The “cold dark universe” ... was a reply to Steve .. not Jason. Sorry for the mix.
Let us you do (!) a little exercise. Here is a short list of the few concepts mentioned in your last post. Sun – light – minutes – information – visible – space- perception – distance – dimensions – configuration – activity – future – time - past – now – potential – earth - .... etc.
Let's assume (since your are not convinced) that the whole real universe is made of only ONE stuff or substance (in the metaphysical sense). So, your task is to pick one candidate “universal stuff”, from the list above or elsewhere, and choose wisely and according to the following basic requirements:
a) It has to be dynamic because it must be able to assume a wide diversity of dynamic states while remaining the same stuff of the same nature (additive under logic or any other logical operation) in order to explain the complex and evolving universe as we know it.
b) This stuff being a “substance”, is NOT an “experience” and therefore it must be something we can’t/cannot perceive directly or measure directly but that we can only/only infer from or know about as deduction from experience.
c) Since it makes everything, under a variety of forms, we most likely already know about it under one form or another and have a name for it ( pick from widely known concept/name but that is still not understood i.e. not well defined concept (see list)
Marcel,
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 04:25 GMT
Jason,
"The Creator gets it from nothingness, a something and an anti-something. But the anti-something decays very quickly into a something."
I am not an expert on the Creator; but, if I were to try to explain how the Creator creates I would say that that which the Creator creates comes from the Creator. Nothing comes from nothing.
"...But the anti-something decays very quickly into a something."
What is an anti-something?
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 04:31 GMT
James,
I got the idea from the Big Bang. Alot of energy (light) was converted into particles and anti-particles. So where are all of the antiparticles? They decayed very quickly into particles.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 04:38 GMT
Jason,
Ok, I understand what you are saying about particles. I understand the theory that light can be converted into particles of matter. But, the nothing comes from nothing point really goes to the question of: Where did the energy come from?
James
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 04:42 GMT
To anyone following this thread,
My questioning is aimed at learning how nothing becomes something. First: What is nothing? Secondingly: How does that nothing become something?
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 05:24 GMT
James,
All that energy came from God. Actually, it was Ray who suggested that energy + gravity = null. In other words, gravitational energy is negative, right? Positive energy is light (photons).
I also get the same odd symmetry with my shift photon model, but I'm not sure I know what it means.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 07:12 GMT
James,
Why does nothing have to become something? Can't the something just be an eternal timeless something. If there is no relative time other than in perception of reality, but there is just change of spatial arrangements in space, (which can be regarded as passage of absolute time) there doesn't have to be a beginning -in time- and and end -in time-.There is only space and space and space and different arrangements of stuff in space.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 08:54 GMT
That would be Present-ism that is eternal rather than Eternal-ism with a beginning and an end.
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 10:19 GMT
James, et al.
OK Perhaps nothing could originally have become something. So where do condensed matter particle condense from? And when they are 'annihilated' and disappear where does that energy go to if the law of conservation is to be met. This happens a million times a day in labs and accelerators everywhere. The definately didn't exist, then suddenly they did, then, after a few ns or far longer, they suddenly disappear again!
I'm a realist, which makes me a reasonavbly firm believer in the possibility of a ('dark energy' if you will) condensate. A form of energy potential below 'ponderable mass' or condensed matter. There is much energy for, and I've found nothing consistent against! P{lease let me know if I've missed something.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 12:24 GMT
I'm going with Georgina on this one. The equilibrium has always been unstable.
Peter,
If energy existed as a field and we could only measure those concentrates that register as particles and waves, given that reality is mostly empty space, there could be a lot of it.
As for the spirit; Maybe it's what causes the instability. We are always knocking things over and using the energy gradient.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 15:29 GMT
Peter,
you seem to be saying that there appears to be something coming from nothing, but that nothing is really a secret something. Is nothing nothing or is nothing something?
James
report post as inappropriate
PLATO replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 15:38 GMT
Simplicity and equilibrium are the requirements of fundamental space in conjunction with generally balanced attraction and repulsion. Motion has to be generally averaged in keeping with averaging/reducing gravity, then increasing inertia in conjunction/proportion therewith.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 16:29 GMT
Dark energy is the peculiar effect of the ZPE vacuum pushing galaxies apart. The Casimir effect pushes plates, in a vacuum, together. The vacuum is a quantum aether. The vacuum is made out of wave functions which display an uncanny repulsive force that is linear with distance. This is quantified as the Hubble Constant and is observable as redshift.
It might be possible to observe a time dilation effect inside of a Casimir experiment.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 16:42 GMT
Only the Creator, or perhaps a few very gifted alchemists can take nothing and create a something plus an anti-something in such a way that the anti-something is transmuted into something else. This is a power beyond that of mere mortals.
We do not know why up and down quarks are stable while other quarks are fleeting. If we understood that secret, perhaps we could call down powers beyond human understanding. From the nothingness, from the quantum aether, we would thrust our hands into the darkness. With secret powers and mystical knowledge, we would cause the aether to stir, to form a something and an anti-something. Before they can be allowed to recombine, one or both must be changed alchemically in such a way that recombination is impossible. +E + -E = 0. But only if they are of the same kind.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 18:16 GMT
Hi Georgina,
I admit that I just do not understand the timeless theories. It makes no sense to me to speak of change without time. So, let me ask you a question about this quote:
"There is only space and space and space and different arrangements of stuff in space."
Between time and space, which are the only two properties ever included in the information we receive to analyze internally in our minds, what is it when comparing the two that forms a basis for concluding that space is real and time is not? This question seems clear to me, but it may not seem clear to others with different viewpoints. Let me know if that is the case.
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 18:30 GMT
James,
The reason that timelessness doesn't make sense is because it doesn't reflect what is being observed. We observe space-time. More specifically, we observe
c = \lambda f = \lambda' f'
Photons tether everything in space-time together. The inherent property of photons is their invariant speed of light, c. All that changes is the frequency and wavelength. Since the frequency f=1/T, the clock is controlled by the frequency of light. Likewise, the wavelength of light controls space (distance) through length contraction.
It's that simple.
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 19:04 GMT
John / James
John. We can actually measure it in many ways. It's temperature: 2.7 degrees, impedance, permittivity, flux etc. etc. And light always goes through it locally at 'c'. (At the risk of upsetting Tom). There is logically no way for light to take any particular time over any fixed distance without it.
But only locally. A light pulse can't do ANY speed in Andromeda if it's only passing through the milky way, and the light from a supernova going through Andromeda will do so at 'c' and really not give a damn that some self centric unintelligent creatures in the Milky Way have decided it has to 'c' wrt them not Andromeda.
James
yes, I think you have it. Nothing is nothing if we're talking condensed matter and something if we're considering physical entities without being restricted by whether it's condensed or not. If weather forecasters did it the way we presently do they'd get it wrong all the time. What am I saying!?
The only logical? reason there ever was for stipulating the ether didn't relate to 'c' (as that's all AE ever said) was to explain constancy wrt receivers. If light changes speed entering each galaxy or 'personal' domain of any mass, the postulates of SR would be proved without removing that quality, explaining much. This could stop the looming war of the words.
Did you know some senior NASA scientists admitted they don't use SR to navigate spacecraft, as they lost some and don't want to loose any more. (Hutch, Magueijo etc.) But most won't say so publicly as they'll be targets for the witch hunt! Proff Hyes "Relativity theory and ideology" Couldn't avoid the unavoidable conclusion SR was more the latter. But it seems too few scientists have real courage. Whatever happened to the open 'scientific method' of being able to question everything!?
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 19:32 GMT
Hi James.
It is a bit too harsh to say that time is unreal- if the appearance of reality is included in what is real. The appearance of reality includes the perceptionof space-time relativity etc. Everything we generally think of as real.For some people that which is observed, the appearance, is more real than what lies unseen beneath that appearance. Some say that science works only with what can be observed so anything else is irrelevant.
However in order to have causality, non determinism and free will we can not live in a universe that fits the eternalist philosophy of everything past present and future having equal reality and having concrete non simulteiniety. It prevents there being any single order to events, everything is pre written and unchnageable.
We can invent a multiverse to give some non determinism in a fixed mechanical universe. A multiverse is unnecessary though if beneath the image of reality that we are observing there is a concrete reality without a time dimension. So everything that exists in it co-exists at a single Now. Nothing is spread over time, although nor is anything ever stationary. So the Now is a permanent transition from spatial arrangement to spatial arrangement of everything in space alone not in space-time. This transition is like Newtons absolute time which he distinguished from relative time, saying it was not affected by events in the world.
Absolute time can be regarded as the transition from spatial arrangement to spatial arrangement of the whole universe, relative to every thing in it and the space between not to any observer reference position or selected frame.So it is a -spatial change-.
Relative time is the human perception of time passing which is in part due to observation of change of the present. The present being a space-time composite image reality not object reality without temporal spread. It may be the updating of conscious awareness image by image, that gives perception of the passage of time.Which is change of -spatial arrangement- of matter in space that is being observed.
The body also has a biological pacemaker in the brain SCN and a number of peripheral pacemakers that coordinate behavior of the animal with time of day when the activity will be most beneficial.The activity of those pacemakers gives a perception of time passing even without sensory input.
So time is the effect of change in space not the cause, as John would say.As you can see time is still involved but put in its place as a product of spatial change rather than ingredient.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 20:17 GMT
Peter,
Perhaps one should say that light is always "observed" to travel c in a vacuum. After all, how can you measure the frequency and wavelength for
?
That never occurs. While light may transition between inertial reference frames, you can never measure
in a vacuum.
Whether or not the light arrived ahead of schedule is another matter.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 20:23 GMT
Georgina,
When I speak of time, I do not mean relativity time in block form or otherwise. I only mean time as a part of change. I agree with this:
"However in order to have causality, non determinism and free will we can not live in a universe that fits the eternalist philosophy of everything past present and future having equal reality and having concrete non simulteiniety. It prevents there being any single order to events, everything is pre written and unchnageable."
However, I still wonder how do we know that space is real?
"Nothing is spread over time, although nor is anything ever stationary. So the Now is a permanent transition from spatial arrangement to spatial arrangement of everything in space alone not in space-time."
We create a visual picture, inside ourselves, of our interpretation of data about distance and time. That picture draws out distance for us. It does not show time. But, if all that existed was the data and intelligence we would not know the difference. In other words, both space and time can be simply ideas. We would still experience the universe in the same way. It is not clear to me that our ability to visualize distance makes space real and a cause of apparent time. We can't visualize time, but, we can't visualize gravity either. We discern these properties from data about change in velocity. So, one other question: If time exists only as an exact 'now' why would we not suspect that space also exists as an exact now? Would you describe space as having duration, but, time as not having duration?
I guess this message has gotten weird enough. I welcome your use of your theoretical ideas as part of any response.
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 21:16 GMT
Hi James ,
We can of course not know that we experience input from "ground level" reality. It is possible that we are fully immersed in some artificial reality with a feed of input directly to the brain causing the experience of being alive in a real world. So Non of our experience could be real, as in relating to actually existing external reality. I am working from the -assumption- that there is a related concrete reality existing outside of my own brains simulation of it from received data. I may be incorrect in that assumption.
I do not assume that the simulation or representation of reality by the organism from sensory input is the only reality that exists. I think there is a concrete reality that exists without any input to an observer. The observer can only build a representation of what is there from the data received. That data being received over a sequence of absolute spatial change and therefore having temporal distortion and relative perspective built into it.
If there is only absolute Now, that Now has to consist of something to be something.We identify discreet objects within our experience and as those objects are not all touching one another there is space in between. That is just the language we use to describe individual separate objects. Perhaps they are not all separate but the mind allows us to perceive separateness and so there has to also be space.
Then the concept of separate things and space can be used to describe an unseen reality. It is of course just a feeble organisms attempt to describe something using the experience it has. It is not possible to directly see and interrogate the unseen and unknowable.We can only model that reality using the analogy of what we experience and have the language to describe.
By having that concrete reality without a time dimension causality, non determinism and causality can exist and atrocity and disaster can be finished rather than existing as real ongoing events for eternity within space-time.The time paradoxes are solved.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 21:30 GMT
Georgina,
Thank you for that thoughtful reply.
"The time paradoxes are solved."
Since it seems perfectly clear to me that relativity theory is wrong, I don't run into time paradoxes. My opinion is that it is time dilation in particular that is clear evidence of relativity theory being wrong. It is also the clue that can direct us to the needed correction that will do away with relativity theory.
I do not assume you agree with this. But, thought I would through it into the mix in order to clarify what I mean when I speak of time. Since we learn everything from changes of velocity, the limit of proof that we can reach for absolute time would be to find a constant measure of time that is a fundamental constant everywhere at all times in the universe. That idea is an important part of my own work. I find it to be the key to fundamental theoretical unity. That is my view.
Also, I have always felt that your view has never received a fair evaluation. I can't say that for certain for others. I know that when I read your explanations, I tend to not think them through thoroughly to the point where I can clearly visualize what you are saying in detail. I see the cause of that to be a resistance to leave my own viewpoint. Anyway, I can tell from your messages, that you see very clearly the details and implications of your theoretical ideas. I am glad to see you return and resume explaining them.
James
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 21:55 GMT
Peter,
"Nothing is nothing if we're talking condensed matter and something if we're considering physical entities without being restricted by whether it's condensed or not."
This is the second time I asked questions and was unable to clearly relate your answers to my questions. Again, I do not presume that this is your fault. So, I will ask another one and see how it works out.
"The only logical? reason there ever was for stipulating the ether didn't relate to 'c' (as that's all AE ever said) was to explain constancy wrt receivers. If light changes speed entering each galaxy or 'personal' domain of any mass, the postulates of SR would be proved without removing that quality, explaining much."
Consider a hypothetical situations where there are only two charged particles separated by a significant distance. One is accelerated and gives off a photon that moves directly toward the second particle. Could you give sort of a step by step explanation of where and how the speed of light changes along the photon's path?
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 21:57 GMT
Thank you James,
for taking the time to consider what John and I are saying.
(I didn't intend to spend so much time posting.) With regard to special relativity I think it not the whole reality or truth of the situation rather than wrong. In my opinion there has been a lack of progress because everyone has been looking for black or white answers.
The experimental evidence is that it is right but if it is right the universe can not work as we can't have causality etc. and we get grandfather and twin paradoxes.The solution offered allows the experimental evidence to be correct but also allows another underlying facet of reality to be in charge of causality.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 22, 2010 @ 23:05 GMT
Dear Georgina,
"The experimental evidence is that it is right..." (This refers to relativity theory -James)
I would state this differently. I would say that: The empirical evidence agrees with relativity theory. However, relativity theory, as are all good theories, was developed to agree with the patterns of changes of velocity that form empirical evidence. My point is that any theory developed so that it agrees with evidence will appear to be proven by empirical evidence. The differences in such theories are not contradictions with empirical evidence. The contradictions have to do with their choices of cause or, usually, causes. All theoretical causes are invented for educated reasons to the best ability of the theorists. This occurance does not change the fact that we do not know what cause is.
Returning to relativity theory: The speed of light can always measure, in free space, as a constant for at least two reasons. One is that is is a constant. In this case, c=d/t, both distance and time must change in a coordinated manner. The other is that the means by which it is measured change in a fashion such that it always measures as a constant while not being a constant. My opinion is that the speed of light, c=d/t, measures as a constant because, as it changes, measured length changes. That allows for a constant measure of time to enter into consideration. That is why I mentioned it in my previous message. For me, time is absolute. There is no time dilation. There is a varying speed of light that is covered, for measurement purposes, by a varying length. That length is not space. That length has to do with the length of objects.
I said all this just to register my objection to any form of acceptance of relativity theory. I think that its acceptance, whether direct or indirect as one views it, is the reason that the fundamentals of theoretical physics, beginning with f=ma, do not include unity of cause. Ok, I got that off my chest. I am looking forward to reading more of your messages about your view.
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 00:15 GMT
James,
Ok I agree I was using sloppy short hand. The empirical evidence agrees with relativity theory as you say. I have looked a little into the reasoning behind utilizing a constant speed of light- from electromagnetism and formulation of it. I have accepted the constant of the speed of light in a vacuum as a reasonable working assumption.I could be wrong.
A distant house that I can see appears to be 1 cm tall but it hasn't shrunk to 1 cm because I am looking at it.I have just formed a representation of it that I estimate to be 1cm tall.I could not view the whole house through the horizontally aligned sleeve of a matchbox if it was bigger than 1cm but no one can live in it if its only 1cm tall. There is a difference between the appearance of things and what they actually are in space, where and when they actually exist.
Both facets of reality, the experience of image reality built from received data and concrete object reality, actual objects in space are simultaneously real. Time dilation is the appearance of time being stretched it isn't actually stretched for the person at the same position as the (distant) clock in space. So time can be stretched and not stretched simultaneously. Lengths can be bigger or smaller but also unchanged. The house can be 10 meters tall and 1cm tall simultaneously. It is not that one or other of the interpretations of reality is wrong, they are just different- and co-existing.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 00:57 GMT
Georgina,
"Time dilation is the appearance of time being stretched it isn't actually stretched for the person at the same position as the (distant) clock in space. So time can be stretched and not stretched simultaneously. Lengths can be bigger or smaller but also unchanged."
I know that my own perspective is not a professionally accepted perspective. However, it has worked very well for me so far. So, I will emphasize that time is stretched, in my opinion, for no one nowhere. Lengths are definitely changed. Locally, they appear to be unchanged. That is why a changed speed of light still records as a constant. If c drops then d drops. T is the key to constancy. My essay entry in the first contest about 'The Nature of Time' was intended to, kind of, bring this possibility into focus. I could have done better with more than ten pages.
Still, I recognize that I have not done enough, here, to convince any other participant. The next contest isn't well suited to this subject. So, I will drop this view for now. I hope you submit an essay for this new contest. I will be arguing that the universe is anolog. Are you going to participate this time?
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 01:10 GMT
Dear James,
J:"I will be arguing that the universe is anolog."
I was going to agree with that, but, technically, reality is neither digital nor analog. More accurately, it is unpredictable and mysterious at the quantum level. Sure, the mathematics of quantum theory has discrete state representations and eigenvalues. Those eigenvalues are chosen randomly in some way that we are not privy to.
But is random the same as analog? I'm not sure about that.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 01:28 GMT
Jason,
"More accurately, it is unpredictable and mysterious at the quantum level."
That is still a weak area for me. I think it would be helpful if I said something significant about the uncertainty principle and Planck units. I am looking into that, but, I think I will use a different approach for now. That is why this subject is more difficult for me. It would be very nice to write an essay without obvious errors. This time that risk goes up. For your information, I am not a fan of the wave nature. However, I will not be arguing that it is not real. I am trying to develop another way of putting forth a case for the analog universe.
James
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 03:42 GMT
Georgina,
I have to keep picking at this idea of now as absolute. I understand what you are trying to say. The absolute is the universal state, so it's where everything is simultaneously, but it is also the equilibrium of everything. The zero between the positive and negative. Geometry treats this as a point, but it's really the blank space, the absence of any point.
As you realize though, time is an effect of motion and if we have an instant of time, it would require freezing that motion and this illusion that is reality would literally disappear, because it really is just motion, as far as we can tell. The reason string theory and the Higgs field are proposed, are to try to give some concrete physical basis to what seems to be just motion. So an absolute now would be like taking a picture with the shutter speed set at zero. It would be the same as a temperature of absolute zero. So I have no problem with everything existing as a somewhat fuzzy now, but when absolute is added as an adjective, there is nothing.
The problem is that our minds have to function like a movie camera and take a series of stop action pictures and then generate motion back out of them, because if we tried to perceive motion directly, it would be like having a camera where the shutter is always open and the film winds past it. The result would be an unfocused blur. This is why the concept of time and particularly "now" seems fundamental to that of motion, even though motion is the basis for time.
It also goes a long way toward explaining why logic tends to think of reality as digital, while intuition tends to consider it analog.
To the argument of the nature of space, remember the logical alternative to infinite dimensionality is the singularity: That all matter exists as one and only by its expansion is space created. This goes to all the arguments I've raised against Big Bang theory, such as how can we say space expands from a point, but still maintain an otherwise stable speed of light in order to compare it. If space truly expanded from that singularity, than the speed of light should increase at the same rate, otherwise there must be some extradimensional space that determines the speed of light.
As I've said before, modern physics started with the notion that only what could be measured exists and now it's all about a bunch of things which can't be measured. So according to their canon, space is only created by measuring the relationship of geometric points, yet we can have any number of oddball ideas popping out of the math, from warped spacetime to multiworlds, that are as real and logical as a C.S. Escher waterfall and they get credible attention, but space, which looms over us as nothing else, is ignored and neglected. Get off your computers and go out and look up at the night sky and come back and tell me you could only see stars. You are right, but space really puts them all in perspective, as it does everything else.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 04:35 GMT
Dear James,
Deep down, I think most physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is made out of waves. I haven't heard of any evidence that contradicts this.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 05:05 GMT
John,
"Get off your computers and go out and look up at the night sky and come back and tell me you could only see stars."
So, are you saying that what you see is what you get?
James
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 05:53 GMT
Jason,
"Deep down, I think most physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is made out of waves. I haven't heard of any evidence that contradicts this."
I have done a lot of work developing a fundamentally unified theory; but, now that I am analyzing, as a non-professional, quantum effects matters get confusing. The only opposition to the wave nature that I might risk debating is: I think the wave nature has to do with interpretating behavior, while the particle nature has to do with form. I know this is not clearly stated. If the matter was clear to me I would state it clearly. Maybe next year I will be prepared to present an argument against wave nature. For now what I know is that I have not needed it, but, I have a long lonely way to go. I do feel certain though that time dilation is flawed.
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 08:29 GMT
Hi James,
J:"I do feel certain though that time dilation is flawed. "
I think that time dilation is at the heart of relativity. We can measure time dilation with atomic clocks. Also, time dilation fits snuggly with redshift.
Embrace the wave.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 09:45 GMT
John,
I think terminology is a problem. I am now talking about image and object reality rather than objective and subjective reality.
Perhaps absolute Now or objective Now, or Now are not ideal. The aim in using it is to differentiate it from the present, but at the same time express its singular, current, non subjective and universal nature. Though I have also tried to clearly express that it is not ever a freeze frame snap shot because everything is constantly changing.
I have been using the term absolute to tie this spatial arrangement, to Newton's concept of absolute time which he understood was different from relative time. So I don't really mean shutter speed zero absolute but not any kind of relative now from your perspective or mine or any other.
It is not building a concrete past in time and it is not unveiling a preexisting concrete future it only ever is a singular current but transitioning arrangement of the universe.It does not exist in time on either side of that. I will perhaps need to think of something else . The uni-temporal morphic flux zone!for example. UTMFZ aka Now. Though if I just say UTMFZ very few people will have a clue what I intend to mean. Though bearing in mind "Lawrence's" motivational poster it makes no difference anyway.
We have the sensory capability to turn the photon energy received into a perception of light, including different colours, the light is experience.It allows us to navigate our environment. We can see the stars as light. If something gives us no information from which to build a representation of it it is just darkness. I think the experienced darkness is as real as the experienced light.
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 11:49 GMT
James,
Yes, basically. It's a matter of how we interpret it that poses the challenges. I keep pointing out that modern physics started arguing only what is measured is what exists, but that's not really what they said. They said that only the measurement exists. The result is that both photon and space are seriously misunderstood. Obviously a quanta of light is the smallest amount of light which can be measured, ie what trips an electron to a higher energy level. It's argued though that the instance of the point of tripping creates a physically real irreducible particle of light that previously only existed as a statistical wave function.
Now space is treated as the location of objects and processes relative to one another, so it is said that space bends because the trajectory of light is bent by gravity. We know the path of light taken through a gravity field isn't the straightest route, because there is still that euclidian concept against which to compare it. Otherwise, if space was truly bent, we wouldn't be able to tell, because there would be no frame to compare it against. The same as if space actually expanded from a point, we wouldn't be able to tell, because the speed of light would increase proportionally.
Yet the only reason we insist space is expanding in the first place is because of that idea that the photon is an irreducible particle of light that can only be redshifted by the recession of the source, rather than a minimal amount gathered from an increasingly diffuse emission.
There is an underlaying reality which we can measure and deduce its properties. We don't create it by measurement.
Georgina,
I'm only arguing that point because it pertains to why the concept of spacetime was able to replace absolute space and time. You cannot win an argument when people think you are arguing what is considered a resolved issue, so, from an emotional perspective, it makes the argument more difficult. That's why I keep going back to the basic observation of the future becoming the past as an effect of motion. It's an aspect which hasn't been considered, so there isn't a strong resistance built up against a simple consideration of it.
It's like trying to argue for any form of steady state universe. The presumption is assumed that the case is closed, so those with either a vested interest in the various versions of Big Bang/Inflationary Cosmology or haven't really thought the issue through and accept the experts must be right, can dismiss it out of hand, without feeling the need to consider any argument.
Remember than when you are dealing with terminology, you are also dealing with psychology.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 17:04 GMT
Jason,
"I think that time dilation is at the heart of relativity."
Yes I know. However, measuring durations of time with clocks is not the same as measuring time. True time has never been a part of physics equations. This argument never seems to get anywhere. I find that circumstance to be very odd. Why would physicists insist that measuring a duration of time against a standard cycle of some activity is a measure of time itself? If that standard cycle of activity is caused to change its rate, why do physicists insist that time itself has changed?
If there was found a standard measurement of duration of time that was always a fundamental constant under any conditions, then what do you suppose physicists would say to explain that? I ask the question because I use one in my work and I find it is the key to unifying theory. Relativity type effects remain intact. A lot of changes in derivations are necessary, but they look good to me. I don't expect anyone to assume that what I am saying is true. I say it here only to bolster interest in my question. From my perspective, it is not idle speculation. Since physicists seem to accept weird answers in order to keep their theories, what kind of weirdness might explain a universal constant measure of time?
James
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 17:47 GMT
James,
Did you happen to read Julian Barbour's winning essay in the Nature of Time contest? After completely dismissing the notion of of time itself, he turns around and proposes a "time worthy of the name" as the notion of least action, from one configuration state to the next. Given that his essay was picked, it cannot be that this idea is completely dismissed by the experts. Nor does it mean that it's correct, given the problem of determining the configuration of motion.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 17:48 GMT
James,
I'm not sure that it's my job to dictate to others what they must accept as truth. If your belief eases your mind or brings you comfort, then I will not take that away from you.
I am simply trying to tell the physics community that if they want to discover significant new technology, tractor beam and hyper-drive, then they need to study what I am telling them.
The funny thing is, I doubt that physicists give a crap about tractor beams or super-luminal drives. They seem to be to content avoiding reality.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 18:35 GMT
John,
what would you call it? Are the terms Object Universe (Object) rather than the Universe (Image) and Unitemporal Now rather than (space-time) now aka present moment acceptable terms?
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 18:39 GMT
John,
"Did you happen to read Julian Barbour's winning essay in the Nature of Time contest?"
Yes I did. .
"After completely dismissing the notion of of time itself, he turns around and proposes a "time worthy of the name""
I thought it was a derivation guided by a viewpoint. I thought his conclusion was the direct result of his initial assumptions. I don't agree with the assumptions, so the conclusion just looked like theoretical slight of hand to me. The manipulation of equations in order to appear to eliminate dependence upon some particular property such as time, does not strike me as really removing dependence upon anything that was necessary to include in the initial equations that formed the beginning a derivation, However, I will go back and reread it in case my own viewpoint got in my way and, in case, I don't remember accurately.
I do not understand why the 't' in physics equations is pushed forward as proof that we are controlling and manipulating the property of time. Neither space nor time are available for us to contain and experiment upon. Neither of them undergo changes of velocity. The evidence that we use to form an interpretation of the nature of the universe is patterns in changes of velocity. We can write equations only about those patterns in changes of velocity. Theory is all the added on inventions of the mind in the form of names, symbols and units. We invent force because we do not know what the cause of change of velocity is. We invent mass because we do not know the cause for variations in those patterns of changes of velocity.
Julian Barbour works with these theoretical artifacts. The irony, from my point of view is that the only two properties that we know of directly are distance and time. They form the basis for all of our physics ideas. I do not agree that manipulating the invented properties into the equations so that 't' does not appear does anything to eliminate time as one of two properties that are the continuing basis for everything else in those equations.
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 19:48 GMT
Hi James,
I can't remember who first used the rainbow analogy for quantum physics. I like it and think It can also work for Image reality and relativity.
The rainbow seen in the sky depends upon something actually existing in space. There has to be raindrops(water molecules in a liquid state) and there has to be sunlight (photons) shining through. Those particles are object reality, they actually have concrete existence in absolute space. However where the rainbow is seen, the intersection of its ends with the ground, size etc depend upon the position of the observer, even how he turns his head to look at it. (I did a fair bit of rainbow chasing as a child.)
All of the different versions of the rainbow that he can see exist and are equally real to the observer but also non of them exist until the observer looks and sees it. Likewise the images of other objects. Each observer sees there own image reality, which depends upon their position. The reality observed by each observer is equally real to them but also does not exist until it is formed by the observer looking at the object.
However it does not mean that nothing exists underlying those different images of reality. For the images to be formed there has to have been real objects that had positions independent of an observer interpretation from received, but delayed, information. It is only the photons emitted or reflected from the concretely real objects that allow us to form an image representation of the objects when the information is interpreted.
So making measurements of distance and time we are always working on the image reality (including relative perception) not the Object reality (absolute).-Both-distance and time are prone to distortion.I did at first think that was an insurmountable problem for science but it may not be so.
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 21:14 GMT
Georgina,
I don't know that I'd try framing it as a term right away. They require some distance from the issue in question to really stick. Some things, like naming a town or a baby, make sense from the beginning. Other things, like wars, eras, ideas, really take a while to make their presence known in such a way as to have broadly agreed terms.
The situation now is that physics has become a Gordian Knot of theories, dimensions, uni and multiverses, strings, branes, mathematical symbology, functions, factors etcetc, that no purely logical argument is going to bring it down, because any argument to review the basics will be dismissed as naive nativist intuition and the only arguments taken seriously are those designed to advance assumptions already incorporated into the canon. no matter how far fetched they seem. Just try wrapping your head around Inflationary Cosmology, if you think reason is the solution. Or multiworlds, or block time, or, or....
Its a bit like the economy. We have to wait for the masters of this universe to torture the model so completely that it finally blows up. So it's not so much a matter of staking out our ground, as taking the most effective shots that we can manage.
James,
" The irony, from my point of view is that the only two properties that we know of directly are distance and time."
These are vectors. The scalars would be volume and temperature.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 23, 2010 @ 23:20 GMT
Hi John,
Agreed. There is a lot of terminology in existence related to particular theories and ideas within a subject. Terminology that separates those that have had education in, or engaged in serious in depth study of, the subject and those that have not.
If I am going to talk to other people, who may not be familiar with the ideas, then I need to use language that is comprehensible, relevant and does not in itself lead to opposition of the view expressed. Such as opposition to use of the word absolute. I agree with you, it is ambiguous and unhelpful in conjunction with Now.
There was opposition to the word objective, which I meant as something not tainted by a subjective observer viewpoint. However I have found that it clashes with the use of objective for experimental work, which relies on such subjective observation but with consensus over many repetitions of the experiment-so it is deemed objective.
The opposition to "subjective" being the argument that consensus reality is not subjective as it is agreed by many observers. (Which would mean the rainbow is objectively real because everyone sees it.) Though as I have pointed out everyone sees their own version of the rainbow as they construct it from their own data input at their position. So I'm using Image reality instead now.
I also need to be consistent so I am always using the same words for the same things to avoid confusion about what exactly I am referring to.
I think the Ideas you, I and Mr smith have been discussing are very relevant to science at the most foundational level. So we will continue to argue our case. Even if it continues to fall on deaf ears or the ears of those that would rather pick up what ever is useful to them and contribute nothing. If current mainstream science does fall, because of bad foundations, then it would be good to have an alternative available and not have to wait for its respectable academic reinvention.
I hope the experiment I am working on will help to bridge the gap between sensible ideas and science.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 00:21 GMT
Dear John,
JP: "" The irony, from my point of view is that the only two properties that we know of directly are distance and time.""
JM: "These are vectors. The scalars would be volume and temperature."
This response tellse me we are definitely not communicating successully. The distance and time that I refer to above both are to be viewed as information about what a photon causes a particle of matter to do. The distance represents a part of the measured change in velocity. It is distance therefore, it applies to the numerator of acceleration. That distance can refer to a change in direction because it is a vector. Time is not a vector. There is something else of importance to include before deciding what is a vector or not. A photon causes acceleration. That is because it applies a force acrossed a distance. Force is a vector. The distance is a vector Their product is a scalar. It is their product that is a measure of the effect of the photon. The product of that force times the time involved is a vector. Volume and temperature have nothing to do with any of this.
James
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 01:13 GMT
Dear Georgina,
"So making measurements of distance and time we are always working on the image reality (including relative perception) not the Object reality (absolute).-Both-distance and time are prone to distortion.I did at first think that was an insurmountable problem for science but it may not be so."
The distance and time that I referred to have to do with photons. Photons...
view entire post
Dear Georgina,
"So making measurements of distance and time we are always working on the image reality (including relative perception) not the Object reality (absolute).-Both-distance and time are prone to distortion.I did at first think that was an insurmountable problem for science but it may not be so."
The distance and time that I referred to have to do with photons. Photons report to us about a change of velocity of a particle of matter. This change of velocity is not an illusion or image. The photon can have its energy changed before we receive it. Its momentum can also change. So it is possible for a photon to mislead us. The photon tells us about a specific force being applied acrossed a distance, and, it tells us about that same force being applied acrossed a period of time. Both the force and the distance can be reported to us by the photon as different magnitudes 'locally' from what their original magnitudes were 'remotely' or orginally.
I can't argue my new theoretical case here in short messages. So, I will simply say what I have found, from my viewpoint including the necessary derivations, to be the case based upon mathematically derived properties. The distance over which the force of the photon is applied will change. The time over which the force of the photon will be applied does not change anywhere at anytime in the universe. That time period is a universal constant for all photons everywhere.
Since it is a universal constant, then it should be expected to show up in anyone's theory that is empirically based. It does show up everywhere in every theory. My first essay, which can still be read here, introduced it. The ten page limit meant that all I could do was to throw it into the mix as if it were wild speculation. It is not.
Our method of measuring durations inside of time do not have to do with measuring the time over which the force of a photon is applied. Our artificial time measurements have to do with cyclic activity. That means that it is based upon a measure of time that is mostly based upon durations of time between the arrival of photons. Cyclic activity does expose us to variations of measurement. If we choose to believe that cyclic activity represents real time, then one may conclude that time is prone to distortion. If one chooses to look to photons in order to establish a standard for time, then, one will find that it is not prone and not even vulnerable in any way to distortion.
As with my previous response to John, I see that I am not successfuly communicating my ideas. It is not his fault or yours. The difficulty is that I cannot clearly make my case without referring to original theory by me. So I am at a disadvantage and I understand why others would not follow clearly what I am saying. I am not suggesting that you and John are wrong and that I am right. I am suggesting that I are not successfully communicating and I am not sure what to do about it.
For anyone interested, including all those who might look in on this discussion, my
theory gives the necessary information to support what I say.
James
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 01:36 GMT
Hi James,
Position can be assigned to a particle although it never is at a stationary position until it was detected there and was prevented from going anywhere else.So it isn't really a property of the particle itself.Its like pinning a butterfly in a display box.. Momentum tells us nothing about what the particle was doing prior to that measurement or would have done after wards if not interfered with by the detection.It is a snapshot sample and may not be representative of its behaviour. So momentum is not a property either but is a label that gives the illusion of really knowing something about the particle and what it is doing.
What is special and different about a measured acceleration in your opinion?
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 01:51 GMT
Georgina,
"What is special and different about a measured acceleration in your opinion?"
What is special about it is that it is the only information, so long as we are speaking about theory that results from mechanical ideology, that we receive about anything in the universe. Photons deliver only information about changes of velocity. Photonic information is the only information we receive.
It is certainly correct that the measurement of effects affects the measurement of the effects. However, this problem does not transfer significantly to the macroscopic world view. We send out a photon with enough energy to cause an electron in the first orbit of the hydrogen atom into the next higher orbit. It does not change the result that the photon may change some of its characteristics when it arrives locally at the electron. Those changes occur because of the local circumstances of the electron. The result is the same. If we measure after the event occurs, then the event is not adversely affected. That is what I think. What do you think?
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 01:55 GMT
Hi James, sorry our posts crossed.
When I said time and distance would be prone to distortion I was referring only to the usual kind of time and distance, rulers and clocks type.
Please could you explain what you mean by the time over which a photon exerts it force? How do you know it will be constant? How is it measured? What do you measure it against or is it theoretically constant? Would this measure of time be any better than an atomic clock, if so why? I am not disagreeing just trying to understand.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 02:08 GMT
Hi James,
I'll think about it. Will you be readdressing this in your next essay?
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 02:14 GMT
Georgina,
Not to plug my own observation about time, but it does have some useful qualities of persuasion. There are any number of perspectives out there and reality can be extremely ambiguous at times, such that any point can be argued and often pure politics wins out, because once an idea gets a following it builds up momentum, so that inconvenient observational anomalies get plastered over with whatever theoretical monstrosity will do. One way to overcome this barricade is conceptual jujitsu. Take an unassailable assumption, like the idea that time goes past to future, and reverse it. Tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Motion causes time, not the other way around. Use it like a hammer. Once you break open the shell, then get into the details. Have them try to explain why spacetime is a four dimensional geometry, with any point in space and time is simply the information available to it.
Of course, they will likely just drop the issue, because it's far easier to avoid inconvenient points than to actually change one's understanding of reality, but at least they won't have the smug satisfaction of showing you how naive you are to argue Relativity.
It's not like I'm taking out a patent on the idea.
The problem is that true objectivity is a form of absolute, a universal state. As such, it has no perspective, or it could be all perspective, but everything in between is subjective. It's a very difficult point to make to those willing to consider and impossible with those who chose not to. Look how much luck I have arguing space is inertial and there is no need for a Higgs. Even I'm not completely sure, since there is no opposite to measure against, but it makes a neater argument than just adding a neutral particle to the zoo.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 02:43 GMT
Georgina,
"Please could you explain what you mean by the time over which a photon exerts it force? How do you know it will be constant? How is it measured? What do you measure it against or is it theoretically constant? Would this measure of time be any better than an atomic clock, if so why?"
The full reason requires discussing the possibility of the speed of light being a variable. I definitely prefer that possibility to time dilation. The strongest reason has to do with fundamental unity. Time dilation takes us further away from fundamental unity while a variable speed of light gives us fundamental unity. That aside, here is another way of at least considering it: If one measures how long it takes light to travel the distance of the radius of the hydrogen atom one might find that it measures as 1.609x10^-19 seconds. I say might because the radius is loosely defined as about 5x10^-11 meters.
If the radius is really 4.8x10^-11 meters then the time it takes for a photon to travel from the proton to the electron is 1.602x10^-19. I can't relate everything I have to say about that here. However, I can point out that that magnitude of time matches the magnitude of electric charge. Some coincidence huh? One coincidence does not a new theory make. However, I could go much farther. But, I prefer to simply answer your question in short form: The time it takes for any photon to apply its force is 1.602x10^-19 seconds.
While I can't show here that each photon must obey this time limit, I can point out that that magnitude is already known to be a universal fundamental constant. Well then what would I do with electric charge? We can't have both of them. My response is to look at my first essay entry. Even more so, look at my work at my website. This is the point: I say that electric charge does not exist. Backing up that statement is challenging here.
This problem gives a strong indication as to why I try to avoid interjecting my own theoretical ideas into debate. They would go nowhere. I continue to state my conclusions though because, I have a large amount of new theory publicly available on the Internet. It has been the number one website for any search engine for nine years for the words 'new physics theory'. I have never paid anyone anything to promote my website. It ranks where it does for reaons of its own. Hopefully it might mean that some others agree with what I say. It includes sufficent mathematics to make its case.
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 05:56 GMT
John,
perhaps it does pay to keep plugging away because I eventually got that concrete change has to be "ahead" of observation of it, so the information about it is "in the future"(un-accessed in unitemporal Now) until it becomes the experienced present, even though the event has previously happened. The potential experience becomes an actual experience in the present when the information is accessed not when it is generated..Thats cool.You have been insisting that potential becomes realized in the present, so the arrow of time is reversed.
The direction of time might be considered the interactions in object reality, that we can not observe and can not experience directly, but imagine to be occurring in sequence building upon what has gone before or it could be the information flow giving Image reality, that we do observe and experience as the present. The information that informs image reality (our experience of reality)is going from future (relative to the present) to present.
Which means that there are two imaginary arrows for the two different ways of imagining time flow, for the two different facets of reality. They are going in opposite directions! (Though there is no actual flow of time just sequences of spatial change in a unitemporal Now.)
Its relevant to the Andromeda paradox. Whichever direction the man is looking events on Andromeda do not impact in his present until the information is received. It is not when it is generated that makes it present to the observers.Where ever they are looking. Until the man is aware of the event(launch of ship) the event is still in his future although it is a past event for the Andromedans.As this is a distant event, between the event and arrival of the information nothing can be done to stop the event from having occurred. It is fate accompli, although still in the future to the observers.
The man looking towards Andromeda will have no greater advantage than the man looking in the other direction. Though he may see the first ship enter the atmosphere ahead of the other guy, he will probably shout "Hey look at that", and only a few seconds difference in present experience will occur despite ?? years of transmission time of the information.
Conceptual jujitsu, I'll have to watch and learn.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 09:51 GMT
Maybe I'm blithering.
I don't get how an event on Andromeda can be considered part of either observer's present until there is some information transferred to make it a part of the present experience. I think the idea of the present is confused in the original framing of the paradox. So they can imaging it, make a prediction but there is no information received for 2.5million light years. Therefore how can any decision be made that it is a simultaneous event or that the observers "see" it at different times.
IMO The event on Andromeda occurs once only irrespective of both observers because it is only one event occurring in object reality and is unobserved on Earth, so is not made into an image reality. As it can not be observed different time distorted interpretations, due to different observer reference frames, are not formed and so they do not have different perspectives of the event. They have no perspective of it , no idea the event has occurred.
Only when the information arrives at Earth can their viewpoints of the information diverge. The guy walking towards Andromeda will receive it before the guy with his back to it. But the news will spread pretty fast.Its when the information arrives that the image reality is formed and the two guys' perception of the event is different.
I could run to town and pick up a newspaper before the post van has left and receive the news sooner than if I had waited for a delivery. That does not affect when the newspaper was printed or delivered to the shop. But when the information is EM it is seen as images in the present. So an event can be seen sooner if the distance is less. It can become a part of the present experience sooner but only when the information arrives not when it is formed.
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 11:38 GMT
Georgina,
It's tough taking terms from one view of reality to another, since the change in perspective creates a change in meaning. In four dimensional spacetime, where every event is a position in that geometry, the idea of simultaneity doesn't really apply, since all the clocks are running at different speeds and so there is no plane of the present running through it from past to future.
On the other hand, viewing time as an effect of the motion, there is only that spatial geometry and the further events are away from the observer, the more distance and thus time it takes to cross, but there is only that present energy moving around. So all that physically exists constitutes simultaneity. It's just that it takes duration for events to manifest. That means the beginning and end are not simultaneous and there is no extra dimension along which they exist, just that the energy has changed form. The motion creates time.
If you look out into space, there are stars of varying distances, so the light hitting your eye at any one moment could have been traveling for a few seconds, if it comes from the moon, a few minutes, if from planets, to years for the closer stars, many years for the more distant ones and millions for the other galaxies. Now for someone on another planet, the frame is entirely different.
So for those who think of time as another dimension in the geometry, the idea of simultaneity does seem patently naive. That makes it very difficult to carry on a conversation and not seem foolish and therefore to be ignored, from their perspective, if you start out using any variation of simultaneity.
So it's a psychological issue of using concepts that don't shut down their attention before you have really engaged it.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 11:41 GMT
Re Andromeda Paradox,
It seems perfectly reasonable that the guy walking towards Andromeda sees the event before the stationary guy, if it is about when the information is received and interpreted only. It does not mean that the event was happening at different times in space. Those realities are formed from the received data.
It also doesn't mean that the whole future is pre written. Information from distant events takes time to arrive and can therefore be a past event that has already happened, while it still has not yet been observed in the present. Fait accompli, unchangeable. However close to an observer, just minutely ahead of observation events are occurring in unitemporal concrete Object reality and there is no pre-written future ahead of that. The "future" is open for non determinism and free will.
Duel co-existing facets of reality work. Allows free will, partial non determinism , causality. Answers grandfather paradox, twins paradox, Andromeda paradox. Fits with Newton, fits with Einstein , fits with uncertainty.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 17:39 GMT
John,
Yet Roger Penrose posed the paradox and there is the initial assumption that the event could be regarded as happening simultaneously on Andromeda by one of the observer's.(I'm not clear how but it may be the maths extrapolated to give an extreme example.) It couldn't actually be proven simultaneous because there is no simultaneity only an observer viewpoint in special relativity, which another could disagree with, as you point out. The other observer does disagree.
So it seems there is discrepancy over whether the event has happened yet or not when the information arrives.If one guy sees the information then it must have happened and is unchangeable event. Though it is not yet in the other guys present it will be. Which raises the question for Roger Penrose, do the two guys on Earth occupy the same universe if for one an event has inevitably occurred and for the other it hasn't yet( as far as he knows)?
I was showing that with another explanatory philosophy it makes sense with just the one universe and it is not necessary to assume that everything in that universe is pre written and unchangeable or that the same things are actually happening at different times for every possible observer perspective.
The paradox just isn't with that alternative explanatory model. Nor is the Grandfather paradox or the twins paradox. The time problems are all created by imagining that the image of reality is the concrete reality, rather than an individual representation built from received data after the fact.It is not reality that is being received but data used to build a representation and experience of it.
I Think that is further evidence in support of the alternative -interpretation- of relativity. Not saying special relativity in itself is wrong. If this explanatory philosophy can jump all the hoops and the alternatives can't then maybe some people will begin to realize they are holding on to lame dogs.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 21:22 GMT
Hi Eckard,
You said on Nov. 14, 2010
"John and Georgina,
Please defend presentism if you can."
How are we doing?
Hi James,
I have taken a look at your web site. There is certainly a lot of information there.You have put in a lot of work. Far too much for me to take in and understand at once.
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 21:42 GMT
James,
You ask; "Consider a hypothetical situations where there are only two charged particles separated by a significant distance. One is accelerated and gives off a photon that moves directly toward the second particle. Could you give sort of a step by step explanation of where and how the speed of light changes along the photon's path?"
Exclent question. We know a lot from the Tevatron etc. with accelerated electrons. (one good ref is; Time Space and Things. 1984. p134. B K Ridley) Also the LHC with Protons. When a particle is accelerated it builds up a dense cloud of 'photoelectrons' or 'virtual electrons' proportional to speed (think- wrt what? they're all vacuums!). We'll use your hypo/situation; If it emits a photon (in reality synchrotronic radiation) it will travel through the cloud at 'c' wrt the particle/cloud frame. When it exits the cloud it's waves will compress (Doppler shift) and it moves at ';c' wrt the accelerator tube, i.e. wrt the vacuum itself. In other words, if in space, wrt the ether. If you have any doubts about that, consider the particles themselves in accelerators, moving through the vacuum. What does their speed relate to?? Exactly; only the vacuum itself and the em fields within it!
The radiation wave 'signal' then travels across the 'significant distance' (SD) in SD/t time (as we know, and, again, wrt the vacuum itself). When it arrives at the other particle it finds either a similar 'fine structure' cloud, either small or large subject to it's motion wrt the vacuum, and it's propagation speed is again changed to 'c' wrt the cloud/particle, thus Doppler shifted again accordingly.
The shift process is standard 'scattering' as in c/n for a dielectric, where the waves arrive at 'c', charge the particles, and are re-emitted by the particles.
Interestingly you refer later to time delay. It's well known in fibre optics scattering involves 'Polarisation Mode Delay' (PMD) of some 30psecs/km. which is the main contributor to 'n'. (Fresnel's mysterious refraction co-efficient). This is also as Constantinos's 'accumulation' theory.
Conceptually, if your brain is really well charged, you may also be able to find how this derives chromatic dispersion (paper in review), (and, for Georgina, precisely why rainbows reverse themselves in the absorption bands at each end of the visible spectrum).
This would mean em radiation does 'c' everywhere, locally. There never was any need to remove the ether, which brought all the paradoxes. But the SR postulates would still be correct.
Did that answer the right question this time?
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 22:06 GMT
Georgina,
Can I assume the one 'walking towards' Andromeda could just have been 'closer' than the one 'looking away'? (who may have just been further away?) Or am I missing something else more subtle?
I've also racked my brains to work out how it could solve the STR paradoxes and can't find a logical mechanism. If there is one could you explain it? I'm stuck getting anywhere beyond the normal 'light cone' theory, where the apparent causality 'now' membrane is the cone surface; (Inside it the event is history, outside it, it hasn't happened yet). Is there yet more subtlety I'm missing? I think I do see what you're saying, and have said before, every single observer on the cone surface sees a slightly or very different reality, even if standing two feet apart watching a supernova.
Could anybody ever actually observe anything of the first 'real' reality, even from 1mm away? I can't help feeling the critical 'either / or' question is each side of the cone membrane rather than with two 'facets of reality', the real one of which will never be experienced.
But it's interesting that it seems the real reality can only be imagined, and we can only actually experience different distorted impressions of it.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 23:54 GMT
Peter,
Thank you. I did follow your reasoning this time. Interesting message. Good luck with promoting your viewpoint.
James
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 00:28 GMT
Peter ,
To really understand why they should experience it differently -according to special relativity- you have to do the Lorentz transformation mathematics..Its explained in various places on the internet.I'm only really interested in that they do experience it differently.
Actual causality has to be occurring ahead of anything that is observed,not in the present ( or...
view entire post
Peter ,
To really understand why they should experience it differently -according to special relativity- you have to do the Lorentz transformation mathematics..Its explained in various places on the internet.I'm only really interested in that they do experience it differently.
Actual causality has to be occurring ahead of anything that is observed,not in the present ( or hypothetical light cone surface you mention) because there is information transmission time.(Or I suppose I might say the object universe changes and the information remains within it and is eventually intercepted.)
So the causality front (That is the unitemporal Now for the whole object universe,) can be imagined to be -in the future- relative to the experienced present. Its where the photon information is produced by emission or reflection. It is received in another Now, another arrangement of the object universe and experienced as the present. There is no actual future though, it is not a place,as everything concrete only exists simultaneously.The present experience lags behind current Now. So for distant events although the event has happened and can not be changed the information has not yet formed part of the present.Fate or Fait accompli.
There is always ongoing causality, as there is continuous change and even the interception and processing of the data is causality in action . However that is because the two facets of reality are co-existing. Object reality where bodies interact within absolute space and there is causality, and Photon data that allows formation of the image reality all together in the same Unitemporal object universe.
I don't think the paradoxes can be overcome in a universe with a time dimension and concrete reality spread within it.(Without invention of a multi-verse or other imaginary realms.) That structure leads to full determinism, no free will and paradoxes.(If you can manage a very clever trick with a light cone I am interested.) However that space-time Universe must exist to have non simultaneity and relativity. If the space-time one is constructed by observers from data provided by the other underlying Object Universe without time dimension then the Grandfather and twin paradoxes are solved, there is partial non determinism and free will. Past can't be changed, which includes those events that have happened but are not yet the present experience. But there is nothing beyond the unitemporal Now causality front.The imagined future is unwritten.
It is not necessary for the object to persist through out time for it to be seen by all of the different observers at different times and positions only the information from which a representation of the object can be formed.No concrete past- no time travel- no grandfather paradox and no twins paradox.
I think it necessary to get beyond whether the representation built from input is real or the underlying object reality is real. They are both real but different and co-existing as facets of the one reality. I suppose its like the avatars on the computer screen are real but so is the computer game disc. There are no avatars without the game disc but the disc is irrelevant to the player immersed in the game. To answer your question we can't actually know what is really real and currently existing only our retrospective representation of it.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 00:43 GMT
Dear Georgina,
Thank you for making the effort to visit my website. So far as I know, you are the only person here who has even bothered to look let alone check it out for correctness. I don't look for anyone to really go to all that trouble when each of us here have strong viewpoints that we are committed to. I just wanted to give some indication that the things I say are not off-the-wall or shooting-from-the-hip. I start from the very beginning and move forward step by connected step always maintaining clear fundamental unity. That means a single cause for all effects. Now I am bogged down trying to advance into quantum effects. The two things that I want to understand within the context of my own theoretical work are the uncertainty principle and Planck's units. By the way, for anyone who might read this, I am not prepared to back my next statement up yet; but, It appears to me that the Planck units are not correctly derived. The uncertainty principle, I am uncertain about. :)
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 01:15 GMT
I keep reading about "causality", "reality" and that the photons are observed to move at the speed of light c.
The invariance of c is this funny property of light that if you didn't see it, you don't know how fast it moved. If you did see it, you saw a wavelength and frequency whose product is c (or c/n if not in a vacuum).
As for reality, what exactly is reality? If you only know about Classical physics and standard logic, your idea of reality will be ... incomplete. If you are dealing with quantum entanglement phenomena or time dilation/gravity(-like) effects, then your idea of reality will be considered strange.
Photons are like the space-time messenger system. Space-time is NOT a time machine, it is a network. If you think of space-time as an elaborate computer network, where photons carry information, you will be closer to understanding reality.
And if light seems to show "ahead of schedule", it's NOT a time machine, it's a peculiar superluminal phenomena that we know little about.
Simple causality means that the effect can't begin until a "causal carrying photon" brings it the "cause". But what happens if the cause is spread out over time? Then causality is not so simple. But this is still does not mean that time travel can ever be possible.
Happy Thanks Giving Everyone!!!
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 01:27 GMT
Peter,
PS thanks for the rainbow specially for me!
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 03:26 GMT
One of the presumptions built into spacetime is that information is never lost, because all events and their patterns of information dispersal, exist somewhere in the four dimensional geometry. Except maybe what falls into Black holes and that supposedly is stored as bits of data on the horizon line. The fact is that enormous amounts of information are being destroyed every moment. There are no objective events, because, not only do those who perceive them do so differently, but they don't exist for those who have no information of them and even records of their existence eventually evaporate.
We have been staring into the cosmos for a very brief moment and events we don't see, don't exist to us. This isn't just light cones, but distortion as well. One person might see an event, but another might be distracted by another event and be blinded to the other. Different sources of light can interfere with the clear detection of either.
The fact is that energy creates information and energy destroys information, but modern physics values information above energy, so it becomes this conceptual Rubik's Cube of how many dimensions it takes to model reality most efficiently and how do construct them in order to do so.
The fact is that theory works great in a vacuum, but when there is real energy involved, it better be a very good and flexible model, or all those expensive magnets are going to melt down and you have to start over again.
This is actually playing out in our economy and politics as well. We have reached the point of putting so much faith in "Capitalism" and "Democracy" that we think we can get away with totally corrupting every aspect of them and they will still work as the Ideals we have been taught they are. So now we have bankers pillaging the rest of the economy and politicians appealing to the most base impulses and does anyone think it isn't going to completely blow up? Or melt down, depending on how you view it?
Physicists have done the same thing. They have some reasonably workable physics models for the mid twentieth century, given the belief systems they grew out of, such as time being a path from past to future and units being necessary to fully define anything, thus the entire universe must be a finite unit in order to understand it, but have gone off the deep end in what is added to explain the reality being observed.
Here is an interesting article on stuff coming out of the LHC:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8148525/
How-the-universe-evolved-from-a-liquid.html
Seems the reality is just not being cooperative and obeying the models. It will be interesting to watch the theoretical contortions that will be put forth in the coming years.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 03:43 GMT
Dear John,
I started to read your message because I believed that you were saying something of interest about theoretical physics. Instead I get led into reading your personal political view:
"The fact is that theory works great in a vacuum, but when there is real energy involved, it better be a very good and flexible model, or all those expensive magnets are going to melt down and you have to start over again.
This is actually playing out in our economy and politics as well. We have reached the point of putting so much faith in "Capitalism" and "Democracy" that we think we can get away with totally corrupting every aspect of them and they will still work as the Ideals we have been taught they are. So now we have bankers pillaging the rest of the economy and politicians appealing to the most base impulses and does anyone think it isn't going to completely blow up? Or melt down, depending on how you view it?"
There now, its been repeated again. So maybe the rest of the world will finally understand that you and academic liberals that are feeding this prism caused view should really be on the committe to which a one world leader, or at least several leaders who hold fast to a single, total, certain, saving, moral, fair view, should turn too. I think that you can take your political views and your theoretical physics views and shove them.
James
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 04:02 GMT
James,
I missed this;
" The distance and time that I refer to above both are to be viewed as information about what a photon causes a particle of matter to do. The distance represents a part of the measured change in velocity. It is distance therefore, it applies to the numerator of acceleration. That distance can refer to a change in direction because it is a vector. Time is not a vector. There is something else of importance to include before deciding what is a vector or not. A photon causes acceleration. That is because it applies a force acrossed a distance. Force is a vector. The distance is a vector Their product is a scalar. It is their product that is a measure of the effect of the photon. The product of that force times the time involved is a vector. Volume and temperature have nothing to do with any of this."
Time is a sequencing effect. Yes, I agree that on a fundamental level, there is no vector, because the present doesn't actually move along this sequence, rather it is an effect of cumulative motion, but unless we model it as the vector, the sequence of configurations, the fourth dimension, than it is not fundamental.
" The irony, from my point of view is that the only two properties that we know of directly are distance and time."
I do experience volume and temperature. The problem is that it's the right hemisphere of the brain which is designed to process them. The non-linear, cumulative part. The rational left side does the linear parts, the sequencing of cause and effect of time and linear distance of directional navigation. The vectors.
So either it is a vector, or it's not a fundamental property.
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 04:18 GMT
James,
I'm afraid you have applied you own models to the words I used. If you've read anything I've ever written, you would know I'm not a top down sort of person. To repeat myself one more time, reality is bottom up. THERE IS NO FREAKING UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE!!!!!!
The big old oak tree is going to fall and there are a bunch of little acorns(not the liberal activist variety), waiting to take its place.
I'm a farmer. I only graduated from high school because they didn't want to deal with me being truant another year and gave me the necessary credits as "work experience" to graduate and to say your accusations of my political beliefs have stirred me up would be an understatement.
While I'm not fond of government, I am at least smart enough to know that law is a function of power, not the other way around and unless there is some mutually agreed to framework for society, then the gangs and warlords take over. Please read some history books.
Do you think that if the whole building collapses around us, our inherent intelligence is going to save the day? At best, they are just blueprints and we are dealing with bad building practices.
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 04:23 GMT
Dear John,
I said take it and shove it. No great loss. There are several other admirable contributors here who look forward to learning from you.
James
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 04:54 GMT
James,
Having cooled down, I just want to point out I only raised the political and economic issues to emphasize the point that information is determined by energy, not the other way around. Just as in politics, power writes the laws far more than the laws control the power, whether it's the strong man, or the organized mob.
Consider the relationship of academics to the business and political worlds; Academics deal in information, while business and politics are about power. The academics are tools. When business and politicians want something, they don't go ask the academics, they find academics who will say what they want to hear.
Do I want power? Do I want to spend my time trying to tell people what to do? Why don't I just go bang my head on the wall directly and not waste my time doing it figuratively? Do I think academics would make good politicians? Do you really think I'm that stupid? ARGH. Getting my ire up again. Good Night and Happy Thanksgiving!
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 06:35 GMT
Dear John,
I understand that you know that there: "...IS NO FREAKING UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE!!!!!!"
All those exclamation points definitely drive it home. However, you point does kind of make me think that you have found out that Wikipedia, through no action of my own, uses my quote as the example of the modern view of universal intelligence.
There is no 'freaking reason' (I do not need all caps) why I should be convinced by your 'freaking' opinion that my opinion is wrong. Please show the equations and their property definitions the next time. Afterall, your view is scientific right?
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 09:10 GMT
John,
That was brilliant!
J:"One of the presumptions built into spacetime is that information is never lost, because all events and their patterns of information dispersal, exist somewhere in the four dimensional geometry. Except maybe what falls into Black holes and that supposedly is stored as bits of data on the horizon line. The fact is that enormous amounts of information are being destroyed every moment."
Information is conserved means that math equations still work. But what happens if information becomes so mixed that it that it becomes the randomness of the Uncertainty Principle?
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 10:24 GMT
How can there be only an object Universe which has no time dimesion but experience that is temporally extended?
As the spatial arrangement of the Object Universe alters information is continuously generated, as photons are emitted or reflected. The whole Object Universe is the the causality front of Unitemporal Now. Information is also continuously recieved by the aware observer or...
view entire post
How can there be only an object Universe which has no time dimesion but experience that is temporally extended?
As the spatial arrangement of the Object Universe alters information is continuously generated, as photons are emitted or reflected. The whole Object Universe is the the causality front of Unitemporal Now. Information is also continuously recieved by the aware observer or detectors. The sequence of received data is used to give experience of or reinforce experience of the passage of time. Or it may be compared against the time on a clock giving a sequence of time samples.
Time and perceived order of temporal events emerges from the order of -arrival- of the information. Not from the order in which it was produced.(As on arrival the information is formed into present experience.) Which leads to non simultaneity. The order of arrival depending on spatial location of the observer. Position will also determine which data is received and can form part of the image reality constructed from it. So each observer constructs their own reality, from the data they have received, either directly or indirectly.
This subjective time sequence information is then stored as memory in the biochemical structure or function of the organism or in physical records such as books, film, CD etc. All of which are chemical structures existing in the unitemporal Object Universe, Now. Consensus reality is also recorded in physical records which only exist as concrete reality Now. Temporal sequences may also be discerned from fossil records or tree rings or ice cores etc. but the matter examined exists in unitemporal Now. The events giving the observed forms no longer exists except in those records.
So extended experience and observations of change over time all depend on information persisting in the object reality Now either as not yet experienced EM data, biochemical stored memory, records of various kinds. That the events, and possibly objects involved, no longer exist in time as a concrete reality does not mean that the events are not real or can not be accessed as Image reality with temporal spread and perceived duration. So long as the information survives in the Object Universe in a form and a place that is accessible, the information can be interpreted to give a space-time Image reality.
The experience from receipt of EM data is an image reality representation of things that have happened. The conclusions drawn from examination of records including memory is also a kind of image reality reconstruction, although the quality and reliability of the reality reconstruction will depend on the quality of the information stored and how well it is retrieved and interpreted.
False or corrupted information may also be stored but retrieved and interpreted as reliable. Errors may be made in the interpretation of ambiguous or minimal data. This means that although raw data and records allow a reality to be constructed it is not necessarily true. Which is most well demonstrated by magical illusion, where there is misinformation, misdirection, lack of complete information etc. leading to creation of a false but magical reality.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 11:27 GMT
Jason,
The function of the mind, intelligence, the origins of culture, story telling, history, technology, the business accounting that was the original basis of math, are all about the preservation and organization of information. So it's not surprising that among the various conceptual biases built into the physics model should be the permanence of information. The real irony is that even information storage requires destroying whatever information had been stored in whatever medium used to store it. The amount of energy remains the same, so creating new information destroys old information. Even the process of accessing information will often alter it, especially analog information. Museums don't like pictures being taken because the accumulation of flashes fades color, not to mention disturbing others visual experience and sales of the museums own collections of pictures, Which is the basic commercial transfer of energy.
(Took my daughter to Washington for a photography exhibit yesterday. School assignment.)
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 15:51 GMT
Jason,
I am assuming that this was a message to me:
"J:One of the presumptions built into spacetime is that information is never lost, because all events and their patterns of information dispersal, exist somewhere in the four dimensional geometry. ..."
If it was, then I would just point out that I am certain that relativity theory is wrong. So, it does not guide me in my view about the universe and information.
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 17:04 GMT
Hi James,
Actually, I was quoting John. But that's ok. He gave me a brilliant idea about "physics" information which is never lost, so they say. But think about. The fact that Quarog, the dog from Andromeda, sneezed 2 million years is information. But that information is now dispersed into a light pattern of radius r=2 million light years. This information, I promise you, is irretrievable. It is lost somewhere in the background quantum noise.
But neither Stephen Hawking, nor Lawrence, nor Roger Penrose will ever tell you that because while they can grind through SO(x) like it's nothing, they don't understand what the physics is telling them.
The quantum randomness of the Uncertainty principle includes dispersed information that is irretrievable now. In this way, it is effectively lost to mathematics.
This does not uphold determinism. After sufficient mixing, the information is "unreadable".
report post as inappropriate
James Putnam replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 17:50 GMT
Jason,
"Actually, I was quoting John."
Sorry for the interruption. By the way, your use of the word information in that message is the way in which I use it also.
James
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 17:58 GMT
James,
It was no interruption. I like intelligent conversation.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 19:19 GMT
Jason, John,James,
Good point about information loss John. Raw Information and structure is of finite duration in a presentist model.The dinosaur is not an egg, an immature animal, a mature animal, a fleshy corpse and dead bones spread across time in concrete form. As it can be regarded in a space-time Universe. We can use the bones, all that exists in the Unitemporal Object Universe as a record of former reality but there is incomplete information, from which to construct a representation of the live animal. Every time a photon is absorbed the information it carried is no longer available for another organism or detector to absorb.There is only what is and the totality of what is changes continuously.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 19:57 GMT
"It is what it is" is not quite right because "it is" is using the present tense and it is not the present. As it is always ahead of detection and so present experience. The object universe -"is"- what the representation Image Universe -shall be- but with distortion,processing and interpretation and spread over time. As the representation is built up from data produced over a sequence of spatial change.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 20:57 GMT
Georgina,
Perhaps Information is never destroyed; it is simply buried with lots of useless and irrelevant information. There comes a point where it cannot be recovered. I have a shredder at home, and a fire place. I can take the information from my bills, shred them and burn them. That information is no longer recoverable.
With respect to black hole entropy and the associated mathematics, what is the difference between (a) information is unrecoverable, but not destroyed versus (b) information is destroyed. What impact does this have on Stephen Hawking's black hole physics?
report post as inappropriate
John Merryman replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 21:42 GMT
Jason,
Is information that is not recoverable information?
Obviously some particular particle existed at various places in the past and nothing can change that, but if the particle doesn't exist there anymore, that actual information of those places and times no longer exists.
If the information simply doesn't exist anymore, it's been destroyed, even if its existence had continuing effects.
This is why, in terms of physics, we need to think in terms of the physical, not just how to define and measure it. Information starts in the future, becomes manifest and eventually recedes into the past. Energy, on the other hand, goes past to future. It radiates away from old forms/information and coalesces into new forms/information.
These two directions of time are the difference between information and energy.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 21:55 GMT
Jason,
I think it is both. Information has to be able to inform so that a representation or meaning can be obtained. It has to be present and it also has to be accessible. A Vinyl record is no use without a record player but the information is still there. If the record is melted down the information is gone, with the change in spatial arrangement of the material.
Information that is just lost is theoretically recoverable. So if a person touches a wall and no one sees, the information that the wall was touched might be considered lost. But a forensic specialist might be able to detect minute traces of oil or sweat or DNA from shed skin cells or a powerful infra red detector might pickup traces of body heat. So it is only lost as in considered unrecoverable. If it is destroyed it is gone and has no further existence to be detected by any means.After a few months it is unlikely that any traces of the wall being touched will be recovered, the information has gone for good.
I'm not sure it makes any difference to us what happens to information in a black hole. As we have no means to access the information whether it is there or not. It is a black hole because it doesn't give us information to know it differently. If we were able to access the information it contains, if it does, we would know it differently, it wouldn't be a black hole. I'm sure you know more about the physics of them than I do. With a different explanatory model there will have to be some different mathematics
The information that is lost is as important as the information preserved. Lets say sunlight reflected from a flower surface. If the whole of the sunlight was reflected we would not perceive the colour and contours of the flower which we create from the red green , blue yellow balance and brightness of the input detected and then processed by the brain. So information in the EM from the sun is lost giving the information from the flower.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 25, 2010 @ 22:20 GMT
When I read about the black hole information paradox,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_
paradox
I'm left with the impression that the mathematics far exceeds any meaningful information that we can derive from it. I know that the physics community loves grinding through math, but that's about all they're doing. Technically, they could calculate how many angels dance on the head of a pin, but since nobody has seen any angles dancing on pins, it's not helpful.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 27, 2010 @ 11:43 GMT
Peter,
re. the observers in the Andromeda paradox.I don't think it is just one is closer. They have different continuously changing pathways through absolute Unitemporal space. So they intercept the data differently, intercepting what reaches their receptors at their positions. Leading to different perspectives.The first observer receives the data and constructs an image reality containing the observation. The earth and both observers move in absolute space and the second observer receives the information and forms his image reality.
So the one event occurs in two different presents apparently separated in time. Each observer fabricates their own patchwork present from the data received together. For one the event has happened for the other it hasn't yet. Which is the kind of non simultaneity that occurs with special relativity. Not much different from one person hearing the thunder and another hearing it a few seconds later because of the greater distance from the storm, After the first has heard it there is no stopping the thunder from happening and it is inevitable that the second person will hear it. It is fate or fait accompli, because of the distance of the event from the observer, and the data having to cross space. Though the air expansion causing the clap thunder only occurred the once.
This is only a problem if the present is regarded as what is happening in some kind of uniform now rather than an individual representation of what was, formed from data received over a sequence of absolute change of the universe and therefore not being uniform in content and simultaneity between observers. Or the difference in view point is taken to imply that both observed realities exist in concrete form in the universe rather than just being subjective image realities.
It doesn't seem to be a paradox when the alternative duel reality type model is used. Am I missing the point?
report post as inappropriate
Anonymous replied on Nov. 29, 2010 @ 19:10 GMT
Georgina
"It doesn't seem to be a paradox when the alternative duel reality type model is used. Am I missing the point?"
I suspect we're all missing the real point Georgina, so you no more than I.
I think your revelation is important, and is gives a fresh viewpoint. It's not new, but we do need to be reminded. As the 'object world' doesn't exist for anyone it's relevance fades, but I agree too many do believe there is only one perceived reality.
But the important question is, does it help explain the unexplained? Can it resolve the twins paradox? No. It is however consistent with a resolved twins paradox, which is something different. It is consistent with a 'mechanistic' resolution of the differences in peoples perception.
You mentioned a racing car passing, stretched to a blur. In fact in SR using the LT it would be the opposite, it would shrink. Let's go further.
Imagine you're in a fast orbit in a shuttle passing another shuttle in opposite orbit. As you pass you film it with ultra high speed film. It has a long neon tube fixed to it's side and sends a flash through it, from rear to nose, as you pass.
Q. With your distorted subjective reality, will the tube shrink at the moment the pulse passes through it to avoid you observing v+c? Does the whole shuttle shrink and return again? Does it need to to comply with the SR postulates, as the neon gas is a dielectric and light will pass through it at c/n, so nothing will breach 'c'. The camera tells you the light received was received at 'c', (or c/n in the glass of the lens) but when you run the film you may find the 'apparent' speed of the pulse from your frame as it passed was c+v.
The light you are seeing is that emitted laterally from the gas particles by atomic scattering when charged, at around 'c'. So why do we say that in our subjective reality we are not 'allowed' to observe anything at c+v?
This means that your 'subjective reality' disproves an assumption we've made about what SR says. And it's only that unnecessary assumption that creates the paradox. In those terms, the truth is, your reminder that we only see subjective reality may be very important in allowing science to progress.
Does that scare you?
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 29, 2010 @ 21:57 GMT
Hi Peter,
So what is the point of the paradox? It shows that special relativity alone does not work with the concept of a simultaneous present. That however has been known for a very long time and is not a new revelation brought about by the paradox. Non simultaneity comes hand in hand with the space-time model and has to be accepted.I have shown a way that there can be one event but also...
view entire post
Hi Peter,
So what is the point of the paradox? It shows that special relativity alone does not work with the concept of a simultaneous present. That however has been known for a very long time and is not a new revelation brought about by the paradox. Non simultaneity comes hand in hand with the space-time model and has to be accepted.I have shown a way that there can be one event but also observer experiences of the event at different times. This is common place. An event happens but it takes time for the news to spread. The thunder is not heard simultaneously by everyone irrespective of distance from the storm.etc.
You said "As the 'object world' doesn't exist for anyone it's relevance fades, but I agree too many do believe there is only one perceived reality."
I am not sure what you mean by this. I agree no one directly perceives an object world or universe only their self constructed image but that does not mean that its relevance fades. It is most relevant. It is the concrete Universe of Newton. Existing in absolute space not relative space and changing over absolute time, the whole universe from arrangement to arrangement in space independent of relative time. That has been superseded by blind faith that the relative perception of reality through observation and the mathematical simulation of reality is more real, and the only true reality. That is the mistake of the 20th century. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater.A whole concrete universe -thats a big baby for no one to notice was missing.
The twins paradox is rendered irrelevant because there is no time dimension along which concrete objects are distributed. There are no past and future realms containing material objects. There are only the images of past events formed from photon data that is still in the object universe after the event. The past is simulated by the observer it does not have independent concrete existence. Which makes any discussion of time travel absurd because there is no time to travel in. So the grandfather paradox is absurd too. Time is a construct that enables the ordering of events in the mind it is not a substance or realm or channel that can be traveled through.
If an object is moving very fast it can be difficult to focus on it and form a clear image of it in space, which is why I mentioned the blur. That is also what my camera "sees". Though I do not believe that the actual object is stretched or blurred itself. It is only the image. If the data is processed in another way though the out come may also be altered but in a different way. That does not mean that the object itself was altered. The outcome is the result of the processing it is not what is happening to objects in space.
My initial thought on the shuttle question..is that the light is not an ordinary object that can just have velocities added together. It is a wave spreading through space and it does that at c. I do not intend to disprove SR. I have accepted c is the max speed of light and that SR has not been dis proven by experimental testing over the last 50 years.It is not in my opinion a mere false assumption about the speed of light that causes the paradoxes but the missing object universe. Assuming that the image of the universe is the object universe and the mathematical description of it, giving us space-time, is the complete description, discrediting Newton's work, is the error of 50+ years.
I'm not scared. I'm tired and frustrated.Science has been stuck with these questions and paradoxes for over 50 years looking for a single black or white solution to no avail. This is very important in my opinion which is why I have spent so much time thinking about the problems and paradoxes and trying to find the solution that works for all of them. The solution offered answers the paradoxes and other questions, fits with uncertainty, gives free will, partial non determinism, allows causality and it allows atrocity and disaster to be over and finished and does not require invention of a multi verse..thank you. Eventually everyone well say well of course we all knew that. You and others may well have your own ideas and models to explain everything but it is up to you and them to demonstrate that it provides a better solution than the one given.
view post as summary
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 30, 2010 @ 03:31 GMT
I'm going to take a stab at explaining the twin paradox. There are gravitational ... layers that are characterized by time dilation. When a photon or a spaceship transitions from one gravitational layer to another, frequency is doppler shifted (gained or lost); transitioning between gravitational layers either adds to kinetic energy or takes away from it.
The equivalence principle says that gravity and vehicular acceleration are identical, at least as far as the laws of physics are considered. In both cases, there is time dilation. That time dilation is necessary to make sure that photon frequency is changed by the correct amount; conservation of energy must be upheld.
For some relativistically moving objects, the t' = 10t (as an example). If t is the period of a photon, T, it's frequency is f = 1/T = 1/t; likewise, the t' is the period of the photon as it reaches the relativistically moving object. It's frequency is f' = 1/T'=1/t'. Gotta go.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Nov. 30, 2010 @ 04:43 GMT
Hi Peter,
Take the skateboard ramp example. You build a ramp someplace where the gravity g and the height h are significant enough that you can see the time dilation effects; possible a neutron star. Anyway, take a laser and shine it up to the top of the skateboard ramp, at the skateboard. The skateboard can measure frequency and wavelength as it teeters at the top. It measures a slight decrease in frequency because the photons had to climb to the top of the ramp.
Then, the skateboard with the frequency detector starts to accelerate down the ramp. Since there is no atmosphere, the skateboard reaches a signficantly high velocity as it approaches the observer and zooms right by at 0.8c. When the skateboard was approaching, there was blue shift. As it flies by, there is redshift. The skateboard with the frequency counter will confirm this.
But how does time dilation occur in a way that supports the twin paradox? I'm working on it...
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Nov. 30, 2010 @ 12:34 GMT
Georgina
First they ignore you, then they call you a fool, then they say it's self evident.
You say; "I have shown a way that there can be one event but also observer experiences of the event at different times." I applaud you as this is self evident to me. Indeed it's the basis of 'light cone' causality as I've alwats understood it, will be self evident to many, and was the basis of my 'train/clocks' thought experiment here.
But, As Bacon said, new discovery isn't as important as finding new ways to look at what we already know. An when Einstein said "We don't yet understand 1,000th of 1%.." he continued by saying; "..of what nature 'HAS REVEALED' to us, not 'has still TO reveal'.
Many will not have considered what you say, but, even for those that have, making them re-think the implications can be of massive importance. So while many who read it may ask; "So?... what's new?..." I'm sure it will also inspire many others to gain a better view of how personal their own 'reality' is.
But. And for Jason too; Although it adheres strictly to the postulates and principles of SR, it cannot in itself resolve the twins or light box paradoxes, or indeed explain CSL wrt observers in motion;
We have a box, on our planet or in space, with mirrors top and bottom and a light pulse bouncing between. The box moves to the right wrt to an observer (or vice versa). The pulse still moves vertically wrt the box. The observer must see it moving diagonally at more than c.
Now just have the 2 parallel mirrors, say 10m apart. Move the mirrors off to the right in unison. What happens to the light pulse? ?? Now move the observer instead. Does the same thing happen in his subject reality? A small and crucial key is still missing.
But Jason, I believe your example is now very close. Except that it will be the laser wavelength not frequency that changes; Consider. The skateboard has been hanging there a while with the laser shining on it. The number of 'photons' (if you wish) leaving the laser and reaching the board in any given time is equal. So the frequency is equal. The skateboard needs to measure lambda. When it starts moving again it is in a different inertial frame and the frequency (how 'frequently' the waves or photons pass) will then also vary.
But, for $64,000, and open to anybody; Why is it the skateboard sensor (through it's glass lens of course) always measures the light speed as 'c' whatever speed it's doing??
Peter
(A possible clue; n engineer called Auguste wrote a co-efficient about it long ago).
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Nov. 30, 2010 @ 19:24 GMT
Hi Peter,
you are correct I have not made a new discovery. Understanding (how it works, whats going on) comes from the interpretation of what is known, not from the information by itself. What I am saying is self evident, also self consistent, it has correspondence with Einstein's relativity and Newton's Absolute universe and uncertainty and much of mainstream science.
It is not a fanciful new idea,for which there is no evidence but carefully thought out examination of what is already known and what is necessary to make what is known into an explanatory model that gives solutions- rather than questions and paradoxes. The best way to model the object reality is still an open question in my mind.
Thank you very much for that positive and optimistic appraisal. I hope that there are more people than I am aware of who read what I write. I have no idea how many visitors this site even gets, let alone visitors who bother to read more than the articles. Its like talking to the wind. "The wind is my only friend"..(Whispered voice)"I hate you."(From the Mighty Boosh) I don't want people to just think about how personal their own reality is because thats just half of it. Both facets of reality are necessary to answer the questions and make irrelevant the paradoxes.
Peter, re.c I might talk about that in the answers to the essay question.It is relevant and interesting.
report post as inappropriate
Jason Wolfe replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 05:15 GMT
Hi Peter,
Great to hear from you!
OK, what's the difference between two inertial reference frames A and B? Answer, a difference in velocity. Therefore, A inertial reference frame to reach B reference frame, A has to accelerate to match the velocity of B. In fact, everything on A reference frame (it's mass) has to accellerate.
IMO, inertial frames are made out of wavefunctions and energy (particles). What connects two inertial reference frames is what I call a Time Dilation Thread. A time dilation thread is a wave function whose two ends are t and t' such that t' = gamma * t. When a time dilation thread is stretched between two inertial reference frames, the photon frequency, f=1/t, frequency shifts automatically.
It's that easy and that hard. Sorry I can't simplify it anymore than that; I'm sorry that nobody will bother to try to understand it either. Relativity is mentally taxing.
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 17:39 GMT
Georgina/Jason
The $64,000 is still on offer. Who dares wins! You say "relevant and interesting" Georgina, yes, and fundamental to solving all riddles. I've thought more about your object and subject spaces and agree they may provide another window overlooking the truth from where we're trapped. Have you considered why, when you pass that 'light box' with the pulse bouncing up and down, you must observe it moving diagonally at more than 'c' wrt your own frame? Does it really 'contract', as SR says? or is it just that in your subject reality it's apparent speed is irrelevant, because in the concrete object reality it is doing 'c'. Perhaps we can call the difference the space/time factor to ave ourselves from the nuthouse!
But Jason, so far the prize would go to you, as when light enters the glass side of the moving box it will be immediately converted to c/n of glass. The glass does not care what we say, it will transmit light at c/n and just wonder how we can be so dim. The waves will be Doppler shifted blue if the box is moving towards the source, or red if moving away.
The glass sees nature more clearly than us. Even the lenses of our eyes agree, as they pass the light to our retina at c/n, and are left wondering what on earth goes on in our brains!
I greatly look forward to your paper Georgina.
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Jason Mark Wolfe replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 17:49 GMT
Dear Peter,
I had thought of calling it the "light conspiracy" by the connotation is oxymoronic since light is supposed to be good and virtuous while conspiracies are suggestive of lies and deceit, so it doesn't work well. Yet, the propties of photons and light are ubiquitous in physics, as if photons were running everything. Photons are literally timing your clock and measuring your ruler.
BTW, I'm getting a Tom Tom for Christmas. Tom Tom is a navigational computer that relies upon the GPS satellite system, which relies upon Relativity. I'll let you know if I still get lost.
report post as inappropriate
Steev Dufourny replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 18:10 GMT
ahaha and of course Jason works for FBI and would like to work for CIA .Is it correct my bad english ,would like to work, or would like working for or perhaps an other....
In all case if they contact me , I tell you the evolution.
Amen ahahah
And also Gasper exists the little ghost and will be president of USA soon .
Let's laugh ,it's good for health .IRRITING THIS BELGIAN IRRITING HIHI
Steve
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 19:56 GMT
Jason
Just make sure you don't believe your Tom Tom ALL the time! They're the primary reasons for all the giant semi's jammed up English country lanes at present.
And don't believe the propaganda propagating confusion either. They do NOT rely on SR for GPS! I thought you'd read this NASA paper; Gezari D Y. NASA Goddard SFC. Experimental basis for Special Relativity in the photon sector. http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.3818v2 (2009) I also recently posted a NASA link confirming they stopped relying on it for spacecraft navigation long ago as well as they didn't want to loose any more spacecraft. But don't tell everyone! and be careful, the postulates are fine, and not the problem.
Just consider what it says about the pulse in the light box experiment above. Then decide, would you trust it?
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Dec. 1, 2010 @ 20:18 GMT
Hi Steve,
you said " Is it correct my bad english ,would like to work, or would like working for or perhaps an other....
Both are correct Steve. "Would like to work for".. and "would like working for".. have the same meaning. Although the first version sounds a slightly more autonomous role to me.
"Perhaps another" sounds like another person , it would be better to say "perhaps something else" or "perhaps some alternative". These are small nuances that covey precision of meaning but do not prevent the reader from understanding what was meant.
report post as inappropriate
Georgina Parry replied on Dec. 2, 2010 @ 06:29 GMT
Peter ,
the observer is not seeing the light beam moving up and down or across. The observer is seeing their own reconstructed reality from the data received that has traveled at c from the light source in absolute space to the eye.
The light beam that is seen in relative space is not actually in that space! It is in an image produced by the brain together with the information that this exists outside of you. The relative space is not "really real". The visualized light beam is not "really real".What is observed is not "really real" .It is a representation that allows the organism to navigate and survive. That the observation differs from the concrete physical reality is not important, so long as it functions to assist the survival of the organism. It does mean though that when we get really clever as a species we might find the discrepancy confusing for a while.
report post as inappropriate
Peter Jackson replied on Dec. 2, 2010 @ 11:52 GMT
Georgina
I always had confidence the search for intelligent life would not be in vain!
Brilliant. And you say; "when we get really clever as a species we might find the discrepancy confusing for a while." Yes. For over 100 years so far Georgina.
But for how much longer? Yes; "The light beam that is seen in relative space is not actually in that space!" So the observer does not indeed see anything that is really doing more than 'c' in it's own object reality.
Yet the interpretation of SR that we are chained to says this is not possible, it says we cannot even see it 'apparently' doing more than 'c' wrt our own space. And that is precisely why science has been stuck in this deep rut for so long.
As early as 1923 (Sweden) Einstein said for the first time; "There are an infinite number of such local inertial frames at any space-time point" Though Minkowski has said it much earlier. Neither quite realised the full implications of that.
When you say. "That the observation differs from the concrete physical reality is not important" Not important to our functioning Georgina, but of massive unseen importance to our understanding of reality, relativity and nature. This is what will remove all the paradoxes. Can you see the implications?
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Steve Dufourny replied on Dec. 2, 2010 @ 12:12 GMT
Hi all,
dear Georgina,
Thank you very much, it's nice.
I try to evolve in English even if I dislike studying language.
Regards
Steve
report post as inappropriate
Steve Dufourny replied on Dec. 4, 2010 @ 16:52 GMT
Hi Peter,
You are right.you say..."I always had confidence the search for intelligent life would not be in vain!"
Indeed ....SETI INSTITUTE YOU CAN SAY THEM THAT I HAVE SEVERAL IDEAS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE....Spheres QM GR...THERMODYNAMIC.H...CNO....H2O HCN HCOOH CH4 NH3.......AMINO ACIDS....TIME CONSTANT OF EVOLUTION...........I will be happy for working there ,I love so much astrobiology.
iNDEED THEY EXISTS...INDEED THEY WANT LIKE US ....DISCOVER THE UNIVERSAL SPHERE.
If the informations are topologically inserted in a sphere and a center....it will be easier to find ....
Ps I think that special relativity is important,that's why the informations could go more far in the invibility......the BH .....
Regards
Steve
report post as inappropriate
hide replies