Dear Cristi,

Thank you for responding to my comment. You have certainly understood my main point, that we project interviews onto reality. However you misinterpret me when you suggest "find where they are wrong and then conclude this was because of a wrong projection."

That is exactly what I am doing!

My essay discusses the arguments for one such wrong projection. It is hard to solve other century-old mistakes in a brief comment.

It does not matter why or how Pauli came up with the wrong projection, only that he did. He was brilliant, and his model was extremely useful. It is only when physicists believe in this model and assume spin is a two-state entity that things go off the track. One can very happily use 'qubits' when it is appropriate. Unfortunately, post-Bell all physicists seem to think it is always appropriate.

I believe you are wrong about Bell. He does not assume only that the particle can go up or down. He assumes the particle has two states, +1 and -1. This precludes the 3D spin that is deflected in the field by a spin-dependent amount. When one treats 3D spin versus qubit spin, one does obtain the correlation that Bell claims is impossible.

By projecting qubits onto 3D spin, Bell formulates a false theorem, falsified from his first condition. It is logic past this point, not physics. And the two-state logic ignores the distribution of SG data and is "proved" by two-state experiments on photons, having almost nothing to do with silver atoms in an inhomogeneous field.

I am surprised and pleased to learn that you do agree with me about 3D spin. That's wonderful!

You challenge me to make a model of the helium angle without entanglement. I would ask you to try and understand two types of 'entanglement' that physicists do not distinguish between. First, I remind you that I believe in a deBroglie-Bohm-like wave (function) induced by momentum density as discussed in The Nature of Quantum Gravity. The ultra-dense electron induces a gravito-magnetic wave similar to the manner in which a moving speedboat induces a wave. Boat AND wave are physically real. In helium, two electrons interact and their wave states become "entangled". This is a fancy word for simply interacting and influencing each other. It is physically sensible and not surprising in the least.

This local 'entanglement' is entirely different from Bell type 'entanglement' that exists 'faster-than-light' at any distance. That is the belief derived from Bell's logic based on qubit structure projected onto physics. In short, the entanglement one finds in a helium atom is real and local. It differs from the non-local entanglement of Bell.

Finally, you say prove Bell wrong. I do so here: Modern Classical Spin Dynamics. I do so by using 3D spins in the magnetic field and calculating the deflections. This maps perfectly over the SG data [see figure 6, page 20]. The model is simply classical spin and the correlation is the same as QM predicts for qubits. As you note, you will not study it, nor will any physicist still active in their careers. So it is a thankless task that yet yields satisfactions, and I thank FQXi for a venue in which we exchange information densely and pleasantly.

Thanks again for your thoughtful response, and good luck in the contest.

Best wishes,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Cristi,

I realize math has rules, but how do they relate to this reality we seem to inhabit?

Any grouping of people will need some cooperative structure and language in order to communicate and function together, but are these mathematical rules actually handed down from the face of God, or are they arrived at, through the cooperation of human interaction?

"The empty set is dimensionless, but the set made of a point is dimensionless but not empty."

Can you point to a dimensionless point, or is it an abstraction, distilled down to its most useful qualities?

If it is an abstraction, what concept does it represent?

My impression is that it is an ideal of location. So my view is this point and the coordinate system it locates, is a mapping, or description of the properties of space, relative to an ideal of location, not a set of rules more fundamental than space itself.

Now the point I'm trying to make, is that in reducing this abstraction to an ideal of location, what is distilled away is any quantity of space, ie. dimensionless, in order to eliminate any conceptual fuzziness.

The effect though is that it becomes an ideal of location, without any actual location. It doesn't exist in any real spot, because it is dimensionless. There is nothing, not even a Planck unit, to signify its location.

Then the coordinate system is fixed to it, not arising from it, because the lines and planes could be at any direction and angle. There is no spatial dimensionality to the point, so no structure to give direction to lines and planes. It would seem to be a top down description, not bottom up process, so it is a mapping device, not a fundament to the territory being mapped.

It seems to me, in their quest for intellectual purity, mathematicians sought to do away with the messiness of reality, but that doesn't mean they really are peering into the face of God.

Considering we evolved as singular, mobile organisms, on a terrestrial surface, it might give some clue to why points, lines and planes, along with height, are so fundamental to our view of what is most stable.

Now, I may well be wrong and there are such platonic structures, underlaying the nature of reality, but in the world I inhabit, it is more physical, as well as political, than mathematical. Heck, I can rarely count past about 15, before having to start over, but then again, the sorts of things I have to count are often moving and rarely organized. I live in a world of energies and forms.

Regards,

John

Dear Cristi,

After responding to you I started looking through 26 Jan 2018 copy of Physical Review Letters I received in the mail today. I was interested to find article 040406 titled

"Violation of Bell's Inequality Using Continuous Variable Measurements"

That is essentially the argument I was making above about the continuous variable deflection of silver atoms instead of Bell's constraint of +1 and -1. The current article is based on quantum optics, and therefore does not translate directly into atomic tests, but I hope you can see that it is an isomorphism of the paper I linked to above. The authors [Thearle, e al.] note that for continuum variable quantum optics the Bell test is harder to realize. But, significantly, they state

"Bell argued that quantum states with positive definite Wigner function would not violate a Bell inequality with respect to continuous variable measurements."

They claim the first observation of Bell correlations in a continuous variable system. As I said, this does not translate directly into Stern-Gerlach type of atomic tests, but I believe it is isomorphic to the continuous variable deflection measurements that I describe and that I have shown to violate Bell's inequality.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Cristinel Stoica,

Your essay is very well written. I can not appreciate it from an expert point of view, because it requires much additional information, but as a simple reader I appreciate it very highly.

I wish You success with the contest!

Best wishes,

Robert Sadykov

    Dear Edwin,

    There are some important parts where I agree with you. I wanted to state this from the beginning of my comment, in order to facilitate reading without feeling that I opposed you too much. There is something where we disagree too, but you will see there is some important part where I tend to agree with you.

    But first let me clarify something. When I say that spin is 3D, I refer to the Block sphere representation (plus the phase), not that spin is a mere 3D rotation. To me the spin is perfectly described by a spinor. I agree with the Pauli spinor as the nonrelativistic limit of the Dirac spinor. If you want to describe the Pauli spin of the electron in a basis, ignoring the position and other degrees of freedom, the basis has two vectors. There are not only two states, there are infinitely many, it seems to be two states because the measurement is done in a particular basis, and by the projection postulate yields two possible outcomes. This description of the spin works perfectly and it is very simple and natural. By "simple" I don't mean is simple to our classical intuition, I mean that it arises naturally when combining special relativity with the requirement of unitarity, see Wigner's theorem. The "3D spin" I mention is the Bloch sphere representation, and the state vector, represented up to a phase factor by a 3D vector, is completely determined by the expectation values of the spin operators along the three axes (which give the components of that vector along the three axes).

    Now here is a bridge over the gap between our views. While I take the spinor seriously, it is not directly observable. The observables are build out of the Dirac spinor by taking various products of Dirac matrices and evaluating the result on the spinor field. You know these are scalar, vector (the electromagnetic four-current), bivector (where the angular momentum is), trivector (or pseudovector), and a pseudoscalar (a tetravector). These quantities are observable, and for a single spin 1/2 particle they behave in many situations quite classically. Now by "classically" I mean a classical spinor field, not a quantized field (as in the so-called second quantization), but the point is that these quantities are differential forms. And in the nonrelativistic limit we can treat an external field as a classical field too, in particular the magnetic field of the Stern-Gerlach device. So I am pretty sure that a quasiclassical analysis of the electron in the magnetic field is useful and relevant. You can even approximate the particle with a ball following a classical trajectory, as long as it is not too localized so that Heisenberg's principle makes the trajectory too fuzzy. This bridge I try to present here to you is something I always found reasonable to be true, and thought that it is important to have such an analysis. My brief glance to your paper gave me the impression that you are doing this in a careful and serious way. I always pictured for myself the electron as interacting continuously with the Stern-Gerlach device and exchanging momentum, energy, and angular momentum with it. I didn't do a careful reading of your paper, but I think you do this, and if I am wrong please let me know.

    As a general approach to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, I think it is important to understand what happens. I don't belive in magical projectors, and I think measurements are not sharp, they are just interactions. But I don't think there is a description consistent with both L and SI. I will come back to this later. For now, I want to say that I see nothing wrong with the particle passing through a Stern-Gerlach device and landing either in the up region or in the down region, without a collapse or projection. Even though I see this in terms of spinor fields, I think we see this picture similarly. So probably if I will check all your math and physics I expect I will agree with your figure at page 20. If you did this analysis without adding new physics, with the right math, and got that picture at page 20, I think it is an important result.

    Now, I have the feeling that you are not satisfied with this analysis, and want more, namely to disprove Bell. If you are interested in my 0.02$, here is what I would advise you. Take that paper, clean it for claims that Pauli and Bell were wrong (I will explain later why), and try to publish it. If I am right, you can make it be some "mainstream" analysis of the Stern-Gerlach experiment. And I think you can get it published in a journal with ISI IF.

    Now, I promised you I will come back to Bell's theorem. It is completely irrelevant if he labels the two outcomes with +1 and -1, or +1/2 and -1/2, or |up> and |down>, or just "up" and "down". If you think it is relevant, let's consider then another version of Bell's theorem, one which I say is the same, and you may say is a weakened version. Let us refer only to spin being up or down along an axis, not to Pauli matrices, not to two-level systems. By up and down I call the two places where the particle arrives after going through the S-G device, those two regions you reproduce in your picture at page 20. This is also in agreement with my views, because there are no sharp measurements. So we just think in terms of yes/no measurements, answering to questions like "did the particle land on this "lip" of the iconic postcard, when oriented along this particular axis?"

    If you want to prove that Bell was wrong, then your task (for a second paper I would recommend) is to provide an explanation of the EPR experiment based on your theory, in terms of these up and down along diferent axes. So we stick only with what we can see in the experiment, not with the projections you said Pauli made. Maybe you think you already have this proof, but I still suggest you to put it in a second paper, separate from the one-particle paper.

    If I am right, then you are wasting a great opportunity by mixing your one-particle analysis with the idea that this disproves Bell. I think your reasoning is the following sillogism: "(1) I explained the S-G experiment without Pauli matrices and spin operators, (2) Bell assumes Pauli spin, therefore (3) I disproved Bell". I don't think this works, because I don't think you can get the same correlation as QM with your model, unless you add something that breaks either L or SI. If I am right, you can publish the one-particle paper. If you are right, you can publish the one-particle paper, and then make it easier for the reader to accept your model and to read your second paper, where you will explain EPR. So no matter who is right, I think your analysis may result in a paper, which I think will be useful for physics (but I repeat, this is based on a brief glance of your paper, maybe I project my own views on it).

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear Robert Sadykov,

    Thank you for your comments. I tried to say something worth reading for people with different specializations, so I am glad you liked those parts where our expertise overlaps. I wish you success too!

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear John,

    If your position is that you find no use in mathematics as a way to understand the universe, I have nothing against your view. I do find it essential, but I don't care to convince you. You tried to destroy this mathematics (which you maybe see as as a superstition) from the inside, but I hope you realize you are not inside. So let's agree to disagree and stop here.

    If your position is that I, or physicists in general, should no longer use mathematics, or at least no longer use some parts of mathematics, I don't think you can prove it. Maybe you think you are right and I think I am right, so again we can move over.

    You say we "need some cooperative structure and language in order to communicate and function together", but you don't want it to be mathematics. OK, then what language do you propose to use? Is this other language "actually handed down from the face of God, or are they arrived at, through the cooperation of human interaction?"

    You said "Can you point to a dimensionless point, or is it an abstraction, distilled down to its most useful qualities?".

    No, I never claimed that my finger is pointy and that we can see points, so I can't show it to you. But I hope you realize that this doesn't make your previous "mathematical" statements about points right - you never said if you still believe them. You gave me no feedback about my point-by-point reply to your first comment, neither about my discussion of your "unconventional" usage of mathematics. I don't know if we are making progress, or you just hold the same conclusion and only try to change the arguments.

    Maybe there are no points, I explained this possibility 10 years ago, here, where I said that maybe there are no points, but we can still use the mathematics of locales. I realize this is not what you mean, because it is even more abstract mathematics. I consider it too abstract too, so I stick for the moment to sets of points instead of more general locales. What I know is that mathematics, despite using points, works so well, and I may be sad that you refuse to visit this world, but I respect your choice. You claim it doesn't make sense, and you live in a political world. Can politics make better predictions than mathematical formalism in physics? You say you live in a physical world, not a mathematical one. I say they are the same, you don't have to believe me, but you want me to believe that there is no math without bothering to understand what math is.

    I confess that I am very limited, and when I do physics I need to rely as much as possible on mathematics, not on politics or only on the mundane experience. Maybe your statements about points being zero being empty sets and so on make sense to you, but to me, and I claim that to other mathematicians too, they don't. So I realize I will not be a good partner of discussion for you, because I am too trapped in trying to make logical and mathematical sense of your words. I have nothing against your views, but I think there is a reason we are different - we are different so that I can explore the world according to my views, and you according to yours. I am sorry I couldn't borrow your eyes and that I couldn't lend you my eyes for a moment, I believe it would have been an interesting experience for both of us.

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear John,

    Let me express my thoughts in a way more similar to politics and economics.

    We live in a world which gives us few things to rely on. I searched many years some sort of safe or true vision of the world. Maybe it is my fault, but I think that almost everything is impredictable and biased, so almost nothing is trustworthy. Eventually I realized that the best thing that gives me some solid ground and understanding of the world is mathematics. You may think I am wrong, and I am happy if you have other, more solid grounds. But to me, mathematics and logic allow both understanding and prediction of the world, in the best way I found. It is only when I see things mathematically that I feel I really understand. Otherwise, I can keep in my mind various ideas, but to my standards they seem fuzzy and unreliable until I can make them rigorous. But of course the world is more complex to be understood mathematically, so I keep this understanding for physics. My human, mundane side, lives in a world which is still not mathematical, and I don't hope I can make it mathematical, because I know very well the limits of mathematical understanding by limited being as myself. So in this world of complexity and randomness, I take another position, which if I would want to describe is of skepticism and openness. That is, experiences happen, I have no solid proof to qualify them, to judge the intrinsic value of people or events. They happen as in a play, I am spectator and actor, but I gave up trying to make rigorous sense of them. I try to allow people be, because I have no absolute truth about how they should be, and I think it is their right to have their experiences in the best possible way they choose. This makes me able to live in a world which is far from the solid ground provided by mathematics, in a way which makes me happy for my experiences and which allows me allow others have their own experiences. And I am a bit avid in trying to see the world through their eyes too, this makes me realize I have no moral high ground on the others and no way to save them from their problems, since I have my own.

    So I want to thank you for trying to offer me another perspective, and a possible reality check. We both tried, and it didn't work. It seems to me that you propose me to give up mathematics, and I don't know what I will receive instead. Because mathematics is the best I know for understanding and predicting the world, and I know it works. So, if we look at this politically and economically, it seems that I have only to lose from this deal :) Now you may think that you have some special views of the world and some experiences that don't need mathematics. I have too. But is it needed for me to give up what for me is so important, to receive what you think you are offering me? Do you think mathematics prevent people from having experiences like appreciating music or poetry, or love? So let me return your favor and ask you, do you think you will lose yourself if you try to see mathematics for what it is, rather than for what you project on it from very far away?

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristi,

    Thank you for elaborating on your view, which I tink I can understand a bit better now. Your view reminds me a bit of that of the presocratic philosopher Parmenides, who claimed that "All is one" i.e. that the universe and everything in it is like one solid unchanging block, and that any change or smaller parts we perceive is an illusion, a deception by our senses. It seems to me that someone who applies these ideas to fundamentality would not be so far removed from considering it a purely epistemological matter, except for the one ontological truth of the fundamentality of a unified whole.

    The person who in my mind is the best known modern proponent of Parmenidean ideas in physics is Julian Barbour. Perhaps you may also have an affinity for some of his ideas on general relativity.

    All the best,

    Armin

    Dear Cristinel,

    the structure of your essay is quite typical of many others. So allow me a more general criticism at this point. You begin with the human perspective, e.g.: "The universe is rich in complex phenomena and situations of infinite diversity...". From there you jump to isomorphisms, mathematical isomorphisms to be sure. Then, after long discussion and diversion you end up in holomorphic unification. Fine! But then the trouble begins to steer back to the human perspective: "If the program whose first stages were described in the previous section will turn out to work and solve the mentioned open problems....maybe we will find out that this Clifford algebra has a geometric meaning..." So what you say sounds a little bit like: if the squirrel were a horse one could ride up the trees, i.e. you try to solve unsolvable problems. Why? Well, you tried to answer the contest question.

    Mathematical isomorphism is a wonderful tool for mathematicians. However, the only physical 'isomorphism' known today is the 'isomorphism' of Leibniz' relational and explicit three-dimensional Euclidean (Newtonian) space. The problem is that this 'isomorphism' has no positive mapping rule, for relational 'space', the 'space' of human experience, is defined by prepositions, adjectives and adverbs, i.e. possible relations between objects. In other words, relational experience and Euclidean space are incommensurable and, therefore, Absolutely-non-contradictory. Felix Klein was able to capture the entire nature of Euclidean space just because he framed it under a conservation principle (a negation=prohibition!), whereas Hilbert's positive-logical efforts at Euclidean space ended up in a complex and unusable mess.

    So, my general criticism is that your and many other essays set out from the human (anschaulich) perspective (to capture the reader) from where they jump into mathematics (instead of physics) without the slightest chance of ever returning to human experience, hence leaving the scientific reader wanting and the artist sufficiently flabbergasted to turn it into something anschaulich again.

    May the most beautiful castle-in-the-air-win,

    Heinrich

      • [deleted]

      • Post #169

      Cristi,

      As I've said, I see reality as a dichotomy of energy and form, form being order, in that it is stable. If form were unstable, it would break down and the energy would radiate away. Yet form and energy naturally push against each other, as in galaxies, where radiation expands out, as mass pulls in.

      As I see it, Math looks deeply into the form side and some people come to see form and order as more important than energy, rather than two sides of the same relationship.

      Now ask yourself, is math a science, or is it belief? If it is science it should be open to questions and occasionally questions that raise issues that are uncomfortable, because science is about always looking further, not only being happy with what we have. When we were children and our bodies were growing, we had growing pains, because it does hurt to change, but it is still necessary.

      If math is a belief system, like a religion or ideology, than change is bad and should be avoided and ignored.

      Now no one outside of math much bothers to question it, because it is complicated and necessary for science in all its forms, but now physics is having serious problems, with everything from super symmetry and string theory not working out, to cosmology using multiverses and the anthropic principle to explain what logic and experiment cannot. Where does it go? Are there questions that cannot be asked, because people will have their feelings hurt? Maybe that is a sign those are the sorts of questions that should be asked. That is what this contest is trying to do.

      I thank you very much for continuing this conversation, because I am used to being ignored, which is obviously painful for me. Fortunately I don't have to earn a living in professional math, or I would be hungry.

      Best regards,

      John

      Dear John,

      > "Now ask yourself, is math a science, or is it belief? If it is science it should be open to questions and occasionally questions that raise issues that are uncomfortable, because science is about always looking further, not only being happy with what we have. When we were children and our bodies were growing, we had growing pains, because it does hurt to change, but it is still necessary."

      You didn't question it, you just made wrong statements like point=zero=empty set=nonexisting. You continued to do such things in the follow up and never admitted. If you go and ask any mathematician they will disagree with you, and you will reinforce your idea that they are so afraid of the truth you are preaching.

      > "now physics is having serious problems, with everything from super symmetry and string theory not working out, to cosmology using multiverses and the anthropic principle to explain what logic and experiment cannot"

      You make a confusion between ideas and mathematics. These ideas don't follow from mathematics, even though their proponents use mathematics to model them. And I never endorsed these views anyway.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Dear Heinrich,

      Thank you for the comments. About the "human perspective" I talked more in an older essay when the topic was more suited for this. About emergence I wrote in my previous essay. This time I wanted to write about some new ideas I have about fundamentalness, and how I didn't pull out of my hat the holomorphic fundamentalness idea, because it is endorsed by physics, in particular by a unified model of particles which I developed.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Cristi,

      I am sorry I can't address all the issues and tend to focus on those which concern me most, but that is the nature of the game. Since we don't see the particular issue of the properties of points from the same point of view, If I may, I would like to put the problem in a broader, historical context and use that to illuminate the actual issue which led me to the issue of dimensionless points.

      As I see it, math is the study of pattern and order, then using this to project out to make connections with other patterns and predict how processes with evolve. Given this reality is highly complex and often chaotic, the math is also enormously complex.

      Now one of the oldest sciences is cosmology, the study of the celestial objects and their actions. This has been going on for tens of thousands of years and while it only broadly occurred to astronomers that the earth was not the center of the cosmos about 500 years ago, the cosmology of epicycles, placing terra firma at the center of the cosmic coordinate system, was extremely accurate and effective. There was nothing wrong with the math, because any point can be the center of a coordinate system. As individual beings, each of us is the center of our view of the entire cosmos, so logically we could construct a model with everything moving relative to our position. It would be an effective representation of our experience of reality.

      The problem is trying to deduce a physical explanation for this perceived order and with cosmology, a significant factor was that we are not the center point of the larger universe. The sun is the general centerpoint of the solar system, while the Milky Way revolves around the black hole at its center, the name of which currently eludes me.

      So can you see how math informs physics, but is a necessary and useful mapping of the observed order, not an underlaying basis of that order? That when we assume the perceived order is foundational, without remaining skeptical, it creates problems. Remember we still see the sun as rising in the east and setting in the west.

      So the issue which originally led me to this view is time. Since our minds function by forming a sequence of perceptions, we think of time as the point of the present "flowing" past to future. Physics codifies this as measures of duration, between events and then assumes duration is evidence of some underlaying dimension, which is then correlated to measures of distance. Then assuming that dimension of duration functions as a fourth coordinate.

      Now mathematically it is all very functional, but there are physics issues, such as assuming time is symmetric, meaning there is no difference which direction it goes, it would be the same duration. As well as possibly all events still extant on this underlaying dimension, but since the math works, one is just supposed to "shut up and calculate."

      As I see it though, it is not so much the present moving past to future, but change turning future to past, as in tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. Duration is simply the state of the present, as events coalesce and dissolve, meaning past and future do not physically exist.

      Therefore time is an effect of action, similar to temperature. Time being measures of individual frequency, while temperature is an effect of masses of amplitudes and frequencies.

      We could correlate temperature and volume, using ideal gas laws, but assume ourselves to be more objective about temperature, since it is only the basis of our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not the narrative flow of our thought process.

      So it is a similar problem to epicycles, in that the cause is going the other direction from the position we perceive. Earth turning west to east, as with future becoming past.

      Time is asymmetric because it is a measure of action and action is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both.

      Different clocks can run at different rates and remain in the same present, because they are separate actions. All things being equal, a faster clock uses more energy, as with metabolism.

      Simultaneity was dismissed by observing different events with be perceived in different order from different points of view, arguing all these events must still exist along that fourth dimension. Yet this is no more consequential than seeing the moon as it was a moment ago, simultaneous with seeing stars as they were years ago. It is the energy that is conserved, not the information it carries. It is that this information changes is what creates the effect of time in the first place. It is the very fact that the energy manifesting an event is radiated away, that we can observe it having happened, as well as why it no longer exists.

      So, not to be too persistent, can you see why I have issues with the "shut up and calculate" crowd?

      Regards,

      John

      Dear John,

      I appreciate your explanation of the problem of time as you see it.

      You said "So, not to be too persistent, can you see why I have issues with the "shut up and calculate" crowd?"

      No. I don't see myself as an adept of "shut up and calculate", neither in quantum mechanics (which is the original context of this adagio), nor in general, and I don't think physicists in general can be characterized like this.

      I don't understand your remark. Do you mean that using words only is somehow intrinsically superior to using words AND backing them with math? Really, I don't understand what you are trying to say.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Dear Cristi,

      Thank you for your extended reply. I am retired and have plenty of time for this. You are in the middle of your career and have very little time, therefore I appreciate your gracious behavior. I take your criticism very seriously - you are certainly correct that all 'animus' must be removed from any paper on Bell. With that understood may I provide another link to a paper [please ignore the title!]: Bell was Simply Wrong , in which you might look at page 5 and 6 for the Bell test result figures. On page 5 is the model and page 6 shows the results obtained for +1 and -1 [which fail the Bell test] and for variable A and B based on the classical model [which produces the desired Bell cosine correlation]. Both are based on 10,000 runs generating random spin and SG orientations.

      As I have so little opportunity to exchange thoughts with you, and since you mentioned the Dirac spinor, I link to an analysis of Dirac's equations: Spin: Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac, Bell. It is not generally known that Dirac's 4-component Dirac wave function is not an eigenvalue equation [see page 13] due to coupling between the positive and negative components. It yields a Pauli-like eigenvalue equation only after a Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation which 'smears out' the Dirac point particle, decoupling the positive and negative states, but occupying the region over which the integration is performed. Even then the equation does not yield spin, but helicity! Dirac is treated pages 10-17.

      Finally, let me mention that Steven Kauffmann has analyzed the Dirac equation and shown that the speed of the electron is greater than 1.7c, where c is the speed of light, and other anomalies follow. Kauffmann attributes this to Dirac's desire for 'space-time symmetry' [per Einstein] which causes Dirac to forsake the Correspondence Principle in favor of 'symmetry in space and time variables'. [The same space-time symmetry I address in my essay.] Kauffmann has developed a unique relativistic extension of the Pauli Hamiltonian which does not produce the Dirac anomalies, but the world is not currently begging for any improvements to the Dirac equation. I include the link to his paper simply for your convenience, in case you ever desire to look more closely into the situation: Unique Relativistic Extension of the Pauli Hamiltonian.

      Once again I thank you for your generous response. You need not respond to this comment. I simply present the information to you.

      I see at the moment you are number one. Congratulations.

      Best regards,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Cristi,

      All I meant is that math has its blind spots as well. It might well seem like an overly strong or derogatory way to put it, but there certainly do seem to be numbers of people who think that crunching the numbers into ever finer detail will solve the problems physics seems to face.

      I don't see there is a particularly clear line between logic expressed in words, or mathematical symbols. Add=.

      My observation is that we are looking at time wrong and I have generally been dismissed for arguing this, by many whose primary argument has been appeals to authority, not by refuting my point.

      Would you argue that, "tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns," is an invalid analogy for the passage of time, from future to past, but "block time" is just the way it is and I shouldn't presume to argue? That has been the position of a fair number of people and so I feel I have some right to question their logical objectivity.

      I am not including you in this, because you have been open minded and considerate.

      Regards,

      John

      Dear John,

      Yes, you can say all that math says using words. But I don't see this kind of rejection for example for natural languages. I wonder why.

      If you read some of my previous FQXi essays, starting with the first one, Flowing with a Frozen River, and then The Tao of It and Bit, you will see that I endorse a block world view which is completely different from the one endorsed by its other supporters. Rather than explaining it here, I gave you the links. But the point is that if one considers that the problem with the block is the lack of free will because of determinism, my proposal is both deterministic and consistent with free will. I infer this by removing the collapse in quantum mechanics.

      I am sad to see that your ideas were refuted by appealing to authority. I don't know if by authority you mean people or well tested theories. I would like to believe that I accept only a few hypotheses, only after the experiments filtered them very strictly.

      Now going back to your problem, I believe it is simpler to go straight to the claim, than to have an introduction in which you try to refute mathematics based on wrong reasoning. Starting by saying how wrong and useless is mathematics gives the impression that you did this because you anticipated you will be asked to show the math. I may ask, but I know if you have it you give it without being asked. The problem is not the math, if the idea can be put in words without needing the compact language of mathematics. But the bigger problem is that you have to clearly define the terms unless you use them as physicists do. For example, you said "Time is asymmetric because it is a measure of action and action is inertial." The common meanings of these words in physics make this statement to be meaningless. Do you mean by action what you get when you integrate the Lagrangian? If not, you have to define it. Do you mean by "inertia" the property of objects to preserve their state of motion? Do you mean by time asymmetry the second law of thermodynamics? Without defining the terms I can't make sense of them, and I guess nobody else can. But as they stand, they make the statement meaningless. And very important, once defined, each word should be used according to the definition. No switch of the meaning on the fly. Otherwise, your reader will believe at best that you don't have a clear picture of what you want to say. Such problems can be much easier spotted when using the mathematical language, and this may be a reason physicists keep asking for it. And lacking of math or at least of clear definitions gives the impression of avoiding to give it or to give clear definitions so that they can be changed on the fly to accommodate inconsistent ideas. And even someone with infinite time and patience (which I am not because I have two jobs) will be unable to understand what you say, no matter how clear you think it is. I hope this helps.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Cristi,

      Your final words: 'Holomorphic fundamentalness may be a mathematically consistent basis for holism and the holographic principle, but until we ... have the unified theory of physics, it remains an exercise of imagination' is the most fundamental conclusion that can be drawn concerning the FQXi question What is 'Fundamental'. Thank you.

      No one so eloquently disclosed the importance of this turn of events as Albert Einstein in a 1921 lecture Geometrie und Erfahrung: 'As far as the mathematical theorems refer to reality, they are not sure, and as far as they are sure, they do not refer to reality.'

      It is comforting to think that everything can be reduced, through mathematics, to physics; but as you imply, and I interpret, in the absence of a unified theory of physics, we are left to 'imagine'. Most conspicuously absent from any unified theory to date is how ephemeral topics like consciousness, dreams, ideas, indeed the 'mind', can possibly be embraced within a unified theory of physics.

      Thanks for the therapeutic solution: 'imagination'. Upon reflection, this is what we have been relying upon for eons; a 'comfortable substitute explanation' for the 'reality' of our ignorance of the preponderance of the constituents of 'a universe ... rich in complex phenomena.'

      Like you, 'I ... focus on a particular meaning of "fundamental" as something that is at the root of everything.' Apparently we have both recognized that the FQXi question What is "Fundamental?" invites a singular response. Otherwise the question would be framed: What are "Fundamental?" This 'reality' has guided us both to 'imagine' a fundamentally more fundamental concept than many others have disclosed.

      Best wishes,

      Gary.

        Cristi,

        I will go back and read your previous entries, because the argument for block time does interest me.

        I am saying the arrow of time arises from the first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of energy.

        As I am a presentist, that only the present is real, energy is "conserved" because it is only present and it is the changing forms of this energy that create the effect of time.

        Say a batter hits a ball. The energy of the event of the swinging bat is transferred to the event of the ball flying away. So it is the energy flowing through this process that creates the effect of BOTH time and its direction. The event of the swinging bat can no longer physically exist, because the energy has flowed to succeeding events. It wouldn't be conserved otherwise, but would be left in the past.

        As I understand it, physics assumes that duration, this temporal dimension, underlays the entire sequence of events and like a length of space, say a foot, is a foot if you measure from A to B, or B to A, it would seem that time is assumed to be symmetric because a unit of time is assumed to be similar to a unit of distance. So measuring from event A to B is the same duration as B to A. Which seems to ignore the conservation of energy. How do past events continue to exist, if no energy remains in the past? I suppose mathematical forms don't need energy to be manifest?

        As for free will, I see that as more of a political slogan. What are we to be free of? Input? In which case, wouldn't we be equally free of output, i.e., consequence? I like it that I'm part of a larger process and my will is a factor in that process.

        As for the issue of determinism, While the laws governing processes might be deterministic, the outcome has to be calculated and that cannot occur prior to the arrival of the input, which is traveling at finite speeds, from multiple directions. So it is the occurrence of the event which is the computation of its outcome. To assume all events are pre-determined from the dawn of time is to assume these calculations were already made, but that would require information to be separate from the energy transmitting it and presumably exist in some platonic realm, where those calculations can also be made.

        It is the occurrence of events that determine their outcome. The past is an effect of the present. Time flows from potential, to actual, to residual. Future to past.

        As Alan Watts put it, the wake(past) doesn't steer the boat(present), the boat creates the wake.

        I'm not saying math and general language are the same. Math is much more precise, concentrated and defined, while general language naturally has much broader and fuzzy uses. The difference is the distinction between specialized and general. Consider taking pictures of a landscape. You can take a wide angle and get a much broader picture, or you can use a telescopic lens and focus on a particular detail, but you can't do both, at the same time. So the specialist doesn't have a good perspective on the broader picture, while the general view misses many of the details.

        Regards,

        John