[2012-Nov-07] Centimeter of Sand

[Killminusnine]

I'm really loving the Borges joke in this one. I think I've sensed some "Book of Sand" or "Library of Babel" stuff in Zach's comics before. As an avid Jorge Luis Borges fan, I'm happy to see jokes likes this in the comic.

[stinky613]

Since I'm not a nerd--not even a little bit--I felt absolutely compelled to write some Ruby functions to encode text to centimeters.

https://github.com/stinky613/centimeter-encoding

[prozaic]

Even better, when you consider some sort mathematical universe hypothesis (Tegmark), the centimeter also contains a description of every possible universe, which some argue is sufficient ontological basis for the existence of those universes: all universes are equally real (relative to themselves, of course), simply by virtue of the fact that their description exists.

Of course it's also not that interesting because it's all quite masturbatory.

[Killminusnine]

I'd say on the contrary it is pretty interesting that all possible universes exist. It has pretty meaningful consequences as a hypothesis for modal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and there's a (somewhat long and technical but very good) book defending this position ("modal realism"). It's called On the Plurality of Worlds and it's written by David K Lewis. Masturbatory isn't how I'd describe his philosophy.

Now as for the comic, seriously, it's a great comic commentary on short stories "The Library of Babel" and "The Book of Sand" by Jorge Luis Borges (I expect Zach intended this, but I could be wrong). Hugely recommended reads, these stories.

[Guest]

Plank length?

[ulkgb]

Up is down turned 90° or 180°?
I don't get it...

[mrpeachy]

I like the comic except for one thing... ponies are awesome

[Mike]

You fools, 2 + 2 = 5.

Planck length?

From wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_len ... gnificance]Planck length[/url] entry:

"If large extra dimensions exist, the measured strength of gravity may be much smaller than its true (small-scale) value. In this case the Planck length would have no fundamental physical significance, and quantum gravitational effects would appear at other scales."

Since according to centimeter theory all theoretical possible universes exist, then large extra dimensions must exist in at least one of them. Therefore, the Planck length cannot be assumed to be a valid limiter.

[Killminusnine]

Whether Planck length is a limitation is really a matter of how we interpret these constants, even without the large dimension qualification. Is it incoherent to talk of shorter lengths or is it just unmeasurable and epistemically unavailable because of certain limitations?

[NapoleonIV]

Space is not infinitely divisible. A finite measure of space cannot contain an infinite number of points. Zeno's paradox.

[someone]

That strip made me remember my RFC idea of the "HTTP over PI" protocol.

[simbilou]

Cool, a portable Babel library. I was affraid that my Kindle would never have had enough memory to store it.

[Lens]

Space is not infinitely divisible. A finite measure of space cannot contain an infinite number of points. Zeno's paradox.

I think you misunderstood the Zone's paradox, a finite measure can and does contain an infinite number of points but as most of them are infinitesimally small they converge in a finite measure, that's why despite of having an infinite number of "halves" between one point to another the measure is a finite number. In fact the Zeno's paradox is the easiest way to understand how an infinite sum can give a finite number as a result, at least it was for me.

[anus mcgee]

I think we're all forgetting the big picture here: this comic isn't funny at all.

[prozaic]

I'd say on the contrary it is pretty interesting that all possible universes exist. It has pretty meaningful consequences as a hypothesis for modal logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and there's a (somewhat long and technical but very good) book defending this position ("modal realism"). It's called On the Plurality of Worlds and it's written by David K Lewis. Masturbatory isn't how I'd describe his philosophy.

I mean that it is masturbatory in the sense that all metaphysical theories are. I would go as far as to say it (mathematical universe/modal realism) is obviously true: our universe is "merely" a description of itself, there is no "quintessence of reality" suffused throughout. There is no other way of looking at it that is (to my mind at least) coherent and internally consistent.

The problem is that, like all metaphysical theory it generates no testable predictions. It does make for some great fiction, see my favorite scifi novel: Permutation City by Greg Egan.

I think we're all forgetting the big picture here: this comic isn't funny at all.

Well, I appreciate Zach's attempts to provide some intellectualism in his comics. But you're right, sometimes it feels like he wanted to do a strip about something he thought was cool and then forced a joke in post facto.