Societal Path Integral by Douglas Alexander Singleton

Doug,

Judy pointed out my reply re electrons/photons could be misconstrued as assuming photons as spin 1/2. I'm sure you didn't read it as that but I wasn't clear Invoking OAM for spin 1/2 merely put electrons under the same laws as photons, each of which may be 'observed' as either clockwise or anticlockwise subject to observer (simplify to 'photomultiplier') electron field spin orientation.

Weihs, Zeilinger et al used a PAIR of photomultipliers. They found a 'rotation' from the filter (in their case an opto-electric 'analyser' so voltage dependent), which implicitly meant the findings were REVERSED at beyond 90 degrees. Of course there's no direct proof of that unless each pair is identified, but the circumstantial evidence is irresistable and resolves the (vast majority) anomalous data in Aspects findings.

It's really then just a case of 'joined up' science. Finding a more consistent description in one field that then also resolves problems in the one next door. Hannes Alfven described how he had to FORCE scientists in one lab to speak to those down the corridor as between them they solved each others problems. But they still hated doing so!

This solution leads direct to Unification (did you pick up on how?) Seemingly the only clear direction we should be steering, though most are still not looking or seeing. Is anyone prepared to act rather than just semanticise to make it happen? What else could I do?

Best wishes

Peter

Dear Douglas,

no doubt your essay scores high in terms of originality, although, based just on the title, I had hoped for some deeper connection between the path integral concept and some novel way to look at the business of steering our future. However, you are honestly declaring that the metaphor is loose, which, in a way, makes the reader (or this reader) more relaxed and more willing to appreciate the several interesting examples that you mention. Your prose is fluent and, occasionally, pleasingly humorous. The idea to keep the reader under a multi-continental shower for such a long time is quite effective.

One small criticism. I liked the idea to distinguish (in the first section) between large and small events, and the associated dualism of known unkowns and unknown unknowns; there are unpredictable small events which can have a large positive impact on the course of humanity (this made me think of complex systems, emergence, and the antipodal butterfly that I mention in my essay, which is, however, malicious). I got the impression that the rest of the paper would concentrate on these events - the most interesting type, of course! However that distinction is basically lost in the remaining three sections, where nothing seems to relate to it, at least not explicitly. What you do is basically support the idea of trying many alternative implementations of small projects, while somehow forgetting that dualism. In fact, it seems to me that these projects could only deal with the `known unknown` case, and not with the more attractive (and difficult) alternative. But maybe I have missed some intended logical link. In this case, I`d appreciate your reply.

Best regards

Tommaso

Dear prof. Singleton,

Wonderful essay! I enjoyed your path integral analogy very much, and I strongly agree with your opinion. Humanity should try as many paths as possible to reach the most successful one.

You write "If on the other hand one funds many small scale projects there is a better chance one or more of these approaches will prove beneficial." This brings to my mind the rising importance of small science projects vs. big projects, which I discuss in my essay. I would be honored if you read it and told me your opinion.

Best regards,

Mohammed

Great essay, Douglas. The path integral metaphor is beautiful and evocative (and among other things reminds me how much I loved Feynman's little book on QED). I completely agree with you on the advantages of social experimentation. I think Diamond is right to argue that Europe's fragmentation gave cities and states the space to experiment that eventually produced modern liberal democracy and capitalism.

You anticipated and addressed almost all the caveats that struck me. As you say, institutional structures may not scale up (or down--it's easier in many ways, for example, to address the entire US health care market at once than in pieces). And politics constrains what's possible, since we aren't governed by technocratic utility maximizers.

I would also add that while we may not have the ability to control which black-swan events befall us--this is what I write in my own essay--we can nevertheless make society more resilient to unexpected shocks. We can't prevent lightning from striking, but we can ensure ourselves against damage. In general, I think we should prepare not just for our median, best guess about the future, but for as much of the space of potential futures as possible.

Again, great essay. It deserves to do well.

Best,

Robert de Neufville

Doug,

I agree with an electron experiment, but not sure it's doable. Photons do fine to verify my thesis, o consistent with the links you give and many others. It ideally needs a 'range' of settings, filters and p-multiplyers to give enough data points to prove it's an elephant not the present camel! I'd have thought predicting the unexplained Aspect and Weihs data may have carried some weiht! (lol) but it seems old doctrine needs to be crushed to death before anyone will even look. I'm not sure that's possible.

Victor Vaguine's essay is interesting, including the Bell interview excerpt from 'Ghost in the Atom'; Question: "And you can't imagine a more elaborate arrangement that might expose these defects in quantum mechanics?"

John Bell: "I cannot, but I hope that's only because of my limitations. I think it is very probable that the solution to our problems will come through the back door; some person who is not addressing himself to these difficulties with which I am concerned will probably see the light. An analogy that I like is that of the fly buzzing against a window when the door is open. It can be extremely useful to stand back from your problems and just wonder about for a time, and it is quite possible that those of us who are somewhat fixated on these questions will not be those who see the way through".

He was almost certainly right. But unfortunately it seems even if a large butterfly shows the way in the flies will still insist there isn't one because the glass is still intact. How can that be overcome? I suggest a paper with a dozen or more authors may be needed to be taken seriously be editors. What do you think?

Peter

Glad to see your essay bouncing back after a probable sneak assault with 1's. I'm still getting them too. Hold tight for the roller coaster!

Douglas,

The reason why you didn't comment on my essay might be your disagreement with paths of reasoning that I adopted from Galileo, Nobel, Michelson, and Shannon who deviated from current Ein(stein)stream.

On the other hand, I am sure some basic arguments must not be ignored:

- The only acceptable human perspective is that of mankind as a whole, not of any single national path; ethics must be adapted appropriately.

- The future is open.

- Non-causality only occurs as an artifact.

- All paths of reality are directed ahead.

- War, malnutrition, illnesses etc. were necessary and must be substituted instead of fighting against mere symptoms of irresponsible developments.

- Within foreseeable future mankind has only one earth.

- Paths of obvious fraud, e.g. claimed achieved cold fusion, are futile.

- While the topic "How should humanity steer the future?" suggests taking the somewhat illusory position of someone who steers e.g. by selected funding, I see the possibilities to anticipate discoveries and inventions rather limited.

Let me tell a story: A man who chaired an institute about 30 years ago dared promising to government and party in what was the GDR (Eastern part of Germany) to deliver exactly 40 inventions in honor of their 40th anniversary. Most of these planned inventions were, of course, close to fraud.

Don't you agree?

Best,

Eckard

Dear Douglas Singelton

You found a good analogy between path integrals and diversity, which is necessary in selection of good ideas. Another analogy are also neuronal networks. You also included the Black Swan theory. The first condition is that there is a lot of ideas. Capitalism and free market are also more successful than socialism because this diversity is allowed. Non-diversity was also one of the causes for the last financial crisis.

But we need also large scale planning or state initiative. Military research, for instance, gave that the internet arose. Similar diversity in needed also for publication of scientific papers, but here it is almost embargo for papers which are not from universities. It is written by Gibbs. This is analogically as free market embargo. Your formula for relations between energy and civilisations is also in connection with the paper, which try to find explanation, how life evolved. He claims that more developed life forms use more energy and so they are increasing entropy. I claim that mammals use more energy than lizards. Even today more developed cultures use more energy and causes more pollution (entropy). But, I think that computer technology reduces entropy, a little.

My essay

Best regards

Janko Kokosar

Douglas,

I have responded to your comments in my thread (under the common accidental Anonymous nickname!).

I also added the following:

PS - I know that the deadline is approaching. I did rate your essay, a few days ago, after commenting. You write that you hope to find more time to give a more thorough reading to my work. If this means that you have not yet rated it, please do (the deadline is approaching). Rating here is definitely a complex system. I`ve been for a long time in the top 15, but a couple of days ago, probably due to a malicious antipodal butterfly, I jumped to around rank 30 in one shot, which looks strange to me under both a continuous and a discrete mathematical viewpoint.

Hi Douglas,

Thanks for the interesting essay.

I think you might find some connection with my essay on computationally intelligent personal dialogic agents. This system (I have a prototype developed as part of a NSF CAREER award) can "steer" individual interactions by providing guidance in the moment of action. I envision many kinds of evaluation incorporating a multitude of factors as the system "tests" different interventions in human dialogue. It will be able to take your idea of evaluating many small projects and moving them to the level of conversations.

I'd appreciate a rating, if you can do that, since I am a bit short on ratings, and also appreciate it if you know of any potential collaborators in the further development of the dialogic system.

Thanks,

Ray Luechtefeld, PhD

Hi Janko,

Thanks for reading my essay and now that we have more time I will be able to read yours.I still have a list of other essays I promised to read, but the points you make are interesting and appear to have some connection to some of the themes in my essay. In regard to capitalism vs. socialism I would say one needs a socialistic form of capitalism :-) or probably more plainly capitalism with socialistic constraints in order to make the system a fair competition. For example, after the fall of the Soviet Union there was probably no more purely capitalistic place on Earth than Russia -- everything was for sale. But very quickly the wealth of Russia was concentrated into the hands of a few oligarchs. What seems to happen in unfettered capitalism (at least this appeared the case in Russia) was that after a brief period of competition the "winners" would use their position to unfairly crush the competition at which point one no longer had real capitalism -- a fair and open market place. Thus my conclusion was that one needed some outside constraints in place to prevent this from happening. However if some country becomes too regulated this is also not good.

On a different topic I agree with Phil Gibbs' critic of peer review. A lot of nonsense gets published that is just minor piddling with equations, and some stuff gets rejected that is really worthwhile. In this regard Phil is correct that not having an academic affiliation will put you already at a disadvantage. However, even if you have an academic affiliation and even if you have won a Nobel prize there can be resistance if you propose a really new idea. Look at the discussion above with Peter Jackson. He mentions a Nobel laureate in chemistry (Dan Shecktman) who proposed some novel idea in chemistry but had his work rejected for a long time. In a recent Cosmos episode it is discussed how Faraday's later ideas of E&M fields were ignored despite his many earlier successes. Finally there is the case of Julian Schwinger, one of the giants of 20th century physics, being rejected when he started to work on a theoretical basis for cold fusion. Cold fusion of course in regard to the original claims appears wrong, but there nevertheless seems to be some interesting but not understood reaction going on and at the time it was not clear immediately this was wrong so Schwinger was looking to see if there was some theoretical basis for this. I think Schwinger was so upset/disgusted with the reaction of his peers that he quit the National Academy of Science.

Anyway I will get to your essay before next Friday. Best,

Doug