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

    Josephson

    You asked about the relevance if h is an electron property. The important consequence is that there is no longer evidence for light quanta, quantization is produced in the electron.

    Regards from ____________ John-Erik Persson

    Dear Dr. Josephson,

    I am going to suggest an addendum, which is that biological processes, help physical systems cohere and have a complete information conservation process, from beginning to end of their evolution and that biological/ mind processes are part of a way to use self organizing criticality as a way to have completeness and conservation of INFORMATION, from beginning to end of physical system evolution

    I.e. the physical system is complemented by biological processes, for the same of information conservation in physical processes.

    If one takes this analogy, what I tried to do in my paper was to ascertain a similar dynamic as to the cosmological constant as initially formed.

    I did that via Klauders quantization of the inflaton field.

    In my paper, the Enhanced quantization plays a role very similar to what you are doing with biological processes.

    I would welcome you critiquing my essay as of December 21st, with this in mind

    THank you for your conversations in FFP 15, they were a gem

    Andrew

    Dear Professor Josephson

    An interesting and thought-provoking essay especially with the analogy between biology and physics which is very different from the way biology is usually reduced to physics. I just wanted to note that one of the earliest thinkers on Physics, Aristotle, considered the universe more like an organism.

    Best Wishes

    Mozibur Ullah

    Dear Prof. Josephson,

    thank you for this cleverly argued essay. If you have a bit of time, I would be glad if you can also go through my essay. I look forward to discuss our works.

    Good luck,

    Flavio

      Gee! So many people want my opinion on their own essays! I can't really spare much time for this as I'm working on an update to my own.

      I've just been looking at your essay. The ideas sound similar to mine but my way of introducing them may be simpler. I hope to have a coherent presentation before too long, but need to slot the pieces clearly together (which my main critic in this thread seems to be notably unable to do in the way he presents his own rival picture!).

      It intrigues me to note that you mention terms like 'edge of chaos'. Please elabortae for my clarity if we can differentiate between chaos of different degrees. Also, we may follow with similar procedure to consider Order and its degrees of less and more! We conducted an experiment where we mixed random events being sensed with different lower and lower degree of regular or ordered events. Chi square test clearly indicated such a mix taking place even at extremely low mixing % of regular pulses!

        You can look up the term on the internet if you want more, but the situation essentially is that chaos refers to 'sensitivity to initial conditions', with differences between two adjacent situations increasing exponentially over time. There is a definite edge between this increase over time and stable situations where differences decrease over time. Biology seems to make use of this because being near the edge supports the possibility of favourable mutations. But you are right in saying that there are varying distances from the edge and this may also be important.