Thanks for your comment, Andy. This essay is purely about principles, and we are in fact hoping to take things further. In the abstract of my paper How observers create reality I say "[Wheeler's] creative process is accounted for on the basis of the idea that nature has a deep technological aspect that evolves as a result of selection processes that act upon observers making use of the technologies. This leads to the conclusion that our universe is the product of agencies that use these evolved technologies to suit particular purposes". In the present work the issue discussed is essentially the logic underlying this kind of evolutionary process, and ultimately one would hope to be able to say something about the details by working on relevant models. That's a long way ahead, but that is sometimes the case with novel approaches.

This is maybe a point to address the question of how one can justify a theoretical claim. Dr. Sarfatti is wrong to think that such justifications need to be of a mathematical character, a counter-example being computer software, where the source code may characterised in non-mathematical terms (e.g. a piece of code may be annotated as 'if client clicks on cancel, delete his entry' to permit checking its validity. One might in theory reformulate such statements in mathematical terms, but it would not be helpful to do so. And going on from there, consider Osborne's computer simulation of acquiring balance, listed in the references, which implemented a model of skill acquisition due to Baas. Baas's idea was falsifiable in the sense that the simulation might simply never have ended up learning to balance. Of course the program did need to use maths to compute the behaviour, but the idea it was testing was expressible in terms of ordinary language.

So the logic here is: this essay involves a description in terms of words, comprehension of which can be expressed in terms of computer models, which can either confirm the claims of the description or not. If they do not, one looks for a better model, and may thereby progress to a hypothetical understanding of some phenomenon of interest, and one can then go on to see how well this picture fits experiment. That is science for you! (and, incidentally, this procedure is not working out so well with conventional approaches such as supersymmetry where nature is not proving obliging. I suggest, quite seriously, that people working in these fields switch to this new approach!).

Dear Professor Brian D. Josephson,

Reliable evidence exists that proves that the surface of the earth was formed millions of years before man and his utterly complex finite informational systems ever appeared on that surface. It logically follows that Nature must have permanently devised the only single physical construct of earth allowable.

All objects, be they solid, liquid, or vaporous have always had a visible surface. This is because the real 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, Realist

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  • Post #20

Thanks, Alan. Yes, I do remember Michael Tinkham.

Your evolution question is the easier to answer. I'm not at all denying that human evolution occurs (and neither do Intelligent Design supporters, who are often misrepresented as such). What I say in the essay is something quite different, namely that the assertion that the emergence of mankind is completely accounted for by current theories of evolution is not correct, being for example like asserting that the tides are completely accounted for by the gravitational attraction of the Moon when in reality the Sun also has an effect. Here JS's comment 'show me the maths' is relevant: evolution of species is generally not dealt with quantitatively and a number of people have concluded that the calculations if one were able to do them would not account for what is observed. This leaves open the possibility of (for example) there being some kind of monitoring process that may decide that the behaviour associated with some random mutation is one that should be supported in some way. One might link this with the semiotic scaffolding idea which I quote:

"The decisive cause for the birth of a new functional gene would be a lucky conjunction of two events: (1) an already existing non-functional gene might acquire a new "meaning" through integration into a functional (transcribed) part of the genome, and (2) this gene-product would hit an unfilled gap in the "semiotic needs" of the cell or the embryo."

In other words, some mutation would be recognised as dealing with an 'unfulfilled gap' in the context of the way Yardley's 'idea of man' gets realised.

I'll deal with your other main point separately.

    Brian Josephson: That was my post up above. It said at the bottom that I was logged in but the system seems to have changed its mind when I pressed submit.

    Re your 'Are you saying that mind is more fundamental than mathematics, and that fundamental physical laws are no more than creations of the mind?', that's a complicated issue. The critical issue is that what a scaffolding does, in terms of success at some enterprise, does depend on physics, and maths is involved there. But under certain circumstances systems that can 'do maths' could emerge, as indeed happens when we ourselves learn to 'do maths'. But again the question of whether the maths that emerges is correct arises. Intuitively what we learn is related to what is correct, but the situation is not that simple in that we can perfectly well acquire an idea that is incorrect. So an important issue is how is it that we tend to get things correct (and even the fact that the inferences that we make are on the whole valid needs explaining: if this did not generally happen we would be in a real mess). Tentatively I'd explain this by invoking Yardley's pi, an agency responsible for reliability, and hypothesise that agencies that generate 'bad' results tend to crash or whatever so there are not so many of them around. But this all needs to be spelt out in more detail.

    It is again saying that I am logged in at the bottom of the screen, and I trust it is correct this time!

    According to Dr. Sarfatti:

    "That is really not for you to decide on what is constructive peer review."

    As I understand it, it is perfectly in order for an author to respond to criticisms of his own essay, but I have to admit that my response above was strongly coloured by irritating past exchanges with this individual. Let me then address some of the technical issues.

    Jack: We first corresponded in 1963 when I was working with Fred Cummings at Ford Philco Aeronutronics in Newport Beach. You also was my guest in San Francisco in 1976. In fact there was a SF Chronicle article about that. More details are in David Kaiser's book "How the Hippies Saved Physics."

    1) No arguments are given for why cognitive science should not be mixed with 'simple physics', whatever that term may mean. It may be the case, as I do argue in the essay, that there is a level below that covered by present day physics where cognitive science concepts (and biosemiotic ones) are relevant, and that is certainly a possibility that is relevant in the context of this competition.

    Jack: I think you are conflating apples with oranges. Cognitive science phenomena are emergent out of lower levels described by theoretical physics. To make an analogy: theoretical physics is like machine language, and your cognitive, semiotic concepts are like Facebook software many levels up. Now you can claim top --> down causation as well as bottom --> up causation. That is plausible.

    2) I am glad that Sarfatti considers it a 'well-written intuitive philosophical paper for laypeople and beginning science-physics-biotech students'. As it happens there are more highly qualified people than that who have also considered it well-written and of philosophical relevance and who have not expressed the view that it is not for them.

    Jack: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. May we see those comments?

    3) Considering that the only valid research requires Popper falsifiability is an out of date point of view. And perhaps Dr. Sarfatti stopped reading the essay before he got to the point where I say "Science does however possess tools that should prove adequate to taking these ideas further, for example computer modelling (which served to disclose the existence of the previously unsuspected phenomena of chaos and the edge of chaos), dynamical systems theory, and studies involving complexity".

    Jack: I did not reject the basic message of your paper as not being Popper-falsifiable. My specific point was that the right hand side of your ledger was too vague to be useful because it had no mathematical formulation and no connection with Popper falsification compared to the concepts on the left side of your ledger (quantum mechanics). I consider that constructive criticism.

    4) Others here may well not accept the view that "Or, why Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Born, Schrödinger, Oppenheimer, Feynman. Wheeler, von Neumann and Einstein were all wrong about quantum mechanics.", and may indeed find it rather surprising.

    Jack: That is a quote from Michael Towler. I think it is the truth. There is a great schism in physics from the unfinished Bohr-Einstein debate. Many book have been written about it, Bellar, Valentini, Cushing et-al.

    The recent papers by Rod Sutherland give much more force to Einstein's position as further developed by David Bohm in his 1952 pilot wave theory now made fully relativistic by Sutherland.

    5) "The self-organizing action-reaction loops provide the "regulation" synchronized by the macro-quantum non-equilibrium post-quantum coherence (the seat of the soul)." Have you proved that?

    Jack: Nothing can be "proved' in physics. Physics is not pure mathematics. I have given strong mathematically couched arguments for the above in my paper with Arik Shimansky that is indeed, Popper falsifiable. I uploaded that paper in a previous posting on this forum.

    What are the detailed mechanics involved, since you demand the same of me? The explorations of myself and colleagues are going some way to being able to characterise the details of how regulation works.

    That's enough for now!

    Jack: Just read my paper with Shimansky it is much more precise than yours and it provides the sort of mathematics (Lagrangians) that you need. Michael Towler also explained my idea here very well in slides 25 and 31 of his Lecture 8 in his Cavendish Lab course that is online. I have reloaded my paper with Shimansky and Towler's paper "Return of the Pilot Waves"Attachment #1: 1_SarfattiShimansky11252017v3.pdf

    second attempt to upload Towler's "Return of the Pilot Waves' first two attempts failed - clearly Bohrian algorithm ;-)

    Since I have been unable to upload Towler's paper here is the link

    http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/PWT/towler_pilot_waves.pdf

    see also slides 25 and 31 here

    http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mdt26/PWT/lectures/bohm8.pdf

    It is appropriate because I clam that my paper is needed to complete and make more precise what you are claiming in too vague a fashion. You are trying to connect physics to biology in a fundamental way are you not?

    I'm afraid I don't find the paper that you link to to be a very coherent explanation for your claim that: Alternative post-Bohmian mathematical formulation of the essential features of Josephson's program i.e. signals in the sense of transmitting useful messages between node of the complex entanglement networks and the self-organizing regulation of the organism from the wave action particle reaction Frohlich coherence pumping. Maybe it could benefit from redrafting.

    See my response to Andrew Beckwith re the vagueness issue.

    Jack, if you are quite clear that your work can complete mine, then excellent! But you will I think need to do quite a bit more work before you will be in a position to demonstrate just how the two approaches fit together, what you've said so far being insufficient to achieve this. In other words, since you insist upon equations, you will need to formulate your extension in terms of equations, stating precisely what the relationships between the two descriptions are. Go for it, Jack!

    Try harder Brian. I have given equations in that paper for

    1) the action-reaction self-organizing mind-matter strange loop (Doug Hofstader sense) from Sutherland's paper.

    2) How the effective temperature of many-particle systems pumped with EM at resonant frequencies and wave vectors is lowered to give Frohlich "laser-like" coherence in a wide variety of systems.

    3) How that same Frohlich pump mechanism causes the post-quantum action-reaction between waves and particles in the Bohm-Sutherland model.

    "Jack, if you are quite clear that your work can complete mine, then excellent! But you will I think need to do quite a bit more work before you will be in a position to demonstrate just how the two approaches fit together, what you've said so far being insufficient to achieve this. In other words, since you insist upon equations, you will need to formulate your extension in terms of equations, stating precisely what the relationships between the two descriptions are. Go for it, Jack! "

    I have already made a good first step in the Shimansky paper, which you have not yet understood properly.

    Of course more work is required.

    " New Cartesian Physics, which I discovered, claims that the cause of quantum phenomena in the existence of the pressure of the universe, which overcomes the space, to begin oscillations. The physical space, which according to Descartes is matter, serves as the foundation for the birth of life."

    I have no need of that hypothesis. ;-)

    "All objects, be they solid, liquid, or vaporous have always had a visible surface. This is because the real 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."

    I have no need of that hypothesis. ;-)

    "I'm afraid I don't find the paper that you link to to be a very coherent explanation for your claim that: Alternative post-Bohmian mathematical formulation of the essential features of Josephson's program i.e. signals in the sense of transmitting useful messages between node of the complex entanglement networks and the self-organizing regulation of the organism from the wave action particle reaction Frohlich coherence pumping. Maybe it could benefit from redrafting. "

    The wave action particle reaction makes the time evolution of the waves non-unitary and nonlinear. Entanglement messaging between the nodes of an entangled tensor network then happens. It is the linearity and unitarity assumptions that forbid entanglement messaging. In Antony Valentini's terms, the Born rule is violated. God no longer plays dice with the universe in living matter to paraphrase Einstein.

    Jack, I know that exercising restraint is something that is almost impossible for you, but can you please before you respond to something consider whether it really adds anything to anyone's insights (which the above clearly does not -- everyone assumes already that you don't need that hypothesis) before you post anything. At this rate, you may well end up being barred from this forum.