We are all ever more amazed at the competence of the mathematics of continuous variables as models for physical processes. Digital Philosophy (DP) replaces all that at the most fundamental (microscopic) level by Automata Theory. We give up what we are used to but, strangely enough, in DP, we find clues that might lead to the answers to many fundamental questions, including:
· Why is it true that mathematics is so good at modeling processes in the physical sciences?
· In physics there are 2 electrical charges (+ and – ) and in biology there are 2 sexes (♀ and ♂); why 2?
· What, exactly, causes the various wonderful symmetries of our world?
Most importantly, the kind of understanding that Digital Philosophy makes possible is on a different plane. DP holds the promise of making fundamental processes so simple and clear that every literate person might understand them perfectly and exactly. On the down side, Digital Philosophy is new and undeveloped, with faults and inconsistencies that remain to be resolved. While many concepts described herein are simply good science, we have included various conjectures designed to clarify the general ideas.
Many disparate ideas have come together in this document, presenting a new general concept of fundamental natural processes. The ideas of DP can overwhelm one’s sense of what is probable in that so many fundamental assumptions of science appear to be contradicted. Nevertheless, we invite the reader to proceed with a difficult and torturous journey through a field of startling ideas. Though some conjectures presented in this paper will turn out to be wrong, the overall concepts ought to open our eyes to something new that may be true about our world.
It may be easier to understand DP if one separates what we know about the world into 2 categories.
The first category consists of verified experimental data, and mathematical models and relationships that fit that data.
The second category consists of the conclusions, concepts, models, pictures, thought experiments, explanations in natural language, and everything else that is not a rigorous mathematical derivation or consequence of the first category. Things in the second category may be consistent with experimental data but they are not the only things consistent with that data.
When thinking about Digital Philosophy, try embracing the first category while ignoring apparent conflicts between DP and the second category. It’s not that we imagine “nothing is correct” in the second category; we mustn’t allow ourselves to drown in apparent contradictions until we learn to swim in the sea of Digital Philosophy.
(Last revised 15-Oct-01)
