AR & NY

AR & NY

See Feynman re Bohm-Ahronov, and lets' have a phone conversaiton about the issues i sent via email a while ago re copernican, simplicity, covariance etc

Also: the quesiotn of what is ''real' as in Bohm Ahraonov, and Einstein consuidering the 'conneciton' as real, not just the riemann tensor; and what surprisingly does not 'couple' eg in GR re the EP/minimal coupling (see below); and which theories can be arrived at via manipulations of other theories, eg obtaining curved spacetime equaitons form the fat ones via the EP/minimal coupling; also the relaiton to of duality; and dulaity, category theory,

EP/minimal coupling.

Minimal coupling (MC): like Weyl gauge invariance

An equation can be much more powerful than originally intended: (see Feynmen quote re this).

Once one realizes that one can consistently define curved spaces, and then realizes that flat space is simply curved space with curvature zero, then it becomes clear that equation derived for flat space may also be valid for curved space.

If the equaiton is decoupled from the curvature (it is minimally coupled), ie has no terms dependent on the curvature (which one might not know from the flat space form since they would be zero?) then the equations should be valid for any curvature.

The geodesic equaiotn is minimally coupled: Of course Cartesian coordinates or any other choice in flat space is a specific coordinate choice and so the equation which will be valid needs to be coordinate-choice independent, so one needs to find for example the equation of a straight line not just in cartesian or polar coordinates but a general formula for any coordinates, which is the geodeisc quation in flat space for curvilinear coordinates (where cartesian coordinates have curvilinearity zero).

So it turns out that this flat-space curvlinear coordinate geodesic equation is then valid for curved space with any coordinate choice.

...

The Bohr-Einstein debate was an amazing thing, convincing Einstein each time, finding the subtle flaws in his arguments.

Is your peeve with the fact that Bohm's approach is assumed wrong and Bohr's correct? I think Bohr's way is beautiful simply as an example of what is not ruled out by physics and yet seems totally counterintuitive, and Bohm's is an example of retaining an old idea by ingenious supplements to a model - the question is only whether it is like Ptolmaic cosmology epicycles etc. But the fact that both are possible should itself tell us something.

Noson: I agree about beauty being "subjective, culture-influenced". I do not agree

about simplicity. I believe there are different ways of measuring simplicity

and that might be "subjective, culture-influenced" but one can come up with

a nice way of measuring things. The different ways of measuring are of

various usufulness over the years.

Physicists agree that general relativity is much simpler than newtonian

> physics. because we now know that newtonian is not really consistent and

> one needs all kinds of patches to get it to make sense, and the result is

> ok but much less beautiful than GR, and takes a lot more math, and it is

> ugly. But it is simpler because it doesnt involve paradigm change. And GR

> needs tensors etc.

I could have rewritten this paragraph and changed the words GR and Newton

for Halocentric and Geocentric. Isnt that amazing?

> Only after learning all the math and defining everything carefully, the

> physics of GR is very simple and beautiful. So is it simple or not?

I see your point.

….

> But the bottom line is experiment, verification of predictions, new

> phenomena, and that conclusively chose GR over Newtonian.

> If there is no experimental difference between two very different

> theories, then one ought to try to find out why, it will give something

> interesting.

>

THERE ARE NO, I repeat: NO experimental differences between Bohr andBohm.

And yet, if you apply for a job as a Bohmian, you will go hungry

I twice (below) basically recommended that you try to find the reason both give the same result experimentally. Maybe you can make a contribution.

My sense is that one approach eliminates that which is unobservable at the cost of jettisoning a paradigm and the other adds in the unobservable in order to preserve the paradigm :)

There are things in string theory which have to do with two different representations of the same thing.

…

> I twice (below) basically recommended that you try to find the reason both

> give the same result experimentally. Maybe you can make a contribution.

> My sense is that one approach eliminates that which is unobservable (EXPLIAN!) at the

> cost of jettisoning a paradigm and the other adds in the unobservable(Explain!) in

> order to preserve the paradigm :)

> There are things in string theory which have to do with two different

> representations of the same thing.???

….

re heliocentrism etc: yes, Bohm is like Ptolemy (I mentioned "the question is only whether it is like Ptolmaic cosmology epicycles ").

…….

Adding in 'unobservable' (because only theoretical) guide waves saves the locality paradigm, and letting go of the unneeded (because unobservable) requirement of 'reality' changes the paradigm. You save 'reality' by adding in something 'unreal', the guide waves.

…

Hi. It's great that you are writing, and are able to have inspired moments.

Some thoughts:

I know this is before quantum, but it is hard to make interesting discussions about this topic before making the point that (standard interp [Copenhagen])quantum random is not just unpredictable in the sense of difficulty or what in English is called 'uncertainty'.

I guess you discussed elsewhere the difference between 'deterministic' and 'predictable', and the issue of computability vs predictability vs random etc.

This chapter is before quantum - classical randomness doesn;t mean much to me, only quantum, since it is inherent. Classical type is by definition ignorance, not inherent.

You say that what is interesting is the amount of knowledge, to me what is interesting is the issue of true free will, so if the universe is deterministic at heart, or inherently random, there is not much difference to me if it is predictable or not.

This type of non-inherent randomness etc is about the limit of our brain power, as it is at the present moment in our evolution: inherent limitations can be at one level: requiring the entire universe's computation ability, or at a deeper level: incomputability and then inherent randomness etc

..

In a finite universe there are only a finite amount of anything. And our corner of the universe (from which we deduce laws etc) is effectively finite. IN any case if there were an infinite amount of gas particles but they give rise only to statistical properties then the infinitude is irrelevant.

explained/predicated = predicted?

In a sense, language [s?], be they

….

balls in the lottery machine are predictable, just that you need lots of detailed information and computing power, 'too many' is simply a quntitative problem, Readers will be confused if you mix this with quantum, they think the laws are deterministic but the reuslt is not. We dont need or postulate hidden variables for these balls of course, so it is not a good example.

The ancient Greeks thought of randomness and it is not more strange than determinism and the concept of 'laws'. What is interesting is that quantum reintroduced randomness after laws had been established - by making the laws statistical.

the 'bounds of reason'?! Maybe you mean the realm of predictability?

...........................

re mindless: people who aren't conscious don;t know what it is and therefore aren;t reliable reporters about their possessing it. It would be like a blind person saying they see colors but they don;t understand what the fuss about art and nature is, it is all so bland etc. Clearly they are not seeing the colors - what it is that they think we are referring to is another issue.

I believe that anyone who is conscious and very intelligent will know that mind is different than matter and the mind body problem is not resolvable by the idiocy of the materialist philosophers. It is the basic truth stated by Descartes. This is probably why many dont appreciate what he said.

I dont know how/why the universe emerged into existence, but I think mind is primary (to the 'physical') and may well have been present always, it is not in space and time and could not have emerged from materialist stuff, so it is beyond natural law as presently understood. Evolution deals with laws of ordinary material entities. Mind is a level above, more like the level where 'laws' come from etc, it may have acausal phenomena like collapse of the wave function and even perhaps true free will, so it is more like the level at which universal emergence arises, not the level of that which laws govern.

….....

Continuing our conversation re 'simplicity' etc (which ties to intuition and therefore to human judgement, and therefore like Godel completeness etc)

Noson, hi!

Missing our occasional get-togethers.

….

Noson: I don't know. You are pressing on something deep and I simply don't know.

I would like to say that within a context of some type of system there

is an objective definition of what is simpler. Furthermore we have to agree

that there is some type of Uber-System of rationality that we can both agree on

and that every sane human being would agree on (its hard to describe this

system. Would we include Hitler in this system?) And within this ubersystem,

the inherent notion of simplicity is objective. And in that system, geocentrism

is more complicated.

Don't ask me to define this uber system. I cannot.

…

re contextuality/cannonical: one related thing I mentioned was that the view of the sun-Earth system is simoplest with sun at center, and the euqations/calculations therefore are very simple, but it is no more 'valid' than taking any other frame, most of which are horribly hopelessly complicated, and which would obscure what is happening to human eyes. For exmaple, looking from Earth at the planetary system, there are many strange motions (retrogade etc) of the planets, took thousands of years of observations to deduce that these are actually several bodies orbiting the sun. Ptolmey Earth-based equaitons which describe the motion from the Earth-based perspective can predict everything, but it would not occur to anyone seeing those equaiotns that it is bodies orbiting the sun. So I think 'simplicity' is more than just a 'subjective' easure, there has to be something more to special frames than is accorded by GR. And there are examples in GR, where the expression is particularly simple, and that is when one utilizes all the symmetries, but of course one must first discover/recognize the symmetries.

…

I am interested in a mutual project. Here is a passing thought: I am interested in the philosophical question of contextuality. That is, the results of an experiment depend on which or how the experiment is done. It is clear that QM is contextual. And there is all different types of contextuality. GTR is also contextual. The size of an object is depends what the relative velocity of the object with my velocity. But the contextuality is less clear. It seems to me that the reason for this is that there is a “canonical” way to measure the length of an object: BE IN THE SAME FRAME OF REFERENCE AS THE OBJECT. The length measured like that is the “right” length. Does that work? Can we somehow make sense of something like canonical?

Here is another idea. It was something you know and you told me. But I still cant wrap my mind around it. It would be nice to write a popular science article that explains why gravity is “just an illusion”. We can start with you sitting on a modern train looking out the window and seeing another train next to the train. Is it moving or are you moving??? Its hard to tell. Galliaen relativity. Then move on to GTR. Talk about acceleration and gravity…. Just like we cannot tell the difference of which train is moving, so too it is hard to tell are we feeling gravity or acceleration. Does that make gravity an illusion? Where to publish such an article?

…

see re Eddington: so what is the information content of an equation? And what is the information supplied by the mind reading and 'understanding' the equaiton? As before, where I mentioned simplicity, need to factor in the sophisticaiton of the mind seeing the equaiotn; some of that is due to the sophisticaiton of the brain, which is due to the sophisticaiotn of the universe, and therefore of 'the laws of nature'. So the sophisticaiton of the underlying patterns creates the sophistication of a brain capable of representing it mathematically.

The Bohr-Einstein debate was an amazing thing, convincing Einstein each time, finding the subtle flaws in his arguments.

Is your peeve with the fact that Bohm's approach is assumed wrong and Bohr's correct? I think Bohr's way is beautiful simply as an example of what is not ruled out by physics and yet seems totally counterintuitive, and Bohm's is an example of retaining an old idea by ingenious supplements to a model - the question is only whether it is like Ptolmaic cosmology epicycles etc. But the fact that both are possible should itself tell us something.

First of all, simplicity and beauty are important to physicists, but they are subjective, culture-influenced of course, etc.

........

Physicists agree that general relativity is much simpler than newtonian physics. because we now know that newtonian is not really consistent and one needs all kinds of patches to get it to make sense, and the result is ok but much less beautiful than GR, and takes a lot more math, and it is ugly. But it is simpler because it doesnt involve paradigm change. And GR needs tensors etc.

Only after learning all the math and defining everything carefully, the physics of GR is very simple and beautiful. So is it simple or not?

But the bottom line is experiment, verification of predictions, new phenomena, and that conclusively chose GR over Newtonian.

If there is no experimental difference between two very different theories, then one ought to try to find out why, it will give something interesting.

Noson: I agree about beauty being "subjective, culture-influenced". I do not agree

about simplicity. I believe there are different ways of measuring simplicity

and that might be "subjective, culture-influenced" but one can come up with

a nice way of measuring things. The different ways of measuring are of

various usufulness over the years.

Physicists agree that general relativity is much simpler than newtonian

> physics. because we now know that newtonian is not really consistent and

> one needs all kinds of patches to get it to make sense, and the result is

> ok but much less beautiful than GR, and takes a lot more math, and it is

> ugly. But it is simpler because it doesnt involve paradigm change. And GR

> needs tensors etc.

I could have rewritten this paragraph and changed the words GR and Newton

for Halocentric and Geocentric. Isnt that amazing?

> Only after learning all the math and defining everything carefully, the

> physics of GR is very simple and beautiful. So is it simple or not?

I see your point.

….

> But the bottom line is experiment, verification of predictions, new

> phenomena, and that conclusively chose GR over Newtonian.

> If there is no experimental difference between two very different

> theories, then one ought to try to find out why, it will give something

> interesting.

>

THERE ARE NO, I repeat: NO experimental differences between Bohr andBohm.

And yet, if you apply for a job as a Bohmian, you will go hungry

I twice (below) basically recommended that you try to find the reason both give the same result experimentally. Maybe you can make a contribution.

My sense is that one approach eliminates that which is unobservable at the cost of jettisoning a paradigm and the other adds in the unobservable in order to preserve the paradigm :)

There are things in string theory which have to do with two different representations of the same thing.

…

> I twice (below) basically recommended that you try to find the reason both

> give the same result experimentally. Maybe you can make a contribution.

> My sense is that one approach eliminates that which is unobservable (EXPLIAN!) at the

> cost of jettisoning a paradigm and the other adds in the unobservable(Explain!) in

> order to preserve the paradigm :)

> There are things in string theory which have to do with two different

> representations of the same thing.???

….

re heliocentrism etc: yes, Bohm is like Ptolemy (I mentioned "the question is only whether it is like Ptolmaic cosmology epicycles ").

…….

Adding in 'unobservable' (because only theoretical) guide waves saves the locality paradigm, and letting go of the unneeded (because unobservable) requirement of 'reality' changes the paradigm. You save 'reality' by adding in something 'unreal', the guide waves.

By the way, I once mentioned that I think that there is more significance to special coordinate choices than is usually granted in GR.

The core of the measurement problem is that we can only know of things as they are in a particular state, whereas theory tells only of processes in the abstract. Ann both are necessary. The problem is the transition form the regime of 'theoretical', ie unobserved, to that of known.

I think it is similar ot the idea in GR that all coordinate choices are equivalent, but of course any knowledge of a system is in the end obtained via a particular coordinate choice.

Also, the heliocentric coordinate choice is obviously the 'correct' one rather than the geocentric, yetGR says there isnt any such correct one - I think the simplicity points to 'correctness'. Not that GR is wrong, but rather there is something additional.

There is also a articular coordinate choice of 4-d spacetime metric which makes things incredibly simple, makes it almost newtonian formulae, and it is the same type of coordinates as in Special Relativity. I am pretty sure there is a pointer here to something fundamental,

And it all in the end comes down to us and how we know things etc, and simplicity, all subjective and consciousness-related.

The fact that consciousness arises in the most complex arena in the universe, the neural interconnections of our brains, is significant.

…

Hi. It's great that you are writing, and are able to have inspired moments.

Some thoughts:

...

I always make the following point: it is important that science - as opposed to religion or new age etc - is self-limiting, it deals with verifiable statements; and also, it doesn;t have opinions about the other types of statements (so while it is not religious, is is also not atheist; it is not spiritual, but it is also not materialisitc). The fact that other systems can talk about these other things doesnt make them less limited, or of greater applicability, or make them more reliable sources of information or insight into those phenomena. From the scientific perspective, making potentially false statements, or ones that are unverifiable in the scientific sense, is not impressive - from within its perspective science is not 'limited' in its realm of validity compared to religion: religion allows for statements than cannot be verified in the scientific sense, but form the scientific perspective religion is not thereby more highly qualified to make these statements.

.....

I know this is before quantum, but it is hard to make interesting discussions about this topic before making the point that (standard interp [Copenhagen])quantum random is not just unpredictable in the sense of difficulty or what in English is called 'uncertainty'.

I guess you discussed elsewhere the difference between 'deterministic' and 'predictable', and the issue of computability vs predictability vs random etc.

This chapter is before quantum - classical randomness doesn;t mean much to me, only quantum, since it is inherent. Classical type is by definition ignorance, not inherent.

You say that what is interesting is the amount of knowledge, to me what is interesting is the issue of true free will, so if the universe is deterministic at heart, or inherently random, there is not much difference to me if it is predictable or not.

This type of non-inherent randomness etc is about the limit of our brain power, as it is at the present moment in our evolution: inherent limitations can be at one level: requiring the entire universe's computation ability, or at a deeper level: incomputability and then inherent randomness etc

..

In a finite universe there are only a finite amount of anything. And our corner of the universe (from which we deduce laws etc) is effectively finite. IN any case if there were an infinite amount of gas particles but they give rise only to statistical properties then the infinitude is irrelevant.

explained/predicated = predicted?

In a sense, language [s?], be they

….

balls in the lottery machine are predictable, just that you need lots of detailed information and computing power, 'too many' is simply a quntitative problem, Readers will be confused if you mix this with quantum, they think the laws are deterministic but the reuslt is not. We dont need or postulate hidden variables for these balls of course, so it is not a good example.

The ancient Greeks thought of randomness and it is not more strange than determinism and the concept of 'laws'. What is interesting is that quantum reintroduced randomness after laws had been established - by making the laws statistical.

the 'bounds of reason'?! Maybe you mean the realm of predictability?

...........................

re mindless: people who aren't conscious don;t know what it is and therefore aren;t reliable reporters about their possessing it. It would be like a blind person saying they see colors but they don;t understand what the fuss about art and nature is, it is all so bland etc. Clearly they are not seeing the colors - what it is that they think we are referring to is another issue.

I believe that anyone who is conscious and very intelligent will know that mind is different than matter and the mind body problem is not resolvable by the idiocy of the materialist philosophers. It is the basic truth stated by Descartes. This is probably why many dont appreciate what he said.

I dont know how/why the universe emerged into existence, but I think mind is primary (to the 'physical') and may well have been present always, it is not in space and time and could not have emerged from materialist stuff, so it is beyond natural law as presently understood. Evolution deals with laws of ordinary material entities. Mind is a level above, more like the level where 'laws' come from etc, it may have acausal phenomena like collapse of the wave function and even perhaps true free will, so it is more like the level at which universal emergence arises, not the level of that which laws govern.

….

Continuing our conversation re 'simplicity' etc (which ties to intuition and therefore to human judgement, and therefore like Godel completeness etc)

Noson, hi!

Missing our occasional get-togethers.

Here's an interesting article: http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath588/kmath588.htm

There are several references to issues we discussed: remember what I said about the Copernican model being simpler, despite the 'equal validity' of any reference frame (which in GR is a 'coordinate system' since we use spacetime, so velocity and accleraiton are results of transformations of the 4-d coordinate system)

Simplicity is not enshrined as a physcal principle officially, but it really is, informally, and see Einstein quote below (in the article)

Excerpts from the article, and how the tie in to the topic I am interested in:

Role of "intuition": We must simply rely on an intuitively plausible choice,

"Simplicity" (AR: which is also a judgement based on 'intuition'): "distinguished by the fact that the laws of physics can be expressed in particularly simple form in terms of such coordinates. " And later "coordinate systems based on geodesics are “distinguished” in the sense that the laws take a particularly simple form when expressed in terms of such (local) inertially “free-falling” coordinate systems" and "a very elaborate formula, hardly recognizable" "There is a huge difference in complexity (and intelligibility) between" "Although it is true that one can put every empirical law in a generally covariant form, yet the principle [of general covariance] possesses great heuristic power… Of two theoretical systems, both of which are in agreement with experience, that one is to be preferred which, from the point of view of the absolute differential calculus is the simpler and more transparent."

Complexity: "we could devise many different generally covariant formalisms, of which the tensor formalism is only one, and each of these would have its own set of “simply expressible” laws. (Compare this with the impossibility of proving the absolute complexity of a string of binary digits.) "

Symmetry considerations: also based on "intuition": the remarkable parallel between Einstein’s addition of this term and Maxwell’s addition of the “displacement current” to Ampere’s law.

The nature of time, or our definition f it: "This is ultimately because the fundamental notions of spatial distance and temporal duration underlying those physical laws are essentially defined in terms of inertial coordinate systems.

....

not the same as the measurement issue of qp, but reminiscent in some sense: "We never observe abstract tensors; we observe the individual components of tensors with respect to some explicit basis."

...

Also: the quesiotn of what is ''real' as in Bohm Ahraonov, and Einstein consuidering the 'conneciton' as real, not just the riemann tensor; and what surprisingly does not 'couple' eg in GR re the EP/minimal coupling (see below); and which theories can be arrived at via manipulations of other theories, eg obtaining curved spacetime equaitons form the fat ones via the EP/minimal coupling; also the relaiton to of duality; and dulaity, category theory, EP/minimal coupling.

Minimal coupling (MC): like Weyl gauge invariance

An equation can be much more powerful than originally intended: (see Feynmen quote re this).

Once one realizes that one can consistently define curved spaces, and then realizes that flat space is simply curved space with curvature zero, then it becomes clear that equation derived for flat space may also be valid for curved space.

If the equaiton is decoupled from the curvature (it is minimally coupled), ie has no terms dependent on the curvature (which one might not know from the flat space form since they would be zero?) then the equations should be valid for any curvature.

Geodsic equaiotn is minimally coupled: Of course Cartesian coordinates or any other choice in flat space is a specific coordinate choice and so the equation which will be valid needs to be coordinate-choice independent, so one needs to find for example the equation of a straight line not just in cartesian or polar coordinates but a general formula for any coordinates, which is the geodeisc quation in flat space for curvilinear coordinates (where cartesian coordinates have curvilinearity zero).

So it turns out that this flat-space curvlinear coordinate geodesic equation is then valid for curved space with any coordinate choice.

…….….

Noson: I don't know. You are pressing on something deep and I simply don't know.

I would like to say that within a context of some type of system there

is an objective definition of what is simpler. Furthermore we have to agree

that there is some type of Uber-System of rationality that we can both agree on

and that every sane human being would agree on (its hard to describe this

system. Would we include Hitler in this system?) And within this ubersystem,

the inherent notion of simplicity is objective. And in that system, geocentrism

is more complicated.

Don't ask me to define this uber system. I cannot.

…

…

NOSON:

I am interested in a mutual project. Here is a passing thought: I am interested in the philosophical question of contextuality. That is, the results of an experiment depend on which or how the experiment is done. It is clear that QM is contextual. And there is all different types of contextuality. GTR is also contextual. The size of an object is depends what the relative velocity of the object with my velocity. But the contextuality is less clear. It seems to me that the reason for this is that there is a “canonical” way to measure the length of an object: BE IN THE SAME FRAME OF REFERENCE AS THE OBJECT. The length measured like that is the “right” length. Does that work? Can we somehow make sense of something like canonical?