I have written up my memories of thoughts as a two month old baby. See here in (2008) https://ben6993.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/early-memories-as-a-baby/#comment-83

I wrote that "there must have been a change of phase at two months" so I agree with you about early phase changes.

I wrote my childhood essay as no one believes my memories are credible. One friend has childhood amnesia and cannot remember much under ten years old. Remembering under two years old is often deemed not credible.

I also wrote that "a fractal analogy is interesting. In fractals, a similar pattern is found on different scales. ... I was remembering different occasions of being awake (small scale - one day to the next - awake/asleep/awake/asleep etc.), but it seemed like different occurrences of life (large scale - one life to the next). Before the change of phase, prior awakenings seemed like prior lives as there was so little of 'me' to remember in them. And as soon as I was old enough to know that I was a continuing 'me', ie in the new phase, it was too late... as I had been deceived by the change of phase into remembering it as a prior "life" rather than just a re-awakening."

And maybe this sort of phase transition underlies [mistakenly ;) ] belief in reincarnation.

Despite all that striving to find my identity at two months, I would no doubt have failed the mirror test until much older than that.

The change of phase has nothing to do with my own contest essay, but my contest essay does look at fundamentality wrt quasi-fractal ideas so maybe my baby experiences pre-conditioned me to think quasi-fractals are generally relevant.

Best wishes

Austin

    Dear Brajesh,

    thank you for your kind comments. I'm very happy you found something that speaks to you in my essay!

    Hi Austin,

    thanks for your comments. Regarding the mirror test, as I said to Georgina above, I don't consider passing it necessary to establish the existence of a sense of self---it's the other way around, passing the mirror test necessitates having some idea that there is an object in the world that is picked out by the indexical 'I'.

    But it's certainly plausible (indeed, likely) that such an 'I' might exist without an ability to pass the mirror test. For instance, I can easily imagine a person that has never encountered the idea of a mirror, or reflection in general, having problems recognizing themselves as their reflection. That doesn't mean they have no concept of themselves.

    I agree, though, that my phrasing in the essay was ambiguous at best.

    In regard to fractals, I discussed them in passing in an earlier version of my essay, which however had to get cut due to length constraints---basically, the idea was that one can think about fractal structures that contain the full information about themselves within a proper part, so that the part may 'know' the whole. But it ultimately became too lengthy a distraction.

    As for early-life memories, I can't really speak to that---I don't have any, and I know virtually nothing about the neurophysiology etc. involved. Georgina above, however, reports being self-aware at birth---maybe you two could exchange early-life experiences!

    Well, as I said, it's not so much that we can't grasp what goes on below, so to speak, but rather, that the question just isn't applicable. The models we construct of the world have the characteristic that there exists some fundamental layer, some base facts whence the rest flows, but I think it may be a mistake to conclude that hence, the world itself must have that structure. So while we can answer this question with respect to a given model, the question just is ill-posed if asked of anything but a model.

    In a sense, one gets a hint of this in dualities: both gravitational and quantum theories have some 'fundamental' core, but they disagree, in general; nevertheless, in certain cases, both may turn out to describe the same physics. So which of the two theories' fundamental layers is the right one for the physics they describe? In my opinion, since neither is privileged compared to the other, the answer can only be that none is. Each model has a fundament, but the world doesn't. What we see as fundamental is just an echo of the way we build our models.

    I think that the appearance of accident and randomness is actually another clue in that direction. One can generally represent a noncomputable function with a computation plus an infinite random string. Consequently, a being building computational models of a noncomputational world would end up describing it in terms of computable, deterministic evolution interspersed with random events---which is of course just what we see in quantum mechanics, and perhaps in the selection of initial conditions and such.

    In the end, you may well be right that our approaches could be seen, in some way, dual to one another. It's kind of like asking, 'what exists?', and you answer, 'everything', while I answer 'nothing'. But these aren't ultimately distinct. Likewise, refusing to answer the question of fundamentals and answering it with a certain universality class of models where we can't further find out which is the right one may not be too far away from each other.

    Hi Jochen

    Thank you for your reply.

    You remark connecting fractals with having the full picture in a small part was interesting as was your trimming down on fractals in your essay to meet the essay length restriction. I had to trim but kept quasi-fractals as central. I cut down on quantum spin though and that was a useful enforcement as I think there is a big mystery in tieing spin into the geometry of spacetime and I did not want to get bogged down in that mystery.

    I noticed you commented on Indra's Net by Stoica. I may comment there when I am clearer, but to be honest I had not made the connection between quasi-fractals and bohmist ideas before now (so thank you as it has made me think differently!). Bohmism and the Indra's Net (may) imply a continuing spatial connection over time whereas I had been thinking only of an initial symmetry across space which breaks down via symmetry breaking because the initial symmetry is not maintained over time and space. On the other hand my model has 'universes' embedded in particles so maybe it is not surprising that particles have connections across the whole. That sounds unusual but it is simply calling the manifolds (at the heart of particles) 'universes' rather than folded dimensions.

    Thanks again.

    Austin

    Dear Dr. Szangolies,

    I read your interesting essay on modeling the universe. But I think you left out an important requirement. Fundamental models must be simple and unified, as recognized by Occam's razor. Unfortunately, too many would-be fundamental models are anything but simple and unified.

    In my own essay, "Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics", I argue that unity and simplicity are most fundamental, although the unity of physics was broken in the early decades of the 20th century. I review the historical basis for this rupture, and go on to present the outlines of a neoclassical synthesis that should restore this unity.

    Briefly, quantization of spin in real quantum waves such as the electron (there are no point particles) provides the scale of discreteness in what is otherwise a universe of classical continuous fields. There is no need for Hilbert space, indeterminacy, or entanglement. The same waves provide a real embodiment of time, space, and relativity; there is no need for an abstract spacetime.

    Furthermore, the advent of quantum computing takes this beyond obscure philosophy into the technological realm. Without entanglement, quantum computing will not work. There are billions of dollars being invested in this, and I expect an answer within 5 years. But when I have tried to discuss this with active participants in the field, they react as if I am killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs. No one wants to hear such a negative story, including funding agents. My prediction is that the failure of quantum computing will lead to a reassessment of the entire foundations of quantum mechanics.

    Best Wishes,

    Alan Kadin

      Dear Jochen,

      I enjoyed reading your essay. I like some ideas like the infinite regress in the relation between an object and its model, I thing you made a good point. Also the way you reported them to the four verses by Lao Zi, and the interpretations. As one major point of your argument, I understand that you connect the impossibility to give an accurate description of reality to another major problem, the hard problem. That's an interesting approach to this, and the indeed "bold hypothesis that these connections are given by our phenomenal experience, the qualia: our mental models are connected to objects in the world via our phenomenal experience of them" is quite intriguing!

      I may come back with some questions, but until then, good luck!

      Best wishes,

      Cristi

        Dear Dr Jochen Szangolies,

        You neglected to mention that all real objects have complete visible surfaces.

        You wrote: "The world itself, however, cannot be reduced to such a set of fundamental facts. The salient fact here is the necessary incompleteness of every model of the world."

        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

        Dear Jochen Szangolies,

        I enjoyed your essay on modeling and generally agree with your statements therein. I too have long thought that an appropriate metaphor is

        "The nameless is beginning of heaven and earth,

        the named is the mother of 10,000 things."

        and I fully agree with your final sentence:

        "... Some of the most difficult philosophical problems might call not so much for their solution, as for their dissolution."

        "When the one mind is not disturbed,

        The ten thousand things offer no offense."

        One nagging philosophical problem arose from Einstein's contention concerning "the relativity of simultaneity". My essay examines the historical evolution of his view. I hope you will find interesting enough to comment on.

        Congratulations on a pleasing and well-written essay.

        Best regards,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

          Dear Jochen,

          You have constructed, in my opinion, a remarkably accurate analysis of the question at hand. Your essay is certainly one of the standouts in this contest, as far as I am concerned. You will find me to be in agreement with all of the proposals you have put forth, bar none.

          Would you happen to have read the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein? I see heavy shades of his own thought in your essay, and Wittgenstein is always welcome company in such meditations.

          I have just one query, however: You speak of the minimum amount of information required to uniquely specify a system. Do you have any suggestion for a criterion using which one may pick out this set of information?

          My own thoughts (which you will find in my now uploaded essay) are, it seems to me, quite similar to yours (in form than in substance)- I felt like I was rating my own essay when I rated yours!

          Regards,

          Aditya

            Dear Alan,

            thank you for reading my essay and commenting. Occam's razor is certainly an important methodological guideline in scientific model building, but one should not overextend its reach---otherwise, one risks it loosing its edge. Ultimately, the what the razor really does is guarantee predictivity: without it, we would be free to choose whatever ad-hoc hypotheses make the 'prediction' we want to have, and science becomes arbitrary.

            In other, less empirical domains, however, Occam's razor becomes mostly a question of aesthetics.

            Regardless, I'll have a look at your essay---however, a point in advance is that it's by no means certain that entanglement is really necessary for quantum computing: DQC1, for instance, is a proposal for quantum computing that does not rely on entanglement to achieve a speedup over what's classically possible.

            Dear Cristi,

            thanks for your comment! You're right that the infinite regress is a core element of my essay; ultimately, I fell that much gets explained once one stipulates (or buys my regress argument) that the world isn't computable. And in the end, we never had any good reason to believe it is, anyway.

            This leads to the idea that modeling itself is something not amenable to modeling---ultimately, because computation must be grounded in something non-computational, or face infinite regress. I thought it intriguing how these ideas reflect certain tenets of Daoism and Buddhism---in particular in the way they lead to the stipulation that ultimately, the world does not have a 'fundamental nature'---it is 'empty', as the Buddhists would say.

            But again, there's a lot of interpretive license here. The Buddhists didn't really think in terms of algorithmic information content anymore than Democritus thought about quantum mechanics when talking about atoms and the void.

            I'd be glad to answer (or try to, or at least, be hopefully entertainingly stumped by) any questions you have!

            Dear Edwin,

            I'm happy you see some value in my appropriation of Laozi. I think that there's a set of similar ideas that you can see popping up throughout history, in really disparate places, that formulate in different frameworks similar core insights---and that, once recognized, those ideas can serve to correct what I see as some fateful and potentially misleading ideas in traditional Western philosophy. Most notably, a core strain in the latter is that everything starts with substance, something that, in some way, is capable of standing on its own, of yielding a foundation not itself upheld by anything else. Eastern metaphysics, with its emphasis on relationalism or denial of such things as fundamental substances, natures or characters, may help overcome some long-ingrained prejudice here.

            That's not to say that those wise ancients got everything right. Nobody did, and likely, nobody will for the foreseeable future; but we need to survey all the options on the table, pick what works and discard what doesn't, even if it hurts sometimes, if we ever want to get down to business.

            Anyway, thank you for your comment. Your essay is on my reading list, although I may be slow to comment due to some work related issues; I remember finding your last one very intriguing.

            Dear Aditya,

            thanks for your kind words! And you're right to spot the influence of Wittgenstein on my thinking (although more the Tractatus, early-period Wittgenstein). As I said above, I think there's a cluster of ideas related to the unutterable, to what cannot be grasped with the concepts we have at our command, that surfaces in different formulations and with different thinkers.

            As for the minimum of information, I'm leaning on a concept from algorithmic information theory here: Kolmogorov complexity, which roughly relates to the shortest program (on any kind of computer---in fact, it turns out to be irrelevant which computer you use) that suffices to reproduce a given object. So for a piece of text, or a picture, or whatever, there are generally many possible programs that produce it as output; you take the shortest, measure its length in bits, and get a unique measure of the amount of information needed to specify that system.

            It comes with a catch, though: due to issues related to the halting problem, it's in general impossible to compute the precise minimum value. (However, certain approximations exist.)

            I'll certainly have a look at your 'linguistic turn' on the contest's question!

            Dear Jochen Szangolies,

            While you are in Düsseldorf and not in Vienna, I guess you are equally competent in quantum theory as is Quantinger. Therefore I guess that your utterance

            "is that it's by no means certain that entanglement is really necessary for quantum computing: DQC1, for instance, is a proposal for quantum computing that does not rely on entanglement to achieve a speedup over what's classically possible"

            relates to several essays of this context.

            Could you please explain how DQC1 is proposed to work? I guess, QC stands for Quantum Computer. If I recall correctly, at least two decades ago, first systems including quantum computing parts were claimed having already achieved a considerable speedup.

            Curious,

            Eckard

            Dear Jochen Szangolies

            In qualifying the aim of the 'What is Fundamental?' essay contest, Dr. Brendan Foster, the FQXi.org Science Projects Consultant wrote: "We invite interesting and compelling explorations, from detailed worked examples through thoughtful rumination, of the different levels at which nature can be described, and the relations between them.

            Real Nature has never had any finite levels.

            I have concluded from my deep research 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

            Dear Jochen,

            I enjoyed reading your interesting essay, a little surprising considering your QM background but a good analysis. I found similarities with my last yrs essay though I identified a model and cognitive neural mechanism for greater self-understanding than most seem to think possible and you suggest. It used multiple layered feedback loops with some similarity to latest AI. Please do falsify it if you have time. prev fqXi essay

            I'm certainly one for mental models and did Architecture training to hone visualization skills. Adding dynamics was then a small step, hlped by yacht racing and processing a number of inertial frames. It was nice to read your rationalisation of that.

            Good score coming, but most importantly I do hope you'll read my essay where with different more coherent starting assumptions I appear now to have derived complementarity classically along with QM's predictions & CHSH>2. It needs your skills. See also the matching code in Declan Trails.

            Many thanks. Look forward to chatting, & best of luck.

            Peter

              Dear Jochen,

              I really enjoyed your essay, your parallels with the Dàodéjīng (but also with the "emptiness of emptiness" of the buddhist conclusion) are very well implemented. My essays about absolute relativism has many points in common with yours and I'm particulary intrigued by some of your statement. You worth a good vote and I wish you luck!

              I've a question. You write that "Consider the world as a set of objects. Call that set 'everything'. Then, 'everything' has no information content at all, since it must have the same information as its complement, i.e. 'nothing'.", but I've not understood fully what's your definition of "information".

              Bests,

              Francesco D'Isa

                Quantinger and Mr. Beam are nicknames of Anton Zeilinger.

                Kadin might also be courious concerning the DQC1. Are all details secret?

                Eckard

                Four Verses from the Dàodéjīng by Jochen Szangolies

                Hi Jochen Szangolies

                You said nicely 'Among them is the problem of fundamentals: since every model of the world reduces to some set of fundamental facts, we expect the same thing to hold of the world as a whole. This, however, ultimately confuses the map with the territory.' And about the Mirror test..." it's certainly not necessary to be able to pass that test in order to have a sense of self, but I'm merely taking it the other way around---that having some idea of what 'you' are is necessary to pass the mirror test. Because by passing that test, a child, or ape, or bird essentially says 'that's me'; so there needs to be an idea of 'me' beforehand." You went into philosophy.... dear Jochen Szangolies.............. very nice idea....

                I highly appreciate your essay and hope and request you please spend some of the valuable time on Dynamic Universe Model also and give your some of the valuable & esteemed guidance

                Some of the Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model :

                -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 GR on any condition

                -No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models

                -No many mini Bigbangs

                -No Missing Mass / Dark matter

                -No Dark energy

                -No Bigbang generated CMB detected

                -No Multi-verses

                Here:

                -Accelerating Expanding universe with 33% Blue shifted Galaxies

                -Newton's Gravitation law works everywhere in the same way

                -All bodies dynamically moving

                -All bodies move in dynamic Equilibrium

                -Closed universe model no light or bodies will go away from universe

                -Single Universe no baby universes

                -Time is linear as observed on earth, moving forward only

                -Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis no interdependencies between axes..

                -UGF (Universal Gravitational Force) calculated on every point-mass

                -Tensors (Linear) used for giving UNIQUE solutions for each time step

                -Uses everyday physics as achievable by engineering

                -21000 linear equations are used in an Excel sheet

                -Computerized calculations uses 16 decimal digit accuracy

                -Data mining and data warehousing techniques are used for data extraction from large amounts of data.

                - Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true....Have a look at

                http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_15.html

                I request you to please have a look at my essay also, and give some of your esteemed criticism for your information........

                Dynamic Universe Model says that the energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation passing grazingly near any gravitating mass changes its in frequency and finally will convert into neutrinos (mass). We all know that there is no experiment or quest in this direction. Energy conversion happens from mass to energy with the famous E=mC2, the other side of this conversion was not thought off. This is a new fundamental prediction by Dynamic Universe Model, a foundational quest in the area of Astrophysics and Cosmology.

                In accordance with Dynamic Universe Model frequency shift happens on both the sides of spectrum when any electromagnetic radiation passes grazingly near gravitating mass. With this new verification, we will open a new frontier that will unlock a way for formation of the basis for continual Nucleosynthesis (continuous formation of elements) in our Universe. Amount of frequency shift will depend on relative velocity difference. All the papers of author can be downloaded from "http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/ "

                I request you to please post your reply in my essay also, so that I can get an intimation that you replied

                Best

                =snp