Physics from reason alone

[gill1109]

As long as you are anonymous, nobody can endorse you. I could endorse you on some sections of arXiv if I knew you better. You don’t need formal qualifications. You need to be producing interesting work and following academic standards such that your papers would have a good chance of being published in decent journals

I suppose I don't mind a few professionals having my personal information. But I have to wonder how much of that do I have to make public in any paper on the arXiv. Is a first name and obscure email address sufficient? After all, I would not be asking for endorsement of first papers, and then afterward I can publish without endorsement. I don't think that is appropriate for an amateur to have in any case. I my case I would prefer to get endorsement (thus some sort of first order review) for anything I would submit. Perhaps an endorser could publish my material in his own name with explicit acknowledgement of the original author.

Posting papers on arXiv is not “publishing papers”. arXiv is a preview service to speed up science by letting people see in advance papers which are likely to be published in, say, a year from now. You can also just start submitting papers to journals. In the meantime, you can post them on viXra. You can put them on your webpages, and you can discuss them in various internet fora. Send me an email and I’ll give you some suggestions, also of names of likely interested people.

[gill1109]

ArXiv has a section called General physics in which a lot of articles are posted written by outsiders, amateurs, and newcomers. Each author of such an article must have been previously endorsed, and most articles there have an author who is allowed to endorse.

Han Geurdes is an independent scientist whose arXiv address is his private consulting firm. He can endorse papers for gen-phys

https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.00005
https://arxiv.org/auth/show-endorsers/1704.00005

So can Joy Christian

https://arxiv.org/auth/show-endorsers/1704.02876

https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement

I recommend you approach both of them. I’m not presently an endorser for that section. I would first have to get an article posted there. Next time I write (or revise) a suitable article I will try to post it to that section also.

[friend]

ArXiv has a section called General physics in which a lot of articles are posted written by outsiders, amateurs, and newcomers. Each author of such an article must have been previously endorsed, and most articles there have an author who is allowed to endorse.

That's very interesting. Thank you. I will look into it.

I have to wonder if articles in this section of the arXiv are qualified for discussion on forums such as physicsforums.com. Can you tell me how articles in this section are received by academics? I imagine that they are taken more seriously than articles on viXra, right?

[friend]

There seems to be a lot of concern here about Bell's theorem. Is this mostly about whether the math is correct? Or is there a deeper concern about whether reality must necessarily be quantum mechanical? I think I have an answer in the thread about the second.

[FrediFizzx]

There seems to be a lot of concern here about Bell's theorem. Is this mostly about whether the math is correct? Or is there a deeper concern about whether reality must necessarily be quantum mechanical? I think I have an answer in the thread about the second.

Bell's junk physics theory is dead. It was shot down in 2007 by Joy Christian. All that is left is Gill's "theorem". But he's got no proof it is correct so only really just a theory. Most likely just another junk physics theory. The Bell fans simply refuse to admit Bell's junk physics theory is dead. So..., the debate drags on forever.
.

[local]

I have to wonder if articles in this section of the arXiv are qualified for discussion on forums such as physicsforums.com. Can you tell me how articles in this section are received by academics? I imagine that they are taken more seriously than articles on viXra, right?

The General Physics section is typically used by the moderators to sideline papers that challenge their accepted views and threaten their egos, grants, and authority. Also, papers that are borderline coherent or simply opaque, but for which the authors are academics and therefore entitled to submit, are deposited there. Think of it as a dumping ground. Rarely, however, non-mainstream papers do find their way into quant-ph, usually because either the author or the endorser has a high profile. Nevertheless, to be fair, some useful papers that do not fit the mainstream categories also appear in General Physics.

General Physics is certainly preferable to viXra, of course, but a stigma is attached to it.

[FrediFizzx]

I've split off the discussion about Margenau's paper to a new thread since we were hijacking friend's thread.
.

[gill1109]

I have to wonder if articles in this section of the arXiv are qualified for discussion on forums such as physicsforums.com. Can you tell me how articles in this section are received by academics? I imagine that they are taken more seriously than articles on viXra, right?

The General Physics section is typically used by the moderators to sideline papers that challenge their accepted views and threaten their egos, grants, and authority. Also, papers that are borderline coherent or simply opaque, but for which the authors are academics and therefore entitled to submit, are deposited there. Think of it as a dumping ground. Rarely, however, non-mainstream papers do find their way into quant-ph, usually because either the author or the endorser has a high profile. Nevertheless, to be fair, some useful papers that do not fit the mainstream categories also appear in General Physics.

General Physics is certainly preferable to viXra, of course, but a stigma is attached to it.

Actually, it is used to separate off the papers of the insiders from the papers of the outsiders, so that the insiders don't have to start their day by checking all the night's new posts by outsiders. They only have to check the papers of their immediate competitors. The papers in General Physics rarely challenge the mainstream researchers, who are too busy writing their own mainstream papers (publish or perish). They are not threatened by those papers, in the least. They are threatened by the agencies and managers who demand large quantities of conventional output in conventional outlets.

It's good that it exists. It gives some space for everyone to breath.

Articles on viXra are flatly ignored by academics. That's a pity since there is some good stuff there. You just have to work hard to find it. I have posted an article on viXra which was rejected by arXiv for rather odd reasons. I put a joke in the title. No humour is allowed on arXiv! Later it was published in a peer-reviewed journal and later still it was allowed back on arXiv, but without the amusing title of course. viXra has a discussion forum connected to each article. That's very good. arXiv deliberately does not do that. If you want to post comments on arXiv papers you have to use PubPeer.

[friend]

Can the mass of the various particles be calculated from this framework? Presently, the masses of the particles is something that is simply measured in accelerators. But it occurs to me that it might be possible to calculate the mass of the particles, at least in comparison with electron mass. In my previous post in this thread, http://www.sciphysicsforums.com/spfbb1/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=440#p11361, I use an iterative procedure to show how the Weak bosons and quarks can be constructed from electrons and positrons. And then later in this thread, http://www.sciphysicsforums.com/spfbb1/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=440#p11402, I write out the math of this iterative procedure.

The transition amplitude of a free electron was given in the form,

.

And for the purposes of this point, this can be simplified to,

,

where the is some normalization factor, and the is some exponential function that includes the constant , the mass of the electron.

The iterative procedure consists of inserting this exponential function back into the transition amplitude to get,

,

which is an eponential function inside an exponential. The is for the complex numbers, and the is for the quaternions, and the is the mass scale of the Weak particles. This iteration seems to at least give us the correct number of Weak bosons, see previous posts. But ultimately these bosons are expressed in terms of the electron/positron amplitudes. If we iterate again, we get,

.

This is an exponent inside an exponent inside an exponent, the is for the octonions, and is the mass scale of the quarks. This seems to give us the correct number of first mass generataion quarks.

Now it seems to me that the mass of a particle is only relevant in interactions between particles and in the calculations of probabilities. So it seems that the particles need to propagate with the usually constructed amplitude to do these calculations, with a leading normalization factor and a complex exponential that oscillates like the amplitude of an electron/positron.

So the question is whether it is possible to put these exponentials inside exponential functions into the form of just a complex exponential of maybe just the first squared term. Then the mass term for the heavier particles might be a complicated function of the masses of the lighter particles. However, I don't see how this can be done analytically. But it might be possible to come up with an expansion for exponential functions that are inside others. Then we might have a series expansion that would give us ever more accurate approximations, assuming it converges. But then we would also have quaternions and octonions that have to somehow be reduced to simple complex numbers. I'm not sure of any general procedures for doing that.

Such a process would be simpler, of course, if the iteration process were blind to the mass scale. If the mass scale terms, and , were equal to , the calculations would be easier. Or it might be that we have to iterate the mass scale along with iterating from complex to quaterions to octonions.

I would appreciate any ideas on how to do such calculations. Is there any software package geared for these kinds of hypercomplex calculations?

[friend]

I'm trying to understand why there may be some hesitation with accepting my theory. The present paradigm is to hypothesize a theory and see if it can be falsified with experiments. But falsification can only be applied to theories that are basically curve fitting models. And such models are provisional precisely because they are curve fitting guesses to how things work. So they must be compared to experiments. But if a theory is derived from logic alone, then how can logic be provisional or falsified. Is math provisional? Can you falsify logic? Such a theory is either right or wrong, either the logic is flawlessly correct, or there is a mistake in the math somewhere. But if such a theory even starts to match reality, shouldn't we expect that it is correct? Or shall we say that reality is partially correct, but is not keeping with logic in some areas?

The choice is clear, either we must insist that the foundations of physics is ultimately based on a brute fact of nature that is not subject to reason or understanding. Or we say that everything in reality can be explained by reason at every level. But this is the same as saying that physics can be derived from logic, which is what I'm trying to show. The problem with a brute fact is that you're saying that something exists that is inherently illogical. And this sounds like the definition of insane or at least irrational.

My theory is at: logictophysics.com

[minkwe]

I'm trying to understand why there may be some hesitation with accepting my theory. The present paradigm is to hypothesize a theory and see if it can be falsified with experiments. But falsification can only be applied to theories that are basically curve-fitting models. And such models are provisional precisely because they are curve fitting guesses to how things work. So they must be compared to experiments. But if a theory is derived from logic alone, then how can logic be provisional or falsified. Is math provisional? Can you falsify logic? Such a theory is either right or wrong, either the logic is flawlessly correct, or there is a mistake in the math somewhere. But if such a theory even starts to match reality, shouldn't we expect that it is correct? Or shall we say that reality is partially correct, but is not keeping with logic in some areas?

The choice is clear, either we must insist that the foundations of physics is ultimately based on a brute fact of nature that is not subject to reason or understanding. Or we say that everything in reality can be explained by reason at every level. But this is the same as saying that physics can be derived from logic, which is what I'm trying to show. The problem with a brute fact is that you're saying that something exists that is inherently illogical. And this sounds like the definition of insane or at least irrational.

My theory is at: logictophysics.com

It is okay to suggest that a theory can be formulated using only logic. It is a completely different thing to suggest that reality itself depends on logic. When you say that everything, in reality, can be explained by reason, that is so obvious as to be meaningless. It is like saying everything can be described with a description. An explanation is by definition a product of reason and any irrational or unreasonable explanation will not be a proper explanation anyway. Do you know of any illogical theories in physics? Do you know of a theory that is not based on logic?

But I suspect you are trying to suggest that nature itself/reality is derived from logic. I hope this is not what you imply as it will be the ultimate form of mind-projection fallacy.

[friend]

It is okay to suggest that a theory can be formulated using only logic. It is a completely different thing to suggest that reality itself depends on logic. When you say that everything, in reality, can be explained by reason, that is so obvious as to be meaningless. It is like saying everything can be described with a description. An explanation is by definition a product of reason and any irrational or unreasonable explanation will not be a proper explanation anyway. Do you know of any illogical theories in physics? Do you know of a theory that is not based on logic?

If a theory can possibly be falsified, then it's not logical since logic cannot be falsified. Or are we to assume that physical reality is not necessarily logical? It would seem all theories to date are not derivations from logical principles. They all seem to be reverse engineering efforts to fit the data to a mathematical structure; they are forms of curve fitting. But if reality is ultimately logical and these theories must be checked by comparing them to experiment, then we cannot say if they are logical or not until they pass all tests, which they can never do, because they are provisional by nature. So logic has nothing to do with such theories.

But I suspect you are trying to suggest that nature itself/reality is derived from logic. I hope this is not what you imply as it will be the ultimate form of mind-projection fallacy.

You are assuming here that logic is a thing of minds only. Reality is a mind-projection only to the extent that minds are perfectly and completely logical. How likely is that?

[minkwe]

If a theory can possibly be falsified, then it's not logical since logic cannot be falsified. Or are we to assume that physical reality is not necessarily logical? It would seem all theories to date are not derivations from logical principles. They all seem to be reverse engineering efforts to fit the data to a mathematical structure; they are forms of curve fitting. But if reality is ultimately logical and these theories must be checked by comparing them to experiment, then we cannot say if they are logical or not until they pass all tests, which they can never do, because they are provisional by nature. So logic has nothing to do with such theories.

This is nonsense, sorry.

But I suspect you are trying to suggest that nature itself/reality is derived from logic. I hope this is not what you imply as it will be the ultimate form of mind-projection fallacy.

You are assuming here that logic is a thing of minds only. Reality is a mind-projection only to the extent that minds are perfectly and completely logical. How likely is that?

I'm not assuming, that is what logic is by definition. If you disagree define what you mean by "logic". You really should study a bit of "Epistemology" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology)

[friend]

You are assuming here that logic is a thing of minds only. Reality is a mind-projection only to the extent that minds are perfectly and completely logical. How likely is that?

I'm not assuming, that is what logic is by definition. If you disagree define what you mean by "logic". You really should study a bit of "Epistemology" (https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology)[/quote]

So now we're talking about whether reason and logic are objective or subjective. When we say that a proposition is either true or false, not both, not neither, is that objectively true or subjectively true?

[minkwe]

I will wait for your definition of "logic" before we can have a meaningful conversation.

[friend]

I will wait for your definition of "logic" before we can have a meaningful conversation.

I'm sure I'm defining logic in the usual way. The application is to apply the correspondence principle of truth, that things in reality can be described by propositions that are true. In this case the things are individual points of space, described by propositions that assign unique coordinates to each point. It seems that's all that's necessary to derive quantum mechanics and the particles of the Standard Model.

[minkwe]

I will wait for your definition of "logic" before we can have a meaningful conversation.

I'm sure I'm defining logic in the usual way. The application is to apply the correspondence principle of truth, that things in reality can be described by propositions that are true. In this case the things are individual points of space, described by propositions that assign unique coordinates to each point. It seems that's all that's necessary to derive quantum mechanics and the particles of the Standard Model.

What is the definition? You claim to be deriving all of physics from logic and you can't even explain what "logic" means? I won't ask again.

[friend]

I'm sure I'm defining logic in the usual way...
What is the definition? You claim to be deriving all of physics from logic and you can't even explain what "logic" means? I won't ask again.

What kind of question is this... what is the definition (of logic)? This sounds like a diversion. Of course, I'm using propositional logic as usually defined. I'm using set theory as usually defined. At least I think so. My website starts with the very basic axioms of propositional logic, and I goes on from there. If I've made a mistake, please tell me where it is.

But you don't need to say anything else. You said quite enough when you said, "When you say that everything, in reality, can be explained by reason, that is so obvious as to be meaningless." I think this statement of yours is pure reaction. How can reason be meaningless when meaning has no definition apart from reason. Meaning by definition is how one set of facts leads to another set of facts, which of course requires the premise and conclusion of logic. It seems the only reason anyone can think logic is meaningless is that they have not been able to deriving anything relevant from logic. Perhaps my efforts would cure this meaninglessness.

Actually, what is meaningless it the present paradigm of curve-fitting physics that finds math that matches measurements and calling it a law because we have not found any contradictions yet. We consider these "laws" provisional because we can't know if we will soon find situations where they don't apply. But this method is not a derivation from reason. We use it because it so far works. So these laws are not capable of providing any meaning or purpose for why things are as they are. In effect, they are stating that the universe is based on some ontology that defies explanation. So they say that the universe is not based on reason; instead it is based on completely inexplicable brute facts; that reality is based on the defiance of reason.

[minkwe]

I'm sure I'm defining logic in the usual way...
What is the definition? You claim to be deriving all of physics from logic and you can't even explain what "logic" means? I won't ask again.

What kind of question is this... what is the definition (of logic)?

A very simple foundational question for what you are doing. You claimed I was assuming logic is limited to the human mind so I asked you to explain what Logic means.

Logic is the scientific study of the processes of sound thinking and reasoning. Reason and thinking are epistemological processes that take place in the human mind. Therefore by definition, logic is limited to the human mind. Since you disagree, you must have a different definition of what is meant by logic. You haven't provided such. Until then it is impossible to glean what the words you've strewn together actually mean. Until you are able to do that, everything you are saying is gobbledygook.

You are making a lot of circular claims about physics. But you fail to understand basic facts. All theories in physics are products of the human mind arrived at through thinking and reasoning about facts and observations. Saying you have discovered that everything, in reality, can be explained by reason, is like saying everything can be described with a description. It's simply a tautology.

[friend]

What kind of question is this... what is the definition (of logic)?

A very simple foundational question for what you are doing.

Foundational questions about logic, math, and physics seems to be an ongoing debate to the present by experts. Specifically, we don't yet have an agreed upon interpretation of quantum physics. Sure, professors will teach quantum physics to students starting with some basic principle of QM. But when they start calling these basic principles axioms, I hear students moan because axioms are supposed to be intuitively obvious which QM is not........ yet.

You claimed I was assuming logic is limited to the human mind so I asked you to explain what Logic means.

"the meaning of logic", you ask of me? Logic is supposed to be self-contained and self-explanatory. How could I possibly add to it. What you want is metalogic, not logic. And it is probably a matter of subjective importance to each individual.

Are we trying to pick apart and prove that everything in the universe is necessarily logical in every realm in all details? It is inherently impossible to actually observe and measure all things in order to prove this. So how could we prove or disprove that it is so? We can't. So it must remain an assumption. For there simply does not seem to be any rational alternative except to assume that everything in the universe is rational. My claim is that the ultimate theory of physics must be derived from logic. The only alternative is to suggest that the foundations of reality are irrational. Is that what you're implying? Or are you agreeing that science makes this assumption?

Logic is the scientific study of the processes of sound thinking and reasoning. Reason and thinking are epistemological processes that take place in the human mind. Therefore by definition, logic is limited to the human mind.

Are you trying to suggest that physical reality is not necessarily logical because it is not of the mind? Or are you saying that there must be a supernatural mind out there to ensure that reality remains logical? Or are you saying that we cannot possibly know if all facts are logically consistent with other facts? Granted, that we cannot measure all the facts. But doesn't science always assume that all of physical reality is reasonable, and hence logical?

Since you disagree, you must have a different definition of what is meant by logic. You haven't provided such.

Is logic some arbitrary language game that we play, like chess? Or are the truths of logic objectively real? Since we can all, independently understand the precepts of logic, they are not dependent on human minds. It is something we can agree is true independent of our language or feelings or intentions, etc. That sounds objective to me.

Until then it is impossible to glean what the words you've strewn together actually mean. Until you are able to do that, everything you are saying is gobbledygook.

I think you may be trying to read more into my work than intended. My thesis is that the laws of physics can be derived from the principles of logic as we have them today. This is a justification of physics, not an attempt to debunk it.

You are making a lot of circular claims about physics.

How is this circular? What am I assuming that I state as a conclusion?

But you fail to understand basic facts.

What qualifies you to grade me?

Saying you have discovered that everything, in reality, can be explained by reason, is like saying everything can be described with a description. It's simply a tautology.

I'm not claiming to have "discovered" that everything is logical. Instead, I'm using this as my starting premise. Don't all scientists claim that the universe is logical such that the process of reasoning can then be used?