Quantum Gravity’s Time Problem(quantamagazine.org)
quantamagazine.org
Quantum Gravity’s Time Problem
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161201-quantum-gravitys-time-problem/
69 comments
> We assume that light speed is a constant, but we also know that speed is measured as distance/time.
Correct. However, the crucial part that is missing from your thought process is that: 1) light can only travel in a "straight" line, and 2) "straight" lines are defined by the spacetime metric.
As a lower-dimensional analogy, think of what a "straight" line means on the surface of a sphere[1]. The shortest path between two points is, by definition, a "straight" line, but if the space itself that the path is embedded in is curved, then when viewed from a higher dimension (i.e. on the surface of the sphere it's straight for you, but if you were in space) it would appear curved.
The analogy fails when you attempt to think about it in higher dimensions, since humans have a very difficult time perceiving anything greater than the standard 3+1 spatial & time dimensions. But the math still holds.
Light will always travel in a straight line, it just so happens that gravity redefines what "straight" actually means[2].
1. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GreatCircle.html 2. Explanation simplified for clarity.
Correct. However, the crucial part that is missing from your thought process is that: 1) light can only travel in a "straight" line, and 2) "straight" lines are defined by the spacetime metric.
As a lower-dimensional analogy, think of what a "straight" line means on the surface of a sphere[1]. The shortest path between two points is, by definition, a "straight" line, but if the space itself that the path is embedded in is curved, then when viewed from a higher dimension (i.e. on the surface of the sphere it's straight for you, but if you were in space) it would appear curved.
The analogy fails when you attempt to think about it in higher dimensions, since humans have a very difficult time perceiving anything greater than the standard 3+1 spatial & time dimensions. But the math still holds.
Light will always travel in a straight line, it just so happens that gravity redefines what "straight" actually means[2].
1. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GreatCircle.html 2. Explanation simplified for clarity.
Said another way - light follows the shortest path between two points. In flat spacetime, that is a line. In curved spacetime, it may be some other path - like a path traced by an ant walking on a sphere. These paths are called geodesics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesics_in_general_relativit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesics_in_general_relativit...
Gravity can stretch spacetime to make the distance light has to travel longer than in an unaltered "flat" universe. But can it also shrink, causing a photon to arrive at a destination in a shorter time? And I don't mean a wormhole, which requires tearing in a topological sense.
I'm also not a physicist, but as far as I understood special relativity and also according to this [1] Quora answer, the speed of light is same in every frame of reference, so the universe compensates variations in speed by dilating time. This is also consistent with Maxwell's equations [2].
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-does-time-dilation-occur-And-why-d... [2] https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2605
[1] https://www.quora.com/Why-does-time-dilation-occur-And-why-d... [2] https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=2605
'Does the distance moved change relative to the proximity to mass'
Yes, length contraction happens alongside time dilation. If I travel towards you, the distance between us shrinks in my frame of reference.
Yes, length contraction happens alongside time dilation. If I travel towards you, the distance between us shrinks in my frame of reference.
It's constant within a given frame of reference.
No, the speed of light is the same in ALL inertial frames of reference. This is the crucial postulate from which all special relativity comes as a consequence.
Although I think your comment is clearer... I think he's saying "within any given frame of reference", which is the same.
As you say:
The speed of light measured within ALL inertial (non-accelerated eg by GRAVITY!) frames of reference.
As you say:
The speed of light measured within ALL inertial (non-accelerated eg by GRAVITY!) frames of reference.
SR is the model of fixed continuous space-time (and the "inertial frames of reference" are defined only in such model). Thus the SR is applicable to the reality only as much as the real space-time can be approximated by such a model. That approximation is pretty good usually, except at the very large scales (the non-fixed, expanding, nature of the real space-time starts to show more than negligible deviation from the SR model) and at the very low scales where the non-continuous nature of the real space-time starts to play a role.
>“anti-de Sitter” (AdS) space. In these warped worlds, spatial increments get shorter and shorter as you move out from the center.
and that sounds like the metric is p-adic there. While our typical Cartesian coordinates express the metric naturally produced by the real numbers, at large scale the world may have different metric. Our 46B ly radius visible Universe's Schwarzschild radius is about 10B ly, so if we go about 160B ly beyond the visible Universe border - we "can" do it as otherwise the Earth would be the "center of Creation" - we will have the 200B ly radius Universe which is inside its own Schwarzschild radius equal to those 200B ly - so our visible 46B ly radius Universe is basically inside that large black hole and at that scale the space seems to be AdS.
>“anti-de Sitter” (AdS) space. In these warped worlds, spatial increments get shorter and shorter as you move out from the center.
and that sounds like the metric is p-adic there. While our typical Cartesian coordinates express the metric naturally produced by the real numbers, at large scale the world may have different metric. Our 46B ly radius visible Universe's Schwarzschild radius is about 10B ly, so if we go about 160B ly beyond the visible Universe border - we "can" do it as otherwise the Earth would be the "center of Creation" - we will have the 200B ly radius Universe which is inside its own Schwarzschild radius equal to those 200B ly - so our visible 46B ly radius Universe is basically inside that large black hole and at that scale the space seems to be AdS.
So, really it isn't a universal constant, then? I guess the makes sense.
Sub question - if photons are light particles, moving at the speed of light, then do they actually experience time dilation themselves? i.e. from the frame of reference of the photon, is the local time for the photon ticking away in one frame, while the outside world appears to move much much faster? Or, relative to us is time on the photon moving very slowly?
Sub question - if photons are light particles, moving at the speed of light, then do they actually experience time dilation themselves? i.e. from the frame of reference of the photon, is the local time for the photon ticking away in one frame, while the outside world appears to move much much faster? Or, relative to us is time on the photon moving very slowly?
It is a universal constant. See above.
The photon travels at the speed of light c. If you look at the expression for the time dilation, you will see that it tends to infinity as v approaches c. Remember that this relates the time experienced between two frames moving relative to each other at a constant velocity v. However the fact is that the expression fails when v=c, since you have a division by zero. This reflects the fact that it is impossible to do a Lorentz boost that relates two frames moving relative to each other at c. This in turn means concept of time dilation in an object moving at the speed of light, such as a photon, is meaningless. There is no such thing as the time experienced from the point of view of the photon.
I realise I probably wasn't very clear, but it's difficult to lay it all out in a small paragraph.
The photon travels at the speed of light c. If you look at the expression for the time dilation, you will see that it tends to infinity as v approaches c. Remember that this relates the time experienced between two frames moving relative to each other at a constant velocity v. However the fact is that the expression fails when v=c, since you have a division by zero. This reflects the fact that it is impossible to do a Lorentz boost that relates two frames moving relative to each other at c. This in turn means concept of time dilation in an object moving at the speed of light, such as a photon, is meaningless. There is no such thing as the time experienced from the point of view of the photon.
I realise I probably wasn't very clear, but it's difficult to lay it all out in a small paragraph.
That is actually a great explanation, thanks. So, photons don't experience time? Does that mean that they don't experience entropy, either? I.e. They don't lose any energy in transit, since to them "transit" is instantaneous.
Another question this raises for me is that if photons move in a timeless state between 2 points, what accounts for the period of their oscillation in the particle/wave duality? If they are tracing the fastest path through spacetime, yet to them, the time dimension is non existent, how do they have wave characteristics?
Another question this raises for me is that if photons move in a timeless state between 2 points, what accounts for the period of their oscillation in the particle/wave duality? If they are tracing the fastest path through spacetime, yet to them, the time dimension is non existent, how do they have wave characteristics?
I'm on mobile and not a physicist but the key is the observer. Photons don't observe anything.
We observe them since we observe time and they do have energy changes that we observe (I believe this is how colors and red shift work).
We observe them since we observe time and they do have energy changes that we observe (I believe this is how colors and red shift work).
The speed of light does not change for each given reference frame, i.e. it is constant. However, space and time are observed differently depending on a given reference frame.
With regards to your second question, photons experience no time whatsoever. From the photon's perspective, they travel the universe from the point of emission to the point of absorption instantly.
If you want to understand this, I highly suggest watching this video explaining reference frames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDOqiqBUQY
And this playlist of the excellent PBS Space Time series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko&list=PLsPUh22kYm...
With regards to your second question, photons experience no time whatsoever. From the photon's perspective, they travel the universe from the point of emission to the point of absorption instantly.
If you want to understand this, I highly suggest watching this video explaining reference frames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRDOqiqBUQY
And this playlist of the excellent PBS Space Time series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YycAzdtUIko&list=PLsPUh22kYm...
Actually for a photon time is so dilated, it does not exists anymore. From its perspective everything "happens" at the same "time". There are quite a few answers for this :
https://www.quora.com/Does-a-photon-experience-time
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2slx5n/how_is_i...
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2t8qr1/do_light...
https://www.quora.com/Does-a-photon-experience-time
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2slx5n/how_is_i...
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2t8qr1/do_light...
This is exactly wrong. Light speed is constant in all frames
What is the speed of light in a photon's frame of reference?
Same as any other, however. A photon has a very distorted view of distance.
Play around with this: http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
Play around with this: http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
There is a little bit of geometry and group theory jargon here in my description of 'c' in General Relativity, but no equations:
The plane tangent to the surface of the ball in this diagram is a tangent space.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Im...
A metric on a space determines lengths (both spatial lengths and time durations).
The geometry of spacetime induces the Minkowski metric on tangent spaces.
At every point in a Minkowski space lengths are invariant under the Poincaré isometry group, which means that lengths stay the same under any or all of three spatial translations along orthogonal axes, three rotations about these axes, three Lorentz boosts, and one time translation.
There is one free parameter in the Poincaré group, which is "c", which physically corresponds to a particle with zero invariant mass. Photons are expected to have zero invariant mass, and experiment sets a very very very small upper bound on their mass.
Observers in the same tangent space as a photon will measure it as massless and moving at 'c'.
Minkowski space is flat spacetime, and in flat spacetime each tangent space covers the whole spacetime; they overlap completely.
As you add curvature^2 to the geometry of spacetime, the tangent spaces shrink and are oriented to each other at different angles.
Observers in one tangent space measuring a photon in another tangent space may not agree on its speed. In fact, in General Relativity, it is mostly forbidden to talk about the relative velocities of objects in other tangent spaces -- that's a dramatic departure from Special Relativity, but then SR is the theory of Minkowski space, where all tangent spaces cover the same region of spacetime, and so they are indistinguishable.
Spacetime curvature around us is pretty gentle, so within a small laboratory test apparatus everything is in the same tangent space or so close to it that differences aren't detectable. We have excellent and readily reproduced data on the speed of light in such setups.
The Poincaré isometry group is a subgroup of the group theory of the Standard Model. All the scatterings allowed under the Standard Model are in a region of spacetime where curvature doesn't matter, and we have many exabytes of evidence supporting the Standard Model in terrestrial experiments, in experimental systems elsewhere in the solar system, and in astronomical observations. Indeed, we can use the repeatability of the Standard Model and its built-in Poincaré invariance to measure spacetime curvature, and we do so with GNSS systems like GPS.
A violation of Poincaré invariance would produce different behaviours in microscopic systems, and so far they have not been detected. The Lorentz group is a subgroup of the Poincaré group, and there have been many tests specifically probing for violations of Lorentz invariance near us and in distant parts of the observable universe, and as of today none have been found after a century of trying.
So unless there is a low energy breakdown of the Standard Model, we can be pretty confident that the photon is a massless particle and moves at 'c' for all observers close to the photon.
The plane tangent to the surface of the ball in this diagram is a tangent space.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/Im...
A metric on a space determines lengths (both spatial lengths and time durations).
The geometry of spacetime induces the Minkowski metric on tangent spaces.
At every point in a Minkowski space lengths are invariant under the Poincaré isometry group, which means that lengths stay the same under any or all of three spatial translations along orthogonal axes, three rotations about these axes, three Lorentz boosts, and one time translation.
There is one free parameter in the Poincaré group, which is "c", which physically corresponds to a particle with zero invariant mass. Photons are expected to have zero invariant mass, and experiment sets a very very very small upper bound on their mass.
Observers in the same tangent space as a photon will measure it as massless and moving at 'c'.
Minkowski space is flat spacetime, and in flat spacetime each tangent space covers the whole spacetime; they overlap completely.
As you add curvature^2 to the geometry of spacetime, the tangent spaces shrink and are oriented to each other at different angles.
Observers in one tangent space measuring a photon in another tangent space may not agree on its speed. In fact, in General Relativity, it is mostly forbidden to talk about the relative velocities of objects in other tangent spaces -- that's a dramatic departure from Special Relativity, but then SR is the theory of Minkowski space, where all tangent spaces cover the same region of spacetime, and so they are indistinguishable.
Spacetime curvature around us is pretty gentle, so within a small laboratory test apparatus everything is in the same tangent space or so close to it that differences aren't detectable. We have excellent and readily reproduced data on the speed of light in such setups.
The Poincaré isometry group is a subgroup of the group theory of the Standard Model. All the scatterings allowed under the Standard Model are in a region of spacetime where curvature doesn't matter, and we have many exabytes of evidence supporting the Standard Model in terrestrial experiments, in experimental systems elsewhere in the solar system, and in astronomical observations. Indeed, we can use the repeatability of the Standard Model and its built-in Poincaré invariance to measure spacetime curvature, and we do so with GNSS systems like GPS.
A violation of Poincaré invariance would produce different behaviours in microscopic systems, and so far they have not been detected. The Lorentz group is a subgroup of the Poincaré group, and there have been many tests specifically probing for violations of Lorentz invariance near us and in distant parts of the observable universe, and as of today none have been found after a century of trying.
So unless there is a low energy breakdown of the Standard Model, we can be pretty confident that the photon is a massless particle and moves at 'c' for all observers close to the photon.
> "The whole state of system-plus-clock doesn’t change in time"
How is this different from the classical view of the universe as deterministic? In a Newtonian universe, all future states can be determined from the current state, so the universe can be seen as a "frozen" 4-dimensional object.
How is this different from the classical view of the universe as deterministic? In a Newtonian universe, all future states can be determined from the current state, so the universe can be seen as a "frozen" 4-dimensional object.
The article's a bit scattered but its central theme seems to be the Problem of Time.
There's a wikipedia article on that, of course, and it's not so bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_time
The structure of the the paragraph you quoted and the one following it is similar to the first two long paragraphs under the "Proposed solutions to the problem of time" section of the wikipedia article.
There is a bit more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_quantum_gravity#The_...
and a technical overview in the first section of https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2157
I wrote "seems", because I found it hard to focus on an article whose second paragraph is a grotesque of General Relativity and in subsequent paragraphs brings in a not especially clearly related set of links to the author's previous articles on the recent Verlinde paper on emergent gravity and the amplituhedron, among others. :-(
There's a wikipedia article on that, of course, and it's not so bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_time
The structure of the the paragraph you quoted and the one following it is similar to the first two long paragraphs under the "Proposed solutions to the problem of time" section of the wikipedia article.
There is a bit more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_quantum_gravity#The_...
and a technical overview in the first section of https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.2157
I wrote "seems", because I found it hard to focus on an article whose second paragraph is a grotesque of General Relativity and in subsequent paragraphs brings in a not especially clearly related set of links to the author's previous articles on the recent Verlinde paper on emergent gravity and the amplituhedron, among others. :-(
The frozen 4 dimensional object creates a projection of the other dimensions, including time and relative time. Time is hen a subsystem within the system.
Their analogy, aptly for HN, is that of computer code which is in one dimension interpreted amd executed linearly, being able to project something like a 3D game. Think something like minecraft's source code being interpreted and creating an infinite procedurally generated world that constantly evolves with an in game timer despite the source code still being static. Quantum mechanics, the mechanics governing the source code could still make it timeless and indeterministic, but output of the code (the projection), is still bound by the in game physics and timer much like time in general relativity.
Their analogy, aptly for HN, is that of computer code which is in one dimension interpreted amd executed linearly, being able to project something like a 3D game. Think something like minecraft's source code being interpreted and creating an infinite procedurally generated world that constantly evolves with an in game timer despite the source code still being static. Quantum mechanics, the mechanics governing the source code could still make it timeless and indeterministic, but output of the code (the projection), is still bound by the in game physics and timer much like time in general relativity.
But is their proposal that, like Minecraft, we can detect properties of the background execution through apparent non-determinism (or other mechanism)?
Cause Minecraft actually has two detectable, distinct notions of time: a game tick and update ordering of the underlying computation.
Minecraft can even be viewed as having quantum effects caused by a universal nonlocal variable, Bohmian mechanics styles, with the apparent non-determinism resulting from that non-local hidden variable interacting woth the update engine. (The hidden variable is the ordering of the updates in real time rather than MC time.)
I always thought we should teach physics with Minecraft, but the engine sucks too much for me to seriously recommend it.
Ed:
Imgur album on detecting MC update ordering via redstone; pictures somehow got out of order.
http://imgur.com/a/e9YKi
Cause Minecraft actually has two detectable, distinct notions of time: a game tick and update ordering of the underlying computation.
Minecraft can even be viewed as having quantum effects caused by a universal nonlocal variable, Bohmian mechanics styles, with the apparent non-determinism resulting from that non-local hidden variable interacting woth the update engine. (The hidden variable is the ordering of the updates in real time rather than MC time.)
I always thought we should teach physics with Minecraft, but the engine sucks too much for me to seriously recommend it.
Ed:
Imgur album on detecting MC update ordering via redstone; pictures somehow got out of order.
http://imgur.com/a/e9YKi
Well, it's similar, except in this case the universe wouldn't have to be deterministic. As far as I can tell there's no law saying you can't have two clocks, where observers entangled with either observe a different sequence of events.
I think Leonard Susskind touched this point in one of the theoretical minimum lectures [1] but I really can not tell which one. While we can quite easily imagine adding and removing space dimensions, nobody ever figured out what it would mean to have more than one time dimension.
I think he also talked about time traveling in this context - you can go back and forth in space because there is more than one space dimension and so you can turn around and walk the other direction. Unless you instantaneously flip around that is nothing you can do with just one dimension like our one time dimension.
But those things aside, the order of spatially separated events is not in general well defined if you take general relativity into account. There is a causal ordering all observers agree on but that still allows some observers to see some events in one order or another.
I skimmed the papers linked in the article but they are quite a bit above what I can immediately grasp. But one thing I noticed was that they talked a lot about observable changes, so now I am wondering whether the entire system they are talking about is really static or whether we are just unable to observe the evolution of the entire system?
If it is really static like the block universe, then I have not the slightest idea of how two subsystems can experience time if you think of one as a clock and the other as an observer watching the clock. In case of the block universe I can totally understand how everything is deterministic and all times exist in parallel, but I never understood what mechanism picks out the slice that is my or your now.
[1] http://theoreticalminimum.com
I think he also talked about time traveling in this context - you can go back and forth in space because there is more than one space dimension and so you can turn around and walk the other direction. Unless you instantaneously flip around that is nothing you can do with just one dimension like our one time dimension.
But those things aside, the order of spatially separated events is not in general well defined if you take general relativity into account. There is a causal ordering all observers agree on but that still allows some observers to see some events in one order or another.
I skimmed the papers linked in the article but they are quite a bit above what I can immediately grasp. But one thing I noticed was that they talked a lot about observable changes, so now I am wondering whether the entire system they are talking about is really static or whether we are just unable to observe the evolution of the entire system?
If it is really static like the block universe, then I have not the slightest idea of how two subsystems can experience time if you think of one as a clock and the other as an observer watching the clock. In case of the block universe I can totally understand how everything is deterministic and all times exist in parallel, but I never understood what mechanism picks out the slice that is my or your now.
[1] http://theoreticalminimum.com
Reading this made me think of the question of whether our universe is actually a simulation.
The universe as a simulation is one of those ideas that sound interesting at first but are actually pretty useless the longer you think about them. There is for example also solipsism, the idea that only you exist and the rest of the world is just in your mind, or Last Thursdayism, the idea that the world came into existence last Thursday with all our minds filled with fake memories of the time before last Thursday.
Those ideas put you - if you believe in them - in a spot where you can learn nothing about the world. There is nothing that allows you, even in principle, to figure out if there was a universe before last Thursday or if there is a world outside of your mind. There is not much more that would allow you to figure out whether the universe is a simulation or not.
Many people talking about that idea suggest to look for indicators of limited computing resources, rounding error or whatnot. But that is totally misguided in my opinion because it presupposes that you know what at least one of the two options, the universe or a simulation of it, looks like.
Who is to say that the laws of physics of the universe do not look like they are using floating numbers? Who is to say that a simulation of a universe may have to deal with limited resources? The outside world could be so foreign to us, time, space and laws of physics may not even be a thing there. Realistically the only way to distinguish between a real universe and simulation would be if the owner of the simulation told you in a pretty obvious way like with small serial numbers printed on all the electrons.
I kind of understand that people don't like the idea of not even seriously considering a substantial class of ideas that are not in conflict with what we see and that could therefore actually be correct. It also seems not very satisfying to throw some probabilities at them, last Thursday, unlikely, a simulation, totally reasonable thing to do, pretty likely. In the end, if it is not falsifiable, just ignore it and have one fewer things to worry about.
Those ideas put you - if you believe in them - in a spot where you can learn nothing about the world. There is nothing that allows you, even in principle, to figure out if there was a universe before last Thursday or if there is a world outside of your mind. There is not much more that would allow you to figure out whether the universe is a simulation or not.
Many people talking about that idea suggest to look for indicators of limited computing resources, rounding error or whatnot. But that is totally misguided in my opinion because it presupposes that you know what at least one of the two options, the universe or a simulation of it, looks like.
Who is to say that the laws of physics of the universe do not look like they are using floating numbers? Who is to say that a simulation of a universe may have to deal with limited resources? The outside world could be so foreign to us, time, space and laws of physics may not even be a thing there. Realistically the only way to distinguish between a real universe and simulation would be if the owner of the simulation told you in a pretty obvious way like with small serial numbers printed on all the electrons.
I kind of understand that people don't like the idea of not even seriously considering a substantial class of ideas that are not in conflict with what we see and that could therefore actually be correct. It also seems not very satisfying to throw some probabilities at them, last Thursday, unlikely, a simulation, totally reasonable thing to do, pretty likely. In the end, if it is not falsifiable, just ignore it and have one fewer things to worry about.
I don't think universe as a simulation is epistemologically equivalent to solipsism or this "Last Thursdayism" thing (love the name, by the way).
Solipsism is meaningless. What it means to say that there is nothing outside of your mind? Surely you can't predict or control what is going to happen to your experience, so how can you say that everything is "inside" your mind? what that even means? And if you are a solipsist and wanted to predict what is going to happen next, what you should be doing?
You should start to associate causation to patterns in your experience, and observe carefully that patterns. Those patterns behaviour are not decided by you, so, by definition, they are outside your mind.
"Last Thursdayism" have the same problem that all the religions: OK, maybe it's true, but.. why do you choose Thursday, why not Monday? why not one minute ago? It's totally arbitrary.
Simulation argument has serious experimental issues, but I would not discard it yet. Maybe we can think of something.
Solipsism is meaningless. What it means to say that there is nothing outside of your mind? Surely you can't predict or control what is going to happen to your experience, so how can you say that everything is "inside" your mind? what that even means? And if you are a solipsist and wanted to predict what is going to happen next, what you should be doing?
You should start to associate causation to patterns in your experience, and observe carefully that patterns. Those patterns behaviour are not decided by you, so, by definition, they are outside your mind.
"Last Thursdayism" have the same problem that all the religions: OK, maybe it's true, but.. why do you choose Thursday, why not Monday? why not one minute ago? It's totally arbitrary.
Simulation argument has serious experimental issues, but I would not discard it yet. Maybe we can think of something.
I would argue that solipsism and a universe simulation are actually very close. You observe x and it might be A or B but you have no ground truth on what A or B looks like or how to distinguish them.
In case of solipsism you experience a universe around you but there seems to be nothing you could use to decide whether you are experiencing an independent outside universe through your senses or whether your mind is just hallucinating this whole outside universe.
In case of the universe simulation you experience a universe around you but you have no a priori knowledge what a real universe and what a simulation of a universe is supposed to look like, you seem to be stuck in more or less the same place as with solipsism.
You should start to associate causation to patterns in your experience, and observe carefully that patterns. Those patterns behaviour are not decided by you, so, by definition, they are outside your mind.
I think mind is probably not the right word here because it has the connotation of control, brain might be the better choice because there are things going on you can not control (ignoring whether you actually have any control to begin with). It may have not been clear from my first comment, but I was especially referring to metaphysical solipsism, denying the existence of an independent outer reality.
Simulation argument has serious experimental issues, but I would not discard it yet. Maybe we can think of something.
Personally I just don't think about it for the moment. There is surely the possibility that we make progress one way or another, but every time I try thinking about it, it leads nowhere. Maybe one day we discover the fundamental laws of physics, logical self-consistent and the only self-consistent laws of physics possible. With mathematical proof. Do we now know that our universe is real, it is after all nothing less than the only way it could ever have been?
Or did the simulator just mess with us again? We could be using inconsistent logic all day long, writing wrong mathematical proofs and be teaching them to the next generation in our universities. But just before someone realizes the error, just after we observed the contradicting consequences of our wrong reasoning, the simulator erases the relevant memory and life goes on as if nothing happened.
Unless somebody wants you to find out, you will never find out. The potential enemy in this scenario is just so powerful, you can not win.
In case of solipsism you experience a universe around you but there seems to be nothing you could use to decide whether you are experiencing an independent outside universe through your senses or whether your mind is just hallucinating this whole outside universe.
In case of the universe simulation you experience a universe around you but you have no a priori knowledge what a real universe and what a simulation of a universe is supposed to look like, you seem to be stuck in more or less the same place as with solipsism.
You should start to associate causation to patterns in your experience, and observe carefully that patterns. Those patterns behaviour are not decided by you, so, by definition, they are outside your mind.
I think mind is probably not the right word here because it has the connotation of control, brain might be the better choice because there are things going on you can not control (ignoring whether you actually have any control to begin with). It may have not been clear from my first comment, but I was especially referring to metaphysical solipsism, denying the existence of an independent outer reality.
Simulation argument has serious experimental issues, but I would not discard it yet. Maybe we can think of something.
Personally I just don't think about it for the moment. There is surely the possibility that we make progress one way or another, but every time I try thinking about it, it leads nowhere. Maybe one day we discover the fundamental laws of physics, logical self-consistent and the only self-consistent laws of physics possible. With mathematical proof. Do we now know that our universe is real, it is after all nothing less than the only way it could ever have been?
Or did the simulator just mess with us again? We could be using inconsistent logic all day long, writing wrong mathematical proofs and be teaching them to the next generation in our universities. But just before someone realizes the error, just after we observed the contradicting consequences of our wrong reasoning, the simulator erases the relevant memory and life goes on as if nothing happened.
Unless somebody wants you to find out, you will never find out. The potential enemy in this scenario is just so powerful, you can not win.
"I would argue that solipsism and a universe simulation are actually very close."
I agree with you that from the point of view of testability both are very similar, but, in my view, from the point of view of logic reasoning are almost the opposite.
Solipsism is just bad reasoning or, at most, a semantic trick: I define my mind as everything there is out there, so, obviously, everything is in my mind. But we have science, precisely, to try to understand what it is out there, and "out there" means outside of our minds.
On the other hand, you arrive to the simulation argument by deduction. That's what, testability apart, make it interesting. The reasoning is: if a simulation is possible, then, many are possible. If there are many simulations in the universe, what is more probable? to be in the universe or in a simulation?
I agree that we don't know what to do with that, but you have to recognize that it's a damn good trick of logic.
I agree with you that from the point of view of testability both are very similar, but, in my view, from the point of view of logic reasoning are almost the opposite.
Solipsism is just bad reasoning or, at most, a semantic trick: I define my mind as everything there is out there, so, obviously, everything is in my mind. But we have science, precisely, to try to understand what it is out there, and "out there" means outside of our minds.
On the other hand, you arrive to the simulation argument by deduction. That's what, testability apart, make it interesting. The reasoning is: if a simulation is possible, then, many are possible. If there are many simulations in the universe, what is more probable? to be in the universe or in a simulation?
I agree that we don't know what to do with that, but you have to recognize that it's a damn good trick of logic.
I define my mind as everything there is out there, so, obviously, everything is in my mind. But we have science, precisely, to try to understand what it is out there, and "out there" means outside of our minds.
But that is the very point of solipsism - because you are experiencing the outside world only through your senses in your mind, you are unable to decide whether the outside world even exists. The two options are 1) your body with your brain and your mind exists in the usual universe and you can learn about the universe through your senses and 2) the usual universe does not exist, only your brain or your body or something along that line actually exists and the entire universe you think exists outside of your body is just something your mind made up, your mind is simulating the universe for you.
So this is not about redefining mind to mean all the universe, it is about emptying the universe until only your body or your brain or whatever remains, dreaming or hallucinating or simulating the thing we just got rid of all day long so that you can not tell the difference.
But that is the very point of solipsism - because you are experiencing the outside world only through your senses in your mind, you are unable to decide whether the outside world even exists. The two options are 1) your body with your brain and your mind exists in the usual universe and you can learn about the universe through your senses and 2) the usual universe does not exist, only your brain or your body or something along that line actually exists and the entire universe you think exists outside of your body is just something your mind made up, your mind is simulating the universe for you.
So this is not about redefining mind to mean all the universe, it is about emptying the universe until only your body or your brain or whatever remains, dreaming or hallucinating or simulating the thing we just got rid of all day long so that you can not tell the difference.
Well, obviously, we only have access to our senses.
As I have not control through introspection to my sensorial experience, surely, there is something "out there" generating it. That something is what we (or, as we are talking about solipsism, I) are trying to understand.
What is the point of saying that, what is doing it, i's "my mind"? What have we learned doing that except to mud the issue at hand?
As I have not control through introspection to my sensorial experience, surely, there is something "out there" generating it. That something is what we (or, as we are talking about solipsism, I) are trying to understand.
What is the point of saying that, what is doing it, i's "my mind"? What have we learned doing that except to mud the issue at hand?
I am actually a bit confused, maybe it is just because English is not my first language and I am misunderstanding some nuances of what you are trying to say. So let my try it from another point of view.
I personally don't dream much or at least usually do not remember much or any of it, but in principle walking along a beach and dreaming about walking along a beach should feel pretty much the same until you realize you only dreamed the latter. So more or less identical experiences to you can have two very different origins, one is rooted in some external reality, the other one is just some kind of hallucination.
You can easily inspect the world of the real beach and at least in principle, maybe by lucid dreaming or something like that, you could also inspect the world of the dreamed up beach. If you never realized you were dreaming, both scenarios might be indistinguishable for you and form the reality you are living in, but nonetheless with very different underlying realities. Does that make sense? There is the reality you are experiencing (beach) and there is the reality that is causing your experience, which may (dreamed up beach) or may not (real beach) be the same thing.
I personally don't dream much or at least usually do not remember much or any of it, but in principle walking along a beach and dreaming about walking along a beach should feel pretty much the same until you realize you only dreamed the latter. So more or less identical experiences to you can have two very different origins, one is rooted in some external reality, the other one is just some kind of hallucination.
You can easily inspect the world of the real beach and at least in principle, maybe by lucid dreaming or something like that, you could also inspect the world of the dreamed up beach. If you never realized you were dreaming, both scenarios might be indistinguishable for you and form the reality you are living in, but nonetheless with very different underlying realities. Does that make sense? There is the reality you are experiencing (beach) and there is the reality that is causing your experience, which may (dreamed up beach) or may not (real beach) be the same thing.
"Experimental" is a key here which distinguishes the simulation hypothesis. There are two things we can do:
1. attempt to create a simulated universe 2. make predictions about our universe based on the hypotheis
I would not rule either of these out as futile.
1. attempt to create a simulated universe 2. make predictions about our universe based on the hypotheis
I would not rule either of these out as futile.
To some extend we are already simulating the universe, from the smallest scales like lattice QCD simulations because we can not analytically solve the problems to the largest scales to test or hypothesizes about the history of the universe and everything in between. But how would this help to shed any light on the problem of a [non-]simulated universe?
And as mentioned before, making predictions seems even more problematic to me. Where would you even start predicting things? Nobody has ever seen a universe and a universe simulator next to each other and could therefore say we should watch out for this or that to tell the two apart. You probably don't even have good reasons to assume that a simulation would be anything like the outside universe, our universe could be the equivalent of a Tetris level running on a phone somewhere in the real universe.
And as mentioned before, making predictions seems even more problematic to me. Where would you even start predicting things? Nobody has ever seen a universe and a universe simulator next to each other and could therefore say we should watch out for this or that to tell the two apart. You probably don't even have good reasons to assume that a simulation would be anything like the outside universe, our universe could be the equivalent of a Tetris level running on a phone somewhere in the real universe.
> Solipsism is meaningless
Not in all contexts. A healthy dose of solipsism is a good thing - in the sense of it giving us some means of defense against what one could call "reality hypnosis", which is giving too much significance to the status quo, i.e. to what is happening (at present). Reality, too, can be "meaningless", and once that has been realized, it often turns out that changing it is not that difficult.
Not in all contexts. A healthy dose of solipsism is a good thing - in the sense of it giving us some means of defense against what one could call "reality hypnosis", which is giving too much significance to the status quo, i.e. to what is happening (at present). Reality, too, can be "meaningless", and once that has been realized, it often turns out that changing it is not that difficult.
The difficulty I have with the "universe as a simulation" hypothesis is that it pre-supposes a fundamental difference between simulation and reality, which I strongly suspect is not the case. Everything we have observed about our physical reality indicates that it is 1) composed of mathematical structures and 2) it is computable.
Given these characteristics it is clear that the universe we experience could be executed by any system capable of computation [Universal Raspberry Pi if you will :)]. As such, it is highly likely (almost a certainty) that whatever more foundational reality exists outside of our experience it is very different than ours and is responsible for the computational effort that generates the universe we experience. Given that any physical system is capable of computation when properly organized one could easily imagine a higher dimensional structure that did not require an intelligent being to build it that just "happens" to compute this reality.
Would that be considered a "simulation"? Or is a simulation something that requires an intelligent being to build it? Obviously this turns into a bit of semantics.
Given these characteristics it is clear that the universe we experience could be executed by any system capable of computation [Universal Raspberry Pi if you will :)]. As such, it is highly likely (almost a certainty) that whatever more foundational reality exists outside of our experience it is very different than ours and is responsible for the computational effort that generates the universe we experience. Given that any physical system is capable of computation when properly organized one could easily imagine a higher dimensional structure that did not require an intelligent being to build it that just "happens" to compute this reality.
Would that be considered a "simulation"? Or is a simulation something that requires an intelligent being to build it? Obviously this turns into a bit of semantics.
The idea that the universe is a simulation is just a different way to express the religious impulse.
Actually its just the opposite - most folks who invoke 'the universe is a simulation' view this as a 'scientific' way of positing a creator of the universe that is not God. Rather it is a program being run on some fantastical computer.
Yes, but how does this bring us any closer to answering any of the unanswered questions in Cosmology? I assert that it doesn't.
It is man's fate to forever believe that the universe is a complex composite of his latest discovered technology.
That sounds like one of those fake papers generated by a Markov chain that sometimes gets accepted into reputable physics journals when a researcher wants to prove that modern physics has gone a bit... silly.
I just ran into an interesting theory for Gravity: Subquantum Kinetics
It's featured in Dr. Paul LaViolette's book The Secrets of Anti-gravity Propulsion, and there's a really interesting section that challenges the Standard Model in Quantum Mechanics called the Model G in Subquantum Kinetics.
The idea is that matter is born out of what's called the Ether, the origin to all energy. The positive and negative electrical energy sums a positive or negative charge with a "spin" -- which also yields positive or negative gravity.
This is a video that simulates matter being created out of the Ether:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPLNfgxD2ic
Supposedly, it's been rejected by other researchers because it goes against Einstein's theory of Relativity and the Big Bang, -- however, there's been rumors the Model G is being used by underground, black-project sites like Lockheed-Martin and Boeing (e.g. Northrop Grumman's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.)
Here's a lecture by Dr. Paul LaViolette featuring content from his book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEgGMFK-VU - (warning: audio isn't great)
It's featured in Dr. Paul LaViolette's book The Secrets of Anti-gravity Propulsion, and there's a really interesting section that challenges the Standard Model in Quantum Mechanics called the Model G in Subquantum Kinetics.
The idea is that matter is born out of what's called the Ether, the origin to all energy. The positive and negative electrical energy sums a positive or negative charge with a "spin" -- which also yields positive or negative gravity.
This is a video that simulates matter being created out of the Ether:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPLNfgxD2ic
Supposedly, it's been rejected by other researchers because it goes against Einstein's theory of Relativity and the Big Bang, -- however, there's been rumors the Model G is being used by underground, black-project sites like Lockheed-Martin and Boeing (e.g. Northrop Grumman's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.)
Here's a lecture by Dr. Paul LaViolette featuring content from his book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEgGMFK-VU - (warning: audio isn't great)
That is crackpottery, pseudoscience and conspiracy theory at 11. Forget about it if you are interested in any serious conversation about physics.
I think you're proving Dr. Paul LaViolette's point why the theory is not getting attention: emotional, knee-jerk reactions like this.
Seems like I have to agree with everything you say in order to have a conversation about physics with you.
Seems like I have to agree with everything you say in order to have a conversation about physics with you.
It has absolutely nothing to do with what I am saying, what that guy says is inconsistent with reality and probably with itself. Science is decided by experimental facts, not by opinions. But he just ignores all the things we have learned by using scientific methods in the past centuries and now know to be true.
When you search for »subquantum kinetics«, the first result on Google for me is »Subquantum Kinetics (a nontechnical summary)« [1] and this is from the first two paragraphs.
One of its distinctive features is that it begins at the subquantum level for its point of departure. By comparison, conventional physics and most alternative physics theories begin with mathematically quantified observations of physical phenomena at the quantum and macrophysical level and attempt to deduce physical theories based on those observations. Since the conventional approach must take into account numerous experimental observations, the end result is a fragmented and often contradictory set of theories which must later be sewn together with mathematical acrobatics. [...] Instead of beginning with physical observations, subquantum kinetics begins by postulating a set of well-ordered reaction processes that are proposed to take place at the subquantum level.
Let me translate that. Mainstream physics does experiments and tries to explain the results with theories using math. But the resulting math is not beautiful so I postulate some nicer math ignoring physical reality altogether. Admittedly he later mentions tuning his math until it matches reality but that doesn't provide any justification for his initial choices. Nothing what he proposes makes much sense, just have a look at this comparison chart [2] linked to from the summary.
I am not even a physicist, but I understand enough about it that I could probably rip apart most of the arguments he is trying to make, at least if they make enough sense to be actually attackable. And I would do it if I were confident that it would somehow help someone, but if you are in some way interested in physics and look at theories like subquantum kinetics without becoming skeptical, then chances are unfortunately pretty slim that tearing apart such a theory using accepted knowledge will change your mind.
[1] http://starburstfound.org/subquantum-kinetics-a-nontechnical...
[2] http://www.starburstfound.org/SQK/SQK-c.html
When you search for »subquantum kinetics«, the first result on Google for me is »Subquantum Kinetics (a nontechnical summary)« [1] and this is from the first two paragraphs.
One of its distinctive features is that it begins at the subquantum level for its point of departure. By comparison, conventional physics and most alternative physics theories begin with mathematically quantified observations of physical phenomena at the quantum and macrophysical level and attempt to deduce physical theories based on those observations. Since the conventional approach must take into account numerous experimental observations, the end result is a fragmented and often contradictory set of theories which must later be sewn together with mathematical acrobatics. [...] Instead of beginning with physical observations, subquantum kinetics begins by postulating a set of well-ordered reaction processes that are proposed to take place at the subquantum level.
Let me translate that. Mainstream physics does experiments and tries to explain the results with theories using math. But the resulting math is not beautiful so I postulate some nicer math ignoring physical reality altogether. Admittedly he later mentions tuning his math until it matches reality but that doesn't provide any justification for his initial choices. Nothing what he proposes makes much sense, just have a look at this comparison chart [2] linked to from the summary.
I am not even a physicist, but I understand enough about it that I could probably rip apart most of the arguments he is trying to make, at least if they make enough sense to be actually attackable. And I would do it if I were confident that it would somehow help someone, but if you are in some way interested in physics and look at theories like subquantum kinetics without becoming skeptical, then chances are unfortunately pretty slim that tearing apart such a theory using accepted knowledge will change your mind.
[1] http://starburstfound.org/subquantum-kinetics-a-nontechnical...
[2] http://www.starburstfound.org/SQK/SQK-c.html
You're not really proving or disproving anything. You're just complaining he's using another mathematical model. So what?
The worst part is you have no basis for any of your arguments, yet somehow you feel authorized to completely dismiss the theory altogether because it somehow offends your perspective of the world.
Either post real scientific data / material, or look up cognitive dissonance.
The worst part is you have no basis for any of your arguments, yet somehow you feel authorized to completely dismiss the theory altogether because it somehow offends your perspective of the world.
Either post real scientific data / material, or look up cognitive dissonance.
I am not going to go through all the nonsense that this guy has made up over years or decades, that is not worth the time. But if you can point to one specific idea, prediction, refutal of mainstream physics or whatever you like within his work, written in a way that can be understood by an interested layman, not longer than say 25 pages or so, then I will try to explain you why he is wrong in that instance.
Think of it this way: the Universe is continuously expanding, -- so in a way, it's like we're still experiencing the Big Bang.
So... does that mean matter is still being produced? Yes, from the Ether.
Completely agree that it does sound crazy, but I think it makes more sense than our current way of modeling the Universe. The interesting part is that it invites the possibility of spiritual connections which feels amazing to finally scientifically acknowledge.
I could be wrong, but I invite you to consider the possibility that there is more to life than we realize. I sincerely wish you the best either decision you make.
So... does that mean matter is still being produced? Yes, from the Ether.
Completely agree that it does sound crazy, but I think it makes more sense than our current way of modeling the Universe. The interesting part is that it invites the possibility of spiritual connections which feels amazing to finally scientifically acknowledge.
I could be wrong, but I invite you to consider the possibility that there is more to life than we realize. I sincerely wish you the best either decision you make.
So... does that mean matter is still being produced? Yes, from the Ether.
Where do you take this from? To the best of our knowledge the universe does not produce new matter. Space expands but that is new empty space, not space filled with some kind of matter.
Where do you take this from? To the best of our knowledge the universe does not produce new matter. Space expands but that is new empty space, not space filled with some kind of matter.
It's from the Model G theory in Subquantum Kinetics, -- and it seems more believable than a finite amount of matter being made from a single blast of energy billions of years ago.
But physics is not about believing, it's about describing reality. And when we look at our universe, we are not seeing new matter being created. If the theory actually says that new matter is created while the the universe expands and the amount is not so small that it may have escaped detection, then the theory is wrong. And not because somebody believes or says something but because the theory does not match reality.
It theoretically happens very slowly, so it probably does escape detection.
The universe is old, at least according to mainstream physics, even small changes would accumulate over billions of years and cubic lightyears. And we are good at measuring things, we famously measured the g-factor to a part in a trillion, detecting gravitational waves required detecting length changes on the order 1/1000th the diameter of a proton, 0.000000000000000001 meters. A quick search reveals that we know the energy density of the universe to better than half a percent. So what are the numbers? How much new matter is generated per unit time and volume according to the theory?
The theory is not being dismissed because it is offensive; it's being dismissed because it has all the signs of a crackpot theory and none of the signs of a legitimate one. It is trivial to tear it apart. But if someone tore it apart, using the trivial arguments, you would not believe them - you would say "oh, you're just rejecting him like everyone else", "you're part of the brainwashed mainstream".
There are thousands of arguments like this online. People who somehow got to PhDs from weird unheard of schools, went off the deep end, and publish their 'theories', which aren't developed enough to even argue against, but are written in half-intelligible, imprecise language, claim to be "ignored by the establishment", claim to solve this-and-that problem with a method that the establishment wrote off prematurely, etc, whatever. They're all the same.
This particular 'theory' (though that's not a fair word for it) scores easily over 100 on this list: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html, and so isn't even worth a person's time to look at.
A simple line of reasoning to support this:
If it was a legitimate theory, it would start with concrete statements about how it proposes the world works. Not vague, hand-waving stuff. It would start with math - lots of it. It would start with a precise explanation of how the experiments that prove an ether to be impossible missed the truth for 100 years. It would discuss examples where mainstream physics fails to predict the right result of experiment, and then show, with calculations an informed reader could follow, how it makes better ones.
The guy is telling you he's right, and you're believing him, or at least taking him seriously -- like a sucker. He's telling you "no one else is believing me, but it's because I'm being ignored unjustly", but you've skipped the more likely explanation: "no one else is believing me because what I'm saying makes no sense".
But I, who knows enough physics to parse this stuff am waiting for him to show me he's right, and he's not doing that at all. Nor is he showing anyone else, which is why he's being ignored.
It's not all your fault, though. It's way easier to spot these crackpot theories when you've a) studied legitimate ones and b) seen so many other crackpot theories that say all the same stuff.
There are thousands of arguments like this online. People who somehow got to PhDs from weird unheard of schools, went off the deep end, and publish their 'theories', which aren't developed enough to even argue against, but are written in half-intelligible, imprecise language, claim to be "ignored by the establishment", claim to solve this-and-that problem with a method that the establishment wrote off prematurely, etc, whatever. They're all the same.
This particular 'theory' (though that's not a fair word for it) scores easily over 100 on this list: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html, and so isn't even worth a person's time to look at.
A simple line of reasoning to support this:
If it was a legitimate theory, it would start with concrete statements about how it proposes the world works. Not vague, hand-waving stuff. It would start with math - lots of it. It would start with a precise explanation of how the experiments that prove an ether to be impossible missed the truth for 100 years. It would discuss examples where mainstream physics fails to predict the right result of experiment, and then show, with calculations an informed reader could follow, how it makes better ones.
The guy is telling you he's right, and you're believing him, or at least taking him seriously -- like a sucker. He's telling you "no one else is believing me, but it's because I'm being ignored unjustly", but you've skipped the more likely explanation: "no one else is believing me because what I'm saying makes no sense".
But I, who knows enough physics to parse this stuff am waiting for him to show me he's right, and he's not doing that at all. Nor is he showing anyone else, which is why he's being ignored.
It's not all your fault, though. It's way easier to spot these crackpot theories when you've a) studied legitimate ones and b) seen so many other crackpot theories that say all the same stuff.
You can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory. Your entire comment is completely baseless: "These people don't follow my school of thought, so they must be wrong!"
No offense, but using your ego to make an argument is pathetic. I'm aware the theory sounds crazy; I'm not an idiot. But I'm also not going to let my hubris dictate what I can or can't research. That's just stupid.
No offense, but using your ego to make an argument is pathetic. I'm aware the theory sounds crazy; I'm not an idiot. But I'm also not going to let my hubris dictate what I can or can't research. That's just stupid.
No, you don't understand. I'm not trying to disprove a theory.
I'm saying that the person who's writing what we're reading hasn't said anything even meaningful enough to dispute. The words they write don't have logical content as a theory. You can sort of squeeze them into statements that sound possible at a hand-waving level, but there's no scientific content. They're "not even wrong" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong).
I'm not rejecting the guy cause of hubris or because I'm obsessed with the orthodoxy or something. I'm rejecting him cause his words are meaningless garbage, according to my ability to critically analyze what he's writing. Of course it's possible that I'm too dumb to understand them, but, statistically speaking, when I can understand most of the good physics out there, I come to trust my intuition on this stuff and write off people who can't communicate an idea at even a basic level without become super vague and defending themselves by saying "no one's taking them seriously" and "everyone else missed this" instead of an actual argument.
I guess it boils down to this:
If you can't tell this guy is crazy, how would you tell that anyone is crazy? Is there anything that can be written down that you wouldn't take seriously? Maybe something like "what if the world is made of tiny lemons, in various configurations?" Well, I draw the line way higher than that, and considerably higher than where this guy is, and I can see that he's below the line with five seconds of reading, and it's no surprise at all when 5 more minutes of reading, or 30, or whatever, completely corroborates my initial instinct.
Edit: actually, it boils down to this: Your ability, cm127, to critically analyze theories and determine if they're scientifically meaningful is deficient. You don't have to believe me, of course, cause this is the internet, but I implore you to consider the possibility.
Edit 2: also, you're wrong that "you can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory" - well, almost wrong. You can use a hypothetical to argue against a theory. It's not that it's disproving. It's that the hypothetical shows you "here are some things that would probably be true if this theory was legitimate", and because those things are not true, it raises the probability (via Bayes rule) that the theory is incorrect. You are supposed to consider this, think "ah, well, that makes the theory more likely to be incorrect". That's the point of the argument.
Also, it's really disingenuous to write off a whole post as baseless without responding to the points, each of which (I would argue) is a valid criticism.
I'm not rejecting the guy cause of hubris or because I'm obsessed with the orthodoxy or something. I'm rejecting him cause his words are meaningless garbage, according to my ability to critically analyze what he's writing. Of course it's possible that I'm too dumb to understand them, but, statistically speaking, when I can understand most of the good physics out there, I come to trust my intuition on this stuff and write off people who can't communicate an idea at even a basic level without become super vague and defending themselves by saying "no one's taking them seriously" and "everyone else missed this" instead of an actual argument.
I guess it boils down to this:
If you can't tell this guy is crazy, how would you tell that anyone is crazy? Is there anything that can be written down that you wouldn't take seriously? Maybe something like "what if the world is made of tiny lemons, in various configurations?" Well, I draw the line way higher than that, and considerably higher than where this guy is, and I can see that he's below the line with five seconds of reading, and it's no surprise at all when 5 more minutes of reading, or 30, or whatever, completely corroborates my initial instinct.
Edit: actually, it boils down to this: Your ability, cm127, to critically analyze theories and determine if they're scientifically meaningful is deficient. You don't have to believe me, of course, cause this is the internet, but I implore you to consider the possibility.
Edit 2: also, you're wrong that "you can't use a hypothetical to disprove a theory" - well, almost wrong. You can use a hypothetical to argue against a theory. It's not that it's disproving. It's that the hypothetical shows you "here are some things that would probably be true if this theory was legitimate", and because those things are not true, it raises the probability (via Bayes rule) that the theory is incorrect. You are supposed to consider this, think "ah, well, that makes the theory more likely to be incorrect". That's the point of the argument.
Also, it's really disingenuous to write off a whole post as baseless without responding to the points, each of which (I would argue) is a valid criticism.
Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day...
What did Einstein use to say? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
BTW, if you can't argue logically, -- which is essentially all I'm getting from your comments: you can't talk about "science" outside of your echo chamber; it's "beneath" you, -- who cares what you think?
Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time.
Edit: the joke is all your arguments are just as rhetorical.
Edit2: you're also making an ironic comment that the theory needs more research while arguing that it shouldn't.
What did Einstein use to say? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
BTW, if you can't argue logically, -- which is essentially all I'm getting from your comments: you can't talk about "science" outside of your echo chamber; it's "beneath" you, -- who cares what you think?
Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time.
Edit: the joke is all your arguments are just as rhetorical.
Edit2: you're also making an ironic comment that the theory needs more research while arguing that it shouldn't.
Here's another form of crazy: trying to force Relativity into a unified field for over a hundred years and getting nowhere. Yeah, you'll "probably" get it one day...
I mean that statement is pure rhetorics, but anyway, you are surly aware that it took 358 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, a mathematical theorem where everyone was aware of the axioms and no experiments had to be done?
Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time.
You are really not understanding what ajkjk is trying to say. I absolutely agree with him and don't think it can be stated much clearer than he did. But maybe you can realize it yourself. I found »Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology« at Google Books [1], skimmed it a bit and now have a simple question. Which model describes our universe, Model G or Model G-2? And which experiment produced which outcome to make that decision for one and against the other model?
Maybe trying to answer this very simple question, which of the proposed equations describe our universe, will make you realize that this theory has no answers at all.
[1] https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC
I mean that statement is pure rhetorics, but anyway, you are surly aware that it took 358 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem, a mathematical theorem where everyone was aware of the axioms and no experiments had to be done?
Either drop the emotional act and think like a scientist, or quit wasting both our time.
You are really not understanding what ajkjk is trying to say. I absolutely agree with him and don't think it can be stated much clearer than he did. But maybe you can realize it yourself. I found »Subquantum Kinetics: A Systems Approach to Physics and Cosmology« at Google Books [1], skimmed it a bit and now have a simple question. Which model describes our universe, Model G or Model G-2? And which experiment produced which outcome to make that decision for one and against the other model?
Maybe trying to answer this very simple question, which of the proposed equations describe our universe, will make you realize that this theory has no answers at all.
[1] https://books.google.de/books?id=8HQJAvA1EqkC
Jesus Christ, I'm not your professor. Do your own research.
You have the skills to read about this stuff. Why do you need me?
I'm not trying to convince you to believe in anything. I just wanted to have a conversation about how anti-gravity can or can't be possible, but you're just refusing the conversation altogether. That's just so lazy...
You have the skills to read about this stuff. Why do you need me?
I'm not trying to convince you to believe in anything. I just wanted to have a conversation about how anti-gravity can or can't be possible, but you're just refusing the conversation altogether. That's just so lazy...
You are either trolling or unwilling or unable to follow simple arguments, choose whatever seems appropriate.
No, I did not say that it needs more research. I said that it's meaningless drivel. And I said that I am capable of discerning that, and that it is easy to discern. You seem not to be able to discern that, and that's unfortunate. All I can do is show you how to do it, which I have attempted.
The reason real physicists ignore this guy is because they do 'think like scientists', and they can tell -- easily -- that this stuff is, as I have said, meaningless drivel. The reasons they can easily tell this are the reasons I listed above.
The reason real physicists ignore this guy is because they do 'think like scientists', and they can tell -- easily -- that this stuff is, as I have said, meaningless drivel. The reasons they can easily tell this are the reasons I listed above.
What specifically makes the theory drivel? Exactly, what is scientifically not matching?
Take your time because I'm pretty sure you don't have the mental capacity to think for yourself. You depend on a government or an academy to think for you because you're so cognitively incompetent.
Let's take a step back and count the number of comments you're arguing without scientific explanation. You might as well be preaching about a religious deity because you're conjuring more faith than logic.
Take your time because I'm pretty sure you don't have the mental capacity to think for yourself. You depend on a government or an academy to think for you because you're so cognitively incompetent.
Let's take a step back and count the number of comments you're arguing without scientific explanation. You might as well be preaching about a religious deity because you're conjuring more faith than logic.
It's drivel because the individual sentences of the 'theory' are just .. meaningless. Here's an absolutely trivial exercise to demonstrate it: let's find a paper he wrote and see if it makes any sense. (Turns out these are hard to find, because most of his work is apparently creating websites about how great he is.)
Take a random paper I found: http://vixra.org/pdf/0910.0006v1.pdf
"It conceives subatomic particles to be Turing wave patterns that self-organize within a subquantum medium that functions as an open reaction-diffusion system."
This is meaningless. But maybe if I read on I'll find out that it's just extremely poorly written?
"Under the right conditions, the concentrations of the variable reactants of these reaction systems spontaneously self-organize into stationary reactiondiffusion wave patterns called Turing patterns, so named in recognition of Alan Turing who in 1952 was the first to point out their importance for biological morphogenesis. "
Also meaningless.
"In a three-dimensional volume we would expect that a supercritical Brusselator reaction-diffusion system would give rise to a periodic structure having a Gaussian central core surrounded by a pattern of concentric spherical shells of declining amplitude"
Gibberish.
"Etherons in this reaction system play a morphogenetic role similar to Turing's morphogens."
Gibberish
Etc.
This paper says nothing meaningful. It's not precise enough to be parsed into predictions about the universe. He'll tell you that it predicts stuff, but the words and equations don't. They don't say anything that can be unambiguously mapped to predictions, equations, or statements of any sort. I could throw all these words - etherons, Brusselators, Turing waves, etc into a random text generator, and the result would be as meaningful as his actual writing.
That or, it has content but it's so obfuscated under meaningless jargon with no meaningful explanations, no simple sentences, no ability to explain a single point lucidly, that it effectively says nothing.
Either way, there is no reason to take it seriously if it can't formulate meaningful and communicative English sentences.
Also, it's extremely weird to accuse me of depending on a government to think for me when I've generated like a dozen carefully argued rational thoughts here, including all sorts of scientific explanation. You're just.. ignoring them, and attacking me. You have to stop that.
Take a random paper I found: http://vixra.org/pdf/0910.0006v1.pdf
"It conceives subatomic particles to be Turing wave patterns that self-organize within a subquantum medium that functions as an open reaction-diffusion system."
This is meaningless. But maybe if I read on I'll find out that it's just extremely poorly written?
"Under the right conditions, the concentrations of the variable reactants of these reaction systems spontaneously self-organize into stationary reactiondiffusion wave patterns called Turing patterns, so named in recognition of Alan Turing who in 1952 was the first to point out their importance for biological morphogenesis. "
Also meaningless.
"In a three-dimensional volume we would expect that a supercritical Brusselator reaction-diffusion system would give rise to a periodic structure having a Gaussian central core surrounded by a pattern of concentric spherical shells of declining amplitude"
Gibberish.
"Etherons in this reaction system play a morphogenetic role similar to Turing's morphogens."
Gibberish
Etc.
This paper says nothing meaningful. It's not precise enough to be parsed into predictions about the universe. He'll tell you that it predicts stuff, but the words and equations don't. They don't say anything that can be unambiguously mapped to predictions, equations, or statements of any sort. I could throw all these words - etherons, Brusselators, Turing waves, etc into a random text generator, and the result would be as meaningful as his actual writing.
That or, it has content but it's so obfuscated under meaningless jargon with no meaningful explanations, no simple sentences, no ability to explain a single point lucidly, that it effectively says nothing.
Either way, there is no reason to take it seriously if it can't formulate meaningful and communicative English sentences.
Also, it's extremely weird to accuse me of depending on a government to think for me when I've generated like a dozen carefully argued rational thoughts here, including all sorts of scientific explanation. You're just.. ignoring them, and attacking me. You have to stop that.
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I don't care as much for the Big Bang, but for it to go against relativity seems a bit hard to swallow.
Yeah, no kidding... because that would also challenge the "Laws" of Thermodynamics, too: Free Energy from the Ether.
*I have to put that in quotes because it's not actually a law, right? You shouldn't go to jail for breaking it.
*I have to put that in quotes because it's not actually a law, right? You shouldn't go to jail for breaking it.
Yeah, this is insane and totally wrong.
We assume that light speed is a constant, but we also know that speed is measured as distance/time. We know that in the presence of high gravity (or proximity to very high mass), or very high speed, we experience time dilation, and that perspective and location matters WRT actual time.
So, how do we assume that light speed is constant? Does the distance moved change relative to the proximity to mass, and the time unit vary in value as well? If not, do we just assume that the lack of proximity to mass in between galaxies doesn't change the behavior of light when we say that the proximity to black holes does?