The foundation of physically reality is necessarily very simple and quite probably its structure cannot observed. But recently I came to the conclusion that the signature of this foundation can be observed in all aspects of the universe. All separated items in universe are either modules or modular systems.
Is modular configuration a fundamental characteristic of physical reality?
http://vixra.org/abs/1607.0146
The foundation of physical reality is thought to be constructed of microstates of vibrational energy potentials maybe one order of magnitude smaller than Planck units. As such it cannot be directly observed due to the size and the interference of laboratory equipment into the observation. It may be indirectly observed and explored by secondary methods. In another thread I have suggested that experiments of actions in QM have already observed the foundation of physical reality, in a statistical way, but the full implications of the results have not been reduced to fundamental principles.
Modular description is probably the best way to describe the smallest scale. In the other thread I have suggested that volumes can be subdivided continually until a group of space fragments are encountered that sound something like your modules. The volume fragments should be of different types, maybe 12 to 16 types and contain different types of energy states and potentials, to agree with accelerator data.
I argued there can be a smallest scale when degeneracy prevails, meaning all the lowest energy levels are filled and the volume fragments or modules are packed together such that there is nothing else between them, and hence no smaller scale. Then Planck units are represented as averages of the different types of modules and their prevalence.
For some years I have been working on the question of where the physical laws and constants reside in nature and how they find expression in actions. In other threads I proposed the laws reside in the potential microstates of space, and a complete set requires a cluster of volume modules each of different type and containing a different subset of laws. Then statistics of QM will average to a classical law after about 30 repetitions of the same action, but deviate by chance for fewer actions not encountering a full set of physical laws.
The proposal then is to reevaluate the large data bases of particle interactions with models containing unknown parameters for types and contents of volume fragments, realizing that the fragments and their shared boundaries vibrate and fluctuate, some times described as a bubbly foam of chaotic nature.
Your modules seem to be a step in the right direction allowing a postulate to be made and tested with existing data, leading to a small subset of possible configurations in the foundations of physical reality.
So I guess the answers are yes to both questions. The foundations are modular and can be observed indirectly. The biggest obstacle is the long lasting disagreement on how much energy resides in virtual or potential states of vacuum. By now you might have guessed that I am in the group that says the vacuum energy is large enough to enforce the physical laws, and partitioned into different types of energy to accommodate the different types of modules, resulting in a balance of positive and negative curvatures and a small net cosmological constant.
There is a path forward and the data is plentiful, already stacked away in libraries.
I accept the challenge because it is in essence a question that has perplexed me for some time. In the first place we need collectively agreed-upon definitions of "modules" and "modular systems". Is a photon a "module" and is the electromagnetic field a "modular system"? The electromagnetic "field" nominally is a "continuum system" but are "photons" imbedded "modules" within the system? Are electromagnetic waves of frequency ν and wavelength λ also "modules" within the the electromgnetic system?
If the Hilbert space is also a proper tool for describing cosmology, then the fact that it is a repository for all dynamic geometric data offers an interesting view. The repository is likely to cover past, present and future. The present status quo is a vane that splits the Hilbert space into three parts. All data are precisely registered. The vane is characterized with a single value of progression. So what does the value of zero progression stand for? What do negative progression values stand for? What happens when the vane reaches the end of the Hilbert space?
Observers that travel with the vane are uncertain about their future. How is that uncertainty handled at the creation of the Hilbert space?
In my own investigations I have found that a fifth dynamic dimension may exist in the form of the metrical scale of 4D spacetime. In support of this proposition I offer:
1. The observable universe would be explained if the cosmological expansion were in this scale, expanding like exp(t/T) where T is the Hubble time.
2. Dark Energy is then found by evaluating the energy-momentum tensor for the Minkowskian line-element scaled by exp(2t/T). The positive Too component is Einstein's Critical Density and the three negative components model the Cosmological Constant.
3. Past epochs would then appear scale-contracted and there is no beginning (or end) of the cosmological expansion. All epochs would be physically identical to their inhabitants. This new model agrees with all astronomical observations.
4. Motion in space may also appear space-contracted by the factor Sqrt(1-(v/c)^2).
5. This scale-factor would explain time dilation and scale contraction of Special Relativity.
6. This “inertial scale-factor” would also explain the inertial force as being a curved spacetime phenomenon induced by acceleration.
7. And, it corresponds to Voigt’s transformation of 1886, which preceded Lorentz’s transformation.
8. The Twin Paradox disappears when we realize that moving frames are in different 4D manifolds in a 5D universe.
9. To an inhabitant who believes that the world is 4D it would appear that the scale of 4D space-time oscillates.
10. QM may be derived from GR if the scale of the Minkowskian line-element oscillates at the Compton frequency. The deBroglie/Bohm pilot function may then be derived from the GR geodesic.
11. Kaluza found that this additional dimension may explain the EM field.
12. The previously mysterious scalar component may then be the cosmological scale of existence. In other words, the EM field may be a particular realization of the additional scale dimension.
The question begs for clarification. What is meant here by "foundation"? What is meant by "physical reality"? What is meant by "observable"?
Let us take on "physical reality" first. Is not "physical reality" simply the Universe, its constituents and the processes by which the Universe and its constituents experience change? Change implies before and after and is a viable concept only if there be a variable called "time". Time is an "observable", they are called clocks.
So what do we mean by "observable"? Presumably it is something that we can perceive directly from our senses or is something that we can infer by our intellect from information received through our senses. An "observable" that attains the status of "truth" is one that is arrived at by all "observers" who witness it.
By "foundation", I presume, we mean the existence of a "bottom line", a basis on which the Universe is constructed which links, on a fundamental level, all of the constituents of the Universe and all of the processes that can act on and among these constituents.
So, I believe, the question asks if this "basis/foundation" itself is an "observable"?
This is where the fun begins and problems arise. If we knew the language by which the Universe operates we could interrogate the Universe on its own terms. But, no, we must improvise by inventing geometries, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum electrodynamics, Hibert spaces and Lorentz transformations of which Nature aka the Universe, knows not. Nature is as Nature is and Nature does as Nature does. We go along for the ride and/or become its victums. But we strive in ernerst to make sense of it all on our terms and sometimes, I fear, become lost in a forest we cannot see for all the trees of our own making.
A problem is that we with our blindfolds of limited intellect have picked at parts of a the elephant, the Universe, that we wish to describe and understand. The point of all these words is that we need continually to rise out of the froth of the cosmic vacuum to take cognizance of where we are and where it is we think we are going.
The Universe may be a daemon. It gave us Newton and his laws of motion then reneged by giving us Einstein and his Special Relativity. Then Newton's theory of universal gravitation and the inexplicable observable advance of the perihelion of Mercury. Then Hubble and the expansion of the Universe, then the cosmic background micowave radiation and aspects of the Universe were falling into place altough black holes left many of us feeling queasy. But then more tricks - "dark matter" and "dark energy". So do we have a Universe as "trickster"?
There is more. Where does life and living things fit into the "foundation of physical reality"? Or is this beyond our ken and in a domain ruled by belief and scripture?
But take heart! We have our science that in sum total is a work of art to whose construction many have contributed - we do indeed "stand on the shoulders of giants". We in science are on a journey and the joy in science is the journey not the destination.
Johan,
The selected foundation restricts the number of dimensions to four, of which three are spatial dimensions. The fact that the Hilbert space can only cope with this structure has been given hard prove by Pia Maria Solèr.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5690
Dwight,
The reasoning behind the foundation is that its structure must be very simple and as a consequence an equivalent structure has been discovered long ago by humans and is added as a part to mathematics. The foundation expands into a mathematical model.
The selected foundation is formed by the orthomodular lattice, which was discovered in 1936 by Garret Birkhoff and John von Neumann. They called their discovery "quantum logic". The set of closed subspaces of the separable Hilbert space has exactly this relational structure. The Hilbert space is no more and no less than a repository for dynamic geometric data. The selected foundation must be expanded by a set of mechanisms that ensure dynamical coherence,
Physics has no foundation. The same holds for the universe. The universe is part of physical reality. Physics is a collection of theories that do not form a consistent set.
The concept of a modular structure for the Cosmos has a long tradition but who could better express it the last century, was the astronomer Albert G. Wilson from the Douglas Advanced Research Laboratories.
I don't agree with the statement that the foundation of physics can't be observed; it is that we don't want to see it, in the same way the "ptolemaicos" didn't want to see the Sun as the center of the Solar System. Took around fourteen centuries to change the Ptolomeo concept, then we have a long time ahead before the new view is going to be accepted.
The support of this "new ptolemaica view" is that the dimensions of the physical variables involved are below the Planck values and this is right for mass and time. But there is one variable that, sticking to this rule yet is still "measurable and observable": the speed. It is just this "physical value" which is showing the foundations of physics in the Cosmos.
My first research (enclosed) supports this arguments. Who is able to read spanish, can find more about this view in my publications.
Data AvE- 20160707-Considerations about QFT and orbits discretiza...
Maybe several foundations exist that are suitable. In some way they must be isomorphic. In that case they provide a unified model.
At least one suitable candidate for this foundation exists since exactly eighty years. It is mathematically known as orthomodular lattice and its more popular name "Quantum logic" was given to it by its discoverers. It inescapably extends in a separable Hilbert space. However this structure cannot yet explain that physical reality shows coherent dynamic behavior. It CAN explain why all discrete objects in universe are either modules or modular systems.
The Hilbert space is no more and no less than a repository for dynamic geometric data. A hardly exploited idea is that it contains all historic and future data and that the current static status quo scans as a vane over this repository and splits it into a historic and a future part.
The separable Hilbert space can only store discrete data, but it owns a unique non-separable companion Hilbert space that also can store continuums.
Understanding the intimate interaction between the discrete data and the continuums delivers the unified theory.
Intimate relations exist between coherent swarms of dynamic geometric data, the location density distribution of that swarm and the blurred view of that swarm that is produced by the field that describes this and other swarms. The blur corresponds to the Green's function of the field and that Green's function is determined by the second order partial differential equation, which describes the dynamic behavior of the field.
If the real parts of the elements of the swarm are interpreted as progression values and if these values are used to order the elements of the swarm, then these elements appear to form a hopping path. Together with each added hop the geometric center of the swarm moves, but the movement of this center is much less violent, than the hops that are performed by the elements of the swarm. Thus the blurred image of the swarm that influences the description, which the field provides is far more coherent than the dynamic picture of the individual hops. If an individual hop and the swarm are linked by inertia, then it can be comprehended that the number of hops that constitute a swarm relates to the mass of the object that is represented by the swarm. The inertia also contributes to the coherence of the swarm. The force that corresponds to the generated acceleration counteracts the effect of too large hops.
If each of the hops carries a bit of energy, then this view explains the mass-energy equivalence. When the swarm unravels into a linear string of hops, then this explains part of the story of what happens during conversion of elementary particles into photons. The photons do not deform the field that describes their behavior. Instead, they just vibrate the field along the path of the photon. In contrast the swarms do deform the field that describes their behavior.
In the view of the describing field the hops inside the swarm represent spherical solutions of the homogeneous second order partial differential equation, while the hops in the photon represent one-dimensional solutions of the homogeneous second order partial differential equation that describes the behavior of the field. Thus particle annihilation represents a switch of one kind of solution to another kind of solution. Preservation of symmetry conditions determines what actually happens to each of the involved hops. When taken over a full regeneration cycle, the spherical solutions integrate into the Green's function. This integration converts the homogeneous second order partial differential equation into an inhomogeneous equation.
At annihilation the photons leave in a direction that is perpendicular to the direction from which the elementary objects (particle and anti-particle) arrive. The spatial configuration is such that a third item must fix the third axis. That third item must stay fixed during the annihilation process. It must redirect the hops and it must take care that the landing locations of the leaving hops are equidistant. Inside the swarm the hops had arbitrary different length and arbitrary different directions. Keeping the photon fronts equidistant involves oscillation or rotation of the extra actor.
Since the energy balance and the momentum balance at the start and at the end are already in concordance, the extra actor does not change its energy or momentum.
Dear Hans,
Your question is very deep and fundamental, thus extremely difficult to be answered.
Let me try.
According to my cosmological view our universe is local in the sense of the country-home for each of us.
Mathematical formulation is essential to describe a material universe, since latter has one inevitable requirement:
- stability
But there exist many such math models, all self consistent according to our mathematical logic.
Thus, our ultimate challenge is always to find the one among many possible math theory that describes our local universe realization.
I repeat:
- not the most beautiful theory (we do not participate in a 'theory beauty contest')
Given the above view, your question could be reformulated as:
"Can we actually observe the foundation of our local physical reality?"
My answer is:
NO, that is possible only after going out of the current material reality.
Article A new cosmological paradigm: universal locality
Hans van Leunen
A problem with reality is that it isn't really there. So any mathematics which models it is only modeling the fantasy.
Kurt
Reality consists of the contents of space. Empty space represents the ultimate nothing. If you start from this condition, then you can cover empty space with vectors that each point to an element of a number system. Next, you can navigate this vector space with the help of the number system. In this way you can discover what happens when a countable set of point-like objects turns into an uncountable set of point-like objects.
"How to create a universe"; https://vixra.org/abs/2108.0004 describes this endeavor.
The interesting fact to this story is that the applied mathematical model shows great correspondence with the Standard Model of the elementary fermions.
Hans van Leunen
Notice that this space and its contents, reality, is created, by us.
Kurt
Hans van Leunen
Please notice: you will never understand how what you perceive is created, because that knowledge is not accessible to us. Our only option as perceivers is to speculate about it. Those speculations are what many take for "real". Science is all about determining what about our speculations is real, and that reality is constantly changing through research and experimentation.
We create reality. Together.
Sincerely, Kurt
Life is a product of the physical universe; therefore, life is a way for “physical reality” to become “observable” and experienced. The observable structure of the universe is a function of evolution within the tree of life, where the human branch is one of many. The tree of life follows the Constructal paradigm resulting in modular dendritic configurations:
https://constructal.wordpress.com/
The Constructal paradigm relative to the observable social experience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvD4DHMq1Y4
Additional background on the social experience and its physical reality:
https://www.academia.edu/43512871/The_Science_of_Rights_an_Overview
L Kurt Engelhart ,
Our brain associates existing information with what is perceived via our senses. In that way, we construct an image of reality. That image is not a copy. It is the most realistic picture of reality that our brain can construct.
See: https://vixra.org/abs/1101.0065 "How our brain works".
Hi Hans van Leunen . See the following link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/physical-reality
See the following link: https://books.google.com.om/books?id=sqXaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=Is+the+foundation+of+physical+reality+observable?&source=bl&ots=Q2kEnIHoy4&sig=ACfU3U3LwTcSvn7CInDBD2-gRHngyLfEPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbqOTI6_nzAhUFKewKHWfQBqEQ6AF6BAgKEAI
Also see the following RG link: Article The Nature of Physical Reality: A Philosophy of Modern Physics
Virtual reality is not a proper replacement for analyzing the foundation of physical reality.
If empty space is filled with a huge collection of point-like objects, then nothing curves as long as the set is countable. This can be checked by identifying the point-like objects by using numbers. The numbers enable navigation of the point-like objects. As long as the numbers are countable the objects stay separate. Thus, if only rational numbers are applied, then nothing becomes deformable. However if also all irrational numbers are applied, then the set is no longer countable and turns into a continuum. That continuum is deformable and can be described by a function that uses the number system as a parameter space.
So the medium that is curved is an uncountable coverage of space by point-like objects. The paper "How to create a universe"; describes the coverage in great detail. Take a look at https://vixra.org/author/j_a_j_van_leunen
Reflect: what came first, consciousness or the brain? If consciousness, then the brain has been created in consciousness. If the brain? No that is ridiculous!
Primitive humans surely had no idea of the brain, (except to eat it!) but they were just as surely conscious.
The concept of the brain (and all other things) has accumulated through experience, shared by communication, as a phenomenon we now share as "reality."
Today, to understand reality in any other way is simply an attempt to pose one reality as superior (more real) than others. This is a game that has played out historically as a function of force or fraud, i.e., a function of power.
If we want reality to be any more than the result of power play, we must understand it as a phenomenon within consciousness. And deal with that reality!
Respectfully,
Kurt
Before living creatures became into being consciousness was not active in our universe. Still, elementary particles existed and could act as elementary modules and generate baryons, atoms, and molecules. In fact, they generated all massive objects that exist in the universe. Or are you going to tell me that modularization is a conscious activity?
- Badges
- Science topic