WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL by Joe Fisher

Dear Joe,

On my essay's page, you wrote: "All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it." I take you on your offer, and I hope you will give me fair answers!

I will not start with objections, because right now, there are so many aspects of your essay that I do not understand that I need many clarifications first. I will ask my questions one at a time, so you can give me specific answers.

OK, here's my first question!

On page 1 of your essay, you start by deploring that mainstream physicists deal with abstractions (abstract object, abstract force, abstract motion) instead of "real" stuff. Yet, in the third paragraph, you admit that there is such a thing as a real object, because you write:

"Any real object can appear as a real solid, or a real liquid, or as a real vapor depending on its subjection to real extremes of real temperature. It is difficult to believe in a real object's proclivity for being at real rest or in real calculated motion when any real object's real inconsistent physical endurance is so unpredictably ephemeral."

If I understand correctly, you say that because real objects can change phase (solid-liquid-gas), it is impossible to say that they can be at real rest or that they can be in real motion. I don't understand why you say that. Imagine a brick that stays solid for many, many years (surely, it is possible?). If the brick detaches from a high building and falls to the street, why can't I say that (in Earth's reference frame) it was at real rest in the beginning and in real motion just before it crashed on the sidewalk? Surely, there was a difference between what it was doing before it detached and after?

I am looking forward to your answer to this very specific first question, before we can get to more interesting questions!

Marc

Dear Joe,

Of course I have a real surface (with 9 holes, as you often specify in your replies!), and so do the objects in the room. But you lose me right away with your statement:

"Obviously, all real surfaces must travel at the same constant speed; otherwise, they would not stay in position to be observed simultaneously."

I have a clock on my wall with a seconds hand, and I can clearly see that the tip of the hand does not stay in position compared to the face of the clock (if it did, it wouldn't be a useful clock!!!). To me, it clearly means that the tip of the hand is not moving at the same constant speed as the face of the clock, and yet, I can observe the tip of the hand and the face of the clock simultaneously! Your statement is clearly false... unless you somehow have a definition of "surface" and/or of "speed" that is different from the usual meaning of the words in the English language. Can you help me make sense of your statement?

Marc

Joe, I've addressed (on my Essay Forum) the most recent comment that you left there. Regards: Gordon

Joe in my wiew real universe is physical and mathematical too. Not only stone also number one is real, it exist.

Light speed depends on the variable energy density of quantum vacuum, Shapiro expeeriment proves that.

yours amrit

Dear Joe,

You say that, on a clock, the surface of the pointers must travel at the same constant speed whether the clock is working or not. I don't understand... if the clock is not working, the pointer always points to the same number on the clock face, but if the clock is working, the pointer MOVES (which means it has some SPEED) and doesn't always point at the same number... I am starting to suspect that you do not use the word "speed" in the usual way. In your system, how do you define speed? As distance traveled divided by time (like it is usually done), or in some other way?

Marc

Thank you for rereading my essay.

Your previous post is disappeared from my page essay.

I have already read all the essay, and I must say that this year the level of the best deserve a publication; and I think that the community evaluation worked well.

Regards

Domenico Oricchio

Dear Joe Fisher ! Maths can be viewed as a method of measuring events as perceived by us human beings; the psychological perception of physical events is generally called human history. Abstractions of these processes, via maths or linguistics, are human attempts to give meaning to the events; a deeper understanding of our human reality cannot be disconnected from the scientific tools we use to explore the realities of life.As a result, we have to stay sane in a crazy world by writing and communicating our essays. Best: stephen

Dear Joe Fisher,

Thank you for your kind comment on my essay.

Joe, you remark in your essay "each real person's brain is located in the subsurface of each real persons cranium." Although I exist and perceive myself as a biological whole, you appear to be abstracting a piece of me and calling it a "brain". Perhaps I have misunderstood you for years, but I thought that it was exactly this abstracting a unique unity of existence into some pieces, which is what the physicist does, that you objected to.

Reading your essay and your remarks, it seems that you are propounding a theory of physics when you discuss the surfaces and sub surfaces. But physics theories are typically created for the purpose of predicting either properties or behaviors. It is not clear to me exactly what you predict from your theory.

You have over the years been very kind to me in your remarks, so I bear you no ill will whatsoever, and often enjoy your remarks, but it's difficult to tell when you are being consistent or inconsistent with your own approach to abstraction. Sometime it seems that the safest approach to communicating with you is in Joseph Pecheur's comment above.

You mention above that, taking LSD, Timothy Leary still saw surfaces. But it's also reported by people who have taken Salvia Divinorum that their visual perception of their surroundings is as if it were painted on the inside of a balloon into which their eyes were peering. I don't know if you get this picture, but it essentially is one in which everything they see is simply one surrounding surface 'painted' on the inside of the 'balloon', including when they look down at themselves; what they can see of their own (front) surface appears to be 'painted' on the interior of the balloon, and there is the perception that they are literally connected to everything 'outside' of the balloon, ie., everything they cannot see. My point is that subjective perception of surfaces is not even universal in the sense that you seem to insist upon. In the Salvia perspective, the only relevant surface would seem to be the one at their retina [if I may make an abstraction].

I am much more comfortable with your insistence that the universe is one and unique. Surfaces seem to me to include more complexity than you have outlined. Certainly by all appearances everything has a surface, although the surface of a cloud is not as abstractly simple as the surface of you or an insect or a turtle.

In your essay you remark that "The real Universe is real in the absolute sense of the word." and I agree that "One real Universe must consist of only one real inseparable substance." And I very much like your summary statement: "The real Universe am."

I think you're right about that. There is a story about a group of philosophers asking the Zen teacher DT Suzuki about a table. They asked in what sense is the table real. Suzuki replied, "In every sense."

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Joe,

I like the way you emphasize the difference between the physics (the real universe) and the maths (the abstract model).

I think to fully understand any concept in physics it is necessary to create a very good description of the physics before applying the mathematical model. To have a mathematical model in which the physical description is uncertain (e.g. quantum theory) seems likely to lead to an incomplete theory.

So emphasizing the distinction between the real and the abstract is an important step that you have made.

Regards

Richard

Joe,

In either your essay or your cut and paste comment, you make mention of real astronomers looking through real telescopes.

I have a simple question for you ... how did those astronomers get those telescopes?

Did you know that Newton was an astronomer? He was very pleased with the fact that he made his own instruments, and ground his own mirrors and lenses. So in Newton's case, he used his abstract understanding of optics to build a real telescope. That and the whole prism thing with light ... that was pretty cool too I guess.

Best Regards and Good Luck,

Gary Simpson

Dear Sir,

There is no difference between our views on reality. You might have noticed:"We define reality as everything that exists (has a limited structure that evolves in time), is intelligible (perceivable or knowable as the result of measurement) and communicable (describable in a language as defined in our essay: Transposition of information to another system's CPU or mind by signals or sounds using energy. The transposition may relate to a fixed object/information. It can be used in different domains and different contexts or require modifications in prescribed manner depending upon the context)". Thus, mirages are not real. There is some real content in holograms and sand dunes, as they exist, are intelligible and can be described in communication, though their perception may contain misleading information like a mirage.

In dreams, we see the objects we had seen in wakeful state. But these images are drawn from memory. Hence they are not bound by physical laws. For example, if we have seen horses and birds flying, we may dream of flying horses, though physically it is impossible. You are also correct in this regard.

During hallucinations under influence of drugs, exhaustion, deceases or psychological factors, we are in a state of lucid dreams. Thus, we see many things that are unreal or semi-real.

We have replied to your points raised in our thread.

Regards,

basudeba

Oops! Sorry Joe, I forgot that you asked me to reply on your page, and posted my reply to you on my own page here. Here it is again.

Verily I say unto thee (I always wanted to use that expression), WELL DONE! Many thanks for saying my essay's engrossing and exceptionally well written. I had to read your essay a second time to appreciate its real value. You've stimulated me to write a lot, so I'll divide this into 5 comments.

Comment #1

In my opinion, what your essay refers to as "inert light" is what I refer to in these words (I can't remember if I actually used these words in my FQXi essay or not) -

"Since space-time is composed of gravitons, gravity does not need to travel - the gravitational field already exists everywhere. Nevertheless, any disturbance (from the waving of your hand to explosion of a supernova) will send ripples called gravitational waves through the universe. Since gravity makes electromagnetism, the universe is also a giant electromagnetic field. Electromagnetism is ubiquitous and doesn't need to travel, but any disturbance sends out electromagnetic waves."

Comment #2

Your abstract says the real universe has no ascertainable interior exterior or duration. Regarding interior/exterior, something I wrote about a week ago seems to have a similar meaning (the final sentence seems to be the most relevant part) -

"For the note below on the figure-8 Klein bottle, I refer to -

a) Bourbaki, Nicolas (2005). Lie Groups and Lie Algebras. Springer

b) Conway, John (1986). Functions of One Complex Variable I. Springer

c) Gamelin, Theodore (January 2001). Complex Analysis. Springer

d) Joshi, Kapli (August 1983). Introduction to General Topology. New Age Publishers

e) Spanier, Edwin (December 1994). Algebraic Topology. Springer

Informally - if an object in space consists of one piece and does not have any "holes" that pass all the way through it, it is called simply-connected. A doughnut (and the figure-8 Klein bottle it resembles) is "holey" and not simply connected (it's multiply connected). The universe appears to be infinite, being flat on the largest scales and curved on local scales (from far away, a scene on Earth can appear flat, yet the curves of hills become apparent up close). A flat universe that is also simply connected implies an infinite universe (Luminet, Jean-Pierre; Lachi`eze-Rey, Marc - "Cosmic Topology" - Physics Reports 254 (3): 135-214 (1995) arXiv:gr-qc/9605010). So it seems the infinite universe cannot be composed of subunits called figure-8 Klein bottles (flat universes that are finite in extent include the torus and Klein bottle). But gaps in, or irregularities between, subuniverses shaped like figure-8 Klein bottles are "filled in" by binary digits in the same way that computer drawings can extrapolate a small patch of blue sky to make a sky that's blue from horizon to horizon. This makes space-time relatively smooth and continuous - and gets rid of holes, making Klein subunits feasible. The Klein bottle is a closed surface with no distinction between inside and outside (there cannot be other universes, a multiverse, outside ours - there's only one universe)."

Comment #3

To make my reference to the figure-8 Klein bottle clear, I offer the following. (While reading it, remember that when bits - electronics' Binary digITS of 1 and 0 - are only regarded as units of information, they certainly are abstract and not physical. So you can hopefully see my point of view; I simultaneously look at bits as the result of electrical switching, with currents normally being "on" (usually represented by the binary digit 1) or "off" (0). A Binary digIT can thus be viewed as a pulse of energy.)

"String theory says everything's composed of tiny, one-dimensional strings that vibrate as clockwise, standing, and counterclockwise currents. [Time-Life Books - "Workings of the Universe" - 1991, p.84] We can visualize tiny, one dimensional binary digits of 1 and 0 (base 2 mathematics) forming currents in a two-dimensional program called a Mobius loop - or in 2 Mobius loops, clockwise currents in one loop combining with counterclockwise currents in the other to form a standing current.

Joining two Mobius strips (or Mobius bands) forms a four-dimensional Klein bottle [K. Polthier - "Imaging maths - Inside the Klein bottle" (http://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue26/features/mathart/index]. And each Klein bottle can become an observable (or "sub") universe (figure-8 Klein bottles appear to have the most suitable shape to form subuniverses). This connection of the 2 Mobius strips can be made with the infinitely-long irrational and transcendental numbers (see CONNECTING DIGITS INTO THE MOBIUS THEN THE KLEIN). Such an infinite connection translates^ into an infinite number of figure-8 Klein bottles which are, in fact, "subuniverses". The infinite numbers make the cosmos as a whole* physically infinite, the union of space and time makes it eternal, and it's in a static or steady state because it's already infinite.

* (i.e. the cosmos beyond our 13.8-billion-year-old subuniverse, which is expanding and displacing parts of the universe beyond)

^ The translation could be via photons and gravitons being ultimately composed of the binary digits of 1 and 0 encoding pi, e, в€љ2 etc.; and matter particles [and even bosons like the Higgs, W and Z particles] being given mass by photons/gravitons interacting in matter particles' "wave packets"."

(I realize all this might conflict with your belief that asking where the universe came from is a stupid question.)

Comment #4

About the real universe having no ascertainable duration -

"(The Mobius strips are intangible software. They're converted into the tangible Klein bottles which make up the universe via matter being given mass by photons of electromagnetic waves and the gravitons of gravitational waves interacting in matter particles' "wave packets", giving the matter wave-particle duality. The bottles are thus 3-dimensional and affect all our senses. When future electronics allows their displays to change from one still (as in photographic print) to another trillions of trillions of trillions of times per second, they are undergoing what we call motion or time and are 4-dimensional.^ The beginnings of the infinite number of observable universes would, of course, be literally infinite. There was no beginning to the universe as a whole but it had - and will continue to have - an infinite number of creations of its "sub"universes. Creation of the universe as a whole is therefore forever lost in infinity and it's accurate to say it had no beginning. German mathematician Georg Cantor developed concepts of various infinities in the 1870's, and would be interested in the last few paragraphs.)

^ Were ancient Greek philosophers Zeno of Elea and Parmenides at least partly correct to speak of the absurdity of reality being made up of many changing things? Zeno also said motion is absurd. Motion and change would, in the end, merely be the switching of 1's to 0's and vice versa. There wouldn't even be any switching motion on the digital level if distance is eliminated and only quantum-superposed qubits exist."

Also -

"the basic standard of time in the universe is comparable to the 1960's adoption on Earth of the measurement of time as the vibration rate of cesium atoms. We could borrow the conclusions of Albert Einstein's Special Relativity and set the standard for time measurement as the measuring of the motions of photons i.e. of the speed of light. At lightspeed, time = 0 (it is stopped). Below 300,000 km/sec, acceleration or gravitation causes time dilation (slowing of time as the speed of light is approached)."

Comment #5 -

Viewing bits or binary digits only as information makes them abstract (to give them physical meaning, they must also be seen as pulses of energy). I think your repeated use of the word "abstract" may indicate that the universe really is composed of one "substance" called bits. If distance is deleted between the 1's and 0's, they would no longer be separate and would not require switching. They'd enter a state of so-called "quantum superposition" and become a qubit, and we could say the non-switching universe simply is.

Regards,

Rodney