"a Universal Representation Of Rules"

[bravox]

I must say, Scott Aaronson has a mighty sense of humour but he doesn't aim to be accurate in his presentation. This makes him somewhat misleading and I wonder how tongue-in-cheek he means to be when he says experiment isn't necessary.

He doesn't really say experiments aren't necessary, but he has a different explanation as to why they are. At a minimum I think everyone must agree that some laws of physics are a direct consequence of our knowledge of the universe at a given time. For instance, SR is a direct consequence of a bunch of facts such as the finite speed of light or the absence of a preferred frame of reference. How those things imply that moving clocks run slower may not be obvious to you and me, but it was certainly obvious to Einstein. So in a sense it's silly to do experiments to "prove" that moving clocks do run slower, as if it were possible to expect anything else.

 

It is in that sense that Aaronson says that experiments are not necessary. Many experiments can't possibly yield results that are in conflict with our knowledge of the universe. But it doesn't stop there. If someone is really, really, really smart, what can they figure out about the universe without even looking at it? Quite a lot, really. In fact, most of our knowledge of physics is indeed the product of armchair thinking. And the bits that aren't will one day be proven wrong. It is impossible to "guess" how the universe works, not by thinking, not by experimenting.

 

Think about this in another way. Scientific Method 101 teaches you that scientific theories must be falsifiable. I always found that notion absurd. It means that valid scientific theories must allow for the universe to violate our rules of logic. This is nonsense. The universe doesn't know anything about rules of logic so how can it violate them? The only way a theory can be falsified is if it violates logic by itself. In other words, if it is wrong. No universe required.

 

There is a further angle to it. A theory may be perfectly logical but we may have difficulty seeing that. Because we are not too smart, we think we can come up with an experiment that will prove the theory wrong. In that way, we do need experiments simply to convince ourselves when rational thought would do if we were smart enough.

 

Well, I probably said too much by now. I glanced over some issues so I hope the discussion continues.

[bravox]

Well I must say it's fun for a change to converse about this topic with someone who is already aligned to view the topic from an epistemological angle.

It is fun indeed, but I notice that some people take these matters too seriously, on both sides. It's a shame as there is really nothing at stake.

 

Well there are two different topics embedded to the idea of "explaining double-slit experiment".

 

Most people are only looking at it from the topic of wondering about what is the "true ontology of reality"; they are asking themselves what kinds of elements and behaviours there really exist behind the double-slit experiment, so to produce such a mysterious behaviour. That is a question of ontology, and it is unanswerable already on the grounds that any valid ontology can always be translated into another logically equal ontology (only semantically different).

You mean, like Vienna can be translated into many-worlds or things like that? I don't think anybody really buys into those interpretations. But in any case I think all those interpretations are missing the mark.

 

I got a bit lost on your argument of ontology versus epistemology, but I have the impression you may be able to agree with this:

 

The problem with the double-slit experiment is not to "know" what is really happening. That is completely beside the point, there is nothing really happening that can be so mysterious once we figure it out. It's not like we will one day use a huge microscope and find quantum particles dressed as clowns laughing at us (I hope you get the drift)

 

Consider electromagnetic waves. Those are viewed as having the form of the sinus function plotted over a graph, where the y axis is amplitude and the x axis is time. Wave forms that are not sinoidal can be viewed as the sum of multiple sinoidal waves. Now, no physicist would think that EM waves really look like that. In fact, EM waves don't look like anything at all, they can't be directly observed.

 

Theories in physics are rooted in math, but most math can be visualized in terms of mental shapes and mental operations performed on those shapes. Abstract things like addition, multiplication, integrals, vectors, gradients, all those things can have a mental representation, the way EM waves and what happens to them do. And here is the problem with QM: no one has been able to come up with a mental representation for the mathematical objects. We are basically doing math in the dark.

 

Back to the double-slit experiment, it's not a mystery that we get the interference patterns, that is what the math tells us should happen. Interference happens even without doing the experiment, right on the piece of paper where calculations are being done. What is really mysterious is that the best minds have not yet been able to form a mental image of the mathematical objects and operations used in QM. We use "wave" and "particle" as clutches, knowing these do not agree with other uses of those concepts.

 

In short, the mystery of QM arises from the math, not from observation. And it's a mystery only in an abstract sense. It's not a mystery like a Virgin Mary apparition.

 

Sorry for the rambling. I'm hoping you can make some sense of it and give your interpretation.

 

If you look at QM as a "data handling framework", i.e. as an immaterial mechanism to first categorize information into defined elements (potentially immaterial but very handy for mental image of reality), and then generate expectations according to some immaterial rules (rules that people concerned with ontology tend to view in terms of many worlds or transactional time relationships or wave function collapse etc), then there is a very explicit point to be made about the reasons why things in double-slit experiment occur the way they do. What needs to be kept in mind is that, the double-slit experiment itself is our language of something occurring in reality, and our actual observations of the particular states across the experiment, are connected by what our own conception of reality tells us was happening in-between.

I really don't think you have to go so obscure. It's all math so there aren't deep philosophical questions; a super-intelligent being would perfectly understand it and tell us, "you silly, what the heck makes you think things should be different?".

 

That is why quantum mechanical particles appear to be influenced by each others in non-physical (idealistic) ways

Right here I think you are committing the sin of visualizing the mathematical entities used in QM as particles (or waves, for that matter). It is the wrong visualization, although no one has found a good one so far.

 

I think this idea requires some mental wrestling for some people, but it's not really that complicated if you manage to look at it from the right angle (just think about philosophy of intelligence and understanding in general).

With all respect, this is too esoteric, new-agey for me. It's the same line of thinking that makes people think QM has anything to do with consciousness, reality-is-a-product-of-your-mind kind of thinking. At least that is how I interpret it.

 

Yes, it is mind-boggling, to the extent that people think that the particles that those probability waves are affecting, are actually real particles

It is mind-boggling in the sense that we came up with math that can't be visualized. We got here in the dark and we can't find where the hell the light switch is.

 

I'll stop here as I probably said too much. Hope you don't see anything as an affront to your ideas; I promptly concede I do not understand all of them.

[AnssiH]

You mean, like Vienna can be translated into many-worlds or things like that? I don't think anybody really buys into those interpretations. But in any case I think all those interpretations are missing the mark.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "Vienna" but assuming you refer to some interpretation used by those QM pioneering physicists, then yes, I think it is fair to say those different views are interchangeable. Some may be more developed than others though.

 

I got a bit lost on your argument of ontology versus epistemology, but I have the impression you may be able to agree with this:

 

The problem with the double-slit experiment is not to "know" what is really happening. That is completely beside the point, there is nothing really happening that can be so mysterious once we figure it out. It's not like we will one day use a huge microscope and find quantum particles dressed as clowns laughing at us (I hope you get the drift)

 

Consider electromagnetic waves. Those are viewed as having the form of the sinus function plotted over a graph, where the y axis is amplitude and the x axis is time. Wave forms that are not sinoidal can be viewed as the sum of multiple sinoidal waves. Now, no physicist would think that EM waves really look like that. In fact, EM waves don't look like anything at all, they can't be directly observed.

 

Theories in physics are rooted in math, but most math can be visualized in terms of mental shapes and mental operations performed on those shapes. Abstract things like addition, multiplication, integrals, vectors, gradients, all those things can have a mental representation, the way EM waves and what happens to them do. And here is the problem with QM: no one has been able to come up with a mental representation for the mathematical objects. We are basically doing math in the dark.

 

Back to the double-slit experiment, it's not a mystery that we get the interference patterns, that is what the math tells us should happen. Interference happens even without doing the experiment, right on the piece of paper where calculations are being done. What is really mysterious is that the best minds have not yet been able to form a mental image of the mathematical objects and operations used in QM. We use "wave" and "particle" as clutches, knowing these do not agree with other uses of those concepts.

 

Well, I would perhaps express the problem by saying that, technically the QM math can be visualized, but when you do, you are forced to represent behaviour where an observation affects things in ways that it logically shouldn't. I.e., an observation should not affect the states of reality, as long as reality is not just something we are imagining in our minds. That is why I expressed the QM problem by saying that it has got seemingly idealistic features to it. Seemingly, because at closer examination those features are not features of reality at all. And that is not to imply that we merely imagine reality in our heads.

 

I realize you probably want to make a point of the possibility that a valid interpretation of the math may not even contain the idea of "observation", but let me express this point of view to the conundrum;

 

By definition, the QM wave functions (the math) express how some particular state(s) are expected to evolve as a function of time, according to some probabilistic rules. By the definition that we are expressing "possibilities", we are expressing a smearing propagation that starts from some observed state. Think about the role we have put on "observation" by this point. At the moment you are observing a state, all the other possibilities are 0. As soon as you stop observing a state, the smearing starts to propagate to all directions. As soon as you observe another state, other possibilities again fall to 0. That is so at the very core of QM definitions.

 

Those probabilistic rules that express the smearing, are basically an expression of our expectations, based on our world views. Superficially, we would just take that smearing as a way to visualize something in our heads; just like a trajectory of a thrown tennis ball can be visualized without thinking the trajectory must "exist in reality" in order for the ball to follow it. But it just so happens that a key component of those rules is the interference between all the smearing possibilities, even in the case of individual entities. In order for that representation to produce valid expectations, one would expect that such an interference also needs to actually occur in some sense. Suddenly "all the possible trajectories" are needed as "existing in reality". So, we have again arrived at another way to express that same mystery; "how could all the future possibilities of a particle actually have an effect on the route the particle takes, without those possibilites actually occurring"

 

I hope you can visualize in your head the picture that I am painting. Just imagine a double-slit experiment; a particle about to be released, with all the possible future paths of that particle visualized, and interfering with each others (thus affecting the end result). And then only having the ability to observe where the particle lands on the other side, i.e. the very next relevant collection of data we have is of the particle having landed.

 

Or, if we build means to observe a state at the middle of the experiment - that tells us which slit the particle passes - the representation of our associated expectations also changes accordingly; the "other possibilities" fall to zero at the middle of the experiment (at the moment of observation), and the possibilities from that state onwards are also changed accordingly (there's no double slit anymore from that point onwards, and thus the interference also disappears from the wave functions of all particles that were detected in the middle).

 

Now that you have a common QM language version of the setup in your head, let me suggest a different way to look at that exact same thing. View those two observed relevant states as two collections of some noumenaic information. In QM language we interpret some collection of information as "a particle here" and another collection as "a particle there". In some different language, we could view those same states just as a collection of numbers or bits or colours or as any kind of alternative representation we wish to use. (We are not making the assumption that reality is like our chosen representation.)

 

You should also be able to convince yourself of the fact that, it is possible to create a set of rules that would tell you what to expect the subsequent collection(s) of information to be, after some known collection. In terms of QM, those rules are the interfering probability waves. In different language, we may express valid rules in completely different way. It's effectively "the same rules", but expressed completely differently.

 

You probably agree, that if you view the same thing in some completely abstract sense, there really is no mystery regarding why such and such collection of data follows such and such collection of data by such and such probability. That question never even comes up. And you can probably agree that, while those different language representations could be equally valid as QM in terms of expectations, we should hardly spend any time arguing over the ontological correctedness of any single one.

 

Think about the fact that QM language and its seemingly idealistic rules are also by themselves a mental interpretation of some collections of information, and underlying that language is really just bunch of observed states, being connected by some rules that we know are providing us with valid expectations.

 

Why is it - in your opinion - that most people are so convinced that the entities (the elementary particles) of that language, are real objects with real continuous identity to themselves? I.e., why are most people so convinced that in the dual slit experiment, our language is so correct, that there actually is a particle that actually makes that journey? Do we have such knowledge, and when we claim such a thing, are we not claiming our language is correct over and beyond what it actually states in terms of observable expectations?

 

And what would you say if I made the claim, that it can be demonstrated, that the QM language is a generally valid method for expressing inductive expectations between any collections of information (as long as proper language translation is performed)...?

 

Sorry for the rambling. I'm hoping you can make some sense of it and give your interpretation.

 

You are rambling? Look at me! :D

 

My interpretation of what you were getting at is that you are talking about the possibility of interpreting QM math in ways that don't put unduly role to observation. Certainly that is possible, but I think it's irrelevant because it would just be another undefendable ontology (different language to express the same thing). It can be fun though.

 

I really don't think you have to go so obscure. It's all math so there aren't deep philosophical questions; a super-intelligent being would perfectly understand it and tell us, "you silly, what the heck makes you think things should be different?".

 

Yes, exactly. And actually that is what the analysis is about; "Why should we expect anything different?". I think it is required to walk through the thing in order to see how things turn out that way exactly though.

 

Right here I think you are committing the sin of visualizing the mathematical entities used in QM as particles (or waves, for that matter). It is the wrong visualization, although no one has found a good one so far.

 

Yeah, it's wrong in ontological sense. Yet so right in epistemological sense (for usefulness), for some very logical but unobvious reasons.

 

With all respect, this is too esoteric, new-agey for me. It's the same line of thinking that makes people think QM has anything to do with consciousness, reality-is-a-product-of-your-mind kind of thinking. At least that is how I interpret it.

 

Yeah, I think you are interpreting it a bit differently than I mean it if it sounds at all new-agey. I understand how that interpretation can occur, and while I was typing the above, many points make me think it can be interpreted little bit too much as if I'm talking about some form of idealism. But whenever I am suggesting that something "in reality" is not the way we see it, I'm merely referring to the fact that our particular way to conceptualize something is not to be taken as literally the way the ontological reality is structured. When I refer to the non-reality of "space" for instance, I'm referring to the fact that we can define space in very many useful and completely valid ways with different types of dimensionalities, and that any information that can be expressed in 3 dimensions, can be expressed in any other dimensionality without losing any information. I'm just being analytical and staying away from undefendable ontological perspectives.

 

I'll stop here as I probably said too much. Hope you don't see anything as an affront to your ideas; I promptly concede I do not understand all of them.

 

Well, if you enjoy thinking about these things, perhaps you enjoy reading this conversation I had recently about the "reality of the wave function";

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ai-philosophy/message/18063

 

-Anssi

Edited March 8, 2012 by AnssiH

[Qfwfq]

He doesn't really say experiments aren't necessary,

Thank goodness he doesn't, but instead of telling me, make sure Anssi understands that. I was cautioning against drawing hasty conclusions because he certainly doesn't make it easy to get his message. It is less clear there than in this article about the topic. The last sentence of the paragraph before section 2, with the clause between hyphens, should also be taken as a clarification. That article is far more interesting than Dick's junk.

 

How those things imply that moving clocks run slower may not be obvious to you and me, but it was certainly obvious to Einstein.

You're being quite inaccurate here, so don't assume my understanding is as poor as yours. SR doesn't tell us such a thing, it tells us about coordinate transformations. But, apart from this correction:

So in a sense it's silly to do experiments to "prove" that moving clocks do run slower, as if it were possible to expect anything else.

Yeah only in a sense; it isn't silly at all. You might as well say it's silly to go looking for Higgs boson events because the standard model already tells us all about it.

 

And the bits that aren't will one day be proven wrong.

For cryin' out loud. Serious?

 

Scientific Method 101 teaches you that scientific theories must be falsifiable. I always found that notion absurd. It means that valid scientific theories must allow for the universe to violate our rules of logic.

No it doesn't mean that, at all. You are being highly inaccurate here, but it isn't quite the topic.

[bravox]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Vienna"

Vienna, Copenhagen, same thing :)

 

You probably agree, that if you view the same thing in some completely abstract sense, there really is no mystery regarding why such and such collection of data follows such and such collection of data by such and such probability. That question never even comes up.

Actually, it does even in an abstract sense. If you follow Scott Aaronson's lecture, he explains how most of QM follows from probability theory if you allow the amplitudes to be complex numbers. The nagging question is, what the heck does "complex probability" mean, and why do we need it to describe probabilities of real events. This is kind of a mystery even on paper, much like imaginary numbers were mysterious when they were first discovered.

 

Why is it - in your opinion - that most people are so convinced that the entities (the elementary particles) of that language, are real objects with real continuous identity to themselves?

Well, they don't have to be real objects, much like gradients are not real objects. But we can imagine how energy can be distributed in space in patterns we can call 'gradients'. Not so with QM, we can't imagine anything that can form the shape of something that appears as both a particle and a wave at the same time.

 

But the bottom line is, no matter how we look at the issue, we always end up with the same questions that have been asked for almost a century now, except we do it in a different language that makes it seem like we have a novel attack to the problem. Of course the problem will be solved when we do approach it using a novel language, except we don't seem to be doing it.

 

And what would you say if I made the claim, that it can be demonstrated, that the QM language is a generally valid method for expressing inductive expectations between any collections of information (as long as proper language translation is performed)...?

I would say I'm not familiar enough with your concepts to understand what you are talking about. (no, I didn't forget the smiley at the end of the sentence)

 

When I refer to the non-reality of "space" for instance, I'm referring to the fact that we can define space in very many useful and completely valid ways with different types of dimensionalities, and that any information that can be expressed in 3 dimensions, can be expressed in any other dimensionality without losing any information. I'm just being analytical and staying away from undefendable ontological perspectives.

Yet all 'ontologies' (I don't like that word) must be equivalent in the sense that they express the same phenomena, the only difference being the in the language used. And that to me means there is no such thing as 'ontology' except as a mental concept. The same goes for 'reality' as well.

 

The previous point can easily be misunderstood. The problem with the concept of reality is that it is, well, a concept. What our senses communicate to us is much more than can be conceptualized. So words like reality or ontology don't really mean what we wish they meant when we use them, which ends up meaning that they are meaningless (ouch!). In fact there are no words to talk about those things. That is, in essence, what it means to be conscious.

 

Well, if you enjoy thinking about these things, perhaps you enjoy reading this conversation I had recently about the "reality of the wave function";

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ai-philosophy/message/18063

 

I did enjoy it, thanks.

 

 

You're being quite inaccurate here, so don't assume my understanding is as poor as yours. SR doesn't tell us such a thing,

I told you I glanced over some things, and I would never assume your understanding is as poor as mine (and I hope you do the same).

 

In any case, I was trying to make a point that is difficult to make. I think Anssi and Scott Aaronson see things the way I see, and that it is not an affront to established science, just a slightly different perspective on it.

 

it isn't silly at all. You might as well say it's silly to go looking for Higgs boson events because the standard model already tells us all about it.

Silliness is relative. Some animals struggle with things that are second nature to us (I'm always amused to see flies constantly hitting a glass pane, completely unable to realize they must turn back). Some hypothetical human with an IQ of, I don't know, 1,000,000, would certainly laugh at most of what we do.

 

(edited to add reply to Qfwfq)

Edited March 9, 2012 by bravox

[Rade]

... we can't imagine anything that can form the shape of something that appears as both a particle and a wave at the same time.

? Imagine the "thing" below made of individual "particles" with "wave" motion (that is, "imagine" some energy forcing it to move up-down as a wave). It is not difficult to "imagine" that this "thing" appears as a particle when observed between boundary conditions at location { } and simultaneously that it appears as a wave between boundary condition at location [ ].

 

Try this...focus your eyes at location {} but maintain perception of [] boundary condition..see how easy it is to "imagine" that the "thing" is both a "particle" and "wave" simultaneously ? Thus, one can imagine that when you break the symmetry of a QM entity by observation limited to boundary conditions of {} you "observe" a "particle", but when you break the symmetry by observation of [] you "observe" a "wave".

 

[..............{.}..............]

 

Can we then say that I "know" such a QM thing via imagination ?

[Qfwfq]

I think Anssi and Scott Aaronson see things the way I see, and that it is not an affront to established science, just a slightly different perspective on it.

This can't be so, because Anssi and Scott don't see things the same way as each other. So then, which of the two sees them the same way as you?

 

Silliness is relative. Some animals struggle with things that are second nature to us (I'm always amused to see flies constantly hitting a glass pane, completely unable to realize they must turn back). Some hypothetical human with an IQ of, I don't know, 1,000,000, would certainly laugh at most of what we do.

Look, I know exactly what you mean, but I disagree that the matter in discussion is only a case of that.

 

I woun't say more than this because I'm tired of trying to explain things to flies...:P

[AnssiH]

Actually, it does even in an abstract sense. If you follow Scott Aaronson's lecture, he explains how most of QM follows from probability theory if you allow the amplitudes to be complex numbers. The nagging question is, what the heck does "complex probability" mean, and why do we need it to describe probabilities of real events. This is kind of a mystery even on paper, much like imaginary numbers were mysterious when they were first discovered.

 

Well if that question comes up "who do we need complex numbers to describe probabilities of real events?", you aren't really working on the abstract. You are rather trying to relate abstract logical functions into a particular mental language. In my mind, the complex numbers are just like any other mathematical concept; just a tool to handle logic. It doesn't matter what kind of logic expresses the relationship between two different circumstances, and the quantum mysteries really can only arise once we try to somehow relate that logic into our world view, according to which we believe such and such features are features of reality.

 

So, that was kind of the point, if you view your world view as a mechanism that translates some noumenaic information into some mental language (that language is already an abstraction from noumenaic reality), then it's not really a problem - epistemologically - what kind of logic is used to arrive at valid expectations.

 

And furthermore, there are some excellent epistemological reasons why that kind of logic is used, that have nothing to do with "hypothetical ontology of reality".

 

Well, they don't have to be real objects, much like gradients are not real objects. But we can imagine how energy can be distributed in space in patterns we can call 'gradients'. Not so with QM, we can't imagine anything that can form the shape of something that appears as both a particle and a wave at the same time.

 

That's right; we can't visualize it if we insist on visualizing reality as the "same type of thing" regardless of whether or not we are observing it. That's another way to express the fact that in the whole particle/wave conundrum, what we are really doing is we are mixing up our "probablistic expectations" (waves), with "non-probabilistic observations" (particles). The only obstacle in understanding the separation of the two in rational way is that people assume those "particles" must be literally real things, not just our mental language expression of some noumenaic reality.

 

But the bottom line is, no matter how we look at the issue, we always end up with the same questions that have been asked for almost a century now, except we do it in a different language that makes it seem like we have a novel attack to the problem. Of course the problem will be solved when we do approach it using a novel language, except we don't seem to be doing it.

 

Yes, well, just for the record, in my mind, deep understanding the epistemological reasons for the validity of QM definitions solves that problem as well as such a thing can be solved. That is, it can de-motivate a person from looking at the QM definitions as a reflection of some real phenomena.

 

I would say I'm not familiar enough with your concepts to understand what you are talking about. (no, I didn't forget the smiley at the end of the sentence)

 

Yes, well, what I was referring to was DD's analysis all the way to quantum definitions, but I think it requires either a lot of patience or rather fluent math skills to walk through it. Either way, I think your perspective on these things should allow you to understand what he means by the things he is saying. And, he is talking about rather similar thing as Aaronson, but from a more general perspective. (It's not just about QM, but about generating expectations in general sense)

 

Yet all 'ontologies' (I don't like that word) must be equivalent in the sense that they express the same phenomena, the only difference being the in the language used. And that to me means there is no such thing as 'ontology' except as a mental concept. The same goes for 'reality' as well.

 

The previous point can easily be misunderstood. The problem with the concept of reality is that it is, well, a concept. What our senses communicate to us is much more than can be conceptualized. So words like reality or ontology don't really mean what we wish they meant when we use them, which ends up meaning that they are meaningless (ouch!). In fact there are no words to talk about those things. That is, in essence, what it means to be conscious.

 

Yes, I think I understand what you mean by that, and I should warn you that I tend to use the word "reality" to refer to what you refer to by saying "there are no words to talk about those things". Perhaps you'd refer to it as "noumenaic reality" or just "noumena". And likewise, when I say "different ontologies", I should have probably said "different hypothetical ontologies", meaning exactly the same thing as "different mental languages".

 

-Anssi

[bravox]

Well if that question comes up "who do we need complex numbers to describe probabilities of real events?", you aren't really working on the abstract.

Certainly not, but that is the difference between physics and math. In physics you can't work totally in the abstract, the entities must be capable of being interpreted, whatever that means.

 

You are rather trying to relate abstract logical functions into a particular mental language.

Exactly!

 

In my mind, the complex numbers are just like any other mathematical concept; just a tool to handle logic.

Logic by itself is devoid of meaning. Consider "x = yz" - what does it mean? You have to find context to give it meaning. If you think of x as "force", y as "mass" and z as "acceleration", then you have one of Newton's laws, otherwise you have nothing.

 

It doesn't matter what kind of logic expresses the relationship between two different circumstances, and the quantum mysteries really can only arise once we try to somehow relate that logic into our world view, according to which we believe such and such features are features of reality.

Indeed, and that is exactly the problem! What does "the photon goes through both slits at the same time" mean? The mathematics behind it are solid, our interpretaion is not. That probably means our concepts of "particle" and "wave" are slightly incorrect, but what other concepts do we have? You seem to be saying, "we need no concepts", and in that case I could not agree.

 

if you view your world view as a mechanism that translates some noumenaic information into some mental language (that language is already an abstraction from noumenaic reality), then it's not really a problem - epistemologically - what kind of logic is used to arrive at valid expectations.

In a sense you are right, but our inability to visualize/understand what we are doing prevents, or at least hinders, further advancement. Without a world view, as you put it, we are left with pure mathematics. For instance, without the picture of a triangle in his mind, Pythagoras could never have discovered his famous theorem.

 

That's right; we can't visualize it if we insist on visualizing reality as the "same type of thing" regardless of whether or not we are observing it. That's another way to express the fact that in the whole particle/wave conundrum, what we are really doing is we are mixing up our "probablistic expectations" (waves), with "non-probabilistic observations" (particles). The only obstacle in understanding the separation of the two in rational way is that people assume those "particles" must be literally real things, not just our mental language expression of some noumenaic reality.

I'm not entirely sure I understand you. Waves, of any kind, do not have a physical existence. The waves you see, for instance, in the surface of the ocean are just water going up and down. Nothing is moving sideways. But we can imagine an abstract entity moving sideways, and we can actually say a lot of stuff about this imaginary entity.

 

So not all things have to be literally real to be observed and understood. It seems to me you are missing the point, but I may be missing your point.

 

deep understanding the epistemological reasons for the validity of QM definitions solves that problem as well as such a thing can be solved. That is, it can de-motivate a person from looking at the QM definitions as a reflection of some real phenomena.

But the double-slit experiment is real, and it makes no sense. Why do you think it doesn't matter that it makes no sense?

 

I think I understand what you mean by that, and I should warn you that I tend to use the word "reality" to refer to what you refer to by saying "there are no words to talk about those things". Perhaps you'd refer to it as "noumenaic reality" or just "noumena". And likewise, when I say "different ontologies", I should have probably said "different hypothetical ontologies", meaning exactly the same thing as "different mental languages".

Hmmm... think about this: blind people understand visual concepts, like colors and shapes, as well as we do. Words like "reality", "noumena", "ontology", can be fully understood without any reference to "things that cannot be communicated with words". That is, in fact, the only way one can learn the meaning of those words, since they are pure abstractions.

 

But this is a side issue anyway, and it's not important.

[Qfwfq]

It's amusing to sit back and watch you guys.

 

For instance:

Waves, of any kind, do not have a physical existence. The waves you see, for instance, in the surface of the ocean are just water going up and down. Nothing is moving sideways. But we can imagine an abstract entity moving sideways, and we can actually say a lot of stuff about this imaginary entity.

That's a relief, we don't need to worry about the tsunami coming in from that deep sea earthquake. How could something that we only imagine is moving along the surface ever wreak havoc when it reaches the shore? Edited March 17, 2012 by Qfwfq
tiny little typo

[AnssiH]

Certainly not, but that is the difference between physics and math. In physics you can't work totally in the abstract, the entities must be capable of being interpreted, whatever that means.

 

Or perhaps better to say, "some information" needs to be capable of being interpreted. It is common to any mental language, that information is interpreted via categorizing it into some collection of carefully defined "entities", via some translation process. And what that translation process is in itself, is not really available for us to understand, apart from understanding it in terms of those entities; the very results of the translation process itself.

 

I'm sure you know that age-old problem that I'm referring to, and I would just point out that the key point to take out from that problem is that "understanding" something does not entail at all that you know what it is "in itself", it just entails you are capable of expressing expectations of it, in some arbitrary mental language. The entities defined by physics being exactly that, an arbitrary language to express expectations.

 

Note that the only way to check the validity of any mental language, is to check whether it generates valid predictions. But that of course does not verify whether it is the only possible mental language; it would always be possible to express the same underlying noumenaic information in terms of different entities and concepts, and still get just as valid expectations.

 

Indeed, and that is exactly the problem! What does "the photon goes through both slits at the same time" mean? The mathematics behind it are solid, our interpretaion is not. That probably means our concepts of "particle" and "wave" are slightly incorrect, but what other concepts do we have? You seem to be saying, "we need no concepts", and in that case I could not agree.

 

I'm not exactly saying that we don't need concepts, we certainly do in our practical everyday life.

 

But if we want to talk about the logical foundations of the whole double-slit conundrum, there are few things to be pointed out about the concepts we use.

 

First, the translation process from "some noumenaic information" to "the entities of physics" (or any world view) contains a host of assumptions that cannot be really checked. Or perhaps a better way to express how I mean that is to say that, the set of defined entities/concepts of any world view contains features that are not actually features of "reality" (or the noumenaic information), they are merely features necessary for that particular representation of reality(/expectations).

 

I.e., the representation form commonly called "modern physics", contains various features necessary for that particular representation form, and the existence of those features also lead into the fact that, if you represent expectations in this form, your valid understanding of "double slit experiment" (or whatever it is that really happens there) contains semi-idealistic relationship between the entities (that you have defined) and observation.

 

Those undefendable features are not merely embedded to the definitions of those entities (such as photons), they are just as much related to all the concepts that are necessary to understand what is meant by those entities (e.g. definitions of space and time)

 

Second, while it is not really possible to prove any given representation form of reality to be somehow correct (over and beyond it providing valid expectations), it is possible to point out how/why those undefendable features of modern physics arise as common epistemological necessities, if only you choose to handle those necessities in particular way.

 

I'm not entirely sure I understand you. Waves, of any kind, do not have a physical existence. The waves you see, for instance, in the surface of the ocean are just water going up and down. Nothing is moving sideways. But we can imagine an abstract entity moving sideways, and we can actually say a lot of stuff about this imaginary entity.

 

All I was saying was that, we should view the "particles" the same way as you are viewing waves. They are also an expression of some noumenaic information, and there is no actual way to check whether or not reality is actually structured in a way where there are actual particles that are actually floating in actual space. All we can do is check whether that sort of interpretation of some noumenaic information yields valid expectations. (And it sure does)

 

But the double-slit experiment is real, and it makes no sense. Why do you think it doesn't matter that it makes no sense?

 

Because the reasons why it makes no sense can be traced to some epistemological necessities, and when a person forms understanding of that fact, they can see why it makes sense to see things this way, all the while they understand reality is not literally like that. It's kind of the same thing as viewing "negative numbers" as absurd, on the grounds that you can't have a negative number of potatoes. That's right, yet as part of a mental language to represent things in reality, negative numbers can be very useful.

 

There are very good purely logical reasons why quantum mechanical representation of expectations is useful, there there is absolutely no reason to view quantum mechanical entities (or any other defined entities) as literally real objects.

 

-Anssi

Edited March 19, 2012 by AnssiH

[bravox]

(deleted)

Edited March 20, 2012 by bravox

[Bombadil]

And I think you have this right as well. I.e., it is always possible to represent the inductive expectations in terms of defining "quantum mechanical particles", by which I mean elements that behave exactly the way that world has been defined in modern quantum physics. Which implies something about modern physics.

 

Yes it would imply something about modern physics, it is also a statement that I don't think that you can convince me of until you have proven the necessity of the definitions used by modern physics. On the other hand I agree that the same notation as is used in modern quantum physics can be used.

 

It's like this, at this point I have little interest in the implications of this to modern physics because quite simply it seems to me to be too early in the derivation to have any (at least until we except the derivation of the Schroedinger equation to be assumption free and that every solution to it to be equivalent to modern physics or we decide what assumptions are being made). Now if you want to make the assumptions that it seems to me you are making, that is fine. But from where I am sitting all of your arguments of the necessity of the universe to obey modern physics are based on the fact that they have been derived from the fundamental equation.

 

Every one seems to be either of the opinion that there are no assumptions in any of the derivations or of the opinion that there must be assumptions. To me both groups have a point I have to wonder if ether group is right.

 

Unfortunately there is only one way in my mind to settle the issue and it is perhaps beyond me, at least at present, and that is to prove it one way or the other. In my mind this requires the derivation of a solution to the fundamental equation that is not consistent with modern physics or a proof that no such explanation can exist.

 

Don't take this to mean that I disagree with the derivation of the fundamental equation. Quite to the contrary. I have yet to see any thing that seems to be a flaw in the derivation that would limit the explanations that can be represented, the only problem I have, is that I have no reason to assume that the approximations that have been made are anything more then approximations.

 

I am afraid the representation (that the fundamental elements which communicate the information can be numerically labeled) is fundamental to the derivation. In fact, that is all the derivation is based upon. My deductions are pure consequences of the fact that the signals (signs, symbols, gestures, etc.) are arbitrary and may be numerically labeled. Nothing else has any significance whatsoever.

 

I am not disagreeing with this. All that I am saying is that you have chosen the notation so that it is very much a notation that already existed. Just to give an example, we could recast the fundamental equation using Einstein notation and get rid of the summation symbols of course this would beg the question of why we would do such a thing and the only reason that I can think of is if we felt that it made it more aesthetically pleasing or if we simply wanted to abuse the notation for some reason. Of course there must be other options that haven't even been thought up yet but is anybody going to seriously say that it is a different equation if we did such a thing?

 

My fundamental equation is written (in all its glory)

 

[math]

\left\{\sum_i\vec{\alpha}_i \cdot \vec{\nabla}_i + \sum_{i \neq j}\beta_{ij}\delta(\vec{x}_i -\vec{x}_j)\right\}\vec{\Psi}=K\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Psi}=ikm\vec{\Psi}

[/math]

 

where I define those alpha and beta operators as anti-commuting operators with a magnitude of one half. These are essentially quite analogous to the operators in quantum mechanics called “spinors”. (Sorry about that, I apparently misspelled the thing in that earlier post.)

 

OK, that is why it didn't come up when I searched it.

 

All functions can be divided into a sum of anti-symmetric and symmetric components. The only issue internal to my deduction is the fact that, if multiple things are real (and thus there exist multiple elements which no explanation can omit), there must exist anti-symmetric components: i.e., anti-symmetric functions must be there. So, essentially the insertion of the requirement of those “spinner” operators allows the possibility that there exist multiple “real” things. Omitting them would make solipsism the only possibility: i.e., everything would have to be hypothetical. What you should comprehend is that being entirely hypothetical does not require the absence of anti-symmetric solutions; these are entirely different issues.

 

OK now I am confused. What do the spinors have to do with the existence of real or hypothetical elements. From everything that you have said in the past I have come to conclude that the use of the spinors was a convenience to make three equations into one, and had no influence outside of the notation that it allowed us to use to represent explanations, but you seem to be giving them some greater meaning here.

 

For the very simple reason that my derivation is invalid if ontological elements represented by symmetric functions are real. I am afraid you have a concept of “real” which is not well thought out. (Your definition of “real” is apparently the fact that you believe it exists.) My definition of real is quite simple: if something is “real” there can exist no explanation which omits it. Until you know “all possible explanations” you cannot possibly prove anything is real: i.e., “required by all explanations”.

 

Just which step is it that assumed that a real element was symmetric?

 

Again, how do you define “real”. It seems to me that, from your perspective, belief is the only measure of that identification.

 

Let me see if I can clarify this slightly, from what you have said a real element is real only if it appears in every possible explanation, the problem is that we would have to know every possible explanation in order for us to call an element real. Now you have just said that an explanation exists in which every element is an anti-commuting element. The simple geometric proof.

 

Now suppose that we had just two explanations of the same thing that were not exactly the same explanation but they are of the same thing. How could we tell if an element has a representation in both explanations, we would have to look at the other elements in the explanation to compare them. The problem with this idea is that we have no way of telling if we are right or not, all we could do is ask how probable is it that these are the same elements. To make this worse we know that an explanation exists in which all of the element would be symmetric elements and so we know that there exists at least one explanation that has all of the elements representable and at least one that has them all as anti-symmetric elements. And then there of course must be an infinite number of explanations based on these that simply have a different number of hypothetical elements.

 

So indeed belief would seem to be the only measure of if an element is real or not, no matter how we define real, since we don't even have a way to determine if two explanations are explaining the same thing.

 

Yeah, the photon is certainly a consequence of Maxwell's explanation of what are normally referred to as electromagnetic effects. Are you trying to assert that there exists no other possible explanation of those effects?

 

Just which effects are you referring to? Do you mean the consequences of Maxwell's equations or do you mean the context that leads to the maxwell equations?

 

If you mean the effects that lead to the use of the Maxwell equations then of course there are other explanations that will lead to the same effects, you have already given one in your simple geometric proof. But of course we should not forget that if we use this interpretation then the Maxwell equations must of course be wrong in this interpretation because they would give different expectations. But of course this is obvious.

 

But if you mean an explanation that includes all of the expectations of the Maxwell equations then the photon being one of the the expectations of the equations leads one to suspect that there is no explanation that gives the same expectations as the Maxwell equations without including photons. They are one of the expectations of the equations after all.

 

I get the feeling that you are misinterpreting what I mean by “context”. What I mean by “required context” is the entire collection of circumstances (sans hypothetical elements) upon which your explanation is based. In actual fact, your explanation is probably based on what you think constitutes the entire collection of circumstances (which most probably includes hypothetical elements) upon which your explanation is based.

 

Wouldn't this be the entire past?

 

Please let me know how you intend to define “a photon” without using any aspects of Maxwell's equations.

 

But isn't that exactly what you are doing when you say things like,

 

It is interesting to note that if the second entity (the supposed massless element) is identified with the conventional concept of a free photon, its energy is given by c times its momentum.

 

In fact isn't your derivation of the Dirac equation based on doing just that?

 

What you are omitting is that you are requiring the assumption that your explanation is “correct”. No flaw in that explanation will ever be found.

 

I'm somewhat puzzled by your use of the word flaw and correct, isn't an explanation only flawed if it is self inconsistent? And the use of the word correct implies an explanation can be wrong but this is meaningless since we have no way of knowing what it is that would make an explanation correct. it sounds like you are using these words in exactly the same way as you always say I am using these words.

 

What defense is there for even the approximations made in the derivation of the Schroedinger equation?

[Doctordick]

... you have proven the necessity of the definitions used by modern physics.

 

I have not proven any such thing; it is communicating their ideas which requires using the same definitions. All you can do is work at trying to understand those definitions.

 

But from where I am sitting all of your arguments of the necessity of the universe to obey modern physics are based on the fact that they have been derived from the fundamental equation.

 

No, none of them have been derived from my fundamental equation. Science is totally ignorant of my equation. All those relationships have been discovered to be valid via the “guess and by golly” mechanism in standard use by science. The issue in my presentation is that, under any internally consistent definitions of the ontological elements referred to by the numerical reference labels [math]x_i[/math], any communication represented by a collection of circumstances [math](x_1,x_2, \cdots, x_n)[/math] must obey my fundamental equation (I have proved that).

 

When I deduced that equation, I had utterly no idea that it would say anything about modern physics. What I found astounding was the fact that, under exactly the specific assumptions associated with various important components of modern physics fields (and no other assumptions), the equations the scientists had discovered in those fields were approximate solutions to my fundamental equation. I think that was a rather surprising outcome.

 

The issue is that modern physics is supposed to assert truth about reality whereas my equation says absolutely nothing about reality! It concerns only the internal consistency of the interpretation of the communication and nothing else. It is essentially a tautological construct. "In propositional logic, there is no distinction between a tautology and a logically valid formula". All internally consistent interpretations of any data should therefore be included (even those which are wrong). Think of that as referring to alternate possible universes. It says that all explanations of all possible alternate universes must obey my equation (that is what I have proven). The fact that modern physics relations are all approximate solutions to that equation says that the rules proposed by scientists (designed to tell us about reality) tell us no more than the consequences of internal consistency: i.e., the result must also be tautological. That is a rather astounding realization; something most all scientists will deny to the death.

 

... or a proof that no such explanation can exist.

 

That is exactly what my proof is!

 

... the only problem I have, is that I have no reason to assume that the approximations that have been made are anything more then approximations.

 

What approximations are you talking about?

 

All that I am saying is that you have chosen the notation so that it is very much a notation that already existed.

 

No, I have chosen a notation that is entirely general: i.e., absolutely any communication can be so represented. Now the notation for TCP-IP packets is essentially identical to mine but, as far as I know, no one except me has ever considered the consequences of requiring internal consistency on all communications via numerical packets without specifying the exact design of TCP-IP packets involved: i.e., valid for all possible internally consistent packet designs. Most people jump immediately to the idea that "all possible" means they can change the packet design at random which is not at all what I mean. My deduction is based upon the fact that the packet design is consistent but otherwise unknown.

 

Just to give an example, we could recast the fundamental equation using Einstein notation ...

 

Oh could you now? I would like to see that! Einstein's notation requires some very major presumptive understandings. (That is why it takes a good period of time to learn what is and is not allowed in Einstein's notation.) My notation makes no constraints whatsoever on what is being expressed.

 

... and get rid of the summation symbols ...

 

In Einstein's “notation” you get rid of the summation symbols but only by presuming when the indices are doubled, summation is implied. He has to do that; otherwise his equations get so large and complex that it is extremely difficult to write them on a single piece of paper.

 

OK now I am confused. What do the spinors have to do with the existence of real or hypothetical elements.

 

Spinors associate with real and/or hypothetical elements due to the fact that they yield exchange consequences (two symmetric solutions can be made antisymmetric with respect to exchange via effects imposed by those spinors; they amount to alternate representations of internal correlations in that abstract space of the vector function [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math]). The common physics parlance for that circumstance is the fact that two fermions can act in a coherent manner yielding effects commonly attributed to bosons. Super conductivity is a direct consequence of those mathematical effects.

 

From everything that you have said in the past I have come to conclude that the use of the spinors was a convenience to make three equations into one, and had no influence outside of the notation that it allowed us to use to represent explanations, but you seem to be giving them some greater meaning here.

 

It was put in there, not as a “convenience” but rather as a necessity. And I never implied it had no further influence on possible results. I am attaching no greater meaning; rather, I am merely pointing out another subtle consequence of that required antisymmetry.

 

Just which step is it that assumed that a real element was symmetric?

 

(I think you mean “antisymmetric”!)

 

There was no step which made any such “assumption”. When I added in the hypothetical tau axis, its purpose was to solve a problem created when two numerical labels [math]x_i[/math] were identical. That additional tau axis was required when I changed over from “a set of numbers” to “a set of positions on an x axis”. That change results in a loss of information if you don't add in that additional tau axis. (How many times that particular value of “x” appeared would be lost as a point can only represent a number once; in order to represent multiple occurrences you need a mechanism in your notation to separate them out.) The problem is that, if you extend the thing to an infinite amount of information, assuring that different tau component provides the required separation vanishes. By making the [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math] antisymmetric it guarantees the information will not be lost.

 

Losing information on “real” elements (defined to be elements required by all explanations) means the [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math] won't necessarily explain them and that would be a serious flaw in the representation.

 

So indeed belief would seem to be the only measure of if an element is real or not, no matter how we define real, since we don't even have a way to determine if two explanations are explaining the same thing.

 

Again, you seem to have the shoe on the wrong foot. Whether or not something is real is of utterly no consequence here. The only thing of importance is that we not presume nothing can possibly be “real”. In order to assure that presumption is not made, we have to include the possibility of antisymmetric solutions and their existence has consequences. But being antisymmetric can not be taken as an indicator the thing is “real”. On the other hand, being symmetric implies the entity is hypothetical and that possibility is specifically demonstrated by my geometric proof. (Just consider that representation of only the antisymmetric components: i.e., all the boson activity is ignored as unnecessary.) Any collection of circumstances can still be represented.

 

... if we use this interpretation then the Maxwell equations must of course be wrong in this interpretation ...

 

Not “wrong”, just totally inapplicable.

 

They are one of the expectations of the equations after all.

 

No, the it is the consequences of their “activity” which constitutes our expectations. Two atoms change state in a particular way and we “presume” a photon was exchanged. The explanation must yield the change in state of the atoms. The cause of that change is a hypothetical issue. The existence of photons yields a nice explanation but that is no proof there exists no other explanation.

 

Wouldn't this be the entire past?

 

Let us say, whatever you presume to be the past: i.e., if you omit any part of the past you believe to be true, you are presuming that omitted information plays no roll whatsoever in the explanation you are communicating: i.e., if you omit the information necessary to establish the meanings of your ontological elements one's ability to comprehend your intentions with regard to the what is being communicated is severely limited. Take a look at the problems of understanding linear A. The issue is the fact that the communications intended by those “messages” is not understood for the very simple reason that we lack sufficient context to interpret the intentions of the messages. The problem with those who think in terms of “counter examples” invariably want to present their counter examples in a form which omits exactly that context information.

 

My equation concerns “all possible explanations” of a given message. You omit the intended context and the possible interpretations get rather large quickly: well beyond what can be written down and “meaningless” is the interpretation most people jump to in such a case. Why don't they jump to “meaningless” symbols when it comes to linear A? Because they are quite confident there are meaningful interpretations there (why else would people make the effort to create so many tablets); the researchers just don't know what they are (because sufficient context to reduce the possibilities to something reasonable is missing).

 

But isn't that exactly what you are doing when you say things like, ...

 

No, I have noticed an interesting solution to my equation which happens to map 1:1 into Maxwell's photon. That is quite a different issue.

 

In fact isn't your derivation of the Dirac equation based on doing just that?

 

What you call my “derivation” of the Dirac equation is based upon noticing that some rather simple approximations yield the fact that Dirac's equation is indeed an approximation to my equation. I didn't derive Dirac's equation, Dirac did that. I merely showed it was an approximation to my equation.

 

I'm somewhat puzzled by your use of the word flaw and correct, isn't an explanation only flawed if it is self inconsistent?

 

My definition of a “flawed” explanation is that it doesn't fit the known facts (you should understand that self inconsistency is only one of the possibilities there). My definition of a “correct” explanation is that no new facts will ever imply a flaw in that explanation. An explanation can be proved flawed but no proof exists that any explanation is correct because that requires you know everything that is possible to know.

 

What defense is there for even the approximations made in the derivation of the Schroedinger equation?

 

Did you look at the approximation I made? The only defense for making those approximation is that they make Schrödinger's equation an approximation of my equation. If you look closely at the approximations you will understand that they are exactly the common approximation made by modern physicists when they go to apply Schrödinger's equation: i.e., they found an approximate solution to my equation without even knowing my equation existed. Don't you think that is rather astounding? They even knew what approximations they had to make!

 

Have fun -- Dick

Edited May 28, 2014 by Doctordick

[Bombadil]

I have not proven any such thing; it is communicating their ideas which requires using the same definitions. All you can do is work at trying to understand those definitions.

 

And I never said that you did lets look at what you quoted, this time lets include more of the sentence,

 

it is also a statement that I don't think that you can convince me of until you have proven the necessity of the definitions used by modern physics.

 

notice the “until you have proven the necessity” in there,

 

My point is that you have proven that modern physics is an approximation to the fundamental equation, but you have not proven that all approximations of the fundamental equation are equivalent to modern physics. Or that all solutions of the fundamental equation can be approximated by modern physics.

 

The problem that I see is that it seems that it must be possible to define an element so that it can behave in any way, if this is the case even if physics allows elements to be defined so that they can behave in any possible way, this would only increase the problem as we would have to ask why we don't use such definitions. And it would make the question of “just what do we consider modern physics to be” a question with perhaps not a obvious answer.

 

You and AnssiH seem to be of the opinion that what you have proven is that modern physics is nothing more then a means of generating an explanation of any possible information, I can see that you have a strong defense for this even stronger then the physicists that say that reality is really like physics says it is, in fact I would go so far as to say that you clearly have proven them wrong, reality is not like physics says it is physics is just a means of generating an explanation.

 

The question is, how general of an explanation is physics? And how general is the context that physics uses?

 

No, none of them have been derived from my fundamental equation. Science is totally ignorant of my equation. All those relationships have been discovered to be valid via the “guess and by golly” mechanism in standard use by science. The issue in my presentation is that, under any internally consistent definitions of the ontological elements referred to by the numerical reference labels [math]x_i[/math], any communication represented by a collection of circumstances [math](x_1,x_2, \cdots, x_n)[/math] must obey my fundamental equation (I have proved that).

 

OK I may have phrased that in a bad way. I should have said something like, you seem to be suggesting that the universe must obey modern physics because you have shown that you can approximate the fundamental equation with the same equations as modern physics uses.

 

Further more I am not disagreeing with you having proven that any circumstances must obey your fundamental equation, but have you proven that this is still the case with the Schroedinger equation or the Dirac equation? If not is there some branch of physics that is using an equation that is the same as the fundamental equation, my impression is that there is not.

 

When I deduced that equation, I had utterly no idea that it would say anything about modern physics. What I found astounding was the fact that, under exactly the specific assumptions associated with various important components of modern physics fields (and no other assumptions), the equations the scientists had discovered in those fields were approximate solutions to my fundamental equation. I think that was a rather surprising outcome.

 

Yes I suppose that it must have been quite surprising and probably somewhat exciting. I suspect part of the issue here is that in hind sight it seems to me to be a statement that at least the first part of which must be true, the second part is perhaps more interesting though. As it implies that modern physics is true by the definitions that they use, which should not be to surprising but can be looked at as somewhat of an achievement to have happened by the “guess and by golly” approach, as you are calling it.

 

I think that it is worth remembering that any possible consistent means of explaining any thing can be derived from the fundamental equation if we just know the right context and are precise enough with our use of it.

 

The issue is that modern physics is supposed to assert truth about reality whereas my equation says absolutely nothing about reality! It concerns only the internal consistency of the interpretation of the communication and nothing else. It is essentially a tautological construct. "In propositional logic, there is no distinction between a tautology and a logically valid formula". All internally consistent interpretations of any data should therefore be included (even those which are wrong). Think of that as referring to alternate possible universes. It says that all explanations of all possible alternate universes must obey my equation (that is what I have proven). The fact that modern physics relations are all approximate solutions to that equation says that the rules proposed by scientists (designed to tell us about reality) tell us no more than the consequences of internal consistency: i.e., the result must also be tautological. That is a rather astounding realization; something most all scientists will deny to the death.

 

I think that I would agree with this except perhaps I would have to change the ending I would not say that “ rules proposed by scientists tell us no more than the consequences of internal consistency” I would say that they tell us no more then the consequences of a particular internal consistency.

 

The only problem that I have is something like this, we know that we can't solve the fundamental equation in any type of general setting but suppose that we made approximations so that we could, how would we know if our result was even a unique result and that we couldn't make the same approximation in different ways and get a different result. Or that we could still look at the approximate result as an approximation to any possible solution to the original equation.

 

Can there be other universes that look nothing like ours or are the odds against such a thing existing so much so that they all must look the same in the end.

 

What approximations are you talking about?

 

That only one element is of consideration and that the rest of the universe can be looked at as being known, that the equation [math] K\sqrt{2}\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\vec{\Phi} \approx -iq\vec{\Phi} [/math] can be used as an equality (that is we are looking at non-relativistic elements). These both seem like simple ideas and are needed for what you have done, but I have to wonder how similar solutions would look if we forgot these and made approximations that made both of these circumstances from very difficult to defend, to clearly wrong.

 

Or the context that you made in showing the approximation of Dirac's equation.

 

Oh could you now? I would like to see that! Einstein's notation requires some very major presumptive understandings. (That is why it takes a good period of time to learn what is and is not allowed in Einstein's notation.) My notation makes no constraints whatsoever on what is being expressed.

 

Maybe I don't understand what the purpose here is but I am under the impression that Einstein notation is simply the use of the convention of summation over upper and lower script to remove the need for summation. In which case wouldn't it only be a question of choosing the scripts in such a way as to remove the need for the summations?

 

It was put in there, not as a “convenience” but rather as a necessity. And I never implied it had no further influence on possible results. I am attaching no greater meaning; rather, I am merely pointing out another subtle consequence of that required antisymmetry.

 

What necessity, as far as I can tell you used them only to turn multiple equations that seem to represent very different but necessary constraints into one equation representing all of the constraints, in your words.

 

These three mathematical constraints can be cast into a single mathematical constraining relationship via a rather simple mathematical trick. If one defines the following mathematical operators (both the definition of “[a,b]” and the specific alpha and beta operators):

 

So what is the necessity of the spinner operators?

 

My reasoning for understanding that they had no further influence on possible solutions is that you seem to have never given any reason that they are necessary and only ever demonstrated that you could derive your constraints form the fundamental equation by using them, so unless you have a reason to include them it would only make sense to use them if they have no influence beyond the notation that is being used.

 

So why did you use them in the first place and not just work with the original constraints?

 

Did you look at the approximation I made? The only defense for making those approximation is that they make Schrödinger's equation an approximation of my equation. If you look closely at the approximations you will understand that they are exactly the common approximation made by modern physicists when they go to apply Schrödinger's equation: i.e., they found an approximate solution to my equation without even knowing my equation existed. Don't you think that is rather astounding? They even knew what approximations they had to make!

 

What amazes me is not so much that they where found as an approximation to your equation as we know that this must be true by definition if they where consistent, what amazes me is that by applying the same approximations to your equation you were able to derive these equations. This implies a great deal of consistency even in their derivations.

 

There is however a related issue that seems like it is obvious but I can't come up with a reason to believe it, and that is one of uniqueness of the result of applying the approximations to the fundamental equation. Is there any reason to believe that the result of applying those approximations will give a unique result. It seems that the obvious answer to this is that the result of applying these approximations must be unique but why should it be beyond just making it an elegant result. Is the idea that we don't see any other ways of applying these approximations really sufficient to say that the result is unique?

[AnssiH]

My point is that you have proven that modern physics is an approximation to the fundamental equation, but you have not proven that all approximations of the fundamental equation are equivalent to modern physics. Or that all solutions of the fundamental equation can be approximated by modern physics.

 

The problem that I see is that it seems that it must be possible to define an element so that it can behave in any way, if this is the case even if physics allows elements to be defined so that they can behave in any possible way, this would only increase the problem as we would have to ask why we don't use such definitions. And it would make the question of “just what do we consider modern physics to be” a question with perhaps not a obvious answer.

 

...

 

Can there be other universes that look nothing like ours or are the odds against such a thing existing so much so that they all must look the same in the end.

 

You can find answers to those questions if you manage to look at this from the exactly proper perspective. Think about it this way;

 

Regardless of what some universe is like, your explanation about it (i.e. "what it looks like to you") is entirely dependent on an ability to represent valid expectations. That is, regardless of the actual structure of reality, all that your worldview can recognize - and ultimately label as some defined elements with some sort of expected behaviour - is something that can be in some sense recognized from some "information" as recurring "patterns" of some sort (with some valid probabilities).

 

The generality of the fundamental equation springs exclusively from generalities when representing expectations regarding recurring patterns. Not from generalities embedded to any kinds of hypothetical "structures of reality".

 

Note that, as long as we are using the terminology of modern physics to think about physics experiments or theorize about various things, we are very much locked in to arriving into certain kinds of conclusions, just because those conclusions are consistent with the language we are using. Those connections are purely logical but so complex that they are very far from obvious. Theoretical physics is about trying to recognize those connections, and it often takes years and years of intense thinking from the brightest minds to realize certain connections are there, simply because the language being used makes them very unapparent. Nevertheless, the existence of those connections is what prevents us from defining arbitrarily behaving entities, in the framework of modern physics.

 

The question is, how general of an explanation is physics? And how general is the context that physics uses?

 

It's general to the point that you can consider the approximations between FE and modern physics to be general. You can view those approximations simply as things required for practical purpose. An entirely general multi-body equation over the entire collection of information is just not practical (/possible) way to generate expectations.

 

Further more I am not disagreeing with you having proven that any circumstances must obey your fundamental equation, but have you proven that this is still the case with the Schroedinger equation or the Dirac equation?

 

Their validity requires that noumenaic reality is interpreted via using the necessary approximations. I would say that, for instance, defining elements in ways that they have a minimal feedback to the rest of the universe, is very crucial step. Without it, things could look very different. But such a solution would also be incredibly impractical.

 

If not is there some branch of physics that is using an equation that is the same as the fundamental equation, my impression is that there is not.

 

Nope, because it cannot be solved without approximations.

 

What amazes me is not so much that they where found as an approximation to your equation as we know that this must be true by definition if they where consistent, what amazes me is that by applying the same approximations to your equation you were able to derive these equations. This implies a great deal of consistency even in their derivations.

 

It just means that the most general solutions known by modern physics (especially QM) was close enough to the entirely general expression (i.e. FE) for it to become possible to see the route (i.e. the small collection of approximations) from one to another.

 

If at present the most general solution known to mankind would be newtonian physics, I doub't anyone could find the route from FE the Newtonian physics, and even if they could, the route would contain approximations whose epistemological role would not be clear at all, and thus the meaning of that route might not be clear either.

 

-Anssi

[Doctordick]

notice the “until you have proven the necessity” in there,

 

“Necessity” is not ever the issue here. Using their definitions is essential to communication of their thoughts and never necessary to the thoughts themselves. That aspect is always contained in the complete collection of information necessary to learn their language: i.e., the fact that their assertions in entirety can be expressed via a collection of circumstances representable by [math](x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n)[/math] is sufficient.

 

My point is that you have proven that modern physics is an approximation to the fundamental equation, but you have not proven that all approximations of the fundamental equation are equivalent to modern physics. Or that all solutions of the fundamental equation can be approximated by modern physics.

 

Of course not! The possibility exists that modern physics could be wrong. And, in fact, I have pointed out a number of issues within modern physics are clearly wrong. Their definition of time, the idea that there exist five different forces unrelated to one another and the idea that the “Higgs” particle is necessary to have “mass”. In particular, the conflict between quantum mechanics and Einstein's GR is a clear instance of error.

 

The problem that I see is that it seems that it must be possible to define an element so that it can behave in any way, if this is the case even if physics allows elements to be defined so that they can behave in any possible way, this would only increase the problem as we would have to ask why we don't use such definitions.

 

No language uses elements for which the users have no use.

 

And it would make the question of “just what do we consider modern physics to be” a question with perhaps not a obvious answer.

 

Well, as far as I can see it, “modern physics” is a belief system apparently consistent with “scientific experimentation” (at least it is so long as one does not look too closely). My presentation is designed to yield experimental results no matter what information is being represented. The probability of any circumstance, [math]P(x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n)[/math], must be expressible by the magnitude of [math]\Psi[/math] where [math]\Psi[/math] is a solution to my fundamental equation. No constraints whatsoever have been placed on what is being represented.

 

What I have done is quite analogous to the Dewey Decimal system for categorizing library books: it is designed to allow all possibilities to be represented. Modern physics is supposed to be a science attempting to find the rules of the universe, quite a different matter. They presume there are discoverable rules. My approach makes only two constraints: that the explanation must be internally consistent and that it must give non-zero probability to the information which is known.

 

You and AnssiH seem to be of the opinion that what you have proven is that modern physics is nothing more then a means of generating an explanation of any possible information, I can see that you have a strong defense for this even stronger then the physicists that say that reality is really like physics says it is, in fact I would go so far as to say that you clearly have proven them wrong, reality is not like physics says it is physics is just a means of generating an explanation.

 

It is the scientists who assert that scientific work is a means of generating explanations. Essentially they are defining things and then discovering that their experiments are consistent with their definitions: i.e., they never take the trouble to examine the consequences of their definitions. That is what I have done by examining the result of requiring “universal” internal consistency.

 

The question is, how general of an explanation is physics? And how general is the context that physics uses?

 

Physics explanations are almost always valid only in very specific cases (cases defined by context which is usually ignored, as they have no idea as to how to bring that context to bear on the problem being examined). I suspect my technique is the only way to bring every piece of context to bear on every problem. It is, in fact, very analogous to quantum mechanics as quantum mechanics, in a very real sense, actually concerns itself with the impact of context: i.e., they specifically express the presumptions they are making (at least for the most part).

 

OK I may have phrased that in a bad way. I should have said something like, you seem to be suggesting that the universe must obey modern physics because you have shown that you can approximate the fundamental equation with the same equations as modern physics uses.

 

Well, any solution to the fundamental equation must essentially obey quantum mechanics as the relationships required by quantum mechanics are quite similar to those required by my equation. Oh, approximations must be made; but of what character are those approximations? They all amount to presuming that some portion of the context can be ignored and recognizing exactly what is being ignored. If we can't ignore any part of the context, we have to solve the whole problem in one fell swoop. And that simply will never be accomplished as it requires you to be all knowing. And, by the way, that explanation is well known: it is the “what is” is “what is” explanation.

 

... but can be looked at as somewhat of an achievement to have happened by the “guess and by golly” approach, as you are calling it.

 

Yeah, a million years of “by guess and by golly” have managed to achieve usable results without ever considering the logical consequences of their definitions. I'm impressed.

 

I think that it is worth remembering that any possible consistent means of explaining any thing can be derived from the fundamental equation if we just know the right context and are precise enough with our use of it.

 

Yeah, and exactly what do you mean by “any possible means”. Can't you comprehend that part of the problem to be solved is what other people mean by the sounds and gestures they use. I have shown you a representation which presents the “known information” as a changing collection of points in an abstract four dimensional space. “Any possible means” is an assertion referring to those hypothetical elements added into the problem so as to allow the creation of an explanation.

 

I have shown that “mass” and “time” are required abstract concepts (required in order to create an explanation). The implied internal factors include a number of specific forces which are easily identified with forces used in common parlance. Actual contact, electric charge, magnetic fields, gravitational, nuclear, nuclear weak and even Pauli exclusion. Chemistry is an inherent consequence there. The issue arises as to what the underlying nature of “any possible means” is. Clearly it is going to require much of what we find common in our world: objects collected together by large macroscopic object (to keep entities together long enough to study the problem), molecular structures capable of creating macroscopic collections of elements able to use chemistry to achieve control necessary to create thinking entities, etc., etc., etc., ... So it is going to look one hell of a lot just like the world we find ourselves in!

 

In fact, you can not prove that your neighbor's concept of the universe bears any resemblance to yours. In learning his language, you have come up with a way identifying what he means by his words, gestures and signs (your context as you see it) in terms of your personal concept of the universe. Does the fact that the information you have received can be so interpreted prove that the underlying experiences are what you think they are? That they are is a presumption (perhaps a useful presumption but that doesn't mean you can prove it is true).

 

... how would we know if our result was even a unique result and that we couldn't make the same approximation in different ways and get a different result.

 

It is clear that you can not know! It is a presumption you make when you decide you understand what your neighbor is saying.

 

Or that we could still look at the approximate result as an approximation to any possible solution to the original equation.

 

It isn't “any possible solution” that we are interested in. We are interested in a solution which yields our personal experiences as having a non-zero probability.

 

Can there be other universes that look nothing like ours or are the odds against such a thing existing so much so that they all must look the same in the end.

 

Try proving to me that your concept of the universe looks anything like mine while still allowing all possible meanings to the words, gestures and signs we use in communicating.

 

Or the context that you made in showing the approximation of Dirac's equation.

 

Look, if the solution is not consistent with the massive amounts of information (the context) I need to explain, it's invalid from the get go! That is, those approximations are required: they are approximations made by the scientific community and making those approximations allow their solutions (checked by hundreds of thousands of experiments: i.e., known information) to be approximate solutions to my equation.

 

Maybe I don't understand what the purpose here is but I am under the impression that Einstein notation is simply the use of the convention of summation over upper and lower script to remove the need for summation.

 

If he removed the need for summation, why in the devil did he need the convention “of summation over upper and lower script”. The summations are still there just in a much shorter notation.

 

What necessity, as far as I can tell you used them only to turn multiple equations that seem to represent very different but necessary constraints into one equation representing all of the constraints, in your words.

 

With several equations, you need to find all possible solutions to all the equations and then find the solution set which solves both. That is a far more difficult task than solving one equation. Essentially I showed that a transformation existed which inevitably solved both equations (so long as one is operating in what is essentially a center of momentum frame of reference). The problem you propose to solve is more easily solved by solving my equation first and then transforming the solution to a frame of reference where the total momentum does not vanish. But what purpose do you propose for being able to generate that particular solution? It is no more than a restatement of the "center of momentum" solution.

 

So what is the necessity of the spinner operators?

 

They allowed me to present a single equation to be solved!

 

My reasoning for understanding that they had no further influence on possible solutions is that you seem to have never given any reason that they are necessary and only ever demonstrated that you could derive your constraints form the fundamental equation by using them, so unless you have a reason to include them it would only make sense to use them if they have no influence beyond the notation that is being used.

 

Anyone familiar with solving partial differential equations would be well aware of the problems introduced by trying to find simultaneous solutions to different equations.

 

This implies a great deal of consistency even in their derivations.

 

Well, considering the experiments standing behind those results, one should expect them to be rather self consistent. In the same vein, I express no surprise that the common world view of the universe is quite consistent with their day to day experiences. Evolution has had millions of years to weed out erroneous perceptions of reality.

 

Is the idea that we don't see any other ways of applying these approximations really sufficient to say that the result is unique?

 

I suspect the problem here is your concept of “unique”. If I make the approximations I make (essentially ignoring specific context) I get exactly the same equation. That is a “unique” result traceable to those specific approximations.

 

Have fun -- Dick

Edited May 28, 2014 by Doctordick