Actually I first tried to get a relation between the most general shape, only to end up on the simple line. After discovering the possible relations, now you can generalize to multidimensional with a generalized shape with generally the same outcome as the line.

I include an attachment to clarify the particle setups(distance) in the programAttachment #1: dist.png

Jon,

Thanks for dropping comments on my forum. I have attempted a reply.

On a movie screen like yours, motion is digital with a pixel changing from the background pixel to the pixel of the moving object. If space is a substance made of 'pixels' (like my extended points), how would motion be accomplished. As you move do the pixels constituting you the moving object change their nature to that of the background pixels, while the background pixels in your direction of motion change their nature to the nature of the pixels constituting the moving body?

How can a line constituted by pixels be cut if the pixels are infinite in number and cannot be cut since there will then always be a pixel at the point of cutting incidence? If the number of pixel is on the other hand finite, what can lie between them? Certainly, not space since space is made of the pixels?

These are some of what I address in my essay. You are welcome back to read again when you can spare the time. Thanks.

Akinbo

Hi Jon,

Sorry I took so long to answer. I tried to relate my question to your questions in the sense, that I tried to make a connection between the language of a statement and the meta language that describes the meaning of the statement. But did not succeed.

So finally it might just be related to the color question. Sorry that I use your forum for that!

Let the set A contain two sheep. From the point of view of A A cannot distinguish the two sheep. It is symmetric. But we can. Maybe one sheep is black, the other white. Or one is bigger, the other smaller. In a way the two sheep must have other properties, that can distinguish them, that are not defined in A or by A. If the sheep are completely identical, they have at least to different space locations, by which we can differentiate between them.

What is with space itself? What additional properties can distinguish between 2 space points?

What with a qbit? The qbit has the full SU(2) symmetry. What distinguishes two different states?

Logically speaking the set can be seen as the predicate of a proposition. Its elements are the possible subjects: "A sheep is an animal." The predicate could also be called a term. In the greek philosophy eidos. To specify what this term mean, contains, we need other term (eidos), that are not defined by the term itself. The relation between different terms (eidos) is what we call mathematics. Formally it is possible creating terms, that contain themselves, leading to the well known paradox. In the philosophy of Aristoteles the paradox do not arise, because he finally end up with the substance. He defined substance as something, that can only be the subject and not the predicate of statement. The substance is what I would call reality, or factuality.

On the way down from the eidos to the factual we face the problem how the general becomes a singular. And how we could even speak about the singular (factual), since it is singular.

In the other direction, we have Humes problem of how eidos could be derived from singular facts.

Hope this makes some sense.

Luca

Hey Luca,

Thanks for the enlightening and well-written explanation. So do you think it is possible that there isn't the substance at the bottom and we are living in some sort of self-referencing paradox? That we are all just defined in terms of each other? Or that that substance at the bottom that allows us to avoid self-reference is non-physical, like information? Or do you think the substance(s) is physical? Is that particle physics?

So in your example where the sheep are identical, could we not distinguish the two sheep by saying where they are in relationship to other objects, while avoiding distances associated with space? Imagine a network where you could say sheep A is closer to object B than sheep A'. (I am imagining a network where Sheep/Vertex A shortest route to B is say, 1000 connections away, and Sheep A' is say, 2000 connections away.) Of course with referencing Object B but not defining it, we avoid the self-referencing paradox while leaving the system not well-defined... It's like we have consistency but not completeness. Or we could define B and every other objet and have completeness, but not consistency due to the eventual self-referencing(assuming no substance at the bottom). This seems to jibe with Godel's work, which I guess would make sense since the network is an instantiation of arithmetic and sets. Thoughts?

Thanks for stopping by and stimulating some thoughts!

Gordon/Chevy,

I looked at your paper. That some serious stuff! :) You're defining new things that I would want to have whole conversations about to really understand. Maybe others could take to it a little easier, but that may be the hardest essay in this contest for me to understand. I did not make it past some of your initial definitions :( ... even though they were all math formulas. But if you are on to something and all your work adds up to a different way to look at the experiments that lead to Bell to his conclusions... well that would be... WOW!

I think you should do a video explanation/lecture of it all, with some pictures or animations if you think that could help people understand it better. Some verbal explanations and maybe some nice animations as you write down the formulas? (Unless you think some of it cannot or should not be visually imagined ...or the math should not or cannot be interpreted.)

I'm putting your essay on the back burner for a little bit. I hope to come back to it when I have a lot more time to think about it. I hope by that time some other people have helped me to understand it a little more by having conversations with you on your discussion page.

jon

Hi Akinbo,

I think one way to look at "movement" is just to consider it as a changing of relationships between objects.

Imagine a tetrahedron, with an extra vertex and edge coming off one of the points. To avoid the notion of edges as lines made of points, we could mathematically represent this structure as follows:

1:{2,3,4)

2:{1,3,4}

3:{1.2.4}

4:{1,2,3,5}

5:{4}

And then object 5, which starts one connection away from object 4, discretely "moves" away from object 4 towards object 1 so that it is now 2 connections away from object 4. This is represented as follows:

1:{2,3,4.5)

2:{1,3,4}

3:{1.2.4}

4:{1,2,3}

5:{1}

Is this an acceptable instance of a discrete model with movement?

I look forward to trying to understand your ideas better.

Jon

Thanks for your response, Edwin. I'm glad you felt compelled to offer answers to a couple of the questions. I'm hoping more people will take a stab at some of them. A few of the questions were half-serious, half in jest, and I think you choose two of them.

With regard to question 4, would you agree that a single emitted particle does not spread out as a wave when it goes through the double slit (so it isn't both here and there, yes and no) but rather, it is only rendered into existence when it hits the plate behind the double slit?

With regard to question 6, do you think everything in the real world is 3-D? What about the event horizon of a black hole? Does that have thickness? Or is the notion of an event horizon just an idea or formal construct?

Thanks again for your thoughts! Please feel free to answer other questions!

Jon

Hi Armin,

After Effects is fun once you learn a little. It's just photoshop in motion, if you are familiar with that program. Hopefully you get some time to mess around with it. Maybe you can devote some time to it if you convince yourself that it will help you stay lucid through developing your physics theories.

Are you saying that you think light cones should really be depicted as warped images instead of perfect cones? (Sorry, submanifolds are not my forte, and the few minutes i spent reading wikipedia didn't offer any immediate insight :) If so, that sort of makes sense in a world where matter warps spacetime... unless the warping of space and time perfectly offset each other so that the light cone looks normal for any object, whether it is near massive bodies or not. (I feel like my understanding is not right, so forgive me if I am off base)

I will try to respond to some of your explanations that you offered on your page to some of my questions, but I do remember thinking that some of it was a little over my head. Oh well, maybe I'll google some stuff and try to understand it a little better.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Jon

Thanks Jon for sharing your perspective...

"I think one way to look at "movement" is just to consider it as a changing of relationships between objects".

I agree, by relationship meaning distance between objects. If distance exists as a thing in itself as Newton proposes and is not merely a concept, then 'distance' itself must be a participant in movement by permitting itself to be increased or reduced by the creation of more of itself and the perishing of part of itself. That is the essence of the model I am proposing.

Of course, if distance does not exist but is merely a relational concept as proposed by Mach, Leibniz, etc then it cannot be a participant in movement.

I am not a relativitist but in Einstein's theory it is now proposed that an amalgam of space and time, i.e. space-time exists almost like a substance. It can be distorted and it can vibrate to produce waves (gravitational waves). Indirectly therefore coming back to accept the cornerstone that the builders initially refused, which is the substantial nature of space earlier rejected.

Anyway hope I am not rambling so let me stop here.

Regards,

Akinbo

Dear Jonathan,

Thank you for commenting on my essay -- I answered your question about relational vs self-contained structures on my page.

Your movie is certainly intriguing -- I signed for the mailing list, and I hope to be able to see it someday!

Although you don't give too many details in your essay and in the movie's trailer, it appears that your "digital physics" is trying to avoid the problem with infinite/continuous structures by postulating a universe based on finite/continuous processes. One of the questions in the list at the end of your essay criticizes the infinite/continuous approach in an original and amusing way:

"If actual infinities (as opposed to potential infinities) lead to inconsistencies, and if inconsistencies lead to all statements in a formal system being provable, then must all adversaries of digital physics believe in the multiverse?"

In my essay, I argued for the existence of a maximal multiverse, the Maxiverse, which is actually infinite. I am aware that this creates issues like the measure problem and the existence of true statements that cannot be proven by a finite chain of reasoning, but I wouldn't go as far as calling them "inconsistencies", in the sense that I don't think they prevent substructures within the Maxiverse (such as you, me and our observable universe) to be finite, possibly digital, and well-defined. In the Maxiverse, digital domains and continuous domains can coexist!

I hope your essay does well in the contest, and that you get to raise awareness in the existence of your movie so you can reach some sort of distribution deal.

All the best!

Marc

    Hi Marc,

    You said:

    "Although you don't give too many details in your essay and in the movie's trailer, it appears that your "digital physics" is trying to avoid the problem with infinite/continuous structures by postulating a universe based on finite/continuous processes."

    That is correct!... so long as you meant to write "finite/discrete"

    I agree that there may not be an inconsistency between your model and a digital physics model, so long as the infinities in your model are not harnessed to achieve something. I think from a digital physics perspective, an unbounded, potentially infinite model is fine... so I do agree with your perspective that these two types of models may be able to coexist! What a happy thought:)

    I am going to have another look at your paper and respond to your response on the nature of self. "Digital Physics" does touch on the notion of consciousness and "self" in the movie. Without giving too much away, I can mention that the words "Inconpletness, Self-Reference, Self, Consciousness, Computation" show up in a delayed feedback loop in the movie's drug trip scene.

    Thanks again for your interest in the movie! I hope you get to see it soon!

    Jon

    Thanks, Akinbo.

    I appreciate the dialogue so need to worry about "rambling" on. I think I see what you're model is getting at, but I don't know if it is as intuitively/aesthetically attractive to me as some digital physics models... but that isn't to say that it doesn't have merit.

    I guess in the set/network model I just described, the "distance" (or space) is only implied by the relationship between the objects in the universe and does not exist as a "substance" in the universe. So I guess from your model's perspective, it could not be an active participant in the creation or destruction of itself. But how would you feel about a set/network updating algorithm that existed outside the universe (but controlled the objects in the universe) but indirectly referenced "distance" (i.e. network or connection distance) when updating the model (i.e. causing movement)? Would "distance" be a "participant" in that case, from your perspective?

    I agree that this does sound like it differs from relativity and lends itself more to QM experiments that seem to disprove realism, but I think an updating algorithm to a network model could still yield phenomenon that could be described as "gravitational waves"... not that I have generated this model:) But I'm sure modeling gravitational waves in a simulation on a computer is doable. The question would just be whether you could make it an emergent phenomenon in the model or whether you had to explicitly code it in. If you could make gravitational waves emergent in a network/set model, this would lend credence to the set/network theory(from the gravitational waves perspective), while if you had to explicitly code gravitational waves in to your model, you haven't really shown/proven anything.

    Talk to you soon,

    Jon

    How it cannot be better when you say it yourself?

    Smiles :)

    - Sincerely,

    Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

    Hi Jon,

    Whether there is a substance or not at the bottom, as for the colors I belief, that we can only objectify the relations between different objects. (I just found out last week, that this makes me a 'structural realist' like Eddington). Elementary particle maybe would be a could candidate for the substance. But fermi or bose statistics seems to indicate, that elementary particles have no individual being and might be defined only by their interaction (relation) to other objects.

    That does not mean, that the structure is necessarily paradoxical. Maybe mathematics is wrong trying to build up everything from one set of axioms. "I am not decidable." is not decidable within the axiomatic system, but it is true, if we view it from outside (adding a new axiom). So: "You don't know yourself, but I know you, what you are to me. Although I do not know myself (completely)."

    The network of sheep has his parallels in attempts of rebuilding reality by network of qbits. Early attempts have been made by Finkelstein, Penrose and also somehow different von Weizsäcker. From this contest I think D'Ariano is working on that line. To me these attempts have been to 'atomistic' in their thinking. (What is wrong with that?).

    In my attempt I take the qbit serious in its informational character. Information always being defined as a relation of two terms or concepts in the sense of my previous post. The qbit has its values + or - depending on the direction we measure. So their must exist a state of the measurement subject (apparatus or field as I call it), which can distinguish these different directions (the are orthogonal). The time development however must have the symmetry of the qbit space SU(2) and what is really measurable is only the relative angle of the spin and the measurement observable. That all so far to advertise my essay a bit.

    Best wishes

    Luca

    Dear Jonathan,

    I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

    All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

    Joe Fisher

      Jon: In reply; from my Essay Forum discussion page (see link at foot):

      Thanks Jonathan; I very much appreciate your interest. My work it is indeed intended to be serious. A local-realistic unification and examination of four experiments: challenging Bell's views and his conclusions re nonlocality ... all in the context of Trick or truth: the [as supposed] mysterious connection between physics and mathematics.

      So I hope you'll be back soon with some questions! For I'd welcome the chance to show you that: (i) the maths is little more than high-school stuff; (ii) the defining of new things is little more than my ensuring that all definitions are cleaned-up mathematically.

      In this way I'd expect you to find that long conversations might be reserved for areas of common interest; like the benefit of videos/lecture/pictures/animations. Which all sounds more like your department and some near-future co-operation.

      To that end, my immediate goal is to invite serious critiques of my local-realistic work so that it is clear what I must fix/improve. The point being that the four unified experiments do deliver the results that I claim: for all my results are consistent with actual experiments; or consistent with accepted quantum theory where experiments have not yet been done.

      With my thanks again; Gordon Watson: Essay Forum. Essay Only.

      Jon,

      The above 1.99 stuff was a nervous pitch from a first-time script-writer (me) to a recognised movie-mogul (you).

      For, from my readings of your work: it seemed certain to me that we had one thing in common -- we do not easily accept traditional responses that ruffle our intuitions!

      In the given case some would have us believe that:

      1.99 = 2.00 = 2.01.

      PS: As your dispatched my script to the bin, did you note that the first given number always ends in 9 and that "unlimited repetition" implies a frequency and a wavelength?

      Cheers mate, and for another time; Gordon Watson: Essay Forum. Essay Only.

      Hey Jon,

      Thanks again for your very thoughtful and stimulating remarks and questions on my essay. I just wanted to let you know I posted some responses (sorry it took me a while!). And also thanks again for your movie and contributions here. Looking forward to speaking with you again,

      Steve