Peter Woit wrote about the debate - not so much about the contents of the book - and regarded the book boring and dull. He sees this book as an end for multiverse mania: bad philosophy and bad physics. I tried to get an idea about what Krauss really says but failed: Woit's posting concentrates on the emotional side (the more negative the better;-)) as blog posting must do to maximize the number of readers.
Peter Woit wrote also a second posting about the same theme. It was about Jim Holt's book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story. Peter Woit found the book brilliant but again it remained unclear to me what Jim Holt really said!
Sean Carroll has a posting about the book talking more about the contents of the book. This posting was much more informative: not just anecdotes and names but an attempt to analyze what is involved.
In the following I will not consider the question "Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing" since I regard it as pseudo question. The very fact that the question is made implies that something - the person who poses the question - exists. One could of course define "nothing" as vacuum state as physicists might do but with this definition the meaning of question changes completely from what it is for philosophers. Instead, I will consider the notion of existence from physics point of view and try to show how non-trivial implications the attempt to define this notion more precisely has.
What do we mean with "existence"?
The first challenge is to give meaning for the question "Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing". This process of giving meaning is of course highly subjective and I will discuss only my own approach. To my opinion the first step is to ask "What existence is?". Is there only single kind of existence or does existence come in several flavors? Indeed, several variants of existence seem to be possible. Material objects, mathematical structures, theories, conscious experiences, etc... It is difficult to see them as members of same category of existence.
This question was not made by Sean Carroll ,who equated all kinds of existence with material existence - irrespective of whether they become manifest as a reading in scale, as mathematical formulas, or via emotional expressions. Carroll did not notice that already this assumption might lead to astray. Carroll did the same as most mainstream physicists would do and I am afraid that also Krauss makes the same error. I dare hope that philosophers criticizing Krauss have avoided this mistake: at least they made clear what they thought about the deph of philosophical thinking of physicists of this century.
Why Carroll might have done something very stupid?
- The first point is that this vision- known as materialism in philosophy - suffers from serious difficulties. The basic implication is that consciousness is reduced to physical existence. Free will is only an illusion, all our intentions are illusions, ethics is illusion and moral rules rely on illusion. Everything was dictated in Big Bang at least in the statistical sense. Perhaps we should think twice before accepting this view.
- Second point is that that one ends up with heavy difficulties in physics itself: quantum measurement theory is the black sheep of physics and it is not tactful to talk about quantum measurement theory in the coffee table of physicists. The problem is simply that that the non-determinism of state function reduction - necessary for the interpretation of experiments in Copenhagen interpretation - is in conflict with the determinism of Schrödinger equation. The basic problem does not disappear for other interpretations. How it is possible that the world is both deterministic and deterministic at the same time? There seems to be two causalities: could they relate to two different notions of time? Could the times for Schrödiner equation and state function reduction be different?
I have just demonstrated that when one speaks about ontology, sooner or later begin to talk about time. This is unavoidable. As inhabitants of everyday world we of course know that the experienced time is not same as the geometric time of physicists. But as professional physicists we have been painfully conditioned to identify these two times. Also Carroll as a physics professor makes this identification - and does not even realize what he is doing - and starts to speak about time evolution as Hamiltononian unitary evolution without a single world about the problems of quantum measurement theory.
With this background I am ready to state what the permanent readers of the blog could do themselves. In TGD Universe the notion of existence becomes much more many-faceted thing as in the usual ultranaive approach of materialistic physicist. There are many levels of ontology.
- Basic division is to "physical"/"objective" existence and conscious existence. Physical states identified as their mathematial representations ("identified" is important!: I will discuss this later) correspond the "objective" existence. Physical states generalize the solutions of Schrödinger equations: they are not counterparts for time=constant snapshots of time evolutions but counterparts for entire time evolutions. Quantum jumps take between these so that state function reduction does not imply failure of determinism and one avoids the basic paradox. This however implies that one must assign subjective time to the quantum jumps and geometric time to the counterparts of evolution of Schrödinger equation. There are two times.
In this framework the talk about the beginning of the Universe and what was before the Big Bang becomes nonsense. One can speak about boundaries of space-time surfaces but they have little to do with the beginning and end which are notions natural in the case of experienced time.
- One can divide the objective existence into two sub-categories. Quantum existence (quantum states as mathematical objects) and classical existence having space-time surfaces as its mathematical representation. Classical determimism fails in its standard form but generalizes, and classical physics ceases to be an approximation and becomes exact part of quantum theory as Bohr orbitology implies by General Coordinate Invariance alone. We have ended up with tripartimism instead of monistic materialism.
- One can divide the geometric existence on sub-existences based on ordinary physics obeying real topology and various p-adic physics obeying p-adic topology. p-Adic space-time sheets serve as space-time correlates for cognition and intentionality whereas real space-time sheets are correlates for what we call matter.
- Zero energy ontology (ZEO) represents also a new element. Physical states are replaced with zero energy states formed by pairs of positive and negative energy states at the boundaries of causal diamond (CD) and correspond in the standard ontology to physical events formed by pairs of initial and final states. Conservations laws hold true only in the scale characterizing given CD. Inside given CD classical conservation laws are exact. This allows to understand why the failure of classical conservation in cosmic scales is consistent with Poincare invariance.
In this framework Schrödinger equation is only a starting point from which one generalizes. The notion of Hamiltonian evolution seen by Carroll as something very deep is not natural in relativistic context and becomes non-sensical in p-adic context. Only the initial and final states of evolution defining the zero energy state are relevant in accordance with strong form of holography. U-matrix, M-matrix and S-matrix become the key notions in ZEO.
- A very important point is that there is no need to distinguish between physical objects and their mathematical description (as quantum states in Hilbert space of some short). Physical object is its mathematical description. This allows to circumvent the question "But what about theories: do also theories exist physically or in some other sense?". Quantum state is theory about physical state and physicist and mathematician exists in quantum jumps between them. Physical worlds define the Platonia of the mathematician and conscious existence is hopping around in this Platonia: from zero energy state to a new one. And ZEO allows all possible jumps! Could physicist or mathematician wish anything better;-)!
This list of items shows how dramatically the situation changes when one realizes that the materialistic dogma is just an assumption and in conflict with what we have known experimentally for almost century.
Could physical existence be unique?
The identification of physical (or "objective") existence as mathematical existence raises the question whether physics could be unique from the requirement that the mathematical description with which it is identical exists. In finite-dimensional case this is certainly not the case. Given finite-D manifold allows infinite number of different geometries. In infinite-dimensional case the situation changes dramatically. One possible additional condition is that the physics in question is maximally rich in structure besides existing mathematically! Quantum criticality has been my own phrasing for this principle and the motivation comes that at criticality long range fluctuations set on and the system has fractal structure and is indeed extremely richly structured.
This does not yet say much about what are the basic objects of this possibly existing infinite-dimensional space. One can however generalize Einstein's "Classical physics as space-time geometry" program to "Quantum physics as infinite dimensional geometry of world of classical worlds (WCW)" program. Classical worlds are identified as space-time surfaces since also the finite-dimensional classical version of the program must be realized. What is new is "surface": Einstein did not consider space-time as a surface but as an abstract 4-manifold and this led to the failure of the geometrization program. Sub-manifold geometry is however much richer than manifold geometry and gives excellent hopes about the geometrization of electro-weak and color interactions besides gravitation.
If one assumes that space-time as basic objects are surfaces of some dimension in some higher-dimensional space, one can ask whether it is possible for WCW to have a geometry. If one requires geometrization of quantum physics, this geometry must be Kähler. This is a highly non-trivial condition. The simplest spaces of this kind are loop spaces relating closely to string models: their Kähler geometry is unique from the existence of Riemann connection. This geometry has also maximal possible symmetries defined by Kac-Moody algebra, which looks very physical. The mere mathematical existence implies maximal symmetries and maximally beatiful world!
Loops are 1-dimensional but for higher-dimensional objects the mathematical constrains are much more stringent as the divergence difficulties of QFTs have painfully taught us. General Coordinate Invariance emerges as an additional powerful constraint and symmetries related to conformal symmetry generalizing from 2-D case to symmetries of 3-D light-like surfaces turns out to be the key to the construction. The requirement of maximal symmetry realized by conformal invariance leads to correct space-time dimension and also dictates that imbedding space has M4× S decomposition with light-cone boundaries also possess huge conformal symmetries giving rise to additional infinite-D symmetries.
There are excellent reasons to believe that WCW geometry is unique. The existence would be guaranteed by a reduction to generalized number theory: M4× CP2 forced by standard model symmetries becomes the unique choice if one requires that classical number fields are essential part of the theory. "Physics as infinite-D geometry" and "Physics as Generalized Number Theory" would be the basic principles and would imply consistency with standard model symmetries.
56 comments:
This is about as close as experiment gets to gamma-ray bursts, as we now see from the heart of the universe, and its a ZEO scenario with magnetic dynamics: http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0603143.
Anything stringy would then resemble a "surface tension" in the "skin depth", which is a more than plausible prospect.
I suspect that atoms are intricately patterned in this way, which guises them as alchemical boids that go "quark" in the dead of night, but that's a surreal imagining. And I'm just passing through here.
http://jqi.umd.edu/news/latest/200-synthetic-magnetism-achieved-by-optical-methods-in-ultracold-atoms.html
Matti:
If DNA is topological quantum computer, all actions precede through it?
Quantum computing like activities are possible always when to molecules or even larger objects are connected by flux tubes. This information processing is universal. DNA-lipid layer system would be however suitable just for this purpose. Minimal function would be realization of memory as braiding patters updated by flows for molecules.
Dear Matti,
Thanks for the posting that would be Controversial for me.
The sentences like “Physical worlds define the Platonic of the mathematician” are lead to some beauty direction to thinking. Because in this view if i study geometry or algebra in a very abstracted manner, I can think that I am studying the physical world, in really!!! But we know that mathematics is very wide and it contains very abstracted theorems in branches of it and is progressing year by year. then For understanding the physical world in a precise manner one should learn all of the mathematics!?
For example for me it shoud be very interesting if some mathematical spaces like Lp spaces exist physically!( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lp_space) they are spaces that one Deals with p-norm instead of 2-norm.
or in number theory I think this view lead to some very deep understanding of physics if one think that what is physical meaning of all of 10 Musean hypernumbers: seditions, w , p , q , m , … . also nu number as unifying concept to allow to transition between all the hypernumber types. And sigma as the creator of axis. And also Antinumbers. Relation between the ten level of hypernumbers are very interesting for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musean_hypernumber.
Dear Hamed,
Interesting question. This idea about Platonia as physical world looks controversial. At first it seems to be in conflict with the vision that the laws of physics are unique, that standard model symmetries are somehow very special, etc..
The point is however that standard model symmetries would be symmetries of mathematics itself! Octonions have SU(3) as automorphism group for instance and CP_2 is coset space SU(3)/SU(2) having interpretation as space of quaternionic planes of octonionic space at given point.
Second point is that physics should be like Turing machine. It should be able to emulate all possible physics which are internally consistent. Finite measurement resolution - if representable quite generally as effective gauge symmetry - would allow to emulate extremely general gauge symmetric theories.
One can also worry about higher dimensional spaces if 8-D space is the imbedding space dimensions. The world of classical worlds is however infinite-D and allows as sub-manifolds finite-D spaces of arbitrary dimension. Also unions of N disjoint n-sub-manifolds are effective N*n-dimensional locally: standard wave-mechanical description of N-particle system indeed uses N*3-D configuration space.
If the number theoretical Brahman=Atman based on the generalization of real number introducing infinite number of real units as ratios of infinite integers is accepted, space-time point becomes infinitely rich structured and WCW might allow realization as M^4xCP_2 which more general definition of space-time point.
There is also the proposal about fractal hierarchy in which arithmetics with + and * are replaced with direct sum and tensor product for Hilbert spaces. Replacing points of Hilbert spaces with Hilbert spaces one obtains hierarchy very similar to infinite primes and also now interpretation in terms of endless second quantization might make sense.
Infinite-dimensionality poses very very strong constraints on mathematical structures: Kahler metric in loop spaces is unique. Infinite-dimensionality would bring in the laws of physics! One might hope that this conditions poses strong enough conditions on the allowed mathematics: for instance, all finite-D structures would be such that they can be induced from infinite-D structures. Mathematicians talk about classifying spaces: probably this is the same basic idea.
It is certainly frustrating to realize how little individual can learn from mathematics during lifetime. I believe that the correct guideline is that mathematics that one learns or perhaps even creates must naturally emerge from applications to real world problems - in my case physics. When I was younger I used to make visits to math library and walk between book shelves with the idea that I might find some miraculous cure to my mathematical problems with TGD. I left the library in a rather depressed mood!;-).
L^p spaces for p=2 are most natural from the point of view of physics. Bilinearity means linearity and quantum superposition would be lost for p different from 2. In infinite-D context p=2 is natural.
Thanks. I want to summarize your argument on proofing that “theory is the same as physical world” and “uniqueness of mathematical structures” in the follow, if I misunderstood it please guide me:
1-Mathematical structures classify into two subcategories:
Some of them like infinite dimensionality are essential for physical world and it is not possible to have a world without these structures. These mathematical structures are very rich.
2-these mathematical structures poses very strong constraints on other mathematical structures. So that because of these mathematical structures are unique therefore the other mathematical structures are unique too.
3-existence of other mathematical structures is very entanglement with these mathematical structures.
4-therefore Essentiality of these mathematical structures for physical world leads to Essentiality of other mathematical structures under the constraints imposed to them.
Hence Husserl's Esswnces as idealizations at infinity. And continuum mechanics tries to follow, but is now wanting a Natural Philosophy.
A fresh leads on the Kahler extremals problem:
http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0401320
To me, tori which parse as Peirce ternary relations allow the mind to grasp physical dynamics, and here to construct (cognitively) Einsteinian 4-realism. This is not phenomenology of consciousness.
Also:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.4177: Eintein-Maxwell conformals;
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.0682: Calabi energies;
http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0409433: necessary conditions!!
To Hamed:
More or less like this. Note however that finite-D induced structures are very rich: one can imbed probably any finite-D geometry to infinite-D symmetric space as surface! Only infinite-D structures are highly unique. Infinite-D mathematical existence is extremely tricky notion as perturbative quantum field theorists have demonstrated with huge amount of sweat and tears.
Fundamental structures are infinite-D and highly unique: Kahler metric is fundamental concept, and its existence relies on maximal symmetries realized a superconformal symmetries characteristic for 3-D ligh-like objects, classical number fields, real and p-adic number fields.
They induce the remaining structures. In particular finite-D structures in the sense of "emulation". Mathematics does not construct n-dimensional spaces for us but only emulates it using formulas.
This is of course only a dream of physicist. Today physicists do not spend enough time to day dreaming;-).
Matti:
Does ZEO imply that the Universe won't extinguish itself (heat death) at some point?
Living beings, civilizations, gods, are all dissipative systems - islands of negentropy in a sea of chaos.
The more complex a phenomenon, the more energy it must consume to maintain its identity, and thus it creates more disorder?
Does ZEO modify any of that?
Dear Fractality:
Thank you for a good question.
Universe suffering a heat death is an outcome of theoretical thinking taken to extreme without taking into account the possibility that the basic assumptions behind second law might not hold true at the limit of vanishing temperature. To me it is amusing that so many physicists take heat death so seriously.
The essential assumption is that quantum coherence in scales considered does not play any role. At ultralow temperatures however quantum coherence becomes important even in standard physics: consider only superfluidity and super conductivity.
You mentioned metabolic energy. This is a good point. The amount of metabolic energy needed depends on external temperature. Metabolic energy quantum in living matter is about same order of magnitude as physiological temperature. At very low temperatures the needed metabolic energy quantum would be very small.
TGD predicts hierarchy of universal metabolic energy quanta identifiable as increments of zero point kinetic energies in the transfer between space-time sheet corresponding to different values of p-adic prime p=about 2^k. There is evidence for this kind of quanta in visible, UV, and IR as unidentified spectral lines usually believed to be molecular spectral lines. ATP-ADP would have same mechanism as a core element.
The new physics elements are also present and bring something new into the picture.
*ZEO predicts infinite hierarchy of CDs (serving as correlates of selves!). The larger the CD associated with mental images the long the time scale of memory recall and planned action for that subself. Electron corresponds to .1 seconds assignable to sensory mental images.
*Hierarchy of Planck constants allowing macroscopic quantum phases. Even at higher temperatures macroscopic quantum phases beceme possible.
* Number theoretic entropy allowing generation of the islands of negentropy. This modifies the view about second law dramatically.
In standard physics there are only only islands of small entropy: In TGD Universe (according to pessimist) living matter can pollute environment actively to become more negentropic as we indeed seem to do;-)!.
"Second point is that that one ends up with heavy difficulties in physics itself: quantum measurement theory is the black sheep of physics and it is not tactful to talk about quantum measurement theory in the coffee table of physicists. The problem is simply that that the non-determinism of state function reduction - necessary for the interpretation of experiments in Copenhagen interpretation - is in conflict with the determinism of Schrödinger equation. The basic problem does not disappear for other interpretations. How it is possible that the world is both deterministic and deterministic at the same time? There seems to be two causalities: could they relate to two different notions of time? Could the times for Schrödiner equation and state function reduction be different?"
To my limited understanding, and to give credit where credit is due, Bohm had deep comprehension of this problem and this basic problem indeed disappears in Bohm's interpretation of rewriting Schrödingers equation as quantum potential: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_potential.
This implies other causality which depends only from shape and not from strength and size and which Bohm calls 'active information', which you define as negentropic entanglement.
To Santeri:
Here I must disagree. We really observe state function reductions and stationary states. Reductions are inconsistent with the determinism of Schrodinger equation in standard ontology and we must find interpretation for the situation. Bohm's theory tries to keep quantum world deterministic.
Occam's razor does not favor Bohm's theory (BT).
*BT is hidden variable theory.
*Both classical orbits and evolutions of wave functions are assumed.
*BT brings in hypothetical hydrodynamic flow from which some points are selected.
*BT makes also the ad hoc assumption of quantum non-equilibrium stating that Born rule does not hold true in quantum non-equilbrium. What probability density then is? This remains unclear to me! Here presumably the unidentified hidden variable enter into the game. It is argued that this assumption allows to obtain wave function collapse from a theory which is deterministic. I cannot swallow this.
Bohm's theory as also serious mathematical problems.
*It is argued that the classical orbits are given by the guiding equation so that they depend on wave function. I do not see how this description could give rise to classical mechanics where orbits do not depend on wave function.
*The addition of particles does not affect guiding wave - a very strange feature which I find very difficult to accept.
*A further problem is that the theory makes mathematically sense only in wave-mechanics context. In QFT -in particular for fermions- the equations defining hydrodynamical flow do not make sense. Already for bosonic QFT the analogs of Schrodinger equation makes sense only formally due to the extreme nonlinearity.
*There are also serious problems with relativity.
Bohm's notion of active information has counterpart in TGD as negentropic entanglement but to me Bohm's wave mechanics looks very ugly attempt to do quantum theory without giving up the ontology of classical mechanics.
Comments of Sarfatti:#1 Our past and future cosmic horizons are computers. (He use the Wheeler Pic] If A is the area of a horizon it has A/4Lp^2 QUBITS where Lp^2 = hG/c^3 ~ 10^-66 cm^2.The area of our future horizon is about 10^56 cm^2.
http://www.picknettprince.com/books/forbiddenuniverse/U&eye.jpg
#2 The world of 3D matter sandwiched between our two observer-dependent 2D cosmic horizons are EMANATIONS so to speak, i.e. hologram images. The horizons are the hardware of the anima mundi and the software is Hawking;s "Mind of God" - see last pages of "A Brief History of Time."
This sounds quite TGDish?
Matti, I believe everyone agrees that Bohm's interpretation is incomplete and your theory - building on also Bohm's work and philosophical ideas whether consciously or unconsciously - is more advanced. But calling BT deterministic does not do it justice.
"When several particles are treated by the causal interpretation then, in addition to the conventional conventional classical potential that acts between them, there is a quantum potential which now depends on all the particles. Most important this potential does not fall of with the distance between particles, so that even distant particles can be strongly connected." (SOC p. 99)
So in BT particles do affect (universal) guiding wave, but holistically and non-locally or in other words, if I understand correctly, on the level of infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.
Main motive for preserving ontology of classical mechanics for Bohm was continuum and dialogue between theories and interpretations (especially Einstein and Bohr) in order to avoid fragmentation and communication breakdowns which hinder scientific creativity, and in that same spirit I have the following question: Bohm's notion of quantum potential and active information seems related not only your negentropic entanglement (and negentropy maximation) but also deeply connected to quantum mathematics of Hilbert spaces. This may be extremely naive miscomprehension or deep question, you decide, but isn't the whole notion and structure of quantum math as Hilbert spaces inside points of Hilbert spaces dependent from or a manifestation of negentropic entanglement?
Or in less abstract language, isn't the ultimate foundation of all abstract mathematical structures love?
To Santeri:
TGD does not build on Bohm's work: neither consciously nor sub-consciously. TGD:s startings points and philosophy are very different.
1) Bohm tries to keep physics deterministic: this is the basic idea of the whole approach and was more natural at the time when theory was proposed. I admit that I simply do not understand how state function reduction is thought to result from the theory: the notion of quantum non-equilibrium and hidden variables are thought to make this possible. But these notions are hopelessly misty.
In TGD deterministic classical physics in sense of generalized Bohr orbits becomes exact part of quantum theory: this gives rise to strong form of holography too. This does not however mean that classical time evolutions would become real as in Bohm's theory: one has quantum superpositions of classical Bohr orbits instead of single classical orbit. Only quantum ontology but with quantum classical correspondence.
In Bohm's theory the feedback from classical to quantum is lacking and this leads to non-sensical predictions. Sarfatti tried to get over this problem but did not get anywhere.
2) Bohm indeed tried to resolve Einstein-Bohr debate by trying to keep both classical physics and quantum physics but his attempt was a failure and led to a garden of branching paths so familiar to any working theoretician: a situation analogous to the landscape in string models.
*In TGD general coordinate invariance which together with symmetries of special relativity are key symmetries of the theory: in Bohm's theory one starts from Newtonian framework: wave mechanics. The difficulties are predictable.
3) Bohm hoped to understand state function reduction as a derived notion and tried to solve EB debate using single time and keeping the deterministic world view. Bohm would have proposed something different if theories of consciousness would have been fashion in his time;-).
*In TGD quantum jump, free will, and non-determinism are taken as facts, no attempt to reduce. Two times and two causalities: this is the solution of Einstein-Bohr debate.
Amusingly: all this reflects evolution of time concept: Newtonian time, time of special relativity, time of general relativity, and finally the realization that there are two times and two causalities. Plus huge number of other more or less weird proposals such as no time at all!
4) The notion of active information is attractive concept if one does not drown it to the mathematics of wave mechanics. In similar manner Orch OR was drowned to ad hoc formulas. Theoreticians should avoid formulas as long as possible(;--). But we have the illusion that formulas make it more scientific.
*In TGD NMP + negentropic entanglement realize the analog of active information. There is also analogy with Orch OR. I have talked about conscious information, attention, experience of understanding, rule as quantum superposition of its instances, realization ff sensory qualia, also love, etc... Many interpretations.
To Santeri:
About love. I must say that as an inhabitant of extremely cruel world of science (see some of the latest postings of Lubos or visit the comment section of Tommaso's blog to understand what I mean!;-) I find it very difficult to say the word "love", it seems to belong to some another spiritual plane;-).
I would not reduce love lego piece;-). Sounds too engineerish;-) One cannot give formula for love, mathematics cannot catch it: the core of K:s teachings (and all mystic teachings) is just this.
Quantum Math as such does not need negentropic entanglement but this notion seems to be possible to realize in terms of QM.
Matti:
"In standard physics there are only only islands of small entropy: In TGD Universe (according to pessimist) living matter can pollute environment actively to become more negentropic as we indeed seem to do;-)!.
Are computers part of this negentropic pollution?
Dear Matti,
Thanks for clarifications about Bohm theory.
some questions:
In M4*CP2 sometimes you speak about Dynamics of 3-surfaces and sometimes you speak about dynamics of space-time. I think when you speak about dynamics of 3-surfaces you dealt with geometric time and when you speak about dynamics of space-time you speak about subjective time. Isn’t it?
NMP define dynamic of space-time but the minimization of kahler action (something like minimal surface in string theory) defines dynamics of the 3-surface. Isn’t it?
But you wrote “Kahler action would define the fundamental dynamics for space-time surfaces”. it is contradiction with my understanding.?
If NMP define dynamic of space-time, is it essential to talk about dynamics of space-time surface in the level of classical TGD? Because it leads to confusion of the listener.
Basic ideas of TGD are very controversial in the view of current physics. So I should be very attentive when I explain them. Therefore I should explain TGD step by step to others and when I speak about a basic idea if it is possible I should try to don’t speak anything about other basic ideas.
When I explain space-time is a sub manifold in M4*CP2, is it possible to continue about geometrization of forces without explaining space-time sheets at first?(I think it is not possible!) Space-time sheets seem very fiction in the view of physicist. For avoiding this, I think that I should to explain essentiality of many space-time sheets.
I think that I can speak about geometrization of forces and space-time sheets without speaking about “TGD as a Poincare invariant theory of gravitation”. I can explain it after them. Isn’t it? Or it is essential to explain at first beside them?
In really I am thinking that what is best strategy to explain TGD step by step without confusion of the listener. That’s hard ;)
Ye, Hamed, that's hard :) I stopped at that place myself, but now I think I can proceed with the three-body problem (of Poincare) bringing in unsolvable infinity (Life?). After that the different spacetimes. Or...?
TGD is a knot^10 :D
Love as math seems very odd to me :) Love is about entanglement and continuum, math about discreateness, I think (except this quantum math?).
Maybe some drug would overbridge the gap (bring in more continuous coherence)? Love as White Light? The tiny little space inside, like a ZEO center (wormhole?) connecting to infinity? It is not dependent on any other as Lubos or Tommaso, it is about Self and choises.
Matti, in regard to the relation of negentropic entanglement and QM, to quote your own words:
"Negentropic entanglement might serve as a correlate for emotions like love and experience of understanding. The reduction of ordinary entanglement entropy to random final state implies second law at the level of ensemble. For the generation of negentropic entanglement the outcome of the reduction is not random: the prediction is that second law is not a universal truth holding true in all scales. Since number theoretic entropies are natural in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds, this suggests that life resides in this intersection. The existence effectively bound states with no binding energy might have important implications for the understanding the stability of basic bio-polymers and the key aspects of metabolism. A natural assumption is that self experiences expansion of consciousness as it entangles in this manner. Quite generally, an infinite self hierarchy with the entire Universe at the top is predicted."
"This leads to a vision about the role of bound state entanglement and negentropic entanglement in the generation of sensory qualia. Negentropic entanglement leads to a vision about cognition. Negentropically entangled state consisting of a superposition of pairs can be interpreted as a conscious abstraction or rule: negentropically entangled Schrödinger cat knows that it is better to keep the bottle closed. A connection with fuzzy qubits and quantum groups with negentropic entanglement is highly suggestive. The implications are highly non-trivial also for quantum computation, which allows three different variants in TGD context. The negentropic variant would correspond to conscious quantum computation like process."
and
"Maybe it would be useful to talk about consciousness only when one has negentropic entanglement: positive information, knowledge. Otherwise awareness.
I think that emotions are very high level consciousness unlike often thought. They provide summaries about the hole and it would be natural to assign the to negentropic fusions of a large number of mental images giving rise to stereo consciousness."
No doubt the creative consciouss experience of fusion of various mathematical ideas and forms into QM involved also deep intellectual and emotional pleasure. So to say that "QM as such does not need NE" or active information sounds like removing your self and universal self-consciousness of creative gnothi seauton from the process.
With Brahman-Atman identity as basis it should be quite obvious that QM is the number theoretical realization of the very old and well known metaphor of Indra's net, and the path you took to your realization to overcome the limitations of the set theory involved the consciouss and emotional aspects of negentropic entanglement you describe in the quotes above. QM as n:th degree of order that allows also more detailed description of NE does not mean that NE - the very process of becoming conscious of QM - could and should be reduced to QM alone. Rather, there is negentropic entanglement between the pair of QM and NE itself. That is, if we are supposed to take you and your work seriously (enough) ;).
To Santeri:
I want just to emphasize that there are several levels of existence and most problems result from erratically identifying these levels.
The level giving rise to conscious experience does not reduce to mathematics. The evolution of state of consciousness does not correspond to a solution of field equations. This is the whole point and I want to make this absolutely clear since it provides the solution to so many paradoxes.
In hidden variable theories one can argue that there are physical variables and those related to consciousness and non-determinism of volition is apparent since the dynamics of physical variables is that of shadow and only looks non-determistic. This was the dream of Sarfatti.
Probably also the vision of Bohm was that non-deterministic state function reduction could be understood as dynamics of a shadow. The selection rules of state function reduction makes the fulfillment of this dream highly implausible.
To Fractality: If we take the pessimistic option seriously computer could be seen as tools of this pollution.
Dynamics of "Shadow" in the Jungian sense?
The word "existence" comes from the Latin word existere meaning "to appear", "to arise", "to become", or "to be", but literally, it means "to stand out" (ex- being the Latin prefix for "out" added to the Latin verb stare, meaning "to stand").
So etymologically the word refers to process of actualizing (state function reduction) instead of potential or dynamis to actualize-exist. In Bohm's language explicate and implicate orders. Western metaphysics has been plagued by the idea 'substance'/'hypokeimenon', whether defined as particles, quantum fields or vacuums and considered these substance-stuffs "True-Existence" because they are considered something non-mutable time-invariable. Substance that can be defined, controlled and manipulated.
Then there is the mystery of Platonia-substance, substantive form of possible forms and it's dialectical relation with "no-thingness/-vacuum" of ZEO. And despite your denial philosophical connections to BT, I'm still under the impression that as in BT, the philosophical starting point of your theory is also what Whitehead calls organic realism instead the substance metaphysics of materialism.
It's very easy to get drawn into the overly analytic and fragmenting metaphysics of English language and scholastic philosophy and analytically define more and more levels of existence and substance. And to get entengled into the fighting mode of the science vs. philosophy, theory vs. theory etc. debates that emanate and radiate e.g. from the Krauss controvercy.
But we can both also speak Finnish and share and comprehend the unity of non-analytical/synthetic and etymologically more sound phenomenological existence in expressions like: havainnoidutaan, ilmennytään, todellistutaan, ollaan. Tunnetaan, nähdään ja kuullaan.
ory.
some questions:
To Hamed:
I already thought having answered but noticed that I was wrong. I attach my answers between the lines.
[Hamed] In M4*CP2 sometimes you speak about Dynamics of 3-surfaces and sometimes you speak about dynamics of space-time. I think when you speak about dynamics of 3-surfaces you dealt with geometric time and when you speak about dynamics of space-time you speak about subjective time. Isn’t it? NMP define dynamic of space-time but the minimization of kahler action (something like minimal surface in string theory) defines dynamics of the 3-surface. Isn’t it? But you wrote “Kahler action would define the fundamental dynamics for space-time surfaces”. it is contradiction with my understanding.?
[MP] Sorry. This is just loose language on my side. The strictly correct manner to speak is to assign dynamics to 3-surfaces. Space-time surfaces are "orbits" of 3-surfaces. I also often talk about space-time sheets when I should actually speak about 3-surfaces.
%%%%%%%
[Hamed] If NMP define dynamic of space-time, is it essential to talk about dynamics of space-time surface in the level of classical TGD? Because it leads to confusion of the listener.
[MP] NMP *does not define* dynamics of space-time!;-). It defines dynamics of consciousness and tells that the information gain in quantum jumps is maximized. NMP is mathematically analogous to second law (and implies it for ensembles) in that it tells only overall direction of dynamics but does not fix time evolution completely as action principles. Kahler action is the variational principle at space-time level: preferred extremals.
%%%%%%
To be continued....
To Hamed:
....Continuation.
[Hamed] Basic ideas of TGD are very controversial in the view of current physics. So I should be very attentive when I explain them. Therefore I should explain TGD step by step to others and when I speak about a basic idea if it is possible I should try to don’t speak anything about other basic ideas.
When I explain space-time is a sub manifold in M4*CP2, is it possible to continue about geometrization of forces without explaining space-time sheets at first?(I think it is not possible!).
Space-time sheets seem very fiction in the view of physicist. For avoiding this, I think that I should to explain essentiality of many space-time sheets.
[MP] Space-time sheets are just sub-manifolds which are *representable as graphs for maps from M^4 to CP_2*: QFT like limit of TGD! There are also other kinds of sub-manifolds: string like objects with 2-D M^4 projection, and CP_2 type extremals with 1-D light-like projection! These are not called space-time sheets.
You can take large number of space-time sheets representing asymptotic regions to various subsystems. They are small deformations of a canonical imbedded M^4 extremely near to each other. They touch each other here and there. This is just the many-sheeted space-time. The replacement of superposition of classical fields with superposition of their effects forces many-sheeted space-time in TGD. Particle touches several sheets and experiences corresponding forces. Nothing ad hoc!! Sorry for repeating this idea: it is so beautiful!;-)
*Multi-sheeted covering of imbedding space associated with the hierarchy of Planck constants is something different from many-sheeted space-time. I have tried to make this explicit as often as possible. Here one has effective covering of the imbedding space inducing multi-sheeted structure for space-time surface. There is a good argument that also this notion reduces to the basic dynamics of Kahler action. Normal derivatives of imbedding space coordinates as many-valued functions of canonical momentum densities leads to effective covering: this is a basic implication of extreme non-linearity of Kahler action which in turn forced the geometrization of quantum physics in terms of WCW geometry.
*These notions are not anything new and ad hoc but follow naturally from the basic assumptions. Even the (effective( hierarchy of Planck constants, if I am correct. The only really new and therefore controversial element is sub-manifold geometry as a manner to realize Einstein's original program.
%%%%%%%%%
To Hamed:
....Continuation.
[Hamed] I think that I can speak about geometrization of forces and space-time sheets without speaking about “TGD as a Poincare invariant theory of gravitation”. I can explain it after them. Isn’t it? Or it is essential to explain at first beside them?
[MP] You cannot!;-). The fundamental idea of TGD approach is to solve the energy problem of general relativity realized in terms of sub-manifold gravity. This also leads to the geometrization of standard model quantum numbers. ZEO allows to have consistency with the fact that apparently energy is not conserved in cosmology: conservation laws become a length scale dependent notion, which is not actually anything new for the pragmatic physicsts who have talked about renormalization of coupling constants since the times of Dirac.
%%%%%%%
[Hamed] In really I am thinking that what is best strategy to explain TGD step by step without confusion of the listener. That’s hard ;)
[MP] Good luck! You need it;-)!
Dynamics of shadow in geometric sense. Shadow behaves apparently non-determistically since the variables in orthogonal direction serve as hidden variables. Consider mechanics in n-dimensional space and restrict the consideration on k<n-dimensional sub-space: shadow. The dynamics of n-k hidden degrees of freedom affects also the k-dimensional dynamics but since they are hidden variables you see this as non-determinism.
Existence in the sense you refer to it would be subjective existence. Existence as mathematical object is different kind of existence and would be the existence according to materialist.
I call my philosophy tripartistics as opposed to materialistic view of standard physics, and dualistic view of Bohm (non-hidden and hidden variables or classical particles + guiding waves). The completely new element is subjective existence - quantum jumps. About Whitehead I cannot say.
I would speak about vacuum state, not nothingness, which to academic philosopher means something different. In positive energy ontology vacuum state is the ground state in which energy momentum and other quantum numbers vanish. It would be fermionic Fock vacuum. In ZEO all states satisfy this condition. One could define non-vacuum states as those for which positive energy part (and thus also negative energy part) has non-vanishing quantum numbers.
Physics needs philosophy but physicists must build it themselves. Going to philosophy library does not help. The statues of academic philosophy did not know anything about modern physics. Finnish language indeed expresses more naturally what also mystics talk about. The intellectual, linguistic manner to see the world is painting pictures using words and picture is never the reality. One should take it as art rather than warfare.
"Nothingness" is also a problem in set theory: one constructs natural numbers by starting from empty set. But it is obvious that empty set has no operational meaning. One ends up with the well-known problems with infinite sets. Russell antinomy for instance. Could it be that a more natural definition of natural numbers could be as products of primes just like elementary particles are building blocks of physical states? In this approach the notion of infinity would be number theoretical (divisibility concept) and based on infinite primes.
I would not want to draw in Jungian Shadow (M-matrix?) into this, and I must confess I don't know Whiteheads organic realism. I read:
Whitehead firmly believed that the sharp division between nature and mind, established by Descartes, had "poisoned all subsequent philosophy", and held that in reality "we cannot determine with what molecules the brain begins and the rest of the body ends". He deemed human experience to be "an act of self-origination including the whole of nature, limited to the perspective of a focal region, located within the body, but not necessarily persisting in any fixed coordination within a definite part of the brain". Upon this concept of human experience, Whitehead founded his new metaphysical "philosophy of the organism", his cosmology, his defense of speculative reason, his ideas on the process of nature and his rational approach to God.
In his Philosophy of Organism or Organic Realism, now usually known as Process Philosophy, he posited subjective forms to complement Plato's eternal objects (or Forms). The theory identified metaphysical reality with change and dynamism, and held that change in not illusory or purely accidental to the substance, but rather the very cornerstone of reality or Being. His view of God, as the source of the universe, was therefore as growing and changing, just as the entire universe is in constant flow and change (essentially a kind of Theism, although his God differs essentially from the revealed God of Abrahamic religion). Later process philosophers, including Charles Hartshorne (1897 - 2000), John B. Cobb Jr. (1925 - ) and David Ray Griffin (1939 - ), developed the theory further into a full-blown Process Theology. Whitehead's rejection of mind-body Dualism was similar to elements in Buddhism, although many Christians and Jews have found Process Theology a fruitful way of understanding God and the universe.
Whitehead believed that "there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths". His political views sometimes appear to be very close to Libertarianism, although he never used the label, and many Whitehead scholars have read his work as providing a philosophical foundation for the Social Liberalism of the New Liberal of the first half of the 20th Century.
http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_whitehead.html
But there are also names as Kant, Popper, Hegel etc, philosophers mentioned, so...
Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy
There is no mind-matter duality in this ontology, because "mind" is simply seen as an abstraction from an occasion of experience which has also a material aspect, which is of course simply another abstraction from it; thus the mental aspect and the material aspect are abstractions from one and the same concrete occasion of experience.
An occasion of experience consists of a process of prehending other occasions of experience, reacting to them. This is the process in process philosophy.
Such process is never deterministic. Consequently, free will is essential and inherent to the universe.
From a philosophers answer to Krauss (http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2012/04/lawrence-krauss-another-physicist-with.html):
"Lee Smolin, in his “The Trouble with Physics” laments the loss of a generation for theoretical physics, the first one since the late 19th century to pass without a major theoretical breakthrough that has been empirically verified. Smolin blames this sorry state of affairs on a variety of factors, including the sociology of a discipline where funding and hiring priorities are set by a small number of intellectually inbred practitioners. Ironically, one of Smolin’s culprit is the dearth of interest in and appreciation of philosophy among contemporary physicists. This quote is from Smolin’s book:
“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historical and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.” (Albert Einstein)"
The sets of basic assumptions on which theories are build is often called metaphysics, which is a part of philosophy just like logic etc., but more importantly philosophy is about philosophical attitude, not about names and set of books in library. Philosophical attitude towards scientific theory building - at least in BT and PT - is to consider it a form of playfull and creative art and they share the criticism of anti-philosophical attitude of many materialists who make the set of materialistic metaphysics into authoritarian dogma to be followed religiously and to be defended by political bullying and warfare.
When theory building runs into trouble, e.g. search for the axiomatic mathematical foundation of QFT, a dialogue with philosophers and/or visit to library to pick a copy of Gödel's proof could and would help to prevent further banging of head against the wall. ZEO or not, TGD process is not happening in intellectual and social vacuum where narratives of theoretical physics reinvent philosophy or metaphysics from nothing. Notions of intellectual property and patent rights and tribalism of academic fields are very poor philosophy of the Ego in the world where novel ideas appear synchronistically. And again, there are archetypal ideas such as Brahman-Atman identity and Indra's Net being constantly reinvented and reformulated in various languages, now including QM. Those are ancient philosophical ideas that TGD is based upon, but in what sense "physicists must build it themselves"?
To Ulla:
Thank you for the Whitehead;-). I cannot invent immediate disagreement with Whitehead. Accepting subjective existence as as a genuine level of existence and giving up dualism is common to us.
To Santeri:
Philosophical attitude includes the historical view: it is no point in reinventing the wheel. Philosophical assumptions are important but only when theory is relatively well-formulated. One cannot start by saying: OK, I will construct dualistic physics. The most important aspect of philosophical attitude is genuine passion to answer the difficult age old questions related to time, free will, what "mind stuff" could be,.. There are also more concrete questions, what is energy, mass, what is the origin of quantum numbers, what the mysterious state function reduction means, ... Most of these questions are taboos nowadays: standard model--> GUT-->SUSY-->String models-->M-theory and the conclusion that those stlll asking are idiots as one particular besser wisser whom you certainly know would formulate it! ;-)
The trouble with physics is that most people doing physics have become mere pragmatic appliers of methods. When taken to extreme this leads to attitude that the basic goal of particle physics is to determine experimentally to what point of SUSY parameter space physics corresponds. This is insanity but a natural outcome of the attitude "science as a mere methodology".
Maybe physicists must rediscover the ancient ideas themselves from their starting points. Here open mind is enough.
The Krauss debate brought up also Aharonov-Bohm effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharonov%E2%80%93Bohm_effect):
David Albert: "Professor Kraus’ argument for the ‘reality’ of virtual particles, and for the instability of the quantum-mechanical vacuum, and for the larger and more imposing proposition that ‘nothing is something’, hinges on the claim that “the uncertainty in the measured energy of a system is inversely proportional to the length of time over which you observe it”. And it happens that we have known, for more than half a century now, from a beautiful and seminal and widely cited and justly famous paper by Yakir Aharonov and David Bohm, that this claim is false."
http://philocosmology.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/an-explanation-from-nothing/
What's the TGD interpretation of Aharonov-Bohm effect and it's metaphysical implications? E.g. what kind of causality is in question?
Krauss' argument "nothing is something" is to me game with badly chosen words. I would not call quantum physical vacuum state "nothing". In ZEO any zero energy state can be obtained from vacuum so that it has infinite potential of producing different structures.
Aharonov- Bohm effect is purely topological effect which does not depend on theory. Particle going around a closed loop in vanishing magnetic field can experience a non-trivial effect resulting from so alled non-integrable a phase factor. Any theory involving gauge fields predicts this effect. I would not call it causality. The effect represents topological physics and topological QFT:s made this branch of physics industry.
Due to my mathematical handicap, I'm forced to question meanings of these words, that if a "particle" is supposed to be a special case of "field", how can vector potential affect or inform particle in case of vanishing field?
The jargon of theoretical physics (shorts for deep and difficult mathematical concepts) often brings to mind the times when priests preached in Latin to congregations that understood nothing of Latin. A game of badly chosen words, about which philosophers of language and politics and hermeneutics and science have various and often critical views.
To Santeri:
The language is a real problem. I try to explain why it is a problem knowing that also here I encounter the language problem.
The field-particle correspondence is difficult conceptually also for physicists and involves a lot of mis-understandings. Basically one has two different abstraction levels and their correspondence.
Particle as a point of 3-space and dynamical evolution as particle orbit defines classical Newtonian ontology. This is simple. Quantum states of particle as wave functions in 3-D space E^3 for positions of particle is quantum ontology in Newtonian framework.
This brings in first quantization as abstraction (statements about statements in logic): one can have only quantum-classical correspondence as many-to-one map. The space of wave functions is infinite-D: configuration space is 3-D. Particular quantal particle states (say momentum eigenstates) have direct classical counterparts. The choice of this correspondence is of course not unique.
Indeed, one could call completely localized wave functions particles (well-defined position at one particular moment). One could also call momentum eigenstates which are completely delocalized wave functions particles. Wave particle duality relates these two alternative quantum classical correspondences.
Second quantization brings in further abstraction level and a layer of confusion unless one is fully aware of mathematics involved: basically hierarchy of abstractions.
Consider photons. The space of wave functions for photons in 3-D space E^3 is replaced with the space of wave functions in infinite-D space of classical gauge field potentials in E^3, which is already infinite-D. Fock state- a state with single photon which is analog of harmonic oscillator wave function in the infinite-D space of gauge potentials would be the counterpart of photon as classical free particle.
If there are non-contractible loops (non-trivial first homotopy) or if the scalar is many-valued, Bohm-Aharov is possible. For instance, depending on angle around z-axis such that it is changes by non-integer multiple as one goes over full circle, one has Bohm Aharonov. In TGD this kind of 3-surfaces can be considered.
To Santeri:
Concerning your question about vector potential.
By gauge invariance gauge field is representable as "curl" of vector potential. This symmetry means that only two polarizations orthogonal to photon's momentum remain in spectrum. Photon is massless. Vector potential can be non-vanishing even if field vanishes: it is enough that it is a gradient of scalar.
If space has no non-contractible loops and if scalar is single valued function, no Bohm Aharonov effect results.
Bohm in his mixture of ontologies corresponding to two different abstraction levels (particle state as position of E^3 and particle state as wave function in E^3) would perhaps say that vector potential informs or affects particle. One cannot say this in the standard quantum ontology. It does not make sense.
After all this explaining I must confess that the role of vector potential in particle description is QFT based notion and it is now strongly challenged in twistor approach in which the notion is given up;-)!
Also in TGD one describes particle states as wave functionals in the space of 3-surfaces (by holography effectively partonic 2-surfaces at boundaries of CD) and there is a strong connection to twistor approach.
Things become conceptually clear once one accepts infinite-D mathematics of "world of classical worlds". In TGD they are 3-surfaces, in original string model (rather than the horrible conceptual fuss of M-theory) they are 1-surfaces- strings.
Here's a crisp view of Krishnamurti as the philosopher against all dogmatism: http://www.seri-worldwide.org/id722.html.
Would it help to explain tripartistics? Modern philosophy has no language for pluralism, and folk culture now reclaims "body, mind and spirit."
http://www.skeptiko.com/154-neurosurgeon-dr-eben-alexander-near-death-experience/
One thing that we will have to let go of is this kind of addiction to simplistic, primitive reductive materialism because there’s really no way that I can see a reductive materialist model coming remotely in the right ballpark to explain what we really know about consciousness now.
Coming from a neurosurgeon who, before my coma, thought I was quite certain how the brain and the mind interacted and it was clear to me that there were many things I could do or see done on my patients and it would eliminate consciousness. It was very clear in that realm that the brain gives you consciousness and everything else and when the brain dies there goes consciousness, soul, mind—it’s all gone. And it was clear.
Now, having been through my coma, I can tell you that’s exactly wrong and that in fact the mind and consciousness are independent of the brain. It’s very hard to explain that, certainly if you’re limiting yourself to that reductive materialist view.
Listen or read it.
The herb fewerfew (Tanacetum parhenicem)(migraine, headaches and fevers) was planted outside a house to clean the air, and I find even as a modern supplement it works best in just that way - or on the drying plate to "earth" another herb. This is like external lights acting against EM pollution by instansiating boundary conditions. These are preferred (chosen, selected) extremals! But preferred for what by what?
Air pollution and heart disease: http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18070869. Evidence: hard; link: unknown.
But it doesn't seem you can translate the language of tradition into metrics: e.g. Mind = Liouville/Toda. Its more a matter of interfaces or mediations.
The point is that brain is just a tool for decoherence (creating illusions). Waken - sleep - death diminish the use of brain (creation of subsystems) to zero, but there are other ways to measure things than with the body. It seems the body is just an end of a wormhole (BEC?) and it is tripartistic? Note that emeotions are also divided. (This is quite ironic, when Matti and I started the conversations I talked of the importance of emotions, now he has realized that, and I start talk of the importance of emotions as constraints, as pain :) A human can be totally distorted by pain, uncapable of sleeping normally, and when she dies all strain is gone. A psychic patient can be totally insensitive to pain. No feelings whatsoever. Why? They use the body differently?).
Herbs? Do you do herbs? That I would want to discuss, but not here, I guess? Flavonoids are interesting. They are called good, but are they really? Why not? Why do we have an antioxidant paradox? etc.
There is no theory of biology today, just guesses. Due to wrong basis?
Matti, thanks for the clarification, which again shows the importance of philosophy of communication - and the importance of admitting confusion and emotional frustration with linguistic communication breakdowns.
It's helpfull to recollect that comprehension is literally a collective enterprize ('grasping together') and to keep in mind the simile about blind men and elephant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant) and that also theoretical physics is one limited point of view to whole of being and to be meaningfull needs to be able to communicate and share it's point of view with other points of view.
To Santeri:
Communication is difficult even when the communicators are willing to communicate. Sad to say that too often this is not the case.
To Ulla:
Neuroscientist wakes up from what is regarded as completely unconscious state and tells that she has been fully conscious and writes a book about it. She is not taken seriously at all! Does not fit with the dogma! This is only one example of what kinds of idiots scientists believing on dogma become.
Douglas Adams has in one of his books a hilarious piece of satire about skeptic scientists. Some communications (or attempts to communicate) with finnish skeptics have taught me that they do the hilarious satire themselves.
Ye, I have read some 'highs'. It always make my stomach wanting to turn inside out.
Santeri,
I think you shout under wrong tree. Matti is one of the very few scientists that really tries to communicate, but unfortunately his theory is so hard to grasp because it is complex (knot^10). As also Hamed has noticed the different parts are so entangled with each other that there are no beginning nor any end, It resembles very much traditional chinese medicine in that case. And notice that not even experts know enough to fully understand it, because they are experts only in some area. Today there are very few humans that know so much that they could grasp it. And to make it more simple is not either any easy task. The math is a hard nut.
I have many times thought that I understood, and then noticed I did not. I have checked and crosstested with my limited knowledge in physics (which make me grin at myself a little), and seldom there has been errors, only things not yet known, which isn't Mattis fault.
I share Mattis doubts about philosophy. It cannot guide, but it can be used as model afterwards. Philosophy has the same faults as math, everything is possible. Sorry to say if you are a philosopher.
This video was a neuroscientist man, and maybe then it is easier accepted. Jill Bolte Taylor was a female.
Dear Matti,
so Thanks,
At your answers:
“The strictly correct manner to speak is to assign dynamics to 3-surfaces” and
“NMP *does not define* dynamics of space-time!;-). It defines dynamics of consciousness and tells that the information gain in quantum jumps is maximized”
I regarded dynamics and evolution the same meaning. TGD have two kinds of evolutions, one is informational evolution that is related to consciousness and another is geometric time evolution.
Before this I thought that the first one is evolution of space-time and the other one is evolution of 3-surface, but now I learned from the answers that each of them is evolution of the 3-surface.Is it correct? At the first one at each quantum jump the 3-surface is replaced with another 3-surface. A transition from p-adic 3-surface to real 3-surface occur rather than p-adic space time to real space time? Although it is not difference practically!
At “NMP is mathematically analogous to second law (and implies it for ensembles) in that it tells only overall direction of dynamics but does not fix time evolution completely as action principles”
I deduced that at the sequence of quantum jumps from a 3-surface to another one, the direction of evolution is not unique by NMP and there are 3-surfaces at the end that provide the condition of NMP (There is something like degeneracy). Then what cause makes only one 3-surface of them occur? Is there only pure chance?! But there is obvious when a person will for doing something, if all external factors are appropriate, he can do it and exactly the same work without of any chance that governs on his behavior. Illusion of “I” doesn’t help you for the answer;)
Dear Hamed,
As any 4-D classical action principle, one can see Kahler action as defining a dynamics for some 3-D configuration: usually they are field configurations, in TGD they are geometric objects. Preferred extremal property selects preferred orbits as analogs of Bohr orbits in TGD Universe: this is what distinguishes TGD from field theories based on path integrals (all orbits are allowed and "classical" ones correspond to stationary phase and thus extremals of action). One can assign to a collection of 3-surfaces at second end of CD a space-time surface as preferred extremal - this is holography. The holography has motivated my somewhat fuzzy use of space-time sheets and 3-surfaces: if holography would be globally true then 3-surface at end of CD would dictate space-time sheet uniquely. This not the case by the failure of strict determinism due to vacuum degeneracy of Kahler action. (A good exercise would be to look through the Kaehler action and what vacuum extremals are!). I apologize!
[Hamed] At “NMP is mathematically analogous to second law (and implies it for ensembles) in that it tells only overall direction of dynamics but does not fix time evolution completely as action principles”
I deduced that at the sequence of quantum jumps from a 3-surface to another one, the direction of evolution is not unique by NMP and there are 3-surfaces at the end that provide the condition of NMP (There is something like degeneracy). Then what cause makes only one 3-surface of them occur? Is there only pure chance?! But there is obvious when a person will for doing something, if all external factors are appropriate, he can do it and exactly the same work without of any chance that governs on his behavior. Illusion of “I” doesn’t help you for the answer;)
[MP]
a) An important point: quantum states are quantum superpositions of 3-surfaces!!!! To each of these 3-surfaces in superposition one can assign space-time sheet satisfying field equations modulo non-uniqueness due to failure of strict determinism. In this sense and only in this sense classical physics is exact part of quantum theory!! Bohm believed differently: he would have said that it is possible to speak both about quantum superpositions of 3-surfaces/associated space-time surfaces and single space-time surface. You have got the impression that I share this belief of Bohm! I definitely do not!!
One can speak about single space-time sheet only in stationary phase approximation for vacuum functional which is exponent of Kahler function (Kahler action from Euclidian regions) and imaginary analog of Morse function (Kahler action from Minkowskian regions). In this sense TGD and quantum field theories are analogous. Path integral is however replaced by functional integral with phase factor (hybrid of path integral and functional integral) and one can hope that it is therefore mathematically well-defined.
b) What NMP says is about what happens in state function reduction cascade for given subsystem-complement pair. It is formulated solely in terms of entanglement entropy for quantum jumps. It defines dynamics for subjective existence. Kahler action defines dynamics for geometric existence.
c) Quantum classical correspondence suggests that there could be however some correlate for NMP and its outcome second law at the space-time level. NMP and second law could correspond to the non-inversibility of the dynamics of Kahler action and for the arrow of time for zero energy states meaning that they are state function reduced at either end of CD. The breakdown of strict determinism at some points or sub-manifolds of space-time sheet is analogous to what happens in hydrodynamics in a flow which becomes supersonic. The hydrodynamical equations bifurcate and second law is used to select the bifurcating branch uniquely. Somehing like this might occur now.
Matti:
You've spoken about God of the Old Testament as the manifestation of collective consciousness.
Monotheistic dualism that separates God from everything else presents an almost whimsical picture of a God who is a supreme egoist creating the universe for the express purpose of being worshipped – rewarding those who do it properly (according to his rules) and punishing those who don’t. That this is reminiscent of all authoritarian power is no accident, for authoritarian secular power uses an authoritarian religion with its sacred symbolisms and its morality based on duty and sacrifice to justify itself. The question of whether God created the authoritarian form (as fundamentalists believe), or whether the form projected a God to justify itself, is not trivial.”
Is God our mistake, or are we God's mistake?
Fractality,
I see the answer to that as we have created a picture of God as something outside the creation. When he is inherent in everything, maybe as the omnipotent vacuum problem?
What God is in reality is very different from our limited view of matters. As instance in NDE they travel through a 'tunnel' (wormhole?) out of this void (GR) into another kind of existence (mirror world?), and this world we cannot describe bu words. So we have created the metaphor God? Kind of a talisman. But WE as humans direct our own evolution, and we and only we have the responsibility for it. There are good and less good choises we can make. In this way we ARE God (his tools).
There is a beautiful word. To live in the hands of God. Think at what it means in reality!
I should have been silent :)
Look! http://phys.org/news/2012-05-black-hole-universe-physicist-solution.html
Dear Matti,
so thanks.
I think there are some bases to understanding of your answer about non-determinism correctly and I must wait :(!
I listed some questions and when think about them I deduce that each of them relates in some manner to understanding of M4 * CP2! It is very basic building of TGD that is not avoidable :).
I found an article on “STATUS OF SUPERSTRING AND M-THEORY” in http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.1372v2 and start to read it. because i think It is needed for me to learn bases of string theories at introductory level. i'd like to read it in the viewpoint of TGD;)
At your answer to Santeri, you wrote that first quantization as abstraction is like statements about statements in logic. Why? And also second quantization.
“basically hierarchy of abstractions”!!! Then what is third quantization?!
Dear Hamed,
TGD can be also seen as a generalization of super string model so that getting some background in superstrings certainly helps. Also an article about old fashioned hadronic string model would help.
By the way, string model started from purely geometric formulation with string sheets identified as minimal surfaces. Then the Polyakov formulation emerged and one introduced metric on string world sheets as an independent dynamical variable which for extremals was equal to induced metric. This allowed to develop calculational formalism but led to astray, Eventually one made also the geometry of 10-D space dynamical and one had double gravity instead of reduction of gravity to the geometrodynamics of string world sheets. Pragmatism is not always good in theoretical physics!
First quantization means replacing configuration space of particle (Euclidian 3-space) with wave functions in this space. From space to function space. In case of Boolean algebra this means transition to the Boolean algebra of Boolean statements about Boolean statements. Reflective level of Boolean consciousness.
Second quantization means that space of wave functions is replaced with space of functions in the space of wave functions. Another abstraction.
The hierarchy of infinite primes and many-sheeted space-time lead to the proposal that this hierarchy of quantizations continues. Hadrons, atoms, etc., even galaxies are in well-defined mathematical sense elementary particles at some level of this hierarchy.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j718084706192568/
The theory of time reversal and duality of Markov processes was applied to non-relativistic quantum particles in Chapter III. In this chapter we apply the stochastic theory to relativistic quantum particles. We will consider the relativistic Schrödinger equation of a spinless particle in an electromagnetic field. It will be shown that the relativistic quantum particles no longer have continuous paths but move only through pure jumps in contrast to the continuous movement of non-relativistic quantum particles.
Krauss treated only relativistic aspects?
http://www.google.fi/books?id=0IAVO9Xm7tsC&printsec=frontcover&hl=sv#v=onepage&q&f=false
Schrödinger Equations and Diffusion Theory
AvMasao Nagasawa
http://www.numdam.org/numdam-bin/fitem?id=SPS_1993__27__1_0
2012: Restructure Science Plans, Policies, Budgets
Eppur Si Muove, Higgs Particle YOK
Regardless Of Whatever Whoever
Regardless Of Whatever Is Said By Whoever Says It -
Higgs Particle YOK.
S Hawking is simply wrong in accepting it. Obviously wrong.
Everyone who accepts the story of the Higgs particle is simply wrong.
Plain commonsense.
Singularity and the Big Bang MUST have happened with the smallest base universe particles, the gravitons, that MUST be both energy and mass, even if they are inert mass just one smallest fraction of a second at singularity. All mass formats evolve from gravitons that convert into energy i.e. extricate from their gravitons clusters into mass formats in motion, energy. And they all end up again as mass in a repeat singularity.
Universe expansion and re-contraction proceed simultaneously..
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/
http://universe-life.com/2012/02/03/universe-energy-mass-life-compilation/
===========================
Refresh Present SCIENCE Comprehensions And Restructure Science Plans, Policies And Budgets
Who Suppresses Science Creativity? Does Academia Suppress Creativity?
Again and again, ad absurdum:
Since the 1920s SCIENCE is suppressed by a Technology Culture, tightly supervised by a religious old style trade union , the AAAS…
Liberate Your Mind From Concepts Dictated By The Religious Trade-Union AAAS:
USA Science? Re-Comprehend Origins And Essence
* Higgs Particle? Dark Energy/Matter? Epigenetics? All YOK!
* Earth-life is just another, self-replicating, mass format.
* All mass formats evolve from gravitons, the primal universe mass-energy particles.
* Since singularity gravitons are extricated from their big-bang clusters , i.e. become mobile, energy, at a constant rate.
* All mass formats follow natural selection, i.e. intake of energy or their energy taken in by other mass formats.
* Evolution Is The Quantum Mechanics Of Natural Selection.
* Quantum mechanics are mechanisms, possible or probable or actual mechanisms of natural selection.
* Life’s Evolution is the quantum mechanics of biology.
* Every evolution, of all disciplines, is the quantum mechanics of the discipline’s natural selection.
See:
Update Concepts-Comprehension…
http://universe-life.com/2011/12/13/21st-century-science-whence-and-whither/
Earth life genesis from aromaticity-H bonding
http://universe-life.com/2011/09/30/earthlife-genesis-from-aromaticityh-bonding/
Universe-Energy-Mass-Life Compilation
http://universe-life.com/2012/02/03/universe-energy-mass-life-compilation/
Seed of human-chimp genome diversity
http://universe-life.com/2011/07/10/seed-of-human-chimp-genomes-diversity/
New Era For Science Including Genomics
http://universe-life.com/2012/04/14/new-era-for-science-including-genomics/
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
=================
Universe Inflation And Expansion
Inflation on Trial
Astrophysicists interrogate one of their most successful theories
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/342219/title/Inflation_on_Trial
Commonsense:
Inflation and expansion are per Newton.
Since the Big Bang galactic clusters loose mass at constant rate. Mass, gravitons, continue escaping at constant rate from their Big Bang fragments-clusters thus becoming energy, mass in motion, thus thrusting the clusters. Constant thrust and decreasing galactic clusters weight accelerate the separation of clusters from each other.
Common sense.
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/
Post a Comment