Notes
Sunday 20 September 2020 - Saturday 26 September 2020
[Notebook: DB 85 Science]
[page 184]
Sunday 20 September 2020
I want to be a rock star theologian, an impossible dream for my mother's sake who believed every word the priests and nuns told her. She is dead now, and gone. Not in heaven, because they lied to her, the shonkiest pack of deluded salespersons that ever walked the Earth. The opening salvo, I hope, is the ?? essay which will contrast the Aboriginal Australian scientific theology with the dreams of Constantine, closing the circle that began with the Christian invasion of Australia. Stop.
Weyl; Space, Time Matter. Raum, Zeit, Materie 1921. Hermann Weyl
Weyl page xiii: ' Abbildung which signifies representation is generally rendered equally well by transformation, inasmuch as it denotes a copy of certain elements of the space mapped out on, or expressed in terms of, another space.' Overlooking [to some degree] the meaning of representation I now understand in the light of the slogan 'Information is physical'.
[page 185]
Weyl page 2: 'The ideas to be worked out in this book are not the result of some speculative inquiry into the foundations of physical knowledge, but have been developed in the ordinary course of the handling of concrete physical problems, problems arising in the rapid development of science which has, as it were, burst its old shell, now become too narrow'
page 5: ' We are only concerned in seeing clearly that the datum of consciousness is the starting point at which we must place ourselves if we are to understand the absolute meaning as well as the right to the supposition of reality.' What is an "absolute meaning"? A contradiction in terms since a meaning is a relationship or bond between two elements. My meaning is established by my relationship to the universe, my god, a real relationship as Aquinas claims for the relationships in the Trinity, ie substantial, not accidental. In truth there are no accidents in the old sense of elements unrelated to substance, ie colour [nature is substantially true to itself].
' It is of the nature of a real thing to be inexhaustible in content.'
' Time is the primitive form of the stream of consciousness. . . . "being now" ' [true of the cognitive consciousness of the differentiated divinity].
page 6: '. . . space is the form of the external world. That is to say every material thing can, without changing content, equally well occupy a position in space different from its present one.' Nevertheless changing its relationship to other things.
' The new solution of the problem of amalgamating space and time offered by the theory of relativity brings with it a deeper insight into the harmony of action in the world.' Let us say that all action is communication, requiring coordinated (tuned) transmitter and receiver. "Tuning" = "codec".
[page 186]
Weyl page 7: cycle = clock
page 8: A very bad argument: ' in consequence of the homogeneity of the continuum' since there is no continuum, but there are identical particles [made possible, for fermions, by discrete locations in space].
'An essential feature of measurement is the difference between the "determination" of an object by an individual specification ["address"] and the determination of the same object by conceptual means ["formal content"].' The next extension required of general covariance is to realize that "individual perceptions" and "conceptions" are equally events, that is the transmission of messages in a cognitive cosmos [is a measurement].
page 9: Every source is the local "coordinate system" for all the messages it sends and receive, but sources are grouped into linguistic groups insofar as they share codecs, ie they are members of a [mathematical] group.
page 11: Space is a symmetry, but in reality all symmetries are broken.
page 12; ' Starting from the conception of translation I shall then develop Euclidean geometry along strictly axiomatic lines,' Yielding a formal space that may or may not be real.
page 16; ' the intuition of continuity' arises from increased numbers of points, but quantization of universe tells us that only logical continuity is true.
page 17: vectors: linear space / dimensionality, n + 1 vectors in an n dimensional space are linearly dependent on one another, an expression of requisite variety.[page 187]
Weyl page 20: 'All coordinate systems are equivalent in affine geometry.'
page 22: ' The conception of linear transformation thus plays the same part in affine geometry as the concept of congruence in general geometry.'
page 27: From affine geometry to metrical geometry.
page 28: ' . . . not the length but the square of the length of a vector depends in a simple way on the vector itself; it is a quadratic form. This is the real content of Pythagoras' Theorem,' scalar product.
page 33: Tensors ' "Tensor calculus" . . . will enable us to express in a convenient mathematical form not only geometrical laws but also physical laws.'
page 43: 'As natural phenomena take place in a metrical space the tensor calculus is the natural mathematical instrument for expressing the uniformity underlying them.'
We are thinking the fundamental processes in the universe take place in a logical rather than a numerical space because the space-time / momentum-energy metrics in metrical space are connected by the uncertainty principle Δt.ΔE = j etc which seems to be orthogonal to space-time, ie not coupled to it [ie the uncertainty operates between energy and time /space and momentum]. Physicists generally devise a mathematical symmetry like affine space and then break the symmetry when necessary to conform to data. The preferred mathematical symmetry here is the transfinite logical network and then we constrain it with computable functions like the unitarity we find in quantum mechanics and the Minkowski and Einstein metrics we find in space-time.
[page 188]
Weyl page 107: '. . . we shall make the sole assumption about space that it is an n-dimensional continuum.
page 104: ' One here uses the extremely fruitful mathematical device of making a problem "linear" by reverting to infinitely small quantities.' Good try, but not really permissible in a world of quantized dynamics.
page 218: '. . . the problem of centrifugal force has always been felt to be an unsolvable enigma.'
page 273: We use reference frames to assign numbers to points in space and then we use a model or theory to relate these numbers to one another and the general covariances instituted by tensor calculus enables us to eliminate the influence of arbitrary choice of reference system.
page 284: We may think of space-time as a network and the rest of physics (matter) as messages on this network. Wehl introduces little of quantum theory, fermions, bosons etc.
' Descartes dream of purely geometrical physics seems to have attained fulfilment in a manner of which he could certainly have had no presentiment.' and the introduction of quantum mechanics moves us from geometrical physics to logical physics which we wish to use to explain the transition from initial singularity to 4D spacetime.
page 285: '. . . the quantity of action is a pure number. But this is only as it should be if the theory is to be in agreement with the atomic structure of the world, which according to the most recent results (Quantum Theory) carries the greatest weight.'
[page 189]
Weyl page 311: ' We must here state in unmistakable language that physics at its present state [1950?] can in no way be regarded as lending support to the belief that physical nature is founded on rigorously exact laws. The extended field, "aether" is merely the transmitter of effects and is of itself powerless; it plays a part that is in nowise different from that which space, with its rigid Euclidean metrical structure plays according to the old view; but now the rigid motionless character has been transferred into one which gently yields and adapts itself. But freedom of action in the world is no more restricted by the rigorous laws of field physics than it is by the laws of Euclidean geometry according to the usual view.'
My entries in this notebook are as often concerned with my feelings as they are of any progress I have made in my intellectual pursuit. This seems reasonable to me since the evidence for my work comes from both my experience and the large volume of material that I have read since my theological career began in the sixties. Also I see my mind as a jungle which probably contains many of the answer to the questions I ask but have to find them by looking around because they do not always bubble spontaneously to the surface. As I have gone closer and closer to the idea of cognitive cosmology I have also come to see physics and psychology as merging so that [looking at] my own mind becomes to some extent a source of ideas and evidence for my position, a sort of second person within me.
[page 190]
Monday 21 September 2020
From a statistical point of view the job is a bit like buying a lottery ticket, or perhaps a lottery ticket every day. If I can make my ideas stick the long term effect would be enormous, the billion dollar prize, but on the other hand the chances of success are very small. I'd hate to estimate how small, but I am hopeful and I am getting the story out to a few people every day, so maybe I am making some progress.
The issue now is to get from quantum mechanics to general relativity, maybe via special relativity, whose fundamental features are the velocity of light and the Minkowski metric. Following the ancient psychological model of the Trinity, we might see the first step in this process as the establishment of an 'atom' of communication comprising two sources (fermions) Father and Son and a link between them (bosons) the Holy Spirit. We identify the initial singularity as a quantum of action, and say it is pure act, following Aristotle's model of the unmoved mover and Aquinas' model of god. Since the initial singularity stands alone and we only assign properties to the elements of the universe through their relationships to one another, we can also accept the ancient notion that it is absolutely simple. We can also accept, given our experience of energy bubbles in accelerator experiments, that the singularity can differentiate into energy, time and a mix of particles, as we speculate happened in the big bang. Since we see the universe as beginning simple and complexifying, and the photon as the simplest particle, whose spin is one quantum of action, we may see the photon as the primordial particle whose
[page 191]
differentiation leads to the population of fundamental particles that we have identified in the last century of physical experimentation. In the trinity the self interaction of the Father creates the Son. In physics we are led to conclude that the self interaction of the initial singularity creates the universe, in some way acting as a "time reversed black hole" (Hawking and Ellis). Hawking & Ellis: The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
Given this framework, let us explore the general outlines of the creation of the universe within the framework of cybernetics and particle physics, feeling for an axiomatic version of creation that is consistent with the earliest phases of the "big bang", the emergence of quantum theory and general relativity by a process that is essentially isolated, since it is all that there is and the only constraint that can possibly [guide] its behaviour is local consistency. Our first step is to use the consistency constraint on formal mathematics to build a mathematical tool for our task which I call a transfinite logical network, beginning with the simple foundation of computation, Boolean algebra. Boolean algebra - Wikipedia
Pushing boundaries. Whitney Houston Whitney Houston: I Have Nothing
Tuesday 22 September 2020
Action, eternity, energy, time
Every computation is in effect a proof. The multiplication algorithm, for instance, guarantees that its conclusion truly represents the products of the numbers input [all other things being equal!]
[page 193]
A real key is that reality comes from below rather than from above, as we can see in the universe.
Multiple copies of god will create space [as the Trinity must do if it is to be consistent]. How does this relate to the no cloning theorem? [they will all be different, subsequent ones superposed with their predecessors?]. No cloning theorem - Wikipedia, Shield of the Trinity - Wikipedia
Energy is the rate of multiplication of quanta of action, the rate of multiplication of god.
One of my deepest and most ineradicable beliefs is my native language, and the only way to change this to even a small degree is to replace it with another language and never use it again. This is not really possible because of the enormous tacit cultural foundation upon which the language is built. Michael Polanyi; The tacit Dimension
Wednesday 23 September 2020
Wake in fear. What is happening to my world? I am old and safe, wrapped in the wooly welfare state but what about my children and grandchildren? The only thing I can do from my armchair is what Einstein did, totally turn our understanding of our place in the world upside down. We are not the children of a caring omnipotent and omniscient God who loves us so much that they died for us and will not see us come to harm. No, we are part of the world ruled by our own nature and the nature of the world and our salvation does not depend on some hoped for magic but must be based on a cool and comprehensive scientific understanding of our situation.
[page 193]
A particle is a thing, a quantum of memory with both essence and existence, representing a particular action in the overall process of which it is part.
Quantum continuity is very much like logical continuity. The equation <χ|φ> = ∑i <χ|i><i|φ> treats the complete set of basis states |i><i| as a set of memories which are 'written into' by |φ> and 'read out of ' by <χ|[a complete basis is like Aristotle's "middle term"].
Hilbert on the axiomatization of physics, which must be possible because all of physics derives from the initial singularity. In the Beginning was the Act. (Gray, in Carlson, Jaffe & Wiles (eds) page 23) Hilbert's sixth problem. Carlson, Jaffe & Wiles: The Millennium Prize Problems
Jeremy Gray page 24: ' [Hilbert] argued in favour of rigour on the grounds of simplicity, and extended his requirement as far as geometry, mathematics, mechanics and even physics.'
The quantum of action per se in its eternal (ie formal) form is massless since energy, which creates mass, requires frequency, so in effect the eternal symmetry of action is broken by the bifurcation of energy and time expressed by the equation h = E/f. Like most of my momentarily brilliant / brief ideas this may not lead far but is my first contribution to the seventh millennium prize problem by completely rewriting quantum field theory in terms of evolution constrained by the transfinite logical network.
[page 194]
P vs NP: Stephen Cook in Carlson
Cook page 87: Class P decision problem solvable by Turing machine in a number of steps determined by some fixed polynomial in the length of the input.
NP "non-deterministic polynomial time" (time = number of steps)
Lonergan: Ontological and Psychological Constitution of Christ Bernard Lonergan
Thursday 24 September 2020
The creative system: The initial singularity multiplies without limit and at random, creating random superpositions. Some of these are computable, some not. Of the computable, some are NP, some not. Those that are NP can be checked by P processes and become selected, others not. The randomness is a consequence of the absence of control established by incomputability and the lack of requisite variety. Checkability is equivalent to reproducibility, that is capable of surviving in the computable ecosystem of the universe. This is the general plan, to be cleaned up by discussions of control representation and computation. All this [leads to] the section of evolution and creation [in the essay [principia theologica].
The transition from amplitude space to real space is a bit like the transition from dreaming sleep to wakefulness.
Object oriented software. A particle is and agent, an object,
[page 195]
a person, ie something with internal states that listens and speaks, a "black box". Black box - Wikipedia
Defender of the Faith. Of course. This is the Faith that makes me King, connecting me to the Divinity that gives me my power [over everybody] by right.
Algorithmic information theory is the foundation of symmetry [because an algorithm is a symmetry, essentially unchanged by instantiations; action is the fundamental algorithm of the universe].
Deutsch: 'Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make far more sense than common sense does.' We'll see. David Deutsch: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes - and its ImplicationsDeutsch page ix: ' . . . this book . . . is an investigation of what the fabric of the universe would be like if [our best theories] were true.'
page 3: instrumentalism vs understanding: why is an unpredictable roulette wheel fair?
page 4: Weinberg: 'The important thing is to make predictions . . . it is simply doesn't matter whether we ascribe these predictions to physical effects or gravitational fields or the motions of photons or to the curvature of space and time.'
page 5: ' . . . the physical world is an oracle.'
page 7: 'The deeper an explanation is the more remote from immediate experience are the entities to which it must refer.' Spoken like a mystic or a theologian. These entities are part of the fabric of reality.
[page 196]
Deutsch page 11: 'uniquely human faculty of creative thought.' Who invented thought? Trial, error, memory; eg DNA
page 14: putting down master builders [probably because he knows no history of engineering]
page 17: D's panacea for all subjects, Theory of Everything, ie theology.
page 20: 'emergence: high level simplicity "emerges" from low level complexity.' Or does it mean high level complexity emerges from low level simpicity?
page 24: General relativity ⊗ quantum theory part of theory of everything.
page 25: laws of motion make only conditional predictions given initial and boundary conditions. Theology has the initial condition of pure act and the boundary condition of consistency.
page 28: Theoretical foursome: quantum theory, evolution, epistemology, computation.
Friday 25 September 2020
Let us say that wilderness is the most peaceful form of existence, maximum entropy, so the god / universe is wild, uncontrolled by anything but itself. Entropy increases in two ways a) by uncontrolled randomness and b) by controlled reproduction [of discrete entities]. So we can imagine the invention of photons and electric charge (a form of communication) followed by reproduction of charged particles and photons, an early form of the bifurcation into fermions and bosons and the elements that give structure to space.
Invisibility: a fully occupied system has no time for idle talk:
[page 197]
try interviewing a fighter in the middle of a fight, the distraction will cause them to lose. So it is with the basic functions of the universre - they do not have time to talk until their motions are stopped by meeting another system / communicating with another system and emitting a fixed message, a photon or a particle, both of which are eternal, ie immutable [while they last].
Back to Deutsch:
page 32: ' . . . shadows . . . reveal the existence of parallel universes.'
page 33: 'Invisibility is one of the more straightforward properties of light.'
We only see the result of a computation when the machine halts, that is finishes the computation it is working on and turns its resources to communicating the result to its environment.
page 35: 'Attenuation of light eventually reveals quantization, ie individual photons, ie quanta of action with certain embodied properties, energy and polarization packed in one planck quantum.
page 41: Interference and the n-slit experiment, leading to Feynman's path integral . . ..
page 43: 'tangible' vs 'shadow' photons.
page 44: 'Thus we have inferred the existence of a seething prodigiously complicated hidden world of shadow photons.' You wish. Read Feynman.
[page 198]
'It seems that reality is much bigger than it seems, and most of it is invisible [but should show gravitationally if it is real!].
Deutsch page 45: So shadow particles are a parallel universe, QED for D!
page 46: 'Single particle interference experiments . . . show us that the multiverse exists and that it contains many counterparts of every particle in the tangible universe.' Or maybe it shows that quantum mechanics is non-local and pre-exists space-time.
'Shadow particles do not interact with tangible atoms.' BUT they do interact with tangible photons (??) Shadow barrier = shadow atoms.
page 47: 'The heart of the argument is that single particle interference phenomena unequivocally rule out the possibility that the tangible universe around us is all that exists.'
'The existence of the multiverse is still a minority view among physicists. Why? The answer, I regret to say, does not reflect well on the majority.'
Deutsch's problem is his understanding of superposition and the assumption that all the solutions to the wave equation are in some sense real, each one existing in its own universe. This is in a way a misunderstanding of algorithmic information theory that claims, for instance, that all possible instances of F = ma have simultaneous and equally real existence rather than potential existence. The initial singularity is potentially
[page 199]
the universe but it has taken it a while to grow to its potential size and the process is identical in principle to my growth from a single cell guided to become me by the algorithm represented by my DNA and my tacit constraints embodied in the properties of atoms etc.
Deutsch page 48: 'Quantum theory is about the interactions of the real with the possible.' and as Aristotle told us long ago, the possible becomes real by an act and that act in quantum language is measurement or observation. Spacetime exists because realities are becoming real at a rate determined by the local energy density.
page 49: D appears to overlook the role of potential in QM. We may think of a quantum of action as an active rather than passive potential, and perhaps taking Newton's third law into account, that real and potential exist in opposition to one another, rather like energy and time and momentum and distance, in each case separated from one another by a quantum of action Δx.Δp ≈ Δ E.Δt ≈ h.
. . .
page 51: 'The quantum theory of parallel universes . . . is not some optional interpretation . . .. It is the explanation – the only one that is tenable – of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality.' Which is pure Platonic unrepresented bullshit!
page 52: 'Tangibility is relative to a given observer.' Sounds like the 'psychokinetic effect' rejected on page 50.
[page 200]
Deutsch page 68: Evolution of theory by variation and selection. Popper conjecture and refutation.
page 127: 'We know from the quantum theory that all . . . variables are quantized and therefore no matter how a computer works, the set of possible programs is discrete. Each program can therefore be expressed as a finite set of symbols in a discrete code or computer language. There are infinitely many such programs but each one can contain a finite set of symbols.' We need to distinguish strictly finite, countably infinite and uncountably infinite, ie introduce a transfinite computer network.
page 129: Contradiction in terms 'certain fixed set' ↔ 'infinitely large'
page 132: '. . . quantum computers can perform computations of which no (human) mathematician will ever, even in principle,be capable.' ?
page 134: '. . . the computing power of an abstract machine has no bearing on what is computable in reality,' So Turing is out the door!
page 135: 'The Turing Principle: It is possible to build a virtual reality machine whose repertoire includes every possible physical environment.'
We assume that this machine will model the universe at the quantum scale and will be built on the quantum scale, so the invisibility principe will apply to it because it will be fully occupied with doing its job so some sort of no cloning will apply and its only output will be itself. It suffers from what we might call fatal recursion and has the same problem as god creating the universe anew when
[page 201]
it already exists within them and (as we say) everything (like knowledge) which is accidental in created being is substantial in god so god's idea of the universe is both god and the universe.
Deutsch page 136: '. . . the laws of physics imply the physical existence somewhere in the multiverse, of entities that understand them arbitrarily well.'
page 141: '. . . there is one opposing theory – namely common sense – which requires me to refute in detail whenever it seems to conflict with what I am asserting.' Which seems to be pretty well everywhere!
page 142: 'There is indeed no logically necessary connection betwen truth and explanatory power.' So try that on explaining how an I[nternal] C[ombustion] engine works.
page 143: 'crypto inductivists should all be outed and purged, even if they are successful scientists.'
pages 144-166: proof that jumping off the Eiffel Tower is fatal.
page 170: The basis of life is replicators '. . . a replicator is an entity that causes certain environments to copy it' ie the line of code that says "print me". Are genes replicators? They define cells that copy genes.
page 173: Junk DNA? How do we tell the difference between random and meaningful. Shannon: the most meaningful looks the most random. Claude Shannon: Communication in the Presence of Noise
[page 202]
Deutsch page 182: Control creates stable non-equilibrium systems ie (it would seem) keeps entropy down by selection. So on this counting I have lower entropy than the equivalent gas Perhaps we have to bring the time dimension into the calculation of entropy [or exploit the idea that higher layers in the system create exponentially higher entropy by constraining the entropy of the layers they are built on. Ask Boltzmann]. Carlo Cercignani: Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms
page 184: '. . . there is every reason to conjecture that our descendants will eventully control the Sun.' Loony
. . .
page 195: 'A quantum computer would be capable of distributing components of a complex task among vast numbers of parallel universes and then sharing the results.' ie it processes superpositions as a whole but can read out only one element of the superposition.' Dream on!
page 217: Claims Shor's algorithm only works in 'identical' universes so it really only applies in this universe. It is interesting that nether of the terms superposition and entanglement are used in D's book. But he does mention interference. Shor's algorithm - Wikipedia
page 219: 'The quantum theory of computation must in any case be an integral part of the world view of anyone who seeks a fundamental understanding of reality.' [so long as it is not an artefact of current models of physics].page 222: 'Do abstract, non-physical entities exist? . . . how are we to imagine such entities?' They must be represented by real particles and here's the rub. Are ℵo particles involved in every quantum interaction? I think not.
[page 203]
Deutsch page 224: 'when we have proven something, we know with absolute certainty that it is true' given the hypotheses of the proof. If these cannot be given a physical representation then the proof may be logical but fail, as we find with the circular proofs of analysis. QM transformations are unitary = tautological so they do not add anything, they are in effect lossless codecs, and so be so they must be turing computable, ie representable. (ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia
page 230: 'Meanwhile mathematicians were continuing to construct their abstract [= non-represented] castles in the sky.'
page 231: 'Intuitionism is worthless' because? [maybe it is common sense]
Deutsch page 233: Hilbert's program: avoid inconsistency by finitary methods = turing computable. We can climb around inside the transfinite computable network by following computable paths (geodesics, force free [- force arises when a geodesic is blocked by a particle, like me standing on Earth, so a sign of incomputability?] Hilbert's program - Wikipedia
page 238: My bet is that the brain, considered as a computer, is a classical one.' No, it is a network and not therefore deterministic and so subject to the requisite variety rule of cybernetics. 'Cybernetics' is another term that does not appear in D's book [perhaps it should come under epistemology], and Chaitin couples it to Gödel (no Chaitin in the book either). Gregory J. Chaitin
page 239: 'There is unfortunately no bell that rings or light that flashes when we comprehend a truly valid proof.' Wrong, we have a Lonergan / Archimedes insight and propose our new proof to the mathematical network of evaluation. Bernard Lonergan (1992); Insight: A Study of Human Understanding
[page 204]
Deutsch page 242: D's virtual reality generators are digital and so cannot realize a perfect circle as imagined by the analysts, nor can the quantized universe.
page 222-257: Sounds like one of Donal Trump's incoherent raves. What he appears to be saying is that all his other universes serve as real representatives of things that are not represented and cannot be observed in this universe, so all his arguments have about the same validity as Aquinas' theological arguments which depend for premisses . . . on things which are allegedly 'per se nota' in the mind of god, who is, after all, a set of multiverses (ie three of them, the Trinity).
page 275: Here we go again: 'Physical reality is not spacetime, it is a much bigger and more diverse entity, the multiverse.
The multiverse is an abstract probability space.
Saturday 26 September 2020
Deutsch page 277: Multiverse: 'A workable quantum theory of time - which would also be the quantum theory of gravity (?) - has been a tantalizing and unattainable goal of theoretical physics for some decades now (maybe via time, energy, gravity?). But we know enough about it to know that though the laws of quantum physics are perfectly deterministic at the multiverse level . . ..' ie (it seems) that the different multiverses are identical, superpositions at the amplitude level but they are different at the observational level, this accomodating the fact that quantum observations reveal different eigenvalues at random as determined by the Born Rule. Born rule - Wikipedia
[page 205]
page 278: So (?) he says 'other times are just special cases of other universes.' Page and Wooters Problem of time - Wikipedia
page 279: 'snapshots'; calculus? evolution of multiverse, Hamiltonian, unitary and deterministic. Unitary operator - Wikipedia
page 280: 'The differentiation of identical copies of an observer into slightly different versions is responsible for the subjectively probabilistic character of quantum observations.' But don't the observers evolve deterministically too?
page 281: 'determinism of quantum mechanics': so how does the big bang work?
page 283: 'time reversibility of quantum mechanics': same question , the big unbang follows from the big bang (and what about the break of unitarity caused by observation? Does not happen in D's world?)
page 284: 'sequence of time slices disordered near big bang and black hole [an arbitrary assumption, as usual].
' time does not need to come to a halt of start up, for it does not move at all'. Like a fixed reference frame? [but it must have ben created at some point, and 'hit the ground running']
page 285: D seems fully hooked on determinism [no requisite variety for him]. Variety (cybernetics) - Wikipedia
page 287: ' . . . because (?) physical laws link the contents of different universes.' the whole thing looks like mss of Everett inspired fantasy designed to solve the 'measurement problem'.
page 293: Time travel and the grandfather paradox: go back in time and kill your grandfather. Why not?
[page 206]
' Interference phenomena are the result of causal contact between nearby universes'. The key to D's story, a belief that all the elements of an infinite superposition of universal basis states exists simultaneously. Ie the absurd explication of the absurd idea at the root of the Copenhagen interpretation of QM which does not help me solve any of my theological problems. Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia
Deutsch page 328: Copenhagen and Everett.
page 330: '. . . Everett's story is indeed one of an innovative young researcher challenging a prevailing consensus and being largely ignored [apart from publishing a book coauthored by some senior physicists] until decades later his view gradually becomes the new consensus.' in some little bubble. Hugh Everett III: The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
page 333: 'design' selection, variety, E-Theorem Asymptotic equipartition property - Wikipedia, Brockway Macmillan: The Basic Theorems of Information Theory
page 339: 'On the face of it, the price of understanding interference [superposition] phenomena is to create or exacerbate many philosopical problems.' For D, because he ignores Turing and Gödel and insists of determinism, completely ignoring requisite variety and the cybernetics of control.
So D has a good plan combining quantum theory, epistemology, computation and evolution but his story is seriously distorted by his ignorance of cybernetics, his insistence on determinism and the rather loony many world's solution to the quantum measurement problem. This book looks just the same to me as when I read it in 1997. Can I do any better while staying in the bounds of plausible representation?
[page 207]
So what is my answer to the measurement problem, ie the interface between the world of amplitudes and the world of observation, the interface between Hilbert and Minkowski space. Here's my try.
1. The quantum of action is a thing, identical to the Christian god, which we first meet in the initial singularity implied by general relativity. Hawking & Ellis: The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
Because the universe started so simple, the explanation of the current structure must be simple. So three more axioms:
2. Pure action, by self reference, can try anything;
3. Requisite variety says such a simple beginning has no control, so these tries are random sequences of events (actions); and
4. Only sets of tries that form a group can explain their survival since the interaction of any two members of a group produces another member of the group.
The first group is the trivial one with one member whose interaction with itself produces itself. The second group is the energy group with two members. And so on.
This axiomatization of physics might make Hilbert happy. The sixth problem.Hilbert's sixth problem - Wikipedia
Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi Return of the Jedi - Wikipedia[page 208]
The upshot of the invisibility theorem is that we cannot see the basic processes of the universe [because they are too busy doing their thing to explain what they are doing] and the upshot of that is that we have to guess what the basic processes are by looking at the results [the "black box" problem"], and our answer to date is quantum theory in its various forms. Here I am inclined to replace quantum theory with a theory of virtual reality a bit like Deutsch based on my thing, the transfinite logical network, beginning from the idea that the foundation of physics is Boolean algebra embodied in a network.
We take it that it is the computer hardware that implements logical confinement (Cosmic Plumbing) Cosmic Plumbing 20 January 2016
There are two degrees of freedom in the computer network: the Turing machine it embodies and the processing rates or times of these machines. We wish to examine the spectrum of fundamental particles on this two dimensional space. The simplest particle is the photon, massless with an unbounded range of frequencies / energies. The fundamental question for the photon is how it can be highly energetic and massless, and the answer must be in its velocity and its momentum [closely related to velocity] that we see as prior to mass.
We understand quantum mechanics to be represented in a [countably] infinite dimensional Hilbert space and we use Fourier transforms to map between position and momentum representations φ(x) and ψ(p) of the wave function which has a shape determined by the superposition of each of the x and p basis states in the Hilbert space. Any function (more or less) can be represented by a Fourier series, so if we could translate a Fourier representation we would simplify things greatly.
[page 209]
So much of the difficulty of quantum theory arises from what may be a very wasteful representation of what is actually happening in an infinite function space when we might be able to do the same job with something much simpler and get rid of the infinites which are very unlikely to be represented by reality anyway.
So we have wave functions in momentum, position and energy space all interconvertible { ψ(p)}, {φ(x)} and {(c1, c2, . . . )] all of which are representations if a state vector | > and a space of kets in an abstract [Hilbert space] version of the three [representations]. Robert G. Littlejohn: Physics 221 A: Notes 1: The Mathematical Formalism of Quantum Mechanics
'A ray in Hilbert space is a one dimensional space of kets |ψ> related to a complex multiplicative factor c so to some non-zero ket |ψ0> so |ψ> = c|ψ0> so kets in a ray differ by normalization and phase.
Kets belong to a space Ε while bras belong to dual space Ε* of complex values linear operators called in mathematics forms, convectors or dual vectors.
Conversion if ket to bra requires metric.
Hilbert spaces have countable bases. Dirac: real or complexnumber is a c number; operator is a q number.
Littlejohn Notes 2: 'The silver atom has the same electronic spin and magnetic moment as a free electron nut is electrically neutral (Stern Gerlach). Robert G. Littlejohn (2): The Postulates of Quantum Mechanics
Notes 3: 'Knowledge of the density operator allows one in principle to calculate the results of any measurement process. Robert G. Littlejohn (3): The Density Operator
