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  • David Sloan: Changing Science by Asking Big Questions. PUZZLE X Keynote Talk

Join FQxI's Chief Scientific Officer David Sloan as he makes a case for curiosity-driven science - for asking the big, boundary-pushing questions that spark wonder about the mysteries of our universe. Questions not for definitive answers, but to shift paradigms and reveal deeper truths about time, consciousness, and reality.

Keywords: Sloan, IAF Information Fuel TWCF, Time, Black Holes, Consciousness,

    Forum Moderator
    David Sloan made a good case for curiosity-driven science, and I'm all for science. Especially in a world seemingly awash with fake news and appalling fundamentalist religious ideas in the US, not just in the Middle East and other places.

    But what is science telling the world? Science is stuck with trying to tell people that, when looked at very closely, the fake news and fundamentalist religious ideas are the inevitable result of the equations. Seemingly, science is missing something important about the world.

    So, are all aspects of the world amenable to science? There seems to be an assumption by scientists that all the world is able to be nailed down/ represented by their equations. However, there are clearly linking, algorithmic aspects of the world, right from the beginning of the universe, that could only be represented by logical connective symbols.

    "Dream Big - Then Prove It" said the background. But aspects of the world that could only be represented by logical connective symbols (like IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN ) are seemingly not amenable to being proved. How can science prove an on-the-spot one-off time/ place knowledge (represented by AND/OR…IS TRUE ) aspect of the world; how can science prove an on-the-spot one-off time/ place creative (represented by IF…THEN… ) aspect of the world? Science seemingly can’t prove it, but I feel that they had better acknowledge that such aspects of the world exist, if they don’t want fundamentalist religions to take over with their explanations of these seemingly unprovable aspects of the world.

    (I'm sorry, but I find the AI generated backgrounds revolting, not inspiring. Science can only be about the real world, not about fake views and images of the world.)

      Lorraine Ford
      Now that seemingly the majority of the pro-science believers in the world have become indoctrinated into the belief that, when looked at very closely, the whole world can be explained by physics’ (law of nature) equations alone, and robust free will can’t exist, it has become clear that these beliefs always were mistaken.

      This is because computer systems have clearly demonstrated that equations never were sufficient to represent a moving system: you need logical connectives, as well as equations, to represent a moving system. Unfortunately, only the aspects of the world that can be represented by equations are amenable to scientific experiment and proof.

      So, what is physics going to do about the fact that the world, a moving system, requires aspects that can only be represented by logical connectives? Clearly, consciousness and free will can potentially be explained in terms of these logical connectives.

        Professor Sloan, a very good general analysis about these big questions to catalyse the imagination, the determinism is important and this imagination also about the deep secrets and mysteries of this universe, we must keep an open mind , congrats

        Lorraine Ford
        Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs is an FQxI member who is being recognised for his work on QBism, a very different way of looking at the world: “In this view, reality is not a pre-written script but a participatory drama, with each observer playing a crucial role in shaping their experience. As Fuchs put it in a lecture earlier this year, in QBism, “when I take an action on the world, something genuinely new comes out.””

        https://www.umb.edu/news/recent-news/christopher-fuchs-on-the-future-perfect-50-list/
        Vox Names Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs on its Future Perfect 50 List
        11th December 2023:

        “Professor of Physics Christopher Fuchs has been named one of Vox’s Future Perfect 50, honoring his work as a quantum physics pioneer imagining the future. The Future Perfect project at Vox tells stories about the world’s problems and the ideas that can transform our future.

        Their second annual list, which honors visionary change agents, aims to amplify people who exemplify the principles and ideas Vox is most excited about. Those named on the list, including Fuchs, are the people who are pushing the novel and utopian ideas that can effectively change the world for the better, into the mainstream.

        Fuchs is being recognized for his work on QBism, the subjective Bayesian interpretation of quantum mechanics that distinguishes itself from the traditional explanations of quantum reality. QBism follows the theory that the probabilities in quantum mechanics are reflections of personal belief that shape an observer’s expectations rather than outlining an objective reality. Based on this view, each person plays a crucial role in shaping their own experiences instead of reality being based on a pre-written script, which then bridges the gap between consciousness and the physical world.

        … Fuchs’s work serves as a reminder that progress comes from challenging the status quo. …”

        https://www.vox.com/23977853/christopher-fuchs-quantum-physics-qbism-quantum-bayesianism-future-perfect-50-2023
        Christopher Fuchs is revolutionizing how we understand our quantum reality
        The physicist and co-founder of the QBism theory is shaking up his field.
        29 November 2023:

        “... In this view, reality is not a pre-written script but a participatory drama, with each observer playing a crucial role in shaping their experience. As Fuchs put it in a lecture earlier this year, in QBism, “when I take an action on the world, something genuinely new comes out.”

        This philosophical pivot has profound implications. It challenges long-held notions about the observer’s role in the physical universe, bridging the gap between consciousness and the physical world, a mystery that has long perplexed scientists and philosophers.

        … it’s precisely this disruption that underscores the significance of his work. QBism invites us to rethink our role in the cosmos, not as passive observers but as active participants. “The QBist vision is that of an unfinished universe, of a world that allows for genuine freedom, a world in which agents matter and participate in the making of reality,” writes Ruediger Schack, one of the co-founders of QBism. … “

          Lorraine Ford Hi Lorraine, this interpretation the qbism is interesting, here is a discussion on facebook with sone thinkers about the different interpretations of our QM, personally I like the copenaghe school and its pure determinism and in adding deeper parameters that we cannot still measure due to limitations,

          See this discussion , the professor Hooft explains his viewpoints and Tim Maudlin too,
          Tim Maudlin
          Cristi Stoica Obviously, to expand from QM to the phenomena of QFT, and then to bring in gravity. Lot's to do.
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          Gerard 't Hooft
          Tim Maudlin If I look at my laptop, I know that the probability of finding another laptop within 1 km is very high, but if you search a light year away from me, the probability of finding a laptop is very small. But I wouldn’t call that non-locality; the laws that control my laptop are entirely local. The fact that we actually have quantum mechanics there doesn’t change a thing. The commutators in a QFT are exactly like this: correlation functions are non-local but the physical laws are local
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          Tim Maudlin
          Gerard 't Hooft Of course you wouldn't call that non-locality. No one would. So I can't understand why you would make that comment. The distribution of laptops does not violate any Bell Inequality. The outcomes of various experiments on photons do. I really have no idea at all what you are trying to convey here, since what your write makes no contact with the issue of violating Bell's Inequality, which cannot be (reliably) done by any local theory.
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          Peter Warwick Morgan
          Gerard 't Hooft My apologies for leaping in here, but to me it seems important to keep in mind that commutators in QFT are trivial at space-like separation, so Vacuum Expectation Values at space-like separation 𝘢𝘳𝘦 exactly like correlation functions, but because commutators in QFT are nontrivial at time-like separation VEVs will in general have an imaginary component, so that VEVs then do not have a direct correlation function interpretation. It seems to me that signal locality is very nearly assured by QFT (up to the issue discussed by Sorkin in arXiv:gr-qc/9302018v2), but any locality that is more demanding than signal locality is more difficult.
          The following may be tl;dr, but to construct correlation functions at time-like separation —which we have to do because we can construct auto-correlation functions at time-like separation, which we will want to model— it seems we either (1) use collapse of a quantum state to construct correlation functions at time-like separation; or (2) use the dual construction of projecting subsequent measurements to the eigenspaces of the earlier measurements (the duality is elementary, but my "The collapse of a quantum state as a joint probability construction" in JPhysA 2022 suggests some consequences); or (3) construct a classical random field and an ancillary transformation algebra that derives from the Poisson bracket, which together give us an algebraic structure that is isomorphic to the QFT measurement algebra (which you can see exhibited in a reply to my comment above for the free EM field); or, inevitably, (4) use some other construction.
          That third construction seems to me close in spirit to the algebraic probability component of your approach to superdeterminism, however it differs by suggesting that we can stop short of superdeterminism by insisting on the same noise-everywhere-and-at-all-scales as we have become accustomed to in the algebraic probabilities of QFT. [You last looked at my work, that I know of, about five years ago, in a thread in which you also engaged with Tim Maudlin, when you decided that there was nothing to see; I invite you to see whether that is still true.]
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          Steve Dufourny
          Gerard 't Hooft this discussion between you all is very interesting and appears to analyse the complexities of our QM , non locality and QFT . Tim Maudlin emphasizes that QM implies correlations non local wich violate Bells inequality and Gerard Hooft counters in telling that the laptop distributions don t violate this Bell s inequality
          but that some experiments do , that implies deeper issues for this QM and the violations when we make experiments . Peter contributions with the commutators in QFT with the space and time separations are interesting for the signals locality in QFT , and so there are challenges to analyse and maybe it is the key with deeper experiments like Gerad Hooft told , that implies various approachs at my humble opinion about the collapses of quantum states and measurements. So it is relelevant when we add the Hooft aapproach and the superdeterminism and the algebraic probability if we treat the noise in the method.
          Happy to see this kind of discussions, regards
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          Steve Dufourny
          what kind of experimens can be made to have proofs about the QM and its implications and these different views on locality, Some Bell s tests probably and loophole free bell tests. The quantum entanglement also is a road , that can challenges the notions of locality . There are also roads in analysing the behavior of particles after measurements for the entagled partners and so we analyse the observations and the retrocausality . The fact to test the local realism and the QM seem essential after all . The contextuality of experiments seem important also for the QM and so we can consider the local properties, and the experimental context also . The idea of Peter for the time like separation and its correlations is interesting if in the exoeriments the measure correlations are considered for the locality , there are also roads at high energy collisions to see the comportments of particles and interactions from the QFT and we can in the same time compute the experiments to verify the theoretical predictions with high precisions in the measurements , in all cases the nature of the QM and its relations with this locality seem very important to better understand how to interpret it .

          Lorraine Ford
          The world is “loose at the joints”:

          “The term QBism, invented in 2009, … we momentarily toyed with the idea of associating the B with what the early 20th-century United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. called “bettabilitarianism.” It is the idea that the world is loose at the joints, that indeterminism plays a real role in the world. In the face of such a world, what is an active agent to do but participate in the uncertainty that is all around him? As Louis Menand put it, “We cannot know what consequences the universe will attach to our choices, but we can bet on them, and we do it every day.” This is what QBism says quantum theory is about …”
          (From On Participatory Realism, by physicist Christopher Fuchs, 12 January 2016, https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.04360 )

          Given that we need to use man-made symbols to represent the nature of the world, this is my way of describing our world, which is “loose at the joints”:

          The symbolic equations that physicists use to represent law of nature relationships can’t have the same qualities as the actual laws of nature, because these mere representations of laws of nature, whether written, spoken or digital, can’t have the actual power of laws of nature.

          Similarly, the logical connective symbols, which might be used to represent the necessary knowledge and creative/ free will “joints” between these relationships, can’t have the same qualities as the actual knowledge and creative aspects of the world. These knowledge and creative aspects of the world are the loose “joints” that hold the world together, and drive the world forward.

            Lorraine Ford
            Steve Dufourny,
            The relevant point is that one can’t represent a moving system, like the moving world, without using either implicit or explicit logical connectives, as well as physics’ law of nature equations. As computer programs have shown, to correctly represent what is happening with a moving system, any implicit logical connectives need to be made explicit and visible. Logical connectives, especially implicit logical connectives, seem to represent an aspect of the world that physicists turn a blind eye to.

              Lorraine Ford Yes indeed, the explicit reality from an implicite logical connectivity needs a convergence between the formal terms and the deduction and consequences utilised , that implies a kind of logic of this deterministic reality and the mathematical explicit and implicit tools utilised, that said the interpretations are very limited like our knowledges in maths , physics and philosophy of origin, so the reality that we perceive, observe,measure have also deep limitations unfortunatelly, the different approachs and interpretations like copenaghe, qbism, debroglie bohm,and others about the locality and the realism are also under a deep uncertainty due to these said limitations physical, philosophical , mathematical. So the implicit and explicit parameters can converge it is sure if the logic is respected and this pure determinism but these limitations are a reality unfortunatelly, regards

                Steve Dufourny
                The world is “loose at the joints”. In other words, the world is free at the joints: when the world is looked at very closely, physicists literally don’t know where the next number (e.g. a number that applies to the position category) is coming from, or what the cause of that number change is. Is matter causing some of its own numbers to change? Physicists literally don’t know, although they philosophically abhor the idea that matter could change some of its own numbers. So, physicists and others can’t make claims about free will or determinism when they literally don’t know if matter is freely causing some of its own numbers to change; and they don’t know if living organisms are organisms simply because they organise and coordinate their freely made micro number changes, resulting in a macro effect.

                This number change “repositions” an entity (e.g. a particle) with respect to the rest of the world, and this number repositioning has (potentially far-reaching) consequences for other numbers, due to law of nature relationships, which, as physics’ equations that represent law of nature relationships show, only come into operation IF some numbers have changed for some of the categories in the relationships. This is the deterministic aspect of the world: the deterministic aspect of the world only comes into effect IF some numbers have freely changed.

                  Lorraine Ford Indeed we have unfortunatelly deepe philosophical limitations about all these unknowns, we try to have models concrete and converging with determinism but not easy, it is more diufficult now to find these unknowns than in the past where it was easier to measure and observe with experiments to conclude equations, laws, axioms . Regards

                    Steve Dufourny
                    In order to have a moving system like our moving world, the 3 necessary, but completely different, elements are:

                    1. Categories and deterministic relationships between categories, that are represented by equations;
                    2. Numbers that apply to the categories, that are represented by number symbols; and
                    3. Indeterministic elements that drive the system and handle situations, that are represented by logical connective statements (e.g. AND/OR…IS TRUE statements or IF…THEN… statements). (Note that: Only when the elements that drive the system and handle situations, are symbolically represented in computer programs, do they become prescriptive and deterministic, in the context of the computer system).

                    On the basis of the deterministic relationships between categories (see 1. above), short-sighted physicists have declared that the whole world is deterministic. However, the necessity for elements 2. and 3. above paints a very different picture of the world.

                      Lorraine Ford
                      Computer programs have demonstrated that one needs to mentally distinguish equations, numbers, and the logical connective elements that drive a moving system. But seemingly, physicists (and mathematicians too) have been assuming that moving systems can be represented by equations alone:

                      1. Seemingly, physicists have mentally conflated the aspect of the world that can be represented by equations with the aspect of the world that can be represented by number symbols.
                      2. And seemingly physicists have also mentally conflated the aspect of the world that drives the system with the aspect of the world that can be represented by equations.

                      And while human beings author computer programs (and human beings author computer programs that can write computer programs), physics, mathematics and philosophy have no authors. But clearly, the only authors can be matter itself, the large and small fragments and arrangements of matter that make up the universe.

                      Meanwhile, fundamentalist Christians and other fundamentalists have their own views as to why the world is moving, a view which involves an all-powerful God. Physicists and philosophers had better get in quick, with a more realistic counter view of how a system works, before the fundamentalists take over the world.

                        Lorraine Ford
                        There is no such thing as mathematics, including the mathematics used in physics, without a mathematician or a physicist.

                        Because the mathematician or physicist plays the part of the logical connectives: it is the mathematician or physicist who comprehends, moves, and mentally links, the otherwise lifeless and meaningless symbols.

                        This charade can no longer be hidden when it comes to writing computer programs, which can genuinely represent a moving system, because every logical connective has to be made explicit.

                          Lorraine Ford
                          So, physicists’ equations can’t ever represent a moving world: it’s the equations+physicist (or equations+other person) that can more accurately represent a moving world.

                          Because the physicist (or other person) plays the part of the logical connectives: it is the physicist (or other person) who comprehends, moves and changes, and mentally links, the symbols and symbolic equations.

                          There is no such thing as a system without a foundational-level comprehension/ knowledge aspect, and a foundational-level free movement aspect. The logical connective symbols in AND/OR…IS TRUE statements, and IF…THEN… statements, can represent these necessary aspects of a system.

                            8 days later

                            Lorraine Ford
                            In practice, the equations of physics have ample proof of concept in many real-world things, things like GPS and spacecraft missions to other parts of the solar system. These equations of physics are the result of ingenious experiments and “shutting up and calculating”.

                            The fact that there always was a person doing the calculating only becomes relevant when asking questions about the nature of the actual underlying moving system that the equations are supposed to represent. Then it can be seen that the person doing the calculating is playing the part of the necessary non-measurable aspects of a system, aspects that can only be represented by logical connective symbols.

                            So, contrary to the idea that the nature of the underlying world can be represented by equations and associated numbers alone, in fact logical connective symbols must also be used to represent a necessary, but unmeasurable, aspect of the nature of the underlying world.

                            The necessity for logical connective aspects means that the nature of the underlying fundamental reality must be looked at in an entirely different way.

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