What Can We Say About Nature? by Luigi Foschini

Dear Luigi,

Since you are interested in scientific languages, I thought you might be interested in the fundamentally new formalism I have outlined in my essay. The reason you might be interested has to do with the absolutely unique feature of this formalism: its syntax and semantics are congruent.

"I agree with you that it is necessary to avoid the spatialization of time, although you later write about "irreversible streams" and offer again spatial representation of time (a stream is indeed a spatial representation)."

Dear Luigi,

Thank you for your comments!

However, it appears you *completely* misunderstood the proposed form of representation. The "irreversible stream of events" is a *verbal description* of the proposed formal representation "struct", while you interpreted this verbal description in some geometric/spatial context.

My best wishes,

--Lev

Dear Luigi,

Why cannot the "irreversible stream of events" be understood outside the context of space, as I intended it?

Dear Luigi,

Since one of the meanings of "stream" is quite abstract (e.g. a steady stream of abuse, complaints, etc.), I find it quite ironic that your spatial bias in interpreting "stream" supports my observation on the pervasiveness of spatial bias in physics discussed in section 2 of my essay.

My best wishes,

--Lev

Luigi,

Interesting and thoughtful read. We can't know reality and language seems a feeble means to describe it.

Jim Hoover

Well done, Luigi! I agree with you on the identity between mathematics and linguistics. Ditto on the lack of one-to-one mapping between semantics and syntax -- which I interpret as the independence of language and meaning.

All in all, you produce a pleasing blend of philosophy and physics, without confusing the philosophy with the physics.

I hope you get a chance to read my essay entry as well.

Best,

Tom

Space does not exist, so time can

No, Fotini just vice verca.

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/946

Dear Luigi

I read your essay with great interest. Your argument about language is the key argument, but I think that you are misunderstanding something. All the examples that you gave on your essay are all part of the same language i. e. the language of classical logic + classical set theory. On my essay I argue that this is the central idea that all unification theories are missing. Our partial understanding of quantum reality is caused by keep using classical logic to understand a reality which cannot be understand within this classical realm. I propose a new logic (syntax +semantics) and I try to show how in this context, the notions like those of discrete vs continuum, Planck Scale Limit, the Measurement problem are just misconceptions caused by the use of classical logic. I would like to hear your opinions about it.

Regards,

J. Benavides

Luigi,

Though it wasn't a topic covered in my essay, I think there is a particular basic master key which is overlooked in physics and might resolve some of the issues you raise.

Pretty much all of rationality, logic, languages, history and general social and cultural constructs are based on the notion of time as this moment of the present moving from past to future and so it is instinctive to include it in an physical understanding of reality. The fact is that it is the opposite. It is the changing configuration of the present which turns the future into the past.

The earth doesn't travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.

In this context, time is an effect of motion, rather than the basis for it. As such, it has more in common with temperature than space. In fact differing clock rates are due to changes in the degree of activity. The twins paradox isn't due to one traveling a different time dimension than the other, but the gravitational effects on atomic structure mean one has a faster metabolic rate than the other.

Problems such as Schrodinger's Cat and multiworlds are resolved because it is the actual collapse of future probabilities which creates the effect of time passing, not that one must resolve how to go from a determined past into t probabilistic future. In fact, given that all input into any event cannot be known prior to its occurrence and the result of its occurrence quickly recedes into the past, due to constant change, the future could be thought of as cause and the past as effect. Probability precedes actuality.

As for the issue of Planck scales, a dimensionless point in time is not possible, as it would freeze the very motion creating the effect of time. It would be like trying to take a picture with the shutter speed set at zero. Therefore it is impossible to isolate a particle from its action. So there can be no absolute measure.

Part of what my essay did touch on is the dichotomy of scalar and vector concepts as reflected in our mental processes. In that the right, parallel processor side of the brain, which we ascribe the emotional and intuitive functions, is essentially a thermostat. It registers and reacts to the mass of input, as opposed to the left side, serial processor, which is essentially a clock, in that it navigates the cause and effect sequencing emerging from the mass. The problem being that our rationality is sequential, so we try to impose, or extract narrative from the scalar mass and this is reductionist and limits broader perspective. Thus we do need both functions to most effectively comprehend the reality in which we exist.

For much of human existence, we saw the sun moving across the sky and tried to develop theories as to why, before understanding it is the earth on which we stand that moves the other direction. I think the same conflict exists in our understanding of time.

Actually I did cover this topic in the first FQXi contest, on the nature of time, but it didn't get much notice. I assumed anything I said in this contest would get equally lost, so took the opportunity to raise questions about cosmology. I think the Big Bang model subconsciously originates with the geometric assumption of form beginning with the point. I think the real zero in geometry is empty space and that a cosmology which begins with space and not all energy emerging from a point, to create space and time, is more logical.

One of the many issue I've raised in that effort is that while space is assumed to expand from the singularity, there is still a stable sped of light. Which is our most basic measure of large scale space. If space is actually expanding, why does the speed of light not increase proportionally? If two sources are x lightyears apart and the space between them increased to 2x lightyears apart, that wouldn't be expanding space, but simply an increasing amount of stable space.

Starting to get carried away here, but though some of these ideas might be interesting.

Regards, John

Luigi,

I am familiar with Jacques Hadamard. You will find me quoting him as the capstone of meaning in my preprint here

If language is not independent of meaning, however, mathematics is useless for doing physics, because no description of an apple has the physical properties of an apple. The mind may be finite, but if general relativity is true, it is -- like the universe itself, finite but unbounded. Hadamard almost certainly would agree.

Tom

Dear Luigi,

Congratulations on your dedication to the competition and your much deserved top 35 placing. I have a bugging question for you, which I've also posed to all the potential prize winners btw:

Q: Coulomb's Law of electrostatics was modelled by Maxwell by mechanical means after his mathematical deductions as an added verification (thanks for that bit of info Edwin), which I highly admire. To me, this gives his equation some substance. I have a problem with the laws of gravity though, especially the mathematical representation that "every object attracts every other object equally in all directions." The 'fabric' of spacetime model of gravity doesn't lend itself to explain the law of electrostatics. Coulomb's law denotes two types of matter, one 'charged' positive and the opposite type 'charged' negative. An Archimedes screw model for the graviton can explain -both- the gravity law and the electrostatic law, whilst the 'fabric' of spacetime can't. Doesn't this by definition make the helical screw model better than than anything else that has been suggested for the mechanism of the gravity force?? Otherwise the unification of all the forces is an impossiblity imo. Do you have an opinion on my analysis at all?

Best wishes,

Alan

Luigi,

I apologize for missing your followup comment of 22 March. I must have been preoccupied.

Anyway, to answer:

If I understand your question correctly, you claim that I said or implied that reality is irrelevant to science because language is independent of meaning. That is not what I said. I said that if language were not independent of meaning, that mathematics (the language of physics) would be useless for doing physics.

Reality (i.e., any form of reality assumed a priori) is irrelevant to science because the infinite and the unconscious that you associate with reality possess (like language itself) no physical properties. I think that (physical) reality is what physics discovers, not what physics assumes or even tries to understand, since understanding also begs an a priori assumption of reality.

Nevertheless, our (your and my) paths intersect at the crossroads where mathematical results may be continuous with physical properties and realized in physical results. That process is still bound to discovery, though, rather than assumption -- which gives importance to the independence of language and meaning. That is, I agree with your conclusion that "Critical observations or experiments are strongly needed to assess this (physics & linguistics)research field." Mathematically closed judgments are surely a form of observation, and experimental mathematics is only yet in its infancy.

Ciao,

Tom