Synergetics - jitterbug, scale - bit.listserv.geodesic

Message from discussion Synergetics - jitterbug, scale

Gerald de Jong

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More options Dec 3 1994, 3:02 am

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From: Gerald de Jong <ger...@TACIT.HACKTIC.NL>

Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 14:32:06 +0100

Local: Fri, Dec 2 1994 8:32 am

Subject: Synergetics - jitterbug, scale

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In <199412011604.AA25...@xs1.xs4all.nl> Chris Rywalt <cryw...@TINMAN.DEV.PRODIGY

.COM> writes:
>It's important, I think, to remember that the inside-out is not the mirror
> image. Remember the rubber glove Fuller was always using as his
> example: pull the rubber glove off of your left hand and you have a
> right-handed glove. But this glove is NOT the mirror image of the
> original, because it's inside-out: concave has become convex and
> convex has become concave.

yes, indeed. very good point.

>Reading Bucky requires reading ALL of Bucky, it seems.

oh no! where can i find the time? :)

>> also, is it not entirely possible that the topology of subatomic particles
>> resembles fractals (ie. Julia sets) more than shiny spheres?
>There's a problem with relating fractals to reality, though, and it's something
> I've been thinking about over the last few days. The main problem
> is that fractals require infinity: a finite volume/area enclosed by
> an infinite surface/perimeter. As Bucky was fond of pointing out,
> though, physics has disclosed no infinities. Humans' probing of the
> Universe has thus far discovered only finities.

i'm not so sure about that. i think that Bucky's main beef was with
the use of coordinate systems that were too "flat" and thereby introduced
infinity far off in the distance.

i know you've already got a lot to read <heh heh>, but i'd suggest that
you also make your way through "Chaos" by James Gleick (if you haven't
already). our recent probing into the universe has indeed revealed
infinities - in the simplest of nonlinear systems. it would seem that
even a jolted pendulum exhibits chaotic behavior - which is probably
best described as extreme (nearly infinite?) sensitivity to microscopic
conditions.

>if Nature is using fractals to design things, and
> fractals entail an infinitude of calculations, at what point does
> Nature say, ``That's close enough,'' and round off?

i'd guess that nature never gets tired of calculating, since She's
got access to the most incomprehensibly large massively parallel
machine - Universe. does She have to round it off?

>Also, when you write ``topology of subatomic particles'' I have to wonder what
> you mean. Einstein already showed us that the Universe consists
> entirely of ``discontinuous discrete-energy events''

well, it was iffy terminology to start with. suffice it to say that
these events appear from "above" (from much much larger scale) to be
discrete, but nobody is saying that they are so down deep. in fact
quantum mechanics has surrendered itself to being satisfied with a
"probability wave" description of quantum events (in other words:
uhh.. the particle might end up here, or there, but we'll just have
to wait and see), which does nothing to exclude the possibility of
a complex (infinitely so?) myriad of events behind the quantum
events. who knows what a subatomic particle looks like from the
inside out?

>And, discussing your ``scale loop,'' that would require a very different
> Universe than the one we've observed so far. This is not to say that
> such a thing is impossible -- I for one am willing to believe anything,
> really -- but current observations haven't borne this idea out.
> The macro world and the micro world are very different places, and
> the forces involved just don't ``scale.''

can you expand on that?

i sort of visualize a situation where each particle sort of stores inside
of it every interaction that it ever experiences, and as a result, the
entire experience of Universe would be stored "holographically" in
all the many discrete particles - each of them recording it's own
point of view. only the sum of all these experiences would be
able to make up Universe itself. of course i'm just "talking out
of my neck" as we say in Dutch. :)

--
________________ ___________ _________________
____/ gerald de jong \____/ rotterdam \____/ the netherworld \____
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
living on a billiard table, just a tad above sea level (4th floor)

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