ng

Posts that were rejected by sci.physics.research and were continued as private e-mail correspondences

My answer to this post by Arkadiusz Jadczyk: klick

His response: klick

I think this post is too much philosophy and not enough physics for
sci.physics.research. Perhaps it would be better for you and Jadczyk
to continue this conversation by email.

Sincerely,
Kevin Scaldeferri
moderator, s.p.r.

>Arkadiusz Jadczyk <ark@cassiopaea.org> wrote in message news:<lmrliukfm2ib66fv
eqef44lqj3o4vo2ucp@4ax.com>...
>> On Tue, 9 Jul 2002 02:39:25 GMT, j_b_g@gmx.net (James B. Glattfelder)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >But what happens if we take this idea to the logical extreme? Will the
>> >ultimate theory of reality demand: I will only allow myself to be
>> >coded into a formal framework that makes *no* reference to itself
>> >whatsoever.
>>
>> I think one should avoid all extremes.
>
>Perhaps "logical conclusion" would be the better phrase.
>
>
>> The devil is always in the
>> details, and for anything good to function - the details must not be
>> too simple.
>
>But isn't this a speculative personal belief? As I stated in the
>introduction to my post, our philosophical make-up will have an impact
>on the way we formally try and grapple with these border-line issues
>of what reality could be. So, basically, we still are projecting *our*
>notions of how things should work into this inquiry of nature, even if
>we are being very formal about it. Hence my question: what is the
>ultimate level of objectivity we can access through our minds? And
>will this level perhaps be giving us a different or more far-sighted
>angel on this whole issue?
>
>
>> Bohm, for instance, in his early book "Causality and Chance in Modern
>> Physics" stressed that there are levels of description, and that these
>> levels are not always compatible and/or reducible to each other.
>
>There has been a lot of heavy thinking going on about the nature of
>reality and our notions/experience thereof since quite a long time
>now...
>
>> Every bright idea in ophysics seems to have its limits. To understand
>> why is it so, we would have to discuss the question: "what are ideas
>> and where do they come from?" - but this is not the right place for
>> this kind of inquiry (at least not yet).
>
>...The philosophy of science seems slowly to becoming a legitimate
>issue at this fundamental level of reality we are finding ourselves
>(and our technology) probing and accessing.
>
>
>> Therefore let me just point it
>> out that there is something important missing in the way you stated
>> your question, and this something is the "quantum factor" or, better,
>> the principle of "partnership" that J.A. Wheeler described visually
>> with his U picture - where on one end is the "creation" and on the other
>> end is the "observation" that makes the "virtual creation" real.
>> It seems that this kind of duality in the laws of physics is necessary
>> for the universe to "work".
>
>Another QM interpretation?
>
>
>> You mntioned symmetry principles: coordinate invariance and gauge
>> invariance. They are useful principles but, perhaps, only to some
>> degree. Perfect symmetry need not be the best solution. Physicists
>> get much more from reseraching symmetry breaking mechanisms.
>> Not always they are able to explain the detailed mechanisms - so
>> they created the concept of "spontaneous symmetry breaking".
>
>But somehow our mathematical formalism describing reality does prefer
>invariance or else everything would depend of the way it is expressed
>in coordinates, units, number bases... If physics is a universal law
>(i.e. if maths can correctly mirror reality), then it will probably
>work best in its most abstract and formalism-independent formulation.
>And IMO this is what physics is telling us with examples like
>covariance and gauge invariance. So the next step is indeed how to
>move from this high level of (universal/fundamental) idealization to
>reality in its complex, every-day dynamics.
>
>
>> Perfect symmetry (diffemorphism invariance and gauge invariance)
>> hold, perhaps, in an ideal world. In our "sample" these symmetries
>> may well be broken.>
>
>Depends how one thinks of it. You could always hold the view that
>our "sample", regardless how messy, is best described formally by a
>framework that possesses a high degree of symmetry ("ideal world").
>
>
>> To answer your question, to make a step in this direction, we will
>> probably need to know more about complexity and how physics
>> attempts to analyze (perhaps infinitely) complex universe in relatively
>> simple terms, and what is the price that must be paid for it.
>
>Exactly: how does complexity emerge from a fundamental level of
>reality? And here I thing we also must account for two special cases
>of organization principles in this complexity: life and consciousness.
>
>
>> Gell-Mann and Hartle introduced the term IGUS-es - information gathering
>> and utilizing systems. Perhaps the physics of XXI century will have to
>> pay more attention to these ideas of Wheeler, Gell-Mann and Hartle,
>> Wolfram and others.
>
>Smolin: "[the holographic principle] according to which the world is
>constructed out of nothing but the flow of information." I quite like
>the notion that reality only "exists" as the concept of information at
>a very fundamental level.
>
>
>
>> In our paper (Blanchard and Jadczyk, Ann. der Phys. 4 (1995) 583-599)
>> http://www.cassiopaea.org/quantum_future/jadpub.htm#blaja95a
>>
>> we wrote
>>
>> "So, how can we manipulate states without being able to manipulate
>> Hamiltonians? We can only guess what could be the answer of other
>> interpretations of Quantum Theory.
>> Our answer is: we have some freedom in manipulating
>> $C$ and $V$. We can not manipulate dynamics, but binamics is open.
>> It is through $V$ and $C$ that we can feedback the processed information
>> and knowledge - thus our approach seems to leave comfortable space
>> for IGUS-es. In other words, although we can exercise little if any
>> influence on the continuous, deterministic evolution\footnote{ Probably
>> the influence through the damping operators $\Lambda_\alpha$ is
>> negligible in normal circumstances}, we may have partial
>> freedom of intervening, through $C$ and $V$, at bifurcation points, when
>> die tossing takes place. It may be also remarked that the fact that more
>> information can be used than is contained in master equation of standard
>> quantum theory, may have not only engineering but also biological
>> significance. "
>
>I'll definitely need some time to digest your paper;-)
>
>
>> The concept of "information" will be, perhaps, important in what you
>> call "ultimate theory of reality".
>>
>> ark
>
>I also believe that the whole string of concepts, starting not only
>with the observation of the existence of a reality, but crucially the
>observation of ones own existence and awareness thereof, will need to
>be addressed at one point in full. Especially if we ever want to
>understand what life and the conscious brain are all about (I like the
>proposition of modern-day neurology that is claiming that reality -
>i.e. what we experience thereof - is in fact invoked in the brain and
>hence our perception of reality does not let us deduce *any* feature
>of the reality outside of the mind - e.g. Wolf Singer, director of the
>Max-Planck institute for neurological studies in Frankfurt, Germany -
>in stark contrast to what the mind is doing in successfully using a
>thought formalism to describe reality).
>
>j
>
>
>P.S.
>I hope I'm not tiring the moderators...

======================================================================
Kevin Scaldeferri Calif. Institute of Technology

"We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense! You're only saying that because no one ever has."

[top]

jbg: >> >But what happens if we take this idea to the logical extreme? Will the
>> >ultimate theory of reality demand: I will only allow myself to be
>> >coded into a formal framework that makes *no* reference to itself
>> >whatsoever.

arc: >> I think one should avoid all extremes.

jbg: >Perhaps "logical conclusion" would be the better phrase.

arc: In this realm "logical conclusions" are always based on unspoken
assumptions. What is a logical conclusion for one person, another
person may consider as "extrapolation". And then there are different
kinds of extrapolations. What I was trying to say is that experience
shows that our knowledge is so limited that extreme care in
extrapolations is needed, and that "balanced view" is usually
more adequate than an extremal one - though when we are
trying to get free from one paradigm, we usually go to the extreme,
as it is with the pendulum.

>> The devil is always in the
>> details, and for anything good to function - the details must not be
>> too simple.
>
>But isn't this a speculative personal belief?

It is. Though based on studies of sample cases.

>As I stated in the
>introduction to my post, our philosophical make-up will have an impact
>on the way we formally try and grapple with these border-line issues
>of what reality could be. So, basically, we still are projecting *our*
>notions of how things should work into this inquiry of nature, even if
>we are being very formal about it. Hence my question: what is the
>ultimate level of objectivity we can access through our minds?

It is an interesting quetsion, and an important one.

>And
>will this level perhaps be giving us a different or more far-sighted
>angel on this whole issue?

I agree. But this is a very hard question. Or so I think.

>> Bohm, for instance, in his early book "Causality and Chance in Modern
>> Physics" stressed that there are levels of description, and that these
>> levels are not always compatible and/or reducible to each other.
>
>There has been a lot of heavy thinking going on about the nature of
>reality and our notions/experience thereof since quite a long time
>now...

True. But not much progress. Though after the movie Matrix "normal
people" are more open to the idea that not all that we perceive is
necessarily the way we perceive it. The term "Matrix reality" is now
quite popular, and people are ready to question more than they
were ever before. At least some of them.

>> Every bright idea in ophysics seems to have its limits. To understand
>> why is it so, we would have to discuss the question: "what are ideas
>> and where do they come from?" - but this is not the right place for
>> this kind of inquiry (at least not yet).
>
>...The philosophy of science seems slowly to becoming a legitimate
>issue at this fundamental level of reality we are finding ourselves
>(and our technology) probing and accessing.

The philosophy of science was always part of science - all the great
scientists of the past were "philosophers of scince." But science
is nowadays so specialized, and its range is so large, that
scientists have usually no time and no skill to do "philosophy".
And philosophers have not an easy life either.

>> Therefore let me just point it
>> out that there is something important missing in the way you stated
>> your question, and this something is the "quantum factor" or, better,
>> the principle of "partnership" that J.A. Wheeler described visually
>> with his U picture - where on one end is the "creation" and on the other
>> end is the "observation" that makes the "virtual creation" real.
>> It seems that this kind of duality in the laws of physics is necessary
>> for the universe to "work".
>
>Another QM interpretation?

There is no such thing as "QM interpretation" - each author, each
physicist, has its own. There is no "minimal" interpretation either.
Wheeler made several very important observations, and studying his
books and papers is a sine qua non condition for every philospoher of
science. (Or so I think)

>> You mntioned symmetry principles: coordinate invariance and gauge
>> invariance. They are useful principles but, perhaps, only to some
>> degree. Perfect symmetry need not be the best solution. Physicists
>> get much more from reseraching symmetry breaking mechanisms.
>> Not always they are able to explain the detailed mechanisms - so
>> they created the concept of "spontaneous symmetry breaking".
>
>But somehow our mathematical formalism describing reality does prefer
>invariance or else everything would depend of the way it is expressed

"our mathematical formalism" of today is not the same as
that of yesterday, and it can be still different tomorrow.
Invariance is a nice principle, but taken to the extreme
may become a nonsense. Wheeler tried to find "the most
fundamental law" from which "all other laws would follow."
He proposed: "boundary of a boundary is zero." To speak
of boundaries we need topology. Here the invariance group is
"homeomorphisms". But what if our reality is discrete?
Then another mathematics is needed - that of simplicial
complexes. Again we have "boundaries" there, but the
invariance group changes. One should keep options
open, I believe.

>in coordinates, units, number bases... If physics is a universal law
>(i.e. if maths can correctly mirror reality), then it will probably
>work best in its most abstract and formalism-independent formulation.
>And IMO this is what physics is telling us with examples like
>covariance and gauge invariance.

But this is only a part of physics. This part may be one that survive
next paradigm shift, but it may also be happen that this part
will have to be abandoned or seriously revised. The very fact that
for 100 years we are unable to make sense of "relativistic
quantum field theory" should let us think that perhaps something
is wrong with the fundamental principles. And "progress" with string
theories is not quite encouraging here as well.

>So the next step is indeed how to
>move from this high level of (universal/fundamental) idealization to
>reality in its complex, every-day dynamics.

The proof of the pudding is in eating it. Sure.

>> Perfect symmetry (diffemorphism invariance and gauge invariance)
>> hold, perhaps, in an ideal world. In our "sample" these symmetries
>> may well be broken.>
>
>Depends how one thinks of it. You could always hold the view that
>our "sample", regardless how messy, is best described formally by a
>framework that possesses a high degree of symmetry ("ideal world").

I disagree here. You can describe a symmetry in a framework that
allows for asymmetry. But you are not able to describe assymetries
in a framework that possesses symmetries.

If there IS a more general framework - why not use it?
But, I agree, "diffeomorphism symmetry" and "gauge symmetry" are VERY
important, and J.M. Souriau has shown how from these two concepts
ALONE one can derive geodesic equations and Lorentz force - without
EVER referring to field equations. I would suggest you study these
applications of the symmetry concept - more powerful than any
particular Noether's theorem.

>> To answer your question, to make a step in this direction, we will
>> probably need to know more about complexity and how physics
>> attempts to analyze (perhaps infinitely) complex universe in relatively
>> simple terms, and what is the price that must be paid for it.
>
>Exactly: how does complexity emerge from a fundamental level of
>reality? And here I thing we also must account for two special cases
>of organization principles in this complexity: life and consciousness.

Agree!

>> Gell-Mann and Hartle introduced the term IGUS-es - information gathering
>> and utilizing systems. Perhaps the physics of XXI century will have to
>> pay more attention to these ideas of Wheeler, Gell-Mann and Hartle,
>> Wolfram and others.
>
>Smolin: "[the holographic principle] according to which the world is
>constructed out of nothing but the flow of information." I quite like
>the notion that reality only "exists" as the concept of information at
>a very fundamental level.

Another what I call "extreme". Another swing of a pendulum.
But I may be wrong in this case.

(snip)

>I also believe that the whole string of concepts, starting not only
>with the observation of the existence of a reality, but crucially the
>observation of ones own existence and awareness thereof, will need to
>be addressed at one point in full.

But is also good to keep in mind that human beings are not
necessarily at the top of the "food chain." Though such a thought
is not an easy one, and it is of no much help in our "scientific
work."

Best wishes,

ark

#############################################
Dr Arkadiusz Jadczyk
http://www.cassiopaea.org/quantum_future/homepage.htm

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