Hi Harrison,

Thank you for a well-written essay. I almost entirely agree with your essay! In fact, many of the topics and themes we cover reach the same conclusions, that is, Godel and Turing's theorems do not bear any significance on physics as they cannot be implemented in a physical environment; they must contend with the laws of thermodynamics.

One point I had a question maybe an additional clarification

``Physics is virtually united that a precise cause yields a unique and precise effect. This is the doctrine of determinism.''

I would add that deterministic theories are ones that do not increase the overall entropy of the system and are thus time-reversible. As you point out quantum measurement is intrinsically indeterministic, soley because it is irreversible.

I would love to get your feedback on my essay. We both reached similar conclusions, however we took slightly different trajectories to get there.

Thanks,

Michael

7 days later

Dear Dr. Crecraft,

I followed your discussion with Dr. Petkov about his essay with great interest and therefore read your essay as well. Thank you very much for this inspiring view on determinism and measurement problem(s)!

What I found highly interesting is your DDCM, which generally shows the advantages of describing systems from the perspective of their "background"/reference surroundings. I have some question concerning this splitting:

- can we say that thermal randomness occurs due to the non-perfect split into "system" and "surrounding", because the system always interacts with the environment (unless both are in equilibrium with each other)?

- if the latter point is the origin of thermal randomness, is it really objective reality because, it may be possible that different observers can take different choices how they split into "system" and "environment"?

- concerning the very last part about Goedel's undecidability, I think you are right, even if we can build a perfectly decidable theory on the basis of logic, it may still leave some freedom in the physical interpretation. If you are interested in a cosmic example, have a look at my essay. I think we are on the same page that we cannot know what reality does between two measurements.

With best wishes, success and luck for the contest,

Jenny Wagner

    Hi Jenny,

    Thank you for your comment. You raise an excellent and fundamental question, which I paraphrase: if we can choose how to split a system from its surroundings, and if physical reality is contextually defined with respect to its surroundings, is it really objective?

    When we define a boundary separating a system from its surroundings, we choose the system's surroundings. When we conduct an experiment, the experimental apparatus defines the systems ambient surroundings at measurement. So we are choosing the system's surroundings (and inertial reference). This is why a contextual physical reality is so difficult to accept. But the ambient "surroundings" for the universe as a whole, or more properly its ambient microwave radiation background, is objectively defined and any subsystem can be defined with respect to that ambient background. In a contextual reality, the context is a given and part of the system's definition; once the system's context is given, the system's description is objective and complete (in the limit of perfect measurement--see Fig 1).

    Thermal randomness is also a very tricky concept. Thermal randomness implicitly assumes random fluctuations of precise coordinates, but precise coordinates are definable only with respect to an assumed ambient temperature of absolute zero. As long as a system interacts with its actual surroundings, it exists as a contextual state, whether it is an equilibrium or metastable state. States evolve deterministically and there are no random fluctuations. Randomness only comes in during irreversible transition from one metastable state to another more stable (higher entropy) state. During an irreversible transition, the system is not interacting with its surroundings. This is the basis for the quantum zeno effect.

    Harrison

    Dear Harrison,

    thanks a lot for the further explanations!

    I agree that fixing the background gives a definition of the system for one observer, so that this observer can probe the system and obtain his results. But my question goes further (or I did not fully get your answer): assume observer A uses the cosmic microwave background temperature at his position as background temperature and measures the temperature of a system next to him. Now let observer B do exactly the same, but with the difference that the microwave background temperature at his position is not the same as that at A's place. Both measure the temperature of the same system but with their respective background. So both need to agree on a common reference (i.e. a background to each other, if you like) to be able to compare their measurements, right? Hence the split into background and system is not unique. So does every observer have their own contextual reality or is there a common one after they agree on a reference between each other? Or is the problem solved by stating that each observer only has his own knowledge about the system in the reference frame he chooses and does not know whether an objective, absolute reference frame exists?

    Thank you as well for the further comments on thermal randomness. Guess I need to think a bit longer about that!

    Best regards,

    Jenny

    Hi Jenny,

    More great questions!

    Any meaningful discussion HAS TO start with mutually agreed assumptions. Here are the assumptions of state for the Dissipative Conceptual Model:

    Postulate 1: No system has surroundings at absolute zero temperature and no system can be perfectly insulated from its ambient surroundings.

    Definition 1: The ambient microstate for a system in equilibrium with its ambient surroundings is defined by the properties that are measurable by an ambient measurement device.

    Postulate 2: Perfect measurement is a reversible process of transformation between a system's initial microstate and its ambient microstate reference.

    Postulate 3: At perfect measurement, there are no hidden variables. The microstate is therefore a complete description of the system's physical state at measurement.

    Postulate 4 (1st Law of Thermodynamics): The total energy for a system plus its surroundings is conserved. A system's energy is conserved in the limit of perfect isolation.

    I have an article that fully develops the model and would explain your questions. I submitted it to a peer-reviewed journal in a major family of scientific journals. It was peer reviewed, but not accepted, based on easily resolvable issues and misunderstandings. I would be happy to share it off-line if you email me. I plan to rework it (probably incorporating ideas I have gained from this contest) and resubmit it. An essay in Medium, Reinventing Time, does a pretty good job summarizing some of its key points.

    Contextual reality depends on its context, which includes ambient temperature and inertial reference. Any observation and measurement defines a system's context at measurement. One might therefore conclude that reality exists only at measurement or observation and reality is subjective. This is not correct, because the universe and any delineated subsystem has an ambient and zero-inertia context relative to which it is contextually defined, independent of observation or conscious beings. Any subsystem of the universe, by definition, must have a delineation, which is a given part of the system's definition, as is the system's context. Who, what, or how the delineation came to be is outside the scope of the system's description.

    My comment on thermal randomness was misleading. Thermal randomness really applies to random fluctuations in energy levels, as defined by Boltzmann's partition function at a given temperature. A gas's absolute temperature is a measure of its energy relative to zero energy at absolute zero. In dissipative dynamics, thermal randomness is defined at the ambient temperature(*), and the energy defined at the ambient temperature is the system's ground-state energy. Ambient temperature and ground-state energy are always positive.

    Absolute temperature and total energy are non-contextual properties and they do not depend on ambient temperature. They are measurable by observers A and B, independent of their context.

    Since voting (and commenting?) ends after today, I'd be happy to continue discussion offline by email.

    Harrison

    (*) To avoid contextuality, conventional interpretations define thermal radomness either at absolute zero (deterministic mechanics) or at the system temperature (thermodynamics)

    Dear Harrison,

    since we do not know how long posting still works, I have sent you an email. Hope it has arrived well!

    Best regards,

    Jenny

    9 days later

    Mr Crecraft, you could answer to all persons, you beleive that you are special or that you sort the persons to answer ??? for me you are a common thinker, nothing of special, sorry but I am frank, I dislike these comportments, you have not answered to 3 persons, why ? this Vanity and lack of consciousness begin to irritate me a lot to be frank

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