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I’m terribly curious to know what the group thinks of this idea. Please post a response, even if just to tell me I’m bonkers:

According to quantum theorists, it’s possible that, at every possible node in time and space, a quantum universe “buds” off from our own and develops independently. Some reason that, since there are an infinity of these quantum worlds, there must exist - somewhere - a carbon copy of “our” universe. Indeed, there may be a universe that’s identical to this one but for the fact that the sky on that Earth is green. In this model, anything that’s possible, is.

I contend that, if the Principle of Computational Equivalence and its corollary of Computational Irreducibility hold, then the aforementioned “quantum multiverse” theory must be limited.

Here’s my reasoning. Irreducibility implies that each complex system is historically unique. That is, the only way to describe a complex system fully is to recreate that system entirely. There’s no way to “boil down” a complex system to a simpler description. This is an intuitively satisfying idea. For instance, it resolves another philosophical quandry neatly: if I create a carbon copy of myself, will my consciousness somehow seep into that carbon copy? Computational Irreducibility suggests not, in that, since my copy and I are complex systems, we should each have unique histories and thus separate consciousness, regardless of our biological similarities.

The way this argument applies to the quantum multiverse dilemma is as follows. Since each complex system is historically unique, the chance of duplicating any complex system precisely is nil, even after an infinity of iterations. In other words, quantum multiverses may indeed exist, but you - and indeed the earth and the sun, etc - are likely a completely unique event.

What do you guys think?

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I do not speak for any group, but I would argue that complex systems are not irreducible. Isn't that the definition of complex?

As for the seepage of identity, I would be interested in any non-violent attempt to prove that you have one. No insult intended. Multiuniverse theory is multidimensional. It is arguable that being, hence identity, is not conserved in the time dimensions.

There is an interesting parable about what you call seepage of identity, which is by the way a revealing choice of terms. A neuroscientist discovers a way to replace defective neurons with new ones. She has this degenerative disease that means her neurons are dying faster than those of most other people. But she extends her identity by replacing her dying neurons, one by one, as they die, with new ones. This process is continuous and goes on for many, many years, allowing her to live out a normal lifetime.

At what point would you say she has lost her "identity"?

To make the point more clearly, let us say she is not a neuroscientist, but a nanotechnologist. Instead of replacing her dying neurons with new neurons, she replaces them with little nanobots that are programed to behave exactly like the neurons she replaces. One at a time, she replaces her nerves with nanobots.

By the way, I think this may be the first use of the term, "nanobot" in print.

She starts as a young nanotechnologist at age eighteen when one of the nerves in her little finger gives out. She replaces the nerve with a nanobot and goes on just as before. You would not know she has a nanobot nerve in her little finger. Later, she has to replace the nerves in her hands, then her arms, then her spinal cord, finally the nerves, one by one as they fail, in her brain.

Heck, as long as she is at it, she replaces the rest of her body too, becomeing a fully nanobotic being, and theoretically immortal.

So. Does she inherit her property, and her identity? And if not, then at what point should the law declare her a non-entity? When does she lose her drivers license? Her voter ID card? Her telephone number?

I hope you see that you have a serious problem with your idea of identity. This is not a trivial question. There are people dying today because the laws do not allow them to replace nervous tissue with spare parts from stem cells, as has already been done in animals. Human research in this area is strictly controlled.

Good luck with this one. Keep in mind that one day (would only that G-d forbid!) you may have to reconsider the question from a wheelchair or a hospice bed.

Be well, and enjoy the scenery before it passes.

Richard.

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If I'm not mistaken.

What's irreducible about complex phenomena is the computations they can be said to perform. No formula can ever cover all of those computations in a reduced way.

Consider a class 4 system. There are reductions that can be made in the behavior of the system, that is, how the system goes about performing computations. But it's never the case that there is a smaller, simpler system that performs absolutely all of the computations that your original class 4 system does.

Now, consider a class 3 system. Here, we cannot make reductions in how the system goes about performing the computations that it performs, that is, it's behavior.

They're both computationally irreducible.

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Originally posted by Jesse Nochella
If I'm not mistaken.

What's irreducible about complex phenomena is the computations they can be said to perform. No formula can ever cover all of those computations in a reduced way.

Consider a class 4 system. There are reductions that can be made in the behavior of the system, that is, how the system goes about performing computations. But it's never the case that there is a smaller, simpler system that performs absolutely all of the computations that your original class 4 system does.

Now, consider a class 3 system. Here, we cannot make reductions in how the system goes about performing the computations that it performs, that is, it's behavior.

They're both computationally irreducible.

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Review what computational irreducibility means, here - 737

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It now appears to me that there is a fundamental question of the difference between a system and its behavior. This pleases me because it addresses the problem of identity in the time dimensions. Under spacetime equivalence, a system and its behavior are the same thing.

Wolfram has shown that simple systems operating on a smooth background can produce behavior which is not predictable except by repeating the work of the system. He asserts that these types of systems are not uncommon, and his position is credible.

The tradition in science is to seek and exploit reproducible behaviors. In this way 'laws' (or more often, theories) of behavior are defined, and then can be used to build systems which behave predictably within their design limits. This has proved a fruitful endeavor, although sometimes the fruit leaves a bitter after-taste.

Wolfram invites us to look now at types of behaviors which are not computationally reducible....that is, systems whose behaviors cannot be described by reduction to formula. This approach appears promising, at least, to some of us engaged in a study of quantum behavior.

Wolfram says "to capture the essential features even of systems with very complex behavior it can be sufficient to use models that have an extremely simple basic structure." And this is my insight, and my hope, also.

Can computer experiments using simple starting conditions and simple rules replicate the events we see at quantum scales? It seems plausible. Quantum events are usually studied near singularities, which implies that there may be simple conditions at hand.

Dimensional analysis of natural units reveals that there may be as few as five indispensible quantities...mass, charge, temperature, length and time. Length and time can be related as equivalent under the unitary velocity for the propagation of light, leaving only four. Mass and charge and temperature all obey the same inverse square law, perhaps linking them as identical except in terms of spacetime scale. Perhaps a two dimensional lattice, with spacetime as the vertical axis and mass or charge or temperature as the horizontal axis, and some set of simple binary rules of behavior, can reproduce experimentally measured quantities such as the fine structure constant, the cosmological constant, and the gravitational constant. That would be a sweet discovery.

I am here to study NKS, not to teach physics. Statements in the above paragraph are my own speculations, not to be confused with currently accepted theories. I present them here in hopes of making contact with other researchers who may have similar interests and a desire for open cooperation.

Thanks for being here,

Richard T. Harbaugh,
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Beware any idealized answer to the 'quantum measurement problem.'

That's all that theory is - a way to account for the faster-than-light interactions which always occur at the QM level. 'Pilot waves' are no more unreasonable as a way to account for them, and they also make the math fit. Feynman's 'many paths' method is unique, in that regard; it is the general case of the other QM formualtions, not just a co-ordinate transformation, so counts as 'superior' in that regard; it explains why the others work. They cannot explain Feynman.

To some degree, Feynman's method requires a lack of mutiple universes. Since all events result from the interaction of all possibilities, then those possibilites can't be zipping off into another universe. They must be in this universe, to have the effect they do.

There is no unambiguous evidence - in fact, cannot be any - by which you can prove the 'many universe' theory false, let alone true. Hence, it is not scientific, AKA, subject to judgement based on empirical grounds.

"Identity" has two meanings, and I think they are being confabulated, here. There is the 'uniquely recognizable' sense, and the 'first person point of view,' sense. If I'm reading it right, the question is whether the latter requires or implies the former.

-Tom

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[i]

There is no unambiguous evidence - in fact, cannot be any - by which you can prove the 'many universe' theory false, let alone true. Hence, it is not scientific, AKA, subject to judgement based on empirical grounds.

"Identity" has two meanings, and I think they are being confabulated, here. There is the 'uniquely recognizable' sense, and the 'first person point of view,' sense. If I'm reading it right, the question is whether the latter requires or implies the former.

-Tom [/B]

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'Identity' means, roughly, recognition. But since cognition is an action of some subject - some information-processing event - it implies two players; the one recognized, and the one doing the recognition.

In the first case, it means, approximately, 'sameness.' 'Pattern integrity' is as apt.

One electron is indistinguishable from another. They have 100% 'sameness' - they are 'identical'.

But when you wake up in the morning, and 'recgonize yourself' - that is, when you consider your morning a continuation of your yesterday - I think that is a different kind of recognition from the first, and it's a big part of my objection, for the second point in this post. A sense of 'me experiencing' is distinct from a pattern within that experience. One is a process, one is a set resulting from the process.

WRT the Mutiple Universe Theory (originally known as the 'many universe interpretation' of Quantum Theory), your description lacks a distinction WRT scale. All the results you describe as supporting the notion only support the 'overlapping states' conceptulization of Feynman's Sum Over histories approach. (And Dark Matter remains a theoretical result, something which needs evidence, not an example of evidence).

It is a theory of multiple overlapping could-be 'universes,' not a theory of mutiple independent actual universes. IOW, it's a misleading use of the word 'universe.'

There are at least 4 mathematical methods to predict outcomes of QM observations, and 8 metaphysical conceptualizations to 'explain' how it all happens the way it does. Strangely enough, the guy who made the most successful model to date also cautioned that you'll waste your time, if not your mind, worrying about 'how it can happen that way.'

The others metaphysics are:
'neo realism' (Von Nemann proved that it's impossible for QM to be made of ordinary objects - this one is now dead)
'undivided wholeness' (any event is a composite of 'the entire apparatus')
'consciousness creates reality' (collapse occurs in the formation of a mental model)
'the duplex world' (universe described as an uncollapsed wave-function)
'the copenhagen interpretation' (there is no deep reality)
'copenhagen v.2' (reality is created by observation)
'QM special logic' (reality obeys a non-human logic)

Most physicists apply the math to the experiments, and don't worry about the metaphysics (in the professional submitting-papers sense). De facto, that's Copenhagen; there's no point worrying about the 'actual' state of unmeasured quanta.

The 'pilot wave' feels out the environment for it's particle...FTL!...in order to 'decide' how that particle will make itself known. The math fits, but the conceptualization is absurd.

The 'wave equation' interacts instantly - FTL - with the 'potential' represented by a barrier, to determine if it penetrates. How does it know how high the barrier (or how thick) *before* it penetrates? Again, the math fits, but the conceptualization is absurd.

The 'history' of any particle includes all possible paths which add up and cancel, via SuperPosition...FTL....leaving only the actual paths we observe. Wave-packets can interfere with themselves. Again, the math fits, but the conceptuliztion is absurd.

Absurd conceptualizations, in the 'doesnt seem possible' sense aren't optional. That's why we trust the math, right? OTOH, our sense of 'absurd' might be inappropriate - hence the 'quanum logic' attempts at clarity.

'Many Worlds' applys the pilot wave idea, but then there's never a collapse (when the wave-shaped range of probabilities become a particle-shaped specific event). It ducks the question, in fact. Your mind stays here, with *this* way of happening, and another, identical version of you (including the entire universe) buds off into some other 'space' with the *other* way it could have happend, but didn't (from your point of view, within 'this' universe).

Many Universes is fantastic, but no more fantastic than the others, or really, the counter-intutitive way QM events transpire, existing in some ghostly half-there probablistic state between measurements, then 'snapping' into a real (experiencable) state during an observation / energy transfer.

Being fantastic is required for any explanatory mechanism that addresses fantastic events, so that is no critque of Many Universes. If you substitute 'unobservable' for 'fantastic' it still fits; like the budded-off universes, the detailed mechanics of a wave-function collapse are unobservable.

I'm guessing that this is not the conceptualization you are talking about, because you are invoking Feynman's results as support, in which case, you've apparently substitutited 'universes' for 'paths' in the 'many paths' conceptualization of Feynman.

If I'm incorrect, and you really do think that Feynman supports the Many Universe theory, then you are still left with a problem at least as troublesome as 'where does it collapse'?

Why did 'you' - that first person point of view you experience from - end up in this Universe, and not another?

It's really another version of the original question; *why* did it end up this specific way, not that specific way? The 'wave function' is no longer the quanta doing the collapsing and by which actual events are disclosed for inspection. Instead, at the moment of observation/measurement/interaction, the observer explodes into a constellation of dimensionally-isolated otherwise-identical experiencers, surrounded by their now-unique entire universe.

In fact, given the issue of identity, Many Worlds has an incredible implication; In 'your' Universe...the one which you, specifically, experience...you will be the oldest dude you know. This is for a simple reason. Every time there's some possibility you could die, 'you' by definition, must go with the surviving version of 'you,' because there is no 'you' in the 'dead' version. Of necessity, you will always experience the Universe where you live so long you cannot help but die. This idea is, of course, untestable, just like every other implication of the standard 'many universe' conceptualization.

Many Worlds therefore produces the primary intution of Hindu Theology; since I can't experience not experiencing, I must experience forever. This is a natural result if you exclude experience from your accounting, an unavoidable result of ducking that question; why do we experience this-not-that?

'Many Universes' explains why you should stop seeking an explanation. It explains something *away.* Literally! Into a new universe. All those possibilities which didn't happen here are 'somewhere else.'

That is why I think you are actually talking about micro-scale mechanics, since you invoke Feynman's success to support 'many worlds' when it contradicts 'many worlds' - it supports 'many simultaneous mutually-exclusive paths.'

When you Sum Over Histories, you must include *all* possible paths, even universe-sized paths, in order to accurately predict the actual probabilities which experiments bear out. Virtual Particles are one theoretical result of that conceptualization, and observation bears out the notion; all possibilities - even the mutually-exclusive ones - really do interact...right here, in *this* universe, and end up producing a single result, right here, in this Universe. Schoedinger's not-dead, not-alive cat isn't *sick.*

Which specific observation occurs for any specific quanta is still a matter of those probabilities, but positing another Universe for some of those potentia to end up in causes more problems than it solves; those possibilities have already been accounted for here, in this Universe, even if the unmeasured state is conceptualizable as a set of overlapping could-be 'universes'. If they've left (as they must have done, in order to end up in a new universe), how do you explain virtual particles?

If you would send them off into the nether (budded off, isolated universes), you'd better be prepared to rework Feynman, either to adjust for their removal in the standard sum-over-histories approach, or to explain how Feynman's method is simultaneously redundant, general, and accurate. And you still have the original question to address; how does any one 'state' know which universe to end up in?

Your description, in fact, is very similar to a Feynman Diagram, only you've substituted 'mutually exclusive' for 'destructive interference.'

The only consistent way (I can imagine) to combine the notions is to posit some kind of large-scale Feynman vector diagram as a model for the macro-scale world, which is, defacto, the duplex world of Heisenberg, only you've lost track of the second part motivating the entire attempt: the ordinary reality we actually experience.

Finally, I am certainly not prepared to support the 3D-1T framework, as I consider it erroneous, as well. I daresay I can better describe *why* it is erroneous than yourself. Indeed, I found this forum, and NKS, as I followed up my own (re)discovery, about a year ago, of a demonstrably superior coordinate system. If you'd like to read about that (re)discovery, I've put it here; http://www.tmaq.net/meta.htm

You'll want to check out R.B.Fullers 4D frequency-metric coordinate system - that's the one I used to conceptualize your treatment of 'many worlds,' and by which I recognized your error; the use of 'universe' when 'potential path' is what you evidently meant. Because you've lost track of the experiencing observer, you also lost track of the fact that all events have a scenario; Universe. (Not 'this' or 'the' or 'our').

It starts with something you began by overlooking; Unity is Plural. 'Identity' is a 1-to-1 *relationship.* Two parties are required, in every case, so the consideration of a single item (the one identified) is an incomplete conceptualization.

Its called 'Synergetics,' and I encourage you to check it out, because it think it's very relevant for NKS, even if it proves NKS redundant (as it appears to be, to me).

An intro:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~ahler002/syslaw.htm

The long version: http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/books/synerg...oc/frameit.html

It anticipated Process Physics by at least 10 years (published in 1974, but first conceptualized at least as long ago as 1935), and it provides a far better conceptual framework for Systems Theory, computable systems, and computation/conceptualization generally.

It includes also the distinctions between thought and physics, an explanation for the motivation to believe in God, the meaning and importance of 'the empty category,' a recognition of the ubiquity of 'synergy,' and a speculative explanation how, historically, knowledge of a superior co-ordinate system was either overlooked, or actively supressed, despite it's 8000-year-old history. Two examples shows the need;

1) The words for 'one' and 'two' in every language follow the same pattern, despite most of them being thousands of years old. 'one' starts with an emphasized vowel sound. Two starts with a consonant, and emphasized the second part. Ein, Yee, Uno. Svien, Nee, Dos (feel free to look up those words in any language you prefer). How did that happen? 'Archetypes' fail to explain it, since words like 'mom,' 'water', and 'death' do not follow that pattern.

2) "Consider," literally, means 'bringing stars together' - how did that construction end up designating 'thought'?

One example of it's historical success, despite a lack of critical attention; Synergetics applied 'spin' for a rotational metric when 'spin' was still considered by nuclear physics to be a quantum number distinct from angular momentum.

It also presents general systems theory in a clear and consistent way, which NKS fails to do, despite it's importance for describing *any* 'new' paradigm.

Philisophically, it anticipated Popper; "knowledge is recognition of general principles of behavior which apply in every single specific case experience." There are no counter-examples, merely arguments over critieria for inclusion in a particular set of specific cases to be considered.

In comparision, I have yet to find a cogent description of what NKS actually *is.* More specifically, there is no description of which activities, principles, tools, or models qualify.

I've been kicking it around for a couple months, now, and all I got so far is a computer-aided hyper-complex set theory; Plato's confusion between ideas and their objects still lurks, and it will poison the effort as long as it does so, regardless of the power of Aristotle's calculator.

I'm frankly surprised so many people in NKS seem unaware of 'Synergetics,' since it covers most of the same ground a lot better...which of course, renders 'NKS' a bit of a misnomer.

-Tom

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Hi Tom

I have copied your four and a half page reply into my word processor and intend to answer it offline, then will post it here in a day or two if all goes well. Immediately, my impression is that you wrote this off the cuff, which shows a powerful ability to focus ideas into words. Nice job.

I am somewhat familiar with synergistics. I personally like the isomatrix model and expect to use it as a first approximation in my planned experiments. I'll take a look at your site as soon as I get time. Happens my schedule is rather full for the next few days, but I look forward to getting a chance to spend some time with it. Thanks.

I liked your summary of the quantum theories. And your critique of my own attempts is most enlightening. I prefer to think of my approach as a "many times" interpretation, but of course it is only provisional. The important thing, to me, is to try to test ideas against whatever evidence is available.

You asked:
"Why did 'you' - that first person point of view you experience from - end up in this Universe, and not another? "

IMHO, that first person point of view is illusary. Oh, fine, I'll pull my hand out of the fire as quick as anyone else, or at least as quick as I can. But show me this "I" you claim to be talking about. Where, exactly, in the body if you like, does this first person reside?

Every first person thinks it is unique and seperate. That should give us a clue. This universe or any other.....just a word. Of course there is only one universe. Only happens that there are many definitions. Which self is the real self? None of them are real.

Did you count the holographic idea in your list? I'm sorry, I forget. I'll read it again. Information theory, black hole thermodynamcs, that sort of direction. I'll try to be more specific later.

For the time being, I just wanted to thank you for being here, and wish you well. It all may be an illusion, at least I have no reason to think otherwise, but there is no advantage that I can see to makeing it an unpleasent one. The ugly stuff happens anyway, no matter how hard we may try to clean up the mess.

Thanks again, and be well,

Richard

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Richard T. Harbaugh,
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"I am somewhat familiar with synergistics."

Yay! Perhaps together we can translate one into the other. Hopefully, you are more familiar with NKS than I am!

"I personally like the isomatrix model and expect to use it as a first approximation in my planned experiments. I'll take a look at your site as soon as I get time. Happens my schedule is rather full for the next few days, but I look forward to getting a chance to spend some time with it. Thanks."

Take your time. I can tell you and I are sympatico, from your dimensional analysis, though I would disagree that 'temperature' constitutes a fundamental dimension. Strangely enough, I intuit that the specific dimensions one uses are fairly arbitrary, over and above the requirement to use a complete but non-overlapping set.

"I prefer to think of my approach as a "many times" interpretation, but of course it is only provisional."

IMHO, that description is right on. Stick with that for a while, see how it works. 'Universe' gets pretty overused, anyway.

I've been kicking around a doppler-shift / lorentz version of the 'mass = folded time' idea. Maybe you and I are on the same track. There might be a 'syntropy loss' model that could do the same thing - reducing the number of possible states takes effort, after all, and 'moving' implies exactly that.

On top of that, I've also been considering NKS in the light of Bell's non-locality theorem (the infinite-dimensional simple-rules self-referential matrix). We know non-locality is real, and could constitute the 'nodes' posited in process physics.

"The important thing, to me, is to try to test ideas against whatever evidence is available."

Agreed. Otherwise, I'd rather do crosswords. ;-)

"IMHO, that first person point of view is illusary."

Who can be fooled into thinking they have a first-person point of view, if they don't? More specifically, if 'we' are illusions, what do you call the things that most people mean by 'illusion'? Doubly false?

"... show me this "I" you claim to be talking about."

I don't need to - you've already proved that one is operating, by asking. Nice try, but I know how to discuss invisibles. :-P

Another parry is to put it back upon you by asking what, specifically, constitutes evidence ... for *you.* A double whammy reveresed 'turing test' - only by not answering can you preserve the notion that a self-aware process isn't operating to control your body.

Show me this 'gravity' you claim exists. Is it within the moon, or the earth, that this 'gravity' resides? Both? Between them? How much does it weigh?

Julian Jaynes actually describes a nice model of consciousness, which is to say, a discrete way to communicate about internal experiences which coalesce into 'mind.' He distinguishes the Analog I from the Metaphor Me - the difference between you, as you believe yourself to be, and you, as you believe others to see you.

That was the novel mechanism behind Odyssues' invention of 'deception,' and it also explains why habitual honesty makes life so much easier; the less 'disturbance' in the system (disparity between those two self-identified versions of 'you') the less complex, hence more easily computable/predictable.

"Where, exactly, in the body if you like, does this first person reside?"

It's not 'in' the body.

It's one of the functions of the body, specifically, one of the ways that your body's 'intake' manifests as internal computational operations. It really is happening, it's not just some kind of 'mindy' feeling somewhere in your head fooling you into thinking that a comlete lack of anything at all is actually a real universe.

One might as usefully ask where in your body your shape resides. Is it hydrogen, or oxygen, which 'contains' the energy released by making water? Which notes does *that* piano wire contain?

"Every first person thinks it is unique and seperate."

Every first person *is* unique - nothing in your experience is similar to your ability to experience, and in centuries of talking about it, no one has ever reported otherwise. It appears to be a result of the "insideness + outsideness" nature of all systems.

If you *could* report otherwise, you could also explain *how* they are similar, as opposed to unique, since you'd have the experience required to formulate a considerable set by which to evaluate the possibilities. That, to me, is the real frontier in animal communication, AI, and SETI. Getting a new perspective on the way minds work, by reaching a new class of communicable points-of-view to ask about it.

And I know I'm not *isolated*, contrary to the second half of your claim. I'm distinguishable, considerable as separate, but I know that hermetic isolation is fatal.

"Did you count the holographic idea in your list? I'm sorry, I forget. I'll read it again. Information theory, black hole thermodynamcs, that sort of direction. I'll try to be more specific later."

No, I didn't count that in the list of Synergetics (re)discoveries, but it defintiely fits. I wasn't sure if everyone made that connection, and I don't remember Fuller ever going there explicitly. I don't recall anyone working on the 'holographic universe' or 'holographic brain' ideas applying synergetics, either, even though it fits.

Strangely enough, since you recognize the meaning of 'self-interfering' I can now recognize that you've been playing me, when asking what constitutes a 'self.'

You know perfectly well that a phase-interaction has it's own existence, separate from the particular wave mediating it.

"For the time being, I just wanted to thank you for being here, and wish you well. It all may be an illusion, at least I have no reason to think otherwise, but there is no advantage that I can see to makeing it an unpleasent one. The ugly stuff happens anyway, no matter how hard we may try to clean up the mess."

A dream, a flicker show, a fourier-transformed explosion, even, but a 100% real one! It's not tomato-sauce blood, when things turn ugly.

Thanks for the welcome.

-Tom

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Hi Tom

The problem I see with the idea of identity is that it requires a definition. Self, whatever that is, is not other. The definition of self has to include the definition of not other. This is a property of all definition, hence self-definition, and identity.

To reduce this assertion to absurdity, all definitions, including this one, are false, no more than convenient lies. I won't stop using them, because of their usefullness, in fact I don't know how to stop using them, except to cease being all together.

In a sense, to make a definition is to set up two catagories, that of the thing which is defined, and that of the rest of the universe, in which the thing defined has definition. The thing defined "is", and everything else that exists is not the thing. Perhaps the middle view is the best, in which we imagine that there are two catagories, that which is the thing and that which is not the thing. Both catagories have false definitions, but there is a boundary condition which is between them. The boundary, or middle path, is the closest we can come to Truth.

Then it is the condition of negation which most truly exists. I assert that I am not thou, and by that assertion I exist. It isn't much to base the richness and variety of the universe on, but it seems to be all we have to work with.

I have an email from a member of this forum to which I cannot reply directly, since the sender seems to have blocked the option of receiving email from other members. Anyway my attempt to reply via email was turned back. The sender thinks I am confusing brain with mind. I would like to know more about why they think so.

Consider an image carved on a piece of wood. Is the image the wood, or is it the pieces of wood that have been carved away?

I Ching says it best. The thing that can be spoken of is not the true thing. And, the value of a thing comes from what it is, but the use of a thing comes from what it is not. (Think of a cup, think of an egg, think of the Self).

Well all that is some pretty deep navel diving, if it is not a back flip up the fundament. Fare for snake charmers and fakirs, I guess. But the unresolved kernal is unaffected by acidity and baseness. That which most truely exists is the boundary between flawed definitions.

So we come to information theory, black holes and Hawking radiation, and my hope, which is to use NKS in a bottom-up approach to reinventing the universe. Or, at least, as a means to better vision of how the universe continually reinvents itself.

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Originally posted by Tmaq
"... I intuit that the specific dimensions one uses are fairly arbitrary, over and above the requirement to use a complete but non-overlapping set.

"I've been kicking around a doppler-shift / lorentz version of the 'mass = folded time' idea. Maybe you and I are on the same track. There might be a 'syntropy loss' model that could do the same thing - reducing the number of possible states takes effort, after all, and 'moving' implies exactly that.

-Tom

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Re: definition

I think you left out one of the categories; the system which does the defining, aka isolation as a considerable set. Such acts of isolation create 1) the considered-relevant set, 2) the set/system doing the 'encapsulating' and 3) the rest of the universe, irrelevant for the purposes of that specific definition.

You refer to defining 'self' as 'not other', but wouldn't 'no other' be more approriate? The difference is one of symmetry: definition isn't singular (this), nor polar (this = not that).

It's a focus (this-no-else, or inside-vs-outside, concave-vs-convex, together-vs-leaving).

Focussing is not well-reperesnted by number lines. -4 is qualitatively identical to 4; they are the same proportion.

'In' is qualitatively different than 'out.' Going 'in' means 'towards a focus.' 'Out' is 'any other arrangement,' whether it follows from a past foucssing event, or not.

Only a focus allows for frequency analysis, the primary function of sensory equipment, as well.

That was one of my original clues. The light coming off any object is an explosion, going every which way. We don't see the light coming off an object. We see maybe 1 octave of 8, and only that small amount that happens to bounce into your pupil, where your lens does a frequency-analysis to re-interpret the angles those photons arrived at, and just how fast they rotate / happen.

(Which we experience as a colored image, of course). Two eyes provide a measure of distance (angle, again, before interpretation, reinforced by the angle of focus in your eye).

The image 'in the rock' is, in actuality, written in the angular pattern of retinoid-response in your eye, by the operation of multi-frequencied exploding photons, whose speeds and angles have been created by interaction with the angularly-arranged 'rock' you see. And faces are a very common pattern for humans to recognize. In fact, large parts of our brains are designed as 'attractors' for 'face recognition,' so that image of 'a face' may be nowhere but there in your imagination.

You're not talking about that face on mars, are you? :-)

I agree, unity is plural, and that does constitute, I believe, a fundamental limitation on our ability to know things. Constituting only one half of such 'unties' is what makes a point-of-view unique, ironically; it cannot be defined, based on our self-referential defintion of 'define,' because no communicable experience occurs without it.

'Conjugate attributes' in QM constitute the same relationship, I think.

Of course, there is that oh-so-human 'empty category' function of mind (the email pal would say 'our ability to define', I bet) where we recognize a pattern of experience, then prepare to have an experience in the future which 'fits' that pattern.

So we can imagine an 'outside' for the universe. Strangely enough, our definition of 'define' can be inverted; 'outside of Universe' also means 'inside us.' As your thoughts weigh nothing, no conservation law applies; they exist separate, in some ways, from the rules governing Universe.

Are 'you' the tiny body you experience in this universe, or is the universe a tiny information-set, which 'you' experience in your head? What if it's both at once? Since 'you' are the phantom captain playing gatekeeper of the interface then clearly, 'you' are part of the functioning of that third category, as you've already pointed out!

Points-of-view are irreducible, if I'm not mistaken, and that expresses the NKS way of saying 'the minimal set required to define,' it seems.

Fuller's insight was that a minimum set for any concept is four distinct experiences; 1) a 100% novel experience, 2) a familiar experience (re-cognized) 3) recognition, with the feeling of recognition being familiar, followed by formation of the empty catregory, which, if filled, constitutes 4) confirmation.

The category 'you' never gets 'filled', by definition, because it exists to be continually filling throughout your life. It'll be 'filled' once you've died, and it stops filling, AKA filing.

You mention that definitions are false, but useful. Does that mean they aren't useful, contrary to your belief, or does that mean you seek a defintion of 'true' stronger than 'useful'?

The nice thing about definition in three categories is that such a method of definition also applies to itself, a self-accomodating feature of the model, something required for any representation of a self-accomodating Universe.

Re: mass-as-time.

I've heard there are people working on this idea, but I've yet to learn any details. I've heard, as well, rumors that mass is actually *two* dimensions of time, and there is some basis to it.

First, begin with a simplifying assumption; c is not the *maximum* speed - it is the *only* speed. Photon-mediated particle physics assumes as much.

Particles, in that case, must be bound-photon states. Feynman Diagrams assume as much. Matter self-dis-equilibrates (stable cyclic modes), radiation explodes.

The reason E=MC^2 is because when those photons get released, their wave-front grows at the rate of c to the second power - the surface of a sphere, growing at c. This is the speed that all spheres grow...even the self-equilibrating 'spheres'.

IOW, 'how much it weighs' results from 'how many waves are caught.' More waves = higher frequency = more energy.

What I picture is a knot - a rotating self-interfereing, hence self-recreating, collection of wavelengths. Photons already do this in two directions (E and B fields, causing each other in turn) in order to propogate in a third.

Which 'field' operates to make it (color, nuclear, EM, etc) determines which kind of 'particle' it appears as. Annhilate it or decay it, and some of the waves/mass escapes as a spherically-shaped explosion of photons.

Leaving aside (for the moment) the particulars of the geometry of such knottings, we can still picture a method of generating inertia. For the purposes of illustration, we can talk about a ring of photons - akin to deBroglie's model for the electron-waves around the atom.

When we move that wave-ring - that is, when we try to change it's velocity, relative to us - it resists, displays inertia, requires some force to accelerate, and requires an energy transfer before it will do so. (Leaving aside GR for now...)

We have to pump some energy into it, from our frame of reference, in order to change it's velocity. Where does that effort 'go'?

I suspect you already know the answer; *one* side of that wave-ring, travelling at c, must increase it's frequency, from our point of view, and the other must decrease it by a wave-conserving amount, since the wave-itself can never propogate at any other speed. It changes it rotational speed, as a result of it's translational speed.

Equivilanetly, some number of waves must transfer, from one side of that ring to the other, as part of the necessary processes for moving it as an ensemble.

As always, we are talking about within the frame of reference where that object's velocity is measured.

The faster you move it, the more that imbalance occurs, and hence, the reason it takes so much more energy near c. Since that ring cannot ever break, no amount of energy can make an item built of knotted photons move as fast as c, for that would imply a half-ring, or equivalently, one side moving at '2c,' the other, at 'zero,' neither of which is allowed in an 'all c' universe.

Isomorphically, the 'time differential' represented by that transfer is *inherent* within the frame of the particle so moved.

That is, lorentz only applies in the direction of motion - how many 'parts' of a wave-packet are on one or the other side cannot change under lorentz or any other co-ordinate transform...or can it?

Clearly, the idea gets quite complicated when you include all three spatial dimensions, plus all four fields - and I'm still not clear which ones should be included. Our non-simultaneous Universe certainly has some order, but 'event sequence' doesn't appear to be one of them.

Nevertheless, in principle, if you make the comparison between the rest-masses, and the wave-lengths of the particles involved, via a rotational-inertia method, you should be able to figure out the geometry of the 'rotation' of the QM 'wave-particle' by deduction.

If particle physics operates according to the same geometry everything else appears to follow, it will always be a whole-number ratio of 4pi - 720 degrees; the total spherical solid angle. A torus displays 8pi, for example, since it has both an 'exterior-pointing' set and an 'interior-pointing' set.

Turns out, pi, like h, are irrationals - they are idealized amounts, invented as a limiting case, but not actually displayed in any proportion found in Universe.

If you dispense with the idealizations (spherical, not spheres - linear, not lines - unresolved, not points), you can avoid both.

And somewhere along the line, we just might figure out what '1/137' really means...though the fact that it's unitless certainly does provide powerful incentive to consider it fundamental, as in your use of charge for a fundamental.

We might even take 1/137 as a test for any dimensional set.

Does that sound like a framework with promise, or has it already been done, or what?

With respect to your search for 'dimensions' or 'least-set categories', I always wonder; what's the appeal? Philosophers, expert and newbie, have always done the same thing. So do I, don't get me wrong, but where's the motivation really coming from?

'Charge,' I think, is not fundamental - that is, electric charge isn't. Gravity, EM, Weak & Strong are all fundamentally the same experience; certain systems 'do that' (create force from arrangement), and that ceratinly appears fundamental.

What *is* special is how dynamic E-fields make B-fields, and vice-versa (light propogation), but only one of them has a static-field making particle. What's up with that? Where's the magnetic version of the electron? Is the e- charge caused by some kind of rotating magnet 'inside' the electron? Are the W+ and W- particles opposite ends of a microscopic-width wormhole made of magnetic loops?

Any one of those force-fields, in any one selected locale, can be represented by a vector. Hence, the 'state' of the Universe can be represented by such a 4-number description applied to any spot to any degree of accuracy you wish...except it's actually 12, because each vector has a length (time, actually, since they are forces) and a direction (2 angles, in spherical trig). Ug. This is the root notion of 'crystalizing' the vacuum; defining particles as 'polarizations' of the various fields, instead.

If you assume c is the only speed, you still have eight dimensions. Hence the 'eight-fold-way' of categorizing them.

Electrons, themselves a polarization, when moving, create another...again, it comes back to angles, include time, and you got your frequencies. Quantum Field Theory takes that approach; every 'thing' is a frequency and an angle. A 'bound state' or, since it's probabilistic, might as well call it a 'bounce-wait' - they aren't 'really there' until they 'bounce' - they exist, kinda, but only while waiting to bounce!

The photon-mediation model takes the 'polarizability of the vacuum' seriously, and concludes that forces are caused by momentum-carrying virtual-paticle-pair creation.

As two electrons get closer together, more and more of their 'virtual photon pairs' interact, and it results in the force each electron feels from the other. One electron throws a 'ball', causing a recoil, the other catches it, also causing a recoil. If you imagine a quickly-rotating torus, you might visualize how 'negative momentum' is transferred, AKA, 'pull.'

The torus carries x momentum in the direction it travels, but can carry -20x, if it's rotating in an 'involuting' manner, quickly enough.

When a jet speeds off, it's engine cause huge momentum-transfer which leaves behind miles of such rotating donuts of air in order to do so.

You can conceptualize *every* photon as a virtual-photon. That is to say, *until* a photon gets absorbed by another electron, it doesn't 'really' exist, because it's energy is still 'on account' via heisenberg. In flight, it's looking to get paid off. When it does, the effect of the 'pay off' happens where - and when - it started

When a photon hits your eye, it transfers a little bit of momentum from whatever electron made the photon into a retinoid molecule that registers light, which finally pays off the momentum 'borrowed' from that 'polarizable substrate' we call 'space' in order to emit it in the first place.

This is true even if you 'catch' photons from other galaxies. Some electron, billions of years ago, made a 'fake' photon, in order to recoil at right angles to our direction. Finally, billions of years later, that 'fake' photon found a place to 'pick up' the right amount of momentum to 'pay off' that transaction; your eye.

The fact that time is all skeehawed doesn't matter; from the photon's frame, zero time passes. They are instantaneous, in their own frame, so distance doesn't matter either for that momentum-transfer, or the range of borrowing.

Another way to consider virtual particles is to remember Bell's theorem; it was proven experimentally by the use of paired-particle experiments, which just means particles which have 100% correlated phases. What we know is that once entangled, particles remain entangled, and those phase relationships mean mutual effects. Polarizing one in *this* direction means (causes) polarization of the other in the *opposite* direction, in response, and instantly.

Not just FTL, but always instantly. This, I suspect, constitutes the 'information network' Process Physics seeks, and it applies to electrons and those virtual photons which mediate charge interactions.

Lone electrons make those photons, but far away from other charges, they don't interact as often, so the result, from the point of view of the electron emitting them is 'not much momentum transfer, AKA force.'

As they toss those virtuals out, they do so in a spherical arrangement. Hence the 1/r^2 aspect to almost all of them; how often the mediators meet is caused by the cross-section each emitter 'sees' of the other.

Even 'color charge' has that aspect, with the caveat that larger-mass particle-pairs can't reach as far as rest-massless photons - the horizon you mentioned, in fact, doesn't exist for a particle which has no mass.

So, you might start by assuming a unified field for the 'big three', plus gravity means 2 vectors for each spot...any one spot can express such a photon, and they are always the same size (c).

Of course, the 'reality' of those forces only ever manifest as 'frequencies' - a rotation which transmits either energy or momentum - a nice encapsulation of both time and distance, illustrating a problem in every measurement of either time or distance which usually just gets swept under the rug.

If either could be measured absolutely, we wouldn't have ambiguities like 'how do we know Universe doesn't double in size?' or 'how fast does time flow?' We're right back to the unity principle; it always takes (at least) two.

In fact, I'm inclined, seeking 'universally fundamental' dimensions, to begin with such conjugate attributes. Learning a position or momentum masks knowledge of the other. Likewise energy or time.

I suspect that the 'fundamental' dimensions are the ones causing that class of conjugate relationship. 'Charge' isn't one of them, if so, because it's not a dynamic attribute; you can learn the charge on the electron, and doing so doesn't screw up any other measurement (does it?).

The quesiton then, is whether electrons (or W-) are a static result of a dynamic event, or do static events actually exist?

HOWEVER, there is also a fantastic element which must be included somehow; precession. It constitutes 'threeness' like no other geometric can, and it provides an option for rotation-into-translation. That's pretty much all it does, really.

E fields make B fields...at 90 degrees the other way.

A photon vibrates in *this* plane, and takes off, at c, in the perpendicular direction.

That 'turning' is an absolutely ubiquotous aspect of Universe, yet it just gets sort of 'included' via vector products, much as 'matter' gets included via dirac functions.

But in a Universe of 'twoness,' I have to wonder about Dirac Functions (oneness reprented by infinity^0) and precessional vectors (threeness repesented by nineness)

There has got to be a better way for modelling rotation as a vector field always pointing in the direction of the *poles* of rotation. And what about rotations like involution, twisting, orbiting, etc? Are all rotations actually forms of orbits?

It's my suspicion that precession ultimately explains inertia. When you move a wave-packet-knot *this* way, it has to speed up *that* way, simultaneously slow down 'the other* way, and those motions take effort to do so, creating a resistance - the phenomenon of inertia. That, I suspect, is a fundamental dimension, and part of what 1/137 means.

Now, assuming you haven't noticed a bunch of oversights in my presentation, and assuming it's not just a funky re-description of an old model, where would you start, to apply the math for evaluating it?

Spherical harmonics are bad enough, but if the goal is to discover the geometry of the 'rotations' we currently use to model physics, should we really start by assuming the simplest rotation?

My overarching fear is that I've got a great intution...about string theory, which has 1) been done and 2) yet to produce testable predictions.

Assuming that scenario, there is some possibility that process physics can reconceptualize String Theory in a way that allows for testable predictions. Or is that what they've done, and I just didn't recognize it formally?

The syntropy loss model is something even nuttier - as those wave-numbers get compressed-and-stretched (depending on which side of the wave-ring you look), the number of allowable states decrease.

The proportion between the two 'sides' are larger - it needs rarer and rarer prime numbers (hence, longer calculation!), the larger it goes, so only larger 'disequilibriums' are allowable, hence, less of them can happen.

I haven't really thought through that one much, but it might have a real easy thermodynamic solution, starting from 'allowable states.'

Showing that 'mass = number' would be the final proof that Pythagoras explains Heraclitus. :-)

-Tom

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-Tom McWilliams

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A fascinating exposition, Tom.

There is much in what you say I find agreeable, and perhaps much more that I am not certain I completely understand, but it seems correct. There are some definitions and word usage I need at least a refresher on.

I will work on that.

Meanwhile, I have one point that may deserve further consideration here, and that is of the propagation of photon. You mention once or twice that photons are propagated in all directions from a source, and that is also an assumption underlying Snell's law, if I am not mistaken. Remember how we used to take the compass and draw interfereing circles to predict refraction and so on?

Well of couse QED works differently, with rotations and so on, but even with QED there is a scale where photon is no longer generated as a sphere with blocked out interferences, but instead is generated *one quantum unit per quantum time* and such photons are not directed everywhere outward in a sphere, or even a deformed sphereoid, but are generated in a vector sense, and these individual quantum photons, if I am not mistaken, propagate linearly, in one dimension of spacetime, not radially from every point they encounter.

I hope to be back with more soon, but find myself at the end of my day. By the way, are these times on the posts anything like accurate? And are they local to the originator, or GMT, or what?

be well,

Richard

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