What Is Reality In the Context of Physics? by Georgina Parry

Georgina

I've been hearing of (and encouraging) support for your essay, I think Joel Mayer scored it well. If I may I've just posted something on Dan Brugers string mentioning it, which I'd like to repeat here;

POST (Edited); Consider Einsteins "We should be able to explain physics to a barmaid." Grab a glass of beer and consider this;

A light pulse will go through the glass in say 1ns. If you're on a boat, a train or a planet light still takes 1ns to go through it. If you slide it along the bar, or move the light source, light takes 1ns to go through it. If you film it as it slides past you on the bar, you'll find the speed of the glass is added (or subtracted) to the light pulse speed. But as we can only see light at max 'c' SR says the glass has to shrink form our viewpoint as it goes past.

Hold on a mo! The light we see is that scattered by the beer molecules, and it travels to us at 'c', and we measure it at 'c'! Nothing breaks 'c' without needing length contraction!? Only ONE reference frame is valid, the same one as the glass, i.e. if you slide WITH the pint you're in the same frame so can't see it doing more, and WON'T see it doing more!! this is the same with a glass (n=1.55) of gas, plasma or a vacuum. There are infinite possible other observer reference frames, and as Einstein said "Infinitely many 'spaces' in relative motion." This gives local reality with no inequality issue. (It's also consistent with the Postulates & Principle of SR, and Equivalence).

We've not fully understood inertial reference frames and the importance of observer frame. (read Georgina's important essay about concrete and 'apparent' realities.) Now trimmed with Occams razor they are intuitive. It's also consistent with the essays of Edwin Klingman, Constantinos Regazza, Robert Spoljjaric, Dan T Benedict, Rafael Castel and a number of others.

The consequences are quite massive and this 'discrete field' model seems able to remove paradoxes, offer solutions to a number of anomalies and explain how SR and GR can work with a quantum mechanism. It's difficult to visualise due to the additional dynamic variables, but the main problem we may have is 'belief'. It seems we have another picture engraved in our brain pattern which is difficult to let go of while considering other options.

For those interested the essay is at http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/803

Thank you Georgina.

Peter

Hi,

I have been having some discussion with Tom on the FQXI Time travel blog forum, and it is relevant to the viewpoints expressed in my essay.I think this post is particularly relevant, so I have copied it here.It demonstrates how failure to differentiate observed image from unobserved object leads to the apparent strangeness of space-time and quantum mechanics. "Image" is a reconstruction or representation formed from received data.

Tom,

Ken did a very good job of explaining static space-time, which was handy. I agree with you that mathematics alone does not obviously suggest the need for duel facets of reality. The world does.

If you look at the structure of the eye, peripheral nervous system and the CNS it is obvious that the cup that is observed via those systems can not possibly actually be the cup-object. Likewise the photograph of a cup can not be the cup-object. The observed image has to be a reconstruction from received data with time delay.

Therefore if it is always the reconstructed time delayed image that is observed, the object itself -can not- be seen. That does not mean that there is no object and -only- orphan images that materialise, with the appearance of an object, when the observer looks or that the cup-object exists spread continuously over time. If the image of an object is represented in the mathematics as the object then the -interpretation- will be incorrect, even if the mathematics itself is not incorrect.

[math]${\Delta}F=[{M^{\alpha}A_{t}}]^{\textit{h}_{s}}$[/math] is an equasion giving more detail to your explanation, of course all the variables need to be defined and described where the F=ma has evolved into something much richer. This equasion is easy to remember and incorporates scalar vector tensor like objects in the brackets and various expectation values or ghosts in the other part. I use this as a general conspectus in an abstract way to describe volution (involutes and evolutes). Eugene Winger wrote a paper about the unreasonable effectiveness of math.

Recently I was thinking about GPS and your radar station idea came up. One used to need great circles to locate a position with a parallel, meridian and elevation, but one also needs scale, a state or init to start off, so in this way one really needs exactly four GPS satellites to give positioning based on convergence of signals rather than great circles. If one thinks of grad, dot, cross and del being the arbitrary assignments of generalized positioning in reality....or as Newton's first and ultimate ratios bundled with root and square. The essential layers of analysis only go like this: delta, likelyhood, power, and power squared. Functions or signals propositions give a consonance to our basic vowels of representation of the fundamental stuff.

Any object of our reality should be able to have the exact sequence of four of those positioning steps. The object, its inverse, its transpose, then the object itself but not in the same place it was before. It is though the use of rising and falling factorials that we can get close. If Newton forgot to do anything with his third law which is represented by the formula above, he forgot to compaction the entire instant of universal time. I enjoyed sharing with you some thoughts prompted by your essay. This is the first fourmula in latex that I ever wrote. I think that it is so cool that we can do this in posts!

Hi Georgina, I doodled this last night. Thought you might be interested..Attachment #1: 3_Note1.jpg

Its reassuring that my explanation does fit with something you use.

I haven't thought about GPS much or how it works, or should work! Thank you- I have now had the delight of discovering pseudoranges and how they are currently used for global positioning (and algebraically proven by trilateration). I gather 4 satellites in range is ideal, to give best results from pseudorange intersection and correct for errors, though sometimes only 3 are detected. So any alternative method of positioning dependent on 4 satellites would not improve the current situation.

Is see radar stations operating weekly, which is probably why they came to mind instead of GPS. With the radar stations you are not just finding a position in space, but also a position in time. The object does not have that single space-time position according to any single observer observation because of the different time delays of the signals. So using multiple observers non simultaneity is overcome, although it is still a scale dependent observation and not an absolute position.

Yes, it is necessary to take account of signals because the signals generate the reality that is observed and experienced while the "fundamental stuff" that exists simultaneously, generates what happens and provides causality. I do not think it is necessary to combine both models into a singular more complex model when knowing how the two aspects of reality are related one should theoretically be able to calculate what has happened or what will be observed by using the two different models,image reality with space-time and object reality with uni-temporal time,in conjunction.

If temporal spread due to observer perspective is removed, not really compaction as you said but sort of unraveling or separation into the "preferred foliation" rather than having a completely non simultaneous universe one has an entirely simultaneous universe. Well one would end up with multiple "pages" of the uni-temporal object-universe in different arrangements- the historical sequence of foundational change. (These are not just the present at different times as the present belongs to space-time and contains the space-time distortion.) Only the arrangement at objective Now has concrete existence the others are just reconstructions of former configurations and change that has occurred. An instant in -that- uni-temporal object-universe would be an instant of absolute time. Much respect to Sir Issac Newton. He knew the difference between relative and absolute and despite the measurement problem, he did not abandon the absolute, unlike Albert Einstein.

Regarding an instant ,in order to be considered as time there has to be a change occurring either in spatial arrangement or object-universal position. So that there can be earlier and later (or before and after) otherwise it ceases to be time and is just static. Like water flowing through one's fingers. Without spatial change there is no flow. The object in that instant, and every instant, is inseparable from the spatial change (which on the universal scale probably includes rotation, translation and scaling transformation) IE. movement which is also energy. The sequence of such uni-temporal instants would give the preferred foliation necessary for consideration of causality at the foundational level.

You have written one more latex equation than me. I agree it is a cool feature.So glad you read my essay and that it has prompted some thoughts.

Ms. Parry,

I read your essay with great interest. Glad to see that you have entered the competition. As always, we appear to be in fundamental agreement about the underlying nature of reality and about our perceptions thereof.

While not intending to be critical, I admit that I found some passages of your essay a bit difficult to follow, due at least in part to the difficulty of expressing complex ideas via the often too blunt instrument of English. It is difficult to compress an entire view of reality into the confines of a necessarily brief essay, but I think you've succeeded nicely in conveying some fundamental concepts.

Your kind mention of my earlier FQXi essay in your list of references did not go unnoticed and is deeply appreciated.

Good luck in the competition!

Best Regards,

jcns

That anonymous was me. Sorry. I guess "the system" no longer recognizes me, even when I'm logged in.

jcns

Dear Mr Smith,

very good to hear from you. Glad we seem to be in fundamental agreement and that you think I have "succeeded nicely" in conveying some fundamental concepts.

I agree the wording of the essay is difficult in places. Though it is also deliberately broken up by parts that are far easier to follow. Like the man on the hill with the barking dog. There does have to be a balance between expressing a meaning clearly and simply and being precise. I know exactly what I mean and why it is written that way but that may not be clear to someone else reading it. Believe it or not, this version is a great improvement on the earlier versions due to careful editing and revision of overly complicated expression. Now, at least, I can manage to read this version to the end myself, without having to take a break to clear my head.

You are right the word limit did make it a little difficult to say everything that needed saying. Some connected ideas had to be left out or remain mostly unexplored in the essay and others were dealt with far more briefly than was ideal. Though overall I hope I did a fair job of giving an opinion on what reality consists of and then considering whether it is digital or analogue.

Thank you very much for reading, commenting and wishing me good luck.You deserved the mention.

Georgina

Georgina,

This is kind of surreal. I'm reminded of a story, probably apocryphal but instructive, of Diderot and Euler at Catherine's court. Euler, annoyed with Diderot's militant atheism, scratched a nonsense equation on paper and handed it to Diderot, with the statement, "Therefore, God exists. Refute it!" Diderot, uneducated in mathematics, was said to slink off without reply. Michael Jeub's equation and explanation is utterly meaningless nonsense. You might as well be replying to an ELIZA program -- which is another interesting case, since I have heard of people exposed to the program who swear that ELIZA's responses are those of a real therapist and are angry to have it suggested otherwise. What that says about real therapists, or mischievous programmers, I'm not quite sure.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

I think my response was appropriate and in keeping with my level of physics/maths education and comprehension. I am glad if there is correspondence between my simply expressed ideas and what other people are finding useful in their own work.I am glad that Michael Jeub has made the effort to make contact. I think he had some interesting thoughts prompted by what I have said in my essay, and he has written a very intriguing essay.

Georgina,

I found your comments on Jeub's thread to be relevant and good. In fact most of your comments can be described as 'good', and make you appear to be a good person.

Armin pointed out that Jeub may have used a 'random paper writer' to produce the essay, but that seems unlikely to me, because he seems to include some real wit and wisdom in his writings. And if a 'paper writer' can write that M-theory "keeps governments truthful,..." then that's a helluva paper writer.

Eliza is over 40 years old, and the original naive users had no understanding of what was going on. If the software has been evolved over 40 years, I'd expect it to be quite sophisticated (in appearance) nowadays. By the way, when my kids were about ten my wife wrote a program in Basic that asked them to supply a noun, verb, etc. She stored these and them inserted them into a funny story framework. The results were often hilarious.

And I thought your guess about anonymous was correct until Tom denied it. He still seems perturbed by Jeub's writing. I rather appreciate his wit.

Anyway, it's been a pleasure interacting with you in this contest (and other blogs) and I am happy to see that you are so highly rated. You're one of our better angels.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Georgina is a good person. no question.

But are you putting me on? You really Michael Jeub is coherent?

Tom

Tom,

I think Jeub is witty. Why don't you try writing like that and see what you sound like. I see a number of clever things, (which I hope are not computer generated, that would be somewhat embarrassing. But since much of what he writes is very context specific, I doubt it.) This kind of writing can get old fast, but so far he has kept a rather low profile.

Tom, orthogonal or inverse, our minds are different. You can't see certain things, and apparently neither can I. Don't sweat it. There's no accounting for taste.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

I think this post migt be a useful clarification for other's too so I have copied it here.

Dear Eckard,

on the contrary Mc Taggart's very clear and unambiguous definition of the elements neccessary for time as we know it are very useful. The everyday notion of past, present and future is not adequate.

As I have tried to explain in my essay for the distant observer events that have already occurred and are to the near man already the past, are yet to be experienced and are in that distant observer's future. Though beyond what has already occurred everywhere (even though it has not been experienced) the future is un-written. So you see from this that some parts of the future, not yet experienced, are preordained, as they have already happened, and others are not.So there is partial determinism allowing causality and free will.

The everyday notion of a present experienced by all simultaneously is not sufficient to explain observations, where there is observed to be non simultaneity of events. (See the dog on the hill example in the essay.) However simultaneity is necessary at the foundational level to permit causality.The differentiation of (Foundational)object and (Reconstruction from received data)image reality allow both to co-exist without contradiction or paradox.

The experienced present is formed from the data that is -received-, not the objects or events that exist or the data immediately it is formed. So objective or uni-temporal Now (Where foundational objects exist and interaction occurs) is different from the experienced space-time present. There is transmission delay according to distance from object or event which causes temporal distortion of the image reality experienced.

Best regards, Georgina.

Georgina,

I hope you end up over the line at the end of the day. I tried to get you there and believe your essay deserves it.

Peter has posted some of your remarks about QM not being counter-intuitive. With respect to this I have some good news on the C-field front!

The 12 Mar 2011 issue of 'Science News' has two articles on the C-field:

The first (p.14) states that the C-field generated by a spinning Black Hole imparts (detectable) angular momentum to light passing through the field, circularly polarizing the light. Martin Bojowald suggests upgrading most telescopes to search for more of this.

The second article (p.20) on quantum vortices has Kerson Huang of MIT speculating that the vortices in the (C-field) 'superfluid' after the big bang may be responsible for the gaps of empty space between galaxies.

From 'Fly-by' mysteries to spinning Black Holes to the Big Bang, the C-field is being recognized as having physical reality responsible for observable effects. I believe it also provides the 'pilot wave' associated with locally real particles.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Edwin,

thank you once again for your good wishes and encouragement. Whatever happens I have been very pleased with the excellent feedback and pleasant comments I have received.

I am glad that evidence in favour of your ideas continues to accumulate. It has been a pleasure meeting you here. Wishing you the very best of luck.Georgina.

Now that Eckard Blumschein looks to be a certain finalist perhaps his opinion will carry more weight.

On his thread he wrote "So I consider Georgina utterly remarkable not just because she is one of at best a few female contestants here, maybe even the only one. Maybe she is the only women to be mentioned in connection with Albert Einstein after Milena, Elsa, and Itha. Hopefully, she will give rise to getting rid of several paradoxes and unjustified speculations."

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

I am of course flattered but also take this as a serious positive appraisal of the arguments set forth my essay.

Georgina

May I vouch for the accuracy of Eckard's analysis and comments. He's not one to accept illogical science or maths. If only that were more generally the case!

It's a massive shame you didn't get in the last 35, I did my best for you too. I did an interesting quick logical analysis (with sums, now the contest is over!) in my string.

But I'm sure you know it really means little as the main task remains. I hope you're up for it. Where in the country are you? Do send me a mail.

Very best wishes

Peter

Georgina

I'm invited to do part of a GUT publication with some space for a couple of other angles, hopefully including at least a short precee/update from you on the perception aspect. Let me know. (Email is on my essay).

Peter