Dear James,
As you requested in your comment to me on my page, I read your paper and went over it enough to allow me to make a comment on it as you requested. I will post this comment both on your page and mine, so those who read it can easily get the whole picture of how it fits into your comment on my page. To accomplish that completely, I am also including your comments to me on the copy that I put on your page.
"Paul,
Gaining new insights through your 5 suggestions have been proven in the past:
1. Einstein's thought experiments are an example of the first. Some think his brain structure was the secret to his skill.
2 and 3 are mentioned in my essay regarding quantum biology studies, DNA mapping, and simulation of the BB with the LHC.
4 A biologist and a physicist teamed up to discover how a European robin navigated N and S during the seasons. That led to chemical receptors in its brain thru entangled particles utilizing Earth's magnetic field.
5. All example utilized math models as well as some of your other points.
I'd like for you to check out my essay: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2345.
Jim"
"Paul,
Time grows short, so I am revisiting essays I've read to assure I've rated them. I find that I rated yours on 4/19, rating it as one I could immediately relate to. I hope you get a chance to look at mine: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2345.
Jim:
I found your paper to be a good exposition relating many of the most popular currently believed scientific concepts in a form that was somewhat disconnected in places, but still somewhat thorough in many respects. I did not see any important new concepts presented, however. It may, however, do well in the rankings because I have seen that although the stated goals of FQXI are given to be:
The goals of the Foundational Questions Institute's Essay Contest (the "Contest") are to:
• Encourage and support rigorous, innovative, and influential thinking connected with foundational questions;
• Identify and reward top thinkers in foundational questions; and,
• Provide an arena for discussion and exchange of ideas regarding foundational questions.
I have noticed that the winners of the contests seem to mostly be those that express agreement at least to a large degree with the status quo of currently believed concepts rather than those that express insights of new concepts, especially if those concepts disagree in any way with the presently accepted belief structure. This is, of course, not totally without merit because many of the new concepts that are presented in papers do not agree with observed reality and thus do not deserve recognition. Even some of those do show some of the problems that exist with current theories, etc. It is best to also have and present a better replacement theory, but there is still some value in just pointing out the problems even if you can't solve them because others who in that way learn about them may be given the insight to solve them. Those papers that most deserve to win the prizes are those that not only show the problems that exist in current beliefs, but also present new innovative theories that solve those problems and also create new paths for additional growth in knowledge, all in a way that agrees with observed reality. There can be other valid approaches such as presenting completely new areas of thought that agree with observed reality, which may not be connected to the validity of current theories, etc., but I hope you get the idea.
Your comments to my 5 points give some good examples of what I am talking about.
1. "The ability to visualize structures in one's mind." Your comment is: "Einstein's thought experiments are an example of the first. Some think his brain structure was the secret to his skill." You are right that Einstein was good at visualizing structures in his mind. Like most of us, however, he tried to conform his visualizations to current scientific belief structures. This meant that he considered time to be an existent entity that you might be able to travel back and forth in and not just the relationship between motions and the distances that they travel in space, as it actually is. This led to the unnecessary concept of a time dimension that has greatly confused the situation. His concept that space could be bent by mass to form gravity introduced the concept of space not just being a place where motions can have and change their positions, but being an existing dynamic entity in itself, which has also led to belief in many false concepts. Most of the time I try to keep the information that I provide as close to in line with current scientific beliefs as I can because I am usually presenting some concepts that are at least somewhat different from those beliefs and man in general has a fairly limited ability to adapt to new concepts if they depart greatly from current belief patterns, but every once in a while I run a test to see what happens, so I will give one example of a concept that has developed and is greatly believed that has some problems that have generally been ignored. The concept is the expansion of the universe. The mainstream belief in Einstein's earlier years was that the universe was neither expanding nor contracting, but was in a stable steady state. In order for him to get his theories to work properly to agree with that concept, he had to create a cosmological constant and give it a value that would produce such a state. This, however, opened up the possibility in the minds of some that the universe would not have to be in such a state, so later when the cosmological red shift was observed it was attributed to an expanding universe. More recently it has been observed that farther objects have a greater red shift and, therefore, seem to be moving away faster than closer objects. This has been interpreted as an increase in the expansion of the universe over time. Another interpretation could be that the red shift is caused by interactions between energy photons and sub-energy particles, etc. that happen with a low probability rate so that the results are only observed over long travel distances of photons since each interaction only very slightly reduces the photon's fourth vector motion amplitude causing a very small red shift, so that it is only measureable as the cumulative effect of a large number of interactions that occur over long distance travel of the photons. This would naturally yield a greater red shift in photons that come from farther away objects. This possibility has been pretty much completely ignored, however. Of course, some combination of both possibilities and/or even other possibilities could be factors in a complete understanding of the observed effects. The thing that I could have been clearer about in my item 1. Is that visualized structures need to be constantly compared to observed reality to be sure they are valid representations of reality and not just fictions and the mind must always be kept open to other possible valid visualizations that may work better.
2. "The ability to mentally extrapolate information from those visualizations." Your comment is: "2 and 3 are mentioned in my essay regarding quantum biology studies, DNA mapping, and simulation of the BB with the LHC." Your mentions of quantum biology studies, DNA mapping, and simulation of BB with the LHC are greatly dependent on the validity of current quantum mechanics concepts. The problem there is that although the types of interactions possible and the probability of each interaction occurring can be determined, the theories generally cannot explain the details of how the interactions occur and the causes of the particular probability of each one occurring, etc. Moreover, current theories tend to say that it is impossible to ever gain knowledge of these things. This lack of a comprehensive understanding of the generating causes of the observed effects greatly limits the practical use of quantum mechanics in many areas and has also led to the development of many strange and counterproductive concepts such as the idea that things don't actually happen until they are observed, etc. If that were true the universe could not have gotten past the first superposition point in the beginning as there would not have been anyone there to observe it then. I would, for that reason, be very suspicious about the validity of results that were generated by the application of many current quantum concepts. It would work, though, if God was there and made it all. That could be a good valid argument for the necessity of the existence of God to allow the creation to come into being if that quantum concept is valid.
3. "The ability to connect such attained information into a more advanced visualization, etc." You joined items 2 and 3 together in your comment, so see item 2 above.
4. "The ability to analyze observed reality for useful patterns of construction and functioning of its
parts." Your comment is: "A biologist and a physicist teamed up to discover how a European robin navigated N and S during the seasons. That led to chemical receptors in its brain thru entangled particles utilizing Earth's magnetic field." I would be very suspicious about the validity of any results generated by the use of the concept of entangled particles.
5. "The ability to connect the math model results to observed reality in a way that brings about a seamless joining of concepts that all agree." Your comment is: All example utilized math models as well as some of your other points." I cannot say that all of the current concepts of relativity and quantum mechanics (the two main theories that your comments are based on) can be joined together in a seamless way so that all agree with each other.
The allowed length of the contest papers is small enough that you might find it more productive to cover just one or at least fewer things in your paper, so that each item can be presented in more detail. It is also good to have all things presented fit together in an overall larger structure or organization of connected information if possible. I hope this helps you in some way.
Sincerely,
Paul