Calculate “as if “… but be careful by Eckard Blumschein

Eckard

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In my opinion Euclid was wrong when he used a particle, assumed to be without existence, but nevertheless usable in a definition.

John-Erik

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Since I am very impressed by your article I take me the freedom of asking a very difficult question:

Was it correct of Euclid to define Parallelism by a point that does not exist?

Best regards from ________________ John-Erik

Dear Eckard (if I may),

thank you for a well-argued essay, there is so much food for thought here!

It seems we have so many ideas in common, at least regarding the different uses of mathematical languages in physics. I would be thankful if you could take a moment to have a look at my essay, where I argue, among other things, that one could envision an indeterministic physics by rejecting the infinite precision of real numbers (a program of research that I carry out with Nicolas Gisin).

More of a small historical precisation, the beginning of your essay states the common attribution of "shut up and calculate to Feynman", which however, seems not to be the case. David mermin has an eccellent story on this: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1768652

Anyways, good job, very high rate from my side!

Best wishes,

Flavio

This link did not work either.

Since I am impressed by your article I ask you a difficult question:

Was it correct of Euclid to base the definition of parallelism on a point that does not exist?

Best _________________ John-Erik

Dear Eckard,

Wonderful job! You excelled yourself this year Eckard, not only in your message and argument but in arrangement and English language clarity.

I rarely read essays twice but did yours (I often first diagonally 'speed read') as in many ways it's as pertinent and concentrated as mine. I did find and agree your added word! I also learned a few new viewpoints, i.e. Weyl's quote on 'quantum laws'; "no acceptable solution is in sight".

Agreeing a thesis helps of course, and ours are very close, but you also did well in all scoring criteria. A few specific comments and questions;

1. We fully agree on the excluded middle (which I greatly expand on).

2. I like Leibniz' 'Metaphysical lower level' & symmetry with what I discuss.

3. Do not asymmetric twin and elliptical spiral or helical paths better model reality so provide greater 'appeal'?

4. I like your bravery challenging Fourier, but validly. However consider a helix with a central axis 'line'. Viewed from any side we have a sine curve with the axis as 0 and +1 top and -1 the bottom. A twin helix is the Dirac equations sine/cos curve. Is not the result of simply rotating the observer 90 degrees also interesting?!

5. I agree Feynmanns flawed mantra was 'Shut up...' but in researching their works indeed found it first written by Mermin. (Feynman adopted it & wrote complimenting a Mermin paper).

6. Your p.8 QM comments seem fair, but resolved if corrected by replacing 'quantum spin' with Maxwell/Poincare's SECOND momentum case on rotating spheres (inversely changing linear equatorial and polar rotation). Surely just reproducing QM data classically must be adequate to show QM's illogicality 'wrong'!? It the problem not just overcoming 'beliefs'?

Anyway, very well done. I think you'll like mine too. (but also may need to read it a slower 2nd time!)

Very best

Peter

Eckard, I agree ref Cantor etc. Also ref planes condensation or 'con trail' as a good example of how motion forms shear planes form vortices of condensed matter (water vapour in this case) from a condensate. I simply invoke a smaller gauge of the same process to condense fermion pairs ("matter") from the "Higgs Condensate" as Kalusa-K etc. all higher order 'dimensions' and dark energy. That simple 'phase transition' model shows massive (lol) resolving power.

As nature (as a opposed to geometry) is entirely non-linear I'm not so concerned about 'line' semantics. In free media I'm familiar with 'direction', 'boundary', 'heading' and 'bearing' but all relate to some datum.

No, I don't agree Bee's dismissal, though she was also uncertain! But they all fall on the 'metaphysics' side of the divide so nature may ignore them! i.e. a cyclic universe is consistent and also won't 'halt'.

I agree with most all in Alan Kadins essay, but see my comments there. I think far better understanding is perfectly possible but we're still to dimwitted and reliant on embedded old nonsense beliefs! My 2010-11 essay "2020 Vision" anticipated intellectual evolution may escape that by now. Hmmm. But I'm always the optimist!

I look forward to your thoughts on mine.

Very best Peter

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

Dear Eckard,

I am happy to see that your essay has stirred great interest, as I thought it would.

This is simply to tell you that my essay is now online, and invite you to read it:

Deciding on the nature of time and space

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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.

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

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

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