The Distinct Nature of Physics and Cosmos by Thomas J. McFarlane

Tom,

Thanks for reply. I'm confused by your idea of a single reality and how order and chaos are connected, but that's a difficult problem for anyone to answer.

I sincerely doubt that solving the hydrogen atom in eleven different coordinate systems will provide exactly the same orbitals. Eons ago I had to solve such a problem by expanding an analytic integral as a series expansion. Being young and gung-ho, and faced with three indices, I expanded the series in all eight possible ways. To my surprise I found that seven of these expressions were 'infinite' but one of the expressions truncated with a finite number of terms, implying, I suppose, an exact answer.

I am not convinced that all coordinate systems will produce exactly the same answers, and if they do not, then the issue arises of 'which' math is real, whereas in a substantial universe there *is* a reality, and the fact that some mathematical maps get only so close to reality is not a problem.

If you are correct, that all math solutions in all possible frameworks give the exact same answer, then this supports your theory.

Good luck in the essay contest,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Thomas,

Interesting essay. Your write, "The cosmos described by physics, however, is a characterization of only that aspect of reality which is revealed when we look through the lens of discrete mathematical concepts which are all traced back to the primordial act of making a distinction." This resonates fairly well with my own conclusion, except that I'm more of an empiricist and, while I argue for the discreteness of our knowledge of the universe, I am opposed to equating the universe itself with its mathematical model(s).

As Dean Rickles noted when discussing his own essay, you might enjoy Eddington. I wrote my PhD thesis on Eddington's Fundamental Theory (which was wrong in many ways, but still quite enlightening). I dusted it off recently (actually after Dean and his co-authors cited it in the book he mentioned in that same discussion) and have been talking to CUP about turning it into a book, but haven't gotten around to it. It's on the arXiv, but the first few chapters (which are just background material anyway) aren't that great.

Tom,

I note your second degrees in philosophy and religion, so I assume this influences your perspective. [I considered such a switch from physics, but didn't.]

My essay in the previous fqxi contest was Fundamental Physics of Consciousness wherein I propose that the essence of one reality is 'awareness and volition' [=consciousness].

To interact with itself, a distributed field must somehow 'be aware of' itself, and any 'action' can imply 'volition'. We can of course ignore these aspects of reality and simply formulate 'potentials' and 'forces', but that doesn't change the facts.

From this perspective 'volition' is 'free will' and the implication is that consciousness has been here 'from the beginning'. Since over half a century of experiencing and thinking about awareness has convinced me that it could never arise locally from simply arranging the Lego blocks in the 'proper' order, this is compatible with my theory.

I mention this because you seem to want to break the world into 'Order' and 'Chaos', where chaos implies random to me. I prefer the concept of free will, and distinguish free will from random as follows:

free will = action by reason of awareness,

random = action for no reason at all.

This may or may not fit into your scheme of thinking, but it works well for me.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Tom,

i read your essay and enjoyed it very much. Very clearly and consequently argued lines of reasoning.

"Insofar as the distinctions we use to describe order are free imaginative constructs, they are not so much properties inherent in reality itself, but the basic elements that make it possible to characterize and describe a cosmos at all. We may then redefine objectivity in purely mathematical terms, without any implication of an independently existing substance."

Yes, that's my line of thinking too. George Spencer-Brown has outlined the universal basement of distinctions in his famous book "laws of form".

All physical processes, be them human beings or just physical facts, must obey these laws of distinction as long as they are coupled to "duality". A fact is a provable distinction, means a 1 bit decision. If one cannot decide a thing, there's no information and hence there are no "facts".

There may be a metaphysical realm where the duality of mutually exclusive alternatives is transcendental, and i think QM is a hint in that direction.

"Because the cosmos is discrete, this suggests that its complement is a continuum--not the mathematical continuum which has definite structure, but an indefinite continuum, a formless void (i.e., the original meaning of the Greek word chaos) that lacks any order and is thus beyond comprehension in terms of concepts or distinction."

Yes again. One can think about "infinity" as "undefined" - it has no borders that could make a distinction. Hence it is "un-definite", "undefined".

My standpoint is that maths can never capture the whole ultimate reality. denumerability and non-denumerability are concepts intimately related to determinism. But no exclusively mathematical and therefore deterministic proof can prove the exclusiveness of determinism/mathematics. This does not necessarily mean that ultimate reality couldn't be exclusively deterministic/mathematic, but i strongly assume that it underlines that mathematics is limited for the same reasons why distinctions are possible in this world: namely because limits (distinctions) are the operational basement to produce facts and hence information in a dualistic world.

Thanks for visiting my site,

all the best

Stefan

Thomas,

I found your essay to be insightful and very well written. Until I got to the last two paragraphs, I thought that the essay was intended to make a case for the discrete nature of reality, and it argues this rather effectively.

The last two paragraphs confused me a bit. Was the intent to suggest that reality may be both discrete and continuous, after all? Or that this question is unanswerable? If so, it did not balance the first part at all in terms of depth of treatment given to defend that position. In fact, the concept of the 'complement of the cosmos', based on the sparse description offered, strikes me as a bit mystical. Does it have a place in science? It seems to me that you take the position that it doesn't ('beyond the scope of mathematics, physics ...'). There clearly are subjects which are outside the scope of these fields, but how can the boundaries of physics and mathematics with these subjects be mapped onto the boundary between the discrete and continuous aspects of reality? I wished that this argument would have been fleshed out a bit more.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading your essay and wish you the best.

Armin

Hi,

Christian is right TH, really ! But your are strong, we know your skillings, that said ,the formless is without real sense...if we take the chaos and disorders as justy foto of our motions.It's important you know that....

Steve

Tom,

I think we agree, actually. I gave your essay a more in-depth study and it has the same basic fundamental idea behind it as mine does. It's actually an excellent essay, the more I think about it.

Ian

Hi Tom,

Finally got around to reading your essay properly. It's very impressive. You, Ian, and I have somehow developed a very similar worldview: it's uncanny. My guess is a love of Symmetry and Kant (Weyl and Eddington shared this too, of course!). Hopefully my rating will boost you up the rankings, as is deserved.

Best,

Dean

Not to be arrogant to this essay

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

My dаughter Danoyan Tamara, administrative associate in Stanford University

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/node/93

Thomas,

You make a good argument for why reality can only be understood in terms of its discrete relationships, but it's wrong. With your last paragraph, it's clear you understand your point has its limits, but relegate the wholistic view to mystery. It isn't mysterious at all. It's overlooked because it's so basic. Math says that if you add two things together, they equal two. Well, if that's the case, you haven't actually added them together. Necessarily actually adding things together means you have one of something larger. In basic terms, it's like adding two piles of sand together and having one larger pile, but in reality it's more like components combining to create a larger whole. Whether physics, or biology, we like to take things apart to see how they work, but the fact is that they work together. Much like all the parts of your body add up to a larger whole, or all the components of an atom add up to an atom, not to mention all the various levels between, above and below the atom and the person.

This dichotomy is basic to the difference between eastern and western philosophy. In that we in the west tend to focus on objects and view their actions as emergent. While in the east, there is the contextual view and the particulars within the context are as much a part of the larger whole as your nose is part of you.

One aspect of this that I raise quite frequently and was the subject of my entry in the Nature of Time contest, is that we are looking at time backward. The basis of our rationality and from that, language, culture, history, etc, is the concept of time as the present moving from past to future. So it is natural to include this into our physical theories of how reality functions, but the fact is that it is the changing configuration of what is, the present, which turns the future into the past. We don't travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. It is not that we move from a decided past into a probabilistic future, but that the continuous collapse of probabilities which turns the future into the past. Time is an effect of motion, not the basis for it.

In fact, in eastern cultures, the past is considered to be in front of the observer and the future behind, because both the past and what is seen are known, while what is behind one and the future cannot be seen. Physically we do understand what is in front of us and can be seen is of past events, be they across the room, or across the universe, but we consider ourselves to be moving through our environment, rather than part of it, so we think of ourselves moving from past situations to future ones, as a function of our own spatial action. The irony is that this creates a deterministic view of time, since we only exist at the moment of the present and cannot change the past, or affect the future. On the other hand, when we understand ourselves as fully integrated into our own context, then our actions are part of the process creating these situations and we affect our context, as it affects us.

You do conclude your essay with a nod toward Complexity Theory, with its dichotomy of order and chaos, but I think this relationship can better be described as a dichotomy of information and energy. Energy manifests information, while information defines energy. The information is the top down view of the details, while the energy is bottom up process. They are like two sides of the same coin, such that there cannot be one without the other. They are still opposites though, as energy is fundamentally dynamic, while information is necessarily static.

Think in terms of how you perceive the distinctions you use to define your view of reality: Necessarily you must move from one to the next, otherwise it is that frozen featureless void. So there are the distinctions and there is your movement from one to the next. That is time. Remember the clock has two features; the hands and the face. We think of the hands as moving clockwise, but from the context of the hands, it is the face which moves counterclockwise. The hands represent the present, as it moves from one unit of time to the next.

As I pointed out though, it is the energy of the present which forms and dissolves these units of time. The future becoming the past.

So it is the wholistic present which is creating these discrete units which come into being, grow as long as they absorb more energy then they lose, eventually to lose all energy and fade into the past.

One way to think of this is as a factory: The products go from initiation to completion, but the production line faces the other direction, consuming raw material and expelling finished product.

The mind functions in a similar fashion, as it consumes masses of information, turns it into discrete thoughts, which are then replaced by the next. The brain is physically real, thus it exists in the present. Thoughts coalesce out of the future and fade into the past.

I could go on, but this makes the basic point.

Regards, John

Dear Thomas J. McFarlane,

Your historical background of the essay is excellent;but it is partial because you have concentrated only in explaining digital aspect of reality but not its analog nature.Yet in the ending you are not sure whether reality is digital or analog although you side with the former.You have not mentioned in your essay GR which is purely classical (analog) theory.

Inorder to have a balanced view,please, read my essay and make your comments.

Thanks for your thoroughly enjoyable essay.

Best regards and good luck.

Sreenath B N.

Dear Thomas,

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