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Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.

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January 24, 2020

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TOPIC: Judgment Day at the End of Time (the Essay Contest) [refresh]

FQXi Administrator Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 03:05 GMT

At last, the results of the essay contest are in! Let's start with the prizes first, then I'll add a bit more about the judging process etc., below.

First Juried Prize: Julian Barbour on "The Nature of Time" (download essay)

The jury panel admired this essay for its crystal-clear and engaging presentation of a problem in classical dynamics, namely to find a measure for duration or the size of a time interval. The paper argues lucidly, and in a historically well-informed manner, that an appropriate choice for such a measure is not to be found in Newton's pre-existing absolute notion of time, but rather emerges, in the form of ephemeris time, from the observable motions and the assumption of energy conservation. The paper also suggests how this emergence of duration might be relevant to problems in quantum gravity.

Second Juried Prizes:

(1) Claus Kiefer on "Does Time Exist in Quantum Gravity?" (download essay)

A fundamental problem in quantum gravity is that the "Wheeler-DeWitt Equation," probably our most reliable equation of quantum gravity, does not refer to or even suggest anything like time or evolution. In this context time must emerge in the form of relations between a given system and some other system that may be considered a clock. Kiefer beautifully reviews this problem, and argues how, via quantum "decoherence," time as described by the usual Schroedinger equation in quantum mechanics can emerge from this timeless substratum, via entanglement between physical systems within space, and the spatial metric that controls motion.

(2) Sean Carroll on "What if Time Really Exists?"(download essay)

Drawing on recent developments in string theory, Carroll impressed the panel with an exciting account of how a gravitating spacetime might in fact be just a holographic approximation to a more fundamental non-gravitating theory for which "time really exists." Contemplating the difficulties raised by strange recurrences in an everlasting universe, he argues for a strong condition on the set of allowed quantum states that would disallow such repetitions. Carroll closes by attempting to reconcile this picture with recent observations that indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, with surprising results.

First Community Prize: Carlo Rovelli on "Forget Time"* (download essay)

Second Community Prizes:

(1). George F. R. Ellis on "The Flow of Time"* (download essay)

(2a). (Tie!): Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin on "Free will, undecidability, and the problem of time in quantum gravity"* (download essay)

(2b) David Hestenes on Electron time, mass and zitter" (download essay)

Community Runners-up: Fotini Markopoulou, Cristinel Stoica, David L. Wiltshire

(*Note: The essays by Rovelli, Ellis and Gambini & Pullin were also selected for a less -- and hence unawarded -- juried prize).

Third Juried Prizes:

"What Makes Time Special" by Craig Adam Callender (download essay)

"Space does not exist, so time can." by Fotini Markopoulou (download essay)

"On the global existence of time" by Ettore Minguzzi (download essay)

"Time, TOEs, and UltraStructuralism" by Dean Rickles(download essay)

"Many Times" by Steven Weinstein (download essay)

Fourth Juried Prizes:

“Whither Time's Arrow?” by Gavin Crooks (download essay)

“The rediscovery of time through its disappearance” by Alexis de Saint-Ours** (download essay)

“Time is not the problem” by Olaf Dreyer (download essay)

”Weakening Gravity's Grip on the Arrow of Time” by Maulik Parikh (download essay)

“Quantum Measurement as an Arrow of Time” by C. Vinson** (download essay)

“Condensed matter lessons about the origin of time” by Gil Jannes** (download essay)

“The Garden of Forking Paths: Time as an Expanding Labyrinth" by Paul Halpern (download essay)

“The Production of Time” by Adam Daniel Helfer (download essay)

”The Nature of Time: from a Timeless Hamiltonian Framework to Clock Time of Metrology” by Enrico Prati (download essay)

”Is the notion of time really fundamental?” by Florian Girelli, Stefano Liberati and Lorenzo Sindoni (download essay)

** FQXi would like to offer a special commendation to these winning essays written by either students or non-professionals. Nice work!!

Now for some notes on the judging:

- First, thank you all for your participation, your interest, and your patience! I hope that it has been interesting.

- Second, note that due to the difficulty and subtlety of the issues at hand, there were numerous disagreements within the jury regarding nearly all of the essays. The awarding of a prize signifies that the jury agrees that the winner is a relevant and interesting essay: something that is well written, thought provocative, stimulating, fun, etc. It should not be construed to mean that the members of the panel believe that the approach is complete, flawless, unobjectionable etc.!

- Along somewhat similar lines, I hope that non-winners won't be too despondent. I think that many gems of insight are lurking in a number of non-winning essays, and I hope that the contest and discussion has given some of these gems and their authors exposure that would otherwise not have been possible.

- The jury will remain anonymous, and we're not going to release any details beyond what's in the above of how the jurying went. I'm sure many are curious on both counts, but equally sure you can see why we would not think either is a good idea.

- That being said, I can tell you that the jury had a tough time, and put in a lot of work. All of the essays were read and reviewed by at least two panelists (in fact, there were two panels, a screening panel that narrowed it down to 50 essays, and a judging panel that ranked them), and all of the essays that came out on top were read by all of the jurors. There was quite a lot of discussion of some pretty subtle points within a jury of quite divergent views, and not a whole lot of unanimity.

Finally, stay tuned for the imminent announcement of the NEXT essay contest topic. Thanks for your participation!

Anthony on behalf of FQXi

this post has been edited by the forum administrator

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Sean Carroll wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 03:57 GMT

Thanks to Anthony and the judges and FQXi for sponsoring such an interesting contest. And congrats to the other winners!

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 04:54 GMT

Yes, congratulations winners. I haven't read all of the essays, and I do not know if I ever will. However I am sure that all of the winners are worthy of their recognition. The judges have had an unenviable task and I am sure everyone is relieved that this first competition is finally over.

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 08:09 GMT

The contest has come to the end, but the nature of time still remains large secret. I think, that each participant of contest has made one step to disclosure of this secret.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 09:56 GMT

Congratulations all. Thanks to fqxi for the opportunity.

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GL wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 10:10 GMT

How David Wiltshire's and Peter Lynds' essays didn't win prizes in beyond me. The results also mean that Carlo Rovelli's essay wasn't judged worthy of a juried prize.

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Philip Gibbs wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 12:21 GMT

"The jury will remain anonymous, and we're not going to release any details beyond what's in the above of how the jurying went. I'm sure many are curious on both counts, but equally sure you can see why we would not think either is a good idea."

No I can't see why. Could you exaplin please? If the identity of the judges are kept secret then they could be biased in favour of their own colleagues and noone will know. An open policy is always better.

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 12:34 GMT

Congratulations to all contestants, winners or less winners, and to FQXi.

Is there a chance to receive the reviews (even drafts) made by the jury to our essays? You can post them on each essay thread, or at least send it as private email. This will be very helpful to all of us, for further improvements, and can be considered as a participation prize. Contestants and jury, as well as FQXi members, worked hard for this contest.

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James Putnam wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 13:24 GMT

Congratulations to FQXi, Anthony Aguirre, the winners, the judges, and the participants. This was an amazing, high quality endeavor. This contest is a valuable addition to scientific learning.

James Putnam

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 14:17 GMT

It was a privilege to be afforded the opportunity to take part in such a competition and I look forward to re-reading carefully the essays selected by the judges. I had ~50% of the various winners on my private list of essays of interest - but of course could only vote for 3 (indirect support for an alternate community voting/ranking system); I was particularly pleased to see Craig Callender & Cristi Stoica's contributions receiving recognition but having followed Julian Barbour's work for some time I would have been surprised if his essay had not been if not at, then at least very near, the top.

Congratulations to all and thanks to everyone involved with FQXi for their hard work and diligence.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 15:43 GMT

Congrats to all! And thanks to fqxi for the forum and fun event!

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

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Venerando wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 16:23 GMT

Congrats to the winners.

I am very proud of having participate in such a great event with all of you.

Now I feel more near to the physics world.

Thanks.

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Brian Beverly wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 17:18 GMT

Today the winners of the FQXI essay contest on the nature of time are announced which also happens to be my 24th birthday. My birthday wish is that this learned group wholeheartedly embrace the reality of time. The number 24 whether it is years or hours is arbitrarily defined, but time is real. Nihilism combined with nepotism will only waste time.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 18:07 GMT

Can I please be a little nitpicky here?

In Julian's paper he does a very nice job of establishing there is no fixed unit of duration, then at the end, turns around and tries to provide one with the principle of least action. I agree time is a consequence of motion and not the basis for it, so that yes, units of time are no more precise than the methods used to define and measure them and Dr. Barbour clearly understands this, but it just seems that at the last moment, he has a failure of nerve and seeks to grasp something solid. If he has truly established that the principle of least action provides an irreducible unit of time between two configuration points of the universe, doesn't this prove time is a fundamental dimension between any two configurations of the universe, as opposed to saying two configurations of the universe cannot co-exist, therefore the difference is a process where one is becoming, as the other is departing, not an established unit between two specific configurations, because if time is simply a consequence of motion, how can there be dimensionless points of configuration from which to measure, without stopping the very motion that created time in the first place?

Think about this in physical terms. If you freeze framed quantum activity, would it just be a still life of reality as we see it, or would the picture simply vanish like a non-fluctuating vacuum?

Hopefully someone is willing to set me straight in terms I can understand.

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Alexandre Paradis wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 18:48 GMT

Congratulations to all winners!

A lot of very interesting ideas were indeed presented. Time is such a mysterious ..mystery..

I look forward for the next contest and I will surely put more toughts in the essay to be submitted...

Have a nice day!

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Chris Kennedy wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 19:35 GMT

I too would like to offer congratulations to Julian and all of the winners. A lot of sweat went into these essays! I would also like to thank Fqxi for providing a forum where we could discuss our theories and make a few friends along the way.

To Brian Beverly and John Merryman: I would like to keep in touch with both of you. It's always nice to meet fellow truth seekers who investigate and discuss ideas for the sake of finding real answers. In case you decide to vacate this site my email is: ceejay1@prodigy.net

Let's please keep in touch - and Happy Birthday Brian!

By the way - is Elliot feeling okay? That post of his was only 13 words long? Someone should check on him.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 9, 2009 @ 19:41 GMT

Thanks Chris!

Yes--I set a new personal record in keeping a post under 10,000 words. :) Perhaps this could be a new category for next year?

Had fun & the dialogue brought forth invaluable insights from all corners. I feel that fqxi managed to bring back a bit of the exalted soul of yesteryear's spirited debates--an invaluable service to physics and science. So thanks for leveraging the power of the internet in a novel manner!

I am now more convinced of Galileo's words--"E pur si muove!"

All the best!

Dr. E :)

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 03:17 GMT

Site members and administrators,

Just curious. Now that the competition is over will anyone actually be taking a look at the blogs, articles and forum discussions. Or is this site such a backwater that almost no one with any higher academic credentials or the ability to write intelligible feedback bothers to read or reply, because frankly life is too short to bother.

I did hope having read the raison d'etre for this site that it would actually be more than just pop entertainment for a handful of individuals with nothing better to do with their time. There are already plenty of other sites like that.

Is the lack of contributing visitors just diplomacy or is it arrogance or disdain for the very people this site claimed it wanted to encourage to submit their ideas for consideration.

I do not know the answer to this at present, since the competition has obviously taken up considerable time and many people have just been awaiting the results. What happens now? Does this site now become a vibrant community for the sharing and discussion of ideas or does everyone just wait for the next competition?

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 08:11 GMT

The typical mistake for many essays is denial of time without taking into account different concepts of time. In the general theory of relativity time is integrated in space-time and can exist, for example, in the form of gravitational radiation. Denial of time means also denial of the theory of relativity. However, authors show loyalty or completely agree with the theory of relativity, but deny time. It is sufficiently contradictory situation.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 09:17 GMT

Good point Robert. Time is very problematic because there are many different ideas muddled together in this one concept. There is the idea that it is the 4th dimension of space-time. The idea of a time line along which past, present and future have a material existence.As well as the experience of time measured with timing devices or internally measured via circadian rhythms and general environmental clues, or observation of change. This is why the Prime quaternion model specifies three different definitions of time.

Time is used in so many different ways both within science and everyday life. To do away with time entirely is to deny subjective reality, in which relativity is observed and all science is conducted. It leave science without a ubiquitous tool of measurement and temporal experience without meaning.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 09:44 GMT

Chris,

That's cool. The address is brodix@earhlink.net. I doubt I'll have as focused a point to make for the next contest, but we'll see what it is.

Georgina,

No, the big boys don't come out to play, but the windows into their world are usually too far up the ivory tower anyway. Before the contest, it was a site I'd check about once a week, otherwise it was pretty dead. We'll see how the next contest works. This first one did create an interesting space, so it's an open question.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 11:18 GMT

Thanks John, good to know one way or the other. Thanks too for debating with me. I was once told by a mentor that the only way to really understand something is to teach it to others.I have found this true many times as other people see things from different angles, and point out where explanations are not clear or are ambiguous or in error. In finding how to best explain, the ideas then become clarified and improved.

I am still amazed that explaining time has lead me to an explanation of gravity and I'm particularly in awe of the Prime reality interface, although I am excited about the whole model and how much it can do.Just wish everyone else could share my enthusiasm. I guess thats naivety as everyone has their own agenda.

www.4dmegauniverse.com if you are curious.

A little maths but not loads. Haven't updated the site for a while as I was posting ideas up on here before the book, The Prime Quaternion model, was put together and published.If I have made glaring errors or silly mistakes I would love to know because then I can improve it.

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Peter Lynds wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 13:13 GMT

I'm reluctant to say this, as it will no doubt come across as sour grapes over my essay not receiving a prize, but I feel I would be letting something or rather down if I didn't. I find it troubling that, considering the judges were experts on time, that 2 of the top prizes went to essays arguing for the existence of time, while another lesser prize was awarded to an essay arguing for multiple time dimensions. Although I regret offence to the authors, it makes me think that being correct doesn't actually matter.

I also find it unfourtunate that just from looking at the results, I'm pretty certain I can guess who two of the judges were. Should that be possible? Unfortunately for me, I know that both of them strongly dislike my work.

Peter

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 14:36 GMT

Peter -

Since there is no definitive position on the nature of time, and given that one of the objectives of the contest was surely to identify promising avenues for further investigation I see no contradiction in recognising essays adopting contrary positions; in fact I think I would have been disappointed if they hadn't.

I can also understand the reluctance of the organisers to enter into debate about the judges' decisions. I could imagine many protests of "No, no no! You didn't understand!" and the like when the responsibility for the effectiveness of communication clearly rests with the author.

I don't recall your specific submission so this is not a personal comment, but if a position is known to be opposed I would have thought that an appropriate defence would form part of the essay, and surely a genuinely persuasive defence would have been recognised. Given the nature of the enterprise I would prefer to give the benefit of the doubt to the judges: it would not seem to be in anyone's interest to do other than assess each essay on its merits - otherwise valuable insights could be easily overlooked.

That having been said, as an (equally?) unsuccessful author, I remain none the wiser concerning the issues that I endeavoured to address, and whilst the furtherance of our collective understanding of Time was and is the ultimate goal, my personal understanding has not been advanced - and in this respect the furtherance of understanding has been a little one sided (which is not to say I have not benefited from the insights and hypotheses of other contributions in other domains - which I have).

Unfortunately, I don't see how FQXi could reasonably address this issue... but if anyone would care to add a "see so-and-so's [article/book/other] re X" or offer other guidance/dialogue on where I went wrong I certainly wouldn't object!

In the meantime I shall be looking forward to the next topic - and re-reading Penrose's "The Road to Reality" in search of greater mathematical expressiveness as preparation.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 15:02 GMT

Hello Peter,

Yes--that is hilarious that the lead prizes went to essays that stating time is both real (in String Theory) and unreal (in other quantum gravity regimes).

The rules state, "Format and length: Essays must be submitted as PDF documents. The length must exceed neither 5000 words of text, nor 10 pages, including figures and references." But Rovelli's essay is way, way over this word limit. I know that physicists have rejected time, space, and physics, but it would be fun if we could at least retain the word-count function in our word processors.

Also stated is "Original and Creative: Foremost, the intellectual content of the essay must push forward understanding of the topic in a fresh way or with new perspective. While the essay may or may not constitute original research, if the core ideas are largely contained in published works, those works should be the author’s. At the same time, the entry should differ substantially from any previously published piece by the author."

Rovelli begins his essay with: "Following a line of research that I have developed for several years, I argue that the best strategy for understanding quantum gravity is to build a picture of the physical world where the notion of time plays no role at all." A lot of the ideas in his essay can be found in previously published works/papers.

And I believe that I already encountered all of Barbour's paper in his book and papers on time--The End of Time:

http://www.amazon.com/End-Time-Next-Revolution-Physics/
dp/ 0195145925/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236695563&sr
=8-1#reader

Perhaps the anonymous judges could explain what is *different* about the current paper that had not already been presented in numerous books and papers dating back decades? Or perhaps this is why they choose to be anonymous?

http://www.platonia.com/ideas.html

http://www.platonia.com/pa
pers.html

And did not Barbour already win an fqxi grant for this research, thus making him an fqxi member?

http://www.fqxi.org/large-grants/awardee/details/2008
/barbour

Furthermore, is it not curious that Barbour and Carroll were both already members/grant recipients of fqxi?

I mean if we have already figured out that time both exists and does not exist, that time is both real and unreal, perhaps we can forgo the charade of future competitions where fqxi members largely ignore non-members in the collegial six-month debates, judging, and awarding processes, and simply funnel all future cash prizes to pre-ordained fqxi members for their brand new, foundational, original, groundbreaking, and successful theories such as Carroll's String Theory, Rovelli's LQG, and Barbour's Platonia.

"E pur si muove!" dx4/dt=ic

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

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Steve Esser wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 15:51 GMT

I'm grateful for the opportunity to check out a large number of ideas on time which I otherwise would not have been exposed to. Congrats to FQXi and the contest winners.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 16:30 GMT

Peter,

There is no way to have an independent judiciary on this.

Elliot,

You play in their sandbox, you play by their rules. That was one of my earliest lessons in life and that's why I here in the first place. Having never been in a position to decide the rules, I've spent my life studying them. Also you missed Kiefer being a member as well.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 16:55 GMT

Thanks John!

Actually, I am playing on the greater beach of physical reality, beyond the antitheorists' members-only sandbox; where they hand one-another prizes for building castles in time and no-time alike.

This is really quite entertaining when you think about it.

When one sees all the fqxi members winning prize after prize, one begins to see why indeed "it is a good idea"...

view entire post

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FQXi Administrator Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 17:45 GMT

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback!

Dr. E, I'm sorry you are so dissatisfied with the process and results. In terms of not disclosing the referees or their deliberations, I really do understand your (and many other entrants') desire to get feedback from the jury. I would feel the same way. But FQXi does not have the capability to field these requests, nor deal with the inevitable slew of complaints etc. that would ensue if we simply published comments of the referees. We had hoped that feedback from the community would serve a similar purpose, and I am sorry that this did not suffice for you.

In terms of anonymity, it is hard enough to find experts willing to devote the enormous time and effort to do this sort of judging. Finding people willing to do this knowing that their identity would be public, and that they would be asked to defend their decisions (through potentially never-ending correspondence) to unhappy contest entrants, would be nearly impossible.

In terms of the results, we were pleased to see that some 'non-professionals' did do well in the contest. But it is, I would say, neither surprising nor concerning that the top prizes were taken by known professionals, and even FQXi members. There is a *reason* these people are at the top of their field, and FQXI works hard to identify and invite as members just the same sort of people who are likely to win such contests.

That being said, FQXi is devising a new strategy for awarding the prizes (largely to make it quicker for the community, and less painful for the jury) in the next contest, which will be announced soon.

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matthew kolasinski wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 18:21 GMT

ohmygawdwhew!icanfinallyexhale...

thank you FQXi, i think, for the curious obsession that this project became for many of us participating.

thank you also for your very hard work in the judging; didn't take a PhD to recognize that that was going to be a remarkably challenging process.

congratulations to the prize recipients.

winners?... we have all gained in many ways through this experience.

myself, i think i'm due for two weeks (which may or may not actually exist) in Cancun, following Carlo Rovelli's advice.

warm regards,

:-)

matt

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 18:30 GMT

Congratulations to an alter ego of mine, from a parallel world in which the restricted voting ended on 2008 December 15, as initially stated in the FQXi contest rules.

I am happy because he (with Carlo Rovelli) won the first community prize :-)

Cristi Stoica

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James wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 18:44 GMT

So it did turn out to be a gutless fraud! Essentially a waste of time unless totally transparent and on the level for all contestants. Don't bother again unless you intend to be honest in running *a different* contest - one that excludes FQXI members and affiliates, etc.

J.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 19:49 GMT

There are so many ways that this subject can be looked at.

How time is described depends on ones perspective and definitions. Unfortunately we like black or white, yes or no answers. "It depends on how you choose to look at it" is far less satisfactory answer to the logical mind. I am not surprised or disappointed that essays in support of time and essays where there is no time both won prises. For years physicists have been happy with their dead,live cat in a box. So why can't time be both real and not real depending on how you choose to define and explain it?

So long as the rules of the competition have been complied with, however objective the judges have tried to be,and I must give them the benefit of the doubt,in the end all judgements come down to subjective personal preference, which may be influenced by numerous different factors. That is as good as it gets.It does not mean that they are correct, only that a decision has been made. They have not actually written or passed judgement on the laws that govern the workings of the universe.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 21:11 GMT

Elliot, Georgina,

There is an interesting object lesson here.

Consider that any potential judges, be they fqxi members or not, are professionally invested in either a version of block time, or a method for doing away with time as fundamental. Yes, I'm sure they are very busy people, but it is safe to say that judging an issue that is fundamental to their profession and that has been discussed for longer than any of them have been alive, is probably not at the top of anyone's to do list.

Why does this make Julian the best pick? Not only is he the leading public name in time theory and his essay was exactly what was called for, a clear concise, beautifully written piece, with just a touch of mathematics, that would make the perfect SciAm article, but it smoothly and effortlessly came down on both sides of the issue. It starts out as a clear presentation for why time is based entirely on motion, then describes how these non-existent units are irreducibly determined.

So Julian understood what the situation of the contest and the judging was and, whether consciously or subconsciously, responded with what was required to win.

The life lesson here is that if you are going by the written rules, you are not a real player, but just one of the pieces on the board, because the real game is being the first to figure out what the rules really are. This is what emergence is. The world is entering a period of real chaos and complaining that no one is playing by the old rules anymore will do you no good.

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James Putnam wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 21:38 GMT

There is a blog message posted about four messages above this one. It has the author name of James and a signature of J. Please don't anyone mistakenly attribute that message to me. I disagree completely with it.

If fqxi did not offer money I would still participate. If only well known physicists ever won, I would still participate. I do not need to know who the judges were. I thank them for their participation so that this kind of contest can take place. I do not expect that they should judge any way other than their good judgement tells them. I do not think they should have to give even more of their time defending their opinions. I thank them for having given their valuable time to this worthy endeavor.

If I were a judge, I would use my own judgement within the guidlines. When the judging was over I would return to my own work. For all of us who think we have something new and important to say: Well we just had that opportunity.

I look forward to more of these opportunities. I hope that judges, whoever they may be, continue to make themselves available so that this contest can continue. To fqxi: Please keep your organization, website and essay contests going. I greatly appreciate you.

James Putnam

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 10, 2009 @ 21:45 GMT

Sharp as a knife, John. FQx tries to portray itself as seeking the novel and ground breaking new approaches, possibly from outside of usual academic circles, that would not get mainstream attention. However it may just be same "old school" thinking underneath that. Inside knowledge of the psychology and personal idealogical framework of the judges would be a distinct advantage, if one is just playing for the money.

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Charles Bukowski wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 04:46 GMT

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

otherwise, don't even start.

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

this could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

go all the way.

it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

it could mean freezing on a

park bench.

it could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery,

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you'll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

if you're going to try,

go all the way.

there is no other feeling like

that.

you will be alone with the gods

and the nights will flame with fire.

do it, do it, do it.

do it.

all the way

all the way.

you will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, its

the only good fight

there is.

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Charles Bukowski wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 05:26 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1e5Jeh2Fk0&NR=1

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Don Limuti (www.zenophysics.com) wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 06:56 GMT

Anthony,

This contest was very very good.

And I trust you and FQXi to make the next one even

better and more interesting.

I was expecting you to post the u-tube of the judges engaging in a fistfight :)

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 09:01 GMT

Dear Anthony,

I think that most of us are thankful for this opportunity, and impatient to hear the next essay contest topic. I believe that, when the next contest will be launched, this one will become history, and we will forget the discussions about transparency. But did we learn from this history? Do we understand what was good, and what was wrong, about this contest? Wouldn’t be nice to consider more carefully the weak points spotted in some comments on this thread?

Starting with the beginning, there were some compromises made by the organizers, regarding the submissions and closure dates, other rules about the essay, etc. You should expect that all these may make some people suspicious about the results too. But why wouldn’t you just dissolve these suspicions by posting the reviewers’ comments on each essay’s forum thread? You can do this without disclosing the names of the jury members. The contestants need to know what is good and what is wrong about their essays. We can answer on our threads to the comments, without involving further the jury. Peer reviewed journals can do this, why FQXi can’t?

We should have at least two reviews per essay, they would be very valuable for us. I can’t see any reason for not allowing us to see them.

Well, I can see one reason. I suspect that some of the essays did not receive proper reviews. There were many essays, and maybe some of the jury weren’t willing to read with attention all of them. They may have considered that some of the essays were without value, but claiming that they revolutionize the Physics. Because of the lack of time, some may refuse to read properly papers by *amateurs*, and they are willing to pay attention to papers claiming important advancements only if they are written by well-recognized authorities. I suspect that this type of discrimination, let’s call it *CRACKPOTPHOBIA*, made some essays to be sorted out without proper reviews. These essays were perhaps considered risky investment, and they were rejected. It is less risky to acknowledge the already acknowledged ones.

If I am right, this would be bad, since the FQXi contest is supposed to make such venture investments. You can falsify my hypothesis by letting us see the reviews (this will not involve the jury’s identities).

With, or without the jury’s comments, this contest was a good idea. We are not ungrateful, just trying to spot some possible flaws.

Best regards,

Cristi

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 21:32 GMT

Wouldn’t the following idea be helpful for the development of Science?

Dear Anthony,

FQXi is doing a great job trying to stimulate alternate paths of research. It tries to encourage new ideas, and this contest is a great experiment.

The currently acknowledged system of accepting results in Physics as valuable is based on authorities, *big names*, constructed on credentials,...

view entire post

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Teresa Mendes replied on Sep. 12, 2014 @ 22:52 GMT

Hummmm ... good idea. Thank you!

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 11, 2009 @ 23:10 GMT

FQx does have blog, article and forum discussion pages.

I have only discovered this site recently but have in that time been rather disappointed by the lack of activity on those pages. I do not know how many visitors read them but there appear to be only a few active contributors to discussions.

It is a pity that the novel ideas are not being expressed and tested against the various challenges presented to see how they stand up to explaining various fundamental questions and puzzles arising from observation. I would like to see other models tested in this way to see where the weaknesses and strengths are. By doing this confusion, lack of clarity or errors can be discovered and models improved.

If a model can explain all of the questions posed in a logical, self consistent way that retains correspondence to existing and accepted laws of physics (relativity too would be desirable) then in my opinion it is worthy of further pursuit.

The problem with amalgamating all models together is one of volume and perhaps loosing a few valuable gems among the huge volume of semi precious stones and silt. Anonymous volunteer reviewers may well invalidate other peoples models, if they do not correspond to their own ideas or preferred methodology. Likewise some ideas may be validated because mathematical proofs and experimental results appear to do so but have been incorrectly interpreted.

The models of full time professional researchers or academics will have a far greater body of "proof" which will perhaps give them the semblance of greater authority. Where as the simple ground breaking insights may well have incomplete and invalidated affixed to them.

The seeker will still have to search through an endless volume of alternatives to find the gems, and may well short cut to the models that seem most authoritative and complete ,missing the best models entirely.

It is an interesting suggestion but in my opinion it would be a huge amount of work and is unlikely to achieve its aim despite the best of intentions.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 01:23 GMT

Of the innovative ways of coming up with new theories, I think the most effective was the process which became the Santa Fe Institute and Complexity Theory;

Get the most innovative thinkers from a broad range of fields and and have them hammer out the patterns which seem universal. The real problem isn't that there are secrets which everyone is missing, but that modern science and discovery has become specialized to the detriment of generalists. The brain power is definitely already there, it just that it has become compartmentalized and everyone starts speaking their own languages and defending their own turf and you end up with multiple interpretations of the same reality without any real method of connecting them into a larger pattern. The result is that as many secrets are created as are discovered.

Now if you try to make sense of what is coming out of the Santa Fe Institute, it's just the same compartmentalized jargon targeted to specialized fields. I think the current economic break down, coupled with the inherent problems of generating a revenue stream from internet information development provides an interesting opportunity for an open source effect that forces the specialists to work across the boundaries they naturally depend on to secure their efforts. In a sense, collapse in one part of the human endeavor will create opportunities for expansion in seemingly unrelated ways.

Frankly I'm proud of the crackpot designation, since I like to be on the outside looking in, but I do understand the essential function of maintaining formal structure and the ways that too much information can be corrosive to that organization. Then again, if that organization doesn't utilize its own abilities, they will degrade and something more effective will replace it eventually.

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Narendra Nath wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 02:48 GMT

Let me start by praising the Institute for instituting a wonderful concept of website competition on foundational aspects in Physics & Cosmolgy. I for one enjoyed thoroughly the posta on the essays that i could attend to eversince my essay got posted, well beyond the last date of voting!For my age it was a challenge and a source for both enthusiasm and inspiration. Let me now present a few points for consideration of the Organizers:-

1. Humility is the sign of greatness in any field. Self projection, self-aggradisement are clear signs of lack of confidence and belief in one's own capability & resources.

2. Transparency in a system provides the encouragement to the participant's confidence for a clean and ethical competition.

3. No judements can be ideal, as all human beings have weaknesses and bias. That is what individuality is all about. However, an individual can become a better judge if one has the capacity to broaden the working horizon to include all possible perspectives. After all, the knowledge is infinite as is the Universe. The source lies in the Creator and the created can reach upto it!There is no absoluteness in science or any other profession. One can only aspire for greater heights in relative truth and that is what progress means. Lowering this level means downgrading the desired trend of progress.

4. There are a few minor suggestions that i may club together.

(a) The last date of submission of essays was Dec.,01 and most of the Prizes appear to have been awarded to the essays submitted on that date or close to it, leave aside the Community Prizes.It appears un-natural.

(b) The restricted votings was stopped from display since morning of dec., 24? Either post the public and restrictive votings should have been displayed till the end or both can be kept secret till the end. The unbiased attitude is ensured by transparency and/or faith. A mix opens doubts. For example, the participating authors as yet don't know how many restricted votes they got individually!

(c) Just as in refereed journals, the authors receive the comments of the referees, the authors are also entitiled to the opinions of the judges, without disclosing their names.

(d) The standard of the competitions the world over is declining in stature as the human character and integrity appear to go down with increasing numbers. Also, people are opting for short-term gains over the practice of long-term values in human life. This trend is tied to the relativeness of selfless to selfish component in one's behaviour

i apologize for sounding like a moralist but then what is Humanity but building up, both in thought and actions, the values held sacred for uplifting the Civilization.

Narendra Nathy

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 08:34 GMT

Georgina, John, thank you,

Seeming that some of us consider that the standard “school bus” is not ideal for all purposes, I proposed in my previous comment “let us build a car!”. This is just a starting point, everybody can help, and maybe we will get something totally different than I initially saw: maybe a plane, or even a starship, why not.

John,

The successful...

view entire post

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 09:38 GMT

If I may make a constructive - albeit self interested - suggestion...

There does not seem to be (feel free to direct me) any forum in which sane and sensible questions can be posed by the non-specialist in the realistic hope of receiving a useful reply from those who genuinely know better.

Omitting FQXi explicitly for a moment, the choices are:

a) Courteously & concisely...

view entire post

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 10:00 GMT

Cristi, I was trying to look for reasons why your suggested project might not work and thinking of the enormity of the task, which is perhaps too pessimistic of me.If you have the enthusiasm and determination to make it happen, then why not? It can always be modified to improve it if there are initial problems or difficulties. It will be a very useful resource for researchers even if it doesn't provide the theory of everything.

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 11:32 GMT

Thanks Georgina, I consider your comment as constructive feedback, in pointing some potential difficulties. Maybe your concerns are shared by others, so answering them can be useful even if you don’t share my hopes.

> It will be a very useful resource for researchers even if it doesn't provide the theory of everything.

I agree. While TOE may be the holy grail of the foundational Physics, it is desirable to improve our research tools independently of that. TOE may be possible or not, but science will go on with or without it. Science will not stop at the time when TOE will be discovered/invented.

Best regards,

Cristi

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Peter Morgan wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 16:16 GMT

Since it hasn't been suggested earlier in this topic, I recommend PhysicsForums, www.physicsforums.com, at least for a look. I think that their user interface is quite to very good, and that the community there is worth engaging with.

I think that not many of the papers submitted to the FQXi essay contest by non-academics would make it past the quite scrupulous gatekeepers at Physics Forums in their current form, but some would. For those that would not, I would consider it a worthwhile exercise for a non-academic to consider how they could get their ideas to a point where Physics Forums would accept a paper to the independent research forum. If you can't get a paper past them, I think you would be unlikely to get a paper published in a high status physics journal.

There is another level on which Physics Forums can be used, however, for asking questions of people who pass through there. There are some serious people, some academic and some not, who spend a good deal of effort addressing misconceptions about specific ideas. They are ruthless with anyone who they consider to be pushing their own idea, but they often give good answers, and the dialogue between long-time contributors to other people's questions can often be revealing.

To repeat, they will be ruthless if you play games with them --- they regard it as *their* place (it is!) --- but it's worth a visit. To anyone who wanted to go to the trouble of setting up such a venue for less conventional research, Physics Forums would be a very worthwhile starting point, just for the computing expertise. [I suggested to FQXi a few months ago that although the Physics Forums interface is not perfect they would do well to look at it. I have no connection to these people, honest!]

Finally, I'll add that just getting comments from people is only a baby step. Figuring out how to change your approach constructively in response to comments takes lots of work and has no guarantee of interesting results. But Good Luck!

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 16:51 GMT

Julian,

You overlook the main reason why it's a problem in the first place. Often there are no clear answers. The reason why the experts are experts is because they are in the process of pushing the boundaries of our cumulative knowledge and work in otherwise grey areas. Otherwise the answers to most questions can be found somewhere anyway.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I think there is an inherently flawed paradigm to western monotheistically based culture that boils down to an assumption that Platonic ideals are real. There is of course the basic theological assumption that humanity has fallen from an intellectual and moral ideal, to which we seek to return, but also it continues to manifest itself throughout our mechanistic and mathematical presumption that there is some physical or logical framework that ultimately ties everything together. I think that what is becoming apparent is the opposite, that the very concept of structure and order is emergent. That the absolute, the universal state, isn't an ideal from which we have fallen, but the essence from which we rise and that each stage, while predicated on what came before, cannot be predicted by what came before, because the potential input is infinite and the multiplicity of actions and reaction are so varied. Not only that, but since the energy is constant, old information is constantly being lost, as new is created, so reverse engineering can be as problematic as building in the first place.

Somewhat tangental to this is a point I've been making elsewhere, that we have idolized the primordial attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental as a meta-moral code of good, vs. bad, but these are in fact the binary code of biological calculation, the infinite numbers of 1/0's on which our thought processes are based, not an overarching fight between two sides. The result is that our thought processes are rigid and brittle. If a little is good, than a lot is that much better and there is no foundational respect for reciprocity, reaction, feedback, laws of unintended consequences, etc. In fact they are derided as moral relativism.

I could go on to how this permeates many of our social and economic ills, but it's just a way of explaining how knowledge is a personal quest on and upward, in which the journey is the purpose, not any particular secret you may happen upon.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 17:03 GMT

Peter,

I may try submitting my observation about time to the fqxi forums, but I should note that when I submitted it to physicsforums a few years ago, I was banned for a year for "crackpottery," without so much as a word of suggestion or argument.

The link and the abstract;

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/239

If two atoms collide, it creates an event in time. While the atoms proceed through this event and on to others, the event goes the other way. First it is in the future, then in the past. So which is the real direction? If time is a fundamental dimension, then physical reality proceeds along it, from past events to future ones. On the other hand, if time is a consequence of motion, then physical reality is simply energy in space and the events created go from being in the future to being in the past.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 17:11 GMT

Peter,

On second thought, there are no logical threads to put it on, no way to start another and it seems awfully quiet.

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Steven Churchill wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 17:46 GMT

Hello Peter,

You write, "I think that not many of the papers submitted to the FQXi essay contest by non-academics would make it past the quite scrupulous gatekeepers at Physics Forums in their current form, but some would. For those that would not, I would consider it a worthwhile exercise for a non-academic to consider how they could get their ideas to a point where Physics Forums would accept a paper to the independent research forum. If you can't get a paper past them, I think you would be unlikely to get a paper published in a high status physics journal."

Garrett Lisi got a paper past the anonymous gatekeepers at physicsforums.com--many of whom do not have Ph.D.'s in physics, and thus do not list their credentials. Garrett's paper has never been published in any peer-reviewed journal, and yet he has received $100,000K + from fqxi for research which never went anywhere.

How might you account for this? Is physicsforums comprises of non-Ph.D.'s who are working for corporate/foundation interests?

Here is what Ph.D.'s and experts have to say regarding Lisi's theory:

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/001
505.html

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/200
7/11/16/garrett-lisis-theory-of-everything/

http://www.sciam.
com/article.cfm?id=garrett-lisi-e8-theory

As you can see, the theory has been refuted everywhere by serious physicists, and it has never passed any peer review journal system.

How do you explain physicsforums.com and fqxi embracing it?

Please do not delete this post.

Thanks,

Steven

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 19:02 GMT

John -

The big questions are indeed not so easily addressed: I was addressing a slightly different issue - not the consideration of grand theories but individual stages in their development. Not all ideas spring fully formed into the mind - nor are they necessarily easy to reconcile with other ideas or to explore in detail even if they do.

I did said my idea was self-interested: I perceive an issue that I can illustrate with a specific example. For me, the answer to one (relatively) small question would significantly further my understanding and there may be others in the same position. I accept that other others have may different objectives.

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 12, 2009 @ 23:26 GMT

The jury's choice caused me to read Barbour's essay. I appreciate this and I also appreciate that the merely religious essays were not awarded.

Barbour might be correct in that time is not a primary quantity.

McGucken made me aware of Minkowski's ict. I see the usual notion of time an abstraction from measurable i.e. past time which on its turn is a cumulative measure that structures events being primary to it.

However, I cannot see any practical use of any denial of time and in particular the non-reality of future.

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 00:12 GMT

Possibly, the essay "The Nature of Time" from Julian Barbour is the best among all essays presented on contest, but in this essay are many points for criticism. The main problem of essay is an absence of author's concepts and postulates. The author considers only a mechanical motion. Yes, the ideal inertial motion and ideal mechanical clock in the nature are absent, but it speaks about time very little - much less, than it is told by the author. Besides, the mechanical motion it only "vertex of iceberg". The change of state of material system, which associates with flow of time occurs at different levels and mainly it is motion with speed of light (as is shown in this essay).

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 00:54 GMT

Eckard,

Personally I have found the discovery of timeless objective reality as a most profound alteration of perspective.(I can only speak of this from my own experience.) Past events are not continuously replayed for all eternity and the future is not already written.

Where the past was imagined there is now aft space that has already been passed through and ahead along the 4th dimension is afore space. All that is left is electromagnetic radiation, memories and records.There is no material past, there is no material future.

A black hole is merely where matter has penetrated into afore space due to gravity and ceased to be within the visible universe.

Without objective time the object that gives rise to the universe can be eternal since it exists without time having only 4 spatio-energetic dimensions.

John,

To describe the geometry of such an object is not to display pseudo religious intent but merely to describe one important characteristic. Rather than claiming that the universe must be so complex that it is super-mathematical and beyond description.It is neither supernatural nor super mathematical.In my opinion.

If I describe the geometry of a starfish I do not simultaneously diminish its starfishy-ness. It is not necessary to know the intricacies of cell division, feeding and digestion ,or locomotion and hydraulics of the tube feet system in order to recognise the basic starfish geometry.

That geometry will enable someone without any knowledge of starfish to identify some specimens to study. All of the other afore mentioned starfish knowledge will not be as helpful.

On the question of seeking to find ideal states, that ideal depends on the subjective veiw point. An individual in sympathy with eastern philosophies may consider the primordial state of the universe the ideal because "no thing is always better than any thing."A scientist or lover of chaos and complexity will find the ideal in the innumerable mysteries of the dynamic processes of creation and development while the western materialist may see perfection in the ultimate material manifestation of the universe. (In this model either as a mega galaxy or singularity.)

Destruction is an essential feature that allows the cycle to continue. Infantile brain cells must die to allow the adult brain to develop. Cells between foetal fingers die to allow separate fingers to form, species die and new species fill their ecological niches, the universe is destroyed so that the energy it contains is released for the continual and timeless process of universe building. Life and death, destruction and creation in balance.This is nature and its study is science.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 01:00 GMT

Julian,

Just looking at it through my own prism.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 01:34 GMT

Georgina,

"that ideal depends on the subjective view point."

Exactly. The ideal is subjective. The absolute is universal. The absolute is not an ideal. The absolute is an all encompassing neutral or blank state, like absolute zero. An ideal is an epitome of form. One is basis, the other is apex. Both are unperceiveable. The absolute because perception is subjective and there is no frame of reference. While the ideal is an attempt to objectify the subjective.

"Destruction is an essential feature that allows the cycle to continue. Infantile brain cells must die to allow the adult brain to develop. Cells between foetal fingers die to allow separate fingers to form, species die and new species fill their ecological niches, the universe is destroyed so that the energy it contains is released for the continual and timeless process of universe building. Life and death, destruction and creation in balance.This is nature and its study is science."

Complete agreement.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 02:15 GMT

Georgina,

An example of ideal and emergent;

Consider the equation 2+2=4. An idealist would say that no matter where in the universe your are, no matter how many times you add it, 2+2=4.

The emergent view is that if there is nothing, no frame, no form, nothing, 2+2=4 is not only completely meaningless, but impossible to perceive. It is only when shape and form emerge out of that blank equilibrium, fluctuating vacuum, that you can begin to define such ideas as adding objects together. Yes, 2+2=4 is repeatable, but doesn't that make everything that repeats a fundamental law? Are they all written down in some alternate reality just in case they might be forgotten? What if in an infinite universe, another exact version of you and I are having this same communication, does that make it a law? At the point repeatability becomes so complex we cannot follow its permutations, is it no longer law? When we build computers powerful enough to analyze every possible permutation, do they become law? What if there are emergent layers of complexity above that?

That is why reality is emergent, not based on ideals.

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Brian Beverly wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 03:39 GMT

Julian Moore,

I think you get it :)

I like what you are implying and I say we take that first small step. I studied both physics and math in college and recently completed my undergraduate degree, but I will pretend I have never seen physics. If you answer my questions I will donate $500 to FQXI in your name. For me to understand physics properly I request:

1) The physics nomenclature and concepts be broken down into simple everyday language and ideas.

2) Mathematics that include a gentle introduction (a thorough understanding of analysis is not required to “get” the power rule or the chain rule used in calculus).

3) Full derivations whenever possible which show each step worked out in full detail.

4) An example problem with a well explained solution.

5) A problem similar but not entirely identical to the worked example problem.

6) A challenging, but not impossible problem.

7) Well explained solutions to the problems posted after 24 hours.

8) A focus on the 20% of physics that solves 80% of the problems.

If someone asks for a simpler explanation try to accommodate them but they should also be encouraged to grow and become self taught physicists. They only need help getting past the initial learning curve.

To start:

What are the differences between position, velocity and acceleration?

What are Cartesian coordinates?

What is the difference between a scalar and a vector?

Are there any special rules for adding scalars or vectors?

Are there any special rules for multiplying scalars or vectors?

Is there any simple mathematical relationship that unites position, velocity, and acceleration?

I ask that these questions are answered by hand and posted as a PDF which save time and does not require expertise in manipulating computer programs.

I will also donate another $50 in the name of the amateur (BTW, amat = love) who posts the first correct solutions.

This trend of donating money to an institution in exchange for knowledge is how the first universities were supported. If every FQXI member participated and taught one subject together then no member would be overwhelmed by teaching. If I am the only amateur then there is no way I can support this organization. However, thousands of amateurs would be able to support FQXI and no one would have a tremendous financial burden. A curious and passionate mind could become educated while simultaneously funding the work of the researchers without the middlemen and overhead.

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 04:01 GMT

Nice initiative, Brian, this is great.

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 04:01 GMT

Steven Churchill commented earlier about Garrett Lisi’s paper. He’s asking:

“As you can see, the theory has been refuted everywhere by serious physicists, and it has never passed any peer review journal system.

How do you explain physicsforums.com and fqxi embracing it?”

This subject is related to what I said earlier about *crackpotphobia* (I do not imply that Garrett is crackpot, only that this phobia combined with the lack of time may make other physicists to reject his work without properly reading it). It is totally normal and justified for physicists to protect their time, motivating like Sean:

“So I’m sufficiently pessimistic about the prospects for this idea that I’m going to spend my time reading other papers. I could certainly be guessing wrong. But you can’t read every paper, and my own judgment is all I have to go on.”

When I heard, back in 2007, about Garrett’s article, I was skeptical (because several reasons, one of them being this kind of mixing of internal and external symmetries), but I decided to read first the article. I printed it, and read it in the Koln airport and in the plane to Bucharest. I knew I was not in the position to decide the theory’s fate, but I read it twice. One concern was about the claims of “exceptional” and “simple”, but reading I realized the group theoretical pun. I clearly have some doubts about Garrett’s theory, but does this mean that it shouldn’t be researched? There are some beautiful coincidences there, and it is important to know whether they are meaningful, or just plain *numerology*.

Is it much $100,000K + for Lisi? Compared to the investments in ST and even LQG, I would say: “give the man the cash, and give him 4-5 good students (and good surfers) willing to explore this direction”. I mean, we can believe that string theory and quantum gravity are closer to the unification, so they receive much more founding and researchers, but we are still far from this unification, so we cannot say for sure which one is true.

Related cases:

Einstein encouraged Kaluza to publish his unification article, but after 2 years of delay.

The verification of Perelman’s proof of Thurston’s geometrization conjecture (and of Poincaré conjecture), arxived in 2002, lasted until 2006. Three articles of 60+ pages, that took 4 years.

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Michael Sherbon wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 20:20 GMT

Cristi, Julian, and others; some of your suggested ideas are embraced by the NPA, which has a much larger membership than FQXi, not being an "elitist" organization.

"The Natural Philosophy Alliance (NPA) is devoted mainly to broad-ranging, fully open-minded criticism, at the most fundamental levels , of the often irrational and unrealistic doctrines of modern physics and cosmology; and to...

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 20:37 GMT

Georgina, you are a presentist as are unfortunately many physicists. Timeless 'objective reality' was not discovered. It is a very old belief. Aurelius Augustinius (354-430) wrote in his book De Civitate Dei: Before God created the universe there was no time.

The reason for me to reveal and reject the often hidden religiosity of presentists who deny causality is a quite practical one: Engineers have to do with the always causal reality while the mathematical apparatus does not appropriately reflect that future is not yet written. When I wrote in my essay 369 that only past is real, I meant that only past events cannot be changed and only they left traces. Is there a now? The now is the fictitious border of such reality towards the realm of anticipation.

You wrote: "Past events are not continuously replayed for all eternity and the future is not already written."

While I agree with the latter, I argue: Every event is unique. You mean past events are of decreasing relevance. Yes. No matter whether or not we can reconstruct them, they are real in the sense they already happened and possibly influenced later events.

You wrote: "Where the past was imagined there is now aft space that has already been passed through and ahead along the 4th dimension is afore space."

My dictionary does not have the word aft and it has afore only in combination. Nonetheless I guess you meant that there is a time dimension extending from minus infinity to plus infinity to pass through. Isn't this a block universe?

You wrote: "There is no material past, there is no material future." Again, you are trying to deny the decisive difference between reality and anticipation. Traces of past processes are materialized. Sometimes it is not necessary to clearly distinct between past and future. For instance words like presence, today, or this year are deliberately ambiguous.

You wrote: "A black hole is merely where matter has penetrated into afore space due to gravity and ceased to be within the visible universe." I guess, you are a young fellow. Be cautious with mathematics that suggests speculations.

You wrote:"Without objective time the object that gives rise to the universe can be eternal since it exists without time having only 4 spatio-energetic dimensions."

I cannot derive from any acceptable argument by Barbour that there is no objective time. He might merely be correct in that time is not something primary. For those who are believing in god this is clear, see above. For those who are struggling with RT and QM it offers hope for a solution. However, just this seems to be intentionally biased thinking. Let's wait for the outcome of LHC.

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 21:12 GMT

Hi Elliot, Michael et al, including FQXi,

THE NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH

My humble opinion is that the time invested in String Theory doesn’t pay yet. If the theory will succeed in providing the unification, then yes, all this work will not be in vain. If it will fail, it will at least be like trying to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem: the only benefit, other than the joy of...

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 21:52 GMT

Cristi--you write, "Imagine a foundation which helps people understanding that their theories were nonsensical, releasing them from their chimera, making them useful for other activities." Well right there we would get rid of all LQG/E8/String Theory, but insider FQXI insiders would likely still win all the cash prizes for other assorted antitheories based on meaningless maths which grate against the true spirit of Einstein, Bohr, Born, Faraday, Feynman, and Maxwell.

"Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express. Let them make the effort to express these ideas in appropriate words without the aid of symbols, and if they succeed they will not only lay us laymen under a lasting obligation, but, we venture to say, they will find themselves very much enlightened during the process, and will even be doubtful whether the ideas as expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations into their minds." –James Clerk Maxwell

"Books on physics are full of complicated mathematical formulae. But thought and ideas, not formulae, are the beginning of every physical theory." –Einstein/Infeld, The Evolution of Physics

"I don't believe in mathematics." -- Albert Einstein.

"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater." --Einstein

"Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose."" --Einstein

"Geometry is not true, it is advantageous." --Jules H. Poincare

In Disturbing the Universe, Freeman Dyson writes, "Dick [Richard Feynman] fought back against my skepticism, arguing that Einstein had failed because he stopped thinking in concrete physicalimages and became a manipulator of equations. I had to admit that was true. The great discoveries of Einstein's earlier years were all based on direct physical intuition. Einstein's later unified theories failed because they were only sets of equations without physical meaning. Dick's sumover-histories theory was in the spirit of the young Einstein, not of the old Einstein. It was solidly rooted in physical reality." --Freeman Dyson

Smolin writes in TTWP that Bohr was not a Feynman "shut up and calculate" physicist, and from the above Dyson quote, it appears that Feynman wasn't either:

"Mara Beller, a historian who has studied his [Bohr's] work in detail, points out that there was not a single calculation in his research notebooks, which were all verbal argument and pictures." --Smolin's The Trouble With Physics

"I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning."--Plato

“Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.” Albert Einstein

dx4/dt=ic

"Eppur si muove! And yet it moves!"

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 22:25 GMT

Robert Sadykov: "Denial of time means also denial of the theory of relativity."

This is not the case because relativity occurs within subjective reality. It is due to the way that information is received and is processed as experience.

Eckhard, I do appreciate your engagement in discourse with me. I do not mean to cause offence but wish only to obtain constructive criticism of my...

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 22:49 GMT

I couldn't resist;

Theory of Singularities and Institutional Bias

I'm not the most mathematically inclined, but I'd like to pose a meta-observation about basic assumptions. Stephen Wolfram famously stated that it would take a computer the size of the universe to calculate the universe. What if the universe is infinite? Does it make sense to think there can be an equation that would encompass it, or is that like asking what the final number is in an infinite series and reality is simply an endless process of emergence and collapse?

Consider it from an elementary perspective; Is the basis of mathematical geometry the initial point, or the blank space? Does all of logical structure have a point of origin from which it multiplies and interacts to create the increasingly complex and inter-related patterns we describe with such mathematical precision, possibly reaching a state of maximum complexity, after which it devolves back down to that essential point? Or is it an infinite field of interaction with no start and no finish, just patterns of expanding complexity that also reach limits of sustainability and collapse back down into simpler equations that mostly develop minor levels of complexity, but occasionally burst out with patterns of exponential complexity.

The second seems the most likely possibility to me, yet it is the first which is a simplified description of cosmology. Why would our best and most focused thinkers prefer such a linear and exclusionary model of the entire universe? I thought that when the Hubble telescope went up it would find evidence of structure too old to be contained within the age limits of the Big Bang model. By the mid '90's they found galaxy formations hundreds of light years across at the very edge of visibility, light from second generation sources equally far out and even stars in our own galaxy which seemed older than the supposed age of the universe, but the model just expanded to fit the data. They even found a curvature of space that mirrored a cosmological constant, but it just became dark energy. We have Inflation Theory to explain how the CMBR could be as smooth as it is, yet this miraculous expansion of space itself ignores an otherwise stable speed of light. There are quasars seemingly ejected by galaxies which have drastically different redshifts. None of this matters to the experts, because the entire universe began at a singularity and the case is closed. Why is that?

Any particular structure, be it an individual ant, or the Catholic Church, needs to enforce a linear order in order to exist, let alone survive. Otherwise its constituent material becomes energy for those other orders which compete with it. This fact of nature is elemental to the human psyche and is exhibited throughout all our social institutions, as the prerogatives of survival compete with and often overwhelm functions of purpose. So how is it that this singularity of focus should be imposed on our description of the entire universe? Obviously we understand the difference between eco-systems and entities and while entities need this top down singular focus, eco-systems are a function of bottom up multiplicity of interaction. Other than that pesky redshift, it would seem quite reasonable to think of the universe as an ecosystem of galaxies and other formulations of energy and mass, so why must it fit into the singular straitjacket? We don't really understand gravity, can we really expect the entire universe to fit our likely primitive understanding of light?

Could it be that some institutional bias toward a top down ordering would be imposed on the entirety of visible reality? I suspect our collective sub-conscious plays more tricks on us than we are willing to admit.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 22:59 GMT

I would like to request a re-judging with 1) shared reviews and 2) non-anonymous judges.

FQXI has millions of dollars.

Pick five judges and give them $100,000 each for sharing their opinions and an extra $100,000 each for putting their names on their opinions. Surely $100,000 will be fair compensation for hitting the send button on their email a few times so as share their opinions/antitheorist insights, and surely an extra $100,000 will cover all the effort it will take to hit the delete button in their email so as to get rid of "the inevitable slew of complaints etc." that Anthony states all us outsiders/sore losers/crackpots would direct at the antitheory judges upon seeing their immaculate, zeuslike, thundering judgments; as we are but uncouth, non-FQXI barbarians unskilled in the way of snarky, insider, country-club quantum gravity regimes--both those that support time and those that deny it, but neither which has quantized gravity, nor come close.

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 23:33 GMT

If considered in purely energetic terms then there is no space or time. The universe is not finite or infinite, of fixed duration or eternal because those conjectures require space and time. Just energy changes. Those energy changes can be alternatively interpreted as movement of matter and energy within space, and time may also be incorporated as a foundational element in certain models or as a subjective emergent phenomenon as in the Prime Quaternion model and others.

The universe has not changed only the perspective and terms used to describe it.It can be all that you say and also when looked at another way be something else.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 13, 2009 @ 23:43 GMT

....Values of kinetic, potential, and mass energy increasing and decreasing in magnitude without visualisation of any actual movement in 3 or 4 D space.

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FQXi Administrator Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 14, 2009 @ 04:18 GMT

Dear All,

One of the improvements we will make soon to the forum is the ability to collapse long rambling postings into a stub that can be expanded upon a click, and otherwise easily ignored. This will help blog and also essay authors to resolve the dilemma between a strong moral instinct to leave postings even if they are very critical, versus the desire to minimize long endless tirades that seem designed to attract zapping. Myself, if I see dx4/dt=ic one more time I may give in...

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Cristi Stoica wrote on Mar. 14, 2009 @ 05:00 GMT

Dear Anthony,

Why couldn’t we receive the at least two reviews per essay, even unsigned by their authors?

This one was short.

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Don Limuti (www.zenophysics.com) wrote on Mar. 14, 2009 @ 06:58 GMT

Anthony,

While you are collapsing long rambling posts (which I think you should do immediately) I would also collapse the first bloggers entry. The full blog entry would still be visible under "blogs" but does not need to be fully visible where the posts are given.

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 14, 2009 @ 11:32 GMT

In a previous attachment (I looked at it but it's since been detached) Dr. E quoted Einstein thus:

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I also heartily recommend this cartoon (http://xkcd.com/123/) for its relevance to coordinate transformations.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 09:50 GMT

Even if the judges don't supply commentary on all the rest, could they do so on the winners? In separating the wheat from the chaff, I'd still like to see the reasoning behind selecting Julian Barbour's essay.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 14:38 GMT

Barbour's essay was a good read. He gave a reasonable argument for how time is an operational concept we deduce from motion. Of course in relativity we have to notions of time, proper time and coordinate time, which could have been carried on with after his equation 5.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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FQXi Administrator Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 15:56 GMT

John Merryman,

The paragraphs below the Barbour, Kiefer, and Carroll articles in the blog post are directly from the panel.

Anthony

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 16:12 GMT

Lawrence,

The question I raised earlier was that he presented a very cogent argument for why time is based on motion and not the other way around, then he goes on to describe how the coordinates for time are irreducibly fixed by the principle of least action. My point was that while it seems reasonable to assume there are fixed coordinates for time, if you believe time is the basis of motion, but if you believe it is a consequence of motion, than fixed coordinates are only as meaningful as the method of measurement.

To quote Barbour, "You choose in U two points – two configurations of the universe. These are to remain fixed."

If time is a consequence of motion, than fixed points in time are nonsense.

To quote my posting further up the thread, "Think about this in physical terms. If you freeze framed quantum activity, would it just be a still life of reality as we see it, or would the picture simply vanish like a non-fluctuating vacuum?"

To quote Barbour again, "The key thing is that no time is assumed in advance. A time worthy of the name does not exist on any of the non-extremal curves. Time emerges only on the extremal curves."

The flaw here is that as a consequence of motion, time would be equally relevant to the non-extremal curves, as it is to the extremal curves. It would simply be relative to the system being described.

The point of Barbour's essay is self contradictory. It starts as a denunciation of absolute time, then sets about determining it through the principle of least action.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 16:16 GMT

Anthony,

Thank you. Though to quote various old math teachers; That's the answer, I want to see the work.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 17:41 GMT

I couldn't help but concur with the dx4/ct = ic comment Aguirre made. All this tells us is that everthing is moving at the speed of light! Even while sitting down we are all moving along the 4th coordinate direction at the speed of light, times i = sqrt{-1}. Something I remember from undergraduate study.

The judging decision is what it is. I did not win. I wrote my essay up in three days, after realizing the deadline was Dec 1 and not Jan 1 --- oops. I also intiuited some of the conclusions prematurely. Well, such are the way of contests.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 17:56 GMT

Hello FQXI,

Various people and parties are requesting my deleted posts and attachments. Might there be some way to leave them up so as to save me the trouble of resending/distributing? After all, my posts all contain a novel postulate and equation brought forth by an independent Ph.D. researcher reflecting a hitherto unsung universal invariant: dx4/dt=ic, which is what FQXI is supposed to support, theoretically. I also include a plethora of edifying quotes from the Founding Fathers of physics, so as to demonstrate that my philosophy is more in line with that of the "heroic" age of physics, as opposed to the multiverse maffia. When FQXI changes its mission statement to perhaps more accurately reflect its transmorgification away from its original, stated intent, I will be happy to stop posting here.

But until then, "And yet it moves! E pur si muove! dx4/dt=ic."

I patiently await the day that someone at FQXI steps forth to partake in a collegial dialogue regarding the merits of MDT, thusly realizing FQXI's stated mission. This is a great opportunity--both morally and scientifically.

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 18:21 GMT

There were a number of articles about whether time exists or not. Some, such as Rovelli and Barbour argued that time does not exist. Others such as Carroll and Fotini argued that time does exist. To be honest I think science is not about determining whether such a construction really exists at all.

Einstein said that time is what is measured on a clock. Yet, what does this really mean? We have some assembly provided either by nature, such as the motion of planets or diurnal cycles, or something we construct which has a regular motion. We count the number of times a pendulum comes back to a maximal point and count those instances. The pendulum may knock a ratchet prawl into another increment, and the energy lost to do that is replaced by some weight falling or a spring and so forth. From these regular occurrences in motion we "define" time increments. We of course have gotten very good at at this, such as by measuring periodicities in atomic transitions to define ever smaller time increments. So from such means we define time increments.

Do these defined time increments really measure time? If there was no time external to the motion of the apparatus then it is funny to even define such time intervals and sum them up. We measure or define time with motion, but motion without some external time frame is hard to conceptualize. We are then in a way faced with a certain limitation inherent in science. Biology does not tell us what life is, but we have learned much about the processes and properties of living systems. Similarly with time, we really are not able to really address any existential question about time. Does time exist? We really can't say for sure, but we can arrange for measurements which define time, or require a definition of time. Can we really say what time is? Again, not really, at least so far. It is something which we have a subjective sense of, time is something we can define by various means and in a curious almost self-referential way we "measure time."

Relativity only defines proper time as an invariant, yet of course to measure that on a frame requires some system of moving masses tied to very local coordinates. This leads then to coordinate time, which is a part of group elements which can be transformed. Yet quantum mechanics involves wave equations tied to coordinate time. The interplay between these two notions of time is an interesting subject to explore. I would read Hestenes article to get some further insight into this.

The Wheeler-DeWitt equation, something Barbour has an interest in, does not define any time. A Hamiltonian H acts on a wave functional over spatial metric configuration variables HY[g] = 0, with no notion of time. Yet with quantum mechanics the Hamiltonian is fixed by some frame with a coordinate direction to time. If we could find such a thing, we could then establish a Killing vector field K = &/&t (& = partial) and maybe get the Wheeler DeWitt equation to look like

HY[g] = iKY{g},

so it is Schrodinger-like.

Can this be done? At best maybe only locally. The problem is that a Killing vector is only defined for spacetimes with certain symmetries (isometries) which define this "time vector field." Cosmologies don't satisfy those symmetries. Any attempt to globally impose such a Killing field on the spacetime results in a breakdown of general covariance. We could impose a harmonic oscillator on spatial manifolds which define an oscillating phase and locally determine a time direction. But globally this is difficult to arrange. It also means that the contact manifold condition HY[g] = 0 is very very strange, for without a global time direction there is really no such thing as globally defined energy, as some conserved or constant on a contact manifold by Fubini theorem.

One might then say we can work in conformal. The thing which messes things up in cosmology are the expansion factors which depend on time. I recommend reading Wiltshire's paper to get a better idea, but the deSitter cosmology can be conformally represented in flat spacetime. In that setting maybe there is a global time and some global notion of energy as a contact variables.

I could write a whole lot more, but I probably should not chew up too much bandwidth here. As an upshot I think that time might not be something we can ever demonstrate exists in some ontological sense, but we can say that time is certaintly useful.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 18:35 GMT

Dr. E;

I remember back in those days some realization that everything was moving at the speed of light. I don't remember if it was from a text, a lecture or something I realized myself. So everything is moving at the speed of light, but a certain subclass of things, massless things, move on projective rays (lightcones) and determine a projective Lorentz group. Everything else, masses etc, which are also moving at c, or as you say dx^4/dt = ic, have a fibration of SL(2,C) over the projective Lorentz group PSL(2,C)

pi:SL(2,C) ---> PSL(2,C),

which interestingly has a Fubini-Study metric interpretation similar to what occurs in quantum mechanics.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 20:33 GMT

The time measured on a clock is proper time, which is given by

ds^2 = -(cdt)^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2

Here is the dx^4 = icdt in the first RHS term. Now if the particle with this clock is moving, say with U_x = dx/ds, and we drop dy and dz (assume on x-motion) then

1 = -c^2(dt/ds)^2 - U_x^2,

and for U_t = dt/ds you have

1 = -c^2(U_t^2 - U_x^2) = -c^2(1 - v_x^2)U_t^2.

for v_x = dx/dt. So this is the more general meaning of everything moving "at c," where here we get a general time dilation factor, or the 1/gamma^2 = 1 - v_x^2.

This is all in a way pretty canonical stuff. So in the general setting the proper time, a clock measure on a world line = length of that line or curve is related to coordinates. Yet the point of relativity is that this proper time is invariant. A change in coordinate frame changes nothing. So if you look at a clock moving on some frame with coordinates (t,x,y,z) and your friend is watchin this frame with coordinates (t',x',y',z') you have ds = ds'. So if we again ignore y and z and we have that

x' = g(x - vt), x = g'(x' + vt') and for the proper intervals ds^2 = ds'^2 you require g = g' and

g = 1/sqrt{1 - v^2),

which is again the Lorentz factor.

Light travels along rays with ds = 0, which gives one U_t^2 = U_x^2 in the above or that |v_x| = c. This lightlike condition is one then where in all frames the photon is moving in the x direction as v = c, while for massive particles there is a frame where v_x = v_y = v_z = 0 but there is v = c motion along the dx^4 direction. This leads one to the fibration I eluded to earlier today.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Chris Kennedy wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 20:42 GMT

Some think that Dr. E's posts are a little long? (Okay everyone does including me.) But I wonder? I didn't read the almost 200 posts on his thread, but did anyone find a large enough flaw in MDT to show that it can not be a valid theory? Maybe someone did - I don't know? Having said that, I don't think that Elliot is trying to con anyone or sell you folks a bill of goods that he thinks is BS. Right or wrong - based on his enthusiasm, I am sure that he thinks his theory is correct and can't quite understand why we don't get it. To him it makes perfect sense and the longer we go without saying: "Oh, now we get it - wow!!!" The more perplexed he is but is willing to continue to give you the details again in another post.

I did read his essay and an additional attachment that he posted one day way back when. Because I wanted to read as many essays as I could - I didn't get very deep into deconstructing every line. Of course, if I were part of an organization that took around 8.8 milion dollars from a foundation, so that I could help create an environment where new (but scientific) ideas could get serious consideration - you bet I would have felt a sense of responsibility to make sure that I along with the core scientists tied to this project would give every single essay proper consideration and that NONE would slip through the cracks.

So, admittedly, because I haven't gone back and reread it a few times after the contest - I don't know what to think about MDT. But Elliot, I have to ask: You have said several times that MDT agrees 100% with all of relativity. Does this mean that MDT hinges on relativity being 100% correct? If the answer to that is yes - then sorry, but If you remember my essay you know I will have to reject MDT on that basis.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 21:31 GMT

I guess I also fall into the category of those willing to accept I lost the contest, but curious that no one seems to think through the point I made; That if time is a fundamental vector along which we travel from the past into the future it does pose all sorts of measurement and conceptual problems, but that if it is a consequence of motion than it is actually going the other way. The only reality is this energy and motion, which creates series of configurations that go from future potential to past circumstance. Besides all the measurement issues, it explains why only the present is physically real and past and future are not.

On top of that, I do think Barbour's essay is contradictory, as previously stated and if fxqi is what it purports to be and not just window dressing for grant money, than I'd think It would have an interest in addressing questions concerning the winning essay.

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FQXi Administrator Anthony Aguirre wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 21:47 GMT

Dr. E,

Congratulations! Your posts have accumulated enough mass that they have collapsed into their own separate universe. That is, your posts that are predominantly about your MDT theory have been moved to their own thread, here. Readers are welcome to find them there and discus them in whatever depth they choose. Please confine future postings about MDT to that forum rather than others such as this one to which it is not directly relevant.

this post has been edited by the forum administrator

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 22:00 GMT

This quote is from post above Dr. E (or maybe Brian Green it isn't clear.) "Ergo the faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time; but all objects always move at c through the four dimensions; and light has all of its movement through space, and thus is can have none of it through the fourth dimension."

If as you say all objects are moving at c along the 4th...

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 22:01 GMT

The MDT idea is not wrong, as far as I can see. The only thing is that it does not really IMO tell us much we don't already know, There is also some rather nonstandard language involved, where if I understand it right it appears that Dr. E's idea of an expanding space is just a way of describing the timelike region enclosed by a light cone. So my sense is that this is just a somewhat nonstandard way of looking at relativity

I am not how Barbour's article is inconsistent. It was one of clearest articles in the bunch.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 22:27 GMT

Thanks for the forum! You rock!

To thank FQXI, I will be hosting a keg party in my brand new forum on March 17th. Wahooo! We will be celebrating our newfound free will, time, and all its arrows and assymetries!

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

If you wnat to celbrate multiverses, parallel universes, and bouncing universes, feel free, but personally I'm not...

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 15, 2009 @ 23:15 GMT

Dr. E, I understand your enthusiasm at having a thread dedicated to your theory. However I do think that it is important that you actually read other peoples posts and consider the points that they raise even if they are disagreeing with you. Only by addressing their misunderstandings, confusion or valid criticism will you gain acceptance of your work.

If you do not do this you may be charged with hypocrisy for doing unto others as you feel is unjustly done to yourself.

I feel it is necessary to repeat a part of my previous post above. Please explain my misunderstanding of this point.

This quote is from post above Dr. E (or maybe Brian Green it isn't clear.) "Ergo the faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time; but all objects always move at c through the four dimensions; and light has all of its movement through space, and thus is can have none of it through the fourth dimension."

If as you say all objects are moving at c along the 4th dimension. But light has all of its motion through 3D space being stationary in the 4th dimension, why is the light not left behind as the rest of the matter passes on along the 4th dimension? Why can we still detect light that appears to have been travelling across space for light years?

If matter moved along the 4th dimension at c but light didn't then the light would not be visible. It must also be travelling along the 4th dimension at c to keep pace.In my opinion it is travelling afore-ward along the 4th dimension and across 3D space. (As these dimensions are perpendicular it can be thought of as two waves one the "magnetic" part travelling along 4th dimension the "electro" part travelling through 3D vector space.)

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 00:31 GMT

Lawrence,

"I am not how Barbour's article is inconsistent. It was one of clearest articles in the bunch."

I'm assuming that's not a freudian slip. Could you address my point directly?

I'm not saying it wasn't clear, but that the underlaying logic is self contradictory. Admittedly there were some essays that were very unclear and thus difficult to figure out what the logical point was.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 02:06 GMT

The intervals of time which a clock measures are given by the total energy or Hamiltonian of the system. This is worked out in his essay for planetary motion. From this intervals of time are defined and in that sense measured. The upshot then is that time is something defined from the dynamics of a clock, whether that be planets in motion, pendulum or atomic motion, where that dynamics is not determined by time.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 04:43 GMT

But motion does not happen all by itself without energy input. Entropy would lead to the slowing down and stopping of the working of the universe as energy becomes unable to do useful work. However this has not, and is not happening. The objective material universe (not its electromagnetic image) is not becoming more disordered and slowing down but increasing in order and complexity which requires energy input.

Energy is being converted to kinetic energy observed as angular momentum and mass energy observed as matter in space. There is continual energy input (i.e.promotional energy which is loss of "universal" potential energy)as there is continual 4th dimensional change in position, (towards interior of the hypersphere Megauniverse, in my opinion.)

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 09:52 GMT

Lawrence,

Yes, that is the first part of his essay. The problem is that he then goes on to (try to) say that anything above that determined by his principle of least action doesn't constitute a real measure of time.

To repeat;

"To quote Barbour again, "The key thing is that no time is assumed in advance. A time worthy of the name does not exist on any of the non-extremal curves. Time emerges only on the extremal curves."

The flaw here is that as a consequence of motion, time would be equally relevant to the non-extremal curves, as it is to the extremal curves. It would simply be relative to the system being described."

What he seems to be trying to do is to peel away Einstein's relative clock time and go back to Newton's absolute time, i.e. "A time worthy of the name."

The problem is what I keep pointing to, if time is a consequence of motion, a fixed point in time is a contradiction, since it negates the very motion on which time is based, so the parameters of the unit are an inherent function of the method of measurement, not that the method is an approximation of something more accurate. Time is what you measure with ANY clock.

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 12:21 GMT

The bible speaks: light has appeared at first, stars have appeared after. The standard cosmological model speaks the same. The essay The theory of time very silently speaks, that the world still consists of light. According to one of conclusions of the given essay, any material particle at the initial structural level consists of elements having zero mass and moving with speed of light. It can be the electromagnetic wave closed in finite space. Thus, the world always is in a motion, and we associate this motion with time.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 15:12 GMT

Hello All!

Thanks for all the questions above which I will now answer.

We probably should migrate MDT discussions over to the new forum: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432 as we might get in trouble for dicussing foundational questions, novel postulates, and physical models and equations in this forum. While said equations and postulates, presented by a Ph.D. physicist,...

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 15:36 GMT

Hello Georgina!

I was on the go yesterday, so I apologize for not having time to answer your questions.

Please post future questions at the new MDT forum which Anthony/FQXI was kind enough to rpovide us with: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

We are having a St. Patty's party there on March 17th to celebrate our liberation from the block universe, frozen time and...

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 15:59 GMT

Hello Lawrence,

Please join us at the new MDT forum, for future discussions pertaining to novel postulates and equations representing hitherto unsung aspects of physical reality and foundational questions in physics:

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

Thanks again to Anthony & FQXI for the MDT forum.

We will be hosting an "E pur si muove" dance party there...

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 16:19 GMT

Einstein: "We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams."

The First Annual Einstein "E Pur Si Muove" dx4/dt=ic Dance Party!

March 17th, St. Patyrick's Day @ http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

All the Best!

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

E Pur Si Muove! dx4/dt=ic

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 18:13 GMT

"the world consists of light" (Robert Sadykov) - might have a little more to it than immediately apparent.

Several (10?) years ago on a flight from Paris I got chatting to a physicist who described a novel approach to the electron, which he and a Dutch colleague had modelled as a "closed electromagnetic wave" looping back on itself with the E field mostly radial and reinforcing as the source of electron "charge"; they then set out to calculate the anomalous magnetic moment according to this alternate model and found remarkable agreement with existing experimental results.

Alas I don't recall their names or any references...

However, he also said that they were planning to look at hadrons from this perspective, at which point it seemed to me that there was at the very least a superficial connection with string theory (he disagreed) - perhaps the topology of the compactified dimensions constrained the possible closed threading of a wave I thought. [Then some vague hand-waving thought about the muon and tauon being excited states of the fundamental electron extending into an adjacent sub-space... aaah!... perhaps the "three families" tells us something about the sub-spaces and conectedness of our Calabi-Yau space? Ooh - I like this make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach :)

However, seriously - does anyone recall anything about the original idea as I've "summarised" it (not yours truly's waffle)?

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 16, 2009 @ 22:48 GMT

Julian Moore,

One more sufficiently interesting conclusion of essay "The theory of time": any potential energy is the latent form of the kinetic energy. This conclusion reduces number of forms of energies to one form - the kinetic energy. Thus, energy also as time is inseparably connected with the motion. The central idea "The gravidynamic effect" in presented essay has no analogues in the physics.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 00:37 GMT

Julian,

Reminds me of the Carver Mead interview;

http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/People/Ca
rverMead.htm

But they're also waves, right? Then what are they waving in?

It's interesting, isn't it? That has hung people up ever since the time of Clerk Maxwell, and it's the missing piece of intuition that we need to develop in young people. The electron isn't the disturbance of something else. It is its own thing. The electron is the thing that's wiggling, and the wave is the electron. It is its own medium. You don't need something for it to be in, because if you did it would be buffeted about and all messed up. So the only pure way to have a wave is for it to be its own medium. The electron isn't something that has a fixed physical shape. Waves propagate outwards, and they can be large or small. That's what waves do.

So how big is an electron?

It expands to fit the container it's in. That may be a positive charge that's attracting it--a hydrogen atom--or the walls of a conductor. A piece of wire is a container for electrons. They simply fill out the piece of wire. That's what all waves do. If you try to gather them into a smaller space, the energy level goes up. That's what these Copenhagen guys call the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But there's nothing uncertain about it. It's just a property of waves. Confine them, and you have more wavelengths in a given space, and that means a higher frequency and higher energy. But a quantum wave also tends to go to the state of lowest energy, so it will expand as long as you let it. You can make an electron that's ten feet across, there's no problem with that. It's its own medium, right? And it gets to be less and less dense as you let it expand. People regularly do experiments with neutrons that are a foot across.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 02:53 GMT

The observation that dx^4/dt = ic only tells one that a particle in a reference frame is moving at an imaginary velocity ic with respect to x^4. The spacetime is flat, and there is no expansion of spatial surfaces. For that to occur there is then some extrinsic curvatures or Gauss second fundamental form for the embedding of a spatial surface in the higher 4-dim spacetime. For a Minkoswki spacetime this does not obtain. Curiously something like this does happen with cosmology, where spatial surfaces are "evolving" so that points are being pushed part and galaxies accelerated away on comoving coordinate frames.

The connection between gravity and quantum mechanics is in a curious way related to this matter. Quantum mechanics defines a Fubini-Study metric for the fibration over a projective state space by the Hilbert space. This determines the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Further, fibration is unitary. In relativity there is an analogous fibration, but rather than unitary it defines Bogoliubov coefficients, or hyperbolic transformations. The connection between these two is a key to the problem of quantum gravity.

To offer a possible connection we might consider the unitary fibration as a braid group. So for a braid group G there are elements g which define connection terms, or vectors in the principal bundle or fibration

A = g^{-1}Ag + g^{-1}dg,

and unitarity gives g^{-1}g = 1. Now suppose there exists a system of braid groups, say a set {G_i, i = 1, ...infinity}. Now let B be a map B: G ---> G', so that for elements in these groups Bg = g'. Now multiply this by g^{-1} so then

g^{-1}Bg = g^{-1}g' =/= 1.

Now if the operator B is defined by group elements g, B = B(g) this means that g^{-1}Bg is a nonassociative structure. In other words for a,b,c specific examples of elements g we have that

g^{-1}Bg = [a,b,c] = a(bc) - (ab)c,

and is an associator. These are links between nonunital related braid groups.

The nonassociative system is not unitary, but it does preserve quantum information. In a coarse grained setting it also defines Bogoliubov coefficients and thermal terms found with Hawking radiation. In this way maybe the projective structures for QM and relativity are embedded in a more extensive system.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 09:04 GMT

John Merryman,

In the quantum theory the electron is a point particle and it is a problem because the zero sizes of the electron create infinitely large potential energy of an electromagnetic field of the electron. However, if internal energy of the electron is the latent form of kinetic energy as shown in essay The theory of time, then infinitely large energy disappears, and the electron ceases to be the point particle. In case of free fall of the electron or any other material particle in Earth's gravitational field, internal energy of the electron is transformed to kinetic energy. All processes of the electron are slowed down, and it slows down a proper time of the electron.

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Julian Moore wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 12:23 GMT

John Merryman - I've traced Carver Mead back to the Transaction Interpretation of QM... some interesting research ahead. Thanks.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 17:05 GMT

Robert,

I'm reading your paper, but my frame of reference is limited.

Julian,

That might be a bit roundabout. Try

http://authors.library.caltech.edu/933/1/MEApnas97.pdf

One of Mead's points is that QM tries to reverse engineer reality from a top down mechanical perspective, when it's best understood from a bottom up electrical perspective. I don't know that I stated that quite correctly, but as he has spent his career in real world applications of the field his views are worth considering directly.

His thinking has been one of the bases of my observation in other threads that light might best be understood as an expanding bubble/wave, from which the individual photon grounds to mass as a charge, rather than light being waves of individual photons.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 17:47 GMT

Robert,

It seems a staight forward, though detailed treatment of the relational nature of time, which which I agree. Obviously If I had the time resources, it could be the basis for an extensive discussion in which you would undoubtfully educate me on the physical niceties. That's what really gets me about the selection of Barbour's piece. I'm the first to admit my own sophomoric talents, yet it took me less than ten minutes to observe what appears to be a glaring contradiction. Admittedly, his piece was well crafted and short, which make the logic and thus its inconsistency, all that more obvious. Yet no one has bothered to come to his defense, other than Lawrence, halfheartedly. If I'm wrong, than my error should be apparent to anyone else here. If I'm right, what does that say about the judging? Did they use a dart board? Why are no other contestants, readers interested? They seem to only focus on further discussing their work, yet that would seem obviously fruitless, given the minimal lack of follow through on broader discussions, other than giving Elliot his own forum.

P.S, Elliot, I doubt I will join you there. I was one of the first to offer comments to your original essay and as it doesn't seem to have substantially evolved or been refined since, I don't see I have anything further to add.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 18:06 GMT

Thanks John!

"If it's not broke, don't fix it!"

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

The First Annual Einstein "E Pur Si Muove" dx4/dt=ic Dance Party!

March 17th, St. Patrick's Day @ the MDT Forum:

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 17, 2009 @ 23:20 GMT

My defense of Barbour's paper was more than half-hearted. I actually thought it was one of the better ones up. I am not so sure it was superior to Rovelli's paper, or Fotini's. In fact Wiltshire wrote a good paper on conforma equivalence principle which stimulated some thoughts, and his paper did not even rank.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 01:02 GMT

Elliot,

I didn't say it was broken. If the development of your concept doesn't expand with the fourth dimension, then, relatively speaking, it contracts with the other three.

Lawrence,

Your usual eloquence and attention to detail seemed lacking, especially since you didn't actually address my point. In fact, I'd say your defense of Barbour was 3/8's hearted, but if you wish, I'll agree to it being 5/8's.

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Peter Lynds wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 04:25 GMT

I have to apologise for my earlier comment. It was made in a moment of frustration, and I should have known better.

In relation to feeling frustrated, though, I do want to say something about the qualifications required in order to qualify for an FQXi grant. The following is from the FQXi FAQ.

"Since this is a program run by researchers for researchers, FQXi may be a bit more flexible than traditional funding agencies in the definition of a Principal Investigator; thus, we may accept applications from postdoctoral fellows as the PI or a co-investigator if his/her institution allows this. Should a postdoctoral fellow be invited to submit a Full Proposal, s/he must obtain co-signatures on the proposal from the department head, as well as a department host with a post extending the duration of the grant."

Given the mission statement of FQXi, I don't think I need to point out the problem with the above (basically that only those with PhDs qualify).

I realise that my two posts will probably serve to further alienate me from FQXi (I don't have a PhD or degree), but irrespective of whether I tow the line or not, I can't see FQXi giving my work any support in the near future, and in relation to that work, I sometimes feel as though I must be from another planet anyway.

Peter

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 09:56 GMT

Peter,

Welcome to the real world. The only reason you have a handle on the rest of us rabble outside the gates is because some professor back in Australia gave you a hand up. If you want the handout, you must conform to the model.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 15:25 GMT

Hang in there John and Peter!

It was actually your spirits--your joyful curiosity and natural quests--which brought this contest to life--not the snarky arrogance of the dominant, anonymous, insider antitheorists.

Take it all as good fun--as the top prizes went to theories both supporting and denying time's reality--theories rooted in the failed quantum gravity regimes of ST and LQG, while theories with novel postulates and equations (dx4/dt=ic) representing hitherto unsung universal invariants providing both the elemetary foundations for relativity and entanglement, thusly unifying qm and relativity with a simple physical model, were utterly exiled and ignored. So it is that right and wrong were of no matter in this contest, but only membership in the pre-ordained group of the multiverse's best and brightest's postulateless, equationless antitheorists who receive tens of thousands of dollars for manufacturing travesties such as the "fabulous" E8 tehory of nothing and "the giant void" that is the "unmistakable imprint of a universe just beyond our own" which proves string theory or something.

You guys were honest and open the whole way along this journey, and that right there grants you the higher reward that cannot be counted down in mere dollars from the mint and empty titles.

Keep on keeping on Peter and John!

FQXI needs your more than you need FQXI. For we alone are providing novel, irrefutable postualtes and equations along with the rugged, independent curiosity which they laud in their mission statement; while rewarding the very opposite.

And word without need is nothing.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

--Thomas Jefferson

I imagine it is no easy task maintaining a straight face nor peaceful slumbers while handing out awards to antitheorists, especially when they are one's friends and colleagues.

Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself. (But I gain a grant for a giant void!) --William Shakespeare

“What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.” --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All the best!

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

Thanks to FQXI for beginning to right some of its errant, antiquated ways with the new MDT forum! http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 16:19 GMT

Oops--that is "word without deed is nothing," just as mere, abstract math without rugged, *physical* reality is not physics.

“Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito—-Do not yield to the bad, but always oppose it with courage.” --Virgil (Ludwig von Mises' favorite quote)

All the Best!

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 17:24 GMT

Elliot,

Thanks for the heads up and the concern. The fact is that I do have a great deal of respect for order and authority and realize it is a fairly brutal process of editing by which conclusions are arrived at, just as any organization, our own bodies included, need to consume significant input in order to grow and survive. Then again it is a delicate balancing act and not paying serious attention to the larger situation can quickly destroy the grandest ambitions, as our economic and political crises are showing. I think most people involved in physics agree the process seems to have stalled somewhat, but there is an obvious reticence to step back and seriously review the process as long as the illusion of forward progress is maintained. This could go on for a long time to come, especially since larger budget constraints will limit the ability to test and falsify. Personally I long ago accepted I wasn't going to be taken seriously and only try not to get totally banned. For this I must thank fqxi, whatever I may think of their intentions, because I was banned from physicsforums and deleted consistently from Cosmic Variance for the very idea that was the basis of my essay. Sean Carroll can wax eloquently about multiple universes and I'm the crackpot for suggesting that if time is a consequence of motion and one configuration replaces the next, the arrow of time actually goes from future potential to past circumstance.

P. S, It's my birthday. 49.

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James Putnam wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 18:34 GMT

Happy birthday John!

I think that your willinglness to show appreciation for fqxi's willingness to include each of our differing viewpoints at their website is to be commended. We got to say our piece. If the physics community doesn't come rushing to acknowledge our important contributions, it likely has something to do with the fact that we each also disagree with one another as well as with them.

I also think that it is very gracious of fqxi to not qualify or disqualify our individual entries by whether or not our viewpoints agree with the administrators' beliefs. This situtation is rare and, I think, should be supported by those who appreciate it.

Hope you have a nice day!

James Putnam

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 18:55 GMT

Happy Birthday John!!

"For this I must thank fqxi, whatever I may think of their intentions, because I was banned from physicsforums and deleted consistently from Cosmic Variance for the very idea that was the basis of my essay. Sean Carroll can wax eloquently about multiple universes and I'm the crackpot for suggesting that if time is a consequence of motion and one configuration replaces...

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 19:30 GMT

Happy Birthday John.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 21:11 GMT

http://www.alternet.org/story/111376/?page=entire

The Best and the Brightest Have Led America (& Physics) Off a Cliff

http://www.alternet.org/story/111376/?page=entire

John--
what you have to understand is that Carroll's Cosmic Variance and physicsforums.com are primarily commercial entities interested first and foremost not in advancing physics, but in selling product. ...

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Chris Kennedy wrote on Mar. 18, 2009 @ 21:59 GMT

To John:

Happy 7^2 Birthday!! You don't sound a day over 6^2!!! Did they really ban your "time as a consequence of motion" theory on other sites? That strikes me odd since it is probably what time actually is. As you know, I word my motion as "fundamental behaviors" but we are not only on the same page but the same paragraph as well. For your birthday - maybe someone will give you an answer to the Barbour question (unless someone has already.) I actually voted for Barbour and I don't regret it. I will bet that none of the essays were perfect anyway and he did discuss a lot of key points that any theorist would find useful and could relate to on some level. Enough to still place him in the top 3. However - if your question has not been answered - then why not??? It should be. Maybe not by Barbour necessarily, but by someone.

To Elliot: You never answered my question to you on relativity which was:

You have said several times that MDT agrees 100% with all of relativity. Does this mean that MDT hinges on relativity being 100% correct? If the answer to that is yes - then sorry, but If you remember my essay you know I will have to reject MDT on that basis. I will post this on your blog as well so you can answer there and not here. That way we can adhere to the FQXI rules of not discussing your theory here. Thanks. Oh, and I completely agree with your take about time travel, strings and all of the other "beam me up, Scotty" stuff that physicists are putting in their books to sell to the wanabees. They have become heroes to the stupid and laughing stocks to those who know better. What an empty reward!

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Peter Lynds wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 00:28 GMT

John,

I can survive without correcting or taking issue with the rest of your comment, but it's New Zealand. The place where sheep out-number people 10 to 1 (the same as with the US and ants).

Peter

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 02:17 GMT

Thanks all.

Elliot,

My point to you still stands. You are very right that physics has misinterpreted Einstein and projected time out as this block time fourth dimension. But that's Einstein's idea and while you may support it, you need to extend it somewhat and not just tilt at the establishment. They don't care because they can ignore you. What you describe as the fourth dimension is effectively known as the cosmological constant. That balance to gravity. Gravity is the contraction of those three dimensions of space and so light/radiation expands in inverse proportion. If you want to put it in the context of time, mass is formed and eventually disintegrates. It goes from beginning to end, as its form goes from being in the future to being in the past. Meanwhile the energy that is ultimately what exists, is constantly creating and dissolving form and moving onto the next. Think of structure as the units of time that go future to past, as the energy is the hands of time that sweep across these units.

Other that that, cool the brain down, or you will have seizures. I would know.

Chris,

One year from freaking fifty! I didn't plan on living this long. The kinds of influences I grew up with, my cousin;

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_i
d=481027&tn=0&mr=0

Peter,

I really liked your early work. It was a genuine inspiration to me. By the time you got to that cycling universe stuff though, you'd clearly bought the fog.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 03:02 GMT

There are reasons why the foundations of physics have gotten off into areas that some people find strange or objectionable. With Einstein's general relativity there were some who thought that gravity was due to ether densities or to the motion of certain particles and so forth. Einstein's GR largely baffled many people upholding these prosaid notions and swept their ideas aside.

I really can't in a brief post here go into why physics involves strings and p-branes, or quantum loops and causal nets and so forth. This is not to say these structures are empirically soldered into our view of reality, but there are reasons why these types of strctures probably play some role in the foundations of physics and the universe. As you push things into deeper and more fundamental territory you find that these things also become strange.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 09:53 GMT

Lawrence,

Obviously I'm a generalist, rather than an expert, so my tendencies lay toward seeing what concepts fit larger patterns, vs. outliers. Physics has this notion that the rest of reality is exceedingly normal and only they can perceive the real strangeness to it all. Not so. Go read Catch22. It all folds back around itself in the most endlessly bizarre fashions and that doesn't even get into the consciousness aspects of it. We all are just these little linear thinkers in an exceedingly relativistic and convoluted world. One of the social supports of physics is the endless technology that keeps expanding exponentially. That's what makes Carver Mead, a paper of and an article about I posted above, so interesting. He has been at the forefront of that revolution and has a profoundly different view of physics. Basically it is bottom up view from an electromagnetic reality, rather than reverse engineering it from a top down mechanistic/statistical/reductionistic perspective. The result is a profoundly opposing view where the fields and waves are more the reality and the particles seem to be little more than sparks kicked up in the interactions. The problem being is that from a reductionist perspective, it's those particles which show up most obviously in experiments. An analogy might be that particle accelerators are like trying to understand automobiles by crashing them into each other as fast as possible and studying all the pieces that fly apart. Where the problems most emerge is in the cosmology that has been constructed from this view, as we have discussed here and at CV.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 11:39 GMT

Thinking of Catch 22, another analogy might be of war as a human particle accelerator and historians as the scientists examining it.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 16:20 GMT

Hello John!

I loved Catch 22! Because so many antitheorists do not read, they never developed a sense of humor/irony, and thus it is fun to watch them devoting so much of their corpoate-state/foundational resources to crackpot indexes and crackpot contemplations while they themselves are pursuing antitheories/non-theories/multiverse mania/giant voids/landscape loopholes/mathematical...

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 19, 2009 @ 21:08 GMT

Elliot,

Personally I'm just not going to get that emotional about it. Revolutions require both a crumbling establishment and an emerging replacement. It's safe to say the physics establishment is safely ensconced in their ivory tower for the foreseeable future. The conversation is interesting, but it's a target rich environment out there of crumbling paradigms. Here's my rant on the topic of the day, cross posted from another discussion;

Economics 101

The fundamental principle of economics is supply and demand. For the last thirty years, we have had a "supply side" economy. I.e, Those with the supply of capital received preference.

The problem is that without demand for capital, the borrower, the supply is worthless. Since the tilt has been to reward lenders and starve, cheat, squeeze, fleece and otherwise shortsheet borrowers, the process of capitalism has come to a screeching halt.

And it continues. Printing up trillions of dollars to buy debt only helps lenders. What are they going to do with this money? Who are they going to loan it too?

What we will eventually realize, after having tried everything else, is that a publicly supported currency is a public utility, just like a public highway system and when it is captured by a small segment of the population, than the rest of the population has no reason to support it. This is why capitalism functioned very well with a progressive taxation policy.

Supply and DEMAND!!!! How complicated is that?

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 20, 2009 @ 01:53 GMT

I will try to write up a paper on what I indicated earlier about projective geometry of gravitation and quantum mechanics and how the two are related to each other.

The analogue of smashing car together with particle physics is not really very good. At higher energies you can excite higher mass-energy eigenstates. If the vacuum obeys certain symmetries then the particle eigenstates from that vacuum should be manifested or quantum produced. With the Higgs field and possible FNAL or LHC tests the relationship between the symmetries of the vacuum and the Lagrangian will be tested.

As for the current economic issue, a system of investments is about managing risk. However, with the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act banks could engage in risky investments, and the Bliley-Gramm-Leech act permitted hedtge funds and derivatives to function outside of any oversight by the SEC. This brought about fraud, and an investment system can manage risk, but not fraud. As a result a year ago this time there were somewhere around $300-600 trillion of supposed financial profits, which really did not exist. This subprime and realestate crash unzipped the system and brought it to its knees.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 20, 2009 @ 09:59 GMT

Lawrence,

No, it's not a great analogy, but than car companies do smash their cars to find how they react to extremes, just as war is an extreme of human nature that we all too frequently explore. We can't exactly take a scalpel to sub-atomic nature, other than smashing them together, but the larger impression seems to be that reality consists of particles and the statistical range of their interaction, as opposed to that simply being the only way to measure fields and their interactions. Reconstructing the whole from the parts often creates a distorted impression.

"Managing risk" is the cover story for juggling as much currency circulation as possible to create the illusion of the greatest wealth from the available asset base. The Sumarians invent money over four thousand years ago by issuing clay tablets as receipts for wheat. Then they found it was easier to make clay tablets than grow wheat and the first credit bubble developed. Now we have 400 trillion of currency and debt contracts on a 50 trillion dollar economy.

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 20, 2009 @ 16:52 GMT

Yes indeed--true science, law, equations, postulates, logic, and reason are being replaced with snarky insiderism across all realms, as the postmodern elite anonymously hand themselves all the prizes while entierty declines--while prinicple is no longer served and the higher ideals are repalced by the bottom line, PR, and snark:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/def
ault.aspx

"U.S. law-making is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship."

The economics of this is simple--postmodernism's truthlessness is a great profit center for the characterless, scienceless, and soulless dictator and tyrant and their hired fanboys, the only problem being that it is incapable of producing enduring wealth and real science such as dx4/dt=ic.

Hopefully FQXI can take us beyond the "giant void" of "slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship."

That's why we need all you free-spirits and truth seekers here who ponder those more exalted forms of physics, philosophy, and economics rooted in principles and truth! Great to know you!

Best,

Dr. E (The Real McCoy)

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/432

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 21, 2009 @ 00:21 GMT

Lawrence,

To expand on my rushed comment of this morning, I'm wondering if you read either of the links to Carver Mead I posted? As I said, his ideas were formative to my view that fields and waves provide a better foundational concept than particles. For one thing, it makes sense of non-locality, gravitational geometry, cosmic redshift, etc. in ways that are inherently sensible. From this view particles are interactions/points of contact. The nodes in the network, not the foundational state from which interactions occur. Above all, it translates into the macroscopic reality seamlessly, as all of what we view as physical is emergent from layers of process, not the product of some Platonic ideal. That all too human desire to hold some kernel of irreducible truth is a powerful motivation, but isn't it the intuition we need to guard against? Be it God, or gold, or power, or a theory of everything, it always seems our illusions are just out of reach. Doesn't that tell us that maybe we are missing the big picture?

As for economics, "managing risk" is an interesting euphemism. Unfortunately risk has been managed away from distributing it, to magnifying it. Sometimes the experts are so focused on their perspective, they really are clueless about the big picture.

Thought I'd try try posting my point about Barbour's essay on physicsforums, since you have been the only one to even try addressing it here and only by giving it a blanket commendation, but I find I'm still banned. Erased the cookies though and went to find they actually do have a live thread on it; http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=292645

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 21, 2009 @ 00:24 GMT

The contest that is, not my point.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 21, 2009 @ 12:06 GMT

I read the Carver Mead article some months ago. While he has been productive in the device physics arena and studied with Feynman on QED, I think he is off the mark on a number of points.

As for nodes and networks, the S-matrix is a sort of network, where nodes are states determined by unitary transformations between each other. However, the S-matrix view of the world requires there to be causal connections out to "infinity," or that this is the boundary condition for fields, or their mutual interactions, to be "zero." With event horizons the S-matrix perspective becomes difficult to arrange for. So some more general perspective on transformations beyond unitary braid groups (quantum groups) between nodes is required, but one which still preserves quantum information. My paper #370 indicates how noncommutative and nonassociative structures might operate in this domain of experience.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Dr. E (The Real McCoy) wrote on Mar. 21, 2009 @ 17:20 GMT

RE: Capital Allocation at FQXI

Hello All,

I have been reflecting on the nature of capital allocaition at FQXI. Of course I would like to thank them for the new MDT forum, and it is great that it is the most active forum pertaining to novel theories with meaningful *physical* postulates and simple equations (dx4/dt=ic) unifying disparate realms of physics with a simple, *physical*...

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 21, 2009 @ 23:45 GMT

Lawrence,

I bought his book, "Collective Electrodynamics" and frankly it's a level of discourse and math as far beyond my abilities as your work is, but I find it difficult to dismiss his ability to apply his understanding and perspective to real world applications and that is a standard which many more academically noted physicists would have trouble meeting.

I don't like to put myself in the position of being remotely dismissive of what I don't understand, but I like to make sense of my world and it is necessary to make judgments. Other people can make claims about any number of things, from religion to economics, of which my understanding is also limited, yet can have some bearing on my world and I do feel obligated to try making some basic sense of what is going on. If what they are saying fits patterns I find logical, I'm inclined to grant some leeway. If they start making claims I find unlikely, I'm hesitant to follow their other logic. To the extent I understand you, you make sense to me, but than you don't start proposing multiple universes.

I will say I think there is a basic Catch 22 to describing reality and science frequently bounces up against this cognitive limitation and while it recognizes it, then proceeds to make assumption which are not always warranted. In its most basic form, this is the assumption of some platonic ideal that exists, but just can't be fully defined. Barbour would be an obvious example of this. Not only has he named his institute, Platonia, but the problem I keep pointing out with his essay is that after fully exploring how time is emergent from motion, he still insists of describing how units of time, "worthy of the name," can be irreducibly defined. That he wins the contest strongly suggests this bias toward an ideal is widespread in science. I do agree with the first part of his essay, which you commented positively on, that the reality we perceive is emergent from and predicated on lower orders, but cannot be predicted by them. It is this seeming contradiction between predication and prediction which seems to be a source of frustration for those trying to understand reality and the tendency is to create connections which obscure deeper truths and lead to a false sense of understanding.

A very old example of this with regard to time occurred to me this morning. Is was quite clear and there was a thin sliver of a moon before sunrise. While it is hard to obscure days and years, the concept of months as cycles of the moon was been seriously obscured by making them concurrent with the year. Think about that. Does it really make sense to say months have to begin and end with the year and be cut op into a specific number of days? No, but it is convenient for making calendars. Now think how this subtly affects our understanding of time, in that it all can be fit into some neat set of units and thus reflect some larger concept of time. So rather than understanding the emergent consequence of innumerable interactions, even the brightest of us are still looking for that irreducible measure, of which all others are flawed copies.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 22, 2009 @ 15:08 GMT

As I read some of the above postings I find I must say that there is a disconnect between what is really groundbreaking and what is crackpottery. I recently rented the Ben Stein "Expelled" DVD, which is a panegyric expose on Intelligent Desgin (ID). Two things struck me. The first is that ID is based on the notion of irreducible complexity, which is a statement on the falsifiability of evolution, which itself can't be the basis of a theory. The other is that ID really tells you nothing, for it is not a system of thinking which offers a procedural direction for research. Evolution on the other hand is what Dennett compared to an ultimate acid which could eat through anything. Evolution is a scientific paradigm which continues to provide avenues of scientific inquiry, and indeed exponentially ever more of them.

A really radical new idea about the nature of the universe will similarly open the doors for a huge variety of questions and research. The real power of a theory is whether it can provide research questions and work, not whether it in a master stroke which answers all problems. Of course a great new theory does in a sense provide a new paradims or thought system, but it does so in a way which offers up a rich menu of questions and problems. It is not a system which provides some ultimate answer to "life the universe and everything," where upon we "know it all." This distinquishes a real new theory about the nature of the universe from a crackpot idea.

On balance for every serious working theory which is advanced there are 10,000 crackpot ideas advanced. Crackpot ideas have to also be distinquished from wrong hypotheses, which are advanced in a reasonable manner, but turn up to be erroneous and not how nature works. Crakpot ideas are examples of "what Pauli remarked as "not even wrong," and these idea pop up like bunnies. It might have something to do with the second law of thermodynamics.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 22, 2009 @ 23:45 GMT

Lawrence,

What intelligent design is trying to do is lay the foundation to say that only intention could have produced reality. The problem with the God thesis is that the universal state, the absolute, has no distinction. It is zero, not one. It is foundation, not apex. It would be the essence from which we rise, not an ideal from which we fell.

The problem with your point is that this idea of universal intention implies a universal perspective. The problem with that is that perspective is inherently subjective.

The only reason complexity is irreducible is because cause and effect constitute different points of perspective. Therefore we cannot determine all potential effects of cause, nor can we determine all possible cause from effect.

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Anonymous wrote on Mar. 22, 2009 @ 23:56 GMT

"Therefore we cannot determine all potential effects of cause, nor can we determine all possible cause from effect."

The past is ultimately as unknowable as the future, for while the future comes into view, the past fades forever.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 23, 2009 @ 09:43 GMT

Lawrence,

It is in fact these desiring to create a universal perspective, be it Tegmark's bird's eye view, or Barbour's time "worthy of the name" who are attempting to formulate the logical basis of universal intention. The Platonic Ideal, of which everything else is an imperfect copy.

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 23, 2009 @ 16:40 GMT

John, I blame a rather ubiquitous Platonic attitude for the contest's failure to admit that the abstract and anchored in mathematics usual notion of time is something else than the seemingly identical measurable structure of past events.

Well, on the subjective level of abstraction, we cannot determine all potential effects of a cause, nor can we determine all possible cause from an effect.

However, science has no alternative but to trust in causality. Accordingly traces and other influences from the past and expectations and plans for the future are quite different from each other.

Reality includes the only real point of view between them.

Why do virtually all physicist deny this simple distinction?

Are they mislead by an elegant unrestricted mathematics that seems to be more promising than common sense?

Do they just follow Albert Einstein who confessed: "For us believing physicists, the distinction into past, present and future has merely the meaning of an albeit obstinate illusion"?

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 23, 2009 @ 18:54 GMT

Eckard,

Human nature.

How about a little analogy. Say you come upon a swampy river on a dark and foggy night, with a foot bridge leading out into the dark. Do you simply start wading across, or do you take the bridge? Obviously the rational person is going to take the bridge on the assumption those who built it knew what they were doing. The problem is that those who built it were also blinded by the dark and the fog and the bridge only goes out as far as they had the materials to build and stops at the really deep water. So now science is at the end of that bridge and staring off into the void, quite sure of where it's at, but unsure how to continue. The reality is the footbridge could just be a dead end and they will eventually have to go back to dry land and try to find another way.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 23, 2009 @ 19:35 GMT

Dear Eckard,

Nice to meet you .

I agree too ....Reality includes the only real point of view between them.

Why do virtually all physicist deny this simple distinction?

I think personnally ,

some scientists don't make the difference between physical reallity and its limits of perception ,and a mathematic imaginary extrapolation ....when a theory is foundamental ,we can analyze its foundations in all centers of interest ....math phys chem biol ecology ....astronomy ...astrobiology....phylosophy ....

The complexity returns to simplicity .....simply .

Kinds Regards

Steve

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 01:12 GMT

Before I write anything I thought I would include a bit on how the projective structure of QM enters into the quantum mechanics of black holes. This is in reference to the dx^4/dt = ic issue of last week. The Fubini-Study metric, or Berry phase here is derived in a simple manner to derive Hawking's formula for black hole radiation. The phase equation on the second page is the redshif formula, which is the "radar distance" along null rays. Hence the quantum fibration is identified with the porjective structure of relativity.

When it comes to irreducible complexity this really is in reference to biological organisms and various structures or biochemical pathways. Of course it has some relationship to causality. The cladistics or genetic maps so far indicate there is no such irreducible complexity.

There really is no need for a "platonia," or a platonistic concept of structure in the universe. To be honest I tend to avoid metaphysics as much as possible. In my essay I do not address the question of whether time exists or not, but whether it plays an unexpected role as a scaling principle.

Lawrence B. Crowell

attachments: gravholon.pdf

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 09:47 GMT

Lawrence,

The problem is the dichotomy of fine grained focus vs. universal generalities and how they preclude one another perceptively, yet obviously co-exist in reality.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 09:56 GMT

I think an example of what I'm trying to say is that Barbour tries to apply the principles of focus to the universal concept of time and comes up with an ideal unit that is contradictory to his initial argument.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 10:00 GMT

Metaphysics would be universal generalities.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 10:54 GMT

Hi dear John,

I think there is indeed a maximum entropy in all things behind limits ,walls ....This entropy will increase towards these limits .

Nevertheless ,metaphysics must be foundamental if universal laws are respected .

About Time ,it's a constant of building ,simply .

Kinds regards

Steve

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 11:36 GMT

Einstein said ,there are two infinite things ,the universe and the human stupidity....I agree only with one the human nature....but our Universe is not infinite !

Regards

Steve

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 16:35 GMT

Steve,

Our ignorance may be infinite, but our stupidity is limited by the number of decisions we have to make. Not only that, but making stupid decisions tends to reduce the potential for future opportunities.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 18:11 GMT

Hello dear John,

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 18:37 GMT

Hello dear John ,

Sorry an error of posting.

I like a lot these words of Einstein ,I work on humanistic projects and I see many incredible things on our Earth,let's admit the stupidity is everywhere .

What I say is the human potential and on the other side these chaotics systems around us .

We evolve very badly ,since many years and the hour is serious .Wa multiplication chaotics systems .

Some human inventions are dedicated to disappear in time space(like moneys ,borders ,weapons,differences....) ,but our universal laws are foundamentals .The balance is foundamental .It's easier to harmonize than implant chaotics systems .Fortunally.

Let's take our global economic system ,some balances are urgents ,there are too much problems .New global harmonic systems are essentials in correlation with our foudamental balances.

In fact all topics must be optimized ,improved ,in complementarity,in harmony.Ecology,numeric,technology,agriculture,energy,sustai
nable economy,water,polltions,environment and interactions between animals vegetals and minerals in correlations with spherization evolution....Health,education ,....let's take some countries in Africa ,Bangladesh,India,Zimbabwea,Tanz,sierra Leone ,Darfour ,Somalie,madagascar ......frankly Human nature is stupid and the word is weak ........it's important to know that we can solve problems by adapted sciences in an exponential complementarity and adapted productions focus on global priorities .

I work on XING platform with some friends to create a scientific center named Unified Sphere(International Humanistic Sciences Center)all are welcome for synergies .I have invented some powders for soils ,some new technics of vegetals multiplication,I have too very intersting datas on composting (Sphere of composting),some new concepts in natural purification of water(addition of systems),....and others inventions .I try to unite people on this platform .

The skills are important to solve our global problems ,it's important I think ,Einstein had reason ,the stupidity of human beings is very sad .....ver very sad .

We can harmonize systems around us ,

About Space,I think it is not infinite ,it's different than the walls and the unknew ,the mathematical world or the entropy if you want .

The physical Universe is limited .Furthermore the volume will decrease I thing ,after expansion(max vol)a contraction towards a perfect balance between systems(galaxies and super groups ,thus a specific architecture .....further more this future is probably our spherical quantum architecture with these larges numbers .Many combinations before the ultim form ,many interactions ,many fields.

This logic is interesting about the Dark mass and energy,let's consider a contraction ,thus a decrease of volume ,pression increase(link temperature) ,mass too thus a link with a kind of activations in correlation with universal parameters .

RT CONSTANTE .....PV ....in spherization point of vue .

Kinds Regards

Steve

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 24, 2009 @ 23:55 GMT

I actually think the extent of space in the universe is infinite! This infinity is not a physical problem if the conformal energy of the entire universe = 0. The conformal boundary of AdS is a Minkowski spacetime, which is a vacuum of infinite extent.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 00:36 GMT

Lawrence,

We have agreement on that!

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 08:34 GMT

Hi ,

The mathematical infinity is different than the physical reality .

Dear Lawrence you say "This infinity is not a physical problem if the conformal energy of the entire universe = 0."

Could you explain me please ?

Sincerely

Steve

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 10:57 GMT

Hello,

I saw just some minutes ago informations about Ads ,I didn't know .Thanks for informations,ideas or concepts.

This system is non euclidian.This extrapolation is interesting when we see the infinite numbers of parallell lines thus interesting applications on technology.

There are many extrapolations about curvatures ,let's take Gauss ,Lorentz,Rieman....so many equations ,beautiful equations of space and its multiple forms.

When we apply the mathematical extrapolation on the mind creativity ,many extrapolations are possible ,the infinity is fascinating indeed when we see some ratios and constants or numbers,séries,.....it's evident that if we insert this mathematical infinity in our extrapolations ,we imagine thus infinite coordonates,...and there all is possible for our creative mind,indeed it's infinite .It's our limits in fact if I can say like behind walls of perception.

I am young ,33 years old but since many years I look for understanding of our dynamic physical systems around us .I have quickly been interested in botanic ,ecology,biology,astronomy,math...I understand the infinity concept when we calculate some ratios .But our physical reality is limited ,I don't think all will be in expansion for ever ,I think it exists a maximum volume in Time and after a contraction ,there are many possibilities ,many hypothesis about the spherization ,what is the perfect placement ,the perfect balance with all these gravitations ,thes acretions ,(galaxies,groups of galaxies,stars planets.....a balance exists with a specific volume of space I think .We are going towards this ultim balanced geometry I think,.Our Universe in this logic improves itself by complexification,we are so young at this universal scale ,so many discoveries to find for humanity .

Let's imagine the numbers of systems in our Universal Sphere in building,how many balanced systems in evolution ,the life is sure universal ,let's imagine these futures evolutions of all these systems in accretion towards the ultim connectibility .It(s difficult to extrapolate this ultim spherical balance ,the scale between could be for exemple a maximum contact between systems (spheres,Universal center sphere,after a kind of spherical fractal ,a specific fractal in correlation with numbers(galaxies,stars,planets..) ,the volume too is important(the volumes of spheres),in this logic we have a minimum space ,and many lattices in correlation with this specific fractal ,when the volume of the universal sphere(different than volume of main central sphere)increases thus space increase ...it could be interesting to do the link our actual volume ....thus it will be the maximum universal scale volume .

Sorry for my poor english .

Friendly

Steve

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 11:46 GMT

If we associate time with a motion and change, then it is logical to recognize, that a proper time corresponds to each motion. For example, if we accelerate an astable material particle, then elementary time connected with the linear motion of the particle also is accelerated. Actually, we equate time to the motion. However, at the same time the mysterious factor slows down speed of internal processes of the particle, and it slows down the proper time of the particle. In the special theory of relativity this factor is simple kinematics. In "The theory of time" this factor is the gravidynamic effect, which slows down average speed of all local processes. By the way, in the special theory of relativity the time dilation is symmetric effect in different frames of reference, but this symmetry is never observed. In the theory of time the asymmetry in speed of flows of time exists from the very beginning.

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Chris Kennedy wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 21:22 GMT

Robert,

Good comment on the lack of observed symmetry.

If you are interested, see my last 3 posts on Dr. E's MDT blog.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 22:04 GMT

Saying that a proper time corresponds to each motion is showing how subjective time operates.Time is assumed to be regular and passing in one direction and is related to motion observed in 3D space.This is how the brain conceives time.

Robert said "However, at the same time the mysterious factor slows down speed of internal processes of the particle, and it slows down the proper time of the particle."

There is no mysterious factor. It is just that Universal time is not the same as subjective time. These are 2 of the 3 different concepts of time that are currently muddled together.

Position in 3D space of an object,relative to a gravitationally attracting body,such as the earth, also affects 4th dimensional position. Any downward vertical motion will increase 4th dimensional position. So that it is further afore of where it would have been, if it was stationary. Likewise upward vertical motion will decrease 4th dimensional position so that it is further aft, than it would have been if it remained stationary.

This gives gravitational time dilation.

The higher the potential energy of the body the further aft along the 4th dimension. The lower the potential energy the more afore along the 4th dimension.

Vertical motion is not the same as horizontal motion in respect to Universal time. But all motion is assumed to equate to the same regular passing of time which gives us subjective time.

A sub atomic particle can move within space defined by all 4 dimensions. It oscillates along the 4th dimension(spin)and is affected by electrostatic and strong nuclear forces, electric and magnetic fields. Its varying potential energy (and hence varying 4th dimensional location) will vary according to the local environment that it experiences rather than the effect of a gravitational field. Hence the particle experiences its own Universal time that is very different from subjective time that a scientist may wish to impose upon it.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 25, 2009 @ 23:33 GMT

An infinite unvierse that ultimately contains nothing is still "nothing." This is a subtle issue, but we might think of gravity wells as negative and mass + kinetic energy as positive. If the two sum to zero on average everwhere then a spatially infinite universe is still nothing and there is no physical divergence. There is a matter of conformal structure here, but for now I will ignore that.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 00:34 GMT

This is important.

The Lorentz transformation works with subjective time not Universal time. So special relativity is confined to subjective reality.It is not a phenomenon arising from objective reality but from mathematical analysis using a subjective framework.

General relativity arises from the geometry of "space-time" and will work with Universal time as I outlined in my previous post.

However it is changing position along the 4th dimension that is Universal potential energy level that can be interpreted as time. This is a subjective interpretation of an entirely spatio-energetic phenomenon. Hence general relativity is also a subjective interpretation but of a physical phenomenon that is occurring in objective reality.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 02:12 GMT

Georgina,

The question is, what is universal time? Barbour makes the point that the only time "worthy of the name" is determined by the principle of least action. This is included in relativity. The "least action" is NO action, as with what happens with the internal function of light. There is none, therefore it is timeless. That would mean the only time "worthy of the name" is no time at all!! But that's not the case. Time is relative to the motion defining it, whether it's an atomic clock, or the cycles of the moon. It's like temperature. Absolute zero is the complete absence of motion, but that doesn't mean the only temperature worthy of the name is absolute zero.

The problem with universal anything, is that it lacks definition. The more general any view/perspective is, the more rough grained and lacking detail it is, until it has no detail at all. That's the dichotomy. We can see the forest, or we can study the trees, but we can't do both at the same time.

The absolute is both everything, or nothing. Anything inbetween is relative.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 02:23 GMT

It appears that in order to discuss this I will have to lay down some maths here. We should all remember Pythagoras's theorem for triangles, which is a metric distance. In spacetime an infinitesimal distance ds in flat spacetime is given by

ds^2 = -(c dt)^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2.

Here c = speed of light, and s = int_0^s ds' is the proper time, or what a clock measures on a path or frame. The time t above is a coordinate time, which may be transformed. I indicate something about this on March 15 just above, so t is a coordinate time that is freely chosen according to what ever frame the clock is on. Now suppose that this above invariant interval (infinitesimal distance) is magnified everywhere by a factor Q. Then we are just rescaling everything by

ds'^2 = Q[-(c du)^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2],

where I changed t to u. Now let us suppose that this conformal factor Q is time dependent Q = Q(t), and we use the calculus chain rule

du = (du/dt)dt.

Then for Q(t) = (dt/du)^2 we then have that

ds^2 = -(c dt)^2 + Q(t)(dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2).

Further, if Q(t) = exp(sqrt{L}t/3), for L the "Lambda" cosmological constant this is the de Sitter spacetime.

whew!

So we have this time dependent conformal scaling factor in this metric. If we return to the flat case we can define four vectors U^t = dt/ds, U^x = dx/ds and so forth by dividing through the metric (invarant interval) by ds^2 so

1 = -(U^t)^2 + (U^x)^2 + ...

A killing vector is a vector which which projected on the four vector U = (U_t, U_x, U_y, U_z) is constant

K*U = const,

where * is basically the vector dot product. So this all works in the flat case, and if works in other spacetimes with curvature as well. But if we bring in the conformal factor a time component of a Killing vector is not constant along the coordinate time direction.

So this means that there is no global time "vector field" which can apply on the spacetime which gives isometries (distance preserving transformations). Further, since time and energy, just as position and momentuam, are conjugate variables there is no energy conservation principle which can be defined globally. However, for cosmology a conformal energy conservation can be defined. There are some very deep elements and consequences to this, but that might be for later.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 07:25 GMT

Tegmarks declare reality just mathematics. Cantorians declare mathematics free for disposal like a game with arbitrarily chosen rules. Accordingly, neither spr nor smr have to feel responsible for questions concerning very basic discrepancies between theory and reality. Doesn't this let room for endless speculations? Instead of suspecting either Max Tegmark or Georg Cantor wrong, I tend to distrust both.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 08:50 GMT

John ,

I think I have explained this before. In objective reality there is no time just fluctuating energy and space.

In this model, Universal time is not universal in that it is the same for all objects and particles, but in that each object or particle in the universe has its own Universal time. This arises from fluctuating position in 4 dimensional space i.e.Universal potential energy level of each object and particle. It is not time at all as most people think of it.Though it is related to motion along the 4th dimension, which is from outer to inner region of hypersphere in objective reality.

Constant, regular change, occurring in one direction only and applicable to all matter and particles is subjective time.It is an assumption that time actually has these properties i.e.constant,regular,one way and equally applicable to all particles and matter.This assumption is based on observation within 3D space, clock or environmental clues, internal body clock and brain processing.This assumption is what is usually considered to be time.This is subjective time (t)

I did not want to call Universal time "objective" because it is a subjective concept, nor "absolute" because it does not apply to the hypersphere as a whole, which is not in motion and therefore experiences no time.The choice of Universal time is perhaps ambiguous if it is not explained that this may be different from another person's concept of Universal time.

Universal time is one of the 3 concepts of time that are currently muddled together.i.e.That time is motion along the 4th dimension.

It is very different from subjective time(t)as explained above and historical time (Ht)which is the past,present future concept,with which it is muddled together.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 09:31 GMT

Georgina,

We probably agree somewhere, but are just approaching it from slightly different perspectives.

Dimension and volume are the vector and scalar descriptions of the vacuum. Time and temperature are the emergent vector and scalar effects of the fluctuation.

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 09:50 GMT

Georgina Parry

We can exclude any subjectivity, if in experiments we shall use identical clock, in which identical processes take place. It can be light clock, hydrogen clock or, for example, mu-mesons. Experiments with mu-mesons show asymmetry of time. From the point of view of mesons fixed relative to the Earth the proper time of mesons moving relative to the Earth is slowed down. From the point of view of mesons moving relative to the Earth, on the contrary, the proper time of mesons fixed relative to the Earth is accelerated. The theory of time explains this asymmetry without the reference to noninertial motion.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 10:20 GMT

All experiments are conducted within subjective reality.

Relativity is observed within subjective reality.

It is subjective reality because information, such as electromagnetic radiation, must stimulate the sense organs, so that signals may be sent to the brain from which biologically generated subjective reality is formed.

All that is observed is generated by the brain from input and internal processing, together with the information that this exists externally to the organism, rather than within the mind.This subjective image of objective reality is all that the conscious mind can access.There is no direct knowledge of objective reality.

There must be information transfer across the Prime reality interface, i.e. there must be stimulation of the sense organs or detector to supply input or data for analysis and subjective reality construction.

Subjective reality is the reality of all experience.It can not be eliminated because it is all that we can know. Objective reality is unknowable.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 10:42 GMT

Hello all ,

Dear Georgina,

You would say in fact that the creativity of mind ,is subjective thus real ....

Let's imagine a biodynamic of our brain ,its systems of electric exitation and thus its system of capacity of polarization(+-),we admit that this system is very complex with the evolution point of vue .

In resume we could say ,this system is a specific dynamic of polarizations,all this system have many exitations,many trasports of ions,cations in correlation with a specific rule .

If I understand well your point of vue ....you say what the brain is a system which polarizes some very weak interactions of coded particles(very light particule) and what this new polarization implies a kind of code for our brain explaining the creativity like foundamental ,and if this creativity of the mind exists thus it is objective after a subjective analyze.

I begin to understand Your method I think .Indeed in this optic ,sure there are no limits .

Kinds rEGARDS

sTEVE

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T H Ray wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 16:27 GMT

Georgina wrote, "Subjective reality is the reality of all experience.It can not be eliminated because it is all that we can know. Objective reality is unknowable."

That's very solipsistic, Georginia. Would you at least agree that it is possible for us all to experience the same subjective (and experimentally replicable) experience?

If so, how would one differentiate the knowledge gained thereby, from objective knowledge?

Tom

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 18:14 GMT

Robert,

However accurate the clock, it is still a clock. A change in 3D space is being observed and that change is being equated to time. This is one of the 3 muddled concepts of time, subjective time.

T H Ray,

Absolutely not. The only way we could experience the same subjective reality is if we were superimposed in 4 dimensional space and therefore were the same observer.

We each receive input from our unique position in 4D space and it is processed by our individual brains to create our individual subjective reality.Each individuals present being made up of the patchwork of inputs reaching the senses, that have taken various lengths of time to arrive. Stitched together by the brain with the gaps filled by the mind itself, interpreted by the mind in light of previous experiences etc. to give a seamless experienced "moment in time."

Yes experiments can be replicated but will never be exactly the same.As well as physical limits to precision,the 4th dimensional position can not be replicated.If the replication is accurate then the output of the experiment, which will be the input for subjective reality formation, should be the same. If the input is processed in the same way then the subjective reality formed should be the same or very similar given the limits to replicating all factors precisely.Although different individuals may choose to interpret the same results differently.

This might be called objective knowledge because of the attemps to keep replication as accurate as possible, but it is objective knowledge of subjective reality i.e. formed from information transfered from objective reality and then processed to form subjective reality.

Subjective reality is not inferior or wrong. It is just as real as objective reality.This is just recognising that the subjective reality experienced is not identical to objective reality underlying it.As an analogy, the computer game played on a screen is not the same as the software producing it.

There can be no knowledge of objective reality through the scientific method.Mental constructs may attempt to explain this other reality, taking the form of theoretical speculation, philosophy or religious metaphor.These are created by the mind and are therefore subjective constructs not the objective reality that they seek to describe.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 18:59 GMT

There is no effective difference between a universal perspective in which all detail is blended into equilibrium and a vacuum in which there is no information. The absolute is either everything, or nothing.

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 19:48 GMT

Georgina Parry,

Yes, observation almost always has the indirect character - material particles are observed by means of electromagnetic radiation or other particles. Yes, observation is always delayed because of restriction in speed of signal. Yes, processing of the received information has sufficiently subjective character. However, all it is not an obstacle to understanding of the nature, in particular, to the solution of a problem of time.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 21:03 GMT

It is not a problem, if it is recognised that the process of investigation produces another subjective reality and is never objective reality itself.

The conclusions reached depend upon the data that is input,which is limited to what can be detected and how accurately, the assumptions about that data and what it represents, how it is processed which may be a mental process or a mathematical analysis and the model or framework into which solution is fitted.

Time is 3 concepts.Ht, past,present future with material existence along an imagined "time line."

Ut,Movement along the 4th dimension.

t,continuous regular change in one direction only linked to observed change in 3D space.This may be split into te, measured with external timing device and ti, measured by internal body clock, set by environmental light levels stimulating the pituitary gland.

These muddled concepts are then variously applied within science and everyday life.Subjective time is used to give order to experience, but relativity shows that that order of events is subjective. A different observer may observe a different order for the same events.

It is not necessary to apply any concept of time to an energy change or a movement in space occurring in objective reality. However Ut can be used to translate Universal potential energy change i.e.change in 4th dimensional position to a position in time, so long as it is recognised that every object and particle experiences its own version of Universal time, according to its movements within 4 dimensional space.Any vertical difference in position between object is also a difference in 4th dimensional position i.e.difference in Universal potential energy.

Time is an abstract collection of mental concepts that allow the mind to interpret experience within subjective reality, not a physical fundamental parameter or process.

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Lawrence B. Crowell wrote on Mar. 26, 2009 @ 23:56 GMT

Eckard,

I put litte stock in either of these ideas. I prefer to avoid metaphysical ideas as much as possible. Tegmark's idea might indeed be the case, but there is no way we could ever test it. As such I think it is scientifically worthless. It is something worth talking about over scotch and cigars. :-)

Mathematics studies self-consistent structures. If you at all take the pulse of mathematics it is clear that mathematical systems multiply a lot faster than physics does --- and I mean a lot faster. It is hard to know how all of these systems can ever be wrapped into a physical theory of everything. BTW, I hate the term Theory of Everything (TOE), it presumes too much.

There are two types of bad theories people propose. Obviously the first are those which explain nothing. Yet frankly a theory which claims to explain everything is also bad, particularly if in the case of Tegmark it turns out to be perfectly "safe." It will be a huge challenge as it is to get a few data points or data sets on string theory.

Lawrence B. Crowell

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 00:56 GMT

Georgina,

I'm not sure how universal time is universal, if "every object and particle experiences its own version of Universal time, according to its movements within 4 dimensional space."

It seems awfully relative to me.

Your historical time and universal time both seem to involve movement along this extra dimension, or timeline, while the external/internal time is a function of change.

Is there really an extra dimension to the vacuum, or is time a consequence of the fluctuation?

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 02:52 GMT

John,

Perhaps Universal time is an unfortunate choice of name.How about from now on I call it Positional time? It is position along the 4th dimension ie. Universal potential energy level that can be translated as "position in time" for each object or particle.If the 4th dimension is considered a scale of time, rather than space or energy level.

Each object and particle is constantly changing 4th dimensional position, that is there is continuous change in Universal potential energy level. Positional time is related to objective reality because it involves position in space or energy level whichever way you wish to interpret it.Potential energy fluctuation or change in 4th dimensional position.

Historical time is purely imaginary.The past and future do not have a material existence. They only exist within the mind. The past is memories and records, ie. development of synapses and neural pathways within the brain allowing mental recollection,and artefacts such as photographs or electromagnetic images.The past within the mind allows an organism to learn from experience and retain useful lessons for reference.

Electromagnetic images may be seen but these are not the material past they are just images. There is aft space that has been passed through and afore space that has not been passed through, there is no material past or future to visit.Understanding this there are no time travel paradoxes.

Imagination of the future is a creative function of the brain allowing anticipation and preparation.The present is actually a patchwork made from input that has taken various lengths of time to arrive and is pieced together by the mind to form experience of a present moment.Every observer experiences a different present moment because the patchwork of inputs and processing is different.

Since past, uniform present and future are imaginary so is the time line along which they are imagined.

Subjective time is related to observation of change in 3D space and assumption of simultaneous change in time, in one direction, that is regular and continuous.It is not related to objective reality except in that there is continuous afore-ward change in 4th dimensional position i.e. loss of Universal potential energy of all macroscopic objects. Although it is not absolutely uniform because motion in 3D space also affects 4th dimensional position.

This relationship between perception of subjective time and process within objective reality breaks down for sub atomic particles because, due to local influences they do not necessarily move continuously afore along the 4th dimension as do macroscopic objects, as previously explained.

There has to be an asymmetry that directs the processes of creation of matter at all scales. That asymmetry can be considered as a potential energy difference between the outer regions of the hypersphere and the interior(giving a driving force). It can be described as the "Scalar field". It can also be considered as an extra dimension of space through which the matter of the universe passes(resultant action).The orientation of that dimension being from aft space,to every point on the exterior of an object,through to the centre of gravity of that object and into afore space.(Motion along this dimension also giving the force of gravity.) How the asymmetry is described or visualised is a matter of choice and may vary according to the purpose of that description or visualisation.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 03:45 GMT

Subjective time, assuming a continuous regular change observed in 3D space can be equated to a simultaneous continuous regular change in time, is a good approximation for macroscopic objects.However it is not at all good for sub atomic particles. Positional time (formerly called Universal) is a better for describing the sub atomic particles temporal behaviour. Although better still would be to consider only Universal potential energy level aka.4th dimensional position.A temporal description being unnecessary and frankly confusing.This is why quantum weirdness is observed.

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amrit wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 10:40 GMT

We experience stream of material change that run in timeless (atemporal) universe in subjective time. With meter we measure distance with clock we measure duration of material change that run in timeless universe. In universe there is no past and no future. Universe is eternal. We humans experience eternal universe as NOW, as present moment that is always THE SAME. The only problem is we are not AWARE OF IT. ----ETERNITY IS NOW-----

See file attached.

yours amrit

attachments: 7_ETERNITY_IS_NOW_Sorli_2009.pdf

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T H Ray wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 10:58 GMT

Georgina,

If you reject scientific methodology as objective knowledge, you reject the uniformity of physical laws.

You write, "Yes experiments can be replicated but will never be exactly the same." Perhaps; however, that misses the point of replicability, which is to show that the laws of nature do not change in time and space.

You write, "Subjective reality is not inferior or wrong. It is just as real as objective reality.This is just recognising that the subjective reality experienced is not identical to objective reality underlying it.As an analogy, the computer game played on a screen is not the same as the software producing it."

Sure, the map is not the territory. If the representative map is accurate, however, the territory is well described. Otherwise, mathematics would be useless for describing natural phenomena. Insofar as you identify "subjective relaity" with personal experience, it is indeed inferior for determining the truth of nature, for in fact, most all of the knowledge that we deem objective is counterintuitive. One cannot imagine, e.g., the Lorentz Transformation, based on experience. Only given the mathematical model, and the relativistic conditions sufficient for measurement, can such a phenomenon be demonstrated.

Tom

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amrit wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 12:18 GMT

It is the same consciousness observing, watching, witnessing stone falling from the roof and mental image of the stone that is falling from the roof.

Consciousness is a scientific tool in subjective and objective science. It shows the difference between physical and psychological time.

amrit

attachments: 7_6._Consciousness_As_A_Research_Tool_Into_Space_And_Time.pdf

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 17:17 GMT

Georgina,

"Each object and particle is constantly changing 4th dimensional position, that is there is continuous change in Universal potential energy level."

Doesn't this contradict conservation of energy? "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." I.N.

From the perspective of the hands of the clock, it is the face of the clock which is moving counterclockwise. As you point out, it is only the present which is physically real, yet from the perspective of the present. The present is represented by the hands of the clock, so that is the real constant. What moves is the events and units of time which go from future to past.

This movements of events from future to past isn't due to an additional dimension, but simply because the configuration of the present changes. That is why it has proven impossible to actually model time as a coherent dimension, since every motion is against a relative context and constitutes its own clock.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 17:20 GMT

Ignore that sentence fragment;

, yet from the perspective of the present

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 18:31 GMT

Georgina, are you aware of having adopted an intentionally perverted notion of reality? The intention is to let room for a speculative idea, god, or a mathematical construct behind what ordinary people consider reality.

Einstein shared the same intention while he wrote more cautiously: If ... we can predict with certainty (i.e. with probability equal to unity) the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of reality corresponding to that quantity.

I do not share Einstein's belief, and I consider any prediction more or less uncertain. Nonetheless he obviously shares the common view that there is only one reality, and reality is something objective in the sense of something that exists independently of theory, perception, and the like. What you are calling subjective reality is just a picture of it.

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amrit wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 18:45 GMT

John wrote "This movements of events from future to past isn't due to an additional dimension, but simply because the configuration of the present changes. That is why it has proven impossible to actually model time as a coherent dimension, since every motion is against a relative context and constitutes its own clock."

For me above is most Briliant sentence about time here.

Speed of clocks that runs in atemoral universe depends on the speed of an inertial system or gravity field. Clocks run slower on the Monte Rosa than sea side at Venice.

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amrit wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 18:49 GMT

Clocks run FASTER on the Monte Rosa than sea side at Venice.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 27, 2009 @ 23:13 GMT

Tom,

I do not reject the scientific methodology but recognise its limit. Nor do I reject scientific laws because they apply to the subjective reality that we inhabit. All "objective" science is conducted within subjective reality as are all measurements and observations.

I understand perfectly the need to replicate experiments.

My response was to your comment "Would you at...

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 01:40 GMT

Amrit,

Thanks for the compliment.

When you think about it, Einstein did something similar to Barbour, in that he completely understood and explained this, yet when it came time to actually describe it, reverted to a presumption of absolutist abstraction that was in fact only reductive modeling. The prime example of this is describing space as three dimensional. Three dimensions are simply the coordinate system of the center point. Nothing more and nothing less. Relativity even shows the flaw in this by showing how distorted the reference frames of separate points are, relative to one another. Yet when all's said and done, it resets to this notion that space is a universal three dimensional coordinate system, with time as this extra dimension, that really is just the reductive series of narrative events.

Georgina,

"Objective reality can not be observed, it underlies subjective reality."

Objective reality is observed every moment. In fact it is all that can be observed. The problem is that it cannot be objectively analyzed, because the very process of analysis is reductive. Subjective reality is simply our perception of this objective reality, because perception is dependent on analysis. Otherwise it would be all noise and no signal. As I pointed out before, the absolute is both EVERYTHING and nothing.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 02:09 GMT

Thought experiment;

What if you had sensors that could measure the entire spectrum of light, radiation, electromagnetic pulses, mechanical vibrations, subatomic forces, etc. at every point in space. Including whatever data processing facility involved. What could you compute, other than that everything balances out, or even if it didn't, the resulting extraneous forces might just be due to some undetected flaw in your system, like bookkeeping that doesn't add up. It is only because we are finite entities with limited perceptive abilities that we are able to develop reductively coherent thought processes. This is the reason the absolute, all-knowing god is an oxymoron. Knowledge is distinction. The absolute has none.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 03:50 GMT

John, with regard to energy conservation:

In the Prime Quaternion Model, Universal potential energy loss, i.e.promotional energy, is converted to kinetic energy observed as angular momentum and mass energy both of which are observable in 3D space. It is this conversion of energy that allows the formation of matter, and structure. Otherwise the universe would be static and there would be no...

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 04:00 GMT

Sorry Tom Ray, I have put a quote that was by Eckard Blumschein and attributed it to you. I am sorry for the error. I also apologise to you Eckard. I will post my specific reply which should have been to you on the other thread where your post has been duplicated.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 09:42 GMT

Georgina,

I tend to see stored energy as mass, not somehow external to the system.

That was my comment about objectivity. It's not that what we perceive isn't subjective, but that it is still integral to the wholistic reality, not in any way separate from it. Even our imagination and fantasies are real in the sense they are mental projections which help us to define our space. Be it ancients projecting anthropomorphic gods, bankers projecting imaginary wealth, or theorists projecting multiple universes.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 11:24 GMT

John I agree that it is all part of one thing.Words are used to separate parts and describe them to enhance comprehension. The human body is all one whole thing but it is very useful to have words to describe different parts, especially for teachers of anatomy and medical practitioners.Science can not be conducted without consideration of separate entities, phenomena, processes etc.and description thereof.I think the problem here is one of language and the words having a different significance for you than for me.

There is reality that is experienced and there is reality that can not be experienced. Both are parts of one reality.

However the 2 parts are separate from the human perspective because only one part can be experienced and not the other.

The experience may allow some indirect comprehension of the part that can not be experienced. However that comprehension is limited by the data received by the senses and its processing, whether directly by the brain or via mathematical analysis and the framework or model into which the solution is fitted. The processing of data its analysis and the model into which is fitted creates another subjective reality,which is not the reality that can not be experienced itself called objective reality.

As subjective reality is formed from data received and processed, if no data is received from a part of objective reality, no subjective reality analogue of it is formed.

Lack of evidence is not proof of non existence.The objective reality of the void is unknown.Without data from that objective reality we have nothing to inform our construction of the subjective reality analogue.It does not mean that the void is without material substance.

All we have to comprehend objective reality are models whether produced from theoretical speculation, philosophy, religion, or mathematics.All we can ask of these models for scientific acceptability is do these models fit with observation, are they logical?, are they self consistent?,is there correspondence with science?,can they be used predictively?

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Robert Sadykov wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 11:40 GMT

The number of concepts and assumptions in the physics can be minimized. In the past centuries the large number of different concepts has appeared and again has disappeared. For example, gravitational force, which has appeared in the Newtonian theory of gravitation in the Einstein's theory of gravitation has been replaced with curved space-time. Potential energy as the concept also can disappear from physics, as it is shown in the alternative theory of relativity.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 16:32 GMT

Georgina,

It is impossible to comprehend the objective, without reference to the subjective. For example, how might one understand the vacuum without reference to dimension or volume?

The problems arise when we try to project this reductionist modeling as a form of objective truth. We take the model as being the territory and create fantasy worlds around it. Not only does this tendency occur in math and physics, but any number of other situations where we turn a little insight into a religion. The worlds monetary architecture comes immediately to mind.

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Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 18:50 GMT

Georgina, you wrote: What can be observed gives us subjective reality. Objective reality can not be observed, it underlies subjective reality.

My English Learner's Dictionary explains: If something underlies something else, it is the cause or basis of it.

Yes, that's the correct subordination. In German the word unterliegen means to be subject to.

However, does not your first sentence contradict to the second one? Why do you think we cannot observe real objects? What else do we object?

My particular interest is not considered yet in the common points of view which are to be found e.g. in

http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/reichenb.htm#H2 and

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-Rpcc/#1.2

Future data can definitely not yet be observed. This is quite clear in case of spectral analysis in real time. However, virtually all experts hesitate to admit that unilateral elapsed time underlies the bilaterally infinite coordinate time, and future time just introduces redundancy into spectral analysis. Perhaps, there are important consequences for physics in general too.

What does force us to include future time in spacetime?

While the past can be in your terminology either objective or subjective, the future is always subjective guesswork.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 20:36 GMT

John, I agree with you. I have said all along a model is just a model, not objective reality itself. The important question, since we can never determine objective reality itself through the scientific method, is which model, assuming all are equally logical, self consistent,correspond to science and can be used predictively, both fits with observations within subjective reality and is able to explain the most.

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Georgina Parry wrote on Mar. 28, 2009 @ 22:10 GMT

Eckard,

The process of observation is the interception of electromagnetic radiation that stimulates eyes or sensor and is interpreted either internally by the mind, or external mathematical processing by man or computer.Observation may be even more indirect when observed motion of a second body is used to determine motion of a first or is inferred from circumstantial evidence.A subjective reality analogue of the objective reality that could supply that input is created.

Physical detection of a particle, when detector and particle meet, is a detection of a physical entity in objective reality as detector and particle have come together in 4 dimensional space.It is not an indirect inference in this case.So we now have the received data to inform the construction of an analogue of objective reality.How the analogue is constructed will depend on what that data is thought to represent, its accuracy and completeness (which may be a function of the precision, range, positioning of the sensor etc.)and the processing it undergoes.The result is another subjective reality.You wished to know what else we observe(if not real objects)?" The answer must be, we observe what we think we are observing. An interpretation has been made from the data received.

Eckard said "While the past can be in your terminology either objective or subjective, the future is always subjective guesswork."

I think my terminology may be a little confusing.Past, present and future are not objective reality in this model. They belong with the concept of Historical time which is imaginary. Mathematics has been developed that perpetuates this imaginary concept of time with past and future time- like vectors.The objective reality is space. Afore space and aft space.While the gravity well of a macroscopic object can be visualised progressing afore-ward along the 4th dimension through 4 dimensional space, rather than being static. Sub atomic particles have more freedom and do not necessarily move in the same continuous way as the macroscopic object, as they are being affected by the forces within the local environment.

Thank you for the links to your work.

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John Merryman wrote on Mar. 29, 2009 @ 00:35 GMT

Georgina,

Theories are a form of entity. They are valid to their application. The question is whether they can be extended beyond that application. Sometimes they can go viral and take over large areas of application and sometimes they fall victim to more effective theories.

We are living beings. It was very educational to mirror that sense of beingness onto the larger world. Now we see the limits of this anthropomorphic projection. Yet we still have any number of political, economic, mathematical, physical, etc. models which assume an ideal model. In fact the very search for a more perfect model often assumes there must eventually be this theory of everything, where history is over. Yet slowly overcoming this initial idealism is a more organic vision of emergence/growth, where each level of insight eventually hardens into a religious hierarchy that must be overcome for the next level of insight to emerge and the process starts over again.

We can only see the order of the past, as the chaos of the future slowly erodes it. These two sides of the present will always be in conflict.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 15, 2009 @ 13:53 GMT

time is run of clocks in atemporal space

past and future are of the mind

attachments: TIME_IS_RUN_OF_CLOCKS_IN_ATEMPORAL_SPACE.pdf

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 09:09 GMT

There seems to be a really intense dislike for metaphysical ideas among a majority of physicists and engineering minds. Is it because (a) religions of the past and present have been abusive with their power; (b) religion tends to restrict selfish freedoms; or (c) God does not have mass and obey physics laws?

The ethereally mysterious and mystical experience doesn't seem to move "physics information" the way it moves our hearts and our souls. In a way, I'm glad it is that way. These experiences are special, valuable and precious. If they could pop out of some math equation, then everybody would have them. I am glad to be one of the rare persons (nutcases if you prefer) who has been healed by the blood of Christ; I'm not talking about Sunday service; I mean the powerful psychic experience of coming into direct contact with the Diety. I'm not telling you this for ego gratification; I'm trying to make a point that there is a richness to this universe that can never be discovered with a derivative or a tensor. Call it an objective reality if you like. But don't leave this life without approaching the Diety and introducing yourself; if you do, the universe won't seem so cold.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 16:59 GMT

Regarding time fundamental question is:

Is motion derived from time

or

is time derived from motion ?

yours amrit

attachments: TIME_IS_DERIVED_FROM_MOTION.pdf

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 18:18 GMT

Amrit,

I liked your paper. It is immediately obvious that space exists; it is also immediately obvious that motion exists. By motion, I mean relative velocity.

I've been playing with a "network" style universe where every particle is "connected" to every other particle. Is it possible that the most fundamental parameters of these "connections" are (a) relative separation and (b) relative velocity? The idea is that physics information transmits back and forth either at the speed of light, c, or some other specific velocity?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 18:27 GMT

If particles act like network nodes; then the non local nature of particles is going to make the mathematics more difficult (as if that was a problem).

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 21:43 GMT

Jason,

Yes, but it makes the logic much simpler. All the statistical nonlocality starts to make sense.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 18, 2009 @ 21:56 GMT

That is if you think of these networks as interacting fields. Say light from a star amounts to an expanding bubble, not as a bunch of discrete photons. When the field contacts another field, or measuring device, it releases a quanta of energy from the surface of that bubble and transmits it to the receiving gravitational field. Now the traditional network model has individual lines going from every node to every other node, which would be similar to light traveling as a bunch of particular photons and thus very hard to model.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 19, 2009 @ 10:02 GMT

Jason physics information move in space only.

And in space is always NOW, so there is no question of back" or "ahead".

yours amrit

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 19, 2009 @ 17:02 GMT

If I'm going to talk about the "connections" being real things, I have to tell you how they behave. Let's start with the following characteristics:

1. Connections are linear and straight, manifesting the action at a distance physics relationships.

2. They can pass through each other.

3. The can transmit vibrations and waves (which gives the interfering spherical wave phenomena).

4. The endpoints are always particles; the link stores the information about which two particles.

I'll keep adding characteristics, working out conflicts, and getting rid of what assumptions I don't actually need until either I get it right, or the model fails.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 19, 2009 @ 17:42 GMT

Amrit,

I'm not clear on the strict definition of "physics information" other than particle coordinates, momentum, spin, etc. The fact that interacting particles know about each other means that the "physics information" is being used in the interaction.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 04:49 GMT

John,

I do understand that a photon from a star 20 million lightyears away with a probability wavefront whose diameter is 40 million lightyears doesn't look like a node. But technically, the photon field, shaped like a bubble, still has a "connection" with every other particle in the universe. The question is whether the laws of physics behave as absolutes (in which case we have no hope of understanding what happens beyond) or,if we assume a nodal network, at least we can try to look for something causal that explains space and the laws of physics. Certainly the collapse of the 40 million lightyear photon wavefront (field) into the eye of the observer is a drastic enough example to figure out what's happening (I hope). The blind men and the elephant metaphor was probably talking about physics. I still think the nodal approach has usefulness. The question is: what does the wave collapse tell us? Does it say that particle reality sits on top of wave reality? Maybe the wave collapse doesn't have to violate speed of light restriction. There is just a probability that the photon will show up in someone's eye on earth or on a rock on some gas giant in another galaxy.

I wonder if particle reality sits on top of wave reality; if that point of view makes physics easier or harder to understand.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 12:56 GMT

Jason

space = consciousness

Space knows what happens in it.

Space is an immediate information medium between elementary particles, you can see on file attached.

yours amrit

attachments: 2_Non_locality_and_the_Symmetrized_Quantum_Potential_.pdf

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 17:28 GMT

Jason,

Is there even a particle in the sense we think of it as a singular object? Consider a drop of water; That most drops tend to be of the same size is due to surface tension and gravity. Similarly photons could be determined by common circumstance. It not that there are no reasons for why physics is as it is. We just can't quite wrap our minds around how it is. I think it's because we are object oriented, as opposed to process oriented. Since we know this physical reality is something of an illusion, we look for the laws underlaying it, yet they are mostly defined as repeatability, but we can't say if that consistency is due to circumstance, or more fundamental laws. So it's turtles all the way down. I don't think it can be reverse engineered. Reality is a constantly mutating illusion. We can roughly model it, but we can't recreate it.

This was my essay on time;

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Merryman_E
xplaining_Time.pdf

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 19:13 GMT

John and Amrit,

I agree with both of you. As the guy with ADD, a religious inclination and an uncontrollable urge to blurt out the answer, I'd like to solve THE puzzle.

The laws of physics can be mistaken for 'absolutes'. Nodal theory, where the particles are like nodes in a computer network, are connected to every other particles in the system (the universe). The "connections" or "links" define the physics associated with relative position, relative velocity, and the principle of least action.

Yes, I understand that particles as nodes (sometimes really big nodes) is strange; I haven't yet figured out the part where the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle drops in our lap, but somebody is going to.

Amrit says: space = consciousness.

I say: particles = nodes; connections/links carry laws of physics related to relative separation/velocity/ accelleration, mass and charge. A nodal system can appear as a computer network (intranets, world wide web). The human brain is a kind of neural network. The human brain appears to generate consciousness. The subatomic particles are networked together (quantum entanglement is the hint). The system of particles is the physical universe (multiverse if you like). It is an infinite information system that is self aware. In fact, it has infinite intelligence and infinite consciousness. Since God is described as an infinite intelligence, and an infinite nodal network can be described, then that infinite intelligence must be God, therefore, God exists.

Physics assumes the laws of physics are absolute for all space and all time. But if the laws of physics are "magically" absolute with no causal reason other than they are defined that way and if space is assumed, but not explained, then physics runs out of things to do; it can't go any further, physics has determined the absolutes, we're done, take up stamp collecting.

We know space and motion are immediately obvious. Time (what the heck is time?) is derived from velocity as t=x/v. The links/connections (whatever those are) are so numerous that they give the appearance of absolute laws of physics and space. If this interpretation is correct, then...

1. God exists,

2. The Laws of physics depend upon the connections/links.

3. Superluminal travel is possible by selectively redefining the physics of the links.

4. Multiuniverses are possible if the links between particles of A and particles of B are "non interacting".

5. Time travel does not exist unless you can show me a computer or a consciousness that can process/think in reverse.

So the agnostics and athiests don't have a cow, we can say the connection/links have immutable and unchanging physics. If you want to selectively change the physics, then (sorry, the writer giveth and the writer taketh away), then you may have to convince God to think that way. "God, can you please think me and my spaceship to Alpha Centuri?"

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 19:17 GMT

John,

By the way, what's wrong with defining a particle as something with a bazillion links connected to it?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 20, 2009 @ 21:45 GMT

Just a thought. If the laws of physics are defined within links between particles, and some particles behave as non localized quantum wavefronts, could quantum wave interference patterns just be a distorted manifestion of the laws of physics?

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 21, 2009 @ 02:51 GMT

Jason,

A bazillion links into it from all the other sources, but only one away from it. Mass collapses. Radiation expands. Particles are the collapse. Waves expand. That's the cycle of discreteness and the continuum.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 21, 2009 @ 04:07 GMT

John,

In a way, we already know there is a connection between everyparticle with every other particle; it's called gravitation. The links carry the Laws of Nature and they create the appearance of space (relative distance) and relative velocity. The conservation laws still apply and are carried by the connections as well.

For our particles and mass clusters with internal network-like links as well as all of the links to the rest of the universe, it certainly begins to look like some kind of hub. The connections/links should pass through each other. But (1) how they stack and (2) how big they can get (in terms of diameter) will require some discussion.

Every particle in a star has (a) internal connections, but more importantly, (b) has connections to every particle on a nearby planet that is orbiting this star. If, for the sake of discussion, every connection has a diameter of one angstrom, there will certainly be a lot overlapping of links transmitting momentum and gravitational force effects.

But lets say we go outside at night and look at the stars. We see the photons from a star 20 million lightyears away. We acknowledge that it's wave front, 40 million lighyears in diameter and an area of 4pi(20 million)^2; as a really big "hub" of bazillions of links; we admire that it lands upon our eyes (1cm^2). It just collapses into our eyes giving the appearance of an "instantaneous" information event. The photon of energy suddenly and instantaneously picked one link to manifest its hf energy. The event makes us start to wonder if there are superluminal events occuring to govern this "wave collapse". As the photon gives some electron a good kick, maybe we can imagine the bazillion of photon links suddenly all snapping in acceptance that the photon has ceased to exist. But what if the connections are really attached to the energy itself?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 21, 2009 @ 04:14 GMT

What if its really the units of energy that are linked, through space, to every other unit of energy?

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 02:16 GMT

Jason,

Do you think zero in geometry is the center point, or the blank sheet of paper?

Does measurement or space come first?

Currently the assumption is that it is measurement, but how do we really know, since knowledge is measurement? It might really be space.

Unless of course, physics believes knowledge comes first.

Isn't that theism?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 09:16 GMT

John,

This is where Physics and the Diety are unified. This is the Grand Unified Theory.

Every particle is connected to all of the rest of the particles in the universe. The connections are superstrings. The hint was quantum entanglement.

The "connections" can pass through each other. Otherwise, the universe would be an incredibly tangled knot. The connections carry the laws of physics between two particles. They carry relative velocity (momentum) and relative separation. Apparently, the connections (superstrings) have no problem being as short or as long as the dynamics require. They will grow and shrink as the dynamics require it. I'm not sure how straight they are; I think they can warp over great distances; but I'm seeing taut strings.

The Laws of Nature have to come from somewhere. They are within the connections (superstrings). The particles are of course also made of superstrings. What we're left with is a very large network where the links/connections are behaving "funny" (not conservation like). Since the neural net called a brain is able to produce consciousness, so it is with the infinite neural network; Superstring theory has discovered GOD.

People keep asking for proof. I keep asking for lightning bolts. God seems reluctant to grant lightning bolts. I'm unwilling to let God unleash lightning bolts on my truck. So, proof is being discussed.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 09:30 GMT

Does measurement or space come first? If by measurment you mean colliding two particles, then space, which comes from the connection/superstirng between the two particles, came first.

What do you call a bazillion (maybe I need a more technical word) links/connections/superstrings radiating out from an electron to all the other particles in the universe? Answer: a field.

As for knowledge, I believe that God takes notes. Those notes are referred to as the Akashic Records. If you don't like the word, you are welcome to call it "God's notebook".

By the way, I'm trying to figure out if a twisted connection/superstring can account for spin. Any thoughts?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 09:46 GMT

John,

I read your paper. I think we're noticing a lot of the same subtle hints.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 09:56 GMT

Jason,

Zero is the blank sheet of paper, not the point at the center.

Space comes first.

Cosmic redshift would be due to the expansion of the wave front, rather than the recession of the source.

The field proceeds the many points of reference.

Being proceeds thought.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 09:57 GMT

Precedes, not proceeds.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 11:43 GMT

Hi Jason and John and all ,

Your discussion is very interesting and pertinent ,

Thanks for that .

In my model I have difficulties to imagine strings ,but I respect these works .

Personally

A string is divible ,a sphere No .

This point of vue is so important to encircle the whole .

If we take the M theory and superstrings,the combinations are numerous indeed .

Let's tazke a string membran ,closed ,a kind of circle membran in vibration ,we are always in the spherization logics and ultim quantum sphere .Thus the M Theory is not really correct, ,because the sphere has a membran and this membran is different .This membran sphere,is complete I think.

A sphere membran perhaps is a kind of wall between the unknew(God ,Allah ,unknew ,the big mathematician ,the entity ,many interpretations by humans ,a sure thing is the incredible creations around us,the universality and its evolution is a foundamental indeed ) and the physical reality .

Our quantum spheres are coded ,it's evident .

Kinds Regards

Steve

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 16:16 GMT

Steve,

Spheres are divisible. Cells do it all the time. Keep in mind that a sphere is simply the most economical surface of a given volume. If that volume is divided, than the most economical surface is two spheres.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 16:18 GMT

Steve,

That's a good point. What happens to spheres and membranes in this model? By definition, circles and spheres are made up of points all equal distance from the center. A bazillion connections (need more technical terminology) could fit the definition of lots of spheres.

By the way, the advantage of this interpretation is that two particles moving at relativistic speeds, relative to each other, could be thought of as straining the respective connections. The exact dynamics are not clear, yet.

I believe this model will also be compatible with a holographic model. Black holes are said to have no hair (can we call them bald holes?) But the laws of physics are still operating as googles (slightly more technical word) of strings coming out of the event horizon surface; each one acts as "information" on the 2D surface. I thought maybe a connection to "every" particle was pushing it. But maybe this sets us up to calculate the actual number of connections to the rest of the universe?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 16:31 GMT

My expectation about these "connections" is that their laws of physics are individually/group configureable. In other words, I can take a space ship and reconfigure its "connections" to a distant star in such a way that c (speed of light) is no longer a limitation. I can do this without accidentally disrupting the chemical bonds of my spaceship. Of course, kinetic energy considerations have to be worked out.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 22, 2009 @ 17:36 GMT

You've got three quantities: time, relative position and relative velocity. Two of these exist fundamentally. One of them is derived from the other two. I'm guessing that time is derived and relative position and relative velocity are phenomenally real both by observations and by the "Connection theory" model.

Dr.Stephen Hawking said black holes can be described as if they have quantum information written on their event horizon surface (when you read it, don't get too close). If Connection Theory interpretaion is right, then each connection/superstring that goes off to the ends of the universe can be described as a quantum bit.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Apr. 23, 2009 @ 09:26 GMT

Hello John and Jason,

Dear John ,

YOU SAY

"Spheres are divisible. Cells do it all the time. Keep in mind that a sphere is simply the most economical surface of a given volume. If that volume is divided, than the most economical surface is two spheres."

I can understand your point of vue .It's pertinent about the economical sphere .

About the divisibility of...

view entire post

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 23, 2009 @ 15:57 GMT

Steve,

Rotating spheres is a really good question. The interpretation that I'm using says that the links should pass through each other so the rotating body can continue to rotate (not get tangled up). But the connections along the axis of rotation should experience continuous twisting in such a way as to reproduce L = r X p.

I've suggested that these connections are quantum entanglements. There should be an upper limit number of entanglements, N, based on the maximum information content of an event horizon. The idea is that the black hole is the upper limit on the number of "connections". This raises issues of how many "connections" (or quantum entanglements) can a particle have at any one time.

As the King of Crackpots, I recognise it is time to transition into a period of work and learning. I think a good idea, a good interpretation, has come through. I was reading the Physics Forums posting rules; they are very strict and take a dim view of "crackpottery". But I'd like to get serious and try to give this "Connection Theory/Interpretation" some mathematical, scientific and testable structure; obviously, I'm not allowed to use or even go near the word "credibility" given the nature of my previous posts. But I believe that I have something valuable to contribute; it has to be expressed in a scientific format.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 23, 2009 @ 16:24 GMT

Steve,

I tend to think in processes, not objects, even ideal ones.

Jason,

Maybe if you start talking about multiple universes, you'll be taken seriously.

Otherwise welcome to the club.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 23, 2009 @ 17:29 GMT

John,

I do believe that there are other universes and other existences. But the way physicists are thinking about it, as eigenstates, is wrong. Eigenstates do exist. Other realities exist. The interpretation is wrong.

For a set of particles of universe A, and another set of particles for a universe B, if either (1) there are no connections between the particles or (2) there are connections but they don't implement the laws of physics or transmit any energy, then the two universes are isolated. The eigenstates are just vibrations in the connections/superstrings (and an indication that my terminology needs work).

Steve,

When a rotating ojbect experiences radial collapse, it spins faster. What also changes is the connections along the axis of spin. That should reveal a characteristic of the connections as they relate to L = r X p.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 00:04 GMT

Jason,

It's a function of terms. I take the term "universe" to mean everything. Can there be multiple dimensions which overlap, but don't, or don't quite connect, no problem. As individual people, we all inhabit our own frames of reference which overlap, but are not always translatable. Look at the way different cultures tend to view reality from different perspectives, etc. Yet we all inhabit the same planet.

Either the universe is everything, or you are talking about a multiverse.

The problem is that physics thinks of the universe as an object, rather than a process.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 08:25 GMT

John,

Terminology is such a pesky thing; I feel like I need to carry around a thesuras.

I think of the universe as the billions of galaxies that cosmologists talk about. My own personal opiniion is that the multiverse includes spiritual dimensions (the astral for example); and other physical/real universes. There is a lot of stuff out there. I was reading a google.com news article about how scientists found two planets that are similar to ours. If there's water on those planets, than I guarantee there is some alien civilization there wondering when the human race is going to show up in some space ship, and what kind of neighbors were going to be.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 09:51 GMT

Jason,

I wonder what nonsense their cultural elites are telling them.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 10:47 GMT

Hi Jason

Main problem of today physics is not distinguishing between real time and imaginary time.

yours amrit

attachments: REAL_TIME_IS_CLOCKS_RUN_Sorli_2009.pdf

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 16:25 GMT

Hi Amrit,

I've become enamored with the idea that time is a derived quantity from space and motion, both of which are immediately observable. In other words, I can readily observe both distance between two points (two particles) and their relative motion. I don't think there is a supreme clock. In fact, I think I got the idea from one of the posts here.

So I would say that t = x/v or rel displ/rel velocity. I'm told that gravity and time are intimately related. If that is because the speed of light is constant as a dimensional absolute, then I would favor the idea that the speed of light is characteristic of the "connections" between particles. It's been a long time since I've played jumprope, but the ripples always moved with the same velocity, dependent upon the rope used. I think physicists are misinterpreting the appearance of Einstein's speed of light, c, as a platonic absolute. But everything, including the laws of phyisics, have to be implemented somehow. The reason c appears to be absolute is because every particle in the system is linked to every other particle by connections. The speed of light on these connections is c.

By the way, collapse of the wave function might be like draining the bathtub. The photon wave energy field is spread out over lots of connections as a wave pattern. But as soon as the photon energy decides where its going to be absorbed, that energy hv has to "drain" (pesky words and metaphors) from the other connections. The draining (wave function collapse) is like draining the bathtub. The water drains in a level way until all of the energy is transitioned to the electron (or whatever absorbed the energy).

As for fabric of space-time, the fibers/connections (more pesky words) are not necessariliy woven together, but are inclined to seamlessly connect together to give the appearance of smooth space. If the connection model/interpretation is correct, and the particles are all interconnected, and the connections are bound by the speed of light, then how would we ever know that the speed of light was not an absolute?

John,

I appreciate your passionate belief that physics interpretations are built on a house of cards. Names are funny things; I wonder what hidden messages are contained therein. I am the Big Bad Wolf and I've come to blow down this house of cards. But, in reality, this is what we all want. Physicists are seeking truth; deep down we all know this. If this interpretation is correct, then we will all be Merry Men(Women) because this interpretation leads to some really interesting possibilities.

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Anonymous wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 16:28 GMT

I wonder if the "connections" might be spinors?

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 17:25 GMT

Jason,

The irony is that the house of cards is in many ways cultural. Not only does the west tend to be object oriented, as opposed to the east being more process oriented, but there are natives of South America who consider the past to be in front of them and the future behind. That being because their frame isn't observer based, with the observer proceeding along a path from past events to future ones, but is energy based, in that the event occurs, is observed and then is past. Schrodinger's cat comes to mind.

It is also interesting that the process taking place within the physics community is such elementary physics in the first place. The punctuated equilibrium, paradigm shift, wave collapse, regeneration process, earthquake zone, by which the levels of stress build up to unstable amounts, as momentum is impeded by the stasis of old models that have outlived their usefulness, but which have far too much institutional credibility to be questioned.

As for culture framing our thinking, consider my previous question about whether the zero in geometry is really the center point, or is it the blank sheet and how that might frame the issue of whether the connections create the space, or the space creates the connections. This goes to the issue of Big Bang theory and whether the entire universe emerged from a singularity, or whether it is an infinite reality only limited by horizons.

If space actually expanded from a singularity, wouldn't the speed of light have to increase along with it? Otherwise a stable speed of light, not determined by an expanding universe, would signify an underlaying measure of space.

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Chris Kennedy wrote on Apr. 24, 2009 @ 21:04 GMT

Jason,

You said: "Physicists are seeking truth; deep down we all know this."

Man - I wish that were true!!!!!!!

Hey John,

I just celebrated a birthday this week but it wasn't 7^2. It was 7^2 - 5. Looks like I'm 5 years behind you. Your present is my future?

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 25, 2009 @ 02:24 GMT

Chris,

Happy $$!

Oops. Happy 44!

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 25, 2009 @ 06:30 GMT

John,

It has been a very long day, partly my job, but mostly the concepts, flashes of insight and communications. If I actualy sat still, it would be called meditation, but the powers that be work around that.

I've noticed a common thread among all of the enlightening experiences I've been having. I'm told, "Trust God". Then, I'm asked to choose between what I want and what the Supreme Intelligence wants. I made it clear that I was willing to forgo the revelation of the physics (as much as it killed me to have to consider that). Then later, I was shown something that I feared would disprove the Connection Theory interpretation. It was like God was holding the scissors, ready to take away this interpretation that I really value. I had to decide what I wanted more, the Connection Interpetation or God. But it gave me an odd sense of peace to know I had a had a proper place in the universe. So I chose God and let everything else go. But then, I was confronted with the vision that would screw up the Connection theory interpretation. So I decided to have some trust; I asked for the truth about this problem.

Here is the problem with the interpretation. The connections (superstrings, spinors or something else) interconnect all of the particles. They also overlap (pass through each other). I was observing all of these silvery strings passing east to west across my field of vision representing connections between particles. Then, suddenly, as if perspective had shifted, they were all running north/south connecting those particles. I hope you can understand what's being suggested because I don't know how to articulate it.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 25, 2009 @ 09:50 GMT

Jason,

Emergence? As in order emerging from chaos.

Belief is a funny thing. We need it as something to give us the focus to exist, yet if we were to attain what we focus on, then we need something further to focus on. That's why I've given up on the object view of life and go with the process view. It's a network of coming together and pulling apart, which we are a somewhat relative path through, constantly adding to and losing what makes us who we are. Eventually and occasionally we are as much just a part of the larger, as we are ourselves, if not more so.

What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken, yet there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins. It's all an inter connected bootstrapping process, where success is being the foundation for what comes next and failure is being fodder for it, with no real line between them. It's the same connections that give us meaning and make us part of everything else, which also pull us around and eventually consume us, as they created us. I tend to be more of a polytheist, than a monotheist, because I think the spiritual root system is every bit as complex as the physical reality.

Hope that helps a little.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 25, 2009 @ 09:55 GMT

Which isn't to say that I don't have my monomaniacal moments.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 26, 2009 @ 01:39 GMT

In the beginning of Greek mythology, Chronos is the son of Chaos. Much like time/memory/history is the intellect emerging from biological processes.

Then Zeus and all the myriad other Gods arise and chaos returns. So eventually they settle for the ritalin of monotheistic Christianity. Not everyone is happy, but it's a handy stick for the conscious to beat back the voices. (That Jesus and Zeus are so phonetically similar is interesting.)

The tower goes up.

Babel waits.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 07:07 GMT

John,

I discovered what I was looking for. It all exists. It's waiting for you (and everyone else); when you're ready for it. Many times, it will be in life's darkest and hardest moments that progress becomes possible.

The process climaxed a couple of hours ago. For three hours, my motivations were exhaustively examined. I learned things about my motivations that blew my mind. I truly wish I could give details. I think I can tell you this. Think super(vibrating) strings, Shannon Noisy Channel coding and Anything is possible. There is good stuff out there. If you approach these things with honesty in your intentions and a desire to heal/help/fix/improve/make better, you will find the same. Beliefs and religions are whatever you prefer.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 07:39 GMT

Hi Jason,John,Amrit,Chris,all,

Dear Jason,

The rotating spheres are a key I think ,in our physical universe ,these spheres,coded ,build spheroidal states in evolution and complexification .

The mass ,the nature of paticles,the color ....are in correlation with these velocities of rotation of spheres with specific rotations (slope,sense,direction,velocity).

In my model...

view entire post

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 19:01 GMT

Steve,

Great post!

John,

I figured out what Satan/Lucifer/"the tempter"/etc. is. I figured it out! It's a riddle. What is more powerful than you or I, but not as powerful as God? What tempts us with pleasure and tries to lure us to the seven deadly sins? What is also argued to be our connection to the earth, to the physical world, biological pleasure, the life giver, fertility? The beast, 666, and all that makes christians tremble and hide behind their bible and cross...

It is our nervous system trying to talk to us.

I just through my back out and I've been stretching, trying to get all the kinks out of it. I was told that both the kinks in my back are the kinks in my worldview/idiology/beliefs/etc are superstrings flowing through me, the life force flowing through me has kinks in it. To what degree it is symbolic or real I cannot say, but everytime I stretch to get those kinks out and there is a sharp pain, it's as if something that has been bothering me suddenly surfaces. Since I like to start with first principles on everything, I will let you know that I am learning Yoga from the originator.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 19:50 GMT

I want to inject a thought into the converstation.

Why can't we (the good honorable people seeking truth) work towards making the United State more like Heaven/Shamballa/Nirvana/Paradice, a really enriched happy, healing, spiritually free nation? All of the problems in the world are just like the kinks in the information streams (the information superstrings).

I was just told that every belief, every fear, every worry, every evil that presents itself (in the case of evil, I assume a reasonable response), every irksome belief that is encountered should be analyzed in the following way. Will that thought make the world a better, happier place?

When I was questioned about my support of the Gulf War, I arrived at the following answer. I am willing to be waterboarded, with cold water, for as long as I can stand it, so that Sadam Hussein will be denied the ability to put victims, feet first, into his people shredder torturing device.

This is a physics website and I won't attempt to turn it into a political discussion. I just want to give an example.

I would argue that superstrings can conform to the signal nature of a belief just as easily as it can to a song. After all, the summation of lots of sinusoids will reproduce any repeating signal.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 19:55 GMT

Basically, if someone says X, and it's irksome/offensive/etc. One would ask, "How does X make the world better?" If they answer angrily or fearfully with Y, then we ask,"well, why do you believe Y?..."

Once again, this is a physics website. But I think the info will be helpful.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 20:37 GMT

Jason,

I think you are working around to the conundrum. What might be a knot from one perspective, is a node from another. If we didn't have all those problems to work out and thus learn from, how would we grow? What is a happy medium from one perspective, is a flatline on the heart monitor to another perspective.

The absolute is everything, or it is nothing. What is inbetween is relative to everything else inbetween. The foundation of interpersonal relations, to do unto others, as you would have them do unto you, is blatant moral relativism.

If you ever reached your destination, then you just have to find a new destination. Our lives are like sentences in a larger story. It's not the beginning or end, or how far apart they are, that matters. Or even how beautiful it is, but how well it conveys the story line. Thus it is both profoundly unique and inherently integrated. Or sometimes the story just doesn't want to come together and the sentences are not happy. There are lots of sad stories.

Trying to figure out the meaning of life resembles a puppy chasing its tail.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 27, 2009 @ 20:41 GMT

Those of us practiced at it are like cats chasing their tails. They wait until it is relaxed and still, then they pounce!

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 01:36 GMT

The many as one;

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_hive_mind/

Th
e one as many;

http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_body_politi
c/

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 08:14 GMT

John,

It sounds like you're understanding quite a bit.

Puppies chasing their tales are happy and get a lot of exercise. As it turns out, those are two goals of mine.

Moral Relativism - this is a very tricky subject. If you prefer moral absolutism, it will be absolutely enforced (and we all know how that goes). The Golden Rule is a good start. But these kinds of issues require very careful consideration. I can't collapse or simplify this topic without losing the potent essense of it; it would just crumble into flippant and meaningless words.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 08:27 GMT

John,

Regarding you're two links, I'm not sure I gave you enough information to be able to so accurately respond with the two themes I've been so observant to the last couple of days. You may remain skeptical of what I say; but to me, that constitutes a "measurement" that says: same signal/stream.

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amrit wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 11:51 GMT

Today in physics there are two fundamental approaches to time. The first and most common approach says we use clocks to measure the time component of space-time, space and time being cofounded as the basis of physical reality. However this approach has no experimental support. There is no evidence whatsoever that clocks measure one aspect of space-time, and in truth we cannot observe space-time at all. The second approach says time is cofounded with motion through space. This approach is supported by experiment and observation. We employ clocks to accumulate local internal motion, and then use the result to calibrate duration. This is then employed in the measurement of external motion or material change, and the comparative rate of such change. Our evidence tells us that this rate of change varies with gravity, being commonly known as gravitational time dilation. However we can only measure space and motion, not time, and thus we must assert that the true basis of fundamental reality is space and motion rather than space-time. This means that space itself is in some respect timeless. Motion runs in timeless space. One should distinguish between real time t that is clocks run in timeless space and imaginary time it that is a component of fourth dimension X4 (X4=ict) of mathematical model called "space-time". In order of unification of real time and imaginary time it is proposed here that X4 can be written without i: X4 = ct, where X4 is a real coordinate of motion in timeless space. A math model of space-time is developed into a math model of space-motion.

yours amrit

attachments: FROM_SPACETIME_TO_SPACEMOTION.doc

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 16:32 GMT

Jason,

That's the problem with conceptualization. Any clear statement is a reductionism of a larger, wholistic reality. Simplicity yields complexity and vice versa, etc. So we may as well amuse ourselves.

As someone who spends their life working on a farm, mostly with racehorses, I tend to view the relationship being the logically reductionistic and and the larger organic whole as fairly seamless. We think of animals as simply reactive and incapable of abstract thinking, but all thought is abstraction. We just have more complex concepts to work with. Raw consciousness seems as integral to biology as gravity is to mass. Amoebae distinguish between beneficial and detrimental. It's not a higher order distinction.

amrit,

If there was a clear flaw in the argument that time emerges from motion, rather than being the basis for it, I think we would have had voices of authority devote a moment to two to make the case. It would seem to be a loose thread that no one wants to pull.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 28, 2009 @ 20:13 GMT

John,

Be patient. The communication is being sent as a fourier series. It takes time to assemble all of the terms, or at least enough to be able to guess what the communication is. The terms are not added in order. They are added by availability and opportunity. They are the pieces to the puzzle.

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John Merryman wrote on Apr. 29, 2009 @ 01:02 GMT

Jason,

Yes, knowledge is cumulative, not linear.

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Steve Dufourny wrote on Apr. 30, 2009 @ 11:05 GMT

Jason,

The fourier series are interestings ,this oscillation theory and differential equations show us the harmonic reality .

The quadratic error and the convergence with the egality of Parseval are too interestings for some symetric extrapolations of differents types (kinds).When we develop this periodic fonction in correlationn with sinusoidal harmonic and specific numbers and parameters ,the spherization appears too .f(x)=2/pi INT (infinity to 0???)cos ux du INT (inf to 0)cos ut dt (with sin or with cos of course)....The different variables are very very interestings bvut my favorite is y=x(pi-x) y=8/pi(sin x+1/3exp sin 3x + 1/5exp sin 5 x +..........

With the bessel formule ,it's too interesting for the harmonic analysis .

The frequence always and its harmonizations .

I think that many superimposings exist ,they are very numerous and complex .

The foundamentals ,constants ,harmonic series,the ratios are everywhere around us .

For exemple when I see in my small garden ,the growth of plants ,some ratios ,constants and harmonic series are there always ,the golden ratio,the harmonic sequences of growth ,like an universal law of evolution ,it's fascinating .

Sincerely

Steve

Do you know the Legendre Equations P0(x) P1(x) P2(x) P3(x).....let's take P6(x)=[231x(exp6)-315x(exp4)+105x²-5].....and we continue These polynoms of Legendre are relevants when we develop the series ....The works of Smirnov can help too .

The series of Laurent,Mc Laurin and Taylor too .

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Apr. 30, 2009 @ 17:21 GMT

Steve,

I recognise all of those series as solutions to various kinds of differential equations. I wish I could appreciate the relationships that you're looking at more deeply. Mathematics is a really cool subject; especially now that I know it doesn't deny any of the spooky stuff.

Cordially,

Jason

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Steve Dufourny wrote on May. 2, 2009 @ 08:28 GMT

Hi ,

Dear Jason,

Yes indeed mathematics is a very interesting tool to extrapolate our physical Universe and its foundamental laws.

Personaly ,I don't use imaginary in my model because I think that the mathematic infinity is different than the physical reality and its limits of walls .

If we insert in a physical model some imaginaries ,thus that implies different extrapolations where irrational questions play with physical foundations.

On the other side those extrapolations are very creatives and interestings like octonions ,quaternions ,imaginaries and catalyzes the extrapolations ,thus dynamizes the research of truth .It's the most important .

There too a balance is necessary in a model I think .That's why I prefer use reals but it's a personal choice of course.

If we superimpose some mathematic systems ,it's interesting

For exemple the Ostrogradski Gauss Theorem and Stokes and Green Theorems .

sincerely

Steve

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amrit wrote on May. 4, 2009 @ 17:10 GMT

Cambridge Philosopher publish in 1908 an artcle in MIND: THE UNREALITY OF TIME. He would say: "It will be convenient to begin our enquiry by asking whether anything existent can possess the characteristic of being in time. I shall endeavour to prove that it cannot".

Mc Taggart is right that nothing can happen in time because real time as clocks run is a man invention. Real (physical) time exists only when we measure it. We live in a timeless space. We experience timeless space as the present moment into which clocks run. Present moment has physical existence; past and future have only psychological existence.

yours amrit

attachments: Why_Anything_Existent_Cannot__Possess_the_Characteristic_of_Being_in_Time_SORLI_2009__MIND.pdf

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Paul N. Butler wrote on May. 6, 2009 @ 05:53 GMT

Amrit,

You have a pretty good idea of what a duration ( one of time's most fundamental properties) is composed of. Duration is the result of the travel of a motion with a given motion amplitude through a specific distance. A specific duration can be defined as the set of all pairs of specific motion amplitude and specific distance that exist such that if the motions of all such pairs begin simultaneously they will all reach the end of their distances simultaneously . Clocks do nothing more than combine a motion with a specific motion amplitude through a specific distance to mark off specific durations that are then used as standard durations to compare with other motion's durations that are due to each individual motion's combination of its motion amplitude and the distance that it is traveling through.

You are completely right when you say that the true basis of fundamental reality is space and motion , rather than space-time. Space is a fundamental property of the dimensional system that we live in (at least on the surface level of investigation of the dimensional system). It can easily be seen in the real world as providing the places where the entities that exist in this world (energy photons and matter particles, etc.) can be located. It also provides the places that create the separation between such entities through which entity motion can proceed. Motion is the most basic property of all entities since all such entities are completely composed of motion. Time on the other hand is a relationship between space and motion. Because it is a relationship between two basic fundamental properties instead of actually being a basic fundamental property in itself, its existence is completely dependent on the existence of the fundamental properties that it is based on, namely space and motion. You are therefore also right when you say that space itself (without any motion in it) is timeless because time requires the existence of both space and motion to exist because it only exists as a relationship between the two. Generally in life and especially when one is attempting to understand a complex structure, it is most often best to completely stay away from imaginary concepts that are not based on reality. The idea that time is generated by an entity's motion through some physical fourth dimension is an example of such an imaginary concept that has no basis in reality, so instead of coordinating or unifying it with real time it is best to just use real time to develop a math model of space-motion time. When this is done it opens up the possibility for one to understand that time variations are really variations in motion and, or, distance that occur due to specific relationships between structural elements of the dimensional system and the motions of the entities that exist in that system.

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amrit wrote on May. 6, 2009 @ 07:41 GMT

Dear Paul

Yes with the idea that motion run in timeless space and with clocks we measure it all is clear.

But mind needs complicated things as space-time that never was observed, experimentally proved and 99% of physicists believe in its physical existence. Space-time is a math model only.

yours amrit

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amrit wrote on May. 6, 2009 @ 07:47 GMT

Paul you say:

Time on the other hand is a relationship between space and motion.

Yes but man made. Clocks are man invention, physical time is man invention.

my mail is: sorli.bistra@gmail.com

please contact me there, we could work together on the subject

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amrit wrote on May. 7, 2009 @ 08:06 GMT

Temporal and Atemporal (Timeless) Experience of Motion

Motion runs in timeless space. Ordinary we experience it through psychological time. This experience is in time, temporal and indirect.

motion – perception (eyes) – mind elaboration (in psychological time) – temporal experience

Once we become aware of psychological time we can experience motion directly as it runs in timeless space. This experience is atemporal (timeless) and direct.

motion – perception (eyes) – atemporal experience

Development of atemporal experience is essential for further development of science. It gives a scientist an objective view about timeless nature of physical world. Temporal experience is subjective in a sense that passes through psychological time of the scientist atemporal experience is objective in a sense that between perception and experience information about motion is unbroken.

yours amrit

attachments: TIME_IS_RUN_OF_CKLOCKS__Sorli_2009.pdf

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amrit wrote on May. 7, 2009 @ 08:25 GMT

soory here is last version, yours amrit

Temporal and Atemporal (Timeless) Experience of Motion

Motion runs in timeless space. Ordinary we experience it through psychological time. This experience is in time, temporal and indirect. Information of motion between perception and experience is broken.

motion - perception (eyes)- mind elaboration (in psychological time)- temporal experience

Once we become aware of psychological time we can experience motion directly as it runs in timeless space. This experience is atemporal (timeless) and direct. Information of motion between perception and experience is unbroken.

motion - perception (eyes) - atemporal experience

Development of atemporal experience is essential for further development of science. It gives a scientist an objective view about timeless nature of physical world. Temporal experience is subjective in a sense that passes through psychological time of the scientist. Atemporal experience is objective in a sense that information of motion between perception and experience is unbroken.

attachments: 1_TIME_IS_RUN_OF_CKLOCKS__Sorli_2009.pdf

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on May. 7, 2009 @ 18:24 GMT

Amrit,

These are just my personal musings. If time is derived from space and motion, then we should calculate time when it's convenient to do so. But motion itself really talks kinetic energy. There is potential energy as well, and energy conservation. Maybe what this is telling us is that when we mathcrunch GR and QM, any step or steps where time, t, is relied upon, might be an unsteady step. Such an unsteady step might be a helpful clue into a deeper understanding of physics.

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John Merryman wrote on May. 10, 2009 @ 00:21 GMT

Interesting article on multi-universes in last weeks NewScientist;

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227061.
200-how-to-map-the-multiverse.html

The last paragraph was the takeaway;

Until any such setback the smart money will remain with the multiverse and string theory. "It has the best chance of anything we know to be right," Weinberg says of string theory. "There's an old joke about a gambler playing a game of poker," he adds. "His friend says, 'Don't you know this game is crooked, and you are bound to lose?' The gambler says, 'Yes, but what can I do, it's the only game in town.' We don't know if we are bound to lose, but even if we suspect we may, it is the only game in town."

As clear an admission they have backed themselves into a corner and can't get out without starting over again as we will ever hear.

A point about time vs. space;

A point in space is a location, even if if it doesn't have dimension. On the other hand, if motion ceases, it isn't just a freeze frame of reality as we know it, but reality effectively vanishes. First, in order to do so, all the counterbalancing energy would have to cancel out to zero, but also because there would be no action across space to define it and every point would be its own reality. So a point in space is like the zero point between positive and negative numbers. A point in time would be like the empty state of blank space, with no references. Zero as absence, not the center point. Even a smallest unit of time cannot be defined, since that would require defining its starting and stopping points and this fuzziness applies to all scales.

Time is whatever we measure it as, because it is the measurement, just like temperature, not what is being measured.

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John Merryman wrote on May. 10, 2009 @ 11:05 GMT

Multi-verses remind me of the old cartoon skit where the character paints himself into a corner, then paints a door to walk through. In this case, one to convince everyone else he can walk through anytime he wants. It will be interesting to see how long the charade lasts.

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amrit wrote on May. 10, 2009 @ 18:25 GMT

Jason

Yes, Atemporal experience is giving basics for unification of GR and QM. Experimental data confirms that stellar objects and elementary particles move in a concrete physical space. With clocks we measure duration and speed of their motion. Physical space itself is timeless (atemporal). Gravity force in a given volume physical space influences speed of clocks run, means time. Speed of rotation of planet Mercury is slower than of the Earth because Sun gravity is stronger on the Mercury orbit. For the same reason clocks run slower at the sea than on the top of mountain near sea. With this understanding we give theoretical basis for unitary description of massive bodies and elementary particles motion in timeless physical space.

yours amrit

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John Merryman wrote on May. 11, 2009 @ 16:18 GMT

amrit,

Amen.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on May. 11, 2009 @ 16:27 GMT

Amrit,

Motion and space are observables, obvious by simple observation. Clocks, and the concept of time, are clever constructs.

Another observable, which admittedly is not a simple observation, is the fully connected star-bus network appearance of the laws of physics. Technically, the very simple gravity equation F = GM1M2/r^2 tells us that every particle is connected to every other particle by gravitation (at a minimum). My point is this: there is no 3D space + 1D time; there is no absolute reference frame. All that exists are the particles and the links between the particles. The only question is: can we derive the most basic properties of physics from a network model? Can it explain why space exists and what mass is?

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on May. 11, 2009 @ 16:35 GMT

I hesitate to think of these links as superstrings because strings get tight when you stretch them. On the other hand, I'm tempted to think of mass as proportional to the number of connections on some body/particle of mass M.

I also like this model because vibrations in the links could reproduce QM in a conceptually easy way. If we assume that information flows along these links no faster than the c, the speed of light, then special relativity can be explained without a need to visualize in four spread out dimensions.

But how do we get the characteristics of the links to behave themselves by behaving consistently?

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Steve Dufourny wrote on May. 11, 2009 @ 17:40 GMT

Hi all ,

It's interesting all your extrapolations about time .

I see time like a fondamental constant .

With or without measure ,time will be always like it is .

The time with or without clocks will be always a constant of evolution .

It's as that everywhere in the physical reality .

The time don't change and won't change its sequence .

Jason ,

I like so much this equation ,F = GM1M2/r^2 ,of course all is linked ,all implies an attraction ,all bodies are in gravity and in interactions with different fields .

I see your superstrings now and a kind of link in a beautiful universal music and a chief orchestra and that between all particules ,all things.

I insist on one thing "the evolution point of vue" ,the space exists and evolves towards harmony because it' s a essential piece of the building ,the polarization ,the complexification .

The mass exists because is a piece of the evolution towards the increase of polarizations and complexifications of different systems .

There is an aim ,time is a constant where it exists a begining thus an end in the physical universe ,on the other side it's different behind walls and the mathematic or spiritual infinity .It s there it's interesting dear Amrit about atemporality and spirituality .

What do you think Amrit and Jason ?

sincerely

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John Merryman wrote on May. 12, 2009 @ 18:16 GMT

Jason,

Some thoughts on space; If you consider the history of dimensions, all they really are, are linear projections. Lines. So three dimension are just the coordinate system of the center point. What Relativity did was to show that space isn't some three dimensional grid, because the perspective of different points is distorted relative to one another. Then when you get a multitude of different points, the complexities compound, so it becomes effectively meaningless to describe space as anything less than infinitely dimensional. At that point, what you have is volume, with lots of different points moving about and the concept which effectively describes that is temperature. The scalar level of activity within an area. The same logic which uses the speed of light to say time is an additional dimension of space, could use a given quantity of energy to say that temperature is another parameter of volume, since changing its volume would proportionally change the temperature.

Another observation about space and energy is that energy is what exists, while space is what doesn't exist. Without the energy, it would be completely empty and featureless. It would have a temperature of absolute zero and time wouldn't exist. It is necessarily infinite, because any limiting factor would be a force of some kind. So space alone would be both absolute and infinite. The parameters of relative energy, without being parameters that can be defined by any physical means.

Steve,

Consider that motion creates and erases the series of events called time. The physical energy doesn't go anywhere. It simply is. It is the configurations of that energy which change. They go from being in the future to being in the past. Rather than the flow of time going from past to future, it actually goes future to past. The earth isn't traveling the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. It is because physics keeps trying to model it as a dimension along which reality travels from the past into the future that it gets exponentially complicated. There is no block time and it doesn't branch out into multiple realities. It's a measure of motion, like temperature, not the basis for it, like space. That's why time is the measurement, not what is being measured. So different clocks really do measure different times.

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Georgina Parry wrote on May. 19, 2009 @ 11:32 GMT

The dimensions allow a description to be given. The description is not better without them, it becomes vague. Just as the letters that make up words are not the meaning that is being transferred by those words, they are necessary as a part of the way that ideas are shared.

I can rotate those dimensions within a given space because they are all dimensions that relate to that space. The important characteristic being that they are always at 90 degrees to each other, however I rotate them and describe the position of an object using them. The 4th dimension will also always be at 90 degrees to the other 3 no matter how I rotate them. They are therefore not just arbitrary lines. I can not add extra dimensions at 90 degrees to the others within 3D space, only 3 are possible.

Volume within 3 dimensional space is not enough to account for time and gravity. Adding more lines to that 3 dimensional space will not change it. A 4th dimension that is perpendicular to all of that volume is necessary. The volume exists along that dimension and is moving along it.

A mass has a thickness along the 4th dimension that is its forth. So it has 4 dimensional volume. The centre of the mass being most afore ie. furthest forward along that dimension and the exterior being least far forward. The exterior is always moving to the position that was occupied by the interior as the interior moves further ahead (afore). This gives the force of gravity manifested in our perceived 3 dimensional space. That 3d space is experienced as static in space but subject to the passage of time. However all matter is moving along the 4th dimension and this motion can be related to a continuous motion observed within perceived 3d space.Thus time is measured.

Consideration of temperature within a (3 dimensional) volume alone is not enough. Temperature causes expansion in 3d space and increased forth as there is a greater difference in the energy of particles. The greater the energy difference the greater the forth. Close to absolute zero the forth of a substance will be extremely thin as all of the particles will have very little energy and will all be very similar in amount of energy possessed. This "wafer thin" 4th dimensional"thickness" accounts for the strange behaviour observed.

Relativity using 4 dimensions has been shown to work. It has shown time and again that using 4 dimensions provides a good description of observed reality.

It is a description. That works. The problem being understanding the 4th dimension.

It is not time but a 4th spatio energetic dimension. The same as the other 3 with the exception that all of the matter of the universe is progressing along the 4th dimension. In my opinion. It is a description using 4 dimensions that works to describe observed reality and therefore also fits with relativity.

If you throw out dimensions as tools for description you throw out relativity also. Descriptions may fall short of perfection but are useful for communication. If they are not allowed because they are imperfect then all communication is open to disqualification and so is all thought.75 years of silent mediation on nothingness would be unbearable. Human beings are social animals that need to communicate ideas, in my opinion.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on May. 20, 2009 @ 07:52 GMT

Geogina,

A forum like this is helpful to advancement of physics. We should all discuss our ideas. This is like a market place for ideas. I personally would be open to some scientific and technical scrutiny of my physics ideas. Ultimately, we are all hoping to get the physics community "unstuck". The sooner they get going again, the sooner we can have the warp drive, new energy sources, light sabers (ok, we'll probably never have light sabers)... I just hope the website moderators do not destroy the percolating ideas by censoring or deleting them. The breakthrough in physics is imminent, but not if they censor it.

As for descriptions, there is nothing wrong with that.

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Georgina Parry wrote on May. 21, 2009 @ 00:49 GMT

Jason,

you said, The only question is: can we derive the most basic properties of physics from a network model? Can it explain why space exists and what mass is?

I would say yes. The orientation of the 4th dimension in relation to all matter and continuous motion along this dimension are the important factors, as these give rise to the effect of gravity as perceived by observers and connect all matter in space. As well as driving the coming together of matter and the creation process. Afore space( towards which the motion of all matter progresses) being always beyond the centre of gravity of a mass.

Rest mass energy is equivalent to the promotional energy (that is loss of universal potential energy I.e. motion along the 4th dimension)of a particle or object that appears stationary. This explains its very high value.In my opinion.

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amrit wrote on Jun. 7, 2009 @ 17:33 GMT

Most interesting research I read on file attached:

Physical basis of psychological time "past-present-future" is neuronal activity of the brain. Sense of “being in time” is created in the brain.

That means universe itself might be timeless. Motion runs in timeless space.

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amrit wrote on Jun. 7, 2009 @ 17:35 GMT

article is on file attached

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amrit wrote on Jun. 7, 2009 @ 17:36 GMT

file is too big, see

Catalin V. Buhusi, Warren H. Meck, What makes us thick?, Functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing, Nature reviews, Volume 6, October 2005

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amrit wrote on Jun. 10, 2009 @ 09:23 GMT

Steve, origin of time is in the human mind, in neuronal activity of the brain that creates sensation of time flowing. Universe itself it timeless (atemporal) motion runs in timeless space. Awakened observer is aware of that. Non-awakened observer is still imprisoned in “neuronal time”.

attachments: 1_AWAKENING_OF_THE_OBSERVER_IN_PHYSICS_Sorli_2009.pdf

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Alexander Silin wrote on Jun. 10, 2009 @ 14:31 GMT

Hi all,

Really, we don't understand structure of Universe. We don't understand a role of human. But we have chance of understanding.

Apocryphous text from Nag-Hammadi:

“These little ones who take milk, they compare to those who go in to the kingdom, Said they to him this: then, being little ones, we will go in to the kingdom? > Said JES2 to them this: when you(pl) should make the two one, and if you(pl) should make the side inner like the side outer, and the side outer like the side inner, and the side upper like the side lower, and so you (pl) will be making the male and the woman that one alone, so that not the male become male, (nor) the woman become woman; when you (pl) should make some eyes to the place of an eye, and a hand to the place of a hand, and a foot to the place of a foot; an image to the place of an image, then you(pl) will go into the kingdom” {27} (Gospel of Tomas).

Best regards

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amrit wrote on Jun. 11, 2009 @ 07:33 GMT

Material change has no duration on its own. We give them sense of duration measuring them with clocks. Earth runs around Sun in timeless space. Motion of Earth has no duration on its own. We give it duration by measuring with clocks time of one full circle around the Sun. In this sense time as clocks run is a measuring device derived from motion.

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Jason Wolfe/wulphstein@gmail.com wrote on Jun. 15, 2009 @ 16:00 GMT

Lawrence,

You said: "As an excersize take the classical harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian and put in the commutator [p, x], which is zero. Then quantize, an this term you have entered into the Hamiltonian will subtract the ZPE term."

In effect, you can mathematically remove everything that oscillates including the zero point energy oscillators. This is intended to imply that the laws of physics cannot be implemented by oscillators. But how do I know this is not just a math trick? The math is designed to act exactly like observations. But that does not mean that math enforces the laws of quantum mechanics. It might be possible to create such a vacuum, but there would still be gravity waves passing through this vacuum from various large masses like the earth, the sun, etc. You could try to add out those gravitational waves to give the appearance of a complete and total vacuum, but then there would still be, at the very least, two waves down there: Psi(kx) + Psi (kx+180deg) = Psi(kx)-Psi(kx) = 0. It might look like you drained all of the oscillators out, but instead, they are hiding in the commutator's blind spot.

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Jason Wolfe wrote on Jun. 15, 2009 @ 16:03 GMT

Oops! That response belongs in: What if string theory is wrong?

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Jason Wolfe wrote on Sep. 7, 2009 @ 22:20 GMT

Frank,

I read your article. I'm dissapointed. There wasn't anything in there about physics. I have some news for you. You are not the only person who floats and glides in there dreams. Gravity doesn't exist in your dreams because dreaming is a like imagination; it's a virtual environment. It's fantasy.

I spent five minutes reading your article. I feel ripped off. I want my five minutes back.

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Frank Martin DiMeglio wrote on Sep. 7, 2009 @ 22:50 GMT

FQXi participants/Jason: Here is a summary of the article for you. Good luck picking this apart. This is what I said Jason.

Dreams add to the integrated extensiveness of being, experience, and thought.

In fact, dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the mid-range of [gravitational] feeling between thought and sense. It is not only in dream that the vision of everyone is different. Reality pertains to/involves (in varying degrees, of course) what must be understood as the integrated extensiveness of being and experience (including thought). Dreams make thought more like sensory experience in general (including gravity and electromagnetism). The ability of thought to describe or reconfigure sense is ultimately dependent upon the extent to which thought is similar to sensory experience.

The known union of gravity and electromagnetism/light -- in the fourth dimension of space that unites Einsten's theory of gravity with Maxwell's theory of light/electromagnetism -- must be understood as balancing scale by making gravity both repulsive and attractive as electromagnetic energy/light.

Einstein's theory is already balanced, extended, and properly completed/verified by said union.

This union of gravity and electromagnetism is already mathematically proven/demonstrated by the addition of the fourth spatial dimension; and, this must be plainly and significantly obvious in our experience; and, it is -- in the experience of dreaming.

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Frank Martin DiMeglio wrote on Sep. 7, 2009 @ 23:07 GMT

Jason/FQXi participants:

The mathematical description/proof of the union of gravity and electromagnetism is already demonstrated in a fourth dimension of space. This mathematical union is describing the union of gravity and electromagnetism/light in dreams. You have to read the article. However, here is further mathematical proof that the dream represents the mathematical union of gravity and electromganetism/light:

I have shown the three to one (one third) relation of BOTH space (the three space dimensions in relation to the 4th space dimension) AND time (3 to 1 in Einstein's theory of gravity) in dreams; as dreams occur during the one third of our lives that we spend sleeping. Or, you could say that the extension in space (three to one, or one third) is consistent with extension in time. Note: there are three parts of time as well -- past, present, future.

In the article, I show that the interated and natural extensiveness of being and experience go hand-in-hand, in and with time as well.

http://radicalacademy.com/studentrefphilfmd13.htm

Again Jason, good luck in trying to make this look anything other than deserving of the Nobel Prize in physics. This took an enormous amout of work, effort, and genius Jason.

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Jason Wolfe wrote on Sep. 7, 2009 @ 23:37 GMT

Frank,

I'm going to unify gravity and E&M right now. I'm going to take a nap.

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Jason Wolfe wrote on Sep. 8, 2009 @ 05:04 GMT

Frank,

Gravity does not emerge from consciousness. Gravity is what holds you the bed when your mind says, "wake up!" and your body says, "Go away!" Good luck with your theory. Maybe you should find a psychology website.

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