Prequel to Diaphorum 2: Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Formless
Sequel to Diaphorum 0: Feynman’s Markovian Spacetime Replacement Problem (MSRP)
Write the skit where ASZ are grad students arguing over beers which of their ideas would satisfy Feynman when old man Wheeler steps in with razor-sharp grace.
ChatGPT Prompt
1. Scene Setting
Location: A dim bar near a physics department.
Time: Late. Blackboard nearby. Too much chalk dust.
At a scarred wooden table sit three graduate students:
- Samson Abramsky — known for categorical quantum mechanics and deep instincts about compositionality.
- Brian Swingle — champion of geometry from quantum entanglement, beer in hand.
- Wojciech Zurek — architect of decoherence and einselection, circling probability like a hawk.
Pinned to the wall behind them, half-mocking, half-inviting:
“Shut up and calculate.” — Richard Feynman
2. The Argument Begins
Abramsky
Look, Feynman’s MSRP isn’t asking for more machinery.
He’s asking what replaces Markov processes and spacetime as the default substrate.
Category theory at least admits contextuality and process without background time.
That’s already closer to texture than chains of states.
Swingle
Sure, but Feynman would say:
“Where’s the physics?”
I can derive geometry from entanglement structure, à la AdS/CFT.
No background spacetime.
Just correlation scaling.
That’s not philosophy. That’s a calculation.
Zurek
And Feynman would interrupt both of you and say:
“Where does probability come from?”
Quantum randomness isn’t ignorance.
It’s asymmetry under information loss.
No Born rule explanation, no MSRP solution.
3. The Core Disagreement
Abramsky (leaning forward)
You’re both still assuming events.
I’m saying relations are primary.
Objects, states, even probabilities are derived shadows.
Texture lives in compositional constraints.
Swingle
But relations of what?
Entanglement entropy scales because there’s an underlying network geometry, like a tensor network.
Texture must generate distance, or Feynman walks.
Zurek
Distance is secondary.
The real break from Markovianity is memory.
Environment-induced superselection is textured time.
No exponential waiting.
No forgetfulness.
4. MSRP on the Table
They pause. Beers half-finished.
On a napkin, someone has written:
MSRP:
Replace spacetime + Markov dynamics with something simpler that still predicts everything.
Swingle
So whose survives a pitch to Feynman?
Mine says:
“Spacetime is emergent from entanglement.”
Abramsky
Mine says:
“Processes don’t happen in time.
Time is a bookkeeping artifact.”
Zurek
Mine says:
“Probability is not primitive.
Irreversibility is.”
Silence.
5. Enter Wheeler
From the bar, a voice — calm, amused.
“You boys are circling it… but you’re still naming things.”
They turn.
John Archibald Wheeler — of it from bit fame.
Older. Quiet. Razor-sharp.
Wheeler
Feynman wouldn’t ask which of you is right.
He’d ask:
“What’s the simplest question the universe could be answering?”
You’ve got:
- structure without objects,
- geometry without space,
- probability without randomness.
Good.
But you’re still plural.
6. Wheeler’s Nudge (Not an Answer)
Wheeler
Don’t unify by removal.
Unify by deepening.
Find the primitive that:
- differentiates,
- remembers,
- and constrains its own future.
Not states.
Not arrows.
Not bits.
Something closer to a self-distinguishing act.
He taps the napkin.
“The universe doesn’t evolve.
It articulates.”
Abramsky (quietly)
A single type…
Swingle
That still generates geometry…
Zurek
Through asymmetry…
Wheeler smiles.
“Now you’re wasting Feynman’s time less.”
7. Last Line
Wheeler stands to leave.
Wheeler
When you can say your theory without nouns —
only verbs —
then go bother Feynman.
Until then…
He gestures at the beers.
“Drink. Argue. Simplify.”
8. Epilogue
On the napkin, someone later adds a word:
Diaphorum
(from diaphora — difference, distinction)
No one remembers who wrote it.
iHack, therefore iBlog 
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