Tying Up the Multiverse with String

amrit,

To quote Robert;

Sigh,

For the hundreth time:

First: The Concepts

Then: The Physical Analysis

Finally: The Mathematical Formalism.

"Books on physics are full of complicated mathematical formulas, but thought and ideas are the beginning of every physical theory."

Do we have it yet?

Note: the quotation in the above post is by Albert Einstein.

I do not think JM has enough scientific evidence to rule out a "repeating" universe with self-similarty that is discrete and exact.

Fundamental cosmological Scales appear to be separated by a factor of 10^17 in L or T, and by a factor of 10^56 in M. Evaluating the self-similarity between analogue objects that differ by such astronomical scaling is hardly a trivial matter.

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

John

scientific theory should be based on elementary perception and experimental data.

1. first observation

2. second scientific model

3. third experiment

yours amrit

philosophy starts with concepts, and physics is not philosophy

Robert,

No, I don't have enough scientific evidence, or education, to make such a claim, but given any scientist I've ever heard of is a human being, trapped in their finite mortal coil, on this small spot in space, I think is safe to say that none of them know whether there is an exact copy of this planet and its surrounding universe out there in some other realm. Patterns do repeat and the more basic a pattern is, the more exact the repetition is, but the more complexity involved, the greater the variability. Consider snowflakes; They are an excellent example of fractal patterns, but they still have a great deal of variability. Now multiply that by the number of factors involved in just one galaxy and it's safe to say that for any use we may have, they are all going to be different and those differences are as much a fact as the similarities and thus requiring of scientific evaluation. Trying to apply one set of rules to all circumstances is just as much an error as assuming there are no rules.

Amrit,

I'm not saying there is no philosophy involved, but the basis of human knowledge is our historical cumulation of it, so it is quite understandable this serial series of events that is history should be mistaken for the process of time and its reasonable we should try constructing a physical theory of reality based on it, but if, as you, I and some others are saying, time is a consequence of motion and that the resulting series of events are an effect of this activity, not some meta dimension along which all events exist, then the process of time is these events being created and dissolved, thus going from future potential to past circumstance, it really does have profound effects on how we think of reality, which is philosophy. Throughout most of human history, we thought the earth was flat, then thought the sun was revolving around it. Each of these expansions of our awareness had profound effects on how people thought of life. That's philosophy. If you want to be a scientist, you need to consider all the consequences involved. Just like everything else in life, changing one thing has knock on effects to everything around it. So If you propose to change our concept of time, you need to appreciate all the normal mental blocks that people are going to have to it, especially those who have devoted their lives to increasingly complex formulations of how to make sense of the previous paradigm.

I read a lot of conservative philosophy of science, with a degree of harumphing going on. Of course a lot of this is silly, and history clearly shows that how physics have been done through time does not conform to these silly high school ideas of a "scientific method."

Cheers LC

You might want to read the discussion at:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2404#comments

for the latest installment of "Theoretical Physicists Gone Wild!".

It involves the author of the article on which this thread is based {linde}.

Does fqxi.org foster pseudo-science?

It's not time to apologize for these insults to science. It is long past time to fight back.

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

The scientific method is subject to the same cycles of expansion and consolidation as everything else. It's safe to say the cycle is at a peak of conceptual projection and is due for some degree of consolidation to determine what has a solid basis in evidence and what is just hot air.

I will say that maybe in parallel with what you are saying is I do have certain problems with "interpretations." This is particularly the case with quantum mechanics, where the Many World Interpretation has commanded a lot of attention. There is a similar trend with the "Boltzmann vs Jaynes-Bayesian" approach to statistical mechanics. My perspective is that these are model systems, but not something which are empirically effective. In quantum mechanics there are various interpretations, from the Bohr "Copenhagen" interpretation, Bohm's inner particle perspective, MWI and so forth. These all end up invoking something which is not empirically verifiable, even if they might be useful for certain problems. Yet unfortunately there are these schools of thought, say the ergodic vs Bayesian schools in stat mech, where I really think these are perspectives on physics more than something that is effective.

Cheers LC

The first link is a blog post-article is on Woit's website. He favors the LQG approach to quantum gravity. If you read my posts on my essay blog site and the follow up essay on sept 22 you will find that I have some interest in LQG, and I will include some related matters of twistors and causal dynamic triangulation. However, these approaches to physics have their own host of problems. Peter Woit is an ardent anti-string advocate, and frankly I think to a degree that is beyond the pail.

Cheers LC

1. Woit's skepticism of the string theory pseudo-science is not beyond the pale; it's well-reasoned and scientific.

2. I hear tell that all the Boltzmann Brains suffered from vaulting ambition which o'er-leaped itself and landed "beyond the pail". Wow, what a benighted mess!

3 If it's not testable in a definitve manner [unique, feasible, quantitative, non-adjustable], then it's pseudo-science, plain and simple.

4. It's easy to drop a lot of erudite-sounding technical terms, but a lot harder to definitively predict the true nature of the Dark Matter. You cannot do that, Linde cannot do that, Tegmark cannot do that, Susskind cannot do that, Weinberg cannot do that, etc. etc. But I know someone who can. See: The Astrophysical Journal 322, 34-26, 1987. Or see: http://independent.academia.edu/RobertLOldershaw/Papers/91741/A-Review-Of-Mass-Estimates-For-Galactic-Dark-Matter-Objects

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

JM,

Listen to yourself.

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"No, I don't have enough scientific evidence, or education, to make such a claim, but given any scientist I've ever heard of is a human being, trapped in their finite mortal coil, on this small spot in space, I think is safe to say that none of them know whether there is an exact copy of this planet and its surrounding universe out there in some other realm. Patterns do repeat and the more basic a pattern is, the more exact the repetition is, but the more complexity involved, the greater the variability. Consider snowflakes; They are an excellent example of fractal patterns, but they still have a great deal of variability. Now multiply that by the number of factors involved in just one galaxy and it's safe to say that for any use we may have, they are all going to be different and those differences are as much a fact as the similarities and thus requiring of scientific evaluation. Trying to apply one set of rules to all circumstances is just as much an error as assuming there are no rules."

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You do not have "enough scientific evidence or education", but you are telling me how nature is/is not. Do you see the disconnect here?

Extropolating local kitchen-reasoning to the whole Uinverse is mad, not to mention unscientific!

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

Robert,

You were the one to tell me to go study nature and I get far beyond the kitchen table in doing so.

I make no pretense as to my qualifications, so on the point you are making, I would refer to Stephen Wolfram, who said, "You need a computer the size of the universe to compute the universe."

On the point I keep making; Is time the basis of motion, or a consequence of it? Or in colloquial terms, does the earth travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? And should you agree to the second understanding of time, what effect would this have on various current issues quantum mechanics has with probabilities, as with Schrodinger's cat, multi-worlds, etc., since we would would not be pushing along this block time dimension from an apparently defined past into a probabilistic future, but would have the probabilities of the future collapsing in the events of the present and recorded as a previous series of such events.

I've certainly have had enough people/presumably PhD's, question my credentials, without addressing the issue, not to take such attacks seriously. If you wish to address my point and have a logical response as to why it's wrong, I'm all ears. It wouldn't be the first time I've learned from those pointing out my errors and I just like trying to understand the issues, not tread on anyone's toes.

Hi John, time is not consequence of motion.

Time (clocks run) is a meaasuring device to measure motion.

We do not live in time, we live in space only where time is "thick" of clocks.

yours Amrit

Boltzmann brains are an argument against the idea the universe emerged as a spontaneous fluctuation. If the universe emerged as a fluctuation which resulted in a high negative entropy in an otherwise equilibrium condition of maximum entropy then a smaller negative entropy fluctuation could have just created a "brain," instead of an entire universe.

Peter Woit offers up no clear alternative to string theory. The combinatoric approaches, PQG, CTN and others have a host of their own problems. In particular LQG has a gauge anomaly or ambiguity with the Barbero-Immirzi parameter.

Cheers LC

JM,

Listen carefully; break free of your fixed ideas [obsessions].

One of the most important skills of a scientist who has bothered to think long and hard about nature, and who has ALSO observed nature long and hard, is the ability to ask the "laser beam" questions that lead to clarification. Einstein was a master of this skill.

The correct answer to the inadequate question you pose above is: BOTH are right. You assume there is a contradiction, but the question is so vague that I do not think there is a contradiction. One is free to use the 4-d modelling or a motion-based approach, depending on how you set up the problem.

If you have a good question, I have not seen it yet.

Sorry,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

LC,

I would cite the quotation below as an indication of severe mental impairment.

"Boltzmann brains are an argument against the idea the universe emerged as a spontaneous fluctuation. If the universe emerged as a fluctuation which resulted in a high negative entropy in an otherwise equilibrium condition of maximum entropy then a smaller negative entropy fluctuation could have just created a "brain," instead of an entire universe."

If you cannot predict anything definitively, you know nothing.

Good luck,

RLO

From "CosmoCoffee Blog"

----------------------------------------

Greetings High School "Anonymous",

I am confused by your question. General Relativity already demonstrates how to calculate and understand the advance in the perihelion of Mercury.

General Relativity is the theory of gravitational interactions involving Stellar Scale systems [technically within a Stellar Scale system but exterior to any Atomic Scale system]. I really don't think I can improve upon GR in this context, especially with high school math.

If you ask me to model something on the Atomic Scale, it might be a more interesting request.

Have you thoroughly studied: http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0701/0701132.pdf

Already published in ApSS, 2007.

This paper explains how, in a discrete self-similar cosmos, GR must be modified in order to model the dynamics of Atomic Scale or Galactic Scale systems.

Here's something really ironic. GR can be abreviated: R = kT. In groping for a unified theory that would apply in the microcosm as well as the macrocosm, theoretical physicists tinkered with the R and the T, but assumed that the k was inviolate and therefore of little interest.

Actually it is in the k = 8piG/c4 that the needed breakthrough was waiting all along. If you want to know how the discrete fractal scaling for k works, read the friggin' paper. But the key concept is that G is not scale invariant [even t'Hooft has finally figured that out. Well better 33 years late than never]; each Scale has its specific value of G and it only takes high school math, actually only elementary school math, to understand the scaling.

Please read the paper. Discrete Scale Relativity is the new paradigm for physics in the 21st century. When the physical characteristics of the dark matter are revealed, the new paradigm will be fully vindicated. So far we see mostly the high mass tail: neutron stars, BHs, gamma ray sources, RRATS, etc, and there are billions of these ultracompact objects, but the main DM components are in much lower states and are stellar mass black holes with 0.1 < M < 0.7 solar masses.

Any questions?

Yours in the new paradigm,

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw

There is nothing about the Boltzmann brain argument which involves predictability. It is just an argument about very low entropy fluctuation from which the universe might be argued to have emerged. The entropy of such a fluctuation must have been very low. Yet if all the fluctuation generated were brains, eg say the archetypical "brain in a jar," then that entropy reduction would have been far lower and more probable. Yet that is highly unlikely, and it leads to a sort of solipsistic prospect that is not very tenable. So the argument is raised to bring skepticism about the hypothesis that the universe emerged from some highly improbable fluctuation in a high entropy system at maximum entropy.

Cheers LC

LC,

The Boltzman Brain "reasoning" is tortorous, unsupported scientifically and philosophically bankrupt.

RLO

www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw