Limits of mathematics in cosmology

castel,

I would take issue with the idea that "dimensions are the unchanging realities."

If we consider the evolution of the concept, dimensions originate as a modeling tool. They are based on geometric coordinates. As they were applied in real world situations, such as geography, it became evident such models were inherently flexible, such as a straight line in space and a straight line on the earth's surface were not the same thing. As topography became ever more complex and we started laying holographic spaces on top of one another, dimensionality multiplied. The fact remains though, they are a model of reality, not some mathematical basis for it. Your coordinate system and your neighbor's could very well produce completely different perspectives of the same space, so wouldn't there effectively be a three dimensional coordinate system for every point of reference and thus space is infinitely dimensional?

Now consider how it is that time is treated as a dimension, rather than a dynamic process: The basis of human knowledge and causal logic is the linear narrative. Whether the ability to tell a coherent story, or construct a rational argument, it is the ability to draw out the series of consecutive steps. This is the basis of every discipline you can name, whether it's history, math, literature, science, etc.

The problem is that this is an observation of the process, rather than participation in it. We think of time as though it were a book, going from beginning to end, with each step following the previous. The dimension of time then, is like the frames of a film, with each step as its own unit and we, or the light of the projector, goes from one to the next.

Consider though, how the process of time actually happens, as we are physically participating in it: There is this sea of energy all around us and we move through it, as it swirls about, we consume information carrying doses of energy and out of them, process conceptual units of thought. Then more information/energy pours in and we have to transition to the next thought. So for our minds, time is that series of thoughts we process. The larger reality is less linear and more cumulative though. While we must mentally maintain a coherent stream of consciousness in order not to become completely disoriented, the environment isn't always so cooperative and frequently relevant and necessary information isn't provided in a linear fashion. For that reason, our brains have two sides. The rational, left brain is a form of clock, that coalesces information into a reasonably coherent train of sequential thoughts, while the emotional right brain is more of a thermostat, in that it is constantly acting on and reacting to the cumulative energies and processing the information at a subconscious level, then feeding what is deemed most important to the conscious brain in order to steer the physical actions.

So for this subconscious emotional brain, reality is not a neat sequential series of constructed perceptions, but a mass of input that must be edited quickly and mostly ignored. Its main area of concern is not consideration of past events and planning for future ones, but merely processing what is constantly present. Instead of being the frames of the film, all neatly laid out in a series, it is more like the projector light, flashing on what is in front of it, as this information streams by, from being in the future, to being in the past. The need to sequence is a consequence of our mobility and need to navigate. Plants have very effective thermostats to monitor their physical reality, but no central sequencing function because they don't have to move. That sequencing function is a higher order developmental trait.

This dichotomy plays out across much of our conscious existence. Men tend to be more linear, while women tend towards a more cumulative view of life. Western religions tend to be more action oriented and based on narrative tales of moving through context in search of ideals, while eastern religions tend to be more contemplative and observant of natural processes as they happen, rather than being the agent of change. Also they tend to worship the ancestors which are their foundations, rather than worshipping ideals to which they aspire/wish to travel to, as western religions do.

So it happens they have opposing views of time, with the western view being that future is in front of the observer and the past behind, because that is how ones motion carries ones perspective. The eastern view is of the past in front of the observer, because it has already happened and can be seen, while the future is behind, because when one is not moving, but witnessing, the information of events goes by, on to other places and observers.

I do agree that space is fundamental, as both absolute equilibrium state and infinitely boundless. I don't know that I would consider it a substance though, but permeated by substance. As you say, it isn't space which bends, but the matter traversing it. There are two, somewhat contradictory, descriptions of Relativity, which seem to co-exist without being fully acknowledged. One holds that space is completely relative and it is only the relative motion of one frame to another which distorts the perception of rates of motion, aka time, in each other. So that if two frames moved by one another at C, it would only appear the other frames clock has stopped. The other description holds that a clock in a frame at rest actually moves faster than one in a frame affected by velocity, acceleration or gravity.

In the second, space acts as a form of equilibrium state, such that anything moving through it will have their atomic motion slowed, since the combination of external velocity and internal activity cannot produce any motion exceeding C. Thus something traveling at close to C will still measure light traveling at C because their own sense of time has been slowed. Since clocks of GPS satellites must be calibrated to their gravitational fields and accelerated frames, it would seem there is a real effect and not just perception of other frames. A possible experiment would be to scatter clocks out in space and determine which runs fastest. This clock would then be the one closest to the pure equilibrium of space.

I think the first is wrong. It would mean another reality could be passing through ours as a form of light and we would be passing through theirs as light. Obviously difficult to disprove, but if the second description is true, then the first cannot be. Someone with more knowledge might tell me where I'm wrong on this, but so far it's been a point which receives little response.

Which is to say that I many regards, we are in agreement, but I think some concepts, such as dimensionality and especially the dimensionality of time, fall in the category of emergent models/language tools, rather than aspects of a more fundamental reality.

John,

As to how we experience time, I'm having trouble distinguishing between a feeling of duration versus simply a feeling of continuity as I write this now and then write this now. Your 'narrative effect' captures a lot, but doesn't quite resolve the 'duration' problem.

I don't buy a 'dimensionless point in time' and I do believe particles are real, not wave functions. And although it's true that "there is just a bunch of energy bouncing around" I'm pretty sure that 'action', not 'energy' is the fundamental reality, and this includes some concept of duration. With all my words and your words we still haven't resolved this 'fuzzy' aspect of NOW.

I've read your arguments about red shift and big bang theory, but I haven't worked through the details. Partly this is because my theory produces an inflationary force as soon as the perfect radial symmetry breaks, but also because of the vacuum energy arguments I made above. The extreme C-fields that produce particles in my theory are available at the big bang but not so evident without the bang.

Finally, I am a Unitarist and believe in one Universe that evolves in a way consistent with my experience, as opposed to many dimensions and many universes that make no sense to me. So my theory not only seems to match our physical knowledge of reality but it matches my conscious experience as well.

Rather than address all of Castel's points, I would like to focus on your remark that 'dimensions originate as a modeling tool, based on geometric coordinates'. Elsewhere I believe that you have referenced Jill Taylor's "Stroke of Insight" in which the neuro-anatomist describes her loss of metric awareness and the corresponding 'merging with the Universe'. Similarly Georgina's pre-birth memories of a time when she knew no bodily limits. Also LSD experiences of connectedness to all. So I am convinced that the most basic awareness is of topological connectedness, and the imposition of a metric on the Universe happens in our heads. It is for the simple reason that it is of utilitarian value to know that I can reach the apple, but I cannot reach the moon, despite their visual similarity. So the brain produces 'metric'.

It is this same "in our heads happening" that establishes time as a dimension, having the narrative utility that you describe. In fact I agree with most of your remarks about the brain and processing reality.

But whereas there is no natural unit of energy or of momentum, there is a natural unit of action, that I believe is every bit as fundamental as the speed of light, and, like light, has an implicit idea of duration (or travel time).

It may be that these two fundamental constants are as close as we can get to understanding time. They seem to imply very specific characteristics of (what I believe to be the field that fills) space. This further seems to imply something beyond emergent utility.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

John,

I tend to simplify to the most fundamental.

I simply see six fundamentals: space, substance, motion - these have both the phenomenal and noumenal aspects/characteristics; and, time, instance, duration - these have only the noumenal aspects/characteristics.

Space contains the corporeal (the tangibles); the substance fills space; motions move motions and form kinetic constructs that render definitions in the substance; the substance per se is aethereal because it is the kinesis/motion that renders tangibility.

Time contains the abstract (the intangibles); the instance reside in time; the transformation effected by duration renders cumulative definition to the instance; the instance per se is ephemeral (must be what Tegmark refers to as "ephemeris time") because it is constantly transformed by the fundamental essence of duration.

My analysis takes the breakdown of the existence to the most fundamental level of the existentials.

I understand the dimensional analysis methodology that has been evolved and confused as a representation of the dynamic. But I believe the correct approach is to use the vectorial analysis methodology because fundamentally vectors are used to represent the dynamic.

I adhere to the fundamental suggestion of the pure kinematics wherein fundamentally "motions move motions" - that is why I prefer the idea of the transformations of motion instead of the idea of the transformations of space and time.

There used to be time - the dimension, time - the instance, and time - the duration. And there used to be space - the dimension, substance - the aethereal space-filler, and motion - the definitions wrought in the aethereal substance... The ideas regarding time was rather clear in Newton, but later confused by Einstein. The ideas regarding space, the aether, and motion were somewhat clear. But it has never been clarified that mass and energy are kinetic constructs - not by Newton, Maxwell, nor Planck. There was the suggestion in Einstein, but which he also later confused. I like my own clarity now on all these ideas (although I am considered irrelevant by many).

Also, it used to be that 'dimension' refers to 'length' (specifically when we talked about space) and we say that a point is dimensionless because it is without any length. But now the idea of dimensions has conventionally been very much confused - foremost by Einstein... Yet, try to closely consider the conventional 'dimensional' methodology in the analysis and you will find that the 'dimensions' referred to are actually 'vectors'.

castel

Edwin,

(I realize you probably prefer Gene, but Edwin's an old family name, brother, cousin, uncle, grandfather, great...)

Doesn't solve the duration problem, as in?

Consider it from my point of the dimension of time going future to past, rather than traveling the dimension from past to future: The clock ticks. Duration isn't it moving along a fourth dimension to the next tick, but the effect of that first tick fading away, like ripples on a pond and then preparing the action of the next tick. Duration isn't a vector, but a cumulative process. It is only when we try to think of both ticks in some form of order that the vector and the linear conception of duration arises. The hamster isn't going anywhere. It's just spinning that wheel.

As for whether particles are waves, or waves are a bunch of particles, it seems to me that particles, as they are described, amount to tiny vortices and are more a function of polarities, rather than what we might think of as mass, but I haven't studied it enough. My approach to physics is peeling away as many layers as I can comprehend and knowing when I'm getting lost.

As for the fuzzy part, think of a Planck unit: Presumably it is the smallest possible measure, but in order to actually be a measure, we would have to define its parameters, which would require an even smaller measure, no? So it would have to be fuzzy, right? It just seems to me that when you push the concept of measurement to its limits, it naturally breaks down. This seems to be the problem with Quantum theory.

As for being a Unitarist, is that based on the concept of unity, or unit, because they are profoundly different. Unity is a state of connected equilibrium, while a unit is a defined set. Which is not unified, because it differentiates between what is inside and outside the set. Confusing these two is the primary fallacy of monotheism. The unified state of the absolute is basis, not apex. It is source, not ideal. A spiritual absolute would be the primordial essence of life and being from which we rise, not a moral and intellectual ideal from which we fell. Good and bad are not a metaphysical dual between the forces of light and darkness, but the basic biological binary code. Amoebae are attracted to the beneficial and repelled by the detrimental. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken, yet there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins. Life is a process of creation and consumption as it bootstraps itself upward. Between black and white are all the colors of the spectrum, not just shades of gray.

Organized religion was originally polytheistic. That is because gods were what we would call memes today. Basic concepts to which the larger group accepted, such as the singularity and status of the group one is immersed in, geographic and astronomical features, seasons of the year, cultural activities, such as celebration, war, death, sex, sleep, illness, etc. All the myriad connections between these concepts naturally lead to a pantheistic network in a mythology of allegorical relationships. This pantheistic wholism is difficult for many to grasp today, let alone thousands of years ago, so it was natural to have this state defined as a unit and then to give it some form. The adult human male being the logical default option, but as an ideal it overlooks the regenerative process by which the old die and are replaced by the next generation and so monotheism doesn't naturally recycle itself, as the various forms attest.

I tend to avoid religious discussions, since minds tend to be set, but this seems similar to your views, though from a sociological, rather than physical perspective.

Also, a Big Bang model of the universe is unit based, not unity based, since it posits the entire universe as a single unit and the mind is naturally drawn to the possibility of others, as is arising in multiverse proposals.

Ask yourself a simple question about geometry: Is zero, in geometry, the initial point, or is it the blank state?

By and large, zero is generally considered the initial point, but as I argued with dimensionless points, this is not logically so. In reality, zero in geometry should be the blank state. This neutral field is the fundamental unity. It is the absolute of space. Geometry doesn't create space with all its dimensions, but only defines it.

I think with your conscious field theory, you are adding an emergent property by ascribing it volition. Yes, we cannot truly have physical consciousness without the manifestation of will, but that asks: Will against what? That is the initial division. We as mortal, mobile beings cannot function without divisions, in order to distinguish, to create, to progress, etc, but I think if you really want to jump off into the void, much like the eastern mystics, you need to see even beyond volition, beyond the attraction of the good and repulsion of the bad. Not to say you want to stay there long and you won't come back quite the same, but it does put everything in its context.

You are thinking of consciousness in terms of the point, the singularity. What I'm asking is for you to think of it in terms of the unbounded state. It isn't unity in the sense of a central entity, but a network of connectedness. Much more of the original polytheistic entities in a pantheistic context. Tribal gods and guardian angels, Gaia and Apollo. Coming and going, birth and death. The fact is that while we might recognize the sense of self in others, that doesn't always make it a connection. Especially if these entities have reason to compete, since there is not a sense of fundamental loss, should one be lost, as the self always wins and becomes stronger. As they say, the winners write the history books. It is a bottom up process and every living being is a complete line of connection back to the origin of life on this planet, but in every generation, many who start life, fail to pass it on and their connection is broken. Not trying to be harsh, but this is a discussion of how the laws function. This is why you need to distinguish between a unit and unity.

I like your idea of consciousness as a field that is stronger in the human brain and weaker in less complex contexts. You compare it to gravity, but another comparison might be focus, as in a lens. We are a focusing of this field of consciousness, compared to a tree, which would be rather unfocused consciousness. In a sense, these are opposite, but complementary descriptions, since gravity is a concentration of mass, while focus is a concentration of energy. Gravity would represent the multiplying structural order of thought, while energy would be the expanding vitality of raw beingness.

I must add.

Dimensions are dimensions. Vectors are vectors.

Dimensions remain constant and hence unchanged. Vectors effect change - especially motion on the substance of existence and duration on the instance of existence.

When we say "there is more substance here" we normally mean there is more motion in a construct of motion (mass-energy) in a given volume of space. This is because motion renders the definitions on the substance.

When we say "a moment or an instant" we normally mean a measure or span of the duration of the instance of existence, a "narrative" segment of duration of the instance of existence along the time dimension.

There is also the "point in time" as the 'pointed' instance of existence itself. And we make "appointments". But often we mean a span of the duration of the instance of existence along the time dimension.

castel

John,

The main problem with discussing consciousness is that it takes quite an initial period to agree on the terms. You and I overlap in many of our ideas, but we diverge in the details. For example, the particle generation 'mechanism' of the C-field is a self-reinforcing vortex that reaches the limit of curvature of space. This is spelled out in complete detail in Chromodynamics War and in Gene Man's World, and requires equations and diagrams, so I'll leave it at that. The same equations that induce circulation in the magnetic field around moving electric charge induces circulation in the C-field around moving mass, so the deBroglie-like 'pilot wave' provides entanglement, interference, and other wave-like properties associated with the particle.

The C-field is not 'like' gravity, it is the circulational 'component' of gravity (the radial force) and initially (assuming a big bang, for purposes of explanation) is suppressed by symmetry. Until that 'moment' the radially symmetric gravity field is expanding with a fixed, scale invariant distribution. Any consciousness that can be attributed to this is the universal self-awareness of the field with its own mass equivalent. If the kinetic energy of expansion exactly equals the self-attraction of the field, then the total energy is zero, which is nice when you're trying to get a free lunch. If the primordial quantum fluctuation (the first act of will?) occurs, then an explosion of turbulence occurs when the perfect symmetry is broken, and this mathematically produces a component (not the whole) that is anti-gravitic, hence inflationary. The vortices then produce first (left-handed massive) neutrinos, then electrons, then quarks. All this makes physical, mathematical sense if we began with a big bang. I haven't tried to work out the 'everlasting' flat space version, but I don't see it working, so I'm partial to BBT. So far, we have one 'substance' the field, that has both radial (G) and circulational (C) aspects, and condenses to matter. Until symmetry breaks the 'consciousness' is global-- undivided. After turbulence then 'local awareness' enters the picture, and we have left the realm of not-two. This eventually leads to awareness of 'other' (ie, not local). Local consciousness after that is essentially a 'density' problem, based on interaction of the local field with the locally relevant structure.

(All this goes better with equations and diagrams, but that's why I write books.) Of course both awareness and volition are so primitive at this level that we can barely conceive of what it means, but if it exists from the 'beginning' then it's fundamental. Since no one has ever come up with a convincing way to 'add it as an afterthought' then I'm happy with it's being primordial-- the source from which all arises. Note that there is no equivalent of 'thought' until the structures arise that can model their environment (via, say, self-organizing, self-sustaining dynamical neural networks). But this would lead to the implication that the living cell, which employs protein logic might have 'some' level of intelligence. The consciousness field is the source of the awareness and volition (G-field says 'come here' to mass, C-field says 'go there' to moving mass). The addition of logic circuitry leads to emergence of intelligence. Life is simply the binding of the field to a sufficiently complex organism, which can reproduce. This implies that ALL life, cells, and plants, and animals are conscious, ie, aware and volitional. I believe you've noticed this in your horses.

If one believes, as I do, that the basic cellular life has non-zero awareness, then certainly billions of brain cells, interconnected and dynamically re-connecting (how learning occurs) leads to the things we associate with the human mind (math, language, Gaia, primitive religions, and all). It is 'focused' only in a metaphorical sense, since it is intimately interacting with the entire brain and body. But if my theory is correct, it all evolves from the basic free lunch that first showed itself as a unified field at the moment of (self?) creation. 'Units' have nothing to do with it, although, as a physicist (a very specialized organism) I do require of my theory that it match the known facts, and this raises Planck's constant of action and the speed of light and the gravitational constants to rather special places in the theory.

This is not exactly pantheism, or any other current denomination, and it certainly is not reductionism, since the ultimate mystery of the field (which is to say of the Universe) will not be reduced to words or equations or thoughts (mental models) but only experienced through living.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Since we both agree the basis of consciousness is easier to explain as primordial, rather than emergent, I guess our real point of difference is whether the universe emerged as a singularity, or is an unbound, eternal field. I have to get to work, so I can't go over my arguments as to why I think the Big Bang theory is flawed and I admit I have the full weight of the establishment against me on this, but In all the arguments I've had on the subject, there are many points I keep raising which don't draw very effective responses. How is it that we can observe a universe that is flat, has mature galaxies and galaxy structures as far as can be seen, have a theory by Einstein describing this balance, of which there is increasing evidence of and still hold with this current model, without any dissent and even only marginal dissent from the fringes, such as myself?

Yes, a singularity provides a source of energy, but leaves open the question of where it came from? how can we have space expanding from this point, but still have a stable speed of light? Ifspace expands, wouldn't the yardstick of C increase as well? But that would blow the whole Doppler effect out of the water, because it isn't based on stretching the units of distance, only moving away within them.

On the other hand, why couldn't we have an unstable vacuum as the primordial source? Big Bang theory even adds one as Dark Energy to explain one of its various discrepancies. What if this Dark Energy/Cosmological Constant is the source and above a certain density, say 3.7k, it starts collapsing into gravitational vortices. That would provide spin on a local scale.

Got to get to work....

John,

We've actually covered a lot of ground in this back and forth, in highly compressed manner. For example, I explained above why 'unstable vacuum' does not cut it. So we're ignoring things already covered. That's a sign it's time to stop and either review our earlier comments or just cogitate some.

I've seen your comments on consciousness on other blogs (after they had died down) and have looked forward to talking with you. I do think we agree on the primordial basis. I do not have the answers to your questions because I have not spent much time thinking about redshift and associated issues. Almost immediately after finding my key equations, the inflationary aspect appeared, and I took this as reason to accept the big bang, which also provides the source of strong enough vortex fields to produce the requisite particle zoo. My twin goals were to understand the nature of consciousness and to match this with *known* physics (not the hodge-podge of current theories based on things that have never been seen, that I mentioned above). I don't give much credence to the establishment. They have to play by their rules if they want to stay in their game. My absolute requirement was that my theory match my conscious experience and that the basics of physics makes sense. Beyond that, the interaction of the consciousness field with body-brains accounts for every map, model, scheme, and idea that the human mind comes up with, and, as I said, none of these will reduce the universe to a non-mysterious answer. As amrit and others say, and as you allude to, one can 'jump off into the void' and *know* the truth, but when one returns from the void, one cannot construct a map and show it to others, just as one cannot explain 'being aware' to someone who is 'unaware'.

If, as we seem to agree, *now* is the reality, and our ideas of past and future are mental maps, and if, as we may agree, consciousness is the field of which the parts are made, then in theory (many swear in practice) one can 'decouple' from the local body-brain mass and experience the universal awareness of the ALL, but the body-brain soon reclaims its hold on locality and we're once more inside looking out.

As for the big bang, my brain is happy with my theory and not happy with the other, but obviously we have as many theories on fqxi as we have body-brains, and I don't believe they will ever converge to the best theory. Too many dollars, too much power, to big egos, and etc. When they don't find the Higgs or any of the other SUSY particles, they'll just claim they need more money.

I plan to spend more time thinking about 'duration' as implied by 'c' and 'h'.

I've very much enjoyed our talk and look forward to the next one. These conversations are stimulating and worthwhile.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Sound's like you are dropping the conversation. Sorry to hear that, as the discussions on fqxi have been a bit thin lately and I haven't found any sites quite like it. I suspect things will liven up when they start the next contest though.

I must say we do hold fairly opposing positions on the validity of the Big Bang model though, but it doesn't look like I'm convincing you and I see too many holes between all the areas of elaborate maths not to think a profound bias towards definition has us wrapping up a theory of the universe a little too quickly. Having followed the evolution of the theory since I was a teenager in the seventies and having started to question it in the late eighties upon learning expansion and gravitational contraction have to be balanced and discussing it on the internet from the mid nineties, I find it to have the momentum of a movement, in which believers rise and doubters are excluded.

In that regard, you might want to examine just what parts of the theory you like and why, because they will necessarily become tangled with the parts you don't like. This is from Andrei Linde's website: http://www.stanford.edu/~alinde/

"Inflationary theory describes the very early stages of the evolution of the Universe, and its structure at extremely large distances from us. For many years, cosmologists believed that the Universe from the very beginning looked like an expanding ball of fire. This explosive beginning of the Universe was called the big bang. In the end of the 70's a different scenario of the evolution of the Universe was proposed. According to this scenario, the early universe came through the stage of inflation, exponentially rapid expansion in a kind of unstable vacuum-like state (a state with large energy density, but without elementary particles). Vacuum-like state in inflationary theory usually is associated with a scalar field, which is often called ``the inflaton field.'' The stage of inflation can be very short, but the universe within this time becomes exponentially large. Initially, inflation was considered as an intermediate stage of the evolution of the hot universe, which was necessary to solve many cosmological problems. At the end of inflation the scalar field decayed, the universe became hot, and its subsequent evolution could be described by the standard big bang theory. Thus, inflation was a part of the big bang theory. Gradually, however, the big bang theory became a part of inflationary cosmology. Recent versions of inflationary theory assert that instead of being a single, expanding ball of fire described by the big bang theory, the universe looks like a huge growing fractal. It consists of many inflating balls that produce new balls, which in turn produce more new balls, ad infinitum. Therefore the evolution of the universe has no end and may have no beginning. After inflation the universe becomes divided into different exponentially large domains inside which properties of elementary particles and even dimension of space-time may be different. Thus the universe looks like a multiverse consisting of many universes with different laws of low-energy physics operating in each of them. Thus, the new cosmological theory leads to a considerable modification of the standard point of view on the structure and evolution of the universe and on our own place in the world. A description of the new cosmological theory can be found, in particular, in my article The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe published in Scientific American, Vol. 271, No. 5, pages 48-55, November 1994. A nice introduction to inflation was written by the journalist and science writer John Gribbin Cosmology for Beginners . The new cosmological paradigm may have non-trivial philosophical implications. In particular, it provides a scientific justification of the cosmological anthropic principle, and allows one to discuss a possibility to create the universe in a laboratory."

Admittedly I don't know enough about vacuum instability to defend it, but I do think the universe is a field effect, with areas of expansion balanced by vortices of contraction and this fundamental dichotomy manifests on many levels, such as the expansion being an "entangled wave state," while collapse results in digitized quanta/particles and that's why, when we try measuring precise energy levels, the process of doing so requires creating the collapse, thus we only "see" particles, while waves remain not quite real. I could go on, but don't want to try your patience, as most professionals wouldn't take the time to understand what I'm trying to say in the first place.

John,

I've got to take care of some other time-consuming business and don't think we're close enough on the BBT issue to really get anywhere. I'm glad that we agree on the primordial consciousness as opposed to emergent, but my theory ties everything together into a unified whole. If I have to cut out large pieces of it, it will kill the theory, and I've seen no reason to do so (yet). In fact, my theory makes predictions about what will be found at LHC and has several cosmological implications, so until the predictions are confirmed or proven wrong, I'm sticking with what I believe is the best theory of reality.

As for Linde's "chaotic inflation" I don't buy it, or, as I understand it, any of the associated multiverse. They do not have any explanation of inflation (other than undiscovered 'inflatons' based on QED concepts) and the remarks I made above reflect my doubts about even QED. Just yesterday the APS newsletter quoted Peter Mohr at NIST about the 4 percent discrepancy between the (QED) predicted and measured radius of the proton...

"It would be quite revolutionary. It would mean that we know a lot less than we thought we knew... If it is a fundamental problem, we don't know what the consequences are yet."

John, for the last five years I've been watching new mysteries being reported in particle physics and cosmology that fit right into my model but do not fit any current theories. As a practical matter, the gigantic academic-industrial-governmental-science establishment is not going to roll over and say "we don't know what the hell is going on", but I am absolutely convinced that this is the case. There is more BS and theories postulated on make believe entities (see my Aug. 29, 2010 @ 20:44 GMT comment above) and the whole thing is a house of cards. So I'm not ready to throw overboard my theory that explains almost everything I'm aware of just because there are 'redshift issues' that I haven't had time to work through yet. If the LHC finds a Higgs, or other SUSY particles then I'll have to take a real good look at why my theory predicts none. But until then I'll just keep plowing through issues one at a time, and the redshift is now on the list of issues, but not at the top.

One problem is that pictures aren't enough, equations have to produce numbers that match reality. For example, QED cannot explain the 4 percent discrepancy. My model does qualitatively explain a 'smaller' proton radius as seen by the muon, but I can't calculate 4 pct exactly. On the other hand, they have not the slightest idea why it's smaller. The proton radius, the negative core of the neutron, massive (as opposed to massless) neutrinos-- these are big deals, but, since the current theories can't explain it, they ignore it. Given finite time and energy, I have to choose real measured problems that my model supports and the other guys can't explain, over conceptual problems that may or may not be real.

BTW, I too live on a ranch. I think it's a better way to grasp reality. I haven't found your email address, but if you look on my essay, you'll find mine.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Seems like a good time to curve the thread a little.

1. I wanted to acknowledge Sabine Hossenfelder for the award process she started. It is easy for me to be a physics outlaw because I have little at stake (well maybe my big ego). But there are many physics professionals who risk their futures by going against the party line. From their ranks the future physics will emerge.

2. Thanks Lev for giving my website and wavelength-hopping some visibility. When wavelength-hopping is viewed as particles appearing as events it is a much more palatable concept.

3. T H Ray, your criticism is right to the point. I will comment on it in next post.

4. Edwin Eugene Klingman, yes wave-length hopping is just another theory, but it differs from the theories that you listed in that it is testable in several ways. I think the best test for it could be performed by the Vienna group (University of Vienna) on a Buckyball to show that it wave-length hops. see http://www.zenophysics.com/DWT/13a__Buckyballs.html

Don L.

Hi Tom (T H Ray), It is obvious you have read my theory and know its implications which I do not try to hide. But I can add a few comments:

1. rest mass would be incalculable: This is true. But "rest mass" is a misnomer for a particle because particles are never at rest. Lowest energy mass would be a better term.

2. spacetime would not be physically real: I believe I leave space-time intact, however I consider particles as moving on space-time in an unreal way as experimentally verified by Alain Aspect.

3. general relativity would be falsified: General Relativity was not created to work on the particle level but it works very well on the classical level where the assumption of a static point mass is just fine.

Tom,

What if there is no entity like space-time, or better, time-space? That is my point: there might be, at the bottom, just temporal/informational structure (like ETS), which instantiate the spatial and other structures. So that particle hoping is what we "see" as a result.

Hi Don,

1. True, particles are never at absolute rest (absolute zero temperature); however, relativistic rest mass allows us to compare energy content between masses. Special relativity's conclusion, E_0 = mc^2 is based on the rest mass state. The "lowest mass" is zero; energy exchange particles (bosons) are massless. When special relativity is generalized to general relativity, we find that the two statistical models (bosonic and fermionic) describe one world that is static in time (timeless), and another that is time dependent, which general relativity successfully describes together as an interaction of matter and spacetime that describes the universe as "finite but unbounded." General relativity only fails at the cosmological limit, where a singularity of infinite energy density is theoretically unobtainable in such a world. Einstein would have liked to construct a theory in which mass is merely the consequence of field interactions, and GR was meant to be only a step toward that goal.

Einstein was steeped in classical mechanics, though, and well understood Ernst Mach's mechanical model in which every particle motion is dependent on the motion of every other particle -- so that if one knew the initial state of the system, every subsequent state could be calculated. In Mach's model, space plays no role, and time might be seen as in the context of differing ratios among invisible "gears" that drive particle motion. Mach never did accept the atomic model, in which atoms are made almost entirely of empty space, and neither did he conceive that there are no closed, isolated systems in the universe to which his model could apply. Einstein took Mach's mechanics, coined the term "Mach's Principle," and showed that while neither space nor time have an independent reality -- allowing that spacetime (Minkowski space) is physically real, Mach's model is satisfied for general relativity without superfluous assumptions. But again -- there's that sticky cosmological problem, in which the only known recourse is to eliminate space and time (get rid of the infinitely dense singularity) and go with a quantum origin ("roll the dice").

This latter is what your lambda-hopping idea does -- avoids the singularity, in that a particle changes position without changing structure -- and I know that's why Lev likes it. It is equivalent to saying that a faster than light particle can be defined as one that changes direction without changing velocity; that's a true statement, yet we have no physical reason to believe that a particle of nonzero mass in a curved trajectory does not accelerate. You have to eliminate mass from your model altogether (if it is to be consistent with SR), and when you do that, you have a continuous wave function, not the hopping one.

2. Aspect's experiments validated what we already knew -- that in order for quantum theory to be coherent, nonlocality must be preserved at any scale. Quantum theory would be in serious trouble if Bell's inequality were not violated. Space and time play no role in the experiments, however, except in the sense that spacetime is shown to affect only local interactions (classical physics is local), and not quantum mechanics.

3. You're confusing "point mass" which is a quantum concept, with "mass point" which is classical. Yes, all measurements in GR are between mass points, as in all other classical theories.

Tom

Lev,

You wrote, "What if there is no entity like space-time, or better, time-space? That is my point: there might be, at the bottom, just temporal/informational structure (like ETS), which instantiate the spatial and other structures. So that particle hoping is what we "see" as a result."

You know that I agree with you in principle, Lev.

Without that messy spacetime standing in the way, it's smooth functions "all the way down." Because we have relativity and quantum theory, however, and because both are established physics, I think that unification begs us to first explain why these theories are apparently true.

If we are going to speak of structure as irreducible, I can see the virtue of a 4-dimensional spacetime normalized to 1 (i.e., a 0 1 spacetime)in an n-dimensional Euclidean space. I cannot comprehend a further reduction. The 2-dimensional 3-manifold seems sufficient to me to contain all the information holographically. The extra dimension(s) the theory requires allows room for both continuous functions in 3 1 (0 1) dimensions, and the "hop" or "jump" of discontinuous functions in hyperspace.

Tom

Hi Tom,

I am in the unenviable position of defending something that is unproven. So, I say something like particles are blue, then everyone who read the book that says particles are red respondes to me that blue is silly particles are red. Never mind the fact that the red color came from a theory also. The only difference is that red was in the book.

I say that a fundamental particle in isolation moves in a peculiar way "wavelength-hopping". There is no thermal motion. IF you want you can say that the particle is at absolute zero. Almost everyone will say wavelength-hopping is not true even thought no one has investigated the phenomena of how or if a particle moves in isolation.

I did not pull wavelength-hopping out of the air, it the result of a logical thought experiment. But as Edwin Eugene Klingman points this is just another far out theory out of many. He is right and more than a theory is required. I think an experiment can be made.

At first it may seem simple to put a particle in isolation. I was thinking of taking a Buckyball and dropping it in a vacuum. But on second thought that is not enough isolation because the Buckyball will accelerate too fast due to gravity to see wavelength-hopping. A very low speed accelerator will need be designed to do this experiment the LHC will not do the job. The experiment may need to be done in space. see http://www.zenophysics.com/DWT/13a__Buckyballs.html

Hello Forum. I have not had time to read all the posts in this forum but I would like to address the initial question concerning the suitability of mathematics to address issues in cosmology and physics.

I would like to ask forum members how they believe mathematics could be 'engineered' to be more suitable for this task. It os my understanding that mathematics has 'two poles' that of its set theoretic foundationsn and the limits of the logical resolutions that lead to the advanced mathematical fields.

My issue with the inappropiate nature of mathematics begins at its foundational level, the axioms of set theory. In particular, the concepts of continuity and sequence are forced upon the integers.

Ot is atb this level I believe that many of the semingly baffling notions of experimental cosmology and physics are born, our mathematical systems is out of sync with the reality to which we apply it.

I have been wondering for some time whether ny research in this area is being conducted. This area is the philosophy of mathematics where subtlty rather than complexity is what needs to be explored!

Hi Don,

If I understand you correctly, you define a system to be one particle and the vacuum.

Then I am compelled to agree with you -- the particle is at absolute zero.

Something has to move, though, or the system is not physical. By definition, a particle at absolute zero does not move. So the vacuum must be moving -- what does that mean?

Actually, your experiment was done long ago, and the phenomenon is called superconductivity. What happens is that at temperatures close to absolute zero, all resistance to electronic motion disappears, and "electron waves" are self sustaining, indefinitely. One could describe the system, then, as a particle at rest relative to the wave motion, because the free electrons conducted by this artificial vacuum are in an almost pure wave state. A similar quantum coherence effect is Bose-Einstein condensation.

"Wave hopping" as you describe it would then be alternating cohering and decohering states, and that's actually what we do observe in natural systems in the form of local positive feedback loops -- such as superconductivity -- and negative feedback like the decohering effects of thermal noise.

It is contradictory to speak of the vacuum as an isolated system upon which one can conduct experiments. The closest we come is conducting experiments near absolute zero where particle motion can be observed at the low velocity range you seek. In fact, the search for high temperature superconductivity (whose discovery would be a great gift to humankind, and a huge technological leap) does include buckyball experiments. One doesn't "drop a buckyball into the vacuum" though. One creates as much vacuum as possible around the substance and witnesses resistance to wave motion (conductivity) decrease to zero, at a critical phase transition, in proportion to the drop in temperature.

Tom

"My issue with the inappropiate nature of mathematics begins at its foundational level, the axioms of set theory. In particular, the concepts of continuity and sequence are forced upon the integers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have been wondering for some time whether [a]ny research in this area is being conducted."

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You have come to the right place. ;-)

Check my essay mentioned also in my opening post.