How to Build a Universe from Wheeler’s Immaterial Source, in Nine Pages or Less. by Stephen James Anastasi

Hello Jim

Good luck with your reviews and reviewing. Due to the need for brevity, my essay, a condensation of my 400 page book, 'The Armchair Universe' (nearly complete) was scant on detail. If you are unsure of any proofs provided, or have concerns over any foundational aspects of claims made, let me know, and I will clarify.

Best wishes

Stephen Anastasi

Hi Manuel

Looking forward to your thoughts and comments. Feel free to ask hard questions.

Stephen Anastasi.

Hello Zoran

Thanks for your reply. I will answer in detail, because I think it is important. I ask only that as you come to understand the strength of the argument and that it can make you own work stronger, you will rate me highly.

You said:

"Your "General Principle Of Equivalence" does not accommodate the means to places, place being the thing which differentiates "oments" which can not be differentiated in any other way.

I'm struggling a bit with some of your words, especially 'does not accommodate the means to places,' but before you begin this argument, recognize that in using the word 'differentiate' you are already relying on the principle being true for this statement, which is an omnet (a 'possible statement' omnet) that purports to model a concept you are seeking to convey. I think that if you think about it a bit more, you will see that your 'places' is quite closely aligned to my concept of omnets, in that differences in assets is what determines an omnet's 'place'.

Also consider that every word you use relies on there being an equivalence between the idea the word represents and the word itself, and a difference between that word's meaning and every other word you use. This is what I called our innate ideas of equivalence and 'inequivalence' (difference). I can prove that these ideas are not concepts brought from the external world, but are necessary if one is to even gain self-awareness. Let me know if you want the proof. Then recognize that the GPE is just an uncurling of this idea of equivalence within us; rather than saying something has identity, we say it has identity because it has the assets it has. This is just tautology, but when made into a global statement it becomes the foundation of a universe.

You said:

"In whatever structured hierarchical ontology you wish to build, precedence can not be successfully determined without taking into account places, because without the relativity of places you can not have a logically sound ontology." I am wondering how you justify this statement. Given that your own work seems to use Kant as part of the argument, recognize that you may be asking me, as endpoint skeptic and endpoint rationalist, to provide a background space within which things have relativity. Perhaps it's just the abstraction, because in the possible ontology there may be omnets that have no relativity, and so would sit at the same 'place' (as in Aristotle's idea of place, which I hope is what you mean). But these are inconsistent and degenerate at the first step anyway, so cannot enter the actual ontology--they are not part of the actual world. I suspect that we are arguing the same point, but you are not seeing mine.

Further, the 'logically sound ontology' assumes the use of formal logic. But the laws of thought - the foundation of logic - are actually subjugate to, and derivable (and moderated by) the General Principle of Equivalence. Just so. Everything is subjugate to the GPE.

You wrote:

"Furthermore, in reality (SJA comments: reality? but you have no authority to talk about reality until you have established such through indefeasible/indubitable knowledge of conditions of the world), being without a place is being without "identity", yet your definition of GPE depends on the absence of identity (SJA comments: the GPE is independent; that is the whole point. Identity comes from the GPE, and is just our recognition that what makes a thing what it is, is what it has. What it has is assets), and then the presence of identity without the means to differentiating between places (SJA comments: that again is the whole point. The empiricist is never in a position to differentiate between places in the first place because such argument from empiricism is dubious, as Descartes and Kant and lots of others have argued. But this is not the case for the endpoint rationalist, who simply watches the consequences of the GPE on the world.) Your ontology excludes gravity, the only universal coordinate system we know of, but then you are in good company because the field of Quantum Mechanics does not accommodate gravity either (SJA comments: this essay is about foundational questions. If one assumes gravity at the outset one has only produced a descriptive theory). Now, just because Quantum Mechanics says the (bit) is immaterial, doesn't mean computer science agrees; remember, computer science gave (bit) and (information) equivalency, both of which will remain material until quantum computing which is truly quantum computing, and not some trick, becomes a reality. You may also wish to rethink your use of the word "indefensible". (SJA comments: indefeasible was the word, meaning indubitable, meaning unable to be countered. See my note on Broughton's interpretation of the Method of Doubt).

Sorry for the long response, Zoran. I think that maybe your reading of my work is not seeing that it is a rationalist argument, wholly independent of the particulars of the universe, and not amenable to criticism from an empiricist perspective, even if only slight. Further, it is a GLOBAL argument, and nothing escapes it.

Best wishes

Stephen Anastasi.

Hi Zoran

You said:

"...your "highlighted definition" of GPE does not mention places, it does not consider nor explain anything about places. I point to your comment on my comment, where you say (I think that if you think about it a bit more, you will see that your 'places' is quite closely aligned to my concept of omnets, in that differences in assets is what determines an omnet's 'place'.). In this explanation you seem to be saying that omnets which are identical in every respect must occupy the same place, and this differs so fundamentally from my conception of space, and relative places within space, and the nature of "identity" that I think there may be no point of agreement to be had."

Actually, I agree, but you are missing the implication. Simply, it is quite impossible for there to be two omnets that have all the same assets, so there is never a conflict. Indeed, as with my boundaries, should they have cause to be in the same place, being the same except for ontological priority, then ontological priority implies that they will interact, which is what brings structure into existence (I know how abstract this must seem, sorry). A sign that you understand this will be that you will suddenly sit up straight in your chair (I have seen this happen a few times with people) and say, 'He's right you know!' And then we will be good friends and you can get on with helping me reinterpret the one dimensional solution into three dimensions, which is a properly hard problem.

As for 'indefeasible', I am not using the world 'indefensible'. Your 'n' is my 'a'. They are two different words. Separately, again, your arguments rely on the GPE to hold force, so are simply not valid. You can't then say 'All very well, but...'

You said: "That one cannot doubt the truth of a proposition, and declare it false at the same time, does not mean the proposition is true."

The bother is that you are applying an anthropocentric analysis, when the GPE is global. That was the whole point of introducing new terms that apply globally and without an anthropocentric bias. No river of words can bring you to the understanding. One has to seriously sit down and think about my argument without influence from a philosophy that we already know is flawed.

You said:

"Descartes used doubt to explore degrees of truth, but in the end he had to abandon the skeptical method, and in this abandonment we see Descartes' endpoint as an admission that objects exist in actuality, and that all things conceived perfectly, i.e. without contradiction, are truly existent. But, the only thing he could conceive perfectly and without contradiction was the existence of perfection itself, and because this was seen as unobservable, his work was set aside by some, and his conclusions were ignored by those who would not abandon their skepticism. I think the use of the word indubitable is in itself enough to get the point across, and if you need to reinforce it so as to make it absolute, then use the word "universal" in the same sense as Kant, which means it has never been or can not be seen to be false."

Fair enough, but I like 'indefeasible'. I hope you see that I have past Descartes with the GPE and from it produced a universe (actually, a model of our universe.) I am a bit stunned that no one has yet said, 'He has explained what time is!' You'd think they might, cause that's what everyone wants to understand.

Thanks Zoran.

Hello Antony

I think the answer is yes, this would be akin to the simplices you mention. In CDT the four simplices are 'glued' together, but this glueing is automatic in related forms of the harmony set, in certain interpretations.

I know this is a very abstract derivation, so appreciate your patience.

Stephen

Hello Salvish

Thanks for your query. It is a challenge to express the Schrodinger equation as a Riemann sum. However, the Feynman Path Integral is equivalent. In CDT, Ambjorn, Jurkiewicz and Loll replaced the integral sign with a summation symbol. They thought that they should be able to make the system work for arbitrarily small values (hence an integral) but with no luck so far. The nature of the Harmony set is such that it would not allow an integral form. Instead it introduces what I call block numbers, which accomplish the same thing as an integral, but have inherent uncertainty. I think this eliminates the need for introducing Heisenberg uncertainty, because the uncertainty is already there. Also this prevents the problem of infinities arising. It's a bit involved, but I am open to dialogue because working with the set in higher dimensions is both abstract in the extreme, and very hard.

Hi Ralph

Kant, I meant. A thing as it is in itself. I think the imports ant thing here, with Kant, is that his negatives become positives for an endpoint rationalist because, holding a model that it's well fined means that all equivalent models are valid, which changes t the base of the anthropic principle, and potentially solves the mind body problem.

All this, and I'm still rated at less than three. Oh well. I'm sure you'll love my book The Armchair Universe when it comes out.

Selfish!

The Klein-Gordon equation! You think I'm Einstein or something! Anyway, the nature of construction of the Harmony set is quite different to the descriptive formulas used at present, so we interrogate the structure in various dimensions. When I lift the structure into 3-space, the negative pointing vectors (loosely speaking) of the 1-space set have characteristics that map to the imaginary number! So, at least there is some stricture compatible with the Schrodinger equation. To deal with this relativistically first requires one to understand the real nature of local time (recall that I explained the foundation of global time). There is a very great amount that needs to be thought through with the Harmony set and it forms in different equivalent mappings. The best way to understand it is to build the system yourself and start looking for patterns. Convergence toward the number e will jump right out, as will logarithms.

You will probably notice that the structure forms a non-smooth continuum.