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I tend to think about this in via a simple 0-1-many heuristic - there's infinitely many ways to have a curved space, but there is exactly one way to have a flat
by TeMPOraL 2y ago
I tend to think about this in via a simple 0-1-many heuristic - there's infinitely many ways to have a curved space, but there is exactly one way to have a flat space. That by itself makes it special.
Is this heuristic wrong?
- cryptonector 2y ago> Is this heuristic wrong? I would say it is, but in a subtle way. There is only one way in which gravity curves spacetime, and also one set of effects it has when seen from the lens of flat spacetime.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago> There is only one way in which gravity curves spacetime, and also one set of effects it has when seen from the lens of flat spacetime. Is there though? Isn't that the holy grail of science - expressing all of physics, particularly all of "fundamental constants", in a formula where there is one clearly preferred answer? One function with a single global minimum in the parameter space, that defines our universe? Perhaps let me put my heuristic differently: when there exists multiple (especially infinitely many) solutions, you still need to explain why a particular solution would be the solution, and not any of the other ones. A single solution is naturally privileged, because there is only one and there can be no other.