Information, Misinformation and High Philosophy by Don Limuti

Hi Akinbo,

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for your insightful essay.

I am going to give you a mark of 10, and if I could it would be 20.

I believe I my be one of the few who know what you are talking about.

I liked you history of monads, it made me realize that what I had

labeled as a "thingy" and later called a Planck Instant is very, very close to

a monad.

Best of Luck,

Don L.

Dear Don,

Your comments on my blog are treasured. If you can lay hold on Sir Heath's account of Euclid's elements you will enjoy the aspect on how geometric objects came to be defined.

Yes, I agree Zeno left out a detail. What is that detail?

The answer is "Nothing moves, everything changes". AGREE. There is no such thing as velocity outside of calculations we make on a changing space-time. PERFECT! How can CHANGING SPACE-TIME give us the phenomenon of motion?

A suggestion I have is that in the direction of motion extension (or space-time) changes to non-extension while in the opposite direction space-time becomes extended. So while not actually leaving your own place and the space-time that is intrinsic to you as Zeno says you experience motion and get to your destination.

Then a little poser I have asked a few, just for my knowledge:

Is it being implied by the relational view of space and as suggested by Mach's principle that what decides whether a centrifugal force would act between two bodies in *constant relation*, would not be the bodies themselves, since they are at fixed distance to each other, nor the space in which they are located since it is a nothing, but by a distant sub-atomic particle light-years away in one of the fixed stars in whose reference frame the *constantly related* bodies are in circular motion?

NOTE THAT in no other frame can circular motion between the bodies be described in this circumstance except in the 'observing' sub-atomic particle.

I will check here for your reply.

Best regards,

Akinbo

Hi Don,

Thanks for an engaging essay that treats the core issue straightforwardly. You wrote:

> A particle or photon consists of a core element that never moves, but disappears and reappears. It has a distance dimension that is the particles wavelength. It also has a time dimension that is the particles period. The particle itself consists of the core element plus its wavelength and period. Said another way, the actual particle is the core element and the hop.

In any computational model, there is a need for some kind of discrete interpretation, and this looks like an especially simple one (which I mean approvingly). This appears to be consistent with my view (the simulation paradigm), in which observers take discrete snapshots of the cosmos.

> This mistake can be forgiven because the Calvin and Hobbs cartoon is really good.

Love the cartoon. One of the interesting aspects of the simulation paradigm is that it can have something to say about biology and philosophy, not just physics.

> Wheeler's analysis of the delayed dual slit experiment is extremely creative and correct except for his misinformed conclusion... Wheeler has mistakenly calculated a position for the photon which it does not have.

How does this resolve the timing problem in the delayed choice experiment? Is it just that the photon can determine where to reappear knowing the delayed choice of the experimenter?

> We are becoming conditioned to magical thinking and this has lead us to over elevate the immaterial (bits, information) and make it the cause of the material (the IT).

To my mind, a computational substrate for the material would be a way to create the effect of lamba-hopping. Consider a video game world as a model for the material world. You might say, by analogy, that the red (for example) pixels making up a video game character lambda-hop from place to place on the screen that is taken for reality within the game. Would this interpretation be consistent with your views?

In my essay Software Cosmos I construct a computational model for the cosmos based on the simulation paradigm. To me, it seems consistent with your model, but I am curious what you think.

Hugh

Dear Don,

One single principle leads the Universe.

Every thing, every object, every phenomenon

is under the influence of this principle.

Nothing can exist if it is not born in the form of opposites.

I simply invite you to discover this in a few words,

but the main part is coming soon.

Thank you, and good luck!

I rated your essay accordingly to my appreciation.

Please visit My essay.

Dear Don,

Your essay was a real pleasure to read. Not only was it an engaging dialogue, it was very informative and fun too. I loved the explanation of the nature of Brahman compared to a two sided coin.

You wrote that the experiment to test the predictability of electron movement with a coherent source is easy to do.

Quote "Siri: Are you sure of this? Infallible one.

Don: An experiment can be easily done to verify it. Just use a controlled electron or photon source "

Has it been attempted? Is that what the references refer to? Or do you have plans to see it done?

A really enjoyable and 'different' essay. Good luck, Georgina

Dear Don,

I enjoyed reading your essay. You mentioned Wheeler's assuption of continuity. My opinion is that he used continuity when he couldn't find clearer ways to explain ideas. But his "it from bit", as described in "Information, Physics, Quantum The Search for Links" (1989) and in other articles, is fundamentally discrete, and it seems to me to be more close to your view of photon hoops. The difference seems to me to be that at Wheeler the observations (which are means to obtain the bits) are the "stops" of the photon, and not some points separated by the wavelength. Considering that the photons do the lambda-hopping, where are the "stops"? Are they the points of maximum? Are they points where the phase is 0? This works for real waves, but since photons are complex waves, it seems to me difficult to find a gauge invariant choice of the stops, but maybe you have such a choice, or maybe you adhere to a different description of photons than in QM.

Your proposal can, as you observed, be easily distingushed from QM by experiments. While QM was confirmed so far every time, it is not impossible that someday a new experiment invalidates it. One possible experiment to confirm your lambda-hopping proposal, for instance, is to send coherent light through a wall. It seems to me that it should pass through the wall, if the stops of the photon are not inside the wall.

You use at the beginning of the essay some philosophical ideas, mainly from Vedanta. The duality Nirguna Brahma / Saguna Brahma parallels that of unmanifested Tao / manifested Tao (a theme in my essay). Of course, nondualism is the answer to this koan.

Best regards,

Cristi Stoica

Dear Don,

Thank you for explaining the lambda-hopping and the experimental predictions. You ask "Do you think FQXi would entertain either of these tests?". Hmmm, that is an interesting question indeed. I have no idea, depends whether they consider it to be interesting enough. Your laser experiment doesn't seem too difficult, I suppose it could be performed easily at a quantum lab, if you find someone with access and interested in helping you. How you do any of these, I don't know.

Best regards,

Cristi

Dear All

A standard-issue big city all-glass high-rise stands across the street from my usual bus stop. When I look up the high-rise facade, I can see the reflections of the near-by buildings and the white clouds from the sky above. Even when everything else looks pretty much the same, the reflections of the clouds are different, hour to hour and day to day.

After I boarded the bus, I rushed to get a single seat facing four others on a slightly elevated platorm. From my vantage point, I can't help noticing the shoes of the four passengers across from my seat are not the same, by either the make , the design, or the style, and that is true even when the four passengers happen to be members of the same family.

I could change the objects of my fascination from shoes to something else, to buttons on the dresses for example, but I do not think the result would have been any different. Diversity or Uniqueness would still rule the day! (There is a delightful essay on the subject of uniqueness by Joe Fisher in this contest.)

I am pretty sure people are fascinated by the diversity and the uniqueness in the world, when the other side of it is the inevitable boredom of sameness every time.

However, we have a need to know where all this beautiful and enchanting diversity comes from. Borrowing Wheelerian phraseology of "How come the quantum?", I ask "How come the diversity?" A standard physics answer is "Entropy always increases." (I am not a physicist, and I don't know if that is the final answer.)

Whenever I'm out of my depth, I go back to my theory of everything (TOE), which is a mental brew of common sense, intuition, gut, analogy, judgement, etc. etc. , buttressed when I can with a little thought-experiment.

The thought-experiment is simple. Imagine cutting a circle into two precisely, identical, and equal parts. Practically, there is no way we can get the desired result, because one part will be bigger or smaller in some way.

Physics - especially quantum physics - says it don't matter, do the superposition!

But superposition is fictive, an invention like the Macarena dance, and it has given us a cat, alive and dead at the same time.

I have heard that angels can dance on the tip of the needle, and now I'm finding out some of us can too!

Cheers and Good Luck to All,

Than Tin

Dear Don,

Interesting read. Its got that tang of an original perspective.

You say of your "lambda-hopping": "This kind of motion also provides an alternative to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle."

would it be right to say then that to move is to change and vice versa i.e. TIME is simply the evolution of matter and vice versa for SPACE such that given any apparent space and time then the excluded middle [of Peter Jacksons's essay] i.e. the "virtual exchange" of SM or "space-time" of GR indeed the "QUANTUM" or "lambda-hopping defines the term "observer"("unit" of/or any measurement)?

Let me say that this assumption actually BESTRIDES (or "blends") your Nirguna Brahman/Saguna Brahman positions. I tend to agree with Cristi's observation above that "Of course, nondualism is the answer to this koan."

"

This is the position I take to your λ-hopping as summed in my 4 axioms. I hope you can find time to read and comment on What a Wavefunction is. And I will be back here to rate. For me your essay is very much on the high side.

Just allow my essay a little of your time.

Regards,

Chidi

Dear Don,

Here, a cup of coffee to Siri and a most worthy rating to your essay. No asprin to you! Its good to know that the intuitive is not entirely to be discredited.

Now what do you have to say about some general direction of arguments that is developing in this contest? It seems to me FQXi should do a study/book on that annually.

All the best,

Chidi

Hi Don,

Dear Don! I can say definitely that you are filling the reality as it is. The proofs, logic and formulas become sometime not enough arguments for change some of harmful/powerful institutions. The humor and sarcasm become very necessary in such situations. That is why I really like your not ordinary approach to present critical situation in physics. I hope some of hard brains maybe will come a little bit ,,soft,, when they understand that their ,,high,, occupation is just funny/empty! Thank you and best wishes.

George