Cherished Assumptions and the Progress of Physics by Jonathan J. Dickau

Jonathan,

You might consider further dissecting the intellectual dynamic in physical terms. Yes, children do explore in a non-linear, expansive fashion, but the end result is adulthood, where we settle into a stable, linear order and routine. Much as stem cells start out with the potential to be any part of the body, but to actually function as useful, mature cells, have to settle into a particular function. In many ways, this process is reductionism. It is quite useful and necessary in its linear, distillate focus. Eventually though, it becomes a closed set and subject to the old meaning of entropy, using up its stored energy and unable to access more, since that would disrupt its mature definition and routine. So it eventually dies and residual energy is dispersed out into the environment. There is this constant inductive/deductive cycle of expansion and contraction, that has no final goal, as that would simply be one more declining closed set of complete order, with no need for further expansion.

So we step back and see what stage of the cycle we currently inhabit and what lays in store, further along the pattern. I think that in current physics, just as with the current economic situation, we are at a frothy top, where efforts to continue on the present trajectory only result in blowing ever more ephemeral bubbles. So the slide back down from this top will be a form of reductionism, as all the weaker ideas struggle to survive and stronger ideas, like rocks poking through a crashing wave, become more evident. Obviously we all have different perspectives on which are the strong ideas and which are the frothy waves, but only time/evolution of the process will sort them out. Then we will repeat the process, using these new foundational concepts to further expand our understanding of reality.

Not to imply this isn't what you are doing, but just wanted to emphasize how the intellectual process is a reflection of the physical process.

Jonathan,

It is a very universal pattern. One to which even physical theorists are subject.

It's not that one can't maintain a vital outlook as an adult, but it requires a degree of objectivity many institutions, consciously or sub-consciously, frown on, given the natural tendency to promote acolytes and demote skeptics. Neither societies or organisms could long function otherwise. Nature long ago developed a process to deal with it though. Regeneration.

Hi Jonathan,

Bravo! As both science and journalism, this essay rates with the very best. Tightly reasoned, impeccably organized and a pleasure to read. I appreciate the intellectual courage and honesty it takes to reference the Joy Christian affair. Not surprisingly, my own essay builds on Joy's results, and I hope you get a chance to read and comment.

In your notes, you make the point, "The 3-sphere is an odd-ball ... as it has a Möbius-like surface." Joy makes use of that nontrivial property in his quantum correlation function. In an earlier paper (ICCS 2006) I describe it as a continuous projection between S^2 and S^4. My conviction is only stronger that the best ideas in foundational physics are converging on a complete continuous function theory that only a topological framework can accommodate.

All best,

Tom

Dear Mr. Dickau,

Although your essay was exceptionally well written, your introductory comment about children (possibly being brainwashed) into obtaining symbolic thinking capability at age two and a half was one of the most saddening pieces of literature I have ever read. No so-called civilized child has ever been taught how to obtain its own food, or find its own shelter, or to exist clad only in its own skin. Not one Reality 101 class has ever been taught in any school. Yet every single child is taught to parrot the nonsensical abstract numbers 1,2,3. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my essay Sequence Consequence, the sensible reality of here and now is obtainable by all. Unreasonable human addicted concentration on the abstractions of the mystical there and then such as mathematics is the province of the arrogant few.

Dear Jonathan,

The FQXi contest challenged me to question nearly anything except causality and measurable quantities. Because I feel that the peers are hoping for unexpected ideas that do not hurt, I see this an unfulfillable desire, and I cannot even cheat myself, I have to hope they will nonetheless accept my submitted essay by the end of this week. My arguments are mistakable as primitive. They seem to be outdated and in some respect contrary to yours. Edwin Klingman named some authors of essays with which I tend to agree at least in part: Daryl Jantzen, Israel Perez, Jonathan Kerr. I should add some more, at least Alexander Kadin. Let's nonetheless look for agreeable among us insights that are not necessarily in a lazy one-to-one relation to mandatory tenets.

Having said what I consider most important, I cannot resist to cautiously tell you that I am someone who does not like intuitive metaphors like a tired point. When I was a little boy, many years before I heard of Euclid, I already understood a point as something non-tangible that does not have parts. Fattening a tire beyond the center seems to be impossible to me. Do not get me wrong. I have no problem to imagine all sorts of maneuvers, transformations and the like. I see myself merely aware of logical self-deceptions in case of equating model and reality.

Begging your pardon,

Eckard

Mr. Dickau. The observations at a distance (in cosmology) that you reference are [importantly] related to creations of thought and to the uniformity/sameness (but unpredictability, on balance) and contradictions that they involve/reveal. Our understanding of outer space is significantly limited.

The basics of typical/ordinary experience (including vision) are fundamental to physics, theory, and the understanding. Please, open your eyes to the direct experience of/by the body. Do not lose sight of that. You have fine ability, and you are considerably more open minded than many at this site. Good luck with your work.

Combining, balancing, and including opposites is key.

Dear Jonathan:

I enjoyed reading your well-written and comprehensive paper on the cherished assumptions. I completely agree with your statement:

"There will always be frontiers in Physics, horizons we cannot reach and must speculate about instead. It is best, therefore, to be aware that any of our cherished assumptions could be wrong, and to remember the assumptions we do not know we have made might be an even greater problem."

What is missing may be more important than what is included but wrong. While the existing and well-cherished theories and assumptions may have been proven correct based on classical experiments performed as per the established scientific method, serious inconsistencies (singularities) and paradoxes (dark energy, dark matter, quantum gravity, multi-universes etc.) result when applied to predict the observed universe at cosmic scale. These paradoxes are shown to be the artifacts of the missing physics in my posted paper - " From Absurd to Elegant Universe".

The paper demonstrates that the current paradoxes are artifacts of the missing physics of the well-known phenomenon of the spontaneous mass-energy conversion such as observed in the spontaneous decay of quantum particles, wave-particle duality, and Hawking radiation [7] involving the evaporation of black holes mass. A new Gravity Nullification model (GNM) is proposed to describe the missing (hidden variable) physics of the spontaneous conversion of mass to energy. This is integrated into a simplified form of general relativity to provide a GNM based Universe Expansion (GNMUE) model, which predicts both the observed linear Hubble expansion in the nearby universe and the accelerating expansion in the distant universe. The integrated model resolves many of the paradoxes haunting physics and cosmology today. The proposed model eliminates singularities from existing models and the need for the incredible and unverifiable assumptions. Predictions of the model show a close agreement with the recent observations of the universe. The integrated model is also shown to resolve inconsistencies between quantum mechanics and general relativity. GNMUE provides consistent answers to key fundamental questions:

• Did the universe have a beginning - the Big Bang? Does it have an ending?

• What is the true nature of time and space? Is the universe expansion accelerating?

• Could the speed of light be exceeded? What is C? Do the universal constants vary with time?

• Are there parallel universes and multi-dimensions beyond ordinary three space and one time dimension?

• Is uncertainty or randomness the fundamental property of the universe?

• Is photon mass zero?

• Why the cosmological constant is so small as compared to that calculated by quantum mechanics?

• Is there non-locality in the universe?

• What is quantum gravity? Does quantum gravity have an absolute time?

• Is there dark matter or anti-matter? Do black holes exist?

• What governs the creation and dilation of matter?

• What governs the quantum versus classic behavior and the inner workings of quantum mechanics?

• What is the ultimate universal reality? Is it digital or analog or else?

In summary, all the above questions and the related assumptions currently cherished as answers are shown to be mere artifacts of the missing physics that must be included in a universal theory to avoid any paradoxes and inconsistencies.

Sincerely,

Avtar Singh

Thanks, Jonathan. I agree with Grangier on this one point, and strictly from a mathematical viewpoint. Bell's mathematics is sound -- as I say in my essay, however, not correspondent to the foundations of physical reality.

Looking forward to further dialogue!

Tom

Hi Jonathan,

Yes, indeed, thank you for taking the risk to mention my work in your essay. In fact I have seen it mentioned at least in four other essays posted here.

As for the "disproof" issue, according to my former PhD supervisor Abner Shimony---an undisputed authority on Bell's theorem after Bell---"no physical theory which is realistic as well as local in [the senses specified by EPR and Bell] can reproduce all of the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics." I have decisively disproved this statement of the theorem by constructing just such a local "theory." Therefore Bell's mathematical theorem no longer has the fundamental significance for physics it was thought to have.

This however does not mean that any attempt to produce a local model of physics can be successful from now on. One still has to satisfy the locality and reality conditions specified by both EPR and Bell to produce a genuinely local model of physics.

In any case, in the memory of Ray,

Have Fun!

Joy

Dear Jonathan:

Continuing on my previous post, I also agree with your statement:

"The point is that reality and the universe are unified - existing as a congruent whole. Rather than seeking a route to the unification of fundamental forces and entities, scientists should observe how nature is already unified, and highlight the unity that is already there, or the unifying concepts already in play. ....... They are connected more directly too, and all things form a congruent whole. There are no truly isolated systems, as everything is part of its environment and also helps to create that environment. I think this assumption will stand the test of time."

Yes, indeed, the above approach to science is again vindicated in my posted paper - " From Absurd to Elegant Universe", which provides the following new wholesome perspective on the universal reality encompassing the partial Newtonian, quantum, discrete, and non-discrete realities. The universe is shown to be a cosmos with a relativistic order and not chaos founded on uncertainty. The model also unfolds the following universal realities:

• The universe represents an eternal and omnipresent continuum of mass-energy-space-time following the conservation laws.

• Relativity, and not uncertainty, rules the universe's connectivity and non-locality via space-time dilation.

• Quantum reality represents only partial reality and must be augmented with relativistic considerations to represent the universal wholesome reality. The relativistic universal reality exists irrespective of the observer. Paradoxes of quantum measurements and quantum reality (entanglement, tunneling, multiverses, multi-dimensions and anti-matter etc.) are artifacts of the observational limitations imposed by the fixed space-time. A measuring instrument interprets the quantum phenomena (V~C) from a Newtonian (V~0) frame of reference, hence the quantum realty represents a truncated (collapsed wavefunction) partial reality resulting in the observed weirdness. In order to describe the true universal reality, proper inclusion of the relativistic effects is essential in interpreting the quantum observations performed in and limited by the fixed space-time.

• There is no multiverse. There is only one single quasi-static universe entailing various relativistic states of the one whole continuum of mass-energy-space-time (uncollapsed quantum wavefunction). The various relativistic states (at various V/C) of one mass-energy-space-time continuum may appear (allude) to a quantum observer (situated in fixed space-time) as parallel universes (multiple sets of mass-energy-space-time at various V/C). GNMUE model described in the paper provides a bridge between the discrete (V

The following got truncated from my post above:

• There is no multiverse. There is only one single quasi-static universe entailing various relativistic states of the one whole continuum of mass-energy-space-time (uncollapsed quantum wavefunction). The various relativistic states (at various V/C) of one mass-energy-space-time continuum may appear (allude) to a quantum observer (situated in fixed space-time) as parallel universes (multiple sets of mass-energy-space-time at various V/C). GNMUE model described in the paper provides a bridge between the discrete (V less than C) and non-discrete (V~C) realities via properly accounting for the relativistic effects.

In summary, your suggested approach to science, rather than sticking to the old cherished assumptions, is vindicated by my paper to provide a true wholesome reality and solution to many of the paradoxes currently paralyzing science.

Sincerely,

Avtar Singh