Stephen P. King (stephenk1@home.com)
Fri, 18 Jun 1999 15:08:08 -0400
Dear Lance,
Would you be interested in a discussion about dualism vs.
material/ideal monism? I am trying to find a good context to discuss the
phenomenology of clocking, but I find that I need to resolve the above
issue first.
The property of clocking, to me, is commesurable with the property of
observation. When A observes B and B observes A, within the context of
Local Systems theory (as I understand it) the act of observing is an act
of A localizing/selecting the properties of B and B localizing/selecting
the properties of A.
Is it necessary that there be an exange of energy between A and B for
there to be an observation? I don't think so and my reasoning stems from
the nature of the Chu duality between information dynamics and material
dynamics as proposed by Pratt.
I have been reading Amit Goswami's papers and I find his arguments
shallow. :( (He proposes ideal monism) He dismisses dualism: "...it
cannot explain how a seperate, non-material mind interacts with a
material body. If there are such mind-body interactions, then there have
to be exchanges of energy between the two domains."
I find this to be a straw man since it assumes that "energy" is a
common aspect of both or it is categorically distinct from the two.
Energy is dual to information entropy! This is revealed by work done on
the Maxwell Demon problem. The duality is an "active" or "praxic", to
use Finkelstein's term. It is not a duality of seperate and
incommesurable ontological "objects", no! It is a duality between the
modes (I am not sure of the right word) of Existence relative to finite
subsets of the Universe; which is One.
The manifestation of time in finite subsets of the Totality is, to me,
one "side of the duality coin" I am proposing that the evolution of the
propagator of the LS's has dual modes. One mode is the evolution of the
quantum particles "through" their configuration space and the other is
the evolution of the information content of the particle's
configurations. Pratt proposes that these two modes are inverse to each
other, so that an involution between then exists: Mind -> Body -> Mind,
Body -> Mind -> Body. In the situation where the involution involves
perfect "recovery" of the origional, we have the equivalent to an
algebraic identity.
One key point that is emerging from my discussions with Matti, is that
this involution is not perfect for finite systems thus an "imperfect
involution" can be used to model motions! (Oddly, the sypersymmetry
transform at the root of string theory, involves an involution: Boson ->
Fermion -> Boson, Fermion -> Boson -> Fermion that has the stated effect
of generating a translation in a background space-time!) Perhaps, my
duality is part of string theory... ;)
I hope that I am making some sense. :)
Onward to the Unknown,
Stephen
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