The Tao of It and Bit by Cristinel Stoica

Dear Cristi,

You refer to "...does the spacetime need a mathematics to exist?" I am not sure how they can be separated, so that spacetime can exist without math...

I will try to explain: the spacetime can be defined only as a mathematical entity created by observers (Platonic) but it is not necessary. It can be defined as a purely physical entity (real) that does not need observers. As you see the approach to spacetime can be dual: one mathematical and one physical (Einstein also attributed an elasticity property to the spacetime regarding it as physically existing entity but not the ether). I don't know if my view is clear. It is a lot of language intricacies and philosophy involved in the issue. It is very hard and maybe impossible to stay independent from our language and culture notions.

Jacek,

If I may offer up a point about time, ask yourself the question of whether it makes more sense to say the earth exists along a fourth dimension, from yesterday to tomorrow, or that tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates?

As I see it, the problem is that we experience time as a sequence of events, much as we still see the sun moving across the sky, from east to west, yet like the underlaying reality of the earth spinning west to east, it is the events moving through the physical actuality of what is present, as it is constantly changing, not the present moving along some extra-dimensional vector.

Because physics treats time as only a measure of duration, it re-enforces this sequential perception, rather than revealing its cause. Duration is not an external vector to the point of the present, but is the state of the present between events.

As effect of action, time would be similar to temperature, much as frequency and amplitude are features of waves.

So spacetime as causal, is no more real than giant cosmic gearwheels spinning in the heavens, as explanation for the mathematical effectiveness of epicycles.

John

The present becomes the next present due to alteration, and ceases (because it has altered)in doing so. There is only ever a present. There is no existent tomorrow or yesterday, or more precisely preceding or succeeding physically existent state. The 'fourth dimension' is not a spatial dimension, it an aspect of sequence, ie the rate at which the turnover of presents in the sequence occurs. We calibrate it (aka timing) by comparing rates of change and identifying difference. Physcal existence is a purely spatial phenomenon, though it has more than 3 spatial dimensions.

Paul

Paul,

We agree on that. The disagreement is on how it comes about. You seem to see it as fundamentally discrete events and I see it as how we discretely perceive a dynamically continuous process.

This "book" can be thought of in a number of ways. The book might be a set of tables, where these tables contain the states under some set of projector operators. This particular book though is incomplete, for there exist other books of the same form, but the books are not consistent with each other because the probabilities violate Bell inequalities.

We may look at these books as propositions that are connected by a disjoint "OR" operation. In that setting the books become elements in systems of relationships. Within that sense these relationships describe a set of geodesics that have a measure over Hilbert space.

Cheers LC

John

No, we do not agree, because you immediately dispute the concept of discreteness in your next sentence. To which the reaction is:

-how can physical existence be continuous, since it obviously involves difference?

-how can our perception of what is occurring affect it, physically, since it has already occurred in order for us to then perceive it?

Paul

Paul,

We do agree there is no physical existent blocktime, which given the extent this is foundational to a causal geometry of spacetime, is a big step. Where we disagree is the nature of the process. You seem to see it as a series of distinct presents, while I see it as what is present is energetic and thus constantly changing. Since it is what exists that is the constant, not the forms it takes, then it is not really the present moving along some vector, be it physically real, as in blocktime, or a sequence of distinct events, as you propose, but that since this state is constantly changing, it is these forms that come and go, ie. the events going future to past. My favorite example being that it is not the earth traveling some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but tomorrow becoming yesterday because the earth rotates.

Now since our actions are every bit as real as the insensate activity occurring around us, they are part of what forms these events, that are constantly receding into the past. On the other hand, yes, if we think of time as a sequence of events and we exist at one point on this line, we cannot go back and change the past, nor reach out and affect the future. It is only when time is an emergent effect of action, do our actions have effect.

Now this is Cristi's thread, so if you wish to continue, go to yours, or mine, otherwise I will reply any further at mine.

Dear Cristinel

I enjoyed going through your engaging essay - every topic you chose was interesting, pertinent, beautifully explained and illustrated and thought-provoking. As a mathematician you should know how fertile and precocious the field is - so many different ways to express the same situation. Combine that with the cleverness and imagination of a Feynman or a Wheeler and you get truly mind-boggling choices in how to represent the Universe. Unfortunately It=It and one feels that the simpler a model is the more probably it is right - a single universe vs. many - one history instead of multiple ones etc, local causality vs. probability.

The delayed-choice beam-splitter experiment is brilliant. Sadly it has been now made meaningless after Eric Reiter's experiments, backed by solid theoretical and historical analysis of the issues involved, with beam-splitters showing that light-quanta do not 'choose' one path or another, but as waves (not point photons) are detected by both detectors simultaneously. Reiter reported about this in his 2012 fqxi essay and on his website unquantum.net . How such an important experimental challenge demolishing the inherent probability in Nature (the Born Rule) can be so neglected by the physics community is beyond me.

With best wishes, Vladimir

Dear Cristi

If I along with many debunkers of QM weirdness are right, Wheeler's delayed choice test being confirmed by experiment does not mean much. Here is a quick-and dirty explanation of how I see the scenario:

Forget point photons, wave collapse and all that. Einstein's 'photon' concept is the font of all the QM weirdness he himself railed against! Compton himself gave a wave explanation for his effect as Reiter explained on unquantum.net - all proving Planck's loading theory in which an atom releases light suddenly but absorbs it slowly until a threshold is reached and the (hv) quantum released.

In other words the light wave passes simultaneously through both slits and creates the wave interference pattern beyond them. In the famous faint-light case when the pattern emerges dot by dot on the long-exposed film the timing of the dot flashes in the film is an artifact of the sensing atoms individually and randomly reaching their energy threshold and has nothing to do with how the light went through the slits!

When the film is removed and two telescopes watch the slits no simultaneous sensing is recorded because of the energies involved. Reiter has shown how a single gamma ray is simultaneously recorded in two detectors.

I have touched on these issues in my 'Fix Physics' paper, and the scenario above plays out nicely in the universal node lattice of my Beautiful Universe theory.

These papers can be read on my website . I am now trying to simulate my theory to show how things like matter formation, gravity, quantum probability etc. all emerge locally linearly and causally. Big job small capability!

Best wishes

Vladimir

Cristi

Your point about emission in quanta need not cotradict the loading theory. After all it was Planck himself who proposed it and fought Einstein's point photon concept all the way!

Obviously I am not an expert on this but I really think it is worth studying the material Reiter has collected because it will clear a lot of questions and open new lines of thought.

Cristi: your argument that from the Zero Axiom and the principle of logical consistency is puzzling in puzzling. The Zero Axiom is just the axiom that there. Is at least one contradictory proposition, namely itself. But of course there isn't one such proposition, there are infinitely many. There are round squares is another self-contradictory proposition. There is a tortoise that is not a tortoise is another. I could go on. So the Zero Axiom is really a triviality. All you need to say is that there exist contradictions.

This brings me to a more fundamental problem: which is how you try to use the Zero Axiom and principle of logical consistency to argue for a mother of all possible worlds. Although you *say* that any proposition can be derived from a contradiction, and thus that the *existence* of an entire mother of all worlds can be derived from it, this peculiar feature of the law of logical consistence is only an implication of classical logic: one that has long struck many logicians as absolutely unjustifiable -- which is why there is such a thing as Intuitionistic logic which does *not* permit the derivation of any proposition from a contradiction. Thus, if Intuitionistic logic is correct, your argument fails. It's fine if you want to say, "Well, I'm only interested in classical logic", but unfortunately that's not an argument. It just assumes that classical logic is correct, despite its having a bizarre implication that Intuitionists reasonably deny. Unless you can give an argument for classical over Intuitionistic logic, it's not clear why anyone should accept your argument.

Cristi: your argument that from the Zero Axiom and the principle of logical consistency is puzzling in puzzling. The Zero Axiom is just the axiom that there. Is at least one contradictory proposition, namely itself. But of course there isn't one such proposition, there are infinitely many. There are round squares is another self-contradictory proposition. There is a tortoise that is not a tortoise is another. I could go on. So the Zero Axiom is really a triviality. All you need to say is that there exist contradictions.

This brings me to a more fundamental problem: which is how you try to use the Zero Axiom and principle of logical consistency to argue for a mother of all possible worlds. Although you *say* that any proposition can be derived from a contradiction, and thus that the *existence* of an entire mother of all worlds can be derived from it, this peculiar feature of the law of logical consistence is only an implication of classical logic: one that has long struck many logicians as absolutely unjustifiable -- which is why there is such a thing as Intuitionistic logic which does *not* permit the derivation of any proposition from a contradiction (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic). If Intuitionistic logic is more defensible than classical logic (as I and many other people think it is), your argument fails. It's fine if you want to say, "Well, I'm only interested in classical logic", but unfortunately that's not an argument. It just assumes that classical logic is correct, despite its having a bizarre implication that Intuitionists reasonably deny. Unless you can give an argument for classical over Intuitionistic logic, it's not clear why anyone should accept your argument.

Hi Cristinel,

Looking at Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, do you get the sense that there are real wave-functions that are being created (by opening the slit) and collapsed (by closing the slit), such that the waves-functions appear/vanish faster than the speed of light? In other words, wave-functions are the mathematical "bit", but they also exist as the "it", and are not restricted by the speed of light.

Has anyone thought of toggling between particle and wave (particle-wave duality) using the Wheeler delayed choice experiment for use in FTL signalling? In other words, opening/closing the second slit creates/destroys the second wave-function. The second wave-function is what is interfering with the first wave-function and causing the interference pattern.

Creating/destroying wave-functions can be done to transmit, not information, but patterns, faster than light. On the receivng end, you need a way to determine (a) is it a particle pattern = 1 or (b) is it a wave-pattern = 0.

There is no reason why you can't place the photon detector a distance of several light hours away. Then, you open and close the second slit to transmit a digital code: 1010 0110...

If delayed choice is true, then the wave-particle-wave-particle pattern should be transmitted instantaneously (faster than light).

Anyone?

Cristinel or anyone! Doesn't Wheeler's Delyed Choice suggest that you can toggle on/off an interfering wave (like a light switch); only you're turning of/off/toggling a wave-function that can produce an wave/particle pattern as an observable, even after the photons have passed the slits. That's why it's called "delayed choice". It implies that you can produce an observable faster than the speed of light.