Of Lego and Layers (and Fundamentalism) by Dean Rickles

Dean,

Looking at fundamental theories reminds you of the different mindsets of the quantum and the classical worlds and effects to bring them together: micro and macro imperialism. The ToE which unites GR and QFT, the GUT bringing 4 forces together. Their fundamentals tend to focus on areas of study or prejudice. Perhaps cosmologists prefer the single, undivided whole because that's where their heads are or GR and pure geometry and so on. As we know objectivity is required in pursuing truth and fundamentalism. My essay looks at the need for an open mind in discovery, a process that tends to evolve what is fundamental, the same kind of open mind you display.

Good job. Hope you have a chance to look at mine.

Jim Hoover

Dear Professor Dean Rickles,

FQXi.org is clearly seeking to confirm whether Nature is fundamental.

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 must consist 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.

Only the truth can set you free.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Dear Professor Rickles

"Fundamental in physics is not necessarily fundamental in philosophy, though one hopes for some continuity and coherence" I fully can agree with this, thinking is not only a quality that is restricted to physics and/or mathematics, it is a FREE power of consciousness.

"Peeling back the layers of the cosmic onion one after another without end" You introduce a "maybe" before posing this thought, of course you are right "WE" just aren't sure yet about limits neither down nor up, we can just think about "models". In my model these "limits" of the emerging reality are downwards: the Planck Length and Time (my bottommost turtle, because at that limit physical laws are no longer applicable) and the speed of light (the limit inside a reference frame of the ability to become aware of changes). We can think in a fractal way, but the emerging reality isn't. In the Parmenedian way the emerging reality is a ONE, with ALL the complexity that the also emergent agent can think about...Because the agent is itself an emergent entity in his emergent reality for him(her,it) its reality is not longer decomposable beyond these limits.

The "autonomy of levels" of emergence is I think best explained by "causal emergence". It could be argued that "each level of emergence" has its own fundamental rules (laws ?).

"The more complex a system is, the harder it is to describe through mathematical laws", The emergent layers of "complexity" each have their own "laws". The consciousness of the human agency can "think" about infinities without any limits. In my model this is the reason that our consciousness is related (entangled ?) with Total Consciousness, where resides the intention for completeness. This is also why " universal mathematical models apply to less elementary systems" our mathematical mind is able for the (partly) overview of ALL layers, we can transcend them and so the thoughts of Tegmark emerge.

"Leibniz's Principle of 7 Sufficient Reason: there must be a reason why things are as they are". The model I propose reveals this reason because each "Reality Loop" is fine-tuned for its agent. There are an infinity of Reality Loops that are just not fine-tuned for the specific emergent agents as we are, but they EXIST as "probabilities". However there are forms of agents that emerge in these realities and for them our Loop is just a probability. ALL Reality Loops emerge from the Pre Planck Area and so are a UNITY.(as in Hagedorn).

I like very much Wheelers : "The local includes the global, whatever part, element, or aspect we may abstract in thought, this still enfolds the whole". The emergent phenomenon that we are aware of as reality is an illusion, and in each "emergent phenomenon" (illusion) the parts are just a conscious thought. Thoughts are not material.....The undivided whole is the ILLUSION.

It was a real pleasure to read your participation. I highly esteemed it. I hope that will spent some of your precious time to read, comment and maybe rate my approach "Foundational Quantum Reality Loops".

Best regards

Wilhelmus de Wilde

Dear Dean Rickles,

a very interesting essay, I enjoyed your philosophical point of view (I missed philosophers here, in spite of such a metaphysical question) and your itinerary through the philosophy of science is very well written and stimulating.

The concepts by Bohm have some interesting analogies with the philosophy of Nagarjuna which I used to outline the absolute relativism of my essay - I realize now that I forgot to quote Bohm somewhere!

All the best,

Francesco D'Isa

Dear Dean,

"the more complex a system is, the harder it is to describe through

mathematical laws."

Here is the reason:

A priori thinking is awfully difficult - but its laws are dead simple.

A posteriori thinking is dead simple - but its models are awfully difficult.

Heinrich

Dear Dean,

I *really* enjoyed your essay! It is clearly well-written and engaging, but most importantly, it made me think... think of new things and new perspectives. Thank you for that!

I especially enjoyed the discussion on the concepts of fundamentalism espoused by Wigner and Anderson. As one who at one time worked in complex systems and now works in fundamental theoretical physics, I really appreciated the comparison and contrast between the two perspectives. I was quite excited when you reached the conclusion that the fundamental concepts were the physical symmetries.

The importance of symmetries resonates with me and one can see the importance of this in my work in my earlier 2015 FQXi essay "The Deeper Roles of Mathematics in Physical Laws" (https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Knuth_knuth---fqxi-essay---.pdf), which had a profound influence on my most recent work (https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.09725) with John Skilling.

Your essay made me see my theoretical work on Influence Theory (https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1308/1308.3337.pdf)(https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.07766.pdf) from a new perspective in which there are fundamental elements that influence one another, and it is the mathematical description of these influence events where fundamental symmetries result in constraint equations that represent the physical laws. In this theory, the nature of the objects and their influence on one another is inherently unknowable. So whether it is turtles all the way down is irrelevant because there is no experiment one can do to elucidate the nature of these objects and their influence. One has a termination without a theory (without the possibility, or necessity, of a theory), which in some ways is a satisfying aspect of influence theory. Your essay makes me feel that I am on a right track, or at least not a horribly wrong one!

Thank you again for giving us an interesting perspective and so so much to think about!

Sincerely,

Kevin Knuth

Dear Dean Rickles

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

Dean,

Seems to be sparse reviewing and rating in this essay contest. I am revisiting those I have reviewed and see if I have scored them before the deadline approaches. I find that I have not scored yours and remedied that today. Hope you can check out mine.

Jim Hoover

Dear Dean Rickles, Your essay is a deep analysis of the fundamental, which is in tune with the New Cartesian Physics.

The physical space, which according to Descartes is matter, is the source of the real world. The principle of the identity of space and matter of Descartes' is the foundation for all fundamental theories. Each point of the physical space is irrational, since it, however small it is, has a length and a width and is given by intervals (layers) according to the Heisenberg principle. The voids in the space between its points (black holes) generate eternal changes in the world. Look at my page, FQXi Fundamental in New Cartesian Physics by Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich Where I showed how radically the physics can change if it follows the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes. Evaluate and leave your comment there. I hope your high praise

Sincerely, Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich.

Hi Dean -- Great essay! I need to read it again (much slower this time) but even at a first pass it sparked a lot of really interesting ideas I need to think more about.

My favorite point you made was the notion that one might just treat the *symmetries* as being fundamental, full stop. Then everything else (at least laws and particles) would just be less-fundamental examples of how those symmetries happen to be implemented. But you didn't give any references for that idea -- is this a position that people have actually taken and justified? Please let me know. Maybe there are other essays here that go into this...

And I still owe you another email. Coming soon, I promise...

Cheers! -Ken

Dear Dean Rickles,

I enjoyed reading your wide-ranging and thoughtful essay. Excellent work.

Best Wishes

Mozibur Ullah

Hello Dean,

Great essay, the best so far imo.

Very welcome information overload, will require many reads. So far have completed the first pass of highlighting and commenting. Glad those features are available in public domain acrobat reader. After a few exchanges and edits with Michaele (my co-author) we can send it to you if there is interest.

Much appreciate the reference to Cushing's S-matrix book. Expensive, but seems essential in one's library, the long sought canonical reference.

S-matrix (the impedance representation, actually) is what emerges from geometric wavefunction interactions in the model Michaele and I are studying.

Emergence permits a straightforward delineation of the fundamental. We take emergent to mean the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and fundamental to be that which cannot be understood to be emergent in any observable sense, where observable is taken to be that which can give information in a single measurement.

Dean,

I feel every concept contributes to an understanding of "fundamental," so I am reviewing my own sketchy evaluations to help my understanding and see if I have rated them. I find that I rated yours on 2/1 reflecting my high regard for your contribution. Hope you get a chance to check out mine.

Jim

Professor Rickles,

Bravo! So well done.

This is an essay I wish I'd have written.

Everyone in the community would do well to read it and give the many points it covers mindful consideration.

Thank you for your worldview.

- Michaele

Hi Dean:

Congratulations on your intriguing and well-written paper.

Your statement - "...fundamentalism (as a stance) does not demand the elementary particle physicist's more micro-reductive approach, and there are several possible avenues one might take towards `being a fundamentalist' in physics---some of these are well known, others perhaps not so." is supported by my paper -"What is Fundamental - Is C the Speed of Light". that describes the fundamental physics of antigravity missing from the widely-accepted mainstream physics and cosmology theories resolving their current inconsistencies and paradoxes. The missing physics depicts a spontaneous relativistic mass creation/dilation photon model that explains the yet unknown dark energy, inner workings of quantum mechanics, and bridges the gaps among relativity and Maxwell's theories. The model also provides field equations governing the spontaneous wave-particle complimentarity or mass-energy equivalence. The key significance or contribution of the proposed work is to enhance fundamental understanding of C, commonly known as the speed of light, and Cosmological Constant, commonly known as the dark energy.

The paper not only provides comparisons against existing empirical observations but also forwards testable predictions for future falsification of the proposed model.

I would like to invite you to read my paper and appreciate any feedback comments.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

Respected Prof Dean Rickles

Very nice op and ideology...."It is a widespread assumption that scientific progress means finding more basic constituents. It is certainly the received view. This is the common scientific meaning of fundamentality. It is a metaphysical assumption, and drives other assumptions, such as the idea that physics (elementary particle physics, or something like it) should (and can) furnish a complete account of the world: any and all things should be traceable back to the fundamental layer.

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 ....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

An en excellent essay, I liked it very much! A very well thought criticism of the prevailing idea that there are some terminal building blocks. Moreover, it contains as a remedy the Parmenidean principle, and various holistic ideas endorsed by modern physics. I also liked the Weinberg-Anderson duality, which is a synthesis that goes beyond the two limiting extremes. On a personal level, I enjoyed because it touches some of my favorite topics, including Wheeler's geometrodynamics, his "one-electron" idea, the role of mathematics in physics, and Bohm's "implicate order". A great reading!

Cristi