The Universe - An Effect Without Cause by Philip Gibbs

Dear Avtar Singh,

Your reply was very informative about your view. Thank you for your detailed response and to Philip Gibbs for my use of his forum for this purpose.

James

Dear Phil,

You wrote:

"Complete symmetry will be an important element "

And further:

"The difficulty is to show that such structures can underlie string theory.

I think that recent work on the holographic principle and higher spin symmetries indicates that this may be possible."

Do you think that complete symmetry could happen if the big bang produced "fully entangled CP symmetric copy universe bubbles at a long distance"

Entangled even down to the Planck scale?

Then our universe is not any more unique and even humans have to deal with a shared consciousness with our anti-matter copy brothers and sisters over there ( inside the raspberry shaped multiverse)

See:

The Bouncing CP Symmetrical Multiverse, Based on a Massless but Energetic Oscillating (Non SM Higgs) Vacuum Particle System.

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Vuyk_13121461.pdf_The_bounc_1.pdf

or:

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1412

Leo Vuyk.

Phil

I put a new improved version of an essay that is very different from that which in vixra.

Please read it with additional posts ..

Thanks for the shelter of crazy ideas.

Yuri

Dear Phil,

Beautiful essay. Definitely causality changed after the discovery of relativity, but after the advent of quantum mechanics, it truly became something else :)

I concur with your affirmation "Correlations and consistency are all that can be counted on if we want to understand the foundations of physics."

About the survey aiming to prove correlation between smoking and tooth decay, maybe the common cause is a careless behavior. I was amused when I heared about another research, claiming that reading while sitting on the toilet causes constipation -- the converse seems a much simpler explanation :).

Congratulations for the deep and well-explained observations about causality.

Cristi Stoica

I don't necessarily agree with the idea, but the essay was a very good read.

Interesting that you include 'consistency with experiment'. There is the Rub ! That justifies singlets for right handed fermions, in the absence of some algebraic reason for it, but leaves one wishing there were an explicit algebraic reason. Perhaps the emphasis on Lie algebras has drawn attention away from the algebra that the Lie algebra lives in. Hamilton had a lot to say with quaternions without knowing about SU(2). The really peculiar thing is that useful statements can be made with quaternion arithmetic to add up "force vectors" - but the gross oversimplification was essential to the evolution of physics. Ditto for Maxwell. Anyway, I suspect that this Consistency business ultimately depends on the design of the universe being some algebra. I don't know whether a notion of 'emergence' clarifies or confuses the issue. At least algebra leads to asking important questions. Like - what does it mean that in real Clifford algebra the +--- signature is in a different algebra than the -+++. And complex octonions have both. To make things more confusing, consider a direct product of octonions - because it includes direct products of quaternions you get Clifford algebras ! Maybe sometimes the Lorentz signature does not necessarily refer to spacetime - it might have multiple meanings, like pauli matrices and Spin - or Weak Isospin. Oh well - it is sort of amusing that the universe is such that Hamilton did not have to derive classical mechanics from chromodynamics, or we would be in worse shape than at present.

Ed,

''Quantum measurement predictions are consistent with relativity for macroscopic observations, but there is no consensus on how to explain this consistency in fundamental terms.''

My essay is a sketch of a much more extended investigation about how a universe might create itself out of nothing (see my website www.quantumgravity.nl). In this study I have proposed a mass definition based on the Uncertainty Principle (UP): the less indefinite the position of a particle or the mass center of an object is, the greater its mass is. If forces upon a particle can be stronger as they are more exactly equal from all directions, and they are more precisely equal within a smaller area as these forces are stronger, which they are as the mass of the particle is greater, then its position is less indefinite as its mass is greater and vice versa. As the force on it and definiteness in its position also depends on the mass its environment and its distribution, its mass in this definition automatically is a relative quantity.

If a larger distance between particles is a less definite distance, and particles can only exchange energy (see below) at a frequency the definiteness of which corresponds to that in their distance, then this frequency becomes less definite, shifts to red at larger distances, agreeing with the proposition in my essay that in a SCU clocks are observed to run at a slower pace as they are more distant, even when at rest.

In another chapter ('The color of light') this definition is shown to be consistent with relativity theory. Though this is just a first, qualitative analysis, I suspect that it must be possible to derive the equations of relativity theory from the UP, using the proposed mass definition. As in a SCU particles are as much the product as the source of the force between them, here forces never become infinite, so we don't get the infinite self-energies of QED not the singularities of a BBU-based GR.

If, as I argue, c doesn't refer to a velocity but to a property of spacetime so the contact between particles at different spacetime points is instantaneous, then they are at all times informed about each other's state and motion, the info consisting of the frequency they exchange energy at and its polarisation, info which is refreshed, updated in every cycle. So the hidden variables Einstein wanted to exist to avoid indeterminism, can be identified as the energy exchange by means of which particles express and preserve each other's properties, its instantaneousness making self-evident things like the EPR paradox, entanglement and double-slit experiments.

However, the unpredictability Einstein wished to eradicate remains since (in a SCU) particles are as much the effect as the cause of their interactions. It is because the exchange of energy, of info between particles is unobservable as long as they are in equilibrium that we have been able to remain ignorant of it: because we've always assumed that particles have passively been created, so only are source of forces: their exchange only becomes observable when their equilibrium is disturbed and energy is emitted or absorbed.

In a SCU real particles can be thought of as virtual particles which by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, manage to force each other to reappear again and again after every disappearance, so here they create and un-create each other time and time again. The smaller their distance, the greater the force between them, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, the higher their energy is. In this view the origin of mass is obvious, as is the equality of inertial and gravitational mass, so unlike a Big Bang Universe, a SCU doesn't need Higgs particles, nor string theory, bigbang, inflation or dark energy to explain observations.

Well, I just wanted to give you some reason to take a look at my study as the essay was too short to elaborate my arguments in full.

Anton

Phil,

A very interesting discussion but how do you use "consistency" in in discovering the properties of or explaining how gravity works? The example of the discovery of the the Higgs boson speaks of the Standard Model and quantum physics. Gravity is a strange and mysterious bird. I could only refer to empirical evidence and a few studies to even begin to explain it.

Jim

Dr. Gibbs,

"Yes, emergence is acausal. I find it hard to give a more elaborate answer because I dont know if or how you see it as causal."

My meaning of causal is that the theorist is not permitted to interject something new for free as if it is a gift of the universe and whose mystery and existence begins when first noticed in empirical evidence. I will look back at your essay to remind myself or perhaps to finally find the means by which effects are demonstrated to be allowed to be unjustified. Unjustified as I am using it means 'has no natural requirement for explanation'.

James

Dear Philip,

What is your opinion about SPF symmetry and Scale dimension , which are found in the Theory of Infinite Nesting of Matter (subject of my essay)?

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Philip,

You touch upon a fundamental topic, that of actually putting in question causality as foundational, as it has been done for other properties such as as locality and reality. If I understand you don't reject causality as a property of reality but you do so as a fundamental property, in other words causality is an emergent property given the emergent property of both space and time from general relativity. I couldn't fully get whether "complete symmetry" was perfect symmetry, and how the process of symmetry breaking is explained in your proposal, such as chiral properties at various levels of organisation of matter. I explain quite well several concepts that deserve attention, such as the holographic principle and the theories of information around black hole theoretical research.

Hi Phillip,

I really enjoyed your thoughtful essay, and its emphasis on the import of symmetry and consistency. In my journalistic work I've written quite a bit about the holographic principle as well as the potentially fractal distribution of large scale structure and am always intrigued by connections drawn between the two. If you are not already familiar with it, you may find Jonas Mureika's work interesting.

My essay here deals with holography in an entirely different context, but in case it is of interest to you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Regards,

Amanda

Dear Philip I hope this finds you well

----

Hello. This is group message to you and the writers of some 80 contest essays that I have already read, rated and probably commented on.

This year I feel proud that the following old and new online friends have accepted my suggestion that they submit their ideas to this contest. Please feel free to read, comment on and rate these essays (including mine) if you have not already done so, thanks:

Why We Still Don't Have Quantum Nucleodynamics by Norman D. Cook a summary of his Springer book on the subject.

A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory by Eric Stanley Reiter Very important experiments based on Planck's loading theory, proving that Einstein's idea that the photon is a particle is wrong.

An Artist's Modest Proposal by Kenneth Snelson The world-famous inventor of Tensegrity applies his ideas of structure to de Broglie's atom.

Notes on Relativity by Edward Hoerdt Questioning how the Michelson-Morely experiment is analyzed in the context of Special Relativity

Vladimir Tamari's essay Fix Physics! Is Physics like a badly-designed building? A humorous illustrate take. Plus: Seven foundational questions suggest a new beginning.

Thank you and good luck.

Vladimir

After studying about 250 essays in this contest, I realize now, how can I assess the level of each submitted work. Accordingly, I rated some essays, including yours.

Cood luck.

Sergey Fedosin

Dear Philip,

I am just asking you to check mine work if you can find time

essay (Vixra.org)

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

Yes if someone is rated low their position goes down, its a terrible problem with the system LOL.

I never expeted this essay to do even as well as it is doing now because many people think wrongly that temporal causality is fundamental and vote accordingly. I am happy that I made the point nevertheless.