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  • Quantum Physics and the End of Reality by Sabine Hossenfelder and Carlo Rovelli

We can have our assumptions but after all we can never affrim them without rigourous mathematical proofs, The wisdom is there, we can only accept the pure rational deterministic proved laws, axioms, equations. The problem now inside the theoretical sciences community is that we are arrived at a difficult time to explain the unknowns and we have an ocean of theories, models and all we are persuaded but we don t know these unknowns, abd when you add the vanity, that does not help of course. That said what told georgina is important about the belief because without belief we have no critic, we have no interpretation, no creativity simply, but a sure thing is that only the determinism seems the truth .

"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once." Descartes R, 1641, translated by J. Cottingham.

How do you judge whether the correspondence is between true/factual existential reality, Tom? Fact is defined as true and true is defined as fact. How is correspondence to existential truth to be ascertained? If using some process you consider reliable surely you have some faith or belief in that process. If correspondence between theory and result -how do you know you have the correct metaphysics? If relying on what is 'sensorily' given to use Einstein's phrase, the assumption is of correspondence between that and existential reality.

Talking about trust, confidence, credence, acceptance of reliability having justification of some sort for that particular metaphysical footing.

As Karl Popper discovered, and I accept as fact, no proposition can ever be verified. Certain scientific propositions can be falsified, however. For this I do not need belief; Popper and I appeal to E.M. Forster: "I do not believe in belief."

Phenomena fall into one of three categories: True, False and Unproven. LEJ Brouwer took seriously the law of the excluded middle, and left open the possibility that unproven phenomena might someday be converted to provably true or false. Again, no belief required.

I go into great detail on judging true from false, scientifically, in most of my FQXi essays.

1. "There is a reality external to the observer." Tom.

Its nature is in question.

2. "I accept as fact, no proposition can ever be verified." Quote by Tom (This is a statement of belief.) It weakens your first statement.

I don't see how that combination, statements 1+2 is any better than: to paraphrase- We don't know what external reality is but accept the moon is there when not looking. Which I think is Carlo's position or Sabine's description of herself as an Epistemologist rather than realist. Which is an opt out of saying anything about external existential reality.

"Phenomena fall into one of three categories: True, False and Unproven." Tom How is the discernment of the true phenomena enabled, without justification? Aren't all unproven and unprovable by virtue of statement 2

The consciousness of an observer has such a long chain of custody in the accumulation of elements and their assimilation into an operational role that makes it rather astounding that human nature exhibits a very limited number of recognizable traits and capabilities. Yet we are essentially limited in what we can conceive of and act upon to such an extent that in reading history it often would seem that far flung events are somehow all part of a greater global trend when in fact there is no middle to exclude. Given large enough populations of limited imaginations, there is simply few enough variations on any theme of societal conduct that one group might simply be doing something in one part of the world similar to what is happening in some other part at around the same time, though each group might be following different trajectories involving non-similar causal relationships. So that disparity among limited choices is a component of the human condition which informs us in how we categorize what we perceive to be physical phenomenon which we classify through deliberations in conventions for the convenience of agreeing upon what we might be talking about. To that extent, the observer does change the outcome of any experiment, even to the degree of interpreting the function of an apparatus.

Yet transcending perception, human consciousness seems equipped to imagine an idea, a concept derivative of shared experiences. We convene to share observations and formulate ideas, and formulate operational definitions that adequately describe common occurrences. These then we argue to be physical laws, because collectively we observe them to hold true to all observed occurrences of the same sorts. Our inherent limitations might well shield us from much if not most of what has physically transpired, but that much which we do perceive and conceptualize is real enough.

Let us consider inertia for instance. We accept it as a physical property and operationally define it generically as being such that a mass in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by another force, and inversely a mass at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by another force. So the general definition must be a hidden variable in the correct question; "What is it about inertia that is the same thing for any mass regardless of state of motion?" That is the missing element in both General Relativity and Quantum Gravity. And that suggests that for any finite quantity of mass:energy there is some universal maximum mass density relative to that total energy of a closed system in relation to light velocity. Regards, jrc

edit:

The observed behavior of Black Holes at the center of galaxies would seem self contradictory in that it ejects energy jets when theoretically nothing can escape its gravity. But if there exists a universal relative proportionate mass density; the upper bound of density would be relative to the total energy of the galaxy itself and that which would exceed that density bound would take the antipodal path of least resistance in ejecta. And if universal by relative proportion it could be expected to be scale independent and the relative inertial mass density upper bound at core of a particle would be proportional to the finite mass of any discrete unitary field volume.

GR assumes an average mass density in an observable boundary which of course would therefore be also a constant density across that volume. A proportionate upper density bound in a theoretical core boundary would also be a constant density but would not be an average of the total whole mass of a unitary energy field, and only a miniscule proportion of the total energy equivalence of the field mass in a tiny core volume could physically manifest a large magnitude density value proportionate to the total measurable mass. A literal quantum field particle of continuous density gradient with a finite upper bound quantity value that eliminates the infinitesimal zero point center conundrum of a mathematical singularity. The tasks of science should include discovery from what we can describe.

Carlo I think mentions spacetime being somehow emergent.

Being rational Tom, existential matter should not be put into spacetime to avoid paradox- which is logically disallowed. Spacetime (observed) is a product of EMr receipt and processing. There needs to be distributed matter which is source of emitted and /or reflected Emr. The arrangement of the matter needs to change giving foundational time. EMr transmission occurs in that environment. Justification: unambiguous sequential processes, relative perception, no paradox,

Correction.

Sabine says she's not a realist but realism is a good working hypothesis. She describes herself as an instrumentalist. (I wrote epistemologist, which was incorrect) Her own standpoint: "I can't prove anything exists besides me." "The task of science is not to figure out some truth about reality, whatever that might mean. The task is to find descriptions of our observations, not more and not less." Sabine Hossenfelder

Hi Olivier, information' already has lots of meanings. Using a prefix or adjective with it, to make it a name that fits precisely your particular concept, would be helpful.

Hi Georgina, It is what I tell also about the fact that we need to know the origin philosophical like the meaning of these informations, they must have a strucutre also in correlating with the spacetime of the GR like for the loop quantum gravitation has made. Without a structure, an origin also , it is not sufficient, the informations are a complex puzzle conmsidering what they are really in their pure universal meaning which is different than the qubits that we have invented with the computing,

Perhaps I should arrange the words to be clear that Space time is a result not a premise. When electromagnetic radiation is received and processed, the product contains temporal spread due to the different travel times of the inputs. Giving a space time product. Existential matter is not a space time product unlike seen semblances generated from electromagnetic radiation receipt.

Georgina,

What is your idea of the physical form of electromagnetic radiation? QM holds it to be a discrete (massless) particle, so why does it also register a sinusoidal response in a receiver? To assert that Spacetime is a product of emission and receipt of EMR kind of beggs the question; "What IS it?"

Hi john,

I have seen some interesting results with oil droplets on a vibrating bed of oil. Also a hydrophobic oil droplet on water. These are not exactly photons . However the results are showing some quantum like behavior-Such as quantum corral like, quantum tunneling-like and being both particle and wave able to pass as a particle part though one slit and wave portion through both. Wave interference hasn't been reproducibly demonstrated though. This combo-form would allow particle and wave together to be detected as a wave and the particle part to be detected as a particle. A divisible wave that can give an interference pattern affecting the particle portions location when recombined but not (yet) detectable otherwise could account for some 'weirdness'.

Georgi,

I'm inclined to favor that interpretation also, or something quite similar. Lot's of room for hypothesis. :-) jrc

Hi John, happy to see you on FQXi, and what about the hypothesis of hypothesis lol like if the assumption of an hypotheisis was just a hypothesis

all is clear about consciousness

https://bistra.si/images/2022/Time_observer_consciousness_8.pdf

    Your ideas Amrit are interesting about how you interpret this consciousness but we must recognise that we have still many limitations physical, biological,philosophical. There are many models about this hard problem of consciousness but no model explains it correctly , it is still due to these limitations that we have unfortunately,regards

    Steve,

    It is best to be able to laugh about it, lest we take ourselves too seriously. Logic began in antiquity as a quest to find if we could know if what we thought about things was at all true to reality, and now more than two millennia later with a lot more math we still wonder!

    Hi John, all this is laughing I must say indeed even the theoretical physics community, all persuaded to understand the universe, the maths, the physics, the philosophy , but in fact we know nothing still, that said when we observe the universe and when we study these sciences and when we search answers in philosophy also, some truths appear , that is why these spheres 3D are for me the choice of God simply , after all there are only this inside this universe cosmologically speaking, they are not too simple, they are very complex in details and the same for the 3D quantum series of spheres .What I find laughing to be frank is that since einstein they are all endoctrinated like the only one truth with these photons like the light of god playing at guitar now with strings inside and creating the mass with the mass energy equivalence lol and in considering the informations there in the strings inside the photons connected with the hand of god in this GR, it is laughing no John frankly , and you are right we know nothing in a sense about the complexity of all these 3D spheres, they are not simple, what we observe and measure actually are just 0,000000000001 percent of properties emergent of these spheres in motions rotations oscillations , what a world, and us the humans and our vanity we beleive that we have understood god and the physics laughing is a weak word and they take this seriously furthermore indeed, the vanity is the problem, we have a problem us the humans encoded in our minds and DNA due to a sad common past of adaptation or maybe god drunk belgian beers when he has created the nhumans I don t know lol we are simply an error lol all persuaded the humans