Notes
Sunday 22 January - Saturday 28 January 2923
[Notebook: DB 88 Salvation]
[page 252]
Sunday 22 January 2023
Emily Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights, Emily (2022 film) - Wikipedia
Monday 23 January 2023
Tuesday 24 January 2023
A symmetry is a set of indistinguishable events like the rotations of an unmarked wheel, the spin of an unmarked coin or the roll of an unmarked die. Symmetries are broken by adding information to distinguish otherwise undistinguished states. Information is physical. Symmetry - Wikipedia, Rolf Landauer (1999): Information is a Physical Entity
The conservation of energy means that if we can only measure the energy of a conservative system, we see no change [as time goes by]. If we look at a coal fired power station from the point of view of energy, we see nothing happening despite all the movements or coal, water and electricity.
Act = god is the basic symmetry present
[page 253]
everywhere and always. Act applies to space and time, to mind and matter, to thought and work, to everything, the complete symmetry. What is the physical consequence, analogous to conservation of energy. Conservation of what? Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, Emmy Noether & Daniel Berlyne: Ideal Theory in Rings (Translation of "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" by Emmy Noether)
Conservation of action.
The basic symmetry of action is quantization which gives it the means to transmit information. This is the conservation that corresponds to action. How do we explain it in terms of closure and angular momentum and conplex numbers?
So quantization [and communication] is like walking, a series of complex operations that can stop at any moment with closure, an orbit or cycle. Closely related to quantum theory and information theory, matter and mind.
We are inclined to think of God as immense and infinite but there is no inconsistency between the traditional god and the quantum of action, closed and self conscious orbits physically identical to angular momentum
Action is conserved and transmitted in all communications in the universe. It appears in spacetime in three ways, as angular momentum, associated with space-momentum and energy-time in each case with the classical dimensions ML
Wednesday 25 January 2023
The Aristotelian concept of action reached its high point in the theological definition of God, but played no role in the subsequent development of science which grew independently of theology which was eliminated from mainstream intellectual development by institutional inquisitions and wars provoked by theological differences [Drake documents Galileo's lifelong difficulties with the Catholic Church]. The term reappeared, however, with the Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian mechanics and went on to become central to quantum mechanics through Planck's quantum of action and the work of Dirac and Feynman which led to the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics alongside the wave and matrix formulations. Stillman Drake (1995): Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, P. A. M. Dirac (1933): The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics, Feynman & Hibbs (1965): Feynman (1965)
I have often wondered about the ancient and modern meanings of act and the issue has come to a head now that I am trying to produce a concise summary of cognitive cosmology as an introduction to Lust for Life [Cognitive Cosmology: This site introduces the divine mind: the universe that empowers us to create ourselves]. .
Rovelli page 125: Spacetime is quantum. My answer: The Universe exists inside a system of pure action which is unquantized [and identical to the traditional God of Aristotle and Aquinas]. Within it fixed points are forced into existence. Rewrite Cognitive cosmology page 22: Gravitation and quantum theory—in the beginning and send it to him to be interpreted in the light of the rest of cognitive cosmology [part of critique of Rovelli (2017), to be included on cognitive cosmology page: cc00_rovelli.html ]. Carlo Rovelli (2017): Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, Aquinas, Summa, I, 3, 7: Is God altogether simple?
Rovelli page 125: His scenario: 'In the morning the world is curved space-time where everything is continuous. In the afternoon the world is a flat one where discrete quanta overlap and interact.'
Point 1: The need for contact in quantum interactions defines the metric of Minkowski space [Cognitive cosmology page 12, link above].Point 2: The initial singularity is not quantized [so gravitation is continuous and carries no data, like god] but the action of action is to act and as soon as the initial singularity acts it creates a quantum of action within itself, the passage from 0 to 1 dimensional Hilbert space.
Rovelli page 126: Gravitation is a physical field. Fields are quantized: 'It follows that space and time must also be quantum entities possessing these strange properties.' But see point 2: Minkowski spacetime is necessary for quantum theory to work by contact. It is in effect the cause of quantum mechanics which obeys Shannon's theory to become quantized, ie packetized [orthogonal symbols] for error free communication (see Cognitive cosmology page 11: Quantization: the mathematical theory of communication).
What is quantum space? What is quantum time? They are in effect Minkowski space, the tangent space of Einstein's differentiable manifold.
page 127: Progress comes from reconciling irreconcilables.
page 128: Matvei Bronstein Matvei Petrovoch Bronstein - Wikipedia
page 130: Minimal spatial distance Lp = √(hG/c3 [1.6 x 10-35 metre; corresponding momentum Δp = h/ (1.6 x 10-35) = (6.6 x 10-34) / (1.6 x 10-35) = 40 kilogram metre per second, a huge value for an elementary particle]. This calculation
[page 256]
assumes that the uncertainty principle creates [momentum] which seems to be a serious problem associated with the quantum vacuum leading to [the need for renormalization] and the cosmological constant problem. Planck units - Wikipedia, Renormalization - Wikipedia, Cosmological constant problem - Wikipedia
Point 3: Quantum mechanics is prior to spacetime and formal so that the uncertainty principle is a kinetic rather than a dynamic principle, it does not create energy or black holes at the Planck length (see Cognitive cosmology page 13: Is Hilbert space independent of Minkowski space?).
Point 4: General covariance as understood by Einstein does not apply to quantum mechanics because all quantum entities are personalities and must communicate to be observed. We can interpolate from human behaviour to quantum behaviour using the principle of symmetry with resect to complexity (see Cognitive cosmology page 14: Measurement: the interface between Hilbert and Minkowski spaces).
Tennis: Two sources in competition [conversing] each with quasi-infinite spectrum.
Thursday 26 January 2023
Rovelli's book Reality is Not What it Seems has finally convinced me that the search for quantum gravitation is a wild goose chase. Rovelli makes the point that often in physics progress comes from reconciling two apparently disparate dogmas. In theology these dogmas are implicit in the idea that God is not the Universe,
[page 257]
My site cognitive cosmology is intended to show that the opposite is the case: given that the universe is divine, physics and theology must be mutually compatible. The root of the idea is that the quantum initial singularity is identical to the God of Aquinas, omnino simplex, [actus purus] and the [eternal] creator of the world. What I am now [hoping] to write is a summary of cogntive cosmology which will be a preface to Lust for Life and which I will call Dear Prof Rovelli. DPRovelli. The backbone of this page will be the Table of Contents of CC, an abstract of each page of cogntive cosmology, each page being treated as a new principle of theology. These notes are a critique of Rovelli's book, which will serve as the terminus a quo for the task outlined above.
Rovelli page 132: John Wheeler, 't Hooft and Veltman John Archibald Wheeler - Wikipedia, Gerard 't Hooft - Wikipedia, Martinus J G Veltman - Wikipedia
page 133: Chris Isham Christopher Isham - Wikipedia
page 134: 'Wheeler was at the heart of physics in the 20th century.' Bryce DeWitt. Bryce DeWitt - Wikipedia
page 135: De Witt: "a wave function of space" → 'equation of orbitals'. The Wheeler-De Witt equation, a modification of Hamilton-Jacoby. Does not contain a time variabe. Wheeler-DeWitt equation - Wikipedia, Hamilon-Jacobi Equation - Wikipedia
page 136: 'loop quantum gravity'. Rovelli prefers this to string theory. Page 137 note.
[page 258]
Rovelli page 139: Pullin & Lewandowski: Nodes and Links = graph, network
page 140: 'The gravitational field is a physical quantity and all physical quantities are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.' Two problems: gravitation exists in spacetime, so at best we are talking about spacetime volumes that have nothing to do, per se, with quantum mechanics. Also Wheeler-DeWitt equation does not include time variable (page 125) so?
pagees 142-143: So much crap, given the length scale Lp the momentum must be huge (see page 130), multiplied by the number of quanta of space to make a universe. All this derived from an . . . equation (Wheeler-DeWitt) which is not written out and so probably non-existent - see Wiki [ref above], yet says space is dynamic [ie function of time by definition].page 144: 'In a room more than E100 'grains of space'. Keeps saying the same falsehood: 'It follows that space, being a field, is made of quanta as well [no, space is gravitation, as god is, structureless, not yet quantized: fixed quanta fixed points are in space, which is continuous, convex and compact and so subject to fixed point theory].
page 145: 'atoms of space' a billion billion times smaller than the smallest of atomic nuclei [proton diameter 2E-15 metre, Planck length 2E-35, difference E20 ish]. Proton - Wikipedia
page 146: Demacritus says matter 'atoms'. Rovelli decries Democritus' continuous space.
page 147: Spin networks: here he is getting close to the quantum computer because every message carries a quantum of action, ie a quantum of spin, a quantum of angular momentum [eg photon].
[page 259]
page 148: 'photons exist in space, whereas quanta of gravity constitute space themselves' [I would prefer to say that photons are intrinsic to space, creating contact communications through the Minkowski metric, see page 12 above: quantum creation of Minkowski space]. note: 'The quantum number of the states of photons in Fock's space is the momentum, Fourier's transformation of position. [Planck time Pt is 5E-44 sec, so frequency of photon with Planck momentum is about 1 / Pt = 2E43 sec-1]
page 149; 'loop', orbit, group, structure, particle. Note here Einstein's mistake with general covariance with respect to quantum sources (personalities) does not apply to gravitation since it is structureless, no observers (quanta observe one another through their spectra]. 'At an extremely small scale, space is a fluctuating swarm of quanta of gravity which act upon each other' How? Massless gravitons, 4D photons?
page 150: 'Physical space is a fabric resulting from the ceaseless swarming of this web of relations. These relations must work by contact. He [never mentions gravitons].
page 151: Time does not exist.
' Things (quanta) do not inhabit space, they dwell over one another [superposition?] and space is the fabric of their neighbouring relations' [no bosons, just disembodied 'relations'?].
page 152: 'Time emerges, like space, from the quantum gravity field' [where did Minkowski go?]. We would say, in the zero energy universe that gravitation is the structureless potential created by [the] zero sum bifurcation that creates physical quanta. No time in Wheeler-DeWitt consistent with divine quantum gravitation - no space either, just Hilbert formalism, see all the whinging by Omnes - silly as Rovelli. Roland Omnes (2002): Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science
[page 260]
Ie Hilbert space is a formal description of potential, like music to which we can all give our own meaning.
Rovelli page 153: Gravitational time dilation - high gravitational potential slows time. 'every object in the universe has its own time running at a pace determined by the local gravitational field'? We do not see time on a photon, ie from an observer's point of view a photon experiences no time. Source and sink of photon are the same point in Minkowski space.
page 155: Galileo: S = ½at2
page 156: G timing chandelier with pulse, ie we can compare times.
page 157: 'In other words the existence of variable times is useful assumption not the result of an observation.' Crap, comparing times, distances and masses is a matter of comparison in three dimensions, T, L, M.
page 158: 'We must learn to think of the world not as something that changes in time, but in some other way.' So how do we get around Aristotle: 'Tempus est numerus motus secundum prius et posterius'. How stupid can this man get, rather like Trump trying to find suitable special pleadings to prove that his election defeat did not happen.
[page 261]
Rovelli page 160: space-time box : 'The box is not in spacetime, it includes spacetime. We have to consider the whole box and the process within it. Now back to Heisenberg's street lights.
page 161: Feynman's path integral. 'Quantum mechanics assumes that between the initial boundary, where the two balls enter and the final boundary, where they exit, there is no definite spacetime nor definite trajectory of the balls.' Nevertheless there is some causality or the claim to be able to compute something would be worthless and all this palava is meant to be finding come fundamental relationship between initial and final states expressed as a spectrum of eigenvalues.
Quantum network is a spin network, communication by quanta of angular momentum, ie logical operators whose simplest example is not
page 162: 'spinfoam'. 'The equations of loop quantum gravity express the probability of a process in terms of sums over spinfoams with given boundaries. All this is going on at the Planck length and corresponding enormous momentum or Planck time and corresponding enormous energy, ie it is all bullshit. Give me cognitive cosmology any day. It may be time to stop being hypothetical and begin to fight for a model.
page 163: 'spinfoam technique is actually a beautiful merging of the two main calculation techniques used n the context of the standard model: Feynman diagrams and the lattice approximation. Creutz Michael Creutz (1983): Quarks Gluons and Lattices
[page 262]
Lattice approximates continuous space with a discrete lattice. But did we not ditch continuous space quite a few pages back. See note page 165. I've heard more plausible used horse salespersons.
Rovelli page 166: 'loop quantum T Shirt'. What happened to the heuristic of simplicity?
page 167: What is the world made of? 'The world is made entirely of quantum fields.' How do these embody the T Shirt equations? 'Fields that live on themselves', maybe Hilbert spaces' - 'all of this is nothing but the manifestation of a single type of entity - covariant quantum fields.' We note here that covariance fails in quantum mechanics because one must act to be observed. Here we invoke personality and invariance with respect to complexity.
page 168; Heisenberg, Anaximander.
page 149; ' The same mathematics coherently describes the quantum gravitational fields as other quantum fields' So where are the results? We are all now living happily ever after in a new world of impossible fantasy.
page 170: 'Infinity disappears' even though it only ever existed as a mathematical ideal.
[page 263]
Elements. Rosza Peter Rosza Peter (1961): Playing with Infinity: Mathematical Explorations and Excursions
Rovelli page 175: Beyond the Big Bang
page 177: Big bang proves the creation of Genesis?
page 178: ' The universe, in a far distant past, was extremely hot and compact. This is impossible, so we go with the eternal [quantum] divine universe [which implies, if gravitation is divine, that gravitation exists outside space and time?].
page 179; Quantum cosmology - all we need is that the action of action is to act [like a budding plant] plus consistency [in selection].
page 180: The Big Bounce. Where did all the entropy come from? Where did it go?
page 183: Empirical confirmations.
Friday 27 January 2023Rovelli page 185: The 'experimental data' for quantum gravity are general relativity and quantum mechanics.' General relativity is a mathematically continuous theory and therefore carries no information. All the entropy (information) lies in the discrete elements of quantum mechanics. We couple this with the heuristic of simplicity [, the need of 3D to have uninterrupted connection] and symmetry with respect to complexity to lay the foundations of a physical theology based on the god of Aquinas and the procession [budding] of divinities found in the Trinity.
[page 264]
Rovelli page 186: String theory - no supersymmetry
page 187: Higgs, cosmc background, gravitational waves (4D)
page 189: Rovelli does not like arbitrary hypothesed (no mention of evolution). 'our fantasy is too limited'.page 191: Ashtekar, Agullo, Nelson re spectrum of cosmic background.
page 193: Cosmic gravitational background radiation.
page 195; quantum black holes: [all elements of Planck length / frequency are black holes, so all we are doing is creating more black holes, no space until they evaporate]
page 198: Hot surfce of back hole quanta of space, whose momentum, energy and temperature is a function of 1/Lp ! 'In the world of quantum mechanics everything vibrates, nothing stops still. The impssibility of anything being entirely and continuously in a place is a the heart of quantum mechanics.' ?
page 199; Eugenio Bianchi calculated the temperature of black hole. How does photon escape?
page 200: Black holes explode by quantum bounce?
page 202; The End of Infinity - 'There is no lower limit to the divisibility [resolution] of space'. Infinity, divergence and renormalizastion. Probably made even worse by the implications of Planck length and time.
[page 265]
Rovelli: page 209 informstion - Shannon.
page 213: ' The world . . . is . . . a network of correlations between sets of atoms.'
page 214: Boltzmann. Page 215: 'The total amount of entropy can only increase because informsationc an only diminish,' But information is proportional to entropy.
page 216: 'Quantum mechanics can be understood as the discovery that information in nature is always finite.' Tell that to von Neumanm.
page 218: Bekenstein on entropy of black holes. Page 219: 'Where does the information that has fallen into the black hole as the black hole shrinks end up?'
page 219: Thermal time: He says 'Time plays no role at the fundasmental level of physics.' So what does phase mean in quantum theory? page 220: 'The origin of time may be similar to that of heat: it comes from the averages of many microscopic variables.'
page 221: Heat (he means entropy) distinguishes past from future. Gravitation transmits energy but not information (lunar orbit [and tides]).
page 222: 'Heat produces time 'Time is information we don't have. Time is our ignoranc,' You wish. What is bandwidth?
page 223: Reality and information
[page 266]
Rovelli page 224; He has a lot to say about information and relations but nothing to say about communication, as though relations just happen without the contact necessary to transfer information.
page 228; 'Am I sure of all this. I am not.'
page 230; We do now know 'which equations truly describe the world.' Why should any equations describe the world? [maybe Omnes is right, equations are no help.] What is more likely to describe the world is artificial intelligence [evolution]
page 231: 'it is not science which is disturbed by religion; there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.
Saturday 28 January 2023
So where does Rovelli's story leave us? Mired in a load of contradictions whose source seems to be an absurd misuse of mathematics arising from the notion that spacetime is the foundation of the universe. . . . Reality it is just one of the early products of quantum computation which is the foundation of evolution which has only one constraint: survival. . . . What we get from this is the weird and wonderful world of species which includes as a subset various mathematical proofs
[page 267]
and results. So tomorrow we begin, like Aristotle, to criticize the predecessors and lay down the truth as the standard by which we demolish falsehoods, the most fundamental of which is the ludicrous idea of quantum gravitation [?].