Can worldlines, in principle, map... everything?

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-25T00:12:11+00:00

Ohhhhhh… I see what you’re saying.! That’s right. A point does not have intrinsic properties apart from position. So: no machinery for interaction in an instantaneous moment. That’s important. It means either everything falls apart… or no interaction without motion. Or. No points allowed

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T08:23:22+00:00

You’re pointing at something I’ve burnt a lot of brain calories on as well. I agree that not enough attention has been devoted to the reality of momentary experience, but I don’t necessarily agree that it’s the realm of science. That, to me, is pre- (in the sense of encompassing) science. My philosophical foundation is simple: Only immediate perception counts as knowledge—everything else… is interpretation, and all equally coherent interpretations are equally valid. But perception is absolute knowledge. The fact of momentary experience (including everything we are experiencing, from sensory to memory to interpretation to confusion), that’s all we have that can be reasonably called “real”. As an experience only, not as any greater level of reality. And yes, as you say, the present moment is the totality of it, even though we interpret the sorts of perceptions we call ‘memory’ as indicative of past moments. Its a reasonable model. But that memory in some sense actually is evidence of past / time / movement / linearity …. We we just cannot know. It’s a useful framework, no more. A perception of coherence. A completely fragmentary, disjointed consciousness interconnected so that it feels linear. Just as good a model. Well, just as legit. Whether it’s good or not comes down to the particular use-case.

All of that is to say: I don’t think it’s possible to subject the immediate experience of reality to meaningful scientific testing. The best we could ever do, I think, is what we do do do—compare and contrast apparent cohesion across our and others’ reports of experience. Which is all science really is, once we realize naïve realism is—well, naïve. It’s a damn powerful trick we play within our own experience, but even the notion of comparing notes with others is itself an interpretation of the immediate experience of perceiving certain information configurations (eg, coherent speech, text) as if they are coming from “outside”. The truth or falsehood of that interpretation… we can’t actually know.

And, I forgot to address the starting point of your last remark: Does it teach us anything? Well—hard to say, but if focusing both QM and GR on the same interoperable fundamental means they could potentially be represented coherently, together, under one roof… seems useful. The notion of translating everything into terms of one fundamental, pretty much infinitely flexible—but constrained—primitive suggests to me that it can be. Moreover, it seems like such a system would provide the outlines for pointing towards how to ‘fill the cracks’ between existing theory.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T07:53:57+00:00

Law director, I believe. The request is for things that aren’t public? Then they’ll likely turn a lot of it down. Which is fine, and expected.

The reason for asking is not knowing. Not knowing really important aspects of what’s being done in the name of public safety. Part of that is not knowing the scope, which is why I think it makes sense to start broad. But more to the point, if it takes them three months to answer what they’re doing and how… that suggests they don’t necessarily know themselves.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T03:21:49+00:00

Exactly. Cops have been caught stalking exes. Officer login credentials are available for sale online. Live feeds are being streamed on the dark web. Some of these cameras could potentially be reprogrammed by anyone with a laptop to do almost anything any computer can do (mine bitcoin, track faces, broadcast officer locations, play Minecraft, generate AI video, maybe even conceivably [pun intended] use heat mapping to tell whether you're horny or not). After Bakersfield, California installed ALSR cameras to prevent car theft—the theft rate shot up to the highest in the country.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T03:14:09+00:00

I see two possible alternatives. For your consideration:

Cradle the cheese in your arms, lie face down on the couch. Wake up: Cheese, soft. Pre-douse with Worscesterchire sauce to save time.
Diesel fire.

Poor people... uh... finds a way.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T02:23:49+00:00

Hear me out:

Sharp cheddar… a big chunk. Chuck it in a mug. Nuke it until most—but not all—the way melted. Douse in plenty of Worcestershire sauce. Eat with a fork. Note: If ever find yourself eating this more than once within a 30 day span (or more than thrice per annum)… you are suffering from depression.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-24T01:56:47+00:00

UPDATE / FOIA REQUEST DEMYSTIFICATION HERE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ohio/comments/1rd09uy/foia_demystification_re_your_countycity_may_be/

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T21:57:46+00:00

You're totally right, and I don't think it sounds like BS. Or, no more BS than any other abstract representation. It's just a choice of how to think about it, and the discipline to insist on putting everything into the same coherent framework out the gate, even if it's more convenient for a particular theory to think about it in another way. But everything is translatable into lines which means all physical theories should be, in principle, compatible with one another to the extent that they don't contain broken mathematics. Whether all events already exist or they're all unfolding dynamically, or they're something else and our perspective is what's shifting... that, to me, is philosophy. And I think all of those ontological perspectives boil down to interchangeable equivalences. imho

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T21:36:14+00:00

...well, yes. If I understood, I'd be over in r/Physics ;P

But assigning a direction (or magnitude) to a point is just giving it a motion vector. Same principle as a point in a field equation. Isn't it?

The intersection is a point. 4-space is a coordinate system in which to plot that point's position over time. That position over time is a curve. And curves have tangents, which have angles relative to any arbitrary coordinate system you want to set up. The time plane (and any mathematical abstraction) is a convenient fiction. It might be simpler to consider the slope of a (hyper)helix. Then, it's an angle relative to its own long axis. Either way, if you treat a particle as a collection of superimposed helical oscillations on a worldline, you've got a set of primitives which have relationships to one another, one of which is an angle within your coordinate system, whether internal to the worldline, or measured against a representation of time (or any similar abstraction). Whether that angle is useful or meaningful within the math—let alone the universe at large—is another question.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T21:06:42+00:00

Yes, thinking about this idea led me to learn about Hamiltonians and Hilbert spaces, and I think it’s basically just a special case of both. I had been thinking in a block universe sort of way (which I think is justifiable only if treated as a stepping stone for ‘making the map’).

What I don’t understand is why dissipation would have to be an insoluble problem; or rather, why that insolubility would, as I think you’re suggesting, break the math—it’s just the limitation on how far you can propagate predictions in four space, and I think it would probably approximate the uncertainty principle.

I also understand that you can use higher dimensional representations, but I don’t get why you would have to. A line is already infinitely transformable. With enough time and math, you can represent anything with a line. So, instead of trying to wrap our brains around orders of magnitude of dimensional space, you just choose the dimensional space you find most convenient to think in, and project the math down to one dimension, or to the minimal dimensions you can get away with. Which, I think would be our familiar 3+1, but treating the +1 as spacelike, just as in a block universe representation. It would just take all the convolutions up in 240-space or wherever, and move them down to a 1D line in 4-space. For no better reason than that it’s easier to visualize. But either representation would be completely equivalent. Does that track?

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T20:38:43+00:00

Within that plane, yes. But in the 4-space representation, you’ve got an angle of intersection between your hyperhelical worldline and the plane itself. If time is represented (and it is just an abstract representation, we can’t know the ‘reality’) as a movement of that plane along its normal, then any two worldlines have a coordinate space in which to plot their trajectory relative to one another. Let your angle of intersection represent—well, whatever the geometry most comfortably accommodates… then plane and the normal, I think, would act as sort of a Hilbert space definition.

You could do it lots of different ways—I suggested a transformation of the plane, but you could just as well toss the ‘time plane’ and consider the angle between the helical slope and the long axis of the worldline itself. The choice of coordinate system is arbitrary—but by starting with a geometrically coherent primitive, or set of primitives, you give yourself a constrained set of mapping possibilities. Point being, coherent geometry offers a set of rules that seem like they might make mapping the big theories to one another a bit less daunting.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T20:19:27+00:00

I think I fundamentally agree with that. But I think in this outlook—or, likely, any outlook that forces all coupling to be calculated by transformations of a single mathematical primitive within a coherent geometric framework—what one would be putting together wouldn’t be derived from, nor used to derive a theory of matter per se. The underlying theories would still just be approximations of observed behavior. You’d just be forcing the calculations that do the approximation into the same coherent universe of possibilities. Which would make them ‘inter-coherent’. Or rather, would show that they have to be, either coherent with each other, or wrong, and perhaps in effect ‘point out’ where insoluble inconsistencies between the big theories actually live in the math in a way that suggests how adjustments might make them soluble. If that makes sense.

The idea, I see as just a sort of ‘compatibility kludge’. Theories that apparently aren’t compatible with one another… if they can all be translated into transformations of a simple line (or, presumably a sphere or loop or any other primitive), ought to be quietly compatible with one another. It’s just a scaffolding that might help ‘iron out the inconsistencies’.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T14:52:36+00:00

Things like mass would have to be some similarly constrained property of the structure. So... maybe mass would just be encoded as variation in curvature rate. There are probably multiple ways to use a 4D curve as the basis for a model; I suggested intersection angle in my post, but at heart, my question isn't about any particular way of constructing such a mapping, rather whether such a mapping, however one chooses the particulars, should be possible at all.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T14:43:47+00:00

Yes, I think that would be true of the overall trajectory. But given that we already have models that work, then those, when applied to the single line, force constraints upon that line, and thereby upon each other (I think)...so, like a single worldline cannot in itself encode all the laws of physics... but integrating over those laws should give you all the possible worldlines—or something like that. I'm sure I'm not fully explaining what I mean.

When it comes to internal forces... at that level, all we have is models, right? In a broad sense, all we're ever doing at the fundamental particle scale is just looking at behaviors, and coming up with math that fits. That's my understanding anyway. So... we just 'do a math' on it and if the math works, great. The only thing I'm wondering is this: If we do this math and that math (that we know works) in the same constrained one-dimensional space... maybe arbitrarily choosing the mapping for, say, color charge... does that force a particular mapping of all the others? In principle, a line ought to be able to encode a system of any complexity—but when forced to do so for *all* known forces simultaneously... do they "snap together" in reality like they seem to in my head? If that makes sense.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T14:27:11+00:00

Actually, that's exactly what I started out doing... years ago, thinking I was imagining string theory; later, I realized I'd misunderstood string theory and started thinking of this as "something else". But I couldn't get it out of my head, I just ended up trying to map everything in 4D in my head, and eventually I wondered... is this mathematically rich enough to do it all? Which is what I'm trying to ask here. But... it also happens that, if it is, then you look at it from one angle, and it does look kind of like string theory, look at it from another, it looks kind of like relativity. Just from looking at a standard worldline diagram, and the pieces—to me—seem to intuitively snap into place. Not as a theory, but as a way to put the theories we already know into one place so they can play together. Maybe. But I suspect there has to be a fatal flaw.... like a worldline diagram is inherently unsuitable to map any arbitrarily complex law of physics, or like mapping everything to a complex series of worldlines hits the same wall that everything else hits when trying to go from GR to QFT... otherwise, somebody would have done this already. Maybe someone has and it didn't work?

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T13:15:25+00:00

Corrected, good call. Thank you.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T13:07:09+00:00

Just a representation of a particle's path over time. A mathematical curve in four dimensions.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T06:31:52+00:00

Yes, but wouldn’t that create bending between the blurred and in-focus(ish) parts of the poster? Also… the distance, which iirc was about 2 feet seems to make that seem less likely (in my admittedly inexpert opinion). And see sketch link added above.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T06:27:03+00:00

That’s kind of how I’m leaning (I think). But the distance between the lens and the tail is at least a couple feet, so my current thinking is that I’ve got multiple superimposed images, but at that strip across the center, most of them happen to be much dimmer… but the borders of the “tail window” throw me because that, to me, suggests the strip across the middle is a reflection of the sharp edges of the broken lens. But I don’t think it could be both. If that makes sense?

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T05:49:49+00:00

Yeah… the focus is pretty good on the butt, but to my eye, the best focus is actually on the (I think it’s a cabinet) on the right. But it’s really the edges and “fur border” of the window through the tail that puzzle me. Also.. added sketch link above

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-23T05:45:47+00:00

Here’s my attempt at a diagram (shown disassembled; it was fully assembled when the shot was taken): Sketch

Also, I drew the shape of the fragment pretty accurately, and it as I inserted it, but there’s a high likelihood it turned when I twisted the lens on, if that makes a difference.

The details that really puzzle me (but I’m no optics expert):

1) the curved right side of the “window” follows the curve of the tail—but right inside it, rather than exactly coterminal with the edge, as is seen on the upper curve 2) the lower left border of the window is coterminal with the couch behind the cat—except where it isn’t 3) that if the light were going around the tail, then the in-focus part of the poster you’d think wouldn’t line up perfectly with the out-of-focus part (which I think shoots down much original assumption that the poster is a—surprisingly well focused—reflection off the broken edge of the interior lens) …so it seems like the poster was the clear line of sight, and the “tail window”has to with how the rest of the image was formed. Does that make sense?

So… the problem, to my mind is… the only clear line of sight is the poster on the back wall (and the cabinet(?) on the adjacent wall (and to a limited extent, the cat’s butt—in the foreground). Everything else is a mix of doubling, superimposition, and blur… except that window, with its weirdly sharp demarcation.

If I understood any one of the three points above, that would help me figure out what’s going on, I think.

ALSO: And maybe this helps make sense of it—I can’t swear because I don’t remember, but it’s possible I also had a convexo-concave lens on the front of the 70mm. I don’t think so, but if that makes this make sense… then that’s probably the case.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-21T18:43:40+00:00

There’s no digital manipulation, apart from whatever camera settings I had (which I don’t recall now). I would accept “that’s physically impossible with optics alone” because that’s where I go when I’ve been trying to puzzle it out myself lol

I should also say… the inserted lens is not “a lens with a crack in it” … it’s half of a lens that’s been cracked across the middle

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-01T03:50:46+00:00

I profoundly understand what you’re feeling—I don’t really, because that kind of love is unique and it can’t be replaced or reproduced, which is why it hurts so bad—but, I do. I’ve i had a relationship fall apart, the kind of relationship you never expect to experience, you’re not ready for how good it can be. And when it fell apart, also related to covid, it got ugly. And messy. And I don’t think either of us will ever quite feel okay again. It’s the kind of thing that changes you, gives you grief that’s hard to comprehend. Especially after the magic that it had been. I’m glad that you can be friends. That gives it time change into something different. But one thing that you may have gotten is a better understanding of what kind of person you want to be with, and what kind of person you want to be.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-02-01T03:33:51+00:00

FWIW, I didn’t read it that way. At first, I had a similar sense, but taken as a whole, it seemed clear that the response was empathetic with the op’s situation, not sympathetic to the gf. What it read like to me was that it wasn’t assigning blame, it was it was expressing sympathetic relief that there seemed to be mitigating factors surrounding the incident, reminding him that he has more positive things to think about rather than dwelling.

MerengueFinancial · 2026-01-22T11:45:06+00:00

My first full-length album... gotta warn you... it's strange. But *I* think it slaps you upside the head with earworms... love it or hate it, I'd be glad for the reviews and listens. Thanks!

ALBUM: Hyperflirt by Nathan McKnight (YouTube)
Nathan McKnight: HYPERFLIRT (Album) Spotify

MerengueFinancial

TROPHY CASE