Reality, No Matter How You Slice It by Ken Wharton

Dear prof Warton,

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

Dear Ken,

It's nice to see your well-written and carefully reasoned essay. I agree that information should be about something real, and I found myself quite absorbed by your analysis, which I could easily appreciate despite thinking that there is a fundamental flaw in it. In my previous essay I argued against the relativity of simultaneity (as inferred from the relativity of synchronicity) on both logical and empirical grounds, and used a thought experiment to show how a special relativistic universe with a common now would be described to exist, and the simultaneous events that occur in it couldn't possibly be synchronous in any but the cosmic rest-frame. This year, I've considered Einstein's photon-clock on a train experiment, and shown how it too reconciles with there being a common now that's just as agreeable to the mind of either observer, in order to support my argument that the three-dimensional Universe exists, and space-time is just the map of events that occur in it as it does. On my essay page, I've also opened up a discussion involving a thought experiment from Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, which clearly demonstrates the relativity of synchronicity, and I've described how I think that should be correctly interpreted, and what I see as being wrong with the usual interpretation. The bottom line is that rather than abandoning absolute space, time, motion, etc., Einstein should have rejected the assumption that synchronous events are truly simultaneous.

Actually, I see a lot of similarity between my argument for a realistic interpretation of the apparent relativity of "simultaneity", and the stance you've taken in this essay. In your introduction, I thought you expressed this perfectly where you wrote "After all, there's a long "instrumentalist" tradition of only using what we can measure to describe quantum entities, rejecting outright any story of what might be happening when we're not looking. Using a theory that only comprises our knowledge of measurement outcomes to justify knowledge as fundamental is almost like wearing rose-tinted glasses to justify that the world is tinted red." I could not agree more. In fact, I find that the argument for the relativity of simultaneity not only rejects outright what might be happening when we're not looking, but very purposely rejects what we would see if we did open our eyes and take a look at the world around us.

Please consider: if you were running towards me and I flicked a light on and off when you were precisely x meters away, in your coordinate frame, would you think that the light took x/c seconds to get to you, or would you think you closed the gap a very small amount in that tiny fraction of a second, as I would now be a little less than x meters away? Now, what if we holed ourselves up in the cabin of a ship and you stood x meters away from me and I flicked a light on and off. Would you say that the light took x/c seconds to reach you just because we remained x meters apart? What if we went up to the deck and found that the ship was moving at the same velocity that you were running? Wouldn't it then be more objective to consider that velocity in our mental image of what's going on when we perform the experiment in the cabin? If we went back down and did it again, with me standing at the front of the cabin and you x meters to the rear, would it be so impossible for us to realise that although the distance between us is constant, after I flash the light I move away from it and you move towards it, so that when you see the flash it's actually travelled a slightly shorter distance than x? Of course it's not impossible to see that: we've walked down the street and considered ourselves as being in motion relative to everything that surrounds us before. And just because we're *able* to describe every thing in a coordinate system in which we're at rest, and dribble a basketball on a ship, doesn't mean that we should reject the obvious when we look out at the world.

Cosmic time and its associated comoving reference frame are cornerstones of modern cosmology, which have been verified to an unprecedented level of confidence through the observation of the CMBR, and yet arguments for the relativity of simultaneity, based on the relativity of synchronicity, completely neglect the fact. Even though experiments can be performed in isolation and described perfectly well in coordinate frames that justifiably take no account of the real world around them, due to the symmetry of the Lorentz transformation, it's never been justifiable from the point of view of relativistic cosmology to reject the description of an ultimate cosmic rest-frame.

For this reason, I feel I've got a similar sentiment to you when you wrote, "This, of course, is nonsense: such a question *can* be asked in this model, but the answer depends on the geometry. It is the Independence Fallacy which leads to a denial of an underlying reality - stemming from a motivation to describe a slice of a system independently from what lies outside", and my above argument basically parallels what you wrote after this, in part IV.B. of your essay.

As well, I'd simply change some words in your conclusion to read, "Whether or not one wants actual temporal passage, the point is that one can have actual temporal passage, in which case relativity can plausibly be about something that really *exists*. Instead of winning the argument by default, then, eternalists now need to argue that it's *better* to give up on the passage of time--the reality of the common now. Everyone else need simply embrace an ordinary three-dimensional Universe that really exists--no matter how one's proper time advances relative to that age, or whether simultaneous events get described as occurring at the same 'time'."

Since the relativity of simultaneity is a key element of both our essays, I'm hoping you'd be willing to seriously consider and discuss our opposing viewpoints. In particular, I'd be interested in any insights you might have on the subjective updating of our relativistic conception of motion.

Sincere regards,

Daryl

Dear Ken,

Thanks for the beautiful, insightful essay. I very much liked your statement "Using a theory that only comprises our knowledge of measurement outcomes to justify knowledge as fundamental is almost like wearing rose-tinted glasses to justify that the world is tinted red."

I find again that our views of how the things will be ultimately resolved in quantum mechanics have some common points, although we express them differently, and we use different approaches. In your essay, you perform an analysis intended to weaken Wheeler's conclusion stated in "it from bit", by using what you call "all-at-once", and maybe as part of your Lagrangian approach. In my essay, I present my view that quantum systems have to obbey the "global consistency principle" (which also fits natural in the 4D block world view of relativity), and that what Wheeler's delayed choice shows is not that information is primordial, but only that the initial conditions depend on what measurements will be performed in the future, or that the initial conditions are delayed.

Best regards,

Cristi Stoica

Dear Ken,

I'm disappointed by the above response. I read your excellent essay, and, as usual, I agree with much of what you say, but I've also read Daryl's essays, and I'm impressed with his arguments. What you appear to be saying is that you have a belief, and it is not logical, and need not be defended with logic.

I can understand this, as my model is basically rooted in my belief about the nature of the world and my experience living in it. Nevertheless, I was hoping for an enlightening exchange from the above comment. I would ask that you reconsider your response. It seems a simple enough problem has been stated, that deserves more than an abrupt dismissal.

Anyway, I'm glad to see you participating in the contest again, and once more enjoyed reading your essay, which seemed to contain a number of novel points. I invite you read and comment upon my essay if you find the time.

Best,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Ken,

As you know, we agree on a lot of this stuff, although I wish you wouldn't perpetuate Feynman's fallacy that the double slit experiment contains the whole mystery of quantum theory. The double slit experiment, delayed choice, Elitzur Vaidman bomb, and similar phenomena that only rely on basic interferometry can all be accounted for by perfectly sensible local and noncontextual hidden variable theories within the standard framework. Because of this, one cannot derive compelling arguments for abandoning the traditional initial state+dynamics framework from them. On the other hand, you are right that considering the "all in one" framework puts a lot of options back on the table, e.g. locality, noncontextuality and epistemic quantum states, so it is definitely worth considering given that the potential gains are so high.

However, I think there is an important conceptual issue that has not been adequately addressed to date. There is a big difference between a presentation of a theory that makes it look like it is not an initial state+dynamics theory and a theory in which an initial state+dynamics picture does not exist. What we are really looking for is a theory in which the latter is true. After all, Newtonian mechanics can be presented in a Lagrangian form, and one may be tempted to argue that it is an "all at once" theory when it is presented that way, but it also has a perfectly adequate Hamiltonian formalism, so such an argument would be misguided. Now, one can come up with all sorts of fancy quantum-like theories defined on spacetime involving Lagrangians, future boundary conditions and the like, but how do you know that the theory does not also have a reasonable initial state+dynamics formalism?

Part of the problem is of course that all theories do in fact have an initial state+dynamics formalism and it is just that we may view such a formalism as not a good representation of what is going on in reality. For example, there is always the "encyclopedia of the world" ontology wherein the ontic state is just a list of absolutely everything that will happen in the universe and it is replicated at every point in space. We would normally want to reject such an ontology as being superdeterministic. What this indicates is that we cannot reject initial state+dynamics on its own, but if we add extra principles like no superdeterminism locality then we may prove that there is no initial state+dynamics formalism that is consistent with both of them. This is how Huw Price sometimes likes to present Bell's theorem, as an implication from realism+locality to retrocausality. However, the problem with this is that we have not actually established that there are "all at once" theories that are local. This is because the traditional definition of locality only applies to initial state+dynamics theories so we need to generalize it to make this statement meaningful. For specific theories, one can come up with arguments that the theory is local or that "all the action happens in the lightcones", but what we really need is a general statement of what locality is in this context that is at least as general as Bell's definition of locality for initial state+dynamics theories. Indeed, we also need to do this for the concepts from the other no go theorems, such as noncontextuality and epistemic quantum states. Until we have such general definitions, claims as to whether one theory or another are genuinely "all at once" theories or not are question begging in my opinion.

Thanks for your support, Edwin. It was a nice surprise when I came to post this response.

Dear Ken,

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry that I wasn't crystal clear that while I think a strong argument in favour of an absolute frame of reference and true temporal passage takes exactly the same *form* that your essay has, I understand that the *content* of my argument is completely different from the content of your essay. In fact, I'm saying that by the *very same* argument structure that you've used in your essay, your basic premise, as you've argued from the point of view of relativity, does have to be rejected.

I appreciate your misgivings in regard to the no-go theorems, but then, to refer to that same argument structure again, and particularly your conclusion, your analysis would at best provide a reason why it would be better to give up on the passage of time; i.e., at best your analysis finds a means of motivating its premise. As I've argued, the motivation from the point of view of relativity that you've given is false, at least as far as we can trust empirical knowledge.

You also expressed misgivings about how I would interpret relativity, saying that this "would seem to leave no room for anything about nature that would surprise us"; but I already noted the backflip a person's mind would have to do if they were sitting in a room completely blocked off from, and totally ignorant of, what was going on in the outside world, before discovering that they were really moving through it at some constant velocity. This would indeed be surprising, and they'd want to update their frame of reference to reflect the fact that they were actually in motion, though in a way that's consistent with their ability to describe everything that happens in the room as if it were truly at rest.

By taking this interpretation of relativity to be just too in tune with our base intuitions about reality and temporal flow, the argument in your third paragraph therefore seems to oppose the possibility that quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive in a way that *could possibly* make sense if we knew what was *really* going on. But as I understood your essay, I thought you were actually arguing that a real underlying geometry that we could update our subjective description of, as more information became available, is *not* precluded by quantum mechanics; e.g. "It is a subjective process, performed as some agent gains new information".

Finally, I want to say something about your surprise that I'd argue for this realist stance, which you thought would be a show-stopper from the dynamical point-of-view. I never said I thought scientific determinism should be correct--that we should go back to thinking of the past as generating the future in a Laplace's demon sort of way. In regard to relativity, I don't think the Universe should simply be the solution to a great Cauchy problem; and in that regard, I think there's a lot about the supposed meaning of relativity that needs to be updated when one aims to be objectively consistent with the evidence that there *is* a cosmic rest-frame, which is a point I that I argued in my last essay (what I argued, is that standard cosmology actually adds *too much* structure, by assuming that the cosmic hypersurfaces are synchronous in the cosmic rest-frame, when all that's required is the definition of an absolute simultaneity-relation).

But this wasn't the point of my current essay at all. Wheeler's "it from bit" fails outright if there is some real, time-evolving existence, since he attempts to screw it all up by posing bits as fundamental elements that don't come to be in an objective sense. A lot of what I concentrated on was the frequently mixed-up idea that people have of events themselves as existing, in what's really a five-dimensional conception that I was very glad to see you *don't* have, as you wrote that "Arguments such as "But the future isn't real *now*" are no more meaningful than arguing "Over there isn't real right here"." This is literally opposed to statements like "All of space-time simply *is*".

Anyway, my point in commenting here wasn't to start a discussion of my essay. I was just hoping you'd be willing to debate my point that the basic premise of *your* essay is wrong. So much of modern physics seems to stand opposed to the idea that there is an objective reality; but remember that modern physics is really based on the idea that physical states really *are* independent of any such possible reality, which is often taken as a reason that it should be ignored. This is your point in regard to quantum mechanics. I just hoped that because you've stated this point so well in that regard, you might be able to see that your own argument applies equally well in regard to relativity, which similarly derives its denial of an absolute reference frame from the Independence Fallacy--i.e. it stems "from a motivation to describe a slice of a system independently from what lies outside."

Because you at least appreciate that argument, I was hopeful that you wouldn't simply dismiss my argument with a claim that "such a research direction doesn't seem particularly promising". Isn't the whole point of FQXi to support research directions that don't appear to be particularly promising from the points of view of conventional wisdom? For a hundred years, no one's considered it very promising to consider the greater consequences of the cosmic frame of rest that's been realised to exist for *nearly as long*; and now all our ideas about reality are based on abstract thoughts that derive from the premise that there really isn't such a frame.

In Einstein's autobiography, he wrote that after he had come to the principle of general covariance, it took him seven more years to construct general relativity theory principally because "it is not so easy to free oneself from the idea that coordinates must have an immediate metrical meaning". How things have changed! MTW quoted this passage right at the beginning of the book, and these days even though we have all the evidence we need to support the view that there actually *is* an objective cosmic frame--so the coordinates really do matter, no matter how you slice them!--it's impossible to garner any interest in that direction of research, and everyone simply continues on assuming the opposite.

I really hope you'll reconsider your position on this. I don't mean to be overtly contrary or disrespectful in anything I've said. I just think that the point deserves to be taken seriously.

Yours,

Daryl

Dear Dr. Wharton,

I completely agree with you about the necessity to consider the universe all at once, and have made the same arguments myself. So, given that we both agree that there is some formal system which can describe the complete configuration of the universe, past present and future, my question to you is this: why are the axioms of that formal system true, as opposed to some other formal system?

An axiomatic system cannot, by definition, derive its own axioms. From an objective standpoint, one cannot claim that one axiomatic system is "more true" than other. All we can do is say that one axiomatic system describes our universe better or worse than another. But suppose we have found this system. Why is that system the one "true" system, and all other systems false?

If there is one axiomatic system that corresponds to objective reality, if that one axiomatic system is objectively true, there must be some way to break the symmetry between other axiomatic systems...some way to distinguish it, to show why this system is realized and others are not.

This question is unanswered by your essay, and I would argue that an honest look at this question leads to just one logical conclusion.

Dear Prof. Wharton,

Nice essay but I will not hide my disagreement that IT cannot come from BIT, a position you hold. The Quantum world has provided a safe haven for all sorts of pet theories and abstract contraptions to hide, so let me discuss and cross-examine you on the cosmic scale. So dear Prof. Wharton, kindly mount the witness box:

1. Is the universe real? If so, is it an IT?

2. If the universe is an IT as we its inhabitants would not be writing and reading essays if it were not, would it have a beginning?

3. If it had a beginning, and that beginning was from "nothing", is nothing an IT?

4. If nothing is not an IT but is rather "an immaterial thing", then has an IT not come from what does not have an underlying reality?!

Whereas, you yourself have testified publicly that: "the only proper rebuttal is to demonstrate that there is some plausible underlying reality, after all" and the possibility of the contrary haven been demonstrated from exhibits 1 to 4 above,

I now put it to you that, at least on the cosmic scale, "It from Bit" proponents can ... claim to have won the argument by default!!

Cheers and all the best sir. You are discharged and acquitted since you were honest in your testimony. MORAL: IT can at the "very deep bottom" come from an immaterial source and explanation! - It from Bit, Wheeler, 1989

Regards,

Akinbo

*You may wish to appeal this judgement after reading and criticizing my paper.

I am an IT, I don't know why the system calls me Anonymous and turn me to a BIT despite being logged in.

Akinbo

Ken,

I gave your essay a first reading last night. I am going to need to read it again. I have this curious sense that you are implicitly arguing for local hidden variables. Of course since you are working within a block universe idea maybe these are in fact nonlocal. I get this sense there is some subtle issue with what you wrote along these lines.

I do get the sense that your argument is that block time is the proper view of spacetime from the perspective of the action principle. I would tend to concur with this. There is the question I think of how one treats Cauchy data for the initial and end points of a path integral. The role of dynamics is I think secondary. Dynamics just tells us what the system will look like along the parameterization or time variable of the path integral. Since we perceive spacetime according to a present moment that is carried along with time to the next moment we are sort of biased to see the world as dynamical. The action principle provides the Euler-Lagrange equation to permit us to convert the action principle into a dynamical principle.

LC

Dear Ken

I am not competent enough to respond to the interesting points you raised about dynamics, it from bit and conceptions of Reality. Your arguments are expressed through the use of space-time. I have long ago concluded there is no time dimension and that observer-based physics (frames of reference, her past and future) should be replaced by one describing dynamics in an absolute universe.

You mention the Born Rule and the double-slit experiment. May I direct you to Eric Reiter's unquantum website where he describes experiments that demolish the Born Rule. This agrees with my own 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory also found here where dynamics in a timeless Universe where propbability is emergent is suggested.

With best wishes

Vladimir

Dear Ken,

I've been reading your article "The Universe is not a Computer" (arXiv:1211.7081).

I share you concern for a lack of physical interpretation that tells us to use Lagrangian principle, unlike Fermat's principle, which has a clear justification for mathematical procedure (talking about light paths, etc.).

What would you think of the following argument. Let's assume that any dynamic process, or system, can be used as a clock. Different states of system a labelled with some values of real variable, called time (t). We need as little change of state as possible between any two labels t_0 and t_1, to have a clock as precise as possible. Infinitesimal change of system state in quantum mechanics is Hamiltonian, which is units of energy. The mathematical variation method constructs entity with units of action (energy times time).

This physical argument for introduction of Lagrangian principle fits nicely with quantum mechanics, which is discussed in http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1597/. Section five actually talks about principle of least action, while the other ones build a ground for it.

In http://physics-essays.birukou.net/principle-of-least-action I describe uneasiness from a student's point of view about LQFT as it is taught at the moment.

Let me know what you think. Do not hesitate to email directly.

Mikalai

Ken,

If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

Jim

I respectfully disagree with Matthew's statement of falsehood of Feynman's point, quote, "that the double slit experiment contains the whole mystery of quantum theory". Article http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1597 shows how results of double slit experiment lead to concept of interaction confinement, which expresses into unitary dynamic for a closed system, when seen from outside. The "seen from outside" is a relational nature of information as per Carlo's http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1816.

Also want to make a comment about "perfectly sensible local and noncontextual hidden variable theories". I found article that try to suggest tests of such theories. What about actual results? Aspect(&co)'s experiments, in relation to Bell's theorem, still say that nature is not run by hidden variables. Shouldn't we be sceptical here?

Hello Ken,

I only got part way through your essay before fatigue set in last night, but found the part I did read deep and engaging. Seeing your comments above, about seeking alternatives to the Block Time universe description, I wanted to mention the following.

The possibility has been raised that the dimensionality of spacetime is not a constant, where CDT and Quantum Einstein gravity find that the cosmos was 2-d initially, and spacetime later unfolds to become 4-d. I discuss this somewhat in my essay from last year, but a paper of note just came out.

"Dimensional reduction in the sky" arXiv:1305.3153 has as authors two of last year's essay contest entrants, Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and Michele Arzano, along with Giulia Gubitosi and Joao Magueijo. So how can there be block time, if the dimensionality of the cosmos evolves? Since spheres have maximal volume in 5-d, perhaps that is where things are ultimately headed. Care to comment?

Regards,

Jonathan