Alternative Models of Reality

Tom,

That wasnt an appropriate example on my part. I was thinking in terms of doppler shifting affecting frequency. How does the scale of observation affect when the protein shifts from being chicken to being fox?

And how do you define an event that it is discrete from other events?

Regards,

John

Come to think of it, what is an observation at a discrete moment? Wouldn't it also be that "point on a contiuum?"

" ... was thinking in terms of doppler shifting affecting frequency."

Doppler shift does not affect frequency. The motion of the wave source affects how the observer measures frequency, that we call the Doppler effect.

" ... how do you define an event that it is discrete from other events?

By a single exchange of energy in a specified interval.

" ... what is an observation at a discrete moment?"

See above.

"Wouldn't it also be that 'point on a contiuum?'"

It would have to involve at least two points of the continuum, wouldn't it? That's why we have quantum bits and complex analysis.

Trust me, John, it's a lot easier just to learn the mathematics than to wander around, wondering.

Best,

Tom

Tom,

"The motion of the wave source affects how the observer measures frequency, that we call the Doppler effect."

Isn't the point that the "observer" is also relative? And it isn't just that the source could be moving, but the observer as well.

"By a single exchange of energy in a specified interval."

I understand your bottom up point, but just this once, can you think top down. What is the "classic reality," but all those single quanta of energy operating in mass, like pixals creating a larger picture. From which we then select a point of view.

The problem is that its not just a point or two on a continuum, but lots of points in a field. Try thermodynamics if you want some grasp of it.

I like wandering around. It teaches me more than just the straight and narrow.

Regards,

john M

John,

Even if it's just 'space' then space is still 'something', otherwise an inch would be the same as a mile. I agree space isn't 'matter', but to assume only 'matter' exists is naive.

Einstein wasn't being naive when he said; "space without ether is unthinkable". He had a very good point. It's just us dimwits being limited in our conceptual power. We now call it 'Dark Energy' and know it can't be less that ~80 per cent of the total matter/energy of the universe.

Now we have space exporation in fact we know far more. We've found every bit of space we've been in is full of (invisible to the eye) particles (free electron/positron condensed fermion pairs and protons etc, we call 'plasma') and activity, i.e. they come and go with disturbances. Densities found are is up to 10^14 particles/cm^-3. They can also move about 'hydrodynamically'. This is the ISM IGM, QV, Higgs field, call it what you will, but it cannot be 'nothing'.

But the real point is that they have a local rest frame, or 'state of motion'. So our probes have a designated 'speed' through them. This is the point of the big row between science and old philosophy, which ignores what we find and still wrongly considers space as nothing. See the intro to my last years essay. Your horse can then have a logical TRUE speed wrt Earth, but then also infinitely many arbitrary 'relative' speeds wrt other planets, the space station, trains etc etc. It would just have to experiment do do it's true speed in a passing train, as does light to propagate at c. The evidence of that is Doppler shift. How more logical do you need it.!? That's the key unlocking logical truth. You only have to try it in the door.

Peter

John,

''Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.'' Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

A good quote I've just seen. I think it shows we're pretty arrogant thinking our semantic conception has any importance. What we call the 'time' we see is really just some physical disturbances propagating away from a glorified metronome we call a 'clock'. If we head towards them we meet them more rapidly, but being stupid we think that makes our invention 'time' go 'faster'!!

Peter

Zeeya,

You seem very proficient with the magic wand! I stayed logged in for a few hours.

Thanks also for your note above. I'll await your opinion on raising the dark matter of dark matter. Using it in my own magic wand seems to let us recover Einstein's (though not everyone's it seems) Special Relativity from the confirmed superluminal quasar jet pulse motions. (see my replies to Tom, Sept 4).

Peter

"I like wandering around. It teaches me more than just the straight and narrow."

If that suits you, fine.

Tom,

Put it all in motion.

Regards,

John

Tom,

Fascinating.

I know most outside science are prepared to put aside the scientific method in favour of 'a priori' convictions. I've been disappointed how many within science are also prepared to do so, and a little surprised you include yourself.

I also disagree with your interpretation of Einstein's 1952 comments, which are discordant with the rest of that analysis, including; "space 's' in motion within 'S'." and "infinitely many spaces in motion relatively" as the locally real spaces he knew must exist not just metaphysical mathematical constructs. But even then he couldn't rationalise what he was looking for; to remove the apparent paradoxes and inconsistency with the quanta.

He also said; "we should never stop questioning." But as it seems that may be interpreted as "It's complete and none of it can be questioned" I'll try another tack.

Apparent Superluminal Motion.

According to the interpretations (not the Postulates note) of SR we can never see ever apparent superluminal speeds. The key 'engine' of the DFM however is that; "We CAN observe 'apparent' FTL", and that this is logically, consistent with both the Postulated 'effects' (Einstein's first and 'definition' of SR) and also with QM.

We will reduce QM here simply to Copenhagen's observer dependence; "observer being part of the process and influencing what's observed".

Now this is where the JEMB team (Jackson, Einstein, Minkowski and Bohr) win hands down when heads are removed from sand and we face the irrefutable empirical evidence, now at last flooding out from 50 years 'under the carpet'. Using the DFM assumptions we can recover SR and logically unify it with QM. I propose you cannot do so using the 'a priori' assumptions you refuse to question.

The most recent and highest authority papers include;

Astrophysical Jnl. 774, 2013 Free link , [link:mnrasl.oxfordjournals.org/content/434/1/L6.full.html]20

Peter,

Dark energy came to be because gravity was supposed to slow the rate of expansion, but it doesn't.

Einstein originally proposed the cosmological constant to balance the effect of gravity "contracting" space.

According to our best measurements, the visible universe is flat, ie, gravity and expansion do balance out.

These three points are not mine, but accepted conditions.

So now gravity does exist and does contract our measure of space, yet the light from those distant galaxies is redshifted such that they appear to be moving away, relative to distance. One point to keep in mind though, is that we can only observe light which hasn't been absorbed by these intervening gravity fields and what is lensed around them would have been light much more spread out, but is only focused by passing close to them. So the only thing which appears to expand is the most undisturbed light. Virtually everything else in the universe, from the densest to the lightest mass and all light drawn into these gravity wells, falls inward. Then remember the only source of this light is what is being radiated away from these gravitational vortices in the first place.

Now the assumption that light can only be redshifted by recession is based on the presumption that quanta of light do travel as point particles, yet it would seem evident from that two slit experiment that they actually travel as waves and are only absorbed at points by atomic structure. So it would seem quite likely that light expands when released from mass and contracts when absorbed by it. In fact, it seems mass is essentially contracted light/energy.

Now wouldn't the quanta of light having expanded be a very good reason for light to be redshifted?

As I keep pointing out, the expanding universe theory still assumes a constant speed of light, ie. lightyears, against which to judge this expansion and as Einstein said, "Space is what you measure with a ruler." So if the ruler, ie the units space is denominated in, remain constant, against this expansion, where is the basic mathematical logic in saying space expands, rather then they are moving away in space????

It seems to me what really exists is a cosmic convection cycle of expanding radiation and contracting mass. Which then either burns off, or is ejected out the poles, radiating for billions of lightyears. Then we don't need those enormous patches of inflation and dark energy, or, I think, dark matter, since gravity would be an effect of mass condensing out of energy, rather than just a property of mass, but that is a longer story.

The cosmic background radiation would simply be the solution to Olber's paradox, the light of ever distant sources, redshifted off the visible spectrum.

Instead the attention is now on whether you would burn up, or be stretched out, falling into a black hole. Fighting over the details, while the big picture makes no sense.

Regards

John M

Believe what you will, Peter. You will not find that the theories of relativity are not mathematically complete. That is their strength. It isn't that the theories are unfalsifiable -- they wouldn't be science if they were -- it's that you can't insert your own terms and say that you are improving on the theory.

Best,

Tom

It is sometimes better to listen to the conversations, although as Eckard said, "one's brain gets tied in so many knots, trying to figure out what others are saying, what their assumptions and or models are, how they are interpreting..." and so as Peter J suggests, even if he sometimes breaches his own postulate, I have resolved to 'slow down and think' instead of 'shut up and calculate'...

1. There have been a series of exchanges on whether or not, Special relativity must be accepted in totality, with ?dissidents like Pentcho Valev disagreeing with others like Thomas Ray (Tom), who say there is no doubting SR and backs this up with facts. Tom has also kindly provided a link above to The Meaning of Relativity written by the author of SR himself. Quoting from that book, "...experiments have shown that electromagnetic and optical phenomena, relatively to the earth as the body of reference, ARE NOT influenced by the translational velocity of the earth. The most important of these experiments are those of Michelson and Morley, which I shall assume are known. The validity of the principle of special relativity can therefore hardly be doubted". While sharing Tom's view, I would like to enquire whether there are experimental observations relatively to the earth as the body of reference, THAT ARE influenced by the translational velocity of the earth? And if not, why are people still stubbornlydoubting SR? And if, yes then what does this imply for SR based on the quote above from the theory's author?

It is necessary to use the traditional definitions of velocity, when we talk of light velocity, c as Eckard, Tom and John M have said. By this I mean, distance between source and receptor divided by the time of arrival to the observer/receiver. Period! While refractive index is very useful and factual, it can confuse the issues for determination, especially as Peter J does in his DFM model. Let us, leave the issue of medium or no medium till the first issue raised by Einstein is doubtful or doubted.

2. The word "discrete" is used severally and sometimes loosely in describing 'reality' and 'space' by Zeeya in her article and others above. Pray, what does discrete actually mean in this regard? If by discrete is meant separate, discontinuous, disunited as my dictionary says, if reality is then said to have a discrete nature, what can this mean? Can an unreal entity separate units of a real one? If unreal is unreal, will the real then not be really continuous in nature? Or what other 'real' or 'unreal' entity can separate the discrete representations of reality? With regard to space, if 'loops', 'strings', 'foam' are the discrete expressions of space or space-time, is what separates them still not space? Surely, things like connections, network, link, threads, entanglements, collection, void, etc are all themselves spatial things in that they connote distance, etc. Can space separate itself into discrete units of itself using itself? Nothing, we know of physically or logically does its own separation into discrete units. I suggest that even if space is discrete, it is not the same space or a spatial thing that will do its own separation. Using geometric boundaries or borders cannot help because it is itself space, else I will be asking you next what the boundary is made of, how long it is and what will again 'separate' its constituents?

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

"Let us, leave the issue of medium or no medium till the first issue raised by Einstein is doubtful or doubted."

Thank you! That is the *scientific* component of Einstein's result. No superfluous philosophy -- simply the correspondence of a mathematically complete theory validated by a physical experimental result.

"Using geometric boundaries or borders cannot help because it is itself space, else I will be asking you next what the boundary is made of, how long it is and what will again 'separate' its constituents?"

You raise good questions. The same or similar question, I think, led Wheeler to his claim that "The boundary of a boundary is zero."

All best,

Tom

Tom,

Ah! If you thought I'd suggested we could "insert (our) own terms and say that (we) are improving on the theory." Then of course I agree we can't. I always have! It was you who was trying to re-forge the model into your own terms remember. That's again like trying to describe 'engines' only in terms of 'horses'.

Axiomatic theories must be understood and assessed in terms of 'their' axioms, not 'yours'. Only when that's done can you assess which version is more consistent. I won't show you the key proposition until you're ready to look.

It's a giveaway when you say; "Believe what you will". It seems my whole point about the Sci-Method has passed you by. I don't have 'beliefs' Tom, it's you who use those. A true scientist can't use beliefs as they're subjective. I don't even 'believe' in the DFM, I'm trying to falsify the model as I've found it more consistent with logic and observation than any other set of assumptions. I think once you understand it you might too. But I think you're afraid that'll prove true.

If not, let's stop avoiding the central question. SR with YOUR accoutrements attached is falsified by superluminal motion and curved light paths from refraction. i.e ALL the evidence FOR SR is for the postulated theory itself. There is now much evidence apparently AGAINST, but I point out that is only against interpretation not the pure theory itself. I then propose a pure version free of baggage can be recovered, that better meets what AE was looking for AND consistently explains FTL and QV refraction, AND may allow unified classical and quantum physics.

Are you prepared to look at it so you can judge objectively? Or are you afraid to do so? I really can't see what you're afraid of. There's nothing scary at all!

Or you do have a 3rd option, explain apparent FTL etc. using your current 'complete' version.

Peter

"If you thought I'd suggested we could 'insert (our) own terms and say that (we) are improving on the theory.""

??? Then what the heck is c'?

Akinbo

....whether there are experimental observations...THAT ARE influenced by the translational velocity....

Not that I'm aware of, but there are (probably) numerous examples where the short answer misleads a reader to think so. We all remember the textbook reason for why a stick placed into a basin of water looks bent; ie. that light 'slows down' in the medium of water molecules. That's not what SR says, as Tom properly points out. Light velocity remains constant, the spacetime of its waveform is altered by the molecular medium which is after all a gravitational domain.

At face value SR is commonly approached from a valuation of Lorentz invariance, but you can't spend just one side of a coin, and on the obverse is Maxwell's determination of the natural relationship between 'c' and the proportion of strength of a magnetic field and that of the electric field which induces it. The inverse square law is the operative on the Maxwellian side which reduces to a harmonic series, while on the Lorentz side the operation reduces to an exponential series. I think that is where a lot of confusion sets in.

My favorite example of 'experiment' proving SR is that area on the soffit above a south facing window that needs repainted a decade before the rest of the house because of the UV deterioration resulting from defraction by the window glass causing the time frame of a wave event to expand in correspondence to the space frame contracting. Consequently the wavelength is shorter and the amplitude is greater, and there becomes a greater amount of frequency of Ultra Violet waveform deflecting at the refraction planes and exiting upwards toward the bottom surface of the soffit. That couldn't happen if the velocity of the light wave train itself 'slowed down'. That is what Tom is saying about the postulates of SR being a complete set. It's bootstrapped. Cheers, jrc

Akinbo,

A very well phrased series of observations and questions. If I may;

I think the issue with Relativity isn't whether it is mathematically accurate, but why. When you peel away the entirely reasonable propositions that everything we measure is interconnected and there is no general physical frame, as assumed with aether, there is this logically extreme notion of the four dimensional geometry, three of spatial coordinates and one for the vector of time, as somehow a physically real framework operating at a metaphysical level.

As I keep pointing out to little avail, there is no metaphysical vector of time. It is simply an effect of our physical situation as individual points encountering a sequence of events, within a dynamic reality that balances all such action. Therefore it is these transitory events which come into being and dissolve equally rapidly, ie. future becoming past, not some eternal narrative blocktime.

My solution to this is that the vacuum effect of gravity emerges from energy gradually condensing into ever more consolidated mass, rather than simply a property of mass. Remember than when you release energy from mass, the predominate effect is pressure. Think explosion. Now this pressure isn't a force in itself, but just the expansion of the constituent energy. Now they can't find gravitons, gravity waves, etc.

Now consider the two slit experiment. When passing through the slits, light acts like a wave and on hitting the detector, it connects at a point. In Eric Rieter's entry in the previous contest, he did a very interesting experiment showing the quantization of light is not fundamental, but a function of its absorption. So if light expands out when released and contracts when absorbed and is not fundamentally point particles, then what would be the overall effect when we use light to measure space?

Would it appear to expand where there is mostly just light and contract where mass is condensing? Such that passing gravitational bodies light would be naturally bent and that this relationship between gravity, mass and light would overcome any broader field effects and no need for dark matter, being a field effect, not just the attraction of massive bodies.

All of this speculative, but no geometry coming to life and dancing across the stage.

As for discreteness, given that our narrative perception of time is incorporated into foundational theories, the fact that distinction is necessary for comprehension should be considered as a factor on this rather illogical insistence on the quantization of everything. Not to say some things are not quantized, but it should be approached with reason.

Regards,

John M