John,
' ... What we're looking for are objective statements subject to universal falsification."
Then how did we get to the point that multiverses are the topic du jour?"
The multiverse hypothesis is not a theory. It is an explanation for phenomena in quantum theory, that fits the facts.
"'Does the drunk driver swerving into your path mean nothing?'
'Not objectively.'"
Where would we be, if that apple hadn't fallen on Newton's head? There is no objective theorizing without a lot of stuff happening. Theory only distills out the more stable patterns. Theory models reality."
In the first place, that falling apple story is most likely apocryphal. In the second place, theory does not model reality; models are solutions to a theory.
(Me) 'In fact, randomness *is* unprovable by algorithmic means.'
"Randomness is not just a function of the creation of information, but the perception of it as well."
I can't parse what you mean by that.
"How do you find what algorithm created that number? As Wolfram put it, it would take a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. That's a lot of randomness to deal with, before you find the right algorithm."
There's no evidence that the universe is algorithmically compressible -- that's what Wolfram means.
(Me) "'Absolute order... is meaningless. We acquire meaning by theory alone.'
Exactly. Flatline. Theory is deriving patterns from the activity. No activity, no patterns. Flatline."
Complete nonsense. Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind. Then he looked outside to see if there are physical patterns that correspond to the theory. As we know, there are. It is those who think they can understand the world by simply looking at it, who are "flatlined."
(Me) " 'like absolute randomness,' "
Who said anything about randomness being absolute? It's no more absolute than pattern!"
Um, what happened to the context here? -- the contrast with "absolute order."
(Me) "I have the Santa Fe report..."
Actually I think the real distinction is between structure and energy. Go through all those papers and see if the chaotic systems are not just examples of thermodynamic processes impinging on the ordered models."
As usual, you want someone else to do the work while you sit around and make things up.
(quoting Borill)
"'There is no common meaning to time separately from motion.'
Yes, but does time cause motion, or does motion create time?"
Neither. You entirely missed Borill's point about the meaning of spacetime.
(Borill) 'Intervals are the measurable elements of space/time, terminated by the atoms on either end of the photon path.'
The only objective reality that can be measured is through interactions {the ultimate locality. Entities must interact (touch, collide, bounce off, be absorbed, emitted etc.) in order to transfer information.'"
"Say you have two entities collide. It creates an event. So while those entities go from prior events to succeeding such collisions/events, these events come into being and recede. Thus the entities go from past events to future ones, the events go from being in the future, to being in the past."
Again, you cut and paste but you do not read and comprehend. In Borill's information theoretic terms -- based on known laws of motion and thermodynamics and incorporating relativity -- events are classically time reversible.
"Now what is present is the entities, as they are the physical existence. Therefore if there is a vector of time that transcends this presence, it is the events coming into being and receding, ie, going future to past. This effect is a consequence of the activity of the entities, ie. of what is present. The interval/duration is simply the status of the entities between collisions/events, ie. what is present.
The vector of time is an effect of action."
Time is a scalar, John, not a vector. The novel idea that Borill introduced, was to vectorize a subset (t_s) of that scalar in quantum mechanical interactions, and preserve local reversibility without changing what we know about classical time, T_c.
Best,
Tom