Antony,

Thank you for your small contribution to my essay score. Any improvement in its ranking will certainly help others to discover it and perhaps take the time to comprehend the far reaching implications of this thought experiment. Its implications are staggering and can answer so many open questions if you just think deeply about it long enough.

Knowing that someone like yourself has taken the time to read, and comprehend, the core premise of this thought experiment is all the gratification I need to feel good about entering the contest. I don't need to win. I only wish that more people like would take the time to ponder the deeper meaning of this thought experiment, as it is much more powerful than what little I have been allowed to present in this essay. My hope is that we can all learn from it and hopefully move forward, by putting everything in a real physical context, such that we can make real experimental predictions, and then assert the truth from that result. After all, finding the truth is what is important, not holding on to our invalid assumptions or unproven ideals.

The background in my own theory framework is that it was born out of a relentless regression of logic, iterating over the core facts and first principals, along with all the enigmatic paradox that we face today. The methodology was fundamentally a Genetic Algorithm, using the falsification of thought experiment as a fitness tool,working from the outside in looking at relationships, and as such it has homed in on one possible and very physical solution. It seemingly has an answer to every contemporary paradox with which I am currently aware of. In fact, had all the pieces not snapped so neatly into place into a self consistent framework I would not even consider calling it a theory. The sum of the pieces is much more powerful than all the disparate ideas that went into it. As a whole the framework answers all the common questions on Gravity (rotation curves, energy flow and kinetic conversion process, GR time-dilation, eclipse gravitational anomalies, etc), describes the physical nature of time, dark energy, entanglement, superposition (aka part of this essay), the cause of relativistic time dilation, Cosmology (redshif luminous differences in 1A supernovae, predicts the big crunch), and all this naturally arising via a descriptive physical structure of matter and space-time. In this theory there is no need for backwards in time causation magic, alternate universes, or any metaphysical philosophies, and all forces are just observable manifestations of a singular fundamental force. Everything is related and therefore self referential as required for a complete theory, with no obvious loose ends left untied (to my knowledge), just some not fully explored due to personal time and mathematical/computational limitations.

My sole purpose of entering this contest is simply to find an avenue through which I can open a conversation with other bright and open minded scientists to discuss the possibilities in a true physical context. I need people with mathematical talents that can do today what it would take me years to self-educate and apply on my own. I need people to look at these ideas critically in a mathematical context to see if it even can possibly be a real answer as is, or to otherwise falsify or further refine it. I am sure there is ample room for improvement, and much of it is clearly needing mathematical refinement.

I will be happy to review your essay. If you would like to compare notes after the essay competition concludes I would be more than happy to compare notes, learn and contrast ideas, and to explore your own theoretical work. Even though I have found one possible answer I remain open minded enough to explore other possibilities. I would be honoured to have the opportunity to exchange ideas in the future. Its through cooperation and exchange of ideas that the greatest advances will be made.

Steve.

Steven

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 each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

Good luck and good cheers!

Than Tin

Steve,

You have offered well written, attractive/readable work. And you are dared to have your own opinion and critical approach to topic, as well as to foundational questions. This only enough for me to rate your work on ,,high,, core - that I am going to do. I am saying in my work one very simple thing that, unfortunately, not so much people are able to perceive - the research science will be dead without viable criticism and alternative approaches! I think my work ES text may deserve to your interest, despite it has some different direction and task.

I hope receive your comments in my forum.

Good luck,

George

REAL LIGHT IS STATIONARY. IT IS THE ONLY STATIONARY SUBSTANCE IN THE REAL UNIVERSE.

Joe

6 days later

Steve,

I'd be delighted to - I did reply, but there is a system bug so may comment may or may not return!

Best wishes and please keep in touch!

Antony

Steve,

I'm glad I could help! I think you've got a very similar way of thinking thoroughly. I'd be delighted to keep in touch after the contest. I too want to collaborate with like minded thinkers. I need better mathematicians than me also. Ideally and powerful computer simulation would be on my wish list to test my theory. But similar to your fuller theory, mine too seems to address many unsolved problems in physics, without any fudge factors.

I really look forward to perhaps working with you in the future!

Best wishes,

Antony

Hi Steve,

As I stated in my email the other day, I found your inquiry to "...gain new knowledge about the internal state that exists before that interaction." reflective of the findings obtained in the 12 year experiment I have recently concluded. It appears we share a similar yet different approach to the topic at hand, I found your essay insightful, original, and a joy to read.

I wish you the best of luck in the competition.

Regards,

Manuel

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

Dear Steven,

We are at the end of this essay contest.

In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

Good luck to the winners,

And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

Amazigh H.

I rated your essay.

Please visit My essay.

Hi Steve,

I was trolling the essays to see if there was anything I had missed. I found your essay and found it to be a good one that I should not have missed!

You say: there appears to be some things that should not be.... I agree and think there are experiments that can be made.

Please visit my blog, and see if we are not after the same phenomena.

Thanks,

Don L.

Dear Steve,

I have now finished reviewing all 180 essays for the contest and appreciate your contribution to this competition.

I have been thoroughly impressed at the breadth, depth and quality of the ideas represented in this contest. In true academic spirit, if you have not yet reviewed my essay, I invite you to do so and leave your comments.

You can find the latest version of my essay here:

http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-V1.1a.pdf

(sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven't figured out a way to not make it do that).

May the best essays win!

Kind regards,

Paul Borrill

paul at borrill dot com