LHC - the last chance for all theories of everything?

[Dmitry67]

Dmitry67, I need time for the answer. In the meantime you can think about the following: Since God is all-powerful, can he create a stone too heavy for him to lift?

Tom

Definitely God won't be able to lift such stone without help of Max Tegmark :)

 

[Dmitry67]

1
First I have to explain what the principle of Ockham's razor really means: It essentially says that that "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily; when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better": http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html

2
In theory 2) there will be one new ingredient or entity, namely an explanation how a certain area of space plus all matter, energy etc. can cease to exist. You have to provide a process, a formula or something which tells us what happens to all the stars, galaxies etc.

1 Yes, we both agree on the definition of Occams razor. We don't agree on the definition of 'entity'. A HOLE or a VOID in substance - it is an ENTITY?

For me IT IS, because it breaks the symmetry and injects new information into syste,

2 Yes, definitely yes!
So you can apply the same logic to MWI branches - it is logical to say that they do not cease to exist. Once we accepted Level 1 and Level 3 multiverse, it is easier to accept Level 4 multiverse.

 

[Dmitry67]

It predicts that you will not find a neutron star with mass substantially greater than 1.6 solar.

Could you explain, why? My problem is that my disagreement with Smolin is so strong that I would hardly be able to read anything to the end.

 

[Fra]

Could you explain, why? My problem is that my disagreement with Smolin is so strong that I would hardly be able to read anything to the end.

You can read smolins papers, but the basic idea is that smolins conjecture is that our universe must be (or is highly likely to be) optimized for black hole production. The reason for this is that in Smolins CNS idea, a universe that produce no black holes would be steril and unable to produce "offsprings" (with or without variation).

Now smolin has argued that a universe that is so constructed, for optimal black hole production would not host arbitrarily massive neutron stars. "Ie. if the parameters of the laws of physics are so as to optimise black hole production, then there is a limit on neutron star mass."

I think that is the simple general idea. If you want to see the details, or verify that this is a correct inference I think you need to dig into Smolins papers.

But before you look at his specific CNS, I would suggest listening to his general arguments against eternal law first, because it's possible to have objections to CNS but still appreciate the general idea(http://pirsa.org/08100049). To jump into a specific suggestion before appreciating the general idea is I think harder.

I am not overly fond of CNS which I see as a first, probably simplest possible, attempt to realize the idea into something a little more concrete, but I share his general objection to eternal law.

/Fredrik

 

[Dmitry67]

Thanks. Why production of the Black Holes is so important?
Because he thinks that they give birth to other Unvierses, implementing the Cosmic Darwinism?

But if the Goal function is the number of universes/black hole, then it does not explain why do we exist. You can have a very successful 'universe factory', but all these universe can be strile. Say, no elements heavier then He, but manymany many black holes.

That idea would be much more interesting if the creation of Universe would require so rare conditions that it would require an intelligent life. That would be an alternative to AP. In the current form, it just explains why there are many universes, but you still need AP to explain, why at least some of them are life-friendly.

 

[tom.stoer]

Dmitry67,

what do you think: do the areas beyond the horizion exist?

 

[Dmitry67]

Dmitry67,

what do you think: do the areas beyond the horizion exist?

Yes, like the alternative branches in the MWI
I think on our way to TOE we have to give up the falsifiability...

 

[ConradDJ]

Biological evolution is based on fundamental laws (DNA) which are not subject to the evolution process itself but provide a fixed, external system.

Tom – This is profoundly incorrect. The DNA code certainly did evolve. There are many regularities in biology, but none of them have the character that physical laws seem to have, as “a fixed, external system” of changeless laws governing how things change. All of them derive from an evolutionary process, the only “law” of which is just – whatever manages to reproduce itself, manages to reproduce itself. Everything follows from that.

Your earlier statement was more sensible:

My conclusion is that it is not sure that dynamic processes require dynamic laws. Far from it, progress in science tells us that in many cases the underlying laws of dynamic processes are static laws.

The word “dynamic” here is ambiguous. It’s very important to distinguish between physical laws (A) changing over time and physical laws (B) evolving, in a sense that’s comparable with the biological case.

(A) It’s certainly possible that some things we take as changeless laws of physics – the gravitational constant, for example – have actually changed over time. The whole development of cosmology over the past century has shown us how much more dynamic the universe is than anyone had expected. But this is not evolution in the significant sense, comparable to biology. If something in the structure of physical law can be meaningfully said to have changed over time, then that must have happened in the context of a “fixed, external system” – as you said – which doesn’t change. “Change” only has meaning if there is a context that is at least relatively changeless.

(B) When we talk about the laws of physics evolving, we’re talking about the “fixed, external system” itself and where it came from. Even in Smolin’s CNS – which I don’t buy at all – within any given universe, the basic laws of physics are still changeless. It’s only in the process of creating one universe out of another that they change. (And the weakness of Smolin’s idea is just that it has nothing to say about how this reproductive process happens, or why it would result in universes with different laws, or most important, why the laws in a “child” universe would be only a little bit different from those of its “parent”, which is critical to making an evolutionary process work).

In my view CNS is a way-too-literal attempt to apply the biological evolutionary theory to physics. If there is an evolutionary process underlying the laws of physics, I don’t think it’s based on self-replication. In the physical world, self-replication is very hard to achieve – which is why life is so rare in the universe.

On the other hand, I’ve tried to make the point in other threads that there is a “process” that’s as ubiquitous in physics as the reproductive process is in biology – namely what we call “measurement” or “observation” or just the “communication of information” between physical systems. This is harder to envision than self-replication, because it’s not about the multiplication of physical entities (organisms) but about the multiplication of “measurement-events” between entities. And of course the whole issue of the role of “measurement” in physics is tremendously confused.

I won’t go into the reasons why I think communicating systems can evolve via “natural selection” much the way reproducing systems can. But I want to emphasize again that this is not necessarily about some or any of the laws of physics being “dynamic” in the sense that they could be observed to be different at different historical times. That may or may not be the case, but it’s a different issue.

Here’s the thing – the laws of physics we observe now, in our well-established theories, let us look back in time and learn a great deal about the very early universe. But everything we’ve learned about it teaches us that for hundreds of thousands of years after the “beginning”, the physical conditions of the universe would not have supported any way of measuring or observing those laws. Before the emergence of atoms, it may well be that no definable information could have been communicated from one physical system to another.

I’m not saying our theories about the early universe are wrong – just that these theories are only meaningful if there are physical systems that function as “clocks and measuring rods”, etc. And the theories tell us that there was a time when no such systems existed anywhere.

So the early universe as we see it now, based on present-time data, is the early universe as communicated through a very different and far more elaborately structured informational environment than used to exist in our universe.

The point is that the laws of physics may or may not have changed over time, but clearly they did become meaningfully definable in the course of time. And it seems reasonable to ask about which aspects of these laws became physically determinable first, and which later on – and whether this sequence may reflect an underlying evolutionary process. And we should probably consider time itself as one aspect of the structure that evolved in this sense, not as a “fixed, external” background within which this process occurred.

If you appreciate how powerful the evolutionary principle is in biology – i.e. how much can be explained about living systems without having to make arbitrary, unexplainable assumptions – then I think it will seem worthwhile to pursue any avenue that might lead toward a similar principle for physics.

 

[Fra]

Tom – This is profoundly incorrect. The DNA code certainly did evolve.

Indeed. Not only did the DNA CODE evolve, but the structure for the code as wel (compare microstate vs microstructure), this is I think the even more important point.

I objected to this to Tom before as well, in post#209 in the same thread.

Tom's response was to dismiss this flawed analogy beeing off point. But I think it's very much to the point.

If we picture a configuration space of all possible DNA sequences, then the point is that not only does dna sequences evolve, within the space, the more profound point is tha the "configuration space itself" has an origin.

This is the deeper point that Smolin also tries to explain in his motivation for evoling law. The configuration space bounds the questions you can possibly pose, therefore new possibilities arise and the configuration space changes. The alternative would be an infinite totally out of control infinite configurations space that would drown any computation. Not to mention that we run into the same old problem of having to accept an utterly even infinitely unlikely initial condition.

Weird as it seems but the evolving law idea actuall solve a lot of problems too; fine tuning problem and the problem of initial conditions etc.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

I would like to make clear that when I am talking about "dynamically changing laws" I definately mean changes in the sense of "evolution of laws". Sorry for the confusion.

It is clear that "trivial changes" like the value of a "constant" might be explained by some deeper, fixed theory (string theory suggests dynamically changing constants as they are expectation values of certain fields). So what we are really interested in is the question if these deeper theory itself dissolves in some "evolution process" and dynamically changing w/o being grounded again on some deeper, fixed structure.

I appreciate the discussion regarding this possibility, but I think I already made clear that - for various reasons - I do not believe in this theory.

Regarding the applicability of laws at earlier times that we derive currently: it compares to the area that hides beyond the cosmic horizon. If a theory explains experimental results in some domain (time, space, energy range, ...) then we try to extrapolate beyond this domain. This is what usually happens in physics (or science in general): we believe that planetary orbits exist in distant galaxies, even if they are not measurable. We even believe that if a planetary system forms from interstellar dust then the new planets follow the same well-known planetary orbits. Therefore we extrapolate in timelike as well as in spacelike direction.

In biology it should be clear that the laws of evolution do exist even before the first DNA molecule was formed. That means that the existence of these laws (as they are based on chemical and physical laws as well as on mathematical ones) transcend their application. I believe that the same is true in physics.

w/o this principle science would not be possible at all, simply because it would restrict the domain of validity of laws to the domain of their application. That would mean that predictabiliyt gets lost as we are simply not allowed to predict the result of an experiment before we have collected and evaluated the data.

So my credo is: Science forces us to believe in laws transcending their application

 

[tom.stoer]

Tom – This is profoundly incorrect. The DNA code certainly did evolve.

I do not talk about the evolution of a collection of DNA molecules but about the evolution of the laws of the DNA code. There is no such evolution! The chemistry of DNA was, is and will be fixed forever. If DNA molecules are crossed, changed, if there are DNA defects or if they are dying together with their phenotype doesn't matter.

The same applies to the laws of physics. If in a far future all physical objects in the universe fade away in a "Big Whimper" doesn't affect the laws for planetary motion. As already indicated I somehow like structural realism which says that the Kepler orbits (as laws) do exist even if the planets (as materialization) cease to exist.

 

[Dmitry67]

Tom, there are 2 versions of the DNA code: old one (ribosomal DNA - rDNA) and modern (DNA in all other cells - mDNA). So DNA code did evolve. Ribosomal DNA code looks similar to the modern one, but some codons are interpreted there differently.

But I agree that laws do not evolve.

 

[tom.stoer]

OK, fine. You found weakness in my biological reasoning :-)

No problem: The changes in the laws of the DNA code are explained on the basis of eternal laws of chemistry.

 

[ConradDJ]

Regarding the applicability of laws at earlier times that we derive currently: it compares to the area that hides beyond the cosmic horizon. If a theory explains experimental results in some domain (time, space, energy range, ...) then we try to extrapolate beyond this domain. This is what usually happens in physics (or science in general): we believe that planetary orbits exist in distant galaxies, even if they are not measurable... Therefore we extrapolate in timelike as well as in spacelike direction.

Yes – and this is difficult to make clear, because of all the confusion about measurement in QM – but I would argue that there is an important difference here:

1. Does the other side of the moon exist? Or does a planet exist before someone observes it? Or beyond the cosmic horizon?

2. Does an electron have a definite position, in a context in which its position it is not determinable by any interaction?​

My point is that the situation with the early universe could well be more like 2. than 1. In the first case, whether there determinate information is available or not depends on someone’s perspective. In the second case, it’s a matter of the structure of the laws of physics themselves, that allow some things to be measurable in certain circumstances, and not others.

In biology it should be clear that the laws of evolution do exist even before the first DNA molecule was formed. That means that the existence of these laws (as they are based on chemical and physical laws as well as on mathematical ones) transcend their application.

w/o this principle science would not be possible at all, simply because it would restrict the domain of validity of laws to the domain of their application. That would mean that predictability gets lost...

Again, this is a misunderstanding. There are no “laws” of biology in the sense that there are “laws” of physics. And indeed very little can be predicted in biology, though that doesn't disqualify it as "science". And in comparison with physics, the extent to which what happens in biology can be understood – after the fact – is quite remarkable. The explanations are essentially historical -- they don't refer back to fixed, changeless principles that apply in general, but to the specific circumstances in which something arose.

In physics, prediction is very powerful, just because so much can be understood in terms of changeless mathematical laws that apply to everything, at all times. On the other hand, the Standard Model remains so complex that to me it makes sense to look for a way of understanding why these laws and principles are the way they are... as we’ve discussed above. The model favored by most physicists is the traditional one -- look for more general principles from which those of the Standard Model can be "predicted". The quest for that kind of TOE has gone on for quite some time now, and it's hard to say whether it's closer to success than it was a few decades ago.

So this is why I think the very different scientific model of biology may turn out to be useful. Needless to say, there's room for disagreement!

 

[Dmitry67]

Again, this is a misunderstanding. There are no “laws” of biology in the sense that there are “laws” of physics. And indeed very little can be predicted in biology, though that doesn't disqualify it as "science". And in comparison with physics, the extent to which what happens in biology can be understood – after the fact – is quite remarkable. The explanations are essentially historical -- they don't refer back to fixed, changeless principles that apply in general, but to the specific circumstances in which something arose.

In MWI, or if our Universe is infinite in space, then everything which might happen happens. Then we can give - in some cases - accurate predictions of the evolution (of course, statistically on huge number of planets)

 

[Fra]

No problem: The changes in the laws of the DNA code are explained on the basis of eternal laws of chemistry.

I still insist there is something that you miss with this reduction, and it's complexity.

But the reductionist approach you advocate, the problem is that the information capacity and "computation power" need to implement this is massive. And unless this information and computation capacity is at hand, your reductionist approach fails.

Why doesn't biologist simply do numerical simulations of biological spieces from complex molecular and atomic mechanics? The complexity neede for that approach fails. Rounding errors and all kinds of chaotic problems makes this strategy inviable.

I'll rephrase the question I ask to make my point more clear: The question is howto predict the future, given the present (including retained parts of the history), but the constraints are also that we have finite representative capacity and computation power - thus an idea that in absurdum might work, but requires more information capacity and computational power than we actualyl have at hand, simple is of no use.

Thus, the theories themselves must "scale", this is what I think of as scaling the inference systems. The inference you picture, by the extreme reductionist approach (explain life from the laws of chemsitry) fails because these inference system gets a complexity that isn't physical.

Another example, an algorithm or computer code, written for one cpu, needs to be "scaled" to run on a smaller cpu wit less memory. For the case of physical law, I think this scaling can be nontrivial, it's not just averaging. It's also the reverse problem on howto scale up, this requires evolution as more information is added and needs to be tuned.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

1. Does the other side of the moon exist? Or does a planet exist before someone observes it? Or beyond the cosmic horizon?

2. Does an electron have a definite position, in a context in which its position it is not determinable by any interaction?​

My point is that the situation with the early universe could well be more like 2. than 1. In the first case, whether there determinate information is available or not depends on someone’s perspective. In the second case, it’s a matter of the structure of the laws of physics themselves, that allow some things to be measurable in certain circumstances, and not others.

The difference is not only that something may depend on someones perspective. The difference is - in addition - that in the first case the question is if some entity EXISTS whereas in the second case the question is if something HAS a specific PROPERTY or VALUE.

No it is certainly not the same level of existence in the two questions
if THE (OTHER SIDE OF) MOON EXISTS or
if A VALUE TO BE MEASURED EXISTS before the measurement process.

In the case of the electron there is (at least for me) no problem that there exists an entity called "electron" w/o having a certain property.

 

[tom.stoer]

But the reductionist approach you advocate, the problem is that the information capacity and "computation power" need to implement this is massive. And unless this information and computation capacity is at hand, your reductionist approach fails

I don't think so. The EXISTENCE of something (entity, law, ...) need not depend on the possibility to IMPLEMENT it. It could very well be that the complexity of the universe forbids its implementation or simulation.

Compare it to mathematics: the real numbers form an uncountable set, computer programs or algorithms form a countable set. Using algorithmic complexity as a condition for existence would mean that almost all real numbers do not exist.

Attention: My approach is not a reductionist one. I do not say that I can explain life with all its emerging properties from laws of chemistry. The latter one serve as a basis only. Look at language: assume for a moment that the English language would follow strict, logical rules. Do you think that would preclude literature to exist? Certainly not.

 

[Fra]

I don't think so. The EXISTENCE of something (entity, law, ...) need not depend on the possibility to IMPLEMENT it. It could very well be that the complexity of the universe forbids its implementation or simulation.

I know we differ here, but to me your notion of EXISTENCE is almost a non-physical and non-scientific one. I think it's because ou are more realist than me but from my point of view your question "does it exist" without considering how it's inferred, simply has no impact on the actions - which is the prime concern to me.

/Fredrik

 

[friend]

It sounds like you are thinking about stuff that doesn't exist. I don't know of any purely curve-fitting approach to anything in physics. Ideas will always creep in
Could you be wrestling with a straw man named Mr. Curve-Fitting Approach?

I'm skeptical of your being able to find any branch of science where practitioners consistently follow any stated rulebook method, as if they were automata.

Maybe I shouldn't argue this anymore with you, Friend. You have your opinion about the Limitations of Science based on your own concepts and reasoning. I have a different set of aperçus. In the end all we could do is make predictions about, say, the next 15 years of research and (if we both survive that long) check later to see whose mental model was closer to the real world.

Can you give me an example where the methods used are NOT curve-fitting. Yes we extend our models by trying to generalize the math and see if it's applicable. But how is that conceptually any different than finding the next term in a polynomial expansion in order to better match a curve? I mean even looking for gauge symmetries is just a means of trying to more easily find functions that match the data. Even string theory was first considered because it was math that seemed to closely match some nuclear physics. Yes, this may produce results. But it can never produce a TOE because you'll never know if it's not possible to find greater generalizations that might apply; let's add another term to the expansion and see what we get. What kind of creative thinking did you think we were doing?

 

[Fra]

thank you for your reply.
I have another question
Is there an effective way to distinguish
1. MWI (everything happens) + AP (Anthrophic Principle)
from
2. Cosmic Darwinism
and from
3. Evolving law?

One would have to admit that "evolving law" is currently not a specific theory. It's IMO first of all a new way of thinking, that takes a while to get used to. And it might possibly define a new direction for research programs.

Smolins CNS cosmic darwinism is one possible realisation of evolving law.

But the major difference between CNS and what I envision is that I do not think diversity and selection takes place isolated in black holes, I think it takes place everywhere. The difference between predictable time evolution as per some laws of dynamics and the not so predictable evolution of laws, are simply two extremes of the same scale.

I try to combine the ideas of laws of physics following from rules of inference, with the evolving law concept. It's a mix of smolings evolving law, and ariel catichas and jaynes idea to "derive" the laws of physics from an extension of logic.

The purpose of of the evolution in this context (this is how I think of it, not smolin an his CNS) is to bridge the problems of the rigid logic systems, regarding proving completeness etc. Tom was acknowleding this, but has not yet given up the idea it seems. I have come to the conclusion that an evolving inference systems is a possible way to do. I have great personal confidence in this, but it's a very complex undertaking, and it's probalby not realistic that one person should start from this point, and complete the reconstruction up until the standard model level.

This is why I think ALL research that are more or less in this direction is very interesting and important.

MWI and AP doesn't even enter the same level of ambition for me, so distinguishing them from the two others seems obvious. MWI is an interpretation of QM - I am suggesting a reconstruction of the entire formalism of QM, by deeper insights in intrinsic information theory.

note: In fact, from the way I reason, taking an intrinsic inference perspective seriously, the evolution is even a prediction becase there is no static solution. So I do not "assume" ad hoc that parameters vary randomly and there is some undefined selection, I rather think that the evolving inference system follows from the self-constructive inference itself. Successful parts are reinforced by a kind fo statistical weight, and inconsistent parts and eventually diluted and eventually become indistinguishable and are erased. What I am fighting with is to make this precise, and then the next step is of course to extract the physics we are used to - to reproduce 4D spacetime and matter content. The matter content in my view IS the inference system population. This is definitely not what smolin is thinking - it is a clear mix of smolins GENERAL idea, AND the program of physical inference (ariel caticha, et jaynes etc).

There is a synthesis of these two ideas to be made. Since few seems to bother with this I see no better option but to try to do it myself, although it's an overwhealming task.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

I know we differ here, but to me your notion of EXISTENCE is almost a non-physical and non-scientific one ... from my point of view your question "does it exist" without considering how it's inferred, simply has no impact on the actions - which is the prime concern to me.

Let me ask one question again: Go to a room with a huge library, lock the door and throw away the key. Do the books continue to exist?

From your last postings I would say that you position is very close to idealism. Of course I can't prove that it's wrong, but you certainly run into trouble that you have to explain how your approach differs from pure subjectivism.

It seems to me that your position is always jeopardized to become non-scientific.

 

[Fra]

Ok, this is a simple example but let me put it to make me point more clear.

Let me ask one question again: Go to a room with a huge library, lock the door and throw away the key. Do the books continue to exist?

If we suppose that this is the door to another world, and that the door is irreversibly closed. Then to be honest, I would never raise the question - I would probably be better off investing my time in posing a more constructive question.

Do the books still exist in the world I will never be able to communicate with? I honestly would be completeley indifferent to which :)

However, if there was still interactions with that room, and there was mechanisms where the books beeing there or not, would influence my future, then I would take into consideration that the books exists or not exists, when inferring the possible future of mine, and it would also influence my action! And if we are talking about a macroscopic library then the mass of that makes it very probably that the information I received when the door was open, does not change immediately as I close and lock it.

So my answer is that the existence of the books is meaningul only if there is to me, an distinguishable mechanism for how it might influence my future. Otherwise I would not waste my time pondering about wether god is left or right handed, because I am completeley indifferent to these things. There is no basis at all for rising such question.

From your last postings I would say that you position is very close to idealism. Of course I can't prove that it's wrong, but you certainly run into trouble that you have to explain how your approach differs from pure subjectivism.

I think I've tried to explain this. In my view, objectivity is emergent as a RESULT of interactions and selection on the subjective inferenc esystems. This is a very important point.

My view of symmetry is for example NOT that there in a realist sense exists a set of subjective/relative views that happen to have a certain transformation which generates all of them. And the symmetry is again of realist type. (this is the COMMON view)

Instead, but view is that as a subjective inference system is put to interactions, the local group of interacting subjective inference systems will exert ON THE OTHERS a selective pressure that causes emergence of a local symmetry. However this symmetry has not global meaning beyond this local group of interactors.

I understand that on first glimps this may sound like anything goes etc, but that's not the case. The trick is the evolutio and selection. "Anything goes" simply doesn't survive the competition, a system needs to be in consistency with it's local environment to be in local equilibritum. About global equilibrium, there is no local definition of such a think. To make a very large scale equilibirum, you need a Very very complex and massive observer.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

If we suppose that this is the door to another world, and that the door is irreversibly closed. Then to be honest, I would never raise the question - I would probably be better off investing my time in posing a more constructive question.

Do the books still exist in the world I will never be able to communicate with? I honestly would be completeley indifferent to which :)

However, if there was still interactions with that room, and there was mechanisms where the books beeing there or not, would influence my future, then I would take into consideration that the books exists or not exists, when inferring the possible future of mine, and it would also influence my action!

OK, let's discuss this in the context of cosmic horizons. An area A of space that disappears from our "world" beyond the cosmic horizon will certainly no longer interact with you (your area X). But of course there are other distant areas B, C, D, ... still visible to you which can interact with area A. Therefore the EXISTENCE of area A does not only (as far as I can see) depend on the interaction with area X, but on the interaction with B, C, D, etc. Keep in mind that it is by no means clear that the interaction of X with B, C, D will (in the far future) be communicated to X. In a typical scenario with horizons these signals from B, C, D will be hidden in the future behind the same expanding horizon and will NEVER be received in X.

That means that you have to give up the subjective perspective and believe in the objective world telling you that other areas of space will "support" A to continue to exist.
So in some sense A ceases to exist from a subjective point of view, but it will continue to exist from an objective (or realistic) point of view.

This is exactly the consequence of Berkeley's idealism. He was very clear about the fact that if you assume that only "observed phenomena" are existing, then you have to explain how things can exist even if nobody is looking. As Berkeley was a bishop he trusted in good to observe everything in the universe and keep it existing.

What I am saying is that if your ontology is based on "your possible future, and influence on your actions", then this is essentially idealism. Your judgment regarding existence of certain entities is either subjective or incomplete. As you certainly want to avoid subjectivism you have to overcome incompleteness. You doubt that this will work w/o reference to any externally existing entity (material objects, laws, ...).

 

[Fra]

I'll get back later and try to elaborate about completeness, existence etc. I'm currently running low on time but i'll return with comments evenetually.

But in short, the completeness of percection you seen to seek, are not physically realisable. BUT you are right that seeking it is rational, but the process itself involves time and resources. This is exactly why there is evolution. Time is even a consequence of this failure to capture eternal perfection in a moment of time.

But more later... I'm stuffed with work atm

/Fredrik

 

[Dmitry67]

It was a trick: I did not want to discuss the meaning of "EXISTS", I wanted to show that there is no consensus on even basic things.
Let’s admit, based on this and all previous discussions: there is no consensus about the meaning of words:

Event
Exist
Real / Virtual
Reality/Realism
Measurement
Observation
Particle
Spacetime (4D? Bulk?)
Etc etc.

If we think about the words as some clouds in some space of meanings, then before they had sharp borders. Then they because more and more fuzzy. They started to intersect with each other.

But wait: this is exactly what Max Tegmark predicted! On our way to TOE all these words MUST lose their meaning, becoming “mere labels” (c) These fuzzy clouds are the last image we see as the objective of our science photo-camera is de-focused completely.

 

[Fra]

On my way but some more meanwhile..

Mmm you seem as obsessed with "existence", as I am with "inference", not sure what to say here...

I assume your argument is that the subjective view is different from your imagine objective view? Sure, but so what? I mean, what physical impact does this have? You seem to think it's a logical inconsistency, as it breaks your realist logic, that every question, even the ones that aren't asked, must have a definite - observer independent/inference independent - answer?

In my view, the "inconsistencies" actually imply physical interactions, in the sense of a selective pressure in the evolution.

This is what you do in symmetry arguments as well, that two choices of a gauge, imply an physical interaction. The difference is that I apply the inference also to the symmetry transformation itself, so we get an hierarchy of information.

That means that you have to give up the subjective perspective and believe in the objective world telling you that other areas of space will "support" A to continue to exist.
So in some sense A ceases to exist from a subjective point of view, but it will continue to exist from an objective (or realistic) point of view.

This is exactly the consequence of Berkeley's idealism. He was very clear about the fact that if you assume that only "observed phenomena" are existing, then you have to explain how things can exist even if nobody is looking. As Berkeley was a bishop he trusted in good to observe everything in the universe and keep it existing.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. That something is indistinguishable from the point of view of observer 1, does not mean we can infere there is nothing there, it only means we know noting of it, and this unkonwn also does not influence our actions in a distinguishable way.

That's enough for me, I don't understand why you keep insisting in want to konw what you can't know, when it's indifferent to you?

I'm not one single bit religious :)

Your judgment regarding existence of certain entities is either subjective or incomplete. As you certainly want to avoid subjectivism you have to overcome incompleteness. You doubt that this will work w/o reference to any externally existing entity (material objects, laws, ...).

Incomplete? Of course there is a limit to my predictive power of the future - for several reasons, that is the whole starting point. It's the basic observation that is the starting point for it. My whole approach is based on inference based upon incomplete information. But the intrinsic form of this, is not like standard information theory, where you can exactly quantify what you don't know, instead you simply act on what you know, period. It's a game, the choices are to play or not to play.

If you are considering a realist view, where the information exists in some external sense, and in this birds view you can explain the incompleteness of the inside view, then it's not intrinsic inference.

Actually in my view, the external inference model DOES apply, when you as a large observer study small subsystems, because then you can physically justify at least an emergent EFFECTIVE birds view.

But this is a special case. Looking at your remote horizon is not a subsystem which environment you cna monitor.

This is - IMHO - why a new "evolving" logic is needed.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. That something is indistinguishable from the point of view of observer 1, does not mean we can infere there is nothing there, it only means we know noting of it, and this unkonwn also does not influence our actions in a distinguishable way.

I just responded to the following statement

If we suppose that this is the door to another world, and that the door is irreversibly closed. Then to be honest, I would never raise the question - I would probably be better off investing my time in posing a more constructive question.

... I don't understand why you keep insisting in want to konw what you can't know, when it's indifferent to you?

I do not insist that I want to know something about a certain entity, but I am insisting on the fact that my examples point into the direction that talking about existence of some entity must not only be based on its affect it has on your actions. If you restrict the meaning of existence to "is observed" or "has an affect" then you have to answer the question "who is the observer?" or "who is affected". With my examples I try to show that restricting to you as an observer may not be sufficient because then some entity that existed in some sense may cease to exist because of your horizons. That means the existence of this entity relies on "external observers" which essentially saves us from idealism (solipsism). I hope this clarifies what I mean by "incomplete".

One remark: I think the discussion is still interesting and we continuously uncover new aspects. But finally it always boils down to the fundamental different perspectives we have. I only want to make clear that I appreciate your reasoning! It's not that I am blind or ignorant, it's only that I see (from my perspective) certain obstacles in changing to the "dark side". So if you still like the discussion it's fine for me; if it becomes boring or if you think that we start to go round in circles then let me know.

Thomas

 

[Fra]

With my examples I try to show that restricting to you as an observer may not be sufficient because then some entity that existed in some sense may cease to exist because of your horizons. That means the existence of this entity relies on "external observers" which essentially saves us from idealism (solipsism). I hope this clarifies what I mean by "incomplete".

Ok, if I understand you right which I think, the yes, we have "incompleteness". Agreed.

Now what I suggest is that this incompletness is no arfitfact due to a my flawed reasoning (like I think you think?) - it is a physical incompleteness to me, consistent with all I know. That's my point, and this incompleteness in any inference system, has measurable consequences in the actions.

I think it's also responsible for the arrow of time.

It is correct in a sense that my reasoning is unstable! It's just that from a realist view it is not unstable, it's incomplete and possibly inconsistent.

I'm suggesting instead that the instability has a direction, the subjective arrow of time. In this "flow" evolution of law are the slowest changes in the hiearchy and hardest to predict, the most vibrant "flow" is the ordinary time, that is flowing respect to the lower level states.

This is of course just a vision, but it's how it should work in detail when I get this worked out.

One remark: I think the discussion is still interesting and we continuously uncover new aspects. But finally it always boils down to the fundamental different perspectives we have. I only want to make clear that I appreciate your reasoning! It's not that I am blind or ignorant, it's only that I see (from my perspective) certain obstacles in changing to the "dark side". So if you still like the discussion it's fine for me; if it becomes boring or if you think that we start to go round in circles then let me know.

I know :) I'm not blind either, in a certain sense I do see your points. I guess I wanted to explain how the weaknesses you see, are handled in my view.

In a nutshell we do seem to get back to the deductive systems. From the point of view of deductive reasoning, my stance IS inconsistenct or incomplete. You conclude from within that system that my view is thus "probably" wrong? Does that sound fair?

Insteaf from My point of view, this inconsistency and incompleteness are real and physical, and instead the problem is the deductive inference system! If we instead take on an inductive type of inference, inconsistencies are not fatal, they just cause the inference system itself to revise.

I think like this:

The problem with your approach is that is risks to come to a halt, or simply fail to make progress in a rational way. The advantage is that it's more definitive, and not as subjective, and inferences are certain.

The problem with my approach is how to make sense out of this subjective mess. The advantage is that it does not easily come to a halt and it' a builtin deadlock avoidance since inconsistences are handled be evolving hte inference system which inferred it! Thus inconsistencies are interpreted as a need to revise the inference system itslelf.

I have tried to defined the motivation for why the deductive fixed axiomatic model are likely to fail, and motivate a search for a more flexible framwork. I also have at least tried to argue how I handle subjectivity. When two rational solipsists interact adn communicate, they will come to a consensus, a kind of emergent objectivity, but this objectivity has meaning only to the interacting parties.

/Fredrik

 

[tom.stoer]

Thanks for the excellent summary!

 

[John86]

Hello Fra,

I am following this thread for quite a while now, and find your ideas really inspiring and usefull in more than one way. Subjectivism an evolution of physical law sounds very reasonable to me. But what role does Non-locality play in your ideas ?.

 

[Fra]

Hello Fra,

I am following this thread for quite a while now, and find your ideas really inspiring and usefull in more than one way. Subjectivism an evolution of physical law sounds very reasonable to me. But what role does Non-locality play in your ideas ?.

Hello John. I'm glad to be of some inspiration :)

Usually locality or non-locality refers to spacetime and distance. In my view, spacetime is emergent but there is a sort of locality principle that is can be defined prior to the regular spacetime.

I could it phrase it so that the principle is simply that the physical action of a system depends only from the evidence encoded in it. Thus there is "locality" in the sense where you envision a distance measure in "hypothesis" space, where the action weights possibilities in accordance to their respective confidence level. Thus, things with low or zero confidence level, has low or zero impact on the action.

Edit: I don't think I explained this well. I want to point out that I distinguish between action and reaction. The reaction is the backreaction from the environment following the systems action. This together gives evolution. So the action, is not a global action, it is only defined differentially so to speak. The action defines a differential change; it does not define the definite change since this involves evolution which has an undecidable part that is due to physical incompleteness.

In fact, this type of distance measure beeing a kind of information divergence, is a possible hint to how spacetime can emerge. Ariel Caticha (which is not as radical as i am, but still) has turned the coin around and suggest that instead of saying that things that are remote from each other are unlikely to influence each other; that things that as a matter of fact appears to have little or no influence on each other, and pretty much no correlation defines a distance, this way one can define distance in information space.

Some technical details though is that there are different ways to do this, there is also a standard topic (information geometry) where there are information theoretic origns of the metric. I picture it differently, that gives a more weird and "subjective" geometry, but then that advantage it's exactly the subjectivee view of the geometry that implies interaction forces. I consider a intrinsic kind of information divergence ( that lacks objective meaning) and it's exactly the relativity of this measure that implies that these systems when interacting in "their view of space" are subject to interactions from the disagreeing systems.

But this is all open questions as I see it, and the details remain to be nailed exactly. For any later comers, my modest contribution to this thread on TOE etc is just to try to convey my view what I think requiring a coherence of reasoning suggest about how it may or may not look like. And that this alone, may actually guide us to finding not a static TOE, but maybe as close to an effective TOE as might be possible.

/Fredrik

 

[moniker2]

It was a trick: I did not want to discuss the meaning of "EXISTS", I wanted to show that there is no consensus on even basic things.
Let’s admit, based on this and all previous discussions: there is no consensus about the meaning of words:

Event
Exist
Real / Virtual
Reality/Realism
Measurement
Observation
Particle
Spacetime (4D? Bulk?)
Etc etc.

If we think about the words as some clouds in some space of meanings, then before they had sharp borders. Then they because more and more fuzzy. They started to intersect with each other.

But wait: this is exactly what Max Tegmark predicted! On our way to TOE all these words MUST lose their meaning, becoming “mere labels” (c) These fuzzy clouds are the last image we see as the objective of our science photo-camera is de-focused completely.

labels? I got kick out of the forum two years ago for posting this.

Liquid Space Theory
F = force
M = mass initial
V = velocity
C = speed of light
A = acceleration
H = Planck’s constant
E = energy


F = {[(m/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-m}a

Second law of time

A ={{[(m/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-m}^-1}f

Infinite change of time

M = [f /{[(1/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-1}a

Mass as a vector in a 3- orthogonal space

V = c [- (ma/ma-f )^2 +1]^1/2

Velocity of time

C = [v / [- (ma/ma-f )^2 +1]^1/2

Speed of light as a function of mass

E = {[f /{[(1/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-1}a}{[v / [- (ma/ma-f )^2 +1]^1/2 }^2

Time conservation law

Wave = {{[f /{[(1/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-1}a}{[v / [- (ma/ma-f )^2 +1]^1/2 }^2 } / h

(e / h)

Wave length and energy of the force
Energy of the force = {{[(m/(1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-m}c^2}
Wave = {{[(m/ (1-(v^2/c^2)) ^(1/2)]-m}c^2} / h

Time has an avg. 10^18 – 10^23 Hz

Not a good source at all but interesting...
http://www.timetravelinstitute.com/ttiforum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=time_travel&Number=47124&Forum=time_travel&Words=satown&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=46807&Search=true#Post47124"

 

[John86]

Thanks for your reaction Fra,

But this inference proces is a purely informational relational proces as i understand it ! The subjective observer acts on i'ts environment and viceversa am i right. Then this will have certain fundamental consequences for measurements undertaken in science, because they then are purely subjective and belong more or less to the classical measurement outcomes taking place in our brains.

 

[Fra]

But this inference proces is a purely informational relational proces as i understand it ! The subjective observer acts on i'ts environment and viceversa am i right. Then this will have certain fundamental consequences for measurements undertaken in science

If I read you right, I can roughly agree so far.

they then are purely subjective and belong more or less to the classical measurement outcomes taking place in our brains.

? I don't quite follow this parts, and how it relates to the ideas I describe?

My ideas are not directly related to models of the human brain. Observer also does not refer to a human.

Observer is a general physical system.
The inference system is physical inference system, not a biological brain. If you use brain as a metafor for inference system, then any physical system has this. But the word brain and humans brings in totally misguiding associations. I do not think in terms of humans or brains at all.

Maybe I missed your point here?

Edit: Maybe your reason for talking about hte brain, is because you consider human science? OK, then I agree. BUT there are complications, humans are far more complex than particles, and humans are not only constrained to their brain. Humans pretty much control an entire planet, and has learned howto exploit control and use it's environment as an extension of itself.

So the inference system of human science inference, is not just the biological brains, it's much more. We have techonology, computers, libraries etc that are a significant part of our "complexity". Not to mention gigantic laboratories they we have built be exploiting our acquired knowledge of our environment. This technology continously increase.

But in a sense that's no different than how I picture it on the microscale, and how complexity is gained by taking control of the enviroment.

But all this, is no "problem" as I see. It's just another illustration that science is a complicated by evolving thing. Our environment, in several ways connects our subjective brains, so the emergent consensus is not subjective.

/Fredrik