Thanks Peter!
Yes working with single packets of light if possible is the only way to study all these amazing mind-boggling phenomena. One day someone can prove experimentally whether the photon is helical or not). As you point out there are many clever ways to get wrong results, particularly when relying on statistical arguments.
As they say let's "keep on truckin'!"
Vladimir
Joe,
I've read your great essay and also agree everything you say above.
I hope my proposal for the solution to your question didn't pass you by. Drawa a dividing line; Real entities and interactions on one side only A~A), and mathematics and all related derivatives etc. on the other (A=A). Do give me your views. Basudeba (above) has objections, as I suspect will many steeped in and too familiar with just mathematical thinking.
It's great to find some mutual thinking and support. Alan Kadin is also close.
I'll respond with more comments on yours on your string.
Best of luck.
Dear Sir,
Your statement on reality echos the ancient Indian Philosophy of Vedanta. It was proposed to resolve the seemingly differences between various texts dealing with consciousness. Since the mechanism of perception, which is associated with consciousness (as in the statement "I know this"), is same in all cases to all persons at all times, the ultimate reality is one and immutable and cannot be directly accessed. But when we come to the physical world, the position is different.
It is true that everything is ever changing. But change is ever present. And that is real. The question is: in an ever-changing world, how do we define reality? The only possibility is by accepting the "representations thereof, if they correspond with existence as knowable to us" - as per your statement. This correspondence is done by assigning an invariant concept to each object and giving it a name. This is nothing but information. Thus, information has three components: the transmitter, the receiver and the message. The link is perception. Unless the receiver decodes and perceives the message, it is meaningless. Since transmission is subject to interference from the ever changing environment, we have to take into account of that also.
Hence we define reality as the invariant aspect associated with all objects and consistent with other universal physical laws (existence), that can be perceived as a concept (knowability) and expressed through a language (communicability). Since the three aspects are related, anything showing these characteristics is real.
Regards,
basudeba
Paul,
Interesting view, and I can't see how it conflicts with mine. I propose very rare but clear definitions of detection, processing and measurement by a processor by comparing against it's own 'time'. This is all normally collected under the poorly understood umbrella we call 'observation'.
I also identify that, one emitted, all signals are just physical artifacts of an event, which artifacts can be effected, so changed, en route to a detector, then changed again (wavefunction collapse) before processing.
There is than clearly no access to the original emission, but I then also identify that the processor has no access even to the wavefunction state just prior to detection, and go on to discuss the critical implications of this. The main one is that the assumption of which 'rest frame' (emitter, approach, or detector) to use for the calculation of 'speed' is incorrect. When the wavelength in the 'channel' (optic nerve) is used, then the 'rest frame' of the channel itself must be used; I then identify that as our processors habitually assume the 'approach' rest frame (in the Doppler frequency formula) then it's no surprise that we find paradoxes!
Now all this clearly defines precisely WHY we cannot access any of the 'reality' from where light signals eminate, and the consequences of assuming we can. So when I read; "You seem to fail to understand that, for us, there is no reality which we can 'directly access'.
I'm a bit disappointed all the above seems not to have been presented clearly enough in my essay. Or if anything in there indicates that I'm of the view you suggest, do please identify it for me.
Your comments on my detailed analysis and its' consequences would be welcome, as I know it's complexity may make it hard to follow.
Basudeba,
I have proposed that if maths and physics assume that processes are identically repeatable, or that two identical objects may exist, then they are not precisely describing nature. That does not of course makes mathematics itself 'wrong'!
My falsifiable evidence is this; Ask a top player to firmly break a frame of snooker balls by hitting at velocity u. I propose that any attempt to recreate the final complex pattern of balls in the same way will fail. Experiment 2; ALL grains of sand created by the same process in a desert will be different in some way. I go further; Experiment 3; Smash two coconuts together and film with a high speed camera. You may repeat for 1,000 years!!, but even if (4) we say we'll smash two 'identical' coconuts together (only metaphysically possible) we won't achieve the precise same outcome!
Now what I point out is that at present we DO NOT HAVE any 'category' or law beyond the 'Law of the Excluded Middle' so cannot rationalise the deviations. Can you perhaps suggest one?
You may be thinking, well the mathematical description is precise, it's trivial if nature varies slightly so why worry? I suggest that thinking hides the truth. It is NATURE that's primarily important here, not Maths! Wigner missed the point. There are fundamental non-trivial truth's we've missed by thinking as we do. You say "all paradoxes are wrong". I agree. It's our poor thinking at fault.
Maths is an abstract (metaphysical) 'approximation' of nature, where A=A is essential, and I agree all you say of it's domain. But when we are considering the (physical) entities nature alone, and REAL interactions, then we need a different descriptor, which can only be the 'squiggle' approximation of =, ;A~A, which is then equivalent to a Bayesian inverse distribution as a quantum PA distribution. Effectively this shows we have underparameterized the complexities of nature with our mathematics. In the EPR case, the statistical method used cannot then access and quantify the additional degrees of freedom in nature. (The proposed approach has exposed solutions to many resolutions of paradoxes and anomalies in astrophysics).
Do you now better understand? I look forward to reading your essay and chapter on Bells Inequalities.
PS. To tune yourself in to the well developed philosophies on this on FQXi you'd do well to read the winning essay last year and, for instance, the McEachern and Sycamore essays.
Best wishes
Peter
Dear Sir,
Leibniz formulated the principle of identity of the indiscernibles, which states that: if there is no way to establish the difference between two objects, then they are identical. This implies that interchanging the positions of two identical objects does not change the physical state of those two objects. This interchange symmetry of identical objects had no observable consequences in the classical physics. But the realization that the quantum particles like electrons and photons are all identical and there is no way to distinguish one electron from another or one photon from another led to the belief that a consequence of this identity is the existence of a new kind of force, called "exchange force", between them. This has led to further developments of quantum physics. You are questioning the very foundations of quantum physics.
The examples quoted by you are not appropriate. They all refer to causality and times arrow. Once something is destroyed, it is gone. Even if you reassemble, it is not the same original object, because in the meanwhile, everything in the world has changed; though imperceptibly. So your recombination will be similar not same. "Excluded middle" is a misguiding concept that tries to creates another category of the same object. If it belongs to a different category, it cannot be middle except for position or event. According to your logic, all charge neutral objects will be "excluded middle", because, they are neither positively nor negatively charged. But to be "excluded middle" it has to be a charged object, which it is not. Thus, it leads to a contradiction.
About hiding the truth, please read our essay, which has been published just above your entry. The very title describes it.
Mathematics is not "an abstract (metaphysical) 'approximation' of nature". On the contrary, it is most precise. Only its manipulation has led to the approximations in physics. Mathematical space always contains one dimension more than physical space. For example, a point in physical space has existence, but no dimension, but a point in mathematical space requires at least a line or intersection of lines. A straight line in physical space is the minimum distance between two points, i.e., in one dimension. In mathematical space, it must be drawn on a two dimensional paper. So on. This leads to abstraction.
Regards,
basudeba
Basudeba,
"Hence we define reality as the invariant aspect associated with all objects and consistent with other universal physical laws (existence), that can be perceived as a concept (knowability) and expressed through a language (communicability). Since the three aspects are related, anything showing these characteristics is real."
Yes. I fully understand that has been our dominant convention and familiar habit. My proposition is that this convention leaves no room for distinguishing actual physical reality (nature itself) from the systems of symbols and concepts we have invented and assigned to 'represent' it and 'model' it's evolution.
As it's been said, it will take a computer the size of the universe to precisely model the evolution of the universe. Our computers and brains are smaller, but we have grown familiar with thinking the results of computations ARE equivalent to nature. We've become so familiar with that position that it no longer occurs to us or seems reasonable that the difference may be important. I am pointing out that the difference CAN be important, so must be identified. Also then that you have not yet falsified the proposition you said was false when considering (as I specified) the strictly 'physical', as opposed to 'metaphysical' where A=A.
So I am drawing Dirac's 'Line', shocking though it may be. Can you suggest a different position for the line? Or different descriptions than 'Physical' and 'Metaphysical' to make the unfamiliar look more palatable?
Peter
Dear Astronomer Jackson,
I am stunned by your praise of my essay. Due to my abysmal lack of a formal education, although I tried as hard as I could as I read it; I did not understand any of your essay at all. I responded to the "identical states" impossibility noted in the comments posted about your essay. I accept unequivocally your solution to the unique/identical problem.
Basudeba,
This one comment; "Mathematics is not "an abstract (metaphysical) 'approximation' of nature". On the contrary, it is most precise." suggests that you may still be confused about my point. As I stated, I agree maths is indeed absolutely precise and predictable. I'm only pointing out that nature itself is not. So then maths as a 'representation' of nature cannot precisely correspond.
I'm proposing something quite new and unfamiliar, which does indeed question a (very shaky!) foundation of quantum physics.
You invoke 'times arrow' and suggest; "The examples quoted by you are not appropriate." I agree in your view they are not. Yet they are real, as ALL 'repeatable' experiments are. Can you test 2 electrons at the same time with the same equipments? You dismiss reality to insist maths is 'better'. I agree maths is more precise. That's fine. I just make the shocking proposal that perhaps it is not also 'better' at describing the 'less precise'.
I've just watched a video of a new Lee Smolin lecture. He now seems to be proposing almost precisely the same thing, that each interaction in nature is entirely unique. You have not answered my questions re discernment. If you feel maths does precisely describe nature do say so, if not perhaps offer a better discernment.
The importance of parametrising the excluded middle, to which another 'layer' of maths CAN be applied, is overcoming the assumptions that correlations and statistics as currently applied can gain access to resolution of paradox such as EPR.
Peter
"Interesting view, and I can't see how it conflicts with mine"
I did not say it did, in terms of the end conclusion.
In the simplest possible language, all you are saying is that there is only ever an A. There can be other occurrences which have similarities, but there is only ever one A. This is both correct, and a somewhat obvious statement. However, as is often the case, the logical consequence of simple facts then gets lost in the mist.
Because the question then is, so how does physical existence occur so that this is true. And the answer, which I have been stating for the past two years, is that physical existence must be a sequence of definitive discrete physically existent states of whatever comprises it. The existent state is your A. This is the only way in which existence (which is invariant) and difference (which is variant) can be reconciled.
The point about A has nothing to do with light, neither is there any need to resolve paradoxes since these are a function of flawed theories which misrepresent physical existence (eg relativity and QM). It is proven by the fact as to how physical existence, as knowable to us, must occur. Now, what actually occurs in practice is the difficult bit, I just do the easy generic stuff.
Paul
Peter/Basudeba
I just thought, although this is stated elsewhere, it might be useful to back that post up with the point about the true nature of it.
We conceive of our existence from the perspective of superficial physical attributes, ie not what exists. Indeed we even contradict that. We know there is alteration, but we rationalise it by saying 'it has changed'. Bits have fallen off St Pauls Cathedral, but it is still deemed to be St Pauls. But it isn't, it is different. More importantly, we know that what constitutes what we know as St Pauls is in a constant state of change (put it under an electron microscope!). The point being that St Pauls, as such, does not exist. If one dispenses with the 'it changes' misconception, then the logic takes you to what is actually existent at any given time, which is a physically existent state. St Pauls, just like everything else, is a sequence of physicall existent states, which from a higher conception than the existent, appears to persist in the same physical form over time.
Paul
Basudeba,
Thanks for your comment you term "clarification" re the Maxwell equations. I agree, and, as you'll see from previous essays, have gone further; falsifying the x,y,z, Cartesian co-ordinate system as not representing motion or evolution of interaction.
You did not comment on my alternative derivation of the 3D time helix from the toroid and orbital angular momentum, but somehow suggest you disappoint me. I can't see how you would, and suspect again you may not have understood my thesis. Did you follow how the helix giving the cosine curve, then the non-linear distribution at the detectors, was obtained?
I'm also at a loss over you 'name dropping' comment, but of course agree we all may be wrong and are certainly not complete!
Peter, once again you have made a valuable contribution to the essay contest. It is a pleasure to read.
I see a lot of parallels with my acataleptic universe and I am please that you have given it a view from a different angle. Godel said that things could be true or false or undecidable, but undecidability may also be undecidable. It may also be that if it is true then it is decidable but otherwise it is undecidable and that is all we can know, so there are many possibilities and they have a layered structure.
The Monte Hall problem is the same. The correct answer is not that the probability is a half or a third. In fact you don't know the probability because you don't know the strategy that the presenter is using. You might be able to estimate the probability of certain strategies and then you would have probabilities of probabilities for the answer. This is analogous to how multiple quantisation works. I'm glad you have a reference to Weizsäcker about this.
Good luck, I will return later and see how the comments are progressing.
Peter,
While I'm not schooled sufficiently on the technical aspects to judge it by its own standards, it does seem a very good take down of the mathematical view of reality.
If if I may go slightly off tangent, since there is little likelihood the establishment is going to come back from multiverses anytime soon, we may as well explore further, rather than be too concerned with being heard.
Consider your observation, "There is the REAL, which is 'entities' and 'interactions'"
What are "entities," other than a deeper level of interaction? Consider the extent to which our western object oriented thought process sets the conceptual foundation, even when we try to look beyond it. For example, consider gravity; While we know it is a property of mass and if we were to tunnel to the center of the earth, the gravitational attraction in all directions would balance out. Yet it doesn't seem as though we apply that to the galaxy as a whole, where the assumption is that we would be falling into that mathematical singularity of a black hole. Wouldn't we actually be in the center, the eye of a gravitational storm, where the primary effect would be rotation, not being sucked into some other dimension? Then spun around and shot out the poles as jets of gas?
With the idea of black holes, we are just mathematically extrapolating the attraction toward the center that we experience on the surface of the planet.
As I argued previously, gravity is the vacuum effect of radiant light ultimately condensing/fusing into cosmic rays, interstellar gases, quantum particles, atoms, matter, metals, etc. There is no dark matter, but there is an excess of cosmic rays on the outskirts of galaxies and if this is a distributed process of all the energy acting as vortices within vortices, it might well seem to have an instantaneous attraction, as everything is embedded in the flow, not just isolated centers of attraction.
What I'm getting at here is how thinking of it as one wholistic process in which "entities" are subsets of the whole and not the "entities" as foundational to a whole that is only a sum of its constituent parts. Top down as contextuality.
John,
"What are "entities," other than a deeper level of interaction?" Good question, but I'd say 'the distinguishable 'result' of interaction'. then that only leaves the unknowable as unknown, what is the universe ultimately made of? Certainly not 'matter' as we know it. My point was only to distinguish the 'physical' from the rest, to allow a quite new 'line' to be drawn.
You may recall my paper on AGN dynamics ('Black Holes'), where the 'centre' is where the helical 'windings' around the toroid of matter from the accretion disc (old galactic matter) are focussed into the quasar jets, which precess around each other, finally ripping apart ('re-ionizing') the last coherent atoms. Most of that, after a few years pushing, is now becoming accepted astrophysics. I also agree the Lagrangian point at ALL centres of mass, as my 2011 essay.
Your note on gravity is interesting. Photoionization is indeed 'pair production' of condensed fermion vorteces in the QV, which is matter from light. Again now becoming better known. It's called 'Impulsive stimulated Raman scattering' (ISRS); "expressed as a linear response to the instantaneous Stokes parameters (ISPs) of the laser pulse. These IPSs expressed in rotational coordinates are then shown to be responsible for the angular momentum transfer from light to matter." Higuchi et al. Jan 2013
This the IS what's described as dark matter, which is what is now actually physically found by the Alpha Spectrometer and other probes, i.e. diffuse plasma. I agree it's certainly a wholistic process, the plasma is condensed at local compression points to modulate EM fluctuation re-propagation speed to c. Beautiful simplicity!
Phil,
Just untangled you from John.
Thanks. On the Monte Hall problem there's actually a more important point missed by the mathematicians, and nothing to do with host strategy. i.e. Even if a blindfold 3rd party 'opens the door', in those cases where the prize is NOT revealed, the odds remain exactly the same.
This is what the computer programme which proved the case did. The unknown 'host strategy' (which the game show competitors were all worried about) was removed as a factor. Only then could the real hidden reason be tracked down, the invisible 'probability density' hidden in 'sample space', which the maths could not parametrise.
Yet that REAL lesson is STILL not learned by mathematicians! in the same way many of them genuinely believe there is no need for any underlying mechanism to GR or SR! The solution to the EPR paradox proposed comes straight from this hidden 'subset' of data.
Did you follow that?
Peter,
Another point would be the effort to eradicate space as a primary aspect of reality, We have the Higgs field to explain inertia and multiverses as blowback from avoiding infinities, the entire universe emerging from a point because space is treated as a measure of points, etc. I think this, the banishing of space, that will prove to be the ultimate hubris.
Can't have a monolithic, object oriented theology in an infinite context.
Also you seem to be more informed than I, as all I seem to hear are the howls of the old(susy, strings) crumbling, yet pushing out to ever more cosmic extremes(multiverses).
John,
I agree, physics is a dark labyrinth with a lot of howling and utter confusion. You have identified the magic button. The only problem with 'ether' was that it was assumed to have to be 'absolute' (i.e. one single 'frame' for the whole universe. But if 'regions' of space move with respect to other there is no problem at all. he WMAP data found just that, as Smoot's 2004 Nobel analysis (Smoot's website refers to 'ether'). But craven religious physicists were scared to death, not ready to accept ether back
I tried to bring back 'space' with last year's essay. And what happened? Good support, finishing 7th, but completely ignored by the 'professionals'. It's also implicit this year (or 'allowed' but well hidden) but should emerge from the proof of EPR resolution. Unfortunately that appears to be beyond most to understand, certainly by the score so far!
Cest' la vie.
Peter,
Keep in mind absolute and infinite are not interchangeable. Yes, absolute means an state lacking all distinction and thus not having any boundaries, so would be unlimited, but what it really refers to is the lack of distinguishing features means there cannot be motion, which requires reference. Both ether and moving frames allow motion. I'm simply talking blank, empty space. No frames or contents to move. No boundaries. Nothing.
The alternative is to assume everything began, space included, at a singularity, which being something, needs explanation. What I'm saying is that with empty space, not ether, there is no need for explanation. It doesn't have to be balanced by an opposite effect, as it is nothing/zero. Not zero as a point, but the absence of any reference. Yet this does give it two characteristics, in that it is both absolute and infinite, which are the parameters of all.
Even God can't beat that.
John,
I'm afraid God beat that hands down! His solution is far simpler. So simple, beautiful and perfect that man can hardly grasp it and make it stick to the messy neural networks in our heads. You did so once, but , as with most it slipped away. Are you willing to try again? Let's give it a go.
1. Space is not 'nothing'. Call it what you will, but only the dense ion particle fields condensed between it's co. Moving regions are important (i.e. bow shocks).
2. In Einstein's terms 'absolute' referred to a 'one only' background ether frame. He was right. this cannot work. However, he only had to ban the 'one only' ('absolute') characteristic not the concept of 'background' itself. (Stokes/Fresnel got close, but Lorentz/Lodge's poor understanding caused them to dismiss it.)
3. So we DO have Einstein's (1952) "Smaller space 's' in motion wrt larger space 'S'." Earth's LOCAL ECI 'frame', including the ionosphere, is then a REAL PHYSICAL ENTITY moving wrt the barycentric frame (solar system,)
4. EM waves 'PROPAGATE', which is a LOCAL phenomena, at c IN each frame. light the CHANGES SPEED to the LOCAL c everywhere. (scattered to c by the shock particles) there is then ALWAYS a datum for speed, as there must be. The particles are essential to implement the change. The Doppler shift of wavelength is the result, obviously limited to (so 'by') the minimum wavelength 'gamma'.
5. Inertial systems are then real, local and mutually exclusive. They are formed by states of motion. They include all detectors 'lenses' which may be in their own rest frame. Once assimilated its simple beauty emerges.
Now this 'discrete field' based (DFM) system works perfectly, in application it matches observation perfectly, is entirely free of paradox and resolves all known anomalies, and all it's many predictions are born out by findings. I have well over 200 papers which, between the lines, show the completed jigsaw puzzle.
So why is it not adopted? Because it is unfamiliar. To those schooled in different physics it is 'different', so is obviously wrong. I've now asked hundreds to falsify it. They try, and all fail, so revert to, "yes but it MUST BE wrong because it's 'different' to our (paradox and anomaly ridden) beliefs!"
What somewhat confuses me is why so many NOT indoctrinated by other nonsense can't visualise the dynamics. You're far better placed than me to help by explaining what it is that prevents it appearing obvious. Can you help? I'm at a bit of a loss to be honest.
