The Relational Nature of the Cosmos

[Andy]

@j_j

If you saw Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, it’s that same team.

Shit, I binge-watched all episodes of Breaking Bad – one of the best series I’ve ever seen.

[j_j]

@Andy

Shit, I binge-watched all episodes of Breaking Bad – one of the best series I’ve ever seen.

I agree. Amazing show. Better Call Saul is great too, functioning as a prequel and sequel.

I love me some great TV. Both Deadwood and The Wire are at the same peak level, IMO. Then we have great comedy shows like Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[PatternChaser]

@Andy

The universe, I will suggest, is not a collection of things but a network of relations.

@bongofury

Relations between…? Or among…?

Exactly. In accordance with the old programmers’ saying, everything is a network. Or can be viewed as such. A network is a very simple thing, a combination of nodes and connections.

So in this case, the “network of relations” is an incomplete phrase, isn’t it? The “relations” are connections, of course, but where, or what, are the nodes, as bongofury asks? What are the things that the “relations” connect?

[bongofury]

To be fair, he did point in post 7 to something called ontic structural realism where such questions are addressed.

[noAxioms]

@Andy

This is a tangential issue but an interesting contribution.

Hence my calling it a nit.

@Andy

in the case of Hawking radiation the rate of loss of mass of the black hole is so slow that the spacetime is effectively static for the duration of the particle creation process. Would you disagree?

No disagreement, but adding those misleading names only adds confusion. So instead of naming the type of black hole (none of which actually exist, being idealizations), just skip the part in parentheses in that paragraph. No, don’t substitute ‘Vaidya horizon’ since it’s not the point. All this is just my editing suggestion. I’ve not read the whole thing.

Hawking radiation, like Unruh radiation, is a coordinate effect. The distant accelerating observer can in principle observe it, but the space right there looks normal to an inertial observer, which is why no instrumentation can tell you when you cross a BH event horizon. The only way to know is to run a computation and announce when it happens, kind of like crossing international lines while at sea.

[Andy]

@noAxioms

No disagreement, but adding those misleading names only adds confusion. So instead of naming the type of black hole (none of which actually exist, being idealizations), just skip the part in parentheses in that paragraph. No, don’t substitute ‘Vaidya horizon’ since it’s not the point.

I think that’s a fair point. Thanks.

[Joshs]

@Andy

We are not passive witnesses to an objective ‘reality’ but active participants in its construction. The cosmos we inhabit is not given to us; it is constituted by our relationship to the fields, the horizons, and the other observers with whom we share this vast, entangled domain. In the end, physics teaches us that to exist is to be in relation—and that, perhaps, is the deepest lesson of all.

I wonder if you could speak to the issue of relevance and how you see it connected to your idea of existence as being-in-relation. What I get from writers like Wittgenstein and Heidegger is that the the relational nature of the world is only real to the extent that it is meaningful, and it is only meaningful or significant to the extent that its relationality takes the form of patterns of reciprocal causality generating normativity. Matter does just exist as relations , but as relations that matter, that is , that are relevant normatively in some way. Put as a question, are relevance and mattering concepts that only make sense with regard to humans experiencing a world, or so they also apply to the world’s relation to itself?

[Andy]

@Joshs

Matter does just exist as relations , but as relations that matter, that is , that are relevant normatively in some way. Put as a question, are relevance and mattering concepts that only make sense with regard to humans experiencing a world, or so they also apply to the world’s relation to itself?

I’m very encouraged by your appearance here Joshs, and this is a great question. You’ve put your finger on the very ‘ouroboros’ type of issue that intrigues me and that drives me in this pursuit. Understanding the relational nature of the cosmos is the first half of a model that radically changed my perspective, and I do intend to get around to presenting the second half to bring out this aspect.

My intention is to follow up in a similar format when I’ve done all the preparatory work, and I feel unprepared right now to present my case. I hope you’ll bear with me because my reason for being a member of this community is to attract the kind of constructive criticism that will permit me to hone (or even abandon) the view.