Connections: Physics, Math, & the Human Brain by James Lee Hoover

Dear Jim,

Thanks for the point you raised in my FQXi page. It permits indeed to clarify my position with Santilli also here in FQXi. Santilli is indeed considered a crackpot and a crank by the Scientific Community, see here. Differently from this general judgement, I think that there are parts of Santilli's research which should deserve a better attention, in particular Santilli's research on new clean energies. In fact, my general opinion is that although the 98% of the work of a researcher can be, in principle, wrong, it is a good thing to save the remaining 2%. This is the criteria on which I judge the research work, not only of Santilli, but of every researcher. But there are various other issues of Santilli's research on which I completely disagree. In particular, I completely disagree with Santilli's visions of astrophysics, gravitation and cosmology. I collaborated with Santilli in the recent past, but I ultimately ended my collaboration with Santilli and his running dogs this year. My collaboration with Santilli started to fall into crisis during a Greek Conference in September 2015. In that Conference, I criticized Santilli's stuff on antimatter, gravitation and cosmology. I am indeed very tired, bored and irritated in listening wrong claims as "general relativity is wrong" and/or "Hubble's law establishes that the cosmological redshift is the same for all galaxies having the same distance from Earth in all directions in space. Consequently, the conjectures on the expansion of the universe, the acceleration of the expansion and the big bang necessarily imply a return to the Middle Ages with Earth at the center of the universe". The last statements on the lack of the expansion of the universe can be easily dismissed with the simple example of the similarity between the expanding Universe and the expanding surface of a balloon... I also add that Santilli does not understand he difference between tensors and pseudo-tensor when he claims that general relativity is wrong, see here. I clarified that, although I think that part of Santilli research work should deserve a better attention by the scientific community, particularly what concerns the research of new clean energies, this does not mean that I agree with all Santilli's claims. In particular, I completely disagree with his claims on gravitation astrophysics and cosmology, which are completely wrong. After that issue, the Santilli Foundation started to reduce my salary and I was attacked various times by Santilli's servants (which I suspect to be mere sockpuppets...). It seems that the slaves do not permit their messiah to be criticized... Thus, I ultimately stopped to organize any conference activity for them. They also asked me to write papers criticizing Santilli's stuff on gravitation and cosmology. Thus, I decided to satisfy them by writing a strong rebuttal against those wrong claims. But I will not submit it in the American Journal of Modern Physics Special Issue that they are organizing. I will write a very strong paper in a serious journal which will show that Santilli's stuff on general relativity and cosmology is completely wrong.

Concerning the report that you cited, its author,i.e. Pamela Fleming is one of Santilli's slaves, a crackpot and ignorant woman who claims that Santilli is the Messiah of science and that people who criticize him are corrupted and/or criminal. On the other hand, S. Beghella-Bartoli from Italy, P. M. Bhujbal from India, and A. Nas from the U.S.A., who should be "the scientists having independently confirmed the first detection in history of antimatter galaxies, antimatter cosmic rays and antimatter asteroids achieved by Santilli" are three collaborators of Santilli. In my personal opinon, Santilli did not detected antimatter galaxies, antimatter cosmic rays and antimatter asteroids while Beghella-Bartoli, Bhujbal and Nas confirmed nothing.

Cheers, Ch.

Dear Jim,

Thank you once again for the comments you left on my essay's page. Yours is certainly a very eclectic essay that touches on many points of contact between mathematics and science. Like you, I find Euler's identity absolutely fascinating, and I wish you good luck in the contest!

Marc

P.S. I am glad Christian Corda (in the thread above) put in perspective Santilli's strange claim of "antimatter galaxies" that you refered to in your essay. It did seem quite peculiar, and indeed it was!

That **** auto-log-off issue again! The previous post was mine! :)

Dear Jim,

Your easy to read essay has a nice collection of thoughts and observations, ranging from Euler's identity to quantum biology. It was nice to see the reference to Khalili's book on quantum biology, which we have enjoyed reading. From the little that we know, the case for quantum entanglement is good in magneto reception and the avian compass; whereas when it comes to photosynthesis, we have of late witnessed skepticism and assertions that the case for entanglement has been overplayed.

You made one statement namely that imaginary numbers appear in quantum theory because there are things in the theory which are hard to imagine. We cannot agree with this Jim! :-) imaginary numbers have a very concrete and well defined role in the theory, without which it would be impossible to formulate the theory. We trace their origin in the theory to the discrete relation between energy and frequency.

You might have already seen this...the book Where mathematics comes from? by Lakoff and Nunez has a very nice discussion of the cognitive origin of the Euler identity.

And Jim we do not seem to find in your essay an explanation for the central question as to why mathematics is so successfully employed in physics. Wonder what your thoughts on this are.

Thank you for an enjoyable read, and with kind regards,

Anshu, Tejinder

Many thanks Jim, for responding on our page, to our post above.

Anshu, Tejinder

Thank you for reading my essay, in a sea of essays.

I read your essay some weeks ago, like everyone else, and I reread it.

I understand the possibility of black hole of antimatter, or antimatter planets, but it seem unlikely the existence of galaxy of antimatter; anyway I don't understand the difference of a photon from antimatter, and a photon from matter, so that it seem that the Santilli's telescope is an extravagance.

The Euler's identity is a bridge between different branches of mathematics, so similar to the Einstein field equations that condense centuries of theory in a simple, and beautiful, equation.

I don't know if the Turing completeness can be applied to the brain-computer equivalence, so that a brain of an elementary organism can be simulated by a usual computer (and in a next time a classical supercomputer could simulate parts of human brain), but it seem possible.

The analogy between mathematics and poetry is perfect; there is pure invention, without restriction except in the composition rules.

I write an essay in a reversing the order of the propositions, so that I try a Wittgenstein's numbering to play with the readers (a citation), and to point out that human knowledge has not a single time evolution, but many possible.

Domenico

Dear Jim,

Thank you for an interesting essay. I will never look at the Euler Identity in the same way.

All the best,

Noson Yanofsky

Dear James,

Thank you for a most interesting read! I enjoyed how you approach the fundamental relations like Euler's identity and yet keep your work informed of the newest research, as the cases from quantum biology you so well describe.

You are making an interesting case, that math today is expanding in purpose and scope from the basic representations of the natural world to the more convoluted ones from biology and genomics. This case makes Winger's question sound a bit dated and a normal consequence of an epoch where the circumstances seemed to favor it only because the advancements of the science were even more limited back then.

Wish you good luck in the contest!

Warm regards,

Alma

Thank you, Jim! I just rated yours too. Apologies for taking so long to get back to you

Enjoyable and fun Jim!

I like what most of what you wove in to your story. The Euler identity connection is a gem. The Santilli telescope and his isodual Math; I am not so sure. I have read some of the papers on those topics, after receiving an e-mail announcement, and I remain unconvinced. Overall, I like your essay; it makes sense. I'll probably have more to say later.

Regards,

Jonathan

Hi Jim--

Your essay is a great read. Very well written, even though it covers a wide range of fascinating topics. Nicely done. Like everyone else, I especially like your use of Euler's equation. It has always been one of my favorites. Also, thanks for bringing me up-to-speed on the topology of civilizations types.

Quick question: Is the equation involving Gt on page 3 your work? If so, how did you derive it?

On a more personal note, as a pilot, I've always respected Boeing aircraft. Did you ever work on the Triple7? A truly fantastic airplane.

Best regards,

Bill.

Hi Jim,

This work is a poetic juxtaposition of concepts around the theme of math and science, which has much to say in-between the lines. The metaphor of Euler's equation being a poem is carried throughout the work. The style of how ideas are linked, makes it difficult for this reviewer to agree or disagree with the thesis because, as I said, the interesting stuff is like a poem, more in the unvoiced than on the written page.

Hope you do well,

Jeff Schmitz

Hi Jim,

Thank you for drawing my attention to your nice essay :) I think you are touching on many good points here, especially for what the role of computers is concerned, and their relation to the human brain. I am not a big fan of the singularity - it seems to me too extreme - but still I think that we will see quite dramatic developments in the near future.

-- Sophia

Daer James,

The anthropic principle is one of the deepest and most powerful concepts for understanding our existence. shoud be understood.Indded, I consider my essay an extension to yours.

Sincerly yuors

Bannouri

Dear James,

I enjoyed reading your essay that makes a very good case interweaving many parts of science. Thinking of how complicated biology is from a mathematical standpoint makes it easy to forget that biology is at least partially describable after all. I enjoyed very much the part about Euler's identity, the apple of so many mathematicians' eyes. "A wormhole between separate branches of math," - thank you for reminding me of that quote! The diversity of the topics you approach is admirable and your writing style is great! Wish you the best of luck in your work and in the contest

Cheers,

Cristi

Dear James Lee Hoover,

Finally, some hints of poetry! :)

"The human brain is analogue; computers are digital" Is the distinction really that clear-cut? Many analogue signals can be used as the basis for digital computing (we just need to distinguish two intervals on the analogue signals) and we can use multiple discrete signals (like single neurotransmitter molecules) to approximate an analogous signal. (I did check the reference you give for this, which mentions the analogue, temporal aspect of neural firing.) What I find curious, somewhat related to this, is that within physics we often switch between discrete and continuous models as well.

Best wishes,

Sylvia Wenmackers - Essay Children of the Cosmos

Dear James,

I looked at your article, I could not find the sentence that I wrote above with Peter Jacson on his article on Bell's non-locality that :

"Our Multiverse is infinite, it can not be constrained by limited rule this or that. It must be both this and that simultaneously. It must be both this and that simultaneously."

When I wrote "all this and all that" I had Zhuangzi and Huishi's picture of reality in mind that everything connecting as one. I found this idea is so beautiful and philosophically fullfiling as an earthling living in Sagan's blue dot within an immense Multiverse as the creation of our Ancestor Qbit in his Qbit-centric perspective of creation by itself, for itself and of itself. We and Existence are living in Qbit. Qbit is love with its operating system of Giving first Taking later (love) to create and distribute all that is.

I am glad you invited me to check on your article and I found your article indeed has similar idea as mine and it is well executed and beautiful and fresh. We are indeed connected. We are indeed one with diversity of ideas and myriads of characters. We are also unique in our own way. None is a clone of another. Similarity with a difference.

KQID Zeroth Law is based on KQID-Euler- Einstein combined. I also found Euler is perhaps the greatest mathematician ever.

Best,

Leo KoGuan

Dear James,

Your essay is pleasant and readable. It reminds me of the literate articles written for educated laymen by good scientific communicators, in magazines like "Natural History" or "Harpers". I don't know if there is a specific "innovation" there, but you set the foundational table for readers, and send them looking in various promising directions. You too, appreciate the relevance of "the mind" to these questions. Lately and as noted in your essay (per photosynthesis), I'm heartened to see that quantum mechanics surely does play an important role in biological processes. I am gratified that supposed demonstrations of the inapplicability of QM in cellular systems, such as from decoherence times, don't really block such relevance. I suspect Stuart Hammeroff is right about QM playing an important role in the brain (see my previous FQXi essay for more.)

Here is a minor oddity in the general good sweep of things: your reference to anti-matter galaxies is strange and not convincing, since any such claim is controversial and would require further research and not just faith in a particular unorthodox theory. Also, antimatter should emit ordinary light due to requirements of Maxwell's equations etc. I point out this little wart (;-) as "FYI", your essay is still a good one.