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"Both were interested in how information theory could help illuminate quantum mechanics... the information you gain when you learn something about a system is mathematically defined to be the reduction in your uncertainty about it."

No. This is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of information, that has utterly confused physicists for generations.

"But the instant you make that measurement, the wavefunction collapses into one possibility or another"

No. There is no physical wavefunction - it is merely a computational tool.

Quantum theory only describes the probability of detecting a particle. It does not describe actual measurements, of anything, at all. Think about it. In the famous double slit experiment, the only thing ever observed/detected are spots on a screen, or detection counts of particles. The position of the particle being detected, is NEVER actually measured. Rather, which detector (from a set of detectors) detected the particle, is first observed, then the position of that detector, not the detected particle, is measured, and then, the particle's position is INFERRED, not measured, as being the same as the detector.

Nothing else is even a possibility, since the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is equivalent to the statement that only a single bit of information is being manifested, in a quantum detection process: exactly enough information to answer one yes/no question "Was something just detected?", and nothing more.

"Making sense of this measurement problem is the 'most fundamental problem in all of quantum mechanics'..." Exactly. To make sense of it, you have to first recognize the fact, that no "measurement" is actually being performed on the detected entity - only a single-bit detection-decision (AKA wavefunction collapse) is ever being performed.

Rob McEachern

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Dear Reality Fans,

Any sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Michel Westmoreland & Benjamin Schumacher, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing their utterly unnatural guesswork concerning finite invisible imaginary quantum particles. Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. Mathematics am only recently published humanly devised finite guesswork. There are an infinite number of numeric and functional symbols that could be represented by any number of people at any supposedly fixed finite time on a flat surface. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed. There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Renata Kallosh is a theoretical physicist and a Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Her work focuses on the general structure of supergravity and string theory and their applications to cosmology. She develops string theory models explaining the origin of the universe and its...

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Renata Kallosh is a theoretical physicist and a Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Her work focuses on the general structure of supergravity and string theory and their applications to cosmology. She develops string theory models explaining the origin of the universe and its current acceleration.”

I have posted this more sensible comment at the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page:

Only that which am VISIBLE has ever ETERNALLY existed. Please remember that: Cogito, ergo sum is (sic) a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am". The phrase originally appeared in French as je pense, donc je suis in his Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. Wikipedia

René would have been closer to telling the truth had he averred: Je suppose que, comme tout le monde sur la planète “I guess, just like everybody else on the planet does.” All philosophers and theoretical physicists would come closer to telling the truth if they would only preface all of their remarks with the term: “I guess.” Professor Markus Mueller of the Vienna Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information has confirmed to me by email that all “good” philosophers and theoretical physicists have always guessed about the real visible structure of the Universe.

Any sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Renata Kallosh, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing her utterly unnatural parroted guesswork concerning finite invisible imaginary Einstein suggested gravity waves. Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed. There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fishere, REalist

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"There is no physical wavefunction - it is merely a computational tool."

True enough to Quantum Mechanics. But take a well engineered AM/FM radio with a mechanical air gap variable capacitor on the frontend tuning the antenna gain, and move it around to different places in a room. In some placements, proximity to metalic components of building construction will act as antennae and the selectivity of the radio reception will be blocked significantly, while only a few feet away the station's signal will be unobstructed and reception will have high sensitivity. We cannot 'see' what a photon, or waveform of EMR physically 'looks' like, but its physical observation by conductive elements behaves in a manner which indicates that some variable does exist which reacts across the classical spread wavefront of a modulated transmission. While also the selectivity of bandwidth is a linear LOS.

QM gets around this fundamental conundrum imposed by the dictum of all things being (tiny) hard particle interactions, by saying 'never mind aking, photons (particles) exist everywhere all at once on the expanding surface of the spherical wavefront until its observed where we want to detect it'. And the presumption that Maxwell's Demon can be put to work as a thermodynamic operator without any raise in pay, ignores that the one bit of information about entropy that has been ignored is that any form of energy is still firstly the same sort of energy in the raw. A wave form will not go from light velocity to rest instantaneously, it will slow exponentially to a density exhibiting particulate characteristics. That DOES NOT violate entropy. Its still the same quantity of existential energy.

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Robert H McEachern replied on Mar. 7, 2019 @ 00:42 GMT

You don't need to do anything fancy to lose FM reception. As a result of multipath interference, I can frequently be sitting at a traffic light in my car and be getting perfect reception, but if I creep forward just a few feet, reception will be totally lost. My HDTV's reception (via a small indoor antenna) goes from perfect to terrible, on windy days, due to the fact that the demodulator cannot...

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You don't need to do anything fancy to lose FM reception. As a result of multipath interference, I can frequently be sitting at a traffic light in my car and be getting perfect reception, but if I creep forward just a few feet, reception will be totally lost. My HDTV's reception (via a small indoor antenna) goes from perfect to terrible, on windy days, due to the fact that the demodulator cannot track the rapid variation in multipath caused by the swaying tree branches behind my house.

A "well engineered" FM demodulator is far from a linear LOS; a phase locked loop is used to, in effect, continuously retune a narrow bandpass filter, with a bandwidth much less than the overall signal bandwidth, to track the narrow "instantaneous bandwidth" of the FM carrier and thereby greatly reduce the effective receiver noise level - but only as long as the signal remains "above threshold".

"which indicates that some variable does exist which reacts across the classical spread wavefront of a modulated transmission" But that variable has nothing to do with any individual photon, anymore than the properties of water waves are innate properties of water molecules.

QM does not say that "photons (particles) exist everywhere all at once"; as Einstein et. al. suggested, only the absurd interpretations of QM say that. But such interpretations are no longer required; it has been demonstrated that classical objects, constructed to manifest only a single-bit of information, will reproduce all the seemingly weird behaviors that have so befuddled the physics world, for nearly a century.

In that context, it is important to realize that "information" as Shannon defined it, has little to do with "entropy" or even physics in general (most unfortunate that von Neumann persuaded him to name it "entropy"); it is a purely mathematical concept concerning the ability to perfectly reconstruct a continuous function from discrete samples. It is most unfortunate that the physics world has confused the two concepts. Shannon's concept, is key to understanding the "measurement problem".

It is easy to demonstrate that QM boils down to little more than the mathematical description of an energy detecting filterbank (a Fourier transform's power spectrum). When you send particles (quanta) with equal energy into the various channels of the detector, the ratio of total energy received in a channel, divided by the energy per quanta in the channel, enables one to infer the number of received quanta in each channel, thereby rendering the entire process as being simply equivalent to a histogram; that is the origin of the Born rule. No mysterious wavefunctions, wafting through the cosmos, are required to understand what is actually going on.

Rob McEachern

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As usual, Robert is true enough to QM but also to interpretations thereof.

And yes, selectivity is in and of the FM demodulator, the transmission is a linear LOS groundwave. My '92 GE superadio 2 has a switched narrow bandpass filter, allowing tuning to high gain with an ear for distortion when a desired station gets ghosted. And I'm rather fond of small Ohio Colleges and Universities. Good Hunting, Guys.

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Robert H McEachern replied on Mar. 7, 2019 @ 18:25 GMT

Off topic and beyond the scope or what is appropriate here; but specialized receivers with coupled together phase locked loops have been used to track co-channel FM signals, such that each loop only tracks one signal and then uses it to cancel the interference in the other signal, thereby effectively eliminating the interference from both signals. A lot more complex than your single narrow filter, but with much higher performance.

Rob McEachern

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Not so off topic, Rob, this is jrc by the way... I just had to get a new laptop that is so overloaded by the OS that I don't respond if I have to open an account (for anything).

Really, we must rely on technical higher order effects to deduce a local realistic picture of the micro realm, so specialized receivers such as you briefly describe do provide some means to figuring out what is...

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Not so off topic, Rob, this is jrc by the way... I just had to get a new laptop that is so overloaded by the OS that I don't respond if I have to open an account (for anything).

Really, we must rely on technical higher order effects to deduce a local realistic picture of the micro realm, so specialized receivers such as you briefly describe do provide some means to figuring out what is realistically happening. And maybe, just maybe, providing some insight towards a conjecture of what a "photon' or particle would physically 'look like'. And Classicism has dropped the ball on that pursuit as badly as has the ad hoc interpretations of QM. I am in complete agreement with you as to QM being a Math, not a physical theory, and think that has to be confronted directly in any effort to rationalize QM. The symmetry is baked into the math.

Towards that, RF signal transmission has enough infrastructure that the spherical broadcast wavefront in contrast to the localized multipath interference of reception suggests that a multitude of linearly directional 3D waveforms are more the reality of the Quantum Jump than a single 'photon'. And that the 'Quantum' photo-electric effect is time dependent on a rapidity work function. But that would mean that each Planck Quanta would only periodically precipitate at the pinch points of a volumetric wavetrain. The statistics of QM do work effectively, and the quest (however Demonic) to discover Why it does, could include a hypothesis that the wave form of EMR interacts only marginally with the electrostatic domain range of the macro world of subluminal particulate aggregates, due to velocity dependent super low densities. And only at near particulate densities periodically, does physical interaction respond to the variables inherent to matter. This creates a realistic picture of a very crowded landscape even in the most rarified regions of intergalactic free space. But then, empiricism calculates we have a lot of uncatalogued energy to yet account for.

Best as always. jrc

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"No physical process can have as its sole result the erasure of information."

I suspect that conclusion would be dependent on arbitrary constraints. Information is firstly our own invention, like mathematics it is essentially experimental. The number line of equal increments is an arbitrary constraint, in contrast to the different lengths of my fingers and the asymmetry of my two hands. Entirely experimental.

"...information...is a purely mathematical concept concerning the ability to perfectly reconstruct a continuous function from discrete samples." - R. McEachern

We are assigning parameters before we can say that 'one bit of information' has been detected, and the best we can do is to limit to that one bit. And if we are working on the yet to be rationalized assumption of Planck's Constant being the finite least 'bit', we might be able to perfectly reconstruct it in a continuous quadratic algorithm as the root square mean. But it is quite possible to start with Planck's Constant and treat light velocity as the root exponential mean in a continuous function of energy distribution in a spherical volume, and arrive at finite results in which the tiny value of Planck, trivializes out of computation and a true continuous function is the obtained as a physical process. So would that be an erasure of information, or is Planck's Constant an arbitrary starting point and physically only represents an averaged least observable value?

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“David J. Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is also the Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli...

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“David J. Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is also the Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California, Santa Barbara.”

I naturally posted this sensible comment at the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page:

Nature must have structured the only version of reality that could possibly have been allowed. That NATURAL reality must be understandable to all living creatures all of the time no matter where they are or when they lived. There has only ever been one real VISIBLE Universe. There have been many white male theoretical physicists who have recently unnaturally insanely guessed that our universe slowly emerged from out of an empty invisible void about 13 billion light years ago.

Please remember that: Cogito, ergo sum is (sic) a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am". The phrase originally appeared in French as je pense, donc je suis in his Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. Wikipedia

René would have been closer to telling the truth had he averred: Je suppose que, comme tout le monde sur la planète “I guess, just like everybody else on the planet does.” All philosophers and theoretical physicists would come closer to telling the truth if they would only preface all of their remarks with the term: “I guess.” Professor Markus Mueller of the Vienna Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information has confirmed to me by email that all “good” philosophers and theoretical physicists have always guessed about the real visible structure of the Universe.

Any sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before David J. Gross, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing his utterly unnatural guesswork concerning finite invisible asymptotic freedom. Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed. There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Humble Realist.

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Whether there are other intelligences in the vast cosmos is one of the big questions of human existence and perhaps of existence in general. Estimates using probabilities almost always portray a universe teeming with sentient creatures. Any implication of human uniqueness seems to...

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Re “In the quantum realm, observers typically know very little about where a particle is, or how fast it is moving, or how it is spinning. They have to make a measurement to reduce that uncertainty”:

This article seems to assume that the only problem is the observer: i.e. that there are “deep limits on what observers can know” about “where a particle is”. The assumption is that the particle always has a definite position, and that position outcomes are 100% determined by some law of nature.

But quantum mechanics is about the fact that, in the microrealm, particles don’t always have a definite position AND particles don’t exist everywhere (i.e. all positions) all at once AND particle position outcomes are inherently unpredictable to an observer (i.e. there exists no law of nature rule that always determines outcome positions for individual particles).

The “measurement problem … the "most fundamental problem in all of quantum mechanics,"” is only a “problem” because, like climate change deniers, physicists refuse to face quantum reality.

The real issue is how to INTERPRET the quantum randomness and indeterminacy of the universe, as seen from the point of view of an observer of the microrealm.

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Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 12, 2019 @ 23:00 GMT

Without any context or reference, attribute such as orientation, direction of motion, even speed of motion are not applicable. Only when' in relation to this (or that) is applied can the relation of both beable and reference/apparatus/observer give a determination that in this (or that) context beable x has attribute (state) A. Attribute not intrinsic property. It doesn't mean the unmeasured is without orientation, direction and speed of motion relative to objects in its environment but the context has not been determined by the experimenter. The 'in relation to this' is not known. Orientation of the beables may be the source of randomness. As for location at one time (not a probability distribution or over time characterization), there has to be location relative to the environment even if unknown. Detection provides the 'in relation to this' context.

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Lorraine Ford replied on Mar. 13, 2019 @ 14:52 GMT

In physics, there are NO relationships between THINGS. This is an important distinction. (Law of nature) relationships only ever exist between seemingly natural categories of information like particle mass, particle relative position, “how fast it is moving” [1] and “how it is spinning” [1]. So, this purportedly existing relationship does not actually exist: “the relation of both beable and reference/apparatus/observer”. Similarly, there is no such thing as “motion relative to objects” or “location relative to the environment”.

And contrary to what you say, “attribute[s] such as orientation, direction of motion, even speed of motion” are ALWAYS “applicable”. These seemingly natural categories of information, and their lawful relationships to other such categories, continue to apply in the universe no matter what the “context or reference” of an observer. Maybe you are trying to say something about (what we represent as) the NUMBER values that apply to the natural categories?

But seemingly in the quantum microrealm, natural categories (e.g. relative particle position) can sometimes have NO numbers applying to them: i.e. there is no information available to an observer, there is nothing for an observer to detect.

1. Thermo-Demonics by M. Mitchell Waldrop, https://fqxi.org/community/articles/display/234

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Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 13, 2019 @ 21:53 GMT

Lorraine, you wrote "In physics, there are NO relationships between THINGS", perhaps that is where the problem lies.I agree that properties are considered in physics and not in general the beable thing that has those properties, or attributes. Nor is the beable environment considered. Not being thought about isn't the same as not existing. It makes sense to me that the properties or attributes, even though 'distilled' at measurement, pertain to something and are not orphan information. 'Heads up' on a table is not a coin but a state that pertains to the beable coin's orientation in relation to the beable table. The motion attributed to an object is relative to the motion of the observer and the orientation relative to the reference used to describe the orientation.

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Mario Livio is an Israeli-American astrophysicist and an author of works that popularize science and mathematics. From 1991 to 2015, he was an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the Hubble Space Telescope. Watch his interview below on alien...

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Mario Livio is an Israeli-American astrophysicist and an author of works that popularize science and mathematics. From 1991 to 2015, he was an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the Hubble Space Telescope. Watch his interview below on alien intelligences.”

I have magnificently posted this sensible comment at the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page.

All species of vegetation, animal, insect, fish and fowl have always had a real VISIBLE surface for all of their existence. Only ignorant arrogant white males have unnaturally ever claimed that humans have different measurable levels of invisible intelligence.

Any sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Mario Livio, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing his utterly unnatural guesswork concerning finite invisible human intelligence.

Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed.

There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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If mass is a category, then is number a property carried by a particle?

A law of nature relationship (e.g. mass can be represented as a lawful mathematical relationship) is seemingly a natural category. These lawful categories don’t necessarily have to have any numbers equated to them. A category like mass or position can seemingly just “exist” as a relationship without any numbers being applied to the categories.

But if numbers are equated to these categories then a new world of possibilities opens up. Equating a number to a category requires (what we would represent as) the introduction of a new mathematical relationship to the universe-system. These (rational? irrational?) numbers, applied to categories like mass or position, are probably best described as properties of particles; they are the specific information carried by particles. But these numbers are contextualised by being equated to categories: i.e. the number information means nothing without the category (i.e. relationship) information.

So, what is a number? A number is not a category, because a number can be constructed by dividing a category by itself (we would represent this as a mathematical relationship between categories), leaving a thing without a category.

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Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 15, 2019 @ 02:03 GMT

Mass is a category of measurable.I'd say number is not a property carried by a particle but a measured or calculated value and units can be attributed to a particle allowing comparison with others. If different units are used the number changes. What doesn't change when the units are changed is the amount of existence as something or somethings, un-quantified; and the where, location un-quantified, in comparison to its local environment. Many different measurements of location in comparison to other things in the environment could be made, giving many different number and units outcomes. The beable stuff of the particle is a property. So atomic number and number of electrons or number of other sub atomic constituents are properties- wholly owned by the particle.

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Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 15, 2019 @ 23:40 GMT

I said mass was a category of measurable but that is only the half of it. The numerical value (and units) obtained for mass via measurement of weight or comparison of weight is the value of the mass measurable. A relation of the measured and measuring apparatus is needed to obtain it. The value output is knowable information.

Intrinsic mass un-quantified is a beable actuality, a property belonging solely to the object. Type and number of each type of constituent are also beable actualities.

Measurable value information and beable actuality are distinct categories.

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Georgina Woodward replied on Mar. 16, 2019 @ 02:50 GMT

To be accurate I ought to say the value output can a source of knowable information. To be knowable it must be in a form accessible to the senses; Most usually visual or auditory potential stimuli, emitted or reflected from the 'read out', or emitted 'sound waves'.The beable read out of an apparatus un-illuminated is not (generally speaking) knowable. Though it might be felt if the numbers are raised or indented.

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Bernard J. Carr is a British professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests include the early universe, dark matter, general relativity, primordial black holes, and the anthropic principle. Watch his interview on alien intelligences...

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Bernard J. Carr is a British professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His research interests include the early universe, dark matter, general relativity, primordial black holes, and the anthropic principle. Watch his interview on alien intelligences below.”

It was difficult to do, but I was somehow able to post this sensible comment on the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page a split second faster than the sensible comment I posted on March 13, 2019.

Not one sensible man or woman has ever asked himself or herself where the universe might have came from, for the simple reason that the question am clearly unanswerable.

Any sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Bernard J. Carr, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing his utterly unnatural guesswork concerning finite invisible human intelligence. All species of vegetation, animal, insect, fish and fowl have always had the same amount of real VISIBLE surface for all of their existence. Only ignorant arrogant white males have unnaturally ever claimed that humans have some sort of different measurable levels of invisible intelligence tucked securely in their brains that allows them to ask themselves stupid questions.

Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed.

There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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Re: “The framework, which is being developed by physicist Benjamin Schumacher… and mathematician Michael Westmoreland… put information at the center—along with a hypothetical, microscopic observer known as Maxwell’s demon. ...Schumacher and Westmoreland …were interested in how information theory could help illuminate quantum mechanics… I started wondering if information is more...

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Re: “The framework, which is being developed by physicist Benjamin Schumacher… and mathematician Michael Westmoreland… put information at the center—along with a hypothetical, microscopic observer known as Maxwell’s demon. ...Schumacher and Westmoreland …were interested in how information theory could help illuminate quantum mechanics… I started wondering if information is more fundamental than probabilities”:

In the real world, fundamental-level information cannot exist as binary digits (true/false, 1/0, yes/no or on/off), because a string of these symbols can have no inherent context or meaning, and no inherent relationship to any other such string of binary digits.

In the real universe, fundamental-level information seems to exist as categories: mass, position and velocity (speed and direction) seem to be natural categories, where every category has context and meaning because it is built out of relationships between other, seemingly pre-existing, categories. Categories seem to exist as part of a network of relationships, relationships that we represent with mathematical symbols.

Information also seems to exist as (what we would represent as) numbers. Seemingly categories must have pre-dated numbers in the universe because: 1) categories/relationships can seemingly exist without numbers being applied to them; 2) the number one can be constructed by dividing a category by itself, and (rational) numbers can be constructed using the number one; and 3) standalone numbers have no inherent context unless they are applied to a category.

Information can also be built out of (what we would represent as) algorithms. So, Maxwell’s demon 1) does an algorithmic analysis of the particle’s velocity, and 2) acts on the results of that analysis. If the number representing the particle speed is greater than a cut-off number, and if the particle’s direction is towards the chamber door, then the demon opens the door to let the particle through. To put it another way: If condition 1 is true, and condition 2 is true, then action is true. The true/false binary digit information only exists in the context of the existing category/relationship information, the existing number information, and the algorithmic question asked about that information.

So, the information that the hypothetical Maxwell’s demon acquires is highly sophisticated: it is not fundamental-level information.

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Lorraine Ford replied on Mar. 17, 2019 @ 00:44 GMT

(continued from the above post)

Re “there is a trap door in the partition operated by a tiny being [Maxwell’s demon] …If the being saw a high-energy molecule approaching the partition from, say, the left half of the box, it could briefly open the trap door to let that molecule pass through to the right side. And likewise, it could let low energy molecules pass through from right to left”:

The door open/closed outcome was not random.

And the door open/closed outcome was not necessary i.e. it was not necessitated/ caused by any law of nature relationship (a law of nature relationship is represented as an equation).

The not-random, not-necessary outcome was due to (what we would represent as) an algorithm.

But there is no way you can derive an algorithm from an equation i.e. there is no way that nature can evolve (what we would represent as) an algorithm from (what we would represent as) an equation.

So, in any universe that included Maxwell’s demon, (what we would represent as) algorithms must be an inherent part of the nature of that universe.

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Lorraine Ford replied on Mar. 17, 2019 @ 22:05 GMT

(continued from the above post)

Re “Or to put it another way, the being [Maxwell’s demon] could cause heat to spontaneously flow from cold to hot—a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics…Maxwell left this paradox to later generations of physicists as a kind of homework assignment: Where was the flaw in this thought experiment? What would keep Maxwell’s ’demon’, as other physicists took to calling it, from violating the second law? Did the demon’s ability to observe, think, and act change the fundamental physics in some way? Or was its ’intelligence’ still governed by natural law?”:

As explained in the above 2 posts: 1) Maxwell’s demon possesses sophisticated contextual high-level algorithmic information; and 2) Maxwell’s demon possesses the ability to create non-random, non-deterministic (i.e. not determined by any laws of nature) outcomes.

The possession of contextual high-level information, plus the ability to create required outcomes is what can “violat[e]...the Second Law of Thermodynamics”.

“[T]he demon’s ability to observe, think, and act” DOESN’T “change the fundamental physics” IF contextual algorithmic information, and the ability to act independent of the laws of nature, is already part of the physics of the universe.

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"(what we would represent as) algorithms must be an inherent part of the nature of the universe." L. Ford

This is a clear (and fine) distinction between math and its assignment for analysis. There may be something we would call a 'Math" that would adequately describe a physical phenomenon of space, time and energy in unity; such that a quantity of energy would naturally assume a preferred volume and shape in a universe with an abundance of energy, and thus determine the extremely limited numbers of sub-atomic particle species currently identified by the Standard Model.

From a perspective of Topology, wherein an object is defined in relation to its own constituent reference points independent of an external reference, the Ford/Woodward dialogue seems to be wrestling with a challenge of establishing a convention of terminology in strictly limiting definition to an If and Only If constraint.

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Joe William Fisher replied on Mar. 19, 2019 @ 14:33 GMT

Dear Anonymous,

All objects have always had a VISIBLE surface.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Atheism fields two kinds of arguments denying the existence of God: arguments that refute so-called 'proofs' of God's existence and arguments that affirmatively support the truth claims of atheism. This first seeks weaknesses or fallacies in pro-God arguments; the second seeks to show why...

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Atheism fields two kinds of arguments denying the existence of God: arguments that refute so-called 'proofs' of God's existence and arguments that affirmatively support the truth claims of atheism. This first seeks weaknesses or fallacies in pro-God arguments; the second seeks to show why atheism alone makes sense. Different atheists offer different arguments.

Simon Blackburn is a British academic philosopher known for his work in quasi-realism and his efforts to popularize philosophy. He obtained his doctorate in 1970 from Churchill College, Cambridge. Watch his interview below.”

I nonchalantly posted this exquisitely sensible comment at the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page:

No sensible man or woman would ever believe that there were two distinctive kinds of reality. Unfortunately, reality am not taught in any school anywhere on earth.

Every sensible person should know that reality could only have been provided by nature. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Simon Blackburn, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing his utterly unnatural guesswork concerning finite invisible quasi-realism. All species of vegetation, animal, insect, fish and fowl have always had the same amount of real VISIBLE surface for all of their existence. Only ignorant arrogant white males have unnaturally ever claimed that humans have some sort of different measurable levels of invisible intelligence tucked securely in their brains that allows some of them to ask themselves stupid questions about quasi-realism.

Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed.

There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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Maxwell’s demon has free will. The demon acquires the following information, derived from observation of a particle, as a basis for action:

1) the speed and direction (velocity) categories [1]; and 2) the numbers that apply to these categories.

Depending on this information, the demon opens the trap door. The demon acts, causing outcomes that are:

1) not random; and 2) not determined by laws of nature.

The above process can be represented as an algorithm [2]. I.e. the structure of free will is represented by algorithms:

1) the algorithms are not necessitated by laws of nature or numbers that apply to e.g. speed or direction; 2) the algorithms represent the acquisition of information about information [3]; 3) the algorithms represent causal factors that are independent of laws of nature; and 4) the algorithms could be one-off, or “physically locked in”.

..........

1. Categories are essentially transposed law of nature relationships.

2. See “Lorraine Ford wrote on Mar. 16, 2019 @ 21:37 GMT”

3. The “lower level” information is the numbers pertaining to the speed and direction of the particle; the “higher level” information is whether these numbers are greater than, or less than, some reference numbers.

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Joe William Fisher replied on Mar. 20, 2019 @ 15:12 GMT

Dear Lorraine,

Please try to remember that Natural Visible Realty does not contain any "lower" higher or intermediary levels of invisible information.

Joe Fisher, Helpful Realist

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Victor J. Stenger was an American particle physicist, philosopher, author, and religious skeptic. He was an advocate for removing the influence of religion from scientific research, commercial activity, and the political decision process, and he coined the phrase "Science flies you to the...

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Speed and position, while being relative between objects, also apply within any single object in terms of the reactivity of its intrinsic properties. And that we might designate as information given concise constraints.

Einstein once retorted in argument with Bohr; "I would just like to know what an electron Is". And this despite conventional assumptions at the time that the photoelectric...

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Speed and position, while being relative between objects, also apply within any single object in terms of the reactivity of its intrinsic properties. And that we might designate as information given concise constraints.

Einstein once retorted in argument with Bohr; "I would just like to know what an electron Is". And this despite conventional assumptions at the time that the photoelectric effect had to be physically a single whole Quantum of multiple quanta value, because individual quanta would radiate away before the observed multiple could accumulate to liberate an electron from the sample of base metal exposed to modulated frequencies in experiment. Yet Compton had established formulated analysis of elastic and inelastic scattering.

Elasticity is the measure of mechanical Speed at which something can be stretched, and resilience is the inverse function of the Speed at which it will return to a relaxed state (experiment by trying to cut a tire tread and then a rubber band). Macroscopicly this occurs electrostaticly between molecules, while at the quantum level it is inherent to the electrostatic field of an electron. Eperimentally there is nothing small enough that is electrically neutral that can be used to probe the electronic field to precisely define an inelastic core, and photons emitted or absorbed exhibit their own electromagnetic field. This is where the deductive reasoning of theory can provide means of hypothesis that can be subjected to falsification.

Assume, hypothetically, that an inelastic core exists in an electron. While Spin characteristics are intentionally designed to be geometric projections of an instant of observed measurement and not a real measure of physical rotation, that is a theoretical paradigm constraint and does not preclude a local realistic physical rotation of a subject electron. At the zero boundary between inelastic response and elastic (however slow) response, becoming ever more elastic at greater distance from the core; a physical rotation of the core would translate axially as counter rotating torque imparted diametrically to an emission of electromagnetic energy we witness as a photonic stream. Accounting for polarity of 'light' as direction of angular momentum. like playing with a button on a string.

So the information sought, would be what part field elasticity plays in determining frequency in relation to rate of spin of of a hypothetical core.

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Joe William Fisher replied on Mar. 22, 2019 @ 15:16 GMT

Dear Anonymous,

Every object that has ever existed has always had a VISIBLE surface. The reason for that being so am the irrefutable fact that the Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before you ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing your unnatural guesswork about abstract physical phenomena. There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE infinite surface eternally occurring in one infinite dimension that am always mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Your Helpful Known Person,

Joe Fisher

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Dear Dr. Kuhn,

Today’s Closer To Truth Facebook page contained this peculiar announcement:

“Michael Rea is Rev. John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame. Watch his interview below on 'Atheism's Best Arguments? (Part 2)' below.”

I have posted this sensible comment at the website and on the FQXi.org Community Board and on my own Facebook page:

Every sensible man and woman who has ever lived has only known what VISIBLE reality am. Every piece of vegetation, animal, insect, fish and fowl has always had a VISIBLE surface for all of their existence. All of the extinct dinosaurs, moas and dodos always had a VISIBLE surface for all of their existence. The only irrefutable fact the physicists have been able to prove am that the real Earth had a real VISIBLE surface for millions of years before Michael Rea, ever appeared on that real VISIBLE surface and began publishing his utterly unnatural guesswork concerning some sort of finite invisible God. Reality was designed by NATURE to be fully understood by all living creatures in all places at all times. Philosophy and theoretical physics was recently designed by arrogant ignorant white men to provide the most masculine preposterous obfuscating condescending pretentious unnatural improbable unctuous gratuitous information possible at the greatest cost in order to provide profit for its prelates and professors. The only nature, that has provided us with real VISIBLE mountains, and real VISIBLE oceans, and real VISIBLE deserts, and real VISIBLE jungles, and real VISIBLE ice caps, and our real VISIBLE selves must have given to us the only VISIBLE reality allowed.

There has only ever been, and there will only ever be one unified VISIBLE

infinite surface ETERNALLY occurring in one infinite dimension that am always

mostly illuminated by finite non-surface light.

Joe Fisher, Realist

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