Alternative Models of Reality

Steve Agnew

I must admit that I continue to learn a great deal from your terse replies. Shannon and Wheeler this time and then your Galileo, Gold, and Ren essay all voting for an ultimate realism. Once again, I believe that there cannot be any such thing as an ultimate reality.

All of our models will only ever approximate objects and their actions and if we are lucky, our models will be useful for predicting action. As far are Shannon and Wheeler's methods are useful for predicting action, I am all there. As far as any kind of an ultimate reality...it can simply never be.

The best that science can hope is to get this coherent phase decay to work the same for gravity and quantum action. However science does this, if is is useful to predict action, it will be welcome. Predicting action is what science is all about.

Eckard Blumschein

Steve A,

Well, I intend tersely voting for realism as a pragmatic attitude which is based on the conjecture that the world is not mystic but real and causal. Already if you are using the word prediction I see you de facto on my side and at odds with Wheeler's, Einstein's, and Hilbert's denial of the two arrows of time and the current zero of actually elapsed as well as future times.

++++

Robert McEachern

"I simply do not know of anything that everyone would agree is true..."

How about "I think, therefore I am."

"The only reason to represent objects at all, either objectively or subjectively, is to predict their futures."

I enjoy representing wildlife, in photographs I take of them; but not to predict their futures.

"To me, the only difference between a convenient representation of an object as a superposition of some kind and the real nature of that object is in how we happen to feel about the object..."

A(B+C)= AB+AC is a mathematical identity, but not a physical one (a structure with two multipliers is physically different than a structure with only one). Consequently, it actually does matters how one represents things mathematically, if one is inclined, as so many physicists are, to blissfully assume that math identities are physical identities.

This relates to Eckard's statement that "I was facing distrust when I uttered my suspicion that unwarranted generalization of approximately correct description like FT might be to blame for such strange "phenomena"." My point is that even when the mathematics, such as Fourier Transforms, yield not merely an approximately correct description, but an absolutely perfect, exact description of the behavior, it still cannot provide any certain insight into the physical structure that causes that behavior. Because there are multiple mathematical structures that produce identical results via entirely different physical structures. Case in point: The probabilities of QM, derived via superposition, are absolutely identical to those derived via filter-banks, with no superposition. They are math IDs, but not physical IDs.

"For goodness sake, science cannot even agree within itself about the real nature of an object. Therefore, science is only about representation and prediction of object action."

On that we agree. The study of the real nature of things, is metaphysics. Physics only really studies how observed phenomenon behave.

Rob McEachern

Eckard Blumschein

Rob,

The expression "the structure" does literally mean "something that has been built". While mathematical structures are clearly man-made and do therefore not depend on past vs. future, genuinely physical structures are definitely frozen, which means restricted to the past. Future physical structures don't yet belong to the current reality but were derived on an abstract level by means of mathematics. No matter how successful that mathematical approach predicts the future, it cannot include all possible inputs. In contrast to FT, cosine transformation immediately restricts itself to the past. Use of FT requires in case of one-sided quantities the somewhat self-deceptive detour of analytic continuation. I don't suggest replacing FT by CT. However, ict and ih_bar might indicate serious redundancies. That's my point.

++++

Steve Agnew

too deep...ohh...too deep...

Robert H McEachern replied on Oct. 26, 2015 @ 22:30 GMT as "I simply do not know of anything that everyone would agree is true..."

How about "I think, therefore I am."

reply: It is funny that you should venture into Descartes, one of my favorites, and yet the expression that I believe is in fact not true. Without feeling and purpose, thought alone has no meaning. Sorry, I disagree with Descartes.

Robert H McEachern replied on Oct. 26, 2015 @ 22:30 GMT as "The only reason to represent objects at all, either objectively or subjectively, is to predict their futures."

I enjoy representing wildlife, in photographs I take of them; but not to predict their futures.

reply: Unless I am mistaken about birds, if you do not know how to predict where they will be at a particular time, you will not photograph anything.

Robert H McEachern replied on Oct. 26, 2015 @ 22:30 GMT as "To me, the only difference between a convenient representation of an object as a superposition of some kind and the real nature of that object is in how we happen to feel about the object..."

reply: I rely on the veracity of predictions. Math works great...but really, what we are all about is predicting the futures of objects.

Robert H McEachern replied on Oct. 26, 2015 @ 22:30 GMT as "For goodness sake, science cannot even agree within itself about the real nature of an object. Therefore, science is only about representation and prediction of object action."

On that we agree. The study of the real nature of things, is metaphysics. Physics only really studies how observed phenomenon behave.

reply: Finally, there is recompense.

Robert McEachern

One cannot experience thinking, if one does not exist. Hence, existence is necessary for thinking. If you are thinking about feeling and purpose and meaning, then you must exist.

You are mistaken about birds and other wildlife. Since I always carry a camera with me when I am out walking, I do not need to predict anything - like a boy-scout, I am always prepared - to photograph whatever appears.

Rob McEachern

Steve Agnew

I must admit that I enjoy this banter...

Granted. One must exist to exist, but that identity is hardly that useful. Existence is necessary for existence, but thought must have a purpose or it is simply a random collection of neural impulses. Existence has a purpose in discovery of the possibilities of the future. Thought has no meaning without a purpose in discovery

Since you always carry a camera when you are out on a walk, you are discovering the possibilities of the future with a camera. Boy scouts are always prepared because they predict the many possible futures. Prediction and purpose are also keys for discovery, not just thought alone.

Robert McEachern

I also enjoy it.

Thought does indeed have a purpose. As Edward O. Wilson put it: "the intellect was not constructed to understand atoms or even to understand itself, but to promote the survival of human genes." The interesting thing about this, is that while I agree about the importance of predictions, CONSCIOUS awareness of most such predictions, is not important; subconscious abilities, to make useful predictions, are sufficient for most, routine purposes.

As regards to my camera, I hope my predictions are false. I live in a very "target sparse" environment. Hence, my accurate predictions are that I will almost always fail to encounter something new and interesting to photograph. But, hoping that my predictions will someday prove to be wrong, I continue to carry my camera. One might say that my long-term prediction is that my usually accurate short-term prediction, will eventually be proven to be false, if I wait long enough (years). It is rather like our genes and our intellect. When our short-term (intellect) predictions are inaccurate due to insufficient information about rare events, we may still hope to survive via long-term (instinctive) behaviors encoded into our genes. As Wilson put it: "better to crawl away from a cliff, nauseated by fear, than to walk its edge absent-mindedly."

Rob McEachern

Steve Agnew

Now you have a good point about the subconscious brain or what I call the primitive brain versus the rational brain since subconscious does not seem to include things like heart and breathing and digestion. I think that the primitive brain is actually what makes all decisions and not the rational brain and I count the primitive brain as very important for consciousness. Emotion, for example, is a primitive brain function that gives (with other stuff) a singular feeling and it is by this feeling that we choose action or inaction.

In fact, if we had to make all decisions with our rational brain we would spend most of our lives in a dither. So no argument with me on this one.

Steve Agnew

We must exist to think, which is certainly true, but that does not mean thinking alone defines existence. We must exist to watch birds, but watching birds does not define existence either, but it helps define existence more than just thinking.

Descartes was simply a little lean on meaning and purpose in his thinking reality.

Lee Bloomquist

Hello Zeeya, thank you for the opportunity and place to record and hopefully store the equations in this post.

I did read the paper you suggested for inspiration. Your quote "...if theories cannot be tested, 'then to me, they are not science. They are just religious beliefs...'" is perhaps relevant to the calculations about the "vacuum catastrophe" found in the comments to this FQXI paper (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2420), on which I am basing these equations and comments. For me, this quote also holds if one removes the adjective "religious."

That said, the above calculations attempting to resolve the vacuum catastrophe assume that parts of the three field theories in the Standard Model are based on knowledge, while other parts of these theories are based-- not on knowledge-- but on beliefs. And, it is adding these two different contributions together which produces the "catastrophe." Just taking the parts of theories based knowledge alone, that is, what and where we know of the physical world by experiment, seems to resolve the catastrophe.

Another analogy for the calculation is a model airplane in a wind tunnel. The vacuum catastrophe results from adding terms associated with the struts that hold the model inside the wind tunnel. But in reality, the actual airplane being modeled has no such struts. Adding in the struts produces the vacuum catastrophe.

The first equation I would like to record here is

1. existence -> existence

Time is behind this arrow.

Rather than say that time is a point moving on a line, which then requires something moving to be a point changing from one location to another on a line over the passage of time, I employ a different kind of circularity.

In (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2420), the arrow represents creation and destruction.

Then the second equation, adapted from the paper, is this one:

2. existence = (changes, existence)

Destruction means the "changes" and their coupling with existence disappear, like so--

existence = (changes, existence)

- (changes, )

__________________________________

existence = existence

In which context, creation means, next, to apply equation 2:

existence = (changes, existence)

In (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2420), this meaning of proper time for each object that exists leads to the "nonstandard past" and the "nonstandard present," which in the proper time of each object that exists supports a transmission of information called an "infomorphism."

More equations there. I just want to take the opportunity to record these here-- under your post.

Thank you

anonimus

@Zeeya Merali,

This topic is for contributors that have "preliminary" ideas about unconventional, alternative models of reality.

So now you are making me curious. Can you tell me what topic (or other entrance) FQXi is offering for PROOFED unconventional, alternative models of reality?

Zeeya Merali

Hi Marcus,

Thank you for your message. I am not sure what you mean by "proofed". As I said in the post at the top of the thread, this thread is for people to discuss their alternative models that have not been published in academic papers or appeared in arXiv preprints and have not been included in a conference talk. If you have published your idea in a peer reviewed journal or given a conference talk about it, or you have an arXiv preprint about it, then let me know. If you have, I should add, we may consider opening a thread for you -- but we do not promise to do that. You are always welcome to add your ideas to this thread, however.

anonimus

@Zeeya Merali,

Thank you for your clear reply! I confess that my question was too vague. What I meant was the clarification of an old (famous) theory. Anyway, I will think about your advice.

Steve Dufourny

I have changed my general equation.If the graviton exists and is produced by BH and is encoded in our quantum uniqueness.So E=mc²+ml² in logic it is the road towards entire entropy considering thelinear velocity of gravitonsproduced by the centralcosmological BH of our universal sphere.This quanta of gravitational energy links in logic mass,gravitation and entropy.That said, if the 3 motions of a sphere must be considered,l linear before encoding, o orbital and s pinal so several détails can be made and extrapolations also.If mlosV is an universal foundamental, we can see several roads of imrpovement of understanding of our encodingsofbosons and gravitons.The mass must be purely linked with this gravitation in fact.Matter evolves in the same way that our entropy increzses.

Regards

Don Limuti

Hi Zeeya Merali,

I just came across this blog you started. And want to added my theory to the list.

The theory is expressed at the website: www.digitalwavetheory.com

I call the theory DWT.

The major point presented is that QM becomes understandable when we realize that there really are two separate realms in physics (Quantum Mechanical and Classical) that are separated at the Planck Mass.

All: Check it out, it is easy and full of insights on the hard problems.

Don Limuti

Zeeya Merali

Thank you Don.

Don Limuti

Thank you Zeeya,

Here is the Table of Contents for the website (www.digitalwavetheory.com)

"Don Limuti's Digital Wave Theory pages give an amazing and elegant tour of the mathematics and physics of big and small motions. Â Even more than a tour, it's a complete course of answers to some of the most devious puzzling questions you will ever encounter. Â A real tour de force." (mathematics professor and author Joseph Mazur (www.josephmazur.com)

--------Quantum Mechanics

1 Introduction.....................................Conflict: Zeno of Elea: Nothing can move. Louis deBroglie: Everything must move.

2 The Trouble with Physics................The foundational theories are not quite right.

3 Uncertainty.....................................The uncertainty principle is somewhat workable, but Einstein was correct, it is goofy.

4 Superposition..................................The concept of Î»-hopping (explored in section 11) makes more sense than superposition.

5 Entanglement..................................The basic mechanism that creates atoms and molecules, sometimes creates weird stuff.

6 EPR..................................................It takes more than a missing variable in quantum mechanics to fix the mess it is in.

7 Who is wrong?.................................A list of scientists and their mistakes.

8 The Math-Physics Connection.........Physics uses a lot of mathematical constructs. Sometimes these tools are misapplied.

9 Zeno of Elea Viewpoint....................Greek philosopher (495 - 430 B.C.E.): who lived in a Greek community in what is now Italy.

â€¨10 Louis deBroglie Viewpoint..............French physicist who postulated that matter (like light) might behave like a wave.

11 Wavelength-Hopping......................Quantum Mechanical Particles and Photons hop over space-time (Î»-hopping).

12 Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion...........Newton was wrong in his deduction that a particle can have a velocity at a point.

13 Dual Slit Revisited...........................Particles (i.e. electrons) and photons do not go thru slits. They move by Î»-hopping.

14 Experiments: QM............................Possible QM experiments that could provide evidence of the validity of Î»-hopping.â€¨Gravityâ€¨

15 Planck Units and Numerology.........Max Planck hits it out of the ballpark again.â€¨

16 Derivation: Compton Wavelength...The Compton wavelength turns out to be more fundamental than many think.

17 Making a Case for the Graviton.......Filling in the blanks on the standard model concept of the graviton.

18 Inertia..............................................Gravitons offer a way to understand F=ma.

19 Dark Matter / Dark Energy...............Self gravity explains Dark Mass. The graviton explains Dark Energy.

20 Nitpicking General Relativity...........Some considerations on how gravity bends light. And a proposed experiment.â€¨

21 The Schwarzschild Radius..............The Schwarzschild radius made into a Schwarzschild wavelength.â€¨

22 Experiments: Gravity......................A listing of possible gravity experiments.â€¨Light

23 Special Relativity............................Lorentz's key insight.

24 The Fundamental Axiom of Light....The foundation of relativity is slightly different than we think.

25 Light and the Twins Paradox..........A speculation on the mechanism that causes the twins paradox.

26 The Elephants in the Room.............Infinities in math are wonderful tools. Infinities in physics are usually problematic.

27 Thermodynamics............................Gasses sometimes produce line spectra and sometimes continuous spectra. Why?

28 Black Bodies...................................The rapid acceleration of neutral particles produces blackbody radiation.

--------Particles

29 Visualizing Spin...............................An attempt to give a complex concept a way to be visualized.

30 A Tale of Two Wavelengths.............The Compton and deBroglie wavelengths concatenated to describe how a particle moves.

31 Feynman's Mysterious "e"...............Insight into a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man.

32 Equivalence Principle......................Making a hypothetical pass at calculating velocity at the quantum level.

33 Max Mass of a Quantum Particle.....When a particle is accelerated to near c it's mass approaches the Planck mass not infinity.â€¨34 The Arrow of Time...........................Explaining why classical objects age, and why quantum objects do not age.â€¨

--------Charge & Anti-Particles

35 AntiParticles - Chirality....................Why does nature have a favored mirror image? The answer will make you grin :)

36 Quantum of Electro-Static Force.....Here are some fine details that relate to Feynman's mysterious e.

--------Neutrinos

37 Neutrinos and Light.........................Expanding on deBroglie's concept that light consists of neutrinos.

38 Neutrinos and Gravity.....................Speculation that neutrinos are the particles responsible for gravity as well as light.

--------The Author

39 About the Author.............................To my readers: You = Awesome, Me = Grateful ........Physics = Tutti Fantastico!

Lee Bloomquist

Footnote...for the above post, the one with the equation

existence = (changes, existence)

Here are some more equations.

----

This may apply to "Physics of the Observer" because in the paper above mentioned, changes comprise "available possibilities" and "available information."

And "possibilities" and "information" are often used in a context involving an observer. For example, here is a famous quote from Sherlock Holmes: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." (Probability or frequencies are part of the information available to the observer.)

The "Inverse Relationship principle of Informationalism" is also quoted:

"Whenever there is an increase in available information there is a corresponding decrease in possibilities, and vice versa."

Before the age of scientific instruments, the only thing that a scientist had for observing was the observer-- basically one's self as an observer.

Everyone here has most likely heard of Zeno's paradox involving Achilles and the tortoise. Apparently by these stories, Zeno was trying to help Parmenides, to whom the poem "On Nature" is attributed.

In Parmenides' poem, an observer is carried by a chariot. The chariot is constant while the scenery changes. It is the equation

chariot = (changes, chariot)

The chariot is like the existence of the observer, which the observer may experience as constant. For the observer, it is always "now"-- as long as the observer exists.

Hamilton's equations likewise derive from a constant thing which enables relentless change.

[math] \frac{dH}{dt} = \sum_{i=1}^n {\frac{\partial H}{\partial p_i}\frac{dp_i}{dt} \frac{\partial H}{\partial q_i}\frac{dq_i}{dt}}[/math]

Imagine a wind tunnel where H is the number of horses pulling the chariot in Parmenides' poem.

The model has to be scaled in order to fit inside the wind tunnel, so in the model:

[math] \frac{\partial H}{\partial q_i} = 1 [/math]

and

[math] \frac{\partial H}{\partial p_i} = 1 [/math]

For this first run of the wind tunnel, I also zero possibilities and information associated with i > 1.

This choice of scale says that adding a horse to those pulling the chariot increases available possibilities (for speed, say) by one. Likewise, adding one horse to those pulling the chariot increases the number of pieces of available information by one (the observer can see the horse).

If the number of horses pulling the chariot goes to zero, the chariot stops, and the existence of the observer is at an end. The number of possibilities for the observer vanishes when the observer vanishes. The number of pieces of available information vanishes when the observer vanishes.

But I want to model the observer being alive, existing, so I need the conditions of change required to keep the number of horses constant at whatever number it is.

Those conditions are Hamilton's equations, where for each i,

[math]\frac{\partial H}{\partial p_i} = \frac{dq_i}{dt}

[/math]

AND

[math]\frac{\partial H}{\partial q_i} = -\frac{dp_i}{dt}[/math]

Given the scaling, above, required to fit inside the wind tunnel, the left hand side of both equations is 1.

Exercise: solve the equations.

So in a given dt, when possibilities p increase by 1, the number of pieces of available information q decreases by 1. And vice versa...

...which is the Inverse Relationship Principle of Informationalism!

Seems like mathematicians in the audience should be able to express this as a proof.

Q.E.D. :)

Thomas Ray

"Seems like mathematicians in the audience should be able to express this as a proof. "

Indeed, Lee.

The proof is contingent on the arithmetic theorem that any point can map to any other set of points ... provided it is far enough away.

case a. The further away the singularity, globally, the more the set of points itself looks like a singularity. This "many to one" relation only seems symmetrical from a distance, though, according to the global map. As the distance closes, the map decoheres -- more and more points disappear from the relation. The space becomes multiply connected.

case b. However, assume a simply connected space. The singularity is located at the center, surrounded by past and future points. Now the distant set of points looks like a circle. Now one can pick any point of the circle locally and it will map to every other point.

Quite obviously, the global map is an illusion, and all physics is local.

Just as Einstein said.

Thomas Ray

The edit function is turned off. Read " ... any point can simultaneously map to any ...

Lee Bloomquist

Please clarify. I just tried to put a simple model of an observer in the "wind tunnel," a model where the observer has only so long to live. Each day possibilities decrease as the end approaches. At the same time, the available information increases each day. Then, when possibilities finally all disappear, existence ends. It might be the starting point for a better Hamiltonian and initial conditions in order to model an observer.

« Previous Page Next Page »