

The Wholeness of Quantum Reality: An Interview with Physicist Basil Hiley - MichaelAO
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/the-wholeness-of-quantum-reality-an-interview-with-physicist-basil-hiley/

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mathgenius
"BH: ...suppose we start with something like process–no particles, just
activity, just energy. Then the first battle was: what the hell do you mean? I
started reading. I read Grassmann, for example, and Grassmann was saying that
mathematics was not about things in space and time, but it was about
thought–it was about the order of thought. And he obtained his Grassmann
algebra from that kind of consideration. And I read Clifford‘s original books,
original papers, and it was all about process. Two times three is equal to
six–it’s not two objects times three. It’s the doubling of three objects. It’s
a process."

This is the key idea behind category theory, that equality is an arrow (a
process). I think this neatly summarizes why I suck at algebra. I write code,
my brain works in algorithms & processes. 1+1=2 just doesn't parse. If I can
convert whatever mathematical concept into an algorithm then yeah I get it.
Otherwise it's just a bunch of symbols.

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jrapdx3
This article is quite interesting, certainly projects a different view of
Bohmian theory than typically presented. At one point Hiley invokes the idea
of "information" intrinsic to understanding quantum transformations, so it
seems not coincidental that just a couple of days ago an article about
Christopher Fuchs thoughts was an HN topic.

In that article Fuchs spoke about his view of the subjective components of
quantum measurement and the informational nature of quantum phenomena. So it's
no surprise that Fuchs critique of Bohm was mentioned by Hiley, though in the
context of their disagreements. However I have a hunch Hiley's idea of
"process" is not so remote from Fuchs' notions of subjectivity and what that
means for quantum theory.

I'm sure genuinely knowledgeable people will have a far more refined
exposition of these ideas than I could ever have, nonetheless these articles
are engaging, enlightening and give much to ponder.

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useless
I think it is generally useful for people to have a picture in their head
about whats going on as work quite frequently gets lead by instinct and
educated guesswork which can be made rigorous once you've decided its worth
the time to do so. That said I really don't understand the appeal of Bohmian
mechanics. The explicit non-locality puts me off it.

On a more positive note the stuff about category theory is very interesting
and I think has a lot to offer physics in general and quantum mechanics in
particular. I found a couple of papers by Bob Coecke made a good introduction
to the use of categories for a physicist:

1) [http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1787](http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1787)

2) [http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1032](http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1032)

