[deleted]
I become crazzy dear friends,be sure .I see small green people in my small garden.You know I become tired by the net thus REVOLUTION BEFORE HIHII
Steve
I become crazzy dear friends,be sure .I see small green people in my small garden.You know I become tired by the net thus REVOLUTION BEFORE HIHII
Steve
Hello Again All,
Thanks for your further comments, Ulla.
Thank you for stopping by Steve. Be assured that I do not just sit on fences. I take up one view, or one side of an argument, then vigorously argue the opposite sometimes. I tend to argue the opposite of anyone's strongly polarized view, just to see what they will say, but in this contest they asked a question where only an encompassing answer would do.
However, your comments are always welcome.
Regards,
Jonathan
A special added note..
Some of you may be aware of my interest in aiding the Environment, saving the Earth from Climate disasters, and the like.
I have recently joined something called the Azimuth Project which was founded by FQXi's John Baez. If you have ideas or skills which might benefit a group of scientists and engineers who are trying to find ways to save the planet, please consider joining that conversation too.
I share the notion of others there, that if enough bright people toss some of the difficult environmental problems around, we might come up with some good solutions that haven't been tried yet. However; so many problems today, like the recent oil spill in the Gulf, demand a multi-disciplinary approach to fully solve. But corporations and governments are way too insular to invite collaboration.
Please check out how the Azimuth Project is trying to help.
Regards,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I have to say we have some very similar ideas, but yours are more professionally presented, so how did I get an 8 rating in the public voting and you get a 2? Life ain't fair.
Most of these essays tie my brain up in knots, so it is nice to read one which does present a coherent overview and not tightly wound around a particular observation.
You do make a few observations to which I might offer some additional thoughts.
For one thing, the problem with the dialectic view of fundamental dichotomies is the idea there exists a coherent synthesis, somewhere in the middle and this overlooks the extent to which opposing views are themselves wholistic opposites. Consider taking pictures of a car. The view from the right and left side are subjectively whole, while a picture of the interior wouldn't be a synthesis of those opposing views. Same with top down, vs bottom up considerations. There is no happy medium. The perspective from the bottom can be all the way to the top, as the view from the top can be all the way to the bottom and yet they are entirely different views of the same reality.
Now consider your point about everything being energy. This is true, but energy expands! What is the balance? Mass contracts. Energy is analog, while mass is digital. Consider light. It expands out as a field effect, waves, if you prefer, but when we measure it in relation to a physical detector, it has collapsed to a definable unit, a photon.
You might say energy is bottom up, radiating out as energy. While mass is top down, collapsing as digital units. So all of reality can be viewed from both directions: All expanding out versus gravity collapsing everything to point. This gets to cosmology and the fact we view the entire universe as expanding, yet this expansion is balanced by gravity as observably flat space, but we still have this model of expansion. To use an analogy, it would be like looking across a Merry-go-round and seeing that while the near and far sides go in opposite directions and seem balanced in their actions, since the near side appears larger to us, there must be greater motion in the direction it is going. I think we will eventually discard the entire Big Bang cosmology and view the universe as a correlation between expanding energy and collapsing mass. There are a number of essays which touch on this in various ways, Constantinos Ragazas, , Israel Perez, as well as some comments and footnotes from Dan Benedict come to mind. Mine attacks it directly, but this is a bit of a Hail Mary, as there is a small probability cosmologists will discover galaxies older then the presumed age of the universe, by the time this contest is finished. The current record holder is 13.2 billion lightyears away and it takes quite a bit of imagination to think a galaxy large enough to be seen at that distance could have coalesced out of the Inflationary field in 500 million years. Given that Inflation presumably expanded space to the degree it appears flat, than any gravitational sources would have to be equally stretched out, since gravity is half the equation of balance between expansion and contraction. Since it takes 225 million years for our galaxy to make one rotation, this would be like saying the time between the invention of the wheel and the production of the Model T is equivalent to driving around NYC 2 and a half times.
As for time, I've been making an argument somewhat similar to the idea that while the right brain exists in the now, the left brain registers the digital function of past, present future.
While there is only the physical present, the activity within it is constantly changing form, as it flows around and thus the process of time is the future becoming the past, as opposed to the present moving from past to future. This is actually the more fundamental process, even if the serial events are the basis of our rational thought processes. Much like we perceive the sun moving across the sky from east to west, the fundamental process is of the earth rotating west to east.
The point here is that time is an effect of motion, not the basis for it and as such it is similar to temperature. One is the scalar level of activity, while the other is the serial change caused by that activity. As such they reflect the two sides of the brain. The rational side is a clock, as it measures cause and effect, while the emotional, intuitive side is a thermostat that registers and reacts to scalar levels of energy and quantities of information carried by that energy.
In the top down, vs bottom up view, there are various juxtapositions going on here. Energy does go from past to future, as it leaves old forms and radiates into new forms. Thus it is bottom up, much as life and politics, etc. are constantly shedding old orders and organisms and moving on to new life and subsequent forms. Meanwhile the forms move from future to past, as they coalesce out of energy and continue to accumulate more, until reaching a peak and radiating it away again. Whether it is an individual life being born, growing up and then old and dying, or a day dawning, warming up as the sun passes over head, then cooling down and fading away, as the sun moves on to the next day.
The point here is that everything is ultimately composed of energy and so it is the constant. That which is present. Any perceptible change is the configurations and they go future to past. Even though we view past events as cause for future ones, this is based on examination of prior events. The physical reality is that total input into any event cannot be known prior to its occurrence, since input does travel from opposite directions at the speed of light. Thus total cause for any event is in the future, until it occurs, then the effect, the event, recedes into the past.
Since time is an effect of motion, there cannot be a dimensionless point in time, as that would freeze the motion creating the effect of time. Basically like taking a picture with the shutter speed set at zero. Without that concept of a dimensionless point in time, any object, whether subatomic particle or automobile, cannot be logically separated from its context, as it has no absolute position.
This goes a long way towards solving many quantum issues. If time is an effect of collapsing future probabilities into past circumstances, not a fundamental dimension or flow from past to future, there is no need for multiworlds to explain the relationship between deterministic principles and fundamental probabilities.
I don't know how resistant those judging this contest will be to ideas which question current models, but if enough of us "start protesting," maybe they might take notice.
Hello Jonathan! I haven't read your paper yet but definitely will soon. I had hoped to participate in this year's contest but other things got in the way. In any case, I'm replying because I am very interested in the Azimuth Code Project after reading about it, but the forum link where would-be contributors are told to sign up doesn't seem to work. So if you could let me know some other way to signal interest I'll do so. Good to be in contact with you again, Owen
Hi Owen,
Great to hear from you! I just sent an e-mail to John Baez recommending he approve you for Azimuth forum membership. Follow the link here to get a MathForge account. Then follow the rest of instructions on this page, from step 3 on. Good Luck!
I'll come back here with more detailed instructions on the morrow, if you need them.
All the Best,
Jonathan
Wow! Thanks John..
I'll have to read your detailed comments on the morrow. A bit too bleary-eyed right now. But I appreciate the time taken to read and to share your thoughts. I shall give them some consideration when I am again awake.
All the best,
Jonathan
Thank you very much John Merryman!
I found your comments engaging, and many of them were right on. Yes energy (as radiation) expands, while mass contracts. That is a wonderful dichotomy, to which I alluded but did not make explicit. One must be careful, however, to say - as radiation - because some folks are quite adamant that mass-energy and radiant energy are the same.
I like what you have to say on left-right and top-down vs bottom-up processes. It's interesting to note, though, that the bottom-up story is normally associated with sub-atomic particles linking up into nuclei, then atoms, molecules, and so on. Your comments about linear time vs timeless perception is dead on. That is precisely what creates the 'digital' perspective.
I have a friend Evan Pritchard who wrote a book called "No Word for Time," speaking about the traditional Algonquins. Evan's Mic Mac Elder friend Albert talks about clock time as White Man's craziness. Is he wrong? They argue that things take as long as they take. And we call it Turing's theorem. In any case; I'll be sure to take in your essay.
All the Best,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
Readable and enjoyable. It covered the universe of science in a way that will make others think they may want to join it.
I think you had a very good time in Paris!
Don Limuti
Jonathan,
Thanks. When I look back over what I write, it always seems I could have done a better job of explaining myself, but I only do this for entertainment, so time is limited. I might live in the here and now, but the people around me are more goal oriented. The irony is that I probably spend more time actually considering the nature of goals in general.
You mention that the bottom up view is "normally associated with sub-atomic particles linking up into nuclei, then atoms, molecules, and so on," but when you consider it, that's actually the top down version of what it thinks the bottom up view is. It is focused on the singular units and then how they interact in ever more complex configurations. A truly bottom up view would be more contextual, than object oriented. We understand how components add up to larger wholes, but keep thinking the essence must be in the component parts, not that there is a wholeness to the larger picture. Consider the idea that 1+1=2; If you actually added two things together, there would only be one larger unit. When two bodies are gravitationally attracted to each other, we think of it is two gravity fields pulling on each other, but the reality is that it's one gravity field pulling the two objects together. Same for magnets. When they snap together, there is just one magnetic polarity.
The problem is that we confuse one with oneness. Unit with unity. A unit actually has very distinct divisions between inside and outside, while unity is about connection. It's what's wrong with monotheism. Originally polytheism was what we would call memes today. Basic concepts which everyone could visualize, from tribes to celebrations, to sex, to war, to celestial objects, etc. While these became narratively anthropomorphized, there also emerged a necessary sense of connection that was essentially pantheism, but the institutionalizing need condensed it into a unit. One God. The problem though, is that the universal state of the absolute is basis, not apex. While the polytheistic deities were idealizations of universal concepts, the absolute isn't an ideal, but an essence. So a spiritual absolute wouldn't be an ideal from which we fell, but the essence from which we rise. The proper metaphor would be the child, not the adult. Age simply tempers this primal awareness. Invariably to the point it is broken down and replaced by the next generation. Thus awareness resets itself.
Considering the Native American, as well as the eastern view, the idea of a God as universal spirit, being something separate from the process of life is utterly ridiculous. Even how we treat it in fact, as an idealized goal, is nonsense. Goals are subjective. As the old saying goes; Perfect is enemy of the good. Consider in everyday life, if you sought ideal goals, nothing would fulfill them, since everything has minor flaws and is transitory to boot. The reality is a constant juggling of objectives.
We are taught that good and bad is a primal conflict, but it is actually primordial binary code. Life is attracted to the beneficial and repelled by the detrimental. Even amoebae make this distinction. We are just very complex manifestations of this process, much like a computer is composed of enormous numbers of binary switches. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken, yet there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins. They are all just one unitary process of creation and consumption. Between black and white are not just shades of grey, but all the colors of the spectrum.
Morality is a complex code, similar to language, which groups evolve in order to function as a larger unit. Thus traditions that might be deeply rooted, could seem silly to an outside observer. To the extent we are all branches of a larger organism, there is a strong tendency to push out/expand in different directions.
Actually my mind is starting to go in several directions and it's getting way past bedtime, so I let it go at that and try to sum up some other time....
Regards, John
Thanks Don!
I'm glad you enjoyed my essay. I hope it gets people to think, as that is its real purpose.
If by 'a very good time in Paris' you are suggesting I had the pleasure of a lot of fun lectures and conversations at FFP11, that are fascinating to people who love Physics but didn't get to that excellent conference, then I agree; I had a great time. It was both educational and fun for me. Plus; they even let me talk, which is something I do well - at least for prepared lectures.
I hope you have a very good time, wherever you are.
All the Best,
Jonathan
Jonathan,
I guess I don't have much to add, without starting the thought process over again and taking it in a slightly different direction. We run into this dichotomy of motivating energy and defining information in every aspect of life and reality. It's a relationship that would go a long way toward explaining what is going on in the Middle east, with top down structures breaking down under the pressure of the energy they try to suppress, yet whatever happens that social pressure will eventually coalesce into some form, hopefully more flexible, but still subject to the same pressure that invariably builds up between static form and dynamic energy, for better or worse.
Much as we test the limits of current physical models.
Johnathan
Thanks for your essay.
What do you mean by radiation expands and matter contracts ?
It makes me think of the negative pressure hypothesis at the start of inflation.
Can you be a bit more explicit?
Andy
OK Andrew,
Thanks for coming by. The comment you refer to is my response to John Merryman's comment. One must click the tab that say 'view entire post' in John's Feb. 14 comment to actually see it, though.
John Merryman said:
Now consider your point about everything being energy. This is true, but energy expands! What is the balance? Mass contracts. Energy is analog, while mass is digital. Consider light. It expands out as a field effect, waves, if you prefer, but when we measure it in relation to a physical detector, it has collapsed to a definable unit, a photon.
And I comment:
All energy tends toward motion, rather than stasis. As I say in my essay, it is motive, and to some extent non-local. Any concentration of energy tends to disperse over time, if it is unconstrained. According to Frank Lambert, this tendency is the basic mechanism of all 2nd law entropy.
John's comment was that while he agrees energy tends to expand, the mass-bearing aspect of matter causes a contraction, which draws in matter in the surrounding space. So there is an assertion there that mass-energy exerts a force in the reverse direction of radiant energy emanating from the same point.
This question is definitely connected to the negative pressure hypothesis in inflation, and with the predicted vacuum energy and observed dark energy discrepancy. I've often wondered if the expanding and contracting force once pointed in the same direction, and if the fabric of space was perhaps turned inside out, at the time of decoupling.
Much food for thought with that.
Regards,
Jonathan
Zeilinger and Christian,......have made a beautiful rational work, why you don't respect these deterministic roads?
Steve
Hello Jonathan,
I enjoyed your essay and particularly liked the sections regarding Dr. Taylor, "Instead, the energy of everything blended together," and the notes about how children think.
My essay also gives a different view of how energies could interact.
Good luck to you!
Joseph Markell
Jonathan
I greatly enjoyed your essay, thank you. I both agreed with almost all you said, and applaud your writing style. Your 'throwaway' line on universe recycling was interesting, as I recently archived a pre-print paper on Phil's viXra site which actually derives that very thing as a logical conclusion of the discrete field model (DFM) I discuss in my essay, which I hope you'll find a chance to read. http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/803
The concept outlined in the essay is both unbelievably simple yet initially a great test of cognitive powers in handling multiple variables, only about one in 5 seem able to achieve it, but I suspect you will, (if you don't try to just 'scan' it). It's also partly because it deviates from mainstream assumptions that most trained physicists find it hard to follow. If you can't find the link to the short recycling (etc.) paper on the string and would like it just ask. I'd also greatly value any comments.
But back to yours, thank you for the very refreshing read, worth a good score, and I wish you luck, both in the results and your aspirations.
Peter
Jonathan,
"While it is nice to realize that nature is unified, it is important to acknowledge that Physics is the study of observable reality and its causes, rather than an open-ended exploration of realities which cannot be observed"
Definitely one can argue reality is both and you do it well.
Are you describing a reality that is observed when you say it could be either discrete or analogue?
My reality is independent of observers, though I must say I use model views to support it as analogue.
I would be interested in how convincing others think my argument is.
Jim Hoover
Your view close to Penrouse http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/946
Jonathan,
I'm interested in the Azimuth discussion on the Muller paper w.r.t inclination orbit instead of eccentricity. I don't seem to be able to access it very easily, could you supply a direct link for me please?
In addition, I have some new thoughts and insights which should be illuminating. See my essay comments for more info.
Cheers,
Alan