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Essay Abstract

According to reductionism, every complex phenomenon can and should be explained in terms of the simplest possible entities and mechanisms. The parts determine the whole. This approach has been an outstanding success in science, but this essay will point out ways in which it could nevertheless be giving us wrong ideas and holding back progress. For example, it may be impossible to understand key features of the universe such as its pervasive arrow of time and remarkably high degree of isotropy and homogeneity unless we study it holistically -- as a true whole. A satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics is also likely to be profoundly holistic, involving the entire universe. The phenomenon of entanglement already hints at such a possibility.

Author Bio

After completing a PhD in theoretical physics, I became an independent researcher to avoid the publish-or-perish syndrome. For 45 years I have worked on the nature of time, motion, and the quantum theory of the universe. I am the author of two books: The Discovery of Dynamics and The End of Time, in which I argue that time is an illusion. Details of my research work are given at my website platonia.com. Since 2008 I have been a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.

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Julian

Are you agree with my abstract?

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1413

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Whenever I see Dr Julian Barbour or Dr Laurent Nottale's name, I am pleased and excited. I see any of them as the greatest humans in our science history whereas Einstein is nothing but a funny God. Sorry for those believers, I offended your God. It is OK, you God's believers can ask HIS officers to delete my comment.

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Julian

By definition (ie it is the only way physical reality can occur), the sequence of physical existence only occurs in ‘one direction’ and once. That is, any occurrence which has the appearance of oscillation or reversal, is a repetition of a previously existent state (ie present). Though in actual fact, it is highly unlikely to be even a repetition; it just appears so to us when viewed at a higher level of differentiation than that which actually occurs.

Similarly by definition, what constitutes the physically existent state of any given present, must be a function of the immediately previous one, because physical influence cannot ‘jump’ physical circumstance (and neither can a non-existent state have influence). Furthermore, of those possibilities, that which was the cause must have been immediately spatially adjacent to what subsequently occurred, because, again, physical influence cannot ‘jump’ circumstance.

The explanation as to how and why any given different state occurred, must ultimately be explainable as a function of the lowest level of that which caused it (ie the previous state). In any given circumstance, cause must ultimately be traceable to, and be a function of, the fundamental components of the circumstance involved.

Finally, these rules apply to all physical existence. There cannot be a situation whereby some phenomenon is deemed to have some physical effect, but have no physical existence of its own.

So the crux of the problem is: what, generically, constitutes a physically existent state, ie physical reality-that which exists as at any given point in time, and complies with these rules.

Having said all that, there is nothing wrong with applying a different approach as it might spark an idea. But this must then not lead to hypotheses which contravene the way in which physical reality occurs.

Paul

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Dear Julian,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your essay. You write as well as you think. I have a few questions/remarks.

1. To what extent are shape dynamics and best matching dimension-specific? I ask this for three reasons. The first is because I wonder if dimension 4 is “selected for” by having special properties in this regard. The second is because certain theories, such...

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Dear Julian,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your essay. You write as well as you think. I have a few questions/remarks.

1. To what extent are shape dynamics and best matching dimension-specific? I ask this for three reasons. The first is because I wonder if dimension 4 is “selected for” by having special properties in this regard. The second is because certain theories, such as string theory, involve different numbers of dimensions, and it would be interesting to know how universal these ideas are. The third is because metric recovery from a different type of structure; namely, causal structure, is very different in dimension 4 than in dimension 3, for instance.

2. You mention matter-energy briefly in your endnote number 8, but just to be sure, do you regard matter as “part of” the conformal structure at the most fundamental level, or as something that “lives in” and “interacts with” the conformal structure?

3. In one of your references to The End of Time (which I have not read), you imply that time is an illusion arising from large quantum amplitudes of “time capsules.” Do you regard causality also as an illusion, and how (if at all) do you distinguish between the two concepts?

4. I am curious about your general opinion of order theory in fundamental physics. The reason I ask is because the continuum is an order-theoretic concept, and you seem to comfortable with manifolds over the continuum, but seem to abstain from time/causal order as a fundamental concept, at least at the quantum level. Now, personally, I have it the other way around. Coming from a math background, and working mostly with complex manifolds and algebraic schemes, I find it very hard to believe that anything so fantastically uniform is physical at the most fundamental level. On the other hand, the idea of binary relations seems so primitive and basic to all observation that it seems like the most natural place to start. I discuss this, among other things, in my own essay:

On the Foundational Assumptions of Modern Physics

Just to be clear, I agree with you that holism is necessary, but I suspect it arises purely at the quantum level. Also, I think matter-energy and spacetime are ways of talking about aspects of a single structure at the classical level. Finally, the “superspace” in my view has the same type of local structure as its constituent universes, so “quantization” is an iteration of structure in a sense.

Anyway, I am too early in my physics learning curve to be committed to any particular theory, and the ideas you present here require some serious thought on my part. Take care,

Ben Dribus

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Yuri Danoyan replied on Sep. 21, 2012 @ 16:37 GMT

Dear Julian

Freeman Dyson described reductionism in physics as the effort "to reduce the world of physical phenomena to a finite set of fundamental equations".

Please read my 2 essays

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

http://fq
xi.org/community/forum/topic/1413

It is a real triumph of reductionism.

No doubt about reductionism...

All the best

Yuri

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I can agree with some of Yuri's abstract, mainly because it only invites us to reconsider.For Pentcho Valev, as I responded to a similar post before, I still believe in the constancy of light. Nothing is certain in physics, but there is nothing as yet to question the constancy. For Paul Reed, I think you make rather conservative assumptions about "the way in which physical reality works". I believe one can have real insightful physics in which your assumptions are replaced by others. FQXI is about considering new ideas.

Benjamin Dribus asks several good questions. 1) Shape dynamics and best matching will work in any number of dimensions. As of now, I see no compelling reason to change from 3+1. 2) In shape dynamics, matter 'lives in' and 'interacts with' the conformal structure.3) The relatively strong reasons for questioning the existence of time have led me to propose a different kind of causality, or explanation for what is. I guess I must ask you to read The End of Time. 4) You say "the idea of binary relations seems so primitive". However, I have doubts whether the structure one needs for physics can be built up from them. King Lear said to Cordelia "Nothing will come from nothing". I argue "Not much will come from not much". You might be interested in my previous essay "Bit from It" challenging Wheeler's "It from Bit". I will try to read your essay.

I can read the final post in Russian but it still makes not much sense to me, though I agree time is ultimately an illusion.

Paul Reed replied on Sep. 6, 2012 @ 07:51 GMT

Julian

"For Paul Reed, I think you make rather conservative assumptions about "the way in which physical reality works".

There are two knowns about physical existence: a) it is independent of sensory detection, b) there is alteration. Therefore, it is sequence. And the key feature of sequence is that only one state in any given sequence can occur at a time. Because the predecessor must cease in order that the successor can occur. This also governs what can potentially be a cause, both in terms of the sequence of existence and spatial position. The point about traceability to the smallest denominator is a logical truism.

So there is nothing conservative about this, it is determined by physical reality, of which we are a part, and an avoidance of metaphysical concepts which have no physical correspondence. However, it is easy to say all this. The real question being: what constitutes a physically existent state as at any given point in time, ie physical reality-that which exists (there may be more than one type). Timing being the method whereby occurrence can be differentiated until one discerns what occurred at a point in time, which, practically, is probably impossible for us to achieve. Certainly at present the tendency is to refer to some physical state as having been existent when in fact it comprises more than one (ie there is alteration within the 'state).

Paul

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Thanks Julian for another thought provoking essay! Your writing always makes me reflect. You're right that shape dynamics brings out the holistic nature of general relativity. The same holism is also manifest in the non-local nature of observables in GR and the holographic principle. Maybe this is not a coincidence?

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Dear Dr Barbour,

Thanks for your thinking in different angles. You opened a new door in my own thinking by introducing SD, it widenes the perceptions that I had untill now. In "THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION" I also questioned reductionism and favoured "emergence" (i also referred to your work).

The first question I have is about page 3 : you say "If the universe is spatially infinite,...

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Dear Julian

Another clear, well written essay. I have always looked at machian principles and SD with great enthusiasm and the essay makes it very accesible. The idea of generating the background (space,time) upon the behaviour of their ''inhabitants'' fascinates me. As I told you before, I plan to study SD deeply and try to find the origin of the best-matching procedure (maybe by using category theory?).

''Instead of thinking of particles in space and time, we should perhaps be thinking in terms of complete shapes of the universe''

We arrive at the importance of shapes by questioning:'' what is time, what is space?'' and giving a meaning to them by observation. More questioning on what is time and what is space could lead to something even bigger that could maybe have SD as a part. This is what I argue in my essay (that I showed you as a draft via email. here´s the final version Absolute or Relative Motion...or Something Else?), and it´s something I´ve been thinking.

Good luck in the competition!

Best Regards,

Daniel Wagner

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Some very brief responses and then a longer one.Daniel: you may well be right that questioning the nature of time and motion may lead to something even bigger. Sean: The nonlocality of observables is surely a direct consequence of holism as it exists in shape dynamics, holography, about which I know less, probably too. Wilhelmus: I cannot quite make out what you are trying to say, so I am unable to respond. However, one can certainly have coordinates as mathematical possibilities on an infinite plane.

Paul Reed. You wrote:

"There are two knowns about physical existence: a) it is independent of sensory detection" Quantum mechanics already makes that a questionable statement.

"b) there is alteration. Therefore, it is sequence. And the key feature of sequence is that only one state in any given sequence can occur at a time. Because the predecessor must cease in order that the successor can occur."

I accept there is alteration, though I would prefer to call it difference. But that does not necessarily mean you have a linear sequence A, B, C ... You can easily have branching and recombining sequences. This is strongly suggested by the by no means disreputable many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. With regard to you final comment, the natural numbers 1,2,3, ... form a sequence but I think it would be odd to say 12 must cease so that 13 can exist.

Paul Reed replied on Sep. 8, 2012 @ 09:07 GMT

Julian

Indeed it is difference. Physical reality occurs differently, ie when one is compared with another then difference is identifiable, and hence we know there is alteration. In the circumstance of physical existence, any given sequence can only be linear because the predecessor must cease to exist. There can only be one physically existent state within the sequence at a time. Any...

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Julian

Indeed it is difference. Physical reality occurs differently, ie when one is compared with another then difference is identifiable, and hence we know there is alteration. In the circumstance of physical existence, any given sequence can only be linear because the predecessor must cease to exist. There can only be one physically existent state within the sequence at a time. Any form of recombining, oscillation or whatever is really a re-occurrence of a previous existent state (though I think the complexity is such that this could never occur, it is just that from a higher level of differentiation it appears that way).

The analogy is a film. It has the appearance of constant movement, but ultimately there is a state of non-movement. This is the importance of timing (your favourite subject!). Because difference involves: 1) substance (ie what it was), 2) order (ie order of occurrence), 3) frequency (ie the rate at which differences occur). Timing is concerned with the latter. In other words. if we had a timing system with a unit of time which was equivalent to the fastest change in existence, then what occured could be differentiated to the level where there is no form of change. Which is what is physically existent, as it cannot involve change as that constitutes more than one existent state. Timing is concerned with the rate at which change occurs, it is not a feature of any given state of physical reality.

Take an elementary particle spinning. What constitutes physical reality? The particle-no because it is in a variety of physical states. One has to identify one of them. So is it half a spin, a whole spin, etc? No, because that involves more than one physically existent state. The answer involves isolating the smallest degree of spatial alteration possible. Take the life-cycle of a leaf. Ontologically, it is incorrect to refer to the entity as leaf, thereby implying it is the same, but altering. It only appears to be the same at the level of differentiation we are capable of. In fact, it is a different physical reality as every given point in time in the sequence, it just maintains certain superficial physical attributes which we ascribe to leaf, and only one of those occurs at a time.

Paul

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Hello Mr Barbour,

I found your essays very intresting. We search the answers. The universal spirituality like a torch of extrapolations. The reductionism for me is more complex. The trinity that said is relevant considering the fractal form the mai central sphere. But the complexity after this 1 and 3 is so important. The system is finite and precise, so it implies a specific serie ,...

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Hello Mr Barbour,

I found your essays very intresting. We search the answers. The universal spirituality like a torch of extrapolations. The reductionism for me is more complex. The trinity that said is relevant considering the fractal form the mai central sphere. But the complexity after this 1 and 3 is so important. The system is finite and precise, so it implies a specific serie , similar for the quantum scale and the cosmological scale. This number is very relevant. The main codes are inside these main central spheres, with their correlated volumes. This ultim fractal permits also the cretaion of all others forms. Your dynamics of sphapes are relevant when the finite groups are inserted. The newtonian mecanic and the Borhian interpretation are very relevant when the rotations are proprotional with mass. The unification of the SR and GR is explained in this line of reasoning.The duration is implied by the rotations of spheres.The time is so a pure correlated duration. Irreversible in its pure generality. The machian principle is relevant, your extrapolations also. My equations help for the universal rotation around the central sphere. That said the Universal sphere and this central sphere in my line of reasoning does not turn. So the rotation of the Universe of Godel is not logic in its generality.Only the intrinsic spheres turn.So the quantum spheres and the cosmological spheres. See that more a sphere turns, less is its mass.its volume also is correlated. That's why the finite groups are essential for the uniqueness serie. Like for the quantization of the mass. In this logic, the SR and the GR are unified.the light turns in opposite sense than mass.

They turn so they are Mr Barbour ! the inertie dances with my equations if and only if the serie is finite considering the ultim fractal.

See that this fractal is universal, so the universal sphere is a foto of our quantum uniqueness. It is important consideringt he Machian principle and the entropical principle in a closed evolutive space time. See that the isotropical and homogene space time(the sphere) is essential.

The coherences appear easily when the groups are finite for the quantization.

I ish you good luck, it is abeautiful essay.

ps the fractal permits to create also all the forms and shapes.because the lattices disappear in the perfect contact....

Regards

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JB:

Somehow, your essay seems related to my model, (in End Notes of To Seek Unknown Shores

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1409

I am trying to imagine the distal vertex of a tetrahedron that communicates with the central point of sphere contained within the solid angle of the tetrahedron such that the sphere is always tangent to the tetrahedral face. It is a naive attempt to combine motion AND growth from microscopic to macroscopic dimensions.

Perhaps you can destroy the idea so that I might really retire.. Thank You.

Your writing is lucid.

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The Spherical Jedi replied on Sep. 11, 2012 @ 10:32 GMT

a sphere, interesting.:) revolution spherization !!!

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Hi Julian,

Thanks for yet another well-written essay. You may be interested to read some of Eddington's Fundamental Theory. There are some similarities to your approach.

Nevertheless, I have to say I was a bit surprised by some of your assertions regarding reductionism. I think there is a subtle but important distinction that appears to have been muddled in several of the essays...

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Hi Julian,

Thanks for yet another well-written essay. You may be interested to read some of Eddington's Fundamental Theory. There are some similarities to your approach.

Nevertheless, I have to say I was a bit surprised by some of your assertions regarding reductionism. I think there is a subtle but important distinction that appears to have been muddled in several of the essays that have been critical of reductionism and that is the difference between reductionism as a method for investigating science and reductionism (or "constructionism" as P.W. Andersen called it) as an actual causal "structure" to the universe.

Certainly holistic approaches are indeed useful and even reductionism itself does not deny that new features will appear at higher levels of complexity. But the holistic approaches still require knowledge of the fact that there *are* parts to begin with and thus must mean that some individual understanding of those parts is a prerequisite to understanding the whole. By dint of the fact that something possesses non-uniformity, which it must if it is to be understood as *having* parts to begin with, requires some recognition of those parts as individual features. Thus it would seem reductionism is *required* to some extent for an understanding of anything other than an utterly featureless structure.

So, for instance, in your example of the triangle from shape dynamics, the concept of "shape" still requires knowledge of the concept of angles. To a large extent, this is still reductionism. Thus, while the universe itself may not be reductionist in its structure, I fail to see how we can make sense of it outside of a reductionist framework which is much broader than you make it out to be. Honestly, I really don't see how any of the shape dynamics arguments point to any serious flaws in reductionism itself unless one takes a seriously narrow definition of it that is completely inconsistent with the way it has been used over the years.

Incidentally, many of the "failures" of reductionism that people like to point to (e.g. you mentioned some issues with general relativity) may simply be that these discoveries (like general relativity) are not universally applicable (incidentally, with regard to shape dynamics, I fail to see how it is all that different from a block universe, not to mention the fact that it seems as if the changes still need to be relative to *something* though heaven knows what that is).

Regarding the history of reductionism, I also don't see how Newton's notion of absolute space "introduced" reductionism. That seems like a bit of "backward causation" from the shape dynamics argument about triangles. The truth of the matter is that reductionism as a method for carrying out the scientific method was developed by a number of people over a span over nearly 200 years.

Sorry to sound overly harsh. I think there are certainly some interesting ideas to be explored here (including one that I will e-mail you about concerning the relationship between distance and angle), but I think my biggest objection is that it seems that reductionism has been mis-characterized. As one anonymous poster said elsewhere on this site, "In a serious sense anti-reductionism is a straw man. Practically, realistically, there's no other way to do experimental science except analytically."

Again, sorry to sound so harsh. But where would we be without friendly disagreements, eh? Perhaps we'll get to do one of those mock debates at the next conference with you (and George Ellis and others...) on the pro-reductionist side and me (lonely old me...) on the anti-reductionist side.

Cheers,

Ian

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James Putnam replied on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 17:44 GMT

Dr. Barbour,

I did not find in your first essay that you showed how newton's notion of an independent absolute time can be derived from motion. As far as I can tell, Newton was attempting to define the best clock, not absolute time, and used motion for that purpose of defining a most useful measure of duration. More to the point of your present essay, your example in part 1 of reductionism does not appear to be an example of reductionism. It appears to be an example of applying your 'holistic' concept in a piecemeal fashion.

Reductionism is the ability to trace evolution step by step through its development. Those steps will not be small repeated images of the whole. They will however, reveal at every step during evoluion, from beginning to end, the same unity that makes the holistic result possible. I accept that your professional view is different from my unprofessional view.

I will though take this opportunity to state my view that neither time nor space undergo changes of velocity. For this reason there is no empirical evidence to tell us about motion involving either space or time. Motion tells us only about effects endured by objects. We do not learn the natures of 'cause' in either of its two forms, force and mass. The still unknown natures of the universe, restricting this to the mechanical concepts employed by theoretical physics, are those of force, mass, space, and time.

Should you find it worthwhile to offer corrections to what I have said, I would welcome them. Thank you.

James

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This will be a relatively long response to Ian Durham's thoughtful critique. First though a comment on Eddington's Fundamental Theory, I did try it many years ago and found it very tough. In the end I concluded he was incapable of saying anything that made sense, though he seemed to be groping towards a Machian standpoint. One of my lecturers at Cambridge referred to the book as "that graveyard of...

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Member Ian Durham replied on Sep. 9, 2012 @ 00:42 GMT

Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I suppose it is rather appropriate that when I wrote my thesis on Fundamental Theory that I included photographs of headstones from the graveyard where Eddington is buried. At any rate, I'm not sure I entirely agree regarding Fundamental Theory, but that's for another discussion over a drink sometime.

I still think I disagree about reductionism, though. ...

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Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I suppose it is rather appropriate that when I wrote my thesis on Fundamental Theory that I included photographs of headstones from the graveyard where Eddington is buried. At any rate, I'm not sure I entirely agree regarding Fundamental Theory, but that's for another discussion over a drink sometime.

I still think I disagree about reductionism, though. As big a fan as I am of dictionaries, I find they do not always capture the subtleties in the actual usage of certain words. So nothing in the definition you posted is necessarily wrong, but I think the interpretation of that definition is almost too literal.

Consider a car, for example. I don't think anyone would disagree with the suggestion that a car can be easily understood via reductionist methods (in fact, Robert Pirsig demonstrates this, albeit with a motorcycle, as a beautiful demonstration of a reductionist scientific method in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). But are there facets of a car that are meaningless outside of the whole? Absolutely! We could understand how every individual part works *and* how they work together to move the car, but the *purpose* of the car is entirely holistic.

Now consider a mechanic. Can a mechanic fix a car if he/she has a wholly holistic understanding of it, i.e. only knows its purpose? No because if the car fails the mechanic must still understand how the individual parts work in order to figure out how to fix the car! Yes, he/she needs to know how each of the parts is connected, but fixing the problem means isolating it.

As George pointed out in his essay, in many situations there are holistic issues that often enact a "top-down causation" effect where the "whole" somehow enacts restrictions on the parts. But that's really true of anything. For the car example, an accelerator peddle will go completely to the floor if the cable attaching it to the engine snaps (this actually happened to me). The limitations in the motion of the accelerator pedal are driven by a whole host of issues, many of which are "holistic" or even unrelated to the actual mechanisms of the car itself (e.g. laws may constrain design). Despite all of this, I can't see how a reductionist method could possibly be avoided here nor do I think reductionism itself excludes certain holistic notions such as "purpose" (incidentally, in order to determine the purpose of a car, if one is ignorant of such things, amounts to obtaining more information which is, in itself, a reductionist thing to do - the "whole" doesn't proclaim itself a car).

So the argument goes that there are certain phenomena that are simply either too complex or too abstract to be understood in the same way as a car. But this begs the question, how do we *know* these phenomena are too complex or abstract? Are we simply assuming they are since our usual reductionist methods haven't worked (yet)? If so, then we are a priori assuming there's a problem with reductionism. But this is a logically unprovable assumption. As Carl Sagan once said, “[y]our inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.”

Or, what happens if we give up when we are just on the verge of understanding but don't realize it? Worse yet, what happens if this anti-reductionist movement takes on a life of its own and drives reductionism into obscurity? Because the argument that certain phenomena are too complex to be understood in this reductionist manner is the exact argument that is used by proponents of intelligent design and creationism. I find that a bit frightening.

At any rate, regarding shape dynamics, I agree that there absolutely is a huge conceptual difference between it and Newtonian dynamics. I understand precisely where you are coming from on this. However, I completely disagree with the idea that you can quantify the difference between two nearly identical wholes without appealing to something external to both (this is exactly what Eddington tried to do with Fundamental Theory). I mean, certainly at some point we get into some kind of recursiveness (even language is recursive since it is used to define itself). But with things like shapes, how does one quantify a difference without some reference? At some point one needs to define something which I say is reductionist. You may say this is still holistic, but at this point the argument has become one of semantics because the fact is that we need to define properties (which are inherently *not* holistic) by which we can compare the shapes. (I have more to say on this point, but I'll send you an e-mail about it.)

Now, in regard to my point about reductionism as a methodology versus reductionism as a formal structure to the universe, let me explain the latter by comparison to the former. While it might be possible that the universe contains structures whose function or purpose or nature simply cannot be understood by reductionist methods, this is *not* the same thing as saying that those structures' function or purpose or nature actually *is* independent of the behavior of its constituent parts. It may simply mean that there are limits to our *knowledge* of the universe. Part of this comes from the fact that we are *part* of the universe we are attempting to describe and thus naturally we will run into some problem of recursiveness. But taking a more holistic approach won't necessarily rid us of this problem.

So, reductionism doesn't obviate the need for holism, but fundamentally reductionism is still at the core of the scientific enterprise and must remain so if it is to remain science and not succumb to a lot of hokus pokus.

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John Merryman replied on Sep. 9, 2012 @ 22:11 GMT

Julian, Ian,

I think it somewhat "reductionist" to say reductionism is a product of the last few hundred years of scientific thought. Knowledge is foundationally a process of extracting information from the whole.

There is a conceptual reductionism to math which obscures wholism. When we actually add things together, we get a larger whole, so what we are really adding, when we say one plus one equals two, are the sets, not the contents of the sets. So we have one larger set, not applesauce.

This then is a dynamic process, where we do not just have distinct states in sequence, but one state that changes. It's just that our minds see the distinctions, the angles, not the connections, the distances. This is because our minds function as a strobe like process of extracting frames of seemingly static perception from that dynamic. Which we then string together as a sequence of events. Yet the foundational reality is only the process, because duration is the state of the present between the occurrence of events, not a timeline external to the present.

Writing on a phone is a study in thought compression.

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Member Ian Durham replied on Sep. 11, 2012 @ 10:45 GMT

John,

Well, to some extent, reductionism as we know it, vis-à-vis the scientific method, *is* largely a product of the last few hundred years of scientific thought. And, one of the points I've been trying to make is that nowhere does reductionism imply an anti-holism. Reductionism is merely a method for understanding the whole, but it does not deny that the whole may possess features that are unique.

Kudos on writing that on a phone, by the way. Most impressive.

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Paul Reed replied on Sep. 12, 2012 @ 07:40 GMT

Ian

So the question is: what constitutes a ‘part’? There may well be different types, but, generically, I would suggest it is that which is physically existent as at any given point in time. In simple language, what is ‘there’ if we could ‘stop the tape’ (reality being analogous to a film).

Your car is no different from any other sequence of physical existence. The...

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Ian

So the question is: what constitutes a ‘part’? There may well be different types, but, generically, I would suggest it is that which is physically existent as at any given point in time. In simple language, what is ‘there’ if we could ‘stop the tape’ (reality being analogous to a film).

Your car is no different from any other sequence of physical existence. The issue is that in that circumstance, we are defining physical reality at a level of differentiation significantly above that which occurs. The ‘entity’ is being defined by virtue of certain superficial physical features, and so long as they pertain, we know it as car. But the physical reality of this is much more complex. So long as the integrity of the physical sequence is maintained, and the explanation relates to that level of differentiation, then there is no problem. Indeed, apart from the fact that we could probably never define car (or any other entity) at the level of physically existent states, because of the sheer complexity involved, doing so will not assist understanding at a higher level in most cases. The ‘purpose’ of car is a sociological concept anyway. Issues arise when these higher levels of differentiation are deemed, incorrectly, to be physical reality, when actually they are sequences thereof (ie involve more than one physically existent state). Because then physical sequence can become confused (ie out of sequence), causal factors wrongly attributed, etc, etc.

For example: “enact a "top-down causation" effect where the "whole" somehow enacts restrictions on the parts. But that's really true of anything”. Indeed so, but this is in the sense that what occurs next can only be a function of the previous occurrence. Any given physically existent state can only be the result of the immediate predecessor, both in terms of sequence and spatial location. Physical effects do not ‘jump’ circumstances. There is a implication in this type of thinking that the future is affected in some way. Ontologically, this is incorrect, as the future is non-existent. What actually happens is that a subsequent physically existent state occurs which is different from what otherwise would have occurred had the previous state been different. In the case of car, considerations are at a ‘functional’ level, in order to explain ‘how it works’. It has not been differentiated to an physically existent level.

Paul

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John Merryman replied on Sep. 13, 2012 @ 03:26 GMT

Ian,

I wasn't denying that science has codified conceptual reductionism, just pointing out the irony of imlying only science is reductionistic, ie, reductionism of reductionism. So to be wholistic about reductionism, it might be said that all knowledge is inherently reductionistic, since knowledge requires perspective and perspective is subjective.

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The Spherical Jedi replied on Sep. 13, 2012 @ 12:24 GMT

Hello John, Paul, Mr Durham,

well said all that.

viva el revolution spherization.

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Julian,

I am suspecting that the angle you "measure" in ADM correlates somehow to a Lorentz Rotation angle? Recall that a Lorentz boost can be represented as a bonified rotation in the information space of Dirac. Does ADM build the "information space" of Einstein that provides the ultimate in a physical spatial scaling w/ "a measured Lorentz angle value" for each physical object possesing mass and having a rest frame to make measures within? If so, this sounds like the information we receive when we multiply by a complex #. Isn't this the information attained by conformal QED? ADS/CFT stuff with Alpha being the 5D symmetry having the 4D QFT "shapes" occupying a bounding surface?

Your analogy of the Alpha as the most uniform angle space yearned for by all different angle spaces (well you may not have exactly stated this ... ad lib by me here) may imply that the angle space of the ADS version of a QFT "desires" to become part of the 5 Dimentional informational space but has asymmetrically been broken off and given a series of angle measures that "precisely measure the asymmetric break-up" (maybe encoded in DNA for a "life" shape?)... like a conciousness in birth being the asymmetrical parting from a structure having a complete symmetry (like point symmetry of the electron. Hmmm, this may imply that the quantum field is created by nothing more then a correlation between the asymmetric "yearning - a projection on to Alpha" that drives all other shapes to entropically become more in line with the symmetric Alpha (an S matrix with a mission!) ... thus ... all shapes contain paths (maybe similar to the Feynman decision paths) that lead them them back to occupy the Alpha symmetry once again... ?

Afterall ... in ADM a living thing would have a shape space ... and like all shapes ...

My most enjoyable read, Thank you,

Tony

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Anthony DiCarlo replied on Sep. 13, 2012 @ 14:01 GMT

In your search for low N clustering parameters you may want to read Ralph Chamberlin's "Mean Field Cluster Model For the Critical Behavior of Ferromangetics." Nature, Volume 408, November 16, 2000. While this cluster model has been derived for ferromagnetics, it applies generally to all "physical ordering in a mean field" and may provide a computational path to Alpha once you define the coupling (probably a second law derived entropy maximization). What's nice is that it leaves size "unrestrictive" which would be desirable in you scaled holistic space.

Also, your holistic space must also come with a temperature vs. size if it is truely the universe to which the holistic space depicts. Microwave temperature for todays size, and hotter on average when the universe shrinks.

One other thing, you may want to also read David Hestene's Space Time Geometry" approach to build the electron in Dirac space. The basic form of to represent the electron has the spatial pseudoscalar as the power of e (natural log). This pseudoscalar element must be directly related to your shape when the mass is that of an electron - your angles 2+2, would be the measures.

Best Regards,

Tony

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Anthony DiCarlo replied on Sep. 14, 2012 @ 15:17 GMT

Julian,

Not sure if you are reading my comments (no reply). I'll therefore make this my last "question" comment. Fermions are believed to form the structure of everything that has a measurable shape. Light (a boson) is the element that provides information regarding the shape (up to the Chandrasekhar limit). This implies that the information supplied by Shape Dynamics has to accomodate these facts (well, assuming they really are physical fact). This may then imply that Shape Dynamics can precisely describe information measured at the Fermi surface of virtually any manifold. Do the methods for obtaining information regarding the Fermi surface resemble Shape Dynamic methods - does this information correlate? One can envision the angle measures between atoms and molecules in solids (and especially atoms on the solid's surface) as being angle parameters in the Shape Dynamic representation. This would also bring forth band information as conduction (global information) and valence (local information). As the two bands part ways (conduction -> valence) global information (molecular levels) becomes local (atomic levels), periodic cellular, and increase in # of identical copies (all the atoms and molecules that makeup the solid). Can Shape dynamics accomodate anything like this? Characterizing band structure with a more simplified model could provide new horizons in the semiconductor business.

When a grad student, I went head to head with a person who insisted that the information regarding the 7x7 reconstruction of the Silicon surface was locked up in the measured angles and positions of the surface atoms .... that's it... and my argument was that the information was locked up in the hybridization of the atomic orbitals and forces generated (minimized energy, yadda, yadda). It would seem that from a shape dynamics perspective he may have had a good argument!

Regards,

Tony

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Dear Julian Barbour,

thank you very much for this essay. It does very clearly set out your ideas and the ideas of other that have been the foundation for them. Like your previous essays, it is accessible to non specialists, very well crafted and relevant to the essay question. I am sure there is still more I can learn from it. It is another fine essay.

You wrote "Using grand philosophical terms, the gap between epistemology - what can be observed - and ontology - what is assumed to exist - should be as small as possible. Ideally, there should be no gap at all....." That is where our views necessarily diverge. As I regard the observed output of data processing to be distinct from what existed unobserved as the source of the data.

Thank you once again for giving some time to discuss you work on your blog thread and your replies here. Good luck in the competition.

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Georgina Parry replied on Sep. 28, 2012 @ 23:23 GMT

Dear Julian Barbour,

I appreciate that you are a busy man and there are more essays in this competition than any individual can be expected to read thoroughly and comment upon. However I would be very grateful indeed if you could take a look at my essay. If you are able to comment on it as well that would mean a great deal to me. I have received very little feedback from the members over the years and I do admire your essay writing and other very clear and sensible explanations of your work. I have tried to improve my writing from last years inadequate entry, making it more readable. I will certainly respect your opinion, even if you dislike what I have produced and can find no merit in it.

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Dear Julian:

I enjoyed reading your well-written and intuitive essay describing the weaknesses of the reductionist approach in representing the Natural physical reality.

My paper -“ From Absurd to Elegant Universe” strongly vindicates the following conclusions of your paper especially related to the QM paradoxes and inconsistencies with GR -

“….it may be impossible...

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Dear Julian:

I enjoyed reading your well-written and intuitive essay describing the weaknesses of the reductionist approach in representing the Natural physical reality.

My paper -“ From Absurd to Elegant Universe” strongly vindicates the following conclusions of your paper especially related to the QM paradoxes and inconsistencies with GR -

“….it may be impossible to understand key features of the universe such as its pervasive arrow of time and remarkably high degree of isotropy and homogeneity unless we study it holistically - as a true whole. A satisfactory interpretation of quantum mechanics is also likely to be profoundly holistic, involving the entire universe. The phenomenon of entanglement already hints at such a possibility..”

The Reductionism literally means a pursuit of “Reduced” or truncated reality. The well-known Observer’s Paradox of QM implies that the collapse of the wave function truncates the reality to the limits of the consciousness (or lack of it) of the observer. When this “Reduced” or truncated or incomplete view of reality is over-extrapolated to predict the universe or quantum behavior, paradoxes (multi-verses, multi-dimensions, black hole singularities, quantum gravity, quantum time, entanglement, dark matter, anti-matter, and dark energy etc.) and inconsistencies result leading to an Absurd universe.

My paper demonstrates that following a holistic approach wherein the whole universe is considered as a continuum of mass-energy-space-time, a very simple mathematical model of the missing physics (hidden variable) of the well-known spontaneous decay/birth of particles can be developed that explains the observed quantum as well as classical behaviors. The holistic model also successfully predicts the observed data at all scales from below Planck scale to beyond cosmological scales. The proposed model not only resolves black hole singularities but also the unresolved paradoxes of physics and cosmology. As you rightly said, the holistic model also explains the inner workings of QM and eliminates its paradoxes and inconsistencies with relativity. It also vindicates your conclusion that time is not a fundamental entity and is an illusion since the observed universe and galactic expansion can be predicted without any explicit consideration of a cosmic time.

I would greatly appreciate your comments on my paper. You can contact me at avsingh@alum.mit.edu.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

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Dear Mr Julian Barbour

Our intuition gives that Machian principle is foundation of physics, although it is not yet proved. Similar unproved intuition appears at fundamentality of consciousness and that gravitational force is different that other forces.

You wrote that time arrow is a holistic phenomenon. I wrote similarly in one old article: "Important time's arrow is also the...

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Dear Julian

Original, thoughtful and well explained. But is reductionism a 'mutually exclusive' methodology? Should the real solution to the workings of the universe not be valid on a macro as well as micro scale, deriving observed reality from a consistent mechanism applicable to both ends of the 'known' scales, quanta to universe? (both ends of course yet unconstrained).

I now...

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Dear Julian

Original, thoughtful and well explained. But is reductionism a 'mutually exclusive' methodology? Should the real solution to the workings of the universe not be valid on a macro as well as micro scale, deriving observed reality from a consistent mechanism applicable to both ends of the 'known' scales, quanta to universe? (both ends of course yet unconstrained).

I now better understand your shape dynamics, but wonder where evolution from relative motion lies within it, as it seems not at the centre. Am I wrong? I found myself desperately hoping for a 'success' to hang this new set of beliefs on, but despite incisive analysis nothing materialised. May I offer an ADM based option.

You'd need to read my essay, but what this does is derive the effects we term SR from a quantum mechanism, and the mechanism from the morphology and evolution of universes. It may be seen as defining and creating the boundaries of closed three-geometries, each a mutually exclusive but nested inertial frame, defined by relative kinetic states. These have real evolving shapes, but size is immaterial. From the foundational structure of truth function logic an ontologial construct is described in the essay entirely from epistemological elements. A pre big-bang (not really a 'bang') state emerges as logically as local CSL.

I quite understand how improbable this seems, it is none the less the case. As Feynman said it does at first look wrong, so fails the test of 'beliefs' most use, but it has passed all falsification. I hope you may give it a stern test, and look forward to your critique. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1330

Interestingly, the physical reality of the boundary mechanism is shown and correctly interpreted in the experimental findings in Rich Kingsley Nixey's essay Fig.2.; http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1448

Yours is a more clearly written essay than my own, with perhaps too dense an Architecture of the components, though I do add a little superficial theatre for fun.

Best wishes and good luck in the competition.

Peter

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Dear

Very interesting to see your essay.

Perhaps all of us are convinced that: the choice of yourself is right!That of course is reasonable.

So may be we should work together to let's the consider clearly defined for the basis foundations theoretical as the most challenging with intellectual of all of us.

Why we do not try to start with a real challenge is very close and are the focus of interest of the human science: it is a matter of mass and grain Higg boson of the standard model.

Knowledge and belief reasoning of you will to express an opinion on this matter:

You have think that: the Mass is the expression of the impact force to material - so no impact force, we do not feel the Higg boson - similar to the case of no weight outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Does there need to be a particle with mass for everything have volume? If so, then why the mass of everything change when moving from the Earth to the Moon? Higg boson is lighter by the Moon's gravity is weaker than of Earth?

The LHC particle accelerator used to "Smashed" until "Ejected" Higg boson, but why only when the "Smashed" can see it,and when off then not see it ?

Can be "locked" Higg particles? so when "released" if we do not force to it by any the Force, how to know that it is "out" or not?

You are should be boldly to give a definition of weight that you think is right for us to enjoy, or oppose my opinion.

Because in the process of research, the value of "failure" or "success" is the similar with science. The purpose of a correct theory be must is without any a wrong point ?

Glad to see from you comments soon,because still have too many of the same problems.

Regard !

Hải.Caohoàng of THE INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS AND A CORRECT THEORY

August 23, 2012 - 11:51 GMT on this essay contest.

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Dear Dr. Barbour,

I just read your essay. The idea of shape dynamics appears to be a form of Regge calculus. I watched a video presentation of yours on the FQXi blog. The time evaluated from the Jacobi variational principle

δt = sqrt{m_iδx_iδx_i/(E-V)}

is related to a proper time, or an interval. This got me thinking about how you could describe this in a...

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attachments: light_rays_and_triangles.JPG, null_rays_and_triangles_in_curved_spacetime.JPG

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Lawrence B. Crowell replied on Sep. 20, 2012 @ 20:10 GMT

This post above is mine; I forgot to include my name. My essay is on a different path.

Cheers LC

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Pentcho Valev replied on Sep. 20, 2012 @ 20:31 GMT

Lawrence Crowell wrote: "On another vein I am not convinced that time is a complete illusion. Maybe I will go into this later, but I think that in quantum spacetime it may be that if you only have space then time is not defined. Conversely, if time is defined you have no space. I suspect the two are complements."

How can one qualify this without facing deletion? "Not even wrong" seems to be a suitable euphemism. Brendan Foster? Is "not even wrong" too rude? Are you going to delete this comment?

Pentcho Valev

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here is what I wrote and got deleted without the link. do you think it is prime for deletion.

"The standard physics has failed to really tell us what reality is, your theory as non-standard is the most interesting one in my opinion. My theory QSA confirms your hypothesis as to the nature of time and is close to other aspects of your theory. It is also the most direct description of reality and it is a natural outcome of the mathematical universe hypothesis. My theory just like yours says that each point carries the information about the rest of the points in the universe; as a matter of fact that is how interaction is described (or brought about). My theory ties space (time indirectly), energy, matter, forces in one concept based on the line. The theory spits out the mass of the electron from purely random numbers, the first theory to naturally predict the mass of the electron. Moreover, the non-local behavior also naturally appears as an automatic consequence of invariance. Many other results are obtained including the amazing formulas."

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Hi Julian,

I am always impressed with your commitment to relativity in its purest form.

I fail to understand, however, that you admit this barrier:

"I have given what I believe is the correct definition of Mach's principle [5] and argued that if the universe is closed up in three dimensions like the earth's surface in two then GR does implement Mach's principle [5]. If the universe is spatially infinite, the answer is equivocal. It is Machian however far you can imagine, but infinity is unreachable, and one can never establish a complete sense in which the whole determines the part."

Surely there are solutions to GR in an open universe that do not contradict Mach's principle. The conventional "finite and unbounded" interpretation of GR as finite in time (bounded at the singularity of creation) and unbounded in space, closed up like a 3-ball as you say -- suffers no loss of generality when transposed to a model finite in space and unbounded in time. This latter interpretation requires topology to implement global boundary conditions, and it agrees with your angle-preserving evolution of shapes without regard to the length-preservation inherent in ordinary geometry.

As always, thanks for a masterful presentation, and best wishes in the contest. (I hope you get a chance to visit my own essay site, "The Perfect First Question.")

Best,

Tom

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Steve Dufourny Jedi replied on Sep. 21, 2012 @ 14:58 GMT

don't try with the probelm of language and the name sphere and the name ball, for me a sphere is a ball ok dude ! You cannot arrive at your aim without bad strategies poor thinker.

Insert my spheres balls in yopur parallelizations of frustrated in team.I eat your sciences at my breakfast band of comics.And you know it all furthermore and you insit like poor obliged strategist of nothing for...

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don't try with the probelm of language and the name sphere and the name ball, for me a sphere is a ball ok dude ! You cannot arrive at your aim without bad strategies poor thinker.

Insert my spheres balls in yopur parallelizations of frustrated in team.I eat your sciences at my breakfast band of comics.And you know it all furthermore and you insit like poor obliged strategist of nothing for nothing.

put the ball in your sphere dude and buy people to kill me band of comics and don't say that it is FQXi, no it is you and your team,.FQXi it is a wonderful platform, unfortunally poor corrupted act with the soa .It is not a probelm you know.all is said in fact between us. your hate eats you in fact.You are not able to make other things in your life, because your hormons are probably weak.so you make a revenge. the ball and the sphere now, put it where I think and you brendan , delete boy of the team paid in the future .I have pity band of comics.

I will go at New York so kill me , it is better band of comics , your name are already in a letter copied for the attorneys and my friends all around this planet and even if you have utilized false name like a false friend, don't forget my quick analyze and the conclusion easy to see. and You Mr Barbour, you accept this comportment also, no not you?

You think what Tom that you can steal a thing impossible to steal.try like you make, you shall see on the entropical arrow of times, we shall discuss when we shall be in the aether poor thinker limited furthermore. I see only a publicity and always a kind of comportment of generalist, but no tam, you are not a generalist.patrick Murphy said to shane steiçnman that bruce watkins improve, let me laugh band of comics.and kill me, and still you shall loose in the aether ahahahh sleep well .I will be there all the nights in your dreams, just to show you what are the contemplations of the universe.pray so or buy a bibble and the talmud and the texts of siddartha Gottam, because be sure dude.You shall understand.

Regards and put the balls in your sphere comics vanitious full of hate, your hate increases still, logic in front of the truth for the pseudos.

and also dude decreasing the veloccity of your country,you know what, you can even try with the faith, and even with all the discriminations, that will not change the spherization of all high spheres. you can trying with all what you want, but you know the better I am repeating is really to kill me. It is more easy if you begin to have doubts you know dude. Am I a danger for USA no !!! I love USA.Am I a danger for the bad systems, yes because I dislike the bad.

Regards

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Dear Julian

Freeman Dyson described reductionism in physics as the effort "to reduce the world of physical phenomena to a finite set of fundamental equations".

Please read my 2 essays

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

http://fq
xi.org/community/forum/topic/1413

It is a real triumph of reductionism.

No doubt about reductionism...

All the best

Yuri

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Dear Dr. Barbour,

You kindly deleted the following comment of mine but I find it important so let me repost it.

You are looking for a no-expansion explanation of the Hubble redshift:

JUlian Barbour: "The greatest need is for an EXPLANATION OF THE HUBBLE RED SHIFT THAT DOES NOT RELY ON EXPANSION OF THE UNIVERSE. (...) The estimates of section 7 show how readily the scale-invariant potential energy can increase if the universe becomes more clumpy. Scale-invariant gravity must, in the first place, yield a cause of the Hubble red shift. The only plausible candidate that I can see is this change in the 'potential' of the universe induced by such clumping. It is suitably great and, according to the standard model, has been happening since the end of inflation. Therefore, the conjecture has to be that somehow the change in potential causes the Hubble red shift. This is not inherently impossible. We know that differences in the gravitational potential give rise to a gravitational red shift."

But the speed of light VARIES with the gravitational potential, according to both general relativity and Newton's emission theory of light. So perhaps the redshifted light coming from distant celestial objects has a speed lower than c? What does Shape Dynamics say?

Sincerely yours, Pentcho Valev

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Hi Julian,

Take a look at: http://digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/22_Classical_Gravity.html

an
d: http://digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/21_Self-Gravity.html

It may give you some ideas on how to get a red shift without expansion. It is possible that the red shift may come from increased gravity and not increased speed.

OH, and if you get a chance check out my entry: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1403

Greetings from a fellow Machian.

Don L.

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The computer and the universe

John Archibald Wheeler

Abstract

The reasons are briefly recalled why (1) time cannot be a primordial category in the description of nature, but secondary, approximate and derived, and (2) the laws of physics could not have been engraved for all time upon a tablet of granite, but had to come into being by a higgledy-piggledy mechanism. It is difficult to defend the view that existence is built at bottom upon particles, fields of force or space and time. Attention is called to the “elementary quantum phenomenon” as potential building element for all that is. The task of construction of physics from such elements is compared and contrasted with the problem of constructing a computer out of “yes, no” devices.

Preparation for publication assisted by the University of Texas Center for Theoretical Physics and by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY78-26592.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ck753337h051
5573/

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There are several new posts since I last visited this thread. I hope those that posted them will excuse me if I don't respond. Some are inappropriate, others not but there is a limit to what one can do.

However, I will briefly respond to Pentcho Valev, who on 19th September wrote:

"You heroically delete any critical comment, in accordance with your ethical principles, but I am going to ask my question again and again. Are absolute simultaneity and Einstein's 1905 light postulate both true according to Shape Dynamics?"

First, I deleted nothing; second, they are compatible according to Shape Dynamics.

With regard to the later post on 22nd September quoting my comments on the expansion of the universe, they are no longer to be taken as my position. I still find the expansion of the universe a most important issue but no longer think it can be understood along the lines suggested in Pentcho's quote.

Pentcho Valev replied on Sep. 23, 2012 @ 11:03 GMT

Julian Barbour wrote:

"First, I deleted nothing..."

Then I apologize. But my comments - 7 or 8 perhaps - all disappeared so... Brendan Foster, what are you doing?!?

"...second, they [absolute simultaneity and Einstein's 1905 light postulate] are compatible according to Shape Dynamics."

But, Dr. Barbour, in textbooks the relativity of simultaneity is directly deduced from the light postulate - see pp. 9-10 in David Morin's text. In other words, according to special relativity, absolute simultaneity and Einstein's 1905 light postulate are incompatible.

I think you should explain this contradiction between Shape Dynamics and special relativity.

Pentcho Valev

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Paul Reed replied on Sep. 24, 2012 @ 17:39 GMT

Pentcho

Has it ever struck you to ask what the speed at which any given photons happen to travel has got to do with anything? Except that is, the timing relationship between the incidence of observation and the occurrence of the reality which affected the state of those photons.

The whole issue of the supposed relationship between the speed of light and simultaneity is based on simple mistakes (section 1 1905). Unless they occurred in immediate proximity(!), the point in time when two events occurred simultaneously was deemed to have a relationship with the distance between them. This is nonsense. Either events occurred at the same time, or they did not, distance is irrelevant.

Distance was then expressed in terms of duration of light travel, which is irrelevant as such, in that the distance AB is one distance, however expressed. The next mistake was confusion over timing and duration. So the point in time at which both events occurred was defined as being when the time (ie duration) for light to travel in one direction equalled the time (ie duration) to travel back. Although nonsense anyway, this was then incorrectly expressed. Hence: when t(b) – t(a) = t’(a) – t(b), a duration of time has been confused with a point in time, ie this involves the concept of ‘and then’ back. Following on from this, the constant velocity of light is derived as: 2AB/ t’(a) – t(b).

Paul

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Dear Pentcho, Dear Julian,

thank you for clarifying your positions, so i can see more clearly.

Stefan

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Dear Julian,

An intriguing enjoyable and intriguing essay from an author I really respect. However I am not completely convinced that a holistic approach is always indispensable. Could one not argue, that if the result of the reductionist approach is a concept, idea or formula that is physically *very close* to nature then the whole would emerge from it on its own without further ado? As a...

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Dear Julian,

An intriguing enjoyable and intriguing essay from an author I really respect. However I am not completely convinced that a holistic approach is always indispensable. Could one not argue, that if the result of the reductionist approach is a concept, idea or formula that is physically *very close* to nature then the whole would emerge from it on its own without further ado? As a minimalist example cellular automata interact according to a local rule and from it the whole emerges in due time.

Even so, perhaps I have implemented a species of Mach's principle in my Beautiful Universe Theory (BU) on which I based my fqxi essay Fix Physics! . My reductionist idea is that the Universe is made up of a lattice of just one type of building block. These blocks or nodes are discrete bundles of angular momentum rotating around their axes in units of (h) and the axes have various angular orientations in each timeless universal State. . Thus L =/= 0 in this scheme. Attached is figure 11 from my BU theory showing how a twist in the angular orientation of two nodes to lock into matter is caused by (or causes) the entire linkage of nodes throughout the universe to mimic the twist, and explaining why E=mc^2

I did not know about Mach's idea that time is emergent from motion. Interesting. I feel that the reductionist source idea in GR (space-time warping = gravity) is physically misleading. GR's Achilles heel is that it includes SR. Why should an observer-related physics enter in realms out there where it is only nature interacting with itself in the same inertial frame - for example light curving around the sun? Without SR, GR becomes very simple - gravity can be reduced to an optical density field, as Eddington proposed, and I have explained in BU.

Shape Dynamics (SD) sounds like a new concept that, at first sight, I wish I do not need to think about! - if there is a simple, local,causal explanation for gravity=acceleration=curvature I would be satisfied with that. In BU it is the curvature of the classical gravitational potential streamlines (or the orthogonal wavefronts) that defines this equivalence. You wrap SD in a probabilistic interpretation.

Quantum probability as a physically realistic phenomena is another of my bête noires . In BU I have shown how probability emerges naturally in the lattice interactions, and how the false point-photon idea made it seem that probability is an abstract interpretation of a dualistic particle-wave nature resistant to physical realism. Have you read the amazing experimental work of Eric Reiter reported in his current fqxi essay in which he proves that gamma rays are not point photons? In such a Nature where probability is the result of systematic, linear local interactions, entanglement can be understood simply and directly without resorting to further ingenious but perhaps complicating holistic ideas as SD.

Hope I have made some sense! I welcome your learned response to my rather qualitative and incomplete ideas.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

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attachments: 2_BUFIG11.jpg

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Dear Professor Julian Barbour

Perhaps Professor to doubt the concept for the Reductionist because professor think that: time is an "illusion", although it is always "present" in our lifetime.

Actually, it was too simple to the extent that we can not "doubt" that: that is it.

Unfortunately do not have the same opinion with professors on this issue.

Hopefully not so that professors ignore essay and my new theory.

Regard ! Hải.Caohoàng of THE INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS AND A CORRECT THEORY

August 23, 2012 - 11:51 GMT on this essay contest.

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If Mathematics, the tool of theoretical physics, can only describe becoming , then Mathematics of Becoming is Physics ?

I afraid there is no such thing as Mathematics of Becoming at all...

May be it is new philosophical abstraction or some kind of physical simplification of Calculus, and, If I understand, we cannot deduce any taking technical mathematical theorems seriously from Notion Mathematics of Becoming ( Similarly, from Einstein attempt to introduce a new kind of complex number in SR - please, see my FQXi 12 essay - we simply cannot deduce scientifically any taking physical time theory seriously )

I suppose, that Mathematics is not Tool, Language or Human subjectivity at all. It is independent perfectly working area of experimental science. Anybody can test for example, that, x^3 + y^3 = z^3 cannot exist in Nature and in any version of Multiverse as well. Pure Mathematics is not Pure Physics.

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Again, there are some posts that are inappropriate or too difficult for me to understand, but I will comment on three:

Vladimir Tamari wrote:

"Could one not argue, that if the result of the reductionist approach is a concept, idea or formula that is physically *very close* to nature then the whole would emerge from it on its own without further ado? As a minimalist example cellular automata interact according to a local rule and from it the whole emerges in due time."

I think that is reasonable position and certainly a reductionist starting point can lead to a holistic picture. However, even with cellular automata there is an holistic element. The individual elements must be tied together since otherwise what happens at one element could not affect what happens at its neighbour. A chain is an holistic concept.

Michael Popov seems to have inverted what I said. I said mathematics can only describing Being. I did not say it could only describe Becoming.

Pentcho Valev again challenges me on the issue of simultaneity and the speed of light. I twice invited him to look and my papers or talks on the web, but he has twice declined the invitation. Perhaps a simple analogy will help. Imagine a very smooth landscape with a single valley running through it.If you look at only a very small part of the landscape, it will appear flat, both at the bottom of the valley as well as elsewhere. In very small regions, no directions on the surface will be distinguished. This is almost exactly analogous to the absence of a distinguished definition of simultaneity in special relativity.However, in the bottom of the valley, there is clearly a distinguished direction, along the valley, even though on the smallest scales it cannot be detected. This is by no means a perfect analogy for what happens in Shape Dynamics, but it does show how what happens on the smallest scale may be misleading about large-scale structure.

Paul Reed replied on Oct. 1, 2012 @ 09:23 GMT

Julian/Pentcho

It is the concept of simultaneity, as defined, that is wrong. Any given physically existent state occurred at the same time as any other, if that was at the same point in time. Timing being an extrinsic measuring system which enables the comparison of disparate changes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with light, etc, etc. Now, in the assessment of whether that occurred, and if the sense being utilised is sight, the speed of light is, obviously, a factor. But whatever occurred, did so, independently of the sensing thereof, and occurrences either happened at the same point in time, or they did not.

The speed of light always starts at the same speed because it is the result of an atomic reaction, and like anything else, it will then continue at that speed unless impinged upon. There is nothing mysterious about this. But, 1905 presumed light was in vaccuo and everything else was not, hence the two could not co-exist (so it was not a cohesive theory and is not SR). Later, SR presumed a purely theoretical circumstance where everything was in vaccuo (in order to reconcile the mis-match of 1905). While GR is the real world, and so light is affected by the physical circumstances encountered in its travel.

Paul

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Dear Julian!

An excellent analysis in your essay and hypotheses. But the «Alpha» and «Omega» is not enough. To search Protostructure (Superstructure, "the missing structure" by Umberto Eco) requires synthesis of "Alpha" and "Omega". This can be done "Delta" with its deep OntoTopoLogical Interpretation. Ontological framework of the country Platonia - it is also an ontological framework of the world (univerce), represented as the natural (absolute) coordinate system. .

From a country of eternal forms helps to get the time - the memory structure at a certain level of its holistic existence. Time is the burden of becoming. This - the price of becoming. Its outcome - asymmetry. Sincerely, Vladimir

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Julian

Many including I have had the courtesy to read your essay and comment on it in your thread. Here we are, as last year, side by side, but, as last year, you still don't speak. We are all busy, but some would consider it a courtesy implicit on entering to read and comment on others essays. The word 'arrogant' has been used here, and you may perhaps wrongly be giving that impression.

Perhaps my post, or even my essay, was among those you referred to as 'too difficult to understand'. I wouldn't be surprised as I identify a multiple set of associated assumptions, and explain a complex ontological construction. The ontology does however derive the SR postulates (inc. CSL) direct from a known quantum mechanism, (which Roger Penrose termed the 'Holy Grail' of physics). It may be wrong, but is falsifiable and is so far unfalsified. I've given the model it the most stringent tests, and hope you also may study it.

I do hope you are able. I think if I can understand yours you should be able to unravel the layered depths of mine. There's even a little contemporary theatre and a sonnet! I'm personally suffering a bit of eye strain, but there is much excellent quality work here you seem to be missing.

And very best wishes in the competition.

Peter

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Peter Jackson replied on Oct. 1, 2012 @ 17:20 GMT

Ooops! That was me. The system logged me out again.

Peter

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Julian

You essay is just splendid -- clear, compelling, captivating, and revelatory. I think your work is going to change the shape of our paradigm! It is great to see clear-headed philosophical thinking put to such immediately effective use in the service of good physics (and good education) -- this is exactly how philosophy and empirical science should integrate to bring progress in our understanding of what exists and how it works. I think your position that 'the angles are the fundamental things', provides a surprising but exact way of giving mathematical expression to the intuitive notions of holism and of concrete properties being determined by context.

Julie and I argue, from very different grounds, but largely on philosophical grounds too, for a similar vision of the nature of the world in our essay. We approach it from the quantum vacuum side rather than the SR side, but our philosophical trail led to a highly congruent world-view. Our difference is that we infer a fundamental concrete world in which 'becoming' is a primary attribute (I guess we could have called it Energeia?), thus providing a foundation for the evolution of the platonium (sorry I couldn't resist) that you associate with instants of being. Either way leads to a world in which 'holistic change' is the primary observed quality of the phenomenal world.

I think the Shape Dynamics formalism will turn out to be seminal for Systems Philosophy. So glad to have read your work!

With admiration and best wishes,

David

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I see you have embraced entanglement instead of seeing through its illusion. A simple solution is the long abandoned loading theory. The reason everyone is going through such acts of desperation to explain quantum irrationality is that they were baboozeled by their textbooks and much biased coverage. If you look at original data of famous experiments one can see that the loading theory fits just fine.

Please look at what I have on the loading theory: Revealing the coverup, experimental verification for matter and light, theory, history, analysis of famous experiments, predicting new working experiments, first failure of quantum mechanics. What more does one need?

So please give my essay a good rating. Even better, please take actions toward my essay falling in the top 35 in your contest. I suggest a note at the beginning of this contest of my essay being news. It is the only essay that I know of describing an experiment doing fundamental things. I made a note of this idea in B Fosters blog on the essay contest. Another place to visit is my website unquantum.net.

There are two problems: (1) everyone is invested in their pet theory, and (2) my message is hard to take because other experimental physicists need to witness the gamma-ray splitting. However, you can see experimental verification yourself. Any physics lab can read pulse height spectra of Cd-109 gamma-rays or Am-241 alpha-rays. There is an anomalously large pile-up count in the pulse height spectrum at 2x(characteristic pulse height). At this part of the spectrum the coincidence rates exceed chance, killing quantum mechanics. I explain why this effect is not always visible from other radiation sources or detectors.

Begging for mercy already. It has bee 10 years since my experimental breakthrough.

Eric Reiter. Essay: A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory

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Hi Julian

I'm glad to see you flying the Machian flag, and also taking a stand against infinity. I'm with you in both cases.

I find shape dynamics intriguing, and agree with the basic premise that the gravitational degrees of freedom are conformal. I'm struggling with whether they are 3-d or 4-d conformal. I tend to the latter position, but am willing to learn.

Best wishes

george

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MAX PLANK:

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents; it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.

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Dr. Barbour,

thank you for thought provoking essay. I read it today the second time, because of Daniel Waagner Fonteles Alves, whose essay I found more accessible than yours. The concept of shape dynamics is new to me but my immediate instinct is that this is the right way to go.

You write, " A closed geometry is needed to model a universe as a whole. A closed three-geometry is much harder to imagine, but is mathematically possible. "

I happen to visualize 3-geometry very well, even though call it 4D geometry, because I insist on considering not just the 3D surface, but the 4D object as a whole. My approach to physics is visual and, in line with your holistic approach, I see the universe as a hypersphere, on the 3D surface of which we live. I found that this 4D perspective dispels the paradoxes that plague contemporary physics and makes the workings of the universe, from its smallest components to largest structures, appear to make perfect sense.

I especially appreciate your holistic view, because I conceive of space, energy and time as 3 aspects of one and the same, a process, with either one being the expression of the other two. To me it appears that shape dynamics is the best way to model such processes evolving and interacting locally.

I wonder if Alpha shape is a hypersphere -? because, topologically, 4D allows for most symmetries in comparison to all other spaces, and as a space with even number of dimensions, also permits more rotations than the next runner-up, 3D.

I very much hope that you would find time to comment on my essay, even though the ratings are already closed ( http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1547 ) I would very much value your feedback.

Congratulations on making the finalists list!

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Julian

I noticed a reference to a Discover article just now on another blog (Is Einsteins’s work….)

The error Einstein (and indeed most other people) made was to presume there is duration in physical existence. This results in the misuse of x = vt. So, having introduced a non existent variable into physical existence (ie reified time), then that has to be explained. That was achieved via another common error, which is to conflate physical existence with the observation of physical existence. That is, what Einstein explained as being variations in timing because ‘everything is relative’ is the differential in the time taken for light to travel from the point where it was created (ie where physical existence occurred) to the observer.

Without becoming an historian and reading everything, I can track the formal reification of time back to Poincaré and his flawed concept of simultaneity, in narrative form 1898 and in numerical form 1900. He picked up on local time which Lorentz was using by 1895, essentially correctly, after Voigt and Doppler, but associated it with his misunderstanding of simultaneity. In addition they all thought their thinking was correct because the first hypothesis was dimension alteration, a false reaction to Michelson, so the concept that timing devices could not keep ‘proper’ time when being caused to change momentum seemed valid.

Paul

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