Dear Luca,

Thank you for your comments.

My current thinking is that much of physical law is derivable in the sense that it represents constraint equations that enforce consistent quantification of physical phenomena. I believe that constants, such as the fine structure constant, are forced by symmetries as well and are derivable. The problem then is that I see no way to explain how these laws are tuned to life. This is something that will require more thought once we better understand the nature of such laws.

I look forward to reading your essay.

Sincerely,

Kevin Knuth

Hi Kevin,

Your essay this time is fine, but going over what you wrote before and all the references made me believe that you have similar idea/conclusion to mine, although mine looks very strange and different. Particularly I think you are basing your system on "causal sets", so I think the relations between events(probabilities build up in my system) is the key to the structure. I appreciate if you take look at my essay. Thanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_sets

An earlier FQXI contest essay by you which I really like

https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Knuth_fqxi13knuthessayfinal.pdf

another paper that resembles our systems

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1411/1411.2072.pdf

    • [deleted]

    Nice essay Kevin.

    It's good to see someone else writing on the observer aspects of laws. You might look to some of later Eddington (as I'm sure you have before) on how your consistency conditions for the laws come from aspects of measurement - not sure this would resolve the biophilic aspect, but might be relevant.

    I think Ken above spotted a terminological issue relating to "anthropomorphic". I assume you mean just "anthropic" in cases such as varying constants?

    Best,

    Dean

    Nice essay Kevin.

    It's good to see someone else writing on the observer aspects of laws. You might look to some of later Eddington (as I'm sure you have before) on how your consistency conditions for the laws come from aspects of measurement - not sure this would resolve the biophilic aspect, but might be relevant.

    I think Ken above spotted a terminological issue relating to "anthropomorphic". I assume you mean just "anthropic" in cases such as varying constants?

    Best,

    Dean

      " ... the Koide formula remains a curiosity, much like the Titius-Bode Law." Is the Koide formula somehow related to the fact that some quarks have charge 2/3 ? Is there a Koide-variant-formula with 1/3 instead of 2/3 that is somehow related to the fact that some quarks have charge 1/3 ?

        Dear Kevin

        If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don't rate them at all. Infact I haven't issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to gain.

        Beyond my essay's introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity's effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me and my essay in questioning this circumstance?

        My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a "narrow range of sensitivity" that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. And again, how lucky we are! for if they didn't then gas accumulation wouldn't be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

        Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn't we consider this possibility?

        For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we "life" are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

        My essay is attempt of something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up a potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond formation activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemistry processes arose.

        By identifying atomic forces as having their origin in space, we have identified how they perpetually act, and deliver work products. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might explain for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

        To steal a phrase from my essay "A world product of evolved optimization".

        Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

        Kind regards

        Steven Andresen

        Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin

          Kevin,

          Your abstract comments about laws; 'these concepts are part of the dogma of science as a belief system' and that 'In this sense reductionism, as an act of seeking simple underlying explanations, is ultimately critical to our understanding'. Seemed to give way to a mostly historical resume and analysis of origin. Interesting, fundamental and nicely written indeed but was I wrong to feel a little disappointed not to find ways to escape dogma? Or do you accept we're doomed to live with it?

          I also argue and exemplify a specific reductionist approach and though you only touched in it's value was more sated by your examples, a worthwhile reminder for those caught up in the more fashionable emergence.

          I know you've considered QM but avoid it here. Maybe wisely, but is it not the prime case of illogical laws? I ask as I've tested parameters for 3yrs and seem to have broken through to a classical mechanism by changing a hidden assumption; using the Poincare sphere (4 vectors inc. orthogonal 'curl') instead of singlet states, and all as Bell predicted.

          Very few so far have read carefully enough to follow the complex ontological mechanistic 'measurement' sequence (part due to embedded dogma!) but I hope you can. Declan Trails short code & plot confirms the CHSH>2 Cos^2 derivation. (also Gordon Watson's partial algorithm heads the right way). A few redefinitions emerge and non-locality disappears.

          I hope you can help.

          Well done for yours. Very Best of luck in the judging.

          Peter

            The assumption that laws of nature are permanent isn't a dogma. It has been confirmed by any experiment made. Obviously laws could be changing so slow that cannot be measured, but then the claim they are really changing is a metaphysical claim and we will continue assuming that they don't change.

            There is no logical reason to invoke a Creator, even less when the Universe is defined as an isolated system.

            I see no reason supporting the idea that the design of the universe couldn't be other. So questions as "why is the universe the way it is and not something completely different?" don't make any sense to me.

            An algebra of kind 2x2 = 22 is relatively easy to imagine.

            Masses aren't "initial conditions"; the state space is (p,q). Masses are parameters. Also in one sense initial conditions aren't accidental, because they are final conditions for previous trajectory.

            I don't find anything surprising on Newtonian laws describing the motions of planets orbiting the Sun, but not the number of the resulting planets, and their respective orbits. Newtonian laws don't describe the number of particles neither their mass or energy.

            I always find interesting to see some physicists considering the possibility of multiverses, which is a non-physical hypothesis. Discussions about multiverses would be better left to philosophers.

            Information Physics is a buzzword. There is no central role of information in physics, and the work of people as Jaynes has simply added confusion and nonsense to physics. I recall here Balescu criticism of the thermononsense school: "Jaynes' and coworkers theory is based on a non-transitive evolution law that produces ambiguous results. Although some difficulties of the theory can be cured, the theory "lacks a solid foundation" and "has not led to any new concrete result"".

            Knuth' work is another rehash of older and debunked ideas introduced in the early times of quantum theory about "observers playing a central role" in Nature, and taken to its extreme by Wheeler's nonsensical "it from bit".

              Professor Knuth,

              Thank you for an excellent overview of the curious role that patterns of numbers have played in the history of mathematics and science, with an emphasis on questioning the depth to which these patterns are fixed within what we observe.

              I will readily confess to being both a bit of a tolerant pragmatist regarding most such patterns. I am both a pragmatist in the skeptic that the more broadly a pattern is found in diverse types of data, the more likely it is to be attached deeply within the infrastructure behind that data. Thus words in Europe lead back "only" back to Proto-Indo-European, while the spectral element signatures of elements on the other side of the visible universe lead all the way back to the shared particle and space physics of our universe. In many ways, what we really seem to be doing there is (as you note) not so much looking for "laws" as we are looking for points of shared origins in space and time of such patterns.

              I am a skeptic in the sense that it's exceedingly unwise both in everyday life and in data analysis to assume that just because you see a pattern that it's necessarily meaningful or even real. We humans are particularly prone to seeing exactly what we want to see, a phenomenon that itself is a pattern that emerges from our need to make fast, efficient use of relatively slow and limited-capacity neural circuitry. Our brains take a lot of shortcuts.

              The delicacy of the fine-structure constant is just the tip of the anthropic tuning mystery. Lee Smolin estimates that when you take the product of all of the tunings needed create a life-as-we-know-it tolerant universe, the odds fall to 1 in 10229. For some perspective, that is almost as low as the odds of our President saying just the right words in a multicultural sensitivity training session.

              I was not aware of the Koide pattern. Since I am currently working on a paper with strong geometric implications for fermions when represented in the right space, such a vaguely geometric pattern might well prove relevant (or not!) So, my thanks for alerting me to it.

              Cheers,

              Terry

              Fundamental as Fewer Bits by Terry Bollinger (Essay 3099)

              Essayist's Rating Pledge by Terry Bollinger

                Dear Juan,

                Thank you for commenting.

                It is clear that we are going to disagree about many things.

                Let me address the one point that I am most familiar with:

                > Knuth' work is another rehash of older and debunked ideas introduced in the early times of quantum theory about "observers playing a central role" in Nature, and taken to its extreme by Wheeler's nonsensical "it from bit".

                I am Knuth. So it is strange to hear you mention me in the third person in a comment addressed to me. It is true that work was partly inspired by Feynman and Wheeler's absorber theory, which was an attempt at doing away with the electric field. But it is not a rehashing. Fenyman and Wheeler assumed the physics of spacetime and electromagnetism. What I have done, with Newshaw Bahreyni, was to show that the mathematics of relativsitic spacetime is the only possible way of describing a set of causally-related events. We are working to derive (some of) the laws of physics from basic symmetries in the model, which is an entirely different enterprise. We are not naive enough to believe that this could yield anything like a final fundamental theory. The work is aimed to seriously explore what is possible.

                I, of course, strongly disagree with your assessment of Jaynes.

                and will refocus on your statement:

                > There is no central role of information in physics

                Wow!!! Really???

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Ken!

                Thank you for your kind comments!

                I did actually mean 'anthropmorphic' (man-shaped) when was initially talking about the physical laws. The fact that we call them 'Laws' or 'Laws of Nature'. We think of these as rules that things must obey. 'Obeying rules' is a very human-centric perspective. I did not really come back to it because I used it as a means to discuss the idea that even a Creator would be able to create in an unconstrained manner. My mere mentioning of a Creator seems to have ruffled some feathers, but the point was that there are constraints that cannot be broken. 2 3 is not ever going to be 10. Everything would break. And that is meaningful.

                I myself don't believe that the constants change. Pi doesn't. What really is important is that we really do not understand why some constants have the values they do. Until we understand that, we cannot know that the values cannot change, and we cannot know whether other universes might have constants with other values. That was really what I was going for.

                But the fact that this universe is nicely tuned for life, the anthropic principle (of or relating to humans), is interesting. This is especially true if there are reasons why the constants have the values they do. Then, it seems that things will be difficult to reconcile.

                Thank you again!

                Kevin

                Dear Satyavarapu,

                Thank you for your kind words and for pointing me to your essay. I do hope to find the time to read it.

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Flavio,

                Thank you for your kind comments. I do hope to find the time to read your essay!

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Don,

                Thank you for your kind words.

                I am glad that they struck a chord with you!

                Thank you for pointing me to your essay. I do hope to find the time to read it!

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Steven,

                Thank you for your comments and for pointing me to your essay. It sounds very interesting and I hope to find the time to read it.

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Terry,

                Thank you for your kind words and comments.

                I didn't intend that the focus of the essay be on patterns per se. I was more interested in pointing out that it is not easy to distinguish or identify a law of physics in the first place, much less deciding on what is fundamental.

                The fine-tuning is indeed interesting.

                > almost as low as the odds of our President saying just the right words in a multicultural sensitivity training session.

                or as low as him attending any sensitivity training in the first place!

                This is perhaps evidence that the universe could be even more fine-tuned!

                Thank you again!

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Adel,

                Thank you for your comments, and kind words regarding my earlier essays.

                You have certainly captured my attention by referring to my work and Dr. Kastner's work. I do hope to find the time to read your essay.

                Thank you again,

                Kevin Knuth

                Dear Dean,

                Thank you for your comments.

                Most of my work is indeed focused on how consistency conditions arise from symmetries related to measurement, or more precisely, quantification. It does not appear to resolve the biophilic aspect, which has me in a bit of a quandary.

                Regarding the terminological issue. I had correctly used anthropomorphic to refer to the concept of laws. I did not extend that description to the latter part of the essay where I was discussing the anthropic biophilic aspect of the laws of physics. So I hope that this clears up that confusion.

                Thank you again!

                Kevin

                Dear David,

                Thank you for your comments.

                The 2/3 does not appear to be related to the charge of quarks, and there does not appear to be a 1/3 variant. Instead, the relation appears to be some sort of (geometrical?) relationship among masses across generations.

                It is not well-understood, nor is it known if it is an accidental relationship, which is why it remains only a curiosity.

                Thank you again,

                Kevin

                Dear Peter,

                Thank you for your kind comments.

                Your comments about dogma are interesting and relevant. I mainly wanted to point out that this is dogma, and that science, in this respect, is a belief system. It's not usually how we think about science and perhaps by highlighting that it might help us to view science through different eyes. I cannot say that you were wrong to not find ways to escape this dogma. Is the dogma wrong? I do not know. Reductionism is clearly been fruitful. Yet emergence happens for a reason, so it may be possible to understand those reasons using simple explanations as well... reductionism again.

                My previous essays have discussed aspects of my work, which involve specific reductionist approaches. I have tried to avoid that in this essay sticking to ideas that are not necessarily related to my research. I wanted to keep things fresh and to revisit the big picture.

                I did avoid QM here mostly because my perspectives on QM are heavily biased by my research involving QM. Was I wrong to not share these perspectives? Or was it better to spare the reader from an essay littered with a summary of my research, and to give myself to step back and think beyond my research area? Either way, this essay is the direction that I went.

                I do hope that I get the opportunity to read your essay.

                I wish you the best of luck as well!

                Sincerely,

                Kevin Knuth