Dear Heinrich Pas,

An enjoyable essay. You note that the truly unique factor of our language is "its ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all… Thus "any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a media evil church, and ancient city, or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective...

view entire post

Dear Heinrich Pas,

An enjoyable essay. You note that the truly unique factor of our language is "its ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all… Thus "any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a media evil church, and ancient city, or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination."

But, as you say, "not all realities are equally fundamental."

You note that in the space-time concept of relativity observers moving with different speeds will measure different times in space, while the space-time distance ds is not directly observable. My essay reviews the history of relativity in a way that I hope you find interesting. I would appreciate any comments.

With regard to "information about things that do not exist at all", you note, for example, Heisenberg's creation of isospin to 'describe' proton and neutron. If one grants that protons and neutrons are in some fundamental sense 'real', this represents one of the first (of many) instances in which a mathematical projection is used to replace reality. It isn't even a particularly clean projection, as isospin symmetry assumes equal mass, and even this is not true. This projection-based approach continues to SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) with the same problem. SU(3) assumes 'equal mass' but it is applied to problems where masses differ by two orders of magnitude.

Thus 'symmetry' (a.k.a. group theory) offers a powerful tool, but I believe ALL actual instances of 'symmetry' are approximate. In this way Heisenberg's projected Q-bit evolved to Bell's projected Q-bit which is the basis of "entanglement", which you seem to consider fundamental.

However I do agree that information is immaterial and relies on a material carrier and depends on the perspective of the observer. That is, only energy travels through space. If that energy crosses a threshold and changes a system's configuration, the system becomes "in"-formed and the informed structure represents the record of 'information', assuming a codebook or perspective is able to interpret it.

Thank you for a very well-written, interesting perspective on 'what is fundamental?'. I hope you find my essay interesting.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

view post as summary

Respected Prof Heinrich Päs

Nice understanding about the universe..... understood as an entangled quantum object. This seemingly tautological statement is explained in detail, and some related ideas inspired by this view which could guide the future ............

By the way have a look at my essay sir...

Here in my essay energy to mass conversion is proposed...……..….....

view entire post

Respected Prof Heinrich Päs

Nice understanding about the universe..... understood as an entangled quantum object. This seemingly tautological statement is explained in detail, and some related ideas inspired by this view which could guide the future ............

By the way have a look at my essay sir...

Here in my essay energy to mass conversion is proposed...……..….. yours is very nice essay best wishes …. I highly appreciate hope your essay and hope for reciprocity ….You may please spend some of the valuable time on Dynamic Universe Model also and give your some of the valuable & esteemed guidance

Some of the Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model :

-No Isotropy

-No Homogeneity

-No Space-time continuum

-Non-uniform density of matter, universe is lumpy

-No singularities

-No collisions between bodies

-No blackholes

-No warm holes

-No Bigbang

-No repulsion between distant Galaxies

-Non-empty Universe

-No imaginary or negative time axis

-No imaginary X, Y, Z axes

-No differential and Integral Equations mathematically

-No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to GR on any condition

-No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models

-No many mini Bigbangs

-No Missing Mass / Dark matter

-No Dark energy

-No Bigbang generated CMB detected

-No Multi-verses

Here:

-Accelerating Expanding universe with 33% Blue shifted Galaxies

-Newton’s Gravitation law works everywhere in the same way

-All bodies dynamically moving

-All bodies move in dynamic Equilibrium

-Closed universe model no light or bodies will go away from universe

-Single Universe no baby universes

-Time is linear as observed on earth, moving forward only

-Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis no interdependencies between axes..

-UGF (Universal Gravitational Force) calculated on every point-mass

-Tensors (Linear) used for giving UNIQUE solutions for each time step

-Uses everyday physics as achievable by engineering

-21000 linear equations are used in an Excel sheet

-Computerized calculations uses 16 decimal digit accuracy

-Data mining and data warehousing techniques are used for data extraction from large amounts of data.

- Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true….Have a look at

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_15.h
tml

I request you to please have a look at my essay also, and give some of your esteemed criticism for your information……..

Dynamic Universe Model says that the energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation passing grazingly near any gravitating mass changes its in frequency and finally will convert into neutrinos (mass). We all know that there is no experiment or quest in this direction. Energy conversion happens from mass to energy with the famous E=mC2, the other side of this conversion was not thought off. This is a new fundamental prediction by Dynamic Universe Model, a foundational quest in the area of Astrophysics and Cosmology.

In accordance with Dynamic Universe Model frequency shift happens on both the sides of spectrum when any electromagnetic radiation passes grazingly near gravitating mass. With this new verification, we will open a new frontier that will unlock a way for formation of the basis for continual Nucleosynthesis (continuous formation of elements) in our Universe. Amount of frequency shift will depend on relative velocity difference. All the papers of author can be downloaded from “http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/ ”

I request you to please post your reply in my essay also, so that I can get an intimation that you replied

Best

=snp

view post as summary

Dear Heinrich Päs,

I enjoyed your essay, since it tries to squeeze out as much information as possible out of the assumption that there is a global wave function governing all of reality (‚the universe’).

I want to point you to the fact that the many-worlds-interpretation, means the assumption of a psi-ontic global wave function is a logical trickster in the following...

view entire post

Dear Heinrich Päs,

I enjoyed your essay, since it tries to squeeze out as much information as possible out of the assumption that there is a global wave function governing all of reality (‚the universe’).

I want to point you to the fact that the many-worlds-interpretation, means the assumption of a psi-ontic global wave function is a logical trickster in the following sense.

The MWI allows one to use the principle of non-contradiction together with its assumed ‘complement’ – the principle of contradiction.

It does so by assigning a probabilistic as well as a strictly deterministic ontology to one and the same events.

Consider for example me, obsvering a particle’s spin up in a measurement. In a branched universe another individual (although totally identical with me – but nonetheless *another* individual) observes spin down for ‘the same’ particle.

Since such a branching, such a splitting is thought of as happening deterministically, the question remains why the individual should see the ‘complementary’ result of my measurement and not vice versa. One can only deny this dichotomy by assuming that ‘spin up’ and ‘spin down’ are only observer-relative due to decoherence. But one cannot deny that nature must assign a certain well-defined value in my universe.

Since I am distinct from the other individual for which nature has assigned another value (the complementary value for example), I can’t even in the bird’s view answer the question why it should be me and not the other individual that observes the measurement value I observe.

Since the other individual is thought of as identical with me at the moment the measurement outcome is fixed – but only as far as its thoughts and its body is concerned, but *not* in the sense that it has the exact same location within the wave function – the other individual will exactly conclude what I conclude: there is no cause in nature (at least not within a global wave function alone!) that could assign the measurement outcome that I observed. Hence there is also no cause in nature that the other individual should observe its ‘complementary’ measurement outcome.

If there is no cause in nature that assigns a specific event in my world or in the world of the other individual, the global wave function cannot be psi-ontic or must have some additional features.

What the MWI does here is that it mimicks a kind of ‘coincidentia oppositorum’, al melting of mutually exclusive concepts. It mimicks the coincidentia oppositorum of a probabilistic and a strictly deterministic version of natural behaviour for the same event. It can do so, because from a frog’s view, it seems that both individuals in both branches are one and the same – with just a tiny difference in their environment (and finally in their brains where the measurement results are realized!).

Since everything is identical, even the particle before the measurement, this kind of coincidencia opppositorum seems like the mystical enlightenment of the real fundament of all there is. The price to pay is that we have married two mutually exclusive concepts by the very means we started from: namely by the superposition principle. This principle intertwines the law of non-contradiction with its ‘complement’, the principle of deductive explosion.

It may well be that nature is regularily confronted (before an arbitrary measurement takes place) with a multitude of possibilities that the principle of explosion represents, but the MWI does not resolve the presence of the principle of explosion. Moreover, the MWI does shift the problem of this principle from superpositions to branching in a deterministically manner, but cannot get rid of the probabilistic part, since within the formalism of quantum mechanics, there is nothing that could assign the well-defined measurement value that I will see when I make my next measurement. In this sense, the outcome must remain ‘random’, albeit this randomness is surely restricted by the probabilistic part of the formalism.

In conclusion, no individual in any part of the multitude of different branches within the MWI can predict the next outcome of a probabilistic quantum measurement. Since this seems to be true for me, I conclude that the MWI only mimicks a consistent interpretation. It does so to the price of eliminating an observer-independent world by claiming that it is perfectly observer-independent. Stated differently: the frog’s and the bird’s view cannot be complementary, since logically they have to be understood as mutually exclusive. They only can be made complementary by adding the principle of explosion.

One now may argue that the principle of explosion wasn’t added at all, since it is a natural element of the formalism, means the superposition principle. This may be true, but does not eliminate the fact that the principle of explosion is present in the MWI together with the law of non-contradiction. The latter has is expression in the branching and its implication that branched universes cannot anymore communicate or causally interact with each other (unless one doesn’t introduce a special kind of recoherence). The former is a consequence of the formalism itself, namely the superposition principle.

In summary, what the bird’s view perceives as a kind of ‘coincidencia oppositorum’ is true, but it is the interwining of the principle of explosion with the principle of non-contradiction. Therefore it is no wonder that the MWI can ‘deduce’ all kinds of things for different branches – as long as the probability for these things to occur is not exactly zero. Or stated otherwise, as long as these things are not impossible in-principle. Since the main principle in this consideration is the formalism of quantum mechanics, the MWI and its multitude of worlds is a direct consequence of the principle of explosion.

But there is one thing the principle of explosion cannot handle. This is the fact that there are at all observers that can facilitate different interpretations of quantum mechanics. Since the formalism of quantum mechanics does not show the slightest signs that it should enable some self-reflection (in the form of observers), this formalism seems for me to not capture the universe as a whole (unless one interprets the timeless wave function as being fundamentally conscious and able to split this consciousness in some mysterious manner by its own branching).

Don’t bother about my long comment, I like to make my thoughts as tracable as possible for the sake of exchange of viewpoints and arguments.

Hope the formatting problem of the fqxi-editor is now solved... :-)

Best wishes,

Stefan Weckbach

view post as summary

Dear Heinrich,

there is much I like and agree with about your essay. The notion of the 'fundamental universe' is close to my own thoughts---I think of it as the 'quagmire', after a quotation from Schrödinger:

"Nearly every result [a quantum physicist] pronounces is about the probability of this or that or that... happening—with usually a great many alternatives. The idea that they...

view entire post

Dear Heinrich,

there is much I like and agree with about your essay. The notion of the 'fundamental universe' is close to my own thoughts---I think of it as the 'quagmire', after a quotation from Schrödinger:

"Nearly every result [a quantum physicist] pronounces is about the probability of this or that or that... happening—with usually a great many alternatives. The idea that they be not alternatives but all really happen simultaneously seems lunatic to him, just impossible. He thinks that if the laws of nature took this form for, let me say, a quarter of an hour, we should find our surroundings rapidly turning into a quagmire, or sort of a featureless jelly or plasma, all contours becoming blurred, we ourselves probably becoming jelly fish."

This quagmire can be split into 'observer' and 'environment' in many different ways, all of which give rise to a different set of 'relative facts' (this term, I think, I stole from Jeff Barrett)---relative to one observer, the electron spin is up, relative to another, it's down, and so on.

But let me for the moment be contrarian and try to challenge your rejection of strong emergence. For this, suppose we have a universe with three kinds of particles---A, B, and C---complete with laws governing their behavior. This constitutes the complete set of 'fundamental facts' about this universe: any sort of god needs only fix those, and the rest must follow.

Now, we might add a fourth, D kind of particle: this certainly changes nothing, other than more fundamental, irreducible facts need to be added. But what if this particle, say, is a particular composite of A, B, and C-particles? Thus, A-particles might behave one way when isolated, but another way when in a certain conjunction with B- and C-particles; moreover, that they behave this way is not implied by the fundamental facts pertaining to those particles. It's an additional fundamental fact, albeit not on the same level as the facts about A, B, and C-particles.

To me, this doesn't seem any more controversial than, say, adding charge to a massive ball, and having it move in an electromagnetic field: without the charge, gravity alone suffices to determine its motion, but with charge, we have to take electromagnetism into consideration, too. A ball that would have been falling under the influence of gravity alone might be held in suspension by a clever dynamic arrangement of electromagnetic fields.

Similarly, a conglomerate of A, B, and C-particles (i.e. a D-particle) might move according to the rules for A, B, and C-particles, but might also move in accordance with additional rules that obtain for D-particles.

The real problem is, I think, that all of the fundamental facts about the various kinds of particles are ultimately not further justifiable. They're Archimedean points, incapable of being reduced to more fundamental facts (since if they could be, they'd hardly be fundamental). Facts of such a kind on higher levels do not themselves seem any more suspect to me---the problem is really with their irreducible nature, not with the level they're on. It's just that we're more comfortable with such foundations being all the way at the bottom.

view post as summary

Heinrich,

This is a very clear view of a holistic perspective.

I would observe though, that a more precise delineation between information and its medium is between energy and form. Energy can only be known by the form it projects, while form requires energy to manifest, as obviously without energy it would collapse into the void.

This goes to one of my pet issues, that we...

view entire post

Heinrich,

This is a very clear view of a holistic perspective.

I would observe though, that a more precise delineation between information and its medium is between energy and form. Energy can only be known by the form it projects, while form requires energy to manifest, as obviously without energy it would collapse into the void.

This goes to one of my pet issues, that we look at time in reverse. As we experience reality as flashes of distilled perception, we think of it as the point of the present, "flowing" past to future. Physics codifies this as measures of duration, between events. The reality is it is change turning future to past, as in tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. Duration is simply the present, as events form and dissolve.

Different clocks can run at different rates, because they are separate actions. All things being equal, a faster clock uses energy quicker, as with metabolism. Time is asymmetric because it is a measure of action, which is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both.

There is no underlaying dimension, because time is an effect, like temperature. Time is the individual frequency, while temperature is masses of frequency and amplitude.

So to go back to energy and form, they go opposite directions of time. As energy is conserved, it is always and only present, but changing configurations, goes from prior to succeeding, as these forms come and go, future to past.

Consider the relationship between processes and entities, as in a factory, where the product goes start to finish, future to past, as the process consumes material and expels product, pas to future.

As with species and individuals, where the individual goes birth to death, while the species is constantly moving onto new generations and shedding old.

Or our consciousness and thoughts, as consciousness is constantly generating new perceptions and forgetting old ones.

Yet since the narrative and memory of our minds have become so well developed, it is the basis of history, logic and civilization, so we view it as foundational.

Keep in mind though, that we developed this mind and central nervous system to process form/information, along with the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems to process the energy to carry it forward. So if one wants to know the past, they study the information, but if they want to know the future, they must study the energy.

Also consider galaxies are composed of energy radiating out, as form coalesces in.

In nature, thermodynamics creates time. Expand, consolidate. Everything is either seed or fertilizer for the next.

Regards,

John B Merryman

view post as summary

Dear Heinrich

If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don’t rate them at all. Infact I haven’t issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to...

view entire post

Dear Heinrich

If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don’t rate them at all. Infact I haven’t issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to gain.

Beyond my essay’s introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity’s effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me and my essay in questioning this circumstance?

My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a “narrow range of sensitivity” that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. And again, how lucky we are! for if they didn’t then gas accumulation wouldn’t be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn’t we consider this possibility?

For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we “life” are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

My essay is attempt of something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up a potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond formation activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemistry processes arose.

By identifying atomic forces as having their origin in space, we have identified how they perpetually act, and deliver work products. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might explain for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

To steal a phrase from my essay “A world product of evolved optimization”.

Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

Kind regards

Steven Andresen

Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin

view post as summary

The concept of emergence is misunderstood in this Essay. Emergence doesn't imply that higher level properties aren't derivable from lower-level properties. They are. Emergence states that high level properties aren't reducible to lower-level properties of components alone. This is why P.W. Anderson titled his famous article as "More is different".

As a consequence of this...

view entire post

The concept of emergence is misunderstood in this Essay. Emergence doesn't imply that higher level properties aren't derivable from lower-level properties. They are. Emergence states that high level properties aren't reducible to lower-level properties of components alone. This is why P.W. Anderson titled his famous article as "More is different".

As a consequence of this misunderstanding all the following discussion about hierarchy of science and "In this hierarchy physics defines the foundation, chemistry is the physics of the outer atomic orbits, biology deals

with the chemistry of complex organic molecules,..." is wrong. As Anderson demonstrated chemistry isn't applied physic, biology isn't applied chemistry,...

"higher levels of description may actually be more deterministic (a typical example is that macroscopic classical physics appears to be more deterministic than microscopic quantum mechanics)". Maybe if one reduces macroscopic to mean "deterministic Hamiltonian physics" only, because many macroscopic descriptions developed by chemists, biologists, during last centuries aren't deterministic. E.g. kinetic chemists have always considered chemical reactions as stochastic processes.

Zeh is wrong, when he claims there is no particles. Of course, there are particles, they are routinely detected in experiments.

Decoherence doesn't have anything to do with observers and lost of information. Decoherence also happen when there is no observers present and the physical mechanism doesn't have anything to do with ignorance about the environment, but is a dynamical consequence of resonances between the environment and the coupled system. Those resonances generate dissipation and lost of purity on the quantum state of the system.

The idea that decoherence produces "quasi-classical objects such as particles with a definite location emerge" is also incorrect. The phenomenon of decoherence erases the non-diagonal components of the density matrix, but the final result continues being a superposition of states, one per diagonal element of the matrix, not a delta-like f(x).

"In rapport with Zeh's understanding, particles are usually understood as field excitations in quantum field theory". Which is incorrect, because (i) field theory cannot fully describe bound states, so cannot describe fully interacting particles and (ii) those 'excitations' aren't real particles, but unphysical bare particles.

The Unruh effect is based in uncritical mixture of quantum field theory ideas with relativistic ideas and thermodynamic ideas.

"Adopting Occam's razor, one can assume now, that the process of decoherence is entirely responsible for the quantum-to-classical transition which leads to various decohered quasi-classical realities, the so-called Everett branches". But it is well-known that decoherence doesn't explain classical world neither measurements. And Everett ideas have been debunked dozens of times.

"This interpretation of the quantum measurement process is usually known as the Many-Worlds-Interpretation, Many-Minds-Interpretation or Universal Quantum Mechanics." In reality MWI isn't a valid interpretation of QM. Some criticism of early Everett ideas can be found here

http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/physfaq/topics/manywor
lds

"In contrast to dt and dx the spacetime distance ds is, however, not directly observable" because ds is a geometrical construct but the closely related tau is a physical magnitude that can be measured with a proper clock.

Neither it is true that the quantum mechanical wave function is unanimous for any observer.

"the protons and neutrons constituting the atomic nucleus behave so similar that they can be understood as two states of a single particle". They cannot and the reason why we treat them as different particles.

Since when is "direct observability" a requirement for a fundamental description? And what is wrong with an observed-dependent description when the descriptions of the observers can be linked via transformation theory?

"In thermodynamics, states such as gases or liquids are described by parameters or state functions such as temperature, pressure or volume. These state functions are not fundamental in the sense that they do not correspond to a specific configuration of the constituent atoms or molecules (a so-called "microstate"), but to a statistical average of microstates known as "macrostate". This is constraining the concept of thermodynamics to mean XIX century thermodynamics only. Today we can define temperature directly from the microstate, and study fluctuations of temperature around the average; and the same happens with pressure. For instance the pressure in terms of phase space is given by



So if we don't pretend that the discipline of thermodynamics was frozen in century XIX, we can go beyond the classic concepts and even introduce quantum thermodynamics, which is an extension of quantum mechanics to non-pure (thermal) states.

"The normalized logarithm of the number of microstates corresponding to a given macrostate is known as entropy". This is the statistical concept of entropy, not the thermodynamic one, and this Boltzmanian definition of statistical entropy isn't valid for canonical ensembles for instance. Subsequent discussion is based in such confusions.

"Consequently, the fundamental state of the Universe has zero-entropy (and is arguably timeless). In fact, the Wheeler-DeWitt equation [17] of canonical quantum gravity describes a timeless Universe on the fundamental level". The WdW is a wrong equation, as admitted even by one of his authors.

"Turning back to quantum mechanics, it is well known that in the quantum-to-classical transition the von-Neumann entropy increases as a consequence of the information loss into the environment." Even if we loosy associate entropy with 'information', information isn't lost in the process. In fact quantum mechanics conserves the von-Neumann entropy by virtue of the quantum analog of the Liouville theorem.

"Thus the fundamental state of the Universe can not be a constituent, it has to be the total entangled system of observer, measured system, and environment, also known as the quantum Universe itself." Quantum mechanics isn't a fundamental theory (the field of emergent quantum mechanics is a hot topic of research those days); so a "quantum Universe" is only an approximate conception of Universe.

view post as summary