X-Message-Number: 21060
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 06:25:13 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #21051 - #21057

for Michael Price:
When I said that electrons may differ on some occasions by a 
trait I called "hyperspin", I meant ELECTRONS. Our instruments
can only perform measurements to a certain accuracy. Say that at
present we have no instruments accurate enough to measure the
different energies of electrons caused by their hyperspin.
So we decide that necessarily such traits aren't present? Nor
would hyperspin create different particles, if every electron
could on one occasion or another have different hyperspins.
Just as the energies of electrons do not make many particles
with different energies, hyperspin would not make many particles
with different hyperspins.

Fundamentally my arguments here bear on your claim that we will
NEVER find any trait which causes us to decide that electrons
differ. Suppose that we presently couldn't measure the difference
between hyperspins, and several varieties of electrons existed
with different hyperspins. What makes me feel very wary of 
your claims about electrons comes first, because I can imagine
theories in which even the notion of electron ceases to be
useful, and second, because such arrogant statements about
how the physical world behaves have had a sad (though sometimes
amusing) history. I do not know or claim to know what physics
we'll meet with when (and if) we are someday revived. But 
past history makes me think that if we remain suspended for
long enough, we'll find ourselves comparing present ideas
to Ptolemaic astronomy. And we will do so with a database
far wider than anything imagined today: telescopes the size
of the solar system, direct and close observation of black
holes, the knowledge of how to manipulate dark matter (which
some suggest instead comes from the falsity of our theories
of gravity), and many other direct experiments quite impossible
today.

               Best wishes and long long life for all,

                    Thomas Donaldson

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