Posts

A New Kind of Science

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I can imagine a process where one could use a metalanguage to derive syntactic structures with certain formal properties induced by formal maps between them. This is how I imagine Grothendieck toposes are used in Lawvere's categorical semantics. The way this would work would be like the module system in a high-level functional programming language where one could instantiate syntactic structures at any level by  concrete syntactic objects, which might be derivations in some formal deduction system, or they might be programs-cum-proofs in some type theory, or a construction in some algebraic language like a diagram algebra. However what I imagine is not a single formal system one could download and compile. Rather it would be a network of interconnected systems where syntactic structures defined in one place can be instantiated in many others. So it would not grow monolithically like a proof library, but organically like an ecosystem.    Subscribe to Thomas Kern . For more...

Jorge S. Diaz's Series on the Old Quantum Mechanics

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It's way more interesting than any textbook would have you believe! See  The electric storm of November 1882 . Subscribe to  Dr. Jorge S. Diaz . 

John Baez talking to Jason Brown About Applied Category Theory

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My comment : 11:41 Applied category theory was invented by Ernst Mach in around 1882, I think. From The Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry "The greatest perfection of mental economy is attained in that science which has reached the highest formal development, and which is widely employed in physical inquiry, namely, in mathematics. Strange as it may sound, the power of mathematics rests upon its evasion of all unnecessary thought and on its wonderful saving of mental operations.... No one will dispute me when I say that the most elementary as well as the highest mathematics are economically-ordered experiences of counting, put in forms ready for use. In algebra we perform, as far as possible, all numerical operations which are identical in form once for all, so that only a remnant of work is left for the individual case. The use of the signs of algebra and analysis, which are merely symbols of operations to be performed, is due to the observation that we can materially disb...

Alex Krainer interviewed by Lena Petrova and Steve Jermy interviewed by Glenn Diesen

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The bat-shit bonkers Brits want slaughter,... It's happened so often they think it's part of their national character.  See  Kim Iversen and Ben Swann on Pizzagate .  Subscribe to  World Affairs in Context .    Steve Jermy interviewed by Glenn Diesen. See  https://stevejermy.substack.com/   Subscribe to Glenn Diesen . And a bonus which is Kim Iversen Interviewing Dan Kovalik:  Subscribe to  Kim Iversen . 

Gianna Nannini - America Inc.

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See  https://theitaliansong.com/songs/america-2/ Subscribe to  Gianna Nannini . 

All About Water and Entropy

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Subscribe to The Action Lab . Subscribe to Anton Petrov . Subscribe to  Show Me The World . Subscribe to EISM . 

Mike McCulloch and Curious Marc On High Voltage

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The Em-drive is another idea, using microwaves in a kind of cone-shaped waveguide: Support him on Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/OneSteptoTauCeti Subscribe to Mike McCulloch . Marc thinks this looks right for a spaceship drive. I can't see the blue light myself, I can only see its photons, ... Support him on Patreon too:  https://www.patreon.com/curiousmarc . Subscribe to  Curious Marc . 

Chris Isham - Topos theory in the formulation of theories of physics

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Talk given in Oxford in 2008. See  David Albert Talking Complete Nonsense .  You can't see his slides, but the 2008 paper he refers to is `What is a Thing?': A Topos Foundation for Theories of Physics: I. Formal Languages for Physics A. Doering and C.J. Isham.  A review of some work from a decade earlier: Chris Isham and Jeremy Butterfield Some Possible Roles for Topos Theory in Quantum Theory and Quantum Gravity . See also other publications mentioned in nlab . The term he coined is dasein ization.  1:02:05 "... the most important thing is: how do you construct,..." A model for a bullshit ontology?  1:03:33 Urs Schreiber on state representations. See  The Category Enriched over the Category of Finite Sets, The Finitely Triangulated Manifold and the Magnitude of a Finite Category .  I think this is how you should look at the epistemological structure of physics. See  John Norton on "Landauer's Principle" . Subscribe to Oxford Quantum Video...

Matt Prewitt on Technology Ethics

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I missed the first 30 minutes, but I made some comments: See Matt Prewitt's substack:  https://mattprewitt.substack.com/  and his web page  https://mattprewitt.com/ . Subscribe to Topos Institute . See also  David Jaz Maiers - Compositionality via 2-algebra  for more about general purpose tooling. 

John Norton on "Landauer's Principle"

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Ernst Mach was of the opinion that statistical physics was the proper foundation of dynamics. See  David Albert Talking Complete Nonsense . See from 33:06 :   55:26 Thermodynamic entropy is a selection principle which picks out the spontaneous paths closed systems take through configuration space. 1:04:55  Thermodynamic considerations are what led Einstein to his light quantum hypothesis too. See Norton's Mach's Principle Before Einstein and How Hume and Mach Helped Einstein Find Special Relativity . Also Ernst Mach's (1882)  The Economical Nature of Physical Inquiry : The greatest perfection of mental economy is attained in that science which has reached the highest formal development, and which is widely employed in physical inquiry, namely, in mathematics. Strange as it may sound, the power of mathematics rests upon its evasion of all unnecessary thought and on its wonderful saving of mental operations. Even those arrangement-signs which we call numbers are a ...