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Hi Michael,

Thank you for a very well written description of Agent vs Object physics. However, I wondered about one thing you wrote:

> Instead, the natural-number basis of physically-real scientific theories of object state changes identifies such theories as being exactly the type of arithmetic systems considered by Gödel [13]... Given its significance it should be taught to all aspiring physicists and philosophers, many of whom haven't grasped that Gödel's incompleteness is a feature of discrete logic over arithmetic natural-number systems.

Gödel states that the systems he is considering are those for which the axioms of Principia Mathematica hold. In a footnote he explicitly states that he is including the axiom of infinity. Such systems are sufficient to do arithmetic (addition and multiplication) but most importantly, to do arithmetic for *any* natural number (no matter how large).

Every actual computer does not meet this test because it has a finite memory size (as well as finite word size). Instead, actual computers can be models for Primitive recursive arithmetic, which is provably consistent in Peano arithmetic. Therefore, finite systems can be consistent. It is only the abstract infinite logical systems that come to grief by Gödel's hand.

> The computational universe paradigm implicitly raises issues of mathematical completeness and computability.

My essay Software Cosmos constructs an example of a (closed) computational universe (that appears as open), and shows how that this answers several puzzles in observational cosmology.

In such a computational model, your "Agent Physics" can be distinguished from "Object Physics" in terms of software architecture: they occur at different layers. The philosophical question that arises is whether the Agent layer is higher or lower than the Object layer; put another way, does Life emerge from Matter, or does Matter emerge from Life?

I am curious how you would place your Object Physics and Agent Physics within the model I describe. I hope you get a chance to read it.

Hugh

    Dear Michael,

    It is interesting essay. However, I have a question on the distinction between Object Physics and Agent Physics. Is it rigorous distinction> Or, is it flexible?

    Best wishes,

    Yutaka

      Your essay is interesting.

      I gave it a ten to give it a last push.

      Hopefully you will like mine too

      http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1616

      Dear Michael,

      I red the extremely interesting dialogue you had last year with Joy Christian. I will consider it as a reference for my ongoing work related to Hopf fibrations.

      As promised I rate your essay.

      All the best,

      Michel

      Dear Michael,

      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

      Dear Michael James Goodband:

      I am an old physician, and I don't know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics, but after the common people your discipline is the one that uses more the so called "time" than any other.

      I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay "The deep nature of reality".

      I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English). Hawking, "A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

      I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

      With my best whishes

      Héctor

      Peter

      "How many physicist does it take to shift a paradigm?"

      That is a very good question. Each time it is different and no-one seems to record how it really happens because there is so much back pedelling and covering up the blocks so as to maintain a myth of openess in physics.

      Michael

      Michel

      I would be interested in any opinion youmay have about the potential of the fibrations of S15 with regards to the physics discussion we had last year

      Best

      Michael

      Hi Tom

      The bold claims all follow logically from addressing what a science theory is and that maths isnt reality. This is why my book starts off at essentially the beginning og what is physics.

      There is some overlap in thinking as we discussed last year.

      Best

      Michael

      (still on vacation and not fully engaged with this years essay contest yet)

      Hi Don

      The "physically real" part is absolutely critical to the paradigm shift given here. It is what Einstein was alluding to in his EPR paper but didnt specify what he meant well enough. Given it is something that Einstein tripped up on I think it is crucial.

      Best

      Don

      (will read your essay when Im off vacation)

      Hi Hugh

      Object Physics is naturally lower than Agent Physics, which is clearly the case in most agent systems where the agents are compound objects. QT is the exception, where the bare particle is essentially the lower level and the real particle is atthe higher level. The derivation of QT given in my papers and book parallels the situation found in QT with the distinction between bare and real particles.

      Best

      Michael

      (Life emerges from a sustainable dynamic agent system composed of material objects, to think otherwise is to believe in mysticism - even it is quantum mysticism)

      Hi Yutaka

      The distinction is absolute because it is given simply in terms of energy and causation, both of which are essential to the construction of physical theories:

      Best

      Michael

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