Clocking in the face of unpredictability beyond quantum uncertainty

Abstract

In earlier papers we showed unpredictability beyond quantum uncertainty in atomic clocks, ensuing from a proven gap between given evidence and explanations of that evidence. Here we reconceive a clock, not as an isolated entity, but as enmeshed in a self-adjusting communications network adapted to one or another particular investigation, in contact with an unpredictable environment. From the practical uses of clocks, we abstract a clock enlivened with the computational capacity of a Turing machine, modified to transmit and to receive numerical communications. Such “live clocks” phase the steps of their computations to mesh with the arrival of transmitted numbers. We lift this phasing, known in digital communications, to a principle of logical synchronization, distinct from the synchronization defined by Einstein in special relativity. Logical synchronization elevates digital communication to a topic in physics, including applications to biology. One explores how feedback loops in clocking affect numerical signaling among entities functioning in the face of unpredictable influences, making the influences themselves into subjects of investigation. The formulation of communications networks in terms of live clocks extends information theory by expressing the need to actively maintain communications channels, and potentially, to create or drop them. We show how networks of live clocks are presupposed by the concept of coordinates in a spacetime. A network serves as an organizing principle, even when the concept of the rigid body that anchors a special-relativistic coordinate system is inapplicable, as is the case, for example, in a generic curved spacetime.