Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 18:13:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Wayne A. King" <kingwa-AT-crl.com>
Subject: ER & Entropy


Thanks to Dr. Jacobs for responding again to my query about ER and
the second law. I snip from Dr. Jacobs reply:

>Nietzsche does not think scientific theories (and I apply this to
 the second law) are what they purport themselves to be.  They
 are, according to N., like all theories -- fiction (N. uses this
 term both in a pejorative and in a positive sense depending on
 context).

But didn't Nietzsche also call ER "the most scientific of all theories"
somewhere?.  My question said to *assume* ER was intended as a scientific
theory.  I am not saying it was or was not, only asking you to assume that 
it was, strictly for purposes of responding to my query. 

>Could the ER be so if the second law is what it is presently
assumed to be?  Yes, they are both creative fictions and
strategies in our manipulation of the world.

But not all creative fictions and strategies are mutually
compatible, are they?  Are ER and the 2nd law in their present
format examples of creative fictions that are not mutually
compatible?

I could call Newtonian gravitation a creative fiction that explained why
the apple fell toward earth.  It was replaced by another creative fiction,
general relativity, but the apple still appears to fall down. Thus,
changing the creative fictions didn't change the apple's eventual drop to
the earth, even though that may not be what is "really" happening. So, I
accept that both Newtonian physics and relativity are creative fictions,
but neither seems incompatible with the other insofar as the falling apple
is concerned, and we even regard Newton's laws an approximation of or
special case of Einstein's gravitational theory.  But, as opposed to the
concept of (imagined) scientific progress as more and more accurate
creative fictions, is ER incompatible with the second law? 

Is not one consequence of the second law the eventual heat death of the
universe?  If the second law continues to apply, then how would the
contraction back to the singularity occur?  Does gravity do it, despite
the heat death?  Or, do we have to assume the second law, in its present
form, somehow reverses itself or some new law begins to operate to
overpower it? 

>When Wayne tries his approach "let's simplify the world to
 consist only f...", it is a wonderful and powerful fiction.  In
 fact, it may prompt us to think that the ER cannot function as an
 objective description of the world.  But, thinking independently
 to follow Tom's advice, we can ask are all theories designed
 essentially to do this?

Well, I'm not sure you aren't making more out of my question than I
intended, which of course is still quite okay. But I am not saying all
theories are created to function as objective descriptions of the world. 
I am saying that *if* ER just happened to be one of those theories that
*was* so created, then would it conflict with the second law, assuming the
latter is also a theory created to function as an objective description? 
It is, I think, a simple question of physics as currently known, not
metaphysics ... although it may be impossible to draw demarcations
between the two. 

>Or is that a presupposition on our part?  I have said a long time
ago what my view of ER is (it is at times an objective
description, a psychological therapy, and a destructive strategy
on N's part).

I'm relatively new, so I'm sure I missed your previous views.  I
also understand my question has likely been asked and answered
billions of times before, as would be consistent with ER.  And I
tend to agree with you on the ER's meaning. I think it also may have
been one of Nietzsche's negations of the idea of progress in
Hegelianism/Darwinism, Christian eschatology, and in the coming of
the overman.

>My main concern in my questions was to prompt us to think through
N when referring to him; otherwise, his theories fall into what we
traditionally think all theories are -- objective descriptions.

Okay.  It's just that I'm not entirely convinced N at times didn't
think of the ER as being completely objective. That is not to say
I believe he did at all times.



Wayne A. King
Lilburn, Georgia


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