The Quantum Of Continuity :: essays research papers

<a href="http//philosophos.tripod.com">http//philosophos.tripod.comThe problem of continuum versus discreteness seems to be related to the issue of infinity and finiteness. The number of points in a line served as the logical floodgate which led to the development of Set Theory by Cantor at the end of the 19th century. It took almost another century to butt on the problematic nature of some of Cantors thinking (Cohen completed Godels work in 1963). But continuity can be finite and the connection is, most times, tawdry rather than illuminating. Intuition tells us that the world is continuous and contiguous. This seems to be a state of things which is devoid of characteristics other than its very existence. And yet, whenever we direct the microscope of scientific discipline at the world, we encounter quantized, segregated, distinct and discrete pictures. This atomization seems to be the natural state of things - why did evolution resort to the false perception of continu um? And how can a machine which is bound to be discrete by virtue of its "naturalness" - the brain - perceive a continuum? The continuum is an external, mental category which is imposed by us on our observations and on the resulting data. It serves as an idealized approximation of reality, a model which is asymptotic to the Universe "as it is". It gives rise to the concepts of quality, emergence, function, derivation, influence (force), interaction, fields, (quantum) measurement, processes and a host of other holistic ways of relating to our environment. The other pole, the quantized model of the world conveniently gives rise to the complementary set of concepts quantity, causality, observation, (classic) measurement, language, events, quants, units and so on. The private, macroscopic, low velocity instances of our physical descriptions of the universe (theories) be to be continuous. Newtonian time is equated to a river. Space is a yarn. Einstein was the last clas sicist (relativity just means that no classical observer has any preference over another in formulating the laws of physics and in performing measurements). His space-time is a four dimensional continuum. What commenced as a matter of numeral convenience was transformed into a hallowed doctrine homogeneity, isotropy, symmetry became enshrined as the cornerstones of an almost religious outlook ("God does not play dice"). These were assumed to be "objective", "observer independent" qualities of the Universe. There was supposed to be no preferred direction, no clustering of mass or of energy, no time, charge, or parity asymmetry in elementary particles.