Sunday, May 13, 2007

Point + Point => God?

There's a lot more can be said about our two point universe. So far we have recognised:
  • Distance
  • Time
and made some assumptions: the Points themselves, and the lawfulness of the background universe.

There is as yet no physical substance here. Points, and the properties they reveal, are meta-features. From these we can derive meta-meta-features; e.g. the range of possible motions of our two points in relation to each other; and meta-meta-meta-features, and so on.

The characteristic of a meta-*-feature is that it expresses statically a property of change. For example, a "constant acceleration" is one possible meta-feature of a changing velocity.

Even with just two Points, there is already a potentially infinite range of meta-*-features describing the available changes in the Distance between them.

[Because this is an imaginary universe, and our points have no corporeal substance, it's an arbitrary decision whether we allow the Distance to go zero or not.]

Notice that I've avoided using the word 'number'. In our Universe we represent the features of Points by numbers; but Numbers are themselves meta-*-features. It may mislead us to apply numbers to distance and time in our imaginary universe, as the constancy implied by Number might not be fundamental to it. If that is the case, then there will be available changes in the Distance/Time relationship between our two points that cannot be expressed mathematically. This is highly probable: see Godel's Theorem.

In fact, the implication is that not only mathematical notation, but that any system of static symbolic representation is doomed to be an incomplete expression of reality. Things change, and change changes Things, which changes the range of possible changes, and thus Things. (Feedback, in other words).

In our imaginary two Point universe (which is as simple as a Universe can be) there can be no meta-*-feature that remains eternally constant.

Is the same true of our real Universe?

Yes, because we cannot transmit reality, only information.

One final thought (for now). Our physical Universe is a meta-*-feature of quantum-level properties.

Phew! Time for breakfast :-)

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