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

          Tom

          The critical difference there are not tested at all Tom (just the postulates that agree with both solutions). I'm sorry about the logical lance through the heart. I'm sure you'll brush it off, but those who attack the shining armour with popcorn must learn that reliance on folklore won't protect them in these enlightened times!

          At least Einstein admitted he looked like an ostridge and kept his head up searching for the way our of the (apparently only apparent!) paradoxes. Some deny he needed to (but get a mouthful of sand).

          Anyway;

          A few minutes before arrival time in Edinborough for the science conference the Astronomer spotted a black sheep alone in a field "Wow, he said, .look! ...scottish sheep are black!"

          The physicist tutted, "No, ..all that tells us is that SOME scottish sheep are black."

          The mathematicin said; "No, ..all we know is that there is one scottish sheep in one field, a minimum of half of which is black."

          The Architect sitting opposite checked his watch. He'd just been admiring a well known perpendicular church spire in a village they passed, 10 miles from the border. He said; "You may find that a little inacurate.." they gave him a strange look "....it seems ....we may be running a little late..?"

          They turned away from the stupid 'amateur', shook their heads and carried on talking.

          If any one initial proposition, assumption or axiom is just slightly out the whole theory is invalidated, and no amount of brilliant maths will make it correct. All it will do is fool people into beleiving the answer is proved.

          They discussed the sheep at the conference. At the end of the week the architect saw them again and explained. No amount of evidence would now convince them the sheep wasn't scottish as the pattern was now embedded in their brain cell structure. Quite obviously the train had just slowed down!

          I suggest that's where much of physics has been for some decades.

          Peter

          Dear Tom,

          Thank you for your kind remarks on my essay.

          I have thoroughly enjoyed your essay, written in a very readable and lucid style. I learnt new things; especially fun was Buridan's ass. It again brings out the importance of fluctuations away from equilibrium! Where you discuss the Jacobson-Verlinde work on the gravity-thermodynamics connection, I also wanted to mention the related noteworthy work of my Indian colleague Thanu Padmanabhan [available on the internet].

          Best wishes,

          Tejinder

            Dear Tejinder,

            Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed my essay, as you know I did yours.

            Your comments are right on point, and I appreciate the reference to Thanu Padmanabhan, whose work I am certain to explore further. Since Hawking's revelations in the 70s, I think we've come closer and closer to realizing that time reversal symmetry in classical physics is not incompatible with irreversible thermodynamics, given a unifying theory. I regret not spending more time on the models of Jacobson, Verlinde and 't Hooft, because they are really closer to my own research, but my choice to do a survey-type article wouldn't allow it.

            All best,

            Tom

            Dear Tom

            I could not claim to have read your paper in detail, just skimmed through - enough to tell me your erudition and original approach- including the artist's sensibility in discussing 'reality' - all demand a more careful reading and a lot of study. You talk of seeing - an issue I am giddily aware of, having regained full sight after cataract operations. Things that appeared discolored and out of focus have regained their true clarity. My experience has shown me how one's viewpoint can be so limited and distorted, yet one thinks it is the absolute truth. The interesting thing about reading the various posts here is to realize how many such 'truths' there are!

            I wish you all the best

            Vladimir

              Dear Vladimir,

              Having seen some of your art (it's beautiful) on the web, I can appreciate how psychologically painful it must have been to lose the use of your eyes.

              I was a young teenager when I read Ernest Dimnet's book from which I memorized the quote in my essay: "Artists possess those eyes less made to love reality than to go straight to its essentials." I expect that the essentials remained, even when you were temporarily deprived of the ability to project them to a physical medium. And I expect that the essentials remain in the world, always, projected onto the phenomenon we call life.

              Truth? What's that -- in science, only a measured correspondence between theory and result. We can see the truth, even when we don't know it.

              Tom

              Hello Tom,

              Since we already had a good number of exchanges in these blogs all last year, I'm sure you formed your views on my ideas. But I ask you to take a fresh look! The essay will help you see how one result relates to all others. It is a clear convinceing summary of most all of my papers. The whole is much greater than the sum of the (in)descrete parts. But the key idea in all of these (the Rosetta Stone, as it were) is the following:

              "Planck's Law of blackbody radiation is an exact mathematical tautology that describes the interaction of measurement".

              This I argue explains why the blackbody spectrum obtained experimentally is indistinguishable from the theoretical curve.

              Please comment on the above and support my efforts to get this result 'peer reviewed' by the 'panel of experts'.

              All the best,

              Constantinos Ragazas

                Thanks Tom, that is kind of you. Luckily I had use of my sight but the quality became really poor in the last year or so, and I could continue to paint, albeit with cruder colors and shapes. Nevertheless it was a useful reminder of how limited a lifetime can be, and how limited what we can understand and do in the scheme of things! In your papers you seem to concentrate on the nature of time. In my theory I realized time as a dimension is unnecessary and I have adopted this attitude in my life as well : reality here and now as the only one I can realistically deal with! However the human imagination and memory can stretch this reality to include "infinity in an hour" to use Blake's wonderful phrase. As another fqxi author called Ray signs off - "Have Fun !"

                Best wishes from Vladimir