When a photograph develops in the darkroom, it doesn't just emerge as a face or a landscape or whatnot. Isolated details show up first, gradually finding their places in an expanding and changing gestalt. Sometimes you see them wrong, and such mistakes are hard to let go of. An emerging spot first appears as a frog on a lily pad, and that frog is still there even after a nose and mouth appear below it. But then all of a sudden it has become an eye, and the frog pond is a face. This kind of development resembles the history of quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics began as Planck's quantum of action, a detail in atomic physics. Then came the "matter waves" of DeBroglie, the "non-commuting numbers" of Heisenberg, etc., each in its own terms a different gestalt, but together pointing to a larger gestalt involving the downfall of classical mechanics. This larger gestalt finally emerged in the late 1920's with the so-called Hilbert space formulation, which turned out to be so successful that it has become our standard theory of matter. Not everyone is happy with it, though. Standard theory is still at odds with relativity. It doesn't predict the observed "scale constants" of physics. It's best prediction of the vacuum energy is off by a factor of 10 to the 120'th power, which probably sets a Guiness record for the biggest error of all time. Is standard theory still hanging onto the frog?

About 30 years ago, a small group of English physicists and mathematicians tried to let go of the frog. They had just discovered what they called the combinatorial hierarchy, a simple construction which generates the scale constants with great accuracy, and naturally concluded that this construction, even though it might conflict with standard theory, ought to be part of physics.

Making it so has not proved easy, however. A number of people from around the world have joined the effort, which led to the founding by Pierre Noyes of an international organization to help keep things coordinated; this is the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association, or ANPA for short, of which ANPA West is the American branch. For a number of years ANPA has held an annual conference at King's College, Cambridge, and ANPA West has put on one or more conferences a year at Stanford, attracting more and more people each year from a variety of fields.

Planck's quantum didn't make sense as a detail of atomic theory; it had to be understood in the larger context of mechanics. Similarly, the ANPA work, which was first conceived as a detail of physics, really belongs to a much larger context, within which it has profoundly revolutionary implications.

What is this larger context? As more people join ANPA from fields outside of physics and mathematics, this newsletter will serve as a forum for dialogue. If you feel that you want to take part in this dialogue, let us hear from you.
(Editorial from Volume 1, #1 of the ANPA WEST Journal)

The following are summaries of the main articles appearing in those back issues of the ANPA WEST Journal which are available on request.

Vol 1 # 1.

A Conversation with Pierre Noyes About ANPA History.
Pierre Noyes, a theoretical physicist at SLAC, founded ANPA in 1979.

Why Discrete Physics? by Pierre Noyes
A brief statement of the vision that has animated Pierre Noyes' work over the years.

An Introduction to the Ordering Operator Calculus. by Dave McGoveran
The author, a mathematician who has collaborated with Pierre Noyes, introduces us to his context-sensitive process-oriented "modelling methodology".

Science Without Logic? or Very Elementary Physics. by Tom Etter.
Quantum logic is an alternative to Boolean logic. This article introduces the concept of pre-logic, which is a weakening of Boolean logic.

Articles in this issue have mostly to do with language and writing.

Radio Shack Meets Star Trek: A New Electronic Awareness Module. by Nick Herbert.
Those of you who have read Nick Herbert's book "Quantum Realities", an admirably lucid introduction to the problem of interpreting quantum mechanics, will recognize his inimitable light touch in our lead article, which is about the kind of "writing" that might come from beyond the quantum veil.

What is Language that Egos May Share it? by Helga Wild and Niklas Damiris
The second article, a collaboration between brain scientist Wild and physicist-philosopher Damiris, is a brief headlong plunge into the dense philosophical thicket surrounding language, knowledge, world and self.

On Etter's Flying Bananas. by Herman Mueller.
The graceful prose of our third article quickly reveals its author to be a professional wordsmith. Ironically, his point of departure is to take your editor to task for making too much out of words. He goes on to share with us his own explorations of what lies behind words, touching on philosophical issues that are of great importance for the kind of science that some of us in ANPA are trying to create.

On Grounding the Bananas. by Tom Etter.
This article is your editor's response to Mr. Mueller's criticism. It tries to fill in some of the background that was presupposed by the essay he was criticizing, and in keeping with our theme, sketches some connections between writing and quantum measurement.

On to QED. by H. Pierre Noyes.
Our last article is in a rather different vein, being a progress report on some promising new turns in Noyes-McGoveran bit-string physics. Some of us non-physicists have a big stake in all this, since if it works out, it may prove to be the royal highway connecting our areas of interest to mainline experimental physics.

A Theory of Shadows. by Wayne Blizard.
Wayne Blizard is a mathematical logician who was the first to give a rigorous axiomatic formulation of the theory of multi-sets. He is also a poet. In this article he wears both hats, which seems appropriate for someone who is introducing the `radical alternative to non-locality.

How to Be in Two Places at One Time. by Nick Herbert
Before we turn to what Bell's theorem means, we must be clear about what it says. This article, which is reprinted from `The `New `Scientist 21, `August `1986, is probably the best short introduction to Bell's theorem around, complete with a proof which sets some kind of record for the ease with which it conveys a subtle abstract idea.

How to Be Your Own Grandfather. by Tom Etter
You won't learn this from Star Trek, but Einstein's theory of relativity says that "warp speed" can take you into your own past. There are some fallacious proofs of this around, and at least one fallacious disproof has found its way into a respectable journal; here is a brief and painless proof which is actually valid.

How Do Scientists Work? by Karel Pstruzina
As science enters its post-classical phase, we must expect it to stray a bit from its classical methods. How about doing science in your sleep? Sounds crazy? Ah, but to quote Neils Bohr, ".. is it crazy enough to have any chance of being true?" Read this article and judge for yourself.
Karel Pstruzina is head of the philosophy department at the Prague School of Economics.

Dream Logic. by Tom Etter
Pstruzina's method may work because the sleeping brain, freed from its practical chores, becomes some kind of super- computer. But then again, maybe it works for a very different reason: maybe the waking world, and especially the quantum part of it, is more of a piece with the dream world than we realize. Perhaps, just as the molecular bonds in a gas are too unstable to hold together solid material bodies, the logical bonds in whatever underlies the quantum are too unstable to hold together solid material facts. Etter sketches here a mathematical theory of "logical gas" which he calls pre-logic, and indicates how it necessarily leads to non-locality in a way that gives meaning to negative set membership.

A Chimeric Kind of Causality. by Dr Jabir 'abd al-Khaliq
Dr. Jabir is a nomadic monad, quartz crystal sexer, quantum connection specialist, and foreign correspondent for the Fezziah Research Sector, Fez, Morocco. Here he gives us an illuminating refutation of certain claims about so-called symmetrical causality made by Nick Herbert in his book "Faster Than Light".

... I'll Take the High Road. by David McGoveran
Everyone who has worked with quantum theory knows there is something a bit "off" about it. As one physicist put it, "There are things in quantum mechanics which make me very uncomfortable, but I can't quite say what my discomfort is about."
Etter's diagnosis of what this discomfort is about points to logic. McGoveran, on the other hand, locates the malady, and its cure, in the realm of causality. In this paper, he proposes a theory of relativity of cause and effect. He postulates a multiplicity of causal frameworks, analogous to the multiple inertial frames of Einsteinian relativity, but more radically diverse in that their arrows of cause and effect may be quite inconsistent. Each of these frameworks is alike in lying within its own Lorentz-invariant space-time, which its causal arrows actually define, albeit inconsistently. Since all frameworks are in some way involved in the course of events that we perceive and measure, non-local correlations are to be expected.

Advances on Two Fronts. by H. Pierre Noyes.

We wrap things up with a brief summary of the current status of Noyes-McGoveran bit string physics, with bibliography.

The Hamlet Problem - is Definiteness Real? by Alex Comfort.
ANPA West is trying to maintain a balance among articles presenting original work, background, and commentary. This article is a brief commentary on some of the points made in the last issue by Blizard, Pstruzina and Etter.

Member Theory. by Tom Etter
Wayne Blizard's 'A Theory of Shadows' in our last issue introduced us to multi-sets. Our final article is a follow-up to Blizard's article, providing more background on multi-set theory and how it differs from set theory. Finite set theory, finite MST, and finite MSTZ are each shown to correspond to a different simple notation for numbers, and the old question "What is a number?" is raised in a new form. Multi-set theory looks like it will be a useful tool in the new approaches to quantum theory, and we plan to publish more articles exploring its connections with probability theory, amplitudes etc.

Abolish Infrared Slavery. by Pierre Noyes.
Next we have a progress report on Noyes-McGoveran bit string physics. McGoveran's approach to calculating the binding energy of the hydrogen atom has been extended by Noyes to the strong interactions. Unlike perturbation theory, this approach does not require that the coupling constants be small for the calculations to yield sensible results, which may be a step towards ending the so-called "color confinement" of quarks.

Don't Worry, Be Happy. by Niklas Damiris.
There is a story about Metternich and Talleyrand, those great arch-rivals of devious diplomacy, that when one of then, I think it was Talleyrand, heard the other had died, his first reaction was "Now, I wonder why he did that?". Primitive religion, like Talleyrand in his moment of absent-mindedness, naively fills the course of natural events with human purposes. Primitive science, which is what the next generation (if there is one) will call what we practice today, commits the opposite folly, naively stripping the world of purpose altogether. This strange folly, one might almost say this dementia, leads us to treat the world, including even ourselves, as if it were an instrument of our purposes and nothing else. We've heard a good deal lately about the deadly threat that such an attitude poses to our environment. This article addresses the more insidious and perhaps even more deadly threat that it poses to our humanity. Damiris shows that the mechanistic folly is much harder to escape than most "new-age" people imagine. Those of us who like to think we are creating a non-mechanistic science had better pay close attention.

Boolean Fact Sheets. by Tom Etter.
Comfort's article raises several questions about logic: does it apply to the world itself?, is there an "old" logic that must be replaced by a better "new" logic? etc. Logic has been and will probably continue to be a recurrent theme here, so we have included next some elementary mathematical background old-fashioned Boolean logic. Many people don't realize how intimately and rigidly the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT etc. are bound together. You can't make a small change in logic; changing anything changes everything. The main facts of how the logical operators define each other are here briefly summarized, along with the relationship of Boolean algebra to the bit string space of the combinatorial hierarchy.

Schrodinger's Cat and the Cheshire Cat - Quantum Mechanics and Laws of Form. by Louis H. Kauffman
The new science now on the horizon will undoubtedly count the English logician G. Spencer Brown as one of its early pioneers. Lou Kauffman, a mathematician best known for his work in knot theory, here gives us an account in words and pictures of Spencer Brown's main ideas, and perhaps more important, of his pioneering style of thinking, in the context of the revolutionary changes that quantum theory is making in our conception of logic.

Inertia and Tao. by Tom Etter.
Quantum mechanics is like the faint but persistent note of an alarm clock trying to rouse us from what Blake called Newton's sleep. Actually, Newton got a bum rap here - Newtonian mechanics was itself a fainter version of the same alarm clock, trying to wake us from what really should be called Aristotle's sleep. It didn't succeed at all; we skillfully managed to blend its quiet and harmonious note into our Aristotelian dream. This article is an attempt to turn up the volume.

Basic Issues Concerning the Relationship Between Consciousness and the Physical World. by Jean Burns
Jean Burns is a physicist currently doing research on consciousness. Together with computer scientist Ravi Gomatam she has recently founded an ongoing Consciousness and Science Discussion Group which holds regular public meetings at the Langly Porter Institute that could be of interest to our bay area readers (See News and Events). In this article she gives us some background on four of the major issues that dominate current thinking about the mind-body problem.

The Primary Algebra of Spencer-Brown is Non-Boolean by Louis H. Kauffman
An excellent brief introduction to Laws of Form, with a valuable discussion of its relationship to exclusive OR. Be sure to read the addendum on expression algebra.

Are the Laws of Form Non-Boolean? by Tom Etter.
Spencer-Brown's primary algebra is developed in a slightly different way; one is lead to a non-Boolean logic almost identical to quantum logic, except that the binary scalar field replaces the complex scalar field, and a negation operator on the vectors replaces the inner product. The essential message here is that quantum logic and its variants are incomplete stages in the growth of Boolean logic out of bare negation.

Construction of the Dirac Equation by Pierre Noyes.

A summary of a very significant development in linking the "primary level" of Spencer-Brown theory to the advanced level of particle physics.

A Comment on the Combinatorial Hierarchy by David McGoveran.
McGoveran is continually amazed by the abysmal state of modern science. Others of us who are intermittently so amazed may derive courage from this brave polemic which he delivered to the Light Hearted Philosophy Group at Stanford.

President's Message by Fred Young.

Fred Young is the current president of ANPA West and the president elect of ANPA international. Here he surveys the diverse activities of our membership and reminds us of the common themes in our various approaches that might facilitate our intercommunication.

Vol. 3 #1

Anti-Gravity. by Pierre Noyes
What are the consequences if currently planned experiments show that the anti-proton falls up? Mega-technology and the meaning of quantum mechanics come together in this fascinating glimpse of our possible future in space.

Zeno Ball. by Tom Etter.
A short note on Zeno's paradox in a perfect Newtonian world.

Strict Finitism Meant to Please the Anti-finitist by Jean Paul Van Bendegem
Finitary mathematics is an important topic for ANPA members, since finite methods have replaced continuum mathematics in the ANPA bit-string reconstruction of physics. What are the limits of this kind of replacement? Does science have any need at all for the mathematics of infinity? Does mathematics itself even need infinity? The answers offered in this imaginative article will surprise you - to say more would give away the plot.

Racter Report #1: Acausality. by Tom Etter
Are people computers? Is logic relative? Can causality go backward in time? What's beyond quantum mechanics? These themes are woven together in this first report on a new version of quantum logic that is closely related to bit-string physics. The Racter here is also the Racter who will preside over the interactive journal.

What Are We Willing to Take for Granted? by John Dobson.

John Dobson is the founder of an unusual group known as the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers whose mission is to give ordinary people everywhere a chance to see the heavens through high-quality telescopes. He himself started building telescopes while a novice at a Vedanta monastery, and became well-known for his twelve inchers with their so-called Dobson mounts. For a while he and one of his twelve-inchers became a fixture at the intersection of Jackson and Broderick streets in San Francisco, through which anyone could look on a clear night. Later he and his associates built some larger telescopes which they carried around the country to national parks to avoid the glow of city lights; by now over a million people in the US and Canada have looked through them. Some of you may have heard John's talk at the last ANPA West meeting; this paper is in the same vein.

Remote Citizens of the Noon, Part I by Tom Etter.
As mentioned in the last issue, we want to branch out in new directions. This is the first of a two-part series on a plan for colonizing the moon and beyond.

The Dialectics of Freedom. by Pierre Noyes
Does quantum mechanics contradict classical determinism? This question has been argued since the 1920s; in this article Pierre Noyes tackles it from a contemporary vantage point and stands the usual answer on its head.

Remote Citizens of the Moon, Part II: Moon City. by Tom Etter.
Continuing his thoughts on a future in space, Tom Etter proposes a novel scenario for our first space colony. This is part two of what has been expanded into a three part article.

On Haley's Comet Coming Back (a poem). by Herman Mueller.

What is ANPA? by Fred Young.

Towards Solving the Mind-Body Problem. by Emmanuel Ransford
This essay presents a dualist account of the mind-body relationship that relies heavily on quantum mechanics for its guiding ideas. Unlike many current quantum theorists of consciousness, Ransford is not afraid to follow consciousness all the way down to the elementary particles.

Empathy. by Tom Etter.
One normally classifies mind-body theories as either dualist or monist. This essay presents mind-body as a polarity like up and down, very asymmetrical in everyday life but symmetrical in the larger picture. Instead of minds and bodies there is a mind-body field whose mathematical structure involves the "curvature" of logic. Despite this very different starting point, there are some significant points of agreement with Ransford.

Knowledge, Love and Happiness. by Niklas Damiris
The pioneers of modern psychology patterned their new science of mind on physical science, hoping to duplicate its successes by adopting its methods. There is a growing body of thought today, especially in Europe, that sees this as a great mistake. Psychology is about us, and to divorce it from the big philosophical questions about who we are and how we should conduct our lives is to trivialize its subject matter. Damiris here tackles the big questions. Taking his point of departure from Foucault's reflections on individuality and society and Lacan's reinterpretation of Freud, he challenges us, all of us, to reinvent ethics. This and the previous essay, though their subject matters may seem quite different, are actually much of a piece.

Modern Metaphors For a New Millennium. by Herman Mueller.
Another strand of thought that has recently entered our journal is our future in space. Here's a poet's reflection on what we are up to.

Book Review: Bugs in Writing

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From: Suzanne Bristol-Etter
To: Our members
Re: The ANPA WEST Journal:
Over the past five years of the ANPA WEST Journal we have always striven to publish three issues per year. The problem has been that our editor has had to fit the fairly arduous job of selecting, editing, and writing articles into an extremely crowded schedule.

Those of you who have followed the journal from the beginning will remember, for instance, that in 1990 we hoped to bring out an interactive issue. This proved to be impossible given the constraints of the time involved. We now expect, at least, to develop our E-Mail network and are exploring possibilities of the Web as an important part of developing the ANPA community.

This last year (1994) we were unfortunately only able to publish one issue because we were, from May until November, in the middle of a major move and remodeling of our offices (also known as our home.) In such years, when we were not successful in publishing at least two issues, we have tried to compensate by publishing larger issues and have also extended your membership for an extra year.

We have just completed an index of back issues which we are including here and which we hope you will find it useful. If you were a new member in 1994, please accept a back issue of your choice as our gift.

As to the future of the journal, we are now looking for outside funding which would take some of the burden off our volunteers and contribute to the ongoing expansion of ANPA. In the meantime, we appreciate your support of our organization throughout these difficulties.