CATEGORY:
It From Bit or Bit From It? Essay Contest (2013)
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Reality, No Matter How You Slice It by Ken Wharton
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Author Ken Wharton wrote on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 14:25 GMT
Essay AbstractIn order to reject the notion that information is always
about something, the "It from Bit'' idea relies on the nonexistence of a realistic framework that might underly quantum theory. This essay develops the case that there
is a plausible underlying reality: one actual spacetime-based history, although with behavior that appears strange when analyzed dynamically (one time-slice at a time). By using a simple model with
no dynamical laws, it becomes evident that this behavior is actually quite natural when analyzed "all-at-once'' (as in classical statistical mechanics). The "It from Bit" argument against a spacetime-based reality must then somehow defend the importance of dynamical laws, even as it denies a reality on which such fundamental laws could operate.
Author BioKen Wharton is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at San Jose State University. His field is quantum foundations, with particular interest in approaches that incorporate the same time-symmetry as the phenomena they purport to explain.
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Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga wrote on Jun. 29, 2013 @ 21:38 GMT
Dear Prof Wharton,
very interesting essay with great conclusion.
I agree that our universe is not a computer. I came to the same conclusion but using geometry (and the topology of 4-manifolds).
Maybe you fill find my essay also interesting?
Please have a look into
my essay Good luck for the contest
Torsten
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:04 GMT
Dear Torsten,
Thanks for the pointer -- I did indeed find your essay interesting, even though we seem to have opposite perspectives, especially when it comes to the block universe.
This quite intrigues me, especially in your case; I've generally found that people working in GR accept the block quite naturally. After all, you start off talking about foliation as (effectively) a subjective choice, but yet you end you up with some seemingly-objective difference between the past and the future. Can you better explain how this comes about, and why in your view the future and past are so necessarily different? (Is there effectively some second time dimension on top of your 4D spacetime, in which "now" can evolve?)
At one point you claim such a block would be "deterministic" (and imply that this would be bad), but surely in interesting topological situations you don't mean "predeterministic", in that the future can be generated from the past. But if you don't mean the latter, then what do you mean, other than the tautology that a block is a block?
I'm currently collecting arguments against the block universe, as they probably will be addressed in a semi-popular book I'm writing with Huw Price. I'm familiar with most of the basic ones, but I have a feeling that yours are more exotic and interesting. Any insight you could share, especially as stemming from GR-based arguments, would be much appreciated.
Best,
Ken
Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga replied on Jul. 6, 2013 @ 15:01 GMT
Dear Ken,
thanks for you interest and sorry for the late answer. I'm on vacatrion with only limited internet access.
My work is more in the direction of quantum gravity then GR. But I understood the arguments for a block universe.
Pro block universe: The arguments are more in the direction of causality. If there is a unique path from the past to the
future for every point then one calls this spacetime strongly causal. This concept forbids time loops etc. but it is to
restrictive. In particular, if you have the Cauchy surface N then the spacetime has to be diffeomorphic to NxR. In this
concept, everything is well-ordered.
Contra block universe: In quantum mechanics and also in quantum gravity, you do have philosphically an open future: there are
the possibility for more than one possible measured value. Now, if one assume that everything (including measured values of
observables) is encoded into geometry than one needs a more complex geometry for the future, a tree.
In my model, a tree appears naturally by the smoothness structure. As explained in the essay (hopefully), one has a complex
quantum state given by wildly embedded submanifold. The resulotion of this wild embedded submanifold is given by a tree anf
the branches of the tree representing the different measured values (the encoding of the probability is not clear to me now).
From the GR point of view, I have a spacetime with naked singularities (the saddle points). In this singularities, some
geodesics went in and some more went out (or you have the branching point of the tree). But this spacetime is now not a block
universe (in the strong sense) andf it is not of the form NxR (but NxR with an exotic smoothness structure).
Hopefully I touched some of your points.
More later,
All the best
Torsten
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Zoran Mijatovic wrote on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 04:41 GMT
Hello Prof. Wharton.
While I do not agree with your version of a block-universe, and find such speculation a waste of time, I enjoyed reading it immensely. It brought back fond memories of a time when I too entertained such ideas. If you haven't read it already, I recommend Jack Williamson's book "The Legion Of Time" (1952) , I enjoyed it many many years ago, and may pick it up again thanks to you.
Good Luck.
Zoran.
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:06 GMT
Dear Zoran,
Thanks for the mostly-kind words! :-) As you can see in my response to Torsten, above, I'm curious about which aspects of my "version of a block universe" you disagree with, and why.
And since you mention Science Fiction discussions of the block universe, you might also try the more recent short stories, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang and "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" by Greg Egan. I'll try to track down Williamson's book as well.
Cheers!
Ken
Zoran Mijatovic replied on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 02:33 GMT
Prof. Wharton.
I did not mean to be unkind; it is in my nature to be direct, and in that I may seem insensitive; sorry. I will try and chase up "Story of Your Life" and "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" at some point, but it has been a long time since I read science fiction.
Your answer to Torsten suggests you are interested in limiting the impossible infinity of possibilities "choice" brings to a block-universe. A fifth dimension tying future possibilities to past conditions is one way to imagine a suppression mechanism; something imagined many years ago; and while such imaginings are entertaining, I bugged out of that universe a long time ago. I suspect you realized that after reading my essay and some of my replies to relevant posts.
Cheers!
Zoran.
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Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta wrote on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 06:06 GMT
Resp prof Warton,
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....
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Resp prof Warton,
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 main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.
Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .
Best
=snp
snp.gupta@gmail.com
http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.b
logspot.com/
Pdf download:
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-downloa
d/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf
Part of abstract:
- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .
Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .
A
Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT
……. I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT
. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .
B.
Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT
Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data……
C
Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT
"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT
1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.
2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.
3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.
4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?
D
Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT
It from bit - where are bit come from?
Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT
….And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?— in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.
Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..
E
Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT
…..Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.
I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.
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Sreenath B N wrote on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 15:42 GMT
Dear prof Warton,
I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, 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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Daryl Janzen wrote on Jun. 30, 2013 @ 21:29 GMT
Dear Ken,
It’s nice to see your well-written and carefully reasoned essay. I agree that information should be about something real, and I found myself quite absorbed by your analysis, which I could easily appreciate despite thinking that there is a fundamental flaw in it. In my previous essay I argued against the relativity of simultaneity (as inferred from the relativity of...
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Dear Ken,
It’s nice to see your well-written and carefully reasoned essay. I agree that information should be about something real, and I found myself quite absorbed by your analysis, which I could easily appreciate despite thinking that there is a fundamental flaw in it. In
my previous essay I argued against the relativity of simultaneity (as inferred from the relativity of synchronicity) on both logical and empirical grounds, and used a thought experiment to show how a special relativistic universe with a common now would be described to exist, and the simultaneous events that occur in it couldn’t possibly be synchronous in any but the cosmic rest-frame.
This year, I’ve considered Einstein’s photon-clock on a train experiment, and shown how it too reconciles with there being a common now that’s just as agreeable to the mind of either observer, in order to support my argument that the three-dimensional Universe exists, and space-time is just the map of events that occur in it as it does. On my essay page, I’ve also opened up a discussion involving a thought experiment from Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos, which clearly demonstrates the relativity of synchronicity, and I’ve described how I think that should be correctly interpreted, and what I see as being wrong with the usual interpretation. The bottom line is that rather than abandoning absolute space, time, motion, etc., Einstein should have rejected the assumption that synchronous events are truly simultaneous.
Actually, I see a lot of similarity between my argument for a realistic interpretation of the apparent relativity of “simultaneity”, and the stance you’ve taken in this essay. In your introduction, I thought you expressed this perfectly where you wrote “After all, there’s a long “instrumentalist” tradition of only using what we can measure to describe quantum entities, rejecting outright any story of what might be happening when we’re not looking. Using a theory that only comprises our knowledge of measurement outcomes to justify knowledge as fundamental is almost like wearing rose-tinted glasses to justify that the world is tinted red.” I could not agree more. In fact, I find that the argument for the relativity of simultaneity not only rejects outright what might be happening when we’re not looking, but very purposely rejects what we would see if we did open our eyes and take a look at the world around us.
Please consider: if you were running towards me and I flicked a light on and off when you were precisely x meters away, in your coordinate frame, would you think that the light took x/c seconds to get to you, or would you think you closed the gap a very small amount in that tiny fraction of a second, as I would now be a little less than x meters away? Now, what if we holed ourselves up in the cabin of a ship and you stood x meters away from me and I flicked a light on and off. Would you say that the light took x/c seconds to reach you just because we remained x meters apart? What if we went up to the deck and found that the ship was moving at the same velocity that you were running? Wouldn’t it then be more objective to consider that velocity in our mental image of what’s going on when we perform the experiment in the cabin? If we went back down and did it again, with me standing at the front of the cabin and you x meters to the rear, would it be so impossible for us to realise that although the distance between us is constant, after I flash the light I move away from it and you move towards it, so that when you see the flash it’s actually travelled a slightly shorter distance than x? Of course it’s not impossible to see that: we’ve walked down the street and considered ourselves as being in motion relative to everything that surrounds us before. And just because we’re *able* to describe every thing in a coordinate system in which we’re at rest, and dribble a basketball on a ship, doesn’t mean that we should reject the obvious when we look out at the world.
Cosmic time and its associated comoving reference frame are cornerstones of modern cosmology, which have been verified to an unprecedented level of confidence through the observation of the CMBR, and yet arguments for the relativity of simultaneity, based on the relativity of synchronicity, completely neglect the fact. Even though experiments can be performed in isolation and described perfectly well in coordinate frames that justifiably take no account of the real world around them, due to the symmetry of the Lorentz transformation, it’s never been justifiable from the point of view of relativistic cosmology to reject the description of an ultimate cosmic rest-frame.
For this reason, I feel I’ve got a similar sentiment to you when you wrote, “This, of course, is nonsense: such a question *can* be asked in this model, but the answer depends on the geometry. It is the Independence Fallacy which leads to a denial of an underlying reality – stemming from a motivation to describe a slice of a system independently from what lies outside”, and my above argument basically parallels what you wrote after this, in part IV.B. of your essay.
As well, I’d simply change some words in your conclusion to read, “Whether or not one wants actual temporal passage, the point is that one can have actual temporal passage, in which case relativity can plausibly be about something that really *exists*. Instead of winning the argument by default, then, eternalists now need to argue that it’s *better* to give up on the passage of time—the reality of the common now. Everyone else need simply embrace an ordinary three-dimensional Universe that really exists—no matter how one’s proper time advances relative to that age, or whether simultaneous events get described as occurring at the same ‘time’.”
Since the relativity of simultaneity is a key element of both our essays, I’m hoping you’d be willing to seriously consider and discuss our opposing viewpoints. In particular, I’d be interested in any insights you might have on the subjective updating of our relativistic conception of motion.
Sincere regards,
Daryl
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:10 GMT
Dear Daryl,
Thanks for your nice comments, but it's important to distinguish between the content and the structure of our essays. The structures may be similar, but if the contents are diametrically opposed, I figure there can't be much of an inherent overlap. And since my *entire premise* is built on relativity of simultaneity, I think that's the case.
Besides, once you go back to the standard dynamical story of the past generating the future, you fall right back into all the no-go theorems from quantum mechanics. Even if I had some reason to doubt relativity (I don't), I'd think this would be a show-stopper for a realist.
Think about it this way: quantum mechanics is unquestionably counter-intuitive. But which intuition(s) does it violate? You seem to be going for a story completely in tune with our base intuitions about both reality and temporal flow, which would seem to leave no room for anything about nature that would surprise us. And since quantum theory *does* surprise us, such a research direction doesn't seem particularly promising (at least not to me).
Best,
Ken
Edwin Eugene Klingman replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 19:16 GMT
Dear Ken,
I'm disappointed by the above response. I read your excellent essay, and, as usual, I agree with much of what you say, but I've also read Daryl's essays, and I'm impressed with his arguments. What you appear to be saying is that you have a belief, and it is not logical, and need not be defended with logic.
I can understand this, as my model is basically rooted in my belief about the nature of the world and my experience living in it. Nevertheless, I was hoping for an enlightening exchange from the above comment. I would ask that you reconsider your response. It seems a simple enough problem has been stated, that deserves more than an abrupt dismissal.
Anyway, I'm glad to see you participating in the contest again, and once more enjoyed reading your essay, which seemed to contain a number of novel points. I invite you read and comment upon my essay if you find the time.
Best,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Anonymous replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 20:42 GMT
Thanks for your support, Edwin. It was a nice surprise when I came to post this response.
Dear Ken,
Thanks for your response. I’m sorry that I wasn’t crystal clear that while I think a strong argument in favour of an absolute frame of reference and true temporal passage takes exactly the same *form* that your essay has, I understand that the *content* of my argument is completely...
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Thanks for your support, Edwin. It was a nice surprise when I came to post this response.
Dear Ken,
Thanks for your response. I’m sorry that I wasn’t crystal clear that while I think a strong argument in favour of an absolute frame of reference and true temporal passage takes exactly the same *form* that your essay has, I understand that the *content* of my argument is completely different from the content of your essay. In fact, I’m saying that by the *very same* argument structure that you’ve used in your essay, your basic premise, as you’ve argued from the point of view of relativity, does have to be rejected.
I appreciate your misgivings in regard to the no-go theorems, but then, to refer to that same argument structure again, and particularly your conclusion, your analysis would at best provide a reason why it would be better to give up on the passage of time; i.e., at best your analysis finds a means of motivating its premise. As I've argued, the motivation from the point of view of relativity that you’ve given is false, at least as far as we can trust empirical knowledge.
You also expressed misgivings about how I would interpret relativity, saying that this “would seem to leave no room for anything about nature that would surprise us”; but I already noted the backflip a person’s mind would have to do if they were sitting in a room completely blocked off from, and totally ignorant of, what was going on in the outside world, before discovering that they were really moving through it at some constant velocity. This would indeed be surprising, and they’d want to update their frame of reference to reflect the fact that they were actually in motion, though in a way that’s consistent with their ability to describe everything that happens in the room as if it were truly at rest.
By taking this interpretation of relativity to be just too in tune with our base intuitions about reality and temporal flow, the argument in your third paragraph therefore seems to oppose the possibility that quantum mechanics is counter-intuitive in a way that *could possibly* make sense if we knew what was *really* going on. But as I understood your essay, I thought you were actually arguing that a real underlying geometry that we could update our subjective description of, as more information became available, is *not* precluded by quantum mechanics; e.g. “It is a subjective process, performed as some agent gains new information”.
Finally, I want to say something about your surprise that I’d argue for this realist stance, which you thought would be a show-stopper from the dynamical point-of-view. I never said I thought scientific determinism should be correct—that we should go back to thinking of the past as generating the future in a Laplace’s demon sort of way. In regard to relativity, I don’t think the Universe should simply be the solution to a great Cauchy problem; and in that regard, I think there’s a lot about the supposed meaning of relativity that needs to be updated when one aims to be objectively consistent with the evidence that there *is* a cosmic rest-frame, which is a point I that I argued in my last essay (what I argued, is that standard cosmology actually adds *too much* structure, by assuming that the cosmic hypersurfaces are synchronous in the cosmic rest-frame, when all that’s required is the definition of an absolute simultaneity-relation).
But this wasn’t the point of my current essay at all. Wheeler’s “it from bit” fails outright if there is some real, time-evolving existence, since he attempts to screw it all up by posing bits as fundamental elements that don’t come to be in an objective sense. A lot of what I concentrated on was the frequently mixed-up idea that people have of events themselves as existing, in what’s really a five-dimensional conception that I was very glad to see you *don’t* have, as you wrote that “Arguments such as “But the future isn’t real *now*” are no more meaningful than arguing “Over there isn’t real right here”.” This is literally opposed to statements like “All of space-time simply *is*”.
Anyway, my point in commenting here wasn’t to start a discussion of my essay. I was just hoping you’d be willing to debate my point that the basic premise of *your* essay is wrong. So much of modern physics seems to stand opposed to the idea that there is an objective reality; but remember that modern physics is really based on the idea that physical states really *are* independent of any such possible reality, which is often taken as a reason that it should be ignored. This is your point in regard to quantum mechanics. I just hoped that because you’ve stated this point so well in that regard, you might be able to see that your own argument applies equally well in regard to relativity, which similarly derives its denial of an absolute reference frame from the Independence Fallacy—i.e. it stems “from a motivation to describe a slice of a system independently from what lies outside.”
Because you at least appreciate that argument, I was hopeful that you wouldn’t simply dismiss my argument with a claim that “such a research direction doesn't seem particularly promising”. Isn’t the whole point of FQXi to support research directions that don’t appear to be particularly promising from the points of view of conventional wisdom? For a hundred years, no one’s considered it very promising to consider the greater consequences of the cosmic frame of rest that’s been realised to exist for *nearly as long*; and now all our ideas about reality are based on abstract thoughts that derive from the premise that there really isn’t such a frame.
In Einstein’s autobiography, he wrote that after he had come to the principle of general covariance, it took him seven more years to construct general relativity theory principally because “it is not so easy to free oneself from the idea that coordinates must have an immediate metrical meaning”. How things have changed! MTW quoted this passage right at the beginning of the book, and these days even though we have all the evidence we need to support the view that there actually *is* an objective cosmic frame—so the coordinates really do matter, no matter how you slice them!—it’s impossible to garner any interest in that direction of research, and everyone simply continues on assuming the opposite.
I really hope you’ll reconsider your position on this. I don’t mean to be overtly contrary or disrespectful in anything I’ve said. I just think that the point deserves to be taken seriously.
Yours,
Daryl
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 22:12 GMT
Dear Daryl,
(And Edwin, thanks for your nice comments, and for encouraging a more detailed exchange on this point.)
Thanks for clarifying your views about how you don't necessarily subscribe to the universe-working-like-a-computer dynamical story, even if there is an objective "now". Usually these two views go together, and I can't say I've ever encountered anyone who wanted both...
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Dear Daryl,
(And Edwin, thanks for your nice comments, and for encouraging a more detailed exchange on this point.)
Thanks for clarifying your views about how you don't necessarily subscribe to the universe-working-like-a-computer dynamical story, even if there is an objective "now". Usually these two views go together, and I can't say I've ever encountered anyone who wanted both objective simultaneity but not dynamics.
That said, your prior essay did make it clear that you don't want a block universe, so you clearly don't like my all-at-once analysis either. I suspect that this puts you in the stochastic dynamics camp, but that doesn't solve the quantum no-go theorems. Stochastic dynamics is just ordinary dynamics with random inputs, with no essential difference when it comes to the problem of explaining entanglement, etc.
But, to the heart of the matter: is it coherent to deny relativity of simultaneity?
>And just because we're *able* to describe every thing in a coordinate system in which we're at rest, and dribble a basketball on a ship, doesn't mean that we should reject the obvious when we look out at the world.
In other words, you're saying that in special relativity we *could* all pick a common reference frame to analyze everything , and that somehow it's more objective to do that. But just because there are situations where such an analysis might be (arguably) more natural, there are certainly situations where it's *far* from natural. I'm concerned you're cherry-picking the former examples in place of the latter.
After all, in the frame of our galaxy (even leaving alone the CMB), we have no accurate clocks here on earth, apparent spheres are not truly spherical, etc. Should I be making these adjustments to my reality every time I design a laboratory experiment? Do the half-lives of radioactive atoms fundamentally change as I drive them around town?
But what's convenient or "obvious" is not really the point. The point of relativity is that we happen to have beautiful symmetries that allow us to use the same laws in *any* inertial frame. Is this massive coincidence really not telling us anything about our universe?
The key point at the start of Einstein's 1905 relativity paper is that we should be suspicious of "asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena". I am incredibly suspicious of such asymmetries, and this even extends to my suspicions about the time-asymmetries in standard accounts of quantum theory.
>But as I understood your essay, I thought you were actually arguing that a real underlying geometry that we could update our subjective description of, as more information became available, is *not* precluded by quantum mechanics; e.g. "It is a subjective process, performed as some agent gains new information".
Right; that's correct. But to make it work, given the no-go theorems , you need the so-called retrocausal loophole, which you get by analyzing the whole block at once. If you slice up the block into instants that are generated according to causal rules, you fall right back into the original premises of those theorems, and you can no longer describe events with an underlying reality.
>I just hoped that because you've stated this point so well in that regard, you might be able to see that your own argument applies equally well in regard to relativity, which similarly derives its denial of an absolute reference frame from the Independence Fallacy -- i.e. it stems "from a motivation to describe a slice of a system independently from what lies outside."
Interesting point! That's one way to view the relativity principle, I suppose, but not how I view it. In relativity it's not that one wants system A to be *independent* from system B, it's just that one wants to describe the interrelations of the systems from either A's perspective or B's perspective. (And the beauty is, you can do it with the same equations!) The independence is with respect to the frames of reference, not the systems. Perhaps you naturally equate a system with a frame of reference, which might blur this issue for you, but there are certainly some systems that present no natural frame of reference.
One final point that may hearten you: there are quite a few physicists, especially in the quantum foundations realm, who take the idea of an objectively preferred reference frame very seriously. QM was basically developed in such a framework, so QM-style reasoning can convince people that there must be an objective frame of reference. The way around the no-go theorems in this story is to postulate faster-than-light influences in such a frame, as in the various "flash ontologies". So this is certainly a viable research program, and I wish you success with it.
Best regards,
Ken
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 6, 2013 @ 08:14 GMT
Dear Ken,
Have I got a cherry to pick with you ;)
Seriously, though, thank you very much for your detailed and thoughtful response. I'm camping right now for my daughter's birthday, but you bring up a couple of points that I'd like a chance to discuss further when I get back to a computer, if that's okay?
All the best,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 22:43 GMT
Dear Ken,
Your response touched on a few points that I think deserve some more discussion, as I indicated before. The first thing I wanted to address was your reference to Einstein’s point, ‘that we should be suspicious of “asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena”’, which you used to support an argument that the beautiful symmetries we do know of, which...
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Dear Ken,
Your response touched on a few points that I think deserve some more discussion, as I indicated before. The first thing I wanted to address was your reference to Einstein’s point, ‘that we should be suspicious of “asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena”’, which you used to support an argument that the beautiful symmetries we do know of, which allow us to use the same laws in *any* inertial frame, should be telling us something about our universe. In this, you may be presuming that a presentist position would be inconsistent with there being something fundamental about the universe that would lead to the symmetries that appear to be inherent in the phenomena.
I’ve said before that I think there is strong empirical evidence to support the description of an ultimate cosmic reference frame, and therefore an objective “now”. I’ve also said that I *don’t* think space-time is just a superdeterministic solution to an initial value problem. I want to add that I *do* think there is an objective maximally symmetric background metric and that the order of objective temporal passage relates to a maximally symmetric foliation. This isn’t something I can justify in a post here, so I’ll only add that what I have in mind involves teleparallelism, as I think this background metric (de Sitter space) isn’t *really* warped in the presence of mass, but rather the metric isn’t conserved in local frames where there is torsion, and that’s why space-time is described as being warped in such frames. Therefore, relatively speaking, it’s a lot more like SR than GR, although we know that teleparallel gravity and GR are equivalent. The main difference with other approaches along these lines, is in the absolute foliation that I think needs to be assumed, which is the point I’m wanting to discuss with you, so what I’d like to do is press your point of criticism with this in mind.
From your comment to Torsten above, I think your criticism might have been referring to the past-future asymmetry, but then I’d ask how it is that that *doesn’t* appear to be inherent in the phenomena? I mean, if all the information we ever receive is *always* about events that occurred in the past, and that is about phenomena that never appear to be influenced by future events, then how does a past-future asymmetry *not* appear to be inherent in the phenomena? On the other hand, the background structure I’m referring to has the same t-symmetry that’s usually found in most physical theories.
But I also wonder if you’re referring to the asymmetry in the description of a photon moving to the left *actually* getting further away from an inertial body than one that’s moving to the right because the body is *actually* moving to the right—even though that body should, in its proper coordinate frame, describe a photon’s velocity as being the same constant value in all directions of “space”. Such a description is necessary if there’s to be objective temporal passage and a constant speed of light, and although from one point of view (which you’re arguing for) it may seem a bit contrived to argue for these “tilted” descriptions of reality rather than assuming simultaneously occurring events are synchronous in every inertial frame of reference, I’d argue that the alternative seems *far more* contrived.
To begin that argument, I’d say first of all that the symmetry objection isn’t really an objection against my view because I think the apparent symmetry in the phenomena *is* inherent in an objective background structure of space-time. And second of all, I think a *fair* assessment of what’s contrived or not—of what we should be “suspicious of” or not—should openly admit concerns with both sides of the issue.
I think many people have been so concerned with trying to accept the implication of a block universe, that they often forget what’s so entirely *unacceptable* about it. In fact, I think many have found some way of coming to terms with the idea precisely *because* they’ve completely missed what is so entirely unacceptable about it. From what I read in your essay and your above reply to Torsten, and even by your argument that our knowledge of space-time symmetry should be taken to indicate something about what’s inherent in the phenomena, I don’t think you fall into the latter camp. By this, I mean that I don’t think you have the wrong idea about an all-at-once block universe, as some people have, who think relativity should be taken to imply something like “all of space-time exists”; but by your argument that you think we should consider our knowledge—our empirically verified description of symmetries, etc.—as indicating something about reality, I think you *are* forgetting just how totally at-odds the all-at-once view is with *what we know*.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the block universe idea, and particularly about what it can’t be taken to mean, which a large part of my essay concentrated on; and I think the best way of getting some clearer idea without sneaking another dimension into the view, is to state its meaning in two ways: (i.) “nothing *exists*”, where emphasis is placed on “exists” because the concept of anything existing implicitly assumes a dimension of temporal passage that, in this case, isn’t the time-dimension of space-time, but would be another one, of the same form as the time-variable of classical mechanics; and (ii.) “everything doesn’t exist”, where everything refers to all of eternity, as reality all-at-once, which does not exist. Another way of stating this is that the block universe interpretation of relativity considers that the theory describes reality as all of eternity, but does not describe reality as *being* all of eternity.
Nothing about this view is consistent with what we know of reality. So many people have worked to come to terms with it, only to end up with a view in which all of eternity is supposed to *exist*. They think of the apparent passage of time as an illusion that occurs “as our consciousnesses crawl upwards along the life lines of our bodies”, etc. But we know that this sneaks in another dimension that’s not there in the physical description; that the dimension that *would* describe existence, as it did in classical mechanics, is already used up in space-time. So nothing can exist. The four-dimensional world all-at-once ‘is’ temporally singular.
This is why I indicated that in trying to come to terms with, and make use of the block universe theory, I do think you’ve come to neglect the significance of the issues that there are with it; i.e., because you’re arguing that space-time symmetry should be telling us something fundamental about the world, about what “appears to be inherent in the phenomena”, and yet you’re using this to support a view that’s inconsistent with anything existing. And there is nothing more blaringly obvious about reality than the fact that it exists. Things happen as it exists, and we describe those happenings by putting them in order of spatio-temporal occurrence. It *is* an error to then think of that description as something that exists; and I think it’s just as wrong to think of reality as that description—as the mathematical model, sliced up as we choose to do because of its symmetry—but with nothing *existing*.
So, I’ve told you how I think relativity theory can describe existence. I’ve taken standard arguments that have been given *against* existence—relativistic thought experiments that clearly show the relativity of time, as described from different perspectives—and I’ve explained how I think it’s wrong to define the synchronous events that are described in arbitrary inertial frames as simultaneous.
You asked, “Should I be making these adjustments to my reality every time I design a laboratory experiment? Do the half-lives of radioactive atoms fundamentally change as I drive them around town?” No. The principle of relativity, and therefore relativity theory, allows that we can describe everything from the perspective of an arbitrary frame of reference; in regard to the half-lives of radioactive atoms, I could hop into a spaceship right now and fly for the rest of my life at some relativistic velocity and when I die the Universe would be a heck of a lot older than it will be when I die if I just stay put; but this doesn’t mean that there is no ultimate cosmic rest-frame—it just means that you can do physics without knowing what that frame is. But that doesn’t mean that there *isn’t* an objectively true geometry and actual objective temporal passage; actual existence.
You wrote, “But just because there are situations where such an analysis might be (arguably) more natural, there are certainly situations where it's *far* from natural. I'm concerned you're cherry-picking the former examples in place of the latter”. But I’ve taken standard thought experiments that have been used to show the relativity of simultaneity, and turned them around to show how simultaneity can be taken as an objective relation while synchronicity depends on motion with respect to the objective rest-frame. Recall the above example in which you and I are holed up in the cabin of a ship, which is roughly along the lines of what I wrote in my essay this year. If you were referring to this when you said my analysis might be arguably more natural, I think I should point out that this is *exactly* the type of thought experiment that’s usually taken to indicate that the description of time and the synchronicity of events given from different points of view is relative. All I’ve done is to take the standard thought experiment a step further and explain the paradoxical implication regarding simultaneity from the perspective that something is *actually* in motion, with reference to its surroundings, despite the fact that there aren’t any forces acting on it.
Also in my original post above, I wrote that “On my essay page, I’ve also opened up a discussion involving a thought experiment from Brian Greene’s Fabric of the Cosmos, which clearly demonstrates the relativity of synchronicity, and I’ve described how I think that should be correctly interpreted, and what I see as being wrong with the usual interpretation.” This is a standard thought experiment that’s stated clearly so that anyone with an interest in the physical world can understand it and be convinced of the relativity of simultaneity, and I’ve tried to explain how objective simultaneity works in that scenario.
The point is that I’m hardly cherry-picking by considering the same illustrations that others have used to show that there is no objective simultaneity relation, and explaining what I think is the error in their reasoning.
All the issues that have been contrived based on the theory of relativity stem from the simple fact that because everything can be described in isolation, without reference to an external world, people have wanted to conclude that there is no real external world. They’ve looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses in order to justify calling it red—i.e., they’ve denied objective reality, which is the one thing through which the whole theory can make sense, and through that denial they’ve concluded that we live in a paradoxical world, albeit with beautiful symmetries, that makes no sense.
Consider the twins paradox, for example. The reason for all the fuss is that, according to relativity theory, since, by construction, both twins are always in inertial reference frames, one has to admit that either of them must be able to describe himself as always remaining at rest while his brother goes on a journey. But if we situate the twins in reality, there’s just no way to reasonably argue against the fact that one twin in particular *actually* hops from one frame of reference to the other *and this completely resolves the paradox* (see, e.g., Schutz’s Intro to GR book, at the end of the SR chapter).
When the “paradox” was first contrived, the motions of celestial bodies were thought to be completely random, so there was reason to see some validity in the “paradox”; but even amidst this worldview, when constructing his cosmological model in 1917, Einstein noted that the velocities of the stars are all much less than c—which one wouldn’t expect if one thought that random stellar motions should be uniformly distributed on the allowed interval—and used this to support a simplifying assumption that there is a cosmic frame of rest with respect to which the stars all have some small amount of proper motion.
This brings me to cosmology, which everyone who argues for pure relativity seems to want to neglect. Since the ultimate point of debate has to do with the question, “is there, or is there not, a Universal frame of rest?”, I simply can’t understand how it could be considered justifiable to neglect the cosmological evidence. Since the point is that regardless of whether there is a cosmic rest-frame, relative to which everything in the Universe can be described as “*really* moving”, Lorentz symmetry allows us to describe events from whatever frame of reference we’d like, that point can’t be used as grounds to claim that there really is no cosmic rest-frame. That really is just like looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses in order to justify claiming that it’s tinted red.
Einstein argued that since the theory can be derived without assuming there is an absolute reference frame, the law of parsimony urges that we make no such assertion. All I’m arguing is that he pushed parsimony too far, without initially grasping the implication that this would have for existence, and how badly the theory would conflict with the apparent flow of time and consciousness—and that the assertion that there is no cosmic rest-frame is now perfectly well understood to be at-odds with the empirical evidence.
So, I’ve gone on to show how the implications of relativity theory that seem at first to be paradoxical can in fact be interpreted in a way that makes sense intuitively, when the assumption of a cosmic rest-frame has been made. And I’ve argued that the cosmological evidence supports that assumption. For, even neglecting the CMB, it’s obvious from galactic redshifts that there is a cosmic frame of rest. The galaxies all have some proper motion, but aside from those that are very close to us, their proper velocities are negligible compared with an isotropic redshift-distance relation. Assuming homogeneity of space (and a natural interpretation of the fact that the redshifts aren’t, say, constant, but do increase with distance), we arrive at the conclusion that space is expanding in cosmic time, and we get a very good fit to the data when we do assume that the redshifts are entirely due to this cosmic expansion. But the evidence for a cosmic rest-frame doesn’t end there: our interpretation of the detailed anisotropy signature in the CMB is based on the hypothesis that the effects of vacuum fluctuations in the early universe would have expanded along with space—and the model fits very well with the same parameters that have been constrained by other means. Furthermore, although proper motions of galaxies through space (including our own) are negligible in the redshift-distance relation, from the CMB dipole anisotropy we can actually infer precisely how quickly we’re travelling through space; i.e. we can go a step beyond the inference from the redshift-distance relation, that there must be *some* cosmic rest-frame, and we can actually measure our own absolute motion—which is something that no one a hundred years ago thought we could ever possibly do.
I’m sorry: I know this is a long post, and I know that my argument conflicts with the basic premiss of your essay; but I think, from your essay, that certain positions I’ve taken in this argument *are* consistent with your own views, so I’m hoping you’ll be willing to fairly consider what I’ve written. As I said before, from a quantum mechanics point of view I admit that you may have an argument that the block universe is better; but since you based your premiss on relativity, I wanted to explain why I think the points you make in your argument are in conflict with the premiss, as those same points can be used to argue against it.
I respectfully request that you consider my arguments somewhat more carefully, as they not only relate to your essay, but you’ve even indicated a greater interest in arguments against a block universe on this page. I assure you, as I’ve said here, that I’ve made no attempt at “cherry-picking”, but have done my best to meet standard thinking about relativity that supports the block universe view head-on.
Thanks for your time,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:39 GMT
Dear Ken,
I can’t reasonably expect you to accept, at face value, my claim that in my view maximal symmetry lies at the heart of everything. Or at least I can’t reasonably expect you to accept that I’m justified in saying so, when you see my position on time as being opposed to that. So, I thought I should try to explain my reasoning in a post here. I hope you do find the analysis...
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Dear Ken,
I can’t reasonably expect you to accept, at face value, my claim that in my view maximal symmetry lies at the heart of everything. Or at least I can’t reasonably expect you to accept that I’m justified in saying so, when you see my position on time as being opposed to that. So, I thought I should try to explain my reasoning in a post here. I hope you do find the analysis interesting, because it leads to what I think are a couple of very intriguing results.
As I said my reasons lie along the lines of a teleparallel description of gravity that’s based on a maximally symmetric background metric, interpreted geometrically, I’ll begin by showing what I think that metric has to be. Afterwards, I’ll explain how I think the teleparallel aspect of the picture should work.
So, we begin by hypothesising that there is this maximally symmetric geometry that lies at the heart of it all, and the first question is, “What is it?” I think it should be real, so my first instinct is to coordinate a number of real lines. But since space-time has Lorentzian signature, Euclidean space seems like a bad background geometry to use for this purpose, and imposing Lorentzian signature on a “real” metric space by simple definition seems contrived. A more natural definition of a real metric space with maximal symmetry and zero curvature is that it is Euclidean space (and this is anyway the usual definition), and according to *that* definition, Minkowski space is naturally derived through a Wick rotation of one coordinate. From this point of view, Minkowski space isn’t real.
Instead, we can consider spherically symmetric spaces with the induced metric,
By demanding only that the four dimensions of the maximally symmetric space itself are real, it’s easy (and interesting) to see that this metric actually represents four distinct real 4D spaces, by arbitrarily solving the bottom equation for one coordinate and allowing that it can be real or imaginary; i.e., by writing
Then, the metric for these 4D real Riemannian spaces in this Cartesian coordinate basis can be written
where
is a real vector, and alpha is now the spherically symmetric space’s *intrinsic* “radius of curvature”. From this line-element it’s straightforward to write down the components of the metric tensor in this basis:
From here, we can solve the eigenvalue problem; and it turns out that the metric tensor always has three positive eigenvalues, along with
The four distinct geometries described by the metric are therefore as follows: (i) when
and alpha^2 is positive (this is the one case where x_0 is actually real), the space is a closed 4-sphere with positive-definite metric tensor; (ii) when
and alpha is a non-zero real constant, lambda is negative so the *real* metric is Lorentzian; (iii) when alpha=0, lambda=0 so the metric is degenerate and the metric describes a lightlike hypersurface of 5D Minkowski space; and finally, (iv) when alpha is purely imaginary (and non-zero), the metric is positive-definite for all
In terms of the original embedding, these four geometries are: (i) a closed 4-sphere in 5D Euclidean space; (ii) a hyperboloid of one sheet in 5D Minkowski space; (iii) a light cone in 5D Minkowski space; and (iv) a hyperboloid of two sheets in 5D Minkowski space.
The point of the derivation is that, beginning from the requirement of maximal symmetry and the usual definition of “real space”, and maintaining the real basis in an embedded space, it can be shown that the only *real* space with maximal symmetry *and* Lorentzian signature is case (ii), which is de Sitter space. From the point of view of wanting to describe the apparent symmetries of nature, and particularly the Lorentzian symmetry of space-time, as fundamental properties of reality, this result seems significant—especially when it’s noted that the cosmological evidence supports a pure cosmological constant which could be essentially geometrical. Then, the vacuum Einstein equation would be
which indeed the above metric is a solution of, with
although the metric wasn’t derived with reference to general relativity; e.g., I allowed for general metrical signature, but instead maintained that the space had to be real. But as I said, only in case (ii) is the metric really relativistic, because that’s the only case in which this real space has Lorentzian signature.
I hope you don’t mind if I try to explain briefly how I’d make use of this result. I’ll do that in another post.
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:41 GMT
(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST)
As I said at the beginning of my previous post, I don’t expect you to take at face value the statement in my post from yesterday that I think there is a fundamental geometry with maximal symmetry. The post above explains what I think that should be and why, but I wanted to justify my reason for making the assumption as well, by explaining how I’d make use...
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(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST)
As I said at the beginning of my previous post, I don’t expect you to take at face value the statement in my post from yesterday that I think there is a fundamental geometry with maximal symmetry. The post above explains what I think that should be and why, but I wanted to justify my reason for making the assumption as well, by explaining how I’d make use of it.
The main point to begin with is in the point of conflict I have with the block universe view. I do think the evidence supports defining a particular foliation of space-time as the description everything that happens in a three-dimensional universe while it exists. In this regard, I’d admit a “spotlight” view of the universe as sweeping along this background geometry, with space-time mapped out in its wake, as a useful (5D) way of thinking about cosmic evolution; but I’d add that all that ever needs to be *real* is the 3D Universe, which exists or *endures* with this background geometry as an intrinsic, fundamental property.
As I said before, I don’t think this corresponds to a universe-as-a-computer description. While I think the dynamical expansion of space is predetermined according to the background geometry, I think local physics is up for grabs as long as it falls in line with the background structure—i.e. as long as it conforms to the basic metrical symmetry of that background. There is one caveat, however: the requirement of a particular foliation means a far more geometrical interpretation than is usually required, since the evolution of “now” in any frame has a global definition.
What this means, is that the usual interpretation of general covariance, as implying that the coordinates have no immediate metrical meaning, so “reality” in any frame can be thought of as the evolution of a synchronous hypersurface, would no longer be valid. For example, because of the way it relates to the Cartesian coordinate basis in the above derivation of the de Sitter geometry, the Lemaitre-Robertson representation of the de Sitter metric doesn’t appear to be very useful (cf. Figure 1 in my previous essay; by the way, the black hypersurfaces and red worldlines aren’t showing up when I look at the essay now on my computer, so I’ve attached the figures as individual PDFs below, in case you have the same problem). Also, it’s clear that in the statical coordinate system (cf. the other two figures I’ve attached) the description of the radial coordinate as being “timelike” beyond the horizon is wrong: the coordinate transformation (see, e.g.,
the Wikipedia article) is only valid out to the coordinate singularity at r^2=1/Lambda, beyond which one of the real Cartesian coordinates becomes imaginary. Therefore, it’s only by denying that the coordinates have any metrical significance, and by extension, neglecting the domain over which the transformation should actually be valid, that it’s possible to interpret this “radial” coordinate as being “spacelike out to a horizon, and timelike beyond that”. In the geometrical view, this r simply has no real meaning beyond the coordinate singularity.
So, to move on, I’d like a foliation of the geometry that really preserves the symmetry of the space that was derived from first principles. The natural choice, when de Sitter space is described as a 4D hyperboloid of one sheet in 5D Minkowski space, is to define this as the 3-sphere that shrinks to a finite radius and expands afterwards. One interesting property of this foliation is that the “universe” itself, as well as the four-dimensional background geometry, is parallelisable. Another interesting point is that the only worldlines of constant coordinate velocity through this 3-sphere that are actually geodesics are the ones with zero velocity. While all other particles in the “universe” that move through it at constant velocity are therefore in a sense “accelerated”, it also seems reasonable to describe them somehow as being “inertial” as well. In that sense, the torsion along these lines could be attributed to real space-time curvature (teleparallelism), and an “inertial” particle “moving” along one of these lines might be described as “massive”, whereas the geodesics that don’t “move” through space could be described as “massless”.
I apologise that this last point is quite conjectural, but it motivates a particular definition of a cosmological line-element that would be appropriate to use in the frame of these “massive” particles, from which a very intriguing result can be proven. The key point, after acknowledging that this “cosmic 3-sphere” is parallelisable, is to define a line-element that would work as a cosmological solution, from the perspective of these “massive” particles. Then, if we consider just the particles that are “moving” in the same direction along the 3-sphere, a (semi-crazy) possibility is to define the cosmic frame of rest as the bundle of null lines that point in that direction of motion, because the “massless” geodesics are moving relative to that bundle at the null velocity defined by the background geometry; i.e., we define the line-element that may be appropriate to use from this perspective, as
dr^2+B(r,t)dt^2+r^2d\Omega^2,)
where, for reasons of consistency, the *r*-coordinate is used here to represent *cosmic time*, and *t* represents the direction of motion of these “massive” particles along the parallelised 3-sphere.
Now, what’s intriguing about this is as follows: (i) the 3-sphere is isotropic and homogeneous, so it will appear isotropic from this frame as long as the observable bodies are all *relatively* motionless through it; (ii) the line-element, as a solution to the vacuum Einstein equation, is actually the cosmological form of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter solution, and, as I’ve proven in my dissertation (
pages 170-177), in the cosmic rest-frame, r goes *exactly* like the flat LambdaCDM scale-factor; therefore, (iii) since r is also the coefficient of spatial expansion in this “universe”, according to the above line-element (which describes either spatial contraction to a singularity at r=0 or expansion from the singularity at r=0), the apparent rate of expansion in this apparently isotropic “universe” should be *exactly* as cosmological measurements have constrained the rate of expansion in our Universe to be; but (iv) the expansion rate is determined by the background geometry that’s justified from the point of view of symmetry (and leads to a result that would possibly explain *why* the space-time metric is Lorentzian), and is therefore in no way influenced by the material-content of the Universe, which could therefore conceivably be anything.
It’s also worth noting that the null lines aren’t orthogonal to the cosmic hypersurfaces, so they’re not synchronous in the cosmic rest-frame, which is the wrong assumption that’s always been made in cosmology that I argued against in my previous essay.
I guess that’s everything I have to say pretty much laid out on the table. I hope you could find it interesting, because I don’t mean to bombard you, and I certainly wouldn’t want to waste my time and yours if that’s all it would mean to you. In any case, I hope you see that my objection to the one point in your essay was not made without reason.
Sincere regards,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:44 GMT
I forgot the attachments, and can only post them two at a time. Here are the first two.
attachments:
fig1a.pdf,
fig1b.pdf
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:45 GMT
Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 13:09 GMT
> I'd ask how it is that that *doesn't* appear to be inherent in the phenomena? I mean, if all the information we ever receive is *always* about events that occurred in the past, and that is about phenomena that never appear to be influenced by future events, then how does a past-future asymmetry *not* appear to be inherent in the phenomena?
Because every microscopic process is...
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> I'd ask how it is that that *doesn't* appear to be inherent in the phenomena? I mean, if all the information we ever receive is *always* about events that occurred in the past, and that is about phenomena that never appear to be influenced by future events, then how does a past-future asymmetry *not* appear to be inherent in the phenomena?
Because every microscopic process is time-reversable. (read: time->CPT for precision.) You're talking about macroscopic arrows, which can be traced to low-entropy cosmological boundary conditions, not asymmetric laws. If you ask me what breaks the symmetry of the boundary conditions, I'll answer that we're now asking the same questions, and on some days I'll start speculating if perhaps they're not broken after all. (As for our knowledge about the past, consider what we would know about the future EM field if our eyes were actually atomic-recoil detectors, detecting their own emissions instead of absorptions.)
If there is a cosmic rest frame defined by distant events, then this view is somewhat nonlocal, right from the start. And it would seem to be rather convoluted to keep maintaining this rest frame near black holes. I'll note without comment that your "common sense" examples seem to be posed in the Earth's frame, not this cosmic rest frame.
I'm not sure the rest of your comments can be better addressed than via what I've already said, above and below. (You start getting into this "exists" business above, which we're coming into some agreement on below.)
Finally, I will caution you that I recently learned there is a term "time snob" as applied to A-theorists who believe that only *they* take time seriously, and who believe that B-theorists don't take time seriously. So don't be a time-snob. Or an existence-snob. :-)
Thanks again for all your careful thoughts on the subject, and I hope we will continue to agree to disagree, if only to encourage us both to be as precise and careful as possible.
All the best,
Ken
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 16:19 GMT
Dear Ken,
Thank you so much for your posts. It means an awful lot knowing that you feel you've benefitted from this exchange, as I certainly have. Honestly, I really hope we can continue to agree to disagree, because for me it's all about getting things right, and being precise and careful at every step is such a huge part of that. In that regard, I don't know if it could be more beneficial...
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Dear Ken,
Thank you so much for your posts. It means an awful lot knowing that you feel you've benefitted from this exchange, as I certainly have. Honestly, I really hope we can continue to agree to disagree, because for me it's all about getting things right, and being precise and careful at every step is such a huge part of that. In that regard, I don't know if it could be more beneficial than to have an opponent who truly understands and can appreciate both sides of the argument for what they are.
I have some specific responses to what you wrote. Copying isn't working on my phone, so I'll only quote a few words.
>if there is a cosmic rest frame...
Is a whole 3d space that exists any more non-local than a 4d block that 'exists'? Also, Shelly Goldstein sure gave a persuasive argument last night in favour of Bohmian mechanics.
>And it would seem to be rather convoluted...
Do you have Hawking and Ellis handy? Can you flip to the section on spherically symmetric gravitational collapse? It refers to observers O and O', and there's an E-F diagram... Consider the implicit definition of time that's being used--I.e. the variable they use to refer to time's passage. You know I think there's an objective time variable for the whole universe. It's not the E-F advanced time parameter. In any case, I think we both agree that descriptions of actual temporal passage are inconsistent with einsteinian notions of the relativity of simultaneity, which is what they're implicitly assuming--I.e. they give a dynamical account of temporal passage while assuming a physical definition of simultaneity that's inconsistent with that.
Now look at the statical coordination of de sitter space in the images I posted above. The r coordinate becomes imaginary at the coordinate singularity. It's simply no good after that, for all t. I talked about this with Gordon Belot today, and he thought Felix Klein showed that this was the right way of interpreting the line element. I actually think the Schwarzschild 'event horizon' is also such a coordinate singularity. Remember, I think space-time is globally hyperbolic at a fundamental level.
Now, to get back to the E-F description. Do you have Kip Thorne's black holes and time warps? He recalls a conversation with Lipschitz, where he called Finkelstein's paper a revelation that lifted a fog (or something like that). It was what convinced Wheeler that black holes exist, etc.
Personally, I find all of this convoluted. I think you can only have my sense of existence or your sense of 'existence' and neither admits of the dynamical emergence of black holes in the universe. I think it's entirely inconsistent.
>I'll note without comment...
Ah, but I'm allowed to conduct my thought experiments assuming absolute simultaneity in the Earth's rest-frame due to the principle of relativity. The important thing in assuming a cosmic rest-frame is whether the empirical evidence supports that. Right?
>Finally, I will caution... (whole paragraph)
:) Can I say I feel justified to be just a little snobbish about these things, insofar as I personally think a non-existential definition of "exist" (and all other verbs) is a convoluted and misleading way of speaking, which has led to a mountain of confusion (by the way, a good chunk of my essay is devoted to discussing this)?
Again, thank you so much for discussing all of this. I can't tell you how much it means to have the opportunity to debate with you. It's been very clarifying. By the way, do you think Greene is really thinking non-existentially about the block? It seems to me in the quote I posted below, that he's really emphasizing the block's existence.
Best regards,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 23:26 GMT
*Lifshitz. Sorry. I think it was him and not Landau, but he was talking about Landau as well, I believe. It's been a while since I read that, though. By the way, I'm not thinking of geodesic incompleteness, anymore than there is geodesic completeness past the coord singularity in dS space, described in those coords.
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 12:56 GMT
Hi Daryl,
I'm glad we got a chance to meet this week -- thanks for the interesting conversations!
And while our disagreements *have existed*, I'm under the impression that we have fewer disagreements that *exist*, and who knows, perhaps no major disagreements *will exist* at some point.
(Or, in my language, maybe we "are" converging. :-)
Best,
Ken
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Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 05:25 GMT
Dear Ken
According to my understanding, you conclude that : it is not from the bit, and it seems you have not concluded: "it" is from?
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:20 GMT
Dear Hoang,
I'm not sure I follow your question... If you're asking where "it" comes from, in my view, you're right that I didn't address that in this essay. My view is that the classical-field-microhistory which actually fills our universe is randomly chosen from all the possible microhistories compatible with the cosmological boundary conditions, subject to at least one other constraint (perhaps my NLC from Ref. [9]).
If you then ask where the boundary conditions on our universe come from, I have no idea; that's my ultimate cause. I actually suspect that they will turn out to be quite simple, perhaps even uniquely obvious in the right framework, but don't have much to base that on right now, other than a couple of hand-waving arguments.
Cheers,
Ken
Cristinel Stoica wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 17:47 GMT
Dear Ken,
Thanks for the beautiful, insightful essay. I very much liked your statement "Using a theory that only comprises our knowledge of measurement outcomes to justify knowledge as fundamental is almost like wearing rose-tinted glasses to justify that the world is tinted red."
I find again that our views of how the things will be ultimately resolved in quantum mechanics have some common points, although we express them differently, and we use different approaches. In your essay, you perform an analysis intended to weaken Wheeler's conclusion stated in "it from bit", by using what you call "all-at-once", and maybe as part of your Lagrangian approach. In my essay, I present my view that quantum systems have to obbey the "global consistency principle" (which also fits natural in the 4D block world view of relativity), and that what Wheeler's delayed choice shows is not that information is primordial, but only that the initial conditions depend on what measurements will be performed in the future, or that the initial conditions are delayed.
Best regards,
Cristi Stoica
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 22:13 GMT
Thanks, Cristi ; yes, lots of common points! I had already noted your essay, and mean to comment on it, but it may be a week or so until I get a chance. More soon!
Ken
Member Matthew Saul Leifer wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 20:26 GMT
Hi Ken,
As you know, we agree on a lot of this stuff, although I wish you wouldn't perpetuate Feynman's fallacy that the double slit experiment contains the whole mystery of quantum theory. The double slit experiment, delayed choice, Elitzur Vaidman bomb, and similar phenomena that only rely on basic interferometry can all be accounted for by perfectly sensible local and noncontextual...
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Hi Ken,
As you know, we agree on a lot of this stuff, although I wish you wouldn't perpetuate Feynman's fallacy that the double slit experiment contains the whole mystery of quantum theory. The double slit experiment, delayed choice, Elitzur Vaidman bomb, and similar phenomena that only rely on basic interferometry can all be accounted for by perfectly sensible local and noncontextual hidden variable theories within the standard framework. Because of this, one cannot derive compelling arguments for abandoning the traditional initial state+dynamics framework from them. On the other hand, you are right that considering the "all in one" framework puts a lot of options back on the table, e.g. locality, noncontextuality and epistemic quantum states, so it is definitely worth considering given that the potential gains are so high.
However, I think there is an important conceptual issue that has not been adequately addressed to date. There is a big difference between a presentation of a theory that makes it look like it is not an initial state+dynamics theory and a theory in which an initial state+dynamics picture does not exist. What we are really looking for is a theory in which the latter is true. After all, Newtonian mechanics can be presented in a Lagrangian form, and one may be tempted to argue that it is an "all at once" theory when it is presented that way, but it also has a perfectly adequate Hamiltonian formalism, so such an argument would be misguided. Now, one can come up with all sorts of fancy quantum-like theories defined on spacetime involving Lagrangians, future boundary conditions and the like, but how do you know that the theory does not also have a reasonable initial state+dynamics formalism?
Part of the problem is of course that all theories do in fact have an initial state+dynamics formalism and it is just that we may view such a formalism as not a good representation of what is going on in reality. For example, there is always the "encyclopedia of the world" ontology wherein the ontic state is just a list of absolutely everything that will happen in the universe and it is replicated at every point in space. We would normally want to reject such an ontology as being superdeterministic. What this indicates is that we cannot reject initial state+dynamics on its own, but if we add extra principles like no superdeterminism locality then we may prove that there is no initial state+dynamics formalism that is consistent with both of them. This is how Huw Price sometimes likes to present Bell's theorem, as an implication from realism+locality to retrocausality. However, the problem with this is that we have not actually established that there are "all at once" theories that are local. This is because the traditional definition of locality only applies to initial state+dynamics theories so we need to generalize it to make this statement meaningful. For specific theories, one can come up with arguments that the theory is local or that "all the action happens in the lightcones", but what we really need is a general statement of what locality is in this context that is at least as general as Bell's definition of locality for initial state+dynamics theories. Indeed, we also need to do this for the concepts from the other no go theorems, such as noncontextuality and epistemic quantum states. Until we have such general definitions, claims as to whether one theory or another are genuinely "all at once" theories or not are question begging in my opinion.
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Mikalai Birukou replied on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 18:25 GMT
I respectfully disagree with Matthew's statement of falsehood of Feynman's point, quote, "that the double slit experiment contains the whole mystery of quantum theory". Article
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1597 shows how results of double slit experiment lead to concept of interaction confinement, which expresses into unitary dynamic for a closed system, when seen from outside. The "seen from outside" is a relational nature of information as per Carlo's
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1816.
Also want to make a comment about "perfectly sensible local and noncontextual hidden variable theories". I found article that try to suggest tests of such theories. What about actual results? Aspect(&co)'s experiments, in relation to Bell's theorem, still say that nature is not run by hidden variables. Shouldn't we be sceptical here?
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Peter Jackson replied on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 19:16 GMT
I have to support Matthews points, and Daryl's. The so called 'no-go' theorems all have limited domains and rely on assumptions. I've now shown how the last one, Bell's theorem, can be overcome in my essay, the EPR paradox resolved as Bell and von Neumann anticipated using a real local mechanism but by 'unifying' QM and SR! The others then melt away as inapplicable.
And Mikalai, the solution I present predicted an 'orbital symmetry' in the results for each detector if proper comparison of actual pairs was carried out. I assumed Aspect hadn't managed this, but to his credit it seems he had! Did you know he discarded over 99% of his data due to some unexplained "orbital asymmetry"? I only found this after researching the French version of his follow up paper. There was then no theory to explain it, now there is, and it derives a cosine curve at EACH detector, making QM uncertainty far more consistent, but also deriving the SR postulates. And as may imagined more emerges, including simplicity. Gordon Watsons essay provides the consistent mathematics.
This would infer that Ken's assumptions were incorrect, though I still can't help feeling that Ken had a slightly devilish reason for drawing his provocative conclusions. I think I show that if we get dynamics right they overcome all assumptions about giving up reality and obeying imaginary stop signs. QM uncertainty emerges closely analogous to Kalusa's thesis, but I needed more space to develop that.
I do beseech you to read mine very carefully and comment. "The Intelligent Bit"
Ken, I need to read yours carefully again before commenting further, and also your considered comments on mine.
Many thanks
Peter
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Mikalai Birukou replied on Jul. 4, 2013 @ 15:58 GMT
Dear Peter and Matthew,
Judging by IQit things, one needs a lot of, quote, "axioms". It is a complex thing. Alternative might be a simpler explanation, with potentially different fundamental concepts, then those in classical physics.
To judge between the two, we need an experiment. In absence of experiment, Einstein's razor would have to be used :)
I asked, if there are actual runs for effects due to presence of hidden variables. That shall help.
More so, I think that we may find another suggestion for experiment in the following place. If classically-governed hidden variables is what nature does, then there is no theoretical restriction for tapping into quantum-channel key distribution (man in the middle attack), while QM without hidden variables implies that such tapping is impossible.
Am I right? So, break quantum channel, make a ton of money, and, as a bonus, I will be the first to accept a more cumbersome explanation of reality, cause nature decides through phenomenology (experiment).
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 5, 2013 @ 22:48 GMT
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the insightful comments! I confess to perpetuating that particular fallacy (perhaps even on purpose to make my double-slit analysis seem more important than it really is). Although I did note that there are *other* ways to explain the double slit, and that the other ways don't naturally extend to the truly problematic cases.
Your proposed research project is right on the mark; it's not so straightforward to define "locality" in a way that doesn't explicitly rule out retrocausality by definition (although I think GR has a good handle on it, at least in the sense that I would like to use the word). Noncontextuality might be even trickier.
Although I'm making a big deal out of the distinction between all-at-once and dynamic stories, I don't see a project to define the difference as so important (certainly not as compared to the locality question). After all, either a given story gives QM and resolves the no-go-theorems or it doesn't. And given some definition of locality, it's either local or it isn't. The reason I'm drawing such a big distinction in these essays is mainly to draw attention to the *existence* of non-dynamic approaches. Not because non-dynamical approaches are *inherently* better, but simply because of their nice features and the fact that they're rarely considered seriously.
As for generalizing Spekkens' definition of epistemic states, one issue is that while old-fashioned "states" live on instants, the natural ontology in an all-at-once account are histories that span durations. So you'll have cases that (if sliced up into 3D states) start out 'Spekkens-ontic' at the preparation but end up Spekkens-epistemic by the time they're measured. But since the latter is all that really matters (isn't it?) I'd put such cases squarely in the psi-epistemic camp. (Where I think any story along these lines would naturally end up.)
Cheers,
Ken
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Stuart Heinrich wrote on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 07:05 GMT
Dear Dr. Wharton,
I completely agree with you about the necessity to consider the universe all at once, and have made the same arguments myself. So, given that we both agree that there is some formal system which can describe the complete configuration of the universe, past present and future, my question to you is this: why are the axioms of that formal system true, as opposed to some other formal system?
An axiomatic system cannot, by definition, derive its own axioms. From an objective standpoint, one cannot claim that one axiomatic system is "more true" than other. All we can do is say that one axiomatic system describes our universe better or worse than another. But suppose we have found this system. Why is that system the one "true" system, and all other systems false?
If there is one axiomatic system that corresponds to objective reality, if that one axiomatic system is objectively true, there must be some way to break the symmetry between other axiomatic systems...some way to distinguish it, to show why this system is realized and others are not.
This question is unanswered by your essay, and I would argue that an honest look at this question leads to just one logical conclusion.
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:16 GMT
Hi Stuart,
Just because I'm advocating an all-at-once viewpoint doesn't mean I think there is a "formal system that can describe the complete configuration of the universe". In fact, my latest research is based on a framework that explicitly denies that one can deduce the exact configuration of any space-time region, even given the complete boundary conditions. (This is not to say there isn't one particular configuration, it's just that it's not knowable from only the external boundaries.)
As for why the rules that govern our universe happen to be the way they are, that's a good question, but one that's tough to address until we have the correct rules at our disposal! At the end of the day I imagine it will look quite simple and possibly unique, but that day might not happen in our lifetimes...
Best,
Ken
Anonymous wrote on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 11:22 GMT
Dear Prof. Wharton,
Nice essay but I will not hide my disagreement that IT cannot come from BIT, a position you hold. The Quantum world has provided a safe haven for all sorts of pet theories and abstract contraptions to hide, so let me discuss and cross-examine you on the cosmic scale. So dear Prof. Wharton, kindly mount the witness box:
1. Is the universe real? If so, is it an IT?
2. If the universe is an IT as we its inhabitants would not be writing and reading essays if it were not, would it have a beginning?
3. If it had a beginning, and that beginning was from "nothing", is nothing an IT?
4. If nothing is not an IT but is rather "an immaterial thing", then has an IT not come from what does not have an underlying reality?!
Whereas, you yourself have testified publicly that: "the only proper rebuttal is to demonstrate that there is some plausible underlying reality, after all" and the possibility of the contrary haven been demonstrated from exhibits 1 to 4 above,
I now put it to you that, at least on the cosmic scale, "It from Bit" proponents can ... claim to have won the argument by default!!
Cheers and all the best sir. You are discharged and acquitted since you were honest in your testimony. MORAL: IT can at the "very deep bottom" come from an immaterial source and explanation! - It from Bit, Wheeler, 1989
Regards,
Akinbo
*You may wish to appeal this judgement after reading and criticizing my
paper.
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:23 GMT
Hi Akinbo,
I'm afraid you still probably won't like my (materialistic) answers to your questions... but here goes.
1) Yes, Yes.
2) Would it have a "beginning"? If you mean a temporal beginning, then I suppose so (although there are interesting cosmologies in which it would not; see Sean Gryb's excellent essay.) But I can tell by your later questions that you also mean a *causal* beginning, that determines the rest of the universe, and this I reject in my all-at-once viewpoint.
3) If it did have a temporal beginning, associated with some cosmological boundary condition at the Big Bang, then while that boundary condition would certainly be an "IT", it would not need to result from anything else. Cosmological boundaries are like ultimate causes. There might be some rule that told us what that boundary might look like, but definitely not a causal rule in that it would have to evolve from something else. The all-at-once view helps with this perspective; if you're in a dynamical view, it may be hard to imagine a free-standing boundary constraint that doesn't evolve from anything else.
4) see 3.
Best,
Ken
Akinbo Ojo wrote on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 11:29 GMT
I am an IT, I don't know why the system calls me Anonymous and turn me to a BIT despite being logged in.
Akinbo
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Lawrence B Crowell wrote on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 17:18 GMT
Ken,
I gave your essay a first reading last night. I am going to need to read it again. I have this curious sense that you are implicitly arguing for local hidden variables. Of course since you are working within a block universe idea maybe these are in fact nonlocal. I get this sense there is some subtle issue with what you wrote along these lines.
I do get the sense that your argument is that block time is the proper view of spacetime from the perspective of the action principle. I would tend to concur with this. There is the question I think of how one treats Cauchy data for the initial and end points of a path integral. The role of dynamics is I think secondary. Dynamics just tells us what the system will look like along the parameterization or time variable of the path integral. Since we perceive spacetime according to a present moment that is carried along with time to the next moment we are sort of biased to see the world as dynamical. The action principle provides the Euler-Lagrange equation to permit us to convert the action principle into a dynamical principle.
LC
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:31 GMT
Hi Lawrence,
As for whether I'm arguing for local hidden variables depends on exactly what is meant by "local" (see Matt Leifer's comment above). But I certainly do think there's a nice all-at-once definition of locality, as in GR; in that case it's possible to have a "local" ontology and still have crazy features like closed-timelike curves. My hidden variables also have the feature that they are all associated with points on spacetime, and correlations between points can only be enforced by continuous pathways.
I agree with your excellent point about how we're biased to see things as dynamical, but disagree there is necessarily a dynamical version of the all-at-once story I'm trying to tell. For example, the path integral only converges onto the Euler-Lagrange equations in the hbar->0 limit; is there a finite h-bar dynamical version? Well, arguably yes, if all you care about is probabilities, but I'm restricting the path integral further such that there is no dynamical version at all.
For more on this you might review my previous essay, the Universe is Not a Computer.
Cheers,
Ken
Vladimir F. Tamari wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 01:27 GMT
Dear Ken
I am not competent enough to respond to the interesting points you raised about dynamics, it from bit and conceptions of Reality. Your arguments are expressed through the use of space-time. I have long ago concluded there is no time dimension and that observer-based physics (frames of reference, her past and future) should be replaced by one describing dynamics in an absolute universe.
You mention the Born Rule and the double-slit experiment. May I direct you to Eric Reiter's
unquantum website where he describes experiments that demolish the Born Rule. This agrees with my own 2005
Beautiful Universe Theory also found
here where dynamics in a timeless Universe where propbability is emergent is suggested.
With best wishes
Vladimir
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Mikalai Birukou wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 02:59 GMT
Dear Ken,
I've been reading your article "The Universe is not a Computer" (arXiv:1211.7081).
I share you concern for a lack of physical interpretation that tells us to use Lagrangian principle, unlike Fermat's principle, which has a clear justification for mathematical procedure (talking about light paths, etc.).
What would you think of the following argument. Let's assume that any dynamic process, or system, can be used as a clock. Different states of system a labelled with some values of real variable, called time (t). We need as little change of state as possible between any two labels t_0 and t_1, to have a clock as precise as possible. Infinitesimal change of system state in quantum mechanics is Hamiltonian, which is units of energy. The mathematical variation method constructs entity with units of action (energy times time).
This physical argument for introduction of Lagrangian principle fits nicely with quantum mechanics, which is discussed in
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/159
7/. Section five actually talks about principle of least action, while the other ones build a ground for it.
In
http://physics-essays.birukou.net/principle-of-least-action I describe uneasiness from a student's point of view about LQFT as it is taught at the moment.
Let me know what you think. Do not hesitate to email directly.
Mikalai
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:41 GMT
Hi Mikalai,
I enjoyed most of that last link you posted; excellent points!
Where I think we differ is that I don't assign any particular foliation as fundamental; time and space are all blended together in an all-at-once viewpoint, so Hamiltonian formulations are not fundamental either (or indeed, even always possible). So the energy x time = action is a bit of a red herring in my book; this is no different from momentum x length = action, and any approach that doesn't treat both of these on the same footing is probably treating time as special in a way that I don't think is justified... at least not in an all-at-once perspective!
Best,
Ken
Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 05:14 GMT
Send to all of you
THE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES AND A SMALL TEST FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
To change the atmosphere "abstract" of the competition and to demonstrate for the real preeminent possibility of the Absolute theory as well as to clarify the issues I mentioned in the essay and to avoid duplicate questions after receiving the opinion of you , I will add a reply to you :
1 . THE...
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Send to all of you
THE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES AND A SMALL TEST FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
To change the atmosphere "abstract" of the competition and to demonstrate for the real preeminent possibility of the Absolute theory as well as to clarify the issues I mentioned in the essay and to avoid duplicate questions after receiving the opinion of you , I will add a reply to you :
1 . THE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES
A. What thing is new and the difference in the absolute theory than other theories?
The first is concept of "Absolute" in my absolute theory is defined as: there is only one - do not have any similar - no two things exactly alike.
The most important difference of this theory is to build on the entirely new basis and different platforms compared to the current theory.
B. Why can claim: all things are absolute - have not of relative ?
It can be affirmed that : can not have the two of status or phenomenon is the same exists in the same location in space and at the same moment of time - so thus: everything must be absolute and can not have any of relative . The relative only is a concept to created by our .
C. Why can confirm that the conclusions of the absolute theory is the most specific and detailed - and is unique?
Conclusion of the absolute theory must always be unique and must be able to identify the most specific and detailed for all issues related to a situation or a phenomenon that any - that is the mandatory rules of this theory.
D. How the applicability of the absolute theory in practice is ?
The applicability of the absolute theory is for everything - there is no limit on the issue and there is no restriction on any field - because: This theory is a method to determine for all matters and of course not reserved for each area.
E. How to prove the claims of Absolute Theory?
To demonstrate - in fact - for the above statement,we will together come to a specific experience, I have a small testing - absolutely realistic - to you with title:
2 . A SMALL TEST FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT :
“Absolute determination to resolve for issues reality”
That is, based on my Absolute theory, I will help you determine by one new way to reasonable settlement and most effective for meet with difficulties of you - when not yet find out to appropriate remedies - for any problems that are actually happening in reality, only need you to clearly notice and specifically about the current status and the phenomena of problems included with requirements and expectations need to be resolved.
I may collect fees - by percentage of benefits that you get - and the commission rate for you, when you promote and recommend to others.
Condition : do not explaining for problems as impractical - no practical benefit - not able to determine in practice.
To avoid affecting the contest you can contact me via email : hoangcao_hai@yahoo.com
Hope will satisfy and bring real benefits for you along with the desire that we will find a common ground to live together in happily.
Hải.Caohoàng
Add another problem, which is:
USE OF THE EQUATIONS AND FORMULA IN ESSAY
There have been some comments to me to questions is: why in my essay did not use the equations and formulas to interpret?
The reason is:
1. The currently equations and formulas are not able to solve all problems for all concerned that they represent.
2. Through research, I found: The application of the equations and formulas when we can not yet be determined the true nature of the problem will create new problems - there is even more complex and difficult to resolve than the original.
I hope so that : you will sympathetic and consideration to avoid misunderstanding my comments.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 18:09 GMT
Ken,
If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, “It’s good to be the king,” is serious about our subject.
Jim
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Jonathan J. Dickau wrote on Jul. 3, 2013 @ 18:25 GMT
Hello Ken,
I only got part way through your essay before fatigue set in last night, but found the part I did read deep and engaging. Seeing your comments above, about seeking alternatives to the Block Time universe description, I wanted to mention the following.
The possibility has been raised that the dimensionality of spacetime is not a constant, where CDT and Quantum Einstein gravity find that the cosmos was 2-d initially, and spacetime later unfolds to become 4-d. I discuss this somewhat in my
essay from last year, but a paper of note just came out.
"Dimensional reduction in the sky"
arXiv:1305.3153 has as authors two of last year's essay contest entrants, Giovanni Amelino-Camelia and Michele Arzano, along with Giulia Gubitosi and Joao Magueijo. So how can there be block time, if the dimensionality of the cosmos evolves? Since spheres have maximal volume in 5-d, perhaps that is where things are ultimately headed. Care to comment?
Regards,
Jonathan
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Jonathan J. Dickau replied on Jul. 9, 2013 @ 05:04 GMT
I wanted to add that Zeeya Merali and the FQXi folks have given this subject a Forum page, for discussion, which can be accessed at:
Dimensional reduction in the skyYour insights and opinions are of course welcome.
All the Best,
Jonathan
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:46 GMT
Hi Jonathan,
I have no real problems with (say) a 5D cosmology, so long as it's analyzed "all-at-once". I don't think it's even coherent to talk about the (time)-evolution of a 4D universe into a 5D universe, because the meta-time that this evolution is happening in is supposed to be part of both the 4D and 5D universe. Maybe this is what you mean by saying a block view is impossible, but I'd go so far as to say *any* view is impossible, unless you assign the meta-time as a sixth dimension (in which case I'd advocate for an all-at-once 6D view).
Of course, there may be surfaces in an all-at-once 5D cosmology that are effectively the 4D universe that we experience, but that doesn't mean one can't take a 5D all-at-once view to describe this as well (which would include a 4D all-at-once view as a subset).
Best,
Ken
Armin Nikkhah Shirazi replied on Jul. 15, 2013 @ 14:10 GMT
Hello,
If I may be allowed to inject myself into this discussion: I think that without further specifications, the 'meta-time' in 5D cannot be part of the 4D universe because when transformed to a frame in which it is a proper time, it is constituted of one more quantity than spacetime proper times (i.e. 4+1 vs. 3+1).
In order for it to play any role in 4D there needs to exist a map which defines the relation between events in 4D and 5D. In Euclidean space, this is obviously not a problem because such a map is nothing other than an embedding, by which one may view 4D as a surface in 5D. I don't know whether such a map exists or can even be defined for the Lorentzian metric.
If someone knows the answer to this, I would greatly appreciate it as it plays a crucial role in the framework that I am working on.
All the best,
Armin
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Richard N. Shand wrote on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 05:14 GMT
Ken,
I very much enjoyed reading your thoughtful essay. The "Independence Fallacy" can also be examined in terms of quantum information theory (see my essay "A Complex Conjugate Bit and It"). Your all-at-once analysis is supported by Aharonov, Popescu and Tollaksen's time-symmetric formulation of quantum mechanics (Physics Today, November 2010).
You advocate a path integral in standard 4D spacetime approach, rather than "making almost everything interdependent in some strange [QM] configuration space". The problem is that while a static 4D block appears to remove subjectivity, as a God's eye view it is still based on forms created in the mind. The model is epistemic.
On the other hand, if a quantum configuration space is the ontic basis of being, our 4D spacetime collapses to a combinatorial group of symmetries with no unique solution. Perhaps dynamical time evolution is just the difference between the conditional entropy of the local observer (her ignorance) and reciprocal quantum entanglement entropy (the totality of all that is possible).
Best wishes,
Richard Shand
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:53 GMT
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the kind comments. Yes, there are some connections with quantum information theory, although I think the all-at-once view is more difficult to introduce there for a variety of reasons. And there are also connections with Aharonov's two-state formalism, but important differences as well. An all-at-once view of that proposal looks quite strange if you consider A) multiple particles, or B) how things compare on both sides of strong measurements.
I'm not exactly sure what the problem is concerning the mind. While my view is effectively "psi-epistemic" as applied to the standard quantum story, I'm a firm realist about the universe actually being filled with one particular 4D field history. Sure, we humans came up with the idea of physical fields, but that doesn't mean that they can't comprise a realistic ontology.
Best,
Ken
KoGuan Leo wrote on Jul. 14, 2013 @ 00:45 GMT
Dear Ken, what an excellent essay, I enjoyed reading it tremendously. Questions: is up is up or down is down? Is down is up and up is down? The Americans tell the Ausies correctly that you are the down-under people, whereas the Ausies retort correcyly we are the up-upper people and you the Americans are the down-under people. Both turn out to be correct from their respective frame of references...
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Dear Ken, what an excellent essay, I enjoyed reading it tremendously. Questions: is up is up or down is down? Is down is up and up is down? The Americans tell the Ausies correctly that you are the down-under people, whereas the Ausies retort correcyly we are the up-upper people and you the Americans are the down-under people. Both turn out to be correct from their respective frame of references as the center of their universe. Now back to this essay main point that time is a persistent illusion or is time a persistent real and our perception of no time is a persistent illusion of the illusion of time? Again both are literally correct from their respective frame of reference, however, KQID describes time is NOW in the block Multiverse every absolute digital time T≤ 10^-1000seconds as the Newtonian absolute time. Time is in a perfect symmetry that anything can go backward or forward at will. Every T, time-past-present-future collapse into the NOW and everything is rebooted, refreshed and renewed from Tn to Tn+1 to Tn+2 and so on. All the bugs are fixed and new version of the software Qbit is released Tn+x. No crash. This explains why computer like Multiverse does not crash. KQID: all things are one Qbit computed inside one singularity Qbit Multiverse. This is our block Multiverse all-at-once is a slice of all Minkowski events jump all-at-once according to Feynman's sum-over-histories to the next one and to the next one as you said like a movie running at ≥ 10^1000 frames/s, just like a movie of 120 minutes or two hours or 1/12th of day; hence we have Newtonian duration. This objective slice of our 3D Multiverse, not subjective slice as you pointed out is not possible. We do have as I called it KQID relativity ψτ(iLx,y,z, Lm) with its flexible c-timerod that gives length its length. When the c-timerod contracts its length contracts. At velocity at 0.6c, the time contracts KQID τ=(1-v^2/c^2)t=o.8t and the length = 0.8L. In short, KQID argues our Existence both absolute digital all-at-once: time disappears and relative Multiverse: time reemerges. This way KQID brings back our sanity, we can normally view the world as it is or as Ken Wharton and Leo KoGuan see the world from different lenses. As you wrote "the W’s are now microhistories, span- ning 4D instead of 3D." Yes, KQID views micro histories are block all-at-once Multiverse moving along Lm Multiverse time line in the zeroth dimension as the 4thD that brings back time as we normally use time. Ken, your is an erudite essay encompasses everything. I read it at least three times and I need to read your article "The Universe is not a Computer" (arXiv:1211.7081). Excellent rating and please review and rate my essay Child of Qbit in time. Thanks, Leo KoGuan
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 13:59 GMT
Hi Leo,
Thanks for your kind comments! I'm not sure I exactly understand your question/comment, but I get the impression you're not enamored of the block universe, and that you see a spatial "here" as being quite different from a temporal "now" in some objective sense.
I guess it's clear that I disagree, but I seem to be at a loss as to how best to persuade block-deniers that time is perfectly real in a block universe, just as real as space, but not essentially different. I do think it's fatally dangerous to think about our universe *without* freezing everything into a 4D block, because then our mental instincts about time and change can't be separated from the objective features we're trying to understand. (Nothing "moves" in 4D; motion occurs when the 4D block is sliced up and played as a movie, but there's a subjective choice involved in how one does this. This doesn't deny that what we think of as motion is an objective feature encoded in the block, but merely separates out which features are subjective.) I'll try a longer answer when I get to Ian's questions below; stay tuned!
Best,
Ken
Armin Nikkhah Shirazi wrote on Jul. 15, 2013 @ 13:28 GMT
Dear Ken,
I found your essay very well-argued and I was especially impressed how you tailored your conclusion to the theme of the contest, i.e. that"Instead of winning the argument by default, then, It from Bit proponents now need to argue that it's better to give up reality."
I have two questions:
1. How is your framework different from Bell's "Superdeterminism"?
It...
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Dear Ken,
I found your essay very well-argued and I was especially impressed how you tailored your conclusion to the theme of the contest, i.e. that"Instead of winning the argument by default, then, It from Bit proponents now need to argue that it's better to give up reality."
I have two questions:
1. How is your framework different from Bell's "Superdeterminism"?
It seems that if one wanted to express Superdeterminism in terms of 4-dimensional space-time one would arrive essentially at your way of looking at things. If that is true, then you are of course correct that your framework overcomes most of the objections to deterministic explanations for quantum phenomena. Is that what you are driving towards? In some of your previous works, I remember you mentioning that one should perhaps not be so quick to give up retrocausality, and if your present work is meant to be along the same lines, it seems to me that there really is no retrocausality in it because there is only one effect (The coming into existence of spacetime "as a whole"), whereas retrocausality requires at least two effects in a causal relation.
2. Can one really sensibly attribute a definite path to photons?
Of course one can use an affine parameter to substitute for the proper time in those contexts where one needs to give an expression for the time evolution of the photon as it "moves" in space, but as I understand it, the parameter is completely arbitrary. It seems to me that fixing the path of a photon removes the arbitrariness of the affine parameter and thereby transforms it into something as "real" as proper time itself. But if the parameter has a reality of its own, then it must also define relationships to the analogous affine parameters associated with all other objects. In effect, it seems to me that fixing the path of a photon then introduces a whole new parallel layer of a web of relations analogous to the web of relations between the worldlines of objects but now in terms of the integrals of the affine parameters (let me call these 'affine parameter worldlines' for lack of a better term).
Although one might look at it as metaphysical baggage, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing because it may permit your framework to be experimentally tested. One would have to be able to deduce how the attribution of a fixed path to a photon or a set of photon(s) in some situation fixes the 'affine parameter worldlines' and see whether one can set up an experiment where one might encounter effects beyond those predicted by quantum mechanics based on the requirement that 1) these be consistent with one another and 2) they be consistent with the 'affine worldline parameters' of other objects, such as the emitters and absorbers.
I'm not sure how I would go about this mathematically, but otherwise the prospects for testing your framework experimentally do not seem very good. And, as you know, this a pretty much indispensable before your work can be accepted widely as a physical, as opposed to metaphysical, framework.
In any event, I enjoyed reading your work and wish you all the best,
Armin
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 20:12 GMT
Hi Armin,
Thanks for your nice comments and great questions!
1) What I'm proposing is usually termed retrocausality, which is completely different and opposed to superdeterminism (although often confused with it, including by Bell himself). In superdeterminism, a future event A is correlated with a past event B by virtue of an even-further-past event C, in the past light-cone of...
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Hi Armin,
Thanks for your nice comments and great questions!
1) What I'm proposing is usually termed retrocausality, which is completely different and opposed to superdeterminism (although often confused with it, including by Bell himself). In superdeterminism, a future event A is correlated with a past event B by virtue of an even-further-past event C, in the past light-cone of both A and B. This is purely forward-causal; C causes A and B. If A is an experimenter's choice, then it can *in principle* be correlated with the past hidden variables in B, resolving Bell's theorem. But this is a bizarre and conspiratorial explanation (why should my choices be correlated with distant hidden variables in just this manner?!) and I don't buy it for an instant.
Instead, I'm explaining correlations between A and B simply by virtue of the spacetime history which extends from A to B, so they have every reason to be correlated in just the proper way. Of course, if that history obeys some deterministic or stochastic equations, then we can't get the right sort of retrocausal correlations to resolve Bell's theorem. But as in the example model from the essay, as well as in the following discussion of the double-slit experiment, I hope it is clear that removing such dynamical equations (and assessing the histories via stat mech-type reasoning) naturally resolves this problem. The external (future) choice of the experimental setting is naturally correlated with the past hidden variables, not because of a joint common cause, but merely due to the fact that different settings lead to different classes of allowable histories.
For the full proof-of-principle, you'll have to wade through the toy Lagrangian in arXiv:1301.7012, but so far it seems to work quite nicely, at least at that level.
2) No, my approach doesn't assign well-defined paths to photons, merely well-defined EM field configurations. For example, in the double-slit experiment, when interference is measured, the EM field really does pass through both slits before converging on the screen. Even in the which-slit case, it's not so much a well-defined particle-path as an extended field distribution (think of a laser beam that fills one of the two slits, and then converges onto the point of measurement).
Of course you're right that the key is to come up with a testable experiment, and I'm hard at work trying to get to the point where I can devise one. I'm a (lapsed) experimental physicist myself, and fully recognize the importance of making contact with the laboratory. If you look through 1301.7012 you'll see lots of places where experimental differentiation from standard QM starts to look probable, but devising an actual, doable experiment still requires a stronger theoretical foundation than what I've managed to date.
Cheers,
Ken
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Armin Nikkhah Shirazi wrote on Jul. 15, 2013 @ 14:19 GMT
Dear Ken,
It occurred to me that the experimental approach that I suggested to you might more likely work better the other way around from the way I described above, namely, that the real affine parameter and the web of affine parameter worldlines may introduce additional constraints not present in standard QM which forecloses certain results (or configurations of results) in your framework that are allowed under standard QM. Of course, to be sure, one needs to do the math, but I hope that you nonetheless found my suggestion useful.
Armin
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Hugh Matlock wrote on Jul. 16, 2013 @ 23:24 GMT
Hi Ken,
Your explanation of the Independence Fallacy and your account of a realistic QM is great!
I think your model is well worth developing but I believe it may be consistent with an underlying computational model, rather than foreclosing it: In the simulation paradigm, a computational substrate produces the effects that we observe. In one form of this, observers can see the "display screen" but not the "computer memory" of the system. An observer's timeline is a series of "explicate" snapshots from a particular perspective, which is computationally related to the "implicate" (hidden) state of the system.
Your "all at once" picture seems to me a good description of what such a system is doing internally. Internally, it does not have the past-present-future distinction that observers have, and so is free to propagate changes along the "4D links" you describe. In other words, there are two kinds of change: one that observers see as they view the cosmos along their timelines, and another kind of change that takes place "all at once" at each interaction of observer and cosmos.
This is the model that I explore in my essay
Software Cosmos. What I call (after Bohm) the "implicate" seems to me what you describe as the "all at once" picture. We both agree that explicate observers do not have dynamics, the difference is that I see dynamics taking place in the implicate, rather than being discarded completely. I hope you get a chance to read it, as I would love to know what you think.
Hugh
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 20:25 GMT
Hi Hugh,
I'm glad you enjoyed the essay!
At the surface, at least, my 'universe is not a computer' premise (see last year's essay) seems wildly different from your 'software cosmos', but I did see that you favor the fields-over-particles framework, which I'm certainly on board with.
As far as talking about the all-at-once perspective, I think it's crucial not to talk about "change" or "propagation" in a 4D perspective; once time has been mapped to a space-like axis, there's no remaining time dimension for either of those concepts to make sense.
I certainly will agree that, given a block history, we can experience it as "snapshots from a particular perspective", complete with our usual experience of time. But if you try to put ordinary dynamical equations back in at that level, I don't see a way to rescue either time-symmetry or a spacetime-based reality. (Yes, we need to recover *average* dynamics to explain our macroscopic world, but that's not really the same thing if they don't hold at a fundamental level.)
Best,
Ken
Member Ian Durham wrote on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 01:35 GMT
Hey Ken,
I trust that you will take my comments in the spirit they are intended (besides, you can always take solace in the fact that you're better than me at Scrabble). And, of course, you already know that we agree on the final conclusion.
So I have a number of critiques about specific passages, but I think the broadly general issues I have are primarily centered around three...
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Hey Ken,
I trust that you will take my comments in the spirit they are intended (besides, you can always take solace in the fact that you're better than me at Scrabble). And, of course, you already know that we agree on the final conclusion.
So I have a number of critiques about specific passages, but I think the broadly general issues I have are primarily centered around three things. First, I think that your argument basically flat-out denies that quantum contextuality even exists which is a pretty audacious claim given the evidence to the contrary. Second, I think you (and in all fairness a lot of people) mis-interpret relativity (I'll discuss that in a moment). Finally, you don't adequately explain how your model accounts for things like single-particle interference which is something that is routinely done in laboratories.
Expanding on the second point, I think there are a couple of problems. First, you say that there is no preferred reference frame in relativity. While this is certainly true in one sense, there, in fact, *is* at least one frame in which all observers will agree on the ordering of events and that is a frame that moves at the speed of light. It has always puzzled me as to why we ignore this fact. True, massive objects can't ever be in this frame, but it is nevertheless true that the closer two frames come to light speed, the more and more they will agree (does that make sense? if not I can e-mail you a more detailed response).
Second, you (again, like many, but definitely not all people) also take 4-D spacetime to literally mean that time and space are equivalent. But if they are perfectly equivalent, why, then do they appear to be different? Specifically, why does time always have the opposite sign of space in any realistic metric and isn't that alone evidence that they are, in fact, *not* the same? What mechanism produces time-asymmetry without producing an equivalent space-asymmetry? (Recall that there are, in fact, two different senses of time-reversal symmetry.) Where does the arrow of time come from (because if it doesn't exist, why haven't we reversed the aging process yet)? These are all questions that the 4-D spacetime literalists never seem to be able to satisfactorily answer (I've had this argument with someone at Fermi Lab once and he was unrelenting yet never could answer my points).
Finally (regarding spacetime), you deny dynamics but the moment that you imply some kind of ordering of events you are implying that something is no longer static. That's always been my biggest beef with the block universe concept. You can try to make time as much like space as you want, but by talking about any kind of "order" of events, you're essentially introducing an arrow of "time" in some sense of the term. For example, you say on p. 6 "When we lean about the experimental geometry of the future, this all-at-once analysis typically updates our probabilistic assessment of the past." But then it's not all-at-once! I mean, I see what you're trying to do: our information about the is dynamic while the universe is not. But then this goes back to my first point: that's only true if quantum contextuality doesn't exist and yet we have ample evidence that it does!
Now to some more specific comments, I disagree with your rose-tinted glasses assessment. I don't think it is at all like that. I also do not think that the various no-go theorems necessarily rule out an objective reality. The simply rule out the existence of some *inaccessible* reality (in fact it's only even one type of inaccessible reality that they even rule out). Regarding some of your interference experiment descriptions, in the single-particle Mach-Zehnder interferometer case, to get the quantum prediction the only possible explanation is that the particle must take both paths simultaneously. If it doesn't, you should never be able to repeat the experiment (see my blog post about this). I think that the photonic behavior disagreeing with Maxwell's theories is not a strike against dynamics as much as it is a strike against the field ontology, personally.
So, in short, there are so many quantum effects that you don't seem to explain and that is what I find most troubling. Of course, I'm happy to hear explanations if you have them. ;)
Ian
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Armin Nikkhah Shirazi replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 05:16 GMT
Dear Ian,
You made a number of very interesting comments, but I am afraid I did not follow all of them. I am really interested in better understanding your arguments, which is why I am taking the liberty to inject a couple of requests for clarification.
RE:c frame
Since all spacetime events in such a frame occur over a duration of exactly zero, I don't understand what you...
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Dear Ian,
You made a number of very interesting comments, but I am afraid I did not follow all of them. I am really interested in better understanding your arguments, which is why I am taking the liberty to inject a couple of requests for clarification.
RE:c frame
Since all spacetime events in such a frame occur over a duration of exactly zero, I don't understand what you mean, unless you are referring to a 'simultaneous' time ordering?
RE:time ordering
It seems to me that when Ken mentioned an updating of probabilities, he was referring to a subjective phenomenon arising from our inability to experience spacetime all at once, but your critique seems to presume that there is an objective aspect to these. Is that correct?
RE:2 kinds of time reversal symmetry
Could you kindly distinguish between these?
I hope that these questions will also help others better understand your arguments.
Thank you,
Armin
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 17, 2013 @ 08:35 GMT
Dear Ian,
I hope you'll excuse me butting in here as well, but you make a number of points that are of interest to me. I've been discussing the block universe issue with Ken above, and in my last posts (which he hasn't yet responded to) I wrote something about the Lorentzian signature of space-time, as well as something about a null frame, and I was hoping you could comment on that in light of what you had to say here. I'd also be interested to read the detailed response you said you could send regarding the frame that moves at the speed of light (my email address is daryl.janzen@usask.ca).
Also, your post has me intrigued to read more about quantum contextuality, so I'm going to read your essay on that. But in that regard, I'd be very interested to know what you might have to say in response to Ken's comments to me above.
Best regards,
Daryl
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Anonymous replied on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 01:06 GMT
Ken, Armin, and Daryl,
Let me see if I can respond to these questions adequately here.
First in regard to the c frame. So, since light travels at the same speed (set c=1 for simplicity) in any inertial frame, it would seem that all inertial frames would be at rest relative to light. But this can't quite be true because if it were, there should be absolutely no benefit to accelerating...
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Ken, Armin, and Daryl,
Let me see if I can respond to these questions adequately here.
First in regard to the c frame. So, since light travels at the same speed (set c=1 for simplicity) in any inertial frame, it would seem that all inertial frames would be at rest relative to light. But this can't quite be true because if it were, there should be absolutely no benefit to accelerating one's speed to near that of light, at yet we know that there is (e.g. relativistic muons and the whole Twin Paradox which isn't actually a paradox). True, it is the act of accelerating (and thus lengthening one's worldline) that does it, but you can't do it by *de*-celerating so it amounts to the same thing. So that means that there is some objective reality about the c-frame (because, for instance, in the Twin Paradox the space-faring twin really is younger upon their return).
So imagine two reference frames, each one traveling at some speed relative to a third frame that we will treat as being at rest. Also suppose that there are two events, A and B. It's fairly easy to determine t(AB) in the three frames and thus to calculate the difference between the values recorded in the two moving frames. Now accelerate suppose the two moving frames are moving faster, say by the same percentage (so, suppose they're really going 50% faster in reference to the rest frame than before). From the POV of the rest frame, they will each appear to be moving closer to the speed of light than they were. If you now calculate the values for t(AB) you will see that they do not differ as much as they did before. There's actually a simple graphical way to do this. At any rate, this is in line with the fact that there is some kind of objective reality about the c-frame (even though massive objects can never be in it). (Hopefully some of this answers both Daryl's and Armin's questions --- there is still relativity of simultaneity, it's just that there is one thing that actually is absolute in relativity and that is the c-frame).
Now, regarding the time-ordering thing, I'm not sure I'm necessarily saying one or the other regarding objectivity and subjectivity. All I'm saying is that if you're doing something "all-at-once" and then you say you "updated" something, well, it ain't "all-at-once" anymore. I think it's a bit of a cheat. So if you've updated your information, even if you analyzed the universe all at once, all that it tells you is essentially that your first analysis was wrong. So what's the point?
As for T-symmetry, an operational view interprets it as motion reversal, pure and simple. This is sometimes referred to as time reversal "of the first kind." In the Feynman-Stueckelberg formulation, however, it is interpreted as a simultaneous reversal of proper time as well as a particle/anti-particle conjugation. The latter differs from a full CPT transformation in that it lacks the parity flip. So it's a bit like a CT transformation. On the other hand, in order to guarantee an anti-particle on a conjugation, the full CPT operation needs to be used. To see how these things all compare, take a look at this paper (in particular Table 1 which shows which signs get flipped in the various situations): http://www.sdu.dk/media/bibpdf/Bind%2020-29/Bind/mfm-28-5.pd
f. It should be noted that there are other interpretations of t-symmetry as well.
Ian
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 16:29 GMT
Hi Ian,
Thanks for some interesting comments! Yes, there are lots of things not addressed/explained in the essay (contextuality, etc.), so thanks for raising the issues.
I'm very curious about your impression that I'm denying contextuality; it makes me think you're reading quite deeply into this. On one level, my central example is explicitly contextual. In the double-slit...
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Hi Ian,
Thanks for some interesting comments! Yes, there are lots of things not addressed/explained in the essay (contextuality, etc.), so thanks for raising the issues.
I'm very curious about your impression that I'm denying contextuality; it makes me think you're reading quite deeply into this. On one level, my central example is explicitly contextual. In the double-slit experiment, there are entirely different (mutually exclusive!) pasts that correspond to different future measurements; if you choose to measure which slit it goes through, it really went through only one slit. But if you choose to measure the interference pattern, it really went through both slits. Depending on your definition of contextuality, that's most of the game right there. It certainly explicitly violates the assumptions of the Kochen-Specker (KS) theorem, without giving up on realism, via the so-called "retrocausal loophole". (People may not like retrocausality, but it's still a well-established way to violate the premises of the KS-theorem.)
That said, I'm intrigued by your impression, because in another sense I think my story *is* effectively noncontextual, in that one reality literally "pre-exists" before the measurement choice. I just had a very interesting meeting with Matt Leifer where he laid out a more general definition of contextuality that keeps the same basic spirit of the original but allows noncontextuality to be compatible with KS-contextuality in this sort of retrocausal framework. (I hope he writes it up soon!) So I think the story can in principle be KS-contextual but Leifer-noncontextual.
I *think* this is what you're getting at when you imply that I can't both have 1) an all-at-once story about reality, 2) an updating-story about our states of knowledge, and 3) contextuality. You obviously can have 2) in an all-at-once story, just as you can have a computer in a block universe, so 1) and 2) are fine together. I think here you're assuming that 1) and 3) are incompatible, but that's only true for something like Leifer-contextuality, not for KS-contextuality. So long as I have contextuality in the latter (which I explicitly do!), I don't need it in the former.
It's a bit similar to the "non-local" accusation I sometimes get; if you define locality as per Bell in a way that distinguishes the past and the future, my story is technically Bell-nonlocal, but if you define locality (as in GR) based on associating properties to points on the spacetime manifold, along with some topology that restricts action-at-a-distance, then my story becomes "local" again in some meaningful sense (though not, of course, BELL-local). See Matt's comment above for a promising set of research projects along these lines (generalizing locality and contextuality to deal with retrocausality in a meaningful way.)
Your time-symmetry questions will require another long subsequent post, but I will comment about the "frame" in which you're moving with light. This is actually the only frame *without* ordering, because in this frame every event has the same time-coordinate. Instead of a temporal order, everything literally happens at once. (The same is true for the spatial coordinate in the direction of lightspeed travel, with infinite Lorentz contraction.) So instead of a universe parameterized by four dimensions, that "frame" only is parameterized by 2 dimensions, with the other 2 dimensions squashed into the plane. In part because of this, it's not a true frame at all; you can't possibly unboost from such a "frame" back into a non-lightspeed frame and recover what you started with. And because of these problems I'm not sure it's a very good support of the point you're trying to make.
I'm not sure how you equate an order with an arrow. Spatial locations are certainly ordered, and yet have no inherent arrow. I'm just doing the same for time – isn't that how you thought of time when you worked on GR?
I'm in full agreement that the EM field goes through both slits when you measure interference! Are you in agreement that it only goes through one slit when you measure which-slit it went through? As for particles vs. fields, I can imagine fields that go through one slit and other fields that go through both slits. I can imagine particles that go through one slit but *not* particles that go through both slits. So if you think the photon is really going through both slits, why wouldn't you want a field ontology? (Assuming you want a realistic ontology in the first place, that is...)
More on time's arrow soon... Are there any other quantum effects that seem particularly problematic from my perspective? (For the quantum eraser story, you have to go back two essay contests to 'quantum theory without quantization'... But of course that has always seemed retrocausal, so that's sort of easy game.) I want to consider everything up front, before I get too deeply into this, to make sure there aren't any showstoppers that will stop me in my tracks further down the road.
In your response to Armin above, you asked "what was the point" of updating when you had it wrong the first time... I'll assume this is a bit tounge-in-cheek... But of course in *any* hidden-variable theory you have it wrong the first time, by definition; see my states of knowledge that describe the toy model in the essay. They're *explicitly* wrong, in that one *knows* that one doesn't know. Given such a situation, if you did gain new information (about the future setting, or outcome), of *course* you will update your knowledge. If not, "what was the point" in learning anything in the first place? :-)
Now, if you're problem is that I'm not giving an all-at-once account of *consciousness*, well... er... um...
That's not my field. ;-)
Thanks again!
Ken
PS; Daryl, I'm trying to find time to get to your mini-essay in the comments up above... hopefully next week.
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 21:38 GMT
Dear Ken,
You wrote: "I *think* this is what you're getting at when you imply that I can't both have 1) an all-at-once story about reality, 2) an updating-story about our states of knowledge, and 3) contextuality. You obviously can have 2) in an all-at-once story, just as you can have a computer in a block universe, so 1) and 2) are fine together."
I have to strongly disagree with...
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Dear Ken,
You wrote: "I *think* this is what you're getting at when you imply that I can't both have 1) an all-at-once story about reality, 2) an updating-story about our states of knowledge, and 3) contextuality. You obviously can have 2) in an all-at-once story, just as you can have a computer in a block universe, so 1) and 2) are fine together."
I have to strongly disagree with this. In an all-at-once universe, where everything "pre-exists" and nothing "is", you really can't have an updating story about states of knowledge. I think Ian's right about that. The sequencing of your "updating story" still presupposes some sort of temporality. In an all-at-once universe, every instance of knowledge acquisition "pre-exists" as well, all at once. It's a set, not a sequence. You can try to define it as a sequence because of the "spatial" order, but the only way to get from one element to the next and "update" is in time. You can't have an updating sequence if the too-easily-smuggled-in fifth dimension that we know all about is *truly* singular--i.e. if the block doesn't exist, but really "pre-exists" *all-at-once*.
I know you know of the danger of conceiving of the block as an existing thing itself, because you've cautioned a couple of people about thinking that way in the comments here. I personally think it's the greatest and most common mis-conception that occurs when buying, hook, line, and sinker, into Einstein's relativity of simultaneity--which is why I spent so much of my (actual) essay discussing that. A block universe doesn't exist, whether one takes your view or mine on relativity and what constitutes an appropriate definition of "simultaneity".
The true all-at-once block universe can't in any way "update" because there's no temporality left in the description whatsoever--it's a purely mathematical model; a Lorentzian geometry that *isn't*. The alternative is that it's just a map of all the events that occur in reality--i.e. not a representation of reality itself, which is completely impossible to reconcile with reality, because something *is* updating.
The simplest alternative to the completely unrealistic model is to admit, as a first principle, absolute space, and therefore absolute motion and absolute simultaneity. This is completely consistent with the cosmologcal evidence anyway. For some reason, people get all hepped up about calling a cosmic rest-frame a "preferred" frame or a "privileged" frame. As my first post above indicates, this is complete nonsense and utterly ridiculous. The notion that the observers in such a frame are "privileged" supposes that all inertial observers should consider themselves as being "at rest"; that they can't stick out a measuring tape to use, that they conceive as "really moving" and use it to describe events. It's baffling that anyone ever bought the notion that the "man on the street" walking around considers himself to be at rest while the whole world just moves around him;--that two "men on the street" who walk towards each other will both think of themselves as being "at rest" while everything's moving around them, and that there's a day's difference in what they describe as happening "now" in Andromeda.
But that is *exactly* what the initial argument in your essay supposes.
Both men on the street are, however, thinking the same thing about what's at rest and what's moving around--and what they think is at rest is not a bunch of stuff in "space" that's orthogonal to their proper time axes; it's the Earth.
An absolute rest-frame is perfectly natural to understand, even if it's not the rest-frame of our everyday lives (the Earth) AND it's supported by the cosmological evidence--which is all that matters, because relativity theory tells us (i.e. due to the principle of relativity) that the physics has to work regardless of one's frame of reference and their associated preception/conception of "actual" motion; i.e., it tells us that we can do physics under the assumption that the Earth is "at rest".
Daryl
P.S. Thanks for saying you'd respond to my "mini-essay" above. I'm sorry it had to be so long. By the way, the two posts I left the next day are off-topic, and only meant to justify the claim in the first paragraph of my response, becasue I don't think you'd trust the claim as truly justified (sort of in the way that Leibniz saw Clarke's claim of appreciating and agreeing with the principle of sufficient reason as actually not being the actual case). Similarly, what I'm saying in this post is that while you're claiming that your conception of "an all-at-once block universe that updates" is only four-dimensional, and even though you understand that it's too easy to start thinking of it five-dimensionally, I think you do still have a five-dimensional perspective. Maybe you can show me why I'm wrong. I'm ready to listen, and I don't mean this in any disrespectful or insulting way--I just personally think it's impossible to think of otherwise, because the true four-dimensional view really is impossible to reconcile with an updating reality.
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 03:01 GMT
"It's a set, not a sequence. You can try to define it as a sequence because of the "spatial" order, but the only way to get from one element to the next and "update" is in time."
Sorry: more accurately, due to the metrical structure, it is a sequence, but one which doesn't *unfold*. It's temporally singular, and for that reason it couldn't possibly be distinguished from an unordered, temporally singular (and more clearly conceived as such) *set* by "inhabitants", whose perceptions could never "update" in any way. The only way for the sequence to *unfold* is if there is some temporality; some tense. The Lorentzian signature, which distinguishes the "timelike" direction from the "spacelike" one, just doesn't cut it; it's just a particular "other" kind of four-dimensional geometry. (And in that regard, the first result I posted in my addendum above shows very neatly just how very much *like* a "Riemannian" geometry a "pseudo-Riemannian" geometry can be (and I was hoping, because of Ian's interest in Eddington, that he could have a look through that derivation, because I think it goes some way towards supporting Eddington's views on what R_ab=Lambda*g_ab really means, and might say something about *why* the geometry of space-time should be Lorentzian anyway)).
Regards,
Daryl
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 15:48 GMT
Hello again, Ian,
Okay -- time to tackle this paragraph from your original comment:
> Second, you (again, like many, but definitely not all people) also take 4-D spacetime to literally mean that time and space are equivalent. But if they are perfectly equivalent, why, then do they appear to be different? Specifically, why does time always have the opposite sign of space in any...
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Hello again, Ian,
Okay -- time to tackle this paragraph from your original comment:
> Second, you (again, like many, but definitely not all people) also take 4-D spacetime to literally mean that time and space are equivalent. But if they are perfectly equivalent, why, then do they appear to be different? Specifically, why does time always have the opposite sign of space in any realistic metric and isn't that alone evidence that they are, in fact, *not* the same?
Sure, but it's important to recognize that just because space and time are equivalent in some senses (they're both dimensions, and neither has a inherent direction) doesn't mean that they're equivalent in *all* senses. Yes, the signature of the metric is such that there is always a (highly-)local inertial frame with a time-like axis, but the whole point of GR is that one isn't forced to do physics in such frames. The mere fact that it's *possible* to do physics in other frames (using the same equations!) means that there must be essential features shared between space and time. And those features are topological: ordered, but without preferred direction. (Otherwise space would inherit a preferred direction in such non-inertial local frames, or *any* single global frame.)
>What mechanism produces time-asymmetry without producing an equivalent space-asymmetry?
Ah, now here you're getting into Eddington's idea that there might be some missing physics that we don't know to explain the evident time-asymmetry around us. And if you postulate such physics, sure, then you break CPT-symmetry with new physics. But it's widely understood that this isn't needed, and that the ultimate source of the apparent asymmetry is cosmological (widely, in the sense that it's accurately reported in many popular science books, from Carroll to Penrose to Greene).
To make a long story short, the asymmetry is in the boundary conditions, not the laws. We're closer to a low-entropy initial boundary than we are to any low-entropy final boundary. Therefore, here, there's an evident time-asymmetry. The spatial version of this would be a temperature gradient caused by asymmetric spatial boundary conditions. You don't need asymmetric physical law to get an asymmetry. (Yes, it's a mystery why the Big Bang was such low entropy, but that's an entirely different question.)
> (Recall that there are, in fact, two different senses of time-reversal symmetry.)
I think the relevant and useful sense here is the question: if you took a movie of events and time-reversed it, (or CPT-ed it), would it still describe a possible process?
>Where does the arrow of time come from (because if it doesn't exist, why haven't we reversed the aging process yet)?
Cosmological; see above.
>These are all questions that the 4-D spacetime literalists never seem to be able to satisfactorily answer (I've had this argument with someone at Fermi Lab once and he was unrelenting yet never could answer my points).
I don't know how much patience you have for wading through philosophical arguments on such topics, but you might try this:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4829/
One upshot is that it's perfectly possible (and easy!) to think in terms of the block universe without thinking that time or change are unreal. They are REAL features of the "4D-static" block. To think that only a dynamic perspective can treat time "properly" is to sell us 4D-blockers short. And if there's some seemingly-important feature of time that vanishes in the block view, it's crucially important to ask yourself why this isn't evidence that such a feature perhaps doesn't objectively exist.
All the best,
Ken
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 17:28 GMT
But in that article, Price considers an explicitly 5D view and calls that presentism. He takes the 4D block and moves a spotlight along it. You can't move a spotlight along the block unless it exists. He finds this view of presentism inadequate, because why shouldn't all four dimensions just all exist; but that too is a 5D perspective. Greene, who you mentioned as well, puts the picture to us this way:
"Undeniably, our conscious experience seems to sweep through the slices. It is as though our minds provide the projector light referred to earlier, so that moments of time come to life when they are illuminated by the power of consciousness. The flowing sensation from one moment to the next arises from our conscious recognition of change in our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. And the sequence of change seems to have a continuous motion; it seems to unfold into a coherent story… The intuitive image of a projector light that brings each new *now* to life just doesn’t hold up to careful examination. Instead, every moment is illuminated, and every moment remains illuminated. Every moment *is*. Under close scrutiny, the flowing river of time more closely resembles a giant block of ice with every moment forever frozen into place.""
Broad's spotlight view of presentism *begins with* a 5D view of reality, so of course one ends by rejecting the extra structure of a 3D sweeping space that adds a bunch of extra structure by saying that's the only part of the four dimensions that are already conceived as existing that *really* exist. But that's not remotely what presentism is about. Presentism is the view that only the 3D universe exists. Because it exists, it has to be described by a 4D mathematical model, just as Greene's 4D "giant block of ice with every moment forever frozen into place" is a 5D view. Every moment *remains* illuminated. Every moment *is*.
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 19, 2013 @ 18:44 GMT
Maybe consider this, from Einstein's autobiography:
“It is a wide-spread error that the theory of relativity is supposed to have, to a certain extent, first discovered, or at any rate, newly introduced, the four-dimensionality of the physical continuum. This, of course, is not the case. Classical mechanics, too, is based on the four-dimensional continuum of space and time. But in the...
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Maybe consider this, from Einstein's autobiography:
“It is a wide-spread error that the theory of relativity is supposed to have, to a certain extent, first discovered, or at any rate, newly introduced, the four-dimensionality of the physical continuum. This, of course, is not the case. Classical mechanics, too, is based on the four-dimensional continuum of space and time. But in the four-dimensional continuum of classical physics the subspaces with constant time value have an absolute reality, independent of the choice of the reference system. Because of this the four-dimensional continuum falls naturally into a three-dimensional and a one-dimensional (time), so that the four-dimensional point of view does not force itself upon one as *necessary*.”
So relativity forced the 4D point of view on us as necessary because space-time, according to relativity, is a 4D connected metric space, whereas in Newtonian theory it's a disjoint union of two metrics, E^3 and t. Because of this, the dimensionality of the physical continuum according to Newtonian theory wasn't obviously four. Relativity certainly clarified this. But in doing so, it seems for many, who have come to think of all four dimensions as real, to have introduced a fifth dimension, which is not represented at all in the mathematical model, but is nevertheless a part of the interpretation of the mathematical model in much the same way that the fourth dimension of Newtonian mechanics was always there even though some thought only of the three dimensions of space.
But Newtonian mechanics explicitly contains the fourth dimension (time) as a variable, and still people didn't always think of the dimensionality of the physical continuum as being four. So my question is this: is it really at all surprising, given that there's no justification for a fifth dimension which is anyway not formally accounted for anywhere in the theory, to think that people should have a difficult time understanding that their 5D conception of the block *actually is* 5D and not 4? Nevertheless, the "4D-static" conception of the block clearly is five-dimensional when you come to think of it.
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Member Ian Durham replied on Jul. 20, 2013 @ 18:20 GMT
That's a lot to digest when the temperature and humidity are both hovering near 100 ºF (hopefully it will break by evening). But I will say from a brief skim of the comments, it seems Daryl has nailed by concerns with the all-at-once problem.
And, by "order" in the spatial sense, what do you mean? Because, in the sense I think of it, there absolutely is an arrow (heck, that's how we draw axes!).
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 16:03 GMT
Hi Ian and Daryl,
Ian: Sorry about the heat; I hope it cools off soon! And I'm relieved to see that last point you made; It means we aren't far apart after all. Yes, your "arrows" on your spatial axes are just fine, for time and space both. We have to choose an ordering parameter, I suppose, and given this arbitrary choice it's true that one direction has a parameter that goes up and in...
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Hi Ian and Daryl,
Ian: Sorry about the heat; I hope it cools off soon! And I'm relieved to see that last point you made; It means we aren't far apart after all. Yes, your "arrows" on your spatial axes are just fine, for time and space both. We have to choose an ordering parameter, I suppose, and given this arbitrary choice it's true that one direction has a parameter that goes up and in the other direction the parameter goes down.
All I'm trying to say about the arrow of time is that we shouldn't say anything about it that we shouldn't say about the arrow of space *given known symmetries*. There are no accepted physical theories that allows a process to occur in the +x direction that could not also occur in the -x direction, and the same is true for +t and -t.
By an fundamental "arrow" of time I was talking about processes that are allowed in one direction but disallowed in the other, and if you generalize to CPT symmetry, there are no such accepted processes (depending on the status of objective collapse, which is the crazy exception that proves the rule is a good one!). So I think we can avoid my arrows and yet have your arrows, bringing us into more agreement. (The other type of arrow, that of evident T-asymmetries on the macroscopic scale, are due to T-asymmetric boundary conditions. But again we can have X-asymmetric boundary conditions that produce spatial arrows, so again time and space are still on the same footing in this regard.)
Daryl: Your argument seems to be that the 4D block view of Price or Greene is really a 5D view in disguise. Those are "fightin' words"! :-)
Suppose I have in my possession a DVD, that encodes (discrete) 2D video. The data on this DVD then can be expressed in a (discrete) 3D block, 2 spatial dimensions + 1 time dimension. The block is just as static as the DVD itself. Your argument seems to be that this 3D data is "really 4D", because in order to play it I need to introduce a new dimension. But this is evidently not true. The DVD does not encode a 4D structure. Playing it just projects it back to 2 space + 1 time.
I'm not sure exactly which logical error you're making that convinces you that the 4D block universe needs to be represented in 5D... Perhaps you're thinking of it from the perspective of some 3D structure in the 4D block? (Equivalent to thinking about the DVD from the perspective of a 2D character in the video.) If so, that's a mistake: you need to adopt Price's "view from no-when", outside the block in the same way that we're outside the DVD. Otherwise it's too easy to mix up objective and subjective notions (lots of sub-fallacies follow from this, but adopting the proper perspective solves them all with one fell swoop).
Another possibility is that you are simply too wedded to the growing-block view to think in any other way, and this clearly does require 5D. In that case every event in the universe needs 5 numbers to describe it; 3 to describe where it is, one (t) to describe when it is, and one more (t') to describe when one is discussing that event. (In most growing-block views, if t' is less than t, then the event is given some new property like "undetermined", but if t' is greater than t, then the event is given some different new property like "determined".) In order to keep track of these new types of properties, one needs 5D. Obviously, I don't think these new type of properties are an objective feature of reality, so I don't need a fifth dimension to keep track of them, and can describe everything in 4D. Of course, maybe they are real, in which case the block universe misses out on actual 5D physics. But you still can't argue that the block universe *is* 5D; it's explicitly 4D!
If you don't think you fall into either of the above fallacies, then maybe there's another conceptual framework that I need to be made aware of.
Best,
Ken
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Member Ian Durham replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 18:53 GMT
Hi Ken,
What I meant when I was responding to Armin was not-so-much tongue-in-cheek (though I meant no offense) as it was trying to point out that the all-at-once paradigm doesn't make any sense to me when coupled with the concept of "updating." The former implies a singular while the latter implies a plural.
So here's the way I see it. What you could be saying is that we do an...
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Hi Ken,
What I meant when I was responding to Armin was not-so-much tongue-in-cheek (though I meant no offense) as it was trying to point out that the all-at-once paradigm doesn't make any sense to me when coupled with the concept of "updating." The former implies a singular while the latter implies a plural.
So here's the way I see it. What you could be saying is that we do an "all-at-once" analysis of the universe and then as we learn more information about it (both past and future) we continue to do so and thus "update" our information. In this way the underlying universe remains essentially "static" while our knowledge of the universe possesses an arrow of sorts (since we are gaining information about it). Now, I'm not particularly familiar with Matt's notion of contextuality and I'll have to do some digging into it, but from my own notion of contextuality there's a problem: the universe does *not* remain static. In other words, it is not always possible to deduce *past* states from future ones. It would seem that your argument does not address this issue.
Now, regarding the time-asymmetry issue, I disagree with Carroll, Penrose, et. al. Rather, I agree with Eddington who did not, necessarily, postulate new physics to explain this problem (he postulated new physics to address other issues). Eddington viewed the time-asymmetry question essentially entirely in terms of probabilities (actually, that's pretty much how he viewed everything). I really don't think it is that mysterious. The problem with the Carroll, Penrose, et. al. interpretation is that it assumes that the Standard Model is correct which in turn says that CPT-symmetry is inviolable. But there are notable problems with the Standard Model (it fails on a number of counts not the least of which is in relation to gravity). In addition, there is some evidence that CPT-symmetry is no inviolable. Recent studies of neutrinos suggest that it is possible that neutrinos and anti-neutrinos have slightly different masses. If so, this would be evidence of CPT-symmetry violation. All of this is to say that I think the cosmological case for the arrow of time is built upon some shaky ground (and I didn't even mention inflation). Heck, Sean Carroll himself addressed some of these issues at the last FQXi conference.
Now, to the c-frame issue. Obviously you are correct in saying the the c-frame itself is unattainable and, perhaps, unphysical in some regards (though clearly it is at least partly physical since light exists!). But the bigger point is that there *is* an objective ontology to relativistic frames. Otherwise, the Twin Paradox would really be a paradox. But it's not. The space-faring twin really is older --- they both agree on that when they meet again. Likewise, relativistic muons created in the upper atmosphere really do take longer to decay. And as two frames get closer and closer to c, they get more and more in agreement. That's the objectivity that I'm talking about that we all tend to ignore. If reality were completely subjective (relative), then the twins would each think the other was older.
This all goes back to that deep issue of time. While the laws of physics (mostly) seem to be time-symmetric, there's clearly a problem since we never see them run in reverse. If this is a purely cosmological problem, why is it that we never see, say, sub-atomic particles "un-decay?" Time is simply different. Relativity provides us with a convenient framework within which to treat time in a similar manner as space, but even *it* has a preferential arrow built into it --- allowing for complete time-symmetry in relativity produces logically absurd results. This is precisely because time is different in the metric --- it's sign is always opposite that of space. Incidentally, Lev Okun wrote an article about this very point a number of years ago but the cosmologists and many high-energy physicists still seem to cling to this notion that space and time are the same (and thus mass and energy also are the same), that the universe is really symmetric, that the Standard Model is correct, and that time-asymmetry is just an illusion perpetrated by cosmological expansion.
I hope that answers some of the points you have raised. If I missed responding to something, let me know.
Cheers,
Ian
P.S. It is thankfully much cooler today...
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 19:26 GMT
Hi Ian,
Yes, I think we're just about on the same page; at least I think we agree where we disagree.
> What you could be saying is that we do an "all-at-once" analysis of the universe and then as we learn more information about it (both past and future) we continue to do so and thus "update" our information. In this way the underlying universe remains essentially "static" while...
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Hi Ian,
Yes, I think we're just about on the same page; at least I think we agree where we disagree.
> What you could be saying is that we do an "all-at-once" analysis of the universe and then as we learn more information about it (both past and future) we continue to do so and thus "update" our information. In this way the underlying universe remains essentially "static" while our knowledge of the universe possesses an arrow of sorts (since we are gaining information about it).
Yes! That's it precisely.
> Now, I'm not particularly familiar with Matt's notion of contextuality and I'll have to do some digging into it,
You'll have to email him directly... Nothing's written up yet, I don't think.
> but from my own notion of contextuality there's a problem: the universe does *not* remain static. In other words, it is not always possible to deduce *past* states from future ones. It would seem that your argument does not address this issue.
Alas, I guess I didn't write a good essay, because this was the #1 goal I was trying to accomplish, above all else.
I would hope though, that if I *was* able to successfully show that learning about a measurement setting would cause one to update the past in different ways for different settings (as I tried to do in my various examples), then one would have the *appearance* of contextuality, even if the past really was determined in some all-at-once sense.
> Now, regarding the time-asymmetry issue, I disagree with Carroll, Penrose, et. al. Rather, I agree with Eddington...
Yes, I knew your position of course... But it's important to state this outright when discussing time-symmetry; just because the asymmetries seem like common sense doesn't mean they're part of known physics. And while Eddington's challenge is possibly do-able, the difficulty is rather steep; not only does that viewpoint require that one show the current Carroll/Penrose/Greene/Price story is insufficient to explain observations, but it requires one to posit new physics that is (as far as I know) hypothetical and vague. So Eddington may have common sense on his side, but time-symmetry has pretty much all of modern theoretical physics on its side.
> If reality were completely subjective (relative), then the twins would each think the other was older.
But without acceleration, it *is* symmetrical; they *both* think the other is younger as they're moving apart. Until there is an acceleration and they come back to the same point (or at least to within a small-enough invariant spacetime interval), there is no objective fact of the matter as to which twin is really older.
> If this is a purely cosmological problem, why is it that we never see, say, sub-atomic particles "un-decay?"
The same logic as breaking-wineglasses applies here as well. Every process has its reverse. If there's one input and two outputs, the reverse simply requires a bit more coordination to bring two inputs together at the right place and time (as we can only control the inputs). Three-output decays, and reversing it gets quite tricky indeed. There's also the issue that decays which produce net energy require net input energy to occur in reverse; still do-able, but not nearly as likely (at least not without a low-entropy final boundary condition).
I guess I don't understand how the different sign in the metric implies some new *asymmetry* in your mind. Sure, space and time are a bit different, but... *that* different? One is symmetric and one is not? Surely such an asymmetry would show up in Mawxell's equations or Einstein's equation? What about my earlier argument that in different reference frames this would imply that *space* inherits the time-asymmetry?
Maybe we should move this to email, if you want... Let me know!
Ken
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 22, 2013 @ 06:26 GMT
Hi Ken and Ian,
Thanks for keeping this discussion going. And Ian, I'm glad to see that I wasn't mis-representing your point of view, and that we're in agreement.
First of all, I just want to ask you guys once more to look at the post I left above, on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:39 GMT. In relation to Ken's point about the arrow of time--i.e.
"All I'm trying to say about the arrow of...
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Hi Ken and Ian,
Thanks for keeping this discussion going. And Ian, I'm glad to see that I wasn't mis-representing your point of view, and that we're in agreement.
First of all, I just want to ask you guys once more to look at the post I left above, on Jul. 10, 2013 @ 23:39 GMT. In relation to Ken's point about the arrow of time--i.e.
"All I'm trying to say about the arrow of time is that we shouldn't say anything about it that we shouldn't say about the arrow of space *given known symmetries*. There are no accepted physical theories that allows a process to occur in the +x direction that could not also occur in the -x direction, and the same is true for +t and -t."
--that derivation presents a clear case in which he's completely, unmistakably right.
Now, in response to Ken's comments for me: thank you very much for posting them, and taking up the challenge in the spirit that it's intended--i.e., seriously, and in good faith. In that sense, "them were fightin' words" indeed. I'm not able to respond properly right now, because I'm just heading out to a metaphysics of time workshop in (breathtakingly beautiful) Lausanne, but I wanted to let you know that I have seen your post, and I'm really looking forward to keeping up the discussion.
Two things I will say: I'm very glad to see that we're in full agreement on the dimensionality of the growing block model--it's unmistakably 5D; and I agree that the DVD contains 3D data. On the latter point, my argument isn't that the data are "really 4D", any more than de Sitter space (see the post I mentioned) is "really 5D". I'll do a better job of explaining myself later, now that I have your argument to work with. Indeed, I do think the right conceptual framework has been missed in philosophy of time. Today, I'm going to look to either be shown that it hasn't, or to see which points in particular I need to address in order to clarify.
Best regards,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 01:21 GMT
Hi Ken,
Please excuse me if I don't address points in the exchange you've had with Ian. I want to be as brief as possible in response to what you wrote to me. I do, however, need to provide some context for my criticism of your view.
My greater claim is that all accounts of any sense of temporal passage that I've read in my physicist's survey of the philosophy literature are...
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Hi Ken,
Please excuse me if I don't address points in the exchange you've had with Ian. I want to be as brief as possible in response to what you wrote to me. I do, however, need to provide some context for my criticism of your view.
My greater claim is that all accounts of any sense of temporal passage that I've read in my physicist's survey of the philosophy literature are abominations. They're no better (and maybe even worse because they're so explicitly wrong) than the physicist's foggy conception of temporal passage. All is a mess. And I think "subjective updating" falls right into this catagory. (Strong claim--and fightin' words indeed--so please allow me to explain. The upshot will be that you'll either see an error in a view that you support, that you weren't aware of before, or, by understanding my point, you'll be able to explain to me how subjective updating doesn't fall into this category).
More specifically, I claim that all accounts (that I've read or heard) of the presentist viewpoint, whether in favour or against it, make a very specific (and often explicit) error, which has confused the issue to the point that I do feel justified in calling these accounts "abominations". Because of this error, many--and then in light of relativity, many more--have committed what I'll call the Abortionist Fallacy (meant in the more general sense of "a failure to develop to completion or maturity") of arguing *from those erroneous descriptions* that presentism is false. In fact, the usual claim is that temporal passage is not as we commonly think of it--the most famous example being perhaps McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time.
Before I get to my main point, which is very simple, please let me explain what I mean by "Abortionist Fallacy". Consider the following (which I claim to be true): The purpose, or grand aim, of thought experiments, should be to make perfect sense of things that are not intuitively obvious to begin with (cf. Galileo's boat experiment). If this statement is true, then due to his prior definition of simultaneity, Einstein committed the Abortionist Fallacy when conducting his special relativistic thought experiments, from which he inferred the relativity of simultaneity, and therefore simply aborted the sensible notion of objective passage (cf. my first post above).
So, now: what's the one thing that's wrong with all attempts to describe temporal passage? It's simply the all-too-common idea that events (the things that happen, occur, take place, etc., which make up space-time) *exist*.
The error occurs whenever verbs are used to describe events. This is because all verbs--and particularly the copular verb 'is', 'will be', 'was', etc.--smuggle a sense of temporal passage into the mix because every last one of them has existential meaning. People are already dead wrong when they say, for instance, "look at this worldline, with a few points (t_1, t_2, t_3, etc.) labelled on it. The fact of the matter, in the presentist view, is that *at* t_1, only t_1 exists; at t_2, only t_2 exists, and t_1 no longer exists. The reductionist, or minimalist viewpoint--and what follows from McTaggart's argument--is that all t exists; i.e. the object represented by the worldline has temporal parts; etc."
I'm claiming that "exists" in the first and second sentence, as well as "has" in the second sentence, are completely wrong words to use, which totally confuse the meaning.
People might refer to events at certain times as being "real" or "Real", in a sweeping spotlight sort of way (the past is "real" in some sense, because I can talk about it, etc.). But the thing that actually matters isn't the big "R"/little "r" distinction. The thing that actually matters is the use of "being", which carries existential meaning.
The reason is simple: in a Newtonian conception of reality (my previous essay shows that relativity presents no real problem either, as long as "simultaneous" isn't mis-defined a la Einstein), how many dimensions are there in the physical description of "this chair exists here?" Since the chair's a 3D object, I hope your answer is "4D" (otherwise we've got an even bigger issue; cf. quote from Einstein's autobiography, above). Similarly, when we say "t_1 exists" or "all t exists" or "an object has temporal parts", or "an observer's subjective knowledge updates", we smuggle in a further dimension.
Just as "the existence of a 3D block" requires a fourth dimension in the physical description (even if the block doesn't change, still "while changing it exists"--Heraclitus), or the "existence" of an event needs 1D in order for the event to be described as something that exists, so the idea of events in 4D space-time as "existing" requires a 5D description. In essence, when we say (or think) "Jan 10, 1982, 1:26:32 exists", we think of the 3D world on Jan 10, 1982, at 1:26:32, as *existing* (i.e., when we say "is", "was", etc., we impose another dimension in the conception of that *instant*). The dimension in which events are described to "exist" is a hyper-time dimension, above and beyond the time-dimension describing the 3D universe's existence.
No one in their right mind has every supported this view outright (except maybe science fiction writers and growing block supporters like Ellis--although there's an argument that he's therefore perhaps *not* in his right mind), yet what I'm claiming is that when people assume a "third person"-view of eternity, a "view from no-when", a "God's eye-view", there is an overwhelming tendency to think that "God", the "third person", *exists*. Then the confusion sets in. Greene very explicitly describes the frozen block as something that exists, for example, patently assuming this hyper-time-dimension.
Now, how does this ubiquitous error factor into our debate? Basically, when you think that something subjectively updates their knowledge of the block, I'm saying you can't but assume such a hyper-time dimension. If everything really is singularly on par, you simply can't get this updating of knowledge within the block, any more than a fish can swim a distance through water, or electricity can flow through a wire, in an *instant*. In the sense of this hyper-time, the entire block has to be instantaneous, and therefore perceptions of it can't crawl along it and update.
When you describe reality as all of eternity, all four dimensions of the physical description of events that occur in reality, *at-once*, assuming a "God's eye view" of all the events that occur, you simply can't turn around and claim that your "God" exists *without adding the metaphysical structure associated with that*.
Parsimony is supposed to favour the block universe view of reality, which doesn't assume the extra structure of "3D space that exists"--i.e. a foliation--but what I'm saying is that "blockers" really don't have the more parsimoneous theory anyway. In fact, the view that all of space-time exists (Greene's view, etc.) assumes the same amount of structure in the sense that it assumes that something (of any dimension) *exists*; but because the thing it assumes exists actually has one higher dimension, it actually assumes *way more* structure. That's argument 1 against the "Humean minimalist" view--i.e., it's not actually minimalist at all.
Argument 2 is that the structure in the "anti-reductionist" view that "minimalists" want to do away with--viz. the foliation of space-time--is actually supported by cosmology anyway, so it's really a non-issue in the first place, if you take empirical evidence to be the supreme arbiter.
That's pretty much my argument in a nutshell. I don't think I'm committing any of the errors that you mention, but simply saying that I don't think you can get what you want to get without committing them yourself. I'm ready to listen, though, if you think you can get out of argument 1. Then, even still, I think I win by argument 2, since empirical evidence is supposed to trump all. In order to argue against me there, you'll have to overturn a whole area of physics--but still, I am willing (eager, in fact) to listen.
Best,
Daryl
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Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 01:47 GMT
Whoa whoa whoa...
You're still holding up *acceleration* as the resolution to the twins paradox? It's a mathematically ill-posed problem. They *simply can't* come back together unless one of them hops from one inertial frame to another. One of them simply has to do that--and the one who does *really* returns the younger of the two. The problem derives from SR, and is resolved within SR as well.
Schutz' description in his intro GR textbook explains this very well.
But also, think of the acceleration argument this way: conduct the experiment with triplets, and picture from the frame of reference of the one who sits on Earth. The third triplet stays back awhile longer, but does eventually decide to quickly fly to the moon and back. When they all meet up in the end, he has been "accelerated" as much as the triplet who went on the longer journey, but he has aged more.
In fact, even if he took ten short trips, but mostly stayed home, so that he was "accelerated" more than the other triplet, he's still going to be older in the end.
This argument against the claim that acceleration resolves the paradox is (roughly) Tim Maudlin's.
Daryl
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 21:25 GMT
Hi Daryl,
Aha! I think I finally understand what you're saying here, and it is indeed a good point. I've probably been too cavalier with mixing up the interface between the updating-story and the view-from-nowhen story. Here's a more careful version; let me know what you think.
I'm a 3D agent, extended in time; my 3D mental states are different at different times.
But I'm smart 3D agent; smart enough to imagine the 4D universe via the view-from-nowhen. (I can imagine stacking up 3D instants to form a 4D block.)
But I'm an ignorant agent. I don't know the future, and I don't know everything about the past. So at any given moment, when my 3D self constructs such a 4D block, it's incomplete, filled with guesswork and probability.
But I'm not *just* a 3D agent; I'm a series of 3D agents, and some of my later 3D selves aren't quite as ignorant as my earlier 3D selves. So the 4D block constructed by those later selves is more complete.
This constitutes updating. The updating is performed by a 3D agent over time, but the construction that is being updated is a 4D block. Each updated version is supposed to represent the same, single, *actual* 4D block of the universe, although of course no version even comes close.
Any better?
Ken
PS; I was using 'acceleration' as shorthand for hopping between inertial frames; we're on the same page there, and indeed I explain the twin paradox to my Modern Physics students in entirely SR-terms using such infinite-acceleration 'hops'.
Daryl Janzen replied on Jul. 24, 2013 @ 16:05 GMT
Dear Ken,
This is miles better!
First of all, I'm glad that you don't think acceleration resolves the twins paradox. But I do wonder why you would use 'acceleration' rather than saying something like 'the boosted twin', especially since acceleration has been wrongly thought by many to resolve the paradox.
But now to important stuff. I was talking with someone yesterday about...
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Dear Ken,
This is miles better!
First of all, I'm glad that you don't think acceleration resolves the twins paradox. But I do wonder why you would use 'acceleration' rather than saying something like 'the boosted twin', especially since acceleration has been wrongly thought by many to resolve the paradox.
But now to important stuff. I was talking with someone yesterday about my concerns with using verbs to describe space-time points, events, all of space-time, etc. What I learned was that a B-theorist uses the word "exist" non-existentially. Personally, I consider it nonsense to use language that doesn't actually apply to things by redefining words in such a convoluted way. Moreover, I think it leads to a lot of confusion, especially because it's so hard to not fall into the trap of thinking of these non-existential things that 'exist' as *existing*. (As an example, when you read what you wrote, don't you find it hard to not think of a *static* block? I think it's really hard to think of the block as a temporally singular, non-existential thing. I honestly can't make sense of "a thing that doesn't exist." Then I also have a tough time not thinking of existence *and* motion along the block when you write "updating is performed by a 3D agent over time"). And finally, I think if what's being proposed is so nonsensical that it can't even be properly described because the language comes to mean something else entirely, that's a pretty good indicator that it really is just nonsense.
So what's my point: I do understand what you've written here, insofar as every time you say "I'm" you're really speaking non-existentially about what you "are". I'm actually pretty okay with the description until the last paragraph, because I don't think you're being too cavalier with your use of non-existential verbs until that point. But in the last paragraph, I think you're getting a bit carried away when you use three in a row ("updating is performed") in a way that tends to give the impression that you're not only talking of the block as something that 'exists' but doesn't really exist, but also of a sequence of updates that move up the world line.
Alternatively, you could say (with the use of single quotation marks to indicate non-existential use of verbs) "The whole 4D block 'exists'. My world-line 'exists' in it. At each point along my world-line, I 'have' some knowledge of the entire 4D block; i.e., as I may 'know' something about past, present, and future events at each point of my world-line. At 'later' times, my knowledge of the block is more complete than at 'earlier' times." (I know "earlier" and "later" are adjectives, but I think it's good to still use the single quotes there). Maybe you could sum that up by saying, "one's incomplete knowledge of the 4D block 'is' a monotonically increasing function of one's worldline, where at each point along the worldline, that incomplete knowledge 'is' 4D".
I think we're now on the same wavelength about what you want to describe, and I think the description of 'subjective updating', if stated carefully in this way, making sure to note the non-existential meaning of 'exist', etc., is about the best you can do. But then I simply have to wonder why you want it to be that way anyway. One reason, from our discussion above, might be that you don't like quantum non-locality. But I have a tough time seeing how a fear of existence in a world in which magic happens, can lead one to want to 'live' in a world where one doesn't actually *live* at all; where one doesn't actually *exist*. I think it's better to try to sort out our problems than just give in to unrealistic implications--and I honestly think a realistic version of quantum theory, or really quantum gravity, will come about after we've taken the more immediately necessary step of properly interpreting and understanding relativity.
I guess that brings the discussion back to the one we were having above. Would it be at all possible to take that up again now? I think I've shown an ability to really understand this position that I think needs to be rejected, being very open to thoughtful consideration of its meaning and implications. I think you'll find if you do read what I wrote there, that I've given the same thoughtful consideration in coming to my own position on the matter.
One more thing I wanted to say before I quit, in relation to the point you made early on about symmetry, is this: last night at the summer school on physics and philosophy of time that I'm attending, Stephan Hartmann gave a talk about the No-Alternatives Argument, which basically runs as, "Physicists have identified certain constraints, C, and have a set of data, D, that they want to use to construct a quantum gravity. To date, only string theory seems to meet all of C and D. Given the amount of effort that's been put into the construction of an alternative, we can be optimistic to some extent that there reall are no alternatives." The "some extent" is evaluated using Bayesian analysis.
My objection to this entire line of reasoning comes in at the very beginning. It's true that having identified C, the usual goal is to try to construct a theory that adds C explicitly into the framework. But we know of cases in history, where ideas have been rejected for a long time just because they were naively thought to be at-odds with some constraint or other that people thought necessary to hold onto. For instance, given a butterfly's ability to easily flutter about, or even the fact that the Earth retains its atmosphere, people felt quite strongly for a long time that the Earth has to be fixed at the centre of the solar system, and this constraint was violently held onto (e.g., Bruno). But then Galileo showed (with a simple thought experiment that didn't even need to be conducted) that butterflies can flutter around just as well in the cabin of a ship, as they can when it's back at harbour, and it was realised that this constraint wasn't necessary to the realisation of the data, and the Solar System could, for all that constraint had mattered, be heliocentric. In light of what I've written about symmetry above, I would like you to consider that perhaps the standard symmetry constraint of modern physics maybe is being made too explicitly, for all the observed symmetries that must be reconciled.
Cheers,
Daryl
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 12:39 GMT
Hi Daryl,
I'm glad we're coming to some agreement... And yes, it's not exactly fair to deny the use of the verb "to be" to B-theorists by insisting on an A-theory definition! (There's a "Be-theorist" joke in there somewhere...) I'll encourage you go re-read some of that piece by Price with this fact in mind.
> As an example, when you read what you wrote, don't you find it hard...
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Hi Daryl,
I'm glad we're coming to some agreement... And yes, it's not exactly fair to deny the use of the verb "to be" to B-theorists by insisting on an A-theory definition! (There's a "Be-theorist" joke in there somewhere...) I'll encourage you go re-read some of that piece by Price with this fact in mind.
> As an example, when you read what you wrote, don't you find it hard to not think of a *static* block? I think it's really hard to think of the block as a temporally singular, non-existential thing. I honestly can't make sense of "a thing that doesn't exist." Then I also have a tough time not thinking of existence *and* motion along the block when you write "updating is performed by a 3D agent over time"
I *try* to think of a static block, because my innate-but-wrong time intuitions are too strong to fight any other way (you'll best be able to fight your "motion" intuitions in exactly this manner). The DVD example is useful, but perhaps not going to help you. Maybe the idea of a 4D block in the mind of a 3D person may help, although this 4D block isn't real in the same way that the actual universe is. What it really comes down to is that you don't *need* to think of the block as temporally singular; after all, it's not, any more than a full description of the universe written on a blackboard is spatially singular. (One needs different language to talk about the representation vs. the actual; perhaps where we're getting into all of our linguistic problems.)
> But then I simply have to wonder why you want it to be that way anyway.
What I "want" has nothing to do with it. That's what relativity tells us. Sure, I can go down your road of denying certain features of relativity, but "why do you want it to be that way anyway?" :-)
Your last point about starting from bad premises is right on target with me -- after all, that was the topic of last year's contest, and I effectively wrote about this very issue. But this point is *only* salient if most people are indeed making the wrong assumption. So when I look around at quantum physics and see that 99.9% percent of theories are assuming a dynamical framework, and 0.01% are analyzing histories 'all at once', I don't see myself on the side of a widespread but wrong assumption. Physicists implicitly break time-symmetry in their ontology all the time, often without even realizing it. I happen to think it's the common-sense, A-theory side of things that's the impediment to progress, precisely because it's far too easy to fall into that style of reasoning without thinking it through carefully.
Okay, I'm running out of time (ha) before I'm off to a conference, but I'll head back up to that first comment on simultaneity and see if I can say anything useful.
Best,
Ken
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Member Ian Durham replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 18:27 GMT
Hi Ken,
OK, a little more in the way of a response to your response:
1. I'm still not sure that what Eddington is talking about is unphysical. He's just talking about probability theory. Chains of probabilities are naturally asymmetric. It's just the way they are. Which leads me to...
2. Again, I think relativity is mis-interpreted. The arrow of time is built into it via the very fact that the sign of time in the metric is opposite that of space. It's easier to see if you work through relativity graphically using diagrams, but once you see it you can't "unsee" it, as they say. The only way to make time perfectly symmetric in relativity is to either drop the basic notion of cause and effect or allow for things like complex-valued masses and strange things like that. So, in short, I think it's incorrect to say that all the laws of modern physics are time-symmetric. They're not.
Ian
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 12:50 GMT
Hi Ian,
I'm about to move this to email, but briefly, on your two points:
1) Fully agreed; but as long as probability is about some underlying reality, that level is not fundamental. Sure, one could have stochastic dynamical laws, which could be fundamentally CPT-asymmetrical, but it seems to me quite unnatural to explain evident particle-physics-level CPT-symmetries in terms of even deeper CPT-asymmetries. (For example, there would be no link between such deeper stochastic CPT-asymmetries and the higher-level thermodynamic CPT-asymmetries without new physics on the intermediate particle-physics-level. And since we know of no CPT-asymmetric processes on this level, either this path forward *is* implying new physics, or just multiplying the asymmetric/symmetric mysteries without explanatory benefit.)
2) I think your phrase "drop the basic notion of cause and effect" is entirely the point. That's the extra piece people mentally add into SR and GR to make it seem time-asymmetric. But it's an extra piece, without referent in the actual theory of relativity.
Cheers!
Ken
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Vladimir F. Tamari wrote on Jul. 18, 2013 @ 01:56 GMT
Dear Ken. Hello, and apologies if this does not apply to you. I have read and rated your essay and about 50 others. If you have not read, or did not rate
my essay The Cloud of Unknowing please consider doing so. With best wishes.
Vladimir
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Cristinel Stoica wrote on Jul. 20, 2013 @ 12:44 GMT
Dear Ken,
I replied to the feedback you left on my
essay page. Congratulations again for the excellent essay, and good luck with the contest!
Best regards,
Cristi Stoica
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Thomas Howard Ray wrote on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 12:39 GMT
Hi Ken,
With more than a little bit of astonishment, I read Ian Durham's claim that you do not properly understand relativity, because of the existence of "at least one" preferred frame. Ian is wrong -- the preferred frame is not "at least one," it is a zero frame, and in general relativity the universe is a 4D quantum.
Only in the static model of quantum complex Hilbert space where...
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Hi Ken,
With more than a little bit of astonishment, I read Ian Durham's claim that you do not properly understand relativity, because of the existence of "at least one" preferred frame. Ian is wrong -- the preferred frame is not "at least one," it is a zero frame, and in general relativity the universe is a 4D quantum.
Only in the static model of quantum complex Hilbert space where time is treated independently and unitarily does such a preferred frame exist -- mathematically. Physically, too? Only if one disregards the demonstrable fact of classical time reversibility. One recalls that mathematics is never "about" anything -- whether preferred frames or any other physical concept -- while as you say, physical theories *must* be about something.
Yesterday my wife forwarded to me from another source, some optical illusion puzzles -- one of them was a silhouette of a twirling dancer; one can see the dancer twirl one way, and after some concentration see her twirling in the opposite direction. I already knew how this trick works -- like Thompson's lamp, the left-facing extended dancer's leg is 'on' while the right-facing leg is 'off' and vice versa. If I had remembered this phenomenon when I wrote
my essay I would have referenced it as an example of time reversibility in two dimensions.
It's kind of ironic that I agree with you on classical time reversibility and reach the opposite conclusion about the foundational status of information -- I think Wheeler was right that information is all there is. Time reversibility, though -- as in the above example -- is also information independent of the physical status of an object. The dancer's extended leg is orientable, so the question "In which direction is she twirling?" has a definite answer in a particular moment, though no such answer is available in the case of a symmetric object at the speed of light *except* when measured. Just as with the optical illusion, however, a measurement only begs the question; the initial condition determines the direction of rotation, and that initial condition is *our* choice, not nature's.
Anyway, your implying that physical theories have to be about something reminds me of arguments I used to get into years ago with creationists. What, I ask is creationism a theory *of*? In contrast, Darwin's theory is a theory of common ancestry. Likewise, general relativity is a mathematically complete theory of gravity. What is quantum mechanics a theory of? Wheeler's answer -- a theory of information -- appeals to me, because it suggests that a fully relativistic theory of the quantum *can* be made mathematically complete.
As usual, Ken, I just like the way you think and write. You have my vote of confidence -- all best in the essay competition.
Tom
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Thomas Howard Ray replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 15:26 GMT
I feel compelled to reproduce a comment that I made in your last year's essay forum:
"I love your statement, 'Now there's one last anthropocentric attitude that needs to go, the idea that the computations we perform are the same computations performed by the universe, the idea that the universe is as 'in the dark' about the future as we are ourselves.'"
Absolutely.
Tom
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 16:08 GMT
Hi Tom,
Thanks for your nice comments... I like that quote, too! :-)
I'll have to look at your own essay to see if I can understand the rest of your comments; maybe I'll try to contrast our views on your comment page.
Best,
Ken
Antony Ryan wrote on Jul. 21, 2013 @ 17:09 GMT
Hello Ken,
Apologies for commenting so late in the contest! I really like your essay and the approach is clever and up my street! Title sums it up well too.
All at once makes excellent sense. I like the rose tinted specs analogy at the start. I too tend away from It from Bit.
Your work here has made me consider my 3-spatial dimension, etc, mimicking the Fibonacci sequence around a Black Hole. As 4 corresponding to 4D space-time isn't in the sequence (when passing through zero) I omit time for the my purposes. I think that our two ways of considering the question sit well together.
If you still have time to take a look at my essay, I'd very much appreciate it.
I think you're going to do well in the contest & wish you all the very best!
Congratulations on an excellent essay,
Antony
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 21:31 GMT
Hi Antony,
Thanks for the nice comments! I haven't thought much about black holes lately, but was just informed today how I might apply some of my ideas in that context, so maybe that will get put on the research list. I'll try to get to your essay as well.
Best,
Ken
Antony Ryan replied on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 22:32 GMT
Hi Ken,
Hope you enjoyed my essay if you found the time to read it? Even if it's after the rating finishes I'd be delighted to have any feedback.
Best wishes,
Antony
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Paul Borrill wrote on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 00:16 GMT
Outstanding: A beautiful description of the independence fallacy. This is an excellent way to describe why slices in Minkowski space are profoundly unreal, and lead to inconsistent statistics in the “information record” of Bell states and other quantum experiments.
My favorite quote from the paper “But if one updates the past probabilities upon learning which measurement a system will encounter, the premises behind those theorems are explicitly violated.”
It appears, however, to be incomplete in one aspect, it needs a more distinguished understanding of what “dynamical evolution” means. I suspect the “dynamical evolution” aspect you are trying to stay away from is the "monotonic, irreversible flow of time".
I have not yet read your other papers in the references, as soon as I get through this huge volume of FQXi material, I will be sure to go back and read all your papers. I really enjoyed this one, these are excellent ideas, and your writing style is very high quality.
I would differ with you in your description of the double slit experiment, where you talk of photons “not landing in the dark fringes”. I assert that they do indeed “land” in the dark fringes, but they are “entangled” -- the photons are trapped between the emitter and detector bouncing back and forth in a timeless fashion. Entangled systems are DARK (from both an emission and an absorption perspective) [Ref: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1897 ]
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 21:43 GMT
Hi Paul,
Thanks! But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that 3D slices are "unreal", just incomplete. (After all, a 2D slice of a chair is certainly not "unreal", is it?)
You're absolutely right that I need a better description of what I mean by "dynamical evolution"; I probably neglected this because it was the main thrust of last year's essay entry, "The Universe is Not a Computer". So I'd recommend putting that on the top of the pile before tackling anything else.
Your phrase "bouncing back and forth in a timeless fashion" reminds me of how I used to think about retrocausal stories before I settled on the block universe as the only safe framework for coming to careful conclusions about such things. So I'd recommend putting Huw Price's book, "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point" on your list, which was the book that clarified many of these issues for me, and pointed me in some promising directions.
Best,
Ken
Paul Borrill replied on Aug. 1, 2013 @ 05:55 GMT
Ken - I have downloaded and am reading your other paper now. I am very familiar with Huw Price's work, and especially the book "Times Arrow and Archimedes' Point".
I would be honored to hear your thoughts on the potential unreality of Minkowski space in my essay, and perhaps the novel perspective of entanglement in 1 dimension of time/space. Please make sure to download the corrected version (V1.1a) - from the comments section. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1897
I look forward to an on-going dialog.
Kind regards, Paul
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sridattadev kancharla wrote on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 01:23 GMT
Dear All,
It is with utmost joy and love that I give you all the cosmological iSeries which spans the entire numerical spectrum from -infinity through 0 to +infinity and the simple principle underlying it is sum of any two consecutive numbers is the next number in the series. 0 is the base seed and i can be any seed between 0 and infinity.
iSeries always yields two sub semi...
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Dear All,
It is with utmost joy and love that I give you all
the cosmological iSeries which spans the entire numerical spectrum from -infinity through 0 to +infinity and the simple principle underlying it is sum of any two consecutive numbers is the next number in the series. 0 is the base seed and i can be any seed between 0 and infinity.
iSeries always yields two sub semi series, each of which has 0 as a base seed and 2i as the first seed.
One of the sub series is always defined by the equation
Sn = 2 * Sn-1 + Sigma (i=2 to n) Sn-i
where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2 * i
the second sub series is always defined by the equation
Sn = 3 * Sn-1 -Sn-2
where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2 * i
Division of consecutive numbers in each of these subseries always eventually converges on 2.168 which is the Square of 1.618.
Union of these series always yields another series which is just a new iSeries of a 2i first seed and can be defined by the universal equation
Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2
where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2*i
Division of consecutive numbers in the merged series always eventually converges on 1.618 which happens to be the golden ratio "Phi".
Fibonacci series is just a subset of the iSeries where the first seed or S1 =1.
Examples
starting iSeries governed by Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2
where i = 0.5, S0 = 0 and S1 = 0.5
-27.5 17 -10.5 6.5 -4 2.5 -1.5 1 -.5 .5 0 .5 .5 1 1.5 2.5 4 6.5 10.5 17 27.5
Sub series governed by Sn = 2 * Sn-1 + Sigma (i=2 to n) Sn-i
where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1
0 1 2 5 13 34 ...
Sub series governed by Sn = 3 * Sn-1 - Sn-2
where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1
0 1 3 8 21 55 ...
Merged series governed by Sn = Sn-1 + Sn-2 where S0 = 0 and S1 = 2i = 1
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 ...... (Fibonacci series is a subset of iSeries)
The above equations hold true for any value of i, again confirming the singularity of i.
As per Antony Ryan's suggestion, a fellow author in this contest, I searched google to see how Fibonacci type series can be used to explain Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity and found an interesting article.
The-Fibonacci-code-behind-superstring-theory Now that I split the Fibonacci series in to two semi series, seems like each of the sub semi series corresponds to QM and GR and together they explain the Quantum Gravity. Seems like this duality is a commonality in nature once relativity takes effect or a series is kicked off. I can draw and analogy and say that this dual series with in the "iSeries" is like the double helix of our DNA. The only commonality between the two series is at the base seed 0 and first seed 1, which are the bits in our binary system.
I have put forth the absolute truth in the
Theory of everything that universe is an "iSphere" and we humans are capable of perceiving the 4 dimensional 3Sphere aspect of the universe and described it with an equation of S=BM^2.
I have also conveyed the absolute mathematical truth of
zero = I = infinity and proved the same using the newly found "iSeries" which is a super set of Fibonacci series.
All this started with a simple question, who am I?
I am drawn out of my self or singularity or i in to existence.
I super positioned my self or I to be me.
I am one of our kind, I is every one of all kinds.
I am Fibonacci series in iSeries
I am phi in zero = I = infinity
I am 3Sphere in iSphere
I am pi in zero = I = infinity
I am human and I is GOD (Generator Organizer Destroyer).
Love,
Sridattadev.
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Michel Planat wrote on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 09:20 GMT
Dear Ken,
Very interesting essay.
Am I wrong if I say that your idea is in the same line that
http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.5590
I red your paper several times to grasp the idea and its consequences.
If I understand correctly, having a 4D relativistic viewpoint, one could reject many arguments in favour of the 'it from bit' perspective, including quantum contextuality? Or may be these arguments claim in favour of a a reintroduction of space-time thinking?
My point is about the underlying structure of observables and you may have interest in reading and rating it.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1789
Good luck,
Michel
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 24, 2013 @ 14:15 GMT
Hi Michel,
I'm glad you found it interesting. I didn't notice any obvious connections to that arXiv paper you mentioned, I'm afraid.
I'm not sure if my arguments allows one to "reject many arguments in favour of the 'it from bit' perspective", so much as attacks their key premise that there is no possible "it" in the first place.
And as far as contextuality goes, the story is complicated... You might read my exchange with Ian Durham on the issue, above.
Best,
Ken
Member Howard N Barnum wrote on Jul. 23, 2013 @ 17:32 GMT
Ken---
Superb job, one of a few essays I consider the very best I've read so far. I'll comment more on points of agreement later, but for now just want to record the way in which I'm engaged with these sorts of ideas, in part through your work and Huw Price's, in part through Matthew Leifer and Rob Spekkens, in part just from my own thinking. I tend to agree that the Bell correlations...
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Ken---
Superb job, one of a few essays I consider the very best I've read so far. I'll comment more on points of agreement later, but for now just want to record the way in which I'm engaged with these sorts of ideas, in part through your work and Huw Price's, in part through Matthew Leifer and Rob Spekkens, in part just from my own thinking. I tend to agree that the Bell correlations needn't worry one so much ... the absence of a "story" allowing one to get rid of them by conditioning on stuff in the intersection of the past light cones of the correlated events doesn't upset me. I am attracted to trying to understand this through a more "instrumentalist" account of what quantum theory does for us than the one you are suggesting for in this essay, but I tend to think that in the end the "instrumentalist" and "realist" approaches to "How to stop worrying and learn to love quantum correlations" (as I am thinking of titling a paper on the subject...) end up with something like the histories formulation. I'm not sure how the "no-dynamics" approach fits in... I tend to view any constraints between the events that comprise possible histories, as "substantive physics" and not care so much whether it's called "kinematics" or "dynamics". (I still need to read Rob Spekkens' winning essay from last year on exactly that subject...) And I see that you end up with a histories picture too. I view both an instrumentalist histories approach, and a micro-histories approach, as realist---just realist about different things. The thing I worry about is that *both* approaches may be committed to some level of "decoherence" arising from choosing a particular set of histories. It's the question of "what's the ontology". Even if it's a micro-ontology, it may generate decoherence. Now, maybe that's more likely on "standard" histories stories in which the "events" about which histories concern themselves are statements like "the particle is in this phase space cell" (or possible fuzzified, continuum versions that are more sophisticated...). Whereas the more sophisticated "microrealists" who wish to abandon Bell-like causality restrictions without worries, may have in mind more exotic kinds of "underlying reality", including, as Terry Rudolph likes to say, a reality that is not described in spacetime terms at all. Although it seems to me you may not want to go there! But then I wonder about getting the theory to avoid decoherence at a level that might be refuted by observation.
Possibly related is a certain similarity in my mind, which others in this thread (and elsehwere) have also drawn attention to, between "retrocausal" and "conspiratorial" explanations. I realize you have said they're not similar. But I'm not so sure. In situations like your description the two-slit experiment, the "retrocausal" influence seems to be coming from the different final measurement apparatus. Not sure how you would deal with a "which-way" measurement very near the slits (I guess you could put lenses there, too). But this seems almost as conspiratorial... the thing is that whatever determines some big macroconfiguration, determines the possible histories. And surely we *do* think we can predict, with high probability, that macroconfiguration from stuff in its past light cone... There is probably something I'm not understanding here, different in your explanation than in the conspiratorial one. It is likely in *just exactly what* the macronconfiguration is affecting: putting a different, and somehow less objectionable, kind of constraint on the set of histories in your case than in the conspiracy case. But I'd love to see an explanation of this that is as clear as what you've written on other points in this paper.
Just to be clear, again, this is not intended as criticism... just as a reaction. You wrote a paper that made me go back to what I've been thinking on these issues, and think about it some more... which is another sign of a good paper. Again, outstanding!
Cheers,
Howard
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 24, 2013 @ 14:29 GMT
Thanks, Howard!
High praise indeed... I was quite pleased to see (from your own essay, which I need to comment on, still!) that you've been grappling with the spacetime implications of the operationalist viewpoint. So I'll count the essay as a success if I can keep you thinking in those terms for a bit longer... :-)
I do think that reading Rob's essay from last year would be...
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Thanks, Howard!
High praise indeed... I was quite pleased to see (from your own essay, which I need to comment on, still!) that you've been grappling with the spacetime implications of the operationalist viewpoint. So I'll count the essay as a success if I can keep you thinking in those terms for a bit longer... :-)
I do think that reading Rob's essay from last year would be useful, but you might try my last year's essay as well. Rob's point -- that it's not so crucial whether one encodes the physics into the kinematics or the dynamics -- is perfectly fine *whenever there is such a dual interpretation available*. The fact that you can always seem to go back and forth for certain classes of theories is certainly interesting. But my point was (and is) that there are some classes of kinematics-only theories that *have* no dynamical version. (Or at least, if there is one, it's nonMarkovian and crazy-looking.)
Take the toy model in this essay, here. How would you couch the 5:4 vs 25:16 probabilities in dynamical language? I don't see any way that it could be done. And if I'm right about the parallel to the double slit experiment, then it's crucial to quantum foundations that one takes care to consider such kinematics-only stories that have no dynamical counterpart.
I wonder if your worries about a history-based story leading to decoherence are related to this point, in that getting rid of dynamics would avoid the problem. Certainly I would think the future-boundary conditions would help as well, so long as it's that boundary (the future measurement settings) that are effectively selecting out a particular set of histories to be overwhelmingly probable. (For an example of how this might work in practice, see IV.C of 1301.7012.)
As far as retrocausality vs. superdeterminism, I agree that they're similar in that they're both ways to break the Independence Fallacy... But I think that at any other level, the only way to confuse them is if one starts out thinking in retrocausal terms and then lapses back into forward-causal thinking. For example, in the retrocausal story, a future measurement setting M is naturally correlated with a past hidden variable L. But if you grant such a correlation, and then lapse back into forward-causal thinking, in cases where L clearly doesn't cause M you would come to the Reichenbach-conclusion that both L and M must be conspiratorily linked via some even further-past hidden variable. In the retrocausal story, no other variables are required.
For example, in my toy model, one *could* explain the story by linking the decision of the agent who selects the geometry (2A or 2B) to the hidden variables in the system, via some conspiracy, but it's so far from the stated explanation that it hardly seems possible to confuse those two options.
> And surely we *do* think we can predict, with high probability, that macroconfiguration from stuff in its past light cone...
The two answers here are that 1) "being able to predict in principle" and "being correlated in a specific, reproducible way" are two wildly different things, and 2) No, I don't think we can predict such configurations in general, even from a complete accounting of past HVs, because I've given up on the causal-determinism of dynamical equations. (Including stochastic equations.)
I realize that 2) may seem like a fairly drastic step to take, but I think my last year's essay provides a reasonably solid motivation for at least considering the possibility.
Thanks again for the kind words!
Ken
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Member Ian Durham replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 18:43 GMT
Hi Ken (and Howard),
As an addendum to the things I mentioned above, what occurred to me while reading Howard's comments was that, in a nutshell, I think we're overcomplicating things by missing the obvious. I know the retrocausal approach has become quite popular, but, again, it seems to be based on a certain set of notions that we seem to be clinging to for dear life --- the time-symmetric nature of modern physical theories, the absolute correctness of the Standard Model, etc. --- and I have no idea why. Again, I don't think the Standard Model needs replacing. I just see it like I see most theories: it is a highly accurate description of a limited set of phenomena. [And for the sake of people who don't want to go digging for my other comments, relativity is simply not time-symmetric. There's a neat little gedankenexperiment that you can do with a type of light clock that shows that if you run it backwards you don't get the Minkowski metric. You only get it if you run it forward in time.]
Ian
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:01 GMT
Hi Ian,
The retrocausal approach is "quite popular"?!! I'd take that as good news if I believed you... :-)
Also, there's a difference between holding CPT symmetry as a nice empirically-grounded principle, and thinking that the Standard Model is "absolutely correct". I'm definitely not in the latter camp.
I'll shoot you an email next week.
Ken
Don Limuti wrote on Jul. 24, 2013 @ 15:17 GMT
Hi Ken,
I finally got to your essay and gave it the best mark.
One minor criticism. A definition of dynamics would have helped less sophisticated readers like myself.
I invite you to visit my essay and see how I "give up dynamics", If you visit please be critical..... There is too much agreement around here.
Thanks,
Don Limuti
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 12:42 GMT
Thanks, Don! I'll try to get to yours as well; I see it's very highly ranked.
Yes, I definitely should have gone more into the definition of "dynamics", but perhaps was overly shy of rehashing last year's essay.
Too much agreement...? See above. :-)
Best,
Ken
Than Tin wrote on Jul. 24, 2013 @ 21:58 GMT
Dr. Wharton
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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Dr. Wharton
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.
With regards,
Than Tin
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Akinbo Ojo wrote on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 13:32 GMT
Dear Ken,
Kindly indulge me. Probably no better place to clarify things with the experts than this forum.
Is it being implied by the relational view of space and as suggested by Mach's principle that what decides whether a centrifugal force would act between two bodies in *constant relation*, would not be the bodies themselves, since they are at fixed distance to each other, nor the space in which they are located since it is a nothing, but by a distant sub-atomic particle light-years away in one of the fixed stars in whose reference frame the *constantly related* bodies are in circular motion?
You can reply me here or on
my blog. And please pardon my naive view of physics.
Accept my best regards,
Akinbo
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Mikalai Birukou wrote on Jul. 25, 2013 @ 18:21 GMT
Dear Ken,
Replying to post on physical basis for introduction of principle of least action (dated Jul. 13, 2013 @ 10:41 GMT)
Having (time x change), or (time x energy) comes naturally by way we introduce the principle of least action. But this introduction is done on the level of effective systems, i.e. not at fundamental level at all. The bigger picture, with places to introduce spacetime as one piece on both low and effective levels, is painted in
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1597 Notice there that notion of time is connected to the system, i.e. it is not a global time (can we call it local time?). And since it is not a global time, a little special place of time in Lagrangian method does not produce global problems, which none of us want :) .
De facto, when we look for a new theory (i.e. suggesting new Lagrangian), we watch out not to have bad things like negative energy. And, although it is beautiful to have complete time-space (t-x) symmetry, we avoid certain theories specifically based on this aspect of time being experimentally a little different.
Sincerely,
Mikalai
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:05 GMT
Hi Mikalai,
I'll try to get to your essay, but my time is running out... In response to your point about "time-space symmetry", you might find some useful discussion with Ian and Daryl above.
Best,
Ken
William Amos Carine wrote on Jul. 26, 2013 @ 17:43 GMT
Hi Wharton,
I like the trend that this essay encompasses about not dwelling on the spacetime view of things and also its emphasis on returning to the big picture. It put some critical controversies in history in a more viewable, and relate-able, light.
Thanks,
Amos.
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:07 GMT
Thanks for the nice comment, William! (Although I thought I *was* dwelling on the spacetime view...?)
Best,
Ken
Yuri Danoyan wrote on Jul. 26, 2013 @ 20:33 GMT
Dear Professor Wharton
Do you have opinion about my essay?
Yuri
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Jul. 27, 2013 @ 01:14 GMT
Ken,
We agree. In my "It's Great to be the King" I tend to satirically rebuke the Anthropic Principle, especially "It from Bit.
For example, you say, "where everything about the present was encoded in some initial cosmic wavefunction," I deny the existence of consciousness w/o a body during the BB and bodies not possibly existent until 1 billion years after the BB after heavier-element stars.
The connection between consciousness and reality and the subatomic and the macro worlds I say are philosophical / metaphysical with their arguments. They are confused in attributing similar behavior to micro and macro, much like your concept: "case quantum information can plausibly be about something real . Instead of winning the argument by default, then, \It from Bit" proponents now need to argue that it's Better to give up reality. Everyone else need simply embrace entities that fill ordinary spacetime – no matter how you slice it."
Thanks for a well-thought-out read. I am interested in seeing your thoughts on my essay.
Jim
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:12 GMT
Hi Jim,
I'm afraid I don't understand the connections you're talking about there, so I'm not sure we're "agreeing" about the same things...
Best,
Ken
Jayakar Johnson Joseph wrote on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 07:28 GMT
Dear prof. Wharton,
Your statement, “with no objective ‘now’, there is no objective line between the past and the future”, indicates the causality of “microhistory", and implies discrete-time.
With this, dynamic time evolution in configuration space is adapted in
string-matter continuum scenario, in that one-dimensional observer for one-dimensional source is ascribed to express the emergence of other dimensions with realistic information continuum rather than probabilistic that indicates the observational plausibility of real-time information continuum on molecular dynamics of simplex in linear time with reference to holarchical discrete time.
With best regards,
Jayakar
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Jayakar Johnson Joseph replied on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 07:38 GMT
Cont..
I am interested on your essay and my best wishes to you. - Jayakar
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:14 GMT
Hi Jayakar,
I'm not dead-set against discrete time, but if you dig up my entry for two contests ago (Digitial vs. Analog) you'll see why I'm more in the continuum camp. I think it was called "Quantum Theory without Quantization".
Best,
Ken
Georgina Woodward wrote on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 09:12 GMT
Dear Ken Wharton,
Just to let you know I have read your essay which I found really interesting and very clearly explained.I like the way you linked your discussion with the essay question making it highly relevant. Nice helpful diagram too
Good luck, Regards Georgina
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 13:18 GMT
Thanks Georgina! I remember you generally liked my block-universe analysis from the previous contests, right? I think my ideas make sense for people comfortable with that framework, but unfortunately seem to baffle everyone else... :-)
All the best,
Ken
eAmazigh M. HANNOU wrote on Jul. 29, 2013 @ 03:03 GMT
Dear ken,
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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Douglas Alexander Singleton wrote on Jul. 30, 2013 @ 11:56 GMT
Hi Ken,
I hope the familiar greeting is OK. We met during the program review for SJSU a few years back maybe more than 5 years now). Anyway I may be back at SDSU this fall since Alej and I have agreed to exchange colloquium talks.
A very nice and deep essay -- not all parts of which I agree with -- but it bears careful reading and thinking about.
At the beginning of the essay...
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Hi Ken,
I hope the familiar greeting is OK. We met during the program review for SJSU a few years back maybe more than 5 years now). Anyway I may be back at SDSU this fall since Alej and I have agreed to exchange colloquium talks.
A very nice and deep essay -- not all parts of which I agree with -- but it bears careful reading and thinking about.
At the beginning of the essay you take a holistic view that one must view space-time in 4D blocks rather than 3D slices which one dynamically evolves forward. (By the way if you are teaching intro algebra based physics don't let your students get their hands on this essay since otherwise when you move from kinematics in the first few weeks of the course to dynamics some student will misrepresent your point and say "But Prof. Wharton in your essay you say dynamics isn't important".) This is reminiscent of a Wick rotation where one goes from Minkowski to Euclidean space by letting t-->it. One question I had in this regard is that there is some real difference between Minkowski and Euclidean space or more directly between spatial and temporal coordinates. Given enough time it is always possible to reach any spatial coordinate starting from x=0 -- either x=-N or x=+N. However starting from t=0 one can only access t>0. There are some subtle issues with this as your figure 1 indicates in terms of the relativity of simultaneity but essentially an observer can equally access left and right (unless one breaks parity symmetry) but past and future are not so equally accessible. I'm not sure if this is crucial to your argument or if it is already addressed in some way but it was something that I thought about.
Next I had a technical question in regard to you example in figure 2 (I did not see where this example was going until the nice connection with the two slit experiment in figure 3). In the example in figure 2 you use 3 colors, but it seems you could use either 4 or 2. 4 colors would seem to work in the following way: blue for H-H, green for T-T, red for H-T and yellow for T-H (i.e. the order of the opposite pair matters). 2 colors would seem to work in the following way: blue for H-H and T-T (i.e. the same color for both like pairs) and red for H-T and T-H. Would this change anything or would it simple alter the numerical values of the different probabilities you calculate?
Actually I have a few more comments/questions but will stop here. I should say the point that I disagree with is the statement "photons behave in a way that disagrees with the dynamical Maxwell equations". Actually this statement is correct but also we know that classical Maxwell's equations are superseded by the quantum version of Maxwell's equations i.e. QED. And in regard to QED there has yet to be any deviation between experiment and theory -- photons as far as we have tested behave exactly as predicted by QED. Some time ago there was some excitement when it appeared that there was a deviation between the calculated g-2 for the electron and/or muon and the experimental value. The deviation was jumped on as evidence for supersymmetry (supersymmetric particles were ignored in the calculation and including them with some given mass made the agreement better). However in the end it was found there was a mistake in the calculation which involved 5 or 6 loop Feynman diagrams!!) which when it was fixed brought agreement between theory and experiment. This does not really have too much bearing on your main thesis which deals with foundational issues rather than using the structure of quantum field theory to make calculations.
Anyway a thought provoking essay.
Best,
Doug
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Author Ken Wharton replied on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 20:42 GMT
Thanks, Doug! Yes, I definitely remember you... Looking forward to your seminar at SJSU!
I'll let you know if I spark any dynamics-mutinies for my physics students... But my quantum students still seem to manage to learn how to do QM despite my occasional claim that none of this is what's really going on, so I think I should be safe on that count... :-)
On your first comment,...
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Thanks, Doug! Yes, I definitely remember you... Looking forward to your seminar at SJSU!
I'll let you know if I spark any dynamics-mutinies for my physics students... But my quantum students still seem to manage to learn how to do QM despite my occasional claim that none of this is what's really going on, so I think I should be safe on that count... :-)
On your first comment, I'm not claiming that time and space are identical in all regards, but I'm still not quite sure about your argument here. The sentence "from t=0 one can only access t>0" has the word "access", which is already time- and causality-ladened, and doesn't have a good physics translation. If you mean "have worldlines that extend to" by "access", then this isn't true.
I guess one can complain that the past "isn't accessible", but if by "access" you mean experience-forward-in-time, then this is simply a tautology. If I defined the word "flerb" to mean a translation in the +x direction, then starting from x=0 one can only flerb to x>0. (As for why our experience has an arrow, that's a second-law-related issue, partially addressed in some of my replies to Ian Durham above.)
On your technical question, the key is to break the symmetry, or else all the probabilities are always equal. (Both of those examples you gave would lead to 50% probabilities for both diagrams, it turns out. Squaring 1:1 is still 1:1.) But you could do it with 4 colors, so long as (say) 3 colors were matched with H-H and T-T, or any other uneven setup.
As for whether one should even "expect" photons to adhere to Maxwell's equations, well, perhaps I'm coming at this from a 1905-perspective right now (see the piece just posted at arxiv.org/abs/1307.7744 to see what I'm talking about here). But I'm far more happy with the guts of QED than I am QM itself; I think it's the path-integral version of the former that has the best chance for a realistic interpretation (at least if one permits some modification).
I'm glad you found the essay thought-provoking! I know a bit about your work concerning the path integral, and I hope that you keep playing around with it, perhaps with some of these ideas in mind. From my perspective, the path integral is the ridiculously-neglected stepchild of quantum foundations, and certainly deserves more attention in general.
Best,
Ken
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john stephan selye wrote on Aug. 2, 2013 @ 16:17 GMT
Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.
If I may, I'd like to...
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Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.
If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.
I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.
There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements – which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.
Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.
This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.
Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.
This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.
However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.
Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.
Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.
The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.
Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.
This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.
Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.
You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.
With many thanks and best wishes,
John
jselye@gmail.com
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Chidi Idika wrote on Aug. 3, 2013 @ 05:05 GMT
Dear prof Ken,
Am wondering if you could find the time to read
What a Wavefunction is It probably looks like a wild claim. But it just may not be. I have a download and am going to read your essay. And i'll be back here to rate. But I'll appreciate if you could read and comment on mine. The text may be hard-going. The physics should interest you.
I define the observer as "wavefunction" or "configuration space".
Best,
Chidi
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eAmazigh M. HANNOU wrote on Aug. 4, 2013 @ 17:51 GMT
Dear Ken,
We are at the end of this essay contest.
In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.
Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.
eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.
And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.
Good luck to the winners,
And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.
Amazigh H.
I rated your essay.
Please visit
My essay.
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Héctor Daniel Gianni wrote on Aug. 4, 2013 @ 19:39 GMT
Dear Ken Wharton:
I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics. 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”.
I am sending you a practical...
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Dear Ken Wharton:
I am an old physician and I don’t know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics. 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”.
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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Yuri Danoyan wrote on Aug. 7, 2013 @ 03:13 GMT
Dr Wharton
How is your opinion about my essay?
Yuri
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