Can We See Reality From Here? by Thomas Howard Ray

Yet if reality is irrelevant to science, why bother with digital vs. analog at all? Because:

The boundary between continuous experience and discrete event is the only demonstrably objective boundary, and it's where all the interesting stuff is.

Thomas,

I like your description of reality and the varied representations of it.

I like the distinction above. My prejudice is analogue with the continuous nature of the universe/s.

Jim Hoover

Tom,

What this contest presents for me and some others is perhaps the only opportunity we have of being heard, of being taken seriously - if we were to make it to the final group. Judge our zeal to get high enough community ratings entirely on that! If it was a 'pillow fight' I simply would not have bothered. And yes, I have tried to have my papers reviewed by 'the establishement' and couldn't even get beyond the 'name recognition' first step. So please don't tell me about the 'tactics' some in this contest you think use to simply get heard! To think otherwise is to totally miss the passion and commitment (not to mention the duty) we feel to the 'truths' we carry.

When and if you read my essay, please apply to it the intellectual fairness that it deserves. Any other attitude will once agin miss the mark! Start by asking "how can I make sense of this" rather than "how can I make no sense of this". Let reason and honest discourse determine the final outcome.

Best wishes,

Constantinos

Constantinos,

I think I'll pop over to your forum and talk about nothing but my essay and my zeal to have it judged. Of course, I'm not going to do that, but do you get the point?

And it never occurs to me that it's my responsibility to make sense of an author's work. I have this silly notion that making sense is your job, not mine. You give me the impression that if I agree you've made a breakthrough, I'm fair, honest and reasonable, and if I disagree I'm not smart enough to understand it.

Look, C., I know the peer review system doesn't work perfectly and I too am concerned that blind review may be a thing of the past, with "name recognition" playing a role that it never should have played. However, there are compensating factors -- the opportunities to be published and read are greater than ever in the history of science publishing. A web page, an ArXiv paper, a blog, can be far more influential than a journal article or a book. This is not an exaggeration -- Grisha Perelman published not one word of his proof of the Thurston Geometrization Conjecture in a "legitimate" mathematics journal, yet there's hardly a mathematician who knows the subject who disagrees that the proof is correct. You think Perelman cares a whit? It's the mathematics that matters, not the politics or the sociology. The proof would not be more or less true if it were published in the Annals of Mathematics instead of the ArXiv, but it it were, I can say with confidence that it would be read by far fewer people.

This contest is hardly your "only opportunity" to be heard. Of course, being heard and being right are independent of one another, no matter how much zeal one possesses. I'm sure the members of Al Qaida have more zeal for their cause than most, yet I am not disposed to even discuss why we should compromise the principles of democracy to accommodate their religious demands. Are you?

In my long career as a writer, I've gotten some of the nastiest rejection letters and some of the nicest, with most falling into the high points of indifference in the Gaussian distribution of responses. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing. Most all of life's events fall into such a curve. I will cite one rejection note I got many years ago, handwritten, that means more to me than all the acceptances, whether for science or non-science articles, that I've had before or since: "Interesting and plausible physical ideas, not accompanied by a mathematical theory that would incorporate them." The editor: David Finkelstein. Fair, honest and reasonable.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

I only wish it was as simple as 'telling the truth' and 'being understood'. But the history of science and of people tells us this is just not the case. I am not opposed to honest critique of any result. But before that is possible, the critic must first understand the claim in the terms and logic in which it is presented -- before a meaningful critique can be meaningful. One thing that I observe in my observations of how people interact is that some seek to understand, while others choose to stobornly refuse to understand. You could probably fill in your own experiences to this picture frame.

You mentioned Perelman and the mathematical results he was able to bring forth outside the mainstream establishment. That is absolutely correct. In mathematics, logical validity is the ONLY criterion. It's the reason why I was drawn to math at a very early age. But it is different in Physics! More than mathematical validity, there is also a dominant 'physical view' that determines if a 'truth' is acceptable or not. I will spear you the many many historical examples of this.

The results in my essay are all mathematically argued and logically valid. But the 'physical view' is 'continuous' rather than 'discrete' and does not use 'energy quanta'. It simply cuts against the grain of most conventional thinking. The reaction to this by physicists is "disbelief" rather than "refutation".

I apologize for takin up space in your forum to engage you in such conversation. Fault my naive view that such an honest and good conversation can occur where ever like motivated people can be found.

Best wishes,

Constantinos

Dear Tom,

I enjoyed your essay. It was as readable as Barbour's, and quite broad in its approach to answering this question.

Regarding Constantinos, I think that his Properties of Exponential Functions accidentally assumes Bose's Partition Function, and is therefore an incomplete and biased (because it doesn't include identical-particle Maxwell and Pauli-exclusion-particle Fermi statistics) circular argument (if we assume a continuous-like [0,infinity) Bose Partition function, we should get continuous results). He must have a larger fan-base than we have...

Good Luck & Have Fun!

Dr. Cosmic Ray

Constantinos,

I'm afraid we think quite differently. Though I recognize that "telling the truth" and "being understood" are disjoint, I do not see the virtue in demanding that others understand me on my own terms. The truth is enough. As Sam Goldwyn once said of moviegoers, "If they don't want to come, you can't stop them."

Mathematics (at least as applied to publication and acceptance of proofs) is absolutely riddled with political and sociological land mines. Why do you think Perelman turned his back on the community, and on mathematics? Frankly, I agree with his choice (though I among most would probably not have the courage to make it), and I definitely hold the opinion that mathematics as well as mathematicians will go further and faster with more production and less self promotion.

Of course there's a dominant view in the physics community, just as in the mathematics community. Would you complain about it if the dominant view were yours?

Tom

Tom,

Your response to my last post reflects your muddling politics with reason. There is a fundamental difference between math and physics. Whereas math only claims 'logical certainty' (and so provides a basis for deciding disputes) physics claims the truth of 'what is' our Universe (and so provides a basis for endless disputes). Anticipating your reply, I go on to say that the physicist view of 'what is' is reflected not only in theory but also in interpretation of the experimental data and even the experimental designs and instruments.

My position is and has been: we cannot know 'what is' and any attempt to do so only leads to more 'metaphysical' wars of attrition. We cannot 'know' what is the Universe in the same way that we cannot 'know' another human being. We can only know our 'measurements' and our 'observations' of 'what is'.

Do these ratings now make you happier? Or are you still stewing in negativity!

Best wishes,

Constantinos

You are not right Tomas!

The Universe is discrete/

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

Thomas,

I have rated very few but I like your style.

Jim

Tom,

Fascinating and well-written essay about the dichotomy between the actions of the observer and nature itself. It is an interesting question whether or not there truly is an objective reality. Highly worthwhile!

Best wishes,

Paul

Ray,

Something stuck in my mind about continuation on the half open interval [0, 1) that you associated with the Bose partition function, as distinguished from Fermi statistics. In my ICCS 2006 paper, 3.3 -- 3.4.2, I hinted at an arithmetic strategy to prove the Poincare Conjecture, by a process in which the continuous curve is exchanged for a discrete point on n-dimension Riemannian manifolds. Until I thought about your reply, it had not occured to me to associate these discrete points with massive point particles.

But just maybe ...

Tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the insight. Some time ago, I started reading this paper and got hung up on Table *. After the smoke of this contest clears, I need to go back, reread it, and try to relate the Poincare conjecture to Bose [0, infinity) and Fermi [0, 1] statistics.

Have Fun!

Dr. Cosmic Ray

Tom,

I am sorry your essay did not make it to the final round! After my high rating of your essay I thought for sure you will make it. But Stoica just sneaked past you the last few minutes to bump you off 35. Hard to understand these community ratings, since you have the exact same score as Stoica with even more members voting for you, yet you placed lower! Maybe an appeal is in order?

The future is as uncertain as this contest was just a day ago. Anything can happen ...

best wishes,

Constantinos