Please don't be deceived by the elephants. This is a serious essay. I did not want to write a wall of words but something more interesting and attention holding.

"Original and Creative: Foremost, the intellectual content of the essay must push forward understanding of the topic in a fresh way or with a new perspective. While the essay may or may not constitute original research, if the core ideas are largely contained in published works, those works should be those of the author. At the same time, the entry should differ substantially from any previously published piece by the author." FQXi.org competition guidelines (My added bold and italic emphasis).

Dear Georgina,

I like the elephant jokes and the notion of an elephant joke realm. I hadn't known that they were all the rage in the 60s but it does explain why I do happen to know one elephant joke - I was at the tail end of that wave. So thats one puzzle solved! Its unfortunately not publishable on this forum...

Best of luck with the contest.

Warm wishes

Mozibur Ullah

    Hi Mozibur, thank you for taking a quick look and commenting. I do hope you get the chance to read the essay in full and are able to see that it goes much deeper. Part of it is dealing with contradiction and the notion of objectivity, which might be of particular interest to you.

    If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear, does it make a sound?. The question was considered in drafting the original version, but cut to save characters.Sound (heard) is qualia, generated by the observer from pressure wave input to the auditory system of that observer. The wave phenomenon is potential sound but not manifest as sound until processing of the wave input is complete.So there is no sound (product) without an observer.There is a conundrum because the language is imprecise.If The external wave phenomenon and the experienced sensory perception are both be referred to as sound, that causes ambiguity. Re.what is the sound of one hand clapping? One hand alone does not make pressure waves that could be processed into sound (unaided by technology). Ignoring the idea that two hands 'become one' when they meet.Re. what is the colour of a vacuum? A vacuum does not contain substance that would absorb 'light'energy and re-emit only some frequencies, that when received by an observer can be processed into colour qualia. No colour is not a colour.

      nice insight on beagles, subjective,/objective reality. You have my votes. pls read/rate how Human bias or judgement made science, in my essay here https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3525.all the best to you.

        The language of Physics does not usually distinguish between potential sensory information in the environment and the product generated by an observer. eg. the words - Light, sound, smell, frequency.

        If true /false logic is a rock, then ambiguity is paper, and necessary and adequate differentiation is scissors.

        Thank Georgina, for engaging and interesting observations on my forum. To yours:

        The square of the hypotenuse is only equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides if all sides are straight lines. If the hypotenuse is a wave path and the other two sides are straight lines, then Pythagoras theorem does not apply.

        I Answer.

        Yes, that's why I use exponents and logarithms in my formulas at the end of the essay. Then Pythagoras' theorem becomes a special case and approximation in the local part of the universe.

        Regards,

        Branko

          For any readers of the comments posted here. The comment I made eon Branko's page was written about Einstein's light clock thought experiment. The reasoning Einstein used about the experiment is used by him as support for Special Relativity. I was showing why that reasoning is not spot on. Written in regard to Branko's :"There are numerous traps in the application of mathematics in natural sciences...". and my: " it is difficult to know what is correct, when the model of reality being modeled is not necessarily so."

          9 days later

          Dear Georgina Woodward!

          We think that the concepts of the WORD and WORLD are not coincidentally so consonant. Оbviously the WINDOW used to be the WIND DOOR.

          We looked into our Siberian refrigerator and found a mammoth there!

          Pavel Poluian and Dmitry Lichargin,

          Siberian Federal University.

            Hi Pavel and Dmitry. I think if you read my essay you might find some ideas of interest to you in it. I do 'talk' about time near the beginning. The nature of time is a particular interest of mine. Near the end I'talk' about Pleistocene Park,, with which you must be familiar. Do you know about Harvard's project to create mammoth elephant hybrids? They have made some embryos.

            Hi Georgina,

            I know I have commented to you on my blog but I thought I had better re-inforce what I said here. Yours was the first essay I printed and read. I read it twice to my wife translating to her since I understood what you were saying. She asked me to vote publicly for her which I did early on.

            I have now read and commented on about 30 essays. It has been a full time job that I have taken seriously during these Covid19 isolation times. I have explored many nooks and crannies and found some like minded journeyists on the way. But you were the first I found that shared similar interests.

            I developed my theory of time some 5 years ago, although it had been a lifetime in the making. It has served me well, and even just yesterday explained the Andromeda Paradox away. So I get excited from time to time, when I use my own insights.

            Yesterday I critiqued Carlo Rovelli's essay on Presentism and Eternalism, and found that I did not agree with him on the definitions of presentism, which is why I think my relative verdandism makes more sense.

            We much touch base on the time topic after this essay comp. is over.

            Best regards

            Lockie Cresswell

              A delightful journey Georgina...

              It is always enjoyable to read one of your essays. I can always find something of value, so long as I don't get caught up in points of disagreement. I don't think it is productive for me to debate some points, because we will never exactly agree. But it appears that your picture of things becomes more and more tight with fewer things to argue about, with every new essay.

              And you make the journey fun!

              All the Best,

              Jonathan

                Hi Lachlan,

                It is very good to know you read, understood and liked the essay. Tell your wife I appreciate her public vote very much, The other one was my son, who read through the re-write for me and shared his thoughts on it.

                With hindsight I should have had a more enticing introduction. I think some didn't make it past the elephant jokes.

                Re.the nature of time: I think this essay by JCN Smith is a good place to start. https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Smith_Rethinking_a_Key_Assu.pdf It is easy to read and clearly explained.

                It would be helpful to know what you disagree with It would give me an idea of what i need to work on.If you share your disagreement I will not argue the points with you here, but thank you.

                20 days later

                Something i talk about in the essay is how the sate of something observed depends on the relation formed between the observer or reference object (relative to this point of view) and the observed object. Without establishing a singular point of view the state can not be known. I did not talk specifically about magnetism, though I think it has a place in the conversation about measurement and viewpoint. I have elsewhere talked about the alignment of electrons in a magnet. With length wise vibration there will be OUT (relative to the material , IN (to the material) at one pole .While at the other pole because of the alignment there will be corresponding IN, OUT. This gives opposite poles though the electrons are moving in the same way. No mono-poles because breaking the magnet will give two smaller magnets, with the same happening at the poles. Even at the scale of a single electron. Whether it presents as a north or south pole depends on the measurement relationship. It seems likely to me that it is this rather than spin (rotation) that causes separation into up and down outputs of Stern Gerlach apparatus measurement. Lengthwise vibration is not enough to account for the properties of the magnet. At the poles the electrons are not constrained by the next aligned electron but because they mutually repel, spread out over the surface. Giving the characteristic fluffy iron filing ends when used to view the magnetic field. There needs to be another component which to avoid ambiguity I will call rotation rather than spin. Each rotation is at 90 degrees to the length wise vibration. The rotation will be at the North end from the exterior of the magnet to the interior of the magnet, and corresponding interior of the magnet to exterior of the magnet at the south pole. With the rotation of all of the free electrons aligned lengthwise to give maximum separation.There is no fundamental difference between the electrons at the North and South.The difference is in how they are looked at, looking at each end rather than considering the alignment within the body of the magnet. The rotations will give the appearance of the field at the poles. This then poses the question: what is the rotation of an electron that is free of a material? Tying back into the relativity of measurement: The orientation of the rotation depends upon how it is observed. Top and bottom views gives opposite clockwise / anti clockwise states. As do left hand view and right hand view. It is therefore not possible to give the state of rotation prior to establishing the measurement relationship, If uniformity of form of the electron is assumed there is no inherent difference between top and bottom of the electron and left and right hand sides of the electron. So all rotation happening unmeasured is of the same kind.