On The Road Not Taken by Akinbo Ojo

Dear Akinbo,

I like the closing statement that all is geometry and Bit and It seem to be just as fundamental. Also they style and format of your essay is nicely put together.

Perhaps my essay isn't too far removed from your own line of thinking to be worth a read?

Best wishes,

Antony

Dear Akinbo,

Thanks for commenting on my essay and introducing me to yours and about Leibniz's monads. I am flattered by its resonance and intrigued by the differences and their potential ways of reconciliation.

Take the idea of "lifetime" of monads in your essay which you also probed in the comment. From the perspective of monads, I would not treat lifetime of monads to be defined or derived from time if time has no further derivative. When monad appears from nowhere to somewhere, how does one define on long it has taken it to do so since there is no way to tell how long it has been in nowhere. Unless reference is made to something else which has the quality of time and that something else couldn't be a monad because it will spiral into infinite chaos and confusion if so. But from the perspective of non-monad, the monad will appear to have a lifetime between annihilation and creation and vice-versa. However the non-monad will have no way to identify which monad has been annihilated and created again, because the monad would have to leave traces or parts behind for the non-monad to identify, where no monad will do, since there are no parts to monad. Therefore monad cannot exist within the non-monad 'time-based' system and this is where we differ subtly it seems.

Regards,

Hon Jia

Hello Akinbo,

Thanks for you kind comments over on my page. I've replied. I found your comments to be very helpful and thought provoking in line with the aims of the contest. Pleasure to "meet" you!

Cheers,

Antony

Dear Akinbo,

Your work is really attractive. I am fully agree that thickness and actual sizes of objects must be no ignored in realistic descriptions. In the classical physics this demand is considered. However the matter is different in QM representation. Here you are right fully. On this question open please the reference from my article ,,Rethinking the Formal methodology ...,, and email my from there. I think we can talk seriously!

Sincerely,

George

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1804

Akinbo,

As the subject of Zeno's dichotomy belongs more to your thread than to mine, I post my reply to your post at my thread on yours -be it in a more concise form. OK?

According to relativity theory the length the walker observes his path to have depends on the pace he walks at: the faster he moves, the more contracted the path looks to him, to shrink to zero length if he could walk at the speed of light. So it are the relativistic effects of his motion, however tiny at walking pace, which allow the traveler, despite the mathematic impossibility, to reach his destination. Zeno's concept of space is that of classical mechanics which assumes that it is the same (cosmic) time everywhere, that we live in a mathematical space were all points are identical but for their coordinates. In the actual spacetime we live in, the observed pace of clocks and length of yardsticks differs slightly at different distances, so you might say that the different points of his path live in slightly different universes, so the traveler at the end of his walk isn't the exact same person as the one who departed at the other end.

Anton

Hello Hon Jia,

Thanks for your comments. I cannot tell you I have all the answers but I do not see any other road that can lead us to truth and reality. The further details will be filled in by dialectic and reductio ad absurdum type arguments.

For example, nothing, not even a monad can exist in nowhere. A monad is a something and a somewhere. Nowhere means no place. If you check the Newton and Leibniz quotes, 'somewhere' and 'something' are essentially comprised of the same "atoms of nature". So, the question of how long it has been in nowhere should not arise. I think the appropriate phrase is arising ex-nihilo.

Only things that exist can have a lifetime and if existent things have a variable lifetime, by default duration and time must arise.

The appearance of a monad and its annihilation according to Leibniz will occur in an INSTANT. The current theoretical thinking of this shortest duration is the Planck time.

Non-monad do not exist so it cant have a perspective and cannot have a need to identify any event.

Monad is the fundamental unit of geometry so space is a composite of monads, just like you and me. Leibniz tells us that, "...monads are the true atoms of Nature--the elements out of which everything is made". And Newton concurs, "...And my account throws a satisfactory light on the difference between ... a body and a region of space. The raw materials of each are the same in their properties and nature,..." (see my reference). As you rightly point out, monad cannot leave traces. It has no parts, unlike composite things. It appears and disappears all at once.

Time remains a difficult concept for me to grasp. But time can ONLY be contemplated within and by what exists. And ALL that exist, both body and space is a composite of monads. Again, monads are not eternally existing things and are not all created or annihilated together. Somewhere in this, the perception of time must come in.

More homework needs to be done on 'Time'. Many thanks for your comments.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

Thanks for reading my paper. You are of course correct that the geometric point is a mathematical fiction, as are infinity and other mathematical concepts. Math is an abstract representational system. Math is not physics, although the two have been conflated by our observer-based measurement models (Relativity and QM). The facts clearly demand the hypothesis that space is a substance, so the task of a theoretical physics is to understand that substance and its role in all phenomena. We now know much, much more about the physical world and the evolution of complexity than did the Greeks, Newton, Leibniz or Einstein. Space must have some smallest parts, but I think that they bear little resemblance to Leibniz's monads, which is why I did not use that term. We cannot proceed as did philosophers of old with abstract speculations about the elements of space. We need to instead look at the known phenomena and see what they tell us about space.

I have shown that gravity is most simply explained if Newton's "absolute" space is instead a fluid flowing into matter--its acceleration causing all matter to accelerate with it. We measure its velocity by the slowing of our atomic clocks. See the theory here. This theory solves Newton's action-reaction dilemma-space acts upon matter to resist its acceleration because matter is acting upon space, consuming it as a sink consumes a fluid. You speculate that the spatial elements disappear in front of and are created behind a moving object, that is possible, but because gravity appears to involve the consumption of space by matter and a resulting sink flow, I think it's more likely that when matter moves through space, space flows into and around it. Someday experiments may help differentiate between these two theories. You may be interested in my further speculations about space, its parts and its motions in this essay.

As you are a physician, you may also be interested in my thoughts on the corruption of medicine by pharmaceutical corporations, and the resulting ignorance of natural scientific medicine, including endocrinology. See my practice webpages.

Henry

Hi Akinbo,

I very much liked your essay. I never heard of these Monads before, they are very similar to my UB's (Universal Bits).

I believe that for a coherent world to develop, these monads need to follow a simple rule. I have described this simple rule in my essay. By following that simple rule, a coherent world with time and space emerges.

If you have the time, please take a look at my essay. I would love to have your comments. If you like the ideas in it, you can read the full story here:3D Universe Theory

Cheers,

Patrick

Hi Akinbo,

I left a comment on my website.

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1773

Regards

Helmut

Dear Dr. Ojo

Congratulatins for writing a lucid, engaging, enjoyable and thought-provoking essay, and one (unlike many others here) relevant to the It-Bit contest question.

Your learned guided tour along the Monad Road was of special interest to me because in my 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory also found here I have proposed a Universe composed of a single building block - I call it a node, but you may as well call it a physical monad. While I have not speculated on the 'size' of this node it differs from yours because it does not disappear/appear to describe motion as in your figure. Rather, a pattern of node orientations and energy changes, while the nodes themselves do not move or disappear. Please see Figure 26 in the above mentioned paper to illustrate this rather complicated convoluted motion!

Again thank you for an excellent read - I will also read Newton's paper that you referenced that I did not know about.

With very best wishes, Your Honor.

Vladimir

Akinbo,

If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

Jim

Akinbo,

I cannot adhere to your "monad" concept but admire your presentation. It fits into the concept of a physical world of BB virtual particles erupting and inflating in vast numbers where time measures their demise -- an example, but I see no consciousness to observe -- as Wheeler would prescribe. I see consciousness as a feeble participant sensually -- noting a small percentage of physical phenomena (visual range narrow in EM spectrum, for example). The think your argument is clever and acknowledge that if I were gifted mathematically, my own images and concepts might veer in your direction. Monad Road fits into the universe as a computer. I see the 1010 input as the years 1010 but did I miss the significance of the happening in that year -- a thousand years ago the road taken.

Jim

Hello Akinbo,

I took your advice and downloaded the PDF at the end of your hyperlink, but after the first few pages I realized there were some fundamental differences between a "monad" and a "pointy bit" (pbit), and given that I would prefer to look directly a Leibniz's work before commenting on it, all I can say is that in item 3 the monad is extension-less, and not something infinitely small in extension. Whether this PDF is an accurate reflection of Leibniz's views is moot, because I simply can not accommodate things without extension in my understanding of reality. As a software engineer I can entertain any number of dimensions, but they are simple data structures, I can't go home and build a tree house in ten dimensions however much kids want a secret cubby hole with a Brane to keep rain from the eleventh dimension out. And with all due respect to Plato, it is my contention that Plato threw his subordinates an extension-less bone, and anyone caught chewing on that bone made themselves immediately subordinate to Plato, for ever and ever amen.

A pointy bit in my essay, i.e. (pbit), has extension in all three dimensions, and a net extension where one end is different to another, in other words its primary property is "direction". How big it is and whether or not it is divisible is moot if the idea can be used to describe the nature of gravity and the means to creating objects which are a stable configuration of those simple building blocks.

If I were you I would call your conception of a monad "Plank's dot" and describe its properties as uniform and immutable; and then add to that whatever else you need to satisfy others. Had you done so from the start your essay would have been half the size.

Now, if you win, and you take my advice and call it a (pdot), I want some credit.

Cheers!

Zoran.

Congratulations on a very well written and thought provoking paper, Dr. Ojo.

To dig deep into the past like this and put things in perspective is inspiring, and of substantial benefit to anyone interested in discovering the road we might be taking into the future.

The way I interpret your concept is that the Planck length indicates that all things are substantial, and that therefore there is no zero-dimensionality; to me, this is a clear illustration that It and Bit are both physical, but dimensionally different.

Physics, as you point out, has avoided this concept and instead gone down the road of abstraction (as in Zero Dimensionality) instead of substance, or physicality - leading it into a dis-equilibrium that erodes its significance in solving our fundamental contradictions.

The problem with incorporeal abstractions being accepted as foundational, is that they become substantial anyway - over the course of the Observer's evolution: The abstractions of geometry have contributed quite fundamentally to our concepts of the Cosmos, and to our brain's development - and this has placed borders and shapes upon the field of reality, borders that are nonetheless no more that agreed upon parameters for our calculations or observations.

They work for many purposes - but they also give rise to our contradictions. Wheeler sought to build particles out of geometry - and one could say that evolution does that - and is presently creating, in Physics, an increasing divergence between our concepts and the harmonious correlation of the phenomena of our experience.

I think it is important to factor human evolution into your argument: Long before the abstractions of Plato and Euclid (which obviously did not come out of nowhere) there were more primal abstractions - and it is upon all of these that we have built our assumptions, and indeed our Species Cosmos over the millennia.

Your concept of 'digital physics' is fascinating - and if information has physicality (as I put forth in my essay), and if the monads of our information (Sensory-Cognitive monads, if you will) correlate with the monads that are the foundation of the Cosmos (Planck-particles), then software might well be able to compute the correlations between inorganic, organic, and sensory-cognitive phenomena one day.

Another point that came to my mind, as you quoted Newton: "...space is capable of having some substantial reality. Indeed, if its parts could move ... and this mobility was an ingredient in the idea of vacuum, then there would be no question about it - parts of space would be corporeal substance."

In my view, if all is monads, even information (in the brain and in computers), then the Cosmos, being the sum total of these Particles, has 'parts' - what I call Zones - that correspond and correlate with the Particles of the system, since there can be no other structure. (There's more to say on this, but I'm generalizing; I elaborate in my essay).

In an argument on substantiality I find it hard to agree with you, I must say, that 'No other place exists outside the universe to expand into, nor is there any to be left behind after collapse.'

I sense another abstraction subtly edging into the 'substantial' world you describe.

Instead, I put forth 'substantial' links (which I don't think contradict anything you say) between our Cosmos and a General Field of energy that produces variant Cosmae - and thus gives rise to monads (or what I call 'Pulses').

I'd love to hear what you think about these points, and about my essay. I truly enjoyed yours - all the best!

In response to my post.

I reread your article (I scored and read all until today).

I like your idea of information: until now I associate it to a transmission or reception; it is strong to associate the information to the act to measure (in transmission or reception): a numerical string is measured, a communication channel is measured, the Kolmogorov complexity need a knowledge of the object (so it is necessary the measure of the object).

It seem that your definition is more inclusive, and fundamental.

I think that each particles is a gravitational positive-curvature ball, and each antiparticles a negative-curvature curvature ball, so that with the aligned matter-antimatter annihilation can be obtained gauge boson for each possible integer spin (infinite possible interactions). This my old idea seem similar to the geometrodynamic of Wheeler. There is an analogy with your concept of monad.

It would be my defeat reach the top essays, after thinking for a smart method to stay out.

Dear Akinbo

I appreciate your style: spirit, originality and accuracy. Your depiction of movement thru space associates me to how digital presentation of reality creates that illusion. One pixel appears and while disappearing the neighbouring one appears and so on... Or Newton's Cradle.

However, when addressing the finite dimensions of space or time... Planck's length over Plank's time measures the same speed of light. Is there a logical, mathematical or any other acceptable reason to conclude that perception inside Planks world, or any other, is anyhow different from ours?

And another problem addresses digital concept, yes or no, 1 or 0.

The product of any number and zero is zero. So we write 1, meaning, it is true. Any number multiplied by infinity is infinity. We write 1 again. The question is: what do we write for the product of zero and infinity?

Best regards

Andrej