Chasing the black holes of the ocean

I said "Learn what empirical evidence is communicating to us."

Unless incorporated into a theory, empirical phenomena mean absolutely nothing.

Tom

"If there is a lack of correspondence between theory and observation, does that falsify the theory, or point toward previously unexamined features?"

Falsifying criteria are contained *within* the theory. Those phenomena that lie beyond falsifcation, yet may be potential solutions implied by the theory, require refinements ("I told you so" doesn't constitute a refinement to the theory). Those phenomena that cannot be explained by the theory and don't falsify it, require a new theory with new falsifying criteria.

Tom

Scientific corollary to Socrates' "An unexamined life is not worth living:"

An unfalsifiable claim is not worth making.

Tom,

"Unless incorporated into a theory, empirical phenomena mean absolutely nothing."

Can you prove that, or is it an unfalsifiable claim?

Does the drunk driver swerving into your path mean nothing?

How do you theorize randomness, other than claiming it is an illusion, which is unprovable?

Personally I find I frequently have to push the mental reset button, or the thought process gets clogged up with dangerous assumptions. I can't afford to become separate from my reality. When I let go, it's like a static discharge and sometimes the feedback serves as mental radar.

Theory is a necessary and useful framework, but it serves the purpose of establishing conditional order, not absolute order. Absolute order is a flatline.

Referring back to complexity theory and the Santa Fe project, reality exists on that boundary between order and chaos and theory is just projection from one into the other.

Regards,

John M

John,

"'Unless incorporated into a theory, empirical phenomena mean absolutely nothing.'"

"Can you prove that, or is it an unfalsifiable claim?"

In the context of scientific mehthod, it is true. What we're looking for are objective statements subject to universal falsification.

"Does the drunk driver swerving into your path mean nothing?"

Not objectively. Some wag defined the difference between tragedy and comedy: "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when I see you walk into an open manhole."

"How do you theorize randomness, other than claiming it is an illusion, which is unprovable?"

In fact, randomness *is* unprovable by algorithmic means. Computers that generate pseudo-random numbers do so by specific algorithms that are themselves not random.

"Personally I find I frequently have to push the mental reset button, or the thought process gets clogged up with dangerous assumptions. I can't afford to become separate from my reality. When I let go, it's like a static discharge and sometimes the feedback serves as mental radar."

That's fine for you. How does your personal experience generalize to a universally falsifiable theory?

"Theory is a necessary and useful framework, but it serves the purpose of establishing conditional order, not absolute order. Absolute order is a flatline."

Absolute order, like absolute randomness, is meaningless. We acquire meaning by theory alone.

"Referring back to complexity theory and the Santa Fe project, reality exists on that boundary between order and chaos and theory is just projection from one into the other."

I have the Santa Fe report (*Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information* edited by Wojciech Zurek) right at my bedside table. I would be happy to discuss any and every paper in it in as much detail as you like. To simply conclude what you think might be there and what it means to you personally is ... meaningless.

Best,

Tom

John,

"Do you think all of space originated from some point, 13.8 billion years ago? If not, how do you perceive the universe, if not spatially infinite?"

The best fit so far is that the BB requires revision into a recycling model, so all (actually 'most of!) the matter from the previous iteration was accreted, re-ionized and scattered to form the new one. If we take the quasar model of galaxy recycling we find compelling evidence of precisely the same patterns in the many 'anomalous' and highly peculiar CMB anisotropies.

We then need to distinguish our 'locally real' universe from the 'greater' cosmos, which may well be infinite both temporally and spatially. There may also be infinitely many similar universes within it, just like galaxies perhaps. i.e. a fractal model. But the universe is then finite; expanding rotating then being accreted to start a new iteration. Whether there's also dark energy 'between' the universes is entirely another question.

I've yet seen no other theory which corresponds anything like as well as that with observation. But of course the BB is ingrained in most belief systems so is now unchallengeable. As I understand Tom it seems even a coherent theory doesn't help explain observations if it doesn't also correspond with some prior theory which we already 'believe'. An interesting and radical approach perhaps, but it has seemed popular with many. Saying something and applying it seem quite different things.

Peter

"space emerged from a point"? Euclid gave the still reasonable definition of a point: something that does not have parts. Modern mathematics does not bother how to reasonably define such most basic notions like point and number. Those like Weierstrass, Dedekind, Cantor, Minkowski, and Hilbert preferred the putative freedom of mathematics instead. Physicists should be aware that singular points must not be considered something real in physics. No matter whether a 3D object is seen in 3D, 2D, 1D or 0D like a point, in reality it is the same.

I don't expect ultimate insight from notorious lazy shift of the unexplainable as far away as imaginable: from horizon on the seemingly flat earth to a creator in heaven, then to the milky way, then to galaxies, to the extragalactic universe, to a multiversal cosmos that is imagined to contain infinitely many universes and possibly even into the millenia-old cyclic model.

I rather expect valuable insight from questioning the subjective perspective of SR.

Eckard

John, Peter, James,

Paul Borrill, who is several orders of magnitude better than I am at explaining this, wrote:

"Information and Simultaneity

Since 1905 we often see assertions that there is no space without time because the constancy of the speed of light provides a limit to velocity of information traversal between points in space. We rarely hear the logically equivalent that there is no time without space which is equally concludeable from Einstein's original postulates and argument [10]. Implications of this include:

-- The notion of Minkowski space as a 4D manifold can mislead us that time passes, independently of the spatial dimensions. We assert that subtime does not flow when there is no motion in the spatial dimension.

Simultaneity (Cauchy) surfaces, even in inertial frames, have no basis in reality. There is no common meaning to time separately from motion. They are inextricably tied together.

-- Intervals are the measurable elements of space/time, terminated by the atoms on either end of the photon path. Subtime intervals are thus finite. The edges of the subtime graph are summed together to form the emergence of Tc. This is interesting, because intervals in time have been described by Barbour as an enigma, identified by Einstein as an issue but otherwise remains unresolved [11].

-- The only objective reality that can be measured is through interactions {the ultimate locality. Entities must interact (touch, collide, bounce off, be absorbed, emitted etc.) in order to transfer information. However, all the internal interactions of an entangled system are, by definition, unobservable. In Tc we observe only those rare events that touch the outside world through decoherence.

-- This interaction is fundamentally based on the exchange (gain or loss) of information. For example when an atom receives a photon it gains information, when it emits a photon it loses it (entropy).

-- In bipartite entanglements, a photon (and its associated information) is trapped, perpetually bouncing between the atoms (just as it is likely that within an atom, photons are perpetually bouncing between the electrons and protons in the nucleus).

-- We assume that information is transmitted between particles by photons at a finite speed the maximum being the speed of light, but question our ability to perceive this change as a reversible information-theoretic process. This creates an illusion of superluminal quantum-mechanical processes in experiments designed with a hidden assumption of an absolute time background which hinders our understanding of the EPR paradox."

T_c is Paul's notation for classical time.

Also important to note in Paul's essay is the end, where he suggests experiments that would falsify his hypothesis.

All best,

Tom

Tom,

"We assert that subtime does not flow when there is no motion in the spatial dimension."

Well I can't say that there is any point in arguing either for or against that. I'll wait for the experiment. :-)

"-- This interaction is fundamentally based on the exchange (gain or loss) of information. For example when an atom receives a photon it gains information, when it emits a photon it loses it (entropy)."

I don't agree that information has been lost. It has changed.

"a photon (and its associated information) is trapped, perpetually bouncing between the atoms (just as it is likely that within an atom, photons are perpetually bouncing between the electrons and protons in the nucleus).

I do agree with this. My model incorporates it.

I contend that there is a universally constant measure of time. It was put forward in my first essay on The Nature of Time. I didn't derive it in that essay, but I did present several results from its use. The fine structure constant equalities were united, and, Maxwell's equations were reformed free of electromagnetic field theory.

"*That* is what Einstein means by his theory entirely contained within its postulates. The inductive method he is talking about is exactly what James means by "what the empirical evidence is telling us." Einstein did not trust inductive conclusions made by examining phenomena -- he chose his system of postulates to completely exclude adding or subtracting anything from the theory."

Tom, you have misrepresented what I mean. Einstein did not do the same or I wouldn't be the one to fix f=ma today. You do not understand my point or you would not have put your questions marks in these quotes of mine.

""F=ma is communicated directly to us by empirical evidence."

"It is? How?"

""it makes a great difference whether both force and mass receive defined units or if one receives indefinable units.""

"The difference is ...? I'm listening."

James Putnam

"Euclid gave the still reasonable definition of a point: something that does not have parts."

Eckard, it's not reasonable to mathematicians. What's a part? If a part exists, does it have parts? If so, how does something that does not have parts exist without parts? Therefore, does a point exist? -- how would one demonstrate that existence?

Dedekind, Cauchy, Weierstrass ... constructed the answer, rather than letting a philosophical dilemma go unchallenged. Dedekind cuts -- differentiating the least of the most from the most of the least -- demonstrates a definite point on the continuum, something one can point to (pun intended) and say, "that's a point." Cauchy-Weierstrass opened new frontiers in complex analysis where points are analyzed as lines on C.

Best,

Tom

Hi James,

"(from Borill) 'We assert that subtime does not flow when there is no motion in the spatial dimension.'

Well I can't say that there is any point in arguing either for or against that. I'll wait for the experiment. :-)"

Sure. We do already know, however, that there exists no representation of time passing in a lightlike interval.

'-- This interaction is fundamentally based on the exchange (gain or loss) of information. For example when an atom receives a photon it gains information, when it emits a photon it loses it (entropy).'

I don't agree that information has been lost. It has changed."

That's what he means. Borill is not claiming that information is destroyed; gain and loss of information by energy exchange is a state change.

'a photon (and its associated information) is trapped, perpetually bouncing between the atoms (just as it is likely that within an atom, photons are perpetually bouncing between the electrons and protons in the nucleus).'

I do agree with this. My model incorporates it."

Excellent. Then you might try reformulating your model in information-theoretic terms. You might turn up some interesting results.

"I contend that there is a universally constant measure of time. It was put forward in my first essay on The Nature of Time. I didn't derive it in that essay, but I did present several results from its use. The fine structure constant equalities were united, and, Maxwell's equations were reformed free of electromagnetic field theory."

James, our minds will never meet on this -- a theory-free theory just makes no sense. It's a linguistic oxymoron and a mathematical impossibility.

(quoting from my post to Peter)'"*That* is what Einstein means by his theory entirely contained within its postulates. The inductive method he is talking about is exactly what James means by "what the empirical evidence is telling us." Einstein did not trust inductive conclusions made by examining phenomena -- he chose his system of postulates to completely exclude adding or subtracting anything from the theory.'

Tom, you have misrepresented what I mean. Einstein did not do the same or I wouldn't be the one to fix f=ma today. You do not understand my point or you would not have put your questions marks in these quotes of mine."

The quotation marks are there because it is a direct quote, so I do not see how you think I have misrepresented you.

I don't understand the last part of your message, which is a duplicate of one of our previous exchanges. You leave my question unanswered. Is it just a copy-paste error?

Best,

Tom

Tom,

"In the context of scientific mehthod, it is true. What we're looking for are objective statements subject to universal falsification."

Then how did we get to the point that multiverses are the topic du jour?

""Does the drunk driver swerving into your path mean nothing?"

Not objectively."

Where would we be, if that apple hadn't fallen on Newton's head? There is no objective theorizing without a lot of stuff happening. Theory only distills out the more stable patterns. Theory models reality.

"In fact, randomness *is* unprovable by algorithmic means."

Randomness is not just a function of the creation of information, but the perception of it as well. How do you find what algorithm created that number? As Wolfram put it, it would take a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. That's a lot of randomness to deal with, before you find the right algorithm.

"Absolute order... is meaningless. We acquire meaning by theory alone."

Exactly. Flatline. Theory is deriving patterns from the activity. No activity, no patterns. Flatline.

" like absolute randomness,"

Who said anything about randomness being absolute? It's no more absolute than pattern!

"I have the Santa Fe report..."

Actually I think the real distinction is between structure and energy. Go through all those papers and see if the chaotic systems are not just examples of thermodynamic processes impinging on the ordered models.

Peter,

I'l raise the same point I just argued with Tom,

How can you say space expands, yet still maintain a stable speed of light in a vacuum, against which to measure it? If two galaxies go from being x lightyears apart, to 2x lightyears apart, that is an increasing number of measured units, not the units being stretched. "Space is what you measure with a ruler" and the ruler isn't expanding, rather more are required.

Eckard,

I certainly agree there needs to be some major review, but not holding my breath.

Tom,

"There is no common meaning to time separately from motion."

Yes, but does time cause motion, or does motion create time?

"Intervals are the measurable elements of space/time, terminated by the atoms on either end of the photon path."

" The only objective reality that can be measured is through interactions {the ultimate locality. Entities must interact (touch, collide, bounce off, be absorbed, emitted etc.) in order to transfer information."

Say you have two entities collide. It creates an event. So while those entities go from prior events to succeeding such collisions/events, these events come into being and recede. Thus the entities go from past events to future ones, the events go from being in the future, to being in the past. Now what is present is the entities, as they are the physical existence. Therefore if there is a vector of time that transcends this presence, it is the events coming into being and receding, ie, going future to past. This effect is a consequence of the activity of the entities, ie. of what is present. The interval/duration is simply the status of the entities between collisions/events, ie. what is present.

The vector of time is an effect of action.

Regards,

John M

Tom,

""I do agree with this. My model incorporates it.""

"Excellent. Then you might try reformulating your model in information-theoretic terms. You might turn up some interesting results."

I have achieved interesting results. And, they derive straight from empirical evidence without messing things up by interjecting theory. Remove the guesses about substitutes for the unknown, and then, return the equations of physics back to their empirical forms, and in this way finally learn that which empirical evidence is teaching us as opposed to that which theorists teach us. The reformulation of Maxwell's equations without field theory is an example of an interesting result. My point is that I am consistent. The same single cause is at work within the nucleus as outside of it.

""I contend that there is a universally constant measure of time. It was put forward in my first essay on The Nature of Time. I didn't derive it in that essay, but I did present several results from its use. The fine structure constant equalities were united, and, Maxwell's equations were reformed free of electromagnetic field theory."

"James, our minds will never meet on this -- a theory-free theory just makes no sense. It's a linguistic oxymoron and a mathematical impossibility.

(quoting from my post to Peter)'"*That* is what Einstein means by his theory entirely contained within its postulates. The inductive method he is talking about is exactly what James means by "what the empirical evidence is telling us." Einstein did not trust inductive conclusions made by examining phenomena -- he chose his system of postulates to completely exclude adding or subtracting anything from the theory.'"

It is true that a theory free theory doesn't make sense. However, theory free physics does make sense. Make mass, and temperature defined properties without introducing other substitute indefinable properties and you have theory free physics. My work which has been presented here is theory free physics. By the way, I used math doing it.

""Tom, you have misrepresented what I mean. Einstein did not do the same or I wouldn't be the one to fix f=ma today. You do not understand my point or you would not have put your questions marks in these quotes of mine.""

"The quotation marks are there because it is a direct quote, so I do not see how you think I have misrepresented you."

No you didn't misquote me. My point is that your statement to Peter about what I mean was in error. Just the meaning and not the words. I gave those following quotes to emphasize that if one did understand what I was saying then my quotes are not mysterious. My meaning is to rely solely on empirical evidence. Theoretical physics has not done that. Their first misstep was to make mass a fundamentally indefinable property. The empirical evidence shows that both force and mass can be defined properties. The empirical evidence is patterns in changes of velocity usually measured as acceleration.

"I don't understand the last part of your message, which is a duplicate of one of our previous exchanges. You leave my question unanswered. Is it just a copy-paste error?"

Those quotes of exchanges between you and I look correct. They were just put in as examples of evidence that you do not understand what I mean when I say that we must learn what it is that empirical evidence is communicating to us. We don't learn it through theory. I am restricting the meaning of theory to that which the theorists invents. Any empirical evidence, whether interpreted by a theorist or by me is empirical physics. Just the evidence and what it communicates to us directly by itself and fully on its own. Repeating: the empirical evidence for the existence of mass also gives us direction on how to define mass.

James Putnam

John,

' ... What we're looking for are objective statements subject to universal falsification."

Then how did we get to the point that multiverses are the topic du jour?"

The multiverse hypothesis is not a theory. It is an explanation for phenomena in quantum theory, that fits the facts.

"'Does the drunk driver swerving into your path mean nothing?'

'Not objectively.'"

Where would we be, if that apple hadn't fallen on Newton's head? There is no objective theorizing without a lot of stuff happening. Theory only distills out the more stable patterns. Theory models reality."

In the first place, that falling apple story is most likely apocryphal. In the second place, theory does not model reality; models are solutions to a theory.

(Me) 'In fact, randomness *is* unprovable by algorithmic means.'

"Randomness is not just a function of the creation of information, but the perception of it as well."

I can't parse what you mean by that.

"How do you find what algorithm created that number? As Wolfram put it, it would take a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe. That's a lot of randomness to deal with, before you find the right algorithm."

There's no evidence that the universe is algorithmically compressible -- that's what Wolfram means.

(Me) "'Absolute order... is meaningless. We acquire meaning by theory alone.'

Exactly. Flatline. Theory is deriving patterns from the activity. No activity, no patterns. Flatline."

Complete nonsense. Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind. Then he looked outside to see if there are physical patterns that correspond to the theory. As we know, there are. It is those who think they can understand the world by simply looking at it, who are "flatlined."

(Me) " 'like absolute randomness,' "

Who said anything about randomness being absolute? It's no more absolute than pattern!"

Um, what happened to the context here? -- the contrast with "absolute order."

(Me) "I have the Santa Fe report..."

Actually I think the real distinction is between structure and energy. Go through all those papers and see if the chaotic systems are not just examples of thermodynamic processes impinging on the ordered models."

As usual, you want someone else to do the work while you sit around and make things up.

(quoting Borill)

"'There is no common meaning to time separately from motion.'

Yes, but does time cause motion, or does motion create time?"

Neither. You entirely missed Borill's point about the meaning of spacetime.

(Borill) 'Intervals are the measurable elements of space/time, terminated by the atoms on either end of the photon path.'

The only objective reality that can be measured is through interactions {the ultimate locality. Entities must interact (touch, collide, bounce off, be absorbed, emitted etc.) in order to transfer information.'"

"Say you have two entities collide. It creates an event. So while those entities go from prior events to succeeding such collisions/events, these events come into being and recede. Thus the entities go from past events to future ones, the events go from being in the future, to being in the past."

Again, you cut and paste but you do not read and comprehend. In Borill's information theoretic terms -- based on known laws of motion and thermodynamics and incorporating relativity -- events are classically time reversible.

"Now what is present is the entities, as they are the physical existence. Therefore if there is a vector of time that transcends this presence, it is the events coming into being and receding, ie, going future to past. This effect is a consequence of the activity of the entities, ie. of what is present. The interval/duration is simply the status of the entities between collisions/events, ie. what is present.

The vector of time is an effect of action."

Time is a scalar, John, not a vector. The novel idea that Borill introduced, was to vectorize a subset (t_s) of that scalar in quantum mechanical interactions, and preserve local reversibility without changing what we know about classical time, T_c.

Best,

Tom

" ... interesting results. And, they derive straight from empirical evidence without messing things up by interjecting theory."

James, theory is not "interjected." It is primary, and you don't have any results at all without it, even if you have convinced yourself that you do.

"It is true that a theory free theory doesn't make sense. However, theory free physics does make sense. Make mass, and temperature defined properties without introducing other substitute indefinable properties and you have theory free physics. My work which has been presented here is theory free physics. By the way, I used math doing it."

Sigh. James you can't use math in the absence of theory. Math is a theoretical -- i.e., artificial -- language. Even if you didn't use math, *any* formalism in which you convey your ideas is a theoretical construct.

"The empirical evidence shows that both force and mass can be defined properties. The empirical evidence is patterns in changes of velocity usually measured as acceleration."

Change in velocity is *always* measured as acceleration. It could be negative (deceleration) as well as positive. What this means mathematically, is that an otherwise straight line (uniform motion) takes a curved trajectory (accelerated motion).

" Repeating: the empirical evidence for the existence of mass also gives us direction on how to define mass."

We have *no* empirical evidence for the existence of mass. We have a theory that predicts the behavior of a quantity we call mass within specified parameters, which is verified empirically.

Best,

Tom

Tom, sigh :-)

"We have *no* empirical evidence for the existence of mass. We have a theory that predicts the behavior of a quantity we call mass within specified parameters, which is verified empirically."

The patterns in changes of velocity tell you that and no theory is required to notice it in the data. Mass is resistance to force. The empirical evidence infers that there is both force and resistance to force. The resistance to force is called mass.

I have presented here and elsewhere a large body of work that presents results from theory free physics. The evidence for the reader that it is from theory free physics is that all units are defined using only meters and seconds. Meters and seconds are the representatives of empirical evidence in physics equations. All empirical evidence arrives as information about acceleration. The units of acceleration consists of meters and seconds only.

James Putnam

Tom,

" Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind."

And he created them ex nihilo?

Flatline?

Back later.

Regards,

John M

Tom,

"Einstein developed relativity from no patterns of activity except those he created mathematically in his mind."

Now you really are making things up! He specifically did not and made that clear, but did so heuristically. The maths followed, as it should. John and James may also like the below; You ignored the last quotes and just cherry picked one to misunderstand. here are some more showing you inaccurate, and to pick at, about your assumption of 'completeness';

"For the time being, we have to admit that we do not possess any general theoretical basis for physics, which can be regarded as its logical foundation.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

"The general theory of relativity is as yet incomplete." (1949)

"We can't solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." (which remember you claimed was just with maths!)

And in support of my own way ""The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction." (Note the difference to induction.)

"one should not desist from pursuing to the end the path of the relativistic field theory." 1952 and in case you think it was only GR he considered incomplete;

" Yet (SR) was not entirely satisfactory - quite apart from the quantum problems, which all theory so far has been incapable of really solving. In common with classical mechanics the special relativity theory favours certain

states of motion - namely those of the inertial frames - to all other states of motion. This was actually more difficult to tolerate than the preference for a single state of motion as in the case of the theory of light with a stationary

ether, for this imagined a real reason for the preference, i.e. the light ether. A theory which from the outset prefers no state of motion should appear more satisfactory. Moreover the previously mentioned vagueness in the definition

of the inertial frame or in the formulation of the law of inertia raises doubts..". 1923 That egalitarian theory is precisely what the DFM provides.

And a final description of what he was trying to find, which perfectly describes the DFM hierarchical equivalent frames;

"There are then an infinite number of inertial frames which are in uniform translational motion relative to each other, and hence there is also an infinite number of mutually equivalent, physically preferred states of motion. Time is absolute, i.e. independent of the choice of the particular inertial frame; it is defined by more characteristics than logically necessary, although - as implied by mechanics - this should not lead to contradictions with experience. Note in passing that the logical weakness of this exposition from the point of view of the stipulation of meaning is the lack of an experimental criterion for whether a material point is force free or not; therefore the concept of the inertial frame remains rather problematical."

No longer. Except for those wedded to dogma. I don't 'need' to convince you Tom, I just need to find some way of overcoming religious belief. Ideas?

Best wishes

Peter

Tom,

"Time is a scalar, John, not a vector."

Had to google that one. Apparently "time"(magnitude) is a scalar. Well that explains why they can't figure out why it only goes in one direction.

I am sorry for being so flip, but having spent much of the afternoon driving down around DC, as opposed to puttering around the farm, my regard for the sanity of my fellow man has been further reduced.

Regards,

John M