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## Prometheus Bound

Prometheus was punished for bringing fire to man.  Devil’s advocate for Zeus might have just cause.  A sort of ‘Manifest Destiny’ approach for humanity might consider the punishment of Prometheus a personal insult, nature might still have been threatened by fire with man.  These mythologies might seem simplistic or primitive by our prejudices of modern progress but they are extremely sophisticated from a ‘dramatic’ point of view on interpretation of the forces of nature.  I do not at the moment subscribe to any such mythology as literal truth although I will admit I considered the possibility in some interpretation in the past.  In an S4 universe while there is a sharpening of mathematical possibilities for some problems in physics, there is an expanded possibility for interpretation and analysis of the metaphysical as an empirical project.

Minimally, the S4 universe can be modeled as a large dynamical system of the usual forces of electromagnetism and gravity.  I can’t tell how far one can understand the secrets of nature in this manner.

## Motivation and passion

Stories of extraordinary motivation and passion are universally inspiring.  Legends are made of this stuff.  There is the extraordinary story of Link and his flight simulators.  The man created mechanical flight simulators by great sacrifices, conviction, motivation and passion only to find that he could sell these to amusement parks.  Things changed greatly after Franklin Roosevelt became concerned about the air force pilot deaths in 1937.  This is a story introducing ‘The Talent Code’.  I have scoured amateurishly on a large scope to understand motivation, especially my own lapse of motivation in mathematics after a promising beginning many years ago.  My motivation for physics only sparked by a fundamental questioning of knowledge of nature and the possibility of objective metaphysics.  The power of mathematics in describing natural laws I think find their limits in the question of metaphysics because only with a relative perfection and coherence of a mathematical model of physics can possibly reveal to us the hidden structure indirectly.  This is not yet apparent because we have not undertaken the exercise seriously yet.   This approach reveals itself with some fundamental new interpretations of natural phenomena, such as explaining quantization of energy via 4-sphere geometry of the ‘space’ of spacetime.  Although my success in publicizing my refutation of expansionary models had been limited in success, a recent report independently found empirical evidence against expansion as well.  I consider this a great success on my conviction of not only a static universe but one with a very concrete geometry for which gravity and particle theory have very concrete forms.  One of the major attractions of a four macro space dimension model of the universe is that ‘objective metaphysics’ becomes a mathematically examinable problem.  This implies that we have a totally new level of understanding possible beyond the empiricist picture of all that is real in nature.  My interest in pushing slowly for S4 physics since 2008 comes from the possibility of this larger scope of science with state of mathematics and physics prepared for this next step for human understanding of nature.  Although it is clear that a vision of such ambition is likely to be out of reach by a single person’s work, the intuitive clarity that results with the S4 picture has been a motivator for me to pursue this seemingly unpopular path.  The fruits of the motivation are still not fully clear.  Motivation in this case heavily depended on a very visceral sense of duty of reporting to humanity a new possibility that might resolve many nagging issues that surface from a frankly superficial if powerful empirical account of objective evidence.  In order to see clearly one example of how empiricist theorizing staying very close to the ‘intrinsic advances’ of empirical facts can lead to complex and difficult to understand concepts is to explain quantization by the geometry of the universe linking macro and micro by the radius and then checking consequences against the orthodox picture.  This has not begun yet one can imagine that there can be a large restructuring of the fundamental pictures of physics if the exercise is undertaken seriously (with larger groups of researchers than I can produce).  Development of empiricist techniques are obviously great progress for human science but for the exercise of where we can find a sort of perfect coherence and simplicity (which I believe can happen with the S4 picture) one might consider empiricism as the training wheel for a deeper exploration for the nature of existence.  In order to substantiate this, consider the hypothesis that I have forwarded on the key test of the objective metaphysics:  that electromagnetism in our universe is not a $U(1)$-gauge theory.  If it is actually a $U(1)$-gauge theory, there probably is no objective metaphysics.

If the issue of objective metaphysics were not such a ‘crux issue’ for our knowledge of existence that gets far past religious mythology, then I would suspect I would not be able to muster the sufficient motivation to come this far without solid institutional support.  ‘Dramatic factors’ also have supported motivation, such as a sense that if any sort of justice is encoded in nature (beyond the ideas of Nietzsche that ‘justice’ is merely a sort of arrangement between parties of approximately equal power) then a refined science would be different from that produced by those who proclaimed ‘I am Shiva the Destroyer of Worlds’ before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Of course, a good empiricist is trained to scoff at any suggestion of metaphysics.  But this is precisely the fundamental issue that carries the great opportunities: mathematical infrastructure exists already to establish precision for the boundaries of objective metaphysics consistent with accepted empirical facts.  The fact that the S4 picture is consistent with the ideas of many of the great minds of the past — such as Hamilton’s obsession with quaternions, of Einstein’s reaction to expanding universe and stochastic interpretations of quantum mechanics, and with the attempts of Nietzsche to critique science from a distant and artistic metaphysics in The Birth of Tragedy and many others suggests that far from the traditional empiricist dogma regarding ‘metaphysical’ the fourth spatial (electromagnetic) dimension of the objective universe is a true new frontier for humanity, and our ability to clearly understand this part of reality is crucial to our advancement in civilization.  If we dismiss religious explanations, we could consider this realm simply as new phenomena of nature.  Elucidation of this phenomena will require an extremely subtle and mathematical approach because our sciences have explicitly been built to evade the metaphysical quite successfully for centuries.

It is worthwhile repeating Nietzsche’s potent critique of sciences from Beyond Good and Evil:

‘It is perhaps dawning on five or six minds that physics, too, is only an interpretation and exegesis of the world (to suit us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation; but insofar as it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time to come must be regarded as more–namely, as an explanation.  Eyes and fingers speak in its favor, visual evidence and palpableness do, too: this strikes an age with a fundamentally plebian tastes as fascinating, persuasive, and convincing–after all, it follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternally popular sensualism.  What is clear, what is “explained”?  Only what can be seen and felt–every problem has to be pursued to that point.  Conversely, the charm of the Platonic way of thinking, which was a noble way of thinking, consisted precisely in the resistance of sense-evidence–perhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more demanding senses than our contemporaries, but who knew how to get a higher triumph in remaining masters of their senses–and this by means of pale, cold, gray concept nets which they threw over the motley whirl of the senses–the mob of the senses, as Plato said.  In this overcoming of the world, and interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was an enjoyment different from that which the physicists of today offer us–and also the Darwinists and the anti-teleologists among the workers in physiology, with their principle of “the smallest possible force” and the greatest possible stupidity.  “Where man cannot find anything to see or grasp, he has no further business” — that is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may be the right imperative for a tough industrious race of machinists and bridge-builders of the future, who have nothing but rough work to do.

## Precise problem of objective metaphysics

The S4 picture even in its current form gives a clear recipe for what to expect vis-a-vis an objective metaphysics.  The universe has four macroscopic electromagnetic spatial dimensions; the physical universe at every moment in time is a hypersurface of $S^4(1/h)$ where electromagnetism propagates in all four dimensions and gravity restricts the physical universe to three space dimensions (which continually evolve within the ambient universe).  Electromagnetism is not at any time a $U(1)$ gauge theory but rather can be defined via a 1-form on the ambient space.  This means that it will be a defect of $U(1)$ gauge invariance that can allow us to attempt examining four space dimensions indirectly.

For an idea of how this can be done concretely, although in three dimensions we may not be able to observe four dimensional phenomena, the S4 picture would posit that at each point in the physical three dimensions, some information about the integrals along the normal circles might be available through observed electromagnetic field.  Thus we have a situation familiar from tomography such as Radon transform.  There is a useful inversion formula for the Radon transform that can give us desired information.  The answer is vague for the moment and pending a concrete theory including four dimensional electromagnetism.  Abstractly there is no trouble describing four dimensional electromagnetism.  One takes the potential $A = (A_0, A_1, A_2, A_3)$ and puts the $A_0$ component, i.e. the scalar electric potential in the normal direction to the physical hypersurface.

In terms of interpretation, the theory would suggest that although we cannot directly examine four spatial dimensions, we can still gain information about it by indirect means.  A more aggressive suggestion would be to examine whether human beings can or do have direct perception of four spatial dimensions.  Although the procedure sketched in the last paragraph are quite vague, experience from Radon transform in tomography can be used to model this problem.  The engineering required for this is an open problem and awaiting more concrete computations.  But here we have sketched something fundamentally new: a rational objective method for treating objective metaphysical reality.

I had been destined to abandon the academic path by 2001.  The reasons are many and none.  I attribute it in the end to destiny.  The obvious disadvantages are lack of research funding as well as institutional support and interaction with researchers of differing backgrounds and also lack of an established platform.  The advantages are complete freedom to cross boundaries, work intuitively and disregard established theories.  Juvenile failures and difficulties finding solid ground for attempting to demystify things that are difficult by nature–witness the sophisticated approach for example employed on Kafka’s writing by Stanley Corngold.  Kafka’s genius in particular begs the question of where the ‘deep practice’ of myelin theory of talent leans: in his case it is explicitly metaphysical in alignment.  Artists have an easier relationship with objective metaphysics than scientists, for often they are not empiricists.  The empiricist gap is more difficult to traverse within academia as the lines have been drawn already.  Either the objective universe, or nature if you will, contains metaphysical phenomena that figure into the the genius of a Kafka as I contend and the essence of my argument is that beyond some basic evidence, objective metaphysics exist naturally in an S4 universe open to study by scientific methods once the physics is worked out.  Or the hard-core empiricists are right about three macroscopic space dimensions and metaphysics is simply imagined.  Einstein’s failure to produce a unified field theory combining electromagnetism and gravity in a three dimensional universe after many years is an indication of a weakness of empiricism as well although this is not a standard view.  This sort of project is perhaps ‘too risky’ for academia.

I also have a different source for my interest in the entire subject, which are years of personal metaphysical experiences of extremely varied types that I cannot explain to myself without a fourth space dimension.  Perhaps it is an exaggerated hope that in the objective metaphysical phenomena we can find some deeper understanding of ‘who we are’ in the sense that Schroedinger used the phrase.  But the optimism is accompanied by the exaggerated hopes of Hamilton on the role of quaternions (the 4-sphere is a quaternionic projective line).  Outside the confines of academe it is easier to attempt straightforward ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ in this way–follow the obsessions of Hamilton, Einstein, Weyl, Dirac, Schroedinger, Feynman, etc. shamelessly.  At the same time, since we don’t have the pressures that led to QED being established for example, we can recognize the superior numerical predictions of QED or other complex theories without giving up hope that a simpler theory might be as accurate.  At least one supporting piece of evidence for this sort of approach is that it does seem as though the Dirac equation for Coulomb potential solved on an S4 universe does yield a nonzero Lamb shift term.  We are interested not so much in attempting to discredit pioneering work but rather to solve a number of problems extending past current ‘jurisdiction’ of science.

## Maximal parsimony approach to deep structure of existence

The evidence accumulated thus far for the S4 picture seems now to include a straightforward prediction of the Lamb shift which will need more examination for observation matches.  The general S4 picture, which can be described in different ways but a central point being that quantization of energy be explained by a precisely scaled 4-sphere universe (with standard technique to add time with Lorentz invariance requirement).  There are extremely natural geometric ways of combining electromagnetism and gravity here as well of the gauge forces.  We have a large class of new testable predictions, i.e. all mathematical consequences of this model.  Some of the consequences are clear ‘from construction’ such as cosmological constant $h^2$.  Others are nontrivial such as non-$U(1)$ invariance of electromagnetism.  What I mean by ‘deep structure of existence’ is that the model implies an objective metaphysics, a purely electromagnetic macroscopic fourth space dimension. This objectively real fourth space dimension operates, according to this model, on physical laws that are known mathematically.  Four (space) dimensional phenomena are in principle open to objective examination with a fleshed out theory using mathematical methods (such as solving boundary value problems with the physical universe as the boundary of a domain in $S^4(1/h)$.  This step is a gigantic leap for science because it is an end to the division of science and magic which began the journey of exact sciences.  Impressive advances in empirical viewpoint such as the myelin theory of talent still face some difficult questions at their roots.  For example, the clean myelin theory says that certain molecules react to circuits of neurons firing (during ‘deep practice’) with myelin insulation.  Our abilities to fire certain neural circuits by this sort of mode of ‘deep practice’ then contains the substance of association with talent.  Although it is entirely much too premature to attempt to predict what sort of precise quantitative or qualitative models can become available for objective metaphysics it seems fairly clear that quantitative models are viable for such efforts.  A wiser man than I would perhaps follow tradition and keep strictly to empiricist views and banish metaphysics from science but this a key impetus for S4 physics.  One expects that many of the fundamental questions of physics to be technically tractable because of the simplicity of S4 while many new difficulties appear from the expanded vision of existence.  We would want to check for accuracy of predictions for such things as magnetic moments but we also want to understand whether a four dimensional universe can give us any insight towards things like Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’.  Maximal parsimony approach is a tractable guide to reach this far.

A died-in-the-wool empiricist would of course attempt to dismiss four space dimensions but he or she would then be throwing away the baby with the bathwater.  Myelin type theories have appeal for providing some universal concrete answers to previously difficult and nebulous questions about human nature but these efforts (as important as they are) will only delay the inevitable questions regarding objective metaphysics.  Indeed one can see in the intellectual development of twentieth century science this controversy just below the surface.

I want to illustrate the substance of the issue that I raise by the following.  Let’s take the myelin type talent theory and consider the very famous soliloquy of Hamlet.  So by the myelin theory, Shakespeare had perfected a large number of the myelinated circuits of neural paths to produce the following:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bour
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

There is the following type of problem with with myelin theory in this case. One can accept as extremely reasonable that myelin circuits had been forming in Shakespeare’s brain on the path to this extreme insight into the noble heart of man. But how did he actually reach this point? If it was ‘deep practice’ that reached this point, then deep practice of what content, where? In the brilliant universality of an empiricist theory like myelin, excellence in talent in well-defined endeavours such as soccer, math or music is explained reasonably well but I think the ‘what’ is still quite open. There is a great deal of room for explanations of content of talent especially in art through establishment of objective metaphysics (specifically through the S4 picture which focuses attention on ensuring empirical physical accuracy and interpretation first).

## Quantitative explanation for weakness of gravity

The hierarchy problem of weakness of gravity versus gauge forces can be solved in the S4 picture extremely simply.  The core issue is that while in four space dimensions the Yang-Mills functional

$\int_{S^4} trace F\wedge *F dx$

is conformally invariant, the sensitivity of the gravitational counterpart

$\int_{S^4} S dx$

where $S$ is scalar curvature to rescaling has a $R^2$ dependence.  In particular weakness of gravity relative to gauge forces is described by the scale of the universe.  Since in the S4 picture the scale is tied to $1/h$ where $h$ is Planck’s constant, we have a precise quantitative ‘relative weakness’ figure for gravity.  If we consider gravity to be defined on the entire $S^4(1/h)$ then it will be $h^{-2}$; if instead we consider gravity to be defined only on hypersurfaces then it will be $1/h$.

The above explanation for weakness of gravity is extremely simple.  I would suggest that this explanation has not been absorbed due to a model of the universe that is not compact.  It was Weyl’s focus on the conformal invariance of the Maxwell’s equations that led ultimately to non-Abelian gauge theories and the successful Yang-Mills gauge theory.  This success underpins the idea of absorbing gravity within the same framework.  Once the evidence is examined for compactness of the universe is taken into account: the CBR uniform lower bound of 2.7 Kelvin for temperature can be used to show that the universe assumed to be stationary and noncompact leads to contradiction.  A compact four (space) dimensional stationary universe will have conformally invariant Yang-Mills functional but conformally non-invariant total scalar curvature (gravity functional).

The mathematical explanation requires deeper physical interpretation but what it points out is that although gravity and gauge forces both share an inverse-square distance force (in three dimensions) they are radically different phenomena with regards to the metricity of space.  Indeed, Weyl’s attempted unification in 1918 and later focused on the conformal invariance intuitively at the expense of gravity.  In the S4 picture, which would contend that quantization of energy is explained by the 4-sphere geometry, the relative weakness of gravity is trivial to explain unlike the Kaluza-Klein models where the extra space dimension is compactified and it is unclear how to explain weakness of gravity.  Indeed unified field theory attempts had not focused on the metricity difference between gravity and the gauge forces.

## Reactions to the myelin theory of talent

I just read TalentCode and I found it fairly compelling.  The basic theory is that talent can be identified concretely in terms of circuits of neurons being reinforced by myelin insulation.  The concept of ‘deep practice’ with examples from talent hotbeds is compelling.  For my political activism, this new theory is a divine gift, for it provides universality for talent by a universal quantity, myelin, rather than genes, which is at the heart of the racist theorists of the world.  It also underlines one of my political slogans, ‘Human beings are talent not labor’.  Thus beyond scientific merit of the theory, it is a boon for a time when our race is divided and in strife.  But the real treasure these scientists point to is to unlock the mysteries of talent.

Talent is ultimately tied to the construction of the self.  The book does not elaborate upon this but brings out the concept of ‘ignition’ with some examples and allude to the self-construction with examples of a young musician mastering a piece.  There is a very different thought process that leads to talent as well, which is Emerson’s ‘trust thyself’.

I would still challenge the myelin theorists to exceed the following of Eliot as an explanation of all talent:

Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms