Has anyone here had the opportunity to read Reginald Cahill's "Process Physics"?
The latest version is available as an online book (PDF) available on the CPS Process Studies Supplement webpage here:
http://www.ctr4process.org/publications/PSS/cahill.htm
Also available at:
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/ ... ysics.html
which is Cahill's own webpage and includes all of the papers that lead up to the current version. If you're not familiar with physics this may be a tough nut to crack. On the other hand if you have a working knowledge of physics, it shouled not be too difficult. For someone like me, who has studied physics on a layman's level for years, but lack the math skills to comprehend his equations, I would suggest reading the papers in chronological order rather than the reverse chronological order in which they are listed. It won't teach you the math, but it did help me to understand many details that are glossed over in the PSS book.

How 'bout it. Anyone? Anyone?

idealdabbler,

I've been concerned a lot lately with 'energy', especially from the point of view of chemistry and the 'energy' required to cause molecular transformation. Whitehead gives some insight in "Adventures of Ideas":

"The science of physics conceives a natural occasion as a locus of energy. Whatever else that occasion may be, it is an individual fact harboring that energy. ... [P]hysical science recognizes qualitative differences between occasions in respect to the way in which each occasion entertains its energy. These differences are entirely constituted by the flux of energy, that is to say, by the way in which the occasions in question have inherited their energy from the past of nature, and in which they are about to transmit their energy to the future. ... Energy has recognizable paths through time and space [as Poynting Flux]. Energy passes from particular occasion to particular occasion. At each point there is a flux, with a quantitative flow and a definite direction." (185)

as does Suchocki ("God Church Christ")"

" ... all of space is permeated with radiant energy that is made up of a series of many units. In concentrated configurations, these units become particles of matter; in increasingly larger groupings of these particles, they become items familiar to human experience. ... each unit is the reception, unification, and transmission of energy." (237-238)

But I'm still troubled by the concept; although I've come to think more and more of a three fold relationship among energy, becoming, and causation where energy is the causual ground of becoming of all occasions.

Any thoughts?

Ross

PS I had a look at Cahill and while I'm a reasonably bright biochemist, this stuff is way out of my league.

Thanks for taking a look, Ross. I'm aware how difficult this stuff is, and am struggling with it myself. However, there are a couple of articles on Cahill's page which are more for the general reader. Here are the addresses:
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/ ... antic.html
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/ ... imits.html
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/ ... l_r/NS.pdf
There are others as well, but these serve well as an introduction. I think the problem with understanding this model is that it is so radically different than anything before it in physics that it's hard to grasp the elements without some simpler translation. The above articles should help.
Cahill developed this theory apparently with little or no knowledge of Whitehead. He calls the system a "Heraclitean Process System" (rather than a Whiteheadian system) and it seems to bear no resemblance to Whitehead at all. At least he does not reference ANW except in passing. Which is not to say there is no analogy between Cahill and Whitehead. It is this analogy I am trying to clarify. My problem is perhaps more with Whitehead's "Principle of Relativity" and his theory of Extension (all that "strains and locus" stuff that was totally opaque to me when I studied PR).
Regarding your statements on energy: I am in agreement with both Whitehead and Suchocki, and your suggestion makes some sense. However, I would need to reread the passages in context to get an understanding of the significance of your statement. Can you expand a little on what you said?

My thoughts on energy are part of a couple of papers I've written to try to develop a process philosophy of chemisry/biochemistry. One of these papers will appear in April in "Hyle - International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry" (paper entitled: "Towards a Process Philosophy of Chemistry"; http://www.hyle.org/journal/preview.htm ), while the other one has been accepted to "Process Studies" and will appear this coming fall (paper entitled: "Enzymes as Ecosystems - A Panexperientialist Account of Biocatalytic Chemical Transformation"). The latter is a less chemically-technical version of the former, and I'm currently working on a third, quite technical paper on the metaphysics of enzyme action. If you would like I'd be happy to send you pre-prints of both or either of the finished papers. (Is there a way to send personal emails with attachments on this site?)

This is great, Ross. I'd love to have copies of the papers. My email is:
idealdabbler@netscape.net
I would be a rank novice with anything in that area, but I don't mind. I have an ability to slog through some pretty opaque stuff, and still catch the gist. But I'm always open to exposure to new things.
I hope you will allow me to ask a few questions once I've had some time to study the papers.
Tom

Just sent you a manuscript using the email address you provided. I'd be happy to discuss it with (and others, of course).

Thanks Ross. I just received it. At first glance, I think I will enjoy this paper immensely.
I hope to do a first reading later today, and I will give my first impressions of it.
Thanks again for sharing it with me.
Tom

idealdabbler,

I found some interesting passages in the material you propose. Especially one passage helped me explain some of my thoughts in the forum http://www.ctr4process.org/relationalit ... c.php?t=42 , struggling with the english language as I am -- and of course I don't understand the math (I haven't got a particle accelerator either, so perhaps it doesn't matter). Thanks for that.

Bo

I'm glad you found something that resonated, Bo, but your struggle in reading this stuff may have less do with your facility with
English, than the strange and quirky language of physics. You are quite able to express yourself in English.
Some of the difficulty you expressed in the other thread may be an incomplete, or fuzzy, understanding of Whitehead's "Epochal Theory of Time." Perhaps some review of this critical doctrine will help.
Tom

Hi, Ross,
I finished my first reading yesterday. This is an excellent piece of work. Mildly technical, yet eminently readable. I highly recommend it to others. I had no difficulty reading this paper, and learned quite a bit, of particular note, how the enzyme molecule uses ambient thermal energy from the bath/environment to effect its function. This seems to have an analogy with Cahill's notion of Self Referential Noise (SRN) which is the driving "energy" of the process he is modelling.
I have not yet read the technical piece you referred to earlier, but I hope to do so as time permits.
Anyway, congratulations on a fine piece of work.

I'm going to take a chance here. I'm reprinting an article I am writing for my website (I haven't gone back to it as I still need more input).
Anyway, here it is thus far:

A NEW PARADIGM

by Thomas L. Royce


Here?s what I?m gonna do.

I?m going to discover a way to model reality based on mathematical concepts derived from the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the growth of neural networks. I will start with two pretend objects and the connection between them, and a brief stochastic iterative equation to map the evolution of these pretend objects ultimately showing that these pretend objects are in fact simply holograms of the whole. I plan to show how space and time emerge from this fundamental process as a growing foam of information, and how quantum particles emerge from defects in the foam.

Of course this will involve refuting Einstein?s fundamental assumption that there is no such thing as absolute space, thus no absolute motion, since motion can be measured relative to this foam. This is going to mean that Einstein?s Special Theory of Relativity (SR) was based on a false assumption that carried over into his General Theory of Relativity (GR). Since modern physics is mostly based on GR this will have an impact on virtually every facet of scientific research.

Here?s how I?m gonna do it.

I?m going to revisit the famous Michelson Morley Interferometer Experiment (MM) and by showing that the experiment did not really produce a null result?it only produced a result much smaller than that Michelson and Morley were looking for, and thus considered to be experimental error or other anomalies?proceed to reinterpret their data making corrections based on Dayton Miller?s continuation of the Interferometer Experiment which was largely dismissed as an effort to dredge up a question which had already been definitively settled years before.

As a result I will be able to calculate the velocity of the earth in its orbital path around the sun, as well as, the speed and direction of the solar system as a whole through space in its trek around the Milky Way. Of course I will correlate the data with the cosmic background radiation (CBR) frame of reference, and I?m sure it will agree with the calculations.

Even though GR will be refuted as an explanation for gravity, I will show that it is still a good guess at reality, and that all the tests passed by GR can also be passed by my theory, but that gravity is not a fundamental force field generated by massive bodies, rather it is the result of this quantum foam being absorbed by the massive bodies creating an actual flow of space into the massive bodies. Of course this will amount to a theory of quantum gravity with quantum field theory (QFT) emerging from this foam, thus uniting the fields of quantum dynamics and gravity which should qualify as a contender for the theory of everything (TOE).

In the process, I will define the arrow of time?a problem long ignored by GR?and show that it is not a dimension of geometry as assumed by most fifth-graders and older, but an irreversible process of change entirely distinct from the expansion of three-dimensional space. This means that Einstein?s SR is based on a flawed assumption, and that it was the Lorenz-Fitzgerald Contraction, after all, which describes such things as time-dilation and other relativistic effects.

Naturally, I will need a crack team of theoretical and experimental physicists in a couple of dozen unrelated fields, funding from the National Science Foundation, support from a major research university like MIT, and the cajones to challenge the most ingrained flaw in physical science in history, ultimately overthrowing the scientific equivalent of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.

Oh, wait a minute, nevermind, someone already did that. All except for the crack team, the funding and the support of a major institution. A guy by the name of Reg Cahill, Associate Professor of Physics at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, together with a ragtag group of graduate students, has developed a model of reality, called "Process Physics" which purports to do exactly what I was gonna do.

Doesn?t it piss you off when someone steals your good idea.

Oh well, here?s his attempt: Process Physics
http://www.scieng.flinders.edu.au/cpes/ ... ysics.html

From the abstract:



The last phrase, "such information is internally meaningful," has particular significance to Process thought in general, as this is a basic premise of process, that there is an interior mental (subjective) aspect to even the most fundamental entities in addition to its physical (objective) appearance.

And someone else even beat you to the punch by publishing in 1959 no less, Larson's Reciprocal System of Physical Theory
http://www.rstheory.com/wiki where both space and time are generated by processes rather than mere geometric containers or world-lines.

This model of Cahill's is a model of objects or subjects? Most physicists, including half-wits like Abner Shimony, just cannot grasp the premise of Whitehead, namely that the smallest, most fundamental actual entities of nature are subjects, not objects. They scratch their heads with puzzlement at this most basic fact. In practice, they go on trying to model Whitehead as though they are talking about objects, just as in the old physics, and they can never get to first base with the real concepts of Whitehead.

This model of Cahill's is a model of objects or subjects? Most physicists, including half-wits like Abner Shimony, just cannot grasp the premise of Whitehead, namely that the smallest, most fundamental actual entities of nature are subjects, not objects. They scratch their heads with puzzlement at this most basic fact. In practice, they go on trying to model Whitehead as though they are talking about objects, just as in the old physics, and they can never get to first base with the real concepts of Whitehead.

Although Cahill does use two "monads" to bootstrap his model, he makes it quite clear that these are merely "pseudo-objects" used as a scaffolding upon which the model acts. Further, the critical point is that it is not these monads which are the subject of interest in the model, but the link between them, which is made up of "relational information" that is, information with an internal (subjective) meaning to the monads themselves. Finally, these "pseudo-objects" through the activity of a "self-organizing-criticality-filter" are finally shown to be "sub-networks" of the same type of relational information that makes up the network between the nodes or monads.
His model is clearly non-substantialistic as opposed to classical physics model of substance with enduring qualities.
The compatibility with Whitehead's system is quite remarkable if you take the time to read Cahill thoroughly, and realize that, despite a complete lack of Whiteheadian language, Cahill's model can be interpreted in Whitehead's terms with ease.