Lev, I appreciated the time and patience you spent anwering my questions. I see that you are posting more ratings. I wouldn't want you to think that one of those recent ratings might have been mine. I rated your essay some time ago with that high mark.

James Putnam

Thanks, James! I appreciate your sensitivity to the rating mess that is going on.

The reason I started posting the essay scores is to help me cope with this mess. ;-)

Of course, I have been talking about this issue repeatedly during and after contests 2 and 3, but to no avail. So one would think that I should have been prepared for this, but unfortunately (or may be fortunately) I will never be prepared for such mess in a *scientific* contest. Is it a scientific contest or simply a PR event disguised as the former?

Lev

Aha, so who is being naïve now?? I commented on this when you first raised it in the essay topic, agreeing that the notion of competitors rating each other was absurd, and more importantly, stymies the ensuing debate. Which would have otherwise been a very useful mechanism for what was being said to be clarified/enhanced. Note how some have virtually no posts, and no posts have been made by the author, yet people have been 'moved' to rate the essay. And whilst I agreed with the essence of your resolution to the problem, ie poor quality essays should be screened out by a panel,the real resolution to this, which you told me I was naive about, is that a panel should judge both the essays and postings. I am not interested in the resource implications of this, if a contest is organised then that encompasses a responsibility of judging it properly.

Paul

Roll the dice, pick a number. 7 looks good, its not been used yet!!

Paul: "I am not interested in the resource implications of this, if a contest is organised then that encompasses a responsibility of judging it properly."

Exactly! I have been appalled that such *indignity* has been allowed to go on from year to year.

5 days later

Lev

Congratulations for an exceptionally well-written paper in which you guided us to the new horizons of your ETS concepts. From the outset I realized that I can completely agree with some of your ideas, but of others I can say "he knows what he is talking about but I just do not want to go in that direction". Examples:

You said " how many physicists are prepared to start the development ofphysics more or less anew". Count me in. The subtitle of my Beautiful Universe Theory (BU) is "Reconstructing Physics from Simple New First Principles."In my model of the universe the internal causal exchanges of angular momentum between the lattice nodes are well described by two of your statements:

"...development of a radically different - non-numeric, or structural-scientific language" and "evolving transformations systems". In other words in (BU) matter, energy, space and time all emerge from something more basic, and self-evolve according to internal exchanges of momentum (a 'language') much as in a quantum computer.

Having said that I then began to shy away from the structs representation you propose. It may well eventually work to describe how nature and thought work and interact, but using classes seems an artificial top-down coarse approach to describe what in the end would be the most delicate operations of nature at the sub-atomic level.

Yes your scheme may be " radically different from all known representations mainly because it is addressing the formative, rather than any apparent, structure." But understanding and dealing in space and structure is part of our human heritage. Is ETS a language invented for robot physicists?

I was intrigued by your enigmatic Figure 5 of a "schematic event-based version of the Huygens' view of light, which now removes the waveparticle mystery". How? I know Huygens' principle quite well and have shown in my de-diffraction research described in papers here that it is not a physically correct representation of how diffraction occurs in nature - as streamlined flow. I also know that Eric Reiter has now definitively explained particle-wave duality by debunking the point photon concept. Your comments on this and other issues here as well as on my current fqxi paper would be welcome!

With admiration for your combination of bold initiative with technical expertise in your field, I wish you the best.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Thanks for your interest!

1. "using classes seems an artificial top-down coarse approach to describe what in the end would be the most delicate operations of nature at the sub-atomic level."

Classes are proposed as the informational units of Universe organization and are not related to a "top-down coarse approach" at all.

2. "Is ETS a language invented for robot physicists? "

I'm not sue what you mean by this.

3. "I was intrigued by your enigmatic Figure 5 of a "schematic event-based version of the Huygens' view of light, which now removes the waveparticle mystery". How?"

Vladimir, I referred to the 'visual', or informal, Huygens' view of light

"In 1678, Huygens proposed that every point to which a luminous disturbance reaches becomes a source of a spherical wave" (Wiki)

and not to its analytical expression.

In other words, the spatial 'propagation' of the instantiated ETS events might be similar to the process of wave propagation as proposed by Huygens.

    Lev

    From the brief description of informational classes in your essay I could not imagine how they can be used for example to describe the motion of a particle in a gravitational field - what kind of math would be used there?

    Oh my reference to robot physicists was my attempt at a humorous expression of my bafflement about your scheme. An experience of space is a fundamental human sensation so the laws of our physics are geared to that. Humans are not necessary for the universe to function of course, and it seemed to me that if some mechanical artificial intelligence (robots) were to derive the laws of physics they might use a scheme such as the one you are advocating.

    @"the spatial 'propagation' of the instantiated ETS events might be similar to the process of wave propagation as proposed by Huygens."

    I now understand what you are saying but not how ETS events can describe the propagation of light.

      Vladimir,

      1. "From the brief description of informational classes in your essay I could not imagine how they can be used for example to describe the motion of a particle in a gravitational field - what kind of math would be used there?"

      As you can imagine, I can only speculate here. The "motion" of particle is represented by a struct, and the "gravitational field" is also captured by a very large struct, since the field emerged gradually during the formation of a particular object or objects, as for example, in the formation of Earth and Sun.

      2. "An experience of space is a fundamental human sensation so the laws of our physics are geared to that."

      As you might have guessed, the development of ETS formalism was mainly motivated by the desire to unlock the nature of our perceptual mechanism, which I suggest was driven by the proposed structural representation.

      3. "I now understand what you are saying but not how ETS events can describe the propagation of light."

      In order to properly address this question we need to discover (experimentally) the structure of the events associated with the propagation of light. We don't even know if there is one or several events involved, not talking about their structure. But my point is that if the structure of the corresponding events is something like that depicted in Fig.5, this would explain *very naturally* the mysterious "wave-particle duality".

      By the way, I forgot to ask you if you looked at the only example I gave in the essay (in the endnote (iv) ). That is a must for getting at least some feeling for the formalism.

      Cheers, Lev

      Vladimir,

      I forgot to comment on the following your point:

      "using classes seems an artificial top-down coarse approach to describe what in the end would be the most delicate operations of nature at the sub-atomic level."

      As you may know, it is physics that approached nature in a "top-down coarse approach" and eventually met with the substantial difficulties in QM, where one has to deal with the "bottom" side of reality.

      The ETS struct is a suggested bottom-up approach to the representation of "reality". However, what gradually became clear to me--and independently, to some extent, to some physicists--is that the basis of such approach inevitably leads outside the conventional spatial framework.

      Physicists are not yet comfortable to think and to talk in terms of new forms of data representation, but this will come once you started on the path leading outside the spatial forms of data representation.

      The shameless game of pulling down the entries with the higher scores continues unabated ;-) :

      3, 1, 10, 2, 6, 5, 5, 1, 6, 2, 3, 8, 3

      Lev

      Turkeys don't vote for Christmas!

      Paul

      Lev,

      Great to see you back, and with a nicely developed thesis which I think has great value and potential. It's particularly pleasing to see someone actually tacking 'measurement' directly and in a different, non numeric way. I'd really like to hear your views on my suggested division line (proposed by Dirac) between real physical nature and that of numerism.

      I liked your; "let us recall that the concept of measurement, which goes to the roots of our civilization--lies at the very foundation of physics." And again, I've also tackled measurement as a real interaction, trying to define 'detection' as a separate prior interaction and would welcome your views.

      I end up offering a 'real' resolution of the EPR paradox so also saw analogies with your last figure. There is 'hidden information' which i have actually found researching Aspects discarded 'anomalous' data!

      I really enjoyed the read and found much 'hidden likeness', so it would seem churlish to even try to offer any criticism. Excellent job, and fingers crossed for a top finish this year.

      Peter

        Dear Lev,

        Your essay strikes at the root of the foundation of today's physics. You say and I agree, "...in the physics of the last century, the most basic conceptual foundations of today's physics are undoubtedly of spatial origin".

        In your ETS representation,

        - is a point a geometric fiction or a physically real object with extension, (monad)?

        - can a line have length with zero breadth?

        - can a surface having length and breadth but with a zero thickness still exist physically?

        - can abstract objects, existing only in the Platonic realm form a part of a physically real object in this physical realm? (Noting that by Euclid's definitions, the extremities of physically real bodies are surfaces, and if lines physically exist, their extremities are points).

        You can check out Euclid's definitions of the properties of space, here

        [link:farside.ph.utexas.edu/euclid/Elements.pdf/] and [link:aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/

        I have a paper submitted in the contest based on a 'foundation of a spatial origin', titled On the road not taken. You may check it out and see how it fits with ETS theory.

        Regards,

        Akinbo.

          Dear Akinbo:

          Thanks for your interest!

          -----------------------------------------

          "In your ETS representation,

          - is a point a geometric fiction or a physically real object with extension, (monad)?

          - can a line have length with zero breadth?

          - can a surface having length and breadth but with a zero thickness still exist physically?

          - can abstract objects, existing only in the Platonic realm form a part of a physically real object in this physical realm? (Noting that by Euclid's definitions, the extremities of physically real bodies are surfaces, and if lines physically exist, their extremities are points)."

          -------------------------------------------

          Please note that ETS says nothing about "Euclid's definitions" As to your last question, please see the concept of instantiation in the essay.

          Best wishes, Lev

          The hyperlinks didnt come out as expected. Accessible links to Euclid's definitions can be found at

          http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/

          http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/euclid/Elements.pdf

            Lev

            Thank you for the clarifications. I have looked again at the diagram E1 in section iv and indeed a temporal sequential struct explanation is different than the physical one, and clearer inasfar as the cause-effect chain is concerned. I think I am beginning to see where you are heading. Now if everything in the Universe is connected as a lattice or network at the vacuum level and in matter and energy, such structs become a natural outcome...

            Sorry I have a one-track mind - I was thinking of my Beautiful Universe theory. I am too old to be diverted from the task of developing this model - but I wish you luck with your interesting work.

            Vladimir