Structure is her favourite word
Structure is her favourite word. Europe, her long-lost childhood friend, who's been misbehaving. She dares to believe science can be spiritual. I wish condensed matter physics were spiritual, but I'm just playing around with electrons, photons and ions. How does one explain self-awareness? This seems to me the fundamental prerequisite. We have long conversations about the overlap of science and mathematics. About quantum mechanics and neuroscience.
Space cells. I can't get my mind around them. We unconsciously compartmentalize space into a honeycomb lattice - an array of connected hexagons. To each space cell corresponds a periodic subset of hexagons; when we step into one of these hexagons, the space cell begins to fire.
The blind side. Some blind people receive geometric information about their environment visually, without ever being conscious of it. While denying that they can see, they have an uncanny understanding of spatial relations. Is consciousness separate from brain activity? Why not? This reminds me of the left-right brain dichotomy in unfortunate patients; it turns out they are unrelated phenomenon.
We agreed that we understand science empirically through cause and effect. But progress in science is characterized by structural change, or the unification of many empirical observations by a fundamental principle. In physics, such principles could be symmetries, or symmetry-breaking, or topological order. Fundamental, it seems, is defined only with respect to its explanatory power. I wonder, is this what science is? Finding ever more fundamental principles, the turtle under the turtle. Towers of turtles, of various heights, but never fully connected into one giant tower. It's inevitable, the result of complex, collective behaviour emerging from simpler constituents.
Space cells. I can't get my mind around them. We unconsciously compartmentalize space into a honeycomb lattice - an array of connected hexagons. To each space cell corresponds a periodic subset of hexagons; when we step into one of these hexagons, the space cell begins to fire.
The blind side. Some blind people receive geometric information about their environment visually, without ever being conscious of it. While denying that they can see, they have an uncanny understanding of spatial relations. Is consciousness separate from brain activity? Why not? This reminds me of the left-right brain dichotomy in unfortunate patients; it turns out they are unrelated phenomenon.
We agreed that we understand science empirically through cause and effect. But progress in science is characterized by structural change, or the unification of many empirical observations by a fundamental principle. In physics, such principles could be symmetries, or symmetry-breaking, or topological order. Fundamental, it seems, is defined only with respect to its explanatory power. I wonder, is this what science is? Finding ever more fundamental principles, the turtle under the turtle. Towers of turtles, of various heights, but never fully connected into one giant tower. It's inevitable, the result of complex, collective behaviour emerging from simpler constituents.
posted by Dr. Broke at 10:28 PM
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