Hi Tom,

Problem is, observational evidence in cosmology is not direct, but interpreted through a model of GR where it is unphysical for certain "constants" to actually be constant. The cosmological "constant" is the number one unphysical "constant" of the mainstream presentation of GR, but legitimate suspicions can also be raised about the speed of light and gravitational constant not varying with the radial scale factor of the universe. I'm not the only one in the essay contest smelling a rat on these points. For GR to be physics these corrections to unphysical constancy must be made prior to feeding the observational data into GR for a closed universe, and this isn't happening. Until these corrections are made, the claims for what the observational data means in GR is not credible physics.

With a closed universe - and my representational propostion I gave in my response to Rick being true - then the particle physics of the SM can be derived in a theory that unifies with gravity - the theory itself is just GR in 11D, and nothing else. The experimental basis for particle physics is much more reliable than that of cosmology, where we also know that the although the assumption of QT being fundamental is wrong, we also know that its features which give experimental results must be reproduced nonetheless. We are on a path where particle physics is going to say that the standard cosmology is wrong, and it is fairly straightforward to identify the "constants" in the unphysical interpretation of mainstream GR as being the problem.

Best,

Michael

Michael,

You wrote: "The experimental basis for particle physics is much more reliable than that of cosmology, where we also know that the although the assumption of QT being fundamental is wrong, we also know that its features which give experimental results must be reproduced nonetheless."

Sure, I agree.

"We are on a path where particle physics is going to say that the standard cosmology is wrong, and it is fairly straightforward to identify the 'constants' in the unphysical interpretation of mainstream GR as being the problem."

I don't agree that there is a boundary between Einstein's cosmology and whatever quantum gravity turns out to be. What I mean is (and I think Vesselin Petkov did an outstanding job of explaining this in his essay) the absence of inertia is a telling sign that the universe is flat (I interpret this as the S^7 physical space, following Joy) without being necessarily open. That is, as Petkov notes, "The equal status of geodesics in flat and curved spacetimes is encoded in the fall of different masses with the same acceleration. By the geodesic hypothesis, their fall is inertial and indeed the motion of falling particles is unsurprisingly similar to motion by inertia in the absence of gravity -- particles that move by inertia do so irrespective of their masses."

Why would we think that mass effects in the standard model of particle physics differ from those in relativity? A relativistic quantum cosmology would eliminate the need for quantized spacetime without obviating particle quanta as manifest in high energy experiments and correlated properties -- these are where the locally unmeasured results that you call unphysical are corrected by topology, because the topology frees us from imagined distance boundaries that turn out to be irrelevant to the fundamental physics. Indeed, "all physics is local," just as Einstein prescribed.

Best,

Tom

Hello all,

I have some thoughts I'd like to summarize here, relating to what was said a few items up the stack. Non-associative geometry explores the ways in which aspects of interiority/exteriority become relational in higher-dimensional spaces. The dynamics are explored in Michael's description of 2nd and 3rd order relativity above - which I think was brilliantly well-stated.

Briefly; in complex figures like S7, the fact there are multiple (28) smooth/differential structures possible is in some way of a reflection that the figure has multiple throats, or radii, where various portions of the same figure can be within or outside others, topologically speaking. It can be effectively round, toroidal, or pretzel-like, and encode a twist or torsion when parallelized.

The associative property or grouping calculations within an equation has a structural equivalent in geometry, in this property where forms can exist inside or outside of another figure. To some extent; this allows the higher-d exotic spheres to be explained. But this insight is similar in form to the observation that commutativity is connected with notions of size and distance, and non-commutativity requires us to redefine those concepts.

More later,

Jonathan

Hi Tom,

If you don't mind me asking, what are your reasons for a belief in quantum gravity? The main justification has always been the ethos of the paradigm of QT being fundamental that everything had to be quantised, including gravity. The reason for believing that QT had to be fundamental was Bell's supposed "theorem" saying that there could be no other option. But that's not true, and so ends the paradigm of QT being fundamental - with it goes the condition that gravity *has* to be quantised. There has never been any experimental evidence for quantum gravity, and without the paradigm saying that it *has* to exist, it seems to become an unsupported speculation. Is there some other basis for thinking there is quantum gravity?

Best,

Michael

Hi Michael,

I am still working on the papers by Witten (1981), Bailin and Love (1987), and you (2012) in order to understand our problem better.

In the meantime let me second your reply to Tom above. Already in 1935 EPR pointed out that QT is not a fundamental theory of nature. This was seriously undermined by Bell in 1964, who in my opinion was driven to his so-called theorem by his fondness of Bohm's non-local theory. But now at least some of us know how wrong Bell was and how wrongheaded the entire enterprise of quantum gravity is. So I fully endorse your comments above to Tom.

In this context it is also worth mentioning the news about supersymmetry which you must have heard by now.

Best,

Joy

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  • Post #327

Hi Michael,

" ... the condition that gravity *has* to be quantised."

Gravity, perhaps. but not spacetime. It follows, that if gravity is not a force, no force exchange particle will be found because infinite quantization is identical to no quantization.

I agree with Vesselin Petkov. Particles do not resist motion -- exactly as in Galilean relativity, the curved path and the straight path are equal in all geodesics. Given that parameter, quantum gravity is self similar to classical gravity. I think we will quantize it at the classical scale using the Hilbert space model of quantum theory.

"There has never been any experimental evidence for quantum gravity, and without the paradigm saying that it *has* to exist, it seems to become an unsupported speculation. Is there some other basis for thinking there is quantum gravity?"

I think Petkov has identified it: the absence of inertia.

Best,

Tom

Hi Joy,

Yes, the same line of reasoning goes against supersymmetry as well, so not a great surprise. But there does seem to be some denial over the death of their pet SUSY.

On the issue of physics beyond the SM, I must point out that my dimensionally reduced Langragian does have W-H interaction terms beyond the SM from the quartic scalar field term eqn (20). Not a great deal of new physics I must admit, but a difference nonetheless.

Best,

Michael

To answer my own question, No. The equivalence between the different octonion algebras mentioned by Rick and Jonathan doesn't take into account the physical reality of symmetry breaking. This first picks out one of the handed algebras, and then breaks the equivalence between the 8 algebras of that handedness.

My SU(3)-Spin(3) issue is a new paradigm issue, where the representation of reality capable of accounting for all experimental results doesn't match the underlying physical reality in the strict sense envisaged by Einstein in EPR. When this is taken into account, the physical colour space is the S3 fibre of S7, but the colour group after the representational shift to QFT could look like SU(3). I should have the details resolved shortly.

Micahel

Hi Michael,

I got a bit distracted by various things, one of them being a revision of my latest paper. For the sake of completeness of my argument I have added a new appendix, Appendix B. It does not concern our discussion here, but it seemed necessary to add this appendix to pre-empt any scepticism. The paper now seems complete and self-contained.

As for our problem, I am still having difficulty reconciling your compactified S7 within my framework. The key issue for me is to understand the construction given in equations (6.105) to (6.108) of my book (which involves macroscopic directions n1, n2, n3, and n4) within your theory, where S7 is compactified to a microscopic scale. The problem becomes acute when we realize that in the actual GHZ experiment the detector directions n1, n2, n3, and n4 could be separated by miles, if not by light years. These issues are not unrelated to our discussion about your microscopic versus my macroscopic fermions. The simple product structure you posit, namely S3 x S7, seems too simple.

Best,

Joy

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  • Post #331

Joy...the red shift -- less energy, farther away, red-shifted, larger/flattened, in an increasingly invisible space....does this not bear relation to the earth at our feet in terms of how we see? Also, the V-like bending of light (narrowing of space) as it might relate thereto? Consider please dropping an object towards the earth.

Hi Joy,

Fair enough.

On the macroscopic versus microscopic issue, in section 7 of my paper I show the fields of QFT to be an approximate representation of the underlying physical reality that only holds on the condition of no gravitational curvature. So the QFT approx. would break down over the scale of light years, implying that strong quantum correlations wouldn't hold over that scale. On the microscopic scale, the physical interaction leading to the QT-style correlations involves virtual-radiation in the form of exponential evanescent waves, which would be expected to mean that the strong correlations become harder and harder to maintain as the physical scale gets bigger. To the point where even the curvature of space is enough to disrupt the required coherence.

I should make clear that my model is *not* a starting point, but an end point - conclusion *not* proposition. The starting point is that QT is not fundamental, which I proved by brute force - the metaphysics proving this is here - and not your finesse. Either way, this really does define a different paradigm where:

1) gravity doesn't need to be quantised, so GR as it stands could be just fine

2) the fields of field theory need some new identifiable physical basis

3) for gauge fields, Kaluza and Klein showed that gauge fields can arise as the form of metric terms in an extended GR theory that unifies gravity with particle forces

4) ditto for scalar fields, such as the symmetry breaking fields

5) fermionic matter fields are introduced into QFT solely on the basis of QT being fundamental, which it isn't. So what is the physical basis of fermionic particles?

6) fermionic matter fields aren't fundamental, so they can't be supersymmetry

Given these facts of the new paradigm of QT not being fundamental, solve for physics.

I tackle the missing bit of KK which is no fermionic matter. From my experience of topological defects in QFT I know that a sure-fire way to get particulate objects in a field theory - GR being generically viewed as a metric field theory - is symmetry breaking. Furthermore, if the particle symmetry spaces are unified into a closed space, then it is well-known that any symmetry breaking that gives electromagnetism is going to give topological defects. So how do you realise symmetry breaking without the arbitrary addition of a symmetry breaking field?

My solution comes from the fact that poking a hole through a sphere S^N for N>2 can always give a (left or right) twisted torus - so the symmetry of S^N is broken. Viewing such a hole as an internal bridge through the sphere gives the form of the process in GR - where once again, we find Einstein.

With these conditions there is only 1 solution - hence conclusion, not proposition.

Best,

Michael

"My solution comes from the fact that poking a hole through a sphere S^N for N>2 can always give a (left or right) twisted torus - so the symmetry of S^N is broken."

Michael, this confuses me a bit. It would seem to destroy the simple connectedness by which LH and RH quantum elements may be entangled to an infinitesimal distance, and communicate (correlate) to infinity. So far as I understand Joy's model, torsion is innate (the Mobius band is embedded in the topology S^2 S^2, which is equivalent to S^3).

"Viewing such a hole as an internal bridge through the sphere gives the form of the process in GR - where once again, we find Einstein."

Einstein's problem in making GR a complete theory, however, is that the space does not collapse to a point. I don't see how introducing toroidal shapes solves that problem. Extending the topology -- from the simplest Riemann sphere S^3 to the limit of simply connected parallelized spheres of S^7 -- does. S^3 measure space differs from R^3 by the point at infinity.

Best,

Tom

Hi Tom,

All the lovely symmetry of S7 and the algebra of octonions misses a CRITICAL bit of physics - for the real particles of physics, symmetry is broken. Only left-handed particles couple to the Weak force - this breaks both the left-right chiral symmetry for real particles, and the underlying symmetry of the Weak force. No matter how you view the octonions (S7) as playing the starring role in the mathematics, for it to be physics, the symmetry HAS to be broken.

Poking a hole in S10 gives a twisted torus S3*S7 with a twisted map from S7 to the closed spatial universe S3 - trying this out in GR gives a scalar field in the dimensionally reduced Lagrangian with ALL the properties of the Higgs field (here). A twisted map from S7 to S3 could be given as an assumption if you prefer, but I'm rather fond of causation in physics, which a wormhole in S10 satisfies. Note that this twist has nothing to do with the intrinsic twists within S3 and S7 - it is the insertion of a twist with a causal before and after where the symmetry of the S7 is broken afterwards, as required by physics. The resulting physics takes place on the toroidal surface of the universe, no points, no singularities.

Einstein's real problem was that he didn't pay close enough attention to Godel. If he had, he would have realised that his dream of a complate physics in the sense he meant is mathematically impossible - the representational change from discrete to continuous of QT is the solution. But otherwise he was correct, the universe doesn't play dice and pure geometry does work out.

Best,

Michael

Hello Michael,

I don't find compelling that "No matter how you view the octonions (S7) as playing the starring role in the mathematics, for it to be physics, the symmetry HAS to be broken." For this reason:

While no two fermions can occupy the same state at the same time, any number of bosons can. So I think the single simple point at infinity explains apparent asymmetry in nature, without sacrificing simply connected topology.

In other words, given the metric nature of spacetime (it's very important to me that Hestenes' octonionic algebra translates to Minkowski space) a nondegenerate measure may be explained in correlated quanta whose metric could only go to zero in a nonrelativstic measure space. Because the Minkowski space IS our measure space, however, relativity (physically real spacetime) governs measurement results. Joy's physical space limit of S^7 is nonrelativistic -- and because of this, the wave function is noncollapsing and results of the "experiment not done" are metaphysically real.

Best,

Tom

Hi Tom,

You're still ignoring the broken Weak symmetry. When your 2 fermions are neutrinos, they always have left-handed chirality and so don't display the parity symmetry of spacetime. No nicely symmetric description of spacetime is going to account for the real (i.e. not apparent) asymmetry between left-handed neutrinos and their non-existent right-handed counterparts.

The broken symmetry displayed by the fermions really is a big deal that needs to be accounted for, and a perfectly symmetrical space isn't going to do it. You have to sacrifice something - symmetry or simply connected topology of the universe - to get the real asymmetry displayed by particle physics.

Best,

Michael

Hi Michael,

You have a Nobel Prize winning point, and I cannot but agree with it.

My concern, however, is different from Tom's. My problem is simple: Your *conclusion* of S3 x S7 simply does not fit in with my explicit constructions. Please have a closer look at equations (6.105) to (6.108) of my book. Please tell me how am I to interpret these equations within your theory. Note well: Each n in R3, from the set { n1, n2, n3, n4 }, is embedded differently in S7. And GHZ is one of the simplest of all quantum states. Something nontrivial is going on which needs to be understood better. I am still waiting for epiphany to be able to comprehend this.

Best,

Joy

Hi Michael & Joy,

When the recent (now a non-issue) excitement over faster-than-light neutrinos was brewing, Joy said he thought it would -- if verified -- kill his model. I said I wasn't concerned about it. Here's why:

The reason is as simple as Einstein's thought experiment with the mirror. If an observer traveling at nearly the speed of light sees her reflection, no one-way measurement at or greater than the speed of light can be physical. Because spacetime is physically real, lepton chirality and weak force parity nonconservation can be explained by the topological point at infinity. While the point is not a barrier to the physics, it IS a limit to the measurement function. As I explained by the analogy of red and blue shifted information in my essay -- one-way observation implies a two-way measurement function. Nature could choose to be left handed because (as Joy's model verifies) chirality is a fundamental property of creation. Were it otherwise, God plays dice.

All best,

Tom

Hi Joy,

You capture a fundamental truth with your first line of Ch 6: "No-go theorems in physics are often founded on unjustified, if tacit assumptions, and Bell's theorem is no exception." I've shown that Witten's no-go for Kaluza-Klein theories is another one, where the tacit assumption is that the universe is open: if the universe is closed, then chiral Electroweak physics just falls out of a KK-theory, complete with all the known fundamental particles with the correct charges and couplings - and ALL boson masses.

However, the really BIG tacit assumption of physics lies within the EPR "condition of completeness": that "every element of the physical reality must have a counterpart in the physical theory". This covers both:

1) configuration-space: the space of experimental measurements of physical configurations

2) physical-space: the space of the physical objects and object dynamics that gives the physical configurations subject to measurement in 1)

The tacit assumption of EPR is that the two are the same (configuration-space = physical-space), but it is easy to find experimental evidence that this is not the case, which is why I put it in my essay. Fire an electron beam - collection of objects - into a lump of graphite and you get a diffraction pattern. The idea that this wave property is just a normal classical physics wave through a collection of objects is killed by turning down the intensity to reveal that it is in fact due to one particle waving. In the classical physics of objects - i.e. physical-space - there is no mechanism to create this wave effect. So the configuration-space contains a wave property that the physical-space doesn't, proving that configuration-space != physical-space.

Now consider tackling this using a hidden variable tactic - a perfectly valid thing to do. The first thing to note is that the hidden variable framework is constructed within configuration-space: measurement of particle property (A), measurement of wave property (B), and supposition of a hidden domain of complete states (L) that determines which of these two properties is measured in an experiment. Now suppose a probability distribution for the hidden variable taken from the hidden domain (L) and evaluate the expectation value for measurement of the particle property as per Bell's eqn (2). What you have is basically the QT integral where the hidden variable is the wave-function. It is important to note that this is in configuration-space, and it is the tacit assumption of Maths=Reality that implies the wave-function is a feature of physical-space (as given by 2). This is a false assumption.

The classical physics shows that configuration-space != physical-space (e.g. electron diffraction), and this can be proven directly from the classical physics of physical-space directly: in Newtonian mechanics there-exists physical systems for which a 1-to-1 denotation of the physical objects and dynamics maps onto the terms and operations of Gödel's proof of mathematical incompleteness, where the cardinality of the sets of objects of different types and dynamic states gives the natural-numbers of the arithmetic proof. Being a 1-to-1 denotation of physical-space - exactly as Einstein wanted - means that the undecidable propositions could correspond to observable features, i.e. elements of configuration-space. The electron wave-property is an experimentally measured example of this: there-exist elements of configuration-space that are not elements of physical-space (as given by 2). This proves Einstein wrong in the tacit assumption of the EPR "condition of completeness".

Both theory and experiment reveal a 10-ton woolly mammoth standing in the corner of the room saying "can you see me yet?" It's been standing there since 1931 being assiduously ignored. On pointing this out, instead of the response being "oh look, a talking mammoth", the response has instead been "they're extinct, so it can't be there". This can only be due to the ideological - religious - belief that Maths=Reality. The same sort of ideological belief by mathematicians was seen in the financial markets, where reality also spectacularly showed that Maths!=Reality, but the response has again been total and utter denial. The financial system also matched the system conditions required for Gödel.

Your corrected formulation of the hidden variable framework for EPR is still within configuration-space, and it is the false tacit assumption of Maths=Reality which falsely implies that this is exactly as for physical-space. This is the underlying source of our disagreement: your results directly show that the Maths of QT!=Reality (the point EPR were making), but underlying this is the Full Monty of Maths!=Reality (the point they missed). Your proposed experiment would be a direct test of this, and in an open science such checking would be nice idea. But the open science of our minds and private conversations unfortunately doesn't exist in the social reality ...

Best,

Michael

Hi Michael,

I am afraid you did not address my question. It is very simple. Let me try to ask again:

You have a theory of everything. I like your theory. It is based on 11D GR. I like that. It recognizes the significance of the spheres S0, S1, S3, and S7. I like that. It is a classical, realistic theory, without involving any form of non-locality or indeterminism. I like that. And although I haven't checked your results, I accept your claim that all of known physics falls out of your 11D GR based on S10. I have no reason to doubt your word. Remember also that I may be your closest and most sympathetic ally. I *want* to believe in your theory.

But I have a problem. The problem is this: Forget about EPR. Forget about Bell. Forget about my model and my point of view. Forget about configuration space versus physical space. Remembering that you have a theory of everything, consider only the standard four-particle GHZ state, given in my equation (6.97). This state has a very clear cut prediction. The prediction is stated in my equation (6.99). This prediction is experimentally confirmed. Any would be theory of everything must reproduce this experimental result. It can be easily reproduced by a non-local theory like quantum mechanics or Bohm's theory. But you claim that your theory is local and realistic. If so, then you must be able to reproduce the result (6.99), *explicitly*, in a manifestly local and realistic manner.

So here, finally, is my question: Can you show me explicitly how your theory reproduces this result in a manifestly local and realistic manner? I know your philosophy by now, so I am not asking you to restate your position. I am asking you to show me explicitly how your theory reproduces the prediction (6.99) in a manifestly local and realistic manner. There is no rush. Take your time. You are also free to take any of the results from my book, if you find them useful. And once again, please remember that I want to believe in your theory. So please help me believe in it.

Best,

Joy

Hi Joy,

As a theory of everything, it has the one thing that it wouldn't be expected to contain, and that is a proof of incompleteness saying that it isn't a theory of "everything": there could exist features which were true in both the theory and reality, but aren't derivable within the theory. However, this proof is in the specific context of the theoretical perturbative framework for the calculation of monopole self-energy. The calculation itself parallels the expansion of QFT, but in classical physics and without the monopoles possessing a wave property - a non-derivable feature within the perturbative framework. This incompleteness also implies that the particle masses cannot be calculated - further undecidable features.

However, topological considerations are not within the problematic perturbative framework constructed within the theory, and so could escape the incompleteness issue of the monopole dynamics. For example, with a wave property the monopoles are simultaneously in states of particle/anti-particle S0, cyclical wave S1, spin eigenstate S3 and a particle eigenstate of an underlying S7 - this S0, S1, S3, S7 stands out as being significant. When the boson wave modes occur as finite wave-trains, the same is true for them. Wave-particle duality is conceptually a combination of particle/anti-particle S0 and cyclical wave S1, which is itself the Hopf fibre-bundle S1, suggesting that escape from incompleteness by topological means could be possible, e.g. topological arguments could supply the missing wave property to give S0*S1. Your results suggest the same possibility, especially where the specifics of the hidden variable are irrelevant as it drops out of the calculation, such as for equation 6.96.

To your specific question - the physics of eqn 6.97 - this would start with a configuration of bare monopoles in the given spin eigenstates and particle eigenstates. A perturbative expansion about this configuration would proceed in a strictly local and realistic manner, in a form that was directly analogous to a QFT expansion but in classical physics. The problem is that the perturbative framework is still incomplete and the terms of this expansion won't include the wave-property which is undecidable within the framework itself. So this Plan A is stuffed without making the representational replacement from discrete to continuous terms that leads to QFT by explicitly adding the undecidable wave property by hand - Plan B. The calculation would then proceed exactly as for QT as it now *is* QT. This is the restriction imposed by the incompleteness result giving Maths != Reality. It's ugly, but it works.

Plan C is to use a hidden variable construction where the physical dynamics of the perturbative framework is denoted by a hidden variable lambda. The fact that lambda is never specified, and can be anything, means that it could be a representation of the physical dynamics of the perturbative framework. For topological spin monopoles, the topological conditions are as for your analysis and so would proceed in the same way, with the unspecified hidden variable dropping out at the end. However, the integral over the hidden variable with an assumed probability distribution contains within it the same condition of a shift to a continuous denotation of the hidden dynamics as for the representational shift that gives QFT. The difference here is that the undecidable wave property doesn't have to be added, as such details just drop out of the calculation.

This is why I'm so interested in your topological configuration-space results, as it looks as though it may be possible to supply the missing features - blocked by the incompleteness of the locally-realistic perturbative framework - through topological means. But there still seems to be the same requirement of a shift to a continuous probability description, whether it is explicit as in the shift to QFT, or hidden within the hidden variable framework. The character of topological defects gives the shift from continuous to discrete in physical terms, but the shift back again - continuous description of discrete particles - seems to be in descriptive terms only.

Best,

Michael