The U.S. Lacks The Cognitive Infrastructure To Do What Russia And China Do

WSJ  | In 2016, a high-level panel of the National Academies, an independent scientific group that provides advice to the federal government, warned that foreign adversaries, including China, were readying a new generation of hypersonic weapons. While the details of the study are classified, its conclusions set off alarm bells inside the Defense Department. 

“My joke was, if I briefed it to any more people in the Pentagon, I would’ve been briefing the janitors down on the mezzanine level,” said Mark Lewis, a former senior Pentagon official who was involved in managing the military’s hypersonic portfolio and who participated in the 2016 study. “Everyone and their brother wanted to see it.”

Concerned by the growing threat, the Pentagon ramped up testing and development. The Army, Navy and Air Force are developing hypersonic weapons, sometimes in cooperation, as is the Pentagon’s research agency Darpa. “We are in a race,” said Lewis, who is now president and chief executive officer of the Purdue Applied Research Institute.

Pentagon officials are now debating how best to respond to this buildup. Some argue the U.S. should focus more on defensive systems, rather than missiles. Others say that even if U.S. adversaries have more hypersonic missiles, the state of American hypersonic weaponry—even if not yet deployed—will ultimately be more advanced. And not everyone agrees that a hypersonics arms race comes down to numbers of missiles. “If you have 10, should I have 11?” asked Heidi Shyu, the Pentagon top technologist.

Last year, the Air Force awarded

Raytheon Technologies, now known as RTX, a nearly billion-dollar contract to develop a hypersonic cruise missile that would be launched from an aircraft and is designed to strike enemy ships. The Army hoped to have ready this year the U.S. military’s first hypersonic weapon—missiles that would be launched from trucks. 

 

While a second generates heat exceeding 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond the limit of most materials. “The biggest challenge with hypersonics has always been the thermal management,” said Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon.

Cost is also an issue. Hypersonic missiles, which are complex to develop and require specialized materials, are pricier than conventional missiles—about one-third more than ballistic missiles with comparable capabilities, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Kremer said that hypersonic missiles would be a “niche capability” to go after moving targets, where speed is essential. “Obviously you don’t need it to go against the bridge, the bridge isn’t moving,” he said. 

The bigger challenge may be for the Pentagon to decide, after so many years and so much money spent, what sort of hypersonic capabilities it wants in its arsenal. The U.S. military is currently pursuing two different types of hypersonic weapons: cruise missiles that use an air-breathing jet engine known as a scramjet, and glide vehicles that are launched from the air, and then glide to their targets at high speeds. 

The Pentagon is funding about a half dozen different hypersonic weapons—though the exact number is secret—and some former officials suggest there is no clear plan for deciding which of these to field and how. “There wasn’t a strategy during my time at the Pentagon,” said William Roper, the former head of Air Force acquisition. “And from what I can see from the outside, there doesn’t appear to be one now.”

One of the biggest stumbling blocks is a lack of infrastructure needed for testing. Developing the weapons requires testing in wind tunnels that can replicate the unique aerodynamic pressures of hypersonic flight.

 

America Has No Hypersonics Because IT Tools CANNOT Replace Math And Physics Knowledge, Skill, And Ability...,

 

cf2r.org  | We will start, if necessary, by reading this article [1] . He reports on Russian advances in this area and discusses the potential concerns of the Western world about its ability to follow them, with the United States in the lead. We are asking ourselves the question here not of a delay which would be due to later development, but what seems to us to be a real conceptual difficulty in making such machines work.

Since we are in the West, let us remember these words of Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in physics: “the goal of the physicist is to make the equations speak” .

Let us note then that at the end of the Cold War, we find ourselves in a rather strange situation at first glance. The West pushed electronics and computing much further than the Soviet Union. It did not occur to anyone that the latter had held up without this and we were content to think, here, that its equipment was obsolete and ineffective. The Ukrainian conflict demonstrated the opposite!

However, those who worked on equipment opposing the collapse of the Berlin Wall know very well that the “enemy” of the time had implemented treasures of thought to precisely make the equations speak and understand what was really in-game without having to go through computer calculations. This was the case, for example, with so-called “ionic” space propulsion engines.

Meanwhile, at home, we relied more and more on software. They constituted a black box over which we had no control and we “swallowed” the results, whatever they were, as if they were the naked truth coming out of the well.

An example is often better than a long speech. In 2013, I had a machine of my design tested in a digital wind tunnel. Contract was signed with the School of Mines which included one of its best students from the Polytechnico Milan. The aim of the study was to determine the drag and lift coefficients of my aircraft. I had made an estimate by hand which took me 10 minutes. After 6 months of effort, the super calculator produced a drag coefficient which was equal to mine to within 10%. If we stop the story here, you might think I was 10% wrong. Nay! Indeed, in essence, my concept had to have a non-zero lift coefficient. But the one who emerged from the “hellish” program was zero. It was therefore a clear error which showed that we could not have any confidence in the result concerning the drag. I will spare you the analysis that followed as well as its conclusions.

Today, engineering schools, in full agreement with companies, want people who are efficient in handling various IT tools: Catia, etc. If in fact the latter, at the time they were designed, brought great progress for those who were used to thinking, they only “Taylorized” the real profession by degrading it enormously, leading to the incremental improvement which tomorrow will be the prerogative of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, from my point of view, replacing the Soviet physicists and engineers of the time with AI would absolutely not be possible.

So this is where we are and until our scientists are able to make the equations speak, it seems very unlikely that the West will be able to make hypersonic missiles worthy of the name. What do I mean by that? Not rockets that go to Mach 5, which is the limit between supersonic and hypersonic, but that reach Mach 9 like the Zircon at sea level or 27 like the Avangard at high altitude, while remaining maneuverable .

To reach such a level, it is imperative to return to studies focusing on paper and pencil. Write the equations, try to solve them by hand and understand, when you make approximations, what they correspond to physically and if they are legitimate.

Let's take one more example. There are so-called phase change fluid loops for cooling parts of, for example, satellites. If we do not carry out, with ad hoc approximations, an expansion limited to order 4 of the Navier-Stokes system, we cannot conceive of such loops. A computer will never be able to achieve this, although excellent engineers in the past have been able to do so.

When we see the low level in mathematics and physics today throughout the Western school structure, we say to ourselves that the light will come from elsewhere. And this is what we are seeing.

Dementia Among U.S. Officials Poses National Security Threat

theintercept  |   As the national security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation’s most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington’s aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation’s National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets. 

“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” the study says.

As the study notes, there does not appear to be any other publicly available research into dementia, an umbrella term for the loss of cognitive functioning, despite the fact that Americans are living longer than ever before and that the researchers were able to identify several cases in which senior intelligence officials died of Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia.

“As people live longer and retire later, challenges associated with cognitive impairment in the workplace will need to be addressed,” the report says. “Our limited research suggests this concern is an emerging security blind spot.” 

Most holders of security clearances, a ballooning class of officials and other bureaucrats with access to secret government information, are subject to rigorous and invasive vetting procedures. Applying for a clearance can mean hourslong polygraph tests; character interviews with old teachers, friends, and neighbors; and ongoing automated monitoring of their bank accounts and other personal information. As one senior Pentagon official who oversees such a program told me of people who enter the intelligence bureaucracy, “You basically give up your Fourth Amendment rights.” 

Yet, as the authors of the RAND report note, there does not appear to be any vetting for age-related cognitive decline. In fact, the director of national intelligence’s directive on continuous evaluation contains no mention of age or cognitive decline.

While the study doesn’t mention any U.S. officials by name, its timing comes amid a simmering debate about gerontocracy: rule by the elderly. Following McConnell’s first freezing episode, in July, Google searches for the term “gerontocracy” spiked.

“The president called to check on me,” McConnell said when asked about the first episode. “I told him I got sandbagged,” he quipped, referring to President Joe Biden’s trip-and-fall incident during a June graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, which sparked conservative criticisms about the 80-year-old’s own functioning.

Why The West Is So Weak And Russia Is So Strong

gaiusbaltar  |  The main thing to understand is that western societies and economies have been put on an ideological footing. Productivity, competitiveness, technology and science are simply not priorities anymore in the West. Explaining the consequences of this process for the West would take many articles, or a book of several hundred pages. Still, let’s mention a few examples.

The inverse competence crisis – The goal of this entire project has been to place the ideologically pure in all positions of power at all levels of society. These positions are, in a normal and competitive society, occupied by the highly competent 1.5/8 group. The process has now reached near-completion with most positions of power occupied by the ideologically pure. Some of those people have high IQs but they are neither objective nor independent thinkers. The Ideology they must subscribe to is simply incompatible with those qualities. This has some serious consequences.

Remember that positions of power and influence are more likely to demand general competence than other positions (as opposed to specific competence). The greater the power, the more the position demands general competence. The people in these positions now are selected by ideological fervor and reliability – so the higher you go, the more ideologically enthusiastic the people who hold them. This means that the least objective and independent thinking people hold the positions which require the greatest objectivity and independent thinking. Therefore, in the West incompetence becomes greater and more common the higher you go. As someone said - “a general is an incompetent colonel.” This can be seen absolutely everywhere except in some holdout private companies. Those exceptions are of course being addressed as we speak.

The second problem is that many of the irrational/subjective people holding all the power have reasonably high IQs. That may seem to be a positive thing but it has a major disadvantage. Moderate to high IQ irrational/subjective people are the easiest to brainwash of all people. The reasons for that are complicated and need to be addressed in another article – but what this means is that the top tier in the West is not only the most incompetent it can possibly be in comparison to what their jobs require – but are also the most malleable and delusional.

The cost and debt crisis – The migration of the ideologically pure into the ideological power base and positions of influence has created millions of jobs in western societies which create no value. These jobs are much more numerous and more widespread than most people realize, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something like 20%-30% of the entire labor force of the West could be fired without any adverse effect. In fact, the effect would be positive, especially if those people could be made to work the (mostly menial) real-economy jobs they are suitable for.

Deindustrialization has been blamed for the extreme debt levels and tax burdens of the West. That is, as far as it goes, true – but maintaining this giant group of incompetents in their fake jobs is also placing an extreme burden on the West. Western societies are now completely unsustainable and cannot be run without constant debt increase.

The competition crisis – This crisis can be explained by the following example: Let’s say there are three companies with combined 100% market share in some sector. There is no real competition between them and everybody can just relax because the customers can’t go anywhere else. These companies can get away with absolute incompetence on most levels, including in management. They don’t need to think about efficiency, safety, productivity or costs, except on their websites and in annual reports. However, if a competitor with competent employees manages to infiltrate the sector, those three companies will hit a wall. There will be an enormous crisis and one or more of them will most likely go under.

This is exactly the situation in the western economies now. Monopoly and oligopoly is the rule and the main objective of most large western companies is to prevent anyone from infiltrating their sector – usually by bribing regulators or by buying the competition. This is a necessity because a huge number of western companies are now run by incompetent management and staffed by incompetent people, particularly in support and management functions. The immortal words of the nameless Boeing employee about the 737 MAX apply to most large western companies; “this airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.” Western companies are no longer competitive. They cannot compete with Chinese companies now and soon they won’t be able to compete with companies in general outside the West. They simply can’t function except inside an economic safe-space. In fact, the situation is such that the Chinese already do the real work for many of them and reshoring the work is problematic because of (surprise!) the human capital degradation in the West caused by the repurposing of its education system.

This also applies to western societies as a whole. The entire leadership and diplomatic classes of the West are no longer competitive against the rest of the world for exactly these reasons. They are being outmaneuvered by the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, and everybody else at every turn. Even African leaders are now more competent than western leaders. They have consistently made decisions that are better for their people than leaders in the West - for the last few years anyway.

The complexity crisis – Earlier in this article I stated that the 1.5/8 group is extremely valuable for modern societies and without it complicated modern societies cannot be managed. In the West this group has been successfully sidelined to a great degree and a good part of it doesn’t even bother with university education anymore. The situation, however, is even worse than that. The reconfiguration of the education system and the break between competence and reward in the job market has fundamentally changed the decision making process behind the selection of university education. Why study engineering (which is hard) when you can get an even better paying job with a degree in psychology (which is easy nowadays)? The reconfiguration of the western education system has changed the reward structure, encouraging young people to pursue easy and useless education – simply because the “system” will provide them with jobs.

This has already caused a major crisis in western societies, particularly in the US. The “maintenance” of complex aspects of US society needs a large group of engineers and people with related education. This maintenance is faltering now, and significantly relies on foreign engineers educated in US universities. You see, why would Americans study engineering in a system which doesn’t reward it? If China and India could somehow recall their engineers and others with hard education from the US, the US system could probably not be maintained, let alone advanced. This will get progressively worse and we will soon reach a point where complex systems which underpin society cannot be kept running. That will require some kind of “reset” to a less complex society, with less prosperity of course.

There are far more crises than those four, but I wouldn’t want to sound like a doomsayer by listing more.

Reality Mechanics: Meditation? ESP? Or Something Far More Profound? (REDUX 8/9/22)

9:04 that's the only explanation I can get is that that if they if people are here 9:10 from another civilization then they if they've understood the the 9:15 higher the higher the finer points of quantum of quantum physics and how to 9:20 couple that from particles into beings that can do what quantum what particles 

The best way to understand their approach is by considering something else ordered yet non-repeating: "quasicrystals." A typical crystal has a regular, repeating structure, like the hexagons in a honeycomb. A quasicrystal still has order, but its patterns never repeat. (Penrose tiling is one example of this.) Even more mind-boggling is that quasicrystals are crystals from higher dimensions projected, or squished down, into lower dimensions. Those higher dimensions can even be beyond physical space's three dimensions: A 2D Penrose tiling, for instance, is a projected slice of a 5-D lattice.

9:25 can do now when I was at wright-patterson we had the flying saucers it went up I think they covered the distance from 9:32 Columbus to Detroit in something like equivalent of about 20,000 miles an hour 9:39 I don't think anyone in the canoe in the ordinary aerospace business would have 9:46 had any knowledge of what they were even talking about if you mentioned quantum 9:51 physics or or wormholes are the type of things we know now because if you went 9:59 to CERN and talked to the particle physicists they would tell you certainly some of this was possible because they 10:06 see it all the time where they think they see mass they really see they 10:12 really see energy frozen in it in a time quantum and what they're seeing is not 10:18 is this is really a frozen bundle of energy and it moves back and forth 10:25 almost without any restriction 

I thought there were enough credible stories that I may not be able to 10:32 explain them but they weren't phenomenon that were people's imagination whatever 10:41 they saw was real but I couldn't explain how it how it was real what made it real but I think what they I think they saw 10:48 what they saw near st. Louis there was a fairly large triangular object seen and 10:54 it covered the distance down to south st. Louis in some in some of its 11:00 sightings it was moving relatively benign Lee but then it it literally jumped about 20 miles in a sec couple of 11:07 seconds and I've received a lot of phone calls from the local newspapers and TV 11:13 stations is how can that be and 

I said I don't know how it can be except if you 11:18 explain it through something like a quantum physics explanation of time and 11:24 space relationships it gave you time and space travel but other than that I don't 11:30 there's no way I know that I can put the biggest rocket engine I could think of 11:36 on it it still couldn't get there at that speed and the noise and the sounds 11:42 you would make doing something like that would wake everybody up for 10 miles and 11:47 it made no sound at all it's see it starts out at hover and it literally almost disappears and pops 11:53 over here so it's not like it's not like a cartoon where it goes whoosh it's 12:00 almost like it disappears and comes up over here at least that the descriptions 12:06 that some of the police officers gave to it a lot of combat pilots routinely go 12:13 up to 7 and 8 GS but that's a very specific direction that's from your head 12:19 downward along the axis of your spine if you were to take that what's called 12:24 eyeballs in which is when you accelerate the forces this way you literally would 12:32 have your eyeballs and compressed out of their sockets and you have brain damage so that the G's the do that might be in 12:40 the level of order of so no that's not physically possible for any even even insects to take that level 12:48 of acceleration even over a short period of time you might get in an automobile 12:53 accident you might get a hundred two hundred and fifty G's and that's when the car is completely crushed so that's 13:00 what happened would happen to a human being if that were a conventional force accelerator so it's not a conventional 13:06 force accelerator because if there's people in human beings in them or something being in them that isn't 13:13 crushed then it has to be a different way of doing it the hard part is to find 13:19 a way to physically do that 

you know there are people who have been experimenting with zero-point energy or 13:25 try to tap zero-point energy for years every once in a while someone will do it 13:30 accidentally they'll call it cold fusion but I don't think it's cold fusion I just think it's a zero-point energy tap 13:36 except for three people that I know no 13:41 one has been able to control it when it happens it happens for a short period of time 13:47 and it's almost always destructive it's like drilling a hole into the base of Grand Coulee Dam and all of a sudden 13:54 this jet of water comes out that literally has enough pressure to cut you in half without a valve on it you can't 14:02 shut it off does one guy that that that 14:07 a friend of mine actually visited in Ann Arbor Michigan that was I consider a mathematical genius that actually 14:14 figured out a way to control it he was so paranoid he divorced his wife 14:20 left his wife and children and went in hiding because he was terrified that someone 14:26 would would kill him for the knowledge that he had the ability to tap this whenever he chose to and control it we 14:33 don't know worried we haven't seen him in five years I don't worry is you know right now today you've got an energy 

14:39 problem with the price of oil what do you think would happen if you introduced 14:45 an ability to attempt zero-point energy represents about 40 to 50 megawatts of 14:53 power per cubic inch of space that's a lot of power 15:00 that's 4600 million watts of power and 15:07 if you could tap it at will then no one 15:12 would have to sell gasoline or oil anymore you would just tap into it it would be it would be like taking and 15:20 going out to the Great Lakes and taking out one drop and using it it would you'd 15:25 hardly miss it and since it permeates the whole universe and it continually 15:31 fluctuates as it as as that as the matter and antimatter interact it's not 15:40 like it's a steady lake it's um you see it's a pool the size of the universe so 15:45 you'd never for what we've used before you never even miss it the only thing this one guy claimed that happened is if 15:52 you bottle it and move it to another location and release it he sounded 16:00 exactly like mr. Spock he said you create a tear in the in the time time 16:07 domain of the of local space and actually caused a problem which he 16:13 claims he did and he will never do it again which is bottle and move it the other part is that you're knock it 16:19 doesn't work on conventional jet engines one has to create an actual zero point 16:25 energy engine to do that this one guy in Ann Arbor Mich Michigan had one running in his basement 16:30 not connected to any power source whatsoever sitting in the middle of a table and it had been running for a year 

Your Mind Is The Fermi Paradox

reddit  |  Our “consciousness” accepts a different permutation of reality, one that isn’t predictable or cognitively relatable to us as we have laid it out.

It isn’t inherently “logical”, nor does it fit in any scientific box that we can categorize or at any scale that we can scientifically validate.

It is most certainly real/tangible, but also not at all. It is color/light/intensity, solid/holographic but at once devoid of light, matter. Separate from any agreed upon logic, glitchy and off putting at times, bridging the paranormal and the occult.. directed by intention. But most definitely real.

How do you/we think in our minds?, how does one actually “think”? ( pull In thoughts )… - Pay attention to your imagination/your antenna … what do you desire/imagine.. collectively what do we all believe?. What shapes/ archetypes have these ufo taken?, what shape did they take in the past and now in our present time. What are you thinking/forming into reality now and why?. Have you stopped to think.

“They” act out, misbehave. Play like children - like make believe - like imagination, a dream, a random thought/fantasy, a fleeting spark in one’s mind….

How do we think?, how do we actually imagine?… how many jittery ufo videos have you seen, how do your eyes “dart” as you scan your environment or how your thoughts dart around as you jump to different ideas. How do UFOs skip, jitter and appear irrationally, almost like a thought pattern. Like consciousness.

You have been conditioned your whole life away from one crucial part of your being..

“Make believe is for children”, imagination isn’t “Real”…

Practically on the surface, that totally makes sense.. our 3D world has rules to sustain our 3D bodies so we can extend our lives, propagating evolution, we need to be grounded to progress, it’s indeed critical.. but it isn’t all.

We do need our connection to this reality to survive, no doubt. But other intelligent entities can access consciousness through other means and aren’t purely tethered to our 3D space, they can play/navigate on their own terms. Their usage of “imagination” is unbound.

Hypothetical Higher beings without a limiting lack of ressources, could navigate in any permutation of space/time seeing no “good or bad” because why would they, there is no need.. those emotions stem from our resource management. Our reality would be a test bed to explore. Because ”It just is”.

So why will you never know?.. truly .. why is there a Fermi paradox? :

Picture billions of predictable human beings conditioned over all known history to flow/conform, dance an agreed upon dance, one that crafted over time leads us on a “safer” path, one that is predictable, one that should ensure a progression to evolution and one that if all fails can be redirected with relatively minimal effort.. ( keep in mind humans are emotional/reactive beings that can disregard logic frequently at a whim, so we navigate within a set of parameters )

Now what if we realize that we are in fact tethered to our individual thoughts as a real tipping point that can mold this reality.. our emotions/fears/fetishes/disgusts/loves/likes being a real reality shifting factor…, they now have true weight. They are a directing force that consciousness can flow through. This, all at once ( or within weeks/years ) humans realize their mental frequency does in fact actually shape/form/morph reality into a space/or confine that we must all live in together, one that can fluctuate on a whim… We can in fact all shape this world. Quite literally. So I actually get the fear of what that represents.

This current system you see is a “child’s lock” on human evolution, possibly rightly so. It is a way to gate us until we can finally learn and accept this truth, step out of emotional resource patterns and “see”. As much as I wish we were ready, we are not even remotely close to accepting this as a “whole” ( “whole” being the key, you could alone as a reader accept this 🙏, large populations just won’t be able to take that step at all, our mind is the Fermi paradox, THIS is the key).

To “disclose” and finally progress as an intellectual species in this dimension?... Humanity must deal with the simple facts above. Rules/guidelines are here because we aren’t able to process the actual reality, we may want too but logistically cannot. Your neighbor could influence your whole life path, as could you to them, you could topple regimes, but also be enslaved just as easily. This power/knowledge will remain “vaulted” forever, or until we are ready. I likely will not see that day and I get it.

How do we “believe” as a unified intelligence. How do we understand, accept these facts and not kill each other to get there. That I honestly don’t know. I recognize we probably can’t know, at least not now. “We” as a global intelligent entity are just not able to process this information and react to it without immediately going into fear, greed, lust or hatred, you can disagree but it’s just a clear fact with all known history to support it.

When/if we can parse this information, we will move forward.

There is indeed a cover up, it isn’t to fuck with you or suppress you for the elites benefit or to withhold resources, it is to ensure we continue as an extension of consciousness into this dimension, it’s that simple, nothing more. We may believe we are ready, our species is not. It’s that simple.

Forget The Math And Just Enjoy The Mind-Bending Perspectival Ingenuity Of Twistor Space

wikipedia  |  In theoretical physics, twistor theory was proposed by Roger Penrose in 1967^[1] as a possible path^[2] to quantum gravity and has evolved into a widely studied branch of theoretical and mathematical physics. Penrose's idea was that twistor space should be the basic arena for physics from which space-time itself should emerge. It has led to powerful mathematical tools that have applications to differential and integral geometry, nonlinear differential equations and representation theory, and in physics to general relativity, quantum field theory, and the theory of scattering amplitudes. Twistor theory arose in the context of the rapidly expanding mathematical developments in Einstein's theory of general relativity in the late 1950s and in the 1960s and carries a number of influences from that period. In particular, Roger Penrose has credited Ivor Robinson as an important early influence in the development of twistor theory, through his construction of so-called Robinson congruences.^[3]

Mathematically, projective twistor space ${\displaystyle \mathbb{P}\mathbb{T}}$ is a 3-dimensional complex manifold, complex projective 3-space ${\displaystyle {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^3}$. It has the physical interpretation of the space of massless particles with spin. It is the projectivisation of a 4-dimensional complex vector space, non-projective twistor space ${\displaystyle \mathbb{T}}$ with a Hermitian form of signature (2,2) and a holomorphic volume form. This can be most naturally understood as the space of chiral (Weyl) spinors for the conformal group ${\displaystyle SO(4,2)/{\mathbb{Z}}_2}$ of Minkowski space; it is the fundamental representation of the spin group ${\displaystyle SU(2,2)}$ of the conformal group. This definition can be extended to arbitrary dimensions except that beyond dimension four, one defines projective twistor space to be the space of projective pure spinors for the conformal group.^[4][5]

In its original form, twistor theory encodes physical fields on Minkowski space into complex analytic objects on twistor space via the Penrose transform. This is especially natural for massless fields of arbitrary spin. In the first instance these are obtained via contour integral formulae in terms of free holomorphic functions on regions in twistor space. The holomorphic twistor functions that give rise to solutions to the massless field equations can be more deeply understood as Čech representatives of analytic cohomology classes on regions in ${\displaystyle \mathbb{P}\mathbb{T}}$. These correspondences have been extended to certain nonlinear fields, including self-dual gravity in Penrose's nonlinear graviton construction^[6] and self-dual Yang–Mills fields in the so-called Ward construction;^[7] the former gives rise to deformations of the underlying complex structure of regions in ${\displaystyle \mathbb{P}\mathbb{T}}$, and the latter to certain holomorphic vector bundles over regions in ${\displaystyle \mathbb{P}\mathbb{T}}$. These constructions have had wide applications, including inter alia the theory of integrable systems.^[8][9][10]

The self-duality condition is a major limitation for incorporating the full nonlinearities of physical theories, although it does suffice for Yang–Mills–Higgs monopoles and instantons (see ADHM construction).^[11] An early attempt to overcome this restriction was the introduction of ambitwistors by Edward Witten^[12] and by Isenberg, Yasskin & Green.^[13] Ambitwistor space is the space of complexified light rays or massless particles and can be regarded as a complexification or cotangent bundle of the original twistor description. These apply to general fields but the field equations are no longer so simply expressed.

Twistorial formulae for interactions beyond the self-dual sector first arose from Witten's twistor string theory.^[14] This is a quantum theory of holomorphic maps of a Riemann surface into twistor space. It gave rise to the remarkably compact RSV (Roiban, Spradlin & Volovich) formulae for tree-level S-matrices of Yang–Mills theories,^[15] but its gravity degrees of freedom gave rise to a version of conformal supergravity limiting its applicability; conformal gravity is an unphysical theory containing ghosts, but its interactions are combined with those of Yang–Mills theory in loop amplitudes calculated via twistor string theory.^[16]

Despite its shortcomings, twistor string theory led to rapid developments in the study of scattering amplitudes. One was the so-called MHV formalism^[17] loosely based on disconnected strings, but was given a more basic foundation in terms of a twistor action for full Yang–Mills theory in twistor space.^[18] Another key development was the introduction of BCFW recursion.^[19] This has a natural formulation in twistor space^[20][21] that in turn led to remarkable formulations of scattering amplitudes in terms of Grassmann integral formulae^[22][23] and polytopes.^[24] These ideas have evolved more recently into the positive Grassmannian^[25] and amplituhedron.

Twistor string theory was extended first by generalising the RSV Yang–Mills amplitude formula, and then by finding the underlying string theory. The extension to gravity was given by Cachazo & Skinner,^[26] and formulated as a twistor string theory for maximal supergravity by David Skinner.^[27] Analogous formulae were then found in all dimensions by Cachazo, He & Yuan for Yang–Mills theory and gravity^[28] and subsequently for a variety of other theories.^[29] They were then understood as string theories in ambitwistor space by Mason & Skinner^[30] in a general framework that includes the original twistor string and extends to give a number of new models and formulae.^[31][32][33] As string theories they have the same critical dimensions as conventional string theory; for example the type II supersymmetric versions are critical in ten dimensions and are equivalent to the full field theory of type II supergravities in ten dimensions (this is distinct from conventional string theories that also have a further infinite hierarchy of massive higher spin states that provide an ultraviolet completion). They extend to give formulae for loop amplitudes^[34][35] and can be defined on curved backgrounds.^[36]

 

Penrose's "Missing" Link Between The Physics Of The Large And The Physics Of The Small

wikipedia  |  The Penrose interpretation is a speculation by Roger Penrose about the relationship between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Penrose proposes that a quantum state remains in superposition until the difference of space-time curvature attains a significant level.^[1][2][3]

Penrose's idea is inspired by quantum gravity, because it uses both the physical constants ${\displaystyle \hslash }$ and ${\displaystyle G}$. It is an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation, which posits that superposition fails when an observation is made (but that it is non-objective in nature), and the many-worlds interpretation, which states that alternative outcomes of a superposition are equally "real", while their mutual decoherence precludes subsequent observable interactions.

Penrose's idea is a type of objective collapse theory. For these theories, the wavefunction is a physical wave, which experiences wave function collapse as a physical process, with observers not having any special role. Penrose theorises that the wave function cannot be sustained in superposition beyond a certain energy difference between the quantum states. He gives an approximate value for this difference: a Planck mass worth of matter, which he calls the "'one-graviton' level".^[1] He then hypothesizes that this energy difference causes the wave function to collapse to a single state, with a probability based on its amplitude in the original wave function, a procedure derived from standard quantum mechanics. Penrose's "'one-graviton' level" criterion forms the basis of his prediction, providing an objective criterion for wave function collapse.^[1] Despite the difficulties of specifying this in a rigorous way, he proposes that the basis states into which the collapse takes place are mathematically described by the stationary solutions of the Schrödinger–Newton equation.^[4][5] Recent work indicates an increasingly deep inter-relation between quantum mechanics and gravitation.^[6][7]

Accepting that wavefunctions are physically real, Penrose believes that matter can exist in more than one place at one time. In his opinion, a macroscopic system, like a human being, cannot exist in more than one place for a measurable time, as the corresponding energy difference is very large. A microscopic system, like an electron, can exist in more than one location significantly longer (thousands of years), until its space-time curvature separation reaches collapse threshold.^[8][9]

In Einstein's theory, any object that has mass causes a warp in the structure of space and time around it. This warping produces the effect we experience as gravity. Penrose points out that tiny objects, such as dust specks, atoms and electrons, produce space-time warps as well. Ignoring these warps is where most physicists go awry. If a dust speck is in two locations at the same time, each one should create its own distortions in space-time, yielding two superposed gravitational fields. According to Penrose's theory, it takes energy to sustain these dual fields. The stability of a system depends on the amount of energy involved: the higher the energy required to sustain a system, the less stable it is. Over time, an unstable system tends to settle back to its simplest, lowest-energy state: in this case, one object in one location producing one gravitational field. If Penrose is right, gravity yanks objects back into a single location, without any need to invoke observers or parallel universes.^[2]

Penrose speculates that the transition between macroscopic and quantum states begins at the scale of dust particles (the mass of which is close to a Planck mass). He has proposed an experiment to test this theory, called FELIX (free-orbit experiment with laser interferometry X-rays), in which an X-ray laser in space is directed toward a tiny mirror and fissioned by a beam splitter from tens of thousands of miles away, with which the photons are directed toward other mirrors and reflected back. One photon will strike the tiny mirror while moving to another mirror and move the tiny mirror back as it returns, and according to conventional quantum theories, the tiny mirror can exist in superposition for a significant period of time. This would prevent any photons from reaching the detector. If Penrose's hypothesis is correct, the mirror's superposition will collapse to one location in about a second, allowing half the photons to reach the detector.^[2]

However, because this experiment would be difficult to arrange, a table-top version that uses optical cavities to trap the photons long enough for achieving the desired delay has been proposed instead.^[10]

 

More-Broad-Smythies Theory: A Radical Monism Of Space And Sentience

iai  |  The first affirmation of the possibility of a fourth spatial dimension comes through the Cambridge Platonist Henry More in his book of 1659, The Immortality of the Soul, where he calls the fourth dimension spissitude. This rather spiritual apprehension of hyperspace was reflected in the twentieth century by certain writings [31] of the Welsh, Oxford philosopher H. H. Price – who, incidentally, was one of the first philosophers to write on the psychedelic (mescaline) experience. [32] In his later book of 1671, the Enchiridion Metaphysicum, More explicitly writes that ‘besides the three dimensions which are filled with all extended material things, a fourth must be admitted, with which coincides the spirit’. [33] A century later in 1746, in his very first publication, Immanuel Kant considers hyperspace as the condition of other universes:

‘If it is possible that there are extensions of different dimensions, then it is also very probable that God has really produced them somewhere. For his works have all the greatness and diversity that they can possibly contain. Spaces of this kind could not possibly stand in connection with those of an entirely different nature; hence such spaces would not belong to our world at all, but would constitute their own worlds. I showed above that, in a metaphysical sense, more worlds could exist together, but here is also the condition that, as it seems to me, is the only condition under which it might also be probable that many worlds really exist.’ [34]

In Kant’s later transcendental idealism, space is not taken as real but rather as a mere human mode of perception through which we frame the real, noumenal, world. Consequently, one can say, the three dimensions of space are but a human projection, not of necessity an actual reality. If space is subjective, then its observed three dimensions cannot be considered a necessarily objective limitation. One of the pioneers of Relativity, the great French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré was in agreement:

‘the characteristic property of space, that of having three dimensions, is only a property of our table of distribution, an internal property of the human intelligence … . [We] could conceive, living in our world, thinking beings whose table of distribution would be four dimensional and who consequently would think in hyperspace.’ [35]

It was, arguably, Kant’s conjectures that sparked the later interest in the fourth dimension, especially in the later nineteenth century. As one of the most prominent popularizers of hyperspace, the British mathematician Charles Hinton, expressed it in 1888:

'the exploration of the facts of higher [dimensional] space is the practical execution of the great vision of Kant’. [36]

We will leave to the side the controversial question as to whether time can properly be a dimension of space. [37] But looking back in time, we see that in the shadow of Kant, concepts pertaining to the fourth dimension were being considered in serious fashion by a series of first-rate mathematicians. [38] These mathematicians, first and foremost the German Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, discovered that spaces of any number of dimensions, n-dimensional space, were not contradictory or paradoxical, but in fact intelligible and systematically congruent.

Riemann was the student of the equally great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.

In the words of the prominent logical empiricist Hans Reichenbach, ‘[in] analogy to [Gauss'] auxiliary concept of the curvature of a surface … Riemann introduced the auxiliary concept of curvature of space’. [39] That is, the curvature of three-dimensional space itself into a fourth dimension, analogous to the curvature of a two-dimensional sheet into a third dimension. Riemann’s ultimate end was to simplify the laws of nature through his complexification of the laws of geometry – for instance by reducing “force” to curvature.

But the physics of Riemann’s age was behind the mathematics, and so his endeavour to explain natural law through geometry was unfulfilled. But his geometry did enable the new physics to come: the theories of Relativity. As physicist and a co-founder of string theory Michio Kaku puts it, ‘Einstein fulfilled the program initiated by Riemann 60 years earlier, to use higher dimensions to simplify the laws of nature.’ [40] The well-known instance of this is the reduction of the “force” of gravity to spacetime curvature. As Bertrand Russell puts it:

‘the sun exerts no force on the planets whatever. Just as geometry has become physics, so, in a sense, physics has become geometry. The law of gravitation has become the geometrical law that every body pursues the easiest course from place to place, but this course is affected by the hills and valleys that are encountered on the road.’ [41]

The notion that imperceptible spatial curvature is perceived through forced feeling rather than vision is one that was brought out through the English translator of Riemann’s aforementioned paper, the great mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford. [42] In the 1870s Clifford wrote of a hypothetical one-dimensional worm (AB) that lived in a thin oval tube, endlessly circling it clockwise, without any degree of freedom to go counter-clockwise let alone escape “up” or “down” (which would be useless concepts or intuitions to the worm). The worm itself would not even see the second dimension, that is, the oval-like shape in which it lives its life. However it would perceive differences in extra-dimensional curvature (i.e. two-dimensional curvature) as bodily feelings, because its body would curve more at points of acute curvature (viz. H, E, F, and G in Figure 2). [43]

Figure 2: Clifford’s one-dimensional worm

Clifford writes that:

‘a being existing in these [<3] dimensions would most probably attribute the effects of curvature to changes in its own physical constitution in nowise connected with the geometrical character of its space. … [If we consider ourselves,] changes in shape may be either imperceptible … or if they do take place we may attribute them to “physical causes” – to heat, light, or magnetism – which may be mere names for variations in the curvature of our space. … [We may be] treating merely as physical variations effects which are really due to changes in the curvature of our space; … some or all of those causes which we term physical may … be due to the geometrical construction of our space … variation in the curvature of our space…’ [44]

Following Einstein’s revelations [45] we see how advanced Clifford was, at least with regard to the feeling of gravity. Yet there are perhaps further developments to be made in this field relating extra-dimensional curvature to qualia [46] – thereby correlating not just force to geometry but qualia too. That is to say that a relation of (n-dimensional) space and sentience is here suggested.

Mathematicians and physicists, then, have given feasibility to the idea of n-dimensional space. [47] We have seen how Clifford relates such space to sentience, let us augment this relation by looking at the ideas of John R. Smythies (1922 – 2019), a neurophilosopher and associate of psychedelic cognoscenti Aldous Huxley and Humphrey Osmond. Smythies provides two sub-theories through which we can understand the relation of space to sentience:

Theory I: ‘Sense-data[48] ... are spatial entities distinct from physical objects and bear temporal and causal relations but no spatial relations to physical objects.’[49] – i.e. an exclusive theory.

Theory II: ‘Sense data … are spatial entities distinct from physical objects and bear both temporal and causal relations and higher-dimensional spatial relations to physical objects.’ [50] – i.e. an inclusive theory.

Theory I is taken by certain figures such as H. H. Price[51] and Bertrand Russell, [52] but Smythies considers Theory II preferable as it is more parsimonious and offers a contiguous spatial connection between mind and matter; mind-matter spatial relations that would be lacking in Theory I (which would then only have temporal (i.e. successive) and causal (i.e. transordinal) relations between physical space (PS) and visual space (VS).

Theory I advances that all the three-dimensional spaces of all beings’ sense data, and the one three-dimensional space of physicality are a multiplicity of separate spaces. In emergentism, each VS would ‘emerge’ from sections (such as those within brains) of the singular PS. We have already hinted at the inadequacy of this mysterious transordinal upward transition. Theory I would require causal rather than spatial relations between all myriad spaces, and thus would be an emergentism, and thus the mystery of transordinal nomology emerges once more. Thus we reject Theory I.

Theory II then advances the actuality of a unified space of multiple dimensions (= n-dimensional space) in which all of VS and PS are cross-sections. Moreover, Smythies agrees with psychiatrist Paul Schilder that the perception of PS is VS. He quotes Schilder thus: ‘The space in which objects are perceived and the space in which they are imaged, are one and the same.’ [53] This in turn implies, Smythies writes, that ‘[in] this n-dimensional space Scientific Space [PS] and a visual field [VS] would not be two different kinds of section but would merely be two different sections.’ [54]

This is not to say that PS is not real but rather to say that our access to it is through VS (plus other senses) which is prosaically three-dimensional. Thus the reality of physical space as more than three-dimensional is not falsified by our common perception of it as three-dimensional. I write ‘prosaically’ because it may be possible to visualize objects of more than three spatial dimensions – Smythies does suggest that ‘[t]here is no a priori reason why we should not develop the ability to appreciate directly an n-dimensional spatial system’, and there are reports of such vision. [55] Indirectly, we can easily conceptualize and work with[56] more than three dimensions of space through algebraic topology using the Cartesian coördinate system where points, areas and volumes, etc., can be located by numeric variables of each dimension’s axis, e.g. point h: (x₁, y₂, z₃). To locate a point in a four-dimensional space, one simply adds an axis and its variable, e.g. point h: (x₁, y₂, z₃, w₄). Ad infinitum. Alternatively, one can visually represent (though not prosaically present) [57] four-dimensional space through for instance a four-dimensional cube, or tesseract (hypercube) – see Figure 2.

The word tesseract was coined by the aforementioned mathematician and author Charles Howard Hinton, [58] whose work on the fourth dimension can be used to our ends. In his essay of 1880, ‘What is the fourth dimension?’ – published four years prior to the related book Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott – Hinton employs analogy to lower dimensional worlds to elucidate a speculated four-dimensional world. I shall briefly explain it, then connect this four dimensional world to the n-dimensional world of Broad and Smythies, so to entertain a theory of the relation between space and sentience. Note that by four dimensions, we are speaking of four spatial dimensions, not a fourth temporal dimension in addition to three spatial dimensions. [59]

Let us imagine a two-dimensional world, a plane, or a Flatland as Abbott calls it, like a sheet of paper. Any beings therein would only be aware of two dimensions, and would only be aware of borders describable with two axes (x,y). Thus they would be unaware of the existence (as we perceive it from our three-dimensional perspective) of the top and bottom faces of their plane that is also contiguous, that borders, their two-dimensional world. Now, we three-dimensional observers could see a multiplicity of such planes, sheets, each floating one above the other. Although each entity of the flatland could not perceive the other flatlands (just as in our world we cannot perceive other entities’ experienced three-dimensional spaces), as they were not contiguous at the x and y axes, we could perceive the multitude of flatlands, or worlds, from our higher-dimensional space – and we could perceive the spatial contiguity (i.e. fundamental unity) of two-dimensional worlds in a three-dimensional space. Thus though each such two-dimensional world would not be contiguous with another two-dimensional world, [60] each two-dimensional world would be contiguous with, i.e. within the same space as, all the other two-dimensional worlds via the intervening three-dimensional space. Thus the relationship between such flatlands would be spatial rather than merely causal, under the perspective of a world with a higher dimensionality than that of each two-dimensional world. The nomology would be of one order rather than transordinal, because the levels would be unified here. Rather than one world emerging from another (as in emergentism), they would each be equally fundamental and unified. Now, let me allow Hinton, 1880, to shift the argument up a dimension:

‘Take now the case of four dimensions. Instead of bringing before the mind a sheet of paper conceive a solid of three dimensions. If this solid were to become infinite it would fill up the whole of three-dimensional space. But it would not fill up the whole of four-dimensional space. It would be to four-dimensional space what an infinite plane is to three-dimensional space. There could be in four-dimensional space an infinite number of such solids, just as in three-dimensional space there could be an infinite number of infinite planes.

Thus, lying alongside our space, there can be conceived a space also infinite in all three directions. To pass from one to the other a movement has to be made in the fourth dimension, just as to pass from one infinite plane to another a motion has to be made in the third dimension.’ [61] 

Thus we place Smythies’ n-dimensional spaces (i.e. PS with a multitude of beings’ VSs) within the Hintonian four-dimensional space so to render intelligible the Theory II relation between VS and PS.

So: through this approach, we exhibit the possibility that though visual spaces and physical space are not strictly identical, refuting the Psycho-neural Identity Theory, they neither need be strictly distinct, as in Substance Dualism. Neither need one (VS) emerge from the other (PS). Through a four-dimensional perspective, we can see that the mental (all of which for James is necessarily spatial) [62] and the physical can be both fundamental and unified, i.e. a mind-matter monism. The imagined triangle and the physical correlates thereof are both part of one n-dimensional space rather than members of distinct categories. This is all to say that the More-Broad-Smythies Theory (Theory II) is one, albeit radical, way to respond to the mind-matter mystery. It is a radical monism of space and sentience.

Whether we can call such a monism an identity theory is merely a matter of definition. Spinoza’s system, for instance, is certainly a monism and has certainly been classified as an identity theory.[63] In this regard, it is interesting to note that Hinton, in the above-quoted 1880 essay, also writes that:

‘In the [four-dimensional manifold] which we have traced out, much that philosophers have written finds adequate representation. Much of Spinoza’s Ethics, for example, could be symbolized from the preceding pages.’ [64]

It is also interesting to note here that Hinton corresponded with William James on the subject of four-dimensional consciousness.[65] Both Spinoza and James were, in the end, panpsychists, and the full extent of the relationship between higher-dimensionality and panpsychism – or more broadly, between n-dimensional space and sentience – is a woefully underexplored world, [66] a world where one may find idios kosmos within koinos kosmos, thought within extension.