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  • Post #11

John, thanks for reading.

I am pretty sure that probability is not real, and I think that people like Laplace, Bayes, de Finetti, and Jaynes, have made that case more convincingly than I can.

I didn't make any comment on the nature of time in my essay at all, although I do intuitively with your position that it is a measure of relative change.

As to infamous cats, I do not think there are any times when I can make a definite statement about the cat. I do an experiment when I put the unfortunate fellow in the box, namely looking at him to see if his tail moves. I do a second experiment identical to this when I open the box. Based on what I know about the conditions in the box (cyanide capsules, nuclear decay, and whatnot), I can make an estimate, a bet, as to what the result of the second experiment will be. At no time can I legitimately claim I know the state of a cat, initially, in between, or at the end. I can only ever know the result of an experiment, and I only do two of them.

I definitely do not argue that "all circumstances leading to a particular event exist". I argue exactly the opposite: there is only one set of circumstance leading to an event. I argue for a very strict determinism, but one in which we do not know initial or intermediate conditions precisely so that we cannot know the future outcomes. Note that just because I do not know the causal sequence does not mean there is no causal sequence. This is precisely Jaynes' Mind Projection Fallacy. I agree there is no God's eye view, but this is only because there is not possible to have perfect information, even for this God person. Thus, just because God does not know the causal sequence does not imply that there is no causal sequence.

I didn't exactly follow your point about superluminous transport of information. I argue that quantum theory is a theory of experiments, not a physical theory, and thus it makes no sense to speak of QM as either local or non-local - it is entirely epistemic. Therefore the locality or non-locality of QM is irrelevant to any question of the speed of information transfer. Nothing at all about the physical world can be concluded from any apparent locality or non-locality of QM.

Too bad about the cake thing though, I quite like cake and I like to share it too.

Thanks very much for reading and commenting. Mark

Mark,

I guess my argument in a nutshell is that while the laws determining an outcome are, by definition, deterministic, there is no way to know all the input, from any frame, so it is not pre-determined, ie. fated.

The point about time is that while we experience it as a series of circumstances, from past to future, that which is past has been determined, while that which is future hasn't yet been, so when we treat this vector as fundamental, we go from a determined state to an indeterminate state and end up in multiworlds. If we look at it from the other direction, the indeterminate state becoming a determined state, it makes much more sense.

Before the race, there are ten winners, but after it, only one.

John, I think I can lay out a way that your understanding the vector of time as a series of circumstances is consistent with my interpretation of QM in a sensible way.

I agree with the assumptions of your first sentence, but not the conclusion. I argue that the laws determining an outcome are by definition deterministic, and there is no way to know all the input. So far we agree. Where we differ is in the last clause. I argue that this means the outcome is indeed determined, and is indeed fated, but we do not know, and cannot know, that predetermined outcome or fate in advance.

I think you are conceiving of your vector of time as a series of circumstance, rather than a dimension, which I can accept. But in these terms then, I think there are two such vectors, one is the "actual" vector, in other words, the predetermined or fated vector, the other is our imperfect guess at this vector.

In fact in quantum theory, we make formally vectors pointing at each possible outcome, and assign probabilities to them and this vector with probability components is the wavefunction in a Hilbert space.

Thus, in your race example, we make 10 vectors, one pointing to each of your runners in the race. Formally we make these outcome vectors orthonormal. We assign a probability (expressed as a root) to each runner. To project the outcome of the race, we give a magnitude equal to the root of the probability for each outcome to a vector in the corresponding direction, and add the ten vectors. Since all the probabilities squared add to 1, this gives us a unit vector. This vector is the wavefunction in Hilbert space. The wavefunction thus describes the projected outcome for the whole race, not the state of a runner.

In this picture, there is an actual sequence, which I am understanding as your vector of time, which results in an actual outcome of the race. Then there is a second vector, which is a probability weighted vector pointing to possible outcomes, which is the wavefunction. Since it is a generalized probability, this second vector is not real, and not fundamental.

I hope this captures where we agree and disagree. I can certainly agree with your notion of time, but I think I have described how it can be understood in a way consistent with my interpretation of quantum theory.

Mark

  • [deleted]

  • Post #14

Mark,

The difference seems to be between determined and pre-determined. Necessarily everything that does happen is determined, but prior to that, the factors which will do the actual determining and not just speculate about it, are not yet interacting. Now a spectator can, given sufficient information, make a fairly educated guess as to the outcome of a particular event in controlled circumstances, but that can only account for the expected.

So I would again argue that while we can predict an outcome and conclude after the event that the result was determined by the course of events, that prior to the event, neither the actual factors involved, nor any speculative position can either theoretically or effectively know the actual course of events and that this amounts to a lack of pre-determination. Not to be confused with the fact that some sequence of events will emerge and be evident after the fact.

To suppose a "fated vector" is to suppose some form of "fore-knowledge" by the system as a whole and that goes back to the subjective nature of knowledge, as opposed to our top down tendency to see ourselves as objective.

John, (it says anonymous, but I assume you've been hit by the time out on login).

This is an interesting discussion which offers some insight into both information/reality and deterministic/non-deterministic. I will concede (and I hope you do as well) that both arguments can be used to fit the empirical evidence. However, the choice between the two is not simply a matter of taste. The choice speaks to the entire nature of physical law.

You argue (I hope I paraphrase correctly):

1) That we are able to determine the actual state of physical things in the present. A sequence of events up to the present may be determined by plotting a trajectory of such states through a state space.

2) Some events or outcomes are fundamentally indeterminate. That is, there are some fundamentally stochastic (= somehow inherently "random" or somehow "uncaused") events. Thus, we are unable to predict future outcomes.

I argue:

1) That all events are entirely predetermined (or fated if you will). This is an assumption about the nature of all physical law - a character of the ontological domain.

2) That we (and "we" emphatically includes God) may never know a physical state. We may only know the result of experiments. Since we cannot know even a single physical state, we cannot know a trajectory in state space, even in the past. Since we can never know a current state or past trajectory, we can never predict with certainty the outcomes of future experiments, even in the context of deterministic evolution. This is a statement about what we can know and what we can predict - a character of the epistemic domain.

Your argument can not be rejected out of hand. Indeed, it is essentially the one which is at the heart of orthodox QM, and which has now had about a century of primacy. However, I think it leads to many of the paradoxes and interpretational difficulties of QM, which have not been resolved in that century.

I propose to resolve many of those issues by assigning probability, wavefunctions, and any other predictive tool, to the epistemic domain, the domain of information, where they rightfully belong, and "purifying" the ontological domain, the domain of reality, so that it is entirely governed by deterministic physical law. I do not think that determinism implies fore-knowledge at all. Knowledge is the epistemic domain, not the ontological. Predetermined and predictable do not mean the same thing. An event may be predetermined (a characterization of events in the ontological domain) but yet be unpredictable (a characterization of events in the epistemic domain).

I could be be wrong, and as I said, both approaches can fit the evidence. I just think that after a 100 years of relative futility in resolving quantum paradoxes, we might try a different approach.

Nice discussion. Thanks for engaging.

Regards, Mark

Mark,

Actually it would be a no to both paraphrases. My entry might explain why on the first. ie the subjectivity of knowledge. As for the second, I accept cause.

I'm willing to agree my point is epistemic, but that does raise the issue of what ontological really is. For one thing, the concept of pre-determination would essentially be meaningless, because there is no concept of past and future, only present action. Cause is simply that the energy is conserved.

Dear Mark Feeley,

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

Mark,

"... a great many theoretical physicists believe in magic and not physical law." WOW, what a great way to begin an essay of what I found to be a kindred sprit! I trust you will find my coin-in-cup experiment of value for it supports your position of causality.

I believe you will find my cause and effect analysis of the four forces of keen interest. The findings as presented in my essay have led me to examine how causality unifies gravity with the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces as one super-deterministc force, see:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1809

Best wishes,

Manuel

Hi Mark,

Nicely written essay that flows well. Passionate too, which is nice to see here. s I especially like that you've concluded it "wrong and dangerous to assume that information is fundamental". I think that It and Bit are either likely equally fundamental or reality is more fundamental. Hopefully you will take a look at my essay too, so we may discuss any common ground (or differences for that matter).

Kind regards,

Antony

Hi Mark,

I agree that '' ''It from Bit'' is simply not [Wheelers] finest hour''. However, I do not agree with your statement that '' ''It'' does not derive from ''Bit''. ''Bit'' manifestly derives from ''It''.''

If there would be only a single charged particle in the entire universe, then it wouldn't be able to express its charge in interactions. Since it in that case it cannot be charged itself, charge, or any property, for that matter, must be something which is shared by particles, something which only exists, is expressed and preserved within their interactions. I think that the idea ''so simple ... that when we grasp it, we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise?'' is the quite obvious proposition that in a universe which creates itself out of nothing, fundamental particles (its), their properties, are as much the cause as the effect of their interactions, of the (exchange of) bits, so you obviously cannot have one without the other.

Regards, Anton

    Anton,

    You raise some interesting and difficult points, which I will attempt to deal with.

    Actually, I think that the first point so is not difficult: I think information is evidently information about something, of Bit is indeed manifestly from It.

    Your other points are more subtle so much better to discuss.

    First of all, I take Mach much more seriously than Wheeler. Per the quote I included in my essay, Mach says that the best science can do is be the most economical abstract expression of facts. Taken seriously, this means that science cannot tell us what "is". It can only arrange the apparent facts nicely. To arrange our facts, we build models, mathematical pictures of particles and fields and forces and energies and whatnot. Per Mach, we cannot claim any of these things exist, although this emphatically does not imply something does not exist or reality is not fundamental. All we can do is build models, usually with some parameters, and a particle with a parameter of charge is such a model. Thus, when we speak of "a particle" or "a wave", we are really speaking of "the idea of a particle" and "the idea of a wave". (I admit that these steers dangerously close to Wheeler, but Wheeler goes too far by claiming that the idea of a particle "is" the particle or is more fundamental than whatever is that is real). If that is acknowledged, then the idea of a particle necessarily includes both its causes and effects. So, if we are talking about the idea of a particle then I agree with you, they are as much cause as effect of their interactions. However, I am inclined to think that Mach was more perceptive than most of us, and therefore we cannot claim that particles (or waves or anything) exist, so if your argument rests on such a claim, then it must fail.

    Overall, I think the idea that cause is fundamental is a much stronger logical position from which to build physics than the idea that particles with charge are fundamental. If particles are as much cause as effect of their interactions, I suggest this points to a weakness of the particle model, rather than an invalidation of the principle of cause.

    To get more clearly at the point about causality, given that I claim not to know what exists: I simply argue that it is the most economical to assume it. There are (at least) two types of models that we make in physics. The first are "physical" or ontological models: models which attempt to describe the world in some way. Most of our models are this type, Newtonian theory, Maxwell's electromagnetism, Einstein's gravity etc. They all assume a certain model structure, the existence of physical "things of some type, along with a strict determinism and causality. On the other hand, I have argued that quantum mechanics, similar to probability theory, is not one of these, and that it is a theory of experiments. Quantum mechanics actually describes the process of doing experiments which unknown outcomes, nothing more. It is an epistemic model, and it is not in any way a physical theory, therefore cannot say anything about physical theory. Physical content only enters by the probabilities which we assign various outcomes. We assign the probabilities and equation of by which we guess they might evolve, they are not inherent parts of the theory.

    A somewhat more nuanced version of my argument is that I thing we are will achieve Mach's goal of the most economical abstract expression of facts if we continue to assume ontological models with a strict determinism, that is, where cause is fundamental. Furthermore, with QM properly understood as an epistemic theory not an ontological one, we have no barriers to continue to assume such ontological determinism.

    Sort of long winded, but you raise difficult points, so I had a go.

    Thanks for reading and thanks for opening a discussion, Mark

    Mark,

    I enjoyed your essay and agree with most points.Your magic metaphor, I attribute to the narcissism of humans.

    "Just as the ancient painters used pigments to create representations

    of the reality they saw,we use mathematics to create representations of the reality we see."

    I like your comparison.

    Dear sie

    Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon.

    I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

    I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

    Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

    Best

    =snp

    snp.gupta@gmail.com

    http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

    Pdf download:

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

    Part of abstract:

    - -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

    Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

    A

    Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

    ....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

    Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

    . . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

    B.

    Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

    Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

    C

    Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

    "Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

    Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

    1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

    2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

    3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

    4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

    D

    Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

    It from bit - where are bit come from?

    Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

    ....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

    Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

    E

    Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

    .....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

    I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

    Mark,

    Your essay is really excellent. I saw you have judge honestly and dared going against to majority! Now I will read your work carefully and we will continue talks. Please check my work where you will find confirmation to your position.Take care, we are colleagues!

    ESSAY

    Sincerely,

    George

    Hi Mark,

    As to ''we cannot claim that particles (or waves or anything) exist'', that depends on what we mean with ''exist''.

    If the very most fundamental law of a universe which creates itself out of nothing, without any outside interference, is the conservation law which says that what comes out of nothing must add to nothing -so everything inside of it, including space and time itself must cancel, so there's nothing left to see if we could actually step outside the universe, then in this sense, the universe has no physical reality, does not exist as 'seen' from without, so to say. This apparently doesn't prevent Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) make statements about it, a conceptual fallacy which, I'm afraid, completely disqualifies the 'theory'. If, as you agree, particles are both cause and effect of their interactions, then they only exist to one another if, to the extent and for as long as they keep interacting, so they do not exist to particles outside their interaction horizon.

    Whether they exist to us and what nature we observe them to have, how we find them to behave when interfered with in an experiment is affected by the kind of experiment we subject them to, by the question we ask them. So while in classical mechanics, ''exist'' is a state, a noun, in a self-creating universe, in quantum mechanics, it is an activity, a verb: if we could cut of the continuous energy exchange between particles by means of which they express and preserve each other's properties, they'd vanish without trace, like the picture on a TV screen when we switch it off.

    The problem of causality is that if you explain the mass of particles as originating in their interactions with the Higgs field or boson, then to explain the mass of the Higgs boson you need to invent a pre-Higgs particle, the mass of which to explain in turn requires a pre-pre-Higgs particle, ad infinitum. As I argue in my essay, cause is not fundamental. If we understand something only if we can explain it as the effect of some cause and understand this cause only if we can explain it as the effect of a preceding cause and the chain of cause-and-effect either goes on ad infinitum or ends/starts with some primordial cause or event which, as it cannot be explained as the result from a preceding event, cannot be understood by definition, then causality ultimately cannot explain anything. As in a self-creating universe particles create, cause one another, they explain each other in a circular way: here we can take any element of an explanation, any link of the chain of reasoning without proof, use it to explain the next link and so on, to follow the circle back to the assumption we started with, which this time is explained by the foregoing reasoning.

    My objection to (temporal) causality (as opposed to ontological 'causality') is that it confuses cause and effect, or, to be more precise, that, if particles indeed are both cause and the effect of their interactions, we can no longer say that their mass precedes gravity between them, so instead of saying that particles contract because they have a certain constant rest mass (they somehow, mysteriously have been provided with) and gravity is attractive, we can as well say that they acquire mass only if and when they contract (agreeing with the uncertainty principle), that in doing so they power time. The idea of temporal causality, that cause precedes effect, only would make sense if we could determine what precedes what in an absolute sense, if we could look from outside the universe in, which BBC, in the concept of cosmic time, wants to make us believe is justified even though we cannot actually step outside of it. To regard it as an object we may imagine to observe from without only would be justified if particles only would be the source, and not also the product of their interactions.

    In other words, to me ''ontological determinism'' seems to be a contradiction in terms.

    Regards, Anton

    Hi Mark,

    Very nice essay. Gordon Watson made mention of it so I took a look. And was I happy reading? YES. I will respond by pasting excerpts and making comments immediately below.

    RE: To understand the way out of the crisis, we must first understand the way in.

    Agreed. How far back do we go? The crisis started much further back than the 100 years you think.

    RE: The flawed concept of physical probabilities is almost inextricably tied into the foundations of quantum theory and leads directly to most of the confusion in physics.

    I am 100% in with you on this, just like many others. But when someone drew a line in his geometry book and told you it had no breadth, why didn't we complain that not only was this not probable, it was impossible? Instead, we clapped and hailed this as an accomplishment. Why complain today?

    RE: "Questions about what?" and "It from Bit" suggests that we should consider information theory, not physical theory, as fundamental .

    I understand your sentiment being a realist myself. Not that I agree with Wheeler, completely but I think there is a genuine puzzle to solve: If you are an omnipotent and omniscient being and a naughty boy like Wheeler, knowing fully well that a question is not a material thing, asks you, "Daddy, create things FROM a question that has two answers", what will you do? What question will you ask, whose Yes or No answer can result in a thing coming from the question? Note, that you are not restricted in the kind of question to ask, so far the question has only two answers, Yes (1) or No (0). It may even be a stupid question.

    If I get a reply from you, I will suggest a possible stupid question, then let me know if this question is within the rules of the puzzle.

    Best regards,

    Akinbo

    *I will preferably want you to attempt the puzzle before reading my essay.

    Dear Sir,

    Your highly readable essay looks like a tutorial. You have guided the reader steo by step to reach the right conclusion. Your concluding remark: "information about reality and reality itself are different things, they must be differentiated in any theory" should be the clarion call of the day. Unfortunately, because of the mad rush to 'establish oneself', there is no time to apply discretion and everyone is building theories upon other's statements. As if there is no place for independent thinking. Unless you quote others, it is not science. We have received many enquiries about references on our essay:

    "INFORMATION HIDES IN THE GLARE OF REALITY by basudeba mishra http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1776" published here on May 31, because we have not referred to any earlier work. It is original work.

    Not only physicists believe in magic and are superstitious, but also reductionism has eroded their ability to link various aspects of the same subject. There are a large number of different approaches to the foundations of QM. Each approach is a modification of the theory that introduces some new aspect with new equations which need to be interpreted. Thus there are many interpretations of QM. Every theory has its own model of reality. There is no unanimity regarding what constitutes reality.

    Information about reality may vary, but reality itself must be invariant. Something makes meaning only if the description remains invariant under multiple perceptions or measurements under similar conditions through a proper measurement system. Reality must be invariant under similar conditions at all times. The validity of a physical theory is judged by its correspondence to reality.

    Most of our views are similar to your views. You are welcome to read and comment.

    Regards,

    basudeba

    7 days later

    Dear Sir,

    Your essay is highly enjoyable reading TEACHER!, but more important, you call a spade a spade brutally. We fully agree with your views. However, to be considerate to the others, a stochastic process or event is not without a natural cause. The term indicates population parameters - the band width - leaving aside its cause, but focusing only on the effect. Hence we cannot call it supernatural or magic. But you are right - modern scientists are the biggest lot of superstitious people, who have blind faith in 'established theories' even on the face of proven contradiction and all scientific papers and books contain references to these 'established theories' and their authors in unnecessarily glorified terms to make the student superstitious. The cult of incomprehensibility not only perpetuates such superstition, but also protects it from public glare.

    Mach's distinction between 'information about reality' and 'reality itself' implies observation and observable leaving aside the observer. In many threads here and elsewhere we have proved that physical reality is not observer dependent - the Moon will continue to exist when we are not looking at it and will continue to move at a predetermined rate irrespective of whether someone is observing it or not. Observation only reports its state at that instant to the observer to be stored in his memory and used for comparison with fresh impulses/data later. This makes the information limited. The probabilistic or statistical treatments do not address the problem of limitation, but build structures on limited data, which in many cases turned out to be misleading. Irrespective of the position of the observer, the coins will fall at a certain spatial orientation. That is real, because the result of the toss is invariant to all observers after taking into consideration their relative positions. The positioning of the observer only changes the report, as seen by the observer, because the 'axes' of the coordinate system change leaving the 'origin' intact. It does not change reality. This is the cause of the directional system. Something that is at our right can be at our left by changing our position.

    Uncertainty is inherent in Nature because of inter-connectedness and interdependence of everything with everything else. When we try to measure something, the result of measurement will not only rest on our operation, but also the environment in which we operate. Even our measuring device and its functioning will be subject to the density fluctuations in the environment that will change the income pulse from the outgoing pulse. Heisenberg was right that "everything observed is a selection from a plentitude of possibilities and a limitation on what is possible in the future". But his logic and the mathematical format of the uncertainty principle: ε(q)η(p) ≥ h/4π are wrong.

    The inequality: ε(q)η(p) ≥ h/4π or as it is commonly written: δx. δp ≥ ħ permits simultaneous determination of position along x-axis and momentum along the y-axis; i.e., δx. δpy = 0. Hence the statement that position and momentum cannot be measured simultaneously is not universally valid. Further, position has fixed coordinates and the axes are fixed arbitrarily from the origin. Position along x-axis and momentum along y-axis can only be related with reference to a fixed origin (0, 0). If one has a non-zero value, the other has indeterminate (or relatively zero) value (if it has position say x = 5 and y = 7, then it implies that it has zero momentum with reference to the origin. Otherwise either x or y or both would not be constant, but will have extension). Multiplying both position (with its zero relative momentum) and momentum of the same particle (which is possible only at a different time t1 when the particle moves), the result will always be zero. Thus no mathematics is possible between position (fixed coordinates) and momentum (mobile coordinates) as they are mutually exclusive in space and time. They do not commute. Hence, δx.δpy = 0.

    Nature Physics (2012) (doi:10.1038/nphys2194) describes a neutron-optical experiment that records the error of a spin-component measurement as well as the disturbance caused on another spin-component. The results confirm that both error and disturbance obey the Masanao Ozawa's relation: ε(q)η(p) + σ(q)η(p) + σ(p)ε(q) ≥ h/4π but violate the old one in a wide range of experimental parameters. Even when either the source of error or disturbance is held to nearly zero, the other remains finite.

    Quantization is opposed to inter-connectedness and interdependence. The degree of uncertainty and manipulations (contrary to mathematical principles) of Maxwell's equations also confuse everything as shown below.

    The wave function is determined by solving Schrödinger's differential equation:

    d2ψ/dx2 + 8π2m/h2 [E-V(x)]ψ = 0.

    By using a suitable energy operator term, the equation is written as Hψ = Eψ. The way the equation has been written, it appears and taught to students as an equation in one dimension, but in reality it is a second order equation signifying a two dimensional field, as the original equation and the energy operator contain a term x2. The method of the generalization of the said Schrödinger equation in one dimension to the three spatial dimensions (adding two more equal terms by replacing x with y and z) does not stand mathematical scrutiny. A three dimensional equation is a third order equation implying volume. Addition of three areas does not generate volume [x+y+z ≠ (x.y.z)] and [x2+y2+z2 ≠ (x.y.z)]. Thus, there is no wonder that it has failed to explain spectra other than hydrogen. The so-called success in the case of helium and lithium spectra gives results widely divergent from observation.

    Much before Anaxagoras, the ancient Indian Text 'Yoga Vashistha' written not later than 4000 BC, says: "Mano bhavati bhutatmaa taranga iba varidheh" - which literally means the mind itself becomes the perceived world like one wave in the sea arises after another.

    Your refutation of Wheeler's views has traces of the measurement problem nicely put.

    The views of Jaynes was discussed in much greater detail in the ancient Indian Text 'Gautama Sootras', whose commentary by Vatsayana is much more elaborate. We have used some of it in our essay "INFORMATION HIDES IN THE GLARE OF REALITY by basudeba mishra http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1776" published here on May 31. You are welcome to visit it.

    Regards,

    basudeba

    10 days later

    • [deleted]

    • Post #30

    Dear Mark,

    Your course, and the lessons that can be taken from it are excellent! Well-written and critical of the right fundamental elements, with a logical presentation that's laid out so lucidly--it is a truly great contribution. '"Bit" is about "it"'. Of course it is.

    I agreed with everything from your assessment of Machian epistemics, to your classical construction of quantum mechanics, to your criticism of where it all went wrong; i.e. attaching physical meaning to probabilistic outcomes. Simply put, physics got to where it is today because at the beginning of the twentieth century they were all positivists--except that they then began to surreptitiously assign some form of realistic to aspects of models that have no basis in reality.

    The points in your lesson plan were laid out so clearly; e.g.,

    "Furthermore, heads and tails have no meaning at all until the experiment is complete, so coins cannot be said to "have" heads or tails states. They will conclude, hopefully, that heads and tails are outcomes of the experiment. They are not properties or states of the coin; they are states of the outcome. The difference is profound."

    Indeed, it is; and by the lucidity of your beautiful essay, I could clearly see the profoundness of your point already by the time I got to "... have no meaning..." The conclusion of your second class is fundamentally important.

    Your re-assertion:

    "Not wishing to write more lines, they will not accept that the wavefunction is in any way physical, or even directly associated with anything physical. Probability is not real"

    comes at exactly the right place--just where the formalism risks being thought of as something more than a probabilistic model used to describe outcomes of (coin-toss) experiments. And you cement the right idea perfectly in what follows, clearly demonstrating what's wrong with common ideas like wavefunction "collapse".

    I, like you, am at a loss to see how "law without law" could possibly make sense to anyone; how experimental outcomes could be all there is to reality. Wheeler's proposal, in the Machian tradition, is simply to try and put the cart before the horse--and it's as unrealistic as any proposal in that tradition could be; "a premium on stupidity" that "supports a supernatural view"

    I give your essay a thumbs-up, interpreted on the scale of 1 to 10, which is unfortunately all I can do to combat the thumbs-downs you've received from people who obviously haven't read your incredible essay.

    The scope of my essay (1820) is completely different, but it's fundamentally consistent with yours. I hope you can read and rate it, and perhaps find time to comment as well.

    Best wishes in all regards,

    Daryl