Endophysics

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Endophysics literally means “physics from within”. It is the study of how the observations are affected and limited by the observer being within the universe. This is in contrast with the common exophysics assumption of a system observed from the “outside”. The term endophysics has been coined by David Finkelstein in a letter to the founder of the field Otto E. Rössler.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem is considered a proto-endophysics result in mathematics, as it uses an arithmetical statement making reference to the mathematical system under consideration. When studying physics from within, the observer should be included in the description of the world, so that the observer should have a model of itself. Endophysics therefore focuses on the model of the observer, this being the feature distinguishing it from classical physics (exophysics).

Extrinsic or exophysical perception is a two-level hierarchy, in which the system is laid out and the experimenter peeps at its features without changing it. The interaction between the system and the experimenter is a one-way information flow from the system to the experimenter. The system is not affected by the experimenter's actions. For this reason, logicians might prefer the term meta- (about) over exo- (out), ie: metaphysics (however this term is used to describe a different phenomenon).

Intrinsic or endophysical perception is non-hierarchical: the experimenter is part of the universe under observation. Experiments use devices and procedures that are within the universe. The experimenter being in the observed system can be represented by a two-way information flow. "Measurement apparatus" and "observed entity" are therefore distinghished only as a matter of intent and convention. Endophysics observation is limited by the fact that measurement devices may affect the observed feature.

Research in endophysics concentrates on what makes it different from traditional physics (exophysics):

not only the world has to be modeled, but also the observer
the “interface” between the observer and the world is the only reality the observer can really perceive

In particular, research focused on mathematical models of the observer and of their interactions with the universe.

Otto Rössler and Karl Svozil proposed the concept independently. Rössler's emphasis has been on the role of the interface between observer and observed object. Svozil's emphasis is on the logico-algebraic structure and on the intrinsic definition and generation of space-time frames. For automaton logic, the extrinsic propositional structure is Boolean, whereas for intrinsic observers, it can be nondistributive.

[edit] References

R. J. Boskovich, De spacio et tempore, ut a nobis cognoscuntur, partial English translation in: J. M. Child (Ed.), A Theory of Natural Philosophy, Open Court (1922) and MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1966, pp. 203–205.

T. Toffoli, The role of the observer in uniform systems, in: G. J. Klir (Ed.), Applied General Systems Research, Recent Developments and Trends, Plenum Press, New York, London, 1978, pp. 395–400.

K. Svozil, Connections between deviations from Lorentz transformation and relativistic energy-momentum relation, Europhysics Letters 2 (1986) 83–85.

O. E. Rössler, Endophysics, in: J. L. Casti, A. Karlquist (Eds.), Real Brains, Artificial Minds, North-Holland, New York, 1987, p. 25.

O. E. Rössler, Endophysics. Die Welt des inneren Beobachters, Merwe Verlag, Berlin, 1992, with a foreword by Peter Weibel.

K. Svozil, Extrinsic-intrinsec concept and complementarity, in: H. Atmanspacker, G. J. Dalenoort (Eds.), Inside versus Outside, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1994, pp. 273–288.