“Realityfluid”—terrible name by the way, lets call it “fundamentals”
I don’t think that quite captures what I was pointing at. I’ll buy there are better words for it, but I don’t just mean “fundamentals”. Or at least that phrasing feels meaningfully inaccurate to me.
I picked up the phrase “magical reality fluid” from a friend who was deep into mathematical physics. He used it the same way rationalists use (or at least used to use?) “magic”: “By some magic cognitive process….” The idea being to name it in a silly & mysterious-sounding way to emphasize that there’s something non-mysterious but that we don’t yet understand.
“Magical reality fluid” is a reference to whatever it is that the Schrödinger wave equation shows is wiggling. There’s probably a technical term for this. It’s a mathematical structure, just like the electromagnetic field. Lots of physicists give up on the philosophical question and just say “We use it to compute probabilities, we don’t ask how it works, maybe ‘how it works’ is a confused question.”
Presumably there’s something in, uh, actual reality (whatever that is) that our Schrödinger-based math is somehow related to. Currently the math makes it look like it’s some kind of fluid or something that has waves in it.
I think fundamentals = realityfluid in this definition, in case that realityfluid doesn’t consist of even simpler elements which is possible but we do not need to commit to it forthe sake of this discussion.
I don’t like the term “realityfluid” being used for the most fundamental elements of the universe because 1) its made from two words which is a terrible fit for something that by definiton isn’t made from anything else; 2) it has “real” in it and “real/unreal” distinction is a confusing and strictly inferrior to “map/territory”.
I don’t mind preserving the reminder that we do not know much about actual fundamental stuff. Lets call it “mages” instead of “fundamentals” then. A short world, and the idea that wizards are the fundamental elements of reality sounds even more ridiculous than some kind of magical fluid.
I don’t think that quite captures what I was pointing at. I’ll buy there are better words for it, but I don’t just mean “fundamentals”. Or at least that phrasing feels meaningfully inaccurate to me.
I picked up the phrase “magical reality fluid” from a friend who was deep into mathematical physics. He used it the same way rationalists use (or at least used to use?) “magic”: “By some magic cognitive process….” The idea being to name it in a silly & mysterious-sounding way to emphasize that there’s something non-mysterious but that we don’t yet understand.
“Magical reality fluid” is a reference to whatever it is that the Schrödinger wave equation shows is wiggling. There’s probably a technical term for this. It’s a mathematical structure, just like the electromagnetic field. Lots of physicists give up on the philosophical question and just say “We use it to compute probabilities, we don’t ask how it works, maybe ‘how it works’ is a confused question.”
Presumably there’s something in, uh, actual reality (whatever that is) that our Schrödinger-based math is somehow related to. Currently the math makes it look like it’s some kind of fluid or something that has waves in it.
Hence “magical reality fluid”.
I think fundamentals = realityfluid in this definition, in case that realityfluid doesn’t consist of even simpler elements which is possible but we do not need to commit to it forthe sake of this discussion.
I don’t like the term “realityfluid” being used for the most fundamental elements of the universe because 1) its made from two words which is a terrible fit for something that by definiton isn’t made from anything else; 2) it has “real” in it and “real/unreal” distinction is a confusing and strictly inferrior to “map/territory”.
I don’t mind preserving the reminder that we do not know much about actual fundamental stuff. Lets call it “mages” instead of “fundamentals” then. A short world, and the idea that wizards are the fundamental elements of reality sounds even more ridiculous than some kind of magical fluid.