vol VII: Notes
2018
Notes
Sunday 25 November 2018 - Saturday 1 December 2018
[Notebook: DB 83: Physical Theology]
[page 3]
Sunday 25 November 2018
Beginning to explore the idea that the quantum mechanical distinction between fermions and bosons is the source of the structure of space-time and the velocity of light, rather than vice versa as is assumed in traditional arguments for the spin-statistics relationship. First we observe that quantum mechanics describes a network and then look at the bifurcation of the superposition of spins into addition and subtraction or something like that. Spin-statistics theorem - Wikipedia
Everything starts off as a mess and is gradually purified and simplified as the parts are ordered and irrelevancies weeded out.
Modern Monetary Theory: debt / equity, potential / action. Janda Michael Janda: Trump and Sanders agree on one key economic policy - here's how
Superposition introduces the and operator, so that p and p = p, but p and not-p = not-p. This gives us the fermion / boson disjunction. Quantum superposition - Wikipedia
Quantum mechanics does not yet give us c but we do have entanglement and spooky action at a distance at the second (energy) layer and fermionic behaviour can explain 1 dimension with 2 points, one of which is not the other. Does c come in at 2D, where it is a combination of time and two [points some distance apart which may be a fixed function of energy, connecting frequency and distance to give a c]. Then we come to basic 4-space with Dirac, particles and antiparticles,
[page 5]
giving us [massive particles] and a channel of disintegration as well as creation. The photon has no antiparticle so it can exist all alone but we require particle and antiparticle for the creation of massive particles. All fermions are massive. Perhaps the exclusion principle makes the [simultaneous] existence of particles and anti-particles [possible] as long as they stay away from one another. More sorting to be done here. Can we have a particle-antiparticle singlet state? Quantum entanglement - Wikipedia, Antiparticle - Wikipedia Photon - Wikipedia, Fermion - Wikipedia
How do we reconcile the fact that information is physical with quantum superposition, complex numbers, spooky action at a distance, particle and antiparticles and all the other features of quantum mechanics which appear to be unphysical. The mission seems to be always becoming more impossible, but on the other hand we just need enough degrees of freedom to fit everything together and we have done it. So some of the dualities we have to deal with>
fermion / boson
matter / antimatter
velocity of light / spooky action at a distance
energy / momentum = time / space
[parity
direction of time]
So it is just a matter of putting all these things in order of emergence, subject to the proviso that lower layers are capable of existing in their own right before they become components of a more complex system [and things are tuned by natural selection, competing for space-time energy-momentum].
A watched computer never halts because the only way it can be watched is by [communicating] itself and all the processing required to watch itself [must also be watched so that the task] grows exponentially and it has no time to progress its main job and so it never finishes ie halts [as the universe never halts, we think/hope, ie self reference is infinite].
A quantum observation models the interaction of two or more particles which must be a photon [boson] and two or more electrons [fermions].
[page 6]
So we are back to our "diron". And what about the other fields, gravitation, strong and weak? Gravitation was always with us but how did weak and strong emerge? Let us assume electromagnetism is next after gravitation. The data are there, it is just the explanation that is up for grabs, and QED seems to be pretty close, even if the model is dodgy. More Peacock. Notes 18 April 15: diron, Peacock: Cosmological Physics
Peacock page 154: Bell's theorem Bell's theorem - Wikipedia
Peacock page 155: Photon has spin 1 (boson) (polarization) so conservation of action means absorption / emission of a photon can flip the spin of an electron. Let us opt for spooky action at a distance for Bell, ie the assumption that quantum mechanics predates space-time and c. Gabriel Popkin: Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance' spotted in objects almost big enough to see
Electron has mass / energy and therefore internal process, and yet from spatial point of view it is a point, in space-time a timelike geodesic with no width. [If existence of space requires simultaneous existence of p and not-p then if electron is internally consistent it should have no size.]
Monday 26 November
Peacock page 156: ' [Wave function] is deterministic and time-reversible (the evolution of ψ is described by Schrödinger's equation) except at the moment of observation, when an irreversible change is introduced into the system.' This is the creative moment where possibility, represented by a mathematical text, becomes actual. Maybe this is a universal principle, that formalism [fixed point] is the representation of potential, so that this [fixed] text becomes actual when you read (observe) it[page 7]
and some newly created representation of it becomes actual in your mind. This is my foundation for the statement that communication is creation.
Peacock page 157: Formalisms (potentials) only become operative when they are observed. So this sentence may sit unobserved in this closed book, like Schrödinger's cat, until someone opens the book, reads it and causes changed in their mental state which run from photoreceptors in the retina to synapses in the visual systems and in those parts of the brain which extract the meaning from these written symbols.
Peacock page 158: 'Dirac's approach was to insist that one should have a wave equation that, while still relativistic, was linear in time; relativity then requires that it should be linear in spatial derivatives also, and we are inevitably led to the general form Hψ = iℏψ, H = c(α.p + βmc2) where α and β are vector and scalar constants. Inserting this Hamiltonian into the relativistic energy-momentum relation [E2 = pc2 + (mc2)2] gives the following conditions for consistency: β2 = 1; {β, αi} = 0, {αi, αj} = 2δij.
page 177: Peacock Quantum mechanics of light.
Following Genesis, we begin the creation with 'let there be light' and relate it to the development of space-time, energy and momentum. Once we have light, we will assume that photons can transform into all the other fundamental particles from which we are built. This will at least serve as a working hypothesis for this essay which is not so much an essay on fundamental physics as fundamental theology, relating the current universe to the traditional God. 20: On leading theology into Cantor's Paradise
[page 8]
The classical theory of light begins with Maxwells equations which inspired Einstein's discovery of special relativity. We begin with the idea that light is the first manifestation fo space-time consequent upon the Planck-Einstein equation in its quantum mechanical formulation which we take to be the formal expression of the electromagnetic (four) potential from which the electromagnetic field can be derived. Can we see this as a 2, 3-potential? or does the whole of 4-space have to emerge at once? We begin with E = hf and expand to Schrödinger.
William James: Bodies don't lie. William James: Psychology: The Briefer Course
Tuesday 27 November 2018
How do we account for the vast difference in coupling constants between the various forces beginning with gravitation vs electromagnetism? Something to do with algorithmic efficiency [electromagnetism about 1040 times stronger].
How do we get a photon out of a 2D version of the electromagnetic 4-potential? Electromagnetic four-potential - Wikipedia
Wednesday 28 November 2018
I am trying to solve many problems with the origin of the universe that do not seem to be on the radar of cosmologists and physicists. The principal issue for me is why are there so many particles and what is their relationship to one another since I am inclined to assume that they are all descended from the
[page 9]
same initial 'particle' and therefore all entangled with one another. Quantum field theory predicts a load of fields whose consistent existence is very hard to understand and assumes the existence of a fixed amount of conserved energy which is swapped around between various modes of various fields to give us the world we observe but a lot of it does not make any sense to me. I am inclined to think in terms of particles rather than fields, so I am on the bad side of fashion, but if information is to be physical it seems to me to have to be embodied in particles and not on the violent maelstrom of activity which the high energy physics community postulates to exist at the foundation of the world. So I go on, sceptical of all the computations that work so well, wondering if there is every any possibility of understanding the meaning of it all.
There has got to be something big that I am missing, like what has spooky action at a distance got to do with null geodesics? Does calculus apply throughout the unobservable world of potential, but not in the observable world of particles, quanta, etc? All of physics conceives the coupling between observables in terms of continuity because it is so hard to imagine it otherwise, continuous changes are so much more intuitive than step functions yet all we see are step functions of one sort or another, discrete bricks imperceptibly joined by continuous mortar. At every moment I think my whole theological effort is a useless waste of time while not being able to let it go because the very existence of the Dirac delta and its analogue convinces me of the rightness of the digital approach, not to mention the mathematical theory of communication which is itself worked out in the continuous world of function space while proving to us that error free real communication must be digitized / packetized /containerized just like the post office. Dirac delta function - Wikipedia
Writing = calculating = working in the potential realm.
[page 10]
We can solve the cosmological constant problem by recognizing that the energy of field is purely potential or formal and so does not have the reality of energy existing as a particle. So read Auyang again with this in mind and write up an article linking potential / form to actual / kinetic. Auyang: How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?
One rarely expects philosophical speculations to have physical consequences, but perhaps this new ansatz with respect to energy and form may solve a load of problems, eg continuous mathematics is formally continuous but cannot be realized except symbolically in books like Hille. Hille: Analytic Function Theory
This is a day that the Lord has made. I think I have cracked something and built a bridge from Platonism to reality, ie kickability [Auyang page 75]. Psalm 118:24
Memories of My Melancholy Whores Jonathan Holland: Variety Review
So now have to rewrite e20_paradise with this idea in mind which enables me to incorporate the transfinite numbers into my description of the physical universe without any of the problems that have been bugging me ever since I wanted to use Cantor as my foundation, about 1984 and the Theory of Peace. A Theory of Peace
. . .
So now the question becomes what is the relationship between
[page 11]
mathematical formalism and spooky action at a distance. The answer must be that entablement predates the emergence of space-time.
We see feedback between action and form, as between mathematicians and mathematics. So information is physical in the sense that it requires physical representation to exist. So my formal structure (aka soul) will cease to exist when my physical representation ceases to exist.
Life is sad if you do not have a dream to keep you going.
Now I understand renormalization, cutting the consistent but infinite calculus of fields back to the finite size of particles by introducing actual particle properties into the mix.
Thursday 29 November 2018
Yesterday's brilliant idea looks a bit dull today. The main thing is to keep having them.
What is this sinking feeling about? My body has perceived some difficulty which is not yet conscious? What can it be? Just wait. Like a diffuse pain, it might go away. It might materialize into something definite, coming out of the mist and taking a definite shape. Mourning for a lost past is corrected by hope for the future.
Einstein's Essays in Science Einstein
Einstein page 27: Kepler: 'It seems that the human mind has first to construct forms independently before we can find them in things. Kepler's marvellous achievement is a particularly fine example of the truth that knowledge cannot spring from evidence alone but only from the comparison of the inventions of the intellect with observed fact.'
[page 12]
Einstein page 30: Newton: 'The differential law is the only form which completely satisfies the modern physicist's demand for causality' Causality by continuity, a form of logic [but just putting discrete points close to one another, as in taking a limit, does not establish causality].
page 31: 'It was only by considering what takes place during an infinitesimally short time (the differential law) that Newton reached a formula that applies to all motion whatsoever.' <.p>
'The connection of force and acceleration was only made possible for him by the introduction of the new concept of mass.'
page 32: 'The logical completeness of Newton's conceptual system lay in this, that the only things that figure as causes of the acceleration of masses of a system are those masses themselves.'
page 34: [Newton] is aware that space must possess a kind of physical reality if the laws of motion are to have any meaning, a reality of the same sort as the material points and intervals between them.'
page 38: 'In a more formal sense also Newton's mechanics prepared the way for the field theory. The application of Newton's mechanics to continuously distributed masses led inevitably to the discovery and application of partial differential equations, which in their turn provided the language for the laws of field theory.
page 40: Maxwell 'The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural
[page 13]
science.' For Einstein, anyway.
'We must always be ready to change . . . the axiomatic substructure of physics in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most logically perfect way.'
Newton and the classics conceived the world as a set of material points, 'dust'.
What makes an electron an electron? zero size (?),mass, charge, spin
Einstein page 42: Newton used total differential equations - then partial differential equations [emerged] to deal with with distributed quantities like mass, charge, probability density, vibrations in the ether etc.
page 43: Faraday,Maxwell and Hertz.
Maxwell made several [intellectual constructions] . . . and took none of them seriously, so that the equations alone appeared as the essential things and the strengths of the fields as the ultimate entities, not to be reduced to anything else.
page 44: 'After [Maxwell] people conceived physical reality as continuous fields not mechanically explicable, which are subject to partial differential equations. This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and fruitful that has come to physics yet; but it has at the same time to be admitted that the program has by no means been completely carried out yet.'
page 45: Maxwellian description: 'the description of physical reality
[page 14]
in terms of fields which satisfy partial differential equations without singularities.
Page 46: Niels Bohr.
page 48: On the Theory of Relativity
'the abandonment of a certain concept connected with space, time and motion hitherto treated as fundamental must not be regarded as arbitrary, but only as conditioned by the observed facts.'
page 49: 'each inertial system being given its own special time' from the point of view of other inertial systems.
page 51: 'The process of development here sketched strips space-time coordinates of all independent reality.'
page 52: 'In my opinion the general theory of relativity can only solve [the problem of space] if it regards the world as spatially self enclosed. The mathematical results of the theory force one to this view if one believes that the mean density of ponderable matter in the world possesses some ultimate value, however small.'
If mass energy is positive, potential energy must be negative [maybe in some way related to time going backwards, particles, anti-particles and time reversal.]
page 53 What is the Theory of Relativity (The Times). Einstein thanks UK for verifying General Relativity. Albert Einstein 1919: What is the Theory of Relativity?
[page 15]
Einstein page 54: 'The advantages of constructive [reductive] theory are completeness, adaptability and clearness, those of the principled theory are logical perfection and security of foundations.'
page 55: Motion is relative to a reference body. ('mollusc')
page 56: Reconcile inertial motion and constant velocity of light in every inertial frame.
page 57: E = mc2, ie inertia is proportional to energy content.
page 59: 'The chief attraction of the theory is its logical completeness. If a single one of the conclusions drawn from it proves wrong, it must be given up; to modify it without destroying the whole structure seems impossible.
At this level of abstraction [simplicity] potential (form) and action (reality) are identical? [maybe the vast difference between the strength of gravitation and electromagnetism relates to the energy associated with the formal structure?]
page 64: [Space as a continuum] was first introduced by Descartes'. More likely Aristotle, who defined space and continuity. John L. Bell (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
page 65: 'In the Cartesian treatment . . . all surfaces are in principle equally represented, without any arbitrary preference for linear figures in the construction of geometry.
page 66: 'Newton's acceleration is only thinkable or definable in relation to space as a whole. Thus to the geometric reality of the concept of space a new inertia-determining function of space was added.'
[page 16]
Einstein page 67: 'Space is filled by the ether in which the material corpuscles or atoms of ponderable matter swim.'
page 68: Riemann deprived space of its rigidity and recognized its power to take part in physical events.
page 69: The four dimensional space of the special theory is just as rigid and absolute as Newtons space.
page 71: Only those equations are admissible as an expression of natural laws which do not change their form when the coordinates are changed by means of a Lorentz transformation (co-variance of equations in relation to Lorentz transformation).
page 73: 'On physical grounds . . . the metrical field is the gravitational field.'
Electromagnetic field had to be introduced into the theory as an entity independent of gravitation . . . the idea that there were two structures of space independent of eachother . . . was intolerable to the theoetical spirit.
page 74: 'unitary field theory' - now space is full of fields - 24+ [and it is not easy to understand how they are differentiated from one another].
Then he goes on to define the unitary field theory. I prefer networks.
. . .
[page 17]
A network is its own reference frame.
Einstein page 98: Relativity and the Ether.
page 101: Can we make a network interpretation of Maxwell's equations? The electric field tensor? The electromagnetic 4-potential?
So the idea is that the fixed points are the potentials that shape the dynamics and the fixed particles are like the engine block [that shapes the internal motions of the engine]. These words are an expression of my mental dynamics ad can shape the dynamics of the reader's mind which are physiologically shaped by the wiring of the brain and the states of the synapses. The network is a place to store all the structure, moving things from store to store, the moving packets are stores. The stored energy in the particles drives the dynamics of the process, as the value of the notes in my pocket drives my shopping. We are trying to develop an analogy between macroscopic shopping and microscopic quantum field theory via networks, quantum or trade [always bearing in mind symmetry with respect to complexity].
The power of the text lies in its meaning which is built up through the layers beneath the text. A text is a field. So hard to separate everything out at the macroscopic level of complexity in order to generate the analogical coupling across the layers of complexity looking for clarity.
From script to movie, from potential to action
Friday 30 November 2018
I am learning that there is no limit to the cruelty of righteous gossips.
[page 18]
Saturday 1 December 2018
Do the ontological consequences of the uncertainty principle extend to zero point energy and the cosmological constant?
Looking for a course: The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, maybe a title for honours thesis.
Are forms active or passive? Plato's forms played some role in the structure of the world but the story of the cave suggests that they were not very effective. Aristotle brought some of Plato's forms down to earth and gave them a role in making thing be what they are, as the form of a sword embodies in bronze makes a sword a sword and so it is an active agent, since to be is the ultimate act. On the other hand forms as imagined by formalist mathematics are in effect completely divorced from reality insofar as we think they can be infinitely large and perfectly well defined like the transfinite cardinal and ordinal number while holding that an infinite reality cannot exist. There is some conflict here between the use of the term [infinite] to mean without boundary, so a small piece of fog may be seen as infinite although small, and the use of it to mean unboundedly large [the Cantor paradox focusses on this problem, since each larger set acts as the least upper bound of the one before it]. Reality seems to reject both these meanings of infinity in that all things that exist are definitely bounded [including texts like this about infinity], that is quantized, and also there is a limit to their size. The only exception might be the Universe which is very big and from a mathematical point of view unbounded [since it can have no formal upper bound and remain consistent.] Allegory of the cave - Wikipedia, Cantor's paradox - Wikipedia, Hallett: Cantorian Set Theory and Limitation of Size
To be is an action, so God, actus purus is the supreme being.
[page 19]
Is the universe pure act? Yes, it is always happening, but formalism tells us that there are many things that could happen that are not happening now, although they may happen in the future and may have happened in the past. Time makes the universal god much bigger than the eternal god.
Monk: Russell: Russel had a long line of wealthy and powerful forebears whose line originated when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and gave their property to his friends, a Putinesque move. Monk: Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude
Monk page 19: Bertie: 'The most important hours of my day were those I spent alone in the garden, and the most vivid part of my existence was solitary. I seldom mentioned my more serious thoughts to others and when I did I regretted it. . . . Throughout my childhood I had an increasing sense of loneliness, and of despair of ever meeting anyone with whom I could talk.
Mathematical formalism has no mind of its own and must be put into action by the mind of a mathematician or the energy of a computer, which we take to be the analogue of the function of the world, form actualized by energy [ie the rate of change, represented by the first derivative of time, ∂/∂t].
Perhaps the creation of the world might follow the lines laid out in Russell's Principia. The layered network answers my old question: what is the hardware that the Universe runs on. The ultimate answer is the initial singularity. Then we have energy, the fundamental notion of oscillating from state a to state b, each of which might have transfinite complexity, so that the same struture holds at all levels of the universe, change = energy, p → ~p = energy. Whitehead & Russell: Principia Mathematica
[page 20]
Monk page 27: Russell preface to Clifford: 'Clifford "was more than a mathematician. He was a philosopher . . . he saw all knowledge, even the most abstract, as part of the general life of mankind, and was concerned in the endeavour to make existence less petty, less superstitious and less miserable." '
See Clifford in Oppy and Scott. Oppy & Scott: Reading Philosophy of Religion
page 28: Santayana; ' "In regard to people's reputations the polite world is at once cynical and good natured. It believes the worst and acts as though nothing were amiss." '
Formalism describes the consistent paths through which energy may flow - James on the central nervous system. William James: Psychology, the Briefer Course
page 30: Russell: ' "It does give us a wonderful idea of God's greatness to think that he can in the beginning create laws which, by acting on the mass of nebulous matter . . . will produce creatures like ourselves, conscious not only of our existence but even able to fathom to a certain extent God's mysteries!" ' Collected Papers page 10 Bertrand Russell
page 34: Shelley: Lift not the painted veil. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Calculus and causality - we begin with big steps and gradually bring them down to infinitesimals but at no point do we discern a real logical causal link [so Einstein's claim that general relativity is logically complete is a bit hollow, see page 25/59 above]. With this in mind, we can turn the other way and make the general theory of relativity into a digital network. Differential calculus - Wikipedias
Writing and art on general work like Platonic forms in guiding
[page 21]
the [human] world. They are, in physical terms, potentials that have a gradient but do not automatically [deterministically] guide things on the gradient, as we see in quantum mechanics where the potential induced by observation drives the outcome in a probabilistic way as described by the Born Rule. Born rule - Wikipedia
Monk page 68: Pollock: ' "Spinoza considered religion as something very real in a man's life . . . The essence of religion in Spinoza's mind is a cheerful and willing cooperation with the order of the world as manifested in the nature of man and society." ' Sir Frederick Pollock: Spinoza, His Life and Philosophy, page 69. Pollock
Monk page 115: 'If . . . reality is indivisible, it follows immediately that analysis is an invalid procedure, that, indeed, analysis is always a falsification.'
page 116: Whitehead: Mathematics is the study of all types of formal, necessary, deductive reasoning.
page 117: Moore: 'The Nature of Judgement', Mind January 1899. A proposition is a synthesis of concepts. Concepts are the building blocks of the world. Snippets of code?
Logic ≡ metaphysics
page 119; Russell: ' "That all sound philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions is a truth too evident, perhaps, to demand a proof." ' Proposition = binding of concepts.
page 121: ' "the desire by which I regulate my life — is a purely self-centered desire for the intellectual satisfaction about the things that puzzle me." ' For Aquinas the vision of God is the answer to all questions [and now that we have made the universe divine, the answers are all there if we can find them].
[page 22]
There is really no need to be depressed and melancholy so why bother. I have high ambitions and plenty of energy so I may as well just plough on. All my life I have felt as though I am making progress and I am happy with that. Reading the biography of Bertie Russel is a bit depressing because he seems to spend so much time feeling sorry for himself and blaming it on others. Another Mr Trump.
As in quantum field theory a form becomes a being (particle) when it is energized. Everything moves when it is energized, like a car [tautological really, energy ≡ motion].
