Thanks, John. So as not to confuse the reader, though -- your comments refer to something I sent you privately, and not the contents of the essay per se. I'm not quite ready for wide distribution of that Email piece.

All best,

Tom

Dear Tom,

Your essay is multivalued in the sense that

* you clarify the relationship between physics P and mathematics M, postulating a linear (Tegmarkian) equation E = k*P,

* you put this in perspective with Bell's (or CHSH) inequality and a establish a link to number theory (the unsoved Goldbach conjecture as revisited by Popper),

* you question the role of probabilty in the MP correspondance (as commented by John Cox in his post),

* you relate to Euler's identity (James Hoover has an essay on this topic as you know)...

All this aspects are justified in technical terms sometimes in an unexpected way. You received many valuable comments, a proof of respect. I add my congratulations and my good community mark.

Best wishes.

Michel

No problem, John. I've given it some limited exposure, just not prepared to take questions yet. :-)

Best,

Tom

Michel, I am deeply honored. Thank you so much for your careful reading, feedback, and vote of confidence.

All best wishes for success in the essay contest,

Tom

I find myself in the position of defending the views of both Alan Kadin and Michel Planat, who crossed swords in Alan's blog.

No surprise -- there is probably no sharper demarcation of philosophies in physics, than between Einstein-Bohm represented by Kadin, and Bohr-Peres represented by Planat.

I'm not neutral -- I agree with Karl Hess (*Einstein was Right* 2015) and the late Walter Philipp that introduction of a time parameter generates the Bell "impossible" result E (a,b) = - a . b

That's only half the story, though. The other half is that the assumption of fundamental particle reality obviates that dot-product result a priori, while the assumption of a fundamental field theory requires no a priori assumption of fundamental particle existence (Kadin's claim).

Though I don't mean to be self-promoting -- my own view, that the Hilbert space (and the linear superposition of particles to which Alan refers) is deficient, is based on my prior research that metric continuity in the Hilbert space depends on deriving a real valued well ordered sequence without invoking the axiom of choice.

This would be true, regardless of whether one assumes particle discreteness or wave continuity. It comes down to the perennial question of what is being measured. Alan is very clear that his program obviates a domain boundary between classical and quantum. Bell-Aspect and CHSH programs, on the other hand, actually create a domain boundary, by observer dependence, and therefore cannot survive without an assumption of particle nonlocality.

So how would one show what is being measured, unless 'what' is discrete? And Is it a sharp point particle, or a wave packet? A quantum of something only implies measurability; it does not imply a definition of something. A field of something presents the same problem.

I think we are left with the same question that Einstein identified so many years ago -- that if we don't improve the mathematical methods, we can't expect resolution of the gap between quantum and classical mechanics.

I think that Planat and Kadin are equally sincere, honest and competent in their mutual quest to improve the mathematical methods. That's how science progresses.

Tom

    Tom,

    'So how should one show what is being measured..." You do say a lot in short posts.

    Many times we all have imperfect knowledge of the fullness of measures that have become used in particular ways that tend to relegate one parameter or another to obscurity. So what the quantum is as a measure, is generally treated as if it is only a specific quantity of energy because it doesn't tell us whether it is a particle or a wave. Added to that, the time normalization in QM denudes the quantum of its 'per second' realism.

    But the original Quantum finds more measure than given credit for. Boltzman's Constant obtains from the Gas Constant/Avagadros Number, and so Boltzman is a physical proportion that gives the energy/temperature associated with a single source particle. By relation with Planck's Constant as a physical proportion of energy/time, there is a complex measure of a single physical wave at any specified frequency which carries the celebrated energy quantity per every 1/f from a single source. That's a lot of information to start with.

    To an experimentalist, CHSH isn't half the story. What is the wave doing and how, such that some ranges of frequencies penetrate deep into the dirt and others bounce off airplanes? Each single wavelength carries the same energy. How's it do that?! - Duhhoohhhh - :) jrc

    Tom,

    Thanks for the links, anybody looking in can access them also, and that is one of the real values of this forum. When participants assume the role of sounding board in the bouncing of ideas off one and another 'The Beat Goes On'. If it starts sounding like a Ping-Pong match, its time to quit the game.

    The Khrennikov link is a free sign in to what looks to be an extensive archive, I'll content myself with the download of your att'mt but others might find it fruitful. You are obviously enjoying your retirement giving you the time to pursue what you have long wanted, and that's refreshing, and perhaps more satisfying than those whom have had careers requiring intense research and find themselves now in real proximity to 'publish or perish'. Enjoy! jrc

    Thanks for pointing that out, John. I learned that the site accepts my publications, so I signed on as a member myself.

    I've been a professional writer since teenage, so it's always been "publish or perish" for me in terms of making a living. The career I'm retired from (government service) is my third career, that I undertook after going bankrupt in 1999, and finding myself in need of some security for my family and me.

    It's still publish or perish -- the level of security we need isn't there -- and that's fine with me also, and I do enjoy it, because it's all I've ever known. The academic form of publish or perish isn't something I would have been happy with, I think, seeing all of the publications from academics who have so very little of significance to say. It's a bit of a crime for a talented researcher to have to survive on a publication list of questionable content -- when given the freedom of serious research, she or he might have produced just one work of importance.

    All best,

    Tom

    • [deleted]

    • Post #71

    My attachment of 2 April -- which demonstrates reversibility of the counting function by the natural properties of recursion and parity -- got me thinking about the Monty Hall problem and why reversibility of the time metric is equivalent to experimenter free will in a Bell-Aspect type experiment. Switching choices implies physical time reversibility, and here's why:

    Mathematicians will always agree -- that given n contestants choosing 1 of 3 doors, two of which hide a goat, and the third a new car -- one can predict that over many iterations, or even if many contestants simultaneously choose from sets of doors, that by the law of large numbers 1/3 of the contestants will win cars. This how Richard Gill describes the independent "counts" of four 2 X 2 tables of results in a Bell-Aspect type experiment, with 4 instead of 3 "doors.".

    The singular case in which the host (Monty) opens one door of the two that a contestant has not chosen -- and reveals a goat, then asks the contestant if she would like to switch choices -- raises the question of whether the contestant has a winning advantage by switching the choice, or staying with the first.

    Naively, one thinks that -- because Monty has shown one of two doors that the car is *not* behind, that the odds of choosing the winning door have been increased some 16% (from 1/3 to 1/2) by choosing to switch. In fact, though, the odds are still 1 in 3 whether the contestant switches the choice or not. The question is whether one has a better choice of winning the car by switching choice, or not.

    Even though the contestant knows in advance that Monty will never open the door with a car behind it, this information adds nothing to her knowledge of what door the car is behind. In other words, a potential choice (the door identified but not yet opened), does not change the energy state of the system. It does, however, add to the information of the energy state -- one now has a 66.6% chance of winning the car if one switches choices of door -- and this is equivalent to the Hess-Philipp result ( 3) for their Bell-Aspect type inequality that I cited in the attachment; i.e., there is a 3 to 1 advantage (my paper explains) for the result not observed, over the P(1/2) probability for the result that is observed. That difference of initial condition vs. measurement outcome is a hidden variable.

    To see why, compare this scenario to the Schrodinger Cat experiment. The decay rate of the substance that emits a particle and triggers the hammer that breaks the vial that releases the poison that kills the cat -- is precisely known. The energy potential of the hammer is identical to the pre-choice of door in the MH problem -- If Monty lifts the lid on the box and declares "the cat is alive," or "the cat is dead," it has no effect on the decay rate of the material or the energy potential of the hammer.

    Monty, however, *cannot choose* to say "the cat is dead," because we *know* that the conditions under which the cat dies are fully determined, even though hidden in a black box. There is absolutely no point in Monty communicating to us that the cat is dead, because:

    If the cat were dead, the experiment is ended -- just as if Monty opened the door with the car behind it while the contestant still has a choice pending. It doesn't happen, because Monty knows which door the car is behind. He isn't an observer making a binary choice; he's the guiding principle *behind* the measurement choice. This is the same principle by which Joy Christian successfully argues for the choice that Nature makes independently of conscious observers, and which guarantees real binary measurement in a locally real and objective way.

    Ultimately, the free will hypothesis prevails, because -- and I made this point repeatedly in the great "debate" over Christian's result -- *unless* Nature has a choice, human observers have no free will. The energy cost to remove the middle value is equal to the observer's choice to change the state of the system.

    So in support of Tegmark's hypothesis and Christian's measurement framework (which was published by the International Journal of Theoretical Physics recently as "Macroscopic Observability of Sign Changes under 2(pi) Rotations"-- nature is not fundamentally random, even though conscious observers switch their choices.

    As my attachment shows, observer choices that change the measurement outcome deterministically, also change the initial condition randomly -- consonant with my claim that free will exists IFF nature is not fundamentally random. The question of whether the initial condition is positive or negative obviates the independence of tables that Richard Gill describes. The measurement is observer entangled -- and that entanglement is equivalent to classical orientation entanglement (spinor property).

    More to come.

    Hello Tom

    I read your essay twice and am still not very clear about what you are saying. The fault is entirely mine - for example a lack of background in the type of mathematical/logical arguments you used. Another reason is that at my age (73) I was reading not to explore new ideas, but to confirm my own half-cooked ones in a view to develop them further! For example, based on my Beautiful Universe Theory concepts I think there is no inherent probability in Nature, nor is there particle-wave duality, no wave function collapse (which you agree with) and that Bell's Theorem only confuses the issue. At least about the latter I can point to Edwin Klingman's essay here for a more substantive analysis than my one-liners. In my essay here I argue that in a causal local absolute discrete Universe mathematics and physics reduce to the same thing - not themselves, but the micro structure of Nature itself. As always I value your feedback.

    With best wishes

    Vladimir

      Hi Vladimir,

      I always enjoy your essays. They are delightfully illustrated, meaningful and fun to read.

      Our views of science are diametrically opposed, though. I do not subscribe to the idea that if we just look at the evidence of nature in new ways, all will be clear and obvious. This trendy new philosophy (some call it "embodied cognition") is actually as old as Aristotle and completed by Kant and Wittgenstein. In extreme contrast:

      I am a rationalist.

      To me, the universe only becomes beautiful (or even comprehensible) by demonstrating correspondence -- between the language by which the universe is described, and the mode in which it is experienced. If one wishes to join language to experience as if they were identical, I don't think one is doing science at all. At least, it isn't the science we practiced for over 300 years between Newton and Einstein, as a rationalist enterprise. So when you say:

      " ... although the concept of flexible spacetime 'works' in (SR) and (GR), and that of probability waves 'works' in (QM), they are just mathematical ideas that must be discarded if better models closer to nature can be found ..."

      ... it does not relate an iota to what I think of science, and that is probably why you don't understand the essay.

      Just as you prize your graphic art (and I prize you for it -- your work is extraordinarily graceful and rich with beauty), I prize the art of mathematics as highly as I prize natural language or any other art. It's a knife to my heart when you write:

      "This is more than just a way to seek more elegant theories: understanding nature at its own level is a necessary step to pave the way for further theoretical, experimental and technological discoveries."

      Mathematical theories are independent of experiment and technology. We and our mathematics *do* live at nature's own level, which is why mathematical physicists seek to understand the language of nature, rather than being satisfied with the nature of language. The former speaks to existence on its own terms; the latter fetishizes existence and language. Here's why I think as I do -- you write:

      "The human brain evolved over millions of years in organisms that interacted directly, causally and locally with inanimate nature on a molecular scale15. Is it too much to ask now that our understanding of Mother Nature should also be as simple, direct and realistic as possible?"

      Well of course, I would answer "no." Naive realism driven by direct experience has no independent correspondence to language. The metaphor Mother Nature itself is an anthropomorphic conceit -- when we fetishize the brain as a creation of the mother, we limit our capacity to participate in our own continuing creation. We become alienated from ourselves, and tend to invest the meaning of our existence in such things as technology, artifacts rather than art.

      I admire the honesty in your art, Vladimir, as I admire the honesty in your person. I hope to return the favor. I am younger than you by only 5 years; maybe it's a characteristic of our generation. :-)

      I don't rate essays that I don't understand, nor do I downrate essays that I disagree with. I trust that ethic in you, as well.

      All best in life, and in the competition,

      Tom

      4 days later

      Hi Tom,

      I have printed out your essay and I am going to study it on my next lie down rest my back break. :-)

      Looks like you have been busy here but thought I would inform you if you don't already know that the core part of Joy Christian's model has been proven by Albert Jan Wonnink via the computer program GAViewer. For those interested look here.

      Looks like FQXi's panel of experts were very wrong. But you already knew that.

        Fred,

        I didn't know the latest -- though I knew it was in the works -- and that is really great news! Like you, I have not doubted Joy's framework for a long time now.

        Thanks for the update.

        (I have arthritis, so I relate to back pain. Calm down, take it easy and feel better!)

        All best,

        Tom

        Yeah, it is rather sad that Gill seems to not realize that he has lost the debate since Albert Jan's computer proof of Joy's model. He quite frankly is carrying on like it didn't happen. Maybe some day he will understand geometric algebra and what Joy's true big discovery is. I'm not holding my breath though.