Dear Ian Durham, I agree that the universe can not be fundamental, but the space is the foundation for building the fundamental theories about it, because it is matter according to Descartes identity. New Cartesian physics, in which this principle of the identity of space and matter builds the universe from scratch and pretends to be the theory of everything. . Look at my essay [https://fqxi.org/]New Cartesian Physics[/community/forum/topic/2999] in which I showed how radically the physics can change if it follows this principle. Rate and leave your comment there.

Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

Dear Ian,

thank you for your good essay, I found some interesting points in commons with mine about absolute relativism, but we follow different paths. I think that you could be interested in the book "Why the World Does Not Exist" by Markus Gabriel. It's a divulgative text, but the core idea has something in common with yours.

Bests,

Francesco

    Ian:

    Wonderful, instructive essay.

    I note each of us has experience of the universe that is slightly different than others. These experiences form the basis of our descriptions as you note with the cow. So our experiences form the basis of our descriptions. Thus, the science need to repeat the observations and to interpret the observations to benefit ourselves.

    Hodge

    Dear Ian,

    I enjoyed reading your essay. It contains very interesting discussions of Bell's beables and the relation with what is fundamental, and you explain in a very engaging way. The conclusion is surprising and intriguing. Happy birthday, and success with the contest!

    Best wishes,

    Cristi

      • [deleted]

      • Post #15

      Hello Ian,

      Surprised to see you claim existence of a neutrino magnetic moment. Quick google search gives reasonably recent reference

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269315009545

      where they claim an upper bound only of a few 10^-11 Bohr magnetons. Hope this is not central to your point.

      Trying to get some sense of what a beable is. What is relation between beable and the enigmatic unobservable wavefunction? Beables are observables? If so, then a beable would be the incoherent lump of energy we get when we collapse a wavefunction, beable = single measurement observable? If, why not just call it that? If not, how is it different?

      Now I'm confused, see the statement that vector potential is not observable. What about Aharonov-Bohm effect? The quantum phase associate with a potential can be measured, just isn't a single measurement observable. Phase is relative, requires two measurements.

      and beyond that the statement that E and H fields are beables. They are not single measurement observables. What we measure in collapsing a photon wave function is dependent on how we collapse it - do we use a loop antenna or a whip antenna?

      finally googled for beable and got this - anything that could possibly be. So it becomes a task of figuring out what is impossible? Such fun. Thank you bery much.

      section 2 opens right on point with this - "can a universe be a beable?"

      answer is yes.

      local and nonlocal keep popping up in the text. Distinction is straightforward, and not confined to what we usually regard as a quantum-only phenomenon.

      Unlike the 1/r hidden variable quantum potential of deBroglie-Bohm, it is the

      1/r^2 potential operative in nonlocality. inverse square potentials are those who forces are orthogonal to the resulting direction of motion. They can do no work, cannot communication energy/information, only quantum phase, not a single measurement observable.

      Inverse square potentials include scale invariant quantum Hall of the vector Lorentz force (this is Aharonov-Bohm effect), centrifugal, Coriolis, chiral, three body,... all scale invariant. They cannot be shielded. Brings gravity to mind.

      Darn. Wish I had more to offer here, but just don't get the hidden variable pilot wave stuff and all that has been associated with it. Perhaps I'm tying beables too tightly to dBB? In any case I'm more confused that when I started. To my mind it is just wavefunctions and their interactions, and all the rest is windowdressing we fuss with when we can't see out the window - dark, snow to the rooftops, ice a quarter inch thick on the inside of the glass,... This is what the picture you paint looks to me. Entertaining at times but no fire in the fireplace, and too many empty rooms.

      Don't feel like i know enough at this point to rate this essay. Just confused.

        Hmm. Thanks for pointing that out. I think I see your point though I'm not necessarily saying that the subject-object distinction is all there is to induction and inference. I'm simply saying that it is one facet of it.

        Thanks Wilhelmus! Some very interesting thoughts indeed. Yes, every theory is incomplete. Absolutely, though there is some debate about whether we may eventually find one that is not. This would be the "theory of everything" if it actually exists. I'm not convinced such a thing is even attainable.

        I actually agree with both your statements. In my essay, I am only saying that the universe is not fundamental in the types of theories in which it can properly serve as a beable in the sense implied by Bell. Likewise, in no way am I saying that deduction will get around the problem of induction. Indeed, a good chunk of my PhD thesis was on precisely that.

        Hmm. I guess the question of existence is a sticky one. Personally, as I suggested in the essay, there are certain things that simply aren't provable. But the essence of science is that there are objectively knowable things. So while knowledge in quantum mechanics may be probabilistic, it is still knowledge and it is still predictable in the aggregate, i.e. the probabilistic sense. For instance, while I may not be able to predict if a single cow is brown or black, presumably many such measurements will tell me, on average, what many such cows will be and it is that average (mean or expectation value) that is ultimately highly predictable. After all, quantum electrodynamics, which is built on quantum mechanics, is arguably the most predictively accurate theory ever constructed in terms of how well theoretical predictions match experimental outcomes.

        Thanks for the name of that book. I have never heard of it.

        Thanks Cristi! And thanks for the birthday wishes! Hoping to get to reading your essay soon.

        Actually Bell was a dBB proponent. And you are not the only one who finds beables a bit vague. If you read Bell's original papers, they are not all consistent. What they do seem to represent is an evolution of his thinking on the concept. But the short answer is that, in modern terms, most people accept that a beable, whatever it is, sets the ontology for a theory.

        As for the neutrino magnetic moment, it is worth pointing out that the current constraints are all experimental and have only been able to show that, if it exists, it has an upper bound that is extremely small but, crucially, non-zero. As such, there are some alternative theories in which the neutrino is not a fundamental particle but rather consists of something like a W boson and something else (the exact other particle escapes me at the moment).

        Anyway, it is certainly not crucial to my argument.

        "I am only saying that the universe is not fundamental in the types of theories..." I agree. My point is, that says more about the nature of mathematical theories, than about the nature of the universe. Theories are virtually devoid of information. The universe is not. Hence, the map fails to provide anything more than a very meager description of the territory. Reality is determined by the vast information content of the initial conditions, not the exceedingly sparse information content of sets of equations; change the initial conditions, and you change the resulting reality, even if the equations remain the same.

        Rob McEachern

        Hi Ian,

        Yay, beables! :-)

        One important point about Bell's use of "local beables" that I think it's important to stress, is that every beable is *somewhere* and *somewhen*. In other words, they're parameters that are functions on spacetime. (To take Bell's example that you quote, the field values in classical E+M are clearly spacetime-localized beables.) In fact, if you take this spacetime-localization as the proper reading of his "belonging to objects" quote, the problems you note in section 1 pretty much vanish, I think.

        Then, when you get to nonlocal beables like wavefunctions, it also becomes clearer that you're talking about something very different. Concepts that apply to local beables don't necessarily apply to nonlocal beables. (In my way of thinking, the latter shouldn't even be called "beables" at all -- I prefer "ontology" here, to keep beables connected to spacetime, with wavefunctions and functionals of field configurations in some broader category.)

        But then I certainly come around to agreeing with your conclusion: if the universe is the sum total of all the beables, then the *universe* isn't fundamental -- the *beables* are! But would you be okay with adding the laws and boundary conditions that constrain those beables to the set of things that are "fundamental"?

        Thanks for the essay! -Ken

          Dear Ian Durham

          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

          Thanks Ken. Yes, I absolutely think that the laws and boundary conditions that constrain the beables *must* be fundamental, at least within a given theory. So if the given theory is about the universe as a whole, then they would be *the* fundamental entities.

          As far as Bell goes, perhaps not surprisingly I have a slightly different reading of what he means by "beable" in the sense that I don't think he is as consistent and clear across his papers as everyone seems to think he is. So I'm not sure I entirely agree with your first two points, though I will have to think more about them.

          But, yay beables! Never thought I would write this kind of essay (or reach that conclusion, for that matter) and yet here I am...

          Respected Prof Ian Durham

          Wonderful conclusion..... " a universe that is a beable within the framework of some theory, cannot be fundamental." by the way....

          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