random memes }

Tigers of Granularity

Several months back, I wrote up a speculation about the granularity of what we call "reality". Since then I have tended notice more those instances of a perceptual gap - where my mental record departs from the smoothly deductive model of reality.

(An odd trap, when deductions - of a sort - lead to speculation that perceived reality may not follow a deductive model.)

What do I mean by a "deductive model of reality"?

If I cannot find object, search repeatedly in all the locations I expect, and eventually find the object in plain sight in a place I looked many times before - I assume by deduction that the object was in fact there all along, and I somehow missed it. By somewhat-conscious choice the episode is recorded in my memory as "the object was always there, and I somehow failed to see it". By choice I reject from recall an instance of "the object appeared where I had looked before" - as impossible.

Along the same lines - if you and I have different memories of an event, I assume that one (or both) of us were mis-remembering, and there was - by deduction - a single true objective reality of the event.

A good practice in science is to occasionally question (and re-verify) your assumptions. What could I expect if my speculation about a "granularity" of reality might be somewhat true? With that question in mind I now more often tend to mark the mismatch between memory and "objective reality".

An aside - At one point I wondered if the deductive the model of reality was a learned behavior - and that question suddenly invoked a faint memory of adopting a choice of interpretation, as a child. Is the memory real? I do not know.

Again, without any sort of test, there is no reason to treat this speculation as anything more. To be clear, I most firmly believe in the deterministic model, and not the speculation. But I also now have this persistent ghost of a question....