Analogical Engine by Than Tin

Manuel,

I very much valued your comments: they really touch on the heart and soul of my essay. And I am also glad that our respective essay entries have resonances between them. And before this forum is closed, my hope is that there are many more in the same vein.

Analogical minded that I am, I can't help recalling the great physicist Richard Feynman's all-paths formulation of quantum mechanics, the meaning of which I think can made to be consilient with what we are finding.

I have just downloaded your essay, and I will respond with the same serious care and attention that you had paid me.

Until then,

Than Tin

Dear Vladimir

I appreciate your generous commendations, but I am embrassed to accept even a tiniest portions of them.

Children are the best candidates for studying the analogy-making power of the human mind. Noam Chomsky, a famous linguist from M.I.T., was the first to notice that children "grow" their respective native languages, not "learn" it as B. F. Skinner and other empirical minded scientists generally had presumed. Chomsky practically said it is "genetic" or "biological", which I take it to mean "automatic". I was interested in the physical basis of "automaticity". For me, automaticity is everything that is the opposite of learning.

I saw analogy as the flag ship of automatic thinking, and I use the term for all other kinds of thinking that are also automatic. I chose quantum mechanics as a vehicle for understanding the meaning of the "physical", not as a project to banish "weirdness" out of quantum mechanics or its disseminations as such. "That quantum mechanics is not weird" is a logical consequence of the analogy I make: "What quantum is to classical 'is similar to or is analogical to' what analogy is to reasoning or logic or rationality". If someone can disapprove or destroy the aforementioned analogy -- or analogies similar to it -- then a whole foundation of my essay would crumble, and needless to say that I am not looking forward to such an outcome!

Thank you again for your best wishes, and I'll check into the links you have provided.

Than Tin

Dear Satyavarapu,

In your comment you wrote: "You have clubbed together thinking and Planck's constant with nice way of saying it... 'Planck's constant is the Mother of All Dualities, and a necessary condition for existence of thoughts and things.' How did you come to that conclusion?"

Good question, and I'm glad to answer.

In my essay, the conclusion that you quoted follows from the premise: "What quantum is to classical 'is similar to' what analogy is to rationality." May I assume you do not challenge the premise.

Now suppose I changed the premise to "What quantum is to classical 'is similar to' what subjective (mind) is to objective (body)." If you had not challenge the first premise, you are unlikely to challenge this second premise either. The second premise, as they say, is "intuitive." (The topic of subjectivity and objectivity or of mind-body duality is vast, and within quantum mechanics itself, it exists in the form of "quantum measurement problem". I do not want to go into it in this thread. It deserves several separate forums!)

Embolden, I change my premise again to "What wave is to particle 'is similar to' what subjective is to objective." If you had not challenge the previous premises, I will consider that you will not challenge this one either.

With time on my hands, I continue changing the premises like Lady Gaga changing her outlandish costumes, and it is possible that you will continue agreeing to each and everyone of those changes.

However I will admit that some of the analogical strings I can change to may be also outlandish when compared to the ones I use above, but so long as the "form" of the premise remains, the strings will be valid. If you think of "form" and "content", and better yet, of functionalism (as in philosophy) or "gene" and "protein" (as in molecular biology), you'll see what I meant. Example: The analysis of hair or toe nail samples from the same person will yield the same identical gene.

The fun part in these kinds of changes is the changes never stops: even within the quantum theory proper, changes tend to occur in ways that are unpredictable due to their contextuality, i.e. of locaity and framework: the concept of wave-particle duality (of Feynman's famed 2-slit experiment) giving away to the phenomenology of boson and fermion (of Bose-Einstein condensate), or to Einstein-Poldosky-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment, which again led to the subject of entanglement (and then to the tangled webs of connection-noconnection, spooky action at a distance, and the associated problem of what is real and what is not).

The reason or the inescapable fact of Nature is dualities begetting more dualities, and the existence of each and everyone of the dualities -- of necessity surely -- has to be mediated through the existence of the Planck constant or a simulacrum of it. See the logic in my thought-experiment on how it all came about.

Ergo, the conclusion!

I am sorry I may have telescoped the premise to the conclusion in my essay.

Thanks

Than Tin

Dear Akinbo:

Thanks for coming to me on my soap box!

Answer 1: Reality is the truth you find with the tool you used. We use analogies to find partial truths; and we use logic and reason to find a more precise and reliable truths. In the framework I had adopted in my essay "Analogical Engine", ANALOGY and REASON are separated by CONSCIOUSNESS, which in a physical model might be represented by a value, not dissimilar to the Planck constant.

Answer 2: Dualities are like a changing cast of characters in a play, and they tend to change with the scenes. As you know, we associate space-time with Theory of Special Relativity, and wave-particle with Quantum Mechanics.

However, naïve analogy will not work with space-time and wave-particle dualites, but if we dig deeper there is a relation (definitely for sure if you ask me) between SR and QM! Frame-independent constant velocity of light in SR and the Planck constant from QM are definitely related. Based on the coincidence, I say SR and QM are friendly (close?), but in the context of EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought-experiment), SR and QM are no longer friendly (separation?). SR does not allow "spooky-action-at-distance" where QM seems to revel in it.

It's a CONUNDRUM, but I am not complaining: It keeps us talking far into the night, and for someone as creative and enterprising as Bryan Greene of Columbia and NOVA, it's just a god-send! (Recently, he has a sold-out play on Broadway based on the theme of "spooky action." Can you imagine PHYSICS on B'way, NY,NY?)

Cheers!

Than Tin

Hi Joe:

I appreciate you appreciating my essay style. I loves word-smithing. May be too much!

Pauli (a physicist otherwise known as the "conscience of physics") said about the pecularities of quantum theory thus: "You can look with a p-eye or q-eye, but not with both" (not exact quote!), similar to what Heisenberg had been saying about measuring the position or momentum of a particle.

Incurable analogist that I am, I would put it like this: To go any where, we use the left foot and then the right foot, alternatively and never at the same time. Similar situation obtains in the case of an idealist and a realist with a slight twist that in the quantum universe, neither the one or the other can be presumed as previously existing.

Another example. When we are born, the world must had been a big blurr, and when the world slapped you, you gave a sharp cry because you suddenly realized that there is another - not you - along side of you. You and the world. At the earliest moments of birth, we and the world are one (i.e. the same), but later we and the world are no longer one (i.e. different). The irony is when we think we are one, we are two, and when we think we are two, we are actually one. Like climbing a helical staircase: we face East and then West, like Janus!

Quantum theory uses superpositions, and similarly Analogy uses suppostions, but they are the same if you look at it one way, and are different if you look at it another way.

It's a good thing that these paradoxes never did get solved once and for all. If they were, we might have nothing more to do, and that's a pity. (We might not have FQXi to send our musings to!)

David N. Mermin of Cornell U said it best (not the exact quote): "We have reached the INCONCLUSION."

Good luck with your entry.

Than

Dear Hoang

Much appreciation for reading my essay.

The presumption that the "constant" obtained from my thought-experiment and the actual Planck constant are "one and the same" comes from my interpretative understanding of black-body radiation formula.

In the text-books, the historic formula is obtained by interpolating low- and high-frequency regimes of the radiation. Physicists have interpreted low frequencies as waves and high frequencies as particles.

Than Tin

Hello Vladimir

Thanks for reading my essay. I also try to reciprocate, but generally I do not have much to say beyond what I had already said in my essay.

Than Tin

Philip

I value your kind generosities. Very please also.

Than

Dear Armin

First and foremost, I want to thank you for taking the time to read my essay and making suggestions for improvements. I am grateful, and to tell you the truth I actually wish for someone to demolish or eviserate the thesis so that I can fight back with gusto!

With that preamble, allow me to restate my thesis: The Planck constant as a Mother of All Dualities is a conclusion from my premise: "What quantum (wave) is to classical (particle) is similar to what analogy (fuzzy thinking to many people) is to reasoning (generally with math and logic in the sciences, especially so in physics). Here I may have jumped the gun by not explaining clearly that: (1) Fuzzy analogical thinking comes before rigorous, logical and mathematical reasoning, as quantum is to the classical, (2) Analogical thinking is complementary to reasoning as quantum(wave) is to classical (particle), (3) The analogy-reasoning duality face the same problem of "measurement" as in the case of wave-particle. When we use analogy, we make the supposition that two things that are different are the same, as in Schrodinger's thought-experiment of superposed alive and dead cats. (I believe that quantum measurement problem will dissolve itself once we accept Planck constant as the reason for being of wave-particle duality.)

Concerning questions from para 1 of your Comment. I understand that in some quantum mechanical circles, small or low multiples of Planck constant is considered to be the regime where quantum rules apply, whereas its opposite the high multiples is the regimes where classical rules apply. I did not use that particular viewpoint. What I use was a thought-experiment in which I envisioned the image of cell division as a prelude to diversification requiring necessarily of energy consumption. In other words, I asked how does one thing becomes two. What is the theoretical minimum of energy to affect such separation or diversification? By interpolation of course, i.e. high becoming low and low becoming high. Having some knowledge of quantum theory, I say it must be the Planck constant. If I had no knowledge of quantum mechanics, I'll stop short with the notion of a theoretical minimum. In quantum mechanical context however, Planck constant was discovered when Planck made the interpolation between low- and high frequency regimes of black-body radiation. We all know how many years it take for quantum theory to come to terms with the idea of wave-particle duality that has its origin with discovery of the Planck constant. I do not have time to do the proper research, but I had a feeling that we have not fully understood the full meaning of the quantum, wave-particle duality, or the problem of quantum measurement.

Concerning the question "How do you arrive at, say, the Kochen-Specker or Bell's theorem in terms of an analogy *without already knowing that they are true?*". Within the framework of analogical model that I described in the essay, I know there's a duality between connected (global) and not-connected (local), i.e. I will have known that there are analogical relations between connected-not-connected, wave-particle, same-difference, etc. etc. If any one of these dualities have issues, I will assume that the rest will have also. The new layers of mathematical sophistication as provided by Bell and later contributors have enriched our understanding of these theorems you mentioned, but the resolution of the real issues -- the nature of reality, the superluminal or not, the spooky or not spooky - have not come to accords. I've heard people say Bell had proved quantum global nature. Didn't we know this facet of quantum story from other means, such as by analogy with wave-particle.

Concerning the question from para 3 of your Comment. I do not understand the full scope of your question from para 3, especially the statement "Quantum mechanics (possibly with the exception of the collapse postulate) is very precisely defined." As I understand it, QM is defined mathematically (precisely?) by a wave function or by vectors in Hilbert space, but its essence is superposition, which is another name for sameness in my book. Superposition now dressed in math still needs to be decomposed by measurement, although we have yet to get some kind of consensus on this topic. Even the derivation of Born's rule is in contention, although the formula works fine in practice.

I agree with you that "analogies usually don't map exactly to the things for which they are meant to be analogies, and to that extent they may be misleading or confusing." To wit, analogies are efficient for first forays into the unknowns, and for a person with good solid experience, they are no more error prone than reasoning. After all, analogy and reason are not absolute strangers, but members united by a single constant of Nature. Like wave and particle!

I like to argue with your assertion about analogy being post-hoc. I just happen to think it is ad hoc! I love your term "calculus of analogy", but it is a project of life-size dimensions! And most importantly, I do not have the talent or the inclination.

Likewise All the Best

Than Tin

Dear Vladimir

Here are some of the places from your essay where we are on the same wavelengths:

1. "Reality may be like that at fundamental scales where its physical and informational content can be regarded as one and the same thing."

2. "This chicken-and-egg Question was asked because everything looks like a nail to a person holding a hammer. Surrounded by our computers in this Information Age, we are tempted, as Wheeler was in his It from Bit essay to regard the physical universe-IT- in terms of BITs - binary 0 and 1 answers to yes-no questions."

3. "One that I already answered elsewhere is whether Reality is digital or analog ?- it may be a bit of both. The second topic making up the substance of this essay concerns the necessity of examining our philosophy of knowing. How do we know what we know about Nature?"

5. "The human brain evolved over millions of years from primitive cells made of molecules that are identical to those making up the rest of the Universe."

Because of differing life experiences, we put our thoughts in different styles. But the important thing is our essays are much alike. Nature is tolerant when it comes to styles, but stern when it comes to substance.

Best Wishes to You Too!

Than Tin