porn for mathematicians and cosmologists

[pau]

SWIM got hold of this recent Scientific American article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-strangest-numbers-in-string-theory
which explains why a number system invented in the 19th century explains why the universe has ten dimensions. SWIM agrees with this concept, as it is validated at least once weekly by the performance of his 5HT2a receptors. Anyway, the author of that article encourages other SWIMs to play the following game, to help them recoginze the undelying structures of hyperspace:
Elementary Particle Explorer

SWIM, in his more serious moments, believes that these cutting edge cosmologists guys are getting close to something we psychonauts already understand.

 

[lyserge]

Cool as, Pau, thanks for linking to that. I recently came across an article that suggests that the same number system, the group of octonions, serves as a "natural" model for "consciousness", or more specifically, for modelling the connections between the contents of the mind (which is said to be able to keep track of or correlate 7 different objects at once), as well as the connections between Perception, Thought, Action, and a second-order monitoring process the author calls the "Inner Eye". I find it especially intriguing how basic theoretical results from abstract algebra, which studies abstract structures ("algebras") fitting certain characteristics/axioms, suggest the quaternions/octonions as natural models for what he describes. Mind-blowing!

EDIT: the article is available at http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1996/consalg.html