FQXi grant awardee abstracts (novel time ideas)

[Fra]

But that kind of realism is unavoidable, these are the limitations of a symbolic language and we shall never overcome it.

No it's not unavoidable, then we aren't talking about the same thing.

It is a choice you make, to think it's unavoidable, or try to see how you could do without that assumption.

An implication of my view is that even the language needs to evolve. You can't have a fixed language or fixed logical system, and expect that to last forever.

This is why ultimately the logical system itself evolves, and this generally unpredictable. This is unavoidable, but we can make the choice to think that there exists a static formal system which can encode what I am looking for. I am certain there is not. This is also why we need not only new mathematics, but probably even close to a new logical inference system.

/Fredrik

 

[Careful]

This is why ultimately the logical system itself evolves, and this generally unpredictable. This is unavoidable, but we can make the choice to think that there exists a static formal system which can encode what I am looking for. I am certain there is not. This is also why we need not only new mathematics, but probably even close to a new logical inference system.

/Fredrik

That is what I meant of course; there exists no language in which to describe the change of ''language'' in physical/logical laws. Change of the laws are moments of irrational creation which can not be ''predicted'' (in the stochastic or deterministic sense) at all.

 

[Fra]

That is what I meant of course; there exists no language in which to describe the change of ''language'' in physical/logical laws. Change of the laws are moments of irrational creation which can not be ''predicted'' (in the stochastic or deterministic sense) at all.

It may seem like we agree but I sense that we have different views:

You say "there exists no language in which..." while I say "there exists no STATIC language ...".

This also relate to things that need work, but my claim is that because there is no static objective language doesn't mean there is no language at all.

I think each observer has some limit beyond which things are simply truly undecidable at any moment. But a complex observer can possibly predict and produce expectations of how another observer evolves it's capabilities. This I believe is predictable.

I think the mere insight that the action of any physical systems is constrained by some horizon of undecidability is a key to understanding the origin and diversity of interactions.

I think of unification of forces this way: the smaller and less complex the observer (physical processing agent) is, the simpler is it's action. At some point a generic prediction is that the diversity of interactions aren't distinguishable, simply because the information processing agents participating in the interactions are unable to "formulate and represent" this complex things. An interesting "scaling" of this appears as one scales up the complexit of the observers (~ energy scale of observer, not the probing energy). New interactions emerge in a way analogous to development of the language of the internal players.

Here I am crazy enough to be convinced that predictions can be made. However, the situation is completely different for cosmological scale theories, and here the undecidability becomes more obvious. Somehow it would be a generalization of some kind of theory scaling where, when you put aggregtes of simple blocks following simple laws (the unified interaction) the larger systems spontaneously start to break this simplicity and diversity is formed.

A larger observer, that can encode large amunts of such inforamtion, of systems of smaller systems, can thus predict how a original interaction breaks up into varieties.

What I've done is trie to identify abstractions of the simplest starting points, and they try to map what happens to rational action when the systems complexity increases. But one also has to somehow explain the complexity aggregation as well, connecting to mass generation. I just feel that to start with the regular classical lagrangians and the continuum field theory stuff is missing the whole point already at square one. The continuum itself is nontrivial and it seems very superficial to bypass a more careful introdcuton of counting systems.

/Fredrik

 

[Careful]

You say "there exists no language in which..." while I say "there exists no STATIC language ...".

You make a logical error here: the ''ultimate'' language is always static, a language does not allow for real creation. So therefore a theory of everything will not exist.

This also relate to things that need work, but my claim is that because there is no static objective language doesn't mean there is no language at all.

There is a language, but it is not a well defined one as true languages are.

I think each observer has some limit beyond which things are simply truly undecidable at any moment. But a complex observer can possibly predict and produce expectations of how another observer evolves it's capabilities. This I believe is predictable.

No, it is not. This may work for elementary particles on reasonable timescale but it is never going to work for humans.

Careful

 

[Fra]

You make a logical error here: the ''ultimate'' language is always static, a language does not allow for real creation. So therefore a theory of everything will not exist.


There is a language, but it is not a well defined one as true languages are.


No, it is not. This may work for elementary particles on reasonable timescale but it is never going to work for humans.

Careful

I am not seeking a static theory of everything, I am seeking to understand evolution of physical law, and how it's coded and related to the microstructure of matter, and how thus further encodes the physical interactions we know.

So I agree that such a static TOE won't exists; that doesn't mean I can't acquire and excellent but still of course incomplete knowledge of how this evolution of theory works. This is my quest.

This does work, but not for too complex system, and the reason is clear. But there is not cut limit, there is a sliding scale from strong predictivity to complete undecidability. This scale is an important scale to consider in the abstraction.

It's known from single cell and bacterial systems that understanding of the evolutionary mechanism can really provide predictions that deterministic models can not. Due to computational complexity, as well as sensitivity of initial conditions (deterministic chaos) it's de facto impossible to write down chemical dynamics equations from the chemistry in a cell and predict how it's gene expressison and regulation evolve as dynamical entitires. However, just defining a state space based on known genes, and chemicaal pathways, without detailed knowneldge of the actual regulatory mechanisms, one can try to optimise certain life functions such as growht rateetc and find a prediction. I recall reading an interesting paper long time ago when I studied yeast cells where this was confirmed in an experiment with cultures of I think E coli bacteria. One observer transient disagreements, but once the culture equilibrated in the new environment, the prediction based on pathway ang gene expression expectations was really close. The ideas is that the overall goal is used as a shortcut, then the assumption is that "nature will find a way", and after equilibratrion it did.

Similarly the way to understand and predict humans to the limited extent possible, it's for the same reason impossible to set up the differential chemical euqations of a human, instead we know the action space of a human, we assume rationality and then we get close. We don't get dead on, but fortunately beeind dead on is not necessary at all.

I am seeking to apply similar reasoning to physics. Once you have a "DNA" of physical or it's equivalent, predictions can be made in the same manner. But even this DNA is evolving, just like in biology, so each level has it's own predictive scheme. The only think that's not possible is to cover all scales. We happened to live at a certain scale, and it's around this we pose questions and learn about our environment. That's good enough for me.

/Fredrik

 

[PAllen]

I don't know. Didn't Hilbert discover relativity around the same time ? What was the interaction between those two men ?

Careful

Einstein presented his developing GR ideas to Hilbert in several long visits, and they had extensive correspondence. Hibert got involved only after the main goals and approaches had been explored by Einstein.

Without Einstein, I would expect that one of the SR+gravity variants would have won out for quite a long time.

 

[Careful]

Einstein presented his developing GR ideas to Hilbert in several long visits, and they had extensive correspondence. Hibert got involved only after the main goals and approaches had been explored by Einstein.

Without Einstein, I would expect that one of the SR+gravity variants would have won out for quite a long time.

I suspected something like that, but I was not sure anymore though.

Careful

 

[Careful]

I am not seeking a static theory of everything, I am seeking to understand evolution of physical law, and how it's coded and related to the microstructure of matter, and how thus further encodes the physical interactions we know.

So I agree that such a static TOE won't exists; that doesn't mean I can't acquire and excellent but still of course incomplete knowledge of how this evolution of theory works. This is my quest.

This does work, but not for too complex system, and the reason is clear. But there is not cut limit, there is a sliding scale from strong predictivity to complete undecidability. This scale is an important scale to consider in the abstraction.

It's known from single cell and bacterial systems that understanding of the evolutionary mechanism can really provide predictions that deterministic models can not. Due to computational complexity, as well as sensitivity of initial conditions (deterministic chaos) it's de facto impossible to write down chemical dynamics equations from the chemistry in a cell and predict how it's gene expressison and regulation evolve as dynamical entitires. However, just defining a state space based on known genes, and chemicaal pathways, without detailed knowneldge of the actual regulatory mechanisms, one can try to optimise certain life functions such as growht rateetc and find a prediction. I recall reading an interesting paper long time ago when I studied yeast cells where this was confirmed in an experiment with cultures of I think E coli bacteria. One observer transient disagreements, but once the culture equilibrated in the new environment, the prediction based on pathway ang gene expression expectations was really close. The ideas is that the overall goal is used as a shortcut, then the assumption is that "nature will find a way", and after equilibratrion it did.

Similarly the way to understand and predict humans to the limited extent possible, it's for the same reason impossible to set up the differential chemical euqations of a human, instead we know the action space of a human, we assume rationality and then we get close. We don't get dead on, but fortunately beeind dead on is not necessary at all.

I am seeking to apply similar reasoning to physics. Once you have a "DNA" of physical or it's equivalent, predictions can be made in the same manner. But even this DNA is evolving, just like in biology, so each level has it's own predictive scheme. The only think that's not possible is to cover all scales. We happened to live at a certain scale, and it's around this we pose questions and learn about our environment. That's good enough for me.

/Fredrik

We more or less agree, I think my point of view is somewhat stronger than yours but this may be a matter of wording. Words are personal too and we can only do our best to make ourselves clear.

 

[Fra]

I think my point of view is somewhat stronger than yours but this may be a matter of wording.

/Fredrik

 

[Careful]

/Fredrik

 

[yoda jedi]

ST has proven its worth beyond any doubt.

But details aside, I do agree that FQXi is unlikely to fund a lone wolf.

I think our disagreement is that I think we don't need lone wolves, but you think we do.

Maybe Perelman is such a case. I don't understand the mathematics, but some have said he was after all preceded by Thurston and Hamilton.

Or if we do, then by definition they must be lone. Can we engineer society to create them? What really gave rise to Bach, Beethoven and Brahms? It is still disconcerting to me that the very same culture that gave us those things, also gave us Nazism. (I suppose you could argue it wasn't the "same" culture.)

ST ? superstring theory ?

 

[Max™]

aDS/CFT and Holographic developments are valuable, it is not certain that they would not exist without string work, but it is true that they are results of the effort which proved useful in other areas.