitement,<br>
and where some can only see their potential, I immediately envision<br>
an unremarkable end.<br>
<br>
For instance, I have never owned a cell phone, and the longer I watch<br>
others explore this technology, the less impressed I am. It doesn't seem<br>
a strain to imagine a world where they are as disregarded as oil painting<br>
is today. This week, some coworkers asked me where I manage to find<br>
payphones, all-the-while I am stunned that not one of them knows how<br>
computations are performed or what a semiconductor is. As a side-effect<br>
of my ambivalence, new niches have appeared for the likes of me, some in<br>
the form of privacy (as telemarketers leave the domain of landlines or<br>
friends learn that if I do not pick up the phone it is because I am not<br>
home) and others in terms of inheriting the benefits of a distributed<br>
network without needing to be an explicit node. My patience leaves me<br>
wondering how best to identify a luddite.<br>
<br>
I mention the above, in part, because entertaining the notion of hyper-<br>
computation is to mod out by what even quantum computing adds to our<br>
understanding of Turing machines. The "tech" in the limit may not be the<br>
iterated colimits of the consumables we see lying around. Instead, it<br>
seems reasonable to read technological enhancement as the quest for<br>
programs not indexed by zahlen, but traced by the reals, and this is<br>
something wholly different than natural selection amplifying small<br>
differences in some initial configuration.<br>
<br>
As some on-list may know, I am on a Sean Carroll kick at the moment. In<br>
his paper "Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space'', he takes on Everrett's<br>
project of developing the classical world from the Schrodinger equation.<br>
This "development" includes the derivation of space-time itself (light<br>
cones and all) from arguments regarding mutual information. Additionally,<br>
there is the assumption (and distinct possibility) that *our* Hilbert<br>
space is finite dimensional, thanks to gravity. Further, in this work,<br>
we see continued discussion around the importance of being able to<br>
factor space into tensored products of (potentially open) systems.<br>
Somewhere in all of this, I can almost see where Wolpert's questions,<br>
Carroll's quest, and the tremendous amount of work being done by Baez<br>
and friends on mereology are all part of a quasi-coherent project,<br>
happening now. Is it willful ignorance to avoid engaging in this work?<br>
At present, I don't feel like I have the tech to judge.<br>
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