An Accidental Universe

Tom,

You are now being sophistic! Arguing words and avoiding reason. Let me quote Robert directly on this: "if you think this[F=ma] truly describes the behavior of objects like rockets, then you are mistaken" [Robert H McEachern replied on Feb. 24, 2013 @ 00:45 GMT].

Have I suggested anywhere we do not need math to solve problems in physics?

Why do you do that! So disingenuous!

Constantinos

Constantinos,

I resent being accused of disingenuousness. Rob's explanation and my concurrent explanation are quite straightforward. Your claim that physical laws are mathematical tautologies is either falsified -- if you believe it falsifiable (though falsification does not and cannot apply to a logical tautology) -- or trivial, otherwise, because as you acknowledge, the mathematical language is independent of the physical phenomenon. That the language and the phenomenon coincide only constitutes a logical tautology if you choose to call it that. The physical laws would still be physical laws, however; and the mathematical language would still be independent of them. There are any number of mathematical tautologies that have nothing to do with physics.

Tom

Constantinos,

To be as clear as I can -- you write, " ... Planck's Law can be derived as a mathematical tautology. Which does not depend on the physical assumption of the 'quantization of energy hypothesis'. And am arguing the same can be done with other Basic Law of Physics."

As I noted elsewhere, you neglect that Planck's law applies only in the case of blackbody radiation. There are infinitely many more radiation spectra. To take this special case -- (albeit an important case, since it is the limiting case of a body's heat content, which is why it is a "law") -- and declare that it is general, ignores, e.g., radiation effects in out of equilibrium conditions, such as LASER, which do depend on the quantization hypothesis.

If you are just saying that the mathematics describes a limiting case in every instance of physical law, how is that nontrivial?

Tom

Tom,

OK. If not "disingenuous" than certainly "sophistic", or something worse.

I will address your other points in subsequent posts.

Constantinos

" If not "disingenuous" than certainly "sophistic", or something worse."

Not that, either! The physics is well understood and amply validated. Enough.

Tom

To quote from the first page of Goldstein's "Classical Mechanics":

"The essential physics involved in the mechanics of a particle is contained in Newton's Second Law of Motion, which may be considered equivalently as a fundamental postulate or as a definition of force and mass. For a single particle, the correct form of the law is: F=dp/dt, where F is the total force acting on the particle and p is the linear momentum."

In other words, force is the first derivative of linear momentum, with respect to time.

Since p = mv, F = ma v(dm/dt )

Consequently, F =ma is valid, only if the first derivative of the mass, with respect to time, (dm/dt), is zero.

Rob McEachern

Constantinos

"Consider the "what is" to be a person".

OK, so we have a complex physical entity of blood, water, bone, etc, etc. What is the problem, in generic terms. It is the same as considering a brick. Obviously, establishing the physically existent state of such a complex entity as at any given time, is an impossible task. But that is a practical, not existential point. In respect of the label 'person' you are intimating non-existent characteristics that we 'experience'.

"Knowing Nature truly as Nature "is" is no more possible than knowing another human being. Don't you think?"

No. You can see (ie you are receiving a light representation thereof) a wall in front of you. Now kick it. Did you feel it? There is a physical existence independent of the mechanism whereby sentient organisms are aware of it. You did not create that wall. You could invite several friends over, and each would confirm the existence of that wall. The question is, what physical process is underpinning this. And just in case you want to argue ( I almost know you do not), that there is some form of collective telepathy at work, ie physical existence is a function of sensory/brain systems, ie 'actually' there is nothing there/it is 'really'completely different, that is a logical possibility, but we can never know it, so it is irrelevant.

Re your second post. We are trapped in an existentially closed system, because we are part of existence, so we cannot transcend it. So within that, assuming it is defined correctly, what is 'of ' the system is real, within it. There is 'of the system', 'not of the system', and again that depends on answering the question, what independent physical process underpins this. We can then deem validated knowledge to be 'is', ie correct, ie the system as knowable to us. We cannot know what is not 'of the system'. And as I keep on saying, this might be complete rubbish, but we cannot view the system extrinsically, so we can never know. We can only know what it is possible for us to know, and there is a simple (well, generically!) physical process determining that. What your sensory sytem/brain makes of the physical input is not physics.

Paul

Hi Hector and Paul,

I agree with a lot of what you`ve both said.

I wrote in the thread on my essay in the `Nature of Time` contest, entry dated June 13th, 2,010, "Time is a measurement system that actually measures duration elapsing. It`s measurement baseline is the duration that elapses while the planet rotates."

I wrote in the thread on Amrit Srecko Sorli`s essay in the second essay contest, entry dated September 10th, 2,009, "Events do have duration. We have duration and motion in our timeless universe. In our conscious experience of duration, we assume time is passing.

We move at a surface speed in excess of 1,600 kilometers per hour. The constant physical changes that this planetary rotational motion creates, supports the illusion of time passing. Our clocks are in concert, since we use this same motion as the measurement baseline for our time keeping systems.

For most intent and purpose, time exists on a rotating planet for it`s conscious inhabitants. Had we evolved on the moon, it would be easier to see that time passing is an illusion, that it`s really a case of duration elapsing, that there is no such thing or force as time, in reality."

Anonymousse

I cannot understand your reply. How does time move or not move, it doesn't even exist physically. It is a measuring system.

And please do not respond with the notion that timing devices 'tick' at different rates if moving a different speeds. 1 Timing devices are not time, they tell the time. 2 Even if timing devices were affected by differential motion, why should this be a uniform affect. This concept is a legacy of the first reaction to Michelson, whereby Lorentz postulated dimension alteration.

Simultaneity over distance. So why does the distance between entities affect the time at which they existed. If they existed at the same time, they did so, whether they were one inch or a billion light years apart.

Paul

Paul

Jim

We have exchanged posts before, and as I have said previously, you are on the right track.

""Time is a measurement system that actually measures duration elapsing"

I know what you mean, but this as such is a tautology. What timing is measuring, the unit of measurement being duration (or time), is the rate at which physical existence alters.

It is not specifically related to earth movement, the fact that the units are expressed in days, etc, is because the language has fosilised, the first clock being earth movement. Neither is it specifically related to movement, that is just one exampe of alteration. It applies to any alteration, and it is the rate at which that alteration occurs. The reference for timing being a conceptual constant rate of change. Think about it, what does synchronising watches entail.

Paul

Paul,

It is specifically related to the Earth`s rotational motion.

As Hector points out, after 2,600 years of looking, FQXi has recently held the Nature of Time essay contest.

There is a reason for our confusion over the Nature of Time. It`s my contention that the Earth`s rotational motion is the fundamental physical mechanism responsible for our confusion over the Nature of Time.

Two quotations from the article:

"This led Albrecht to a dramatic realization: We may think that we understand the fundamental physical laws around us - gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak forces - but we may have been fooled into seeing one form of reality based on the way that we have chosen to measure time."

"If the thought that the universe could quite easily contain vastly different laws leaves you reeling, don't worry - there are signs that the laws we know and love would have more of a chance of emerging than others."

We did not choose how processes, other than human technological ones, measure time. If we did not select the choice, what did? What makes you think the selection would be done randomly, or independently of other variables? Natural Selection is not done randomly or independently. The probabilities of various possible laws surviving into the present, cannot be assumed to be even remotely equal, if they were the result of any natural selection process.

Assuming that the statistics for random, independent variables has any relevance to such choice and selection processes, is what lead thousands of professionals to make fools of themselves in the infamous "Monty Hall Problem"

If I throw 100 coins into the air, and then selectively pick-up all the heads, after the coins land on the ground, and then you come along and observe about 50 tails, one need not hypothesize 2 to the 50th power multiverses, in order to produce a reasonable model of how such a wildly improbable outcome might have come to be. It is only wildly improbable, if your choice for a statistical model of the process, was very badly done.

The problem is not with nature's choice of time. The problem is with the human choice of a bad model of the natural choice process.

Rob McEachern

Rob,

"The problem is not with nature's choice of time. The problem is with the human choice of a bad model of the natural choice process."

"Consequently it may be formulated as follows: if two ideal clocks are going at the same rate at any time and at any place (being then in immediate proximity to each other), they will always go at the same rate, no matter where and when they are again compared with each other at one place. If this law were not valid for natural clocks, the proper frequencies for the separate atoms of the same chemical element would not be in such exact agreement as experience demonstrates.""

Every action is its own "natural clock." Even those which are synchronized, either by nature or by man.

Different Gravitational Fields = Different Spacetime curvatures = Varying Cosmological Constants (actually non-constants) = Different Spatial Temperatures (Horizon Problem) = Different Times (dilations) = Different Rates of Travel (%"c" of traveling mass) = Different degrees of Matter (Standard Model, Stellar Masses, Heavy Dark matter, Light Dark matter, Dark Energy, 100% Cocoa) = MTS = Different Volumes of Space (the expanding Universe) = Different Densities of Matter (Black Holes being one) = Different Masses (>rate = less mass)[E = mc2; hold Energy constant, rate goes up, and mass goes down) = CIG Theory

To have "c", we must start at zero velocity; for "c" to be massless, it must have started with mass; It lost that mass as it approached rate "c". The Matter (mass) offered itself up as nnew Spacial Volumes. MTS. CIG Theory.

The Spacetime Curvature becomes the Matter. It is one and the same, only different in its degree of being one another.

Time isn't just a measuring system - while we've been discussing this we've been ageing (rather more than necessary). To you that ageing process of matter is just part of the world, you accept it. But in modern physics we don't just accept it, because we have reasons not to. If you understand them you'll understand the question, and then you might even find an answer.

"The problem is not with nature's choice of time. The problem is with the human choice of a bad model of the natural choice process."

I don't agree with your statistics, Rob.

*Perfect* randomness in the initial condition -- like a single fair coin toss probability -- guarantees perfect information of the initial condition. Your statistics assumes dependent variables, while the Albrecht assumption (and this is also the Joy Christian assumption) is that of a continuous range of random independent variables.

Tom

My statistics do indeed assume dependent variables. No entity other than a truly elementary particle (that is an entity with no possible internal "states"), can be modeled by anything other than a model that depends upon those state variables. For example, almost of all of Particle Physics is based upon the fact that different types of particles can be identified, precisely because they exhibit differing reaction rates, to the same input. The concept of an "excited state", which behaves differently than an "unexcited state", is based on the fact that the reaction rate for the "excited state" DEPENDS on the particle's past history, and not just the present input.

*Perfect* conceptions of the way things ought to be, did not get Aristotle very far along the path towards science. It was the acknowledgement of imperfection, by people like Galileo, that resulted in progress. The moon is not a *perfect* sphere, as Aristotle thought. Galileo saw mountains on it.

Rob McEachern

Rob,

Perfect information, however, is still perfect information -- six sides of a die, two sides of a coin -- and equally likely initial conditions at creation.

The way you're doing it is not truly based on a cosmological initial condition. There's no real possibility of creation in your assumptions.

Einstein's essential question that was already answered by Joy Christian's framework has been rediscovered by Albrecht -- God did have a choice in creating the world.

Tom

Tom,

But there is indeed a real possibility for creation in my assumption. In fact, by your criteria, my initial condition is even more perfect than yours seems to be:

two sides of a coin -- and equally likely initial conditions (1) the cosmos had a beginning, and (2) the cosmos had no beginning; it has always existed, it just changes form.

Rob McEachern