Q basic realities of living in the multiverse or Minkowski space we are in

This week, I was stunned to see how little kids watching comic movies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v1BpX4Awxk get to see a better image of reality which we now have from mainstream physics than do most professional physicists or mystics or philosophers! EVEN YESHUA may benefit from reading this one closely.... in a way, I am writing this for him. There is a huge explanation gap here. But please forgive me if once again I start from some claims which some of you on these lists would want to debate. I will be happy to explain a big, but FIRST THE BASICS. The most basic, solid, well-tested theory of charged particles and electromagnetic forces (just PART of physics, of course) is the version of Quantum Electrodynamics based on the Everett/Wheeler/ Deutsch theory of physics. I already gave lots of explanation of that AND MY VIEWS OF OTHER THINGS in links on my web page ========================================================= Is it possible to reconcile (1) the hardest core realism in physics, versus (2) the modern best quantum field theories, versus (3) our new mathematical understanding of brains and minds and the evolution of life; versus (4) the most powerful first person experience of soul and spirit, and of our connections to a serious and real higher level of intelligence? In truth, it took me more than 50 years to see a solid mathematical way to reconcile all this. But now – after exploring thousands of other views and cultures, I now see no credible evidence against the new unification I posted on youtube this year (see the slide below). For a more intuitive picture of what this means, see this recent interview discussion in Canada. ================================================================= The EWD theory says that we live in a specific type of "multiverse" called a "Fock space." It says that the state of the cosmos we live in, at any time t, is simply the state or value of a function psi(t,X), where X is a point in Fock space and t is time. WE KNOW from extensive experiments in many areas that our cosmos is EITHER: (1) A multiverse, like what EWD assumes (And like what the Spiderman trailer discusses!!!) (2) A 3+1-D curved space, like what Einstein assumed (I call this "HCER") . This SOUNDS simpler than EWD, BUT IN PRACTICE THOSE FEW OF US WHO DEEPLY UNDERSTAND the mathematics of that possibility (See https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul-Werbos/publication/327164414_WerbosFleury_v2/links/5b7de4bea6fdcc5f8b5de239/WerbosFleury-v2 or just use scholar.google.com to find the paper by Werbos and Fleury) understand that it yields a picture of our life whihc is actually WEIRDER than what EWD seems to depict. (3) WEIRDER even than either of those, as in concepts which have yet to be translated into real mathematics, or into clear images of how life actually works for us. (This huge collection ranges from "digital universe" to ultrafuzzy versions both of idealism and of solipsism." SO IF YOU WANT TO MINIMIZE CRAZINESS AND WEIRDNESS IN YOUR VIEW OF LIFE, (1) IS THE SIMPLEST, LEAST CRAZY OPTION YOU HAVE! Anyone who thinks that EWD multiverse is "too weird to believe" is simply out of touch with hard core experience, with first person reality and objective reality both! And so, when the kiddies ask how spiderman will survive in the multiverse, THEY are in touch with reality a lot more than the ignorant flat earth adults!! ======================== ============================== But now let me go to MORE ADVANCED QUESTIONS, building on that foundation. Questions like what the kiddies were asking, like what I have asked at times about President Trump 2021 and King Charles 1970-1990. And like some new quantum technologies which might just show up working on this planet, beyond even David Deutsch's Quantum Turing Machine. (But not yet the true time stuff, buried in the experiment+theory paper Werbos and Fleury if anyone understood it.) Kiddies first: IS IT POSSIBLE that Spiderman or some other human really could be put into a mixed state, where they exist in TWO "universes" (clusters of threads of the multiverse) at the same time, causing enormous problems for the entire space-time continuum? Please forgive me if I first review a major part of modern empirical physics which most people do not know about. =============================================== CAn ANY macroscopic object (let alone a person) enter into a mixed state, a quantum superposition? Because I am a hard core Einsteinian realist, I was once very skeptical of the idea that this could be possible. So was the famous Tony Leggett and many other physicists. I am very grateful to Menas Kafatos for inviting me to give a paper at his great symposium in 1988 where all the skeptics came to present their ALTERNATIVES to the Deutschian view: https://www.amazon.com/Theorem-Conceptions-Universe-Fundamental-Theories/dp/0792304969/ But real physicists do not just argue; they look for empirical evidence. Many did, starting from ideas at that conference. Due to them, and to work by followers of Deutsch, a huge literature has grown up (and keeps growing) showing that YES MACROSCOPIC SCHRODINGER CATS DO EXIST, AND YES EWD MAKES CORRECT PREDICTIONS ABOUT THEM. I have previously posted general literature reviews, but since I don't want to spend so much time on that today, let me just note that I went to scholar.google.com this morning and searched on: macroscopic schrodinger cats kilometers which gave 931 hits. One of the hits near the top which might be intelligible to nonspecialists: http://quanta.ws/ojs/index.php/quanta/article/viewFile/68/99 SO YES THEY ARE POSSIBLE AND REAL. ====================================== BUT HOW REAL COULD THEY BE THEY IN REAL HUMAN LIFE? ACCORDING TO PHYSICS? In the Spiderman trailer, a specific event occurs which "splits the multiverse" into two tracks, which stay apart but interact for as long as the trailer lasts. (I did not see the full movie. I saw the trailer because my family brought me to see Dune.) THESE lists might even discuss what kind of events would do that, but not in this post, which already is too large. In truth, I have often wondered whether our multiverse might have been split, to a macroscopic degree, one on the day after election day 2020 in the US and another in the UK . IS IT POSSIBLE that Trump really is occupying the White House right now, in an Alternate Reality which really DOES exist? This is a very tricky question, and I did not really understand the key principles until THIS YEAR -- the year when I more fully understood the full implications of the paper by Werbos and Fleury. (This is not trivial math!) ============================================= I BEGAN WITH A MORE ORTHODOX VIEWPOINT, LIKE WHAT MOST EWD PEOPLE TACITLY ASSUME. (And like what my latest next generation quantum computing ideas assume.) I pictured the "splits" as the kinds of flows one would expect by understanding pis-dot=iHpsi. One imagines parallel "universes" as states S(t) of the multiverse, with probabilities attached. The PRACTICAL QUESTION is what the probability distribution (S(t)) looks like. Many good, serious physicists assume that macroscopic schrodinger cats are still quite rare, and that Pr(S(t)) usually looks like a narrow normal distribution centered around a normal base case reality. Even solid EWD physicists were surprised when QED engineers learned how to create such states, but it took special efforts. ANY solid EWD physicist would agree that the Pr(S(t)) which emerges with time is exactly what the generalized Boltzmann distribution specifies. (https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Condensed-Matter-Physics-Chaikin/dp/0521794501/). The shape of the probability surface is basically the same as the energy surface, for states of relatively separated macroscopic objects, like people or cars, etc. A SPOTTY probability distribution, with LOTS of states well represented, is only possible if the energy surface is spotty. But in fact, we know how to do that. Is the internet itself starting to do that? MORE IMPORTANT IN THE DYNAMICS: those who do real QED dynamic calculations know that VIRTUAL states are also important, states with a kind of imbalance such that their probability DECAYS WITH TIME. I have generally assumed that the Trump2020 "universe", if it existed, has been decahing in probability ... a very serious MACROSCOPIC virtual state. (Hey, has anyone studied macroscopic virtual cats? I don't know how hard it would be, but if anyone could, it would be a great PhD topic under an advisor capable of such things!! The math is almost certainly right, but that doesn't tell you how easy it is to DO.) ==================================== ========================================= BUT BEYOND THAT: Long ago, I (and no one else?) understood how the MRF models necessary to explain CHSH experiments under HCER, OR under a version of EWD modified to be mathematically consistent (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10773-008-9719-9.pdf) tell us that WE are actually just POSSIBLE STATES, not "the only real" or "chosen" states! (Yes, Pr(S) for states over 3D space can have that property!) In a way, we are like the "shadows on the wall" of Plato's cave. Tricky, splitting kinds of environments (like the 2020 elections?) can induce a LATTICE of possibilities, which branch out from ONE START, but then later RECOMBINE to one final state. When we experience life IN THE MIDDLE of that lattice, there are parallel copies of us out there just as real as we are! There is both recombination, and evaporation, in the statistics of Pr(S) under HCER, just as there are in EWD. So in the end, HCER is not REALLY weirder than EWD! Through the mathematical equivalence (at the level of QED) they predict precisely the SAME degree of weirdness. HCER does make more interesting predictions at a later stage, but even the most advanced possible quantum technology on the table NOW does not yet rise to that later stage. I allows it, but not yet. Time, better models of nuclear force and solitons are key parts of the difference which we will someday see (if we ever get that far on this planet at risk). ============= Let me pull out a fine poing sme folks may have missed: The experiments in Werbos and Fleuery were NOT to test EWD versus HCER. Those experiments were designed to test a few variants of EWD slightly altered (NOT by altering psi-dot=iHpsi but by altering practical models of macroscopic objects interacting with psi) VERSUS the ancient Cartesian dualisms which many philosophers are enamored of , "seeking God (a path to heaven)" in a pair of polarized sunglasses). Consistent versions won over Cartesian versions, hands down. But THAT needs to be more widely understood and replicated. From the viewpoint of believing in psi-dot=iHpsi, it is about MACROSCOPIC MODELS of MACROSCOPIC objects, and how they ingteract over time, which is absolutely central to reality (and even to spiderman). to be mathemafically consistent

Scientific Foundation of Fear, and Threats of Extinction of the Human Species

First, I thank Yeshua ben David for his thoughtful comment on the video conversation with the Chile Council on Foresight, https://youtu.be/TT5n10Co8hM which they are using as input to BOTH parties in the major national elections which start tomorrow. I forwarded Yeshua's comments back to them, and they replied just now: ================================================================= Good morning Paul, glad to learn that you posted the video link in different places, also the drive link. I did the same. The email from Yeshua Ben David, very interesting on the dramatic situation of Venezuela, and also his comments about the crisis of integrity we are facing all over the world, but mainly in latin america. It is important what he said, that you continue inspiring people to find ideas and solutions. I completely agree with that. It's a good idea you should consider expanding the outline of the book to include those two new sections. I think the book will be a very useful contribution to knowledge and an "opening minds tool" . ================= THE DRAFT PROPOSED IEEE book I mentioned will focus intensely on climate and energy security, but this conversation with the Chile Council, and my other activities, led me to think I should consider expanding my proposed section of the book ("What have we missed?", a less formal chapter looking to the future) to include subsections or chapters on the internet risks (mostly a fear item, like climate) and on connection to the noosphere (a hope item, ever so connected to climate). ==================================================== But people have asked whether anyone SHOULD do anything about FEARS like the FEAR of worst case climate change, which will be a major section of the new book (if it is approved). In fact -- FEAR ITSELF is extremely fundamental to the human mind, to the mammal brain, even to the soul and to artificial general intelligence AGI). It is far more universal and fundamental than qualia like "redness"!! Those of us who are serious and sane students of first person human experience DO INCLUDE fear in our serious studies, even in FIRST PERSON SCIENCE. Those who do not are what I have called "spiritual coach potatoes," a very important phrase which I thank Yeshua for reminding me of yesterday. Fears of extinction of our entire human species are an important SPECIAL CASE of fear, but the GENERAL CASE is an important starting point we should all study on these two lists. MATHEMATICS is the most solid and universal foundation for the study of consciousness and intelligent systems. See the open access journal paper https://internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2016.00097/full for a review of the evidence that mammal brains DO FIT a special class of neural network model, models based on "RLADP", neural networks designed to learn how to maximize some kind of inborn U signal (aka telos, utility). I have given tutorials and papers on RLADP, from concepts to implementation, for decades. SOME CRUCIAL STARTING POINTS: * Some of us would even DEFINE an "intelligent system" as a system (form) designed or evolved to learn to maximize the long-term expected value of U over future time. U is basically inborn. (See Pribram's edited book https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Values-Biological-Monographs-Proceedings-ebook/dp/B073V2VNMT/ for a detailed explanation and, of course, lots of real neuroscience.) * But the mathematics of RLADP tells us that intelligent systems must contain components I call J or lambda, to bridge the gap between long-term values U and guidance for actions here and now. Thus "The theory that the brain is an RLADP machine basically is a fancy way of saying that our actions are all driven by hopes (J or lambda positive) and fears (J or lambda negative)." The specific brain circuits which implement J and U and lambda are identifiable and hardwired into the mammal brain. What CAUSES a feeling of hope or fear (J going up or down) VARIES as we learn, but the physical basis of the feelings themselves is permanent. Without hopes and fears, we would not be intelligent. Those humans who APPEAR devoid of hopes and fears are called "low affect" or "personality disorder" in psychology, for good reason. (Bernie Baars has rightly urged us to get copies of the standard desk reference on common human mental disorders.) Those who PRETEND to be free of hopes and fears, but who clutch in their stomach as they say it, are far more common, fortunately; those too appear in the manual, in many forms, varying from psychopathic liars to very conscious liars, to those whose words and meanings are utterly disconnected (somewhat like split brain experiment patients). The math demands both positive and negative aspects. Many of us first person scientists have studied what children do. They often have unrealistic fears they need to learn to outgrow, but also real threats (like cars as they cross the street) for whihc they must learn MORE/NEW and better defined fears, using their full focused intelligence. Because people do not enjoy fear, they usually learn a host of ways to cope with fears. I urge any serious student of the human mind to read one of the great longitudinal papers by Vaillant (like https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/docs/230/2014/25Soldz.pdf) , who did a catalogue of the common "defense mechanisms" people learn to cope with major fears of threats or stress. Some lead to gross failure in life, even for successful graduates of Harvard, while others do well. The technical defense mechanism called "denial", often biasing climate policy is the one which can drive anyone to death, at any level. There are more promising defense mechanisms, including those which support honest probing, science and collaboration -- as we work very hard to advance in the new IEEE book project!! It has been an incredible emotional roller coaster ride for me, especially, as I have trained my my "global workspace of consciousness" to be able to see realistic future scenarios very vividly, with all the required labels for probabilities and alternative outcomes, and as the very best evidence does change as one probes deeper and deeper. Best of luck. We ALL need it!!! ===================================== ======================================== Addendum: In one discussion, a friend asked: "**IF** we do take climate risk seriously, what can we do? Just send letters to our Congressman, or change our lifestyle?" I replied by expressing MY fear reaction to people who overuse the phrase "Think globally, act locally." I was happy to hear an old friend propose that many years ago, but I would now wonder whether he could foresee what a Frankenstein monster that morphed into! The new IEEE book proposal begins by stressing the need to build new NETWORKS of communication, connecting all the way from the bugs under the mud in the Amazon to the highest levels of legislative and investment decisions, WITH LOTS OF SOLID TWO-WAY CONVERSATION TO INTEGRATE IMPORTANT REALITIES IN THE MIDDLE LIKE WHAT IEEE COVERS. I even urged some chapter authors to think of themselves as neurons, urgently needed to connect both "up" and "down" (and sideways of course) to give our world the TYPE of collective intelligence that we now need even just to survive as a species!

From covid to climate to internet -- metaphors and reality and new physics

I see three really huge issues of life or death dominating at different levels of human thought these days -- covid, climate risks, and internet risks. All three can be great "toys" for the mind, areas to test our ability to think clearly and focus effectively. I am ever so glad that I am NOT one of the people who has to devote more than about 5% of my time and energy on covid. Yes, if we are sane, we all DO have to have some clear strategies for coping with covid, but I enjoy that about as much as I enjoy trips to the bathroom in my house. Yes, I have great respect for people like Fauci working hard to"cover" that part of our world, just as I respect my kidneys,but I am... happy or content... to occupy a different part of our noosphere. Yes, I notice global political signs in the way that covid flows (e.g. to Russia right now, as I see on DW livestream), but ... For several weeks I have "crashed" on the issue of climate extinction. After all, if covid threatens about 1% of us, one way or another, and if there are simple ways to be more secure in our own lives, why not pay more attention to the issue of climate extinction which threatens ALL of us, together, as a species? That's a matter of prioritization. And if COP26 people are screwing up more than covid policies are screwing up THAT area, is that not a call for those of us who know better to try to improve it as best we can? This has been a great learning experience, involving deep ups and downs, learning to adjust my views in the way I once did when I worked at NSF and learned the depths of many new fields. It is not only about making CONNECTIONS, but about INTEGRATION. Making new connections in thought and in human networks of communication is central to any field; I see failure to make connections with reality as the main reason why COP26 is making our chances of survival worse, not better, on the whole. But connections alone are not enough; it is essential to INTEGRATE the story, and to know the mathematical way of thinking, integrating and questioning (ala Von Neumann). By the way, the new story on climate is every bit as scary as what I feared a few months ago... and the workable solutions from technology, science and microeconomics (integrative market design) are still huge but scattered, not well enough integrated even now... So when folks talk about covid versus climate, one image comes to my mind: we CAN survive the lethal challenges facing us on climate by fully connecting to the earth (and sun), and drawing together more of the fullest, highest intelligence available there. Versus poor covid folks stuck in a kind of underworld. BUT NOW: today, on a kind of sabbath or weekend day... I can wait until Monday for the next big installment of the climate struggle.. and try to reflect on the bigger picture, not losing sight of that bigger picture. Above all, I see the new risks emerging from changes in the internet (http://www.werbos.com/How_to%20Build_Past_Emerging_Internet_Chaos.htm) as bigger, more definite, closer at hand and more difficult even than the number two set of immminent risks from climate. To what extent is this great crusade on climate (which is far from won) just a kind of avoidance behavior for me, distracting me from the really big threats, threats closer to my own personal comparative advantage? But if we humans are too dumb even to save our own lives in the face of someting so mundane and visible as climate problems, and if the very best experts on earth can act on total blindness until their eyes are forcibly directed to clear simple numbers under their own eyes, what hope is there of us surviving something far more challenging to understand and organize? Is the "spirit of the time" (Jung, Red Book) and our local solar noosphere just too... dumb?... limited... to be able to cope with something that tricky, if it can barely come to terms with something so much simpler rooted in its own experience? (I often cite Ward and Kirschvink, and Hazen's work, lately for an image of what our noosphere has experienced in its long life so far.) Actually, I THINK I have been able to smuggle some very serious and important new and benign internet technology into the IEEE climate discussion, with encouragement from others who agree that the internet sector is also important. So it is not JUST avoidance behavior, but it has a long way to go. And I am reminded again how Jung has seen as clearly as any human into "the spirit of the times" versus "the spirit of the deep", like OUR noosphere and the greater web of life and mind we see in gravitational lensing images of dark matter. If earth can handle climate, but if internet is too much for it, then maybe internet is a matter for the sky. None of us knows what the spirit of the deep, highest intelligence is that we could see in those photos, but at a minimum I see something like a network of bayous, an ecology FULL of noospheres, many more mature than ours, connected in a society OR MORE... On the main island in the center of Lake Titticacca are twin sacred mountains, pachamamma and pachatatta, reflecting earth and sky images much older and more universal than vedas or bible. In my view, reflecting spirit of deep and noosphere, more true and more real, at a fundamental level, than the many doctrines and rulebooks invented by later human political rulers. Should they house an image of climate sustainability on pachamamma, and a kind of Godel Escher Bach geometric image depicting internet on pachatatta, complete with mathematical symbols? For there is where we must strive to connect, to understand the internet evolution enough to avoid falling to our deaths in any number of ways. ======== But: from metaphors to reality. CRUDELY, the waves and waves of monumental change coming to the internet (which go far beyond the placebos and morphine you get from commentators who do not know the math and make money by telling people what they want to hear) are divided into several whole WAVE TRAINS. The very first wave train may be called "AGI/IOT", classical artificial general intelligence and internet of things COMBINED. (Two aspects of ONE system.) See https://arxiv.org/abs/1404.0554 for a roadmap from old shops to Levels of intelligence which China, at least, is moving ahead to build, but without the understanding necessary to prevent disaster. The new book by Kissinger and Schmitt dramatically understates what is coming, but it may help as a wake up call. The details are very important, but this morning I want to put down a marker beyond that. The next big wave train MAY appear, to a useful and positive degree, in the new IEEE book. We will see. I force myself to limit what I say, because we are entering an incredible minefield, where we MUST move forward but there are a hundred IEDs we need to carefully dodge as best we can. I can say that QUANTUM effects are crucial to the next big wave train. BUT NO, it is not about any of the silly versions of Cartesian dualism which have brown up in speculations about quantum stuff. It requires real math and real experiments. The next gigantic wave train, making massive changes to internet and IOT, requires nothing more than David Deutsch's many worlds model of physics, even with Copenhagen measurement rules ( minus observer) assumed But the wave after that will benefit from experimental work by Yeshua and Marc, which I do hope will stay in the chapter in the IEEE book, which I hope will fly all the way. HOWEVER... I am bcc'ing two of the others whose work connects to the wave after that, NOT to be discussed in the IEEE book. Ironically, the latest issue before last of Scientific American carried two stories which fit very well into the new picture. The work on "wobbly muons" sends a shiver up my spine (literally) right now, as I think back to what I saw. The first implication is that it strengthens the discussion we started on how to image dark MATTER (not to be confused with "dark energy", and not just particles of matter) with a resolution finer than the light years resolution in those gravitational lensing pictures. That is already a big deal! If our local noobrain is mainly made of dark matter, this might give us a way to map it out a bit better. BUT THEN: the wobbling clearly suggests a target for folks like Nancy on this list, or like Nanjing qi researchers, to try to get some very solid physical data, and see what we can do. Some of us can, and some of us haven't yet learned how, but THAT is worthy of further consideration.