Sunday, January 27, 2013

Do we need a theory of Everything?

There is an interview of Lisa Randall in New Scientist about building of theories of everything. Phil Gibbs wrote a nice commentary of the interview, and this posting is an extension of my comment on this posting. Quantum gravity and TOEing relate very closely and there is a very nice critical article about the recent situation in quantum gravity from the perspective of particle physics by Nicolai.

Eventually TOErs must take also consciousness seriously and this leads to the fundamental questions about quantum measurement theory. What is interesting that Weinberg has changed his views about Copenhagen interpretation better known as "shut-up-and-calculate" dogma. I will say something about Nicolai's views, the comments by Weinberg, and Lisa Randall's interview in the following.

The views of Nicolai about quantum gravity as seen from particle physics perspective

Part of the Nicolai's message is that the best manner to make progress in quantum gravity is to understand why standard model gauge group is so special. To this question the existing approaches have not answered or not even tried to answer. Separation of quantum gravity from other interactions is the worst thing to do. The next worst thing to do is to see recent day physics as nothing but low energy phenomenology, which happens to described by a more or less random gauge group applying in this particular corner of the multiverse. I cannot but agree with Nicolai.

As Nicolai expresses it, in standard model the fine tuning of Higgs mass in order to sail through the extremely narrow strait between the Scylla of vacuum instability and the Kharybdis of Landau pole causing Higgs self coupling to become infinite. This feat requires a correlation between Planck scale physics and TeV scale physics so that low energy physics becomes very relevant for understanding of Planck length scale physics. Nicolai suggests that some kind of negative feedback making it possible to sail through this strait, and suggests that conformal invariance is the symmetry (broken in quantum theory automatically) making this feedback possible. Usually supersymmetry is though to be the stabilizer but LHC has posed very severe limits on N=1 SUSY. This is of course only the simplest option and TGD leads to its own view about SUSY.

In TGD framework p-adic physics is what causes the correlation between various length scales. The standard reductionistic vision about the reduction of physics to Planck length scale is replaced with fractality meaning that there is entire infinite hierarchy of physics which are fractal variants of each other. The 3-surfaces representing particles can have arbitrarily large size scale - not only Planck scale as in standard dogma. Also the hierarchy of effective Planck constants and hierarchy of size scales associated with causal diamonds define length scale hierarchies. This strongly correlates the physics in long length scales with the physics in short length scales.

Nicolai suggests that conformal invariance acts as stabilizer. Super-conformal invariance generalized by replacing 2-D basic objects with 3-D light-like surfaces is indeed a basic pillar of TGD. In fact, the notion of complex structure generalizes from 2-D case to 4-D space-time level. For Euclidian regions it means 4-D complex structure and for Minkowskian regions to what I have christened as Hamilton-Jacobi structure. Rather remarkably, the preferred extremal property can be formulated without any reference to Kähler action and also minimal surface equations and Einstein-Maxwell equations with cosmological term hold true with G and Lambda coming as predictions.

Full D=4 generalized super-conformal symmetry applies to purely right handed neutrinos delocalized along entire space-time surfaces. Ordinary 2-D super-conformal invariance applies at string world sheets at which other spinor modes are localized. These infinite-D symmetries are crucial for the very mathematical existence of the "world of classical worlds" and therefore also for the physics. Conformal invariance generalizes scale invariants so that very strong correlation between physics in ultrashort and long length scales is expected.

Something wrong with Copenhagen interpretation?

A second interesting comment came from Weinberg (discussed by Lubos). At the age about 80 years he has been able to change his views about "interpretations" of QM and admits that there is something wrong here. The history of physics shows that single anomaly or even paradox is infinitely more valuable and tons of data. Therefore standard TOErs make a fatal error when they pretend that Copenhagen interpretation is the final one. At some day we must include conscious observer as part of the physical system, and the interpretational problems of QM give strong clue how to do it.

The interpretational problems of TGD forced to take quantum measurement theory seriously. This lead to radically news about basic ontology forcing to give up the materialistic dogma seeing consciousness as one particular property of physical state. The basic paradox of state function can be solved without totally giving up the notion of objective reality defined as "solution of field equations" but accepting that the defining property of consciousness is that it replaces this reality with a new one. Zero energy ontology is one crucial implication of this picture. Also a radically new view about time explaining the different character of subjective time and geometric time of physicist emerges.

Questions posed to Lisa Randall about unification

Also some comments relating to the questions posed to Lisa Randall are in order.

  1. The first three questions can be lumped together. Is TOE the dream of every physicist and isn't it a myth? Isn't beautiful mathematics supposed to lead to the truth? Isn't it then a problem that our best theories are so messy?

    TOE of is a must for every theoretician with imagination and the passion to understand. What TOE means depends on the mathematics available (besides mathematical abilities of the TOEr;-)). Mathematics evolves so that TOEing poses evolutionary pressures also on mathematics itself.

    First example from TGD. The geometrization program of Einstein generalizes to infinite-D context and leads to the notion of "world of classical worlds", whose very existence as Kähler geometry requires the existence of infinite-D isometry group (the property of being union of infinite-D symmetric spaces) and strongly suggests the uniqueness of the geometry (already for loop spaces Kähler geometry is unique). This is extremely abstract mathematics but leads to the vision that infinite-dimensional existence and therefore also physics is unique, an encouraging news for a TOEr. What is amusing is that in this approach holography reduces to general coordinate invariance and Bohr orbitology usually regarded as approximation generalizes and becomes an exact part of quantum theory. In infinite-D context also Born rules are the only possibility for purely mathematical reasons. Also Fermi statistics finds a geometrization.

    Second example from TGD. The idea about number theoretical universality of physics is very powerful guideline in attempts to fuse real and p-adic number based mathematics to something more general. The problems are very concrete: for instance, how to integrate in p-adic context?! This mathematics will certainly be beautiful and abstract but the need for it is forced by physics at the concrete experimental level (in TGD framework the original motivation comes from mass calculations based on p-adic thermodynamics plus super-conformal invariance). Number theoretical vision involves naturally also quaternions and octonions and they relate very intimately to standard model symmetries. Standard modely looks messy only if one has no idea about the meaning of the underlying symmetries and sees the group as just one choice among infinity of other choices.

  2. Was the discovery of Higgs a surprise?

    Whether Higgs exists or not in TGD Universe has been one of the key questions from the very beginning of TGD, and I have considered very many scenarios. It is now clear that Higgs like state is there and is indeed possible in TGD Universe and even that Higgs vacuum expectation has a space-time correlate in TGD Universe. This conclusion came only during last year when I realized the solutions of the modified Dirac equation are localized at 2-D string world sheets for fermion modes which are not pure right-handed neutrinos - this from the condition that spinor modes have well-defined em charge. If string world sheet is minimal surface in space-time, it is not in general minimal surface in the imbedding space and CP2 part of its second fundamental form defines a dimensional parameter whose value for the ends of braid strands carrying fermion number could correspond to Higgs vacuum expectation at QFT limit.

    The story Higgs taught to me how valuable experimental input is for theoretician, and how important it is to see how theory-dependent our interpretations of data really are. What we are doing is explaining the data in terms of Higgs: we do not see a particle carrying a label "Higgs"! Higgs mechanism could well be the only possible description of massivation in QFT context but is just a mimicry. For instance, the proportionality of Higgs-fermion couplings to fermion mass follows automatically if couplings is derivative coupling so that the assumption about Higgs vacuum expectation only effectively explains fermion masses! The predictive description must be in terms of a microscopic theory and if this theory has QFT limit then Higgs mechanism is the phenomenological parametrization this limit. Nothing more!

  3. What would an extra dimension look like?

    This question is a teaser to Lisa Randall who has been proposing large extra dimensions now excluded by LCH. In TGD framework extra dimensions are not additional space-time dimensions but dimensions of the imbedding space containing space-time surfaces as 4-D sub-manifolds. This is very important distinction between TGD and string models. 3-branes (4-D surfaces) in M-theory are analogous to space-time surface but the dynamics is totally different. The new dimensions in TGD framework are neither large nor have Planck scale. The size scale of CP2 is about 104 Planck lengths and roughly corresponds to the unification scale for GUTs.

    This prediction comes from p-adic mass calculations: the prediction for electron mass assuming that it corresponds to Mersenne prime M127 fixes the size scale of CP2, and the overall success of calculations supports this identification of electron's p-adic length scale (largest non-super-astrophysical Mersenne prime length scale is in question, Gaussian Mersennes give rise to additional length scales and four of them are between 10 nm and 2.5 micrometers, the biological most important length scales).


  4. What if we not see any new physics at LHC?

    It is quite well possible that we have been seen it for years but our theoretical conditioning - forced by methods comparable to those applied by Pavlov to his poor dogs - prevents to realize that we see it. The too high rate for the decays of Higgs to gamma pairs could be due to an additional wide resonance decaying to gamma pairs. Fermi satellite has reported 135 GeV bump which the existing paradigm wants to interpret as dark matter particle and this leads to problems. Perhaps the most important finding was made by RHIC for seven years ago: the production of charged particle pairs for which members tend to have parallel or antiparallel momenta as if they were produced in decays of string like objects. This is not at all consistent with perturbative QCD predicting QCD plasma but people soon introduced the notion of color glass phase to save QCD. My personal bet is that M89 hadron physics (as I call it) with general mass scale 512 times higher than that for ordinary hadron physics is doing its best to inform the stubborn theoreticians about its presence.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding the Higgs-theory, this is based on the 350 year consensus ideas of gravity and the later "how matter gains weight".

When looking at "the galactic rotation anomaly" "gravity" is contradicted and therefore the whole gravity idea should be revised and even discarded.

- I´m fairly sure that all other kinds of dynamic forces and formative motions in cosmos than "gravity" are at play.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PonderSeekDiscover said...

Mr. Pitkanen,

I left this comment on the viXra blog but thought I would repost it here in the event you may be interested in the links. Your blog is the first I’ve heard of TGD but I shall visit your homepage; my interest is in consciousness studies so I’m always thrilled to find new theories of consciousness. The viXra comment follows:

Lubos Motl concludes his blog post (referenced above) with: “The advocates of "realism behind quantum mechanics" are running an industry of arguments that is analogous to creationism and its claims that Darwin's evolution has lethal flaws.”

Edwin Jaynes was one of the foremost authorities regarding Bayesian probability theory and he stated that, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, quantum mechanics is “an incomplete, epistemological mathematical structure which could, with a great deal of work, evolve into a bona fide physical theory.” For certain QM according to the Copenhagen interpretation is no solid foundation for any kind of TOE. In my opinion, speaking of TOE is incredibly premature. Some issues to consider:

Predictive physiological anticipation preceding seemingly unpredictable stimuli: a meta-analysis (http://www.frontiersin.org/Perception_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00390/abstract)

The Heart as Brain (http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Heart,%20Mind%20and%20Spirit%20%20Mohamed%20Salem.pdf)

Can the Orthodox interpretation explain this? It seems a direct violation of the 2nd Law: (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html)

And finally, Mr. Barclay Powers demonstrates the longest running continuous longitudinal study ever conducted by human kind which most definitely defiles the 2nd Law, Darwin’s evolution, and a whole slew of other things: (http://www.integralworld.net/powers5.html)

See also: (http://noetic.org/library/audio-lectures/the-rainbow-body-phenomenon-with-father-francis-ti/) this is a Catholic Priest talking about a phenomenon known to occur with relative frequency amongst the Tibetan monastic community.

By the way, I’m still learning the mathematics I need to understand the subtleties addressed by Phil but I’ve been practicing yoga and meditation for well over a decade and I find materialism and its Priesthood baffling. To those who are open minded and interested, according to my own experience with the “Kundalini Awakening”, the Golden Embryo is located in the prostate gland . . . and, yes, females have a prostate also called the Skene’s gland (http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Skene_s_gland.html). Any rebuttal from Mr. Motl, or any other Materialist, would be graciously received: PonderSeekDiscover@gmail.com

PonderSeekDiscover said...

Yeah, this is good stuff! “Here the notion of magnetic body as intentional agent using biological body as motor instrument and sensory receptor is central.” You may find the work of AGI researcher, Ben Goertzel, significant; he developed a mathematical model of mind back in the early 90’s based on a systems theoretic approach (http://wp.goertzel.org/?page_id=18). Goertzel’s model emerged as a dual network, two interacting systems of equations he refers to as “the perceptual-motor hierarchy” and “the structurally associative memory.” Goertzel felt this was a Platonic form (he calls it the Magician System involving magicians and anti-magicians) but I emailed him suggesting his model corresponds to the electro-chemical neural system (Perceptual-Motor Hierarchy) and the combined electro-magnetic fields of the heart and brain (structurally associative memory).

Shelli Renee Joye suggests in a paper (http://www.cejournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Integral-Aesthetics-The-Evolutionary-Function-of-the-Sublime.pdf) that the ventricular horns in the brain act as waveguide cavity antenna with the third ventricle, at the front of which terminate the optic nerves, serves as the “mental theater” where “I” consciousness emerges. The idea you suggest, concerning the intentional agent, is being studied by Sue Pockett (http://www.psych.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/sue-pockett), Danah Zohar, and Johnjoe McFadden (http://www3.surrey.ac.uk/qe/cemi.htm), amongst others. I look forward to reading your book!

Matti Pitkanen said...



To Ivar Nielsen:

To my opinion galactic rotation anomaly does not actually force to give up Einsteinian gravity. Even Newtonian gravity explains the experimental findings.

Galaxies are known to form linear structures. The TGD based explanation is that they are formed around primordial magnetic flux tubes carrying monopole flux and huge mass density. Later these flux tubes (their M^4 projection) has thickened and they give rise to mysterious magnetic fields filling the cosmos. No particle current is needed to create them since the magnetic fields corresponds to purely topological homological charge made possible by the topology of CP_2.

The magnetic energy of the flux tubes is identified as dark energy and replaces the energy of inflation fields and decays to matter and dark matter as inflaton field also does.

This magnetic energy is also mass and creates gravitational fields whose gravitational potential was straight flux tubes is of of from log(rho/rho_0) in cylindrical coordinates and gives rise to 1/rho gravitational acceleration predicting that orbits have constant velocities. This is just what is observed.

The additional killer prediction is that the motion along the string containing the galaxies like pearls in necklace is free. This predicts very large scale motions challenging cosmological principle and these have been also observed.

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Wes Hansen:

Thank you for the comments. I agree about Lubos's attitudes. He is labelling all critical thinkers creationists. This is intellectually inhonest and silly. Psychiatrist would be needed to understand these strange associations of Lubos.
It is a pity that Lubos is completely unable to listen those who think differently. This is deep tragedy for a theoretician.

I am not personally advocate of realism behind QM in the sense that the reality would be unique as in materialistic world view. The whole point is giving up the Galileo's great idea that there exists a unique reality obeying deterministic laws: this idea led to the birth of science. Now it has lead to materialistic world view and stagnation of science. It has done the services that it can do and must now go.

Copenhagen interpretation is not actually materialistic: in Copenhagen interpretation one gives up the entire notion of reality in any sense and also formally the belief that the mathematical entities of the theory would have some deeper meaning. Everything is just calculational rules: one of course gives all attempts to understand observer and consciousness and declares this to be non-scientific. This is self-deception. Everyone applying QM actually believes that these mathematical entities have a real meaning. Also Lubos: otherwise he would not be declaring that everyone not believing in M-theory is an idiot.

In TGD based ontology reality is replaced with realities= "solutions of field equations". The realities obey deterministic laws but all of them can be realized in princople: consciousness whose basic building brick is quantum jump between quantum superpositions of these realities makes this possible. This also saves theoretician from a paradox: all the realities predicted by the theory are in principle reachable by quantum jumps if one accepts zero energy ontology. The theory is genuinely testable!

Biology and neuroscience provide a rich source of anomalies to anyone who is ready to take up the challenge.

Matti Pitkanen said...



To Wes Hansen:

Thank you for the comments. I agree about Lubos's attitudes. He is labelling all critical thinkers creationists. This is intellectually inhonest and silly. Psychiatrist would be needed to understand these strange associations of Lubos. It is a pity that Lubos is completely unable to listen those who think differently. This is deep tragedy for a theoretician.

I am not personally advocate of realism behind QM in the sense that the reality would be unique as in the materialistic world view. The whole point is giving up the Galileo's great idea that there exists a unique reality obeying deterministic laws: this idea led to the birth of science. Now it has lead to the materialistic world view and stagnation of science. It has done the services that it can do and must now go.

Copenhagen interpretation is not actually materialistic: in Copenhagen interpretation one gives up the entire notion of reality in any sense and also formally the belief that the mathematical entities of the theory would have some deeper meaning. Everything is just calculational rules: one of course gives all attempts to understand observer and consciousness and declares this to be non-scientific.

This is self-deception. Everyone applying QM actually believes that these mathematical entities have a real meaning. Also Lubos: otherwise he would not be declaring that everyone not believing in M-theory is an idiot.

In TGD based ontology reality is replaced with realities= "solutions of field equations". The realities obey deterministic laws but all of them can be realized in principle: consciousness whose basic building brick is quantum jump between quantum superpositions of these realities makes this possible.

This also saves theoretician from a paradox: all the realities predicted by the theory are in principle reachable by quantum jumps if one accepts zero energy ontology. The theory is genuinely testable!

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Wes Hansen:


To my opinion the models of neuroscience makes sense as long one as keeps in mind that brain is a system specialized to generate standardized mental images as a response to sensory input. This makes possible also a communication and society using symbols to communicate since same input generates more or less the same mental image in all members of society.

The location of consciousness to some "consciousness module" in brain is however inconsistent with TGD vision. Consciousness is not a function!

In TGD framework it is in principle wrong to speak about conscious entities, say intentional agents. The moment of consciousness is the quantum jump: the replacement of reality as "a solution of field equations"/"Schrodinger amplitude" with a new one. The contents of consciousness is however about some space-time region. Sensory input, thoughts, memories: they are all about some space-time region with finite span.

The identification of "me" with this sensory input leads to the illusion that I am certain space-time region which is conscious entity. This is not basically true although it is a very practical idealization. For this pragmatic reason I speak about magnetic body as intentional agent although strictly speaking there are no intentional agents: there are only moments of consciousness, moments of re-creation.

What moment of consciousness means is of course a difficult question but it is better to stop here;-).

Santeri Satama said...

'Theory of Everything' is problematic intention in many aspects, not least because of the implicated assumption of everyTHING - which associates with metaphysical realism, materialism or some similar reifying and objectifying ontological attitude. "God" is better understood as verb than noun. When "it" rains, there is no "it", no ToE to make it rain, just when rains, rains. Yes, we want to be able to predict when rains, so we build predictive models for that purpose, and ToE kind of predictive explanation is imagined to be the ultimate chalice of predictive power and control.

But, as some wise man said, explaining is not living. To experience rain is not a thing, just experiencing, living. Better comprehension of how we experience, a theory of consciousness to make ToE fuller, is interesting and quite likely beneficial in many practical and even ethical ways, but it will always remain just a mental image and conceptual framework to be experienced.

It's explanation, not life. Explanations like the article about heart above (thanks for the link!) can help us to live better, more healthy and with more compassion, but only if we actually connect our mind and heart better and not just theorize. Not just look for explanations, but live and experience, as hearts and minds, magnetic bodies, electrons doing jumps of consciousness inside atoms, all the identities we can imagine and theorize.

Explanations with predictive power can have great value, especially in avoiding mistakes and unnecessary suffering, but only if science is not seen just as search for explanations, but a way of life.

Way of life that allows and helps also our children to keep on living, creating, imagining, experiencing.

And here's the first real test of TGD, which in it's most complete and comprehensive form exists now only in Matti's mind. Can you connect that vision in mind with your heart, and if you can will it help to make you feel and live more healthy, to enjoy life more with less fears and bitterness, with more compassion?

Can TGD be a way of life, much more than just intellectual rivalry? If it has that potential and there is will to test that, you know who the first test subject is... :)

Matti Pitkanen said...



To Santeri:

The theory predicting everything might be a dream of materialist living in the deterministic world of classical physics or in statistically deterministic world of quantum physics assumed to have relevance only in microscopic levels. This kind of dream must be given up if one accepts free will and quantum jumps as moment of re-creation.

You are asking quite too much. I am working like a mad just to articulate TGD so that it would not disappear to the sands of time after I have gone. To be a prophet and savior of the world and TOEr is quite too much for a single human being;-).

Santeri Satama said...

You your self say you are "working like mad". Madness, I presume, refers to some kind of imbalance. When you have a heart condition, the simple inference is that information flows between heart and mind are not in balance. On the other hand, nothing in TGD prevents power of self healing. Or that the holistic and comprehensive information of TGD could not be radiated through heart's magnetic field on subconscious level, perhaps much more effectively than through intellect alone.

Most simple heart meditation is to imagine your heart expanding so that first your body, then whole of universe (etc.) is inside it, then shrinking back to a single point, and to repeat that movement. While doing that you can let your mind rest and the information of your scientific and mathematical meditation called TGD "sink down" and become embodied knowledge.

Just a suggestion and only if you want to, friend. <3


<<>>

Matti Pitkanen said...


I would not talk about "inbalance". I have fully realized that I happened to stumble with one of the ideas of the century and cannot do but my best to develop it under the conditions which prevail. They are not very favorable. I am living in small country in which scientists are conformists and hate people like me.

People creating something new are not those in "balance". Happy petit bourgeois is not very creative. Just look people who have created the greatest music we have. They were definitely not in "balance";-)!

I of course have nothing against meditation and it is wonderful tool to make mind empty after hard day. The best manner to to avoid unhappiness is to get rid of the dream of becoming happy! Meaning-fulness matters to me much more than happiness.

Leo Vuyk said...

Weinberg said”
“At some day we must include conscious observer as part of the physical system, and the interpretational problems of QM give strong clue how to do it.”
I think he hit the nail.
See;
Reconciliation of QM and GR and the need for a pulsating entangled CPT
symmetric raspberry shaped Multiverse

http://vixra.org/pdf/1111.0096v1.pdf

PonderSeekDiscover said...

Mr. Pitkanen,

I am unable to engage in a constructive discourse because I haven’t read any of your books or papers but I am interested in your theory! My first question would be in regard to the zero energy ontology: what is it? And on what level of organization does “consciousness” exist? If consciousness is composed of the string of quantum jumps between solutions of field equations, how are the field equations, that is to say, the superpositions, generated? Does one start with a Universal Wave Function which randomly collapses generating Universal Consciousness? Would this suggest that consciousness and the quantum superpositions are co-dependent arising? And is there an objective reality? As you can see, I’ll have to read your books and papers . . . If Dark energy plays a significant role in biological self-organization can this dark energy be equated to the subtle energies of the contemplative sciences? I just need to take the time to read some of your works.

◘Fractality◘ said...

Matti:

If there are no conscious entities, intentional agents, what about the implications of the self-hierarchy that you have addressed?

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Wes Hansen:

Thank you for nice questions. First an answer to the question about zero energy ontology (ZEO).

a) ZEO was forced by the construction of quantum TGD. ZEO states are zero energy states identified
as pairs of zero energy states consisting of pairs of positive and negative energy parts having opposite net quantum numbers. Zero energy state generalizes the event of positive energy ontology consisting of pair of initial and final state. ZEO is consistent with crossing symmetry of QFT. Positive and negative parts of energy states are assumed to be localized to opposite light-like boundaries of CD xCP_2, causal diamond CD is intersection of future and past directed light-cones (4-D rotational pyramid). CDs form a fractal hierarchy of CDs within CDs: size scales come as integer multiples of CP_2 size scale (assumption).

b) ZEO has several motivations. Here some of them.

*I want conformal invariance of the 3-D light-cone boundary delta M^4_+/- (boundaries of CD) and associated sympletic invariance as infinite-D symmetries giving hope about the geometric existence of world of classical worlds (WCW).

*I want number theoretical universality: in other words I want to speak abot quantum states in all number fields and even transitions between quantum states in real and various p-adic sectors. The only manner to achieve this is to assume xero energy states: zero as well as unity are common to all number fields. Also rationals so that rational physics can be said to be in the intersection of all number fields: real and p-adic. p-Adic numbers fields are assumed to provide correlates for cognition.

As a matter fact, I assing living matter to this intersection of real and p-adic world: intersection of mind and matter. One good reason for this is that number theoretic entropies are defined for rational entangelement probabilities and can be negative so that they correspond to information. This leads to the notion of negentropic entanglement characterizing living matter. Superposition of pairs in entangled state would provide a representation for the instances of a rule, abstraction as conscious experience. Metabolic energy would carry or make possible generation of negentropic entanglement.

*ZEO allows maximally flexible ontology: any state is reached from vacuum so that maximal freedom of free will is possible. In positive energy ontology of classical physics only single solution of field equations is realized so that theories become untestable. In quantum mechanical positive energy ontology conservation laws allow only the states with fixed total conserved quantum numbers (for entire universe this condition is of course somewhat poorly defined).

I will answer consciousness related questions in separate response.

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Wes Hansen:

I try to answe to the consciousness and dark matter related questions.

1. Consciousness

Consciousness - or rather awareness - exists in all length scales and time scales. Even elementary
particle have rudimentary awareness and even cognitive representations about themselvs realized in terms of p-adic space-time sheets

a) In ZEO occur state function reduction occurs alternately for the two boundaries of CD carrying positive and negative energy parts of the state. When state function reduction occurs at lower boundary, it induces a superposition of states with well defined single particle quantum numbers and particle number at the upper boundary. This state is like the final state of particle reaction before measurement inducing state function reduction. The next state function reducing having any effect must take place at upper boundary. The conscious time evolution is like a pendulum: reduction at lower boundary, reduction at upper boundary, reduction at lower boundary,..... This has very interesting implications for the notion of time: subjective time corresponds to this sequence.

b) Zero energy states corresponds to solutions of classical fields equations, entire time evolutions. Quantum jump does not spoil the determinism of single time evolution since entire evolution is replaced with a new one: both past and future. Zero energy states correspond to modes of WCW spinor fields in ZEO and are solutions of WCW Dirac equation. The solutions of classical field equations correspond at space-time level to space-time surfaces inside CDs: preferred extremals of Kahler action analogous to Bohr orbits. Second quantized induced spinor fields are also involved and its modes are solutions of what I call modified Dirac equation: these make possible to provide WCW with spinor structure and speak about WCW spinor fields.

c) Objective reality is replaced with multitude of realities identified as modes of WCW spinor fields: quantum superpositions of preferred extremals of Kahler action roughly. There is no "real reality" behind these mathematical objects. These are not needed if one assumes that consciousness is in the quantum jumps between these modes. Hence there is no theory-reality dichotomy: theory (WCW spinor field) about reality is the reality.

2. Dark matter

Dark matter to be distinguished from dark matter (phases with non-standard value of Planck constant) and also dark energy identified as Kahler magnetic energy assignable to flux tube would play star role in biology. The subtle energies - about which I cannot say much - might well relate to the dark matter and dark energy. Magnetic bodies and dark matter at them would be the new element in biology forcing to give up the belief that we are organisms are completely separate units and consciousness is localized in brain.

Matti Pitkanen said...


To Fractality:

Thank you for a good teaser;-). This relates to the definition of self.

I defined originally self as a "fusion" of quantum jumps giving rise to what we call flow of consciousness. The analogy at the level of physics would be formation of bound states of particles to form higher level particles.

This is actually much more than analogy: the space-time correlates for the self hierarhcy are space-time sheets containing smaller space-time sheets containing... Adding one still bigger space-time sheet one obtains a state at a higher level of hierarchy. This hierarchy is realized also for quantum states.

Few years ago I realized that it might be possible to get rid of the notion of self as independent notion: quantum jumps would form a hierarchy and quantum jump=self identification would become natural.

One can of course argue that the idea about myself as a moment of consciousness at some level of hierarchy does not look sensical. How this conforms with the fact that I experience a flow of subjective time.

I do not claim to understand how the experience about conscious flow of subjective time emerges. I however believe that the existence of subselves identified as mental images and quantum jumps for them create the sensation about flow of time. My moment of consciousness has this fractal structure of mental images having mental images having ... and this implies that I experience it as entire life cycle.


Strictly speaking self hierarchy means only the existence of conscious experiences with fractal structure. Conscious experience with contents assignable to CD contains components with contents assignable to its sub-CDs , which contain.... This a statement only about contents of conscious experiences.

The illusory introduction of intentional agent as the locus of sensory input can be seen as a practical convention making it possible to speak about consciousness using our everyday language.
"I wrote a response to a blog comment" is much more practical than "There was a consciousness experience with the content that "I" wrote a response to a blog comment".

◘Fractality◘ said...

Matti:

Tremendous thanks for the clarifications.

They would seem to reflect the notion that there ARE selves but these selves are temporally-defined and thus, aren't STATIC entities.

Moment of consciousness as .1 second derived from electron time scale is something of great interest to me.

We tend to think of long-term planning and goals as most conducive to maximal evolutionary potential. HOWEVER, I submit that living moment to moment in electron time scale allows one to be fully-engaged in environment and thus, maximal information is obtained...all energies are entangled with environment. One could argue this is what we have evolved to do.

"Going with the flow..."

Flow now takes meaning as flow of consciousness. Uninterrupted consciousness; mental images are allowed to emerge and decay; greater awareness results!







Matti Pitkanen said...


To Fractality:


Yes. Strictly speaking one cannot say that some system is conscious - consciousness is after all a property of material system, quantum state. The contents of consciousness, something between the universes before and after quantum jumps and not localizable to any geometric realm, is about some system. This is only thing that one can say.

.1 seconds is one particular time scale of consciousness and correspondence to the geometric time scale of regions about which sensory mental images contain information. What is remarkable that this time scale correponds to that for CDs assignable to electrons.

There are also longer time scales: increase the effective Planck constant of electron by factor n and the time scale of mental image increases by a factor n. For EEG photons to be dark photons with energy above thermal energy one needs Planck constant of order 2^(44) . This scales up .1 seconds to much longer time scale.Something like 10^12 seconds which means something like 10^5 years!

Flow states and meditative states might correspond to large hbar consciousness. This would be very natural. Time scale of CDs increases and one can even remember earlier lives and see to the future.
It is quite possible that cells and neurons can be characterized by evolutionary level defined by the hbar associated with their personal magnetic body.

Meditation and similar practices could induce phase transitions gradually increasing the hbar of your neurons. Admittedly optimistic vision;-).



Ulla said...

Flow states and meditation is a connection to a bigger CD diamond? You come there with a question, that opens up a small window, and the smallness of the window is a problem. It opens up for all kinds of misinterpretations, due to distorted old frame, in the presens.

I have been thinking of consciousness as a reason. But maybe it can be excluded totally? How would a higher hbar work at neuronal level?

Living systems are creations of time, or selves?

Santeri Satama said...

Test your self-compassion level:
http://www.self-compassion.org/test-your-self-compassion-level.html

Note that this is NOT a personality test. Of course, as we are used to compare ourselves with others, we can start from thinking, that if I score high on self-compassion level, I'm better than others, whoopee, suck that suckers! Or if I score low, I'm just lowly worm with no self-worth and no worth as human being, so I'll go buy more depression pills from Big Pharma or a gun to shoot my self-hating brains out...

We can let go of that thought, and just take the test as discussion with ourselves, about our current state of mind and habitual attitudes. It's just a test of me with myself at this moment. Taking the test hour or day or week later, I can and may answer differently. This is not my personality, just my current state of mind and how I self-reflect at this moment.

Couple more links:

Emory university Cognitive-Based Compassion Training:
http://tibet.emory.edu/research/index.html

Meditations, first that google popped up:
http://www.mindfulselfcompassion.org/meditations_downloads.php

Santeri Satama said...

A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1301.1069v1.pdf

Matti Pitkanen said...


There were a couple of blog postings about the result of the poll. Lubos lost his nerve because everyone did not agree with him that Copenhagen interpretation is the only possible one.

Anonymous said...

Dear Matti,
I explain some of my imagination. please see there is any wrong imagination between them. i want to know can i imagine those that are very trivial for you. :)

The projection of space-like 3-surface of M4*Cp2 to M4 is space-like 3-surface too but the projection of light like 3-surfaces(X_l3) to M4 is partonic 2-surface.
when i am touching an object in really i am touching partonic 2-surface and light is propagating from the partonic 2-surface to my eyes.
projection of X4(X_l3) to M4 is M2*E2. E2 is the same as partonic 2-surface but M2 is in the direction of propagation of light.


I have a problem for imagination. when i want imagine these things, M4 fills all of my content of imagination and there will not be any room for imagination of CP2 or wormhole throat;-) if i want to imagine space-time as 2-surface glued to bigger space-time by wormhole throat, partonic surface in the picture is forbidden because it is 0-dimension in this picture!

Matti Pitkanen said...


Thank you for questions. They are extremely useful since we get gradually rid of mis-interpretations. I have the feeling that a lot of progress in this respect has taken place.

[Hamed] The projection of space-like 3-surface of M4*Cp2 to M4 is space-like 3-surface too but the projection of light like 3-surfaces(X_l3) to M4 is
partonic 2-surface.

[MP] I would not say this. I try my best to distinguish between partonic 2-surfaces X^2 and light-like 3-surfaces as their light-like orbits X^3. I also try to mention that the signature of induced metric changes at X^3. I however probably forget to make the distinction clear always

*What is the dimension of the projection of light-like 3-surface X^3 to M^4? Is it 3-D in general. I am not sure. If so it would have have metric signature 1,-1,-1. In any case, wormhole throat has 3-D CP_2 projection since wormhole contact has 4-D CP_2 projection.

*Partonic two-surface X^2 is defined as the intersection of light-iike 3-surface X^3 with either light-like boundary of CDxCP_2. This is why its dimension is lower.

*One could of course *define* the projection of X^3 to partonic surface by projecting along light-like curves to the partonic 2-surface at its end. This kind of projection actually appears in some construction. This projection would allow to map the points of the partonic 2-surfaces at the ends of generalize line of Feynman diagram to each other in 1-1 manner.


[Hamed] When i am touching an object in really i am touching partonic 2-surface and
light is propagating from the partonic 2-surface to my eyes.

[MP] This could be a simplified description for the process.

[Hamed] Projection of X4(X_l3) to M4 is M2*E2. E2 is the same as partonic 2-surface
but M2 is in the direction of propagation of light.

[MP] I agree if you mean M^4=M^2xE^2 and we are talking about preferred extremals with 4-D M^4 projection and therefore Minkowskian signature. Partonic 2-surface is something different from E^2.

Note that simplest string like objects X^2xY^2 subset M^4xCP_2 have M^2 as M^4 projection: I am not sure whether string like objects are limiting case of preferred extremals but not preferred extremals. In this case E^2 is not however partonic 2-surface.

[Hamed] I have a problem for imagination. when i want imagine these things, M4 fills all of my content of imagination and there will not be any room for
imagination of CP2 or wormhole throat;-) if i want to imagine space-time as 2-surface glued to bigger space-time by wormhole throat, partonic surface
in the picture is forbidden because it is 0-dimension in this picture!

[MP] Imagination is indispensable tool if one wants to understand TGD. Only in this manner one can eventually develop formalism relying on formulas. One should learn to generalize from lower-dimensional visual mental images.

Two-dimensional visualizations tell a lot. Even 3-dimensional visualizations are possible and allow to imagine also partonic 2-surfaces: not as holes of boundaries but as boundaries where 4-metric changes signature (wormhole throats). To this you can add Kahler magnetic flux tubes and it is not terribly difficult to imagine wormhole contacts and the wormhole throats at their ends with a distance about 10^4 Planck lengths.

Matti Pitkanen said...


Dear Hamed,

still about imagination.

I remember that when I heard for the first time the definition of manifold, I regarded it as boringly trivial. Now, when I have been working with the notion of p-adic manifold, I have realized its beauty via the visualization. One has something about which one has chart leafs and chart leafs contain common regions which must be mapped to each other by chart maps to achieve consistency.

In p-adic context the first question is simple: should one use p-adic chart leafs or real ones. The obvious first guess would be "p-adic" but it leads to difficulties: p-adic open balls are either disjoint or nested and the intersection of p-adic balls does not make sense if they are open balls. Furthermore, single point is open ball p-adically so that the manifold decomposes to a dust! Total disconnectedness.

The second option would use real chart leafs. After realizing this I also realized that I have been working from the beginning with the problem whether I should map p-adic space-time surfaces to real ones by what I call canonical identification. A possible interpretation would be in terms of cognitive maps. p-Adic space-time surfaces would be "thought bubbles" and indeed define "maps" of the real world. This option turned out to work really nicely.

Also finite measurement resolution emerges unavoidably: I can have only canonical identification for subset of rational points for a preferred extremal. At the other side one must complete the canonical image of this set to a preferred extremal.
Thought bubbles do not represent the material world completely faithfully as we know!;-)

A further nice outcome is that also p-adic integration can be defined rigorously by doing the integration for the real canonical image and algebraically continuing the result to the p-adic side.
This allows to generalize the notion of differential form and one can indeed speak rigorously about p-adic variants of metric and induced gauge fields.



Unknown said...
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bradmaddox said...
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bradmaddox said...
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Matti Pitkanen said...



Apologies. This mad Brad maddox alas hussain ladak alias.. has decided to fill my blog with trash. He sends something every morning.

bradmaddox said...
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Matti Pitkanen said...


I am really sorry for this mad Brad maddox alias hussain ladak alias. This is already third comment. This fellow must be very unhappy and is badly in need of professional help.

Unknown said...
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Matti Pitkanen said...


Again sorry for this mad Brad with many names. It is incredible how much trouble this kind of village fools can cause in web.

Unknown said...
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