Readers' Choice: Cheating the Causal Game

John,

I don't know what to say. The universe is bizarre in its behavior. There is only so much that we can understand from our planetary point of view about the universe. I don't know which assumptions are actually wrong. Maybe there are important things that exist that haven't been measured or can't be measured. Or things that can be measured, like quantum states, are not involved in primary causal relationships for quantum field dynamics that we have no direct experience with. I think that at some point you have to make a choice about whether you are a pesimist, and you beleive there is nothing beyond what is measureable, or you're an optimist and believe there are more dynamics that are presently out of reach to science.

For example, there could be quantum entanglement wave-function structures that were created at the time of the big bang, that we are totally oblivous to, yet they could be effecting quantum eigenstate measurements in some way that is predictable to alien intelligences, but not to us.

Quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement leave huge gaps for people with imagination to come up with scenarios and ideas. For instance, could there be quantum entanglement life forms that flit around the universe, being unbound by the speed of light c, unbound by energy, yet they can reach into our standard model existence with wave-function like tendrils, and push our atoms around for there own purposes. It would be this invisible thing trying to interact with our standard model reality.

Or perhaps the whole issue of consciousness comes down to "who or what" is receiving the "feeliness" attributed to the undefinable quality of consciousness. Maybe there are qantum entanglement lifeforms that can translate the neurological/electro-chemical storm of a brain into meaningful experiences like love, that can experience the color "blue" and the sensation of being one with all things (which is what entanglement is suggestive of).

Whether someone is a cynical atheistist or an optimistic person of faith, we know that the biological body dies. What we don't know is the extent of true reality. We don't know how much is beyond our limited existence.

Jason,

You lay out two moral positions; pessimist and optimist. Now consider in objective terms the characteristics you assign them. The pessimist is someone who is intellectually conservative and will only accept what is repeatable, measurable, distinct, etc. While the optimist is always willing to look beyond the known, expanding out further than distinct structure, knowing that to limit reality to what can be measured is self referential defeatism.

Now think of this relationship in terms of the two profound physical processes, that of structured, gravitational mass and entangled, expanding radiant energy. Now consider the ways that the discipline of physics effectively limits its ability to describe reality by insisting that only the structured and measurable side of this equation is real and the other is statistical, to the point of insisting light can only travel as point particles and thus can only be redshifted by recession of the source.

If we look at it as one cycle of energy expanding out over billions of lightyears and mass contracting into structure over tens of millions of lightyears, it provides an infinitely dynamic process and conceptual framework for understanding reality. All of it, from emotions to galaxies.

The arrow of time for structure is to contract into the past, while the arrow of time for energy is to expand out to the future. As the present, that energy which is dynamically manifesting, moves onto the future, while the forms manifested fall into the past.

John,

"If we look at it as one cycle of energy expanding out over billions of lightyears and mass contracting"

"The arrow of time for structure is to contract into the past, while the arrow of time for energy is to expand out to the future."

What you're talking about sounds like yin & yang. Expansion & contraction, past & future, ... I totally agree that there is this pervasive yin/yang quality to the universe. And I agree that both pessimism & optimism have their place. But for me, my yin/yang, with regard to pessimism and optimism, is out of balance. I need more optimism.

CIG Commentary: Time ticking is rate dependent. Matter turns to space; space turns to matter; In between is Dark Matter and Dark Energy; Standard Model, etc. etc. All explained rather simply.

CIG is a quantum gravity theory.

Pure gravity = black hole = zero rate = M side of equation = full curvature

(spacetime has turned into the black hole)

Vacuum energy = pure space = "c" travel = S side of equation = no curvature

[Matter (black hole) has turned into open spacetime with little curvature]

The matter is the spacetime.

CIG offers the material quantification (CUPI) as well.

MTS (where M = matter (mass), T = % "c" and allowable in both forward /reverse vector time (I believe I set forward vecor time arbitrarily as zero to "c"), and S = space)

The fabric of spacetime varies, fully curved at rate zero. Here then, quantum meets classical.

RT = D not true: Duration (RT) CIG (new space & I want my equation!) = true distance equation

Excerpt:

A successful theory of quantum gravity would merge quantum theory with Einstein's theory of general relativity to describe every interaction in the universe that we know about, from the subatomic scale to the cosmological. One of the biggest obstacles has been that general relativity and quantum mechanics treat time very differently. In the former theory, time is another dimension alongside space and can bend and stretch, speed up and slow down, in different circumstances. Quantum theories, however, usually assume that time is set apart from space and ticks at a set rate. Theories of indefinite causality tackle this mismatch head-on, by questioning what time is at a fundamental level.

END EXCERPT

Peter - too late for this essay. I'll try and get a jump start on the next.

I think I can actually get by the forms & rules. It won't be essay though.

Hope all is well!

Fireworks = many Big Bangs = newly created space = CIG Theory at work

THX

doug

Jason,

It is a matter of what you chose to be optimistic about. It would seem humanity is engaged in an extreme case of overreach and times are likely to get even more interesting. We have had the party and now it looks like hangover time. One main reason for studying and understanding nature is to be able to see beyond and put in context current circumstances. Would you prefer pink ponies and happy faces? Not knowing what is coming? Or that your ability to understand allows you some degree of objectivity in even the most extreme circumstances? As I tell the young people I know, what your generation has in store will allow a lot of opportunity for character building. The fact is as individuals, we are all mortal and are designed that way, yet all are motivated by the same elemental spark of awareness. We are living through a stage that will have a big chapter in the history books and really don't have any option other than dealing with it as best we can. Just as with current physics, there is a lot of stuff that will get washed away when the bubble starts to pop, but what remains will be a stronger foundation because of it.

Talking of optimism, I have bought another book to read "What are you optimistic about, today's leading thinkers lighten up." Edited by John Brockman, 2007.

Has over 150 entries it says, so plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

That Anonymous was me.

Georgina,

Brockman does come up with some intriguing topics and people to respond to them. To be my somewhat cynical self though, not only is it likely easier to be optimistic when you are one of society's thought leaders, but it probably would be considered a personal and professional requirement. To the people who know me, I have a reputation as an alarmist concerning the status quo and completely pie in the sky when it comes to solutions. The last few years though, they tend to take me more seriously about the problems, if not what to do about them. That is the nature of swarm intelligence though. All the ants head of in different directions and the ones that find the food become the leaders. When the old sources of food run out, new directions have to be found. Today there is a lot of linear projecting, from infinite economic growth, to multiverses, which has little basis in physical reality, but those in power do not want to accept that cycles turn and what had been a stepping stone to progress can become a stumbling block to further progress.

My equation: MTS

Transfers mass to spatial volume.

In accordance with: 1u (atomic mass unit) = 541,380,958.7 pico meters cubed of space

Offers the full spectrum of matter/space: black hole to space

In between is dark matter, standard model, dark energy, etc. etc.

Works on the very small quantum scale, and the galactic as well.

T = time = % "c"

M = mass (matter)

S = Space (vacuum energy)

spacetime, time, space, mass, energy, matter, dark mtter, dark energy, standard model, electrons, protons, etc. all rolled into one equation

Explains: dark matter, dark energy, double slit, complimentarity, horizon problem, red shift, expanding universe, and much more

MTS : an active equation

I'm having a little problem fitting in the electromagnetic spectrum into the picture. Any ideas?

I realize it travels at "c" and so offers up space (wavelength ?), but how does amplitude and density (frequency ?) fit into the MTS equation ?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Question to the community: Please respond by offering a non-mathematical offer of reality as regards how CIG may interpret the electromagnetic spectrum. I have some ideas but they need clarification.

Thanks Aunt Bee

This is Mayberry isn't it?

THX

doug

John, Georgina,

I have felt drawn to quantum entanglement as some kind of magical force that permeates the universe. Would there be ghosts that truly exist, then vanish when a skeptic is near, they would be made out of quantum entanglements and have fingers that reach into our standard model existence and nudge our particles for their own mysterious purposes. Apparently, quantum entanglement is needed to hold DNA together.

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/419590/quantum-entanglement-holds-dna-together-say-physicists/

I probably had ancestors 100,000 years ago that talked to spirits who helped the tribe find food, fresh water and survive the elements. Perhaps they made a difficult life more bearable and interesting.

Jason,

One of the problems I raise in my "it from bit" entry, that since energy manifests information and information defines energy, as energy is conserved, old information is erased as new is recorded. No telling how our distant ancestors thought or what concepts mattered to them. We even forget alot of what was common knowledge from quite recently, as those of us more than a few decades can attest.

One thought though, since I was a kid, I've found what people refer to as "floaters," those spots, squiggles, lines, etc, that move around in our vision, seem to have distinct conscious manifestations, both of what is going on in my own subconscious and of input from other's attention, both people and other life forms. Some years ago, I happened to be reading a story on ancient cave art and they had various pictures of the drawings, many of which are abstract and possibly rudimentary forms of language. Yet some of them seemed to clearly be impressions of these optical effects that I see. One example that comes to mind is the classic representation of the heart, which is formed if you take a circle(a soul) and run a line(Cupid's arrow) through it and pull in one direction.

Jason, thanks for the link. It was an interesting read, though I think the premise is an enormous steaming pile of nonsense.

The author in one short sentence admits the only thing that makes the premise even plausible: "They say that one line of evidence is that a purely classical analysis of the energy required to hold DNA together does not add up." Of course it doesn't -- and can't -- because biological systems are thermodynamically open. One can't simply calculate the binding energy of cellular atoms and add it to the electronic energy of molecular exchanges and throw in some kinematic and dynamic effects and call it "the sum of energy that holds DNA together." The equations are nonlinear, notoriously hard to solve. The researchers are apparently assuming that DNA is nothing more than static discrete coding information that would degrade over time (by Shannon entropy) without being entangled in some mysterious way. Not necessary -- nonequilibrium thermodynamics sufficiently explains the phenomenon.

What we already know at a classical level, is that it is only necessary and sufficient that the energy input to a biological organism exceeds the throughput such that the entropy generated is less than the input, a requirement that keeps the system from going to equilibrium. This is true of all biological life on Earth, which is powered by the Sun, and which we can calculate to arbitrary accuracy. That is the energy that continuously holds DNA, and all the other elements of biology, together. No discontinuous mystical quantum incantations required.

Tom

Hi Tom,

" This is true of all biological life on Earth, which is powered by the Sun, and which we can calculate to arbitrary accuracy. That is the energy that continuously holds DNA, and all the other elements of biology, together. No discontinuous mystical quantum incantations required."

The fact that electric charge needs virtual photons to do something specific seems like magic to me. It looks as if virtual photons are compelled by magic (not accident) to uphold Maxwell's equations. I thought that virtual photons (virtual particles in general) were carriers of quantum values that were under the command of some powerfully magical being. I thought that Maxwell's equations were the magical command that virtual photons have to obey. Is there evidence to the contrary?

(Reposted to correct thread)

Hi Jason,

"Is there evidence to the contrary?"

Because science is a rationalist enterprise, judgments of reality are based on positive correspondence between abstract theory and physical result, not on the absence of evidence. Would you have it another way?

Tom

Tom,

Science is a precursor to engineering. It's for the best that it works as a rationalist enterprise. I suppose in a 100 years, a thousand years, ten thousand years, science will get around to unlocking the nuts & bolts of where the physics constant come from. By then, there will be hyper-drives, gravity drives, free energy and all that.

Hi Jason,

You write, "Science is a precursor to engineering." Yes, the sense that science is a sufficient though not necessary condition for engineering. Engineering is neither necessary nor sufficient for science.

I agree with you on the impending growth of technology. With the way in which information availability and usage is accelerating -- I consider that few in 1850 envisioned automobiles as manifest in only a half century, and few in 1950 would foresee the information revolution a half-century later. Now in less than a quarter century from that point, we should find ourselves poised for the next great transformational technology.

If we can refrain from blowing ourselves up first -- as the Drake equation informs.

Tom

Hi Thomas,

"If we can refrain from blowing ourselves up first -- as the Drake equation informs."

During the cold war era, the world was fascinated by nuclear war. But I think we've out grown that. From my perspective, I think it's a race against resources. I think there is a chance that humanity could overcome the physics constants. But we have to do it before we run out of resources. A population of 7 billion people means there are a lot of really really smart people. But these levels of population are not sustainable unless we can obtain resources from asteroids and other planets at low cost. I know science scoffs at the UFO reports of triangular space crafts doing impossible things like breaking the sound barrier without creating sonic booms or recombining with other space-crafts in ways that contradict all that we know about building spacecrafts. I for one think these are demonstrations of what alien technology can do. They are probably projections of visual images from outside of space-time. That's why they don't disturb molecules of air. Alien-UFO phenomena may or may not be human imagination. But since we got it, we should use it. Why not ask ourselves about the physics of traveling outside of the space-time continuum? That is the only way to travel across the galaxy.

Our resources will only last for so long, and then, it will be the big crunch of population.

Speaking of blurring cause and effect - I'll address the subject "Human involvement in the retrocausality of gravity, electromagnetism and matter".

The gravitational waves of space could have a frequency even greater than gamma rays (This is because nearly all of gravitation's energy goes into the "organized energy" forming a particle, which then re-emits some of that energy at reduced electromagnetic frequencies, including those of gamma radiation. (see the related "What the Null Energy Condition (And When it May be Violated) Tells us About Gravitational Wave Frequencies in / for Relic Cosmology?" by physicist Andrew Beckwith - http://vixra.org/abs/1106.0034)

When converted into lower frequencies, they'd produce the electromagnetic wavelengths which Einstein's paper ("Do Gravitational Fields Play An Essential Part In The Structure of the Elementary Particles?" - a 1919 submission to the Prussian Academy of Sciences) suggests interact with gravity* to form particles of matter. At this point, the progression is from a) gravity to electromagnetism to matter. Yet an article I wrote "Modern Science Emphasizes Mathematics. What the Universe Looks Like When Logic is Emphasized (Maths Has a Vital, But Secondary, Role in This Article)" - http://vixra.org/abs/1306.0180) progresses from b) gravity to matter to electromagnetism, and also speaks of c) electromagnetism to gravity to matter. G-EM-M or G-M-EM or EM-G-M? Surely there's contradiction and paradox in these statements? No. As the abstract states, this is a result of a feedback loop ... retrocausality, as quantum entanglement is called when applied not to space but to time. This retrocausality is accomplished by means of humans travelling into the past of this subuniverse and applying the electronics they've developed to the period existing 13.8 billion years ago. Addressing a), gravity and electromagnetism combined to form the matter composing these people, whose ancestors developed the electricity and magnetism in computers. Addressing c), this electromagnetism created gravity (by using BITS to copy the principle of magnetism attracting and repelling, before pasting that principle into gravity - the basic physical source of all attraction and repulsion, and thus of the strong force and dark energy); and their interaction formed matter (could the unified gravitational and electromagnetic fields be the mass-producing Higgs field?). Addressing b), the gravity originating humanity's matter was responsible for that matter emitting electromagnetism. Maybe hidden variables called binary digits (binary digits would be the hidden variables which Einstein said carry extra information about the world of quantum mechanics ... and complete it, eliminating probabilities and bringing about exact predictions) could permit time travel into the future by warping positive space-time. And maybe they'd allow time travel into the past by warping a 5D hyperspace # that is translated 180 degrees to space-time, and could be labelled as negative or inverted. (The space-time we live in is described by ordinary [or "real"] numbers which, when multiplied by themselves, result in positive numbers e.g. 2x2=4, and -2x-2 also equals 4. Inverted "positive" space-time becomes negative hyperspace which is described by so-called imaginary numbers that give negative results when multiplied by themselves e.g. i multiplied by itself gives -1.) The past can never be changed from what occurred, and the future can never be altered from what it will be. Both are programmed by the 1's and 0's.

# This 5th-dimensional hyperspace would be tinier than a subatomic particle, like the dimensions invoked by string theory (about 70% of space consists of dark energy, according to the WMAP and Planck space probes - which is interpreted in this article as 70% of a particle also consisting of dark energy since "space-time itself plays a role in the constitution of elementary particles and the nuclear forces" (see paragraph above about Einstein's 1919 submission to the Prussian Academy of Sciences). This dark energy can be associated with hyperspace and its binary digits, so a) 70% of a particle is composed of hyperspace, and b) the extra dimension exists everywhere in space occupied by particles (also everywhere in "empty" space, where binary digits are referred to as Virtual Particles). With a single extra dimension of astronomical size, gravity is expected to cause the solar system to collapse ("The hierarchy problem and new dimensions at a millimetre" by N. Arkani-Hamed, S. Dimopoulos, G. Dvali - Physics Letters B - Volume 429, Issues 3-4, 18 June 1998, Pages 263-272, and "Gravity in large extra dimensions" by U.S. Department of Energy - http://www.eurekalert.org/features/doe/2001-10/dbnl-gil053102.php However, collapse never occurs if gravity accounts for repulsion as well as attraction on both subatomic and astronomical scales (accounts for dark energy and familiar concepts of gravity, as well as repelling aspects of the electroweak force such as placing two like magnetic poles together and attracting electroweak/strong force aspects).

* How is passing starlight deflected towards the Sun? The refracted gravitational wave heading for the sun "captures" [2.2] the light from distant stars that appear close to the rim of the sun before the gravity wave's diverted to the centre of our star (string theory predicts that gravity's gravitons interact with light's photons). Acting as a gravitational attractor, the refracted wave carries the light with it as it bends towards the sun's centre. The light is not carried all the way but breaks free since photons have their own energy and momentum. However, the light is carried far enough to be deflected a tiny amount from its original path. According to Newton's 3rd Law of Motion (to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction), the light will be deflected toward the sun by an equal and opposite amount to the gravity wave's deflection to the solar interior. "Opposite" means the light wave travels away from the sun at approx. 186,282 miles per second and the gravity wave travels into the sun at the same velocity. "Equal" means, since experiments have shown the bending of starlight to be 1.75 seconds of arc (in geometry 60 seconds = 1 minute, 60 minutes = 1 degree, and there are 360 degrees in a circle), the refraction of gravitation from the solar rim is also 1.75 arcseconds (as density increases the deeper the gravity wave goes, the greater its refraction becomes).

[2.2] Gravitons and photons interact via Einstein's mass-energy relation. A gravitational wave acts as an attractor and captures light by feeling friction with the mass-energy of the photons. This causes gravitational refraction or bending in which part of the gravity pushes a photon by travelling in the direction of the centre of each photon in the light (once it reaches the centre, the 3rd Law of Motion accounts for the photons' reaction of being attracted to the gravitons). Compared to the other forces we know; gravity is incredibly weak and the weak "equal but opposite" reaction cannot overcome the heaviness of macroscopic objects which consequently don't float off towards the gravity doing the pushing. Photons, when pushed towards the surface of Earth, are so tiny and light that they do recoil from the push - they "reflect".

Dear Rob,

I appreciate your intention to reveal the mistake behind the maneuver. Yes, a description that does allow something impossible might be simply wrong or at least incomplete. Let's investigate in all directions. I see a plausible flaw in the lazy convention of current mathematics to superimpose the limit from the right and the limit from the left to the middle value of both values. Look at Fig. 3 of my previous essay .

Xour ally,

Eckard