phys2094@waikato.ac.nz (08/05/90)
In article <9007250107.AA01311@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu>, william@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu (William Bricken) writes: > In reference to the nature of SPACE: > > The mathematical theory of measurement provides a concise summary ofthe ... > William Bricken > HITL, UW > > william@hitl.vrnet.washington.edu I responded to the above note in what has proven to be a controversial note. An apology is in order. At the time of sending the note, I was not familiar with the measurement theory discussed by Bricken. I charged into this newsgroup unfamiliar with cyberspace and measurement theory like a bull in a china shop and I wound up bruising myself. I apologize for remarks which offended researchers in the subject of virtual reality, etc, and note here that I retract criticisms of the concept of space in measurement theory. Please note that I do not withdraw all my criticisms, but here I restate them in the hope of generating a rational response. Here are some criticisms. > TIME is just another space, one that we have forgotten how to travel freely > in. 1. I cannot but interpret this to mean that humans have had the ability to journey through time. This to me is not a justifiable scientific statement. > IMAGINARY: contradictory spaces. Sqrt[-1]. Both True and False. EG: > our construction of mental images from words, wave propagation, inside a > black hole. 2. I object to illustrating contradictory spaces with wave propagation and black hole interiors. > For grounding, it is commonly assumed that our everyday living space is > composed of three REAL spaces at right angles. In fact, this idea was > made up in the middle of the sixteenth century by Descartes. Cyberspace > illustrates the notion that space is quite arbitrary, it provides an > opportunity to retrain ourselves to perceive all the other types of space. 3. The above statement originated my confusion about spaces. Perhaps my ignorance is coming through again, but I cannot accept that concept of space in Descartes' sense can be extended to include the measurement theory types of spaces as perhaps orthogonal extensions. The article gives me the impression that somehow the measure theory spaces are somehow tangible through perception. To be precise: I feel that the article submitted by Bricken borders on science fiction, the merits of measurement theory notwithstanding. Whereas research on virtual worlds is valid and unassailable, the dis- cussion by Bricken seems not to add to the quality of the research: rather concepts are introduced which detract from the metaphysical foundations of the research field. I admit that I am an outsider and am neither a mathematician nor am I involved in research in cyberspace. However, despite the voluminous hate mail that I have received telling me to get lost, I intend to continue reading this news- group. I intend to learn more about the subject. However, I feel that even an outsider should criticise points which are objectionable. This is a SCIENCE newsgroup and participants should be meticulous about separating SCIENCE and science fiction. And those of you in the field who were offended by my note should realise that other outsiders read this newsgroup and would appreciate help in separating fact and fiction. Perhaps my opinions still require revision. Perhaps with this apology I can generate rational responses. If I am wrong or if I am just misinterpreting matters, then please enlighten me. -- Barry
wex@dali.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) (08/08/90)
In article <1141.26bbff7e@waikato.ac.nz> phys2094@waikato.ac.nz writes: I responded to the above note in what has proven to be a controversial note. An apology is in order. [Apology text deleted.] Thank you! It takes a pretty big man to admit a mistake as forthrightly as you did. Please note that I do not withdraw all my criticisms, but here I restate them in the hope of generating a rational response. > TIME is just another space, one that we have forgotten how to travel > freely in. 1. I cannot but interpret this to mean that humans have had the ability to journey through time. This to me is not a justifiable scientific statement. Will is, I think, being a bit overzealous here. From my (limited) readings, I am given to understand that the effects of various drugs on the time sense, plus the apparently-different time sense of some aboriginal people, is taken as evidence that we (homo sapiens) have the biochemical ability to perceive time in a way different than we do now. This difference may be evolutionary or cultural. In any event, one ought not to take "time travel" too literally in this context. > IMAGINARY: contradictory spaces. Sqrt[-1]. Both True and False. EG: > our construction of mental images from words, wave propagation, inside a > black hole. 2. I object to illustrating contradictory spaces with wave propagation and black hole interiors. If you can think of a better way to do this, please speak up. I have been worry about this off and on. One thing that comes to mind is to somehow partition the imaginary space into "pieces" and represent the pieces as simultaneous places along a line. Thus, a contradiction (SQRT(-1)) would be represented as a contradiction: one thing appearing simultaneously in multiple places. This is already done sometimes with negative roots which are broken up into a real number and an imaginary one (7i or the real number seven times the square root of minus-one). I cannot accept that concept of space in Descartes' sense can be extended to include the measurement theory types of spaces as perhaps orthogonal extensions. I need to better understand your confusion before I can answer this. In my recent posting titled "Space" I give some examples of dimensions that take advantage of other measurement types. My paper and chapter give more examples. Please try to elucidate your confusion. -- --Alan Wexelblat phone: (508)294-7485 Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: wex@pws.bull.com Today is Hiroshima Day. Rest in peace 200,000+ innocents
on@uunet.UU.NET (Owen Rowley) (08/15/90)
> > TIME is just another space, one that we have forgotten how to travel > > freely in. > 1. I cannot but interpret this to mean that humans have had the ability to > journey through time. This to me is not a justifiable scientific statement. > Will is, I think, being a bit overzealous here. From my (limited) readings, > I am given to understand that the effects of various drugs on the time > sense, plus the apparently-different time sense of some aboriginal people, > is taken as evidence that we (homo sapiens) have the biochemical ability to > perceive time in a way different than we do now. This difference may be > evolutionary or cultural. In any event, one ought not to take "time travel" > too literally in this context. < If folks don't know who said what, they'l have to do some time travelling and go back to read the originals :-) > Hmmmm. well I interpret Williams statement in a somewhat different light. The key word for me is freely.. We are traveling in time/space now, but we are constrained by the light cone. You are asserting that all we can modify is our perception of conditions within the light cone. I have personally performed experiments which took place *outside* the light cone, and the results were definitly "time travel" in the literal sense. Now it's all fine and good for me to say this, and it's a foregone conclusion that folks like this guy who cannot justify science that he doesn't understand, will think I'm full of shit. My experiments and results are subjective in nature and only valuable to me. However I have benefited by the knowledge gained in the experiment, what else matters! It was prudent of him to back off from his original *attack pose*, but that retraction was *backhanded* and still shows that he does not understand there is more to time and space than what he thinks he knows! I do not think William was being overzealous at all, I think he was handing you folks an opportunity to expand your "context" and you will either accept it, or you will not! In either case your personal constraints will dictate how far you go in taking the statement literally! LUX.. owen D. Owen Rowley {uunet,pyramid,sun}!autodesk!owen
matt@MAPS.CS.CMU.EDU (Matthew Diamond) (08/21/90)
In article <19539@well.sf.ca.us>, apple!well.sf.ca.us!well!on@uunet.UU.NET (Owen Rowley) writes: |> > > TIME is just another space, one that we have forgotten how to travel |> > > freely in. |> > 1. I cannot but interpret this to mean that humans have had the ability to |> > journey through time. This to me is not a justifiable scientific statement. |> > Will is, I think, being a bit overzealous here. From my (limited) readings, |> |> Hmmmm. well I interpret Williams statement in a somewhat different light. |> The key word for me is freely.. |> We are traveling in time/space now, but we are constrained by the light |> cone. You are asserting that all we can modify is our perception of |> conditions within the light cone. I have personally performed experiments |> which took place *outside* the light cone, and the results were definitly |> "time travel" in the literal sense. Now it's all fine and good for me to say |> this, and it's a foregone conclusion that folks like this guy who cannot |> justify science that he doesn't understand, will think I'm full of shit. |> My experiments and results are subjective in nature and only valuable to me. |> However I have benefited by the knowledge gained in the experiment, what else |> matters! |> It was prudent of him to back off from his original *attack pose*, but |> that retraction was *backhanded* and still shows that he does not understand |> there is more to time and space than what he thinks he knows! I have a few things to say at this point. 1) For me, the key word is SCIENTIFIC, not freely. The original objection was that Williams' statement abused mathematical/physical terminology. In other words, that it pretended to be more scientific than it really was. I personally agree with this. That doesn't mean that it was wrong, but it SOUNDED like someone who didn't know what he was talking about trying to impress the masses. I thought the apology was needed, but the basic idea was sound: abusing terminology will confuse those not familiar with the terminology, and invalidate your ideas among those who are. Owen's comment about "the guy who cannot justify science that he doesn't understand" is completely off the mark. Science by definition is concerned with reproducible results, which can be explained in rigorous terms for others to understand. Some of us were confused by Williams' statements; that alone justifies further explanation. Maybe we were wrong to assume that he didn't know what he was talking about, but it is not wrong to question anything which was unclear in the original article. Unless noone wants to actually be scientific about virtual reality, in which case I'm wasting my time. 2) Owen, your "subjective experiments" sound a lot like drugs. If not, could you be more specific? Maybe you should read what Richard Feynman had to say about subjective experiments. He was drawing all sorts of conclusions about the nature of thought from his experiences in an isolation tank, but he suddenly realized that NO CONCLUSIONS COULD BE DRAWN. His subjective reality COULD be reality, he realized, but there is no way of telling. Anything experienced (time slowing/reversing, etc.) could easily just be a hallucination with no basis in reality whatsoever. Bottom line is, we're glad you learned something from your experiments but they mean nothing to anyone else. They don't prove Williams is right or us wrong. Some of you guys out there have been trying to clarify Williams' post in a reasonable way; you're the only reason I'm still reading this bboard. Thanks. But I'm confused when I read some of the mumbo jumbo that goes on here. Some people seem to think that "virtual reality" means "not based in reality", as far as discussion and scientific justification goes. I'm interested in this stuff, but I'm not interested in someone else's imaginative fantasies about the true nature of space and time, when they are presented as other than speculation. If I have misjudged the intended tone of discussion here, please let me know. (I'm sure you will!) I would not have posted this, but I felt that I had to speak out in favor of treating virtual reality scientifically. Matthew Diamond matt@maps.cs.cmu.edu
landman@hanami.Eng.Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman) (08/31/90)
>In article <19539@well.sf.ca.us>, apple!well.sf.ca.us!well!on@uunet.UU.NET (Owen Rowley) writes: >|> My experiments and results are subjective in nature and only valuable to me. In article <1990Aug20.204814.3479@cs.cmu.edu> matt@MAPS.CS.CMU.EDU (Matthew Diamond) writes: >Owen, your "subjective experiments" sound a lot like drugs. If not, >could you be more specific? Maybe you should read what Richard Feynman >had to say >about subjective experiments. He was drawing all sorts of conclusions >about the >nature of thought from his experiences in an isolation tank, but he >suddenly realized that NO CONCLUSIONS COULD BE DRAWN. His subjective >reality COULD be reality, he realized, but there is no way of telling. >Anything >experienced (time slowing/reversing, etc.) could easily just be a hallucination >with no basis in reality whatsoever. I think there are counterexamples to this line of reasoning. Namely, any physical disciplines (like yoga, martial arts, etc.) that have a large "internal" component. The key features of science are that it is empirical (you do experiments to find out the answers) and objective (it deals with truths that are "out there" in the real world independent of any particular observer). But there are many useful disciplines (subjective sciences?) which don't qualify as science because they include a subjective component, but may nevertheless be largely empirical. Training in a martial art is mainly attempting to duplicate someone else's techniques (experimental results) in a "laboratory" which includes your own body and someone else's. The truths which result have components which are measurable in normal scientific terms (speed, force, position, acceleration, etc.), but because every system under study contains a person, the results are not "independent of any particular observer". They're not scientific. The results are "reproducible" in the sense that most people are capable, with sufficient study and assuming no particular handicaps, of achieving similar abilities. That very few people can catch arrows in their bare hands does not lessen the validity of this statement - very few people can create and observe intermediate vector bosons either. In science it is traditional to ignore subjective effects, but they are there nevertheless. I used to have an organic synthesis teacher who was routinely able to achieve 85% yields in a reaction that no one else could seem to get over 60% yields for. The difference lies in all the "black magic" stuff that's impossible to write down - exactly how you clean and dry your glassware, how tightly you assemble the fittings of your apparatus, what the humidity in the lab is, and so forth. Even studying under such a person for a year does not guarantee that you will pick up more than a small fraction of this kind of knowledge or technique. -- Howard A. Landman landman@eng.sun.com -or- sun!landman