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  • Post #10

Tom,

Wow! I didn't think it was possible, but your essay has cured my insomnia.

I'm joking of course. I good friend used the same remark in regards to my own essay and I thought it much too good to not use. Au contraire, I found your writing to be very interesting and much different than what I had expected. You chose a much different path from the majority of those of which I have read. By not putting forth a perhaps an unwinnable argument or using the shoehorn approach, due to the breadth of the topic, as most of the rest of us have, your essay, along with perhaps that of Professor Jarmo Mäkelä are unique enough to stand out from the crowd. Not an easy accomplishment, with so many talented and not so talented people vying for the same recognition. I commend you on taking a topic that is both broad and deep and producing a result that is very much the same.

Best regards as always,

Dan

P.S. I especially enjoyed your technical endnote "Mach's Principle & the relativistic theory of the non-symmetric field", another reference to Mach's mechanics of which you are already aware that I am still learning the intricacies.

    Hi Dan,

    Thanks for reading, conscioous or not. Will it play in Peoria? :-)

    I was torn between writing a technical paper, which if I am to be honest I more enjoy doing, and trying to survey the subject in order to show how subtle the question is. I hadn't imagined (to echo Einstein) how malicious subtlety can actually be. We live, we learn.

    Tom

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    • Post #12

    Hi Tom,

    I think it will play in Peoria, except for maybe the whole string theory part. We're still unsure about all that. After all, we are a fairly conservative Midwestern town. No Ed Wittens or Stephen Hawkings here, just us wannabes. Wannabe someplace else. Not really, it's really a great place to live, I just wouldn't want to visit here.

    Still, the survey was the tougher route IMO. Not everyone could pull it off. But, after all, you are a professional.

    Dan

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    • Post #13

    Dear Tom,

    I have read your essay and will have to read it again when I am less tired. It is well written but it did surprise me. I was not expecting a discussion of biology and art and what you consider life to be. Your hypnotherapist wife and your sculptor friend. It is so different from your FQXi blog forum contributions where you demonstrate a very harsh and rigorously argued approach to other peoples ramblings. It is interesting to see another side to Tom.

    You said "science is not about reality." That may be true but it is an unfortunate situation that I think needs remedying. Space-time mathematics has disconnected us from realism and quantum physics even more so. Before you say it, I know science also does not care what I think. I will take the time to read your essay again and be more constructive with my feedback. You have an impressively long list of references. Good luck.

    Regards, Georgina.

      Dear Georgina,

      You are so kind, thank you.

      I think it's more or less obvious that I lack the social skills that most of you expect in these forums, and that many of you take for granted. And rigorous argument is just a product of my first love: mathematics.

      The differences between you and me have to do with whether external nature is ordered differently than our biology. I say probably no, and you say probably yes. I just don't see a demonstrable boundary between inorganic beingness (that includes the phenomenon of consciousness on a continuum from simple to complex) and organic self organization. Perhaps the experimental breakthrough will come along with research into AI, or maybe abiogeneis.

      I'll look forward to more dialogue.

      All best,

      Tom

      Hi Tom ,

      Nothing wrong with a rigorous argument, I have given a few people a hard time too. However unforgiving criticism devoid of encouragement or positivity can also be an irritant to the recipient.

      The discussions we have had about consciousness on the FQXi blog forums have perhaps caused you to prejudge what I am saying in this essay contest. I have taken the advice given to me by Peter Jackson on the FQXi blog forum to avoid talking about the "minefield of human consciousness". It does distract from the simple physical process of image reality formation that I have also been talking about.

      Marius Buliga on the other hand does discuss the reality produced by the biological structure and functioning of the organism. His paper is more mathematical than my own and may be therfore more to your liking. He was kind enough to say that he liked my essay and he could see the overlap in our thinking.

      As I have said I will return to your essay, and I will then, contrary to my current un-objective inclination, discuss its many merits.

      Regards, Georgina.

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      • Post #16

      Tom ,

      I have re read your essay. This is what I think. It has a relaxed and easy style. It is more of the magazine article, that FQXi requested, than the demanding formal academic paper. I wanted to sit down and read it with a nice cup of coffee and biscuits. Like a longer new scientist article. Not too taxing on the brain but educational, lighthearted and enjoyable.

      It came in easily digestible paragraphs, rather like a buffet of snacks than a full formal dinner. A variety of morsels. Life and death choices, battles for survival, predator prey relationships but then a personal interlude including friends and family. There was art and sculpture food, wine. I do not feel I would be invited, so this is a little voyeuristic. I am taken into your reality not mine, but the relaxed buffet continues.I am back with the scientists, the history of their thoughts and ideas.

      It is like a long evening of pleasant conversation.I am surprised to be here but nothing is astonishing or outrageous but neither is anything unpleasant or strenuous. Having conversed with you on many previous occasions I know the accuracy and faithfulness to scientific theory that is demanded. I assume that the same standards apply to yourself. Therefore I do not feel the necessity to examine the minutiae of what is written. Your relaxed presentation gives the piece less immediate authority, than the other historical reviews in the contest. But I have no reason to think it is less accurate. It is just different. Originality is important.

      This essay ticks the boxes. As the essay of a professional writer should. It is your craft. I have said that the essays should be marked upon the evaluation criteria. Using those criteria it does well. A fine effort.

      Tom you really said "Science just isn't about reality... A donkey is not a philosopher... Seeing is all that makes it real." I will remember that. (They did not appear together in the text but they work so well together.)

      Good luck, Georgina.

      Dear Georgina,

      You honor me with the only award that really matters to a writer: you got it.

      In the classical physics that culminated (and many of us think, was completed) in Einstein's relativity, that "all physics is local" is a message that resonates not just with the physics of discourse but with the physics of being. In that respect, thinking of how my own local world affects and is affected by reality -- I could not find any boundary between the process that generates that reality, and the process of personal learning and creating.

      You may or may not know that my close friend of many years, Michael Steinberg (now professor emeritus at Michigan State University) who is mentioned in the essay, is one of the founders and advocates of what is known as the process method of writing, a popular professional teaching tool these days. Mike taught American Thought & Language at the university level for a long time -- one of his more impressive teaching techniques was to actually himself simultaneously write the assignment that he gave his students. What this amounts to (my characterization, not Mike's) is a metaprocess overlaying the process of teachng; that is, the disinction between teaching and learning is not just blurred, but obliterated. There are at least two distinct Michael J. Steinbergs -- the one projected into the world of professional teaching, where Steinberg has very little interaction (a nonlocal influence independent of time--the products of his work will live on after him) and the one where I and a whole lot of other people get to participate and co-create (a local reality, time dependent and continuous).

      The nonlocal influence (we'll symbolize Steinberg with the letter S), S', is independent of S, the local reality. The former is discrete in the sense that it does not map 1 for 1 to S. That is, the part "left over" in the mapping from S' is a discretely bounded symbol independent of the unbounded process represented by S. This is how I concluded that process is not differentiable from reality, and that locality is identical to experience, i.e., life as it is lived.

      What I find even more profound, however, is that the independence of S' implies that feedback to S may be quite different (and I haven't asked him, but I think Michael might say that this has already happened) from the original output of S. This leads us to complex networks, Watts-Strogatz graphs, small world effects and all manner of technical topics that I resisted getting into when I made my choice of what to write.

      There remains the seriously hard question of whether unique brain structure determines that reality, or external nature is mirrored in brain structure. That's yours to answer -- you've already a got a start on it -- and if I appear to give you a hard time, it's only because peer review will be much tougher. Believe me, if I didn't think you had a chance, I wouldn't say a word.

      All best,

      Tom

      P.S. -- Robert Frost, on being named poet laureate of Vermont, responded with a four line poem:

      "Breathes there a bard who isn't moved

      To hear that his work is understood

      And not entirely disapproved

      By his country and his neighborhood?"

      It isn't one of his best poems. It isn't even a very good poem by most critical standards. It is, most typical of Frost, simple and honest. Those who get it may not entirely approve, but those who don't understand can't participate in the work at all. A poet, as much as anyone else, wants to be "real," co-creative with the community.

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      • Post #18

      Hello Tom,

      Good to see you participating in the contest!

      By the way, you probably know that your essay is a "dangerous" mix of art and science. ;-))

        Hi Lev,

        Oh, yes, I know. :-)

        I'm a fan of yours, and I haven't forgotten to post a note in your forum. It's just that I'm still groping for the right words. The idea of identity between time and information still binds us two. The choice of computable representation still hangs me up.

        All best,

        Tom

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        • Post #20

        Tom,

        "The idea of identity between time and information still binds us two. The choice of computable representation still hangs me up."

        May I help?

        May be all one needs to say is that information is embodied in the *temporal* flow of events.

        4 days later

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        • Post #21

        Tom,

        Also, the reason "reality" is perceived differently by a scientist and a non-scientist has to do with the fact that our numeric formalism degrades reality to an unrecognizable state. As you know, my suggestion is to switch to an event-based formalism, which does not degrade the reality as we perceive it.

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        • Post #22

        T.H.

        I enjoyed your essay. You weaved a lot of topics together, but with good transitions.

        A few thoughts:

        I like your comment about zero consciousness. But if Buridan's ass hits thermodynamic equilibrium, wouldn't zero consciousness be reached at the moment of equilibrium? or do many small scale molecular levels of information exchange still count? I like Rodolfo Llinas' take on consciousness - he likens it to having the ability to predict. I personally think it could be that and/or the ability to use discretion (of course that opens up the free will discussion).

        And of course the nature of time has to be part of the analog vs. digital discussion. My hunch is if it is discrete, that will much easier to prove eventually. If continuous, it will have to be presented as a flawless logical proof since its measurement will always be with discrete devices.

        If you get a chance - I think you would enjoy my essay. I focus on issues of quantum mechanics that debate whether light and electrons bounce back and forth between digital and analog or maintain both properties (as in pilot wave).

        Keep up the good work.

        Thanks for the encouragement, Chris!

        Consciousness has to be put into the context of my agreement with Murray Gell-Mann that it lies on a continuum from simple to complex (from quark to jaguar as Gell-Mann phrases it). So it would be pointless to speak of "zero consciousness" in other than an arbitrary sense, such as the demarcation at the death of an organism, as you suggest. Yes, those small scale levels do count -- in what I among others deem to be a world of scale invariance and infinite self-similarity, self-organization at every scale implies conscious (or if one would prefer to separate inorganic from organic, though there is no demonstrable physical boundary, perhaps "pseudo-conscious") action.

        I am not familiar with Llinas. I disagree, however, that consciousness requires prediction. That would be a sufficient but not necessary condition. As I tried to make clear, in a rational universe, survival-based choices from a field of variable values are dependent on available information (the problem of bounded rationality) and not on an assumption of innate free will, which I deem superfluous.

        So far as time is concerned, if you're interested, the technical endnote contains a link to my publications and preprints that deal extensively with my view of the subject.

        Thanks for the motivation and the opportunity to help make some things clearer.

        Good luck in the contest!

        Best,

        Tom

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        • Post #24

        Tom,

        Math without the math. Devious.

        If "information, gravity--and time--are identical," does that mean energy, expansion and presence are also identical?

        Hawking listed expansion as one of his arrows of time, but when you think of it, or at least I do, gravity was Einstein's arrow of time, especially since he thought of light as timeless, so they go opposite directions. Is time the expansion into the the future, or the collapse into the past?

        It is a very interesting essay, but is it supposed to be thematically backward? You start off with that beautiful analog flow and then it breaks down into pixilated digits of insight and observation, to the point I felt like my mind was skipping across the surface of a pond...but then you tie together with a little twist at the end...

        You don't bring this level of firepower to the blog discussions though.

          Thank you, John.

          Einstein's arrow of time was always observer dependent, and gravity being time symmetric, time (at least in terms of past, present, future) is an illusion in general relativity. Einstein didn't just think of light as timeless -- it is timeless. I.e., there is no time inetrval between pairs of entangled photons, no matter the separation. Because the expanding universe is supported both by observation, and as a solution to general relativity, there is the "horizon problem" -- the question of how photons at the beginning of time, assumed to originate at a singularity, communicate from one end of the universe to the other as a function of time. One of Hawking's solutuons is to introduce imaginary time in the complex plane -- the arrow of expansion does not then contradict the spatial properties of quantum mechanics, which cannot accommodate singularities. This is one attempt to build a singularity-free theory while preserving relativity.

          There's irony in your (and Georgina's) picking up subtleties in my essay that I intended, yet can be comprehended only with the most careful reading. Those expecting technical discourse have been very critical for not finding it; however, the structure is actually part of the message. Yes, it is supposed to be "backward" as you put it, as symbolic of the way life is lived. That is, continuous feedback to the conscious organism creates the appearance of smooth and continuous flow, while the foundation of discrete particle interaction is the engine which powers that feedback (on multiple scales in a scale invariant universe). I got really annoyed at myself in the first few drafts, as the narration got choppier and choppier. I tried to clean it up as best I could, to be readable without losing the message. I don't feel I succeeded as well as I might have.

          Best,

          Tom

          Tom

          I too was surprised reading the essay, on most counts, but pleasantly surprised. Yes. I found it very 'choppy' as you put it, but as it was a resume of discrete topographical features in a massive landscape that's unavoidable. (Eckard advised me to drop the scatter gun approach, good advice, but others would note key pellets omitted).

          Another was your use of some of my favourite quotes! and, surprisingly, I couldn't avoid feeling many of your (strictly rationed) observations actually paralleled my own philosophy, almost as if we were in separate parallel but brane universes! For instance; "decision-making is limited to available information, which is never complete" "While our information processing capacity is finite, nature's is infinite", "The algebra of discrete events is therefore compelled to play a bigger role in physics", (Bar-Yam)"a system of discrete schema that, like quantum mechanics, begs classical parameters", and "physical influences at any distance are not compelled to be smoothly connected, only correspondent, harmonic". All these directly apply to the model I'm trying to get falsified, which is another "Singularity free theory preserving relativity" - although I know you haven't yet seen it as that.

          I see our difference may be that my own marriage of art and science HAS to end up with falsifiable reality. My buildings have to be actually built and lived in, I KNOW they are real, and affect peoples views of reality. I don't have the luxury you have to stay in the realm of theorization. I have to yeild results from it. This is where my model comes from, and so far it has withstood all logical assault!

          If an engineer can show how and why may sketch designs may fall down I am extatic! I can't have them collapsing later. I'm concerned when engineers only say "It must fail because it doesn't look like the Eiffel tower, which we know works perfectly, and I haven't seen one like it before" ..they get fired! I think you'd be capable of a better job on my model than you've tried so far, and would be honoured if you'd give it a try.

          Thanks for surprising me. Best of luck.

          Peter

            Thank you, Peter.

            You may have heard this one:

            A psychologist is interviewing a mathematician and an engineer. She asks the engineer, "Suppose a fire breaks out in the wastebasket, and there's a glass of water on the coffee table. What would you do?" He replies, "I would take the glass of water from the table and douse the fire." The psychologst turns to the mathematician and asks, "Suppose there's a fire in the wastebasket and there's a glass of water here on the windowsill, what would you do?" The mathematician replies, "I would remove the glass to the coffee table, thereby reducing the problem to one previously solved."

            I know nothing about architecture. I do know, however, that a 1-legged stool is unstable, and a 2-legged stool is unstable, because I have a reasonable understanding of the mechanics of gravity and I understand the principle of reducing a problem to its elementary components (I think Polya addressed that in his classic book How to Solve It). So if I had to, I could probably describe a foundation that allows the engineer to understand that the structure doesn't necessarily have to look like the Eiffel tower to stand strong, even though the physics constrains the variety of foundations available. (An exaggeration, of course -- I expect that the engineer would be more deeply educated in the mathematics of structural integrity, which is why you consult them and not me.)

            Which gets us to the point of the exchange we continue to have over whether, or how, bounded fields can be interactive. The geometry of a stable, i.e. a 3 or 4 legged, stool allows me to see how the discrete points interact continuously to produce the physical result of stability. I can look at the structure as a bounded field of interactive points -- stacking on another stool (another bounded set of interactive points) isn't going to give me a stool that's twice as stable (and I like the metaphor that John Allen Paulos used when ruminating on the meaning of "2 2 = 4:" Two cups of popcorn added to two cups of water doesn't give one four cups of soggy popcorn.)

            A unified field is continuous, therefore bounded at the singularity (Wheeler: "The boundary of the boundary is zero."). To be able to speak of a discrete field, therefore, is to speak of a single field (Einstein: "No space is empty of field.") Do you think your model can withstand that "logical assault?" If it can, I believe that you'll have to use different terminology, because the logical contradiction is there semantically and syntactically if not physically.

            Peter, you and I both want our world to be classical, deterministic. I don't see how it can be done without adding dimensions (which is actually a form of local hidden variables). I'll even be willing to examine seriously how you get around Lorentz invariance. If you want me to take the step of removing the glass from the coffee table to put out the fire, however, please try to understand the step of getting the glass from the widowsill. Previous solutions do have value.

            I will drop a note in your forum as soon as I am able. Thanks for the great input and all best to you in the contest.

            Tom

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            • Post #28

            Tom

            Thanks, Hope you'll read the essay, and string comments. Logical assault repulsed, but first, resting my magazine over the wast basket (about 2 secs of air) you must have heard of the astronomer, physicist and mathematician on the train to Scotland. Sitting across the gangway was an architect. Let me know if you know it and I'll complete it.

            Let's use the same train, which is 100m long. Lightning hits front and rear at the same moment, they're in the centre, would the flashes reach them at the same moment?

            Bear in mind air is say 'n'= 1.0003 and is still. Do the light pulses care two hoots which way the train is moving? Do we find the light doing c/n locally, or some other speed?

            Further up the track at the same time two more forks of lighting hit the track 100 m. apart. A man was exactly central to them, the air was still. Same questions, same answers?

            The man walks along the embankment. As the train passes, he stops by a pole, yet two more forks, both ends forking to hit both the tracks and train equidistant from the pole, instantaneously. Inside the train we can assume no change to before? Outside; the forks mark the track, 100m apart, and the man still sees the pulses together of course. Hmmm.

            So at what moment would the man see the passengers at the centre of the train lit up by the flashes?

            There are two possible answers. in the Discrete Field Model the train represents a Local inertial frame (3D 'field' or 'body' with the co-ordinates 'rigidly attached') moving within a background frame of gas (air but it may as well of course be ions or a vacuum, - as may the train). In this case the man sees the passengers lit up, from both sides at once, at the same moment but slightly to the right (due to the trains 'v') of the pole being lit by the flashes from the track.

            And what does the man see of the pulse from the rear of the train? light (doing 'c' wrt the train) scattering new photons from the gas particles in the train and one by one taking the signal to the man at c/n (but slowed temporarily by the glass on the way at 'n'= 1.5). Nothing in reality breaches 'c' anywhere, (it may just 'apparently' seem to). This solution is Lorentz invariant in both frames, matches all observation, and Einstein's comment that there had, philosophically, somehow, to be "infinitely many 'spaces' in relative motion". It's also consistent with both postulates of SR.

            In the other option the train shrinks then grows again, and we have to assume the quantum field or ether (of which he said "space without ether is unthinkable") has to be ignored. And also, when we check the length of the train against the marks on the track - they're the same!!

            The planet earth, with a plasmasphere diffractive boundary rather than windows, is the next 'space' up, then the Helisphere, (shock), then the galaxy (Halo). Light does 'c' locally within each. At the other end of the scale the fine structure of our eye is refractive, and it's lense, is n = 1.38. Was that sound a logical penny dropping?

            That is a REAL logical assault. But the actual question is, how much longer will we keep insisting on proving Einstein correct in his belief that human stupidity is infinite!? it's not DIFFERENT to SR, it just shows how it works WITH the ether! Perhaps call it 'Extra' Special Relativity (ESR)if you don't like DFM.

            Peter

            (One of us here is going to be either a hero or a famous fool, the other just a hero. I'm sitting here patiently on my white charger without fear. How about you?)

            Best wishes

            Peter

            Now, about that joke....

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              • Post #29

              Peter,

              I am no hero, have often been called stupid and a fool, and the last time I was on a horse I had to endure my cousin (an expert horsewoman) shouting at me, "Let go of that saddlehorn, you sissy!"

              In any case, the relativity of simultaneous events is well understood and tested. It doesn't change when one imposes special conditions for the speed of light, because we always use the vacuum speed, and correct for conditions. In other words, the physically real phenomenon that is independent in its physical properties is not affected by those conditions.

              I haven't heard the joke, but I think I know where it's going. :-)

              Best,

              Tom