WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL by Joe Fisher

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

Joe,

You did not answer my question.

Regards,

Gary Simpson

Dear Joe:

reading his essay, honestly you enter a contradiction; since denying the validity of mathematics to understand quantitatively and qualitatively the universe; you use the mathematical concept of surfaces throughout your essay. And every surface is measurable, mathematically. For this reason when you use recurrently in his essay; the mathematical concept of surface, yourself shows that any attempt to compression of all qualitative aspects of any, say, the real object of the universe, leads inexorably to the mathematical laws of objects in comparitively with other real objects in the universe. Since the universe itself can be defined as another real object; then the interactions of all objects should behave mathematically, and besides conputable mathematical form. Try removing the mathematical aspect of the universe leads to the most absolute chaos. And this would do that could not be any kind of universe..

Since the universe exists continuously; ie: Mathematically say that a real object exists if the product of the amount of information contained in the object multiplied by the amount of time since the existence of this object, steadily increasing.

There are only three possibilities: 1) the object had a beginning in time, but its existence is bounded temporarily: cease to exist as such defined or known at the start of the observation object.

2) the object has a start temporary but the product of the amount of information containing,( the same object, by definition is a bit of information by simply exist) by the time is infinite. This means that is an object eternal, with start time.

3) the object has an existence to the past, infinite; and a life ahead, infinite.

Only with the notion of amount of information per unit time, as a qualitative and quantitative definition of an essential characteristic and common to all real objects in the universe (observable objects, and unobservable objects); Safe and leads inexorably to whether: the universe is mathematical.

Thank you very much

Dear Joe,

It was a great pleasure to read your assay. The issues you are discussing are mainly of ontological nature I think. Science modifiers like Newton or Einstein could find a proper balance between reality and mathematical abstractions, the later could be used as basis of formal tools of reasonable complexity, giving at the same time the results experimentally verifiable. We can think about all such things as a two way process: run experiments more and more close to the abstracting assumptions and, oppositely, make mathematical tools more sophisticated and closer to reality.

A. Soiguine.

Dear Joe,

Just wondering : why did you forget to write in your comment to Ed Unverricht's essay that you thought his essay was exceptionally well written and that you hope it fares well in the competition ? Is it because it surprised you by its exceptionally-more-exceptional-than-exceptional way of not being too abstract for you ?

Now if you wonder why I don't take the time to examine and comment your essay in details, please understand that what is way too far from science is just hopeless trying to deal with (it would just not make any sense), as I explained there. Moreover, the pseudo-scientific stuff that is not even famous outside science (I mean here in community rating) loses the sociological argument against concluding that it would be wasteful trying to dedicate any scientific expertise replying to it.

The fact you seem to have nothing more interesting to do in life than spamming people the same ridiculously fake compliments as if it made less impolite your ridiculous insults that often come next, and other absurd stuff to request them to read your essay, cannot be a good reason for putting you on top of my priority list, as I replied to many essays and want to continue with other ones that look more worthy than yours.

Hope you understand, but even if you don't, it's not my problem.

As I see it, you are talking about abstract mathematical models of physical reality as opposed to physical reality itself. Cool.

Your essay is very difficult to comment on since nearly everything you state seems wrong to me. The fact that what you state does not seem wrong to you means that my comments will likely have no meaning for you.

Math is so obviously useful for predictions of action that I would not know what to do without math. In that sense, math represents our Cartesian reality quite well.

However, the Cartesian world that we imagine with our neural computer and our math is much different from the relational world of sensation. Belief is a much more important anchor for the relational world of sensation, but the reason of math works quite well for our Cartesian world nevertheless.

If that is what you are trying to articulate, then I agree. If not, then so be it.

Dear Joe,

I thought that I already had received a comment on my paper from you and had commented on your paper in response on my paper's page, but if I did, it disappeared somehow, so I will post it again here on my page and also on yours as you requested. I added a few additional observations for further thought. I hope you will get something productive out of it.

I am sorry that it has taken so long to get back to you, but I have not had good access to the internet for the last couple of weeks.

I have found that the concept of a real surface is not as most people consider it to be. If you look at a polished piece of metal, you will see a solid looking smooth surface, but as you magnify it you will see that it is not a smooth continuous surface, but is instead composed of metal crystals with visibly defined interfaces. You could consider each metal crystal to have a surface, but once again as you magnify it enough you see that the surface is actually composed of small spherical objects (atoms) with space between them, which is not a solid smooth surface at all. You might say that the atoms appear to have solid smooth spherical surfaces, but if you could magnify them enough, you would see that their apparent surfaces are actually caused by light photons bouncing off of the electrons that are moving around the atoms', nucleuses. There is no actual surface to the atoms. If you could magnify one of the electrons, you might consider that it would be a spherical object with a surface, but if you magnified it, you would see that it is just an energy photon traveling around in a three dimensional path much like the electrons traveling around the atom. If you could then magnify the energy photon, you could possibly see an actual surface, but man on this planet does not at present have the observational data to in any way prove or disprove that at this time, so I won't go into that now. The point is that most of the things that we see as solid with surfaces are actually mostly empty space with various motion interactions generating what we see at our limited size scale range as solid objects with solid surfaces. When looked at closely their surfaces are not really solid, but are composed of smaller and smaller continuous cyclical motion interactions.

Why do you believe that light does not have a surface? Do you have any actual observational evidence of that being the case?

I looked at your paper and have a few questions about the concepts presented in it.

1. Why do you believe that all surfaces must travel at the same speed when they appear by observation to be traveling at different speeds relative to each other? It would seem to me that due to the finite speed of light, there is always a delay from the time that light is reflected from or emitted by an object to the time that ours eyes interact with those light photons and we perceive the object. If light photons are continuously leaving 2 objects and traveling to our eyes, we would continuously see both objects simultaneously (at the same time) once light from both objects reached our eyes. If both objects were not in motion relative to us and each other and each of the objects aimed a light source at our eyes and if both lights were turned on simultaneously, we would see the light first from the closest object since the light from that object would travel a shorter distance to reach our eyes. If both objects were traveling straight toward us at different speeds and they both turned on their lights simultaneously just when the faster object pulled up beside the other object so that they were both the same distance from us, and if the light always travels at the same speed to all observers, we would expect the first light from both objects to reach us simultaneously. If in the observational test above, the light from the faster object is speeded up by its faster speed so that its speed is greater than the speed of the light from the slower object, we would expect that the first light from the faster object would reach us first. Observational evidence suggests that the speed of light is the same regardless of the direction and speed that the object is traveling when it emits the light photons. This suggests that when the object is moving in the same direction as the emitted photons, the extra linear motion of the object is transferred to the photons' fourth vector (dimensional) motion, which would increase the photons' frequency and dynamic mass effects and would decrease the wavelength effect of the photons, thus creating a blue shift effect. If the object is traveling in the opposite direction of the emitted photons, the decrease in the motion of the photons that would be expected is also transferred to the photons' fourth vector motion, which would decrease their frequency and dynamic mass effects and increase their wavelength. This would generate a red shift effect. This suggests that the photon's fourth vector motion acts as a motion sink that servos the photon's linear speed at the speed of light by either transferring motion to the linear motion to increase it up to the speed of light or by transferring motion from the linear motion to decrease it down to the speed of light.

2. Please explain why you believe that if all surfaces were not traveling at the same speed it would be physically impossible for one to observe them simultaneously?

3. Why do you believe that a sub-surface must travel at a speed that always remains lower than the constant speed of the surface and why it can only travel in or out?

4. If light cannot travel, what happens when a moving surface intersects a stationary light photon? Does the surface get stopped by the stationary light photon? Does the surface just pass through the stationary photon without any effect on either one or does some other action or effect occur?

5. You say that real objects have surfaces. If you take a 1ft by 1ft by ½in piece of wood, it would be a real object and its top, bottom, and sides would be surfaces. If you lay it on a larger piece of wood, its bottom would then become a sub-surface. If you placed 1/2 in thick wood pieces against all of its sides, its sides would become sub-surfaces also. If you then placed a large piece of wood on top of it, the top would also become a sub-surface. At this point it would no longer have a surface because they would all have been changed into sub-surfaces. Would it still be a real object without any surfaces or would it now be unreal, etc.?

6. You say: "Real light cannot have a surface for the only way light can be seen is if it adherers to a real surface". It makes sense according to your theory that the side of the light that adherers to a real surface would be a sub-surface, but why couldn't the light possess a side that is not adhering to the real surface that has a surface on it, thus making the light also a real object? Also, how can a stationary light photon adhere to a moving real surface? Wouldn't it be left behind as the real surface passed by its stationary position? Also, would the part of the real surface that the photon is adhered to become a sub-surface or is that only the case when 2 real surfaces come together?

7. It would seem to me that the air (gas) that covers the planet earth is (according to your theory) a real object and the top or outside side of it is a surface. The bottom of it that touches the other objects on the earth below it would be a sub-surface and all of the parts of those surface objects that contact the air are also sub-surfaces. Most of the other surfaces of those lower objects that are not in contact with the air are in contact with other objects and are, therefore, also sub-surfaces and not surfaces. This means that most of the earth objects except for the air do not have real surfaces and, therefore, are not real objects unless real objects can exist as real objects when they do not have any surfaces.

8. You say "There cannot be a real vacuum anywhere in the real Universe." Any empty space of any size could be considered to be a vacuum. The only way that there would be no vacuum would be if all of space is completely filled. If the invisible undetectable sub-microscopic particles that you mention completely filled all space that was not being filled by matter particles, etc., that could possibly eliminate all vacuum, but then all of the surfaces of all of those sub- microscopic particles would be making contact with other sub- microscopic particles or other larger matter particles, etc., so their complete surfaces would be turned into sub-surfaces and they would then have no surfaces. All of the larger matter particles surfaces would also be completely in contact with the sub-microscopic particles or with other larger particles and would, therefore, also become sub-surfaces. This would effectively get rid of all surfaces in the universe leaving only sub-surfaces remaining. According to your theory, a real surface can only be a surface when it is not up against anything. This requires that a vacuum exists around the surface because anything else in contact with the surface changes it into a sub-surface.

So far it appears to me that your theory does not fit well with observational data and possibly in internal structure as well, but maybe I am missing some details of it, maybe you can clarify it for me.

Sincerely,

Paul

Joe,

You started off your essay in a way that made me think you were going to criticize the loose use of language in physics (an approach shared with Wittgenstein and the logical positivists). But before long it became clear you were being quite careless about language yourself. For instance you repeatedly spoke of all surfaces as moving at "constant speed," but never said speed with respect to what. Moreover your whole concept does not jell. Consider a sphere, real or abstract. Suppose it is spinning on a fixed axis. Now all parts of the surface are in motion. But at constant speed? I think not. The Earth's oblateness is due to the higher rotary speed at the equator than at the poles.

Tom Phipps