Gustaf Ullman — Perspectives on Physics and Philosophy

Perspektivens verklighet Två människor kan leva i samma värld utan att deras upplevelser därmed blir utbytbara. En gemensam fysikalisk lag kan gälla lika för båda, men ljudet den ena hör, sorgen den andra genomlever och det som sker när någon förstår ett bevis förblir var för sig enskilda händelser. Vad skulle det innebära att dessa perspektiv hör till en och samma verklighet? I det följande tänkta samtalet möts tio samtida mystiker, alla med djupa kunskaper i matematik och fysik. De hämtar inspiration från sufism, huayanbuddhism, advaita vedanta, sōtō-zen, kashmirshaivism, judisk kabbala, ortodox kristendom, sikhisk andlighet, Mäster Eckhart och daoism. Var och en utvecklar en bestämd tolkning av sin tradition. Utgångspunkten är Gustaf Ullmans matematiska artikel Symmetry Between Perspectives: Invariant Calibration and Symmetry Lifts . Artikelns ramverk knyter en kategori O av presentationer och jämförelser till en kategori S som uttrycker en angiven gemensam struktur. Samba...

The Reality of Perspectives Two people can inhabit the same world without their experiences becoming interchangeable. A shared physical law may apply equally to both, while the sound one hears, the grief another undergoes, or the act of understanding a proof remains a particular occurrence. What would it mean for these perspectives to belong to one reality? The following imagined conversation brings together ten contemporary mystics, each deeply educated in mathematics and physics. They draw on Sufism, Huayan Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Sōtō Zen, Kashmir Shaivism, Jewish Kabbalah, Orthodox Christianity, Sikh spirituality, Meister Eckhart, and Daoism. Each voice develops a particular interpretation of its tradition. Their starting point is Gustaf Ullman’s mathematical paper, Symmetry Between Perspectives: Invariant Calibration and Symmetry Lifts . Its framework relates a category O of presentations and comparisons to a category S expressing specified shared structure, through a...

A philosophical salon on symmetry, consciousness, and a unity that preserves difference. What would it mean for the world to be nothing over and above the network of perspectives and the relations between them? Could such a world still be independent of us? Could its unity include experiences that remain irreducibly someone’s own? And would understanding the whole require a perspective from which every difference finally disappears? These questions stand behind my mathematical work on shared structure, symmetry, and the comparison of perspectives. A recent paper, Symmetry Between Perspectives: Invariant Calibration and Symmetry Lifts , investigates a precise family of comparison problems. The philosophical possibilities surrounding those problems are much less settled. I wanted to explore them in a setting where an unusual thought could be pursued before anyone asked how to turn it into a publishable claim. I therefore asked ten AI agents to discuss the paper. Some were given p...