Dear George,

thank you for your interesting post, which gives to me more opportunity of talking about the principles of Quantum Theory (my joint work with Chiribella and Perinotti). Indeed, what we learn at school is that unitariety of Quantum theory is a rule, but this indeed is not true: the theory can survive without the requirement of unitariety keeping perfect thorough logical coherence, and using quantum channels (completely positive trace-preserving maps) instead. Also the motivation for unitariety that "transformations must be reversible for a closed system" is false, since, strictly speaking, for this purpose one needs the evolution to be just isometric. Requiring that the reverse of the reversible transformation is also reversible is a matter of simplicity. I think that unitariety is just for historical reasons, due to the Schroedinger equation, which, however, is needed for the "mechanics" of the theory, quantization rules and so on. If one wants a theory that is autonomous from the classical one (but from which classical mechanics emerges from pure quantum theory of systems, as for the quantum cellular automaton), then unitariety is not strictly needed for the logical coherence and closure of the theory. In the automaton, however, unitariety is dictated by the requirement of having the Dirac field emerging at the Fermi scale.

Therefore, is up to you to believe that the purification actually exists. We know that Quantum Theory allows for purification of any transformation using an environment (and by the way the purification of the postulate is an isometry, which then we know can be further extended with a unitary). But you are not obliged to have the actual purification: everything works as if the purification exists. If now you ask me for "a mechanism" for such a purification (in case you believe that there is an actual environment), that's an interesting question. Maybe one should try to describe the "informaton" as an incompressible fluid, or something similar. By the way, if one believes that the purification always exists, than also the GRW spontaneous collapse is due to an environment! Which means that GRW is always the same quantum theory, but we just add another hidden quantum field (Bassi would say that it can be done with a classical field, but I'm not sure of this). The true point is to decide what is spontaneous, and what is not-the chicken and the egg again.

Finally, let me say that I liked your essay very much (it was one of the first I read). I can agree with your idea of your top-down causation, within my definition of causality (axiom 1 of QT), and as a Bayesian, in the sense that since causal relations are established by parametric dependences of probabilities, in a Bayesian interpretation they are themselves "beliefs", and such they are established by us, as any theory is formulated (this also agrees with the Humean point of view of causation). And, as such, you are right when you say, "Understanding the emergence of genuine complexity out of the underlying physics depends on recognising this kind of causation".

Thanks for that response, appreciated.

"By the way, if one believes that the purification always exists, than also the GRW spontaneous collapse is due to an environment!" - yes indeed.

"Which means that GRW is always the same quantum theory, but we just add another hidden quantum field (Bassi would say that it can be done with a classical field, but I'm not sure of this)." - well I think there is a god case that the "hidden variable: is the local context. It is hidden because its variables are located at the level above the one that one has in mind - and this environment is just taken for granted.

George

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  • Post #39

You mainstreamsians controle science for over 50 years. You mainstream and Hawking failed. The bad science is because of the Top-Down controle of the people like you. Why do you need money and fame from FQXI where the authors are mostly jobless, are mostly independent researchers, are mostly viXra.org authers? Do you need money and fame by controling jobless???

I want to rate you 0!

Dear Ben

thank you very much for your support. I just discover today your really interesting reply to my post on your thread: I'm going to think about, and try to answer this same evening.

As regards my position in the list, it is fluctuating, so let me cross fingers.

My best to you,

I'm happy that you are at the top.

Mauro

Dear George,

if you like it, the local context can be always considered as the environment that is purifying.

Mauro

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  • Post #42

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.

    Partially true.

    Cheers

    Mauro

    P.S. It was not Max Planck's case, though.

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    • Post #44

    Sergey G Fedosin is bombing entrants' boards with the same "why your rating has dropped" message. They are all dated Oct. 4... same message.

    WTH? I've seen one fine essay drop 89 (eighty-nine) positions, in "Community Rating" in the past 24 hours, and "Sergey's note" came BEFORE it plummeted. Hmm.

    The vote/scaling of this contest is quite nebulous.

    "Hackers Rule!", I suppose!

    Well??? What else is one to think? The General Public is... Watching...

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    • Post #45

    This corrupted FQXI contest is worse than the Voice Of China showoff.

    This corrupted FQXI contest is worse than the USA presidency campaign.

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      • Post #46

      Interesting but the spheres are better, the lattices disappear. The central sphere is the most important volume.

      The number of uniqueness is essential. The serie is a finite group. The decreasing spherical volumes give a pure universal serie. This number is the same than our number of cosmological spheres. The relativity of rotating 3D spheres become very relevant when we insert an universal gauge in 3D. the Planck scale implies that we have the central spheres at these walls separating the infinte light without motion and this physicality, the sphere in spherization. We have the same logic at the cosmological scale in 3D. The central sphere inside the universal sphere so imply that we have cosmological walls also connected with this light without motion. It is relevant when we consider so that more a sphere turns quickly, less is its mass. In logic the Universal sphere and the central cosmological sphere does not turn.See that for the quantum scale, it is the same relativistically speaking, so more a sphere turns, less is its mass. Considering the general point of vue of course.The volumes are relevant like the 3 motions of spheres of light inside the universal physical 3D sphere. In fact the rotation orbital, spinal and the linear motion of spheres of light considering the uniqueness serie imlply the rule of spherization and the properties of evolution spherization. So the light becomes mass on this entropical arrow of times. It is logic in fact. All can be classed if the universal finite number of spheres of the serie of uniqueness is known ! A phton is a relativistic foto of our universal sphere, the number is the same.

      Regards

      Hello

      You know , my pc is totally checked, people implies confusions. They even superimpose the algorythms for the strategy. They delete, they lie, they invent false name,.....In fact my theory is revolutionary, I can understand but there I need help because it is not integre and well this comportment.

      China, India, or USA. That is the question.

      Who imply this confusion? me I am ready to go in India, or China or USA.I will take the best proposition.

      ps I have invented the perpetual motion........solution:add of systems !!! results ok !!! revolutionary, yes as my humble theory of spherization posted since more than 8 years on net . I just share it in a total transparence , but even like that, it exists sharks without reason and universality.

      The most important is this universality and its evolution spherization optimization. The rest is vain after all.

      ps2:The hackers shall fall doawn in all case !!!

      Regards

      Dear Mauro,

      I thought you might be interested in the following idea I posted on George Ellis's thread. Since you also are working with "nonmanifold models that emphasize the role of causality," I thought I'd copy the idea here, although I know you don't favor the causal sets approach.

      **********

      After initially struggling with the idea, I've been thinking a bit about how your [George's] top-down causation idea might look from the perspective of nonmanifold models of fundamental spacetime structure that emphasize the role of causality. It seems that top-down causation might provide an interesting new perspective on such models. For definiteness and simplicity, I use Rafael Sorkin's causal sets approach as an example.

      Causal sets, as currently conceived, are by definition purely bottom-up at the classical level. Causality is modeled as an irreflexive, acyclic, interval-finite binary relation on a set, whose elements are explicitly identified as "events." Since causal structure alone is not sufficient to recover a metric, each element is assigned one fundamental volume unit. Sorkin abbreviates this with the phrase, "order plus number equals geometry." This is a special case of what I call the causal metric hypothesis.

      In the context of classical spacetime, top-down causation might be summarized by the statement, "causal relationships among subsets of spacetime are not completely reducible to causal relations among their constituent events." In this context, the abstract causal structure exists at the level of the power set of classical spacetime, i.e., the set whose elements are subsets of spacetime. Discrete models very similar to causal sets could be employed, with the exception that the elements would correspond not to events, but to families of events. Two-way relationships would also come into play.

      Initially this idea bothered me because of locality issues, but such a model need not violate conventional classical locality, provided that appropriate constraints involving high-level and low-level relations are satisfied.

      This idea is interesting to me for the following reasons.

      1. The arguments for top-down causation presented by you [George] and others are rather convincing, and one would like to incorporate such considerations into approaches to "fundamental theories," particularly those emphasizing causality.

      2. One of the principal difficulties for "pure causal theories" is their parsimony; it is not clear that they contain enough structure to recover established physics. Top-down causation employed as I described (i.e. power-set relations) provides "extra structure" without "extra hypotheses" in the sense that one is still working with the same (or similar) abstract mathematical objects. It is the interpretation of the "elements" and "relations" that becomes more general. In particular, the causal metric hypothesis still applies, although not in the form "order plus number equals geometry."

      3. There is considerable precedent, at least in mathematics, for this type of generalization. For example, Grothendieck's approach to algebraic geometry involves "higher-dimensional points" corresponding to subvarieties of algebraic varieties, and the explicit consideration of these points gives the scheme structure, which has considerable advantages. In particular, the scheme structure is consistent with the variety structure but brings to light "hidden information." This may be viewed as an analogy to the manner in which higher-level causal structure is consistent with lower-level structure (e.g. does not violate locality), but includes important information that might be essential in recovering established physics.

      4. As far as I know, this approach has not yet been explicitly developed.

      I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have on this.

      **************

      I'd appreciate your thoughts on this too! Take care,

      Ben

        Dear Ben,

        I will answer to you soon thorougly next week, since these last two have been the busiest of the year. I can anticipate that I'm not against the top-down causation of Ellis, and indeed I already commented on this to Ellis: his top-down causation approach fully agrees with my idea of causality. However, even though it is the right approach in general, it is not suitable for formulating theories that, by themselves and by definition must be bottom-up, as is the case of quantum field theory. Regarding Sorking approach, I can anticipate to you that I think that it will never work for quantum field theory, hence for a quantum theory of gravity, but on this I will write more next week.

        I find this way of discussing physics very stimulating, and I'm looking forward to continuing our discussion. I want also continue with Ellis about the top-down approach, about which I had thinking seriously only quite recently.

        Until next

        Cheers

        Mauro

        4 days later

        Dear Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano,

        In Coherently-cyclic cluster-matter paradigm of universe, information transfer is the transfer of string-segment from source-string to observer-string that is in continuum, in that the period of time of eigen-rotational cycle of the source-string and that of the observer-string are in reference with the period of time of eigen-rotational cycle of the cluster-matter holon they belong on information transfer. In this paradigm a periodization hierarchy is expressional for quantum information transfer in group waves, in that the difference in emergence of gravity on eigen-rotations of source-string and observer-string is causal for the transfer of information as gravitational mass of string-segment and thus two different time-intervals in temporal sequence is comparable in this paradigm.

        With best wishes

        Jayakar

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        • Post #51

        www.CIGTheory.com is a Causal Theory cuz it brings determinism back into quantum.

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