Tom,
I do not have a problem showing my work. It has been on the Internet for years at the number one website for 'new physics theory'. Ok, you choose not to answer that question.
How about this: There are two fundamental expressions for the fine structure constant. One includes the constants k,h, and c. The other is the ratio of the speed of the hydrogen atom electron to the speed of light. Are these two expressions derivable one from the other?
James
James, there's hardly a point to answering a nonsensical question unless the intent is to play some nonsensical game, as children do. Mathematics is a language, with syntax and meaning, exactly like natural language. Your question is equivalent to asking, "Is it coincidence that saying 'the apple is red' means that there is at least one red apple, even though not all apples are red?"
Don't you get it?
Physical constants are measured values; they are not determined from a mathematically complete theory, i.e., from first principles. Your point, if you actually have one that is tractable to scientific analysis, is totally obscure -- listen carefully: WHY do you think these units are incompatible? If YOU don't know what question you are trying to ask, nobody -- professional or not -- can give you an answer.
You haven't even said what these units represent, which is important to know, as notation often differs, though I surmise you mean Planck's constant h, Boltzmann's constant k, the elementary charge e and speed of light c. And so?
Until you have an idea of what you are asking, though, I'm afraid communication between us is impossible. Have you broached this to anyone else and gotten an answer?
Tom
Tom,
When I pointed to the theories that they represent, that should have made it clear what constants they were. Now will you please read carefully: "Your point, if you actually have one that is tractable to scientific analysis, is totally obscure -- listen carefully: WHY do you think these units are incompatible?" Does the fact that the units do not match mean that the equation has no meaning and is a coincidence?
James
Dude, are you totally incapable of asking a direct question that makes sense?
Or is it just me?
Tom
Tom,
Can an equation make sense if its units do not match?
James
Of course it can! One simply converts the units to a common base measurement standard.
Tom
Tom,
Units have to match.
James
Not only are you wrong, but I don't think you even know what you mean by that statement.
Do you think 3/16 differs from 6/32?
Tom
Tom,
Ok. You choose to create some fog. Back to the fine structure constant question. It is defined using h, k and c. It equals the speed of the hydrogen electron divided by the speed of light: is this a coincidence?
James
You haven't lost your capacity to shock me, I see. Apparently, you do think that 3/16 and 6/32 are different. No wonder that you see only fog.
Calculation of the fine structure constant is outside my field of knowledge. However, you (and to be sure, others here) could benefit from some basic understanding of mathematics and its applications to physical phenomena. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that the speed of an electron is very nearly the value of the speed of light. Hardly a "coincidence," for whatever you mean by that, since this lightest of particles is almost massless (so much so that electron behavior duplicates that of photon behavior in 2-slit experiments).
In reconciling units, physicists often set values of constants that don't affect physical results, to 0 or 1. This doesn't mean that the equation doesn't make sense. It means that the sense is contained in the physical result, not in the writing of the equation. For a quantum mechanical calculation, c is always 1 because time plays no role in a (nonrelativistic) quantum transaction.
Tom
Hi Ray,
I don't know theory anywhere close to your level. That being said, I do have thoughts. I use mechanical ideas like energy in my own work. However, I think that all of the mechanical properties used in theoretical physics are not real. I think the effects that they are based upon are real. I just think that mechanical ideas are not representative of the true nature of the universe. So, I don't believe in a property of energy. I do accept complexity and think that it is far more extensive than what mechanical theory can represent.
I don't know whether or not there are other properties outside of our universe. I don't know if there is an outside of our universe. However, I am willing to go along with considering such possibilities. So long as they are mechanically interpreted, I have a problem with them. However, the subject is theoretical physics, so I follow along with discussions about the mechanical properties of the multiverse.
When I consider the multiverse, I see some of the same perplexing problems remaining. For example, I wonder what is the origin of the properties of life and intelligence in our universe. The number of universes can be increased without limit, but, for me the problem of the origin of the properties of intelligence and life remain. I do not go along with supposing that the solution to this problem exists in theoretical physics, but, is sort of buried in complexity whether here in our universe or in any number of universes.
I think that free will is fully a product of the potential that existed at the beginning of our universe. Perhaps this is too limiting and some potential for it exists outside of our universe. However, if free will, whether in this universe or as a property of a multiverse, is considered to result from uncertainty or probability theory, then I can't go along with that. I see human free will as a meaningful, orderly process. I do not see it being patched together by the chance joining together of otherwise disorganized pieces.
Everywhere I look I see control. Control reveals itself in both predictability and meaning. While I do not think that free will is inherently predictable or preset and, therefore, not free will, I see it and every other effect in this universe or even outside it as part of a fully controlled process. I think that we have free will because the universe was formed to give it to us. What I found interesting to consider and pursue was: How does this fully controlled universe, or perhaps multiverse, give us the property of free will? I now see it as a logical consequence of the combination of the properties given to us by means of the particles from which we are formed and the way in which we interact with the universe.
That is what I think. I recognize that you can support your ideas better than can I in terms of higher level theoretical physics. I read what you write and I try to follow it. For the reasons given above, I have a reluctance and uneasiness about many of the ideas put forward by today's theoretical physicists. Still, I appreciate learning what you and other qualified people think. I am on a learning curve, and, for better or for worse my learning curve bent in a very different direction from others.
James
Hi James,
Complexity is related to scales. If Shannon's Information Theory says that Information (and thus Complexity) scales as N ln(N), then larger values of N admit greater levels of complexity.
If N~10^41 = Dirac's Large Number in our scale, but N~10^100 in a scale of greater complexergy (complexity-energy) such as the Multiverse, then complexity emerges at this Multiverse scale. Of course, our Observable Universe is a self-similar scaled copy of the Multiverse, and even the quantum scale is a self-similar copy of all of the greater scales (with N~496). So at some level, it is appropriate to talk about the information (complexity? intelligence?) content of an individual electron. We are simultaneously fallen from the (near?) perfection of the Multiverse scale, and emergent from lowly Quantum scale.
Can we measure the Multiverse? I wonder if the information content of Black Holes: ~10^123 or the Cosmological Constant ~10^(-123) is related to a geometrical power of Dirac's Large Number ~10^123~(10^41)^3 or if it is leakage from (and therefore experimental evidence for) a scale of greater complexergy such as the Multiverse.
Linde suggests that time doesn't exist in the Multiverse as a whole, but when we separate one part (say our Observable Universe) from the whole (the Multiverse), then time emerges. There seem to be branching ratios that allow a certain amount of free will in each respective Observable Universe, but the "whole me" (the soul-like collection of self-similar mes throughout the Multiverse) will not likely all jump off of a tall building today. Does free will admit all possibilities? Or just a (scaled?) large number of possibilities?
I'm out of town three days this week, so I'm trying to tie up loose ends today.
Have Fun!
Dr. Cosmic Ray
Consciousness constitutes those annoying periods between sleep.
Free will is not something we can ever prove exists. A proof of such would require a universal Turning machine, which does not exist.
Cheers LC
Roy,
For what little it's worth, I am 100% in agreement with: "I am a bit concerned at the seemingly very wide *total acceptance* by the physics/cosmology community of the "multiverse" inflationary model."
I have very unflattering opinions about why this is true, and no idea how to stop the stampede. I believe physics may be in process of doing itself great harm. Appeals to non-testable phenomena is essentially religious in nature. In fact, as I understand it, the 10^500 universes were essentially invented to get around the implications of fine-tuning (Susskind, p.273: "...the heart of the matter... [t]he unreasonable apparent design of the universe..."). So, fleeing from contemplation of one 'non-physical' explanation of fine tuning, physicists fled right into another 'non-physical' (in any realistic sense of prediction, testing, etc) explanation. This won't end well.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
The above refers to Susskind's "The Cosmic Landscape".
Tom,
Most of what is being discussed here is not science but mathematics and/or mathematical fantasy. There is nothing having to do with strings, branes, multiverses, that has ever been detected or ever predicted anything, or been useful for anything except publications, as far as I know. That is not science it is merely speculation among overly bright, overly specialized people who are intoxicated with the 'unendingness' of their new toy; 10^500 "universes". I don't, and I suspect James doesn't attach any value at all to 'largeness' or 'big numbers' as meaningful. Consciousness is experienced, not theorized or speculated. Having spent a long life thinking about consciousness, and having experienced various states of consciousness, and having designed as many hardware and software systems as anyone here, I'm convinced that consciousness did not arise from hardware or software, and never will. (Consciousness being defined as awareness and free will. Add logic hardware and you get 'intelligence' which of course is subject to evolution in a physical world.)
So the test that distinguishes "lifeless, dumb, mechanical properties from live, intelligent, non-mechanical properties" is self awareness and awareness of other, what else?
Edwin Eugene Klingman
Anyone who needs a proof that they have free will, may not have it, who knows? It's not for me to say.
I have free will, despite, as James puts it, anyone's "mechanical" explanations for "mechanical" actions that others ascribe meaning to. That I can't 'prove it' is not a problem for me. No one else can prove it or disprove it, so what?
Pinch your self. Did that hurt? Can you prove it?
Edwin Eugene Klingman
Dear All,
I have continually been frustrated by the fqxi blogs and comments on consciousness carried on with everyone's choice of language, Babel style.
James often uses 'intelligence' when I think he means 'consciousness' in my terminology. Half the time I don't know what anyone else means by these terms.
My essay (http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/561) and my many writing on consciousness use the following terminology:
.
Consciousness = awareness plus volition (free will)
Intelligence = consciousness plus logic (hardware)
.
These terms are simple enough and specific enough to explain many relevant things about this topic. Of course my explanations are based on my belief (and theory) that consciousness is inherent to the universe, not an artifact that came into existence when enough Lego blocks were put together in the right order.
It's not mandatory that everyone adopt my terminology, but until fqxi participants agree on some meaning for these terms, there will continue to be a lot of nonsense occurring here, and comments where the commenter and the respondent aren't speaking the same language.
Thanks for your consideration of this issue.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
1bubble+1bubble=1sphere+1sphere.....the theory of bubblelization a Gut or rotating bubbles hihihihi
and the spheres vs multispheres
the spheres vs strings
the bubble vs the multibubbles
spherically yours or bubbly yours.....
Steve bubblelicentrist=sphericentrist hihihi
I question whether intelligence is just a matter of logic. Clearly the ability to perform logical operations in a way where we are consciously aware of them is important. Yet I think a big component is our ability to project ourselves in space and time. We can imagine ourselves in the future and we can project ourselves onto imaginary characters. I suspect a part of this is our evolutionary selection for language which permitted Homo sapiens to engage in narratives and stories about their natural world. This permitted the communication about the local environment down the generations. Further, these stories involved a projection of human consciousness onto the natural world in the form of spirits, totems and gods. So the structure and behavior of the world is cast in a story format which engages the listener and those skilled at telling stories became bards.
Other animals engage in problem solving abilities. Even some birds are known to be able to count and perform basic addition and subtraction. Prairie dogs are capable of very complex communications through variations in harmonics in their chirps, which to our ear appear monotonic. These types of animals are not what we normally consider as intelligent and semi-intelligent, such as apes, cetaceans and elephants. Obviously the complexity with human logical processing surpasses other creatures, but this might just be a matter of degree and not of some qualitative distinction.
Cheers LC
