Update from Mars

[nurice]

Here are some things that have been buzzing around my brain lately

Comments

[shabs]

Perhaps I'm thinking IN the box, but how else are we to communicate efficiently without classification? As I understand, you're finding that too much of what we speak of is left open to one-dimensional classification, but there is so much to articulate when you're not using divisions and categories that I think we'd be limiting our communication severely in favour of squeezing out a little more accuracy for a more limited audience

And therein lies the necessity of articulate description, whether divisional or relative...

[nurice]

My post seemed to imply that I seek a complete detachment from categorical discussion, rather than simply reducing our dependency on it. Of course classification is a remarkably effective tool to use in discussing anything, and in a world where "proving one's point" often leads to such things as "getting one's way" it is almost essential to have well-defined conceptual boundaries

[mporter]

Projection problem... I have asked myself how I would even describe what you're talking about. It's something like: an imperfect reverse cloning transformation, acting on the manifold of clone states (by which I mean, states of the form v⊗n). There is a small literature on "reverse cloning", "quantum deleting", and the "no-deletion principle", perhaps you can find something there. Understanding the shape (in Hilbert space) of the "clone submanifold" would certainly help. Failing that, there's always algebra, for small values of n, and induction