Alternative Models of Reality

And further Tom, is it the act of measurement that bestows the value obtained OR the value obtained was already there before measurement?

In another manner of speaking, when you step on a weighing scale to check your weight, is it the scale that gives you your weight or did you have a weight before stepping on the scale?

Akinbo

Akinbo,

" ... when you step on a weighing scale to check your weight, is it the scale that gives you your weight or did you have a weight before stepping on the scale?"

What one means by 'weight' is dependent on the physical conditions where the measurement is made. One does not weigh the same on the moon as on Earth, though both records are valid -- to generalize this principle, Einstein's principle of equivalence comes into play. That is, inertial mass is equivalent to gravitational mass.

So the amount of inertial acceleration the body exerts against your feet when you step on the scale depends on where the scale is; i.e., the gravitational field in which the measurement is made. You have a weight before the value is measured, though it varies with the reference frame in which you find yourself. The phenomenon of weight is therefore real, yet not absolute -- the absolute reality is the relationship between inertia and gravitation.

Tom,

You always talk like someone with a legal background, I had to crossover to your essay to check your Bio. Difficult to pin down in an argument is how I will describe you. But I admit you bring up some hitherto unconsidered perspectives, that make things interesting!

Are you a "Have", "A Have not" or do you have other surprise category?

Akinbo

Digital physics/philosophy:

Our cognitive framework modelled on the grid of cells where logic relates cells together. Phenomena appear when the grid is synthesized by the productive imagination. Reason (consciousness) is outside computation but it performs computations in the grid.

https://www.academia.edu/7347240/Our_Cognitive_Framework_as_Quantum_Computer_Leibnizs_Theory_of_Monads_under_Kants_Epistemology_and_Hegelian_Dialectic

DARK MATTER JACKET

To act as the Trampoline in the Universe to make physical sense of Einstein's Theory of Gravity (and to make it work) is one of many Dark Matter's huge tasks.

In 2012, finishing the last Chapter of my book (Small People Revolt,) I wrote: ": "Dark Matter is all around us, filling the Universe, and appears to be the sturdiest and most durable stuff in the Universe... Compressed and condensed, Dark Matter could be made into a huge umbrella which would protect the Earth from being struck by meteor showers."

Based on my observations, calculations and my knowledge of physics, I suspected long ago that Dark Matter plays a very important role in maintaining, activating and protecting the Universe. It was a daring conclusion. I knew I was reaching for the stars or shooting for the moon, for a belief in the existence of Dark Matter was considered controversial at the time. I thought someday I would need to write another book presenting all the circumstantial evidence I found supporting my belief.

I never expected that Nature would provide any direct evidence to aid my case.

But it does. On May 23, 2014, the ScienceDaily, based on an analysis of data provided by the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, announced this Breaking News:

"Failed dwarf galaxy survives galactic collision thanks to full dark-matter jacket." (... Like a bullet wrapped in a full metal jacket, a high-velocity hydrogen cloud hurtling toward the Milky Way appears to be encased in a shell of dark matter, according to a new analysis of data from the National Science Foundation's Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). Astronomers believe that without this protective shell, the high-velocity cloud (HVC) known as the Smith Cloud would have disintegrated long ago when it first collided with the disk of our Galaxy...)

Holy Smoke! A wisp of cloud - the most fragile entity in the Universe, easily dispersed by the wind or deformed by even the force of breathing - wearing a dark-matter jacket can confront and survive the unimaginable destructive force of a Galaxy. And this Smith Cloud remains intact for millions of years! We all know that the earth is a lot more solid than the cloud.

So my dream of seeing this planet being covered with an umbrella made of Dark Matter, of being able to walk safely, or dance, or sing in the rain of... meteors, turned out to be way too modest!

(einsteinerrs.com/dark-matter.html)

Hi All,

I invite all to read my proposed Theory of Everything in the following link:

http://www.modelmechanics.org/2011unification.pdf

Sincerely,

ken Seto

The light pulse's activity of reflecting back and forth between two parallel mirrors should be continuing infinitely. Instead, it never lasts longer than a few nanoseconds.

Even the flashing images of transparent objects exist between two mirrors immediately disappears when the original source is gone. Why?

Fascinating. I hadn't heard of that curious occurrence before.

I should think the photons are being absorbed by the mirror and their energy being converted to heat, so the mirrors warm up. As more and more photons are absorbed the power of the pulse would diminish until it is no longer visible.I suppose collisions with molecules in the air might also play a part and the air would warm slightly, gaining energy, as photons are absorbed. I would be interested in any other explanatio

Yes, fascinating. "Dark Matter could be made into a huge umbrella which would protect the Earth from being struck by meteor showers", and "make physical sense of Einstein's Theory of Gravity (and to make it work)".

As I speculated sometime ago one of the many tasks of Dark Matter is to resolve the discrepancies surrounding whether light velocity was a scalar or vector quantity. If Earth has a dark matter jacket, then we are back to Galilean relativity to explain the findings of the Michelson-Morley experiment.

If this jacket being made of matter therefore has a variable density with altitude above Earth surface it also gives a physical mechanism to explain some findings of General relativity. Georgina posted recently about a "something varying with altitude" to explain phenomena like these. Dark matter fits that something.

Akinbo

Georgina,

I agree, But light reflect not at c wrt moving mirrors but at c in the background 'approach' frame even if a 'vacuum'!! That's a major Achilles heel for Tom's doctrinal interpretation of SR.

A consistent solution is here; http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.7163. The 'virtual electron' plasma near/far field TZ has exactly the same dynamic 'two-fluid' structure as bow shocks, and does the same job.

The 4 'cluster' probes have been mapping Earth's shock. See attachments below, including the wavelength change found, characterises as anomalous 'electron heating'.

Best wishes

PeterAttachment #1: Cluster_BowShock_A_200.jpgAttachment #2: Cluster_bow-shock_electron_temp.jpg

The light pulse's activity of reflecting back and forth between two parallel mirrors should be continuing infinitely. Instead, it never lasts longer than a few nanoseconds. The flashing images of transparent objects exist between two mirrors immediately disappears when the original source is gone. Why?

My answer:A SPECIAL LIGHT'S CHARACTERISTIC LIMITS THE TIMES OF REFLECTIONS BETWEEN MIRRORS

See attachment or: http://www.einsteinerrs.com/light-and-spacemark.htmlAttachment #1: LIGHT_AND_SPACEMARK.pdf

On the universe, infinities and a final word about god.

In all human human history we have been wondering about where everything we perceive around us come from and, as an extension of that question, how big everything is. The one really interesting thing to know about size is whether it is finite or infinite and the answer to that question will yield valuable insight for understanding how everything is constructed at the most fundamental level.

Although it will never be possible to dismantle reality in its most minute parts, it is certainly possible to reason about them. And here we assume that if we can construct a logical structure where it is possible to describe every aspect of reality, then this is how reality is made.

So, how can we describe the universe in the simplest possible way?

First take an infinite length set where each element can be one of two values. On all items in the set apply any truly random function that gives not only one or the other value for all items. For simplicity we will call each item a bit.

We now have a snapshot of any possible constellation of bits, both finite and infinite and therefore - if we assume that anything can be described in a binary representation - any possible universe.

But what makes up a universe? A universe must consist of bits that are in some way related. Let us call that relation an interaction - whose exact nature we don't have to know at this point - and expand the transitive relation from the basic - element a is related to element b and b is related to c therefore a is related to c - to a really long subset. We can Then define the universe as a collection of bits with a nonzero chance of interacting. This insight has a profound influence on the possibility that a collection of bits could be infinite. An infinite universe would, with that definition, cause infinitely many bits to interact with any one bit. Not just over the life of the universe, but all the time. (We'll get back to the thing about time in the sequel.) Such an arrangement will not lead to any interesting structures but will appear more like an infinite but uniform blaze. This also leeds us to the unavoidable conclution that the universe at the most fundamental level is discrete. An infinite subset represents a smooth universe and a finite subset represents a discrete one. However, the fact that the universe is discrete does not mean that it wont appear smooth. One can for example apply a function to the discrete bits such as a fractal to make it appear both smooth and infinite even if the actual information contained is finite.

This seemingly simple insight does not contradict with any laws of physics that we know of but still have huge implications. Most important being that the universe has to be finite and made up of very simple discrete elements. This may help us to better understand singularities like black holes, what time is and explain why entanglement is not so strange even though it certainly appears to be. And as for explaining the last part of the title. This does not rule out that we are part of some kind of simulation, but any construct that runs it must ultimately be finite and consist of a very large heap with two distinct values. Which really makes a layer of simulation an unneccessary complication of reality.

I hesitate to respond, but respond I must.

Every reflection of light at a mirror results in some loss, usually around 10% or so. There are many ways to improve the reflection loss, but a 10% loss per reflection means that light seems to decay very quickly. Remember that our eyesight has only about a factor of ten dynamic range for a particular exposure, and so multiple reflections appear to decay by eyesight much more than they actually do. Although our eyes can recover many orders of magnitude sensitivity in darkness, our eye's response at any given intensity is only a factor of ten or so.

Now, lasers work by the principle of mirror entrapment and optical gain by simulated emission and lasers work just fine. Lasers have a gain media that compensates for the reflective loss of the end mirrors and so lasers use multiple reflections to achieve really cool and coherent beams of light.

So you really need to think much more about the measurements that you are speaking about before you make any pronouncements about light and mirrors...

Hi Kjetil,

You wrote "This does not rule out that we are part of some kind of simulation, but any construct that runs it must ultimately be finite and consist of a very large heap with two distinct values. Which really makes a layer of simulation an unnecessary complication of reality." Please can you explain how you came to that conclusion?

Hi georgina,

Thank you for showing interest in this topic.

I think it's an unavoidable conclusion since it follows from the argument that a binary representation can describe everything, also any entity that runs a simulation. So It logically follows that a god or other entity that runs a simulation also ultimately has to be described by a binary system.

I hope to get some arguments against my idea. And please tell me if you think I'm to vague or unclear in any part of the argument.

Imagine the universe consists of bits of identical matter called particles and those particles exist in either of two phases, two states. As the particles accumulate into objects, they do so in really complex ways. There is a relationship among particles or bits that we call action. Your bits order as elements of a set by interactions, my particles order in time by action.

What you have described is the universe that we are in. All you need is to assign a particle to each bit, an action equation for their interactions, and of course time to represent the ordering of the elements of the set. Note that you do not need space for your universe, but certainly you can project a space from the interactions of bits over the ordering of elements of subsets.

You arguments about the universe being finite and discrete are the very same arguments that we use all of the time. The question about whether the universe is part of a simulation is simply the question,

"Why is the universe the way it is?"

There are no unique answers to this question, but that doesn't stop people from answering it in many different ways, including with various supernatural agents. Such questions define the limits of what we can know and the simplicity of what you describe.

My words for this simple universe are matter, time, and action, your words are bits, sets of elements, and interactions. Such trimal axioms appear to be the simplest foundation for a universe.

Hi Steve, seems we are using slightly different semantics on the same issues. I wanted to call the smallest elements something other than particles since I think of particles as a much more complex structure. And I used the word interaction to underline that the relation between bits leads to a change - which I think gives rise to time. (Time ticks for every interaction) The relation Between structures of bits gives us space and also leads to the physical laws. And as you say this must be the simplest foundation of any universe also the one that runs a simulation.

The question "why the universe is the way it is" is still unanswered, but it may be simpler to figure it out when we have decided the foundation for it all.

Hello Kjetil,

Read your thought provoking post and single out -

This also leads us to the unavoidable conclusion that the universe at the most fundamental level is discrete. An infinite subset represents a smooth universe and a finite subset represents a discrete one. However, the fact that the universe is discrete does not mean that it wont appear smooth..

Taking heed of advice from Lucretius: "...however endlessly infinite the Universe may be, yet the smallest things will equally consist of an infinite number of parts. Since true reason cries out against this and denies that the mind can believe it, you must needs give in and admit that there are least parts which themselves are partless", and

Galileo: "He who attempts natural philosophy without geometry is lost"

Knowing that geometry is the study of space and its properties, would you like to consider a rephrasing of your statement thus:

This also leads us to the unavoidable conclusion that space at the most fundamental level is discrete... However, the fact that space is discrete does not mean that it wont appear smooth.?

If you are, I can suggest how space manages to present its dual nature of being simultaneously continuous with no space between its 'bits' and discrete in the form of the geometric point. I can suggest what can separate the discreteness of space, since space cannot do its own separation into its discrete units

Regards,

Akinbo