George,

Thank you for taking a look at my essay and managing to find something of interest within its rough form. I think, more than "aim and intentions," human curiosity is the fundamental relationship we all share as travelers through this intricately varied world.

Very often our physical path is shaped by simple curiosity. I remember reading Feynman's account of watching ants achieve consensus on their path to food and his simple experiments with changing their paths. I wonder if this influenced his conception of the path integral of quantum physics.

Perhaps the nature of path is the salient observable of our physics. Consider that all of physic's dynamic metrics derive from observation of explicit variations of path. Measurement is an instrumental rite of passage, the path through which unknown travelers are admitted to the firmament of our physics. Our experiments set up intricate terrains through which we send known travelers and path is the observable feature of concordance with theory.

I don't believe that the logic of scientific explanation leads to the violence you mention. Surely the drive to improve weaponry was an early form of science, but so were fiber arts, ceramics and herbal medicine.

Regards, Don

    Hi Don,

    I don't agree with two things in your essay. 1) That the path is "emergent" and arises from the interaction of the traveler with the terrain, but it is something entirely new and 2) that cosmological goal of the universe is hang-time.

    The path exists whether a traveler decides to travel it or not. It is part of the existing terrain. Signals can be sent along it to test if it exists, even before a human traveler embarks on the journey. For instance we can send radio waves to Mars and on return determine how long the path is, even without actually traveling to Mars. Of course, you may argue that the signal itself is a traveler, but signals are wave 'disturbances' of what makes up the path. If there is nothing existing in the path to be disturbed, the waves cannot propagate. So the path exists.

    On the cosmological hang-time, my essay would show why I do not fully agree. The universe is not lazing away, it is growing materially and in extent as we speak. That is not a sign of an entity having hang-time.

    Aside this a very lovely essay that should be well rated.

    All the best,

    Akinbo

    Thank you Don

    I also has a good respect to herbal medicine and now I had known something more in this area ....

    Be well, that is important!

    Dear Don, I truly enjoyed your essay, thanks for the good read! Your expertise in theoretical gardening has been clearly useful in illustrating with intuitive pictures the underlying physics of natural phenomena. There is a lot of darwininan thinking in your ideas, although you managed to formulate them in a rather unusually poetic fashion.

    In particular, I liked the ideas:

    > Once again we find a [...] many into one

    > energy being constrained along complex path by physical structure

    > change + constraint

    In my essay I also argue that it is not just energy that is constrained, but also information (I am thinking of Shannon information). This is the essence of many-to-one mappings. I also argue that the observer has a central role in deciding what he/she will focus on, when constructing the many-to-one picture. I would value your thoughts on this matter - though unfortunately I lack your story-telling ability.

    Thanks again!

    inés.

    Hi Akinbo,

    Exciting to find we have disagreements and I appreciate your taking time to read the essay and make comment. As to your two points, I believe we do disagree on path as being emergent, but perhaps your second one regarding 'hang time' is simply due to my not making clear my meaning.

    Regarding path as being emergent, is unfortunate that we can't sit down and talk it through. I'm sure I would enjoy that. You mention being able to determine a path to Mars with, say, radio waves. Still there is a difference between a formulation and actually getting there. As I understand it, there is no exact analytical solution for what would essentially be a three-body problem let alone slight perturbations produced by other gravitational influences. Actually achieving Mars orbit or landing requires multiple in-flight adjustments of momentum, an adaptation to the actual gravitational terrain. That said, someone who actually does orbital mechanics might easily dismiss this argument.

    But more to the point, here is another example. Consider your comment here about my essay. It is roughly 900 characters in extent and as a symbol string it is a unique step-wise path. If we consider my essay as the terrain and some reader of it as the traveler, would any reader other than you type out that particular string as comment?

    As to the idea of goal of the universe being 'hang time,' I don't mean suggest that the universe is simply hanging out a couch. Clearly it is evolving in complexity. I meant to convey the idea that the physical universe emerges as an ongoing 'solution' to some underlying, cross-grained topologies. Their inherent tension is resolved by knotting together in a material form, the 'hang time' of existence. Further, if one of these topologies lacks temporal distinction and one of them lacks spatial distinction, our universe might be adaptive with physical laws adjusted early on to effect knot-ability.

    Be that as it may, thanks for the comment. I have read your essay and will comment there shortly.

    Best regards, Don

    Hi Ines,

    Thank you for navigating my essay and finding something that stood out for you. I will track down your essay. I am curious about how our ideas may compare.

    Regards, Don

      "Field studies are paths of discovery. You get your gear together, put on stout shoes and travel out to chip at rocks, dig up roots and see how the theory fits the terrain."

      "... Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. ... She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. ..." -- H. D. Thoreau

      "Walden; or, Life in the woods" by Henry David Thoreau, p. 222, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1919

        Dear Don C Foster,

        Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

        I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

        Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

        The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

        A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

        Joe Fisher, Realist

        Nice essay Foster,

        Your ideas and thinking are excellent for eg...

        Additionally, in a universe that seems fundamentally inclined toward iteration, we find that travelers, terrains and the paths between them are evolving

        A Good idea, I fully agree with you............

        ..................... At this point I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay, where ...............reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc...just have a look at my essay... "Distances, Locations, Ages and Reproduction of Galaxies in our Dynamic Universe" where UGF (Universal Gravitational force) acting on each and every mass, will create a direction and purpose of movement.....

        I think intension is inherited from Universe itself to all Biological systems

        For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

        Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

        With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

        Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

        Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

        http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

        Best wishes to your essay.

        For your blessings please................

        =snp. gupta

        8 days later

        Don,

        Your essay seemed part musings,part narrative, and part symbolic characterization. Meaningful metaphor is always useful in engendered image and thought.

        The O of Change Constraint sounds like oscillatory dynamics that coordinates human frontal networks in support of goal maintenance. Is there a neurological flavor to the iterations of the Universe? I speak of "heat death" of the universe and energy dispersion in my essay but my essay seems less narrative.

        I enjoyed reading your essay, Don.

        Hope you get a chance to check out mine.

        Jim Hoover

          Nature and I have agreed that:

          "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours"

          -- Bob Dylan said that in "Talkin' World War III Blues"

          Hi Don,

          I do like your concept of hang time: Hang time - the duration that something stays in the air, i.e., the jump of a basketball player at the net, the lingering, high arc of a kicked football.

          This concept of hang time causes me to think of "wavelength". Everything about the matter is scene in at the smallest scales of wavelength.......and usually translates to the longer wavelengths.

          In his lecture on the law of gravitation at Cornell University in 1964, Richard Feynman closes with the remark that, "Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her pattern so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire fabric."

          I think Feynman missed it for gravity in that the most astounding aspects of gravity can only be seen on cosmic scales.

          Take a look at: http://prespacetime.com/index.php/pst/article/view/1101/1089 or better yet just visit my webpage www.digitalwavetheory.com

          I like your essay, informative and entertaining...hard to do.

          Thanks,

          Don Limuti

          Don,

          I found your essay to be an enjoyable read. Its imagery is reminiscent of a Japanese silk-screen. The stepping stones are far enough apart that they require leaps of imagination to go on this most enjoyable participatory journey.

          Jim Stanfield

          Dear Don,

          With great interest I read your essay, which of course is worthy of high rating.

          You are absolutely right that

          «In quantum fields we have these ever-restless and intricately mutable drumheads, but we should not inquire about nature of the drum.»

          You correctly put questions

          «Why does the universe manifest itself as fundamentally iterative? Why are oscillatory dynamics apparent in the universe at temporal and spatial scales varying more than 10^36 orders of magnitude? Is there in our physics a principle to answer those ques-tions?»

          And find answers

          «Life seems to have mimicked a pattern that is widely found in physical dynamics. Recent approaches to model-ing turbulence have found.»

          «In this light, perhaps life is simply a form of turbulence on the otherwise laminar flow of the universe. We will consider that there is anover-arching principle at work in this similarity of nested eddies and it is found in the followingex-amples of hierarchically nested dissipative structures.»

          You might also like reading my essay .

          I wish you success in the contest.

          Kind regards,

          Vladimir

          Don,

          Since it nears the end, I have been returning to essays I have read to see if I've rated them and discovered I rated it on March 24th.

          Hope you have enjoyed the interchange of ideas as much as I have.

          Jim Hoover

          Don,

          This essay lets (I was going to say "makes", but that would not be fun and this essay is fun) the reader think. A story that is in keeping with the theme of the contest is difficult to do. The hardest part of writing in cutting your best line when it no longer fits. I might of made one or two cuts that you did not make.

          Wonderful work.

          All the best

          Jeff

          Dear Sirs!

          Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use spam.

          New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

          New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

          Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

          Sincerely,

          Dizhechko Boris

          Hi Jeff, thanks for your comments. Yes, hard to turn loose of a favorite phrase. Curious as to those you would have cut. Seems like one gets little glimpses but it is difficult to assemble the whole picture.

          Steady on.

          Don

          Dear Don,

          Many thanks for the kind words about my essay and high rating.

          I really hope that you are right

          «At some point we will find the right angle of approach and a new pattern will emerge.»

          My very best regards,

          Vladimir

          14 days later

          My thanks to the FQXi community for this enterprise.

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