X-Message-Number: 17475
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 21:55:03 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: Metaphors

>Message #17468
>From: 
>...
>I don't want to recapitulate the whole uploading discussion,

(and I don't either!)

>  but consider
>briefly the following from Mike Perry's #17464:
>
> >"[R]elationships, rather than things, are the fundamental elements of
>reality."
>
> >Quoted from Chet Raymo's review, appearing in *Scientific American*, of the
> >book, *Three Roads to Quantum Gravity*, by Lee Smolin (amazon.com).

All right, I started this again--not thinking it would go very far--because 
it seemed a worthwhile reminder that others outside our group are 
interested in the ideas, and some prominent scientists do support the 
informationist/patternist position. To me this is a point of view and not 
something that can ever be finally proved or disproved. But adopting it, I 
think, has certain strong advantages from a philosophical perspective 
(covered in my book).

>  I think
> >it may have general relevance, despite a seeming circularity.
>
>This is just another version of the isomorphism-is-everything stance, and
>close to being patently absurd, it seems to me. Are all metaphors equal? As
>an old and simple example, you can simulate definite integrals through a
>variety of analog computations. ... for example, you could
>use electric circuits (dq/dt) or mechanical disks (ds/dt), among others. Does
>this mean a rotating disk is the "same" as an electrical surge ...?

The differences here are important because you perceive them; you are "on 
the outside looking in"; some relevant *relationships* are different! But 
differences you don't and can't perceive are another matter.

Mike Perry

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