Alternative Models of Reality

(reposted in correct thread)

"There are quite a number of dynamic processes at work here, such as that gravitational vortex pulling all our carefully constructed structures into something far harder and denser than any of us would wish for ..."

John, you do realize that none of that is supported by any actual physical evidence, don't you?

" ... she would not be doing actual journalism, but flacking for the status quo."

As opposed to flacking for some fake science? Just what is it you want?

Tom

Tom,

What physical evidence are you referring to? The evidence we are finding, the hard way, is that democracy is not always a default political condition.

Where does "real"science end and "fake" science begin? Testability? By what criteria are multiverses "real science," while questioning whether physical blocktime is valid, is "fake science?"

Whether one is being promoted by the status quo and one is not?

Obviously it is up to her to judge what constitutes reporting and what is opinion, so our arguing over it is moot.

Regards,

John M

I'm talking about physics, John. What do you mean by " ...gravitational vortex pulling all our carefully constructed structures into something far harder and denser than any of us would wish for ..."?

Tom,

It has been my experience that the more complex manifestations of nature necessarily comply with the more basic principles. Human culture is a complex manifestation of nature.

Consider that in the spring, as plants absorb energy, they expand, ie. grow and when the weather gets colder, this growth is condensed down and otherwise edited to what can be sustained. Democracy is far more supportable when there is sufficient energy to grow the organically whole society, but as this energy becomes less available, then the various parts of this structure begin to condense into themselves and even feed off other parts. There is a certain gravitational dynamic to this, as it is not so much a particular force, but overall effect. Now to the extent society is a reflection of biological processes, the state is a singular entity, generally defined by geographic boundaries, which are far more basic than corporate functions, that generally evolved to support functioning of the economy as a whole. If you look at it in biological terms, the state is like an individual body, while individuals and corporations are the biome, both internal, external and "transternal," if such a word might be considered. The group imperative will tend to supersede individual prerogatives, because sustaining the group is more evolutionarily necessary than the life of any particular individual. Yet there is the dichotomy that the group cannot survive without healthy individuals. Thus the need for balance.

I could build further on this idea, but I suspect I better let you get in some rejections first.

Besides which this is so completely off the topic, but then Zeeya did ask for our models of reality and human civilization is part of the picture.

Regards,

John M

John,

Why don't you just answer my straightforward question?

Tom

Tom,

You may have to restate your straightforward question, because I thought it was as to how gradually collapsing legal structures and cultural norms can be explained in physical terms.

Regards,

John M

For anyone who is reading the math, there is an embarrassing error at the bottom of page 5 (the "alternative way", which I will delete, is plain wrong), which has consequences for the first paragraph of subsection 3.3, the content of which will be modified and moved to Appendix C, and for the final sentence of subsection 3.4, which allows a straightforward fix. There is also a minor mistake in Appendix B (the placing of the "c.c"). Sadness, but good to fix.

John,

You originally said, "There are quite a number of dynamic processes at work here, such as that gravitational vortex pulling all our carefully constructed structures into something far harder and denser than any of us would wish for ..."

To which I replied: "... you do realize that none of that is supported by any actual physical evidence, don't you?"

Point is, the metaphors you use for physical phenomena are disconnected from the real events that we measure. Then you disdain the leading edge research that is so connected, as if the metaphors were the science and the science is rubbish.

Your later question -- "Where does 'real'science end and 'fake' science begin? Testability? By what criteria are multiverses 'real science,' while questioning whether physical blocktime is valid, is 'fake science?' -- I had already answered previously. The criterion is rationality. Yes, there is rational correspondence between the multiverse hypothesis and quantum mechanics; there is rational correspondence between the blocktime model and general relativity.

Where, in your theory, is the rational correspondence between your metaphors and the real physical phenomena?

Best,

Tom

Tom,

I would contend that modeling time as a vector from past to future, is a metaphor, in that a spatial concept is being used to model a dynamic process.

What is metaphor, but relating similar effects, concepts, etc. and seeing what the correspondence can teach us. If you were to completely remove that as a tool, where would science, or knowledge in general, be?

As for leading edge, it seems to contend that all is information and energy seems to be left back in the 19th century. Where will our advanced civilization be, when the fossil fuels run low?

Regards,

John M

"What is metaphor, but relating similar effects, concepts, etc. and seeing what the correspondence can teach us."

John, a metaphor is correspondence of language to imagination. A scientific theory is correspondence of language to physical phenomena. Though both relations are recursive, only the latter leaves a measurable physical trace. That is what we call a rational correspondence.

Can a non-rational correspondence be true? Yes. Can a non-rational correspondence be scientific knowledge? No.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

You haven't convinced me that blocktime isn't a product of the imagination and if it is, then so are the myriad extrapolations of this dynamic geometry, such as much of current cosmology.

Time is a measure of action, such as the rate waves pass a marker. Giving this dynamic process some form of linear extension is quite useful, because it allows us to mentally order sequences of events, but it is still imaginative. You cannot physically have sequential events co-exist. As the old saying goes, "You can't have your cake and eat it too." Now I can draw a series of pictures, or write a book, where one page is about making the cake and the next is about eating it and these pages in the book do co-exist. Theorists like books, but that doesn't mean reality is a book. The energy content of that cake goes into propelling you. As another old saying goes, "You are what you eat." The wave that hits the beach no longer exists, because its energy content is scattered.

Frankly it seems silly to me that I have to keep making this same basic point over and over again, but I do realize how much of current theory depends on it not being true, so I will just have to keep banging my head on this wall.

Regards,

John M

Eckard,

Doesn't "The speed of light" refer to a measurement?

So if your measuring device is traveling at the speed of light, all internal action is stopped, thus its clock is stopped, so it measures everything, even light going the other direction, as zero time.

Only an external viewer would see them as approaching each other at 2c.

?

I'm asking, but this had been my understanding.

It is my own sense that this implies an absolute space, since it is only against this completely inertial frame that any of this makes sense. Otherwise you could have two frames approaching each other at the speed of light and each of those frames would contain motion within them, as though they were stable, but then they would both contain activity that exceeded C in an outside frame.

I think we will eventually need to rethink space, but I can't even get anyone to consider time as an effect of action and it is the future becoming past, so I don't want to start an even bigger argument.

Regards,

John M

"You haven't convinced me that blocktime isn't a product of the imagination ..."

It is a product of the imagination. Since it seems unlikely that you are going to learn the math that it takes to understand the correspondence between this imagined world and the real one, you'll "... just have to keep banging your head on this wall."

Best,

Tom

Zeeya,

Hi. Thank you for the invitation to discuss unconventional ideas about reality. I've discussed my view of reality in past FQXi essays but would like to briefly summarize them here.

1. Reality, including space and time, seems to me to be the same as all the stuff that exists. Therefore, to answer the question of why there is reality (incl. space and time), we need to know why things exist.

2. Why do things exist? I suggest that a thing exists if it is a grouping, or collection. A grouping is some relationship saying, or defining, what is contained within. Such a definition or grouping is equivalent to an edge, boundary, or enclosing surface defining what is contained within and giving "substance" and existence to the thing. For instance, the surface of a book, the outlines of a cloud, and the curly braces around a set all define what is contained within and give substance and existence to these things. Even for an abstract concept in our mind, we have a list of the things that we think are included within that concept. Without such a list, that abstract concept wouldn't exist in our mind. Another example of a grouping, and thus an existent state, is a set. Without a relationship defining what elements are contained within a set, the set would not exist. This relationship, or grouping is shown by the curly braces, or edge, around the elements of the set, and is what gives existence to the set

3. Why is there something rather than nothing? First, "absolute nothing", or "non-existence", is first defined to mean: no energy, matter, volume, space, time, thoughts, concepts, mathematical truths, etc.; and no minds to think about this absolute lack-of-all. This absolute lack-of-all itself, not our mind's conception of the absolute lack-of-all, is the entirety or whole amount of all that is present. That's it. It's all there is. In other words, this lack-of-all, in and of itself, defines the entirety of all that is present. It says exactly what's there. An entirety, or whole amount, or everything, is a relationship defining what is contained within (ie., everything) and is therefore a grouping, or edge, and, therefore, an existent state. This edge is not some separate thing; it is just the relationship, inherent in the absolute lack-of-all, defining what is contained within. Therefore, what has traditionally been thought of as "absolute lack-of-all", is, when seen from this different perspective, a grouping, and thus an existent state or "something". Basically, what this means is that we've been misdefining the word "nothing", and this has caused us to make an incorrect distinction between "something" and "nothing".

4. Now, given the properties of an existent entity previously, and incorrectly, thought of as the "complete lack-of-all" or "non-existence", one can develop a model of an expanding set of these existent entities where this expanding set of entities is the same as space. This model provides natural, "mechanical" mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy. I've done this at previous FQXi essays and at my website at:

sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite

http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Granet_fqxifinal.pdf

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1783

So, this is my alternate view of reality. So far I know this is purely hypothetical, but the logic seems completely reasonable to me. Additionally, I at least provide answers to why things, including space, exist, why there is something rather than nothing and physical mechanisms for symmetry breaking and energy in the universe, things that our overly mathematical physicists and overly wordy (while saying nothing) philosophers seem unable or unwilling to do. Also, I'm working on developing the model in order to someday be able to make testable predictions.

Thank you for listening! Check out my website at sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite for more on this and its relatinoships to Russell's Paradox/Godel's incompleteness Theorem.

Roger

Tom,

There are quite a few things that I and every other human being, you included, will never learn in detail, but can appreciate in general. The fact remains that no matter how complex the math, blocktime is a modeling of narrative. The record of a sequence of events.

The irony here is that Einstein used causal sequence(light cones) to disprove the primacy of temporal sequence, yet in all the complicated math, measures of duration somehow come out as primary, yet duration is temporal sequence!

To refresh, temporal sequence is the rate waves pass a marker. Causal sequence is the wind hitting the water and creating the wave. Now causal sequence cannot be blocktime, because it requires the transfer of energy. Cause creates effect. The wind has to give up energy to create the wave, so both stages of this relation cannot co-exist. Meanwhile temporal sequence, the frequency of the waves, is simply an effect of the various factors causing the water to build up, recede, then repeat the process. Duration is simply a measure of the rate at which all these factors are occurring between wave peaks. It is no more, or less, fundamental than the amplitude of the waves, a scalar measure of how high, thus how much energy is carried by them.

Regards,

John M

Ps,

I've heard the myth of dragons grew out of pre-historic peoples discovering skeletons of megafauna and creating stories to explain them. How is that so much different than what physics does from a few measurements? Yes, some are accurate, but the ones that are not, get dismissed as "anomalies" and we have inflation and dark energy and dark matter and supersymmetry and strings and multiworlds and multiverses to match theory with observation. The ancients were pikers when it came to imagination.

Zeeya,

Things are already moving, with findings published challenging old assumptions; Superluminal quasar pulse speeds, refraction curving light in galactic space, etc. The only thing not really fully presented yet is the coherent ontology properly resolving them all relativistically. Perhaps best to get editors used to the new realities before considering publishing how they all fit together. What do you think as a journalist? Is the world really ready yet?

My main question to you was hidden in my multi-post of Aug 31st. I re-post it here as I wouldn't wish to breach your conditions;

"Zeeya

Nice idea, and nice little Nature review. I can't really describe the discrete field model here as key elements have been both published and web archived on arXiv. Of course now the science data flow has surpassed the (Shannon) channel capacity available it's reached 'optical breakdown mode' (an information overload state) so two effects emerge, It is no longer 'joined up', and, as Peter M points out above, new theories, however superior, have virtually zero impact, lost in the 'noise'.

My essay this year does describe a way of 'decoding' the noise with a more intelligent 'IQbit', but even a high place in peer voting here may not overcome the 'theoretical inertia' indicating a possible end to our evolutionary cycle. However, I commend your sentiments in starting this blog so much that I would like to describe at least one key aspect not so far specifically presented, opening one of the doors to the rest and unification; Dark Matter. Please let me know if I may do so without breaching your conditions."

Please do also advise if you've actually read any of my last 3 essays (all top 10 in community scoring) and if not, if you can?

Many thanks, and best wishes.

Peter

"There are quite a few things that I and every other human being, you included, will never learn in detail ..."

You can say that, John, but you don't really know that it's true, do you? You simply believe it, and it forms the major part of your reality. If our power of objective knowledge is limited by imagination, however, where is the limit? Further, how would one even begin to define such a limit?

I can guarantee -- and I do mean, guarantee -- that if you undertake to understand the mathematics that supports our physical knowledge and theories, you will stop using your personal beliefs to limit your capabilities. Or anyone else's.

Best,

Tom

John,

I think you need to dig down another two levels beyond Poppers mud to root out the hidden assumptions and find solid foundations to rebuild on.

I disagree with your assumption that;

"Since nothing can exceed the speed of light, when you accelerate a clock and its observer to close to the speed of light, their internal atomic activity is in fact slowed, since the electrons are vibrating/cycling at nearly the speed of light to begin with, so when you combine both external velocity and internal activity, it still can't exceed C, so everything in that frame is slowed proportionally."

The key to my solid foundation is in; "when you accelerate...", which is correct. but you then it falls apart as you fail to renormalise to inertial motion in the new frame!!

Is the Earth the centre and only reference point of the universe you use for your above description? It must be! Think hard, you are only allowing the ONE background frame for the speed of light! This is human homecentric thinking, which is at the root of all confusion.

Try this; Wherever we live, whatever galaxy our planet's in and whatever star it's orbiting in whatever direction at whatever local speed wrt whatever else, when not accelerating it is in an equivalent INERTIAL frame to ALL other planets in ALL other relative states of motion.

So if 1,000 identical particles are at rest in 1,000 different inertial frames they will ALL oscillate at the SAME IDENTICAL rate. How can anything else possibly logically be the case? That is the proper holistic viewpoint, and conforms to Special Relativity as c is c in all inertial frames.

TIME is universal. it is the same in all inertial systems (frames) anf also all the BACKGROUND frames those systems may be moving through. Simple.

Acceleration is then just a special case for un-bound systems, because it produces the APPARENT temporal change due simply to evolution of interaction which Christian Doppler found, so we call 'Doppler shift'. NOTHING NEEDS TO CHANGE 'TIME' ITSELF AS TIME CANNOT BE CHANGED!!! Oscillation rates of free oscillators will change under accelerative motion but the change will then stop. In a 'particle' the energy is in the homogenous oscillator, so it has well more than adequate energy (mc^2) to recover it's inherent state. I suggest it's horrendously arrogant and homocentric of humans to consider that if we change the oscillation rate of a physical oscillator which we decide to name a 'clock' that we have the power to somehow change 'TIME' itself!!

We can change the emitter, and we can change the emitted signals, but those mean nothing and just fool us, the important thing is that identical bodies will still behave identically in each inertial frame, once there and back 'at rest' (not accelerating) I think that is entirely irrefutable. Can you logically refute it? (leaving your beliefs behind!)

The results in application remove all paradox and anomaly from our understanding of nature as observed. Try it and report back.

Drive your car onto a moving ferry with the throttle fixed at a constant 30mph. There will be a disturbing moment of acceleration, then it will revert to 30mph in the NEW frame. I can also tell you that the precision crystals at the heart of modern missile control systems do NOT get thrown our of sync if someone accelerates the missile rapidly between rest frames - in whatever direction (two may go opposite ways) I promise you they accelerate them in all directions all the time and they all behave identically and find their targets!!

Best wishes

Peter

Dammit, logged out again, Twice!! That was me above and to you Zeeya. Is it beyond the wit of the un-intelligent Qbit to have a system that flags up when it's pushed us off the bus?

Peter