Einstein's train. All change, please.

How does science work? And what's all this about quantum mechanics?

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Univalence
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by Univalence »

uwot wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 2:05 pm Well, you can on this forum.
Are you holding any heavy objects?
seeds
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 3:28 pmIn other words, we can never directly know or experience (as it really is) the exact nature of the noumenal-like underpinning of reality because any attempt to do so instantly transforms it into phenomena.

Quite an unfortunate dilemma for physicists, wouldn’t you agree?
Dubious wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 10:22 pm For their inquiries perhaps but fortunate for the rest of us; if that process were reversed we’d probably dissolve back into a quantum or noumenal state.
Allegedly (according to the implications of certain theories), if life and consciousness were not an integral aspect of reality, then dissolving back into a noumenal state is exactly what would happen to the phenomenal features of the universe.
Dubious wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 10:22 pm I think of phenomena as the frozen aspect of that which underpins it.
Right, and the question is: what is it that causes the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world to “freeze” at any given moment?

In other words, what causes the informationally-based underpinning of the universe to yield-forth and display a sensory tangible phenomenon that the non-tangible (sensory inaccessible) information (the noumenon) represents?

And, once again, we’re back to the possible role that life and consciousness might play in that process.
Dubious wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 10:22 pm The question then becomes what upholds and lies beneath the quantum states which in turn expresses itself as the “the phenomenon” generator of that process.
Assuming I’m getting the gist of what you're asking, then I suggest that if you can figure out what lies beneath and expresses itself as “the phenomenon generator” within the closed and subjective context of your own mind, you will then be on the right track to answering your question.
Dubious wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 10:22 pm From those perspectives it’s no wonder we often think of the universe as an illusion.
We often think of the universe as being an illusion because it is an illusion.

Not in the sense that it is a hallucination, or that there is nothing truly there, but in the fact that what we call “reality” is more like a highly ordered “dream,” for lack of a better word...

...(again, I submit this approximately 25 year old, 7.5 min video clip of me explaining what I mean by that, here - https://youtu.be/bVbpHy4nncA). (Warning - contains the word “God” in it :P)

The point is that reality isn’t quite as real as it appears to be.

In which case, we need to re-examine our assumptions of what the word “real” actually means.
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by Dubious »

seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pmAllegedly (according to the implications of certain theories), if life and consciousness were not an integral aspect of reality, then dissolving back into a noumenal state is exactly what would happen to the phenomenal features of the universe.
...but only if consciousness operates as the synthetic device or translator which yields each infinitesimal moment of a lower level abstraction into its corresponding reality as we perceive it through our own remodeling functions. In that sense, the universe is indeed an illusion...a thoroughly synthetic one.

Perhaps consciousness is the filter which creates the metanarrative we’re all familiar with out of a heap of quantum intangibles, in effect, solidifying it. If we were able to erase these filtered manifestations we may discover our true existence inherent in the very entrails of the quantum world.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pmRight, and the question is: what is it that causes the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world to “freeze” at any given moment?

In other words, what causes the informationally-based underpinning of the universe to yield-forth and display a sensory tangible phenomenon that the non-tangible (sensory inaccessible) information (the noumenon) represents?
For me, metaphorically speaking, it would be each infinitesimal moment of time which acts as lens and freezes the “the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world”, not unlike our most advanced cameras which can freeze even the fastest moving objects into explicit detail. In that sense time itself is the observer which creates the phenomenal output from its noumenal underpinnings or that which we denote as such. Even the quantum field is not noumenal relative to that which upholds it.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pmIn which case, we need to re-examine our assumptions of what the word “real” actually means.
..which, if it can be defined at all, can only succeed at the level in which it’s employed. What defines reality for us and our experience of the world has a very different denotation in its quantum state.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pmWe often think of the universe as being an illusion because it is an illusion.

Not in the sense that it is a hallucination, or that there is nothing truly there, but in the fact that what we call “reality” is more like a highly ordered “dream,” for lack of a better word...
Yes, but one based on synthesis as supervised by degrees or types of consciousness. Envisioning reality as more of a highly ordered dream I think is an excellent way of putting it. When the “Doors of Perception” are in retreat the mind begins to blend with a different substratum of experience one that wouldn’t seem logical in its “normal” fixed state.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pmThe point is that reality isn’t quite as real as it appears to be.
Yes, that conclusion may be sporadically felt when reality starts to wonder how real it actually is. For me the world resembles a description of a more potent reality which creates the one we acknowledge as The Reality.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pm...(again, I submit this approximately 25 year old, 7.5 min video clip of me explaining what I mean by that, here - https://youtu.be/bVbpHy4nncA). (Warning - contains the word “God” in it )
That’s ok! God for me is just the short version for Nonentity except when spelled backwards.

These are all just philosophical ramblings. Are we and the world actual entities or only the description of one is an abiding question! Of this I’m certain. What happens between birth and death is our real concern; a play which is real and not simply staged regardless of how it came to be written. An illusion which questions itself no-longer appears to itself as an illusion since it tries to fathom that reality which literally sustains it. If I were to give it a symbol it would be that of the Ouroboros or dragon biting its own tail.

Btw, I have watched your video a couple of times. I think Jung himself would have been very interested in your graphic imagery.

Much of what you say I’m not prone to disagree with as possibility since the quantum world is at least as paradoxical as anything our upstart imagination can devise. What the universe and dreams have in common (seems to me) is that what appears illogical and disjointed to consciousness makes complete sense to both the dream and the universe.

When it comes down to these manifest uncertainties Bohr and Heisenberg come across as profounder spirits than Einstein though people think of him as a god who understood everything.

Sorry about the length!
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by attofishpi »

uwot wrote: Mon May 20, 2019 12:44 pm Fuck it, given up on that other thread.
Anyway, here's a couple of quotes to remind us what that was supposed to be about:
“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician, he is also a child placed before natural phenomenon, which impress him like a fairy tale.”
- Marie Curie
"What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space."
- Erwin Schrodinger.
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
- Nikola Tesla
"We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images."
- Niels Bohr
"Most gravity has no known origin. Is it some exotic particle? Nobody knows. Is dark energy responsible for expansion of the universe? Nobody knows."
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
"All this is a dream. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency."
- Michael Faraday
"Age, please leave this thread alone."
-Yours truly

Here's how I have tried to make a coherent model from all that: https://willybouwman.blogspot.com
Nice collection of quotes. What it ultimately all comes back to is consciousness - and what the f is that and how the f is that!
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 3:48 am I suggest that Everett’s “Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” is perhaps the most ridiculous theory in existence (at least in terms of theories that are actually taken seriously by physicists).

That being said, I’d be interested in hearing why you think it might possibly be true.
uwot wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 11:52 am Er, well because I cannot think of a reason why it's impossible, I suppose. If you take the Faraday quote in the OP seriously, and I do, then "Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature..."
I’m going to forego my usual tirade on this topic and instead offer-up something amusing about Everett’s Many-Worlds theory that people seldom consider.

And that is if we are going to take the theory seriously then we need to face the possibility that our own universe may not have originated 13.8 billion years ago in a Big Bang.

No, because if the Many-Worlds theory is true, then we may owe our existence to a “branching” that might have occurred - (perhaps a mere 10 minutes ago) - due to the quantum events that took place in the methane from a bear farting in the woods in an alternate universe.

In which case, we are not here as the result of a “Big Bang,” but from a “tiny toot.”

(Let me coin that right now – “the tiny-toot theory”)

Is that ridiculous enough for ya? :D
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by uwot »

seeds wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 2:57 pm(Let me coin that right now – “the tiny-toot theory”)

Is that ridiculous enough for ya? :D
Lemme paraphrase Mr Faraday: 'All this is a dream. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too ridiculous to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency.' Tell ya what, if you can cobble together an equation to match Schrödinger's that supports the tiny-toot theory, the Nobel Prize is nailed on.
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pm Allegedly (according to the implications of certain theories), if life and consciousness were not an integral aspect of reality, then dissolving back into a noumenal state is exactly what would happen to the phenomenal features of the universe.
Dubious wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm ...but only if consciousness operates as the synthetic device or translator which yields each infinitesimal moment of a lower level abstraction into its corresponding reality as we perceive it through our own remodeling functions. In that sense, the universe is indeed an illusion...a thoroughly synthetic one.
Nicely stated, Dubious (as is your entire post).

I’m not sure what you mean by “synthetic” in this situation, however (IMO), there’s a much simpler way of viewing the workings of consciousness (the “translator”).

As I have often suggested in my forum ramblings, all you have to do is realize that whatever the mechanism is that transforms (translates) fields of information (noumena) into the vivid three-dimensional phenomena of our dreams when we direct our consciousness inward...

...is the same mechanism that transforms fields of information into the vivid three-dimensional phenomena of the universe when we direct our consciousness outward.

It’s all the same type of stuff, as is loosely implied in the old Hermetic axiom “as above, so below.”

It’s just that the “above” stuff (the hi-def material reality of the universe) is vastly more ordered and organized than the “below” stuff (the low-def features of our dreams).
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pm Right, and the question is: what is it that causes the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world to “freeze” at any given moment?

In other words, what causes the informationally-based underpinning of the universe to yield-forth and display a sensory tangible phenomenon that the non-tangible (sensory inaccessible) information (the noumenon) represents?
Dubious wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm For me, metaphorically speaking, it would be each infinitesimal moment of time which acts as lens and freezes the “the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world”, not unlike our most advanced cameras which can freeze even the fastest moving objects into explicit detail. In that sense time itself is the observer which creates the phenomenal output from its noumenal underpinnings or that which we denote as such. Even the quantum field is not noumenal relative to that which upholds it.
You have offered some excellent metaphors.

Nevertheless, I suggest that just as there is nothing present in the makeup of matter that is capable of collapsing its own wave function in order to reveal the phenomenon that the waves represent,...

...likewise, there is nothing in the makeup of time that is capable of explicating phenomena from noumena.

Only consciousness (life) can be the true “observer” of reality.

Only consciousness can act as the “lens” that freezes the ever-moving (ever-waving) quantum world.

Only consciousness is capable of explicating from the waves the smell of a lover’s hair, or the taste of her kiss, or the sound of her heartbeat, or the feel of her caress, or the look in her eyes.

Time couldn’t care less about any of those things, for it possesses no means of experiencing any of it.
seeds wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 9:18 pm ...(again, I submit this approximately 25 year old, 7.5 min video clip of me explaining what I mean by that, here - https://youtu.be/bVbpHy4nncA). (Warning - contains the word “God” in it)
Dubious wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm That’s ok! God for me is just the short version for Nonentity except when spelled backwards...

...Btw, I have watched your video a couple of times. I think Jung himself would have been very interested in your graphic imagery.
Is that a nice way of telling me I need a psychiatrist? :D
Dubious wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm Much of what you say I’m not prone to disagree with as possibility since the quantum world is at least as paradoxical as anything our upstart imagination can devise. What the universe and dreams have in common (seems to me) is that what appears illogical and disjointed to consciousness makes complete sense to both the dream and the universe.

When it comes down to these manifest uncertainties Bohr and Heisenberg come across as profounder spirits than Einstein though people think of him as a god who understood everything.
Yes indeed, the Copenhagen boys (especially Heisenberg) were much more open to metaphysical abstractions than Einstein.

However, I believe that Einstein was totally justified in proclaiming that “God does not play dice.” And that’s because, surely, the steadfast order with which universal reality presents itself to our senses is founded upon an even firmer ground of principles that we have yet to discover.

I mean, when the phrase “shut up and calculate” is the mantra of physicists, then it’s obvious that we’re missing something.
Dubious wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 10:17 pm Sorry about the length!
Not at all, for I greatly appreciate your intelligent and critical thinking on these issues.
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Last edited by seeds on Thu May 30, 2019 4:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Dubious
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by Dubious »

seeds wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 10:52 pm...likewise, there is nothing in the makeup of time that is capable of explicating phenomena from noumena.
Time for me is an all encompassing process which creates or derives the phenomenal from its so-called noumenal underpinnings. Time is noumenal and doesn't cease once its more solidified aspect comes into being. Because time is change, nothing truly solid or unchangeable in the phenomenal regions of existence (as we encounter it) retains its state.

The phenomenal world for me is the skin, so-called, which appears as a slow motion extension of the "uncertainties" inherent in its lower level controlling agents. These layers which instantiate the phenomenal must be more chaotic and random for change to manifest as experienced in this world. What time is to process, space is to the containment or host of that process by whatever degree such expansion is required. It seems instinctive that, "time changes into space" as mentioned by Wagner in Parsifal and quoted by Sean Carroll.

Anyways, such ideas for me reside purely within the realm of metaphor. Our personal reality consists in being a minuscule hiatus dividing one eternity making the before & after of our in-between equal to each other. Whether illusion or not should be of no concern when considering that we all return to that unconditional Nothing which preceded us...which I know you don't agree with!
seeds wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 10:52 pmHowever, I believe that Einstein was totally justified in proclaiming that “God does not play dice.” And that’s because, surely, the steadfast order with which universal reality presents itself to our senses is founded upon an even firmer ground of principles that we have yet to discover.
It's also possible that our situation in this universe is one of many that could have occurred. There is an assumption by humans that there's some kind of destiny implied by us being here and of something more purposeful beyond playing dice in winning the ultimate lottery. But like the god concept, there is absolutely nothing to justify it.

One can also take a parallel view that many more universes exist beyond ours - which, btw, may explain why its expansion is accelerating without considering Dark Energy as the culprit. How do we know there aren't millions out there whose ability to foster life is impossible, especially conscious life? Conversely, what's the point of our little condominium in a high rise multiverse having to host millions or billions of stars surrounded by planets thoroughly devoid of life? It seems to me that rolling dice is all there is no matter what the logic!
seeds wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 10:52 pmIs that a nice way of telling me I need a psychiatrist? :D
Definitely not! The reason I mentioned it was because Jung himself was very deep into graphic depictions of his visions and ideas in his "The Red Book: Liber Novus". If you haven't heard of it, I'm sure you will find it interesting.

https://ultraculture.org/blog/2015/05/2 ... -red-book/

For myself, I find more mystery and stimulation in that which moves, which among the arts, can only be music.
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Einstein's train is running away again.

Post by uwot »

Dubious wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:30 pm...time is change...
Bingo! Pretty much what I say in the book. (Anyone remember that?) There is no more evidence that time is "noumenal" than there is for god. That's not to say that they don't exist, but we can happily get along without either. In the case of 'time' we are not measuring any 'flow', we are quite literally measuring change; from the expansion of the universe, to Earth going round the Sun and all the way down to the quantum leaps in atoms.
Dubious wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:30 pmOne can also take a parallel view that many more universes exist beyond ours - which, btw, may explain why its expansion is accelerating without considering Dark Energy as the culprit.
You may well be right, but's there's an alternative explanation in the book based on the mechanics of the universe we can see. Page 33 https://willybouwman.blogspot.com
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Re: Einstein's train is running away again.

Post by seeds »

uwot wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 7:27 am
Dubious wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:30 pm...time is change...
Bingo! Pretty much what I say in the book. (Anyone remember that?) There is no more evidence that time is "noumenal" than there is for god. That's not to say that they don't exist, but we can happily get along without either. In the case of 'time' we are not measuring any 'flow', we are quite literally measuring change; from the expansion of the universe, to Earth going round the Sun and all the way down to the quantum leaps in atoms.
Dubious wrote: Wed May 29, 2019 10:30 pmOne can also take a parallel view that many more universes exist beyond ours - which, btw, may explain why its expansion is accelerating without considering Dark Energy as the culprit.
You may well be right, but's there's an alternative explanation in the book based on the mechanics of the universe we can see. Page 33 https://willybouwman.blogspot.com
Sorry old bean, but there seems to be a problem with your page numbering.

What should be page 22, you have numbered as 27.

Then after that, the whole series is off by one number.

In other words, the page that should be 28, you have numbered as 27 (in all you have two pages numbered 27).

Thus your page 33 is actually 34 (assuming I counted correctly based on your spacings).

Furthermore, I don’t know if you were just trying to throw in a light-hearted twist on the spelling of a word, but if not, then in the following sentence on page 5...

“So, if the universe is so mind-bogglinly big, why do scientists think it started out as small as an atom?”

...you are missing a “g” in the word bogglingly.

Hope that helps.
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 2:57 pm(Let me coin that right now – “the tiny-toot theory”)

Is that ridiculous enough for ya? :D
uwot wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 3:43 pm Lemme paraphrase Mr Faraday: 'All this is a dream. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too ridiculous to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these, experiment is the best test of such consistency.' Tell ya what, if you can cobble together an equation to match Schrödinger's that supports the tiny-toot theory, the Nobel Prize is nailed on.
Well, fortunately for me I don't need to cobble together an equation, because Everett's work already supports my assertion.

I mean, what do you think “the tiny-toot theory” is based on?

Indeed, I am merely conveying to you precisely what the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics implies.

And what it implies is that all 7.7 billion of us humans presently functioning on planet Earth,...

(along with everything we understand to be “our universe”)

...quite possibly could have come into existence just a few seconds ago as the result of a short raspy blast of flatulence in an alternate universe.

Yeah, yeah, I know, according to Faraday, anything is possible as long as it doesn’t clash with the laws of nature.

Nevertheless, if the sheer weight of the absurdity of that vision isn’t enough to crush Everett’s theory for you, that’s fine, but at least be aware of its implications.

(P.S., be sure to check out my post just prior to this one.)
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Re: Einstein's train is running away again.

Post by uwot »

seeds wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 1:02 pmSorry old bean, but there seems to be a problem with your page numbering.
Well, the version on the blog isn't the finished product, but if you click on one of the images you get them in their full glory, and at the bottom you can scroll through all the pages and it is the number there I was referring to.
seeds wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 1:02 pm...you are missing a “g” in the word bogglingly.

Hope that helps.
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Thanks; it does.
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Yeah, whatever the truth, it's bonkers.

Post by uwot »

seeds wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 1:03 pmI mean, what do you think “the tiny-toot theory” is based on?

Indeed, I am merely conveying to you precisely what the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics implies.

And what it implies is that all 7.7 billion of us humans presently functioning on planet Earth,...

(along with everything we understand to be “our universe”)

...quite possibly could have come into existence just a few seconds ago as the result of a short raspy blast of flatulence in an alternate universe.
One of the books I had to read as prep for my first degree in philosophy, many, many moons ago, was Bertrand Russell's 'The Problems of Philosophy' (Free to read for anyone who actually gives a fuck here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827 ). In it he made the point that (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) 'There is nothing illogical about the contention that the entire universe sprang into existence, along with the holes in my socks, five minutes ago.' Ya gotta drop that tab if yer gonna do this philosophy trip properly.
seeds wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 1:03 pmYeah, yeah, I know, according to Faraday, anything is possible as long as it doesn’t clash with the laws of nature.

Nevertheless, if the sheer weight of the absurdity of that vision isn’t enough to crush Everett’s theory for you, that’s fine, but at least be aware of its implications.
Seriously, there is something rather than nothing, how much more absurd can it get?
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Re: Einstein's train. All change, please.

Post by Dubious »

Life becomes really strange when considering all the absurdities! Geopolitics is absurd; our behavior in thousands of ways is completely absurd; our treatment of the planet is not only absurd but deadly. Belief is absurd which is the reason Tertullian chose to believe and all of existence is absurd born in nothing. Perhaps insanity specializing in absurdities is required for a deeper insight where all seems logical as in dreams and neither logic or illogic has any reason to counter, negate or overrule the other.

However stated, it's a temporary problem until the Final Solution blends everything back into nothing and confusion is once again conquered, the absurdity of existence nullified! :lol:
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