Dear Peter,

I introduced the condensation trail metaphor as to illustate that past and future must not be seen like more or less hair color within a claimed as scientific model based on sinusoidal functions extending from minus infinity to plus infinity.

They are obviously fundamentally different.

My point is the TND: Even if there may be transition zones, there is in general nothing between past and future measured data. I don't doubt that your interpretations are at least largely correct. However, I consider my suggestion truly metaphysical in the sense that I am challenging the claimed as scientific arbitrary choice of t=0. I am sure: In reality, time cannot be shifted.

Incidentally, Brouwer's moot point in the fundamental crisis was not the TND but the question whether it is only valid for finite (i.e. rational) numbers. Metaphysics demands real numbers.

More later.Very best,

Eckard

Dear Sir,

Feynman's advice: "you cannot at all understand quantum mechanics" is correct to a limited extent because of the limitations to our capabilities. But it ignores the fact that if everything is made up of the same fundamental particles, they must follow the same set of physics. This was in the back of his mind, when he added: "shut up and calculate!" This is not because "there was nothing to worry about", but because there was no other alternative than to observe the macro (mathematics is related to numbers and I have shown in my essay that numbers are related to confined objects only) to find the laws for the micro.

The concept of "as if" is nothing new. You have given an example of ratios like a/b with a2 =2b2. Thousands of years of BC, mathematical treatises called Shulba Sootra in India (I have four of them), have described practical applications of such irrational numbers as "Asannamoola", which literally means approaching a limit. They were trying to find solutions to a practical problem: how to draw squares, circles and semi-circles of equal area. They formulated recursive mathematics including the famous Meru Prastara, (later known as Pascal's triangles) and Chakravala, which are foundations of calculus. Boudhayana mentions what is now known as Pythagorus Theorem, thousands of years before him. This tradition was continued till the 17th Century, after which, the Mogul invasion destroyed the whole thing.

Weyl's warning quoted by you: "We are less certain than ever about the ultimate foundations of mathematics", has come true. As you say: "Weyl did not exclude that some correct basics were just not yet found". The problem of the proton and the electron is discussed in connection with the symmetry properties of the quantum laws with respect to the interchange of right and left, past and future, and positive and negative electricity. But are these really symmetric? Symmetry is a feature of a system that is preserved or remains unchanged under some continuous or discrete transformation. Are protons and electrons or past and future or positive and negative charges symmetric?

Protons are always at the center or in nucleus, whereas electrons are at the outer edges or in orbits. If they change position, it becomes neutron, which is different from both. So there is no symmetry. Both past and future are not present at here-now. Whereas you can clearly remember past, you have no clear idea about future. You can only predict future based on causality. But that makes past the cause for future, which is the effect. You can manipulate something in future to resemble something in the past. But that will be limited and not all encompassing like the past events. It will be duplicate - not original. Hence, here also there is no symmetry. Coulomb's Law cannot explain the interaction between a charged body and a charge neutral object, which we come across frequently. The positive charge always radiates out from the nucleus towards periphery and negative charge always confines a positive charge. It is the same even in positron. Hence there is no symmetry here either.

The statement: "Infinite totalities do not exist in any sense of the world (i.e. either really or ideally). More precisely, any mention or purported mention of infinite totalities is literally meaningless", confuses infinity with a very big number. For a very big n, there is always n+1, which is greater than n. But (infinity) 雞･ +1 = 雞･ (infinity). It is because, all numbers must be discrete, whereas infinity is not. There are only four infinities in the universe that coexist: space, time, coordinates and information. But often we mistake while using these. For example, decay is not a function of space or mass, but is a function of energy in cyclic time.

Reality as not the "logical negation of merely abstract ideas". Reality is whatever exists (is subject to measurement), is knowable and is describable in any language. A street has properties similar to a line, but a street is not a line. You cannot draw a street on paper - you can draw only a picture of it, which cannot be used for walking.

All mathematical operations are done at here-now. Zero is not a number as it is not present at here-now. Division of a number by zero is not infinity, as I have shown in my essay. Similarly, x2 + 1 = 0 does not lead to the imaginary number i, for which reason, it has uses in some fields.

Overall, you have tried to introduce a new perspective to the often beaten path. I enjoyed reading your essay.

basudeba

    Eckard,

    I agree entirely on 'time'. Many have attributed it with 'physical' type qualities it doesn't have. I'd never infer the same! My recent round the world and other flights with a rubidium oscillator showed the stupidity of most current views, also supporting a 'state of origin' solution to the reason why such oscillators speed up or slow down depending on whether they're moving east or west.

    The transition zones introduced by Maxwell for Near/Far field transitions were a logical necessity even without a physical analog, but radio & TV antenna engineers know EXACTLY where they are for each wavelength, and a coherent interpretation of astronomical investigations identifies their 2-fluid plasma structure at shear planes physically between ALL co-moving systems (i.e. comet coma and bow shocks).

    You have some of your own! At the refractive plane of the lenses of your eyes if in motion through the medium, and also in the fluid torque converter of your cars automatic gearbox! Pair production is found each side, and Stokes-Navier turbulence applies across the centre with 'annihilation' over the Debye length. You may recall Nixeys essay a few years ago showed the cross section data through Earths Bow shock TZ, still a mystery to those using old theory!

    Very best

    Peter

    6 days later

    Dear Basudeba Mishra,

    I was not aware that a Mogul (not a mogul) was a Muslim ruler in India in the sixteenth to eighteens centuries. It is a pity that very old Indian wisdom didn't get known in Europe, e.g.: "You can't take one part of a fowl and cook it, yet expect the other part to lay eggs."

    You criticized my idea of reality as the "logical negation of merely abstract ideas" while you consider it "knowable and describable in any language". Of course we agree: A street is not a line, however, I am not a seeker for truth but merely a seeker for mistakes. Isn't it possible that you may realize that calculating with imaginary numbers is a very successful reality?

    Respectfully,

    Eckard Blumschein

    Peter,

    Please don't distract from the mistakes I claim having revealed. Are transition zones and other examples you jumping to really relevant to my current essay? If I recall correctly, it was me who made you aware of transition zones between near field and far field.

    The mistake I referred to when I suggested calculate as if there was no causality is perhaps not obvious enough. In mathematical terms, an endless to both sides line without natural reference point is arbitrarily shift-able. Elapsed time refers to the natural border between causes in the past and effects in the future and can be imagined like a ray with origin and direction. The same applies for future time.

    Very best,

    Eckard

    Eckard. Excellent essay. I learned a lot that I can apply to my work. Also, this may be of interest to you. I recently put in an "adjustment to my original essay in which I emphasized the introduction of a new fundamental level. The new fundamentals apply to physics (all sciences), math, philosophy and religion. The new level leads to the origination of a new creation process that produces "all of the order in existence" So math, physics, etc. are all results of the same creation process. What I have found is that when you go back to this lower fundamental level, you eliminate some of the humanly imposed "foundational problems" of the math, physics, philosophy, etc.. You also unify them in one theory. In the unification, you can keep the components in each discipline that work and use the new processing/results in problem areas, hard to calculate areas and areas where you are trying to unify different disciplines. Kind of like adding relativity theories to classical physics. I would appreciate your comments. John D Crowell. Note: I believe the C*s to SSCU transformation described in the appendix to my essay can be regarded as the "excluded middle" between zero and one AND between yes and no. In Successful Self Creation it is the distance between success and failure.

      John,

      Did you carefully read my essay? I don't try to unify quantum mechanics and Relativity, and I didn't even mention creation. I carefully selected references although my main messages should be easily understandable to everybody:

      - I am strictly distinguishing between the fictitious world of ideal mental constructs (including mathematical models) and the conjectured tangible world that we are calling reality.

      - While not just Einstein denied the causally called distinction between past causes and future effects, I trust in the exclusion of an extended middle state (present) between them in reality.

      - I showed that complex Fourier transformation must strictly speaking not be thought to be correctly based for description of real past and real future at a time. Time shift according to FT is only possible in the fictitious world of mental constructs.

      Any support of these messages is welcome.

      Eckard

      14 days later

      Dear Eckard,

      Not sure that I answered you but I absolutely agree with Alan about quantum computing, and have believed such for years. I never bring it up since people get upset when you smash their dreams and fantasies and I did not see how that would advance what ever point I was trying to make. I'm quite certain that quantum computing will go exactly nowhere, nevertheless lots of papers will be published and lots of money will be paid.

      New information from Wolfram became available 14 April, and I have updated my essay (last 3 pages) to reflect on its significance for comments that I had made to others on 9, 12, 13 April.

      I think you may find it interesting; I hope so. It deals with "the fictitious world of ideal mental constructs" and potential knowledge of ontology ('reality'). Another commenter claimed it is hubris to claim any knowledge of ontology. John Schultz's essay suggests that non-algorithmic patterns do not impose the limitations on knowledge that algorithmic patterns profess to provide. I think that is relevant to the model I describe.

      Hope you are well and stay well.

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Dear Eckard,

      I finally had the time to read your essay, that I found really "thought feeding".

      I think that my Gödelian hunch and your encouragement for "being careful" to not idealize nor put on a pedestal mental mathematical constructions are quite compatible. This might be why you suggested (in your comment of my essay) that your analysis of Fourier was another "hint of contextuality". However, even if I understand that your argument relies on pointing at a hidden redundancy (and thus maybe a kind of self-referential structure ?), I still struggle to see the link with "contextuality" itself (as a logical obstruction of locally consistent data) ?

      Another point : Are you familiar with the topic of "quantum causality" ? (cf. e.g. doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2076 ) . Your invitation to "calculate as if there was no causality" might be appropriate to analyze these "indefinite causal orders" ("correlations with no causal order").

      Best regards,

      Hippolyte

        Dear Hippolyte,

        Let me try to clarify in what context I am claiming to be careful concerning causality and QM: A basic and perhaps irrefutable argument of mine is that there is only one non-arbitrary reference to real (ontological) time. I nonetheless suggest calculating as if the reference point of time may always be chosen at will as cosi fan tutte.

        Does any essay in this contest offer something with more claimed practical relevance than the prediction uttered by Kadin and supported by Klingman and McEachern? Don't get me wrong: I am unable to read the 50 references given in Bruckner's "Quantum correlations with no causal order". So I feel not in position to judge whether or not he and you are correct.

        The tiles of all referenced papers seem to indicate that they altogether ignored the logical justification of what Einstein denied as the now, the objective actual border between pre and after. Isn't QM all about PREdiction?

        From QuantumPhysicsLady.org I quote: "The key to understanding spin is to realize that, whatever it "really" is, its physical manifestation is the magnetic field around the particle."

        Well, both Heisenberg/Born and Schrödinger followed Fourier who confused any chosen reference point with the objective one. As a corollary: Calculate as if we all were correct but be careful. The journal nature.com is definitely something else than nature.

        Incidentally, I would like to distinguish between the "frozen" causal structure of the past and the open in the sense of not yet finally structured future.

        Best regards,

        Eckard

        11 days later

        This essay is excellent Eckard...

        Your deep analysis displays an appreciation for the historical evolution of our ideas on the basis for logic and number that I have not seen elsewhere. Most just accept the current determination of truth values as a de facto condition, while you have shown all the subtle steps (or some of them) so we your readers can examine them anew. This is useful territory to explore.

        I especially liked the choice to use 'as if' in the construction of your premise. I think that it is useful and often necessary to use that construction, in order to proceed with analysis, but I am glad you showed that can be avoided. The trickiest piece is that people adopt limiting assumptions in order to simplify calculations, or to make them tractable; then forget that they are exploring a special or limited case. They proceed as though...

        I left aside the question of infinity in my essay entirely, preferring to deal with the concept of boundedness versus unbounded regimes - which I know more about. You took the bull by the horns and grappled with some of the tough issues Eckard. And you acquitted yourself better than many philosophers or top scholars. So you have my admiration for this work.

        Kudos!

        Jonathan

          I should amend that.

          I said it incorrectly. People make 'limiting or enabling assumptions,' it should be, to reflect the insights in your essay.

          JJD

          And I want to add...

          I like that you mention the distinction between thumb and fingers, enabling one to count from 0 to 99 instead of only to 10.

          Have Fun,

          Jonathan

          Dear Jonathan Dickau,

          Thank you very much for your encouraging comment. I sadly admit that I was not able to persuade anybody, not even you, that there is something very foundational beyond a taken for granted reckoning: At least the late Einstein confessed that "the now worried him seriously". He felt forced to attribute the distinction between past and future to something outside science.

          Let me try again by copying what I wrote on May 14, 2020 in FQXi Forum, article "Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion":

          "Steve Dufourny, When I was in position to use an oscilloscope with Gigasample resolution, I was able to find out whether one very short event happened before or after another one, which one was the cause, which one the effect. Accordingly, I reject presentism. Your worries about a putative origin of universe etc. did and will definitely not guide me to anything, not even back to religious belief. I go on trusting in the reasonability of conjecturing reality and in the possibility to make progress by means of critical reasoning, trial and error. Perhaps the most important revelation of my life is the insight that Fourier was wrong when claiming that complex FT is as extended as is reality. Actually, FT introduces unjustified and misleading redundancy in terms of an arbitrarily chosen phase. The mistake is already hidden in the otherwise clever choice of an arbitrarily chosen reference t=0 to any time scale. Consequently the abstracted from reality time can be shifted at will. The border between past and future cannot be shifted. It naturally provides the unique reference point for past as well as future time. "

          Dufourny is certainly correct when stressing that my reasoning relates to "the philosophy, the maths and physics". However, I question that "we can just accept the proved laws, axioms, equations ... this reality". I see causality including the distinction between before and after not yet represented in "scientific" (in Einstein's above mentioned understanding) theories, while being indispensable in common sense.

          Dufourny mistook me. I don't confound "the philosophy and intuitive interpretations about the universe and its origin, with the religions and the esoterims". I don't at all deal with ideas that cannot be proved. I even suggest calculating with abstractions "beyond physicality" (as if), on condition careful use of the result is provided. We seem to agree on an obviously irreversible time clock. The question of mine is merely the point t=0 of reference. Can a chosen at will reference correctly describe what we are assuming as really existing? Why not humbly accept the natural border between what is frozen and what may change.

          Eckard

          Wow that's quite informative...

          I think many people fail to grasp what the difference is when you talk about Fourier and Cosine transforms. But you are correct that since we can't know what happened before time t = 0, it is only natural that nature would use the latter form rather than the more commonly used (by humans) Fourier method. And that they do so without the awareness that their assumptions incorporate an illusion is the worst travesty. A betrayal of the truth, or an acceptance of the lie because it is more convenient, is a kind of blind obeisance to authority. We can do better.

          Thanks for the clarification Eckard. I hope I picked up something new this time around, but it is always worthwhile to read your essays.

          Best,

          Jonathan

          "Calculate as if there was no causality ... but " implies what I wrote to Steven Dufourny:

          "Steve, Instead of writing t=0 I should perhaps be more careful and write

          t_past=t_future=0.

          You (and perhaps many others) did not understand that t_past can be imagined counting for a snapshot the distance backward (leftward) from actual zero toward older events. For the same snapshot, t_future counts forward (to the right as does usual time). The reference zero is the same for past and future. You could call it the point now: Actually, the notion now in the sense of something perceivable is as fuzzy as also are today and within this millennium. Of course, the natural reference is permanently shifting relatively to the ordinary time scale: Age is growing. So far, this perspective is utterly uncommon in physics. All religions were forced to choose different points of reference for the same time scale."

          A majority of physicists will, in principle, agree with his reply:

          "Hi Eckard , I respect your analyse but I don t understand why you make this link past and future, they are just parameters of time, the past is the past and the future is not still there , and the present is just a Clock of evolution, a pure duration, is it important to analyse this time, we cannot check it for me , we can just utilise the relativity like a tool, like we see our past more we go far in space due to this special relativity, like we see our sun 8min 20 sec in late and we can decrease our internal Clock , so we can go in the future more quicly but we cannot retrun at our present and reality, so is it relevant ? it is odd for me to analyse this time, there is nothing of odd with this time, it is just a paramter of evolution irreversible entropically speaking for me. Could you elaborate please why you consider this past and future =0 , what is the philosophy really beyond, what we must understand about this and why you insit Always with Fourier ? please elaborate, light me, regards"

          Because presentism is unable to specify the duration of a "the present", it deliberately blurs the alternative between past and future. As there is nothing between positive and negative numbers there is no extended state but merely a border point, something that has no parts, between past and future.

          While, people tend to agree on that "past and future are just parameters of time", I would like to be more careful and clearly distinguish objectively measurable reality from any abstractions that stripped off the link to reality, for instance records and models. The usual notion of time is thought to extend from minus infinity to plus infinity. Hence it belongs to the latter: Future data cannot be measured in advance. Philosophy has it: In reality the past is unchangeable, the future is open.

          We will perhaps agree on that it was and is reasonable to conceive annual cycles (in Christian religion) or moon periods (in others) as a fundamental temporal pattern. While they quasi provided arrows with equidistant marks on it, a natural point of reference (t=0) is missing with this usual notion of time. Numbering the marks requires to either agree on an arbitrarily chosen reference point, or to choose the border between past and future as the unique, natural, and common to past and future reference point. The laws of physics are valid in both cases. Usual time favorably attributes a fix value of time to an event. The distinction between past and future time avoids a lot of intentionally veiled inconsistencies. When Fourier claimed that the complex transformation is exactly as extended as is reality, he introduced an undecided redundant freedom of arbitrary choice that arose from the usual notion of time.

          Write a Reply...