Information-Based Physics and the Influence Network by Kevin H Knuth

Kevin - do you have a reference for the Feynman / Wheeler program which "was abandoned because they needed interactions that went backward in time"?

Are you talking about this paper:

John Archibald Wheeler and Richard Phillips Feynman, "Interaction with the absorber as the mechanism of radi- ation", Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 17, no. 2-3, pp. 157-181, Apr. 1945

or some other paper? I'm very interested in this reference.

Kind regards, Paul

Kevin - excellent paper. I'm delighted to see someone develop the concept of an embedded observer.

I'm not sure how to think about the poset model. The Hasse diagram seems to have the same problem as Feynman diagrams (time is up). Makes it difficult to represent reversible quantum flow (unless you fold the paper ;-)

This is related to the point you make in the Mass, Energy and Momentum section - "This makes time an excellent parameter for indexing observations" - It seems to me that this is true only for irreversible, monotonically increasing time.

Although I am intrigued by your reference to Feynman's factor of i during helicity traversals. [I don't have a copy of Feynman & Hibbs]

Kind regards, Paul

Dr. Knuth

Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And you have touched some corners of it.

With regards,

Than Tin

Dear Kevin,

In continuation to above comment on having fundamental particle events as points (dated Jul. 16, 2013 @ 20:08 GMT).

Influence, or, analogously, force in a framework of Newtonian mechanics, is a useful concept for an abstract level of bigger systems that are maid of some smaller things. And probably, like Newtonian force, which already has a problem with simultaneity in Special Relativity, an abstract influence concept will leak in the similar fashion, either at SR or at quantum level, or in the intersection of the two.

All of known interactions (influences), except gravity, at a fundamental level are described by QFTs of Standard Model, which do not have a concept of force between particles. The force is an emergent thing on a sea of elementary particle events. Quoting Anderson, "more is different". And these QFTs of Standard Model, the concepts used in them, produce the best fit to experimental data, besides having done spectacular predictions, one which has been confirmed just recently. So, it might be humble to embrace QFT concepts, following Newton's own example: "I was able to see further only by standing on the shoulders of giants".

I agree that, for example, producing electromagnetic force out of particle events in Quantum Electrodynamics (QFT) sounds highly non-intuitive for our gut-feeling, that have evolved in classical mechanical world. My own experience, when studying QFTs, was having conversations with fellow students, where we had to say that a notion of "force", or "how does particle knows where to go" are not present at QFT level. These notions arise as interpretation of integral quantities, but are not present at QFT level. This is how mass arises, all of it, out of massless fundamental (naked) particles.

QFTs were introduced historically at intersection of Special Relativity and Classical Quantum Theory, as notion of one "long-lived" particle breaks already at SR level. And even today, when we have a problem with QM picture, we fall back to QFT description. This shows that QFT does contain concepts that serve as low-level description better, than anything else we have been using these last couple of centuries. I'll also quote your words that "This line of investigation {Feynman/Wheeler program with E&M interactions} was abandoned in favor of QED.", noting that QED is currently used as a textbook example of a good QFT.

Cheers,

Mikalai

Kevin,

Simple models can help us to understand what we know and what we don't know about the macro and micro world. I firmly believe that we will discover the paucity of our knowledge of physics when extraterrestrial visitors are discovered -- as surely they will be.

I think your focus on what the electron does than what it is will in itself be a reminder of utilizing what we know rather than what we think we know. I am a non-physicist but no less intrigued by cosmology and physics late in life. I would like to see your views on "It's Great to be the King."

"Rather than thinking about the universe as a computer, perhaps it is more accurate to think about it as a network of influences where the laws of physics

derive from both consistent descriptions and optimal information-based inferences made by embedded observers."

Dear Kevin

"The average human being is a naive realist: i.e., like the animals, he accepts his sense impressions as direct information of reality and he is convinced that all human beings share this information. He is not aware that no way exist of establishing whether one individual impression (e.g. ,of a green tree) and that of another (of this tree) is the same and that even the word "same" has no meaning here."

Max Born My life & my views p.53

Regards

Yuri

Dear Kevin,

Reality is made both wave and particle.

Why not « Quantum and Wave Mechanics » ?

Accordingly to eDuality, see my essay which is less scholarly.

I rated your essay accordingly to my appreciation.

Respectfully, and good luck.

Please visit My essay.

Kevin,

This is a very fascinating approach that looks at what we know, rather than what we think. If I may, I would like to offer up the premise of my last year's entry and suggest ways it might bring together various of the points you raise; The dynamic reality we all inhabit, the vectors of influences it is usefully reduced to and the issue of the reality of time and space.

We experience reality from the perspective of a theoretical point and so we model time as a sequence of events and space as a three dimensional coordinate system.

Given the temporal sequence is foundational to humanity, as the basis of narrative and linear logic, it is natural to assume it is foundational and physics incorporates this as measures of duration. The reality though is that it is the changing configuration of what is, that turns future potential into past circumstance. For example, the earth is not traveling some vector from yesterday to tomorrow, tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.

This makes time an effect of action, similar to temperature. Time is to temperature what frequency is to amplitude. The faster clock doesn't travel into the future quicker, but it (thermodynamically) ages/burns quicker, so it recedes into the past more rapidly.

Spacetime is correlating measures of duration and distance, but duration doesn't transcend the present. It is simply what is happening between events, such as the wave cycling between peaks, or the earth rotating between sunrises. So there is no "fabric of spacetime," any more then there are giant cosmic gear wheels.

This leaves space without any physical properties to allow it to be bend/warped, or limited/bound, etc. Which does give it two attributes; Absolute and infinite. Absolute because it is inert, which we can measure as the cause of centrifugal force. Infinite because you can't limit nothing.

Now consider those two foundational human features arising from time; narrative and linear logic. Naturally we would consider them one and the same, so that temporal sequence is cause and effect, but that is not so. Yesterday doesn't cause today, anymore than one rung on a ladder causes the next. Exchange of energy is cause. As you develop in your theory of influences.

Now, as you well know, this is not a particularly linear process. While the laws of physics might determine the outcome of any situation, the cone of input is fundamentally incomplete prior to the occurrence of any event. Even if information could travel faster then light, then so would input and the problem persists. At best, time is a tapestry of interlocking threads, not any singular history and that gets to your description of there being no universal "it."

In fact, as I develop in this years entry, information defines energy and energy manifests information, so since energy is conserved, old information has to be erased, in order to create new information, thus giving rise to the "arrow of time." Therefore eventually the past becomes as unknowable as the future, so we cannot reconstruct any real history, thus making the concept of determinism even more problematic. Considering past and future do not physically/ontologically exist, even the concept of determinism(set past and future) is effectively epistemic.

I think this inherent subjectively of reality is where your essay is going, at least reading it from my particular set of references/influences!

Regards,

John Merryman

subjectivity

Dear Physician,

Mass ratio of neutron/proton is fundamental in physics.

Maybe you do not have time to read essay of unknown authors. I encourage you, therefore, allow you to comment on the very essence of following formula:

[math]\gamma= 2^{(cy+p+3t)/(2+2a^{2}m)}=1.0013784192[/math]

Where mathematical constant are:

[math]2\pi=6.2831853, t=log(2\pi,2)=2.6514961295, cy=e^{2\pi}= 535.4916555248 [/math]

Physical constants:

[math]a=1/\alpha=137.035999074, \mu=1836.15267245,m=log(\mu,2)=10.8424703056[/math]

[math]p=cy/2-(\mu/a+1)/(\mu/a+2)-1=265.8107668189[/math]

An important physicist said it was a coincidence, or perhaps just a curiosity. Perhaps you feel the same. My opinion is opposite. I think that in terms of, such a significant relationship physicist should have an attitude.

I find your article really interesting, and I rated you fairly.

Greetings Branko

Kevin,

Quite brilliant essay. What a refreshing change to read about the very important matter of real entities and interactions! I commend your postulates and derivations.

I agree entirely; "mass is responsible for emergent spacetime", which I've analysed in further detail in a joint Hadronic Jnl paper on conceptual quantum optics with Jon Minkowski explaining how moving mirrors reflect light at c in the vacuum not mirror frame, so explaining many astronomical anomalies. Of course it appears too outlying for most to be comfortable with at first.

I suspect you may be able to apply the correct algorithms to the heuristic descriptions I use in developing the ontological construction in terms of relative motion in my essay, also apparently resolving other paradoxes, and seemingly entirely consistent with your approach.

But this is rather outside the box and doctrine thinking. Frankly I was just about to sign in to the local institution to sort my wayward thinking out until I read your essay. I own you big time for that! Thank you, and top marks. I'd like id possible for you to look over may last two essays here which are precursers to this years, describing the fundamental inter-particle, or even just inter wave/particle mechanism than seems to have that Midas touch. Of course if you think a big score appropriate this year I won't complain I've been passed over from 7th place twice running now! But far more important are the truths to be revealed.

Very well done and thank you. I hope to see a comment on my blog (there are many nice superlatives there already, but complete understanding by more would be better.

Very best wishes.

Peter

Dear Kevin,

"I know about the universe because it influences me." Marvelous!

I have not heard a better or more compact description of an objective physical world since Einstein's definition of physically real spacetime: " ... independent in its properties, having a physical effect but not itself influenced by physical conditions."

You get my 10 vote, without reservation. More important, I will be studying your essay for some time to come.

If you read my essay I hope you see that we are saying the same thing in different ways. And not really so different, at that. More to say, in due course. I hope we can have a continuing dialogue.

Thank you for a great essay -- all best in your research and in the contest!

Tom

Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.

If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.

I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.

There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements - which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.

Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.

This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.

Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.

This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.

However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.

Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.

Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.

The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.

Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.

This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.

Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.

You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.

With many thanks and best wishes,

John

jselye@gmail.com