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Answering Qfwfq


Doctordick

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It would help me if I could get a yes/no answer to the following question from someone following this thread (DD has me on his do not view list).

 

It has been stated by Doctordick that the following is a fundamental premise of his definition of explanation:

 

There exist no circumstances which cannot be represented by the purely numerical symbolic notation [math] (x_1' date=' x_2, x_3,\cdots, x_n, \cdots, t) [/math']

 

So, yes or no--suppose a non hypothetical circumstance where the facts are known a priori. Can this circumstance be represented by the notation cited above ?

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Rade, it very much seems to me that if the circumstances are known to be, then the probability must be 1 and if they are known not to be, then the probability must be 0. This is the only bearing I see.

 

Arguing over semantics is relatively unimportant
Was I doing that? I said we can call it a tomato and get on with the matter...:shrug:

 

These are the premises he uses to come to his conclusion. It would seem to me that it is these assertions that would most need to be evaluated, and the logic that he uses to derive a conlusion from them, in order to decide if his conclusions are valid.

 

 

 

For example (cut and paste quotes from the above linked thread):

 

1) There exist no circumstances which cannot be represented by the purely numerical symbolic notation [math] (x_1, x_2, x_3,\cdots, x_n, \cdots, t) [/math]

 

2) All explanations may be identified with a mathematical expression of the form [math] 0\;\leq\; P(x_1, x_2, x_3,\cdots, x_n, \cdots, t)\;\leq \;1 [/math]

 

In other words, an explanation is a function which provides the probability of the circumstances under consideration.

I had already gleaned that his use of the word includes no more than this, which is something quite included in the general formalism of QM (as I told Anssi in the other thread). At that point I asked him to get on with the clarification and he repied:
You have to understand both the proof of my fundamental equation and the various deductions of common physics concepts before that issue can even be discussed.
Well Dick, you called this topic " An attempt to clarify Qfwfq's complaints about my proof." so, it might as well be here that you attempt to say it in a manner that is separate from teaching Anssi algebra, calculus and and those topics of physics but also in a clear presentation in which I can see what things are consequential to, but without endless superfluity.

 

Mean time, it would be helpful to know for sure whether Anssi's statement:

And as you know, DD is trying to prove that those symmetries are tautologous to Schrödinger's equation and via that route, to newtonian mechanics (something close to our everyday view), when appropriate approximations are performed. That means that the equation can be seen as representing the (unknown) mechanisms that transform undefined sensory information into the everyday "newtonian" definitions.
is actually what you mean by saying: "All tomatoes are tautologies."

 

Would you call Anssi's statement a translation of yours?

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Rade, it very much seems to me that if the circumstances are known to be, then the probability must be 1 and if they are known not to be, then the probability must be 0. This is the only bearing I see.
Thank you. However, Doctordick puts a constraint on his definition of explanation--(1) the circumstances of explanation itself can NEVER be known to be true (his---expectation for unknown information), thus he claims that what is known has a probability = 0.0 of being explained (and not the P = 1.0 as you say). That is, Doctordick appears to claim that the approach of science can NEVER (by HIS definition) explain what is known to be true--that science can ONLY attempt to explain the "unknown". That is, while logic demands that "if the circumstances are known to be, then the P = 1.0"---the approach of Doctordick is the exact opposite--he claims "the probability the circumstances can be known is P =0.0". A state of P =1.0 for known information is impossible by definition. What am I missing ?
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Doctordick puts a constraint on his definition of explanation--(1) the circumstances of explanation itself can NEVER be known to be true (his---expectation for unknown information), thus he claims that what is known has a probability = 0.0 of being explained (and not the P = 1.0 as you say).
The same goes for what he exactly means by the things he says, you ought to keep this in mind before trying to make logical deductions based on the details of what he says.

 

What am I missing ?
I really don't know, I would have to be perfectly sure of what he means but I also get the impression it is due to your own hypothetical case of knowing something a priori instead of just having an expectation about it.
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...I would have to be perfectly sure of what he means but I also get the impression it is due to your own hypothetical case of knowing something a priori instead of just having an expectation about it.
Thanks for your thoughts. It is a mess for me, trying to come to grips with the approach of Doctordick--his definitions, his terminology, his logic. For example, I find nothing hypothetical about knowing something a priori. Take the well known (all bachelors are not married; all future triangles have three angles). There is nothing at all hypothetical about the statements--they represent a priori future knowledge of the things we call bachelors and triangles. While it clearly can be useful to have an "expectation" of something (such as how a set of bachelors may respond to situation x), expectation is not at all necessary to have (1) knowledge or (2) explanation of that something or a set of identical somethings.
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Well Dick, you called this topic " An attempt to clarify Qfwfq's complaints about my proof."

So far I have been unable to clarify exactly what your complaints about my proof are! It seems that you have none as evidenced by your complete lack of interest in the proof itself.

 

Qfwfq, I have read back over a number of your posts and cannot find a thread of logic in the collection. You have made it quite clear that you have no interest whatsoever in the details of my proofs nor in understanding my definitions or their purpose. All you want to talk about are my conclusions. Your entire complaint about my work seems to be little more than an emotional reaction to those conclusions. It appears that you presume that I can not be correct because you find those conclusions to be inconsistent with what you believe the conclusions should be. That, in itself, is called faith in your beliefs and it is essentially a religious position. I have no interest in “conversion of the faithful”.

 

JM Jones seems to be the only other person here (besides Anssi and Bombadil) who seems to consider the character of my definitions to be of interest to the discussion. Your analysis seems to be concerned with relationships which are included in the general assumptions of colloquial physics. Mine, on the other hand, are concerned entirely with exactly the opposite side of that coin: avoiding all assumptions.

 

You make much of the “ad hoc” nature of some of my steps. By doing so you make it clear that you have no comprehension of the purpose of those steps. Any step I make in my construct, “ad hoc” though it may be, is specifically designed not to diminish the generality of the representation in any way. That is the only restriction to be placed on those steps. This is the exact opposite of the common approach in the physical sciences. The common approach is to find ways of constraining the generality of the representation without making the resultant representation experimentally invalid thus supposedly discovering the “laws of of their science”.

 

The central issue of my presentation is instead maintaining the absolute universality of my definitions while deducing consequences of those definitions themselves, making no constraints whatsoever on their application; an issue you have apparently already decided cannot serve any purpose and have no interest in examining.

 

Something I wrote back in 1982 comes to mind:

 

Everything I will present will be true by definition. It thus becomes very important that my definitions be clearly understood and that my deductions be followed with extreme care. Even the smallest error is of extreme consequence as, in accordance with the world view of modern science, under the constraints I have placed on myself, I should be able to deduce absolutely nothing of significance!! Either my deductions are in error or the truth of my results is absolute.

All I have actually shown is that any problem may be cast in a form identical to that of wave function notation in quantum mechanics. It should be clear that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm; however, that issue is of absolutely of no concern to me whatsoever. All I am concerned with in my presentation is removing extraneous constraints imposed by considerations outside the information to be explained: i.e., an attempt to discover the constraints imposed by the definitions themselves and nothing else.

 

I have put Rade on my “ignore” list as he clearly is incapable of working with my definitions evidenced by the fact that he continually brings in issues having to do with his definitions; not mine. I am afraid you have a very strong tendency to do exactly the same thing.

 

The important issue being that no presumptions whatsoever be made, not the resemblance of my notation to QM. I have either accomplished that result or I have not and only examination of my logic can determine the fact of the case. So long as you refuse to examine my logic talking to you is a complete waste of time. Anssi still thinks you can be reached. I think he is wrong. I am of the opinion that you are far too embedded in the validity of your world view to see the possibility of error in that view. Nevertheless I will leave him to the task.

 

Have fun -- Dick

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I am claiming my fundamental equation is nothing more than a logical tautology; “a pure exercise in logic” having nothing whatsoever to do with reality. It is entirely derived from my definition of “an explanation”: i.e., a mechanism for generating probabilistic expectations for unknown information consistent with some body of known information. Unless there is an error in that “exercise in logic”, there exists a one to one correspondence between any specific explanation and some mathematical function

of the arbitrary numerical references to the circumstances of interest.

This per se is a fair enough claim, leaving aside subtleties about your own definition of "explanation", the correspondence being bijective and why that equation ought to be The Fundamental One.

 

In addition to what I said in the other thread, let me translate DD's comment piece by piece.

 

I am claiming my fundamental equation is nothing more than a logical tautology; “a pure exercise in logic”

 

He means the "fundamental equation" is an exact expression of the few symmetries, which in turn are features of the universal notation (features that are visible when an explanation is mapped in terms of the universal notation).

 

having nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

 

Those constraints (and thus that fundamental equation) are not related to any supposed behaviour of reality, and there is no way to experimentally verify the equation.

 

Its validity can be judged by making sure that it is indeed entirely universal; that any explanation could be expressed in terms of the universal notation, and that the constraints expressed by the fundamental equation do not exclude any possible explanations.

 

Note that in the OP of the thread "Conservation of inherent ignorance", he has not yet even derived the fundamental equation, so hold your horses with that a bit :) (I think DD was supposing you remember its derivation from some old discussions)

 

Unless there is an error in that “exercise in logic”, there exists a one to one correspondence between any specific explanation and some mathematical function

of the arbitrary numerical references to the circumstances of interest.

 

By this he just means that any valid explanation can be expressed in the terminology of the universal notation. I.e. he is saying "the notation is universal, and there can be no valid explanation that would violate the fundamental equation".

 

Which is the case, unless some hidden assumptions are found from his definitions of the notation.

 

About "why the equation ought to be the fundamental one", it could just as well be called "universal constraint" if that sounds clearer to you.

 

But then again, I feel like an eight year old eavesdropping on a heated argument amongst adults, so I may be way off base.

 

No you are pretty much to the point, and it would be useful to find out which parts do you find especially confusing with the "Laying out the representation to be solved" thread. I am meaning to contribute to it still, as I think there are things in there that make it hard for people to understand, but I need to be able to really concentrate before I can make any useful suggestions.

 

I find nothing hypothetical about knowing something a priori. Take the well known (all bachelors are not married; all future triangles have three angles). There is nothing at all hypothetical about the statements--they represent a priori future knowledge of the things we call bachelors and triangles.

 

Come on Rade, you are talking about knowing what a definition means. What does that have to do with becoming to understand what some undefined information (supposedly) means? (i.e. what supposedly "exists" according to the information)

 

"a priori future knowledge", what do you mean by that? Knowing about the future before it happens? Even though future is by definition something that has not yet happened, i.e. something you do not know, but only have expectations of.

 

Also, by "a priori non-hypothetical knowledge", are you referring to knowing something about the information-to-be-explained without anything defined? What would that be? How do you express something about undefined information, without making any definitions?

 

Whatever you are saying is so far off the base, that maybe you should think about the whole problem by yourself a bit. Forget whatever you think DD is saying about his notation, and think by yourself, how would you create a notation capable of expressing the existence and behaviour of any defined entities, whatever they might be. Maybe that'll make you think about the actual issues under discussion.

 

I get what you mean but these things aren't the aim of a method for calculating expectations. I don't really see the point of it.

 

I'm sure you can see how Rade is essentially off-topic, but note that his complaint is quite typical, in that it's essentially arising from misunderstanding the meaning of the universal notation (or associated definitions). Something DD refers to as refusal to work exclusively with his definitions (and shoehorning own ideas or definitions in there instead).

 

I'm sure DD sees your complaints as equally off-topic, and my impression of that is that it's just because you are trying to see implications in there that are simply not visible yet (like the stuff we are talking about in the other thread). So don't worry about that stuff yet, it should become pretty obvious to you what he means exactly when things have proceeded far enough.

 

-Anssi

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Whatever you are saying is so far off the base, that maybe you should think about the whole problem by yourself a bit. Forget whatever you think DD is saying about his notation, and think by yourself, how would you create a notation capable of expressing the existence and behaviour of any defined entities, whatever they might be. Maybe that'll make you think about the actual issues under discussion.
Yes, excellent idea--love to think--here it is: A = A. I ping-pong the thinking back to you--forget what DD is saying--think about what I am saying.

 

"a priori future knowledge", what do you mean by that? Knowing about the future before it happens? Even though future is by definition something that has not yet happened, i.e. something you do not know, but only have expectations of.
Come now. Are you saying that as you read this in the present, you do not "know" that the next triangle you will perceive in the future will have three angles ? Just because you have a worldview definition of what the "future" means as relates to knowing triangles--it does not mean I must accept your definition as being logical, rational, and objective. All I can say is--your DEFINITION of the FUTURE (in bold above) is based on a false premise.

 

I'm sure you can see how Rade is essentially off-topic, but note that his complaint is quite typical, in that it's essentially arising from misunderstanding the meaning of the universal notation (or associated definitions). Something DD refers to as refusal to work exclusively with his definitions.
Well no. I do not "misunderstand" the definitions Doctordick uses--I do not agree with them. These are two completely different statements, so please let us be clear here. The universal notation seems to be clear enough to me. It relates the undefined to the defined. It relates percepts to concepts via definition of something, a placing of a mental label (definition) on something that exists as a dialectic both in reality (the thing-in-itself) and the mind (a concept). Correctly he assumes to know nothing about the reality of the thing-in-itself, to know only the dialectic. Here I agree with Doctordick.

 

But, the problem I have is that some of his definitions are based on a false premise of how they relate to the "concepts" he uses. He uses multiple definitions for the same concept contextually, which is ok, BUT, he does it in such a way that they are contradictory, which is not ok.

 

His fundamental presentation then (in part, but importantly) is logically false for the reason that some of his definitions (not mine) are contradictory to the concepts he uses. One example is his multiple definitions of the concept "explanation"--they contradict each other. And yes, I "refuse" to work with contradictory definitions to build a philosophy. Definitions of concepts are not willy-nilly pulled out of the air--they demand a logical, rational, objective relationship to reality--and this is where the philosophic approach of Doctordick fails. He claims to shoehorn his "philosophic" presentation to relate to physics--but we are informed by another physicist, Qfwfq, that he fails at that task. As to the mathematics of Doctodick, you AnissH have found what, 100 errors over the past two years ? How can anyone follow a mathematical approach that is weekly being changed, a sign changed here, a number reversed there, etc. How do we know that someone that understands physical mathematics would find the mathematical approach of Doctordick lacking in that area as well (as now corrected by you)--perhaps Qfwfq already has posted on this topic ?

 

And, he continues to claim that his philosophic approach uses no assumptions, which is false. In another thread he specifically reported to me that he assumes that a chair placed in front of him does not exist. It is his fundamental worldview assumption that reality as perceived (the chair example above) does not exist. So please, no more talk that his philosophic approach is without "assumptions".

 

Thus, I am left with the summary observation that his approach offers nothing new to philosophy, physics, mathematics. If I error, name one new idea in any of these areas that the approach of Doctordick adds to science--something not previously presented and rejected in the peer reviewed literature. Perhaps a light at the end of the tunnel in this direction will move the dialog forward in a positive way. I mean, if there really is something new being presented here, it should be easy to present and understand.

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Richard D. Stafford said: Everything I will present will be true by definition
Well, perhaps, but only if your definitions are true. So, this raises the important question--how does Doctordick define definition ? For if one thing presented is assumed true by false definition, then everything presented cannot be true.

 

DoctorDick, please define a true definition and explain how it differs from a false definition. What is the relationship between definitions and concepts ? Very important for understanding your philosophy.

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All I have actually shown is that any problem may be cast in a form identical to that of wave function notation in quantum mechanics.
If I take this wording strictly, then I must ask what the great novelty would be and why such a great machination is necessary for it. :shrug:

 

This is the crux of the clarifications that I have never been able to get out of you, in a fashion that's of any use to me. Now, since your presentation goes far beyond the definition of states, which are still commonly called "wave functions", it all depends on what your meaning of QM is when you refer to it and I have never succeded in comunicating with you on this. Let me examine the two possible cases, according to your notion of "what QM is":

 

  1. Same the general formalism, for whatever "system" is studied and whatever its dynamics turn out to be. In this case all that needs to be done after defining the space of states is to add the prescription of time evolution in terms of general considerations, but I don't see how you do this with more generality than already done.
  2. Restricted the "usual" Schrödinger equation, or Dirac's, which I don't call the general quantum formalism but instead specific phenomenological cases (those which for historic reasons are called "particles"). In this case I would need to understand how the restriction occurs, on which grounds it is based (and I don't mean the approximations for the non-relativistic case, because there is no issue with that).

 

If case 2 is your actual contention, what you would need to convince me of is that you can recover the Lorentz covariance in a manner that doesn't rely on choices that turn out to be ad hoc. My vague suspicion is that, when you introduce those matrices and their anticommutation rules, it boils down to pulling the covariant structure out of Dirac's rect... ehem, er... hat, as is often done in shorthand courses.

 

It should be clear that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm; however, that issue is of absolutely of no concern to me whatsoever.
Well that's a relief! So there is such a thing, after all! It seems though that you differ from Anssi on this. Since I was nearing completion of an all too laborious reply to him in the other thread, I will maybe finish it but, otherwise, given the above, it seems somewhat superfluous (at least as far as clarifying your presentation goes). With that, I also needn't dwell on Anssi's translations.
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Yes, excellent idea--love to think--here it is: A = A. I ping-pong the thinking back to you--forget what DD is saying--think about what I am saying.

 

The question was, what is required from a notation so that it is entirely general framework, capable of expressing any given world view.

 

Come now. Are you saying that as you read this in the present, you do not "know" that the next triangle you will perceive in the future will have three angles ?

 

No I am not saying that. Please read what I was saying:

 

you are talking about knowing what a definition means. What does that have to do with becoming to understand what some undefined information (supposedly) means? (i.e. what supposedly "exists" according to the information)

 

I know what a triangle means by definition, and I know that the next pair of apples that I see will be 2 apples. The next time I win in lottery, I know I'll be called "a lottery winner" from that point on. Wetness is also wet, and every low-friction surface I'll ever see, is going to be slippery.

 

But, if you are interested of the topic instead of talking whatever random thoughts come to your mind, think about what do you know about what happens in the future. Prediction is not the same as saying "if future will be "x", it's the same thing as saying "y")

 

Most of all, think a bit.

 

EDIT: Oh, and as of

As to the mathematics of Doctodick, you AnissH have found what, 100 errors over the past two years ?

 

We have not found a single critical error so far. Something you would also already know, if you understood what is under discussion.

 

-Anssi

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Well that's a relief! So there is such a thing, after all! It seems though that you differ from Anssi on this.

 

No. Focus; What DD is saying there is that he is not concerned of what the prediction function is. He is concerned what the universal constraints on prediction functions are. And I said:

 

Those constraints (and thus that fundamental equation) are not related to any supposed behaviour of reality, and there is no way to experimentally verify the equation.

 

It also does boil down to exactly what I'm talking about in the other thread (and apologies for length btw), i.e. to the duality between what the supposed "rules" are, and what the supposed "ontological entities" are.

 

-Anssi

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No. Focus; What DD is saying there is that he is not concerned of what the prediction function is. He is concerned what the universal constraints on prediction functions are.
But when he says "that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm" he is saying that it is possible to determine it experimentally. Therefore I don't get how you reconcile it with your points in the other thread.

 

It also does boil down to exactly what I'm talking about in the other thread (and apologies for length btw), i.e. to the duality between what the supposed "rules" are, and what the supposed "ontological entities" are.
Well I'm not sure what you mean by this duality because your points in the other thread seem to go quite a different way, if not the opposite.
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But when he says "that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm" he is saying that it is possible to determine it experimentally. Therefore I don't get how you reconcile it with your points in the other thread.

 

In my mind this is very simple. A valid prediction function does not entail ontological correctness.

 

I think you are probably thinking that a valid prediction function always implies that at least something is known about ontological reality.

 

Whereas most of my commentary in the other thread is an attempt to point out that you should not presume this at the get-go. And according to the analysis, it is a wrong assumption.

 

If your first reaction to this is to try and think about what you might know about reality "unambiguously", then be careful to not view definitions or facets of definitions as ontological knowledge (since you never know whether anything you ever define, is really a real object in ontological sense)

 

Well I'm not sure what you mean by this duality because your points in the other thread seem to go quite a different way, if not the opposite.

 

I mean the way objects are defined by a specific set of properties (by some behavioral rules), while we also recognize that "specific object X is there" by something behaving according to specific properties. I.e. coming up with different (valid) sets of rules to explain some information means you are coming up with different valid set of defined objects, and vice versa.

 

So I was referring to them being sort of the different sides of the same coin; you can't change one without changing the other.

 

I sure hope you were not intenting to argue that I must be wrong because we know what objects there exist by looking at them. (Because I've heard that too many times)

 

-Anssi

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I think you are probably thinking that a valid prediction function always implies that at least something is known about ontological reality.

 

Whereas most of my commentary in the other thread is an attempt to point out that you should not presume this at the get-go. And according to the analysis, it is a wrong assumption.

I was not presuming this at all and, if you thought so, it is because you keep totally missing my points.

 

I sure hope you were not intenting to argue that I must be wrong because we know what objects there exist by looking at them. (Because I've heard that too many times)
Having hear it so many times is not a good reason to presume it about me, instead of getting my points.

 

Now I haven't been well at all since Sunday and it adds to all the other difficulties. I really don't know when I'll resume replying to the other thread because I find it less and less woth the time, except that I had already addressed many of those points on Thurday with efforts toward overcoming the misunderstandings. I don't know, for the moment I'll just try to get better.

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I was not presuming this at all and, if you thought so, it is because you keep totally missing my points.

 

Having hear it so many times is not a good reason to presume it about me, instead of getting my points.

 

Now I haven't been well at all since Sunday and it adds to all the other difficulties. I really don't know when I'll resume replying to the other thread because I find it less and less woth the time, except that I had already addressed many of those points on Thurday with efforts toward overcoming the misunderstandings. I don't know, for the moment I'll just try to get better.

Sorry to hear that you are not feeling well. I hope you recover quickly whatever it is that is bothering you. I am very sorry that whatever it is that you have been trying to communicate just seems to go by Anssi and I. It seems that his comment that we are talking past one another is a very apt comment.

 

I would say that you make much of what you seem to believe to be the clarity of language whereas Anssi and I both seem to question the clarity of things in a much more fundamental way. I think you really don't comprehend where I am coming from. When I was eight years old and in the second grade, the teacher told us that it was against the rules to use a word in its definition because then you could not find out what it meant without knowing what it meant. This bothered me because of the question of what happens if there is another word in that definition which one does not understand. In order to know the meaning of the original word, one would have to look up the meaning of that second word also. It follows that the original word can not be used in either definition.

 

That argument can be extended to the entire dictionary; i.e., it was quite clear to me that all words in the dictionary had to be circularly defined. Being a child, I did not comprehend the complexity of that concept and was curious as to how far one had to go before that circularity became obvious. I decided to go to the dictionary in the front of the room and see just how far I had to go looking up the meaning of a words before I would run into the original word.

 

Since, in my child's mind, where I started was of no consequence, I started with the first entry in the dictionary which was as follows: “A -- the first letter of the alphabet, a pronoun ...”. I closed the dictionary and when back to my seat knowing that the teacher had just given us a “gullibility” check. She and I were clearly on the same page; otherwise why would she have made an assertion so easy to disprove.

 

At any rate, it was then that I began to worry about how we know what things mean. Mathematics was the only field where that question was easy to answer and physics was the only “useful” field which seemed to take the question seriously. That is, until I got into graduate school when they began to get awful sloppy with the defense of their assertions. That is the very crux of the problem I have solved.

 

Now, since your presentation goes far beyond the definition of states, which are still commonly called "wave functions", it all depends on what your meaning of QM is when you refer to it and I have never succeded in comunicating with you on this.

My meaning is quite simple. I am referring to no more than the fact that my fundamental equation looks very much like equations one would expect to find in a study of quantum mechanics and that my definitions for finding your expectations are very analogous to the methods of finding expectations within the field of quantum mechanics. Close enough anyway that the approximate solutions to my equation can be compared to some quantum mechanical results. There should be no expectation that my results should bear any resemblance to quantum mechanics results at all as they are based on entirely different considerations.

 

If case 2 is your actual contention, what you would need to convince me of is that you can recover the Lorentz covariance in a manner that doesn't rely on choices that turn out to be ad hoc.

This comment makes it quite clear that you are missing the point of the presentation. That a step I take is “ad hoc” (pulled out of my rectum if you would prefer) has utterly no bearing whatsoever upon the issue under discussion. The only issue of any significance is, does that step impose any constraints whatsoever on either the possible problems which can be represented or the possible internally consistent explanations of the associated information. What you seem incapable of comprehending is the fact that those other issues you bring up are entirely beside the point.

 

The issue is that my equation imposes one and only one constraint on the possible solutions. That constraint is, “that the explanation be internally consistent with the universe of information to be explained and is flaw-free: i.e., does not contradict any known information. The point is that it makes no difference what that information is; the equation is still valid by construction.

 

To quote something from the introduction I wrote to that unpublished paper from 1982

 

There is a subtle aspect to science unrealized by many scientists. When one designs an experiment, one must be careful to assure that the result is not predetermined by definition: that is, that one is actually checking something of significance. A simple example of what I am talking about can be illustrated by thinking about an experiment to determine if water runs downhill. If one begins that experiment by defining downhill with a carpenters level, one has made a major error. They have clearly predefined the result of the experiment; as downhill has been defined to be the direction water runs (the bubble being the absence of water). In such a case, it is rather a waste of time to finish carrying out such an experiment no matter how well the rest of the experiment is designed. It should be clear that to do so is nothing more then checking the consistency of one's definitions.

Many of the definitions made in physics have quite subtle consequences and following out what has and has not been predefined is not an easy task. In fact I am aware of no attempt to examine the complete consequences of any of those definitions. My presentation is no more than making specific “ad hoc” definitions and then checking the consequences of being consistent with those definitions. Certainly my education in physics bears very strongly on what “ad hoc” definitions I extract from my rectum but it should not be presumed that I defend those definitions by what the scientists mean. As such the only complaints should be, do my definitions themselves exclude any possible collection of information and/or have I made any errors in my deductions from those definitions.

 

But when he says "that only experiment can determine the correct algorithm" he is saying that it is possible to determine it experimentally. Therefore I don't get how you reconcile it with your points in the other thread.

God Qfwfq, it seems to be almost impossible to communicate with you. The algorithm is the mechanism for determining your expectations which had better be in alignment with your past (that is what you know Qfwfq) or you are certainly is not referring to a “flaw free” explanation: i.e., it is your flaw free explanation of the phenomena of interest. You can only be happy with that explanation if it continues to be consistent with the new data as that data is added to “what you know” and that would be the present (the future as it becomes the past; what was unknown becomes known). The “correct algorithm” is thus the mechanism which will continue to yield results consistent with what you are trying to explain. It is in this sense that only experiment (the examination of future possibilities) can determine a “correct algorithm”.

 

And all you can be sure of is that it is the correct algorithm at the moment. The future may destroy that explanation and you will have to come up with another; however, I assert that the new one must also obey my equation. If it doesn't, it is internally inconsistent! (Either that or I have made an error in my logic and/or my “ad hoc” definitions have accidentally imposed some unrecognized constraint on the possibilities.)

 

Have fun and I hope you feel better -- Dick

 

PS maybe you can see things a little clear with this picture.

 

 

The existence of the "Fundamental Transform" is the central issue here. If that transform exists, there is utterly no way of telling the difference between "reality" and the "alternate reality" (my "ad hoc" creation). Essentially, what lies within the "dotted" circle is exactly equivalent to the transformation performed by the alternate representation of our senses.

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