Universe from random matrices
torqu...@my-deja.com
description of what the New Scientist article about the work of Cahill
and Klinger is *really* about? It looks interesting but is so clouded
by mystical mumbo jumbo it's hard to tell. I guess the references to
Godel and Chaitin are actually red herrings put in by a journalist
trying to make a 'story' but the random matrix stuff sounds like it
might be interesting.
The URL for the article is
http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns22273
--
Torque
http://travel.to/tanelorn
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Stephen Paul King
Try this:
http://ph131.ph.flinders.edu.au/html/people/new%20paper
PROCESS PHYSICS:
The Limits of Logic and the Modelling of Reality
Reginald T. Cahill, Christopher M. Klinger, Kirsty Kitto
School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, Australia
Reg.C...@flinders.edu.au, Chris....@flinders.edu.au,
Kirsty...@flinders.edu.au
Abstract
A new modelling of reality (1997-) called Process Physics,which takes
account of the limitations of logic (in formal systems)
discovered by Godel and extended by Chaitin, appears to unify space
and quantum physics, with both being emergent and related
phenomena. Godel discovered, by using self-referencing, that truth
has no finite description and so cannot be completely
formalised. Chaitin, using algorithmic information theory, showed
that beyond the Godelian boundary the infinite ocean of truths is
characterised by randomness. ProcessPhysics is a non-formal discrete
system which is positioned beyond the Godelian boundary in
a noumenological sector, where pseudo-objects (monads) and
self-referential noise are used in contrast to the phenomenological
formal system modelling of present day physics which is characterised
by objects and geometrical modelling of time and space and
a naive and confused ontology. The dominant emergent phenomena in
process physics, which is modelled here as non-geometric
non-quantum non-linear stochasticiterative map, is an expanding
self-replicating three-dimensional process-space containing
topological defects (a Prigogine dissipative structure driven by the
self-referential noise). The 3-space and the defects are repeatably
replenished by new cross-linking transient gebits (linked monads)
which arise from the self-referential noise. The topological
defects, which are non-local with respect to the 3-space, have
properties described by a non-linear functional Schrodinger
equation. Using functional integral calculus this emergent quantum
system is re-expressed in terms of fermionic fields carrying
flavour and colour type indices. Objectification, logic and quantum
measurement processes arise from the non-linearity of this
self-organising process as manifested by the non-linear quantum
system. Space, quantum phenomena, objects and process-time are
thus seen to be the logical consequences of the limitations of logic.
squ...@my-deja.com
Stephen Paul King <step...@home.com> wrote:
> Try this:
> http://ph131.ph.flinders.edu.au/html/people/new%20paper
> PROCESS PHYSICS:
> The Limits of Logic and the Modelling of Reality
>
> Reginald T. Cahill, Christopher M. Klinger, Kirsty Kitto
> School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University
> GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, Australia
> Reg.C...@flinders.edu.au, Chris....@flinders.edu.au,
> Kirsty...@flinders.edu.au
Where can a one get the paper itself (the link leads to the abstract)?
Regards, squark.
James Gibbons
>
> Would anyone be interested in posting a one or two paragraph
> description of what the New Scientist article about the work of Cahill
This seems to be similar to fractal structures emerging from an
Iterated Function System on a Metric space. In this case, however,
random graphs are substituted for the subsets of the metric space.
Jim Gibbons
cartoaje
also sprach torqu...@my-deja.com:
>by mystical mumbo jumbo it's hard to tell. I guess the
references to
>Godel and Chaitin are actually red herrings put in by a
journalist
>trying to make a 'story' but the random matrix stuff sounds
like it
No, the authors endlessly chatter about Godel and Chaitin in
their articles, even though their model does not use anything
from their theories; it only uses probability.
It's sad but true.
Mihai
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Greg Egan
I did a search at gr-qc:
<http://xxx.lanl.gov/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Cahill_R/0/1/0/all/0/1>
which yielded some related papers:
9905082: Self-Referential Noise as a Fundamental Aspect of Reality
Abstract: Noise is often used in the study of open systems, such as in
classical Brownian motion and in Quantum Dynamics, to model the influence
of the environment. However generalising results from G\"{o}del and
Chaitin in mathematics suggests that systems that are sufficiently rich
that self-referencing is possible contain intrinsic randomness. We argue
that this is relevant to modelling the universe, even though it is by
definition a closed system. We show how a three-dimensional process-space
may arise, as a Prigogine dissipative structure, from a non-geometric
order-disorder model driven by, what is termed, self-referential noise.
9812083: Self-Referential Noise and the Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Space
Abstract: Generalising results from Godel and Chaitin in mathematics
suggests that self-referential systems contain intrinsic randomness. We
argue that this is relevant to modelling the universe and show how
three-dimensional space may arise from a non-geometric order-disorder
model driven by self-referential noise.
9708013: Bootstrap Universe from Self-Referential Noise
Abstract: We further deconstruct Heraclitean Quantum Systems giving a
model for a universe using pregeometric notions in which the end-game
problem is overcome by means of self-referential noise. The model displays
self-organisation with the emergence of 3-space and time. The time
phenomenon is richer than the present geometric modelling.
9605018: Pregeometric modelling of the spacetime phenomenology
Abstract: At present we have only the very successful but phenomenological
Einstein geometrical modelling of the spacetime phenomenon. This
geometrical model provides a `container' for other theories, in particular
the quantum field theories. Here we report progress in developing a {\em
Heraclitean Quantum System}. This is a particular pregeometric theory for
space and time in which no classical or geometric structures are assumed,
but rather the emergence of such phenomena is sought.
--
Greg Egan
Email address (remove name of animal and add standard punctuation):
gregegan netspace zebra net au
squ...@my-deja.com
John Baez
>Would anyone be interested in posting a one or two paragraph
>description of what the New Scientist article about the work of Cahill
>Godel and Chaitin are actually red herrings put in by a journalist
>trying to make a 'story' but the random matrix stuff sounds like it
I had some email correspondence with Marcus Chown when he was
writing this story, and I tried to get him to drop the stuff about
Goedel and Chaitin, because it seemed like completely generic
pop-science fluff, unrelated to the substance of Cahill and Klinger's
work. But in fact, as Cartoaje points out, Cahill and Klinger talk
endlessly about Goedel and Chaitin (and Leibniz and Heraclitus and
so on) in their work. So it's actually rather hard for the nonexpert
to notice that all these ramblings could be surgically removed from
their papers without damaging a single healthy new idea!
For example, they have a paper entitled:
Self-referential noise and the synthesis of three-dimensional space
whose abstract goes like this:
Generalising results from Godel and Chaitin in mathematics suggests
that self-referential systems contain intrinsic randomness. We argue
that this is relevant to modelling the universe and show how three-
dimensional space may arise from a non-geometric order-disorder model
driven by self-referential noise.
Now, if you weren't careful, you might guess that this paper has
something new to say about Godel and Chaitin's work on self-reference
and algorithmic entropy. You might even guess that they use ideas
from Godel and Chaitin to come up with a model in which 3d space
spontaneously arises!
If you guessed those things, the introduction would probably seem
to confirm you; after all, it says:
Further we also generalize the results of Godel and Chaitin in
mathematics to argue that a self-referential system, such
as the universe, must involve intrinsic randomness, which we
name Self-Referential Noise (SRN). Our analysis of *end-game*
modelling then results in a sub-quantum non-geometric order-disorder
process driven by SRN from which, the evidence suggests, emerges a
fractal 3-space; the fractal character being necessary to achieve
*universality*."
Of course, if you have even a halfway functional baloney detector,
this passage will set all your alarm bells ringing. What topics
are responsible for the most wasted ink in mathematics and physics
today? Godel's theorem, quantum mechanics, and fractals. Perfectly
good topics all, but the source of endless blather - so to see them
all murkily linked in this way is instantly suspicious.
If you then read the paper, carefully peeling away the layers of
rhetoric to see what the authors actually do, you will see that it
contains some actual calculations, and that these calculations are
indeed related to fractals, but completely unrelated to Godel's
theorem or quantum mechanics. Self-reference in the sense of logic
is completely absent. What the paper is really about is the following
nondeterministic rule for evolving matrices in time:
B(t+1) = B(t) - a (B(t) + B(t)^{-1}) + W(t)
Here B(t) is a skew-adjoint n x n real matrix, a is a real number,
and W(t) is a skew-adjoint matrix whose entries are independent
random variables with variance a. The authors start with B(0) having
small entries; then they run the equation and see what happens.
It looks sort of interesting.
Unfortunately, they cloak their work under a lot of distracting language.
For example, they call the indices of the matrix B "Leibnizian monads"
and say that the matrix W models "self-referential noise". The latter
is especially misleading because the randomness of W does not arise a
la Godel/Chaitin - it's simply put in by hand.
Of course, if they hadn't put in this extra lingo, they wouldn't
have gotten an article in the New Scientist written about them.
Lots of physics papers are written that analyze the behavior of
systems like this. Some of them are quite profound. Few of them
get much attention outside the physics community.
I think physicists should do a better job of telling journalists
about interesting new work - otherwise the flashy stuff will beat
the solid stuff when it comes to attracting media attention. I
tried to point Chown to some work I thought was being neglected.
Sargis Dallakyan
>
> Of course, if they hadn't put in this extra lingo, they wouldn't
> have gotten an article in the New Scientist written about them.
Well I've read the article and to me its pretty much interesting. It
would be hard for me to imagine that 3+1 dimensional space-time that we
take for granted could be considered as a phenomenology. That, e.g., the
charges of quarks are phenomenological was obvious for me. The arguments
about anomalies answers to an ill posed question "why"? A good answer
should provide mechanisms for that.
So in that sense that article gives a mechanism for appearance of 3
dimensional space. If now we'll ask "why" the answer would be that it
doesn't matter due to universality. Another good question would be why
it exist at all. I don't think the authors address that question, but it
doesn't make the article less interesting since in any research a good
answer to an interesting question leads to other questions.
John Baez
>ba...@galaxy.ucr.edu (John Baez) wrote:
>> I tried to point Chown to some work I thought was being neglected.
>What work do you think is being neglected by the media?
Practically all of it! - but I just happened to pick the work of
the German schools of algebraic quantum field theory. This stuff
is rock-solid and unjustly neglected, not just by the media, but
by a lot of particle physicists who should know better. Of course
it doesn't lend it itself to an easy pop treatment. But so what?
A really good journalist should be able to write a cool story about
this stuff. "Physicists struggle to combine the principles of
special relativity and quantum mechanics...."
In case people want to read about it....
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9811233
Current trends in axiomatic quantum field theory
Detlev Buchholz
In this article a non-technical survey is given of the present status of
Axiomatic Quantum Field Theory and interesting future directions of this
approach are outlined. The topics covered are the universal structure
of the local algebras of observables, their relation to the underlying
fields and the significance of their relative positions. Moreover, the
physical interpretation of the theory is discussed with emphasis on
problems appearing in gauge theories, such as the revision of the
particle concept, the determination of symmetries and statistics from
the superselection structure, the analysis of the short distance properties
and the specific features of relativistic thermal states. Some problems
appearing in quantum field theory on curved spacetimes are also briefly
mentioned.
Walter Kunhardt
> In article <8a8j2n$mk9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <torqu...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > >What work do you think is being neglected by the media?
> Practically all of it! - but I just happened to pick the work of
> the German schools of algebraic quantum field theory.
"That愀 us, isn愒 it?" Great, anyway, but one should mention
that it愀 not just German, but that there are people in many countries,
mostly in Europe indeed, who are working on AQFT. The US are, alas,
rather absent from this research area. Have a look at
http://www.lqp.Uni-Goettingen.DE/people/
to find (counter)examples.
> This stuff
> is rock-solid and unjustly neglected, not just by the media, but
> by a lot of particle physicists who should know better. Of course
> it doesn't lend it itself to an easy pop treatment. But so what?
Indeed...
Regards,
Walter Kunhardt.
(Goettingen)
Elveto Drozo
>Torquemada wrote:
> >What work do you think is being neglected by the media?
> Practically all of it! - but I just happened to pick the work of
> the German schools of algebraic quantum field theory. This stuff
> is rock-solid and unjustly neglected, not just by the media, but
> by a lot of particle physicists who should know better. Of course
> it doesn't lend it itself to an easy pop treatment. But so what?
> A really good journalist should be able to write a cool story about
> this stuff. "Physicists struggle to combine the principles of
> special relativity and quantum mechanics...."
In some other incarnation...
I've repeatedly tried to argue here, for the necessity of
providing the masses to educate, with appropriate metaphors,
not only simple handwaving metaphors but metaphors that
provide a detailed homology, metaphors that would, for the
mind of the mathematically unsophisticated reader, replace
as much as possible the function that mathematics plays
in the minds of mathematical physicists.
To me, the right completion to the title you propose, is
"Physicists struggle to combine the principles of special
relativity and quantum mechanics while refusing to borrow
from or lend to common sense". Now why should common
sense learn about it, really? To me, there is a measure
of math idolatry, in the belief that conclusions should
not only be solidly grounded in the arcane mathematics
you know and love, but also keep refering to them, as if
was inconcievable the notion of a functorial mapping of the
grounding of those conclusions in lovely mathematics, to
the grounding of those conclusions in stuff more
transparent to the average person.
The problem is a police problem. Free-wheeling metaphors
only lead to confusion. Maths allows to enforce discipline,
consistency, filtering out easily those who can show they
know what they are talking about from those who can't.
It's like gazing at the Medusa through a mirror. But
snubbing detailed homologies not visibly borrowing from
maths, this is like denying that the relation of, say,
a classical to quantum hamiltonians was not very
typically homological (to avoid confusion: by
homology I mean an accurate and detailed analogy).
Of course, I understand that it is a most difficult
thing to ask to a mathematical physicist, to expose
what he knows *with a minimally accurate **picture** of
why he believes it*, that is *not* grounded in the
maths that taught him what he knows - especially if
he is involved up to his neck in communicating these
mathematics to students or colleagues.
But, as you wrote yourself, isn't the original sin,
mistaking isomorphism for identity? And how could
someone without good knowledge of the mathematical
ground, achieve a translation of it that is not only
good but also legitimate? Frankly, isn't the picture
of the general media papers you are calling for,
more like talking about the physicists talking about
their maths, that talking about the physics itself?
Is the point giving them glory, or carrying the
knowledge through, a feeling for it at least?
To conclude this on a more positive note... you are
calling for a "really good journalist", something I
would gladly try to become if I had an adequate
opportunity (whose currently actual component boils
down to being chased by debts while out of a job).
Sincerely,
Drozo