Hello Salvish,

Thank you for reading my essay, and your questions. When I say centripetal and centrifugal modes I mean modes of consciousness. When I link mode to moment, and moment to measurement, I am saying that a thought, whether centripetal or centrifugal, is a structured measurement. And when I speak of a structured measurement complimented by a structured abstraction I am referring to the instantiation of an observer. When the secret centripetal mode is its own compliment, the transcendental domain can be independent of that which comes from without, and in that sense it can be what we call "self".

With respect to QCD, QED and String Theory, I am not qualified to say what others believe or should believe. What I can say, though, is that my hypothesis can be used to describe the relationship between time and gravity sufficiently precise for it to be treated mathematically, and that description contains imagery which can be seen as string like. Defining the relationship between time and gravity allows the hypothesis to propose a unification of concepts such as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics and conservation of energy, all within the context of the primordial template proposed. And this without the need of a holographic universe. Obviously, my hypothesis does not extend to the conservation of information, which I believe is an unjustified notion anyway, and in that sense I propose the conservation of creation instead. I reserve my more intemperate opinions on Quantum Mechanics for a boxing ring.

Now, I can not know what you mean by flat space, nor can I know why you believe it has been proven, but I can tell you why I think people speak of space as flat. Not too long ago space was considered curved, and this because the universes was thought to have sufficient mass to cause expansion to go into reverse, and in contracting give rise to another Big Bang. Astronomical observations have since given people reason to believe that there is insufficient mass to cause this contraction, and when we think of expansion ad infinitum we end up with flat space. Some astronomical observations point to an accelerating expansion, bringing about flat space much sooner, and the amount of dark matter estimated by astronomical observations is not enough to stop this expansion. But I wouldn't bet on these observations and proofs just yet, even with the Nobel Prize being the rock they stand on. They gave a Nobel Prize for peace, but I see no peace yet. Anyway, and in the end, I do not equate the universe with the Cosmos, and one way or another there can only be one Big Bang, and the current state indicates that that Big Bang is owned by the Cosmos, not our universe which is likely to be expanding in an asymmetrical fashion due to one form of interaction or another.

Regards.

Zoran.

Dear Zoran,

First, I would say that your comments, scattered around the various essays, have been enjoyable, and often insightful.

Beginning with your abstract, which formulates the problem in different perspectives (it/bit, substance/form, All/One, present/measure) I found your essay both comprehensive and enjoyable, especially as I fully agree that "all things truly immaterial, i.e., happenings, spring from material, cell, and fabric", that is, substance.

As for presentism, not all physicists believe in 'block time'. You might check out Daryl Janzen's essays (previous and current) as well as his comments on Ken Wharton's (block time) essay.

My understanding of information is energy transfer that either crosses an energetic threshold, thereby changing (informing) a local structure, and thus registering information, or not. The 'form' of the local structure, typically embedded in a hierarchy of forms, provides the code-book for interpreting the information. This is my understanding of your "template form within template fabric, where fabric is composed of forms, is a template for conception..." [Although I would agree with Lorraine Ford that the change in structure does not really become "information" until it is apprehended.]

The mechanism of perception of form that I conjecture is the gravito-magnetic sensing of the structural flows of mass (ions in axons and vesicles across synaptic gaps) in the neural fabric. This field phenomenon can encompass any size or scale of dynamic 'template' in the brain, as opposed to any mechanism that depends on individual nodes in unspecified fashion.

You relate "the fabric of metaphysical space-time" to substance and gravity. In another comment, you note that "the missing element in the relationship between entropy, information and the conservation of energy, is gravity...". This is compatible with my own approach. Further, on page 6, you state "gravity, as the foundational fabric from which all things spring..." which agrees with my basic premise, and I invite you to read and comment upon my essay.

If I understand your point about singularity, I agree with it, and Kauffmann (in my references) makes an excellent case that black hole singularities do not exist.

In short, I think we share very similar view of reality.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Hello Mr. Klingman.

    Thank you for reading my essay, and your kind observations. Given that you have put no questions I will respond to some of your observations, especially the one's which I feel need additional clarification. But first, Professor Wharton's essay is a treat, and I rate it highly, and recommend it even though I no longer subscribe to a fourth, fifth, or sixth dimension, etc, etc, etc. I have downloaded Daryl Janzen's essay and will read it as per your recommendation, after yours of course. I also compliment Lorraine on her essay, which I rate highly, but I think both of you would do better without the word "apprehended". There is a difference between grasping something fleetingly and understanding it on a superior level, and given that this is not easy to understand I will explain. There is a difference between a transient impression which gives rise to the basic recognition of a presence, and an understanding from which most of our conscious acts spring. Transient impressions are grasped by the forms which contribute to the intuitive canvas, and it is this canvas which gives us subjective space and time. Understanding, however, is more permanent, it is knowledge (information), and when I speak of forms within minor fabrics, and a plethora of minor fabrics, I am not speaking of the intuitive canvas or the forms which comprise that canvas. It is the minor fabric of the conceptual domain, and the forms which comprise the minor fabric, which when they do not resist the influence of a transient instance captured by the intuitive canvas, and in then reinforcing that instance with their own abstraction (generalization), make more of the instance than it would otherwise be, and that something is "information". If the presence of something is too indistinct to be recognized, for whatever reason, the information content is limited to "presence only" because non of the minor fabrics respond to and help clarify the presence. When the presence is crystal clear numerous minor fabrics respond, and when numerous minor fabrics respond together it brings all the contexts within which the instance can exists to the fore. It is the complimentary nature of a generalization making something more of an instance of that which it represents which constitutes the observation of information.

    Finally, I can not speak for your approach to space, time and gravity, I will have a look at your essay and comment if I can, but in "Hierarchical Space-Time" gravity is granular, it is comprised of sticks which you can poke someone in the eye with, or dogs with heads and tails, and time is not what you think it is. Thanks again for the kind comments.

    Regards

    Zoran.

    Hi Zoran,

    I don't believe there is 100% overlap between any two essays in this contest, yet some of them are diametrically opposed! I believe that, despite the details of how you perceive gravity (I was going to say 'mistakenly', but it's so hard to convey humor in these comments, as you've found out a few times) we still see it as a key "element in the relationship between entropy, information and the conservation of energy...".

    This shows up again in your elaboration on the word 'apprehended'. Lorraine is calling attention to the fact that what is usually called 'information' is really just 'marks' or 'signs' or 'signals' until they enter awareness. I don't think she had in mind, nor did I, the level of detail and gradation which you discuss.

    You note that I did not ask a question, but I sort of implied one with the statement: "This is my understanding of your "template form within template fabric, where fabric is composed of forms, is a template for conception...", where I relate it to my understanding of information as "energy transfer that either crosses an energetic threshold, thereby changing (informing) a local structure, and thus registering information, or not. The 'form' of the local structure, typically embedded in a hierarchy of forms, provides the code-book for interpreting the information." For me this applies to 'form'-al hierarchies as general as computers or neural nets. There are so many details of specific hierarchies that I assumed the details don't matter that much, even though the Devil lives in them.

    When you read my essay you can inform me as to whether I correctly discern a similarity in our view of reality, or whether I simply read too much into generalities without paying sufficient attention to details. As I said, we, the FQXI authors, will never agree on all the details, when dealing with a topic as broad as the current one.

    I look forward to your comments,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Hello Edwin,

    I must say that I would not normally comment on a paper such as yours, for the simple reason that I feel it inappropriate to comment on something I can't fully understand. Not your fault, mine, after all I am the odd one out in this forum. As you say, the devil is in the detail, and no amount of humor can make up for misunderstanding. I will make a comment, but please give me some time, your essay requires study.

    Regards.

    Zoran.

    Dear Sir,

    We understand your anguish at the direction taken by physics, as we have met many distinguished professors who felt like you. We also feel the same way. But then it is our duty to contribute whatever we can to rectify the system. The final outcome is not in our hands, though! In fact Dr. Kirakosyan wondered in our thread how we are fighting thousands of Professors.

    We do not see mathematics as "the language of absolute space and absolute time". We consider mathematics as the science of accumulation and reduction of numbers, which is a characteristic of all substances that exist in space and time. SR begins with a wrong note of measuring lengths of moving objects. Two possibilities suggested by Einstein were either to move with the rod and measure its length or take a photograph of the two ends of the moving rod and measure the length in the scale at rest frame. However, the second method, advocated by Einstein, is faulty because if the length of the rod is small or velocity is small, then length contraction will not be perceptible according to his formula. If the length of the rod is big or velocity is comparable to that of light, then light from different points of the rod will take different times to reach the recording device and the picture we get will be distorted due to different Doppler shift.

    The concept of relativity is valid only between two objects. Introduction of a third object brings in the concept of privileged frame of reference and all equations of relativity fall. Yet, Einstein precisely does the same while claiming the very opposite. In his June 30th, 1905 paper, he treats the clock at A as a privileged frame of reference for proving synchronization of the clocks at B and C. Yet, he claims it is relative!

    In response to the first query on our essay, we have given proof that the experiment that is said to have proved time dilation is a hoax. The GPS result can be attributed to density variation between outer space and the Earth's atmosphere that changes the refractive index leading to slowing down of light. The same is true for particle accelerator experiments that are contained in high flux magnetic tubes. When driving a car, the speedometer reading and the actual kilometer readings do not match. It is always slower due to air friction. In the thread of Dr. Reed and many others, we have proved conclusively without contradiction that equivalence principle is wrong description of reality.

    Division by zero is not infinity. Division of two numbers a and b is the reduction of dividend a by the divisor b or taking the ratio a/b to get the result (quotient). Cutting or separating an object into two or more parts is also called division. It is the inverse operation of multiplication. If: a x b = c, then a can be recovered as a = c/b as long as b ≠ 0. Division by zero is the operation of taking the quotient of any number c and 0, i.e., c/0. The uniqueness of division breaks down when dividing by b = 0, since the product a x 0 = 0 is the same for any value of a. Hence a cannot be recovered by inverting the process of multiplication (a = c/b). Zero is the only number with this property and, as a result, division by zero is undefined for real numbers and can produce a fatal condition called a "division by zero error" in computer programs. Even in fields other than the real numbers, division by zero is never allowed.

    Now let us evaluate (1+1/n)^n for any number n. As n increases, 1/n reduces. For very large values of n, 1/n becomes almost negligible. Thus, for all practical purposes, (1+1/n) = 1. Since any power of 1 is also 1, the result is unchanged for any value of n. This position holds when n is very small and is negligible. Because in that case we can treat it as zero and any number raised to the power of zero is unity. There is a fatal flaw in this argument, because n may approach ∞ or 0, but it never "becomes" ∞ or 0.

    On the other hand, whatever be the value of 1/n, it will always be more than zero, even for large values of n. Hence, (1+1/n) will always be greater than 1. When a number greater than zero is raised to increasing powers, the result becomes larger and larger. Since (1+1/n) will always be greater than 1, for very large values of n, the result of (1+1/n)^n will also be ever bigger. But what happens when n is very small and comparable to zero? This leads to the problem of "division by zero". The contradicting result shown above was sought to be resolved by the concept of limit, which is at the heart of calculus. The generally accepted concept of limit led to the result: as n approaches 0, 1/n approaches ∞. Since that created all problems, let us examine this aspect closely.

    Now, let us take a different example: an = (2n^2 +1) / (3n + 4). Here n^2 represents a two dimensional object, which represents area or a graph. Areas or graphs are nothing but a set of continuous points in two dimensions. Thus, it is a field that vary smoothly without breaks or jumps and cannot propagate in true vacuum. Unlike a particle, it is not discrete, but continuous. For n = 1,2,3,...., the value of an diverges as 3/7, 9/10, 19/13, ...... For every value of n, the value for n+1 grows bigger than the earlier rate of divergence. This is because the term n2 in the numerator grows at a faster rate than the denominator. This is not done in physical accumulation or reduction. In division, the quotient always increases or decreases at a fixed rate in proportion to the changes in either the dividend or the divisor or both.

    For example, 40/5 = 8 and 40/4 = 10. The ratio of change of the quotient from 8 to 10 is the same as the inverse of the ratio of change of the divisor from 5 to 4. But in the case of our example: an = (2n^2 +1) / (3n + 4), the ratio of change from n = 2 to n = 3 is from 9/10 to 19/13, which is different from 2/3 or 3/2. Thus, the statement:

    limn→∞ an = {(2n^2 +1) / (3n + 4)} → ∞,

    is neither mathematically correct (as the values for n+1 is always greater than that of n and never a fixed ratio n/n+1) nor can it be applied to discrete particles (since it is indeterminate). According to relativity, wherever speed comparable to light is involved, like that of a free electron or photon, the Lorentz factors invariably comes in to limit the output. There is always length, mass or time correction. But there is no such correcting or limiting factor in the above example. Thus, the present concept of limit violates the principle of relativistic invariance for high velocities and cannot be used in physics.

    The problem of division by zero that has led to "renormalization" because the result is supposed to be infinity is erroneous and contrary to mathematical principles. If you divide 20 by 5, then what you actually do is take out bunches of 5 from the lot of 20. When the lot becomes empty or the remainder is below 5, so that it cannot be considered a bunch and taken away further, the number of bunches of 5 are counted. That gives the result of division as 4. In case of division by zero, you take out bunches of zero. At no stage the lot becomes zero or less than zero. Thus, the operation is not complete and result of division cannot be known, just like while dividing 20 by 5, you cannot start counting the result after taking away three bunches. Conclusion: division by zero leaves the number unchanged.

    Regards,

    basudeba

    Dear Zoran Mijatovic:

    When you said "time" is a function of space, in my opinion you are very close of reality. I would said that "time" is a function of the "field". You would realize why I don't make more comments on your essay. So just not to loose 30 or 60 minutes reading my essay "The deep nature of reality" I sent you a summary of it.

    I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English) "Hawking, A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

    I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

    With my best whishes

    Héctor

      Hello Héctor,

      Thank you for reading my essay, and your observation that my essay is close to reality. I try to keep my feet on the ground, mostly, and when I must climb I climb a good tree and try to stick to solid branches, because I know I can't fly. With your extended invitation I feel compelled to make your essay the next one I read and comment on, but I will make this comment under your essay. Now, while your comment that "time" is a function of "space" correctly interprets my essay, the devil is always in the detail, so I feel compelled to reiterate that detail. As you must appreciate, I equate space with gravity, and I say that this "field" is comprised of local-signs which have extension in three dimensions. Moreover, local-signs (pbits) have attributes which compel them to self organize such that their direction is naturally centripetal. In other words they have a head and tail and their preferred orientation is head to tail. It is my opinion that oscillation and synchronization of oscillation of local-signs is the means to establishing a simultaneity of impressions on a canvas, so to speak, a simultaneity of massive things which are given their place in both space and the "same time frame". This is not something that I spelled out in the essay, but something that is spelled out in more detail on the flip side, and something that was intimated by my complimenting Einstein's Special Relativity, but not the fourth dimension.

      Regards.

      Zoran.

      Zoran,

      Quite fascinating and creatively written. Though distant from synonymic image, I note an interesting crossover with my own estimations regarding duality in information and material objects, though perhaps somewhat conceptually different in various respects. And though I cannot appreciably rectify some of the conjectures you've presented and am similarly reserved with respect to your estimation of the nature of time, I nevertheless found aspects of your essay intriguing, albeit perhaps with a greater hierarchical complexity (forgive the pun) than might be representative of existence within my own sensibilities, at least within the realm of what can be known.

      Chris

        Chris,

        Thank you for reading my essay, and your insights. I suspect you are not alone in your reservations, and I thank you for presenting them, but you needn't have been so delicate. Dr. Klingman says, no two essays have 100% overlap, yet I am amazed at how much crossover there is between my structured development from a philosophically derived foundation, and the conclusions of numerous physics based developments. The nature of time is the sticking point in most developments, yet it seems to me that the nature of space is inextricably linked, and if we are to say that space is discrete, then time, gravity, force and field must all be discrete, and in being discrete everything must trace its origins back to the element which constitutes the primordial substance (pbit). I don't know how Wheeler came to his own conclusion that everything is derived from immaterial bit, i.e. information, and how he imagined his participatory universe, it all seems vague to me, and I am a software engineer. But then the raw imagery I presented is not that different. In my mind the imagery is clear, and in time I hope to present imagery relating to the conservation of energy as well, but with just nine pages to work with I can understand why it's fuzzy for everyone else. I suspect you find it intriguing because it potentially opens the door to knowing things previously considered unknowable. I say only time will tell, and it is, after all, just a hypothesis which hangs its hat (bets everything) on one observation.

        An open question to all: What odds do you give me?

        Many Thanks.

        Zoran.

        Zoran,

        Actually, I find it intriguing for a somewhat different reason. Basically, by definition, that which cannot be known can never be known, since by definition, such becoming known would mean that such never was in fact that which 'cannot' be known. And as such, the definition itself refuses this as a possibility. For example from my essay, the exact decimal value of PI cannot be known within our perceptual reality; if this were ever to be known within this context, then the example itself would be falsified by definition, but the definition would stay intact.

        However, your presentation provides a somewhat different philosophical avenue which may support the concept that there is nothing manifest which cannot be known, as suggested in my essay. In the case of my essay, I excluded that which cannot be known from the realm of information by definition, and thus such is excluded from the realm of physics, since that which cannot be known can never be known and thus presents no information and is thus not within the context of physics, at least within our perceptual reality. And as you've recognized, I've scoped this to our perceptual reality.

        Though I have not yet solidified this pattern of thought, it may be that any scope beyond our directly perceptual reality may also follow a similar hierarchical logic, thereby allowing some manner of indirect detection of realities not directly perceived via some hierarchical construct; this also speaks to a subset of your essay.

        Though it doesn't change the essence of the duality of information and material objects, it does suggest that there is a possibility that the duality exists beyond a direct perception but not beyond detection via inference. The question here becomes again one of definition, in that if something were inferred outside of being directly perceived, should it still be considered to be within our perceptual reality as it has now been perceived albeit indirectly? It seems so, and thus the term 'perceptual reality' appears sufficient and proper to then to encompass all such hierarchies and needs no further hierarchical description; such was partly the basis of my response.

        Chris

        P.S. As I had posted earlier on John Brodix Merryman's essay thread, I will say that in my own estimation, I find 'time' an abstract contrivance of information (that is, a measurement) that is simply based upon an observed state in accordance with an equally abstract definition.

        To clarify, we've defined time as the passing of motion according to some arbitrary reference; thus, it should be of no surprise, and perhaps expected, that motion of that reference itself may create a different time measurement. Of course, experiments suggest this is true (i.e., tests of SR). But, to attribute more character to time than this measurement by which it is defined is to abstractly extend its meaning into areas of which are not defined and which there is no evidence and perhaps no meaning at all.

        Without getting into extensive detail, based on the above there is no reason to think, given current evidence, that a future or past exists as a physical reality other than our own fiction in creating it from imagination. If we can show via experiment that a time measurement somehow confers an existence of its own future and past (that is, not speculate or imagine such, for instance as sometimes done with certain double-slit explanations) then we would have evidence, but that's simply not the case - all time measurements provide us instantaneous information from which we then abstractly draw conclusions.

        Chris,

        I should have known better than to misinterpret an absolute definition such as "That which can not be know, is unknowable!"; I now see the last sentence in your essay more clearly, thank you.

        In my essay I try to avoid conceptions which rely on, or are derived directly or indirectly from infinity, singularity and simultaneity, because they can all be characterized as unknowable. You could say I cheated by relegating them to the side line, but then my exposition has no use for them, I need not divide by zero or add together an infinite number of infinitely small extensions to give me the circumference of a circle, or measure radius with perfect accuracy. Indirectly defining the void as the absence of thought allows me to place the burden of all existent things, including space, on gravity and the elements (local-signs) of gravity, including three distinctly different conceptions of time. Time not being the essay question is a side issue, but a very important side issue, and as I see it, it can be know fully via its hierarchical elements. All known measures of time (sense-qualities and sensor-qualities) are subjective and conceptual and belong to the conceptual domain, and that's one of several reasons why I call it conceptual-time; intuitive-time is objective in so far as the subject has little if any control over it, and is often unable to distinguish between conceptual and intuitive-time other than through learned mediation; and last but not least we have metaphysical-time which I believe is directly involved in the transfer and conservation of energy, and at the sub-atomic level "time" is an effect derived from a physical process involving the recirculation or exchange of energy. What meaning and conclusion can be drawn from my conception of hierarchical-time will depend on its detailed description and the means put forward for the successful observation of its actuality.

        I hope this helps you understand better what I mean by hierarchical-time.

        Zoran.

        4 days later

        Dear Zoran,

        Intelligently written and an interesting piece. Very relevant too. I like your hierarchy diagrams as well as agreeing that information can't necessarily have meaning without observation. If you get chance, please take a look at my essay. I hope you like it too.

        Best wishes & congratulations on your work,

        Antony

          Hi Zoran,

          You conclude:

          "Our task now, with our combined ability to jump tall building in a single bound, is to observe a perfectly spherical Cosmos..."

          In Software Cosmos I take up this task using the model of a virtual simulated world. I make a distinction between explicate views of the cosmos (which observers can label with past-present-future) and the implicate order (which is more of a spherical block-universe). A key result in my picture is that the distances we measure in the cosmos are the stereographic projection of spherical arc distances, so the cosmos is a hypersphere.

          I deal mostly with the physical appearance of the cosmos, but consciousness plays a role behind the actions of the observers. Unfortunately, I did not have space to delve into a model for Mind in such a cosmos, but I did conclude with "It from Bit and Bit from Us" meaning that the information in the world ultimately comes from the minds of its participants.

          I would be curious how my construction fits together (or not) with your philosophical views.

          Hugh

            Hello Antony,

            Thank you for reading my essay, and your kind comments. I will have a look at your essay and post a comment if I can contribute to the discussion.

            Regards.

            Zoran.

            Hello Hugh,

            Thank you for reading my essay, and your invitation to compare cosmological constructs. After reading your essay, I was struck by the number of disparate efforts to simulate theoretical physics that you referred to, especially particle physics; I had no idea. The last reasonable simulation of galactic formation that I am aware of could not be made to accommodate the apparent lack of mass necessary for a galaxy to hang on to its wandering stars. Nor could dark matter alone be made to explain this, and nothing to date has explained why galaxies are so orderly. If we extrapolate what we know of planetary formation to spiral galaxies, they should by rights be a pile up of cataclysmic collisions, or at least show evidence of it happening in the early galaxy. I suspect we will in the end need a new formulation for gravity if we are to explain the plethora of different stable galactic forms already classified. Not to mention the map of the universe we are seeing emerge as we speak, which seems to be a different story once again. Simulating my own conception where gravity is composed of discrete elements would be a task for a super computer that may never be built.

            Anyway, good luck with your essay and your simulation.

            Zoran.

            Hello Zoran,

            I am enjoying your essay, but must continue in the morning as I am too fatigued. I wanted to comment while thoughts are fresh. First off; the duality of transcendent space and metaphysical space in Geometry and Physics is mirrored, to an extent, by the notion of micro and macro scale. As Tom Ray pointed out in last year's essay, an observer defines a sense of toward and away, or near and far, by the act of observation.

            Since an observer is always a particular size; and regions of increasing size and distance must of needs be outside the observer's bounds; this also fixes a sensibility of great and small - all arising from the act of observing, because it is centric. What is within? The realm of the extremely small. So; in this way, there is a road to Physics description of hierarchal spacetime. As it turns out this topic is what's being discussed on the FQXi forum page.

            Dimensional reduction in the sky

            I would also like to make some comments about the connection of some of your ideas about presentist cognition with Korzybski's notion of time binding of fleeting ideas being the purpose of semantic symbols. More must wait 'til morning, though.

            All the Best,

            Jonathan

              Dear Zoran,

              I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

              Regards and good luck in the contest,

              Sreenath BN.

              http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

                Hi Jonathan,

                Thanks for reading my essay, and I too need more sleep; I also look forward to you completed comments. With regard to your comments above, and the discussion you mention, I agree that semantics helps us understand something about how the brain processes indications and how knowledge must be stored, but it can be taken to extremes, and the clues provided are insufficient in and of themselves to move us forward. It seems to me that our use of particular words can divide science and scientists more than a sequence of words. For instance, "dimension", which, if it means "freedom of movement", must be qualified by a reference to a coordinate system, otherwise we have an infinite number of dimensions instead of potential directions. When scientists assume that virtual dimensions are actual, rather than freedom of movement, they can not be understood by those who live in a three dimensional world. We all know that a brick wall can constrain our freedom of movement in a whole bunch of directions, but it doesn't mean we have lost a dimension, and when we're constrained to move in a particular direction it doesn't mean we have lost a second dimension, and when we can not move in any direction it doesn't mean we have no dimensions, just claustrophobia. At the quantum level, freedom of movement and the number of potential directions for energy exchange may in actuality be discrete and heavily constrained, as science has already surmised. The ultimate example of this constraint can be seen in my overlaying the "primordial template" for consciousness, onto a black-hole. If I were to use the word dimension, instead of direction, then at the centre we have 0 dimensions because there is no freedom of movement, and then both the conceptual domain and the intuitive domain are constrained to a single but opposite direction (dimension). Beyond the event horizon, which is the brick wall, so to speak, it becomes possible to move in more than one direction (dimension). As we move further out from the black hole's even horizon potential directions for the exchange of energy between quanta probably increases in a discrete steps, in other words more and more room for (its). In a discrete universe where gravity is comprised of (pbits) which constitute the fluid coordinate system in three dimensions, the primordial force of gravity may increase/decrease in discrete steps, and mass (it) as we know it, then confuses our formulation of it because it contributes to and takes away from the force at the same time. Under these conditions the unification of known forces is not impossible, but something well beyond my meager math skills.

                Zoran.