On the Foundational Assumptions of Modern Physics by Benjamin F. Dribus

Dear Benjamin,

Your CMH opens a lot of new perceptions and universes. I liked it very much. You also mention : "The initial family evolves to the terminal family", so in your view every universe was in facto initial and becomes terminal, also the conglomeration of universes that forms our "reality".

In "THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION" I go back to the initiality and limit our universe by the Planck length and time. So "reality" emerges from our consciousness, that is why I appreciate your "thought experiment".

I also saw that Eric verlinde had your attention, his perception of gravity is also in accordance with my idea that only materialistic reductionism is not the only way to research our questions about existence.

I hope that you will read my attribution in the contest, especially your opinion about my "causality" perception.

best regards

Wilhelmus

Ben,

Thank you for stopping by. I am very interested in reading your works. I will be writing to you later today.

James Dunn

Ben,

Thank you for the nice comments over on my essay. I responded over there. While your essay is way over my head in terms of math, the points you made that I think (?) I understood were very good! A few comments are below, but take them with a grain of salt because, as I said, it was kind of over my head. Anyways, they are:

1. I think your way of thinking as illustrated by this quote:

"What I try to do is build up fundamental physics from simple principles like cause and effect. This leads to some rather thorny mathematics, but my view is that the physical principles ought to be simple and well-motivated"

is exactly right, and I wish more physicists and thinkers in general would think this way. If we start at base principles like cause and effect, we have a better chance of building a working model of the fundamentals of the universe that can make predictions than by starting out with high level, assumption-riddled, current physics thinking and working down to more fundamental levels.

2. I totally agree that the assumption that systems evolve with respect to an independent time parameter, and that the universe has a static background structure seem unlikely. To me, if the universe is the "system", time is just the same as a sequential chain of physical events occurring within the universe, with the earlier events in the sequence corresponding to earlier times. If the events A ->B->C are sequentially followed by the events C->B->A, this doesn't mean that time is going backwards because the events C->B->A still occurred after the A->B->C sequence of events. When I hear physicists say that their equations work fine when time is negative, this doesn't mean that time in the real world (not in the equations) can actually go backwards. Also, if time exists as this separate, independent dimension somewhere, I'd like someone to point it out to me now. Where is it?! I can't see it. Also, in regard to the second assumption, I think of the universe a little more holistically where matter and energy aren't occurring against a separate space background, but rather that they're interactions between the units that make up the universe/space.

3. You mentioned on pg. 6 "This means, in particular, that spacelike sections are merely unordered sets, with no independent notion of distance or locality". If I understood this, I think I'd also agree because I think that location of something refers to its position relative to other things within a bigger set of things. That is, while a single existent state may "be" or exist as a location, it doesn't "have" a location within a bigger reference frame.

4. My own view on volume is that to physically exist, any existent state must have three dimensions, and, therefore, volume. I have trouble imagining an actual physical state in which one of the dimensions is zero. Not just infinitesimally small but actually zero. At zero, it disappears. So, three dimensions, or volume, seems to me to be a requirement of an existent state and thus a requirement for whatever existent state makes up our universe.

5. So, is a binary relation just a relationship between two elements in a set/ And, if one element causes the related element to appear, is this a causal relation? If this understanding is right, this makes a lot of sense to me because my own view of existence is that given a fundamental state of existence, whatever this is, this state will somehow cause the formation of identical states around it, these new units will cause the formation of new states around them, etc. and this expanding space of existent states is equivalent to our universe. So, in my view, I think I would say that there's a causal relation between each existent state and the existent states it causes to appear next to it. I have more on this at my website at:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-things-exist-something-nothing

Sorry for the long response. Nice essay and good luck in grad. school!

Roger

Hi Ben,

Thank you for your kind comment on my essay. As you say, it's good to see alternatives explored, and a fresh view of causal set-type structure is welcome.

Best wishes and good luck,

Peter Morgan.

No problem Ben!

I may confess that when reading your forum I found a message by you starting with a "Dear Juan", but I could not recognize anything in that message. It took to me to discover that there is other "Juan" participating here.

He,He,He...

Correction: It took to me a while to discover that there is other "Juan" participating here.

Ben,

The best thing about these contests is they give an opportunity to brain storm on a range of possibilities. The questions concerning physical foundations, particularly with respect to cosmology and quantum gravity, require different ways of thinking. I sometimes think that our educations have a disservice. While of course a graduate student needs to know classical and quantum mechanics, electromagnetic fields and so forth, I sometimes think these cement in our thinking so as to prevent successful consideration of deeper problems.

I sometimes think that we often suffer from some of the difficulties seen in elementary students with basic mechanics and F = ma. Our brains are predisposed to thinking in certain ways, and though we may learn the breakthrough physics of the past, this learning often serves to foster thinking that is erroneous on deeper foundations.

Time evaluated from the Jacobi variational principle

δt = sqrt{m_iδx_iδx_i/(E-V)}

is related to a proper time, or an interval. I might then say that if we multiply by E-V on both sides we get

(E-V)δt = sqrt{m_iδx_iδx_i(E-V)}

where the left hand side appears to be a Lagrangian times an interval of time. This may then be written as

∫d^3 δt sqrt{-g}R = sqrt{m_iδx_iδx_i(E-V)}

We may then break out the Ricci scalar R = R_{ab}g^{ab} and the left hand side exhibits this symmetry. On the right hand side again there is symmetry with the interchange of δx_iδx_j δ_{ij}. This probably needs to be firmed up of course, but I think this captures the idea.

Causal dynamics on the other hand is ordered by events with the idea of building up geometry. So there are orderings such as x < y so that in some product we have xy = -yx. This seems to have some connection with Penrose tensor space theory, where for every symmetric tensor there is an antisymmetric tensor. The relationship between the two is a graded algebra similar to supersymmetry. The symmetric interchange between spatial coordinates in shape dynamics is similar to the symmetric interchange between boson fields. The antisymmetric interchange of events in causal sets is similar to the interchange between fermions ψ(x)ψ(y) = ψ(y)ψ(x). Hence a causal set is potentially identical in form to a Slater determinant. This then opens the door to a type of functor or category theory which maps elements of geometry to elements of field theory.

Fields on a Cauchy surface separated by spatial intervals define the "shapes." Intervals separated by null or timelike intervals define causal sets. The first of these is symmetric, while the next is antisymmetric. This is similar to Penrose's tensor space, which axiomatizes spaces. If you have a space in n dimensions one can represent the positive tensor dimension as ||| ...|•ε = 0, where | represents an element such as a vector or spinor and the set |||...| means an exterior product of these. The ε means a Levi-Civita symbol and this is a skew product. This can be seen equivalently as a skew symmetrization of the |||...| in a higher dimensional space. If this is zero, then the space of tensors is symmetric. This system however requires there to be the |||...|•g, where g is a symmetric tensor. Again this is equivalent to a symmetric trace in a higher dimensional space. The "dimension of these tensors" are n and -n respectively. They correspond to the symmetric and antisymmetric sets of tensors, which have a duality.

This duality between symmetric and skew symmetric elements, or for two tensors products of the sort

{ψ^a, ψ^b} = g^{ab}

[φ^a, φ^b] = ω^{ab}

involves supersymmetry. In the case of spacetime the generators of supersymmetry Q_a and \bar-Q_b construct Lorentz boosts

{Q_a,\bar-Q_b} = iσ^μ_{ab}∂_μ.

where the momentum boost operator p_μ = -i∂_μ constructs the Lorentz group. Meanwhile {Q_a,-Q_b} = 0. The anticommutator of the super generators seems to have a categorical relationship with the antisymmetry of causal nets. The rotation operator M^{μν} and the super-generator obey

[Q_a, M^{μν}] = 1/2σ_{ab}^{μν}Q_b,

and the commutator between the momentum p^μ and the generator Q_a is zero

[Q_a, p^μ] = 0

The relationship between the symmetry and antisymmetric approaches, say shape dynamics and causal set theory, might then have functors to Fermi-Dirac fields and boson fields, and a system which includes both might then have a graded Lie algebra with Grassmann generators that connect the two.

Cheers LC

Ben & John,

When it comes to time, I have no particular objective concerning its ontology. I find the idea that one want to can remove time and then say that objects in motion move through space with a velocity which we interpret as time as just another way of defining time. I find there is a sort of epistemological "dog chasing its tail" issue going on here. Space and time may exhibit a quantum uncertainty, where with quantum black holes if you measure a coordinate with arbitrary accuracy you lose all measurement of time and visa versa. I illustrate below how one can show ΔrΔt ~ 2Għ/c^4 = L^2_{Planck}/c with black hole physics. I tend to think that if one is going to "thump on time" then you have to thump on space as well. This is in part of why I think there is this curious duality between shape dynamics that plays with space and causal sets which play on time.

You might want to check out Hestenes, who is emeritus at U Arizona. He has been working a lot on figuring out how we can teach physics better. He cites examples about how students can take first year physics and learn to work the problems in the texts well enough to pass the course. Then when asked various conceptual questions about how something will move or behave under a force etc they completely get things wrong. He also makes a point that attending lectures and focusing in on them is itself a learned talent. We don't normally learn this way, and if you think about indigenous people young people learn by experience with their elders and by imitating them. I know that it was not until I was into college when I could actually focus on most of a lecture. Even still there were down times during lectures.

Of course now compound that with our digital age, which is duplicitous in my opinion. While there is much information available, much of our technology is meant to force us to think in tiny time frames. From 140 Twitter characters to split second video games I suspect the way our brains are being dendrite wired is different from the past, even the very recent past. Here you have a generation of young people moving up who have been acculturated by the digital age to think in split frame/time modes, rather than focusing in on something for long periods of time. We then wonder why young people have trouble in school, particularly boys. In fact my daughter has done very well in school, but my son is struggling horribly. He is not dumb either, but the whole classroom, lecture, book study and homework routine is just outside his personal ken.

The complementarity of space and time and the quantum mechanics of black holes could have had a much earlier start. At the 1930 Solvay conferences Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein debated the nature of quantum mechanics. Einstein was convinced of reality and locality and argued staunchly for an incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Quantum theory could only be made complete if there are some hidden variables that underlay the probabilistic, nonlocal quirky aspects of quantum mechanics. Einstein proposed an interesting thought experiment. Einstein considered a device which consisted of a box with a door in one of its walls controlled by a clock. The box contains radiation, similar to a high-Q cavity in laser optics. The door opens for some brief period of time t, which is known to the experimenter. The loss of one photon with energy E = ħω reduces the mass of the box-clock system by m = E/c^2, which is on a scale. Einstein argued that knowledge of t and the change in weight provides an arbitrarily accurate measurement of both energy and time which may violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle ΔEΔt~ħ

Bohr realized that the weight of the device is made by the displacement of a scale in spacetime. The clock's new position in the gravity field of the Earth, or any other mass, will change the clock rate by gravitational time dilation as measured from some distant point the experimenter is located. The temporal metric term for a spherical gravity field is 1 - 2GM/rc^2, where a displacement by some δr means the change in the metric term is \simeq~(GM/c^2r^2)δr. Hence the clock's time interval T is measured to change by a factor

T-- >T sqrt{(1 - 2GM/c^2)δr/r^2} ~ T(1 - GMδr/r^2c^2),

so the clock appears to tick slower. This changes the time span the clock keeps the door on the box open to release a photon. Assume that the uncertainty in the momentum is given by the Δ p ~ ħ/Δr \lt TgΔm, where g = GM/r^2. Similarly the uncertainty in time is found as ΔT = (Tg/c^2)δr. From this ΔT > ħ/Δmc^2 is obtained and the Heisenberg uncertainty relation ΔTΔE > ħ. This demands a Fourier transformation between position and momentum, as well as time and energy.

This holds in some part to the quantum level with gravity, even if we do not fully understand quantum gravity. Consider the clock in Einstein's box as a black hole with mass m. The quantum periodicity of this black hole is given by some multiple of Planck masses. For a black hole of integer number n of Planck masses the time it takes a photon to travel across the event horizon is t ~ Gm/c^3 ~ nT_p, which are considered as the time intervals of the clock. The uncertainty in time the door to the box remains open is

ΔT ~ Tg/c(δr - GM/c^2),

as measured by a distant observer. Similarly the change in the energy is given by E_2/E_1 ~= sqrt{(1 - 2M/r_1)(1 - 2M/r_2)}, which gives an energy uncertainty of

ΔE ~ (ħ/T_1)g/c^2(δr - GM/c^2)^{-1}.

Consequently the Heisenberg uncertainty principle still holds Δ EΔT ~ ħ. Thus general relativity beyond the Newtonian limit preserves the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It is interesting to note in the Newtonian limit this leads to a spread of frequencies Δω ~ sqrt{c^5/Għ}, which is the Planck frequency.

The uncertainty ΔE ~ ħ/Δt larger than the Planck mass gives an event horizon. The horizon has a radius R ~ 2GΔE/c^4, which is the uncertainty in the radial position ΔR associated with the energy fluctuation. Putting this together with the Planckian uncertainty in the Einstein box we then have

ΔrΔt ~ 2Għ/c^4 = L^2_{Planck}/c.

So this argument can be pushed to understand the nature of noncommutative coordinates in quantum gravity.

Cheers LC

Hello Ben,

congratulations, your essay is even more a charming tour the force through all concepts of the last 100 years then mine !

I like the Dribus Razor rejecting anything for a universal Schrödinger equation combined with Emmy Noether's conservation law in causal configuration space.

But be careful with rejecting the manifold structures the flaws may enter and you'll get lost without Plato's order of the heavens, means the dimensionality fo space.

Best wishes,

Renate

Ben,

Actually it started as a simple relativistic observation as to whether it is the present moving from past events to future ones, or the events going future to past. Basically I was applying a similar premise to the question of geocentric, vs. heliocentric. Whether it is the sun moving east to west, or the earth rotating west to east. I found, when considering it at length, that it gives a very different, inherently dynamic, view of reality, than the block time, static modeling that arose from assuming time is sequence and treating it as a measure of interval.

The difference between cause and effect and time is that sequence isn't cause and effect, but energy transfer is. Yesterday doesn't cause today, any more than one rung on a ladder causes the next. The sun shining on this spinning planet creates the effect called 'days.' Just as me tapping on these keys causes letters to appear on the screen, because there is some transfer of energy.

I did put the idea to Jonathan Kerr, but the first time, Aug 7, he was busy and the second time, Sep 12, he was irritated at my simplistic presumption and after some back and forth over the issue of clock rates, basically told me I was out to lunch. If you wish to consider the conversation on his thread, I'll let you be the judge.

My essay does go into psychology a bit, for the very good reason that sequence is the basis of personal experience. Us walking along that path, climbing that ladder, progressing through the days. So it is natural to build a theory of reality with it as foundational.

I used an earlier version as my entry in the nature of time contest, in 08.

Lawrence,

I'm thinking of your observations about tmi(too much information), as I'm reading this. Part might be distraction and part might be that the information is so dense as to be impenetrable by anyone not intensely versed in it to begin with.

While I certainly agree we are drowning in oceans of information, I see there are lessons to be learned there as well. Think in terms of how you process information as sequence, yet what you are getting is masses. What principles apply to mass? Temperature, weight, velocity, pressure, magnetism, etc. Now how would your instinctive, non-linear right brain process these masses of information? Are they stable, ie. does it seem like the parts don't fit together, etc. Is it something attractive or repulsive to you? Does it have weight, ie, gravitas, or too much gravitas? Think of financial bubbles in terms of waves and how when lots of them line up, you get a very large one. Consider how energy manifests information and information defines energy and how our bodies have distinct systems to process both, with the central nervous system dealing with information and the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing energy. The hemispheres of the brain are thermostat and clock.

See, this is why I both like physics so much and am so frustrated by physicists. The opportunities to explore and examine all aspects of reality are there, but physics is way off in the extremes of the very small, very large and very obscure, not to mention off on a number of wild goose chases. As well as insisting static models can really describe dynamic processes.

We also loose sight of temperature when we try to measure it to arbitrary accuracy. If time is an effect of action, there can be no dimensionless point in time, as that would mean no action and thus no time. Like a temperature of absolute zero.

I think it is a mistake to lump space and time together. When we measure time, we are measuring change, as caused by action, but when we measure space, be it distance, area, or volume, we are measuring space. While I agree space is occupied by fields of energy, no matter how weak, I still don't think it should be define entirely in terms of what occupies it. Consider that centrifugal force is the relation of spin to inertia, not some outside reference to the spinning object. Being aphysical, space cannot be bound, bent, accelerated, etc. Only what occupies it can be so defined. If there is no "fabric of spacetime," then possibly space is the real frame, so that C is determined by the rate at which all nuclear energy is converted to velocity, due to moving through that inertial space, with clock rates slowing as the velocity increases.

As for gravity, this is very simplistic, but if releasing energy from mass creates pressure, wouldn't energy condensing into mass create a vacuum? That way, it wouldn't be a force, but an effect. Gravity waves would be the energy released by fusion. Sunlight. They can't find any dark matter, but if gravity is not simply a property of mass, but an effect of energy condensing into mass, then the excesses of cosmic rays in galaxies and lots of interstellar gases might hold the clue. Could the conditions in parts of the galaxy make this transition from one to the other possible? It's not like we can run experiments outside the heliosphere.

Ben,

Hi. For my website, maybe try:

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/

and then click on the third link which is called " Why do Things Exist and Why is there something rather than nothing?" The section related to my point 5 was the last one before the conclusion; although, it helps to read the whole thing.

On the dimension thing, I would just say that for "events" or "structure is at the fundamental level" or geons or causal sets or anything to physically exist, which I think they have to if the universe is to be made of them, then I personally have trouble imagining how they could physically exist without having 3 dimensions. If one of the three is actually zero, then does this really exist in the non-mind, physical universe?

Anyways, no need to reply on this since it's good to have some differences in opinion (we don't want no groupthink!) and I know it kind of takes some time! Good luck at school and in the contest!

Roger

Dear Benjamin,

Thank you for reading my essay and giving good opinion. It is beneficial to me that one Ph. D. student gives good opinion about my essay. It is also a favor that someone reads it precisely and comments, this is what our amateur theories lack. So it is well to obtain any opinion, still better if it is professional or skilled one. It gives new ideas.

I hope that we will further exchange some physical opinions, also after this contests.

Because I cannot read all essays until Friday, can you recommend the best ones by your opinion.

I will read your essay tomorrow. I will give comment below of your essay.