Dear Tom,

I am having an awful time with my credentialed fellow essayist. Several of them have reported my post as being inappropriate and had it removed.Thank you for your gracious humorous response to my comment.

Thankfully,

Joe Fisher

Joe, you're not wrong. There's just no possible framework in which you could be proved right, that isn't self-referential.

As Popper said, "All life is problem solving." The problem here is that life can't apparently communicate with sentient life other than by using abstract symbols and signals. How do you know, in fact, that you aren't communicating with an abstract being (me) through the abstract symbols on your keyboard that you are using? How do you know that I am 'real'?

I don't know your level of knowledge or interest in philosophy or philosophical problems; however, if you agree with Wittgenstein's view, there are no philosophical problems at all -- just "language games and forms of life." At the end of the day, that may be a great truth, and it's still a philosophy I reject outright -- for the same reason that I reject your claim that the world includes no abstractions:

Your conclusions, and Wittgenstein's, are based on inductive inference -- "Seeing is believing."

I am a rationalist, though. In order to solve a problem, one must identify it -- even a guess is good -- and find the logical correspondence between the problem and its solution in order to consider it solved. I quote J. Bronowski often: "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses."

Rationalism unites the world. Inductive inference divides it.

All best,

Tom

Well, Jim, all I can say is that if you agree with Max's ERH table (slide 14 in this PowerPoint: www.fqxi.org/iceland/images/Iceland%20Talks/tegmark.ppt) you'll find my view at the extreme of "less baggage."

I am a rationalist. An external reality and metaphysical realism are fundamental assumptions.

Thanks for the note. I'll get to your essay when I can.

Best,

Tom

Hi Michael,

I'm ashamed of myself that I've had your book for a couple of years now, and haven't penetrated it -- though I know we have so many ideas in common.

Please let me beg off commenting until I read your essay -- and thanks for dropping by!

Till later, all best,

Tom

Dear Tom,

"All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses." If the abstract likenesses are hidden, how are you going to prove what they are likenesses of? There are no hidden abstract likenesses in reality." Therefore, all of science as you know it is erroneous. My contentions that real light is the only stationary substance in the real Universe and there is no physical space show that it is reality that is unified.

Warm Regards,

Joe Fisher

Joe, you're all territory and no map. You can never be lost; neither, though, is there anywhere to go. Nor is there any science.

Tom,

Reality does not need a map. Because all surfaces travel at the same constant speed, land maps and blueprints can be accurately drawn.

Joe

That's where you're wrong, Joe. It doesn't mean anything to say that "surfaces travel at the same constant speed" -- because all motion is relative, as we've known since Mach wrote The Science of Mechanics in the 19th century.

When you walk on a surface -- the ground -- is the surface traveling at the same constant speed as the surface of your feet that meet the ground? You wouldn't be going anywhere, would you? -- imagine that you are on a treadmill turning at the same speed as your stride, in the opposite direction; you would be walking "in place" relative to the surface of the treadmill. Have you been on a moving sidewalk at the airport? -- if the sidewalk is moving at say, 5 mph relative to the floor, and you are walking in the same direction as the mover at 5 mph -- are you not moving at 10 mph relative to the floor? If you dismount the sidewalk and stand still on the floor, are you not at rest relative to the floor?

You want to say the floor is carrying the surface of your feet along at a speed constant with all other surfaces in nature -- in which case, nothing moves, ever. Not you, your feet, or the floor. Which contradicts your claim, "all surfaces travel at the same constant speed."

"Reality," the way you are using it, only amounts to the old saying, "Wherever I go, there I am." Yes, that doesn't need a map, though it also contributes nothing to our knowledge of the territory. It isn't science's idea of reality.

Tom,

I'll start a new thread to get back on topic. I detect a hidden variable in your essay approach, namely the original EPR wave equation which seems to be ignored in speculative arguments about the double slit experiment. EPR's argument was that it could be possible to discover a state of position or momentum of a particle following the correlating event of impact with another without disturbing the first mentioned particle ( let's use working class terms of solids and stripes referring to pool balls when betting prefers the faster game of 8-Ball, to Rotation ). Let's call the particle we'll subject to measurement 'solid' and the unmeasured object particle 'stripe'.

The EPR argument was that to deduce the position or momentum of the 'stripe' after impact with the 'solid', did not require measuring 'stripes' properties, but could be found from knowing one parameter such as position of 'solid' by it's passage through one of the double slits and by measuring the momentia change of the screen itself imparted by both particles. Consequently a measurement was not necessary of 'stripe' which would change its state. That was the argument, position and momentum can be determined from other properties without effecting or losing the intrinsic pair (q,p). And in your essay the prime criteria is that a closed logical argument can only be had if the probability has a binary outcome, q or p in the EPR scheme of things.

We can go on with other examples where your essay generalizes to math. Let's look at Schrodinger's Cat (anybody that would suggest doing that to a cat has some issues, anyway). Firstly, its only true of spherical cats and felines are predatiously linear, so is light. Illumination can be treated spherically, but to subject the detection of a 'photon' to a random probability on a spherical surface projection which relativistically increases eightfold with doubling of the time parameter, only means that the initial direction of emission is not known, or sought within the source.

In answer to the question posed by EPR, if QM is a complete theoretical description of reality, we really needn't resort to arguments on QM's terms. Max Planck, himself, fully expected that his self-avowed 'lucky guess' would eventually be rationalized. In the immediacy of events of that era, following two centuries of progressive Newtonian predeterminism intellectuals were starving for a ration of free will, and the new maths were simply more inviting than constructing a classical model of light that would reveal cause of the Quantum. The catch-22 of fundamental randominity is that it too results in not having means to determine choice. We have come full circle sociologically. Humanity does have free will to choose between two probable causal results, and none if the outcome is random anyway.

It is really time to let Schrodinger's cat out of the bag, and answer Planck's question. :-> jrc

    Tom,

    I crammed the EPR argument a bit. Their wave equation finds foundation in the momentum imparted to the screen by both particles and the known measured separation of the two slits. Their point being that direct observation would naturally disturb the q,p state of a particle, but simply knowing other parameters does not constitute an action. jrc

    Very nice, John! I delayed replying until I could read a few times without distraction.

    We are fortunate to have you in the forum.

    I'll just add one comment -- you say, mirroring the EPR view, that " ... if QM is a complete theoretical description of reality, we really needn't resort to arguments on QM's terms."

    In fact, though, the argument from binary probability does meet QM terms -- it just limits the probability distribution and eliminates prior probability. I am gratified that you agree that the prior probability of randomness obviates free will.

    Best,

    Tom

    Dear Tom,

    Each real surface is attached to a real sub-surface. All real surfaces travel at the same constant speed. Each real sub-surface travels at a unique speed that is less than the constant speed of surface. When you stand on a treadmill, your surface and the surface of the treadmill travel at the same constant speed. The area of your feet that touches the treadmill belt form a sub-surface and that covered area travels at a unique speed that always remains less than the constant speed of surface. This is why although all surfaces always travel at the same constant speed, and each sub-surface always travels at a unique speed, each and every thing stays in a unique position.

    Incidentally, FQXi.org has labeled my idea "OBNOXIOUS SPAM" and has removed it from several sites where I have posted it.

    Thank you for not reporting my post as being inappropriate.

    Joe Fisher

    Tom,

    I also agree that arguments must also address QM probabilities. As the saying goes, 'to beat a mathematician you have to hit'em in the math'. I don't want to be a distraction, and hope you get some competent feedback. Probabilities become anavoidable in complex systems, and systems don't need to be very extended to become complex. Not my bag of tricks though, and I tend to look at probability as a pry-bar to open inquiry as to what it evolves from. Good Luck, jrc

    Joe, the only world I can think of, in which every surface is moving at a constant speed relative to the surface beneath it, is a 2-dimension expanding Euclidean plane of uniformly separated points. Imagine a sheet of paper uniformly growing in size in every direction.

    If you were a dot on this sheet, and could see in every direction around you -- on each axis of observation you choose, in every direction all the other dots would be moving away from you.

    Now the kicker:

    There is no mass in this world. What you call 'real' doesn't include you, the 3-dimensional observer. So suppose you want to say that the 3 dimension world is an illusion -- that we are all really 2-dimension creatures. Then you would have to explain the apparent existence of the directions up-down and left-right as well as forward-backward.

    You should be able to deduce that the existence of six degrees of freedom on three axes instead of four degrees of freedom on two axes implies rotation in a spherical space. As a consequence, the curved motion you could not detect locally, on your 2-dimension plane, is evident in 3 dimensions as two components of relative motion: one component rigidly straight to your origin of measurement, and one around the curved space in your vicinity.

    Here is what Galileo found:

    In the field of your observation, the local gravity field in which you are at rest (not moving in relation to points of the field) other objects of 3-dimension mass that move toward your position accelerate at the same constant rate regardless of whether they move in a path straight to your plane (i.e.,in straight line free fall), or in a curved trajectory.

    So whereas your 2-dimension world can only expand from the center of every point in one direction at uniform speed, the motion in our 3-dimension world is both uniform and accelerated. These two kinds of motion are described in Einstein's theory of special relativity (straight line uniform motion) and general relativity (accelerated motion).

    So you're clearly wrong with your idea that all motion is only in 2 dimension (a surface and its sub surface). How about 4 dimensions, though?

    When Einstein took the step of adopting 4-dimension Minkowski space for general relativity, the addition of a time component ("4th dimension") explained accelerated motion relative to uniform motion -- i.e., the rate of change in a system of coordinates is referred to your (the observer's) position in time as well as space, and physical reality is that of spacetime, not of either space or time independently.

    So let's return to your world of uniformly expanding points on a 2 dimension surface:

    That surface IS part of our real world! The most popular (and physically validated) solution to general relativity cosmology (the big bang) informs us that the universe is expanding at every point of spacetime. The origin of creation is literally both in you, and around you.

    Abstractions regarding relative motion are actually more real than our naive perceptions of motion. Our physical space is 3 dimensional -- our brain-minds, however, are 4 dimensional.

    Best,

    Tom

    Please open your eyes. Everywhere you look you will see a plethora of real surfaces. Those surfaces must all be travelling at the same speed, otherwise, you could not see them instantaneously and simultaneously. The real sub-surface cannot relate to an abstract conjecture. Each sub-surface must travel at a unique speed in order to keep each thing in its own unique place. A real surface can travel in any direction. A real sub-surface can only expand or contract. Picture a cannonball and an air-filled blue party balloon on your front lawn. If you run towards them they will both grow bigger, yet their surfaces must travel at the same speed. The only way they could grow bigger would be if each one of their sub-surfaces was expanding at a unique rate. We do know from careful experiment that air-filled balloons are constructed differently from cannonballs.

    Calmly,

    Joe Fisher

    Joe, open you own eyes, and you will see that your naive view does not differ from that of a religious creationist. Everything is "just so." Enough of this.

    Tom,

    Looking in from outside of your universe, you continue to present your case brilliantly.

    James

      James, that is very kind of you.

      In this context, I interpret Bar-Yam's theory of multi-scale variety thus: Though we may all see the world through our own unique eyes, it doesn't make the world any different for any of us. It only means that the marvelous variety of viewpoints available is many times bigger than any one of us. Isn't it the greatest pleasure to participate in, and increase, that variety?

      Thanks, and all best to you in the essay competition!

      Tom

      Hi Thomas,

      Great essay! You provide compelling arguments for the mathematical universe hypothesis. However, my essay takes an opposing view; I would be glad to take your opinion.

      Best regards,

      Mohammed

        Tom, it's a very fascinating essay and a great contribution. Your philosophical approach on non-locality and Bell's theorem which you backed up by a thorough technical analysis, is quite inspiring. Also very enlightening is the last section on the Correspondence Principle and Popper Falsifiability. Thanks again, Steve