Recognising Top-Down Causation by George F. R. Ellis

On no they're here. My little ponies Rampaging.

George,

"Anything to do with "infinite" is an unprovable hypothesis" ?? While I largely agree with your opinions, I see this sentence misleading.

Is oo+1=oo a hypothesis or a logical consequence of easily understandable consequent abstraction? I would also avoid writing "infinite number" because I understand Lagrange who wrote that "some great modern analysts consider an infinite quantity a contradiction in itself". Cauchy correctly distinguished between variables that can be infinite and numbers that cannot. Cantor's transfinite numbers are obviously useless.

I would agree on that any speculation on actually infinite physical items lacks justification. I reject already the notion multiverse because I prefer to understand universe as all comprehensive.

I agree with jcns on that evolution is irreversible in the large even if it sometimes seems to be repetitious. While I am aware of Schwarzschild solutions,I do not confuse them for reality because the mechanisms of typical self-deception seems to be obvious.

Once again thanks for pointing me to the Feynman lectures. I am reading in particular vol. 2 in order to reveal his decisive weak points.

Eckard

George,

You are a bit of a god to us munchkins in the fqxi discussions, but to the various regulars, such as Tom and Georgina, that observation of mine is recognized as pure sarcasm. Tom is by the book and those of us who fall outside the circle of received wisdom accept we are just bouncing balls off the walls of the ivory tower. I am with you that math models reality, rather than is foundational to it. As I would describe it, math is a tool, not a god. Tools are incrediably useful in exploring the world and making sense of it, but they can also be greatly misused, if important facters get distilled away and otherwise overlooked. Of course, that is the topic of this contest. It will be interesting to see where physics goes from here, whether it tries to buld out the current model, with all its varied colored ponies, or if there is s serious movement to go back and examine the foundations.

Georgina,

That is close to home for me, since I seem to have inherited a riding stable.

Tom,

Belief in Bell's theorem is not a rational belief. This was recognized by Michael Goodband from the reactions of some people to my work on Bell. But you know my view on this, so I will leave it at that.

Joy

"Can you now see the difference I am trying to articulate?"

Georgina, sorry -- I'm afraid I cannot. You have described a distinction without a difference; i.e., the physical laws that govern the creation of images in a brain-mind are not different from the physical laws that govern the manufacturing process and the retail process, whether for rainbow colored ponies or anything else. I understand and appreciate the dualism that you promote -- I just don't subscribe to it. If there were a real, physical difference between thinking and acting, I expect the world would be another whole order of infinity more complicated than it is. As Einstein said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."

To be so, it must be comprehended in terms that combine thought and manifest language/action in a seamless manner, one that allows us to make closed logical judgments. The fact is, that we cannot tell the difference between illusion and reality except that we agree on which is which. The scientific means of our agreement is rational correspondence between the image (be it a picture, an equation, a narrative or otherwise) and an objective means to test the image against physical principles (and, it must be conceded, not all of which are yet known to us).

You say, "There can be a perfectly reasonable imaginary science of Discworld described and depicted within our world but impotent to act in it." Yes, and that militates against the meaning of what is "physically real." (" ... independent in its properties, having a physical effect but not itself affected by physical conditions.") We know that Discworld does not have properties independent of what it assumes; it is affected by physical conditions. In fact, this is Joy Christian's argument -- that Bell's theorem is a sort of Discworld -- and it's an argument that I can also support with rigorous results.

Tom

Now there's kismet for you --

Joy, I was composing my reply to Georgina while you were writing your latest. :-)

Tom

George,

I see your statement that "Each mathematical model of reality applies within limits: a domain of application where it works, surrounded by a much larger domain where it does not" as a bit of a defeatist opinion rather than provable fact. The problem may be more the mechanistic perceptions on which the current mathematical models are based upon rather than a fundamental inability of mathematics to ever present a true representation of all of reality. I take the position that no mechanical model can be a foundation for physical reality, so it does not surprise me at all when mathematical descriptions of the models falls short of a comprehensive cover of physical reality, not to mention the difficulties unifying disparate approaches like GR and QM.

Believing as I do, I took the path of looking for a purely mathematical model with an algebraic foundation, not a mechanical one, in my essay based on work I have done with Octonion Algebra. This algebra speaks loudly about how the mathematical model of physical reality *must* look like after acceptance of exceedingly simple assumptions, nothing "by hand" is inserted. There is a boat load of work that should be done down this road before you can make the statement you have. The jury is still out.

Rick

"Tom is by the book and those of us who fall outside the circle of received wisdom accept we are just bouncing balls off the walls of the ivory tower. I am with you that math models reality, rather than is foundational to it."

John, I'm simply a rationalist -- (actually, more of a rational idealist if you hold my feet to the fire) -- and I hardly live in an ivory tower. There is not a whit of difference between how I do science and how George ["The key issue is which is the math that describes reality: remembering (vide Eddington) that mathematical models are abstract idealisations of the real thing"] does it.

Tom

Tom,

So does that mean that spacetime is a way to model dynamic relations, using C to correlate distance and duration, or is it still a "physically real model," such that there a physically real "blocktime?

Or is time a measure of action, similar to temperature; For example, time is to frequency, as temperature is to amplitude?

Tom

How can you not see that there is a difference between how something is made and what it represents??? Is the American flag just woven and dyed cotton fibres??

I had already said that I agreed the process was part of the foundational physics!!

How the sensory system functions is totally with in the physics and biochemistry that is going on not in any way separate from it but the output *represents* something different from the data input and the sources of data in the external environment.

You have said what is outputs is not physical reality. I understand your explanation of physical reality and agree that using your definition that is correct. However it IS still significant. The significant issue is with the output from data received from the external environment. As that is fabricated into a space-time emergent reality. A *representation* that is output from the process that is occurring wholly within the foundational pre-space time reality.

Data can persist in that pre-space time environment and its distribution allows the fabrication of composite realities formed from data that had different 'temporal' origins.I.e. they had different origin iterations of the Object universe.I would like to think that your disagreement comes despite understanding fully what I have said, which unfortunately is not the case.

John,

You wrote, "So does that mean that spacetime is a way to model dynamic relations, using C to correlate distance and duration, or is it still a 'physically real model,' such that there a physically real 'blocktime?'"

John, do you know what you mean when you use the words "physically real?" Give us a definition, please, which I think will benefit your own understanding as well as mine.

"Or is time a measure of action, similar to temperature; For example, time is to frequency, as temperature is to amplitude?"

Temperature is not a measure of action -- i.e., a metric describing the path, or vector, of a particle from one point to another. Temperature measures the degree of activity of an ensemble of particles within the bounds of a system -- some particles are relatively slow and some relativity fast; the average of slow moving and fast moving particles is the measure we call temperature described by a common unit we call degree. On the Celsius scale, the number 100 was chosen to represent the point on the scale where water (at sea level) is observed to boil. The boiling phenomenon doesn't mean that the molecules are all moving at a uniform speed -- if that were true, *then* you could relate time to temperature, because the fact that all water of a given volume under identical atmospheric pressure reaches the boiling point at the same degree, would mean that time passes at the same uniform rate for every particle in the universe. Of course, we know that is false, and your hypothesis is therefore falsified.

The size of the Kelvin degree is identical to Celsius. The absolute degree interval [0,1) does not include zero, because we don't know what "fast" and "slow" mean when all particles are still, which is theoretically impossible. Again, your hypothesis is falsified, because unless zero time is a real physical quantity, time cannot measure action.

Tom

Georgina,

You wrote, "How can you not see that there is a difference between how something is made and what it represents???"

How can you not see that there is no difference in the physical principles that govern both representation and action? If this weren't true, Lev Goldfarb would be a crank -- he isn't, though, because regardless of what formal representation one chooses, physical foundations remain unchanged.

"Is the American flag just woven and dyed cotton fibres??"

To use Einstein's analogy, is a symphony just variations in sound wave pressure?

Both are true.

"I had already said that I agreed the process was part of the foundational physics!!"

Then you agreed to something that I didn't propose.

"How the sensory system functions is totally with in the physics and biochemistry that is going on not in any way separate from it but the output *represents* something different from the data input and the sources of data in the external environment."

I don't subscribe to dualism.

"You have said what is outputs is not physical reality. I understand your explanation of physical reality and agree that using your definition that is correct."

Actually, I said -- or meant, if it isn't clear -- that reality is not what we interpret it to be; reality is the output of logically self-consistent physical principles, and is thus potentially objective. I don't know any better way to describe science than in Jacob Bronowski's words: " ... the search for unity in hidden likenesses." We don't need "something else" to explain reality in physical terms.

"However it IS still significant. The significant issue is with the output from data received from the external environment. As that is fabricated into a space-time emergent reality. A *representation* that is output from the process that is occurring wholly within the foundational pre-space time reality.

Data can persist in that pre-space time environment and its distribution allows the fabrication of composite realities formed from data that had different 'temporal' origins.I.e. they had different origin iterations of the Object universe.I would like to think that your disagreement comes despite understanding fully what I have said, which unfortunately is not the case."

I understand that your view advocates dualism -- and I find that view tersely validated in your recent reply to Jens Koeplinger in Ben Dribus' forum: " ... it is possible to have a QM type model and GR both representing different facets of reality and so compatible rather than contradictory. That arrangement also enables the temporal paradoxes to be overcome."

That's dualism. And one must understand the difference between dualism (different, or independent 'facets of reality') and duality -- two ways of saying the same thing.

Tom

Tom,

If a composite fabricated reality is made from data pertaining to different arrangements of the material universe, and that composite output is taken as the external reality that exists ,then the physics that works for that fabricated simulation can be different from the physics operating externally; and which caused the simulation to be formed. Just as the computer game world can be fully formed by software and hardware functioning in our world but at the same time the game world IS NOT our world and different laws of physics can apply within the game if that is what has been incorporated into it.

I need to make clear I have not said, or thought, anything personal about Lev Goldfarb and have certainly never said or implied in any way that he is a crank. I don't much like the implication that I am being disrespectful or in some way insulting to others just by stating -my opinion- about the physics. Within my subjective reality it is possible for me to disagree with other people without thinking them mad (or bad) for thinking differently from me. Of course different representations can be used for the same thing. That's why I talked about using a quaternion representation for space-time rather than flat manifold; and then the difficulties of projecting the one onto the other. However I am not just talking about different representations of the foundation but the relationship between the foundational physics and the emergent physics.

At some stage it is no longer fabrication process but output. What physics pertain within the fabrication that is output is now a valid question. There is relativity of size, as a more distant objects appear smaller than the same object that is closer to the observer; constancy of the speed of light due to time dilation and length contraction; All of Einstein's space-time relativity relates to the output of the processing of electromagnetic radiation data. While in the external material reality objects do not undergo that kind of relativity because they are not fabricated from selected and processed data with an incorporated transmission and processing delay but atoms in uni-temporal space.Complicating matters there is also the distribution of the potential sensory data formed from interact of EM radiation with objects in the environment.

Tom, I understand perfectly well the difference between things that -are- different and things that are the same just described differently. This framework is a novel arrangement that is mathematically interesting because of the conundrum about belonging to a set or not. The output image fabrication -I.e.explicate (space-time) order has to be within the implicate (pre-space time) order but not be that implicate pre-space time order. It is also strange because the size difference and difference in numbers of dimensions.How can, lets say, a 4 dimensional object be contained within a 3 dimensional object? Not easily. HOWEVER because the explicate reality is not the observer independent foundational reality but a fabricated simulation then it can be holly contained despite the dimensional discrepancy. That is why the Image reality is shown on a different level even though it is contained within the Object reality. The separation is not spatial. Its not naive, intuitive or obvious, simple dualism like simple spatial separation that you are probably thinking about when you dismiss the proposition.

"The physical is a vehicle or substratum allowing deeper things to occur, that are not entailed by the physical per se."

George, I don't find that defensible, in a world made entirely of physical information.

"Example: a football match. There is a lot going on that is not just a different way of saying physics things. It has an entirely different dimension of meaning that physics simply cannot encompass, although it enables it to occur."

Meaning may exist a priori -- inferred from the assumption of universal logically consistent physical principles -- and meaning may be abstracted from phenomena, inferred from the application of those principles to local measurement. That meaning can be *assigned* to phenomena, however -- independent of measurement -- implies philosophical dualism at the same fundamental level that gives us a notion of supernatural interference with history. And from that, it logically follows that personal belief has an effect on the physical world.

Einstein's example -- that even though a symphony may be described as variations in sound wave pressure, the description adds nothing to the meaning of a symphony -- informs us that the duality between real experience and metaphysical meaning is unitary. I think the same can be said of a football game or any other personal experience, independent of what one believes about the experience.

"I know that's unpopular - too bad! Guess I'm with Georgina on this one."

Fair enough. I don't think of the issue as one of popularity -- I think it's what essentially motivates the question of whether personal belief affects physical reality. I prefer the objectivity of metaphysical realism.

Tom

Georgina, I don't have any more to say about the possible existence of two realities. I don't subscribe to the proposition, because I simply don't see any way to rationally demonstrate it. I regret that you misunderstood my reference to Lev Goldfarb -- it had nothing to do with you personally or anything you said -- it was only by way of explaining that any potentially rich formal representation, such as the Goldfarb ETS formalism, is computable, and therefore can in principle be correlated to real experience. In other words, the choice of representation is irrelevant to a unitary reality -- though some representations might be more complete than others (more deeply able to expose and communicate "hidden likenesses").

Tom

Tom,

I do not think the "fabric of spacetime" is physically real, in the sense that it can be warped, expanded, contracted, etc, anymore than I think there are giant cosmic gearwheels causing epicycles. As we have discussed many times before, the math of epicycles was quite accurate and could, with some degree of tweeking, be made completely accurate, for the very simple reason that we are the center point of our perspective of the universe and it therefore is possible to model this fact. In fact, with enough detail we could create a Tomcentic model of the universe, because you are the center of your point of view. That doesn't mean there are Titans pushing the entire cosmos in the opposite direction, everytime you walk across the room. Similarly, because rates of change and atomic structure are distorted by velocity, gravity fields, etc, mean there exists this enity called "spacetime." Yes, we treat duration as a vector, but duration does not transcend the present. It is the state of the present between the occurence of particular events. That's why I keep emphasizing the major problem with our understanding of time is that it is not the present moving from past to future, but the changing configuration of what exists, turning future into past. Physic only re-enforces this problem by treating time as a measure.

Yes, temperature is an average level of activity, but every regular action amounts to a clock, each subject to enviromental circumstances affecting its rate. If there were only precisely regular, unchanging actions, there would be no arrow of time. So both time and temperature are effects arising from a general state of activity.