On The Road Not Taken by Akinbo Ojo

Monads are what matter is pre-measurement.

Particles, atoms, molecules, and stuff in general exist as measurements the monads made of themselves.

Dear Eckard,

I have read your essays 369 and 527. Both reflect your strong engineering background. Signalling as well as Classical and Quantum measurements take place in an arena we call 'space'. All are agreed on this.

Surely, whether or not this arena is a "nothing", i.e. merely a relational concept which by implication will be infinitely divisible being a mathematical entity as propagated by the Platonic school OR a "something", i.e. a substantival thing, which by implication of the action-reaction principle must be capable of acting and being acted upon, must have implications for signalling and measurements.

Again, in line with the theme of this year's essay, if the arena is a substantival thing, then Nature can store its information in it.

Being an engineer you can explore what ideas such as 'Cellular Automaton', 'A New Kind of Science' by Stephen Wolfram, 'Digital Physics' by Edward Fredkin can do for your theories on signalling (check these out initially on Wikipedia).

Until proved otherwise, for me, monads are candidates for the fundamental Cellular Automata.

Dr. Ojo,

I am terribly sorry for rudely not answering your question, I lost track of my essay comments. Uniqueness cannot be quantified, qualified or rectified. Real uniqueness cannot be contrived, constructed or construed. Nature only deals in real uniqueness once and it only produces one whole real thing once. For instance, nature has produced one real unique whole me and one real unique whole you once. Mathematicians believe that there are such things as postulated identical "whole " numbers, and these identical "whole" numbers can be odd or even and they can be repeatedly divided, multiplied and equated, provided some sort of abstract identical laws are applied to the process. Whereas there is no limit to the divisibility of an abstract 1, a real one cannot ever be divided.

Unique real nature does not provide any separable lines or surfaces.

Dear Sir,

The most striking thing about your essay is the glossary at the beginning. For unambiguous communication, we must assign precise and fixed meaning to the technical terms we use. Unfortunately, most scientists use an operational definition, which can be suitably manipulated in all possible manner. Congratulations for this bold approach. However, we wish you should have also defined space, time and dimension, since you have discussed these quite often. And your ending is really dramatic.

The first 5 pages of your essay can be summarized as follows: Dimensions are perceived (ocular perception) through electromagnetic radiation, where an electric field and a magnetic field, move perpendicular to each other and also to the direction of their motion. Thus, we have three mutually perpendicular dimensions which differentiate the "internal structural space" - bare mass from the "external relational space" - the radiative mass. For this reason, we classify the states of matter as solid, fluid or gaseous, depending upon whether the dimension is fixed, unfixed or unbound. A point, which does not have "internal structural space", cannot have dimension. The outgoing electro-component associated with heat energy also propagates through conduction, convection and radiation in objects associated with these states. But what about the propagation of a point, which does not have "internal structural space", but has "external relational space" (because it has existence)? Like a photon it radiates. What is its life-time?

Time is the ordered sequential arrangement of events that shows their mutual degree of priority or posterity just like space is the interval between objects. In absolute terms, no event can be said to be the first event or the last event. Hence time, like space, is infinite. But unlike space, time comes in cycles - from being to becoming to growth, transformation, transmutation and finally destruction. This is the life-time. These cycles are different for different species. Hence relativistically, they lead to time dilation. Since everything moves like a wave which is cyclic, the minimum life time can be the time taken to cover one wave length. And that is also the maximum life time for it, because it has no dimension. Only the wave existed to give its perception indirectly. This is what is meant by virtual particles pop out and vanish in the quantum states. The photon is absorbed at only one place, so the cycle of the re-emitted wave comes from that point.

There is a fine glitch in Newton's action-reaction principle. Though every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, most of the time, the reaction is non-linear, whereas the action is linear. But most text books interpret it wrongly.

The simplest answer to Zeno's paradox is that velocity is related to the mass of the body that is moving, the energy used (force applied) to move it and the total density of and the totality of the energy operating on the field. These are all mobile units against the back drop of the field that is static with reference to these. Middle of the distance is related to the frame of reference, which is relatively static with reference to the other mobile aspects. Thus, it is like comparing position and momentum. They do not commute. Hence there is no paradox, which is borne out of experience. While the middle of the distance is gradually reduced, the velocity is not reduced by the same proportion.

Rest of your points we have already discussed in our essay.

Regards,

basudeba

Akinbo,

I was very impressed with your essay. I have tried to prepare a comment on your essay, walking along the Extended Point Highway, but I am uncertain as to how the 'point' or 'extension' works in with Leibniz' belief that perception and consciousness cannot be 'mechanical'. So rather than display my confusion, I became sidetracked by a comment you made on Phil Gibbs' blog. Referring to the concept of bit as the answer to 'yes/no' questions, you asked Phil:

"What is the question?'

I believe that the essential question is 'One or Many?'

The Multiverse theory is based on hundreds of (hypothesized) fields, leading to 10-to-the-500 universes, all invoked to explain 'fine tuning'.

The Zen 'theory' is that the universe is essentially, 'not-two'.

I tend to fall on the 'not-two' side and address this in my essay. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed your essay.

Welcome to FQXi. You are already a valued participant.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Akinbo,

Beautifully written essay, good concept and well argued. I agree the fork analogy (and also used it often) and particularly the argument about the implications of non-point particles. I hope you may read my last years essay which went a long way down that road and found many implications, as well as this years, firmly distinguishing the mathematical 'point' from nature.

One proposal is that Monad density may be variable and indeed have gravitational potential, so equivalent to dark matter. I identified these in my 2011 essay as the ions of the iono/ plasmaspheres of space, which then also act as the a border of 'boundary' condition and mechanism. This may help show the great potential of the fork you take.

As Einstein said objects are not 'in' space but are 'spatially extended'. The border may then be a scattering surface defining an inertial system.

Well written, good to read, and certainly a very good score to come from me. I'd also greatly welcome your views on my own essay, which may just give you a (rather dense) taste of what I have derived may lie down that road to 'physical reality'.

Best of luck

Peter

Thanks for the fine essay. It seems then that Plato wins the verdict - the abstract geometrical form of "point" cannot be pinned down by the finite limitations of the physical world, but exist most beautifully in the higher mental realm. Indeed, for the mathematician, the line is infinitely divisible and a multiplicity of infinities can easily be imagined. Not so for the poor physicist who must suffer with the ugly discontinuity of monads that pop in and out of existence.

Query - for physics to be complete, do monads require other properties than simply on or off?

Hi Akinbo,

Thanks for reading and for your gracious comments. I've observed that you always ask good questions!

1.) As I noted in an earlier essay, Eugenio Calabi in 1953 essentially asked if our Master equation was valid:

"Could there be gravity ... even if space is a vacuum totally devoid of matter?"

He reasoned: "...being non-linear, gravity can interact with itself and in the process create mass", and he conjectured, "curvature makes gravity without matter possible". The Calabi-Yau manifold confirms our Master equation-based only on gravity -but his conjecture was based on special geometry in which "time is frozen".

As I mentioned in technical notes, the uncharged electromagnetic field has energy, hence mass, but only interacts with charge, hence does not react with itself. The gravitomagnetic field energy has mass and interacts with mass, hence does interact with itself (in local motion). This has two consequences. The self-interaction vortex leads to soliton-like particles and the particles can be confined in a 'self-generated' field, hence achieving what is currently assigned to "color" in QCD. Thus the one field can interact with itself in a Yang-Mills gauge theory of mass. I would replace the "gluons" [which are considered to interact with themselves] by the C-field. In this case QCD has 10 extra parameters used to "fit" data.

2.) I'm pleased that you agree the threshold provides the real meaning of 'bit'.

The quantum analysis (which falls out of my master equation) leads to discreteness only for 'bound' systems. A free electron (say) has no well-defined properties (other than charge, which, in my theory results from binding the particle together.) When it is bound to a proton then it has discrete orbit-determined wavelength and energy. Thus a hydrogen atom can undergo structural change to record a 'bit' of information. Many higher levels of structure can be 'in'-formed.

3.) I will answer 3 in a later comment.

Finally you ask about gravitational action and action-at-a-distance. The first FQXi contest I participated in was "What's ultimately possible in physics?" I conclude my essay with:

"What is ultimately impossible is to explain gravity and consciousness; the essence of G and C (self-attraction, self-awareness, and ability to act) will forever remain mysterious. This defines the ultimate possibility of physics."

In other words, gravity, as the souce of action, matter, and awareness will always be a mystery. But it's behavior is describable, and it's self-evolution may be 'understood'. It's essence will never be understood. Newton was surely right to tread carefully there.

Thanks again. It's a pleasure to discuss these things with you.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

PS. As I have provided links to two earlier essays, I may as well provide the link to my last essay, The Nature of the Wave Function. In it I present a formulation that, in Geometric Algebra terms is a 'trivector', defined to have volume and orientation but not a fixed 'shape'. It occurs to me that this in some ways describes your 'monad' as an amorphous extended entity.

Akinbo,

Too many windows open. The above was intended for my blog, where you numbered your questions.

As for your question above, I tend to assume existence, but if one has doubts, then I agree, that is the first question!

Joe is also right, but tends, I believe, to overlook some of the fine points.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Akinbo,

You have, I believe, asked the same tough question on both our blogs so I am answering on both blogs. The question is about "the not-two aspect of reality". You note that Parmenides said "of necessity one thing exists, viz., the existent and nothing else."

If this is true then several questions arise: how to conceive of or represent this fact. And whether this is merely a conception or whether one can be aware of this fact in direct fashion.

I choose, as a physicist, to identify the "one thing" as the primordial gravity field, and attempt to show how our current universe, including us, can and did evolve from this one thing. To do so I necessarily include in the nature of the field the aspect of awareness, based partly on the self-interaction of the field that is necessary for the one thing to evolve (since nothing else existed!) and partly on a conclusion that I have reached that awareness, as I experience it, cannot be created from material building blocks, but must be inherent in the Participatory Universe that Wheeler intuited.

But this then implies, as Amos has noted, that we can, being evolved parts of the one thing, be directly aware of the one thing. Yet if this is the case, why is not everyone aware of this, and further, what does it mean to be aware of it?

In my essay I discuss how the existence of a threshold allows the creation of "two-state" systems, idealized as logic gates and the interconnection of these gates can produce numbers and such numbers can be generated by energy input to the 'counter'. I then discuss how we can, algorithmically, treat these numbers to derive 'feature vectors' which are the essential ingredients of physics. This process can be internalized in our brains to represent the world as "things", or what Zen calls "the Ten Thousand things".

Now whether awareness arises from the biological fact of putting the right building blocks in the right order, or from its inherent existence as a primordial field, in either case human beings identify as 'separate individuals', generally denoted by the term 'ego'.

If all we are is 'meat machines' then that's probably as far as we can go. But if awareness is the core property of the universe, then one might expect that it's possible to have some direct indication of this. Unfortunately, the nature of ego is to divide the universe into 'me' and 'not-me', an inherent two-fold reality.

Is it possible to transcend this? Many reports claim that is.

Abraham Maslow's studies, related in "The Peak Experience" claim that many people naturally have episodes wherein they experience the 'one-ness' of the universe, also termed 'being one-with the universe'.

William James in "Varieties of Religious Experience" came to the same conclusion.

Jill Bolte Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight" describes the state as she (a neuro-anatomist) experienced it while having a stroke.

Innumerable reports of LSD and psilocybin experience indicate the same thing.

All cultures have a mystical tradition based on experiences of this sort.

In my opinion every one of us was born with this general awareness, before our brains learned to distinguish 'me' from 'it' based on sensory input.

I also believe it is essentially a 'topological' awareness, based on *connectivity*, wherein the metric overlay of 'distance' is (almost) completely suppressed.

What is absolutely certain is that it can neither be adequately described in words (or math) nor can it be reached by talking, reading, or "thinking" about it. It is apparently reached through a biological state, either naturally, as Maslow and James report, or chemically induced, or stroke induced. Those who have never experienced it (or have forgotten the experience) tend to believe it's hogwash (or possibly codswallop). However it would appear that millions have experienced it, and the general consensus is that it's 1.) real, 2.) extremely positive, and 3.) has 'religious' overtones.

According to Zen and the Tao, it cannot be reached with words, but for a taste of the experience, I find D T Suzuki's translation of "Inscribed on the Believing Mind" to be exquisite.

I hope this adequately addresses the 'not-two' question.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

PS. This may seem to border on 'mystical', but I personally find it far less mystical than the belief that "math lives in some Platonic realm". It is based on direct experience, not abstract concept.

Akinbo,

Hi. Yours was a very good essay! As you mentioned in your posting on my essay, several of us are thinking along the same lines: using a bottom-up approach to model reality based on discrete units (monads, existent states, etc.). In addition to Franklin Hu, Kjetil Hustveit had a similar essay.

If I understood it correctly, one of the things I don't think I'll agree on is that monads/existent states can't have a border. In my thinking, the border is not some separate structure because as someone above pointed out, this would be smaller than the monad, which would then lead to the conclusion that the monad isn't the smallest particle size. Instead, I think the monad/existent state and its border are really one and the same thing. I think this is necessitated by there being no interior contents within the monad (since it's the smallest existent unit size). In fact, I'd vote that the reason anything (monads, books, clouds, etc.) exists at all is because it is a grouping defining what is contained within. This grouping or defining relationship is equivalent to a border that gives substance and existence to the thing. Without a grouping saying what is contained within, the thing wouldn't exist.

This next part is usually where I usually lose people, so you might want to stop here. But, I think that at the smallest, most fundamental level, the only thing that can act as its own grouping or border is the complete lack-of-all, or what we used to refer to as "non-existence" or "nothing". "Non-existence" (lack of space, time, volume, energy, matter, mathematical and abstract constructs, minds, etc.) would be a situation that acts as its own grouping/defining relationship/border. By its very nature, it says the entirety of all that is present or not present is contained in this lack of all. That is, if we could think of this supposed lack-of-all a little differently, we would see that it's actually an existent state, a monad. Said another way, our distinction between "nothing" and "something" is not correct. They're just two different words for describing the same underlying thing. Monad/smallest-existent-state would be another word for this underlying thing.

Anyways, I think your essay was excellent, and I just wish more (or any) physicists and philosophers would start using the type of bottom-up reasoning that you use.

Roger

P.S. Sometimes, I think that studying biology helps in this type of thinking because we have to think in terms of things (cells, molecules) and physical mechanisms as opposed to physicists who think in terms of abstract/mental images.