Hi Mike,

I didn't think of this -- yes maybe the voting process has some feature of the path integral. But in the "real" path integral nature decides how to weight each path (by the Action) and in a social context (those described in my essay or as you point out the rating system for the essay contest) the weighting is more subjective (some might say it is completely subjective). And in terms of my essay I mention this as a weak point of the whole process. My idea would be that for every different social question one should beforehand come up with some way of weighting each social path that was tried. In reality what might happen is that people/administrators/government officials in charge of implementing a given program or path might come up with criteria "on the fly" to either stick with a given path or abandon a given path. For example the administration of George W. Bush decides to get the US involved in fighting in Iraq and when they are questioned as to if this is a good approach/ a good path they invent data to support their position -- "Iraq has a nuclear weapons program. We must stop them." all of which was invented data (i.e. a lie).

Anyway back to your original comment/question about the rating system of the FQXi contest -- it is probably no better or worse than other systems. I can't think of any system that would be considered completely fair by all the contestants. Also note the rating system for the FQXi contests now is much different from the first contest, thus there has been an evolution or a path integral selection of evaluation methods.

Finally let me emphasis again that my "path integral for society" is just a metaphor that in society as in science it's good to try out different approaches to things since people in general are not good at guessing the correct answer to scientific questions and I think they are also not so good at selecting (at first try) the best societal solution. I could as well have called the essay something like "Try as many different possible approaches to social questions and then use some objective or semi objective criteria for selecting those approaches which are best." I put the path integral in there since I do quantum field theory and physicists generally will describe things in terms of the language they are familiar with.

Best,

Doug

Dear Douglas Alexander Singleton,

I very much enjoyed your application of a key theme of physics to the essay topic of 'steer the future'. I fully agree with the applicability of it and the implication that one should try "all paths". This is a bottom-up approach that explores a wider variety of approaches and allows comparison between realities, not just ideals.

You use the path integral as a "loose" metaphor. I do the same with the thermodynamic concept of free energy. I believe these are valid metaphors. I do not address astronomical catastrophes, so much as societal catastrophe such as another Pol Pot arising to enforce "equality" on all of us.

This approach also suggests that 50 states experimenting with any problem, such as healthcare, offers the same advantage that decentralized Europe enjoyed over centralized China [per Diamond].

I find we arrive at very similar positions based on the imaginative application of physics paradigms to humanity. Yours is worth a 10, since that's all I can give it. It's actually worth more.

I hope finals are over and you find the time to read my essay and comment on it.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Dear Douglas,

    I think we may have to work out for the transformation of a path integral in Corpuscularianism into three definite line integrals in notation with three eigen-rotational states of a string-natter segment, while in accordance with the Principle of stationary action in calculus of variations.

    Thus with this aspect, the probability of Societal steering in the right path may be more definitive while we work on a holarchial approach with the society.

    With best wishes,

    Jayakar

      Doug,

      My anon reply to your anon post on mine is below, with attachments. I think nobody really understand all the spooky issues as, just like SR, there's a genuine failure of logic somewhere.;;

      ~

      "Doug,

      It took me a few years too. What Bell does is 'limit' the inequalities possible from random variables, so although the experimental results vary from QM (as they're subjective) they actually exceed the QM violations. The non subjective mechanism which the experiment models reproduces the QM (Cos^2) predictions precisely.

      I think we've exposed the real problem which your proposals just stop short of addressing; If we're to try different viewpoints, so study 'outlying' propositions, then we can't judge them how we do now, which is against current doctrine. We must 'step back', disengage from our assumptions and return to fundamentals and 1st principles. So away from Bell/CHSH, right back to Bohr, Solvay and EPS.

      Bohr said only 'what we can say' about particles; "superposed states collapse to singlet states on measurement". He never endowed that with any particular physical reality. Bell unknowingly did. My description agrees with Bohr and findings, but not what Bell assumed, i.e. If we can only measure the 'spin' direction of one hemisphere at a time we've satisfied Bohr, even if the other hemisphere spins the other way. Now add some modern joined-up-science; electron spin flip and angular momentum transfer and the jigsaw puzzle pieces simply all slot together; If we flip the DETECTOR electron spins round ('preparation') then the OPPOSITE photomultiplier will click!

      The rest is simple geometry; The circumference at any hemisphere changes by the cosine of the angle with the equatorial plane (thus the 'cones' in the Bloch sphere). Entanglement is simply the fact that the equatorial planes are common, because they're orthogonal to the spin axis which is the propagation axis.

      Now that answer is so beautifully simple (Occam) that it can't be even countenanced by those distracted By Bell and CHSH and using those to try to solve the puzzle. Though fully falsifiable, as you say, the experimenters are focussed elsewhere. I don't even get responses to Emails! Can you now help there?

      So the EPR paradox is resolved without FTL or spookyness. And what's more, and even more shocking, the fundamental recognition of EM field electron absorption and re-emission allows SR to take an equal step towards QM with the simple definition that all re-emissions are at c in the rest frame of each electron. That is a eureka moment well beyond the brain of anybody stuck within present doctrinal 'brackets'.

      The tests and proof are in my last 3 essays, but can we suspend reliance on current doctrine and beliefs long enough to study it? Not yet it seems. If your essay suggests we should work that way, and can implement that new view, then I suggest it's of inestimable value!

      Peter

      PS. I attach the 'classroom experiment' kit below, also a fig from a recent Planck Inst. finding agreeing the 'spin/orbit' - 'spin within spin' model."

      ~

      PAttachment #1: 8_Kit._FIG_5.jpgAttachment #2: 1_Electron_Model_Max_Planck_inst..jpg

      Dear Dr. Klingman,

      Many thanks for reading my essay and from your comments I think you understood the main thrust of my proposal. To allow a broad range of trials to answer questions (be they scientific questions or societal questions) and then based on the outcomes and using some objective (or as objective as possible) criteria pick those solutions which are best. And the path integral is just a loose metaphor as you note. The example you give of seeing at how each of the 50 states of the US deals with some social issue was exactly something that I had in mind. One of these 50 different approaches will probably give one a hint at how to so something better. Yet I don't think to any large degree this is done (i.e. look at the success or failure of smaller programs at the state level and then choose the best and try to scale up.

      Anyway I will have a look at your essay soon.

      Best,

      Doug

      It's a pleasure to trade notes because we agree on so much that our differences in perspective are all the more interesting. We agree on the gross architecture of "try different approaches". We also agree on the validating function of the selector: how it reaches overhead of the subject, crane-like, so to speak, and picks out the best path without subjective interference. We also agree on the value of giving this crane access to a selection criterion that's objective. But I think you sometimes picture a selector-crane that's objective in itself, where I always picture one that's inter-subjective. I offer two points to help tease out this difference:

      (1) The selector in nature's path integral might be objective or subjective, depending on one's vantage. It's an objective selector from our vantage because it functions out there in the objective world of nature, independent of us. But from nature's own vantage, it's subjective in that it operates on nature herself.

      (2) Science is an example of an inter-subjective path selector. The modern scientist does tend to employ the objective criterion of natural observation in selecting his path (theory), but it's always by his own choice that he does so. He also employs other criteria that are less objective (preferring simpler theories, trusted sources, etc.) which he weighs and balances against each other. Finally he selects his own favoured theory-path from among those on offer. All of this he does in the context of intercommunications in a public of peers where it's generally known which methods and theory-paths are favoured, and by who. So general relativity is a selected theory-path in science, for example, just because we observe that scientists have generally selected it. This public of scientists is the overhead selector-crane that, by and large, is removed from subjective interference. This is what I mean by an inter-subjective path selector. Even if it gave full weight to the strong objective citerion of empirical evidence, still the path selector of science would not be objective in itself. Always the subject-as-scientist remains free and sovereign, so to speak, in the realm of science.

      If we followed the example of science, then, the path integral of future steering would be an inter-subjective humanity of peers with discretionary access to the strongest possible objective criteria. (It's been a while since I read your essay, so I may just be reiterating your own thesis in a round-about way. But I get it mostly from Habermas, who I cite in my own essay.) - Mike

      Doug,

      Again I replied to your interesting post on mine as below. We seem to agree then that words are quite powerless compared to action;

      ~

      Thanks. Your findings closely fit mine. I have two '4th tier' acceptances from a score of submissions. I estimated penetration by ~2020 so I am an optimist - but tenacious. One referee rejected a paper as it identified 'quasar era' peaks from data. Within 3 months others noticed. Now they're ubiquitous, but still not coherently interpreted! 'Unfair' is certainly one of many valid descriptions! I burnt my bridges with maths last years essay, generalizing Godel to show maths as just 'good approximation'!

      Back to physics (or rather 'nature', which is a bit different!) My model does cover 'photons' and all spin ½ cases, indeed even just a wavefront! The electrons and 'flip' discussed are the detector (polariser/filter) EM field electrons. The setting rotates and flips their orientation, so the interaction 'finding' is then reversed. There are then 2 ways of looking at it subject to the experiment; The electron reverses the photon spin. Or we could just consider the photomultipliers. If one is set clockwise, one anti, and both are reversed, then the OTHER one will click! But we still get random 50:50 up/down.

      In Bohm's terms; The fact that a spinning body (i.e. Earth) has TWO hemispheres still means that total spin (between two opposite planets) = 0. Linear momentum conservation ensures they're found opposite if not rotated, but we CAN rotate Earth's poles on the y or z axis while CONSERVING it's spin angular momentum!! that is a MASSIVELY important new realisation (think of a gyroscope - we can rotate it's axis as it spins). So what was found clockwise from point A is now found anticlockwise. Anybody can repeat that experiment for twopence! Bell made the same error; excluding that valid physical description of "collapse to a singlet state on measurement".

      Not only is classical QM really that simple, but the same interaction process with c being measured in the centre of mass frame of each electron, then constrains our common interpretation of SR's postulates to make them genuinely local and consistent with the QM description = Unification. That may be considered 'ambitious' but it simply is what it is. I can't help it. You may have thought a result like that would turn anybodies head! Apparently it does. It makes the indoctrinated and narrow visioned turn and look away!

      I suspect what it needs is a 'list' of authors, mostly with 'credentials' and with various specialisms to overcome editor/reviewer fear. That or a 'superstar' sponsor. What thinks thee?"

      ~

      I agree that an electron experiment would be revealing, but more difficult and not needed as photon/electron interaction is fine.

      I'm working with my spade to move the mountain. It's moving already and there are spades for for all. Who'll help with action not words?

      Peter

      Best wishes

      Peter

      Thanks for the interesting exchange, Doug. And thanks again for reviewing my own essay. I'll be rating yours (along with the others on my review list) some time between now and May 30. All the best, and bye for now, - Mike

      Hi Doug

      Congrats, this is indeed an intriguing Essay. Here are my comments/questions:

      1) I think you implicitly dedicated this work to Richard Feynman.

      2) Has Kardashev's classification of civilizations any link with stellar classification? I suspect this because he was an astronomer.

      3) I find the "Historical Path Integral" by James Burke which starts from the standardization of precious metals till nuclear weapons and energy very enlightening for clarifying what you point out in your Essay.

      4) I agree with you that number of publications and citations are not great measures of actual scientific progress.

      5) You emphasize that deciding on how to weight a particular societal path is very subjective and may lead to different groups choosing different paths as best or "classical". Is this the analogous of the probabilistic behavior of quantum mechanics in your nice metaphor?

      6) I appreciated a lot the subtle irony that you used in some points of your Essay, in particular in the last discussion concerning the conflict between the non-scientific "cherry picking" of data which helps politician get re-elected and the scientific faceless data which, although being informative, will not help politicians get re-elected.

      You wrote an very enjoyable Essay. I am going to give you an high score.

      I wish you all the best in the Contest.

      Cheers,

      Ch.

        Hi Christian,

        Thanks for reading my essay and your complementary questions and comments. I'm a great admirer of Feynman's and certainly he did try a lot of different "paths" -- bongo player, safe cracker, bar fly (but without drinking), and physicist. The Kardashev scale is logarithmic as is the case of the brightness scale for stars so this may have been connected with Kardashev's background in astronomy (although the log formula I gave was a later invention (due to Sagan?). Kardashev originally had only a discreet range of civilization rankings.

        Someone else mentioned that James Burke's old programs can be found on Youtube but so far I have only been able to find "The Day the Universe Changed" and "Connections 2" (which in my opinion was good but not as good as "Connections"). Anyway that is a good way to describe Burke's narrative -- a historical path integral.

        Good luck as well with the contest. Best,

        Doug

        Hi Jayakar,

        Thanks for reading and commenting on my essay. I will have a look at our essay in the coming week.

        Best,

        Doug

        Dough,

        You are a fine human being I can sense it. You have adventure soul. We have many in common. I also admire Feynman and he is a great scientist and even more admirable that he is a great human being as well. I also use his "sum over histories" idea in my KQID theory. You summed up your suggestion: "one should loosely adopt this quantum mechanical approach of trying "all paths". Those societal "paths" which are judged best/classical would be given the highest weight in steering humanity forward."

        I wish you the best, if you have time please comment on mine. Good luck on this contest.

        Leo KoGuan

        Doug,

        I like your comment to John: "Anyway if one were to follow the "path integral" proposal one should look at how wealth is distributed in countries that have a low Gini index (which means more fair wealth distribution)" also your comment to Joe's comment on light: "But light is rather odd in that respect. For example in the rest frame of a light beam is infinitely time dilated with respect to some non-light ray outside observer and thus it takes zero proper time for a light ray to travel any distance. Let's assume Minkowski space-time i.e. no cosmological expansion to complicate things. Thus in some sense one could say a light beam is "everywhere at once" in this Minkowski space-time -- at least in the coordinate direction in which it travels which is infinitesimally length contracted. .However in an outside laboratory frame (say the Earth with the light beam going by it) the light beam definitely moves and it takes finite Earth time for it to travel over a fixed distance (again measured in the Earth frame). Thus what I think you are saying about light may be true in the light's rest frame but certainly not in other frames (at least all experiments up to now do show that light moves if one takes a general frame)."

        Thanks for your generous effort to make humanity to be human. I share your goal. I hope we can be friends. If you have time please read my essay.

        I rated your essay ten (10).

        I wish you well,

        Leo KoGuan

          Hi Doug,

          Bear with me. But am wondering if you still can find a little time for this essay . And give me a no holds bared comment. If it be all I take from this contest I will be just fine!

          And should you want more discreet interface my email is thereon.

          Regards,

          Chidi

            Doug, I like you "metaphor" of the path integral. It is good that you manged to get some real physics into your essay as we are supposed to. I am sure you know that when Dirac first though of a path integral in physics he saw it is more of a metaphor than a real theory. Feynman realized that it really works and is not just a metaphor. perhaps the same is true of your idea here.

            I appreciate the idea that it is not just the classical path that counts. We need some thinking away from the mainstream to contribute its part. It is just a case of getting the right Lagrangian so that everything has the right weight and leads to the correct unbiased answer. I think some AI technology will use this kind of technique to get the right conclusions from the sum of human thinking and help steer humanity

            Hi Leo,

            Thanks for reading my essay and our comments. Yes Feynman is a very good and interesting physicist. I will try to have a look at our essay especially as you mention that it has some connection to "sum over histories" which at least on the surface would appears to give some connection to one of the themes of my own essay.

            Best,

            Doug

            Hi Chidi,

            Yes I have your essay on my list of to read essays. I will try to get to it in the next 1-2 days.

            Best,

            Doug

            Hi Phil ,

            Man thanks for reading my essay and your comments. Yes, my invocation of the path integral is to be taken as a very loose metaphor -- and as you reminded me this was in fact the spirit in which Dirac put forward the idea. I could have written the whole essay without the path integral metaphor, but I wanted to bring some connection to physics into the essay. The basics thrust of the essay is that humanity should be open to trying different paths *and* then should select those paths as "best" which lead to a good outcome based on objective criteria. Also I want to emphasize the suggestion is an experimental one in that one should try these paths out on a small scale and those which prove to be good then scale up.

            Physics/science for example used to be more open to trying different approaches. At the beginning of the 20th century SR, GR and QM showed that that idea that humanity almost knew all there was to know about the natural world (modulo some "i" dotting and "t" crossing) was wrong. Moreover these theories were almost immediately validated up to a certain limit by experiment. At present none of the small number of ideas of what comes next (string theory, loop quantum gravity, large/warped extra dimensions) has any unambiguous experimental support. For this reason my proposal is experimentally based -- if some societal path does not give good results based on some objective criteria it should be abandoned. A lot of bad results have occurred when people have tried to do top down social engineering and the refused to abandon a given approach when it was proven experimentally not to work e.g. Pol Pot sticking with his odd agrarian version of communism even when it was apparent to everyone that this was a very wrong path.

            Anyway thanks for reading my essay and best of luck in the contest.

            Doug