Math tells us what works, not what is real or why: a study in comparative dimensional physics by Neil Bates

Lorraine, thanks for writing. Please consider attending one of the Tucson interdisciplinary conferences on consciousness some day, I think you have much to contribute on the great mystery of the mind. I went to the 2000 event and gave a paper on willful choice. I've enjoyed your previous essays too. We can't really extract "worlds" from math, although Max Tegmark's heroic effort of the MUH deserves credit for audacity and creativity. It should not be dismissed casually (even though I don't agree with the thesis.)

Dear Christinel,

Thank you very much for your supporting comments. Many of us think that the order in the world is an expression of some deep "idea" or complex of ideas, aside from how a person wants to imagine that ultimate reality. We agree that math by itself can do the job, but ideas like MUH shouldn't be dismissed breezily. (Remember also that Max was instrumental in starting up FQXi!)

There are solid ways to critique math. monism. One inadequacy is the failure of neodeterminist quantum interpretations to properly account for observed probabilities. The structure of the evolving parallel states just can't fairly derive the Born rule. Quantum probability therefore seems to be "intrinsic", and deterministic math cannot pick the actual outcome if they are exclusive. We need these kinds of technical issues to make headway, despite our clear intuition that the "esse" of material existence is something that transcends mere abstraction. (Penrose made similar points in his wonderful books that I admire so much.)

I'm glad to see a few commenters appreciating the problem of electromagnetic mass (note, not to be confused with QED field problems. This is about relations for macroscopic charges and separations.) The problem can be resolved within SRT (but has implications for GRT because stress and pressure exert gravity), but later thinking obscured the mechanics of it. It became a sort of "given", taken for granted and not understood inside. That won't let you see how it works out in other kinds of space.

Your essay gets off to a good start, I haven't time to finish just yet but will go over it and have some comments. I'm the sort who often hesitates to say my first impressions, which delays my reviews or I sadly forget sometimes. (We can comment past the voting limit, true?) You bring up that amazing and humbling case of the point on a line that can in theory encode any amount of information (actually, an infinite amount if on a perfect mathematical number line!) I also recommend the essays by George Gantz and the Burovs. The latter is so adept at framing the problems and prospects, it really should be the nucleus of one of those grand books about the nature of reality (like Penrose's works or "Our Mathematical Universe" etc.)

My regards to you.

Dear Mohammed,

Thank you. I'm going to read your essay soon and leave a comment. I already see it is well-organized and presented. Good luck to you and your co-author.

Christian, thanks.

I haven't had time to read your essay in detail (and I'm neurotic about saying much unless I do), but I already appreciate that you address specific experimental results and predictions in light of particular theoretical expectations and critiques. That adds more than generalizations can do on their own. Note this curious irony: you correctly say that GR (now celebrating its 100th anniversary, so an apt time for your essay) is a geometrical theory, which constrains its form and predictions in certain ways. Yet you are boldly asserting that many physicists have missed an important insight, in their handling of clock synchronization in the rotating disk (all this I am gathering from your abstract alone.) How could this be?

Well if you are right, it means there are subtle problems of framing issues in this area - analogous to the problems dogging quantum mechanics and relativistic dynamics (such as arguments about the right-angle lever and the "energy current", how is angular momentum conserved in Thomas Precession, etc.)

I will go into more detail at your own essay.

Regards.

Ramin,

Thanks for your complements. I looked over your paper. It is clearly ambitious and you put lots of hard work into it. There is a lot of rather advanced and intricate math but I get the impression you have latched onto something significant. Do keep in mind, math is so rich that it's possible to find all kinds of promising "connections" but hard to know which ones will hold up better with more knowledge, than others. How do you think that possible EM inconsistency in D > 3 affects your generalizations? (BTW I used D for space dimensions, do you think it's better to designate for space time?) I note that you didn't have an essay here, perhaps you feel too boxed in by the length requirements. BTW must someone be a Member to post to that data forum? tx

Christinel,

Sorry that I need to correct a statement that inadvertently misrepresented our positions. I should have written:

"We agree that math by itself CANNOT do the job, but ideas like MUH shouldn't be dismissed breezily. (Remember also that Max was instrumental in starting up FQXi!)"

Here the correction is in bold, I originally had "can do the job". Good luck in the finals.

My comment at the contest winners announced discussion site about the announcement of winners:

My reaction to hearing the list of number-place winners (unless there are special extra prizes to be awarded late), and based on omissions and not critique of winners, is the following: FQXi (or, the majority of judges) seems not really interested in finding new talent and rewarding people from "all walks" for daring thinking and trying to present genuine contributions (new physics.) I'm sorry to have to say that, and I'm disappointed. I see no real effort to identify talented amateurs trying to make even potentially important contributions, versus the philosophizing that most essays express. Shouldn't that be a top priority?

Sure, I can't be fully objective all along, especially about myself. Don't take my word for anything. So, if anyone is interested then do some spade work and tell me what you think.

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Added here: they can't be bothered to be at least somewhat impressed, by a new argument to explain something as fundamental as the dimensionality of space?! I didn't even use "new theories" etc, it was creative extension of

known theory (retarded fields, stress tensor) applied to higher dimensions. I gamely went along four previous times, but after a fifth snub like this, it's started to feel like "trickle down." BTW feel free to also discuss at my FB page, facebook.com/tyrannogenius.