Alternative Models of Reality

Hi Adel. In some sense I have made peace with QFT, so that random fields have become merely background thinking. I found, in particular, that although I could construct a random field equivalent for the quantized electromagnetic field, I could not construct a random field equivalent for quantized Dirac spinor fields, and I couldn't prove that it's not possible, so that I felt that I had to give up that line of thinking for now. I also gradually realized some parts of why the nature of the relationships that I could construct between random fields and quantum fields would not be convincing for physicists, but without enough clarity to be able to publish that realization.

Nonetheless, QFT can peacefully coexist with classical stochastic fields by taking QFT to be a signal analysis formalism, and taking the empiricist line that what the causes of the signals are is not so important insofar as they are inaccessible (if a cause isn't inaccessible, then it's a signal, so it can be analyzed, together with its relationships with other signals). If all our measurements are noisy, to the same extent, then signal analysis is relatively difficult and somewhat counterintuitive, with Hilbert spaces and noncommuting operators being a naturally useful mathematics for models of experimental apparatus. As a single sentence summary, state preparations in QFT are modulations of the vacuum state, and measurements identify how similar a given state is to a reference modulation (or, for a mixed state, to a collection of reference modulations).

I regret to say, Adel, that I can't make much contact with the paper that you link to. I feel that you've fed more assumptions into your modeling than you think you have, and that unpicking those assumptions is something that it may take you a while to do. In particular, I note that a collection of points randomly chosen is not a simple thing, since the choice of a random process to provide those choices already encodes a lot of information; saying something like "of course it should be Gaussian", for example, puts you on a direct course for something like a quantized harmonic oscillator. As another possible point of departure, although it sadly introduces much more complexity, it might help if you think carefully about how your ideas would apply in Minkowski space, insofar as working in a more general setting is one way to help one realize where unacknowledged assumptions have crept in.

Adel,

You said you read my essay 'many times' and would get back. I hope you do. Your site address only led to 'cache file' (whatever that is) with no simulations. Can you post a live one one using the 'link help page' link above?

Peter WM,

From what I could understand of your paper I agree you're in an important part of the forest and on one of the right non-linear tracks. I point to quantum and laser optics and plasma physics for a fast (still non-linear) track the right way. If you've read any of my last 3 essays you'll know my own method digs down and roots out the deepest of hidden assumptions. If not I hope you'll return the compliment and do so. I hope you'll find good support, though the medel described is rather more fundamental.

Peter CMH,

I still support your model in principle as a valid partial description (see your blog Aug 22nd last year) and my comments to PM above re plasma/ionization apply. Again I hope you'll also read mine this year, which 'points' the DFM dynamic at QM and the tangled web seems to unravel to expose the postulates of SR. (Which as Einstein said in '52 that SR is "entirely contained within". I'd appreciate your views.

John,

Not to ignore you... I agree our treatment of time is wrong, but as discussed and not quite as you propose. i.e. Time 'signals' one emitted are only EM signals (fluctuations) not 'time' itself, and may be altered by interactions, including as Christian Doppler discovered.

Zeeya,

Nice idea, and nice little Nature review. I can't really describe the discrete field model here as key elements have been both published and web archived on arXiv. Of course now the science data flow has surpassed the (Shannon) channel capacity available it's reached 'optical breakdown mode' (an information overload state) so two effects emerge, It is no longer 'joined up', and, as Peter M points out above, new theories, however superior, have virtually zero impact, lost in the 'noise'.

My essay this year does describe a way of 'decoding' the noise with a more intelligent 'IQbit', but even a high place in peer voting here may not overcome the 'theoretical inertia' indicating a possible end to our evolutionary cycle. However, I commend your sentiments in starting this blog so much that I would like to describe at least one key aspect not so far specifically presented, opening one of the doors to the rest and unification; Dark Matter. Please let me know if I may do so without breaching your conditions.

Many thanks

Peter

Peter,

Not sure what you mean by "time itself." By my view, time is simply a form of measurement, like temperature. Whether we are measuring electromagnetic signals, rotations of the planet, a swinging pendulum, or waves hitting the beach, it is a way to compare/measure the rate of activity/change. Just as temperature could be molecular, atomic, or the employment rate.

The conceptual problem is that our brain functions by producing a sequence of insights/thoughts and this too is a similar progression, but it is only one thread in a tapestry of thoughts and actions, all serving to balance one another, not all going in the same direction. Thought is a form of action and for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That's why we have wives and girlfriends. ;-)

As well as liberals and conservatives, capitalists and communists, etc.

Regards,

John M

John,

I suggest certainly not like temperature! That is my point. Where temperature is the quantification of a real physical property, which changes with changes to the measured 'oscillation rate', time is NOT! If we change that oscillation rate (where emitted by what we call a 'clock') we do NOT measure a change in some mystical property called 'time', only a change in a local oscillation rate. That is the important difference missed.

Time itself is only metaphysical and stays the same, whereas the physical EVIDENCE of an emission somewhere which was 1 second long, can be tampered with as much as you please as you're only tampering with the 'evidence', not the original fact.

I'm not sure you'll be able to discern the subtlety easily as you are, with all apologies, highly 'entrenched' in your own way of looking at it which may be partially valid but does seem to exclude many other with validity forming the holistic picture. I'm suggesting that time cannot be likened to 'anything' else because it is not a 'thing'. It IS a universal measure of duration, but no light or noise emitted necessarily has any faithful relevance to the period at the emitter once 'at large'. i.e. What we currently CALL 'Time' CAN BE DOPPLER SHIFTED! What we measure in some other frame is not then of course 'time' itself, which is invariant.

I'm sure you'll at least see and agree an analogy; 'Time' on the clocks of 3 people is co-ordinated and equal. But if one was approaching another at high speed the 'signals' from the other watch would simply be Doppler shifted, so the rate changed. We then need a new term 'apparent' time, which then defines SR's 'co-ordinate' time. But the rate of time (and watches) for all observers is unaltered. This very simple fact entirely eludes current theory and causes untold havoc and confusion.

Did any sense emerge from that?

Peter

Hi Peter J. I remember seeing your FQXi competition papers in the past; in any case, I looked again at your last three. How would you think they might affect the mathematics of the paper I posted? Does your way of thinking suggest any critique? Alternatively, how would you think its mathematics might affect your approach?

Peter,

" If we change that oscillation rate (where emitted by what we call a 'clock') we do NOT measure a change in some mystical property called 'time', only a change in a local oscillation rate. That is the important difference missed."

I agree there is no mystical property called time.

"'Time' on the clocks of 3 people is co-ordinated and equal. But if one was approaching another at high speed the 'signals' from the other watch would simply be Doppler shifted, so the rate changed. We then need a new term 'apparent' time, which then defines SR's 'co-ordinate' time. But the rate of time (and watches) for all observers is unaltered. This very simple fact entirely eludes current theory and causes untold havoc and confusion."

The problem with this point is that the effect is not just doppler shift. Since nothing can exceed the speed of light, when you accelerate a clock and its observer to close to the speed of light, their internal atomic activity is in fact slowed, since the electrons are vibrating/cycling at nearly the speed of light to begin with, so when you combine both external velocity and internal activity, it still can't exceed C, so everything in that frame is slowed proportionally. I think though that this goes to the inherent inertial effect of space, rather than some spacetime geometry being a causal property. The fact is that the concept of time as part of this foundational math is simply based on measures of duration and how they are affected by context, such as velocity, gravity, acceleration.

Duration emerges from action. As you seem to agree in the first paragraph, time is simply the change caused by activity, such that if it goes faster, so does its "clock." Duration being what is physically happening between points of reference. So it is the slowed activity which results in slowed time, not time as the frame causing activity to slow.

So no time as mystical property, only measure of change caused by action.

Regards,

John M

Adel,

In answer to your questions:

1. I think that it is futile to ask what ether is made of. If I said that ether was made of substance 'x', you could then ask what is substance 'x' made of. (String theorists are not concerned with what strings are made of; they are primarily interested in their properties). Ether is THEE fundamental substance and a foamy or web like structure makes for an excellent model of reality.

2. Because the ether is elastic, it is subject to distortions. A knot or kink will cause the surrounding ether to distort. The stickiness of the ether (similar to a spider web) keeps the knot from unfolding. The laws I use in the computer simulation use Hooke's Law for calculating spring distortion.

3. FET has quantum behavior build in because the foamy cells are the size of a Planck length so everything gets grainy at that scale. Because I am not a particle physicist, I can't give you exact pictures of atoms, but I'm assuming they are knots that are very similar to orbitals already calculated using current QM maths. In FET, these images would represent knots in the foamy ether instead of probability clouds of orbiting electrons.

Peter Hahn

Zeeya,

Exciting times to be a science journalist. The barbarians are at the gates and the old order is mostly bickering amongst themselves. All foam and bubbles and little forward momentum. Recipe for change.

Regards,

John M

Dear Zeeya,

If you have children or grandchildren, you will observe what I see an increasing loss of distinction between virtual reality and reality. Do we really need more and more alternative models of reality as to possibly save our preferred theories? Perhaps, you felt that your recent article in Nature on theoretical physics and the origins of space and time does too much focus on mathematically based theories rather than on the question how realistic they are.

Set theory and Hilbert space were welcomed as alternative to Euclid's definition of point and continuum and to Salviati's insight. Meanwhile, the mainstream even denies that the other way round Euclid, Galileo, and Shannon are still serious alternatives to the virtually endless search for new alternatives to a qualified common sense notions of logic and reality.

Regards,

Eckard

John,

You want Zeeya to report honestly on leading edge research, but censor anything you disagree with, such as the multiverse hypothesis, which is part of leading edge research?

If you don't have an ethical problem with that, I think you should.

Because my first career was journalism (not restricted to science) I have first hand experience with powerful people who control media resources (think Rupert Murdoch and his ilk) shaping news and opinion to suit their religion or philosophy, tastes, or just plain whim. I've been subpoenaed for testimony before the FCC with other Young Turk journalists of that day (the early 70s) who were reprimanded, fired or otherwise punished for reporting news not to the liking of owners and advertisers. We lost the battle, of course -- there are no more FCC standards that mean anything, and commercial news today both national and local is hardly anything more than sad or silly, even though still unduly influential. Thank God for public broadcasting and the BBC.

So ask yourself that if you had the power, would you publish only those science theories or anything else, that suit your worldview or whimsy?

Academics serve at the pleasure of institutions, John. They are not powerful people. They do their research and communicate the results, for university public relations departments to report to the public. And the institutions are hardly going to support research that tarnishes their reputation for what they *perceive* as a leading edge organization, because that perception feeds their funding stream of corporate and alumni largesse.

So you would dare ask a courage freelance journalist like Zeeya to become a functionary for your -- or anyone else's -- opinions of what science should be? There are already too few Zeeyas, and too many Murdochs. When the ratio is reversed, the world will be safe for informed opinions.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

I think you may be projecting your own experiences onto this situation a little too emphatically. It is safe to say that I have no power over what Zeeya writes and if using multiverses offends you, I will gladly switch to some other example, such as supersymmetry, which has been publicly faltering. There are lots of ideas put forth and I will readily admit there are a number I feel to be arrived at through erroneous logic and am will to offer my two cents on the subject. Would you alternatively feel that I have no rights to express my thoughts? Wouldn't that amount to censorship as well? There will alway be conflicting viewpoints on any number of subjects and those where there are none, tend not to elicit much discussion. If you read back through what I did write, you might notice my main intent is to try to explain to Zeeya the tactical position of those of us in these conversations. I don't think it really qualifies as directing her reporting to observe there is a natural give and take to the process, such that not all ideas are viable and someone, somewhere has to make some decisions as what to focus on.

Regards,

John M

Hi Richard, I don't dispute your claim that if there's a wave that propagates there must be something that waves, not as much as would some, because it is possible for a dynamics to be Lorentz invariant, as experiment quite strongly indicates it must be, but I feel a "so what?" reaction. What consequences does it have for a detailed mathematical description/model if there is a material ether? A 100 years ago, a material ether was felt so little to suggest Lorentz invariance that it was felt to be incompatible. After the event, and a 100 years, we know that Lorentz invariance can emerge in special states of condensed matter physics (for example, see Volovik's "The Universe in a Helium Droplet"), but it's not a commonplace. Given that, how confident can we be that suggestions that come from a particular material ether hypothesis will turn out to be experimentally useful, unless experiment has played an overwhelming role in choosing the hypothesis?

My second reaction is to ask how exactly do the waves move? I see on your "Waves in Space-Time" page an example motion that seems to require some kind of nonlinear wave equation, but I don't begin to be content unless there is a likeable motivation for a particular nonlinearity of an equation, and happiness only follows if the mathematics is tractable and turns out to be experimentally useful. Lastly, most importantly by far, what about the apparent stochasticity of our experimental results, the wave-like nature of the statistics of recorded discrete events, rather than there being a directly wave-like phenomena?

"I think you may be projecting your own experiences onto this situation a little too emphatically."

I think you are dismissing the point.

Tom,

I very much am dismissing your point. You compared me to a press baron!!!

I would like to think I had some influence over Zeeya, or you, or anyone else in these discussions, but that could only happen through my writing, not by any financial, professional or political pressure or leverage, for the simple reason that I have none, even academic.

Regards,

John M

John,

That was too subtle.

The question is, whether or not Zeeya's job is, as you aver it is, to " ... try to figure out where the train did leave the tracks, or else step off the edge into the multiverse" (or into supersymmetry or whatever other part of "mainstream science" you don't like). Why would you suppose that, and what is the moral impact of your decision? Yes, I know that you don't have the power to order journalists around in order to give your beliefs and others a "tactical" advantage. The relevant issue is, what if you did? Would you, like the media barons, judge the news by your own set of beliefs? ... and what does that have to do with science journalism, anyway?

Fact is, science journalism *has* a standard of judgment that separates "mainstream" thinking from speculation, independent of anyone's personal beliefs. Science is rational. However imaginative a theory, it has to meet that test, whether in thought experiment or by direct observation.

It's arguable whether rationalism has a general moral obligation apart from science. Sean Carroll thinks so, however, and I agree with him:

"There are real moral questions that confront us every day, and as a society we're still burdened with a slapdash pre-rational way of answering them. I look forward to the day when there is a consensus theory of secular moral philosophy that forms a basis for democratic discourse ..."

A tactical advantage for independent journalism is democracy for us all -- or as Jefferson put it, "If given a choice between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I would not hesitate to choose the latter." (from memory, so the quote may not be verbatim.)

And this, from a man who was regularly pilloried in the early American free press.

All best,

Tom

Tom,

I fully understand the point you are trying to make, but even it is based on assumptions that need context. Yes, democratic freedom is an ideal we all prefer, but there are very real reasons why it isn't always universal. The ancient Athenians were democrats before the tyrants took over and the Romans were republicans before the caesars took over. Now we seem to be spiraling into some similar vortex. Understanding questions like this are what truly interest me about physics. There are quite a number of dynamic processes at work here, such as that gravitational vortex pulling all our carefully constructed structures into something far harder and denser than any of us would wish for and killing that real spark of growth in the process. The worms are eating away the old oak tree and it will eventually fall, but the world is not going to the worms.

Early on in life I very much had the opportunity to try and climb that greasy pole of success and be the one both standing on and leading my fellow beings. Since it did seem like such a " slapdash pre-rational way," I instead opted to sit back and observe. Had I been one to climb to the top and use whatever tools at my disposal to control what I could, I would be a different person than I am.

Now as to what I said to Zeeya; "at some point journalism will also have to turn around and try to figure out where the train did leave the tracks, or else step off the edge into the multiverse."

It is still reportage of conflicts as they are rising, not creating and leading them, but necessarily and professionally following them. Otherwise, she would not be doing actual journalism, but flacking for the status quo.

Regards,

John M

(reposted in correct thread)

"There are quite a number of dynamic processes at work here, such as that gravitational vortex pulling all our carefully constructed structures into something far harder and denser than any of us would wish for ..."

John, you do realize that none of that is supported by any actual physical evidence, don't you?

" ... she would not be doing actual journalism, but flacking for the status quo."

As opposed to flacking for some fake science? Just what is it you want?

Tom