Limits of mathematics in cosmology

John,

The main problem with discussing consciousness is that it takes quite an initial period to agree on the terms. You and I overlap in many of our ideas, but we diverge in the details. For example, the particle generation 'mechanism' of the C-field is a self-reinforcing vortex that reaches the limit of curvature of space. This is spelled out in complete detail in Chromodynamics War and in Gene Man's World, and requires equations and diagrams, so I'll leave it at that. The same equations that induce circulation in the magnetic field around moving electric charge induces circulation in the C-field around moving mass, so the deBroglie-like 'pilot wave' provides entanglement, interference, and other wave-like properties associated with the particle.

The C-field is not 'like' gravity, it is the circulational 'component' of gravity (the radial force) and initially (assuming a big bang, for purposes of explanation) is suppressed by symmetry. Until that 'moment' the radially symmetric gravity field is expanding with a fixed, scale invariant distribution. Any consciousness that can be attributed to this is the universal self-awareness of the field with its own mass equivalent. If the kinetic energy of expansion exactly equals the self-attraction of the field, then the total energy is zero, which is nice when you're trying to get a free lunch. If the primordial quantum fluctuation (the first act of will?) occurs, then an explosion of turbulence occurs when the perfect symmetry is broken, and this mathematically produces a component (not the whole) that is anti-gravitic, hence inflationary. The vortices then produce first (left-handed massive) neutrinos, then electrons, then quarks. All this makes physical, mathematical sense if we began with a big bang. I haven't tried to work out the 'everlasting' flat space version, but I don't see it working, so I'm partial to BBT. So far, we have one 'substance' the field, that has both radial (G) and circulational (C) aspects, and condenses to matter. Until symmetry breaks the 'consciousness' is global-- undivided. After turbulence then 'local awareness' enters the picture, and we have left the realm of not-two. This eventually leads to awareness of 'other' (ie, not local). Local consciousness after that is essentially a 'density' problem, based on interaction of the local field with the locally relevant structure.

(All this goes better with equations and diagrams, but that's why I write books.) Of course both awareness and volition are so primitive at this level that we can barely conceive of what it means, but if it exists from the 'beginning' then it's fundamental. Since no one has ever come up with a convincing way to 'add it as an afterthought' then I'm happy with it's being primordial-- the source from which all arises. Note that there is no equivalent of 'thought' until the structures arise that can model their environment (via, say, self-organizing, self-sustaining dynamical neural networks). But this would lead to the implication that the living cell, which employs protein logic might have 'some' level of intelligence. The consciousness field is the source of the awareness and volition (G-field says 'come here' to mass, C-field says 'go there' to moving mass). The addition of logic circuitry leads to emergence of intelligence. Life is simply the binding of the field to a sufficiently complex organism, which can reproduce. This implies that ALL life, cells, and plants, and animals are conscious, ie, aware and volitional. I believe you've noticed this in your horses.

If one believes, as I do, that the basic cellular life has non-zero awareness, then certainly billions of brain cells, interconnected and dynamically re-connecting (how learning occurs) leads to the things we associate with the human mind (math, language, Gaia, primitive religions, and all). It is 'focused' only in a metaphorical sense, since it is intimately interacting with the entire brain and body. But if my theory is correct, it all evolves from the basic free lunch that first showed itself as a unified field at the moment of (self?) creation. 'Units' have nothing to do with it, although, as a physicist (a very specialized organism) I do require of my theory that it match the known facts, and this raises Planck's constant of action and the speed of light and the gravitational constants to rather special places in the theory.

This is not exactly pantheism, or any other current denomination, and it certainly is not reductionism, since the ultimate mystery of the field (which is to say of the Universe) will not be reduced to words or equations or thoughts (mental models) but only experienced through living.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Since we both agree the basis of consciousness is easier to explain as primordial, rather than emergent, I guess our real point of difference is whether the universe emerged as a singularity, or is an unbound, eternal field. I have to get to work, so I can't go over my arguments as to why I think the Big Bang theory is flawed and I admit I have the full weight of the establishment against me on this, but In all the arguments I've had on the subject, there are many points I keep raising which don't draw very effective responses. How is it that we can observe a universe that is flat, has mature galaxies and galaxy structures as far as can be seen, have a theory by Einstein describing this balance, of which there is increasing evidence of and still hold with this current model, without any dissent and even only marginal dissent from the fringes, such as myself?

Yes, a singularity provides a source of energy, but leaves open the question of where it came from? how can we have space expanding from this point, but still have a stable speed of light? Ifspace expands, wouldn't the yardstick of C increase as well? But that would blow the whole Doppler effect out of the water, because it isn't based on stretching the units of distance, only moving away within them.

On the other hand, why couldn't we have an unstable vacuum as the primordial source? Big Bang theory even adds one as Dark Energy to explain one of its various discrepancies. What if this Dark Energy/Cosmological Constant is the source and above a certain density, say 3.7k, it starts collapsing into gravitational vortices. That would provide spin on a local scale.

Got to get to work....

John,

We've actually covered a lot of ground in this back and forth, in highly compressed manner. For example, I explained above why 'unstable vacuum' does not cut it. So we're ignoring things already covered. That's a sign it's time to stop and either review our earlier comments or just cogitate some.

I've seen your comments on consciousness on other blogs (after they had died down) and have looked forward to talking with you. I do think we agree on the primordial basis. I do not have the answers to your questions because I have not spent much time thinking about redshift and associated issues. Almost immediately after finding my key equations, the inflationary aspect appeared, and I took this as reason to accept the big bang, which also provides the source of strong enough vortex fields to produce the requisite particle zoo. My twin goals were to understand the nature of consciousness and to match this with *known* physics (not the hodge-podge of current theories based on things that have never been seen, that I mentioned above). I don't give much credence to the establishment. They have to play by their rules if they want to stay in their game. My absolute requirement was that my theory match my conscious experience and that the basics of physics makes sense. Beyond that, the interaction of the consciousness field with body-brains accounts for every map, model, scheme, and idea that the human mind comes up with, and, as I said, none of these will reduce the universe to a non-mysterious answer. As amrit and others say, and as you allude to, one can 'jump off into the void' and *know* the truth, but when one returns from the void, one cannot construct a map and show it to others, just as one cannot explain 'being aware' to someone who is 'unaware'.

If, as we seem to agree, *now* is the reality, and our ideas of past and future are mental maps, and if, as we may agree, consciousness is the field of which the parts are made, then in theory (many swear in practice) one can 'decouple' from the local body-brain mass and experience the universal awareness of the ALL, but the body-brain soon reclaims its hold on locality and we're once more inside looking out.

As for the big bang, my brain is happy with my theory and not happy with the other, but obviously we have as many theories on fqxi as we have body-brains, and I don't believe they will ever converge to the best theory. Too many dollars, too much power, to big egos, and etc. When they don't find the Higgs or any of the other SUSY particles, they'll just claim they need more money.

I plan to spend more time thinking about 'duration' as implied by 'c' and 'h'.

I've very much enjoyed our talk and look forward to the next one. These conversations are stimulating and worthwhile.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Sound's like you are dropping the conversation. Sorry to hear that, as the discussions on fqxi have been a bit thin lately and I haven't found any sites quite like it. I suspect things will liven up when they start the next contest though.

I must say we do hold fairly opposing positions on the validity of the Big Bang model though, but it doesn't look like I'm convincing you and I see too many holes between all the areas of elaborate maths not to think a profound bias towards definition has us wrapping up a theory of the universe a little too quickly. Having followed the evolution of the theory since I was a teenager in the seventies and having started to question it in the late eighties upon learning expansion and gravitational contraction have to be balanced and discussing it on the internet from the mid nineties, I find it to have the momentum of a movement, in which believers rise and doubters are excluded.

In that regard, you might want to examine just what parts of the theory you like and why, because they will necessarily become tangled with the parts you don't like. This is from Andrei Linde's website: http://www.stanford.edu/~alinde/

"Inflationary theory describes the very early stages of the evolution of the Universe, and its structure at extremely large distances from us. For many years, cosmologists believed that the Universe from the very beginning looked like an expanding ball of fire. This explosive beginning of the Universe was called the big bang. In the end of the 70's a different scenario of the evolution of the Universe was proposed. According to this scenario, the early universe came through the stage of inflation, exponentially rapid expansion in a kind of unstable vacuum-like state (a state with large energy density, but without elementary particles). Vacuum-like state in inflationary theory usually is associated with a scalar field, which is often called ``the inflaton field.'' The stage of inflation can be very short, but the universe within this time becomes exponentially large. Initially, inflation was considered as an intermediate stage of the evolution of the hot universe, which was necessary to solve many cosmological problems. At the end of inflation the scalar field decayed, the universe became hot, and its subsequent evolution could be described by the standard big bang theory. Thus, inflation was a part of the big bang theory. Gradually, however, the big bang theory became a part of inflationary cosmology. Recent versions of inflationary theory assert that instead of being a single, expanding ball of fire described by the big bang theory, the universe looks like a huge growing fractal. It consists of many inflating balls that produce new balls, which in turn produce more new balls, ad infinitum. Therefore the evolution of the universe has no end and may have no beginning. After inflation the universe becomes divided into different exponentially large domains inside which properties of elementary particles and even dimension of space-time may be different. Thus the universe looks like a multiverse consisting of many universes with different laws of low-energy physics operating in each of them. Thus, the new cosmological theory leads to a considerable modification of the standard point of view on the structure and evolution of the universe and on our own place in the world. A description of the new cosmological theory can be found, in particular, in my article The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe published in Scientific American, Vol. 271, No. 5, pages 48-55, November 1994. A nice introduction to inflation was written by the journalist and science writer John Gribbin Cosmology for Beginners . The new cosmological paradigm may have non-trivial philosophical implications. In particular, it provides a scientific justification of the cosmological anthropic principle, and allows one to discuss a possibility to create the universe in a laboratory."

Admittedly I don't know enough about vacuum instability to defend it, but I do think the universe is a field effect, with areas of expansion balanced by vortices of contraction and this fundamental dichotomy manifests on many levels, such as the expansion being an "entangled wave state," while collapse results in digitized quanta/particles and that's why, when we try measuring precise energy levels, the process of doing so requires creating the collapse, thus we only "see" particles, while waves remain not quite real. I could go on, but don't want to try your patience, as most professionals wouldn't take the time to understand what I'm trying to say in the first place.

John,

I've got to take care of some other time-consuming business and don't think we're close enough on the BBT issue to really get anywhere. I'm glad that we agree on the primordial consciousness as opposed to emergent, but my theory ties everything together into a unified whole. If I have to cut out large pieces of it, it will kill the theory, and I've seen no reason to do so (yet). In fact, my theory makes predictions about what will be found at LHC and has several cosmological implications, so until the predictions are confirmed or proven wrong, I'm sticking with what I believe is the best theory of reality.

As for Linde's "chaotic inflation" I don't buy it, or, as I understand it, any of the associated multiverse. They do not have any explanation of inflation (other than undiscovered 'inflatons' based on QED concepts) and the remarks I made above reflect my doubts about even QED. Just yesterday the APS newsletter quoted Peter Mohr at NIST about the 4 percent discrepancy between the (QED) predicted and measured radius of the proton...

"It would be quite revolutionary. It would mean that we know a lot less than we thought we knew... If it is a fundamental problem, we don't know what the consequences are yet."

John, for the last five years I've been watching new mysteries being reported in particle physics and cosmology that fit right into my model but do not fit any current theories. As a practical matter, the gigantic academic-industrial-governmental-science establishment is not going to roll over and say "we don't know what the hell is going on", but I am absolutely convinced that this is the case. There is more BS and theories postulated on make believe entities (see my Aug. 29, 2010 @ 20:44 GMT comment above) and the whole thing is a house of cards. So I'm not ready to throw overboard my theory that explains almost everything I'm aware of just because there are 'redshift issues' that I haven't had time to work through yet. If the LHC finds a Higgs, or other SUSY particles then I'll have to take a real good look at why my theory predicts none. But until then I'll just keep plowing through issues one at a time, and the redshift is now on the list of issues, but not at the top.

One problem is that pictures aren't enough, equations have to produce numbers that match reality. For example, QED cannot explain the 4 percent discrepancy. My model does qualitatively explain a 'smaller' proton radius as seen by the muon, but I can't calculate 4 pct exactly. On the other hand, they have not the slightest idea why it's smaller. The proton radius, the negative core of the neutron, massive (as opposed to massless) neutrinos-- these are big deals, but, since the current theories can't explain it, they ignore it. Given finite time and energy, I have to choose real measured problems that my model supports and the other guys can't explain, over conceptual problems that may or may not be real.

BTW, I too live on a ranch. I think it's a better way to grasp reality. I haven't found your email address, but if you look on my essay, you'll find mine.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin,

Than you for the consideration. We all have to frame our views on the basis of what we understand and you have a far more technical and fine grained view than I. I tend to come at it from a philosophical direction and that doesn't have much credibility these days.

As for predictions, I was arguing redshift is actually evidence for a cosmological constant, rather than a singularity close to ten years before they discovered the need for the dark energy patch in '98 and then qualified it as being comparable to predictions made by what a CC would look like, around '02. As for future predictions, I also suspect the Higgs will continue to be elusive, since I've been arguing for space as having an equilibrium effect, but won't be surprised if they find some activity which they will call a potential Higgs field, since there are likely layers of undiscovered activity. My other prediction will be that the James Webb telescope, for studying the infrared background radiation, will find evidence of it being light from ever more distant galaxies that has been completely shifted off the visible spectrum, rather than afterglow from the singularity. Whether they devise a convenient patch, likely drawn from inflation, or admit it is a real problem for BBT, time will tell.

My email is brodix@earthlink.net, if you want to add it to your list of contacts completely outside the fold.

As for living in enough space not to be constantly in others energy fields, it does give one the space to think. When I was little, I realized all those voices in my head were of older siblings and it took a bit of effort over the years to block my mind from others, when necessary. I think we are all one big organism, for better or worse.

Seems like a good time to curve the thread a little.

1. I wanted to acknowledge Sabine Hossenfelder for the award process she started. It is easy for me to be a physics outlaw because I have little at stake (well maybe my big ego). But there are many physics professionals who risk their futures by going against the party line. From their ranks the future physics will emerge.

2. Thanks Lev for giving my website and wavelength-hopping some visibility. When wavelength-hopping is viewed as particles appearing as events it is a much more palatable concept.

3. T H Ray, your criticism is right to the point. I will comment on it in next post.

4. Edwin Eugene Klingman, yes wave-length hopping is just another theory, but it differs from the theories that you listed in that it is testable in several ways. I think the best test for it could be performed by the Vienna group (University of Vienna) on a Buckyball to show that it wave-length hops. see http://www.zenophysics.com/DWT/13a__Buckyballs.html

Don L.

Hi Tom (T H Ray), It is obvious you have read my theory and know its implications which I do not try to hide. But I can add a few comments:

1. rest mass would be incalculable: This is true. But "rest mass" is a misnomer for a particle because particles are never at rest. Lowest energy mass would be a better term.

2. spacetime would not be physically real: I believe I leave space-time intact, however I consider particles as moving on space-time in an unreal way as experimentally verified by Alain Aspect.

3. general relativity would be falsified: General Relativity was not created to work on the particle level but it works very well on the classical level where the assumption of a static point mass is just fine.

Tom,

What if there is no entity like space-time, or better, time-space? That is my point: there might be, at the bottom, just temporal/informational structure (like ETS), which instantiate the spatial and other structures. So that particle hoping is what we "see" as a result.

Hi Don,

1. True, particles are never at absolute rest (absolute zero temperature); however, relativistic rest mass allows us to compare energy content between masses. Special relativity's conclusion, E_0 = mc^2 is based on the rest mass state. The "lowest mass" is zero; energy exchange particles (bosons) are massless. When special relativity is generalized to general relativity, we find that the two statistical models (bosonic and fermionic) describe one world that is static in time (timeless), and another that is time dependent, which general relativity successfully describes together as an interaction of matter and spacetime that describes the universe as "finite but unbounded." General relativity only fails at the cosmological limit, where a singularity of infinite energy density is theoretically unobtainable in such a world. Einstein would have liked to construct a theory in which mass is merely the consequence of field interactions, and GR was meant to be only a step toward that goal.

Einstein was steeped in classical mechanics, though, and well understood Ernst Mach's mechanical model in which every particle motion is dependent on the motion of every other particle -- so that if one knew the initial state of the system, every subsequent state could be calculated. In Mach's model, space plays no role, and time might be seen as in the context of differing ratios among invisible "gears" that drive particle motion. Mach never did accept the atomic model, in which atoms are made almost entirely of empty space, and neither did he conceive that there are no closed, isolated systems in the universe to which his model could apply. Einstein took Mach's mechanics, coined the term "Mach's Principle," and showed that while neither space nor time have an independent reality -- allowing that spacetime (Minkowski space) is physically real, Mach's model is satisfied for general relativity without superfluous assumptions. But again -- there's that sticky cosmological problem, in which the only known recourse is to eliminate space and time (get rid of the infinitely dense singularity) and go with a quantum origin ("roll the dice").

This latter is what your lambda-hopping idea does -- avoids the singularity, in that a particle changes position without changing structure -- and I know that's why Lev likes it. It is equivalent to saying that a faster than light particle can be defined as one that changes direction without changing velocity; that's a true statement, yet we have no physical reason to believe that a particle of nonzero mass in a curved trajectory does not accelerate. You have to eliminate mass from your model altogether (if it is to be consistent with SR), and when you do that, you have a continuous wave function, not the hopping one.

2. Aspect's experiments validated what we already knew -- that in order for quantum theory to be coherent, nonlocality must be preserved at any scale. Quantum theory would be in serious trouble if Bell's inequality were not violated. Space and time play no role in the experiments, however, except in the sense that spacetime is shown to affect only local interactions (classical physics is local), and not quantum mechanics.

3. You're confusing "point mass" which is a quantum concept, with "mass point" which is classical. Yes, all measurements in GR are between mass points, as in all other classical theories.

Tom

Lev,

You wrote, "What if there is no entity like space-time, or better, time-space? That is my point: there might be, at the bottom, just temporal/informational structure (like ETS), which instantiate the spatial and other structures. So that particle hoping is what we "see" as a result."

You know that I agree with you in principle, Lev.

Without that messy spacetime standing in the way, it's smooth functions "all the way down." Because we have relativity and quantum theory, however, and because both are established physics, I think that unification begs us to first explain why these theories are apparently true.

If we are going to speak of structure as irreducible, I can see the virtue of a 4-dimensional spacetime normalized to 1 (i.e., a 0 1 spacetime)in an n-dimensional Euclidean space. I cannot comprehend a further reduction. The 2-dimensional 3-manifold seems sufficient to me to contain all the information holographically. The extra dimension(s) the theory requires allows room for both continuous functions in 3 1 (0 1) dimensions, and the "hop" or "jump" of discontinuous functions in hyperspace.

Tom

Hi Tom,

I am in the unenviable position of defending something that is unproven. So, I say something like particles are blue, then everyone who read the book that says particles are red respondes to me that blue is silly particles are red. Never mind the fact that the red color came from a theory also. The only difference is that red was in the book.

I say that a fundamental particle in isolation moves in a peculiar way "wavelength-hopping". There is no thermal motion. IF you want you can say that the particle is at absolute zero. Almost everyone will say wavelength-hopping is not true even thought no one has investigated the phenomena of how or if a particle moves in isolation.

I did not pull wavelength-hopping out of the air, it the result of a logical thought experiment. But as Edwin Eugene Klingman points this is just another far out theory out of many. He is right and more than a theory is required. I think an experiment can be made.

At first it may seem simple to put a particle in isolation. I was thinking of taking a Buckyball and dropping it in a vacuum. But on second thought that is not enough isolation because the Buckyball will accelerate too fast due to gravity to see wavelength-hopping. A very low speed accelerator will need be designed to do this experiment the LHC will not do the job. The experiment may need to be done in space. see http://www.zenophysics.com/DWT/13a__Buckyballs.html

Hello Forum. I have not had time to read all the posts in this forum but I would like to address the initial question concerning the suitability of mathematics to address issues in cosmology and physics.

I would like to ask forum members how they believe mathematics could be 'engineered' to be more suitable for this task. It os my understanding that mathematics has 'two poles' that of its set theoretic foundationsn and the limits of the logical resolutions that lead to the advanced mathematical fields.

My issue with the inappropiate nature of mathematics begins at its foundational level, the axioms of set theory. In particular, the concepts of continuity and sequence are forced upon the integers.

Ot is atb this level I believe that many of the semingly baffling notions of experimental cosmology and physics are born, our mathematical systems is out of sync with the reality to which we apply it.

I have been wondering for some time whether ny research in this area is being conducted. This area is the philosophy of mathematics where subtlty rather than complexity is what needs to be explored!

Hi Don,

If I understand you correctly, you define a system to be one particle and the vacuum.

Then I am compelled to agree with you -- the particle is at absolute zero.

Something has to move, though, or the system is not physical. By definition, a particle at absolute zero does not move. So the vacuum must be moving -- what does that mean?

Actually, your experiment was done long ago, and the phenomenon is called superconductivity. What happens is that at temperatures close to absolute zero, all resistance to electronic motion disappears, and "electron waves" are self sustaining, indefinitely. One could describe the system, then, as a particle at rest relative to the wave motion, because the free electrons conducted by this artificial vacuum are in an almost pure wave state. A similar quantum coherence effect is Bose-Einstein condensation.

"Wave hopping" as you describe it would then be alternating cohering and decohering states, and that's actually what we do observe in natural systems in the form of local positive feedback loops -- such as superconductivity -- and negative feedback like the decohering effects of thermal noise.

It is contradictory to speak of the vacuum as an isolated system upon which one can conduct experiments. The closest we come is conducting experiments near absolute zero where particle motion can be observed at the low velocity range you seek. In fact, the search for high temperature superconductivity (whose discovery would be a great gift to humankind, and a huge technological leap) does include buckyball experiments. One doesn't "drop a buckyball into the vacuum" though. One creates as much vacuum as possible around the substance and witnesses resistance to wave motion (conductivity) decrease to zero, at a critical phase transition, in proportion to the drop in temperature.

Tom

"My issue with the inappropiate nature of mathematics begins at its foundational level, the axioms of set theory. In particular, the concepts of continuity and sequence are forced upon the integers.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I have been wondering for some time whether [a]ny research in this area is being conducted."

************************************************************

You have come to the right place. ;-)

Check my essay mentioned also in my opening post.

Hi Tom,

You say a particle at absolute zero does not move. This is part of a long held conventional theory that has it as a definition. It has never has been observed in nature. I say that a particle in isolation moves all by itself. This is part of a new theory. It also has never been observed in nature. What is true?

The phenomena of superconductivity involves many particles in proximity. It is not the experiment that is optimum for showing wavelength-hopping.

I believe theories are good and we need them, and well designed experiments are better than theories.

Don L.

Hi Rainsmith, Along with Lev and others I agree that the math/physics is a core issue.

The assumption that 1 +1 = 2 in the world of experience.

1 plus 1 = 2 is something that is taken for granted and is held to be true in both math and physics. I do not believe it is true in physics. I will try to explain, here goes:

a. How do you add things that are physical? The grade school teacher will demonstrate by taking an apple from far away and present it to the class, then she will bring another apple from far away and put it close to the first apple and say "One apple plus another apple is two apples." This is the physical interpretation of addition. It is very useful and essentially correct but it needs a minor correction when considering the apples as real objects with mass. I will explain in a moment.

b. How do you add things that are mathematical? The math instructor will say consider an apple (an ideal object in the imagination) and call it a 1. Now consider another apple and call it a 1. The 1 and the 1 can be added to produce 2 which can be considered to be the sum of the two idealized apples. This 1 plus 1 = 2 is completely correct for idealized apples. The math is perfect when there is no real mass and no space-time.

c. What is wrong with the physical 1 plus 1 =2 ? The answer is the space-time that the apples exist in. When the apples are brought together to demonstrate their sum they have to move thru space and time. (see http://www.zenophysics.com/DWT/19__Math-Physics.html)

By the way, "1 plus 1 = 2" is not really a 'physical' statement. It was simply adopted by physicists from the math developed by that time. Moreover, again before physics, the 'spacial' measurement practice was developed in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Ironically, although the space is not a 'physical' concept, once it has been adopted in physics it has become a fundamental concept.

In fact, this is probably true of all basic physical concepts.

Let me add that I would like to see physics built based on the really physical rather than conventional math/numeric foundation. So the question then simply is: What is truly physical foundation? And, of course, my answer is streams of (structured) events, or what we currently call "particles".