Machs razor

applied to itself
Sober, Einsteins Machs principle,
and the cosmological constant

Vasil Penchev
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences:
Institute for the Study of Societies and
Knowledge: Dept. of Logical Systems and
Models: vasildinev@gmail.com

11:15 12:00, Friday, June 12th, Husova 4, Praha,

Department of Analytic Philosophy, Institute of
Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences

Parsimony in Philosophy, June 12th 13th , 2015

Sobers Reconstructing the Past

Sober (1988: 59) interprets the principle of

parsimony relatively: to a set of empirical

background assumptions
This means that the background assumptions
determines a reference set, only according to which
can be define a certain subset by its properties or in
other words, a notion or theory by its intension
Then the principle of parsimony suggests equating
the extension and intension or the principle of
abstraction: any set can be equivalently defined both
by its properties and by its elements

Machs Razor
If that principle should be universal, a common

set of that kind should exist

That common set cannot help but the set of all
sets
Then the principle of parsimony would be really
universal for it would refer to any set
However the set of all sets is self-contradictory
as Russells paradox (1902) demonstrates

Machs economy of thought as a razor

Machs economy of thought accepted as an
universal principle would be to be referred to
that most universal set of all sets
In fact Machs economy of thought is a
paraphrase of Occams razor and thus one can
speak of Machs razor
However both Occams and Machs razor turn
out to be self-contradictory each considered as
an absolute principle

The razor of Russells barber

According to the popular version of Russells paradox, a

barber has been employed in a village under the following

conditions:
To be an inhabitant of that village
To shave those villagers who do not shave themselves
Not to shave those villagers who shave themselves
Then the barber himself should begin to shave as he does
not shave himself, but immediately stop for he shave
himself, then again and again start and stop

The lesson is: Machs razor razors itself turning out to

be self-contradictory just as that of Russells barber

Einsteins Machs principle

Einstein (1918) involved an additional principle

in his general relativity titled by himself Machs

principle
It razors any source of gravitational field
different than mass and energy
Furthermore Einsteins application of it forced a
hypothetical constant called cosmological to
conserve the universe stationary as the simplest
conjecture

Machs principle as the biggest blunt

The cosmological constant was called the

biggest blunt by Einstein (Gamov, My World

line 1970: 44) after Hubbles discovery of the
expansion of the universe
Nevertheless, the biggest blunt of some
nonzero cosmological constant is very widely
utilized nowadays in different cosmological
models of the expanding universe and even
confirmed experimentally (Supernova Search
Team 1998; The Supernova Cosmology
Project 1999)

The history of the biggest blunt:

the cosmological constant
The history of Einsteins Machs principle can

be considered as an example for the selfcontradictory of Machs razor as an absolute

principle
Its application forces for the cosmological
constant and other corollaries to be
successively accepted and refused just for their
refusing or accepting immediately before that
and just as a demonstration of Russells Barber
and his self-contradictory

Initially: no cosmological constant

There was no cosmological constant in the

initial variant of general relativity (1915-1916)

However this infers two ridiculous corollaries:

The universe is not stationary

Gravitational field allows as its source some

entity, which is neither mass nor energy

Both did not confirm experimentally at that
time and should be shaved by some relevant
correction in the principles

Einsteins revision of himself

Einstein introduced (1918) a revised variant of

his field equation containing an additional

member containing the cosmological constant
If the cosmological constant has any nonzero
value, both ridiculous corollaries turn out to be
shaved
The principle justifying that shaving Einstein
called Machs principle as a direct application
of Machs economy of thought

The intention of Machs principle

He grounded it by Machs principle (only

mass and energy is the source of gravitational

field) as it implies that the cosmological
constant is nonzero
However Machs principle itself is an additional
assumption in relation to the initial corpus of
general relativity principles
Thus one can debate whether Machs razor
should not shave Einsteins Machs principle

GeorgeGamows statement of the biggest blunt

However Edwin Hubble observed experimentally

the expansion of all universe, which therefore turns

out not to be stationary
If the universe is not stationary, this rejects Machs
principle in general relativity
Once Machs principle is rejected, the other
conclusion about the cosmological constant should
be refused as well
According to Gamow (1970: 44), Einstein declared
the cosmological constant as his biggest blunt
after he had been invited by Hubble to observe the
evidences about the expansion of the universe

Now: The biggest blunt is ... correct

However the cosmological constant could

conserve some nonzero value(s) on other ground,

different than that of Machs principle
Indeed the contemporary experiments are in favor
of a nonzero and even variable in time value of the
cosmological constant not less than in favor of
Einsteins theory of general relativity
Then, the cosmological constant would still one
case in science for a correct conclusion from an
incorrect premise

Rejecting Machs principle ...

Anyway if Machs principle is rejected and

gravitational field can have some other source,

the gravitational field created by that unknown
source can be equivalently represented by the
same action of some hidden mass and energy
If that is the case, that unknown source of
gravitational field would seem as missing energy
and mass in the universe

Dark entities in physics:

Dark matter and dark energy are

experimentally absolutely confirmed nowadays

As the adjective dark shows, the
contemporary physical theory and the Standard
model first of all cannot even suggest any
possible source of them
However any source of gravitational field
different than mass and energy would explain
both facts above

The global average density

of mass and energy as well
Even more, the average density of mass and

energy in the universe globally seems to be zero

implying the cosmological constant to be zero
following Einsteins introduction of it by Machs
principle
However if the cosmological constant is globally
zero (i.e. being nonzero only locally), it implies
some other source of gravitation field in turn

Sobers cure
The self-contradiction of Machs razor can be

anyway removed and it can survive as

a principle if it is interpreted relatively, only to
background empirical assumptions as Sober
(1988) did
Just the change of those background
assumptions can explain that contradictory
history of Einsteins Machs principle
When Machs principle had been introduced,
the empirical and experimental data had been
ones, then they changed and this should imply
its irrelevance to the new data

The cure in mathematics

Indeed mathematics does so, too: Sets of

obvious postulates ground axiomatic and

deductive method
Any theorem can be true only to some set of
axioms rather than at all
If one changes the background assumptions
whether for new experimental data or for newly
axioms, this implies corresponding changes in
the intension or the extension of the theory at
issue

The abstract setting of the problem

An information approach to the problem is the

following:
One theory as a very extended notion can be defined
both by its extension, i.e. as the collection of data
(facts), and by its intension, i.e. as a certain subset of
a reference set
The two ways of definition are different in general

The quantity of information can serve as a measure

for the degree of mismatch between those two

definitions of one and the same theory

Theory as a very extended notion

Any theory can be considered as a relation

between
(A) principles, axioms, premises and any
statements, which are constant, and
(B) experiments, theorems, results and any fact,
which are variables
(A) is the intension of the notion, to which the
theory is supposedly equivalent
(B) is the corresponding extension
(A) and (B) turn out to be in information
equilibrium after a long enough period

Equating the extension and intension

However both any new principle and

inconsistent fact (experiment) violate that

equilibrium generating unstable disturbance
converging to some new equilibrium and thus
requiring either new facts or new principles

Consequently, if one adds a new principle

(whether even of Machs razor), this one

generates disbalance and addresses implicitly
some new equilibrium supposing new facts

That equation
as information (entropy) equilibrium
The coincidence of the extension and intension

of a theory implies the minimum of the function

of mutual entropy (information), i.e. the
information of intension to that of extension

That minimum is furthermore a state of

equilibrium, in which the theory would remain

arbitrarily long without an external action such
as new facts, experiments, principles or at least
interpretations

The self-contradictory of Machs razor

Machs razor should remove those principles,

which are redundant to the available facts

However therefore it is a new principle, which
generates information inequilibrium if it makes
sense to be involved
That inequilibrium is unstable and converges to
some new balance of extension and intension by
adding new facts
In turn those new facts contradict to the razor
converging to its removing and so on just as in
the fable about the barber

Machs razor as that information

equilibrium

One can object that no theory is the set of all sets

However any theory can be effectively considered as

the set of all sets if it is not referred to any more

general theory
Just that is the case about any actual theory yet not
generalized by some new one
Consequently the self-contradictory of Russells
barbers razor is quite relevant to it
In fact, any meta-principle involved in any valid and
actual theory generates the same contradictoriness
rather only than that of Machs razor

Conclusions:
Any actual and last theory yet not being

generalized can be considered effectively as

Russells set of all sets
Any meta-principle such as Machs razor is
self-contradictorily to be incorporate within its
proper principles because this supposes for its
boundaries to be known, but they are in fact
unknown
This can be demonstrated by the case of
Einsteins Machs principle in general relativity

References:
Banks, Erik (2004) The Philosophical Roots of Ernst Mach's Economy of Thought, Synthese, 139
(1): 2353.
Gamow, George (1970) My world line : an informal autobiography. New York : Viking Press, 1970.
Einstein, Albert (1918) Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen Relativittstheorie, Annalen der Physik, 55
(4): 241-244.
Peebles, Phillip James Edwin and Ratra, Bharat., (2003) The cosmological constant and dark
energy,. Reviews of Modern Physics, 75 (2), 559606.
Perlmutter, Saul. et al. (The Supernova Cosmology Project) (1999) Measurements of Omega and
Lambda from 42 high redshift supernovae, Astrophysical Journal, 517 (2): 56586.
Riess, Adam et al. (Supernova Search Team) (1998) Observational evidence from supernovae for
an accelerating universe and a cosmological constant, Astronomical Journal, 116 (3): 100938.
Russell, Bertrand (1902) Letter to Frege, in Jean van Heijenoort (ed.), From Frege to Gdel,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967, 124125.
Russell, Bertrand (1986) The philosophy of logical atomism and other essays, 1914-19. London Boston: George Allen & Unwin.
Sober, Elliott (1988) Reconstructing the Past. Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference. MIT Press,
Cambridge (Mass), London.
The CSM Collaboration (2014) Evidence for the direct decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to
fermions, Nature Physics, 10, 557560.
Trimble, Virginia. (1987) Existence and nature of dark matter in the universe, Annual Review of
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 25, 425472.

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