Is There “Ultimate Stuff” and Are There “Ultimate Reasons”? by David Rousseau and Julie Rousseau

Your "energeum" explains dark energy and accelerating expansion but it could also explain, alternatively, the Hubble redshift in a STATIC universe:

Eugene I. Shtyrkov: "At present it is ascertained that vacuum is not an "empty space" - rather, it is a certain material continuum with quite definite although still unknown properties. This has been confirmed by observation of vacuum effects such as "zero-oscillations", vacuum polarization, particle generation by electromagnetic interactions. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that physical vacuum could have internal friction due to its own small but real viscosity, which in the end produces redshift. (...) ...the differential equation for the speed of light dc/dt=-Ho*c(t)"

Shtyrkov refers to a decreasing speed of light which is too dangerous (one may lose one's job) but at least you could have mentioned the euphemistic "tired light" hypothesis: Due to interaction with the constituents of the vacuum, photons lose energy (not speed!).

Pentcho Valev

ulie & David

Well written. A rare, important and sensible philosophical approach. I also fly the flag for philosophy and ontology in my own essay, agree the PSR, agree empirical facts can be "self-evident or logically necessary" and explore a mechanistic route of cause and effect. Also then; a "system" is "a whole that functions as a whole in virtue of the relationships between its parts"

I was once pressed on what the 'neutral energy' 'was', (your "energeum") and also gave it a name, to show how semantic the question was (I called it 'ground comprathene'). But at a 'ground state' where fluctuations can be positive or negative. Do you accept there are some things we may never know? Of course as we only know anything by it's qualities, may we end up 'knowing' energium' as well as anything else?

I agree your Fig 1 but then link the top and bottom to show it to be a loop, or in fact a toroid, but I stay physical and derive a unique logical ontological architecture of unity which even gives a logical re-interpretation of Copenhagen!

I even use the forbidden word 'ether' but do shy away from majoring on it's essential nature. That can follow from the more important logical conclusions. I do hope you can read and comment from a PSR view.

Best of luck, and many thanks.

Peter

Dear David and Julie,

Frankly, I usually take no interest in others' philosophies but your fine essay is very clearly written and, like others commenting here, I have found some commonality with a very general framework I use to relate aspects of physics in what I see as their proper context. I have a few very specific comments about your essay - I'd very much appreciate your brief consideration.

Adopting here and speculatively extending your conception of "energeum" (with rationale below) I suggest a physical test for its existence: that the rate of virtual particle annihilations will vary with vacuum energeum density; that the rate of annihilations will vary (possibly to to some slight degree) in relation to local gravitational effects; that a vacuum chamber on the Earth's surface will produce more annihilations over a given period of time than will an identical chamber in Earth orbit or on the Moon, for example. I have no idea whether there's any existing evidence for or against this conjecture...

I suggest this test because of I envision (unfortunately I have no math) that gravitation is not fundamentally a property of matter but rather, a kinetic interaction between the material property of mass (potential energy) and energeum. I propose that aggregated mass physically produces a gradient field of enrgeum, a diminishing local contraction (curvature) of dimensional spacetime.

I think understanding gravitational effects as the interaction of two distinct forces would help explain much about its nature: its apparent absence at quantum scales (even confirmation of the Higgs mechanism provides no quantum theory of gravitation, only for the property of mass), it apparent local weakness compared to the strictly material strong, weak and electromagnetic forces, and the comparatively vast range of its spatial effectiveness.

While general relativity very precisely describes the effects of gravitation as mass proportional changes to an abstract system of external dimensional coordinates of spacetime, as I understand there is no physical element described whose changes are reflected in the changed dimensional coordinates. While that may be satisfactory to physicists and mathematicians, I'm a simple man who prefers physical elements and fundamentally mechanical processes. I have already been thinking that the changing dimensional coordinates actually represent some energy contained within space that imparts directional acceleration to material objects. Furthermore, I envision that Newton's attractive force represents the interaction of two directionally opposed gradient fields of energeum.

I'll stop here, hoping that you can understand what I'm attempting to say and perhaps that you can find that it complements your theory of space.

I must be clear - I have no academic background or specific experience in philosophy, physics or math. However, I do have >30 years experience in information systems at a high level and very large scales. If, as I see mentioned in your extensive bio, you have any significant background in systems analysis I think you might find my brief (properly 3 page) essay interesting - I'd be most interested in any comments you might have. I must say though that I have no interest whatsoever in any rating you may or may not like to make... It's descriptive title is Inappropriate Application of Kepler's Empirical Laws of Planetary Motion to Spiral Galaxies Created the Perceived Galaxy Rotation Problem - Thereby Establishing a Galactic Presence for the Elusive, Inferred Dark Matter.

I appreciate any consideration that you can give to these thoughts, and certainly any comments you might have. Sorry though - I won't promise to give your excellent essay a great rating in exchange...

Sincerely, Jim Dwyer

David

Thanks for the support. Logical Copenhagen is also well described here;http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1390. The variable is not so much hidden as right before our eyes. In fact spread all over the surface of every lens in the universe!

Wheeler was right, it's the most; "utterly simple idea. And to me that idea, when we finally discover it, will be so compelling, so inevitable, that we will say to one another, Oh, how beautiful. How could it have been otherwise?" (Lerner 1992).

It is simply that, of two (tandem) pairs of photons doing c through any medium, the ones interacting with a co-moving lens change speed, thus the distance between them (or 'wavelength' changes. Not just by media refractive index n, but by the motion v of the lens. The speed of the pair passing by is not measured in 'Proper Time' so would only be 'apparent' (c+v) if it could be measured. Christian Doppler found but only half explained it. In two words it is 'delta lambda'. Implemented by re-emission at c by all electrons, including at the 'surface charge' Transition zone.

Just envisage the two photons (or wave peaks) passing along the optical nerve of the human passing by, or the cable from the detector, compared to the two passing by unimpeded.

The Copenhagen interpretation is then in the same class as the tree in the forest. The moon reflects em waves, but if no lens is there to detect them, they remain 'invisible'. Yet we can tell by scattering off OTHER bodies (dust in the air, or beside out shadow) that the waves exist. We then detect light scattered at c locally.

It only gets complex when we have to overcome deeply ingrained wrong assumptions. Did that explanation work for you? Did anything not seem intuitive? As someone less 'familiar' than me can you express it better?

Best wishes

Peter

Hello David and Julie,

Thanks again for your very encouraging comments on my essay. I've enjoyed yours - it's well written and interesting. I can only make a general comment, not so much about your essay, but about the kind of areas you cover.

It seems to me that in some areas of philosophy, 'the jury is still out' on all the major questions. In physics, we can at least look back at the past, and see which ideas turned out to work, and which ones didn't. So we learn from experience, and pick up patterns in the answers that have been found.

But when I look at some of the philosophical questions you talk about, I just feel, how can we get a handle on that? We've got nothing to compare it with. We're still waiting for the answers to come in for all the related questions, and it may be some time to wait. So it's hard to develop techniques for getting answers, as we haven't necessarily got even one correct one to calibrate things with. I'm not saying this applies to all areas, and that's just a first reaction.

Anyway, best wishes, and good luck,

Jonathan

Dear David.

Thanks you for your kind remarks! I'll try to read the essay's you've mentioned.

Regarding "I'm not sure why this leads you to question the dark matter postulate," perhaps it wasn't clear that the presence of galactic dark matted was originally postulated to account for the discrepancy between expected Keplerian rotation curves and the relatively flat curves actually observed for spiral galaxies. It should follow then that if the discrepancy was based on invalid expectations then there is no requirement for dark matter (additional mass) to account for the observed characteristics.

Understanding the dynamics of galactic rotation is yet another, quite complex matter. However, several groups of researchers, as mentioned in my two page "Supplemental Info." section, have produced analytical models that successfully describe the rotation of spiral galaxies using only properly applied Newtonian dynamics and universal gravitation, or general relativity, without invoking any dark matter or modified gravity. As I understand, the objects within galaxy disks all interact gravitationally, making the entire disk a self-gravitating, loosely bound, rotating composite object, unlike planets that each, in effect, individually orbit the exceedingly massive Sun.

I hope this helps somewhat. Perhaps I didn't explain clearly enough in the main body of the essay?

Thanks very much again for your interesting comments!

Sincerely, Jim

Dear David,

I've read through Israel Perez's essay, but the concept of a material medium doesn't seem to be able to produce the dimensional curvature of spacetime effect described by general relativity - only an energy field that can impart kinetic motion to matter seems able to so.

I can't precisely describe the mechanism that might be involved, but it seems intuitively natural that the localized aggregation of the potential energy of mass would produce the complementary effect of locally contracting surrounding space-energy. Like the localization of potential mass, the contracted space-energy (energeum) would be directed to the focal point of contraction.

It would be the energy gradient produced by energeum contraction that produces the directional accelerating effect of gravitation. IMO, Einstein's 'light moving in a straight line through curved space' was a description necessary to convince astronomers to test his eclipse predictions, since they could not consider that light could be curved! I see this more as the propagation of light waves being temporarily tangentally redirected as it traverses a (radial) field of directional space-energy in the proximity of a sufficiently massive object.

Well, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I think only energy within space could contribute to the effect of gravitation - no material medium density could cause the motion produced by gravitation.

If the manifestation of virtual particles, as I think can be measured by matter-antimatter annihilations, is in turn a measure of spatial energy content, or density, then I would expect that a gravitational gradient field of condensed space would produce varying rates of virtual particle-antiparticle annihilations. If the virtual annihilation rate did vary with gravitational effects and this relation could not be explained in any other way, it might offer physical evidence of energeum! At least, that's my thinking...

I'm not capable of pursuing these ideas, so if they seem to you to have any potential I would hope that you might be able to further pursue them. I'd certainly be glad to help in any way I can.

Obviously I do find that your conception of energeum dovetails quite nicely with my thinking about gravitation - I have also thought that if universal expansion were accelerating it would also require the action of kinetic space-energy. Moreover, I suspect that the existence of energeum is necessary for even the initial expansion of the universe; that the primordial energy that was not converted to condensed matter would have filled space. This fundamental, omni-directed energeum might be evidenced by the dispersal of gases in space...

Conversely, like dark matter, I'm actually highly skeptical that the acceleration of spacetime expansion and dark energy was properly inferred, depending as it does on the constant peak emission luminosity of type Ia supernovae produced by accreting matter onto a white dwarf until it reaches the Chandrasekhar limit - recently found to be more often than expected produced instead by the merger of white dwarfs of varying masses. But that's another discussion...

Frankly, I'm much more excited about the potential for energeum in the production of gravitational effects. If my thoughts about a test measurement have any validity, it would certainly be more feasible to evaluate...

Sorry to ramble on - I have been thinking for some time that some form of kinetic space energy was necessary for the physical production of gravtational effects. I really appreciate any further consideration you might be able to give to the subject.

Sincerely, Jim

Dear David,

Yes - that'd be appropriate. I look forward to it.

Thanks, Jim

Hello David,

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't having a go at philosophy generally. I just think there are certain issues in physics, which if you try to get answers for them using a philosophical approach, you will sometimes get answers coming out of that, but you won't really know if they're right or wrong, because there's no way to check them.

So you just predict them, and wait. I'm sure you're right about the Copenhagen interpretation though, that's safe bet.

Applying philosophy to physics is hard in places partly because of the state of physics, and I really must apologise for the mess the field is in at present. We haven't managed to clear it up yet, and are questioning a lot of the principles. Because of that, until we get some clarity coming into the physics itself, I'm not sure that there's enough of a solid landscape for you to attach things to. But what you say about energy is interesting, and other things.

To me it's about grasping at an underlying reality by looking at conceptual clues. And they're very specific, clickety clack down-to-earth physical clues - at present that's the best we have, because the underlying principles, and anything general, are all being questioned. Still, perhaps you can get a handle on the kind of general things you look at, and cut through the present uncertainty about which principles we can rely on. Good luck anyway.

Best wishes, Jonathan

David and Julie

Top essay. The best kind of philosophical approach, much missing from physics. Good score coming. My own is very mechanistic by comparison, but I hope you agree just as important, and, along with Peter Jacksons fuller ontology, should represent real adavancement.

Thanks

Rich

David & Julie,

I love it when philosophers deal with questions of science head-on. Indeed, I'm seeing in the principle of sufficient reason some identity with the law of requisite variety (Ashby). Perhaps the latter can help lend mathematical rigor to the former?

Though I've not thought much about the philosophical implications of systems research, you've made the importance quite clear. (My technical background is similar to Julie Rousseau's, so I grok much of what you're saying from a personal perspective.)

Have you looked at Lawrence Krauss' latest, *A Universe from Nothing*?

Thanks for your kind comments on my essay site. Deservedly high rating follows.

Tom