Philosophical Model Archives - Intuitively Creative Consulting

Persistence

May 19, 2019August 12, 2019
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Our objective spacetime has four coordinates, three spatial coordinates and one time coordinate. We are used to thinking of the extent of this spacetime in terms of the spatial coordinates alone. We estimate the age of the universe with a distance – the number of light years to the most distant object observable.

By definition, the spatial coordinates of an object do not change in its own inertial rest frame. The concept of rest in this context has two aspects: the spatial coordinates do not change and the time coordinate does change. In objective experience, which excludes spacelike intervals, the reversed situation, in which the spatial coordinates do change while the time coordinate does not change, is not experienced. To say that the object persists in its own inertial rest frame means not only that the object persists in time but also that its spatial coordinates persist in time. The coordinates of the object, however, always change, as the time coordinate always changes.

The position of an object is determined using signals that are limited in speed by the speed of light. But the persistence of the object at its rest location in its own rest frame is not subject to a transmitted signal. Rather, in the viewpoint taken in this blog, persistence requires emergence from the primordial vacuum of new points into the physical spacetime. The new points have new time coordinates. Thus, even if an emergent point does not increase the spatial extension of spacetime, persistence of a spatial point does increase the duration of the spacetime.

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Matter and Quantum Conditions

May 15, 2019August 12, 2019
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The points within the primordial vacuum are indistinguishable from one another. The physical vacuum exhibits extension and the points within it are distinguishable from one another. This property of the physical vacuum is attributed to the presence of matter fields. The present approach to understanding physical phenomena indicates that the physical vacuum is not devoid of matter states, but is emergent from the primordial vacuum by virtue of the presence of matter states.

This state of affairs follows naturally from the necessity of quantum conditions. The manifestation of extension necessitates a conjugate property in accordance with the quantum conditions. If the property of extension has units of length then the conjugate property has units of momentum such that the product of the two has units of action. These properties are properties of quantum states of matter. The determination of location within the vacuum is a determination of a quantum state. This quantum state can be described by a wavefunction that is a function of the spacetime coordinates.

The quantum conditions follow naturally if the conjugate property is expressed using an operator on the wavefunctions that involves taking the derivative of the wavefunction with respect to the coordinates and multiplying by a factor with units of action. The quantum conditions are that the commutation of the momentum and position operators gives the factor with units of action.

As the two properties required for quantum conditions in the emergent spacetime points represent determinations of conjugate properties of quantum states, the uncertainty principle must apply to these determinations. As the spacetime vacuum exhibits extension due to the existence of matter, the uncertainty principle drives the virtual processes that maintain extension. These processes give rise to what is referred to as the vacuum energy.

The emergence of matter states is inherent in the emergence of spacetime points from the set of primordial vacuum points. This mechanism gives rise to the metric of matter as a functional of the matter fields and to the vacuum energy necessitated by the quantum conditions along with the uncertainty principle. The metric tensor describes the macroscopic character of the emergent spacetime, while the quantum conditions describe the quantum character of the emergent spacetime. Both the metric tensor and the wavefunction arise from the role that matter plays in the emergence of spacetime points from the primordial vacuum.

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Emergence of Spacetime from the Primordial Vacuum

April 21, 2019August 12, 2019
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In any spacetime coordinate system used to describe physical phenomena, different coordinates identify different points. No two points have the same coordinates and the points are distinguishable from one another. The invariant differential interval between two points, which includes the differences in time and spatial coordinates, is fundamental in physical descriptions of spacetime phenomena. The differential interval depends not only on the differential difference between the coordinates of the two points, but also on the metric associated with the system of coordinates. Even though the differential interval can be zero (a lightlike interval), the coordinate differential between two points cannot be zero. Thus, physical spacetime exhibits extension; it extends from point to point.

Imagine a set of points that are indistinguishable from one another. Such a set of points, even an infinite set of such points, exhibits no extension. We might call this a true vacuum, or the primordial vacuum. One of the tenets of the philosophical model is that spacetime emerges from the primordial vacuum. The physical model seeks to describe this emergence.

This emergence is envisioned as potentially obviating the big bang theory and its need for cosmic inflation. The reason for this is that the creation of new spacetime, thus new extension between spacetime points, is posited not to be constrained by the speed of light; the extent of spacetime can increase faster than could be conveyed by a light signal. Moreover, the emergence of spacetime is treated in the physical model as governed by constraints that are functionals of the coordinates through the physical fields. Thus, the emergence implies emergence of physical fields – matter. As the creation of new extent is posited not to be constrained by the speed of light, the creation of matter in the expanding spacetime is not constrained by the speed of light. Matter in emergent areas of spacetime does not travel from pre-existing points in the spacetime, it is created along with the emergent spacetime.

The constraints are functionals. They depend on the physical fields which in the existing physics of our experience are the fields of the Standard Model. The field potentials are functions of the coordinates. The physical model posits that the coordinate differentials associated with emergence of spacetime at a horizon is a functional of the field potentials and the coordinate differentials themselves. This functional expresses the constraints by which matter governs the spacetime metric associated with the coordinates. The function could be called the constraint functional. But the philosophical model presented here suggests an alternative name – the consciousness functional.

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Objectivity and Measurement

April 5, 2019August 12, 2019
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A viable theory in physics is testable. Typically, this means that it provides quantitative predictions that objective measurements can verify. Thus, the natures of objectivity and measurement are philosophical elements of physics. One practical way to think of objectivity was discussed by Saul A. Basri (“A Deductive Theory of Space and Time”, [Amsterda, Holland, 1966]). The essence of this was that an event is objective if the number of competent people who agree that their given subjective experiences arise from the same given external event approaches infinity.

A measurement is a type of objective event. The accuracy of a measured value is the closeness of the value to the true value. Precision refers to the closeness in value of two measurements to one another. If one, a priori, does not know the true value of a measurement, the value is established statistically from a number of measurements. But even if all of the measurements give the same value, each measurement is always limited in significance. Every measurement has limits of significance, or error limits. As my postdoctoral advisor, G. Wilse Robinson, liked to point out, decreasing the error limits of a measurement likely reveals new phenomena.

As discussed in the “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/ ),
“Phenomenology studies structures of conscious experience as experienced from the first-person point of view, along with relevant conditions of experience.” Whatever reveals new phenomena advances phenomenological study. Decreasing the error limits of measurement with precision is a way to expand the phenomenological basis of objective experience.

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Constraints on Spacetimes

February 18, 2019May 6, 2019
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The model is “top down” in its mathematical development, also. That is, each mathematical postulate has consequences. Each consequence generates a new feature corresponding to physical phenomena. Thus, the postulate that points are distinguishable one from the other is a consequence of the physical phenomena of fields. The characteristics of the fields are consequences of constraints by which the points are distinguishable from a primordial set of indistinguishable points. The constraints segregate different spacetimes. The characteristic fields of a given spacetime are consequences of the number of dimensions, the metric signature, and the resultant symmetries.

Philosophical Model

Indeterminism

February 17, 2019May 26, 2019
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The element of free will is considered to be justified on empirical grounds. Specifically, no deterministic model adequately accounts for all physical phenomena. Even if a sufficiently developed mathematical model of, say, a human being in an environment, were tractable, exact prediction of the complete temporal evolution of the human state would, in this view, not be possible. The element of free will is that which denies the completeness of any deterministic model of experience. It is precisely the indeterminant aspect that is free will.

The above is not meant to imply that free will is an attribute only of a complex system, such as a human being in an environment. Rather, this serves as an obvious example of a system with an unpredictable complete temporal evolution. In practice, any system is, in its essence, of a quantum nature. Its dynamical states (the complete set of wavefunctions) are known, perhaps, but the a priori particular state in not known – only the probability that collapse of the wavefunction will result in any given particular state. If “will” is considered to be that attribute of a system that renders it to be persistent, then the notion of “free will” is the notion that the evolution of the system in this persistence is a priori known only with probabilities.

Philosophical Model

Free Will

January 3, 2019May 6, 2019
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The philosophical model unpinning a physical model is a “top down” model. The observable spacetime of the physical model emerges from the philosophical reduction of phenomena from a primordial whole. The philosophical model, in its steps of reduction, includes a crucial step. This is collapse of a quantum mechanical wavefunction. This collapse is posited to be an act of free will. As such, it is characterized by indeterminism which cannot be modeled mathematically. The deterministic physical model follows as that which can be modeled mathematically. Thus, the model yields a physical model in the traditional sense, but explicitly includes free will that cannot be modeled mathematically.