Notes
[Notebook: DB 58 Bringing god home]
[Sunday 1 January 2006 - Saturday 7 January 2006]
[page 34]
Sunday 1 January 2006
Let us say that the Cantor Universe defines the boundaries of cosmic imagination.
Monday 2 January 2006
Tuesday 3 January 2006
Wednesday 4 January 2006
The relationship between space and time established by the special theory of relativity places constraints on the overall structure of the Universe that are captured by the general theory of relativity. This theory further constrained by laboratory experiment and astronomical observations (particularly of galactic location, velocity and cosmic background radiation) give us the modern cosmological picture of a Universe with one boundary, the initial singularity.
[page 35]
General relativity enables us to extrapolate from local conditions to the whole Universe.
Thursday 5 January 2006
Friday 6 January 2006
"On 'intelligent design'". What conclusion do we wish to reach in this essay?
1. Network theory of everything = theology
2. Proof that the future cannot be predicted.
3. Bounds on predictability.
ad 1: how do we understand the mass, energy and momentum of a network?
Quantun mechanics interprets energy as frequency or time resolution and momentum as spatial frequency or spatial resolution. In four-space, energy-momentum becomes spacetime resolution, or what we might call 4-bandwidth, ie the measure of action per unit spacetime volume.
Let us say that action is the fundamental resource of the Universe [pure act]
superposition
no cloning
entanglement - (hidden (non classical) communication
teleportation - {entanglement + classical}
measurement (= classical communication)
Network model interprets 4-momentum as 4-bandwidth, energy = processing rate, mass = processing rate, momentum = data transmission rate.
Quantum field theory and general relativity both operate in 4-space. We would like the network model to go behind this and explain the genesis of 4-space in terms of communication and computation = logic (MTW's
[page 36]
'pre-geometry' Misner, Thorne and Wheeler page 1203 sqq
This is the 'pons asinorum' for the network model and it seems that I have been trying to cross it for almost 40 years. It is time, I hope, to find myself on the other side [soon].
Saturday 7 January 2006
The difficulty in reconciling general relativity and quantum field theory revolves around the question of a metric.
Einstein's breakthrough: one does not 'feel' gravitation in free fall. The feeling comes when one is brought to rest at the end (if any) of the fall.
In special relativity, the distance between two points is zero if they are connected by a light ray. How does this metric apply in the network picture? The distance between two people connected by a letter is zero (from the user point of view) even if they are half a world and many moths apart.
Null geodesic: all points joined by photons are zero distance apart, ie thee is no spacetime for photons (Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, page 53)
