Mike Helland wrote:

All words are completely meaningless and useless until some human
being
decides otherwise.

That is quite true. In theoretical physics words are given meaning in
two different ways. One way is to assign a name to an experimental
fact,
an observation that everyone can reasonably agree on. The other way is
to assign a name to a mathematical object. Pre-existing notions of what
each name means in non-scientific language is only a guide to choosing
this nomenclature.

Are you trying to tell me that you're refusing to engage in direct
conversation with me because you don't have any idea what "change" is
supposed to mean?

Pretty much, or rather I have no idea what *you* mean by "change". You
have yet to assign a meaning to it that is either independent of the
meaning given to "time", or is well defined mathematically. Philosophy
is easy, but in physics, the devil, as you know, is in the details.

Here's a mathematical model in the form of a computer program (Visual
FoxPro):
[...]

Unfortunately the pseudocode you present does not come close to meeting
the expected standard. Let me give you an example. Consider classical
mechanics. State of a given system is defined by a bunch of numbers, we
say that these numbers correspond to degrees of freedom (coordinates)
and their momenta. All these numbers are also functions of one real
variable, which I'll denote by the letter t. We call the variable t
time and the change of the values of the degrees of freedom and their
momenta with respect to time is called evolution. Evolution is
specified by a given differential equation. We say that this
differential equation defines the dynamics of our system and certain
terms in it define forces or potentials.

Using this type of mathematical model, I can already describe a large
number of experimentally realizable situations. For example any system
that can be modeled as a bunch of point particles already fits. Also,
all the terms that are used to describe this model, such as "time",
"degree of freedom", "dynamics", ..., are well defined independent of
their meaning in non-scientific discourse. I expect any framework that
touts itself as an alternative to be at least as easy to interpret.

In fact, changing this model slightly, I can realize in part the idea
you are proposing. So far all degrees of freed of the theory are on
equal footing. Let me pick one of them, say T(t), such that the
equation T(t)=T_0 is invertible for t=T^{-1}(T_0). I will call T(t) a
clock. I can then replace any other degree of freedom x(t) by an
equivalent function of the clock X(T). Hence the notion of time t can
be eliminated and be replaced by an equivalent notion of a clock T. The
deficiency of this model is that T is treated differently than all the
other degrees of freedom. The challenge is now to come up with
something better. And by better I mean that it should be able to
reproduce all that is predicted by the old theory which is observed.

This is the challenge you must meet before you can attract any
significant attention. Crude toy models are helpful for you to figure
out what you need to do to meet this challenge. But they are not
sufficient to convince anyone else.

Igor Khavkine wrote:

Your conclusion about the surface area of a black hole horizone are
most likely wrong. This area is tied to many properties of a black
hole, including mass, life time, temperature. All of these
parameters
are in principle measurable and are not expected to give zero.

Your gut feelings on the likelyness of whether it is likely wrong or
not is not the point. What is observed is the point.

You are right. I did not want to make any definite statement here,
because my knowledge of the relevant observations is not great. But
I'll say that observations of what we believe to be black holes do
yield non-zero estimates for the horizon surface area. If I am
mistaken, perhaps someone mor knowledgeable can correct me.

Igor Khavkine wrote:
Mike Helland wrote:

snip
Are you trying to tell me that you're refusing to engage in direct
conversation with me because you don't have any idea what "change"
is
supposed to mean?

Pretty much, or rather I have no idea what *you* mean by "change".
You
have yet to assign a meaning to it that is either independent of the
meaning given to "time", or is well defined mathematically.
Philosophy
is easy, but in physics, the devil, as you know, is in the details.

Here's a mathematical model in the form of a computer program
(Visual
FoxPro):
[...]

Unfortunately the pseudocode you present does not come close to
meeting
the expected standard.

1. The code I presented was not pseudocode

That will compile and run in Visual FoxPro, and with some slight
tweaking, Visual Basic .NET. You'll find that Objected Oriented
Programming is the technology that allows for this different type of
model.

2. What *I* mean by "change" is stated in the code

The line where I set the position of an electron to a different value
is an example of change in the system.


Let me give you an example. Consider classical
mechanics. State of a given system is defined by a bunch of numbers,
we
say that these numbers correspond to degrees of freedom (coordinates)
and their momenta. All these numbers are also functions of one real
variable, which I'll denote by the letter t. We call the variable t
time and the change of the values of the degrees of freedom and their
momenta with respect to time is called evolution. Evolution is
specified by a given differential equation.

In the model I'm trying to communicate to you, evolution is specificied
by the rules of the computer code I setup. The initial conditions were
setup in a few lines of code, and the system changed in a single line
of code.

Obviouslly, it is far from being a model of QED, but that is the
intention with my research. The purpose of discussing this here is to
see if we can find any weaknesses in what I do have, not if there are
any weaknesses in what I do not have.


This is the challenge you must meet before you can attract any
significant attention. Crude toy models are helpful for you to figure
out what you need to do to meet this challenge. But they are not
sufficient to convince anyone else.

That may be true. But if my crude foundation has problems in it I'd
like to find this sooner than later, which most often are found in
dialouge.

So I think my crude toy models should also be sufficient enough for the
basis of a discussion.

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 13:46:45 +0000, Mike Helland wrote:

Igor Khavkine wrote:

Unfortunately the pseudocode you present does not come close to
meeting the expected standard.

1. The code I presented was not pseudocode

That will compile and run in Visual FoxPro, and with some slight tweaking,
Visual Basic .NET. You'll find that Objected Oriented Programming is the
technology that allows for this different type of model.

2. What *I* mean by "change" is stated in the code

The line where I set the position of an electron to a different value is
an example of change in the system.

Ah, this I can understand and critique. Is your model capable of
describing more than one particle? How about, 10, 100, 1000, 10^20?
Are you going to change the state of each one of them by hand? Besides,
your model must function independently of its creator, in this case you.

Let me give you an example. Consider classical mechanics. State of a
given system is defined by a bunch of numbers, we
say that these numbers correspond to degrees of freedom (coordinates)
and their momenta. All these numbers are also functions of one real
variable, which I'll denote by the letter t. We call the variable t time
and the change of the values of the degrees of freedom and their momenta
with respect to time is called evolution. Evolution is specified by a
given differential equation.

In the model I'm trying to communicate to you, evolution is specificied by
the rules of the computer code I setup. The initial conditions were setup
in a few lines of code, and the system changed in a single line of code.

I did not see any rules for evolution. All I saw was you changing the
state of one of your objects.

This is the challenge you must meet before you can attract any
significant attention. Crude toy models are helpful for you to figure
out what you need to do to meet this challenge. But they are not
sufficient to convince anyone else.

That may be true. But if my crude foundation has problems in it I'd like
to find this sooner than later, which most often are found in dialouge.

So I think my crude toy models should also be sufficient enough for the
basis of a discussion.

Unfortunately, you have yet to provide something that is an actual model
that can be discussed (see my critique above). As to your heuristic ideas,
as I've mentioned and given references for, they are not new and have been
explored in some directions.

Igor

Igor Khavkine wrote:
On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 13:46:45 +0000, Mike Helland wrote:

Igor Khavkine wrote:

Unfortunately the pseudocode you present does not come close to
meeting the expected standard.

1. The code I presented was not pseudocode

That will compile and run in Visual FoxPro, and with some slight
tweaking,
Visual Basic .NET. You'll find that Objected Oriented Programming
is the
technology that allows for this different type of model.

2. What *I* mean by "change" is stated in the code

The line where I set the position of an electron to a different
value is
an example of change in the system.

Ah, this I can understand and critique. Is your model capable of
describing more than one particle? How about, 10, 100, 1000, 10^20?
Are you going to change the state of each one of them by hand?
Besides,
your model must function independently of its creator, in this case
you.

I can't post a better version of the program because I use Google
Groups 2 and it can't handle the whitespace.

You can see a better program he

http://www.techmocracy.net/science/time.htm
(Refreshing the page would be a good idea.)

There are two programs, the second one will be the one you want to
inspect, but to really get an understanding of this approach it would
help to read the paper in its entirety.

Basically this is a model that allows you to create many instances of
particles, and has generic rules that are repeatedly applied so that it
may function independently.

....
Unfortunately, you have yet to provide something that is an actual
model
that can be discussed (see my critique above). As to your heuristic
ideas,
as I've mentioned and given references for, they are not new and have
been
explored in some directions.

The basic idea is that instead of modeling the world as an observer
sees it, we take a step backwards and actually model the observer
itself. No other theory today is formalized in this way. All posit the
existence of an observer as an assumption, they do not define an
observer within the operations of the theory.

If this is an old idea, may you please give me some references to that
research? The only similar ideas I've found have been Leibniz's.