… “Digital Physics”: An Essay That Uses Poetic License to Discuss A Few Theories in the Movie… by Jonathan Khanlian

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Akinbo Ojo

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

Marc Séguin

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

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Jonathan Khanlian

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

Sujatha Jagannathan

Your symbol of vision is provoked from the aspect's theory that resulted in honesty, cultural and economic physic attributes.

Great work.

- Sincerely,

Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

Jonathan Khanlian

I couldn't have said it better myself...I think?

Sujatha Jagannathan

How it cannot be better when you say it yourself?

Smiles :)

- Sincerely,

Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

Luca Valeri

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

Joe Fisher

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

Jonathan Khanlian

Thanks, Joe. So many essays to read, not nearly enough time. I hope I have the requisite understanding to give you some good feedback. Any thoughts on Digital Physics?

Jon

Gordon Watson

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.

Gordon Watson

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.

Steven Sax

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

Jonathan Khanlian

Thanks, Steve. I'll be over to check out your response soon.

Gary Simpson

Jon,

My apologies for the tardiness of my reply. You made a post in my forum and I did not notice it since it was a reply to an old thread.

I'll repeat it here

"Do you think it is possible that we may be living in a finite and discrete universe that could be described in an informational way? Do you think we could make more progress in our understanding of physics if we looked towards computer programs/simulations, instead of new sets of math equations, for explaining phenomenon? How much complexity do you think is in the universe, and how much of it is compressible?"

I think the universe is finite. I cannot say anything about whether or not it is discrete. I'm not even sure how the word "discrete" would be applied to the universe. Is the universe a discrete solution to a massive system of wave equations? Some people argue that the wave equation for a Bose-Einstein condensate at 2.7 K describes the universe.

How would a computer program or simulation help? Wouldn't it need to be given rules to obey? To me, that would still constitute mathematics. I think you are asking about emergent behavior ... Even that can be described by statistics although then there may not be a method of cleanly connecting the various laws to the results or to the other laws.

The universe is a complex as it needs to be to be the universe:-)

Regarding your essay ... it was interesting enough ... the numerous quotes were very telling ... which one is the actor and which one is the physicist? It made me think of a book titled "Physics on the Fringe". It was about some amateur scientists. I have not read it but the reviews were interesting. The author compared a meeting of the amateurs with a meeting of cosmologists and she concluded that she could not tell who was who:-)

Best Regards and Good Luck,

Gary Simpson

Jonathan Khanlian

Thanks for the response, Gary.

I'm not sure if you could actually have a continuous universe that was finite. I assume you are imaging a continuous universe that is bounded, say by the observable universe or something similar. A math analogy: You might say that the interval of real numbers between 0 and 1 is continuous and finite, but I would say that you have the infinite in the form of the infinitesimal because you implicitly believe in infinite precision non-computable real numbers when you believe in the continuum. Infinite precision non-computable real numbers are what make up the continuum in a mathematical sense.

A discrete universe would rule out a continuous wave, just like a computer couldn't actually contain the infinite amount of information needed to represent every point on a curve... although it could contain the finite algorithm to generate the wave to any desired level of accuracy... It just can't contain the non-compuable, which is what makes the continuum the continuum.

Jon

Jonathan Khanlian

Thanks for the response, Gary.

Jon

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