Reductionist Doubts by Julian Barbour

The computer and the universe

John Archibald Wheeler

Abstract

The reasons are briefly recalled why (1) time cannot be a primordial category in the description of nature, but secondary, approximate and derived, and (2) the laws of physics could not have been engraved for all time upon a tablet of granite, but had to come into being by a higgledy-piggledy mechanism. It is difficult to defend the view that existence is built at bottom upon particles, fields of force or space and time. Attention is called to the "elementary quantum phenomenon" as potential building element for all that is. The task of construction of physics from such elements is compared and contrasted with the problem of constructing a computer out of "yes, no" devices.

Preparation for publication assisted by the University of Texas Center for Theoretical Physics and by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY78-26592.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ck753337h0515573/

Julian Barbour wrote:

"First, I deleted nothing..."

Then I apologize. But my comments - 7 or 8 perhaps - all disappeared so... Brendan Foster, what are you doing?!?

"...second, they [absolute simultaneity and Einstein's 1905 light postulate] are compatible according to Shape Dynamics."

But, Dr. Barbour, in textbooks the relativity of simultaneity is directly deduced from the light postulate - see pp. 9-10 in David Morin's text. In other words, according to special relativity, absolute simultaneity and Einstein's 1905 light postulate are incompatible.

I think you should explain this contradiction between Shape Dynamics and special relativity.

Pentcho Valev

Dear Pentcho, Dear Julian,

thank you for clarifying your positions, so i can see more clearly.

Stefan

Pentcho

Has it ever struck you to ask what the speed at which any given photons happen to travel has got to do with anything? Except that is, the timing relationship between the incidence of observation and the occurrence of the reality which affected the state of those photons.

The whole issue of the supposed relationship between the speed of light and simultaneity is based on simple mistakes (section 1 1905). Unless they occurred in immediate proximity(!), the point in time when two events occurred simultaneously was deemed to have a relationship with the distance between them. This is nonsense. Either events occurred at the same time, or they did not, distance is irrelevant.

Distance was then expressed in terms of duration of light travel, which is irrelevant as such, in that the distance AB is one distance, however expressed. The next mistake was confusion over timing and duration. So the point in time at which both events occurred was defined as being when the time (ie duration) for light to travel in one direction equalled the time (ie duration) to travel back. Although nonsense anyway, this was then incorrectly expressed. Hence: when t(b) - t(a) = t'(a) - t(b), a duration of time has been confused with a point in time, ie this involves the concept of 'and then' back. Following on from this, the constant velocity of light is derived as: 2AB/ t'(a) - t(b).

Paul

Dear Julian,

An intriguing enjoyable and intriguing essay from an author I really respect. However I am not completely convinced that a holistic approach is always indispensable. Could one not argue, that if the result of the reductionist approach is a concept, idea or formula that is physically *very close* to nature then the whole would emerge from it on its own without further ado? As a minimalist example cellular automata interact according to a local rule and from it the whole emerges in due time.

Even so, perhaps I have implemented a species of Mach's principle in my Beautiful Universe Theory (BU) on which I based my fqxi essay Fix Physics! . My reductionist idea is that the Universe is made up of a lattice of just one type of building block. These blocks or nodes are discrete bundles of angular momentum rotating around their axes in units of (h) and the axes have various angular orientations in each timeless universal State. . Thus L =/= 0 in this scheme. Attached is figure 11 from my BU theory showing how a twist in the angular orientation of two nodes to lock into matter is caused by (or causes) the entire linkage of nodes throughout the universe to mimic the twist, and explaining why E=mc^2

I did not know about Mach's idea that time is emergent from motion. Interesting. I feel that the reductionist source idea in GR (space-time warping = gravity) is physically misleading. GR's Achilles heel is that it includes SR. Why should an observer-related physics enter in realms out there where it is only nature interacting with itself in the same inertial frame - for example light curving around the sun? Without SR, GR becomes very simple - gravity can be reduced to an optical density field, as Eddington proposed, and I have explained in BU.

Shape Dynamics (SD) sounds like a new concept that, at first sight, I wish I do not need to think about! - if there is a simple, local,causal explanation for gravity=acceleration=curvature I would be satisfied with that. In BU it is the curvature of the classical gravitational potential streamlines (or the orthogonal wavefronts) that defines this equivalence. You wrap SD in a probabilistic interpretation.

Quantum probability as a physically realistic phenomena is another of my bête noires . In BU I have shown how probability emerges naturally in the lattice interactions, and how the false point-photon idea made it seem that probability is an abstract interpretation of a dualistic particle-wave nature resistant to physical realism. Have you read the amazing experimental work of Eric Reiter reported in his current fqxi essay in which he proves that gamma rays are not point photons? In such a Nature where probability is the result of systematic, linear local interactions, entanglement can be understood simply and directly without resorting to further ingenious but perhaps complicating holistic ideas as SD.

Hope I have made some sense! I welcome your learned response to my rather qualitative and incomplete ideas.

With best wishes,

VladimirAttachment #1: 2_BUFIG11.jpg

If Mathematics, the tool of theoretical physics, can only describe becoming , then Mathematics of Becoming is Physics ?

I afraid there is no such thing as Mathematics of Becoming at all...

May be it is new philosophical abstraction or some kind of physical simplification of Calculus, and, If I understand, we cannot deduce any taking technical mathematical theorems seriously from Notion Mathematics of Becoming ( Similarly, from Einstein attempt to introduce a new kind of complex number in SR - please, see my FQXi 12 essay - we simply cannot deduce scientifically any taking physical time theory seriously )

I suppose, that Mathematics is not Tool, Language or Human subjectivity at all. It is independent perfectly working area of experimental science. Anybody can test for example, that, x^3 y^3 = z^3 cannot exist in Nature and in any version of Multiverse as well. Pure Mathematics is not Pure Physics.

Dear Julian Barbour,

I appreciate that you are a busy man and there are more essays in this competition than any individual can be expected to read thoroughly and comment upon. However I would be very grateful indeed if you could take a look at my essay. If you are able to comment on it as well that would mean a great deal to me. I have received very little feedback from the members over the years and I do admire your essay writing and other very clear and sensible explanations of your work. I have tried to improve my writing from last years inadequate entry, making it more readable. I will certainly respect your opinion, even if you dislike what I have produced and can find no merit in it.

Dear Julian!

An excellent analysis in your essay and hypotheses. But the «Alpha» and «Omega» is not enough. To search Protostructure (Superstructure, "the missing structure" by Umberto Eco) requires synthesis of "Alpha" and "Omega". This can be done "Delta" with its deep OntoTopoLogical Interpretation. Ontological framework of the country Platonia - it is also an ontological framework of the world (univerce), represented as the natural (absolute) coordinate system. .

From a country of eternal forms helps to get the time - the memory structure at a certain level of its holistic existence. Time is the burden of becoming. This - the price of becoming. Its outcome - asymmetry. Sincerely, Vladimir

Julian/Pentcho

It is the concept of simultaneity, as defined, that is wrong. Any given physically existent state occurred at the same time as any other, if that was at the same point in time. Timing being an extrinsic measuring system which enables the comparison of disparate changes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with light, etc, etc. Now, in the assessment of whether that occurred, and if the sense being utilised is sight, the speed of light is, obviously, a factor. But whatever occurred, did so, independently of the sensing thereof, and occurrences either happened at the same point in time, or they did not.

The speed of light always starts at the same speed because it is the result of an atomic reaction, and like anything else, it will then continue at that speed unless impinged upon. There is nothing mysterious about this. But, 1905 presumed light was in vaccuo and everything else was not, hence the two could not co-exist (so it was not a cohesive theory and is not SR). Later, SR presumed a purely theoretical circumstance where everything was in vaccuo (in order to reconcile the mis-match of 1905). While GR is the real world, and so light is affected by the physical circumstances encountered in its travel.

Paul

Julian

Many including I have had the courtesy to read your essay and comment on it in your thread. Here we are, as last year, side by side, but, as last year, you still don't speak. We are all busy, but some would consider it a courtesy implicit on entering to read and comment on others essays. The word 'arrogant' has been used here, and you may perhaps wrongly be giving that impression.

Perhaps my post, or even my essay, was among those you referred to as 'too difficult to understand'. I wouldn't be surprised as I identify a multiple set of associated assumptions, and explain a complex ontological construction. The ontology does however derive the SR postulates (inc. CSL) direct from a known quantum mechanism, (which Roger Penrose termed the 'Holy Grail' of physics). It may be wrong, but is falsifiable and is so far unfalsified. I've given the model it the most stringent tests, and hope you also may study it.

I do hope you are able. I think if I can understand yours you should be able to unravel the layered depths of mine. There's even a little contemporary theatre and a sonnet! I'm personally suffering a bit of eye strain, but there is much excellent quality work here you seem to be missing.

And very best wishes in the competition.

Peter

Ooops! That was me. The system logged me out again.

Peter

Julian

You essay is just splendid -- clear, compelling, captivating, and revelatory. I think your work is going to change the shape of our paradigm! It is great to see clear-headed philosophical thinking put to such immediately effective use in the service of good physics (and good education) -- this is exactly how philosophy and empirical science should integrate to bring progress in our understanding of what exists and how it works. I think your position that 'the angles are the fundamental things', provides a surprising but exact way of giving mathematical expression to the intuitive notions of holism and of concrete properties being determined by context.

Julie and I argue, from very different grounds, but largely on philosophical grounds too, for a similar vision of the nature of the world in our essay. We approach it from the quantum vacuum side rather than the SR side, but our philosophical trail led to a highly congruent world-view. Our difference is that we infer a fundamental concrete world in which 'becoming' is a primary attribute (I guess we could have called it Energeia?), thus providing a foundation for the evolution of the platonium (sorry I couldn't resist) that you associate with instants of being. Either way leads to a world in which 'holistic change' is the primary observed quality of the phenomenal world.

I think the Shape Dynamics formalism will turn out to be seminal for Systems Philosophy. So glad to have read your work!

With admiration and best wishes,

David

I see you have embraced entanglement instead of seeing through its illusion. A simple solution is the long abandoned loading theory. The reason everyone is going through such acts of desperation to explain quantum irrationality is that they were baboozeled by their textbooks and much biased coverage. If you look at original data of famous experiments one can see that the loading theory fits just fine.

Please look at what I have on the loading theory: Revealing the coverup, experimental verification for matter and light, theory, history, analysis of famous experiments, predicting new working experiments, first failure of quantum mechanics. What more does one need?

So please give my essay a good rating. Even better, please take actions toward my essay falling in the top 35 in your contest. I suggest a note at the beginning of this contest of my essay being news. It is the only essay that I know of describing an experiment doing fundamental things. I made a note of this idea in B Fosters blog on the essay contest. Another place to visit is my website unquantum.net.

There are two problems: (1) everyone is invested in their pet theory, and (2) my message is hard to take because other experimental physicists need to witness the gamma-ray splitting. However, you can see experimental verification yourself. Any physics lab can read pulse height spectra of Cd-109 gamma-rays or Am-241 alpha-rays. There is an anomalously large pile-up count in the pulse height spectrum at 2x(characteristic pulse height). At this part of the spectrum the coincidence rates exceed chance, killing quantum mechanics. I explain why this effect is not always visible from other radiation sources or detectors.

Begging for mercy already. It has bee 10 years since my experimental breakthrough.

Eric Reiter. Essay: A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory

Hi Julian

I'm glad to see you flying the Machian flag, and also taking a stand against infinity. I'm with you in both cases.

I find shape dynamics intriguing, and agree with the basic premise that the gravitational degrees of freedom are conformal. I'm struggling with whether they are 3-d or 4-d conformal. I tend to the latter position, but am willing to learn.

Best wishes

george

MAX PLANK:

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents; it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.

Dr. Barbour,

thank you for thought provoking essay. I read it today the second time, because of Daniel Waagner Fonteles Alves, whose essay I found more accessible than yours. The concept of shape dynamics is new to me but my immediate instinct is that this is the right way to go.

You write, " A closed geometry is needed to model a universe as a whole. A closed three-geometry is much harder to imagine, but is mathematically possible. "

I happen to visualize 3-geometry very well, even though call it 4D geometry, because I insist on considering not just the 3D surface, but the 4D object as a whole. My approach to physics is visual and, in line with your holistic approach, I see the universe as a hypersphere, on the 3D surface of which we live. I found that this 4D perspective dispels the paradoxes that plague contemporary physics and makes the workings of the universe, from its smallest components to largest structures, appear to make perfect sense.

I especially appreciate your holistic view, because I conceive of space, energy and time as 3 aspects of one and the same, a process, with either one being the expression of the other two. To me it appears that shape dynamics is the best way to model such processes evolving and interacting locally.

I wonder if Alpha shape is a hypersphere -? because, topologically, 4D allows for most symmetries in comparison to all other spaces, and as a space with even number of dimensions, also permits more rotations than the next runner-up, 3D.

I very much hope that you would find time to comment on my essay, even though the ratings are already closed ( http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1547 ) I would very much value your feedback.

Congratulations on making the finalists list!

Julian Barbour: "I believe that Shape Dynamics (developed in the last 13 years with my collaborators and presented in my Perimeter colloquium PIRSA:12050050 at the recent workshop) does explain the origin of local inertial frames and why all of Einstein's conclusions in special relativity hold in them. It is not challenging special relativity but explaining from relational Machian first principles why its conclusions are correct. The intriguing aspect of this work is that the explanation of why special relativity is correct of necessity singles out a definition of absolute simultaneity in the universe as a whole while showing that, just as Einstein concluded, there is no way it can be detected locally."

So, Julian Barbour, absolute simultaneity is what happens "in the universe as a whole" but locally Nature is deceiving us and, as a result, we fiercely sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity"?

Pentcho Valev