Akinbo,

I would contend that "space" itself has no natural co-ordinates, and no natural parameters or numbers associated with it. "Space" itself contains absolutely no information because it is a derived category of information. I think we will just have to agree to disagree about "space"!

Tom,

Re "the universe is its own algorithm" : In physics, the first step is to transform our knowledge of reality into symbolic representations of reality (parameters, numbers). It's only when you have the symbolic representations that you can do the algorithms. In the same way that the symbols are not the reality that they symbolize, the algorithms are not the reality that they symbolize. The algorithm is a symbolic manipulation that WE do.

Re "all physical results stem from a master program. " : Who or what wrote this miraculous program, or did it just write itself?

Re "Obviously physicists must perform calculations . . . doing calculations." : I actually meant "Obviously physicists must perform calculations, e.g. in experiments in order to estimate EXPECTED physical outcome parameter numbers, but this does not mean that fundamental reality is also doing calculations.".

Re "Where is the evidence that it isn't? Science isn't based in conclusions from evidence; it is based in correspondence between theory and evidence" : There is seemingly not much theory about how laws-of-nature effect outcomes, but there seems to be a lot of unspoken assumptions. If nature is doing it like we are doing it, then if WE take 10 calculation steps to arrive at a symbolic representation of a physical outcome, then seemingly nature must be doing it the same way. Do you hypothesize that there are hidden dimensions dedicated to performing these multi-step calculations?

Cheers,

Lorraine

Lorraine,

Would it be possible to use the same fact, that space contains no information, has no natural parameters or coordinates and conclude the opposite, that it is that absolute state, the neutral field in which all action occurs?

Currently the presumption is that reality is the measurement, but what is being measured? With time, we measure actions and as I keep pointing out, we intuitively relate that narrative duration from one event to another, to measures of distance from one point to another, but the underlaying reality being measured, with action, is these events physically coming into being and dissolving back into the process creating them, such as between peaks of waves, points on cycles, etc. Not the present "moving" from past to future, but the events "moving" from future to past. So the "point of the present" doesn't actually move as one would move from a point in space to another. Rather it is a physical dynamic occurring in what is physically present and which could presumably speed up or slow down. Basically measures of time are measures of frequency, just as measures of temperature are measures of amplitude. That is why there is no Newtonian universal flow of time, just the cumulative effect of lots of actions. Just as temperature is a cumulative effect of lots of amplitudes.

The consequence is that 'spacetime' is an interesting correlation of measures of underlaying properties, distance and duration and how various effects, such as acceleration and gravity affect/shrink the measurements equally, such that the speed of light will be the same in different frames. Now when they presume to reverse this property to try to explain how an expanding universe can mean space itself is expanding, they forget this correspondence between distance and duration and assume an otherwise stable speed of light, to judge this expansion. In other words, the assumption is that if the universe were to double in size, two points x lightyears apart would then be 2x lightyears apart, forgetting this means the speed of light is not constant to this expanded space, but maintains an otherwise constant rate of propagation across the vacuum. Which means the theoretical expansion is not of space but of distance, much as another person walking away from you is not expanding space, but only increasing distance.(Now an optical cause of redshift would better explain why we appear at the center of this expansion, just as the gravitational lensing of light doesn't actually move or distort the source, only the propagation of the light from it.)

What this means is there is some dimensional property of space that is being measured by such effects as light radiating across it. It has no physical properties to bend or bound it, only the actions occurring within it are so affected. Therefore it is both absolute, as in completely neutral and infinite, as in unbounded. Rather than zero being the point at the center of the coordinate system, it is the blank sheet on which the coordinates are drawn and act.

Consider also that a temperature of absolute zero is also an empty vacuum. It is only when you have the frequency and amplitude of physical activity, that you have time and temperature.

Regards,

John M

"The algorithm is a symbolic manipulation that WE do."

So? It's a recipe. Some know how to bake a cake without a recipe. The universe may bake its own cake without benefit of an algorithm, i.e., without being designed.

"Re 'all physical results stem from a master program.' : Who or what wrote this miraculous program, or did it just write itself?"

Some believe in God. My view? -- the universe is self organized at every scale. The potential for self organization is driven by resource availability and variety at multiple scales.

"Re 'Obviously physicists must perform calculations . . . doing calculations.' : I actually meant 'Obviously physicists must perform calculations, e.g. in experiments in order to estimate EXPECTED physical outcome parameter numbers, but this does not mean that fundamental reality is also doing calculations.'.

Again -- parameters are adjustable variables; input, not output. If nature can adjust its parameters at will, trying to do science is pointless, because no physical result is guaranteed to be replicable. I have to go with Einstein, "Nature is subtle, not malicious."

"Re 'Where is the evidence that it isn't? Science isn't based in conclusions from evidence; it is based in correspondence between theory and evidence' : There is seemingly not much theory about how laws-of-nature effect outcomes, but there seems to be a lot of unspoken assumptions. If nature is doing it like we are doing it, then if WE take 10 calculation steps to arrive at a symbolic representation of a physical outcome, then seemingly nature must be doing it the same way. Do you hypothesize that there are hidden dimensions dedicated to performing these multi-step calculations?"

This gets back to the question of independence between language (theory) and meaning (physical results). We aren't asking nature to calculate, any more than, e.g., we are asking a cat to know how to spell c-a-t in order to know what we objectively mean when we use the word "cat" in English or any other language. We aren't expecting nature to manifest the value of pi when we seek to measure it -- in fact, ideal circles and spheres don't naturally exist. What we are asking of nature is a correspondence of our theories with natural phenomena, not with our calculations. Most equations of nature are nonlinear and notoriously hard to solve -- yet that we can write the equations following certain rules, just as we know what we mean by "c-a-t" following rules of English -- we can objectively agree on a correspondence between the language and meaning.

Do I think there's a man behind the curtain inputting information into a machine that runs the universe? No. That's malicious.

"I just used neutrinos to illustrate that mass is a derived and not an absolute and primary property of substance. Even, E = MC2 shows this. Something that is in kilograms today, may not be in kilograms tomorrow."

What the equation means, Akinbo, is that units of energy and units of mass are interchangeable. Units of measure can be converted into each other, by an agreed standard (MKS, CGS, or SI).

"If you don't agree the view that the universe had a beginning from nothing, is expanding then my argument from cosmology can be discountenanced."

We know the universe is expanding (and accelerating); we don't know, however, what "nothing" means. Even the quantum vacuum is "something."

"Then as to 'things disappearing only from local observation; they don't disappear from physical reality, by conservation of energy and information', the same insight from cosmology applies. Everything is Zero, if you call that a conserved quantity, okay."

I agree. The principle of least action applies.

"And, if something disappears from local observation, where did it go? To another place where it will still be locally observed?"

Yes. If two events are only timelike separated, they are causally connected, and not spacelike separated. Although events that are spacelike separated are not causally connected to local timelike-separated events, they are causally connected to events from which they are not spacelike separated.

I don't know if you live in a part of Africa where there are large expanses of open area. In the Southern coastal plain of the U.S. where I was born, though (South Georgia), one can actually see distant rain or tornadoes that affect regions miles away with only minimal effect locally. Depending on the direction in which the rain or storm is moving, it may or may not eventually affect the region of the plain in which one is standing. That the system dissipates or leaves one's field of view, though, does not mean it has "disappeared." It can still be detected in its own local domain, or by radar that extends the local domain of observation without causal interference, to the limit of the radar's range.

Now -- when we take this Newtonian view of absolute access to information in an absolute space and time, and keep increasing the distance of the storm from us, the time that it takes for us to receive information increases with it, so that when it reaches the relativistic limit of the speed of light, there is no causal connection between our observation of the phenomenon and the light from it that reaches our senses. Turn your attention from the storm in the field, to the heavens above, and you will see light from events that happened millions of years before you were born. However:

For elementary particles such as photons that were created (emitted) at the speed of light and according to relativity cannot travel faster -- there is no distance at all between you and the spacelike separated events that you witness far away. As observers, we are prisoners of time in this respect; to the universe, time is unity and globally static.

Quantum mechanical experiments such as Bell-Aspect assume that time is locally unitary and static, as well. That is, they set the time parameter to 1 such that spacetime is quantized to include the entire quantum universe; there is no spacelike causal separation of events in principle, and therefore all events are timelike causally connected. For this assumption to work, however, the observer has to be an agent to whom, like the photon, time has no value. So our locally observed (causally connected) events are assumed to have a nonlocal (non-causally connected) relation. This doesn't fit with a spacetime theory of continuous measurement functions -- it's missing a degree of freedom.

That degree of freedom in Joy Christian's framework is the nonzero torsion of the parallelized 3-sphere in which we live.

Wow...there is a lot of energy on this thread.

Space is a very strange concept of a void of nothing and yet it is one that fills our intuition and our universe with a something that is nothing. This is the trouble with space. If you ask what is it you measure with a ruler, the question of course presupposes the answer.

If you ask instead what is it that separates objects, the answer can be either time or space. Action, you see, can be equivalently defined as a change in matter of an object with time or as a displacement of that object in space...or even as a displacement in spacetime.

I agree that there is no information in space, the information is in the objects and action and not in the space that we imagine. The information that we imagine for space in that that we imagine and space is therefore a convenient white board of our mind that allows us to keep track of a rather complex set of sensory information about objects and their actions.

Every bit of information and every bit of our reality comes from just the action of objects in time. From this information, we project the existence of the nothing void of space.

Why quantum, you say? Quantum works great with just time...it is gravity that is the bear. Gravity is simply incompatible with our notion of space, which is a statement that means that spacetime simply cannot yield a quantum gravity without some significant changes.

And the universe is shrinking and not expanding, but that is another story...

Lorraine, Tom,

How would a mathematician create a sphere?

Protractor, radius, circle, extend it to the third dimension, etc. No?

How would nature create a sphere?

The efficacy of surface tension. Yes?

So are dimensions really fundamental to nature, or just our modeling of it?

Steve,

What about when you ask; What are objects?

Think about it in terms of a factory; The product goes from initiation to completion, while the process faces the other direction, consuming raw material and expelling finished product. Just as we, as individuals, go from birth to death, while the species is constantly moving onto new generations and shedding the old.

Nodes and networks.

Galaxies are shrinking space, while intergalactic space expands. So draw a graph of that curvature, from the expanding intergalactic space, down to the vortex at the center of the galaxy. There are many processes at work there, from fields and waves collapsing into particles, photons, etc, to electromagnetic interactions, both pulling and pushing, to all the various pressures, tidal forces etc. Could gravity be that composite effect of energy coalescing into mass, across the entire spectrum? Much as the opposite, releasing energy from mass, creates broad spectrums of pressure, since it fills more space as energy, than as mass?

M=E/C2

Energy manifests form, while form defines energy. Since energy is dynamic and form is static, there is tension as energy compels change, while form resists it.

Such that "change happens one funeral at a time." The process goes onto the next...

Regards,

John M

"How would a mathematician create a sphere?

Protractor, radius, circle, extend it to the third dimension, etc. No?"

No.

A circle is constructed as a point whose circumferential points lie equidistant from the origin. The equation x^2 y^2 = 1 tells us that the 1-dimension curve called circumference of the circle divides the 2-dimension Euclidean plane into 2 parts, one finite and one infinite -- a discovery when generalized to all closed curves is known as the Jordan curve theorem.

Then the 3-dimension Euclidean sphere follows as a consequence, describing an object whose great circle circumference has points self similar to the 2 dimension circle that lie on a radial axis orthogonal to that of the plane origin.

Mathematics is made of definitions and theorems, not protractors and computers. It is in fact the theorems and the algorithms that follow from theorems, that tell protractors and computers how to work.

Were it the other way around, we would never know any world not immediately accessible to our biological senses.

Tom,

So maybe an engineer would start with a point and a protractor, but the progression; point, line, circumference, circle, sphere, ie. 1,2,3 dimensions, is similar. You don't dispute nature operates from the principle of surface tension, in the absence of external effects?

Regards,

John M

"You don't dispute nature operates from the principle of surface tension, in the absence of external effects?"

What meaning in that statement is clear and specific enough to dispute?

Tom,

Obviously it isn't clear to our reductionistic, linear, object oriented mindsets! That's why we used a step sequence of increasing dimensions to construct a sphere, but nature is not so circumscribed.

Regards,

John M

John M.

Is a set of dividers like a drawing compass with which you can inscribe a circle, the relation? or a toy?

The problem for physics is not in the pursuit of contemplative awareness, it is in creating a depiction of the reality we come to perceive. Because once a depiction is made, it's static. The conjugate pairs of the uncertainty principle resolve from motion, and hence even the least action, being a continuous function in reality; or there would not be uncertainty about the momentum of a particle and it's position. The energy in that momentum at the time of it's position, is an analogous condition. So in depiction, both conditions exist until you choose one as your measuring schema. Then a transform becomes necessary to depict the analogous other. jrc

"Obviously it isn't clear to our reductionistic, linear, object oriented mindsets!"

What mindset is it clear to, then?

That's Euchre, Tom! you're holding both bowers. jrc

Trouble is, they may be my only trump cards! Let's see. :-)

Tom,

I'm pretty sure you are playing with a full deck. And I think one of your trump cards is the transcendental numbers, quite some time ago you had briefly pointed to them in argument. The more I thought about it, and browsed, the more your point became evident. There aren't a lot of them, but they are transcendental because they transcend scales, and thereby they can be provisional of practical means for determination of a finite value on a continuous function. A wave function describing, say, a sinusoidal curve might find a node with the crossing line of a transcendental number curve, for instance. So it's incidental if we have complete knowledge of the initial state if we have a sufficient criteria of what the wave function is about. The node will at least delineate a parameter of those criteria.

Now I'm curious about this Jordan curve theorem. There's generally something illuminating by learning a bit about what T. Ray is talking about. :) jrc

John C,

It would be a tool. Just as a hammer or screwdriver extends the reach and effectiveness of our hands, legal codes extend the reach and effectiveness of our societies, telescopes the reach and focus of our sight. We create any number of useful devices and frequently they further our abilities in ways which we didn't necessarily foresee, yet they often do lead us astray in ways which we come to regret. From the time of Adam and Eve, we have recognized knowledge is a double edged sword.

As you so effectively describe it, the problem for physics seems to be creating a static understanding of a fundamentally dynamic reality. Yes, we do have to make tradeoffs, but the only conundrum seems to arise from assuming there is an objective knowledge of reality in the first place, so that if we keep flipping that coin fast enough, we can really see all sides at the same time. Maybe we need to drop that God's eye view, Tegmark's bird's eye view and accept that NOT ONLY IS KNOWLEDGE SUBJECTIVE, BUT IT IS INHERENTLY SUBJECTIVE!

Consider your discussion with Tom, where you can continually break down these dynamic processes and constantly extract fresh and new concepts, numbers, scales, dimensions, etcetc. I think it is safe to say that if you had a million theorists, with a million typewriters, er, computers and had them theorizing for eternity, they would always be able to extract some fresh nugget of static form, because there would always be some emergent layer of perspective, because, quite simply, it is fundamentally dynamic and. perception. is. subjective. Like taking a picture, it is all about editing out all the extraneous input, so the notion of some universal form of knowledge would mean being able to simultaneously know all signals being carried by every quantum of energy. Logically the actual effect would be overwhelming white noise.

Tom,

"What mindset is it clear to, then?"

So you are unable to comprehend how surface tension can result in a sphere? Maybe you could download the app.

Regards,

John M

John Merryman,

Nice to chat again, I can't help thinking your surname is apt (contrary to 'app').

Actually I was hoping you would pick up on the ploy that tools come from our toying with things, and recognizing some kind of relational utility. And I do agree that we can hold a simple cup in our hand, and comprehend it's function without a word in the mind.

That can be misleading at times, as well. Formalism and convention don't have the fallibility market cornered, though conventions are notoriously slow to change.

Formalism does have an advantage of being testable by axiom and symbology. So I don't think it is true that all knowledge is inherently subjective. I had a night course many years ago in Logic and Rhetoric which included symbolic logic which I remember I enjoyed, but then never put to use and have mostly forgotten. I've thought occasionally that I should check with the University branch and find the actual textbook, having given my copy to Save and Serve at one of those times when moving meant choosing. Set theory is combined into mathematics in many theoretical treatises, but the presentation as symbolic in logical rhetorical argument was much more intuitively accessible than the approach in algebra texts. And rhetorically it's a great reality check, I should brush up just for that.

I can respect your own aversion to math, and recognize your conceptual ability, so please take this as kindly as it is meant. Specific to a recurrent theme that you present, which I quite agree with and think is the gravitational parameter that unites the sub-atomic and cosmological scales; that of a corresponding outward and inward action, simultaneously. This is where a math methodology can trump non-quantifiable logic. Because what you feel is not being heeded in your rhetoric, is actually represented by what Tom, Jonathon and Joy refer to as 'non-zero torsion'. To the algebra, it's like seeing both sides of a Mobius strip. If there were not torsion (zero), the strip would simply be a loop of 2-D ribbon. Where that arrow pointing both towards and away, is located on the Hopf Fibration, could be deterministic of relative intensity within an isolated field, or interactively. Where I trip up trying to understand topology enough conceptually to stick a toe in the math, is I'm seduced by the geometric forms it can produce instead of grasping how the algebra connects geometric fundamental elements into those forms. Like Mom liked to joke; I'm slow but good with my hands.

Have you ever read Frank Herbert's 'Dune' series? Unless biochemistry comes up with a 'spice' to expand the consciousness of Guild Navigators into an interactive symbiosis with spacetime, I'm afraid we are stuck with physics, for practical matters, pinning the butterfly to a cork. Fare well, friend Merryman, jrc.

John,

It is a vague line between tools and toys, but I like to think of tools as extensions of ourselves, rather than sources of work.

It is not that I don't value formalisms, but I tend to view them more as the skeleton of the organism, while some seem to view them as the seed from which the organism sprang. It is not as though a basic observation as 1+1=2 isn't objectively valid, but that we tend to ignore that vast trove of knowledge Robert is constantly reminding us about, which gives it any and all meaning and context. There is no signal without noise and the more signal, proportionally there is vastly more noise.

I also recognize that there are two sides of the strip. One of the first inklings I had that physics had become too wrapped up in the details to see the bigger picture was learning, several decades ago now, that gravity and cosmic expansion were inversely proportional. They add up to zero, so where is the additional expansion for the universe as a whole to expand, if it's being balanced out? We know the space, or measure thereof, between galaxies is expanding, but it seems to have been overlooked that these galaxies are space sinks, not inert points of reference. So that Mobius strip would seem to be a convection cycle of collapsing mass and expanding radiation and we just haven't put all the pieces together, across all scales, of how these two sides balance out. By the time mass reaches the vortex at the center, it has already radiated enormous amounts of energy back out and then shoots those jets out the poles. Meanwhile energy does coalesce into mass, from light as a field being absorbed as photons, to heavy metals forming in stars.

So it's not like I don't value physics, but feel physicists might have their noses pressed a little too close to the glass and need a little cross disciplinary perception. The answers are not necessarily all in the very large, very small, or very abstract, if all these parts can't fit together seamlessly.

Regards,

John M

"So you are unable to comprehend how surface tension can result in a sphere?"

I understand surface tension, John. What is incomprehensible is your extrapolation of a local phenomenon explained by quantum mechanical rules of chemistry, to the universe. Science by metaphor?

Ray,

In what way am I extrapolating surface tension to the universe?

As I recall, I was comparing how a mathematician would create a sphere, building it up dimensionally from a point, to how nature would build one, as a consequence of surface tension, as an example in your discussion with Lorraine, about the steps we might use, versus steps nature might use.

The intention being to further my argument that while three dimensions are a very useful mapping tool, they are not necessarily fundamental to the nature of space.

Regards,

John