Hi Gene,

Thank you for the comments and for the interesting information. I guess that the masses of the particles, the mixing matrices for leptons and quarks, and the coupling constants should emerge from something deeper, but we can still try to find the rules even if we don't know the deepest explanation.

Best regards,

Cristi

Hi Cristi,

one thing I always find striking in these contests is that there seem to be certain currents of thought that find echoes in different ways in different presentations. In some sense, it seems as though there's something in the air that many different authors are trying to capture in their different ways, some more successfully than others.

That's not to say I don't think your ideas are original---they are, very much so, and you display both breadth and depth in your work---but the general direction they hint at seems shared with various other submissions to this contest.

One theme, broadly, is that the notion of 'fundamental' isn't an absolute one, but relative to a given context---you focus on isomorphisms and dualities between (at first sight) strikingly different objects. If two theories apparently start from completely different premises, yet both end up having, in an appropriate sense, the same content, then neither on its own can be considered 'fundamental'---rather, the fundamental must lie in the way they mutually reflect one another.

Your idea of 'seeds' takes this notion to the extreme---perhaps to its logical conclusion. I can still vividly remember the shock I felt when I first learned that to reconstruct a full ('well-behaved') function, all that's needed is the data (including all the derivatives) at one single point. That seemed like magic to me: how does the data over here know what the function looks like all the way over there? How can the way I look I be completely described by just the tip of my nose?

That the universe could be like that is an interesting thought (as is your proposal for algebraic unification---although I guess I'll have to read the essay again in order to really understand the connection between the two ideas). I'll have to mull it over some more, but it's getting late. For the moment, I'll just be contented with the fact that I'm not the only one working some concepts from Eastern philosophy into their essay. ;)

    Hi Jochen,

    Thank you very much for the comments.

    You said "there seem to be certain currents of thought that find echoes in different ways in different presentations. In some sense, it seems as though there's something in the air that many different authors are trying to capture in their different ways, some more successfully than others.".

    I guess it must be floating in the air, because when I submitted mine there were no essays posted yet :) But I am very interested in this subject, so I would be interested to put at the top of my reading list essays with related ideas, which would you recommend? (I was not active in this contest so far because I had some strong deadlines, but now I will have more time to read them)

    I also added yours in the top of my reading list, because it seems very appealing to me. As it happened, I found Lao Zi shortly after the '89 revolution (previously it was very difficult to find such writings), and about the same time I learned about holomorphic functions, so I felt the two of them are connected (it seemed to me at that time similar to the idea of manifest and unmanifest Dao). It was only later when I found about Bohm's ideas, and the holographic principle papers by 't Hooft and Susskind appeared a bit after. But the main reason for me to pursue the idea of holomorphic functions for Clifford algebras was in the similarities between Maxwell's and Dirac's equations with the Cauchy-Riemann equations. In fact, I think that the seed of this idea of holomorphic fundamentalness connects together most of my work in physics - to fix the singularities in GR, the discontinuous collapse in QM, and the Clifford algebra model of particles and forces, the sheaf theoretical perspective, as well as other things I wrote which seem disconnected but to me are part of a long term direction I pursue. Now coming back to Lao Zi, I look forward to read your essay carefully, both because of the theme, but also because I liked your previous essays :)

    Best wishes,

    Cristi

    Cristi,

    Nice essay. I stick to the prose ... You present the "germ" which is all the derivatives of a dynamic process. In my essay, I submit that only a dynamic process can come from nothingness, without failing the primitive rule of non-contradiction.

    A single quantum "spark" could start the dynamic process but, after a number of iterations of the dynamic process, the excitation would return to its point of origin and the whole thing would collapse back to nothingness.

    This is why, I "think/believe" that it requires two "quantum sparks" in order to produce a self-sustaining dynamic process. The first spark starts/creates a dynamic process that would normally evolve in symmetry, returning to its point of origin. But a second spark would disturb the normal evolution of the process making it non-symmetric. The dynamic process would not return to its point of origin and the last iteration would become the new "spark".. for another germ, which contains and maintains the asymmetry imparted by the original second spark..

    Such a two quantum sparks event is most likely exceedingly rare ...

    All fun and games,

    All the bests,

    Marcel,

      Hi Cristi,

      well, there's always a question of how much leeway we allow ourselves in seeing similarities---with enough coarse-graining, everything starts to blur together, so maybe I'm just muddling things together that are, in fact, quite different.

      But for instance, Sebastian de Haro's essay talks about 'relative fundamentality', you about the 'relativity of fundamentalness' (and both of you highlight the reason for why there are some clumsy formulations in my essay: should it be fundamentality, or fundamentalness?).

      This is also something that plays a role in the thinking of Philipp Gibbs, I think: in my discussions with him, the point that there is some mutual relationship between what we think the world is like, and what we are like, has cropped up a fair number of times. As an illustration, take a post-measurement quantum state: the measurement apparatus registers 'up' relative to the electron's spin being 'up', and it registers 'down' relative to that spin being 'down'.

      My own take on this is comes from (algorithmic) information theory: a set may contain a vanishing amount of information, but the information content of a subset may be arbitrarily large, but will always be equal to that of its complement---thus, relative to that subset, its complement has a certain information content (which I more or less equate with what's 'fundamental'), and vice versa, but their union has none.

      And for an example not from this contest, I think it's Jeff Barrett who points out that Everettian quantum mechanics can be understood as positing that 'facts are relations', in the sense of the example I give above---it's neither a fact that 'the electron's spin is up' nor that 'the electron's spin is down', but rather, the factual content of quantum mechanics concerns the relations between electron spins and measurement apparatus states.

      All of this, to me, seems to be similar to the idea of Indra's net: every bead reflects every other; and moreover, the whole of the character of any given bead is exhausted by the reflection it shows. There's a sort of mutual dependency here, as with the measurement apparatus and the electron's spin.

      But it may be that I'm getting carried away here; I do sometimes have the tendency to overemphasize the connections I see. And similarly, don't expect my essay to be an orthodox reading of Lao Zi---mostly, I use concepts from Daoist and Buddhist philosophy in the same sense that one might use Democritus' atoms today, that is, unified at best by a continuity of theme, not furnishing a literal interpretation.

      Still, I'd be very curious to read your comments on my essay!

      Hi Jochen,

      Wow, thank you for the summary! So it seems that, as in the Indra's net, ideas from different essays reflect ideas from others :)

      Maybe we'll come back to this after I'll read them too, and others which will be posted in the meantime.

      I will comment more on your page, about your essay, after I finish it.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Marcel,

      Thank you for the comments. This sounds really interesting: "I submit that only a dynamic process can come from nothingness, without failing the primitive rule of non-contradiction." Nice word choice, "spark" :)

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      • [deleted]

      Hello Cristinel...

      I am a tenacious advocate of a minimum unified unit of fundamentality... i.e. unity "germ"... and I find your insightful exposure of scientific dogma, cognitively refreshing.

      Fundamental logic of the geometry "bench model" can be obscured by the alpha and/or numeric artifice of the semantist and/or equationist, but an operative CAD/SIM supports no illusion... i.e. it is a virtual reality not a theory.

      That is to say that, it makes no difference which "geometric algebra" is applied, if the graphical spatial coordinate geometry upon which the mathematical constructs are derived, does not resolve a unified minimum unit of Spatial quantization (QI), no spatial unity "germ" can be verified.

      To digitally simulate/animate the concept of Indra's net "cast in all directions"... i.e. an origin emission equal in all Spatial directions from a single point... requires resolve of an Origin Spherical Singularity Geometry, which supports infinite minimum unified volume unit shell closure expansion, as a valid CAD environment/field quantization.

      REF: UQS Origin Singularity Geometry http://www.uqsmatrixmechanix.com/UQST-TVNH.php

      UQS as a an Equal Qauntization Quaternion CAD environment... i.e. 6 axis... Space/Energy/Time/Info model addresses deterministic concerns by the fact that all subsequent distribution of minimum units of Energy (QE) must be resolved for the entire field in a manner consistent with emerging system intelligence (AI), on each pulse of the emission, and a minimum unit of Time (QT) is inherent in a continuously pulsed emission.

      Thanks Cristinel, for sharing your insights and thus making an opportunity for comment... I would read with attention your comments on my essay entry Title: Knowledge Base (KB) Access as Fundamental to Info Processor Intelligence.

      Will return to rate after I read as many essays as I have time.

      S. Lingo

      UQS Author/Logician

      www.uqsmatrixmechanix.com

        Hello Sue,

        Thank you for reading and for the comment. I'd like to come back to what you said after I read your essay, to have a better understanding. Good luck with the contest,

        Cristi

        Dear Cristi,

        I read with great interest your deep, comprehensive analytical essay on the problem of fundamentality. You also give very important ideas that give direction to the way out of the crisis of fundamentality, the creation of a holistic picture of the world for physicists and poets.

        Good luck!

        Yours faithfully,

        Vladimir

          Dear Vladimir,

          Thank you for comments and reading the essay. I'm looking forward to read yours, as always!

          Best wishes,

          Cristi

          Hi Christi,

          I read with much pleasure your exellent essay. I am going to study further on the mathematics you indicate because your conclusion :

          "So the state of the universe, including the germs at all the other points of spacetime, is encoded in the germ at ach point of spacetime. Not only the field, but also spacetime itself emerges from each germ." is the conclusion that is one of the outcomes of my own conrtibution "FOUNDATIONAL QUANTUM REALITY LOOPS" and I hope that you will find some time to read and rate it. I don't mention the holographic model but also agree with Sontag, that "Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once ...(in my Total Simultaneity) and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you."

          Thank you for making me think again

          Wilhelmus de Wilde

            Dear Cristi Stoica,

            You wrote: "The universe is rich in complex phenomena and situations of infinite diversity, yet somehow we seem to be able to understand it to some degree, at least partially, in terms of a small number of laws and concepts."

            My research has concluded that Nature must have devised the only permanent real structure of the Universe obtainable for the real Universe existed for millions of years before man and his finite complex informational systems ever appeared on earth. The real physical Universe consists only of one single unified VISIBLE infinite surface occurring eternally in one single infinite dimension that am always illuminated mostly by finite non-surface light.

            Joe Fisher, ORCID ID 0000-0003-3988-8687. Unaffiliated

              Hi Wilhelmus,

              I am happy you enjoyed reading it, and I appreciate your comments. I look forward to read your essay, especially since you point out that our essays have so much in common.

              Best wishes,

              Cristi

              Dear Joe Fisher,

              Glad to see your comments here. From what you wrote, it seems that we share the idea that there is only one unified thing that is fundamental, even though maybe they don't look the same.

              Best regards,

              Cristi

              I wrote the following on mt blog area in response to your poar:

              This quantum hair would show up in BMS supertranslation symmetries. I have not worked out more detailed calculations of this. In fact there is a vast amount of work to be done here. In working on foundations I offer here the prospect for some measurement or observation of what might be deeper foundations.

              Of course in the end there may be no final foundation, or if there is such a foundation I suspect it is basic quantum mechanics. We might be faced with the prospect of finding layers of effective theories with respect to quantum gravity. The reason might be that quantum gravity is similar to the measurement problem and might involve self-referential encoding of quantum states. The issue of the quantum error correction problem I offer a solution involving complementarity between quantum and spacetime principles. However, this might just mean it ends up in the same conundrum as quantum measurement. Ultimately it involves quantum states encoding quantum states. Turing and Gödel rise to the occasion to tell us we can never completely understand this.

              Cheers LC

                Hi Lawrence,

                Thank you for the interesting details, I find this indeed difficult and needs much work. I wish you success with this research in the following!

                Best wishes,

                Cristi

                Cristi,

                Another good piece of writing taking an interesting and, so far, unique approach. I agree and share the Christian Huygens and Bill Unruh (to an extent) approaches. Certainly relative motion through and with respect to some medium (whether condensed 'matter' or not) propagates more quanta to re-quantize signals - the effects, consequences & implications of which is what my own essay explores & identifies. (You'll see non-integer spin is also physically derived!)

                We don't agree on all things but rightly agreement is NOT a scoring criteria. Yours is well considered and written, and also an interesting approach. I particularly agree the last p9 line and my work focuses on that.

                Well done. Up to your usual standard and provisionally down for a high score. I do hope you'll study and discuss the conclusions of mine.

                Very best

                Peter

                  Peter,

                  I appreciate your feedback, and I look forward to see your essay (especially to see how you got non-integer spin). Good luck with the contest!

                  Best regards,

                  Cristi

                  Dear Cristi Stoica,

                  a very interesting essay, thank you for sharing it! I appreciated very much your analysis of Relativity of fundamentalness ("We can regard points as more fundamental, lines being just sets of points, or we can regard lines as more fundamental, points being the meeting points of lines", it's a wonderful example). My essay has many points in common with the first part of yours.

                  I've not fully understood how you consider this relativity only epistemological and how Holographic fundamentalness can escape such a relativity, but sadly I've not the mathematical tools to evaluate the final part of your essay, due my formation in philosophy.

                  Thank you again, all the best,

                  Francesco D'Isa