Marcoen,

I come from a long line of farmers in a fairly wealthy area, around Baltimore Maryland. Now we are mostly into horseracing. To say that moral "flexibility" is part of the culture of racing would be putting it mildly. Because we have been at it so long though, there is this deeper understanding of it in fairly complex terms, to where it is not so much a good/bad issue, but as simply a character health issue. Just as people and all forms of life, can be varying degrees of healthy and unhealthy for any number of reasons, so can people be morally weak. corrupted, amoral, etc. in a wide range of fashions.

Because I found it so pervasive, I early on decided that it really didn't matter to me to be successful, as much as it mattered to be true to what I felt was right. Consequently I've mostly spent my time working with the horses and within the family, while trying to understand where the larger society is headed. Here is an essay I wrote a couple of years ago, laying out some of my conclusions.

Now there is an old(apparently very old) African saying, that; "If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go with a group." So much of the corruption today, in all of society, is simply due to people doing whatever it takes to get ahead, ie. to go alone. Now as you point out in physics, it is the opposite, conforming to the model at whatever the cost, but the result is the same; Short term thinking eventually meets up with the long term and the bubble pops.

The fact is that at the level of social movement we are discussing, 20 years is little more than an eye-blink. There are theological models which have been building for millennia and economic models that have been building for centuries. That doesn't mean their built in fallacies will never catch up with them. When I was young, it was assumed the conflict between capitalism and communism would go on until they went to war. Yet the built in fallacies of communism, which was also an over-reliance on conformism, caught up with it before the fallacies of capitalism have caught up with it, yet that doesn't look too far off, now.

So, yes, those being trained in the mold find it confining and this is good, as long as they truly believe in where it is going, but when disbelief sets in, this confinement then becomes unstable pressure and like a rocket that starts to wobble, will actually be a force against the model.

Regards,

John

John,

"those being trained in the mold find it confining and this is good, as long as they truly believe in where it is going, but when disbelief sets in, this confinement then becomes unstable pressure and like a rocket that starts to wobble, will actually be a force against the model."

Nicely put. I hope that you're right. I'm not against the hegemony of the Standard Model per se - there will always be some dominant paradigm - but I'm fór an open scientific discourse on the foundations of physics. See also my recent paper.

Best regards,

Marcoen.

Peter,

Thanks for the kind words.

I'll have a look at your essay on short time notice. By the way, I do not take up a position about your essay on the evidence of "rave reviews", nor on the evidence of results of other essays in earlier contests.

Best regards,

Marcoen

Hi Daryl,

Thanks for posting your comments.

Indeed, I take issue with the fact that the claim of the CMS collaboration goes against elementary logic: it's a fallacy. It doesn't matter that the Higgs is the only contender at this moment: it remains a fallacy. You cannot say: these are traces of a Higgs boson, therefore the Higgs boson exists. Then you're assuming what has to be proven (it's a circular reasoning).

You are correct in your statement that I haven't said anything about what else that observed peak could have been. My essay is purely critical: I only question the conclusion of the CMS collaboration that the Higgs boson has been observed. So to provide somewhat of an answer to your question, I would say: the Higgs boson is currently the best possible explanation for the observed peak(s). But then we're talking about an 'explanation', not about an 'observation'. Big difference. If it's the best possible explanation, then it still might be the case that we find a better explanation at a later time. But if it's an observation, then that's final: then the Higgs boson exists, period. Then there is no other explanation for the observed peak(s). And in my opinion, they cannot make that claim.

Best regards,

Marcoen

Hmm... but we can only ever inductively infer the causes of the things we observe. We observe observables, not beables. That's the nature of science. Our inferences can never be proven, only falsified. That's why we look for as many ways of confirming our inferences as possible. I just don't understand: do you mean to take issue with the scientific method in general? Because if you do, you've got grounds to do so: as you said, A==>B does not mean observing B proves A. What if A=/=>C and we also observe C? There's got to be some A' that's compatible with both B and C.

But instead of hypothesis confirmation, what would you do? I really don't mean to sound negative. Maybe I've got this wrong somewhere...

Marcoen,

Ack! Not being focused on success, I'm pretty cheap when it come to sourcing information. I suspect most of the $40 would go to springer anyway.

I have to say though, as I pointed out, I tend to see such moral and political issues more in terms of the underlaying physics, than the emotional heat they generate.

Regards,

John

Hi Daryl,

Your "we observe observables, not beables" says it all: my point exactly. I cannot fathom why the top brass in physics thinks that they can go against such a basic principle.

I do not take issue with the scientific method in general: my essay is purely about the wordings in which the results are expressed. The devil is in the details - a change of just one term can put results in an entirely different perspective.

For me science is in the first place about testing rigorous speculation. So I'm all for hypothesis confirmation.

I see that our thoughts on the matter are on par.

Best regards,

Marcoen

John,

I'm not allowed to post the paper on the internet. But I could send you the paper in a reply to an e-mail to my address in the essay.

Best regards,

Marcoen

PS: all of the $40 goes to Springer ...

Dear Marcoen,

Thank you for clarifying, and sorry if I sounded obtuse. Agreed! People should not communicate--either amongst themselves or to the general public--using words that they know misrepresent their actual results.

All the best,

Daryl

Marcoen,

Will do.

"all of the $40 goes to Springer ..."

You are the fuel to their rocket.

Did you happen to read the essay I linked on the 4th? It lays out the essential fallacy of capitalism, which is that money is a contract that we treat as a commodity.

Regards,

John

Marcoen,

Good. Thank you. the quotes were to tempt you to read it. The past essays are precursers which build the foundations of the ontology, never originally about QM, and only testing the model on QM exposed a coherent alternative description was possible deriving the SR postulates.

To answer the question in my blog, yes, I suppose to most people a fundamental new view is needed, dropping a number of hidden foundational assumptions. It's only surprising at first due to unfamiliarity. As it makes all the anomalies and paradoxes evaporate one by one it becomes ever simpler.

I reply more fully on my blog in case you wish to explore this.

Thank you and best wishes for the final cut.

Peter

John,

I haven't had the time yet to read the essay on capitalism, but I hope that soon I can read it.

Earlier you mentioned that the main fallacy of communism was the reliance on conformity. I think another failure of communism is that it does not allow personal possessions. Precisely because of that people alienated from the system: nothing is theirs. At least that is how I see it. Marx proposed this as a solution to the problem of the contrast between the "haves" and the "have-nots". On paper it looked good, but he didn't account for the emotions (feelings) of people.

Best regards,

Marcoen

Hi Marcoen,

Although I'm not a physicist, I agree with you and have already rated your essay.

Moreover, my research has led me to believe that, so far, all we have done in physics is related to the *numeric* computations associated with the 'natural' phenomena. What I mean by this is that if, as I'm led to hypothesize, the reality is not of numeric, or spatial origin, but of structural one (in a very specific sense), then the numeric characteristics cannot be taken too seriously, since they capture one (non-structural) side of reality.

Also I'm led to believe, for example, that not the "particles" themselves but the events which are currently seen as "interactions" are the more fundamental units of physical reality, where the "particles" are just various processes linking them.

Good luck in the contest!

    By the way, if you are interested, please participate in

    https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_a_solid_experimental_support_for_the_general_assumption_in_Feynman_diagrams_that_every_actual_particle_interaction_is_described_by_a_vertex_of_degree_3

    Lev,

    Thanks for posting your comments.

    In my theory material objects are fundamental, but there others who have postulated that events are fundamental. This is certainly the case in the process philosophy of Whitehead.

    Best regards,

    Marcoen

    Dear Marcoen,

    We are at the end of this essay contest.

    In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

    Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

    eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

    And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

    Good luck to the winners,

    And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

    Amazigh H.

    I rated your essay.

    Please visit My essay.

      Dear Marcoen,

      1)Thanks for your post on my blog. I think you should be honored as the Chief Objective critic on this forum because you don't engage in unnecessary flattery from what I have read from your comments on other essays rather your criticisms are fair.

      2)I believe our positions will be harmonized in future since there are already areas of similarity.

      3)You will need to find harmony between your model which has real numbers, Planck distance limit and Zeno's Dichotomy argument.

      4)By 'bits of space' do you mean tiny pieces of extension (space) and not Bits, short for binary states?

      5)If your set of real numbers represent POINTS since geometrically and mathematically points are like real numbers and your set of open intervals are "somewhat comparable to MONADS" as you say, can both not be binary states of each other, with one member joining the other set and vice versa?

      Best regards,

      Akinbo

      Dear Akinbo,

      Thanks for the kind words.

      1) I believe constructive criticism is an essential part of scientific discourse.

      2) I agree that there are areas of similarity, but I do not know whether our positions can be harmonized. At some point it is alright to agree to disagree.

      3) The model is more complicated than the example I gave in that post, but I have to work things out before it is publishable. I might throw in a line about Zeno, thanks for the hint.

      4) The 'bits of space' are indeed tiny pieces of space.

      5) To model the vacuum one makes use of a branch of mathematics called topology. Typically you use one set to model the set of all positions in the vacuum, and a second set to model the topological structure of the vacuum. See here for some background on topology. So basically I am developing a new kind of topological space.

      Best regards,

      Marcoen

      Hi Marcoen,

      I feel a little silly, I missed your excellent essay. It is underrated and I will do my best to remedy.

      It feels good to be not alone in investigating the fundamentals of physics. I am with you that the very source of QM needs investigation. And we are very close on the details of motion at the quantum level. It was refreshing to read about the Higgs' "Information vs. Misinformation". A real current issue.

      Thanks,

      Don L.

        Marcoen,

        The problem between capitalism and communism is they take opposite sides of a dichotomy and argue as though it has to be one, or the other, not a balance between the two. While communism treats everything as public, capitalism would like to have everything as private. Obviously there has to be some balance between the two.

        Much like the pro and anti-government arguments. Too much government and you have North Korea. Too little and you have Somalia.

        Nor do you even want a perfect balance, as that would be like a flat line on a heart monitor. You need those two sides pulling against each other, like positive and negative charge, but if people learned at a young age about balance and not just wanting everything, or being single minded about everything, we could start to rise above some of the more mindless fighting and petty feuds, as people understood it isn't all just black and white, or that there is only shades of grey between them. All colors of the spectrum are between black and white/light and dark.

        Regards,

        John