Alternative Models of Reality

Tom,

I'd describe E=mc^2 as a 'consequence', but we mustn't get into semantics. I point out that of what most consider 'the theory' is actually just 'explanation'.

Thanks for the lectures link, a nice refresher as it's over 20 years since I read those. I'm sure I've mentioned; I've studied Einstein's work for around twice that long. Like others who've done so I give most credence to his later work, which is very lucid, coherent and is much developed from that of 30 years earlier, which he well recognised. Would you like others to believe you own work of 30 years ago in preference to your views now? I'd doubt that of anybody.

So I agree the foundations and axioms of my proposals differ subtly from most in that they're a faithful continuance of Einstein's thoughts, right or wrong. In an axiomatic theory the axioms should be accepted and tested in terms of self consistency and correspondence with observation. If you can't do that, and revert to the explanations from 30 years before instead, then I'd have to point out you're not doing science but beliefs.

The most key and latest paper was his extensive 1952 (English Trans. 1954) comprehensive re-visit and rationale; under the unassuming title "Relativity ...", Notes to the Fifteenth Edition." Many who'd gone charging off building and lecturing on their own interpretations didn't actually like this paper much because it challenged some beliefs even then. You'll find it noted as; 'still under copyright' so difficult to find (a free link to)! But he was quite unequivocal. As everyone else uses his older stuff do you really think it unreasonable that someone at least tests his later conceptions and explanations? (without of course trying to 'judge' them against the previous ones!). I'm sure you don't.

So I've built an ontology to test based on his latest work. This includes the comment, very pointed because he recognised the issues with the interpretations that even he couldn't resolve; "The Special Theory of Relativity theory is entirely contained within the Postulates." What he was saying was that all else is validly open to question. This reflected the fact that none of the many 'proofs' of SR were of the 'interpretations', ALL were of the postulated effects. He then specified the conceptual relationships and aims which any completion of the theory would need to meet.

These centred of course on his beloved 'Local Reality', and implicitly unification with the quanta. He knew his theory always lacked some real underlying 'mechanism', and had stated in the 1940's he "hoped someone one day someone would find that better way" to derive his postulates. I'm suggesting that 'other way' is equivalent to conceiving a car when only horses have ever existed. As Feynman predicted the truth will of course "at first look wrong." I'm not saying the DFM is the truth, just that if it is it will of course first look wrong!

Now if you're prepared to fairly help assess and falsify a possible mechanism to drive it on that basis, then I can explain it very simply. Only then can you fairly judge and falsify it. If still not, then just let me know.

Best wishes

Tom,

You are obsessed with the idea I said all eyes have the same blurry color. Where do I say it?

If you don't think information doesn't blur, try blowing up a digital image.

Your interpretation of what I said is extremely blurred.

Regards,

John M

blur (blûr)

v. blurred, blur·ring, blurs

v.tr.

1. To make indistinct and hazy in outline or appearance; obscure.

2. To smear or stain; smudge.

3. To lessen the perception of; dim: "For street children . . . drugs offer the chance to blur their hopeless poverty" (Alma Guillermoprieto).

v.intr.

1. To become indistinct.

2. To make smudges or stains by smearing.

n.

1. A smear or blot; a smudge.

2. Something that is hazy and indistinct to the sight or mind.

Consider n.2

Okay, John, I got your point and I appreciate that you think it's relevant.

Tom,

FQXI has had two contests on the nature of information; Whether reality is discrete, or analog and it, vs. bit. It is important in these forums how one relates information to reality. Sometimes everything is not always clear. That's why we have statistics.

Regards,

John M

John, we don't have any statistics that transform discrete information (such as eye color) into a meaningless "blur."

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Ok. It's starting to reach my frustration level.

What is "blurring" in the first place? It is not a consequence of the transmission of information, but the reception of it. If you have one person try to remember the eye color of 7 billion other people, it would very likely overwhelm their processing and memory capacity. How difficult is that to understand?

Not to confuse you further, but why is "blurring" meaningless? It is another form of information. If you were to leave the shutter of a camera open to catch the sense of motion, it would blur. Impressionist painting was something of a revolt against the increasingly conformist realism that proceeded it. You mix primary colors and you get secondary ones. Frequently broad perspective requires some blurring of detail. As in where would history books be, if there wasn't some cramming of entire epochs into a few sentences. Do generals know what every person under their command is doing?

Math doesn't much like blurring, but then it edits out much of the dynamics and ambiguities. It reduces reality to the skeleton, not the seed. If you want to understand the seed, you might have to accept the blurring inherent in trying to understand a dynamic reality.

Regards,

John M

" ... why is "blurring" meaningless? It is another form of information."

Not in the context of scientific rationalism, John. The way you are using the term is actually antithetical to the meaning of information

"If you were to leave the shutter of a camera open to catch the sense of motion, it would blur."

No it wouldn't. The image -- not the shutter -- captured on the surface of whatever medium you are projecting it to, would appear blurry, indistinct. That wouldn't give you any information, however, about how motion works or even if there is such a thing as "motion." On that scale, by your reasoning, either motion doesn't exist, or reality is nothing more than one big blurry blob of motion. If you accept those contradictory notions and decide that one or the other has to be true, you still don't know anything about motion -- because you are mistaking the image you project, for the external reality in which objects and their relative motions are distinct.

Think pinhole camera.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Yes, in its own right, everything is as clear as you can define it, but what is the nature of information? In its own right, everything is just quanta of energy doing their own thing. In order to extract anything resembling information, there has to be some interaction and contrast. Otherwise no measurement. Then you start to put all the relationships together.

As that Santa Fe conference, leading to complexity theory, came to understand, reality exists on that boundary between order and chaos. Though another way of looking at it might be between the linear and the non-linear. Or between energy and structure. As in how do you precisely locate a moving object? Doesn't that go to issues of position, vs. momentum?

You need distinctions, but what are they without the connections? And once you truly connect something, then where does one end and the other begin? If we are what we eat, where does the chicken end and the fox begin?

While some of us like to look at whatever we are looking at in excruciating detail, some of us also like to step back and look at the bigger picture. They don't always agree with what is, but that is the nature of information. It is subject to point of view. There is no such thing as absolute knowledge, as absolute is the state at which everything is balanced/combined/one. Which does blur all the detail. So the need for that middle ground between exact and entirety.

Order+chaos=complexity.

Regards,

John M

Or between an ordered past and chaotic future.

Tom,

Think of it this way; Is there some logical reason why mathematicians don't run anything other than mathematics departments? Why they are a tool within the larger scheme of things?

Regards,

John M

" ... what is the nature of information?"

Discrete events.

" ... where does the chicken end and the fox begin?"

In the outcome of discrete events.

John, instead of simply lecturing on what you think information theory and complex systems and chaos and the like are, why don't you undertake to actually study those disciplines and learn how they work instead of blurring it all together? You have a fine mind -- like a wild horse, strong and magnificent. Don't you think it would serve you better if you put a rein on it? Do you think you would be less free if you did?

"Is there some logical reason why mathematicians don't run anything other than mathematics departments? Why they are a tool within the larger scheme of things?"

Isn't that another version of the argument, "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

Would it surprise you that some of us are more content to be tools (actually, research mathematicians are the tool-makers, and plenty of people with educations in mathematics do "run things") than to run things and be ignorant of how they work? Plenty of harm, mostly unintended consequences, has come of that, wouldn't you say?

Best,

Tom

"I point out that of what most consider 'the theory' is actually just 'explanation'."

Peter, for heaven's sake, *you yourself* have already quoted and misunderstood why special relativity is mathematically complete: "Einstein concluded and went to great pains to confirm in his definitive 1952 paper that 'SR is entirely contained within the postulates'. That means that the attached assumptions and interpretations are NOT SR!"

Except that isn't what Einstein's statement means. It means that if any of the postulates of special relativity are wrong, the theory is wrong. How do you think Einstein managed to apply Riemannian geometry to general relativity? -- as he said, " ... by challenging an axiom (postulate)." That is, by replacing the fifth postulate of Euclidean geometry with one of non-Euclidean geometry.

If you substitute your own postulates you are not extending Einstein's theory, you are denying it. There is no place for a term c' in special relativity. The theory is complete.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

What is an "event?"

I know you don't much appreciate my methods of learning, but I consider there to be both advantages and disadvantages to being part of the system.

In case you haven't noticed, I am neither rich or powerful and I don't really mind. I find the more you have, the more you have to worry about and I am rather organically connected to my reality. This does involve some significant blurring of the lines as what is me and what is my context. When your life depends on being able to read another creature's mind, a little blurring goes a long way.

In case you haven't noticed, the people presumably in charge are doing little more than precariously riding history's biggest cultural wave and one which looks destined to crash within our lifetimes. I wouldn't want to be in their position of having to decide whether to kick the can a little further down the road, likely creating even larger problems, or trying to decide how best to essentially crash the system. Stop printing money, start a war.....

The point is that bottom up/detail oriented and top down/generalized big picture, are a natural dichotomy. There is no overall viewpoint, other than sitting way off in the distance, like a historian.

Even mathematicians make assumptions,

"In the outcome of discrete events."

So just where is that discrete point between the chicken and the fox?

Sort of like the issue of where life begins; birth, conception, or 4 billion years ago.

The fact is that you are mortal and the only way to see outside the bubble of your mortality is to let a little of what's outside seep in, because eventually everything inside will seep out.

Regards,

John M

John,

You're right, of course. There is value in all points of view. You've ably explained what drives your own. What drives mine is what I often quote from Jacob Bronowski, "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses."

You say, " ... bottom up/detail oriented and top down/generalized big picture, are a natural dichotomy." That's a nice observation which summarizes why I think so highly of George Ellis's essay two competitions ago (second place winner). His elegant resolution of the dichotomy is an important contribution to complex system science, because it generalizes quite neatly to the cosmological limit. That's the ultimate goal of every scientific theory.

"There is no overall viewpoint, other than sitting way off in the distance, like a historian." And that should tell you why your trying to generalize discrete eye color to a blurry sameness is not viable. If you understand that, you'll also understand why your time-temperature model, built on the same principle, also doesn't work.

You write, "Even mathematicians make assumptions,

'In the outcome of discrete events.'

So just where is that discrete point between the chicken and the fox?"

It depends. On what scale of observation at what discrete moment?

And here is where you really put your finger on the difference in how we think:

"The fact is that you are mortal and the only way to see outside the bubble of your mortality is to let a little of what's outside seep in, because eventually everything inside will seep out."

I'm not concerned with mortality as other than another point on the continuum.

All best,

Tom

Tom,

Don't go too far in that agreeing business, or we won't have anything to argue over.

" On what scale of observation at what discrete moment?"

So the point depends on the observation? What if it's a dynamically shifting observation?

Where do you keep coming up with this mixing peoples eye color? The issue is trying to remember who has which color. It isn't a matter of blurring the color, but keeping an effectively infinite amount of data points organized. Otherwise your mind just puts up its own little spinning wheel.

Regards,

John

The issue being the limits of what we can know and overwhelming the system is one way to reach those limits.

And what is an "event?" How can it be discrete, considering this would depend on the scale of the observation?

"What if it's a dynamically shifting observation?"

Describe what you were you doing when you last experienced a dynamically shifting observation.