You appear not to comprehend the fact that evaluating your work takes time. Money is not the issue.

I've been fascinated since the 1996 "Towards a Science of Consciousness", finding out that Brian branched out to explore the more personal. meaningful, interpretive aspects of sentient experience. And have been grateful for the few minutes of conversation at various conferences - such as in Holland with the topic of Emergence.

I wholehearted agree that conventional science modeling is insufficient, and likely has some deficiencies in it for it to grasp, let alone express and discuss, the grandeur of our universe .. which by default has to include .. 'fundamentals'.

I am curious Brian, why you didn't reference/mention cybernetics? "Meaning" is a very valuable qualia to include in any TOE. And I think, as many do, that a physics-based criteria for a TOE is to not only exclude the associated relevance of all the vaster complexities and tiers of organizations, but, to mentally dismiss all of that with the wave of a verbal hand,"Those are -just- emergent properties, secondary and 'less' in value or importance in some sense, to the primal constructs of existence."

Not so, not so at all. Because we would otherwise have to posit that emergence produces novel 'fundamentals' or entity/relations that have no relevance or precursive presence in the preceding tiers and events and processes.

Your stressing the word "meaning", is something that Wiener and cybernetics identified as -very- relevant. In fact, I would suggest "meaning" is a word that conveys that association relationship as a synonym .. "relevance". Even if experienced in other frames of reference ... colors versus wave lengths ; language~music versus 'vibrations'. Because each tier of organization has its own sensing~engaging apparatus .. organelles, as it were.

Your designation of Josephson Junction (JJ) ... is a quantum states mechanism of data transference .. meaningfully retained data sets .. from transmitter to receiver.

And so I enjoy your efforts to awaken thinkers to that truth. Behaviors and actions in one tier of existence has interpretive coherent cybernetic -relevance- in other tiers of complex structures .. and should be naturally appreciated as shared interrelated .. associated .. qualia~phenomena~data.

A physics only 'TOE" is, as another friend of mine describes .. really a narrow blindered .. theory of SOMEthings. Even if everything is constructed of those minimalist particles ~waves. And Artificial Intelligence (AI) should more properly be called SI .. SIMULATED intelligence. Especially since life sentience is structured as 'hardware is software', versus hardware carrying software. JJ's are a seminal example. Sender~receiver states change across a separation. They physically fundamentally "re-form" .. and the information moves along -as- the new quantum states or metabolic structures changes.

So somewhere, somehow, deep inside the physics events, are unconsidered 'relevances' .. natural meanings that the particles and waves have with each other. Which are the "primitives" .. which have the capacity to cybernetically contribute to next tiers of organization, as they interact into higher complications .. of added relevance.

James Rose

(*apologies for any typos :-) )

    Re your: 'I am curious Brian, why you didn't reference/mention cybernetics?', the arguments are to a large extent cybernetic in character, but biosemiosis is a more precise indication of what is involved, and so I used that term instead.

    Yes, i agree time does come in. I thought otherwsie as the term 'cosulatancy' is used commercially while we academicians talk of collaboration and discussions. Kindly spare time if you can to comment on our essay here!

    Ah, I see. I don't specifically mention cybernetics in my essay either, but do consider the current question vis a vis cybernetic/semiotic concerns through the ideas of Benj Whorf from the 1930's ; as one aspect of 'fundamental'.

    If you have time, I'd be grateful for your thoughts on my submission "Physical Fundamentals, Math Fundamentals, Idea Fundamentals - Have We Spotted Them All?"

    Whorf was essentially a professional linguist, but I found certain of his insights important and very applicable for improving how we frame general research methodology for any field - not the least, disparate subjects without obvious connections, but yet having underlying shared properties.

    Many thanks, James

    I do get a lot of people writing in similarly asking for me to comment on their work and feel like I am being treated as a consultant since, as is the case with your essay, a quick look most often (but not always) doesn't disclose anything of interest to me so the collaboration/discussion possibility that you refer to does not arise. I had hoped that, in the light of my initial 'no comment', you would not try to press me further.

    Josephson

    Thank you for the link to the analogy between water dops and pilot wave theory.

    Josephson and Sarfatti

    Bound electrons can generate (by energy from the ether) POTENTIAL forces that contain information (polarizing ether particles) without transporting energy. When this information hits a charge (our detector) the force becomes REAL. The measurement CREATES the force.

    What do you think?

    Best regards from John-Erik Persson

    Brian,

    This idea of physical semiotics strikes me as similar to what Lucretius meant when he referred to the "swerve." His idea was there was noting but atoms and void, where these atoms moved through the void and collided and interacted with each other. He then made this suggestion that these atoms would in some way swerve in response to conscious activity or free will.

    Semiotics is the interpretation of symbols. Of course in a syntactic system this can be done with a Turing machine. Often when people refer to semiotics they have the idea of semantics and meaning. Lob's theorem is a way of expressing Godel's second theorem in a modal logic framework, which because of the role of possibility is seen as having a semantic meaning.

    Quantum measurement and the existence of a stable classical(like) basis is not something that can be derived from first principles of quantum mechanics. A quantum measurement is a case where a quantum state is encoded by quantum states. This is a form of quantum self-reference. Quantum states are qubits that obey quantum postulates, or physical axioms, that in this circumstance leads to incompleteness. This appears to reflect the dichotomy between the quantum and classical worlds. We are at a possible situation where this is a form of this semantics or Lucretius's swerve.

    Cheers LC

      In what way, please, does this essay further the basic process of physics - the dialectic between quantitative theory and experiment - so as to improve the accuracy of our description of nature?

      It would be helpful to have a definition of "meaning" in any essay that discusses it.

      In retrospect, I should indeed have mentioned that meaning is the property that signs have that distinguishes them from information in general, and you have to get to p.4 before I get into the question of what a sign is:

      'Note here the relevance of 'cue elements' (in other words signs), interaction with which is a necessity to assure successful performance'.

      As regards how the concepts discussed in my essay 'further the basic process of physics', this is most simply illustrated with the analogy of computer software. One could in principle explain the behaviour of a computer in a mindless way by calculating the sequential effect of each instruction of the compiled code in turn (as per 'shut up and calculate'). That is the physicist's style. But in practice one studies the source code, together with any comments provided by the programmer. In other words, knowing what the code means helps one figure out what is happening (which is for example a necessity if one has to figure out why a program is not working the way it should).

      This shows us that situations exist that can best be understood by taking into account meaning, as opposed to mere calculation. Now if nature is in some sense alive at a fundamental level then we may similarly be able to make sense of it better in terms of accounts that take advantage of the concept of meaning.

      It is worth noting in this connection the related point made by Penrose, whereby physics is determined by mathematical laws, the mind makes mathematics and physical processes give rise to mind, where in the making of mathematics by the mind the meaning of mathematical language plays a key role. If this is correct than meaning plays an essential role in physics.

      Note also my concluding comments starting 'science does however possess tools that should prove adequate to taking these ideas further'.

      Dear Lawrence,

      I myself don't accept QM as being fundamental, but your point generalises, in that one has one system that can encode another. You seem to be aiming for the question of the 'reality of possibility', which is a component of Ruth Kastner's transactional interpretation which is consistent with my own in that it involves systems exchanging information to decide which possibility to realise. But real possibilities don't have to involve QM: one could for example imagine a robot that could determine through observation that certain things could happen some of the time and also investigate the possibility of influencing these probabilities. Semiotics in such a context serves as a language that can help analyse such situations, e.g. by treating some control variable as a sign that is interpreted by a suitable system. Biology and QM would both make use of such mechanisms. My apologies if I'm missing the point you're trying to make.

      Dear Prof. Josephson,

      Thank you for your very different and refreshing essay. I very much like the idea of focusing on "doings", and in fact, the title of one of the first sections to my 2013 FQXi essay (https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Knuth_fqxi13knuthessayfinal.pdf) is "An Electron Is an Electron Because of What It Does".

      The relation between biology and physics is a subtle one. There is, of course, the idea that at the foundation biology is governed by physics. But then I have come to view many of the "fundamental" quantities in physics (position, duration, velocity, momentum, energy) as representing the relationship between an object and an observer, which is why each of these quantities is observer-dependent. Given that the observers we are familiar with are biological, the description of an object-observer relationship (physics) may well have features that reflect the biology of an observer. Or maybe that is what is meant as biology. There is much to contemplate here, and I should probably take David Mermin's statement to heart and

      "Shut up and contemplate"!

      Thank you for an enjoyable, insightful, and refreshing essay.

      Sincerely,

      Kevin Knuth

      Why biology is central (with a little help from ('oppositional dynamics')

      Thanks for your comments, Kevin. I've used 'central' rather than fundamental in my title as I think that that better characterises its role (and that of meaning), in the same way that gravitation plays a central role in determining planetary orbits, and electron pairing in the context of superconductivity.

      I've looked at your own essay and see that it goes some way to treating some of my ideas more precisely, e.g. your coordination which is similar to Yardley's oppositional dynamics. It is even possible that her circling could be used to define in more detail the nature of space. One further thing that plays a central role is the system-process link I discussed in my ffp15 talk, and attach one of the slides concerned here (I hope to be successful in this) -- this is one of a number of such reciprocalities discussed in my talk.

      A key point is that such relationships amount to a new mathematical concept, though one might need to have a more precise way of specifying 'system' to achieve this. One additional key point is that the development of relationships is assisted by mechanisms appropriate to the context, and I don't think you have included the processes by which coordination develops. This is not impossible -- it's in essence an algorithm that does it. But in the end there may not be proof: Yardley notes that proof and truth support each other and one may in the end have to take it axiomatic that particular mechanisms are effective (though one never knows). One might even have a situation like the Riemann hypothesis where a lot of mathematics is founded upon a result that no-one has yet managed to prove!

      This *** web site deletes your input if you do something like forget to deal with the verification process (a pretty serious defect IMHO). In view of past irritations I was backing up the text, but forgot to reenter the attachments. In ase it doesn't work, again, you can get the slides at http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/Documents/Spain-2017.pdf and it is slide 10 I was referring to.Attachment #1: Slide10.jpg

      Dear Brian D. Josephson

      Just letting you know that I am making a start on reading of your essay, and hope that you might also take a glance over mine please? I look forward to the sharing of thoughtful opinion. Congratulations on your essay rating as it stands, and best of luck for the contest conclusion.

      My essay is titled

      "Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin". It stands as a novel test for whether a natural organisational principle can serve a rationale, for emergence of complex systems of physics and cosmology. I will be interested to have my effort judged on both the basis of prospect and of novelty.

      Thank you & kind regards

      Steven Andresen

      Josephson

      We cannot see the light. We see electron's behavior when they are exposed to light. So, Planck's relation dE/df=h can be an electron property.

      Regards from John-Erik Persson

        Prof Brian D. Josephson

        "I argue that the organisation of this fundamental level is already to a considerable extent understood by biosemioticians, who have fruitfully integrated Peirce's sign theory into biology; things will happen there resembling what happens with familiar life, but the agencies involved will differ in ways reflecting their fundamentality, in other words they will be less complex, but still have structures complex enough for what they have to do. According to one approach involving a collaboration with which I have been involved, a part of what they have to do, along with the need to survive and reproduce, is to stop situations becoming too chaotic, a concept that accords with familiar 'edge of chaos' ideas..... "wonderful idea sir

        Here in my essay energy to mass conversion is proposed................ yours is very nice essay best wishes .... I highly appreciate hope your essay and hope for reciprocity ....You may 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

        Maybe, but I can't see its relevance. Perhaps you meant this to go to a different thread.

        What you write here is fairly close to what I was referring to. It is a case of QM having some semantic soundness. Read Olaf Dreyson's paper. I wrote a long comment on his blog site as well. This concerns the possible Turing/Godel implications of QM. My comments I posted a number of times failed to appear right.

        I am not certain whether QM is absolutely fundamental or not. So far there are no evidences which suggest QM is some effective theory of wave dynamics.

        Cheers LC

        Brian -

        I was quite interested in your essay, and took a look also at your slide presentation and Hoffmeyer's "Semiotic Scaffolding". I have some familiarity with this line of thought going back to Gregory Bateson, whom I had pleasure of studying with in my grad school days. I've also written about meaning as fundamental in physics, making some analogies with biology (the links are below). -- --

        So I agree with your general perspective - to quote one of your slides, "Reality resembles an orchestrated dance, more than it does something constrained by the rigid equations that are the norm in the physics paradigm." But I don't think semiotics gives us a deep enough concept of meaning to make the connection with physics, or to explain why we have these particular equations rather than others. -- --

        At a basic level, what makes something meaningful is not that it signifies something else - rather, what's needed is a context in which it can make a difference to something else - which also makes a difference, in some other context. The physical world obviously provides such contexts, that make all the various parameters of physics meaningfully definable and observable. The context in which any one thing gets measured always consists of other things, measured in other contexts. And when it comes to quantum systems, these contexts clearly play a key role: the determinacy of any given parameter of a system depends on there being a physical context that can measure it. -- --

        We usually think of measurement only at the level of signification - in that our measurement results tell us something about the system being measured. But that implies that the system was already in some well-defined state prior to the measurement. While that makes sense for classical physics, it's evidently not the case in the quantum realm - so I think we need to understand measurement at a deeper level. My my current essay discusses what's needed in the structure of physics to make any kind of information meaningful or measurable. I also explored the kinds of meaning built into the mathematical language of physics in an earlier FQXi essay. In The Accidental Origins of Meaning I compared the different ways in which meaning arises in physics, biology and human interaction. -- --

        Thanks for contributing this essay - I appreciate your bringing this kind of perspective into the mix. -- --

        Best regards, Conrad