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Essay Abstract

It is impossible to give an assured answer to questions concerning the relationship between Information (for example in the form of BITs) and the physical Universe at the fundamental level (IT). Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects. Nor can experimentation resolve such questions: An observer using an imaging instrument such as a telescope or microscope sees only the final image. There is a Cloud of Unknowing obscuring the true nature of Reality because signals carrying information about physical processes at fundamental scales get distorted, dissipated and subjected to noise in the channel or medium they pass through until they are finally observed at macroscopic scales. A similar Cloud obscures Reality when these experimental results are subjected to fallible logical and mathematical analysis. There is a necessity to examine our philosophy of knowing. By their very nature our best theories are merely our best guesses, and there is no guarantee that better theories may not be discovered contradicting present assumptions and/or presenting new ones. Nevertheless speculation and model-making is allowed. In analog computing devices such as the abacus, a bead is both a thing and a number. Reality may be like that at fundamental scales where its physical and informational content can be regarded as one and the same thing. Rather than BITs being the units of such information however, it is more likely that some sort of physical Bloch-Sphere-like QUBITs making up an ether are the building blocks of radiation and matter, and carriers of zero point energy making up the vacuum. In the theory of everything IT=QUBIT may be the paradigm of choice.

Author Bio

Vladimir F. Tamari studied physics and art at the American University of Beirut where he met and was inspired by Buckminster Fuller (around 1960). He invented and built 3D drawing instruments. In the 1980’s he joined the Optical Society of America to keep up with the field and holds U.S. patents for inventions based on his Streamline Diffraction Theory to cancel diffraction in telescopes. Beautiful Universe: Towards Reconstructing Physics From New First Principles (2005) is referred to here. He paints in watercolors and has designed Arabic fonts for Adobe. He has lived in Japan for the past 42 years.

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Vladimir,

As usual, another strikingly beautiful essay! Congratulations. I very much agree that many have "fallen into the trap of confusing our derived knowledge of Reality with Reality itself."

I had forgotten about "the Cloud of Unknowing". I must review it. Your twist on the blind men and the elephant is excellent! I too have an elephant in my essay (not yet posted).

You have excellent insight into reality, from your abacus (hardware/software) to the handprint on the wall.

I am in 100% agreement that "lack of confidence in the absolute existence of Reality" underlies much of the problems in physics, and with your discussion of specifics in the paragraph under figure 2. Figure 3 is also exceptional.

Thanks for writing such an enjoyable and enlightened essay.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 17, 2013 @ 23:10 GMT

Dear Edwin, Many thanks for your wonderful message- I am glad you enjoyed the essay and approve of its conclusions. I look forward to encountering your elephant in your own essay!

With best wishes, Vladimir

Vladimir

“that not only is our knowledge of Reality relative and uncertain, but that Reality itself is relative and uncertain”

While I am not sure this is “unstated”, this is the problem with physics. It is functioning on a misconception as to how physical existence occurs. In the simplest of terms, this ‘new order’ involves the presumption of some form of...

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Vladimir

“that not only is our knowledge of Reality relative and uncertain, but that Reality itself is relative and uncertain”

While I am not sure this is “unstated”, this is the problem with physics. It is functioning on a misconception as to how physical existence occurs. In the simplest of terms, this ‘new order’ involves the presumption of some form of indefiniteness in physical existence. Which cannot be so, otherwise there would not be existence, and difference. That contradiction is then rationalised by increasingly bizarre means, all of which do not correspond with reality. The ‘old order’ was never followed through to its logical conclusion. Had that happened then it would have revealed the state which the ‘new order’ thinks it is addressing, but without the incorrect presumption of indefiniteness. One of these rationalisations being, for example, the role of the observer. The problem with this being that what occurred has already happened, and indeed the observer does not interact with what has happened anyway. So either way, the notion that the observer, or the subsequent processing, can have an effect on the physical circumstance is nonsense.

“Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects”

Not so, or at least it should not be so. Valid information must be representational of something else. I have noticed a theme in these essays whereby everything is being deemed as information, because it informs us. But this is a meaningless definition, since all we have is knowledge. Furthermore, to be valid, and one presumes we are not concerned with invalid information, it must not be “imposed”, but correspond with, albeit that could be at a higher level of conceptualisation than that at which reality occurs.

However, you are correct in stating that there are real difficulties in compiling knowledge of, and effecting experimentation on, physical existence at the existential level. But this has nothing to do with the “philosophy of knowing”. It is a function of the physics of knowing.

We know by virtue of the fact that we (and all sentient organisms, including an alien if he/she visited us) receive physical input. What is physically existent (which includes us) is so, independently of the mechanisms whereby awareness of it is enabled. This includes hypothesis, because to be valid that must adhere to the rules of sensing, otherwise it is just belief. In other words, hypothesis is effectively virtual sensing, it is what could have been directly sensed had it been possible to do so. What this means is that physical existence is all that is potentially knowable to us, and that is underpinned by a physical process.

So we are trapped in an existentially closed system. That is, whilst we can only know what is within this, at least it is knowable. So your comment about “best guesses” is not correct. That only pertains with reference to all possibilities, but we can never know any other possibility. What we are doing is compiling knowledge by comparing knowledge with knowledge, and deeming as valid that which best corresponds with existence as knowable to us at that time (assuming of course valid presumptions and adherence to due process). Now, because we are within a closed system, ultimately we can reach a point where that knowledge can be deemed to be the equivalent of physical existence, ie the caveat of ‘at this time’ can be dropped. We will be aware of this by default, since after sufficient time no new knowledge arises. This is because there is no extrinsic reference available to judge validity.

The practical problems (the equivalent of your Cloud of Unknowing) revolve around the sheer complexity and scale of physical existence at the existential level. Apart from conceiving properly how physical existence occurs (which is a good start!), there is no way in which experimentation is capable of differentiating separate physically existent states. A reality being the physically existent state of whatever comprises it at a given time. Apart from the vanishingly small scales involved, we are, as you say in the Intro, only receiving a representation of it anyway. So we now have the difficulty of unravelling precisely what was received, which was existent of itself whilst being a representation of what occurred, then discerning any physical influence that could have been exerted whilst it was travelling, then understanding the precise nature of the interaction which resulted in it, which thereby reveals what occurred.

Paul

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 12:26 GMT

Thanks Paul,

In writing this essay I waded into yet another area where I was getting to be out of my depth (and learning and trying to understand the while). Just today someone told me epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge.

Anyway I was thinking from your your voluminous writings here and in past contests and other discussions that this subject is something of a hobby horse for you. I am glad for you, but I had better return to the more solid shore of physical theory and computer simulations! Good luck in the contest.

Best wishes, Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 14:56 GMT

Vladimir

“Just today someone told me epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge”

I would not worry about that, philosophy is a complete waste of time. All you have to understand is that physical existence is all that we can potentially know. We can only know what it is possible for us to know, and we cannot externalise ourselves from existence in order to ascertain what it 'is'. And knowing is based on a physical process, ie we receive physical input, which is commonly known as seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Stick with common sense.

Paul

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Hi Vladimir,

Good to see you again participating in this contest!

For now, I just wanted to mention that I noticed an error in your abstract:

"In analog computing devices such as the abacus, a bead is both a thing and a number."

Abacus is not an "analog computing device".

Best wishes,

Lev

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Hi Lev thanks for your comment. I would like to hear a bit more about why you think the abacus is not an analog computing device. How about the slide rule and the Babbage difference engine? What can one call them?

Best wishes, Vladimir

Lev Goldfarb replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 12:29 GMT

Let me give you just two quotes.

1. "What is an analog computer?

Simply, an analog computer is a computing device that has two distinguishing characteristics:

1. Performs operations in a truly parallel manner. Meaning it can perform many calculations all at the same time.

2. And operates using continuous variables. Meaning it uses numbers that that change not in steps, but change in a smooth continuous manner.

By constrast, a digital computer can only perform sequential (one at a time) operations, and operates on discrete (noncontinuous) numbers. "

http://www.cowardstereoview.com/analog/

2. "An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically, as their numerical values change. As an analog computer does not use discrete (exact) values, but rather continuous (approximate) values . . ."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

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Philip Gibbs replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 13:15 GMT

I dont think an analogue computers needs to do parallel computations. It may often be the case, but a slide rules is a good example of an analogue computers that does single operations.

Otherwise I agree with Lev. Abacus and difference engine are mechanical but numbers are represented by discrete digits, so they are digital.

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Paul Reed replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 15:04 GMT

Lev

Physically, there is no such state as continuous. Or at least to be continuous would mean the same state perpetually. For difference to occur there must be discreteness (ie change by steps)

Paul

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Vladimir, it's good to see you in the contest and I congratulate you on a clear and well illustrated essay.

You say that if the message we perceive is distorted then we cannot assume we have the correct answer. To some extent yes but eventually as more information is gathered our certainty increases.

For example, in your elephant picture the blind observers must have been unlucky to find things in just the right places to make it seem like they were touching an elephant. If they carry on they would soon find that the parts do not join up. We can never be absolutely certain but we can increase our certainty to a higher degree. Isn't that good enough?

In Einstein's original formulation of relativity the observer played a role, but when Minkowski reformulated it as geometry the observer was no longer needed. People have tried to reinterpret quantum mechanics to get ird of the observer but without success, yet the world was here before any observers. Was that history an illusion of the observer?

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 14:13 GMT

Thanks Philip Of course you are right; the blind men needed to have known what an elephant was in order to reach their conclusion from the peculiar placement of the onjects they touched. And yes our knowledge does increase concerning smaller and smaller details. My feeling was that the theories should somehow gain sharper focus and unity accordingly.

My objection to Special Relativity is that the assumption of a constant speed of light made observation absolute and the universe (space and time) relative. This was unnecessary- space and time could have stayed absolute but measurement (clock rate, not time, and length of measuring rods, not space) relative and subject to physical Lorentz transformations. In QM the measurement can affect the sytstem randomly, but that does not mean the system was random before the measurement. Hope this makes sense!

Philip Gibbs replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 14:41 GMT

That was Loretnz's view of course. It works but requires a special reference frame that you can't detect. Poincare understood relativity a bit better but still hald a conventionalist view where he thought it was right to choose a reference frame by convention because that is the simplest view. Perhaps that is nearer your position. Nothing wrong with that way of thinking, it is just not the modern view.

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Paul Reed replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 15:23 GMT

Vladimir

Bah, you should have not have said that and set me off!

Leaving aside the fact that SR is not what generally people think it is, the thinking in Einstein which supposedly substantiates the concept of relativity does not involve observation. Because there is no light available for potential observers to observe with. You find me some. Lightening will not do it, unless you want your eyes burnt out. The point being that his second postulate is irrelevant, because he did not use it as defined. All Einstein did was utilise a constant by which to calibrate distance and duration. And for want of something and because he thought this accommodated observation, he described it as light. But it was just a constant, it could have been anything, and it is not observational light. So this whole exercise, including hs own efforts, in squaring light constancy with rate of change is a complete waste of time, because the problem was never there to begin with.

Space and time, ie the rate at which reality alters, are absolute, it occurs independently of us, and definitively so. By conflating existence and the representation thereof (ie light), in failing to allow for observation, Einstein shifted the real time differential which is in the receipt of light from that to the other end of the process, ie deeming it to be a feature of existence itself. This incorrect presumption of indefiniteness is carried through into QM. Measurement cannot “affect the sytstem randomly”, or indeed in anyway whatsoever, because to be able to measure something it has already occurred. Apart from which is observing you receive, ie interact with, light, not what occurred. All this nonsense about observers, etc, is just a device to try and rationalise out the fundamental flaws in the theories.

Paul

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 19, 2013 @ 00:42 GMT

Paul, I wish I had the stamina and ability to explain my views on the observer issue in SR better than I already have, and to respond to your other points inasmuch as I understand them. I will now proceed to your essay page where doubtless exchanges such as the one here with Lev will be given full reign.

Best,

Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on May. 19, 2013 @ 04:11 GMT

Vladimir

But sadly they didn't. So I still await proof that there is observation in Einstein, how observation relates to physical circumstance, or indeed response on other areas of difference. Incidentally, when others started quoting Einstein at me in an attempt to demonstrate that what I was saying was flawed, I put up the first 24 paras of an abridged paper on why he was wrong on my essay blog.

Paul

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 20, 2013 @ 23:41 GMT

Paul

Briefly, and really not wishing to quibble with you about what he actually said, Einstein in effect made the speed of light absolute, and light is the instrument of observation. Space and time then had to be flexible to accomodate this absolute observation. The way I (and many others) see it is that space and time should have remained absolute and the speed of light a maximum but variable.

Hope this helps

Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on May. 21, 2013 @ 04:40 GMT

Vladimir

He did not make the speed of light absolute (or constant) because he did not use light. That is the point. He just deployed a constant, as is necessary to calibrate distance and duration, and chose the speed of light in vacuo, c. He could have chosen any number, it would have made no difference. The presumption for the past 100 years has been that because it is c, then it is observational light. But it is not, because there is no observational light in Einstein. Designating certain entities observers does not make them observers, unless they receive observational light. Otherwise, they are just references.

Which means his second postulate is irrelevant. It is not so much a matter of what he said, literally, but what he did with what he said. So although he did not say it, but did come close to doing so (Einstein para 4 section 9 1916), he effectively asserted that the time differential, which is actually in the receipt of light, to be an innate characteristic of reality. The freak circumstance being that he did not understand timing, so he had a counterbalancing extra layer of time in timing (ie “common time”). This was then followed up with spacetime and then QM with yet more attributions of indefiniteness to reality, rather than to the physical processes whereby we are aware of reality.

So, if this had really been the case, ie that observational light is constant, then as you say, that means the variance has to be in reality (your “space and time”). But as you quite rightly say, this is not the case. And indeed, is not even the case in Einstein, where there is no light. This is a classic example of where if one holds on to what must be true, ie how physical existence occurs, then one finds out what was wrong with a theory that asserts physical existence occurs differently to that. Please do not adjust your television sets we are experiencing problems with the transmission!

Paul

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Lev you are right I should not have used the term analog in reference to the soroban. I have been in Japan too long - here older people who do not use email and the Internet laughingly say of themselves that they are "analog". I guess the term came into use this way because of digital watches and analog ones with hands. I hope my meaning was otherwise clear that the physical bead (it) and the abstract number (information of sorts) were equivelant.

Thanks Philip the slide rule would be analog!

Vladimir,

"I hope my meaning was otherwise clear that the physical bead (it) and the abstract number (information of sorts) were equivelant."

Unfortunately, I can't agree with that. And the reasons for the disagreement are not found in today's physics, but in the area of pattern recognition. The reason is related to the distinction between the class of actual objects (e.g. a class of stars) and its informational representation. It appears that without having a separate "informational" class representation ("description") that is responsible for object generation, it is impossible to justify the regularity, or stability of classes of objects, i.e. why the new stars have the same structure as some of the previous stars, and it seems also impossible to justify/explain induction. (Of course this goes back all the way to Plato and Aristotle.)

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Paul Reed replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 15:38 GMT

Lev

This distinction is false. Every actual object is different from every other actual object (leaving aside that physically there is no such thing as object, but a sequence of physically exisent states which appears to be an object, because certain superficial defining physical features persist over time). So one cannot actually have a 'class', or only of one state

Its...

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Lev Goldfarb replied on May. 18, 2013 @ 15:54 GMT

Paul,

I'm very sorry that you disrespect you *most powerful* (informational) ability to recognize patterns, e.g. to recognize a cat you haven't seen before as a "cat".

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 19, 2013 @ 00:33 GMT

Philip

I wonder if there is a sound mathematical analysis along the lines you describe for Relativity sans the constant speed postulate? I know that some have used doppler wave descriptions of such scenarios. One of them is the late Gabriel LaFrenier whose website was only saved from oblivion by the Wayback Machine on Internet Archives. I wish fqxi will host this invaluable collection of great ideas. In my own analysis (sadly still qualitative) I am convinced that all the results of SR will come out in an absolute discrete ether with a maximum speed c but not necessarily constant.

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Vladimir, I really enjoyed your essay. You manage to juxtaposition your artistic or humanitarian talent with your scientific knowledge in a way that makes us, or rather me, sit up and think over what you have written .

I particularly agree with your observations "Only when such challenges are satisfactorily answered in a consistent theory of everything can the fundamental essay Question about Reality be answered." and "We use our untrammeled imagination and a wide range of mathematical tools to create theories of Reality and are so spellbound with our ideas – our own creations – that we assume Nature has to fit their mold."

I am reminded of Feymann remarks in his Appendix to the Rogers Commission, which investigated the Challenger disaster - "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." and would like to reword it to "For a successful universal theory of nature, reality must take precedence over presumption, for nature cannot be fooled"

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Thank you Anton - I am glad you enjoyed the paper. It was my first venture in 'philosophy' of sorts and I am afraid it shows!

I like your paraphrase of Feynman's quote - indeed nature cannot be fooled..but it often fools us who try to tease out its secrets!

Vladimir,

Your essay is very cogent and insightful, but I still have a problem with the conclusion, one which goes to the nature of the contest question in the first place. I suppose I did not make clear enough that while I paraphrased Marshall McLuhan's equating the medium with the message, I do not agree with it. To me, medium and message are a dichotomy, so to say one is the other would...

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Vladimir,

Your essay is very cogent and insightful, but I still have a problem with the conclusion, one which goes to the nature of the contest question in the first place. I suppose I did not make clear enough that while I paraphrased Marshall McLuhan's equating the medium with the message, I do not agree with it. To me, medium and message are a dichotomy, so to say one is the other would be like saying up=down, or good=bad, or left=right, or night=day. Or more related to the nature of this contest, that node=network.

If I was to paraphrase your conclusion, to make it work for me, I would say, It=Qubits. Remember a qubit simply does not exist, distinct from context.

If I was to paraphrase MuLuhan's quote, I would say; The medium is the message of the previous medium. Much as children are the message of the parents and medium to their children.

In my essay, I didn't say the energy is both medium and message, but that energy is the medium and information is the message.

The problem this raises with the contest question; It from Bit, or Bit from It, is that "it," the "reality," is both information and energy, message and medium, yet "bit" is just information. There is no message without a medium to convey it, as I argued in my essay. Like a dimensionless point, even mathematically it doesn't exist, because it is a multiple of zero. So just like an infinite series of dimensionless points will never add up to a line, since even infinity multiplied by zero is still zero, a reality composed of some platonic realm of information does not physically exist.

So there is no "It from Bit" and "Bit from It" is just the static (in)formation of dynamic processes.

The problem I have with Planck lengths is they are inherently fuzzy, as any further defining distinction would have to be even smaller, thus refuting the premise of "smallest." It goes to the problem of the aforementioned "dimensionless points." We want absolute clarity, but absolute and distinction are contradictory concepts, as at the level of the absolute, there is no distinction. Which is another reason for accepting fuzziness as inherent when trying to make distinctions.

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John

Thank you for your well thought out and expressed comment. The trouble with aphorisms like 'the medium is the message' is that they depend on how one interprets the two words. Perhaps I read that part of your paper a bit hastily and twisted the meaning to my liking. When you say that energy is the medium of course I agree with you, but what sort of energy? And that information is the message - of course, but what sort of information? There is room for maneuvering the definitions to fit whatever sound-bit we choose to use!

To me the only possible conclusion to the fqXi question is It=It . Nature is its own noumenon (a Kantian word I learned yesterday in a line of poetry meaning the thing itself as opposed to how it is sensed as a phenomenon). In the last section of my paper I inserted the It=Qubits to explain my theory about It, knowing that 'qubit' is a mathematical invention of the human mind so It cannot *literally* be a qubit!

Vladimir

John Merryman replied on May. 21, 2013 @ 02:09 GMT

Vladimir,

I certainly agree the most concise expression is that It=It.

The way I distinguish between energy as medium and information as message goes back to my point about time. The physical reality is a sea of "energy." It is moot to call it eternal, since the notion of time really doesn't apply. It is simply physically present. We would describe it as "conserved," ie. neither being created or destroyed. Since it is "energy" and thus dynamic, it is constantly changing. The forms arising from this process are the information. For us, it is the message, because it is how our minds register the energy manifesting its "presence." So if I am to draw a line between what is the energy and what is the information, the energy/medium is that which simply exists, while the information is what is created and dissolved. Has a beginning and end.

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John Merryman replied on May. 21, 2013 @ 02:53 GMT

Keeping in might the very act of absorbing the energy alters its form, so even the destruction of information is a form of information. "You can't have your cake and eat it too."

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John - interesting, thanks. How would you define infiormation if time does not exist as a dimension - as I believe?

John Merryman replied on May. 21, 2013 @ 17:54 GMT

Vladimir,

One of the points I keep making is that perception is inherently subjective. Clarity and distinction require some form of framing from the larger context. Such as with a camera, having to set the aperture, lens, filter, speed, position, direction, etc. Math is abstraction. A generalized view blends details. I went into this a little in the essay, but it goes to the subjective...

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Vladimir,

One of the points I keep making is that perception is inherently subjective. Clarity and distinction require some form of framing from the larger context. Such as with a camera, having to set the aperture, lens, filter, speed, position, direction, etc. Math is abstraction. A generalized view blends details. I went into this a little in the essay, but it goes to the subjective nature of information. It's not as though things do not happen, but that any information about them is incomplete. Consider something as simple as two billard balls hitting each other. How can it be really understood outside of the larger context, how is it perceived from the position of the balls themselves, as opposed to someone watching them. While the reality seems quite objective and clearcut, there is no fully objective view, because even in so simple of a situation, the potential information could go to infinity, as every atom and molecule of the balls, the surface, humidity, etc. plays some part.

So it is a subject that itself could go to infinity.

If I was to suggest some basic necessity for information, it would be that there first has to be some distinction, both within what is being observed and between the observer and the observed. Then there has to be some form of connection in order for these distinctions to be relatable. The connections would have to be more dynamic and the distinctions more static, otherwise any information would be disturbed/lost before it is registered. Light makes a good form of connection, while mass makes good distinctions. Part of the "explaining water to fish" problem.

Obviously this is a broad category, from fleeting thoughts to thousand year old structures. and beyond.

Yet at the stage of the absolute, there is no distinction and so no information, unless viewed from a non-absolute state and then the relationship is not an absolute. Toward infinity, all information blends into white noise. So it is in these relativistic configurations between the extremes.

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Paul Reed replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 04:37 GMT

John

Yes and the factual point I keep making is that "perception" can have no affect on the physical circumstance, which is received, ie it exists independently, and therefore, within the limitations of what we can receive (or hypothesise based on that), it is possible, but difficult in practice, to have a "fully objective view".

Paul

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John Merryman replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 09:41 GMT

Paul,

Yes, within your view of time as a sequence of distinct event, there is no function by which one can affect the future, or change the past, but within my view, where action generates change and thus time, our actions and perceptions are integral to their context.

As for objective, can you know every action, quantum, molecular, distant input, etc. which goes into your every moment?

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Paul Reed replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 16:48 GMT

John

Time is the rate at which the sequence progresses, ie a reality (present) becomes another. You cannot affect the future, it is not there, and you cannot affect the past, it has been and gone.

Re objective. No, nobody ever will, but the potential is there, ie an objective exists. The point is a practical not metaphysical one.

Paul

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John Merryman replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 19:56 GMT

Paul,

You can affect what is happening at this very moment and then the moment will become past. Meanwhile that effect will have consequences in other moments and other situations.

For very practical reasons, we have an inherently subjective perspective, ie, we are not god.

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Paul Reed replied on May. 23, 2013 @ 04:45 GMT

John

No. You cannot physically affect what is happening, because it has happened. What your action does is cause a different happening in the sequence from what would have otherwise occurred. But that is the same for any cause. Whatever prevails (happens) becomes a cause of what happens next, having been itself the outcome of a previous such circumstance. The point is it is not what could have prevailed, but what did, ie there is no future to affect, it is not pre-existent. The only "inherently subjective perspective" is the fact that there is a possibility of an alternative existence to the one we can know of. But since we cannot know of it, then that is irrelevant in science. And we must restrict ourselves to what is knowable, that being a function of an identifiable physical process and not some philosophical ramblings.

Paul

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Vladimir,

I also wanted to ask you about another, more important, statement in your abstract:

"Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects."

Why don't you like an opposite view according to which the "information" in our heads is of the same *nature* as the "information" in the Universe, basically because this is what was 'given' directly (from the very beginning) to the biological evolution?

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Paul Reed replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 04:50 GMT

Lev

I too commented on this sentence in my first post, but your point is not correct either. What is in your heads is a perception of reality, not reality. That is 'out there'. So one can label this perception, especially if it has been verified as knowledge, information, if one wishes, but tat serves no purpose. The point is that any such knowledge, in being designated so, must correspond with reality (as best we are able to know at that time), ie it is the equivalent of reality. We never 'directly access' reality. And no knowledge is being "imposed", it may be a deliberate conceptualisation of reality, rather than a direct definition of it.

Paul

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Lev You make a good point - in an earlier paper I suggested that the brain's co- evolution with nature should allow it to understand the latter.

However that does not square with my essay's 'Cloud of Unknowing' thesis.

Paul has nicely answered here. I can add that our perceived information is 'tainted' by our cultural and biological environment and limitations while in fundamental nature information is pure.

Paul Reed replied on May. 22, 2013 @ 16:42 GMT

Vladimir

Tainted is just another problem to overcome, along with individual capability, in trying to reverse engineer perception in order to discover what was physically received. Which then needs to reverse engineered to ascertain what happened, because what you receive is not what happened.

Paul

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 23, 2013 @ 00:44 GMT

Paul

"Reverse engineer" is what physicists do or should do. That is what I also advocated in last year's fqxi contest paper entitled "Fix Physics!- Reverse Engineer Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and the Standard Model, Get Rid of Outdated Assumptions, Consolidate, and Reconstruct on New First Principles" Easier said than done considering the century of blind adherence to wrong assumptions in physics.

Regards, Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on May. 23, 2013 @ 04:48 GMT

Vladimir

Indeed. If you start off with incorrect presumptions about the nature of physical existence then you are going to reverse up a blind alley!

Paul

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Vladimer,

This is an interesting essay to read. I found the frank admission in the “Absolute Reality and Relative Observers” segment that abstract scientific information is only glorified unrealistic guesswork truly refreshing. As I have pointed out in my essay BITTERS, the Universe can only deal in absolutes. One (1) real Universe can only be eternally occurring in one real here and now while perpetually traveling at one real “speed” of light through one real infinite dimension once. One is the absolute of everything. (1) is the absolute of number. Real is the absolute of being. Universe is the absolute of energy. Eternal is the absolute of duration. Occurring is the absolute of action. Here and now are absolutes of location and time. Perpetual is the absolute of ever. Traveling is the absolute of conveyance method. Light is the absolute of speed. Infinite dimension is the absolute of distance and once is the absolute of history.

An abstract human brain may have abstractly evolved over abstract millions of abstractly counted years from abstract primitive cells made of abstract molecules that were abstractly identical to those making up the rest of the abstract universe, my real unique brain only knows unique once. If I only know unique once, you can only know unique once. Unique cannot evolve. Unique cannot be primitive or fundamental or teachable or purchasable. Unique can only ever be unique once.

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Joe,

Thanks for reading my essay and for your positive remarks. I enjoyed reading your comment. If I were to think of your 'philosophy' in terms of my Fig. 3 experience would be in the little blue squares containing sensed data. Coming to think of it I should have provided one labeled the 'five senses' next to the bewildered physicist.

In your recital of absolutes I stopped at "light is the absolute of speed" which is Einstein's second postulate - the one I strongly disagree with! I will certainly read and rate your essay. For now here is drinking to your health in a glass of bitters.

Vladimir

Joe Fisher replied on May. 23, 2013 @ 15:20 GMT

Vladimir,

Your gracious comments are much appreciated. The main point I wished to make about light was that it must be the absolute of speed only because light is actually the only stationary substance in the Universe. You will note that I did not list an absolute of inertia.

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Quite right too Vladimir.

Joe, light is just a physical entity, but with the evolution of sight we see with it. It does not have any other particular significance in physical existence. It may not be the fastest travelling entity in existence. It certainly does not travel at the same speed in all circumstances, though its starting speed is always the same because it is the result of an interaction, not a collision, ie the speed of that which it interacts with, which then results in a light representation thereof, is irrelevant. And like anything else its speed would remain constant in vacuo, but we do not live in vacuo.

Paul

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Hi Vladimir,

Very interesting essay with beautiful and smart drawings - especially ‘the five blind men and the elephant’. Congratulations!

It seems to me we have a lot in common and only sometimes we use different names. E.g. your ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ is what I call H. Sapiens’ perception. Nature (IT) I call a Platonic entity because we do not have direct access to it but only through our perception (Cloud of Unknowing) etc.

Referring to a cave dweller: since she was not able to explain the nature, she has been inferring the existence of some invisible forces being in charge. The most likely that way religions have been born. At the present time, Newton’s law of gravity (with GR corrections) has been well-established on spatial scales from the order of millimeters out to solar system scale. However at much larger distances all tests have been found to fail. Where Einstein's equations failed, researchers (trying to save them!) have been looking for dark forces (dark energy and matter) to explain the lack of 95.5% (almost all) of the content of universe. Could we therefore consider that belief in dark forces to be a kind of modern religion? Something that cannot be proved or falsified, but the vast majority are believers?

In my opinion looking for the foundations, we should abandon the temple of dark forces and return to the laboratory and the department of mathematics. I would bet the crucial task is to find an appropriate metric, being not only spatial but temporal scale invariant too. Why a metric? I propose the strongest equivalence principle claiming that any interaction is entirely geometrical by nature (that is, the metric alone determines the effect of the interaction). The metric should be foundational in one and the same system from the order of quanta out to the universe itself, for the entire observable time scale and … falsifiable. Obviously assuming that such a metric exists it would change GR and QM.

You claim that Nature and information can be regarded as one and the same thing. I think it depends on definitions of Nature and information. For me both are manifestations of the spacetime geometry so in that sense I would agree. However the lattice of nodes arrayed as in the cluster does not convince me. Maybe this is a good thing that not everyone agree in everything.

And finally I have to refer to Einstein's SR. It indicates that our reference frame is not the one and not the most important one but only a one out of infinity of other reference frames. So I guess Einstein was not so wrong.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 00:52 GMT

Dear Jacek

Just a quick reply to thank you for your kind comments. I notice you have an essay I would like to read it and then comment. Best of luck in the contest! Very briefly in answer to the common metric between GR and QM it might be something like the lattice of nodes in my Beautiful Universe Theory referenced in Section 4 of my paper. Who knows?!

Good luck to you in the contest.

Vladimir

Jacek Safuta replied on May. 25, 2013 @ 18:17 GMT

I have just downloaded your Beautiful Universe Theory. I seems to be interesting...

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 27, 2013 @ 00:51 GMT

Jacek

And I have read your paper on vixra "Spacetime Deformations Theory". I see we share some (but not all) ideas about how to re-start physics from new concepts. Good! Your concept of regarding matter as waves was the leitmotif of the late Gabriel La Frenier - his website is archived here: Matter Is Made of Waves . Please tell people about this great thinker's website because he had some important insights. I agree with you that a physical field density is a key element in gravity. Good luck.

Vladimir

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Dear Vladimir,

I very much enjoyed reading your wonderful, clarifying and funny essay! You definitely make the cloud of unnowing become more transparent. But I cannot agree about the universe being a quantum computer - not even a kind of. As little as it is a kind of hammer. This opinion is a "Baconian Idol" of mine. Perhaps, as such, it adds dust to my personal cloud of unknowing. But I take the risk.

Best regards!

Inger Stjernqvist

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Dear Inger

Thank you for your nice note. Did I say the Universe is a kind of computer ? Hmm maybe I sort of did - but all these are words...because of the Cloud I really do not know - but I do have a "Beautiful Universe" model (it is referenced in section 4 that needs simulation and testing, whatever one calls it. Angels can fly through clouds - are you going to write an essay this year's contest?

Finally What is Baconian Idol? Does it have bad cholesterol?

Best wishes to you!

Vladimir

Inger Stjernqvist replied on May. 23, 2013 @ 20:03 GMT

Dear Vladimir!

Sorry - careless me - for mixing up sort of with kind of. For my "Baconian Idol" (perhaps it has bad cholesterol) see Francis Bacon's Novum Organum Scientium (1640) about how our prejudices (Bacon calls them Idols) stand in the way for our capacity to know; adding to our cloud of unknowing.

Thank you for asking, but no, I'm not going to write any contest essay this year. I'm still busy reading and re-reading essays and conversations from last year, trying to put together a meta-essay about what I learn from it.

My very best wishes to you in this contest!

Inger

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 01:18 GMT

Dear Inger

No need to apologize for 'sort of' and 'kind of' I doubt there is a difference in these expressions! Thanks for the clarification about Francis Bacon. (I always confused the two Bacons, but felt it is not correct to say that Roger Bacon invented the scientific method - it was Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham whose work Bacon knew, it seems, according to Wikipedia).

In my essay I ventured into an area outside my usual interests, but I am glad my thoughts ended up making some sense, even replicating the concept of Francis Bacon's Idols.

There were so many esays last year - I will read yours.

Best wishes to you!

Vladimir

Vladimir: how is your essay's basic point, the "cloud of unknowing", any different from Immanuel Kant's famous distinction in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) between the phenomenal (things as they appear to us) and the noumenal (things in themselves)? As far as I can tell, you're just giving the same argument: that, due to the nature of measurement, we can only know things as they appear to us never how they are in themselves. Am I missing something? If so, what?

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 01:35 GMT

Marcus

I was only marginally interested in philosophy, and as I mentioned in my essay did not think it was relevant to physics (until my recent realization.) Once I half-heartedly audited a philosophy course with Charles Malik in which I made the joke that Zeno, who was a wrestler, "struggled with his thoughts".

So yes my 'Cloud' may very well be the same as Kant's concept. I also just learned from Inger's comment above that it is the same as Francis Bacon's Idols - an idea that preceded Kant's. As you see I go around within my own Cloud of Unknowing, but these discussions help dissipate it here and there - thanks.

Paul Reed replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 04:56 GMT

Vladimir/Marcus

The point here is, irrespective of whether Vladimir is saying that, this distinction is spurious.

We only know of existence as it appears to us. That is, for us, physical existence. We cannot know of it in any other form. Whether there is another form or not. We are trapped in an existentially closed system. And science must concentrate on that, which is manifest to us by a simple physical process, ie the receipt of physical input. So does the brick wall next to you, but that has not been enabled by evolution, to be aware of it, ie subsequently process that. The physical circumstance is the same.

This distinction arises from a confusion as to what constitutes physical existence. It is what is potentially knowable to us. There may be alternatives, because, if A there is always the logical possibility of not-A. But we cannot know what we cannot know. Science is about the knowable, religion, and in many cases philosophy, involve belief.

Paul

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1. Why the bad rep. on S.R.? The theory tries to conserve the laws of nature from one frame to another, not make them subjective. This is the root of that limited theory of constant uniform motion. The Principle of Relativity is not doubted by anyone reasonable. Everything feels like it has a price to it. It's a price I'll pay, even with death.

2. What's so bad about being not absolute? It could be that reality really is not absolute, without this being from derived error (i.e. a triangle not observed doesn't necessarily have 3 straight lines with angles adding up to 180 degrees).

3. About nature dealing only with itself, just because something is self contained, I don't see that as being a reason for saying that's the whole story. That which is unseen is still real.

4. The platform you're building your computer on seems right, about the circular momentum, but the rigidity seems to dodge the real question with strictness.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 03:44 GMT

Dear W. Amos Carine

1- My conclusion is that SR is a brilliant way to describe relativistic effects (Lorentz transformations etc) using one formulation based on a pre-supposed constant c. Many reasonable people such as Lorentz felt SR was unnecessary - it is clock motion not time as a dimension which slows down, and it is meter length not space itself that contracts. SR causes severe unnecessary complications in GR where even Einstein admitted that c slows down in a gravitational field. Finally SR banishes the ether which is now found to be necessary in quantum gravity theories. No need for martyrdom for physics though, whatever we believe is true!

2- Its not a question of good or bad, but which theory, at the end of the day, provides the simplest and most consistent and combines well with others. In order to unify physics SR has to be ditched for a simpler relativity (using doppler effects) derived in an absolute space and no time.

3- We are just bandying words here one needs to define 'real' - I was trying to make a distinction between what we think and what is out there in Nature, but may have expressed it badly.

4- My model is not strictly that of nature-as-computer because there is no 'software' to run it - it runs itself. Glad we agree on the fundamental nature of angular momentum. In fact the lattice is *not* rigid but expands due to dark energy see the details in Beautiful Universe Theory

Best wishes.

W. Amos Carine replied on May. 24, 2013 @ 20:41 GMT

Thank you Sir Vladimir for the replies to my confused probing. After reading your paper that you linked in your reply, I think it's now evident at least that my statement on momentum meant more to you (mathematically and with working familiarity) than I knew at the time. That is the great risk in talking to a mind, one never knows exactly how much lies in there unknown or unexpressed.

With a little fuzz still left after the read.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on May. 25, 2013 @ 02:56 GMT

You are welcome Sir W. Amos

Thank you for reading my rather rambling papers. Do not blame yourself for feeling a little fuzzy. My Theory is very much a mostly qualitative work in progress. I have faith in the effectiveness of the node gyrations to explain gravity, e=mc^s etc. it needs to be presented systematically and the appropriate math developed. There are vast tracts of modern physics I do not understand at all, or understand only through writing addressed to the layperson so its OK to feel fuzzy. Yes there is risk in communications online - at least these days one can reasonably assume there is a human being at the other end. In a few years one will need to be careful it is not a computer providing the feedback!

Vladimir F. Tamari,

"Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects."

After reading your essay, I think that you say more than this sentence reflects. However, each time I read it, I question why you said it in your introduction. It reads like a conclusion. Yet, it suggests to me that you are not speaking about nature's information but,...

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Vladimir F. Tamari,

"Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects."

After reading your essay, I think that you say more than this sentence reflects. However, each time I read it, I question why you said it in your introduction. It reads like a conclusion. Yet, it suggests to me that you are not speaking about nature's information but, rather, about interpretation.

"Information about Reality, including BITs, is an artificial concept obtained by sentient observers who sample Reality (IT) using various very limited aspects of it through the senses or scientific instruments. This imperfect input is processed through various neurological, logical and mathematical means to form a concept, idea or image of the original. Fundamental Reality is diluted, distorted or lost. The process is exemplified by an optical imaging situation where the object (Reality) emits or reflects light (Information) to create an Image. In the case of an ideal lens the image is almost identical to the object, but most other situations involve imperfect instruments and fallible human perception and understanding. The image is often imperfect, and its interpretation heavily biased by the cultural, philosophical or even religious beliefs and preconceptions of the time."

Could you please give your opinion of this statement of mine: I think that this may be viewed in a different manner giving the opposite conclusion. The information we receive arrives in a storm of wildly mixed photons from innumerable sources and directions. The lenses and other interrupting devices do not, I think, pass on images. They pass on an alterred arrangement of that mix of photons. It is the processing that our minds do to it that draws a possible image out of the mix and forms it into a picture. I see that picture as being most usually an improvement of the information that was received. Our minds choose what to make of the information and proceed to make it.

You mentioned intuition in another part of your essay. What is 'intuition' in your view?

"Nature and information can then be regarded as one and the same thing. The state of the nodes on the surface of a volume of such nodes is the result of interference-like effects of all the nodes within, affirming the Holographic Principle. Another way of putting it is that the Universe is a sort of quantum computer. In this paradigm the Question can be readily answered: In the Universe it is neither IT from BIT nor BIT from IT, but rather IT=QUBIT."

The first part "Nature and information can then be regarded as one and the same thing. ..." seems to me to be questionable. Particles generate information and that information is delivered to us. The particles are not the information. I think you mean something other than what I read into your words. I know your paragraph is explaining your view, but, I don't see how it fits with nature. Nature no doubt computes but it cannot be a computer. Nature has the property of 'understanding'.

I have expressed opinions of mine, but, it is your opinion I am interested in reading. Whatever you think about what I have said would be appreciated to learn.

James Putnam

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Dear James

Thanks for your careful reading of my paper. Frankly the subjects I chose to tackle in it are new to me and outside my usual areas of interest or expertise, but I found them interesting enough to try to complete the paper as I did. So it may be inconsistent or badly phrased in places. However I was later told that the Cloud in my essay is no different from Kant's concept of the difference between phenomenon and noumenon!

You said "It is the processing that our minds do to it that draws a possible image out of the mix and forms it into a picture. I see that picture as being most usually an improvement of the information that was received. Our minds choose what to make of the information and proceed to make it. You mentioned intuition in another part of your essay. What is 'intuition' in your view?"

Very true and I think you answered yourself in the last sentence - it is our innate sense of intuition - some ability to reach logical conclusions about the world ? that sorts through the messy information and makes sense of it in ideas and theories. Is intuition due to inheritance or to upbringing and experience...?

""Nature and information can then be regarded as one and the same thing. ..." seems to me to be questionable. "

Right..I think I was describing the gadgets such as the soroban, the slide rule, and in a similar vein, my Beautiful Universe erector-set-like model of the Universe. What *actually* happens in Nature is something else and subject to the hazy influence of the Cloud.

I wish I had the stamina to go into this more deeply - I will see if you have an essay and if so will read it.

With best wishes

Vladimir

Vladimir,

I love your 'cloud of unknowing'. Great essay, particularly as it extend what I'd assume is your main comfort zone. I particularly liked; "Experimental and theoretical knowledge and information about Nature should not be confused with Nature itself." Very similar to my own point about maths and statistics.

I also picked out;

"in arrogance and short-sightedness we have fallen into the trap of confusing our derived knowledge of Reality with Reality itself

"...misconceptions can easily arise even from correct data"

"...a Cloud of Unknowing obscures both the process of experimental observation of Reality and in thinking and creating theories about it."

"...Taking a hint from Shannon's Information theory it is useful to think of the Information about the subject as passing from Nature to the observer through an information channel. There is always the possibility of noise distorting the information as it is transferred from its original manifestation to a sensor, retina, (including the paraphernalia of data processing in a brain) or computer."

Excellent stuff. (and all consistent with my proposed new law I think?)

Peter

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Paul Reed replied on Jun. 4, 2013 @ 07:03 GMT

Peter

We only have knowledge of, we do not have any 'direct access' to reality. The issue is whether the knowledge compiled corresponds with what is knowable. Physical existence being what is potentially knowable to us, which is the function of a physical process. We may never achieve it, but that is a practical matter. The point is, if proven to correspond, which will be by default, ie nothing new arises after many years of further investigation, then all we can say is that the knowledge is the equivalent of existence as manifest to us.

Paul

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Thanks Peter for your generous response to my essay. Indeed it was off my usual well- trodden path but It finally dawned on me how important it was to examine not just what we know but how we know it. I kick myself for not including the input of the five senses in the illustration!

Good luck with your new law.

Check out the Itsy Bitsy song on YouTube thats of my generation!

All the best

Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on Jun. 4, 2013 @ 07:05 GMT

Vladimir

Do not fret, because there are more than 5 senses anyway. Physical existence is not just the preserve of human beings. Any sense of any sentient organism is relevant.

Paul

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 4, 2013 @ 11:31 GMT

Thanks for your sensible comments Paul - also for a witty one I noticed recently about reversing into a blind alley.

Vladimir

Vladimir,

Nice looking essay. "An observer using an imaging

instrument such as a telescope or microscope sees only the final image". Rang close to my heart, because the fundamental theory I am working on (not included specifically in my own essay here), also suggests that reality is a result of Quibits - specifically geometric asymmetries, that relies on the observers unique frame.

Great work - well done!

Antony

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Thanks Antony for your kind words. Yes qubits of some kind seem to lurk at the zero point vacuum. However I am committed to a frameless observationless physics. By getting rid of the ether and making observation absolute (c is constant) Einstein condemned physics to go on an unnecessary detour that made general relativity unnecessarily complicated. Relativity is perfectly possible in an absolute medium.

Wish you all the best in your research.

Vladimir

Paul Reed replied on Jun. 6, 2013 @ 06:14 GMT

Vladimir

c was just a constant, and he explained it as a ray of light. It was not observational light, just a ray. Later it was lightening, which is seriously difficult to see with! There was no observation in Einstein. You find me an example. What he said he was doing, and thought he was doing, is irrelevant, it is what he did which matters.

There is no relativity in physical existence. The 'relativity', or more precisely, variance in timing, is in the receipt of light, which although existent in its own right, is a representation of the reality which occurred. And that occurred in a definitive discrete physically existent state.

Paul

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Antony Ryan replied on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 19:31 GMT

My pleasure Vladimir,

Very original thinking.

Best wishes,

Antony

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Hello, dear Vladimir!

You always write great essays! And most importantly - give beautiful drawings. "The truth is to be drawn ..." (A.Zenkin. "Scientific counter-revolution in mathematics"). You are right: «There is a necessity to examine our philosophy of knowing. By their very nature our best theories are merely our best guesses, and there is no guarantee that better theories may not be discovered contradicting present assumptions and / or presenting new ones. »Good luck in the contest! Regards, Vladimir

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Dear Vladimir

Nice to address another Vladimir!

Thanks for your encouraging comments about my essay. It was new territory for me . Now having looked into this aspect of physics, I respect philosophers much more than I did before!

I will read your essay soon. Good luck to you too.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Thanks a lot for your kind words.

Seems like we are thinking much in the same direction, and after reading your essay I am even more convinced that the top-bottom approach most commonly used will fail to uncover everything that is to know about the universe due exactly to the cloud of unknowing. Using a bottom-up approach could be used as a possibly much needed "reboot" of the field giving the oppertunity to both build up physics without the constraints of the accepted view, which by all means is mainly exellent and brilliant science, and in addition give the possibility to view this physics with much less of our everyday intuition clouding our view. And I especially like your view of writing and reading information. I believe that this view can help us understand quantum mechanics in a less confused way.

Respectfully,

Kjetil

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Dear Kjetli,

Thank you - yes a 'reboot' of the field is what is needed. That was exactly the subject Fix Physics of my essay for last year's contest.

As you say much of current physics is "exellent and brilliant science" because somehow theoretical premises predict and confirm experiment. Many of us protesting the situation however feel that the foundations on which this science is built are physically unrealistic and lead to dead-ends and to mistaken views as well as to the brilliant successes.

The hardest part of this rebooting is to convince people to recognize that ideas like a constant speed of light, that gravity is due to warped spacetime, that the photon is a point particle, and that probability is a property of the zero-point vacuum are embedded in the Cloud of Unknowing. They may well be physically wrong, as my alternative model points out. Unfortunately I do not have the training and resources to prove my ideas to the satisfaction of the mainstream. But I am trying!

With best wishes for your work.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

A well written and nicely illustated essay.

I completely agree with you that "it from qubit" is a much better view of at least part of the universe as I develop in my own essay

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789

There is a cloud of unknowing due to very basic nature of quantum measurements we are allowed to perform. The general idea of contextuality, ecompassing quantum contextuality, would be that one can only be aware of what is compatible with our questions, and the latter follow from our restricted knowledge. This idea can be given a quite rigorous mathematical form for qubits.

My best regards,

Michel

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 19, 2013 @ 01:54 GMT

Dear Michel

Thank you for your kind message, and I am happy it has made some sense to a person of your high level of achievement - I can only express my ideas more or less qualitatively - it is my own personal Cloud of Unknowing! The reason I advocate qubits is that they are spherically symmetric, as are the nodes of my Beautiful Universe Theory (BU) . Normally Qubits are regarded as manifestations of an abstract Hilbert space of infinite dimensions. It recently occurred to me that these 'dimensions' can be understood as directions extended beyond the qubit in the universal lattice - each extension normal to a 'slice' of the lattice - Hilbert space made physically manifest in 3D as in Fig. 31 of the (BU) paper regarding Heisenberg matrices.

I still need to understand your concept of contextuality to see if I have misunderstood your basic premises.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir F. Tamari

Unfortunately, your essay is too large for self-service capabilities of my computer, but I agree with " ABSOLUTE REALITY AND RELATIVE OBSERVERS ".

I also believe that:REALITY Of course ABSOLUTE.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 19, 2013 @ 02:09 GMT

Dear Hoang cao Hai

Thank you for your message. Sorry the illustrations in my essay made it into about 1.4 MB file. I prepared a 226 kb. version of the essay that I can email to you if you wish.

Yes reality is absolute!!

With best wishes

Vladimir

Hoang cao Hai replied on Jun. 19, 2013 @ 03:23 GMT

Please send to : hoangcao_hai@yahoo.com

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Hello Vladimir,

I believe I am qualified to comment on your essay in a helpful way. My first ever essay to this forum was submitted late last week and should appear sometime this week; hopefully. The title of my essay is "Hierarchical Space-Time", and I use my understanding of cognitive mechanics to "project a different vision of the Cosmos" and a potential solution which I think you will appreciate. I will let you decide if my advice is worth taking.

I suggest that you think of "lattice" as a "coordinate system", and then think of the fundamental building blocks of the "ether", i.e. local-signs, and as something more fundamental then a qubit. At the heart of a qubit is a field derived from matter, or matter itself, and as you said yourself, you are looking for the stuff from which matter is made. I think Edwin Klingman would agree with me when I say that our understanding of qubits is appalling, this because we have built a map from a map which itself is potentially derived from the mirage which is our understanding of particle-wave duality. I would suggest you think of the Michelson Morely experimental results as being based on a flawed premise and look to philosophy and logic for an alternative, something which you have already started. And while I think you should look beyond the qubit, I think you are looking in the right direction.

Good Luck.

Zoran.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 19, 2013 @ 06:40 GMT

Dear Zoran

I look forward to your essay and wish you luck in the contest. Of course what you say makes sense if you think of quibit as some sort of particle...I added the qubit appelation to my posited universal building block as an afterthought because it has 'spherical degrees of freedom ' and its mathematical properties immediately equate the stuff of the universe with its quantum properties - please read my response to Michel above about a similar point. I wrote:

"The reason I advocate qubits is that they are spherically symmetric, as are the nodes of my Beautiful Universe Theory (BU) . Normally Qubits are regarded as manifestations of an abstract Hilbert space of infinite dimensions. It recently occurred to me that these 'dimensions' can be understood as directions extended beyond the qubit in the universal lattice - each extension normal to a 'slice' of the lattice - Hilbert space made physically manifest in 3D as in Fig. 31 of the (BU) paper regarding Heisenberg matrices."

Best wishes

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

I have read your article and your site also. You has presented beautifully and artistically formated work. There are many attractive ideas also. But I want be honest with you and tell you what I am thinking. Your work is nice essay only and no more in my view. I am so sorry, but ideas and hypotheses in physics are imputed a lot of and this process continues with non stop. But It just corresponds to a trivial method of test-error that can not be seen as right way in science my dear!

I suggest to try opposite way i.e. try to clean the science from what is possible to remove! I have gone on this way and have got to a terrible thing - in the physics remain absolutely nothing but only quant of field, that can explain all! I mean as conceptually and by quantity - in same time!

Best wishes to you!

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 19, 2013 @ 03:06 GMT

Dear George

Thank you for your kind comment and frank friendly opinions. Yes I agree with you my work is only qualitative. I am now working hard - within my capabilities - to write programs to simulate my 'Beautiful Universe' model.

Your ideas are fully supported by mathematical analysis, but it is hard to know how the essential electron you posit fits with the rest of physics - it needs more study. In my work I too posit one type of building block, and I show how from its interactions with neighboring blocks many phenomena can be explained. A solid mathematical description like yours would be great.

There is lots of room in physics for detailed solid analysis of specific hard-headed ideas like yours, and also for speculative necessarily incomplete model-making like mine.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,

Your proposed universal lattice of qubits has a lot in common with a Higgs condensate based on quaternions. Qubits and quaternions are both represented by two complex numbers u and v. A quaternion can be considered to be made from a qubit (u,v) as well as its twisted complement (-v,u*), explicitly carrying both true and false conditions. Just how these might operate as a computer that decides where matter exists is mystery of course.

Qubits can be displayed using the Bloch sphere. There are ways to visualize quaternions through their spectra which is the subject of my essay.

The word 'condensate' evokes an image of evenly spaced droplets either on a surface or as a cloud - quite apt considering the title of your essay.

Cheers,

Colin

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 21, 2013 @ 01:49 GMT

Dear Colin

Thank you for your very interesting response to my paper. Over the years my initial ideas of a vacuum structure made up of bipolar spinning building blocks have been confirmed in my mind - for example by a recent realization that the crystal like lattice has an infinite number of directions that can be traced to ever-further nodes from any one node - which I suppose can be interpreted as dimensions in a Hilbert space.

I have read and commented on your highly technical but beautifully written and illustrated fqxi essay paper. I found it gratifying that you associate a Higgs condensate with the type of lattice I envision. In my Beautiful Universe theory matter consists of nodes locked by (+- and -+) magnet-like attraction spinning in place and activating resonant spins in the surrounding nodes, forming its infinite gravitational field. When the particle acquires inertia and moves it pushes the field in front of it - much like the way I have recently heard the action of the Higgs interpreted. It is a Mach-like interpretation, but istead of stars the affecting objects are the tiniest vacuum units.

I have only recently come to grips with how qubits actually operate - through auditing an edx online course CS191x QM and quantum computation you might find interesting. I could intuitively understand how the nodes rotate in a Bloch sphere and influence neighboring ones, but wish I had your sophisticated math to describe their workings more convincingly.

With best wishes

Cheers indeed

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Mean while, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest.

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

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Thank you Sri Sreenath I have read and will comment and rate your interesting essay.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Thanks for going through my essay. When a scientific theory has the power to clearly explain all facts concerning a physical phenomenon and even predict some hitherto unknown facts and these are subsequently verified, is it not describing reality? But then what is reality according to you. If a theory is constructed adhoc and can explain only a limited number of facts connected to a phenomenon then you are right in rejecting it; but if it has the above mentioned power, you got to accept it as long as it contradicts no known fact. It is true that reality is having many facets and it is the task of science to find them. If GR and QM have succeeded in their task, why can't we trust them?

Regarding storing information, if according to the widely accepted theory of 'big bang' the mass of the whole universe was squeezed to a dimension 25 orders of 'magnitude' smaller than that of an atom (Planck's length), why can't the information of the whole universe too be squeezed at least to the dimension of an atom? More over, information is not like mass/matter and there is no reason why it can't be stored in smaller and smaller areas as technology progresses.

I have gone through your essay once, but I want to go through it one more time before I post my comments and which I will do in a day or two.

Best of luck,

Sreenath.

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Dear Sreenath I see you have posted here a copy of your reply to me on your own page. Although this could get confusing I will do the same and duplicate my response here:

In my essay I described how all our knowledge and theories are separated from Reality by a cloud of unknowing. I stressed that precisely because of the overwhelming attitude of physicists these days of accepting elements...

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Dear Sreenath I see you have posted here a copy of your reply to me on your own page. Although this could get confusing I will do the same and duplicate my response here:

In my essay I described how all our knowledge and theories are separated from Reality by a cloud of unknowing. I stressed that precisely because of the overwhelming attitude of physicists these days of accepting elements of Einstein's Relativity (flexible spacetime, fixed speed of light ) and of QM (probability) and elevating these concepts to actual unquestionable and complete physical truths about Nature. They are nothing of the sort. Yes they work in their own ways, but in other ways they not contradict each other. QM needs a vacuum structure (the Higgs field?) but Special Relativity cancelled the aether. SR assumes a fixed speed of light, but (as Einstein himself admitted) GR requires a variable speed of light. QM is full of strange, weird, magical explanations that totally contradict experience. I suggest a more realistic explanation (see below). The photon is supposed to be a point particle, but Eric Reiter showed it is not. The list can go on.

Relativity can be expressed through Lorentz transformations where clocks slow down (not time as a dimension) and measuring sticks (not space as a dimension) contracts . GM can be expressed without SR as a density gradient in space. In QM Born's probability interpretation is just that - a mathematical convenience that is not derived from actual physical observation. One can go on saying "but every QM measurement is probabilistic". True but there is another interpretation of QM where probability emerges from an exquisite crystal-like order of the Universe. I have such a theory: Beautiful Universe suggesting such an approach.

Now I understand what you meant about the Big Bang 'atom' and the information of the Universe. I thought you were talking about one single atom in AD 2013! Forgive the misunderstanding.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

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Sreenath B N replied on Jun. 25, 2013 @ 17:10 GMT

Dear Vladimir,

Thanks for your inciteful essay. According to you, the object (reality or Nature) is absolute in nature and exists in itself, and it cannot be known by the subject (mind) completely as there exists 'a cloud of unknowing' between the subject and the object. I want to know, how far a subject can know about an object by squeezing this 'cloud of unknowing?' so that we can have a much better knowledge of reality. I, sincerely, hope that you know answer and I want to know it.

In the end of your essay, you are idetifying Nature with Information. Are these two views compatible? If, yes, I want to know how?

Besides yourself being a physicist and a philosopher, you are also a 'gifted artist'. Your art work is very impressive and helps in conveying your thoughts to any one with ease.

I will give you maximum score that you can expect from me.

Best of luck in the contest.

Sreenath.

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Dear Sreenath

In a way my past essays were more inciting - urging people to think in drastic new ways. This present essay may have more insights about the need to recognize the limitations of theoretical knowledge. Clear incisive thinking about the basics of the field is now needed more than ever.

The way to squeeze the Cloud of Unknowing is to squeeze one's brain, examining not only presently accepted theories but alternative theories, as well comparing those theories with experimental results..that is how the scientific method worked to expand knowledge of reality. Unfortunately most established physicists are content to parrot what has been done before, and do not make the big effort needed to 'start all over' as Einstein himself suggested may be necesary.

By saying It=Qubit I was only describing a model of Nature, not Nature itself, which as the essay explains, remains unknowable except by partial and cumulative experimentation, theorizing, building ideas and destroying them as the case may be. Knowledge, i.e information is a human entity that is a way to model Nature, but is not identical with Nature itself. It also depends on how one defines these words.

I am no philosopher, but thanks for appreciating my art. Are you an academic in physics?

With thanks and best wishes

Vladimir

The PDF of my essay THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING & THE ITSY QUBITSY UNIVERSE posted in fqxi ommitted an important point in Figure 3: The input of the 5 senses. Those who wish can download the essay with a revised Fig. 3 from this link .

Dear Vladimir,

First, congratulations on your current high placement in the contest.

I downloaded the new Fig 3, and agree with the inclusion of the five senses. As you know I end my essay with discussion of the 'awareness' of reality, not just abstract 'theories' of reality, but literally 'sensing' reality. The fact that illusions can sometimes fool us does NOT mean that our senses are ALWAYS fooled.

Also, I noticed in your comment to Georgina that you are reading Gravity's Rainbow. I agree that the novel is not for everyone, but I have read it three times! And if you like the kind of mind Pynchon exhibits, I would also recommend David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest".

Finally, as I suggested in my first comment above, I'm glad you liked my elephant.

Best Regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 02:46 GMT

Thank you Edwin - ah the vanities of placement in the contest ... but its fun participating, meeting people like you and Georgina with interesting ideas and sensibilities - like our both liking Pynchon (and philosophical pachyderms). This is the first book of his I read and I will check out Wallace many thanks.

I tend to agree with you that our senses are very clever - human vision for example can reach important conclusions about things in space, even though it is inherently 'unrealistic' - seeing faraway things smaller than those nearby.

Best wishes

Vladimir

Dear

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon.

So you can produce material from your thinking. . . .

I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The...

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Dear SNP

Thank you for your kind message - in this essay I was tackling a 'philosophical' question of how we know things - it is a new field for me. My usual interests are expressed better in my last year's essay "Fix Physics".

I will surely study your essay and comment about it.

Wit best wishes

Vladimir

Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 28, 2013 @ 14:43 GMT

Thank you Vladimir,

It is a very good topic, you are discussing - - - philosophical question of how we know things- - -

I will come back to you through mail, and discuss with you in detail.

Best wishes for the contest

=snp

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Thank you for your suggestion on Eddington idea (I did not know it), and the BU model.

Usually I wait the end of the community voting to comment the essays (the person are ingenuous, and I don't want influence nobody: but I real all, and voted all), but sometime happen a tsunamy of ideas that I must throw down (so happen for D'Ariano essay: you see the convergence of cybernetics, relativity, quantum gravity and phylosophy).

I like the idea that there is a exchange between science and art, I think that can be like the philosophy: we use it in the everyday life, because the good ideas spread in the civilty (slowly or quickly), some other time are lost forever.

I like ever your scientific painting: have the differential equation and the picture the same expressive power?

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 00:27 GMT

Dear Dominico thank you for your encouraging words. I will read your essay and comment about it there.

"Thank you for your suggestion on Eddington idea (I did not know it)"

You are welcome - your comment is related to our interesting discussion on d'Ariano's essay page:

D'ORRECIO: I am thinking that a curvature space, in this lattice, can be simple: an artificial delay in each point of lattice can reproduce a curvature space; so can be obtained the Einstein field equation in a lattice with delay?

TAMARI: The 'an artificial delay in each point of lattice' Exactly!! That means a slower speed of light (a natural result of curvature, as Einstein himself admitted, contradicting his SR.) Eddington(1920) suggested treating the gravitational field as an optical medium with a gradient index of refraction. With that, and forgetting about SR because Lorentz transformations occur naturally in an absolute lattice, GR reduces to a ridiculously simple theory. I adopted this idea and incorporated it into my 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory .

Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 00:36 GMT

Dear Domenico I forgot to add this interesting reference from my (BU) paper about a gradient index of refraction experiment, demonstrating the Hamiltonian Analogy between light and gravity. In this paper it is mentioned that a renown Italian physicist said the H.A. goes back to an idea to Al-Hasan Ibn Al-Haytham.

Ambrosini, D., et al, Bouncing Light Beams and the Hamiltonian Analogy Eur. Journal of Physics. 18 (1997) 284-289

Domenico Oricchio replied on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 10:26 GMT

Thank you Tamari.

Galileo write the first differential equation (the principle of inertia is a too simple differential equation), when he write the law of free fall using a translation of the numerical data in a mathematical form: the formulation is in words, but it is the first time that Aristotele's philosophy is defeated by the reality of the thing.

If the Physics write differential equation from numerical data, then I tried to write a computer program to write differential equation from reality (Galileo, or Asimov, or Tolstoy idea); it work sometime: the differential equation are the optimal approximation of the reality; they are better of each numerical series, because they include all the series (we use the numerical series to solve the differential equation).

The beautiful thing is that the differential equation are surface in the derivative space (the Harmonic oscillator is a plane, but is also a cylinder, or a sphere in y, y', y''), then some physical law are surface (if you draw the evolution of a system then visually you can write the differential equation, and you make physics).

Yes, I try to write the differential equation for each iso-entropic differential equation, using a grid of point, and when the grid tend to continuous I write the differential equation of the iso-entropic flow (for each system).

I use only C for my programs (it is quickly and robust), but it is necessary some time for learning it; but it is the kernel of many other language (and operative system).

I think that the thechnological singularity is near, this is the reason of my care.

When I write my essays, then I ask ever my brothers if they are interesting: if I write for they, I write for all.

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Hi Vladimir,

Just a quick note to let you know I found yours a beautifully written and illustrated essay. A very relevant theme and enjoyable read. I have not come across "the cloud of unknowing" before so I really appreciate being given the reference. Good to see it generating lots of discussion too.

Best of luck Georgina

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Thank you for your nice message Georgina (or George were you one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five.) Your comment about the illustrations is the more appreciated coming from you as you have have done a nice job of illustrating your own lucid and interesting essay.

Best of luck Vladimir

Vladimir,

Well done and quite lucid.

"In the Universe it is neither IT from BIT nor BIT from IT , but rather IT=QUBIT."

Isn't this another way of affirming the Anthropic Principle of Wheeler, saying "it" is superposition?

Jim

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Thanks Jim

The Anthropic Principle? Hmm..I do not think so.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

I feel much glad to discuss with you again.

The cloud of unknown is due to the inconsistency of observational information that is probabilistic rather than realistic. As the nature of information is continuum, the universe is not observational in reality with particle scenario. Even with string-matter continuum scenario, only near-reality observation is plausible as detection of information with IT. As discrete choice is integral of any numeral system, mathematical constrain is inevitable to detect observational information in continuum. Thus there are human limitations to substitute biological observation noumenon, as it is within the system of absolute reality of observational information, in that information continuum is observational with multiple parallel observers to perceive in absolute reality.

With best wishes

Jayakar

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Dear Jayakar,

You say "The cloud of unknown is due to the inconsistency of observational information that is probabilistic rather than realistic." This statement puts the cart before the horse: theoretical considerations and inconsistent explanation of the "point photon" and "wave particle" led to Born's probabilistic theory. Observation as such is always, in a sense, 'realistic' not probabilistic, since it involves analyzing readouts from sensors, photographs etc. which is straightforward.The interpretation of such sensing follows probabilistic guidelines because of the prevailing habit of thought. I will read your essay and comment on your page about some of the other points your raise.

Best wishes

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

I just read your essay it was a smooth read and I enjoyed the twist on the blind men and the elephant. I think that parable may have some truth to it.

Your illustration on special relativity immediately reminded me of a book, called "Relativity Visualized", by Louis Epstein. Although I take it that you don't care much for special relativity, I'd like to ask you to consider obtaining this book (Perhaps your local library has a copy?) and giving it a try.

I believe that as an artist, you would find that it is right up your alley. It has almost no equations but explains relativity using pictures in a way that is frankly unmatched in clarity by any other relativity book I know. I would recommend this book to any physics student, no, anyone who wants to get a more intuitive grasp of relativity. But don't take my word for it, e.g. read the amazon reviews. In one section he uses diagrams similar to yours to show that the reason that time and space measurements are relative between moving observers is that the four-dimensional interval is absolute. Four-dimensional spacetime is fundamental, but our sensory organs are limited so that we can only perceive individual 3-D slices "at a time", but the slicing is arbitrary (i.e. relative between observers).

Your third figure nicely illustrated your main point regarding the cloud of unknowing. Somehow it reminded me of Pierre Duhem's hypothesis (if you are not familiar with it, you should look it up).

Finally I must admit that I do not understand the equation BIT=QUBIT. Each has a precise meaning, and I cannot Imagine any possible way that both could mean the same thing. Did you redefine the terms? If you meant them in the way that they usually are used, I'm afraid you are going to have to present a mathematical proof, otherwise it will be regarded as false.

I hope you found my comments useful.

All the best,

Armin

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Dear Armin

Thank you for your nice message. I immediately checked out the book "Relativity Visualized" - it is even available to be read online, and appears to be an excellent graphical way to described Special Relativity (SR). But that is the whole trouble with it - it is based on absolute space-time intervals.

Based on thinking about it and reading the thorough analysis of modern dissident physicists like the late Gabriel La Frenier , I have long ago concluded that Einstein was wrong to set (c) constant) and thereby banish the ether. Given an ether medium and Lorentz transformations, SR results are explained without the unrealistic ideas of expanding time and compressing space as dimensions. This becomes even more logical if the ether is discrete as in my Beautiful Universe theory Beautiful Universe Theory also found here. Einstein himself realized that SR was wrong inasmuch as that light speed slows down in General Relativity. And in his 1920 Leyden lecture Einstein reconsidered the ether as a significant idea.

I wish I had the stamina and mathematical mind of my late friend Gabriel, whose website was deleted upon his death, but fortunately was preserved in the Internet Archives link given above.

I have looked at Durhem's Wikipedia page. It says "Duhem argues that it is important for the theologian or "metaphysician" to have detailed knowledge of physical theory in order not to make illegitimate use of it in speculations." - one should tell that to the advocates of spring theory and the multiverse.

Armin, nowhere in my essay do I claim that BIT=QUBIT perhaps you misunderstood IT=Bit-or-Qubit in the caption of Fig. 4 where I meant It is either Bit or Qubit.Thanks for pointing this out the confusing phrasing.

With thanks

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for your response. Ultimately, the future will tell whether an aether theory will prevail over SR, but I don't think the prospects are good for the aether to ever come back in an established way.

The major reason why I personally think that special relativity is the correct description of our world is actually different from most other people's reasons. I...

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Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for your response. Ultimately, the future will tell whether an aether theory will prevail over SR, but I don't think the prospects are good for the aether to ever come back in an established way.

The major reason why I personally think that special relativity is the correct description of our world is actually different from most other people's reasons. I believe that standard special relativity holds within its domain already the seeds for understanding how the phenomena described by special relativity (not general relativity though) and those described by quantum theory can be given a unified description. Modern quantum field theory is already based on SR+QT but it takes each already individually as a given. What I mean by "unified description" on the other hand is something deeper, namely I believe that eventually SR and QT will be both derivable from the same set of axioms. Under our current worldview, we are very far from such a realization.

Should you be interested to know what those "seeds" are, I invite you to take a look at the following paper: Do Photons exist in space-time?

I recently gave a talk in Sweden in which I tried to put these findings in a context where it becomes more obvious that they may well be consistent with what quantum mechanics tells us about nature. I will upload the talk soon on youtube, but the slides, which are very easy to read, are already online . The talk concludes with a visual argument, I must admit I am not sure how many of the physicists in attendance "got it" but since your visual sensibilities are presumably more refined, you may understand it immediately.

Anyway, just a couple of other comments on your response. When I mentioned Duhem, I meant specifically this thought attributed to him: "Duhem's name is given to the under-determination or Duhem-Quine thesis, which holds that for any given set of observations there is an innumerably large number of explanations." (Wikipedia) That is because the chain of events from the occurrence of the experimental outcome to its manifestation in some experimental measurement apparatus contains a virtually infinite number of auxiliary hypotheses, and if the predicted result is not obtained, it may mean not that the theory was wrong but that one of the auxiliary hypotheses was false. This is what your diagram reminded me of.

Concerning the equation, yes I checked and realized that I misunderstood. Sorry about that.

All the best,

Armin

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Dear Armin

Thanks for explaining your views. You obviously have original ideas and the knowledge and energy to defend them. I will not try to engage with you on this - I have enough on my hands trying to simulate my own Beautiful Universe theory. However I did read the papers you mentioned, and my instincts tell me that 'here is another physicist who, like Einstein, is too clever for the good of physics. You are presenting a new scenario to satisfy some concept of locality, of entanglement, of a version of Relativity with one extra dimension. I am sure you will succeed in creating a theory because mathematics is very malleable and can accommodate almost any idea thrown at it.

Intuitively I feel that you are on the wrong track, because I think Nature is really simple, and you are making it too complicated.

Having said that I may add two ideas that may be relevant one way or another to your research: The extra dimension of the 4+1 Kaluza-Klein theory was interpreted as describing discrete ether elements. The other thing is that for very different reasons an experimentalist - see Eric Reiter's website has proven that the photon does not exist as Einstein described it. I now hope to be allowed to escape from these arguments beyond expressing these thoughts!

With best wishes

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir

I just read your well structured and written essay. Something that drew my attention is your insight on how we humans try to unveil the reality from the appearances and that you have depicted in your figure 1. I agree with the fact that in a certain sense we are blind because we rely on our instruments to get to know the world. The other part consists in interpreting the data as the "reality". As you can see, nobody knows the reality otherwise we wouldn't be doing science. Despite this, I think that a scrupulous analysis can lead you to grasp the underlying reality. Now in your picture 2, you also depict the fact that from different point of views one can grasp a different reality. This is what I try to elucidate in my essay where I discuss that perhaps this is matter of semantics. Although I do believe that our theories should go along with common sense and intuition in order to be credible. I'd like to request to go to my essay and leave some comments.

Best regards

Israel Pérez

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 13:08 GMT

Thank you Israel for your reassuring remarks. In this essay I was entering the field of philosophy, and I was not sure if I explained things properly. As I mentioned above i forgot to put in Fig. 3 the input of the 5 senses, so I corrected the figure and it can be downloaded from here here. I have now read and rated your stimulating essay. Keep up the good work.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Time has come to rate our essays and I would like to know whether you have rated mine. Yours is a wonderfully written essay and I would like to give a very high score. Please reply me at, bnsreenath@yahoo.co.in, or in my thread.

Best regards,

Sreenath

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 13:09 GMT

Thank you Sreenath- see my response on your essay page. Good luck!

Vladimir

Sreenath B N replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 14:35 GMT

Dear Vladimir,

I have rated your essay with a score of 10/10.

All the best,

Sreenath

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 23:15 GMT

Thank you Sreeneth. All the best to you. Vladimir

Hello Vladimir,

As you say: 'The human brain evolved over millions of years from primitive cells made of molecules that are identical to those making up the rest of the Universe'. This brings subjectivity to the fore, and your treatment of it is elegant and informative. I particularly like how you link our evolution as scientists, philosophers, and artists.

It is interesting to...

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Hello Vladimir,

As you say: 'The human brain evolved over millions of years from primitive cells made of molecules that are identical to those making up the rest of the Universe'. This brings subjectivity to the fore, and your treatment of it is elegant and informative. I particularly like how you link our evolution as scientists, philosophers, and artists.

It is interesting to consider how we might define subjectivity and objectivity in the context of an evolving observer, one who makes decisions at every moment, and over a very long period of time, during which his relation to the physical world - his own biological configuration, if you will - is continuously altered.

If evolution affects us at every moment (and it is impossible to argue that it doesn't) then It from Bit is true: We live in a Species Cosmos that is being evolved from ourselves. However, one should also consider that we do seem to possess a certain objectivity - that Bits appear to be founded upon a reality greater than this continually evolving Species Cosmos - a reality where our logical and scientific parameters appear to be less applicable - or, as you point out, where they equate (It=It).

I propose in my paper a correlation between It and Bit, one predicated on a similar correlation between inorganic, organic, and sensory-cognitive phenomena. In other words I give a structural, real-life interpretation of the question.

I completely agree with you that physics has gone down a too-abstract path, and also question many of the 'facts' derived from this trajectory. Indeed, Physics seems more intent on defending its ramparts than with letting in new concepts; we should instead re-evaluate our findings (I provide a paradigm for doing so) and reach once more for a 'real' interpretation of our field of observation - and of ourselves as components of that field. This modern platform of reality-based physics would be an enhancement of the one that prevailed before Einstein, of course.

You might be interested to see how I treat this evolutionary argument, and expand the definitions of It and Bit far beyond those signified by Wheeler. I'm sure you'll find the resulting structure useful.

I enjoyed and benefitted from reading your essay - I rated it, and await your verdict on mine ... all the best!

John.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 00:11 GMT

Dear John

Thank you for reading my essay and for your well-considered response here. I have also read your essay and commented about it on your thread. You lift the concept of Bit to the greatness of human consciousness and destiny, but Wheeler's concept was much less inspiring - just mundane flips of some cosmic coin!

I wish you all best with your amazing ideas and wonderful writing.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

Your essay is beautifully written, the illustrations reveal artistic sense. Your article contains some intriguing ideas.

Good luck with the contest,

Cristi

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 00:13 GMT

Thank you Cristi, and good luck to you! Vladimir

Dear Vladimir

I really enjoyed your essay. It was wonderfully written and your excellent illustrations were a nice touch.

As someone who has spent most of his career in the area of Bayesian data analysis, I found myself cheering you on as I read!

The "unstated philosophy" that reality is itself uncertain is an example of a phenomenon that Ed Jaynes termed "The Mind Projection Fallacy" where a person considers his or her state of knowledge about an object to be inherent properties of the object. I hadn't considered this when writing my essay where I propose that particle properties are descriptions of what particles do rather than properties that they possess.

I cheered as well when you wrote "This attitude was carried to ridiculous extremes by Everett's multiple universes and the unnecessary distractions of Bell's theorem, spawning a faux Reality that passes for the real thing."

Bravo!

I also appreciate that when you discussed information you went back to Shannon and focused on the communication channel. With some of the essays proposing that things are made of pure information, it makes me wonder how many people have carefully studied Shannon or probability theory for that matter. Ariel Caticha in his Information Physics class poses the question "Is information green and goopy?" Some people should really ask themselves this.

I believe that there is a real underlying physical reality (IT) that we can get information about (BIT), and from this we construct theories that enable us to make optimal predictions about the world around us.

I would be interested to hear what think of my views if you get a chance.

Cheers

Kevin

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 00:48 GMT

Thank you Kevin for your encouraging response to my essay.

I was trying to understand new (for me) philosophical concepts and am surprised that I have unwittingly gone over ground already covered by Kant (as someone commented above concerning his noumenon being my Cloud), and as you say by Ed Jaynes. Nothing new under the sun, eh?

I have only the vaguest idea of what Bayesian data analysis entails, but I shall now read your essay and comment about it on your page.

Wishing you all the best,

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,

Appropriately, I read your essay over tempura and sushi in the typically elegant surroundings of a Japanese restaurant.

As usual -- nice job, delightful reading and striking visuals. Though we will always disagree that Reality should be an assumption of physics (I'm a theorist, after all, and constructing reality is what we do) we will agree just as strongly that the search for reality is an aesthetic imperative of everything that makes us human. The cloud of unknowing may be as much a source of comfort as it is a source of anxiety.

Unless I missed something, you left unsaid the implication that if it = qubit, the possibility remains that we can always calculate where we are in the cloud, and how fast we are moving. It's this classical side of physics that keeps the world coherent and comprehensible; however, field theories of quantum mechanics that include mutiple noncommunicating worlds or extra dimensions are attempts to bridge the domains -- so I am the slightest bit put off when you get polemical: " ... ridiculous extremes by Everett's multiple universes and the unnecessary distractions of Bell's theorem ..." There's no comparing these models; Everett's conjecture is an elegant solution to avoding the collapse of the wave function, so that a way is paved for explaining quantum phenomena within classical parameters -- Bell's theorem starts with the same intent, and ends up subverting its hypothesis by experimental violation of the inequality central to the theorem. Please allow that all of us who search for unification have the same goal, if even by different paths.

Deservably high rating follows.

All best,

Tom

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Dear Tom

Thank you for reading my essay at the sushi restaurant and giving it your valued five stars. It is appropriate because in general much of my physics is raw and as you complain could be over-loaded with wasabi hot dressing. Sorry about that, but a major theme of my essay was that what theorizing makes plausible should not be automatically elevated to the certainty of a presumed Reality. Everett's many worlds hypothesis 'works' within the wave collapse paradigm (itself a theory I question) - but should not therefore be taken to prove - as Greene does in his book - that there are actually multiple Universes out there.

Particularly as simpler neo-classical explanations like my BU theory are out there needing development.

I will have to re-read your essay and views on Reality. As always I appreciate your ideas and words, and wish you all the best.

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,

I would like to comment on your concept of cosmos as an array of Bloch spheres, but there is a specific comment I need to get off my chest first. You wrote:

1. "Ancient cultures knew very little about the physical laws regulating the workings of Nature. They were in awe of Reality, but did not easily seek or presume to know it. They relegated that quest to the...

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 20, 2013 @ 03:04 GMT

Dear Hugh

Thanks for your reading my essay and interesting comments.

1- As to my rather unwarranted depiction of ancient cultures as unscientific: it is true that humans' ability to think and analyze has not changed much over say 10,000 years, I was referring specifically to the Scientific Method, arguably discovered by Al-Haytham in the 10th. c. Even then astronomers continued to...

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Dear Hugh

Thanks for your reading my essay and interesting comments.

1- As to my rather unwarranted depiction of ancient cultures as unscientific: it is true that humans' ability to think and analyze has not changed much over say 10,000 years, I was referring specifically to the Scientific Method, arguably discovered by Al-Haytham in the 10th. c. Even then astronomers continued to describe the correct motions of the stars but without understanding the underlying physical causes, as in Newton's theory of gravitation.

2- I based my comments about qubits on my Beautiful Universe Theory also found here. Cellular automata are too simplistic to accommodate QM, partly because they cannot describe chirality. I will study the link to digital philosophy you kindly provided. In my BU theory I propose restarting physics without the assumptions inherent in SR (such as constant c and flexible spacetime) or in QM such as probability. With these assumptiuons is swept the nonlocality of entanglement, because in BU everything is local, linear and causal.

I rather prefer a computational network approach rather than separating the software from the hardware. The medium, so to speak, is the message. Occam's Razor!

3- Words can have so many different meanings depending on how they are used - therefore I hesitate to say for sure whether I am advocating a strictkly materialistic Universe. In one sense I am but only in its most fundamental workings. Much else emerges from that!

I have enjoyed your own Software Cosmos essaya and commented about it on your page. You describe complicated mathematics and physical scenarios to simulate the Universe. My BU requires only a few simple rules and I have written a program in BASIC to simulate the transfers of angular momentum between the qubits in the lattice..but with my limited abilities (and age!) this is taking a lot of time. I am trying to learn Python to take it to the next level.

With all best wishes,

Vladimir

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Resp Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for your post on my thread again, but I replied you on 30June.

I am posing it on your essay, so that you can see and give your comments...

Best

=snp

======================================

Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for your blessing""""" I enjoyed reading your essay and also went to your website - you have invested a tremendous amount of work in your ideas."""""

Your question""""" In your N-body model do you mean to describe all the universal effects of particle physics, cosmology and things like radiation - or is it just for a Newtonian treatment of a limited problem in dynamics? """""

Many problems I tried to solve using Dynamic Universe Model, in Cosmology, Newtonian Physics, Unsolved Solar system problems, VLBI etc.

You may try other problems and tell me your results...

It is not limited to "Newtonian treatment of a limited problem in dynamics"

And your another question""""" Concerning your present essay you obviously know what you are doing - I will only ask one technical detail: In your analysis of radiation from a disc or spherical source don't you need to account for the effects of diffraction? Your analysis treats geometrical rays but the results may be affected one way or another with diffraction included. (If the ratio between the radius and the wavelength is very small diffraction will be minimal.)"""""

Thank you once again for such good question. Dish size( Diameter) can be 0.2 to 50 Metres. I don't think your limitation will be applicable here. This diffraction will cause some more averaging effect on the measurement of radiation. What do you say.

Best

=snp

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 20, 2013 @ 03:19 GMT

Thank you dear Sri Satyavarapu

I have responded on your page.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir

I have read your interesting essay , and would love your conclusion: "Another way of putting it is that the Universe is a sort of quantum computer. In this paradigm the Question can be readily answered :In the Universe it is neither IT from BIT nor BIT from IT , but rather IT=QUBIT"

Wishing you happiness always.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 20, 2013 @ 03:08 GMT

Thank you dear Hoang cao

In this world every little 'but' of happiness is welcome!

I wish you a lot of happiness!

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,

Wow, I loved your essay. Just beautiful prose and art.

The information flows like no other essay in the contest.

Don Limuti

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Dear Don

Thanks for your nice words and glad you enjoyed the flow of concepts. I worked hard on this essay discarding and rearranging sentences for some time.

I will read your essay and see if - as in the old novel's title "Quietly Flows The Don" !

With best wishes

Vladimir

Don Limuti replied on Jul. 22, 2013 @ 19:23 GMT

Hi Vladimir,

I just read the Beautiful Universe Theory. I am still a little groggy but impressed none the less. I was expecting a FQXi essay not a 30 something page paper.

We start from very different points. Your start is spherical rotating charges. My start is an isolated particle alone in existence and how it manifests. I try to avoid charges as much as possible.

With these two very, very different starts our conclusions to a very great extent are the same.

Here is a list of what I believe we agree on.

1. A point photon is nonsense.

2. The speed of light is not constant. Yes there is a maximum speed c, but the various wavelengths of light only get close to it.

3. The uncertainty principle is nonsense.

4. The low level quantum stuff actually creates apace-time. Therefore space and time are dependent upon quantum phenomena.

Please let me know if my understanding is correct.

Even if just part of this correct, it is amazing given such different starting points!

My sincere admiration.

I may have to read the novel "Quietly Flows The Don" !

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Hi Don - Thank you for reading my rather rambling Beautiful Universe Paper. I keep promising myself to make a short presentation of the theory.

1- I agree with you that a point photon makes no sense - although the concept has been useful (also as a virtual particle - and THAT is nonesense) in the Standard Model it is physically unrealistic and is the main culprit in the quantum weirdness business. 2- Yes c is a maximum but not constant. But a wavelength-dependent light-speed should have been long observed experimentally. Food for thought anyway. 3- I think the Uncertainty Principle is explainable from the lattice diffusion of energy, but would not say 'nonesense'. 4-If you mean by 'low level quantum stuff" the building blocks of the Universe then I agree with you completely.

I have never read "And Quiet Flows the Don" - it is very long, but they made it into a movie.

Keep up the good work

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

In the abstract of your very interesting essay you give the following definition of information: "Information is an artefact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects".

I think that it is too restrictive to see "information" only as an element of our thinking about nature; I think that information manifests itself also as a constituent element of it.

I have developed that idea in my essay, where I show that the introduction of "information carried by informatons" as the substance of gravitational (and electromagnetic) fields, makes it possibele to explain the gravitational (and the electromagnetic) interactions, and to mathematically deduce the laws of gravito-electromagnetism (and Maxwell's laws).

Best regards,

Antoine

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Dear Antoine

Thank you for your message. Words like 'information' can be made to carry all sorts of , er, information. I merely regarded it as equivalent to knowledge in a form that human beings can 'read'. I have read your essay and was surprised how you have developed the concept of 'information' as a carrier of gravito-electromagnetism. Please see my other comments on the subject on your fqxi essay page.

With best wishes

Vladimir

Hello Vladimir

Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)

said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the...

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Hello Vladimir

Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/19
65/feynman-lecture.html)

said: “It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don’t know why that is – it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.”

I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

The belief that “Nature is simple” is however being expressed differently in my essay “Analogical Engine” linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

Specifically though, I said “Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities” and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism … and so on.

Taken two at a time, it can be read as “what quantum is to classical” is similar to (~) “what wave is to particle.” You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

Since “Nature is Analogical”, we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And you have touched some corners of it.

Thanks and Best Luck,

Than Tin

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 01:35 GMT

Dear Than,

I see you have posted your message identically to other's pages, and is not a response to my essay. I agree with some but not all of your statements and will respond on your page.

Vladimir

Than Tin replied on Jul. 29, 2013 @ 06:41 GMT

Dear Vladimir,

Yes, I posted my message identically to other’s pages, because that was the message I wanted all of the contestants to get, viz. how do we -- individually or collectively as human beings – explain the brute fact about the sameness and the difference between us and also the sameness and the difference in the world around us.

I thought I was giving a message of sameness between us and our widely different individual contributions in this essay contest by saying “ … each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.”

I wasn’t trying to be nice to get ratings or glad-handing to be noticed, although it is part of the game. I was just stating the content of my belief and the basis of my essay. Unfortunately, it sounds like an advertisement for self amidst all the other stuffs that matter, such as:

Wheeler’s question “How come the quantum?” The question is too cryptic for me, very Zen-like. So I ask a different kind of question.

What I wanted to know is simply how come “wave-particle duality” (sameness-difference to me!) is a window into quantum theory, not that it is being shown to be the case in an experiment known to all physics major as the the two-slit experiment.

Dualities – like sameness and difference that I am talking about -- are like pebbles on the beach easily found by everyone with eyes to see. All of our great theories and discourses are predicated on one kind of duality or another, and that also is a fact known to many.

In short, the identical message I sent to every page is about TWONESS, and how come it is not ONE or it is not THREE.

TWO is not just an ordinary number, considering it took 385 years to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem. There is a message in that number!

Than

P.S. I saw your post only late to night; otherwise I would reply to you immediately.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 29, 2013 @ 08:47 GMT

Dear Than-

These fqxi essay contests with their stress on ratings invite some sort of 'promotion' of one's essay - that is not so bad, because there are so many essays it is impossible to read them all.

I regret that I do not believe as you do concerning duality in physics. Yes "Einstein's photon" seems to exhibit wave and particle characteristics, hence the dualism in quantum physics .

It is a long discussion, but many physicists, starting from Planck, rejected the idea that the photon is a point particle when it is emitted, while it is in space and when it is absorbed. I think in space it is a wave packet, and it is absorbed gradually according to Planck's "loading theory". Please refer to Eric Reiter's website where he demonstrated experimentally that the photon is not a particle. In my Beautiful Universe Theory also found here I also explain how duality is not a basic phenomena.

I wish you good luck in your research.

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

One single principle leads the Universe.

Every thing, every object, every phenomenon

is under the influence of this principle.

Nothing can exist if it is not born in the form of opposites.

I simply invite you to discover this in a few words,

but the main part is coming soon.

Thank you, and good luck!

I rated your essay accordingly to my appreciation.

Please visit My essay.

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Jul. 29, 2013 @ 08:59 GMT

Dear Amazigh

I enjoyed reading your essay and will comment about it on your page. You give many examples in nature, philosophy etc., but in physics duality has a very specific meaning, and I disagree there. Please see my answer today to Than Tim above, as he too stresses dualism.

With best wishes and thanks for reading and rating my essay.

Vladimir

Wonderful piece, Vladimir,

No surprise that models based on gears that you mention fascinate me since my model, (“An Artist’s Modest Proposal”) involves magnet gear trains and spatially repeated magnet matrices.

Regarding the question of “real” models, I came across a sentence in a skinny book for laymen by Feynman in which he disabuses his audience of imagining that atoms are in any way mechanically determined devices. He says, "There are no gears down there." I Googled and also found the following by Feynman: "...I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."

It is uncanny this long-held view that seems to be applied only to quantum physics – the restriction against physical models born of speculative reasoning. Imagine how limited the science of astronomy would be today if it had imposed on itself a similar restriction for the past 85 years.

Vladimir, you have written and painted a beautiful essay. Truth is beauty, and all that…

With admiration,

Ken

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Anonymous replied on Aug. 5, 2013 @ 01:12 GMT

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your very interesting kind and encouraging message.

I have long admired your magnetic top 'gear trains' with which you made physical, conceptual and computer-simulated models of the electrons whirling around an atom. The concept is so utterly beautiful, and I have acknowledged its inspiration on my work in my 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory BU also found ...

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Dear Ken,

Thank you for your very interesting kind and encouraging message.

I have long admired your magnetic top 'gear trains' with which you made physical, conceptual and computer-simulated models of the electrons whirling around an atom. The concept is so utterly beautiful, and I have acknowledged its inspiration on my work in my 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory BU also found here. I encourage readers to read about your Artist's Model Proposal of the Atom also on your fascinating www.kennethsnelson.net website. It is only by the way that I mention your being one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th. c. !

You once told me that physicists of the Feynman school of thought discouraged your forays into physics and told you 'nature does not work that way'. That is so very wrong. Feynman was too practical and too busy designing the atom bomb and his Quantum Electrodynamics theory to try too hard to 'understand' Quantum Mechanics the way we and many others want to understand it: as a physically realistic phenomena that can be understood by physical models.

Unfortunately and ironically, I firmly believe that it was Einstein himself (despite his protestations about God playing dice and spooky interactions at a distance) who was mainly responsible for this state of affairs. The duality he introduced in his point photon concept eventually lead to probability being accepted as the physical basis of QM. In his Special Relativity Einstein made c constant and brilliantly deleted the ether, an unnecessary move that has lead to a dead end blocking quantum gravity progress.

Back to our gears. In your atom their edges behave as if they are linked together by actual teeth - there is no slippage which works well there. In my BU 'slippage' is also allowed and is in fact necessary to explain phenomena like light bending in a gravitational field. A BU gear affects the next gear less and less the more the next gear is spinning. Were it not so light speed would become infinate because a local motion is instantly linked to the furthest 'gear' in the Universe. What a pity Maxwell's ether gear model was put aside as a sort of conceptual outdated toy: it contained a very important physical truth in it.

Again thank you. I feel that your views will soon be triumphantly vindicated.

Vladimir

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post approved

Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Aug. 5, 2013 @ 04:10 GMT

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your very interesting, kind, and encouraging message.

I have long admired your magnetic top 'gear trains' with which you made physical, conceptual and computer-simulated models of the electrons whirling around an atom. The concept is so utterly beautiful (readers can see the attached figure of your gears), and I have acknowledged its importance and that of...

view entire post

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your very interesting, kind, and encouraging message.

I have long admired your magnetic top 'gear trains' with which you made physical, conceptual and computer-simulated models of the electrons whirling around an atom. The concept is so utterly beautiful (readers can see the attached figure of your gears), and I have acknowledged its importance and that of your Tensegrity principle in my 2005 Beautiful Universe Theory BU also found here I encourage readers to read about your Artist's Model Proposal of the Atom. Also on your fascinating www.kennethsnelson.net website. It is only by the way that I mention your being one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th c. !

You once told me that physicists of the Feynman school of thought discouraged your forays into physics and told you 'nature does not work that way'. That is so very wrong. Feynman was too practical and too busy designing the atom bomb and his Quantum Electrodynamics theory to try too hard to 'understand' Quantum Mechanics the way we and many others want to understand it: as a physically realistic phenomena that can be understood by physical models.

Unfortunately and ironically, I firmly believe that it was Einstein himself (despite his protestations about God playing dice and spooky interactions at a distance) who was mainly responsible for this state of affairs. The duality he introduced in his point photon concept eventually lead to probability being accepted as the physical basis of QM. In his Special Relativity Einstein made c constant and brilliantly deleted the ether, an unnecessary move that has lead to a dead end blocking quantum gravity progress.

Back to our gears. In your atom their edges behave as if they are linked together by actual teeth - there is no slippage which works well there. In my BU 'slippage' is also allowed and is in fact necessary to explain phenomena like light bending in a gravitational field. A BU gear affects the next gear less and less the more the next gear is spinning. Were it not so light speed would become infinite because a local motion is instantly linked to the furthest 'gear' in the Universe. What a pity Maxwell's ether gear model was put aside as a sort of conceptual outdated toy: it contained a very important physical truth in it.

Again thank you. I feel that your views will soon be triumphantly vindicated.

Vladimir

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attachments: Snelson_gears.jpg

Dear Vladimir F. Tamari:

I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics,

But maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called “time”. No one...

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Dear Vladimir F. Tamari:

I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics,

But maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called “time”. No one that I know ever said what I say over it and I am convince that I prove that with our clocks we measure “motion” and no “time.

:

I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay “The deep nature of reality”.

I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don’t understand it, and is not just because of my bad English).

Hawking in “A brief history of time” where he said , “Which is the nature of time?” yes he don’t know what time is, and also continue saying…………Some day this answer could seem to us “obvious”, as much than that the earth rotate around the sun…..” In fact the answer is “obvious”, but how he could say that, if he didn’t know what’s time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be “obvious”, I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn’t explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure “time” since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure “time” from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental “time” meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls “time” and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the “time” experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the “time” creators and users didn’t. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein’s “Ideas and Opinions” pg. 354 “Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought” he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about “time” he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect “time”, he does not use the word “time” instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or “motion”, instead of saying that slows “time”. FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that “time” was a man creation, but he didn’t know what man is measuring with the clock.

I insist, that for “measuring motion” we should always and only use a unique: “constant” or “uniform” “motion” to measure “no constant motions” “which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of “motion” whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to “motion fractions”, which I call “motion units” as hours, minutes and seconds. “Motion” which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using “motion”?, time just has been used to measure the “duration” of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand “motion” is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

With my best whishes

Héctor

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Dear Dr. Gianni

There is no apology needed for thinking intelligently about a topic that has puzzled humanity for millenia! Einstein rightly chose the speed of light c as a 'standard' for his physics. While time as a dimension may not exist in physics (only clock time as you quoted), for your motion standard you can choose the motion of light.

These are just concepts, words, however. In dealing with the actual situations physicists need to incorporate these concepts mathematically. Perhaps one day your notion of motion will be applied in such a way. In fact in my Beautiful Universe theory the 'standard' is angular momentum in units of Planck's Constant (h) and spin is a kind of motion.

With best wishes

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir Tamari,

You wrote to Vladimir Rogozhin: "You might have faith in Einstein's ontological views - he wanted clarity and logic..but unfortunately he based his physics on imaginative assumptions that have lead to many dead-ends. For example his proposal for a point photon absorbed and emitted as a particle has lead to the concept of quantum probability a mathematical convenience with no physical meaning at all. His concept of a fixed speed of light (c) led to the strange unphysical ideas of flexible space and time and to the cancellation of the ether from nature, an unnecessary and costly detour."

If I recall correctly, you wrote somewhere that Einstein might have arrived at the correct result from wrong premises.

Did you find a flaw in my endnotes?

Regards,

Eckard

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Dear Eckard you have quoted me correctly. I read your endnotes but please forgive my being unable at this time at this time to enter into the long and technical discussions comparing our viewpoints which vary but do share some common points. My last year's fqxi essay "Fix Physics!" hints at my position, as does my Beautiful Universe theory where I feel one starts with a discrete 'ether' lattice in one timeless state that changes.

Later I hope.

Vladimir

Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 07:29 GMT

Dear Eckard - I have now responded to your interested paper on your page. I quote my rather hasty comments to your numbered endnotes and suggestions as follows:

1) ...there is no common time but different local times. Suggestion 1: Negative values of d or t, respectively...

VT-By requiring that all observers see things in the same way Einstein made simultaneous time impossible. If...

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Dear Eckard - I have now responded to your interested paper on your page. I quote my rather hasty comments to your numbered endnotes and suggestions as follows:

1) ...there is no common time but different local times. Suggestion 1: Negative values of d or t, respectively...

VT-By requiring that all observers see things in the same way Einstein made simultaneous time impossible. If you dispense with this requirement and assume absolute time...in fact NO time, a universal state can be dealt with all over the Universe.

2) Infinitely long rigid bodies (coordinate systems) ...Suggestion 2: As already Leibniz understood for numbers, one may arbitrarily choose only one measure

VT--Well not only infinitely long, but if you take a given reference frame and make it expand to fill the entire Universe you have absolute space! In my Beautiful Universe Theory also found here I have found that there is no necessity to start with Special Relativity - why distort apace and time unnecessarily if Lorentz transformations in an absolute Universe suffice?

3) Michelson's experiment ...Lorentz, merely managed to rescue the ether hypothesis in a rather mysterious manner. Length contraction has never been directly observed. Suggestion 3: The velocity of light c equals to the distance d between the position of emitter at the moment of emission and the position of receiver at the moment of detection divided by the time of flight t: c=d/t.

VT-- I have yet to prove it, but in relation to the above theory I thought a lot and concluded that relativity 'works' in a discrete ether lattice where light speed c is a maximum but can be less if the local density increases (for example due to gravity).

4) Poincaré's method of synchronization uses a signal that is emitted from A and then reflected from B back to A. While this method is correct on condition the distance between A and B does not change, it otherwise destroys symmetry and synchrony between A and B.

Suggestion 4: Synchronization can be performed by means of clock transport. If the ABA method is preferred then the change of the distance during measurement must be known for calculating a compensation of its influence.

VT--In both cases it is clock time that changes, not time itself as a dimension. And if a meter is flown its length changes not space itself as a dimension. Spacetime in SR is an unnecessary formulation that 'works' for the wrong reason (that c is constant).

Vladimir

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Your essay is by far the best illustrated one I have seen. It's the prettiest; and you avoided the esoteric maths that I have found in many. That being said, I think your conclusion about nature being the same thing as information is flawed; but the journey to that conclusion was very enjoyable.

- Kyle Miller

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Dear Kyle

Thank you for your kind words - it helped that I am an artist and designer !

While maths is essential in physics, I feel it could also lead one astray because all sorts of different math can describe the same situation. I feel that realistic physics true to nature should be visualizable as a physical model or figure.

Other essays had very nice illustrations - for example the one by Stanislav Smirnov.

Now that you mention it - I did say in the abstract that informational content is the same as IT at the smallest scales. I should have said that at those scales the concept of information becomes meaningless - there is only IT=Qubit a hypothetial building block in my theory. The information channel has zero length. It is only at the macro scale that we can read any information embedded in Nature.

Maths can be misleading..words too!

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir

are you rated my essay?

Yuri

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 07:31 GMT

Dear Yuri - more importantly I also read it!!

Good luck

Vladimir

I enjoyed your essay greatly Vladimir.

And I rated you highly.

Good Luck!

Jonathan

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Author Vladimir F. Tamari replied on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 07:35 GMT

Dear Jonathan - thanks. I rated your wonderful essay on July 6 and rated it immediately. Good luck to you. May we meet on fqxi 2014 !

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir

18x0.017=0.306

3/10 approx 1/3

just confirmation of old observation

http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0008

http://vixra.org/ab
s/1212.0030

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Dear Vladimir,

I have now finished reviewing all 180 essays for the contest and appreciate your contribution to this competition.

I have been thoroughly impressed at the breadth, depth and quality of the ideas represented in this contest. In true academic spirit, if you have not yet reviewed my essay, I invite you to do so and leave your comments.

You can find the latest version of my essay here:

http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-
V1.1a.pdf

(sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven’t figured out a way to not make it do that).

May the best essays win!

Kind regards,

Paul Borrill

paul at borrill dot com

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Vlad,

Wow! Well done. I was watching the shuffling nervously for you. I hope your heart could stand the stress! Congratulations.

I think it's really now all on a level playing field again. (My third top 10 in a row but nothing to show for it yet). But what a rich bunch of essays. You beat a heap of other high quality work.

Best of luck with the judges.

Peter

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Congratulations Vladimir!

I second Peter's commendation. According to Brendan's contest blog - you are in the finals! I wish you luck, and sympathetic treatment from the expert judges.

All the Best,

Jonathan

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Dear Peter and Jonathan

Thanks for alerting me to my essay making it to the finalists yaaaay! - I was not aware of it - considering the last-minute ups and downs in the ratings. And congratulations for you too achieving your peer's highest estimation (including mine of course). I was wondering how many of these 4.3+ and/or other essays are by fqXi members - those that will be automatically shunted in as explained by Brendan at the outset? With the best of luck and regards!

Vladimir

Akinbo Ojo replied on Aug. 9, 2013 @ 10:49 GMT

Hi Vladimir,

Let me join Peter and Jonathan to congratulate you for making the list. I was anxious just like you that no member would displace the both of us. I would not have been happy that your essay did not make list when I see some not so good being in the final list.

Regards,

Akinbo

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Hi Dr. Ojocv vvvvvvvv

Oops sorry my grandson has added his contribution. Appreciation and congratulations for your excellent essay making it past the penultimate hurdle.

With best regards

Vladimir