Real-Time Physics

Tom,

"I'm still resisting explaining the principle of least action to you John, but you are not getting anywhere until you understand it."

Principles, laws etc, are models. They are descriptions of natural behavior. The principle of least action takes a starting point and an ending point. Are these 'dimensionless points?' How do you actually freeze the action to measure it? It is a modeling of nature's efficiency. Your model can claim the duration between these two points in time is simply a scalar, but the reality you are avoiding is not so cooperative. That is why we use models to understand it.

"Time is never measured directly."

All we measure is action. Beyond that is supposition.

Regards,

John M

"Principles, laws etc, are models."

No they're not.

Tom,

Why do you refuse dealing with my main argument? Traces are measurable, expectations cannot be experimentally confirmed in advance, not even in principle. That's why it is reasonable to distinguish between past and future.

In reality, elapsed time is positive past time. A poor model need not making the distinction.

Negative actually elapsed time is as nonsensical as negative distance.

Only abstract time extends from minus infinity to plus infinity - unless it is thought to begin with creation by God or by a Big Bang and to end with a symmetrical to the actual moment ;) end of the world. Yes, I intend ridiculing non-scientific speculations even if they are based on putative evidences.

I compare the relationship between laws and principles with the relationship between a plan and an accordingly built home. Someone with a Polish name K... uttered: The map is not the territory. Abstract time corresponds to the map, elapsed time is a more direct picture of the territory.

Eckard

Hi Eckard,

"I compare the relationship between laws and principles with the relationship between a plan and an accordingly built home. Someone with a Polish name K... uttered: The map is not the territory. Abstract time corresponds to the map, elapsed time is a more direct picture of the territory."

Korzybski.

Time has no plan, Eckard. We don't draw a line on a map and call it "time." We call it "distance." The time-distance relation requires a fourth coordinate that could not be drawn even on a 3-dimensional map. We usually represent it on a flat, 2 dimensional map by a right triangle in which the base is marked in units of space and the upright in units of time.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

If laws are not models, is E=mc2 a law, or a model?

Or on more basic terms, is 1+1=2 a law, or a model?

"If laws are not models, is E=mc2 a law, or a model?"

Equation.

"Or on more basic terms, is 1+1=2 a law, or a model?"

Theorem.

Tom,

So the equation(no latex) of Newton's law of gravity is not a law?

When is 1+1=2 falsified?

I realize we can nitpick over terms forever, but in practical terms, it seems to me that laws are essentially always true statements and a model is a description, thus a form of statement, so what I'm saying is that laws are statements that are accepted as true, while models are such descriptions that remain conditional. Now I accept we will never agree that any such terms can ever be used out of dogmatic context, but this is just a point I am using to relate the various concepts in a larger frame of thought.

Tom,

You did once say anything mathematical can be described in natural language, so I'm assuming you agree an equation is a form of mathematical statement.

Regards,

John M

" ... what I'm saying is that laws are statements that are accepted as true, while models are such descriptions that remain conditional."

What you're saying is one thing. What logicians say is another.

I told you -- a model is a solution to an equation or set of equations. Using it otherwise in a technical discussion only produces hot air.

"Now I accept we will never agree that any such terms can ever be used out of dogmatic context, but this is just a point I am using to relate the various concepts in a larger frame of thought."

Well I apologize for not rising to the genius level of the various participants here who grasp the larger frame of thought, the big picture, the cutting edge, the ... I'm just a simple pencil and paper mathematician.

"You did once say anything mathematical can be described in natural language, so I'm assuming you agree an equation is a form of mathematical statement."

So are conjectures, lemmas, theorems, graphs, integrals, algorithms and many other forms of proposing or conveying a relational meaning.

An equation is a way to express the relation in a complete way, such that equality, transitivity and reflexivity obtain in a judgment that one can say is either logically open or logically closed.

It's the logically closed judgments, usually, that contribute most clarity to physical models, because they have explicit solutions -- such as E = mc^2. That is, the terms are finitely bound to a set of results computable in finite time. Logically open judgements, such as the Hilbert space formalisms that characterize quantum mechanics, have to input physical assumptions "by hand" (such as Bayesian probability, nonlocality and normalization) to make physical phenomena consistent with the mathematical formalism.

However, I'm not getting your point, John. It certainly doesn't mean that one can use terms such as "model" informally, and get formal results. Even the natural language has to be logically formalized to have any relation to the artificial formalisms of mathematical symbols.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

"Using it otherwise in a technical discussion only produces hot air."

Isn't all speculation hot air at some stage? The whole risk/reward, trial and error thing, it seems like progress requires it. Unless of course, you prefer to stick to what has already been written in stone and not open to question. That tends to turn one's thought processes to stone as well, though.

While I'm extremely grateful that you conduct these conversations with me, we have different views on what we are doing. I can understand that physics, as a profession requires standards, every profession does. And that it is very important to uphold those standards. But all disciplines, businesses, governments, institutions, etc. start out as a vision and end up being a management issue. When the situation is healthy, these two functions work together, but when there are divergences, which there naturally will be, sometime some degree of flexibility is helpful. Now I'm not saying whether or not there are conflicts between the vision of understanding physical reality and the mathematical and conceptual tools being used to accomplish this, but that as an outsider I am simply more interested in the vision aspect, as opposed to to the exact usage of all the terms which have evolved to understand all the various relationships. Not only can I not afford the time that someone actively engaged has, but the endless focus on detail often becomes a source of confusion in itself.

Which all goes to say that from my conceptually distant vantage point that what we think of as laws are faithfully repeatable patterns, based on coherent principles, while models, whether it is my conventional view as a distinct set of patterns, or your more specialized solution to an equation, it is going to be a given order, used to frame and make sense of input, in order to determine output. If A, then B.

Regards,

John M

John,

"Isn't all speculation hot air at some stage?"

Suppose I say that every number except 0 has a factor of 1? That's true, but useful only in the sense that if it weren't true, we couldn't count (formally); we'd have no arithmetic. Suppose I speculate that no number has a factor of 1, tantamount to saying that all numbers are zero. I can't be dissuaded from this belief and I call it my model. When one suggests to me that it can't be a model, I reply -- "Do you deny that 0 = 0? Why can't you think outside the box? Why can't you refute my assertion? Why can't you see the evidence that every zero in the universe is identical to 0 = 0? What's wrong with my logic? My model is a true model of the universe, and you cannot refute it. Don't tell me that I need your mathematics to model the universe, I have all the mathematics I want or need."

It isn't that speculation is hot air at any stage; speculation is hot air at every stage if it starts with a false premise. If I want to defend my model that 0 = 0, and you persist, I will ask you to refute 0 0 = 0. Take that! When you point out that set theory includes the empty set {} = 0, and that {{}} = 1, I will tell you that my model isn't made of those "abstract math symbols," that 0 = 0 is obviously true, and that it's impossible for any zero to have a factor of 1.

"The whole risk/reward, trial and error thing, it seems like progress requires it. Unless of course, you prefer to stick to what has already been written in stone and not open to question. That tends to turn one's thought processes to stone as well, though."

Mine or yours?

"While I'm extremely grateful that you conduct these conversations with me, we have different views on what we are doing. I can understand that physics, as a profession requires standards, every profession does. And that it is very important to uphold those standards."

They are not professional standards, John. They are universal standards.

"But all disciplines, businesses, governments, institutions, etc. start out as a vision and end up being a management issue. When the situation is healthy, these two functions work together, but when there are divergences, which there naturally will be, sometime some degree of flexibility is helpful."

I'm being flexible. Refute the statement, 0 0 0 = 0! Ha! Can't do it, can you? Want me to be even more flexible? 0 X 0 = 0. Oh, and here's an even better example of my flexibility: sqrt0 = 0.

"Now I'm not saying whether or not there are conflicts between the vision of understanding physical reality and the mathematical and conceptual tools being used to accomplish this, but that as an outsider I am simply more interested in the vision aspect, as opposed to to the exact usage of all the terms which have evolved to understand all the various relationships."

The vision aspect doesn't include terms in relation?

"Not only can I not afford the time that someone actively engaged has, but the endless focus on detail often becomes a source of confusion in itself."

Granted, the search for the devil can make one crazy. Already being there, though, I guess I don't notice it so much.

"Which all goes to say that from my conceptually distant vantage point that what we think of as laws are faithfully repeatable patterns, based on coherent principles,"

True.

"... while models, whether it is my conventional view as a distinct set of patterns, or your more specialized solution to an equation, it is going to be a given order, used to frame and make sense of input, in order to determine output. If A, then B."

If 0, then 0. My model is infinitely flexible. :-)

Best,

Tom

Tom,

Abstract time has no plan, it is something like a plan/map. While Korzybski's territory is more likely something natural, my metaphor even includes man-made reality too.

Distance in its original sense relates to space and is nearly the same as radius. A negative radius is equally nonsensical.

You were not careful when you wrote: *We don't draw a line on a map and call it "time." We call it "distance."*

What do you call distance, the line on a map? Shouldn't you at least write ". instead of ."?

Please get aware of the key that I am providing: Elapsed time is natural, and it extends unilaterally as does radius too. Elapsed time is only formally a particular case of abstract time. Reality is something that evades any attempt to be completely replaced by virtual reality.

Eckard

" Elapsed time is natural ..."

How?

tom,

If all reality were such simple true/false issues, there wouldn't be much discussion, but it's not. You argue that because Relativity treats time as a scalar, that it is symmetric and any asymmetric perceptions of it are illusionary. I consider that highly speculative and the only evidence of time we have is measurement of action. So I see it as a measure of changes caused by action, much as temperature is a measure of the local cumulative kinetic energy of this action. You see that as speculative nonsense. We are looking at the same reality from different perspectives. If I were to fall into a wormhole and find myself back in the 70's, I would accept the validity of your model. It doesn't seem there is anything which will convince you of mine.

Regards,

John M

"If all reality were such simple true/false issues, there wouldn't be much discussion, but it's not."

True/false is too broad. However yes/no binary decisions (classical probability) isn't.

"You argue that because Relativity treats time as a scalar, that it is symmetric and any asymmetric perceptions of it are illusionary. I consider that highly speculative and the only evidence of time we have is measurement of action."

Same three words, John:

Least action principle.

Tom, John M,

You will agree that any actual age is a measure of something that is not just imagined but in principle evident from traces. This year we believe that Jesus Christ is 2013 years old. Choosing him as reference is arbitrary.

There is one and only one natural point of reference for a natural scale of time: the actual now.

Admittedly this view seems to be silly if you are sticking on the tenet that time is a priori given from eternity (minus infinity) to eternity (plus infinity). The usual notion of time cannot be natural because it includes future time that cannot be measured in advance. We can only measure time increments within the past.

When Hilbert and Einstein gave preference to the mathematical completeness of an a priori given and bilaterally extended time scale, i.e. the usual one, they did not find a better excuse for that than to suspect the now and the arrow of time an illusory perception. Einstein has a record for nonsensically taking observation for reality. I revealed where mathematicians as well as physicists avoided a consequent distinction between R and R-, between past and future, between R and R, and between time and elapsed time.

Eckard

Eckard,

Maybe you can explain to Tom that principle of least action refers to a measurement, not what is measured. That measurements are intentionally simplistic, because what is being measured is too complicated to express efficiently and that is why it doesn't matter which of the points of reference is prior and which is succeeding.

Tom,

Having looked it up for the nth time, to see what I must be missing, I'm thinking it must be this;

"In particular, the fixing of the final state appears to give the action principle a teleological character which has been controversial historically.[22] However, some critics maintain this apparent teleology occurs because of the way in which the question was asked. By specifying some but not all aspects of both the initial and final conditions (the positions but not the velocities) we are making some inferences about the initial conditions from the final conditions, and it is this "backward" inference that can be seen as a teleological explanation. Teleologicalness can also be overcome if we consider the classical description as a limiting case of the quantum formalism of path integration, in which stationary paths are obtained as a result of interference of amplitudes along all possible paths."

Regards,

John M

"There is one and only one natural point of reference for a natural scale of time: the actual now."

I agree.