An Accidental Universe

Rob,

You wrote to John, "Tom believes that it (multiple universes) actually explains something. But he has yet to explain either *what* it explains, or *how* it succeeded in explaining it."

It isn't a matter of belief. The many worlds hypothesis does explain something -- it explains quantum mechanics in just as valid a manner as the Copenhagen interpretation, Bohmian mechanics, or any other intepretation of QM.

The new and critical thing that Albrecht introduces, is an implied explanation of the "equaly likely" hypothesis at the center of probability theory.

In standard quantum theory supported by Bell's theorem, the "equally likely" principle is applied to the "experiment not done" as well as the result of the experiment whose result (according to CI) represents a collapse of the wave function. One cannot avoid concluding nonlocality from this interpretation, because obviously if the wave function collapses, all results are *not* equally likely, in the locality which includes the experiment.

If the wave function does not collapse, all the physics is local -- meaning that measurement results, the physically real part of physics, are equally likely among all parts of the wave function and there is no such thing as nonlocality.

How does one demonstrate this? -- I think Albrecht is on exactly the right track: clock ambiguity makes the observer choice of clock -- i.e., a varying scale of timekeeping -- a free variable. That this leads to different initial conditions in the classical analysis verifies (so far only in computer simulation, but this research is very new) that there is no singularity at creation; every "big bang" is an equally valid cosmological initial condition. This comports with what Einstein tells us about the absence of a privileged observer frame. Relativity and QM meet and shake hands.

Tom

Tom,

In answer to your question:

"What intelligent life forms are not biological? What do you mean?"

I mean, for example, an intelligent machine. Over twenty years ago, I wrote a book "Human and Machine Intelligence: An Evolutionary View", in which I predicted that such things will exist within my lifetime - a prediction that can be falsified.

You stated that:

"The many worlds hypothesis does explain something -- it explains quantum mechanics in just as valid a manner as the Copenhagen interpretation, Bohmian mechanics, or any other intepretation of QM."

In my FQXI essay, I agree that all such interpretations are equally valid. But I also stressed the point, that none of them *explain* anything. They are not part of *THE THEORY*, they were created external to the theory, per se, and slapped onto it, after the fact, like a post-it note.

Regarding:

"In standard quantum theory supported by Bell's theorem..."

I think we both agree that Bell's *purported* theorem is not valid, although we have quite different reasons for our mutual conclusion. Invalid theorems support nothing.

Regarding:

""equaly likely" hypothesis at the center of probability theory. "

To me, probability theory is a branch of mathematics. Physical observations and theories can explain nothing about mathematics. Mathematics however, can be used to describe low-information-content phenomenon, like physics; In that sense (and no other) it can explain something.

Now if you want to consider the proposition that "The new and critical thing that Albrecht introduces" explains why the mathematics of probability theory has been found to be a useful tool for developing physical theories, that might be of some interest. But The Equally Likelihood hypothesis, has more to do with physicists, than physics. It is primarily concerned not with "what is?", but with what do we "intelligent life forms" known about what is. In other words, it has less to do with what happened at the dawn of creation (or anything else outside ourselves), than with what is presently going on within our minds.

Rob McEachern

Tom,

From the perspective of the ancients, Apollo's Chariot explained the sun crossing the sky.

Isn't another possible explanation that all perspective is "local"? Then it is the focusing of the information/measuring it, that is the collapse, but the larger, non-collapsed/non-measured is open to an infinity of perspective, but each collapses to its own view. Swarm awareness synthesizes objectivity not otherwise accessed. Ie, no god's eye view is possible.

Rob,

I wouldn't equate intelligence with awareness. Intelligence is processing information, while awareness is motivated. A computer is intelligent, but not motivated, while an ant is motivated, but not that intelligent. What motivates life is the simple binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental, aka, hope and fear. Computers process ones and zeros/on and off. For biology, life is the on and death is the off. Consider, for a moment, how these conversations progress, as everyone promotes their particular view of reality as truth and progress is often a power function of latching onto authority and riding it. For example, Tom arguing CI and multiworlds as viable explanations, rather than patches over the unknown, without seeing the age old pitfalls of appeals to authority. He is motivated, rather than objective. For him, "off" isn't an objective choice, but the wrong direction. The larger society has the same impulse, as "growth" is viewed as an unparalleled good, while sustainability is an afterthought. Now a true intelligence would view sustainability as the logical goal and growth as only one side of a larger cycle. Thus logic is often viewed as "cold" and unemotional. Institutions do not have a reverse, but they do break down.

John,

I've tried to stay out of this one, because Rob is doing a bangup job of making all of my points, but I do wish to agree with you when you say: "I wouldn't equate intelligence with awareness. Intelligence is processing information, while awareness is motivated." That was a basic definition in my first FQXI essay where the point was elaborated on in hundreds of comments. To me it's a big deal, thanks for bringing it up. By the way, you keep coming up with some real jewels. I especially liked your remark above about replacing infinities in one theory of the universe with infinite universes.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

John,

I wouldn't equate intelligence with awareness either. But I have a more stringent definition of intelligence than you do. No computer yet built is intelligent, that is still some years away. But they are very knowledgable, and becoming more so, far faster than any "life-form" ever did.

Rob McEachern

Jim:

I am sorry , The meanings of words ,some times when writing, we give words the meaning we just have in this moment in mind, this produce confusions. Is one of the reasons because nobody find out "the time nature". We know what we are meaning, the problem is transmitting these with written words in a way that everybody understand the same that we understood (my language is Spanish).

In march 5th you wrote:

In my view, the Earth`s rotational motion is the fundamental physical mechanism responsible for maintaining our confusion over the nature of time. I answer: "First there is no confusion about "the nature of time"( which is the physical existence), because we already find it, is "movement" "time" is just a remnant word.

My answer was the last part of my post, and I wrought it, because I thought that with the first part of my post it was clear, that the so called "time" was "movement" but I think I was wrong.

I explain in march 5th post : "We believe that, when we are looking at a clock, we are measuring "time", wrong we are measuring "movement". With the "constant" "uniform" or "regular" hour hand "movement" on the clock dial, we are measuring the earth constant rotational "movement" fraction, represented by the numbers on it, we just has measured "movement" with "movement" (and no "time" with "movement") We are not conscious that we are doing this, but as you see, can be physically proved. Two millenniums ago or more that we think we are measuring "time", it is hard to let it aside".

In short with the clock "constant" "movement"

we are measuring the earth "constant" rotational "movement" fraction,

represented by the dial numbers

We are measuring that and no the so called "time".

With this alone we are physically proving that with the clock we are measuring "movement" When I said "the nature of time" it is because is how physicist called it. In short when they want to know "What they are measuring" I answer them, you are measuring "movement" and no "time" because this, does not exist. The "movement" they are measuring is an existing physical quality or property of physically existing things, this is what they were looking for. "movement" (the nature of time).

I hope is clear now, as an old man I take the privilege to give an advise, we should read slow and with full attention on a subject as slippery as this.

The earth "constant" rotational movement is not responsible for maintaining the confusion over (the nature of time) but to explain why it is "movement".

I answered you, many other questions, and you say nothing about it.

I was referring at my post of march 4th, not to the one to Albrecht.

Hector

Dear Hector,

I think you might find J.C.N. Smiths FQXi competition essays very interesting, if you have not read them already

"Rethinking a Key Assumption About the Nature of Time" by J. C. N. Smith, 2012

"On the Impossibility of Time Travel" by J. C. N. Smith, 2009

He very clearly expressing the idea of passage of time being synonymous with changing configuration of the universe.

Edwin,

Thanks. I have to admit to being a bit free form in my thinking and this makes me focus. While that point about motivation vs. objectivity might seem pointed at Tom, it is coming from my own experiences of trying to understand my own impulses and people close to me. There was a recent neurology experiment showing that people with their emotional centers harmed, but their more intellectual centers functioning, were quite capable of coherent observations, yet utterly indecisive. We all are, to some extent, switches in a swarm mind.

Rob,

I did assign some further definition to intelligence, than you meant, but to try to make the argument about how awareness and information processing fit together. Like energy being conserved, awareness follows the open circuit. It doesn't collapse, but nor does it expand to follow all paths. Many of those branches are dead ends. Every last living entity is an open circuit back to the origin of life, but in every generation, the vast majority are genetic dead ends. So there is very much motivation for being the ones to survive.

Hector,

In your post of March 4th, addressed to myself, you mentioned physics. Your first sentence is, "general relativity mathematically proved, that velocity and gravity slow time, later on were also experimentally proved with several experiences, also reach technology with the GPS (time dilation)."

While I did take Astronomy and Physical Geography at university level, I did not take Physics and Mathematics. Therefore, I am not in a position to address General Relativity, Mathematics, and Gravity.

My own decades long search for the Nature of Time, did not, and does not, rely on university level Physics and Mathematics.

Jim,

Regarding the note: ....that velocity and gravity slow time, later on were also experimentally proved....

Within the conceptual equation MTS, T, as both a forward and reverse vector quantity, suggests a symmetry where Time has an effect in the forward vector in like to that of the reverse vector (i.e. it gets used up in both directions). As things slow (black hole & gravity), we see a symmetry to "as things speed up" [Space manifestation in the forward (approach "c")manifestation].

So, MTS holds true the concept of Time maintaining a symmetry between gravity and acceleration.

MTS

www.CIGTheory.com

Peter - am I talking to myself??? I owe you an elaboration (for now, recognize that spontaneous radiation follows the same "Fourth Law of Motion" as gravity. straying a little here.....

Peter - I think by now you should know my theory better than I do (really)

THX JIM

doug.... forget the time,....what day is it?

Constantinos

No, and anyway I do not run from the mains, but have an independent source of power.

Paul

Tom

Your argument for saying the multi worlds hypothesis explains something is wrong, because the concept you refer to as to how physical existence is constituted (ie waves, collapsing, etc) is wrong. Or at least, to be more precise, it is contradictory to existence as we can know it, and that is all we can investigate, unless we switch from science to religion.

The issue here is what do you all mean by 'universe'/'world'. If you mean an alternative physical system to the one we are in, and that can be validated on the basis of experienceability (obviously indirectly), then that is OK. Except that really it is part of the total physical existence which we can know, because we have proved it. The point here being that there is a grave danger of these 'other worlds' being the function of reifying logical possibilities which we cannot know. The point about 'life' is not "trivial". We are part of it, and as with all sentient organisms, possess an ability to be aware of it. But we are existentially trapped, by virtue of the fact that we exist. We can only know a closed system. We are A. There is always the possibility of not A, but we cannot know it, so it is irrelevant in science. We must confine ourselves to A, which has a definitive form, based on identifiable underlying physical processes.

The other 'argument' you refer to about time is just nonsense. The actual physical occurrence is rate of alteration. The reference for timing, the measuring system which calibrates this, is a conceptual constant rate of change. It is not any given timing device, they just 'tell' the time. And for the whole system to be operational, they are synchronised, ie to that conceptual constant. Einstein is nothing to do with "observer frames", he did not have any observers, because he did not have any light with which they could observe. His point, a statement of the blindingly obvious, is that no one reference is superior to another. Every statement involves a reference, and since we are trapped in a closed system, there is no 'absolute' reference.

Paul

I was watching "Closer To Truth", on public television this morning, when they ran part of an interview with Roger Penrose, regarding the nature of clocks in the early universe. This interview with Penrose can be found on the closertotruth website:

http://www.closertotruth.com/video-profile/Why-Did-Our-Universe-Begin-Roger-Penrose-/441

The portion about the clocks, mass and time, is near the middle of this segment.

Rob McEachern

Boy, talk about "slapped on misinterpretations". This should be popular with Tegmark, who believes math *IS* reality. Nothing like anthropomorphism: "The universe forgets how big it is!" Also, he quotes e=hf and e=mc^2 then postulates a universe with energy but no mass and hence no time. It's a looonnnng stretch. First state E=m, then say E is incredibly large, so m is irrelevant. Think about this.

As I noted in earlier essays, if you take Einstein's field equations seriously, the weak field equation says the circulational (transverse) aspect of gravity depends on mass (energy) density and velocity, and I contend that it is this circulation that introduces a (the first) 'clock' and hence any physical measure of 'time' to the universe. I can see how a Platonist (which Penrose claims to be) can go from the maximum expansion of the universe magically back into a new big bang because "the universe forgot how big it was" but it takes someone who believes math IS reality to buy this.

Rob, you've done a wonderful analysis of how the sinc-response of the two-slit experiment is (mis-)interpreted physically. The next thing we have to look forward to is the 'interpretation' of any anisotropy in the CMB as 'evidence' of this cock-a-mamie rebirth of the universe. I can't wait.

Still, very interesting.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Keep in mind the whole notion of "spacetime is physically real" is based on the theory of math as reality and that is the theoretical foundation of an expanding universe in the first place. Among the many points I keep trying to make, to little notice, is that it still assumes a stable speed of light against which to measure this expansion. Which presumes a stable metric of space!

Not to mention that relativity already describes gravity as collapsing space and so galaxies are the contraction of the intergalactic expansion. Resulting in the observed overall flat space.

I suppose one can only wait for these towers of delusion to crumble e, but they could well outlive us.

They may or may not outlive us. I found particularly interesting an article last week in which a long time proponent of SUSY said, 'get over it' -- stop twisting and distorting a theory that was beautiful (eye of the beholder) into an ever more ugly theory in order to hold on to SUSY at any costs.

Also, at last Tuesday's Stanford Physics colloquium, Joe Polchinski essentially said that they are all (they being 'the experts') very confused about cosmology in light of the 'firewall' problem (don't ask, I can't explain it) and this includes severe doubts about the 'holographic universe', which has been the paradigm for a decade or two. Susskind was front row center, and as the prime author of the holographic universe he did not mutter a single peep of argument.

As I note on another thread, thanks to Jonathan Dickau, I have become aware of Steven Kauffmann's work, which is severely critical of much of quantum field theory (the holy of holies) and very well reasoned. No wonder I never heard of him!

So, based on our knowledge of institutions (which, as you note above, do not have a reverse, but can crash) one would expect it to outlive us. But based on all of the pillars that are developing serious cracks, and more data expected to widen these cracks, we might be surprised.

We'll see. [Agreement with you on principles doesn't mean I buy all your arguments.]

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin, John,

I really think it is "living" applied maths, the relations of things, that is real. Surface area to volume ratio for example is very important in biology. It determines the internal structure of certain organs, such as the lungs; maximizing the surface area for diffusion of oxygen aids survival. It also determines whether my goldfish will survive in a particular shape of container or not.If the surface area is too small for a given volume of water not enough oxygen will dissolve at the surface and the fish will suffocate. That is real.

John, All

The expansion of the observed visible universe might just be due to spreading out of potential data that remains in the material universe independently of the material forms that were its source. Those having been recycled into new forms and relationships.It is then not surprising if the energy of the material universe existing everywhere simultaneously Now, which is not expanding, and is not observed but measured at the quantum scale is very different. Looking at the output of data processing, the visible Image universe, it might reflect the data having been affected by disturbances like shock waves or eddies in the substance filling space(whatever name is attached to it), giving an effect similar in appearance to gravity.Though its not is what is happening to the material bodies in space -Now.

Georgina,

"It also determines whether my goldfish will survive in a particular shape of container or not. If the surface area is too small for a given volume of water not enough oxygen will dissolve at the surface and the fish will suffocate. That is real."

Your goldfish is real and the water is real and the oxygen is real. The mathematical relations you mention are conceptual and inherently fuzzy. They are obviously useful descriptions, but they are not "real" in the sense that the physical world is real. There is no hard surface-to-volume ratio that exists between life and death, as there would be if the math were "real".

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Edwin,

I agree that the mathematical relations are not themselves material things but they are the vital relations between things.

The gills of the goldfish are materially real but they have the structure that they do because of the need to maximize surface area to volume ratio for efficient extraction of oxygen and diffusion out of toxic carbon dioxide.One might poetically say they have been shaped by the mathematics. The mathematical relations of surface area to volume determines what forms of gill work are best and so the life forms able to survive and reproduce in the material universe. Insufficient gill surface area the fish will not be able to generate enough energy from its food. It will be at a disadvantage compared to those with a better ratio, and will be less likely to survive.