Dear Sylvain

Thank you for extensive explanation of gauge U(1) symmetry in Woit's theme. It will help.

But I am thinking about photons, for instance in the Feynman's book ''QED, the strange theory of light and matter''. Photon's wave function behaves like circular U(1) structure, but at the same time it seems that its circular structure is a consequence of Maxwell's equations. I see this as a quick explanation, why photons are gauge particles. Is this correct and how you say this better?

Best Regards

Janko Kokosar

Dear Sylvain,

Your essay is one of the very best in this contest: you are touching those levels of the problem, which are not even seen by so many participants. You surely deserve one of the highest ratings and I wish the jury to notice your essay and let it be among the finalists.

Good luck!

Alexey.

Hi Sylvain--

I enjoyed your essay very much. Wow! You covered an immense amount of ground. Your essay must hold the record for substantive subject areas. In this regard, your Abstract is superb. It clearly and succinctly outlines your position. I especially enjoyed your analysis of the Problem of Evil. In my opinion, your views are spot on.

As to the rating system for this contest, I have no comment ... other than to say that I hope my rating of your essay has pushed it in the right direction!

Best regards,

Bill.

5 days later

Dear Sylvain,

Drawn to your essay by your clear (and often very accurate) comments in other places here, your essay then drew me to the "new social network" ideas in your other writings. Especially re trust!

It's in this context that I'd like to address an issue that has applicability to your essay and your trust-forum ideas. An issue that is already troublesome at FQXi; as you have seen. An issue where I believe us to be in general agreement as to ends, though differing as to means.

Allowing that my own essay may be nonsense,* the question arises: How is it that, in public and semi-public fora, non-science receives so many "top rankings"?

Suggestion: From psychology we have the well-known ripple-effect of small kindnesses; it being well-established socially that the gift of small kindnesses to friends and strangers motivates the exchange of similar kindnesses in return. This is especially effective with those who crave or are needy of such; and I'm not talking about withholding encouragement, for the pro-evolutionary benefits in general society are clear.

But the modern con of this in science-related public fora is that the cost-free gifting of fake-praise and unrealistic support (its high value often signalled) leads to the ongoing spread of pseudo-science in return! And hence (in turn) to the rise of a cohort of misleading pseudo-intellectuals in their mutual admiration societies and cliques.

Perhaps it was ever thus ... in politics ...

Please: How is the related issue of trust addressed in your new social network?

* Given the following approximate pattern, it seems that my essay is not entirely nonsense; though the consequent negative-ripples of my concrete tough-love responses shine through:

Public vote: 10x4 1x5 => 45 votes/9 = 5.0.

Community vote: 10x4 1x5 => 45 votes/9 = 5.0.

With best regards; Gordon Watson: Essay Forum. Essay Only.

NB: Re-posted with typo corrected.

    Thank you for your thoughtful message and interesting questions.

    "differing as to means" : which ones do you think of ?

    "How is it that, in public and semi-public fora, non-science receives so many top rankings ?"

    I gave a sketch of explanation in my review of this contest, section "What is obscurantism and why is it so popular in the world". The requirement of superficial appearance of rationality in the public's eyes, is quite different from the requirement of true scientific rationality, so that it is easier to satisfy the first by dropping the second. I described many examples of this phenomenon in my page On humanity's failures to steer itself properly. See also in my philosophical site the pages on irrationality and Nottale's Scale Relativity. On the "kindness" issue, see also MBTI and morality.

    "How is the related issue of trust addressed in your new social network?"

    There will be different aspects of solutions. The way is first to provide dynamic logical tools for Web-wide distinctions of ideological communities, providing the means for each community to define itself, co-opt is members and develop internal discussions. This will make it possible to create scientific fora "only for serious people", free from any flood of pseudo-scientific contributions. Of course, pseudo-intellectual communities will still develop on their side, but the important thing is to make explicit the distinctions and oppositions between communities, so as to provide to "right people", no matter which ones they are, the chance to only interact with other right people when they so choose, no matter if they are a minority of the population, without being harassed by the contributions of a possibly larger number of wrong people.

    See also my description of power system, where people can choose qualified representatives to manage complicated problems for them (only for them ! the majority cannot force anything on the minority here), when they are aware of not being able to manage themselves.

    Once done, I expect things to evolve as follows :

    Rational communities will have better abilities to clearly define themselves, process debates and reach internal agreements. Irrational communities will remain an unstable mess, unable to reach a common clear agreement on what they believe in; their superficial appearance of mutual praise will fall under the mounting evidence of their many internal contradictions and unresolved conflicts that new technologies can detect much more efficiently than now.

    Then it will appear objectively clearer which side is right and which side is wrong: irrational people may look nice but where are the fruits of their ideas ? What did they effectively succeed ? What did they correctly understand and predict ? Then, the law of market will be at work : profits and investments will go to successful communities ; irrational communities will be financially unsustainable. There is also one new tool I propose to help the investment on right projects over foolish ones even if the foolish ones "look better".

    Thanks indeed for your helpful and comprehensive reply. I'll continue my studies via your links; noting for now only that "morality" gave a 404 error message.

    So there follows here my response to your return question, "differing as to means" : which ones do you think of ?

    1. As an engineer, and as a carefully-defined common-sense local-realist (see my essay), I see myself as a very concrete thinker. To that end I take maths to be the best logic and I work hard to resolve differences of opinion via rigorous rational (reasoned) analysis. This mainly involves mathematical modelling of the systems under discussion; though it often involves little more than plain maths, flow-charts, critical-path analyses, or the like. It certainly involves experimental validation wherever possible.

    2. Now it seems to me that you are equally (and maybe more so) capable of such analysis; especially when (in my view) the current FQXi essay topic screams out for such rigour. Nevertheless, many of your arguments have been based on your strong opinions. The result is that we essentially find your own strong opinion contesting other strong opinions (most of the latter being crackpot).

    3. Moreover (for me), the problem is worsened because your opinions (based on broadly accepted science, which is commendable) often do not get down to "valid subtleties" that your opponents wrestle with (and thus club together with) every day.

    4. Here I offer my own essay by way of example; noting that many famous physicists (and former opponents; eg, David Mermin) are now rejecting nonlocality or (eg, Bernard d'Espagnat) are noting that locality is not ruled out by current science -- as I read them. For I take care to present mathematically sharp definitions of such intuitions as Realism, Separability, Local-causality; at the same time noting that (in general) a 'measurement' perturbs the 'measured' system.

    5. By way of illustration, a clear example (there are several) arises with regard to Ed Klingman's essay. As I read the comments there (Ed Klingman's Forum) we essentially find opinion versus opinion (with crackpots reigning supreme).

    6. Now Cristi Stoica (a physicist, and one of the leading community-ranked essayists here) set Ed a simple technical challenge AND Ed was unable to meet it.

    7. Further, as I recall (for I've not recently studied the comments there), I seem to be one of the few that tackles Ed's conceptualisations and his associated maths. This results in the conviction that Ed's program and model are nonsense -- and my reasons and Ed's answers (or lack thereof) are there in plain view -- while at the same time acknowledging that we were once close colleagues and that my work can be found hiding (though distorted) in his.

    8. So, if you would deliver your own mathematically-based critique there, a strong case would be established against Ed's nonsense from three serious but rational points of view. In other words, I have attempted to show that mathematical problems hidden in Ed's presentation render it nonsense. And I think even a cursory mathematical analysis by you would yield a similar conclusion; a total of three strong strikes against the crackpots!

    9. The beauty of such analysis from you there, and elsewhere throughout FQXi, is that serious readers can follow your arguments more easily and it forces essayists to correct misleading typos, errors, confusions and blunders (of which Ed's essay is but one shining example).

    10. Now, in my experience, in any battle of opinions at FQXi: the crackpots outnumber the sane! But the beauty of our dialogue around mathematical analysis would then arise from the fact that your opinion might already rate my own essay to be crackpot -- but (I am confident) your maths and analysis would not:

    For my work focuses on the elimination of nonlocality from physics. And surely, for you, that would be no bad thing?

    PS: ME of course READILY ACCEPTING that you have every right to follow your interests elsewhere; but for the benefit of us all, please use your maths/logic skills wherever possible!

    With my thanks again, and best regards; Gordon Watson: Essay Forum. Essay Only.

    Thanks for explanations. But I dismiss as irrelevant the claim that it would be "opinion against opinion". Imagine you meet a child, or a member of a primitive community, who strongly believes that the Earth is flat and steady at the center of the Universe, and that the Sun revolves around it in one day. What can you tell him ? If you try to just report what is scientifically known, he would dismiss your views as "just your opinion". We can say about it exactly what you tell here : the opinion that the Earth is round, rotates on itself in one day, and around the Sun in one year, is "based on broadly accepted science, which is commendable" ; however it is just a strong opinion. Indeed, from reporting the known scientific facts to "making a strong case" for them, there is a long way. It would be a lot of work for you to build a complete solid proof. Can we say, then, that, as long as you did not make the work of presenting a complete proof, the evidence for the scientific view is lacking, and the belief in it is "just a strong opinion" ?

    My point is, complete proofs just need to be found once. As soon as scientists discovered solid proofs once, there is no sense eternally pretending all over again at every generation that it remains speculative, that "a strong case remains to be made" as if it was not sufficiently made already.

    Just imagine that whenever 3 people meet with "different opinions", 2 of them have unscientific views as they are just ignorant about science, and the one defending the scientific view is not ready to provide in the next 5 minutes the full logical content of the 2-years scientific course that would be needed to explain all the details of the amount of scientific evidence for the Round Earth Revolving Around the Sun theory so as to convince the other people in the meeting, we would have to consider the case for the Round Earth as doubtful all over again, a mere "strong opinion", and a strong rational case for it remains to be made. Would that make any sense ? I don't think so. It may be true that it is a hard problem, and that those who believe in the Steady Flat Earth have lots of thoughts and are struggling with conceptual subtleties. So what ? Of course there are conceptual subtleties to struggle with in these issues! This is no news ! There is no point to deny this. Still, at the end of the day, it does not change the fact that the Flat Earth believers, no matter the subtleties of their thoughts, just have absolutely no chance of being right, this is clear and there is no point to waste time all over again to "discover" this.

    Now it's up to you to take it as your life mission to go struggle with the details of difficulties that some people face as they did not understand science and they think they have arguments to reject scientific conclusions, in case you would see this as the best thing you can do of your life. As for me I consider that I have some much more urgent and useful things to do for the world with my intelligence than care that much for the psychological problems (lengthy educational paths) of this precise kind of people, since anyway I do not expect them to become as useful to mankind with their re-educated intelligence if I care to teach them those lessons, than I can be useful to mankind with my intelligence directly by myself in other ways.

    (Actually, all my above reply is almost redundant with my text on irrationality, especially with the remark "the situation is rather symmetrical", so please care following my links to not make me repeat things too much)

    "many famous physicists (and former opponents; eg, David Mermin) are now rejecting nonlocality": well, just like religious people see a mounting evidence against Darwinism, climate-skeptics see mounting scientific evidence against man-made global warming, and Muslims see a growing amount of scientific evidence for the divinity of the Koran. Whatever your opinion you are free to believe in the existence of a growing amount of scientific evidence and number of scientists supporting it. The only problem with such beliefs is that they are not themselves scientific.

    "For my work focuses on the elimination of nonlocality from physics. And surely, for you, that would be no bad thing?" You are welcome to focus your work on eliminating the roundness of the Earth from science, I have no problem with it :-p but personally for me the simple fact is that, as I explained in my essay and my more detailed page, I do not see non-locality as a paradox at all, so that I do not see it as a "problem in need of a solution", that would make a newly discovered locally realistic theory of physics anyhow "needed" or "more plausible in principle".

    (404 error corrected, I was not careful writing the url, thanks for the note)

    Dear Sylvain,

    Many thanks for your detailed analyses and exchanges as well as the broad sweep of your interests and their accessibility. We hold many experiences and views in common.

    In the same vein, I'd really welcome your math skills being directed at my own math: but I understand and appreciate your position.

    In any case, I'm really not ready for such: my second draft will be the better target. For it's not so much about "taking the roundness of Earth from science". More like attempting a considered contribution to the hope that Born addressed in his Nobel acceptance speech.

    Which reminds me. Maybe it's time to first write up a simple derivation of Born's rule from elementary first principles. For your critique there would not be wasted; and I'm not aware that it's been done before. (Though even the announcement of such should render it already obvious.)

    PS: If you reply here, please open a thread at Gordon Watson: Essay Forum and post a note so that I get a signal of such.

    With best regards; Gordon

    Dear Sylvain,

    Thanks for commenting in my forum. Indeed I think our views are very similar. What I do not understand in your essay is the need to introduce two different time structures. If the time structure manifests itself in the irreversibility of thermodynamics, then why not let the memory process in our mind be a normal information storage process? Why introduce non mathematical memory?

    Then also in quantum mechanics, why not let a irreversible process let do the reduction of the density matrix? (The collaps, when then one event has been registered is another story).

    That's all so far. Hope to have more time soon to read your interesting web site.

    Best regards

    Luca

      19 days later

      "why not let the memory process in our mind be a normal information storage process ?" Robots can work like this, but our memory is essentially different, in the following way : you can always erase, replace or modify the memory of robots in any way you wish, they will have no way to measure the faithfulness of their memory with respect to what really happened.

      On the contrary, what would you think of the claim that some sophisticated robots have just made you up 2 minutes ago together with all your memory of what you are taking as your past life but which never really happened ? Can you refute it ? If your memory was nothing else than a "normal information storage process" then you would not even have a reason to believe that any event that you remember ever really happened, since, what the heck would this claim be supposed to mean anyway ? Only the present would exist ; what the heck would the idea of the past be supposed to be about ? You would only have an arbitrarily modifiable memory to play with.

      "why not let a irreversible process do the reduction of the density matrix?" : the practical reduction to a diagonal form is done by the well-known physical process of decoherence, which I include in my view ; then I see the selection of one possible measurement result as done by consciousness (as there is no natural candidate equation for it). Not sure what was your question on this issue.

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