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.
"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.
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:
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 19.3 ms ] threadIn 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.
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.
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
2) http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1032