“Material Physical Universe” being physics, biology, physiology and neurons,
“Mindscape” is an evolutionary product - the fog of awareness produced by those neurons, mingled with physiology, experiences and memory.
The home of curiosity and ego, empathy and contempt, power lust and ruthlessness, home of gods and fantasy and science fiction - but also home of engineering and exacting measurements and sober objective critical learning.
Did you watch the video you linked to the rest of us here?Yes. Do you know what an analogy is? Quantum fields are "like" a fluid, but they aren't anything like water. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, those are elements, made of particles that result from quanta of energy in the fields. Those are all very different things. That they fit in some category "things" doesn't make them anything like each other except that we have identified them and can talk about them. There's a gigantic difference between a quantum field and a material thing.
So, you don’t get to say things like “gravity can be expressed as a curvature of space” and think you just described gravity. We don’t know what gravity is exactly, or how to express, so we only have analogies, imperfect, imprecise analogies.
Nobody understands quantum physics. If you think you do you are kidding yourself.No I don’t understand it. That’s my point. You think you can describe what the vacuum in the video is better than the guy who understands the problems with the Standard Model does. He, the guy much smarter than you or me, is telling us that there are weaknesses with the model, things we don’t know. You are the one arguing with him. So you say things like
It seems then that space is a superposition of perhaps 4 materials that are curved independently, each by different sorts of things, giving rise to the 4 known forces of nature.Which is sort of like what he said, but not really. Why would I listen to you and not him?
Sree Bob: “What is lacking is the cause of the bumps and what drives the flows causing magnetism and gravity.”What do you think of Wallace Thornhill’s view on gravity?
The Difference between Science and Pseudoscience Discerning science from pseudoscienceBy Michael Shermer on October 1, 2015
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-difference-between-science-and-pseudoscience/
Newton was wrong. Einstein was wrong. Black holes do not exist. The big bang never happened. Dark energy and dark matter are unsubstantiated conjectures. Stars are electrically charged plasma masses. Venus was once a comet. The massive Valles Marineris canyon on Mars was carved out in a few minutes by a giant electric arc sweeping across the Red Planet. The “thunderbolt” icons found in ancient art and petroglyphs are not the iconography of imagined gods but realistic representations of spectacular electrical activity in space.
These are just a few of the things I learned at the Electric Universe conference (EU2015) in June in Phoenix. The Electric Universe community is a loose confederation of people who, according to the host organization’s Web site (thunderbolts.info), believe that “a new way of seeing the physical universe is emerging. The new vantage point emphasizes the role of electricity in space and shows the negligible contribution of gravity in cosmic events.” This includes everything from comets, moons and planets to stars, galaxies and galactic clusters.
I was invited to speak on the difference between science and pseudoscience. The most common theme I gleaned from the conference …
http://www.tim-thompson.com/grey-areas.htmlWhat follows is a copy of a message I sent to a mailing list, in response to the peculiar theory that the sun, and other stars, are really electric discharge phenomena. In the as-yet poorly presented theory of the electric universe (see Wallace Thornhill’s online presentation Lightning of the Gods), stars are not the giant gass balls we all think we know they are. No, they are the focal points of enormous galactic currents. As the currents fall onto the surface of the star, they release their energy and the star shines. Orthodox physicists, we are told, have for years overlooked the obvious evidence. I have retained as much of Thornhill’s message as necessary to retain context for my own remarks, but you can read the full text of his original message, if you want to. …
This is really too long, but I put some effort into it, so I will
send it out anyway. That’s life.We have now seen several messages from Thornhill, forwarded by
Dave Talbott. They are so bizarre that it it difficult to understand
how to respond. Without ever offering a particularly good reason (nor
for that matter, even a particularly bad one), Thornhill simply and
expediently denies the validity of all physics. Every time a counter
point is made to one of his assertions, the canned answer takes the
form of “if I am right, everything about physics is wrong”. And so I
will pick one message that just happens to mention me by name, but
I really want to address the question of “grey areas” in standard
theory. …
Okay, that’s enough of Thornhill for me.
The People Who Believe Electricity Rules the Universe "Electric universe" theory is at odds with everything modern science has determined about the universe. Yet something about it sparks fervor in the hearts of believers.By Sarah Scoles
Feb 18 2016www_vice_com/en_us/article/nz7neg/electric-universe-theory-thunderbolts-project-wallace-thornhill
They call themselves The Thunderbolts Project.
They subscribe to an idea called “electric universe,” and sometimes describe themselves as “getting EU eyes.” Like slipping on rose-colored glasses, the conversion changes their perception of the entire universe. The objects and events remain the same. But they’re tinged with truth. And in EU theory, the truth is that electricity rules. …
“The story of the cosmos that you see in the media now is virtual reality,” said Wallace Thornhill, one of the founders of EU.
The electric universe concept does not meet the National Academy of Sciences’ definition of a “theory,” which is “a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence” and “can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed.”
In physics, theories need math. That’s how you predict, gather evidence, verify, disprove, and support. But EU theory isn’t big on math. In fact, “Mathematics is not physics,” Thornhill said. While that equation aversion makes the theory pretty much a nonstarter for “mainstream” astronomers, it is the exact thing that appeals to many adherents.
“They don’t blind you with science,” said Rasjid Smith, who learned EU theory from YouTube. “It is understandable to a capable schoolchild.”
The idea that outsiders (“the people”) will revolutionize physics, in a way that those outsiders understand, is powerful.
“What doesn’t seem to vary is the dissident psychology behind the involvement.”
“Science is returned to the people—the garage tinkerer, the practical engineer, and the natural philosopher,” Thornhill told Motherboard. …
Just saying.
Citizen: “Well, I’ve been able to listen to it. I’m not impress.”
So, how does mass generate gravity?
January 1, 2020 at 4:56 pm#317345 Sree: Citizen: “Well, I’ve been able to listen to it. I’m not impress.”Sree: asks: So, how does mass generate gravity?
That’s the "garage tinker’'s version and you can’t prove it wrong. So there.
Try.
LaustenThat they fit in some category “things” doesn’t make them anything like each other except that we have identified them and can talk about them. There’s a gigantic difference between a quantum field and a material thing.
What you call “material thing” is made of quantum fields
“The waves of this fluid get tied into little bundles of energy” - David Tong describing particles of the Standard Model
Quantum fields are material.
Which (superposition of fields) is sort of like what he said, but not really. Why would I listen to you and not him?There are no scientific authorities, so nobody really knows if there is just 1 field with many largely independent properties, or whether there is a separate field for every force and fundamental particle, or some other combination of fields and properties.
Analytically, we can treat them as a superposition of separate fields.
You can listen to us both when we say that fields are material and standard model particles are made of fields and these fields extend throughout the universe and therefore the vacuum is physical material.
The form of the vacuum is illustrated in the graphic 20 minutes into the video, which is a chaotic sort of bubbling fluid-like physical material. The form of these fields changes over small scales to make the electrons and quarks that make up ordinary matter. The form of these fields changes over large scales between objects with electrostatic charge and over distances on the scale of the whole universe in the case of the gravitational field.
If you feel like it, you can go back to #317294
to see how I corrected you on several points and that the video you shared with us supports all my corrections of you. It is a good video for visualizing concepts that I was already familiar with but thanks for refreshing my memory by linking it here.
I’m not going to have a discussion of science with someone who says there are no scientific authorities
Sree: “What do you think of Wallace Thornhill’s view on gravity?”
I watched the video. Interesting. I took notes all the way through until the gyroscope demo.
In that demo the guy fooled his audience. If he had weighed the entire system, the stand, the balance arm and the gyroscope before the gyro was run up and again while it was running the weight would have been the same. IOW, no loss of mass, only a change in configuration. Nice parlor trick, not a science demonstration. It seemed like Thornhill bought it but I couldn’t be sure.
I found several things which I accept including that Einstein was wrong on C being the limit of information transfer and that time is universal, not relative. The philosophy of science in Einstein’s day, and today, is that what we see is what we must accept as true. Einstein used the fact that light has a speed to explain that we see things with a delay but since we must accept what we see as true we are not allowed to factor out the delay to get to another truth.
I think the electric universe theory has one major fault: electric charge is accepted as some sort of a priori notion. The idea that an object with an electric charge can be an elementary particle seems wrong. Thornhill accepted the idea that an elementary particle is one with no structure. I think electric charge requires some structure.
Lausten: " Joseph Campbell talked about we are living in a time without myth, and we need a story to ground ourselves to. But the universe is describe by math. You can’t change that."
Its been a while since I read Campbell. Most of what I remember made sense. I don’t have a feeling for what he (you?) mean by “story”.
Math is useful for counting and to describe geometry, little else. Without a geometry (is this the “story”?) to describe, math reduces to fingers and toes.
Lausten: “This is math:”
And the definition of a mathematical space is: “a set (sometimes called a universe) with some added structure.” An imposed structure, meaning a defined configuration, meaning a specific geometry, meaning that it has places (items in the set) you can get to (calculate) from (relative to) here (the origin). And of course you won’t stub your toe on any of them.
Fun, but not real fun.
Bob said,Math is useful for counting and to describe geometry, little else. Without a geometry (is this the “story”?) to describe, math reduces to fingers and toes.
Is E = Mc^2 a geometric equation?
Broaden your scope and you will see that all universal patterns (regularities) are mathematical in essence.
Do check out the Roger Antonsen video that I have posted several times now. He even demonstrates the image of the value 4/3, its quite beautiful.
I also posted the demonstration of the pendulum wave function, which clearly demonstrates that natural patterns form in and out of chaos, including a double helix.
How about the ultimate self-organizing graphene pattern;
And self-organizing microtubule formation;
We have billions of these dynamically self-organizing nano tubules in our body. They are working computer network that keeps us alive.
These are mathematcal patterns and they perform mathematically based functions.
Lausten<div class="bbp-reply-content">
I’m not going to have a discussion of science with someone who says there are no scientific authorities</div> Unfortunately it is very apparent that you are in error again, calling for more corrections in addition to those of #317294.
There are no scientific authorities, none whatsoever. There never have been any scientific authorities at all, and there never will be.
You cannot reasonably name any such authority for the simple reason there are none and never have been.
Science does not proceed by authority. All individuals are subject error. No person has the true answer to the nature of the lowest level of fundamental reality, and every description above that unknown lowest level is an approximate partial limited description of some subset of aggregate behavior of the lowest level of fundamental reality.
The only candidate for a scientific authority is an omniscient god, but, alas, god is a figment of the workings of the human brain.
People get confused with the word authority. It has many definition, and the main ones are about being in charge, just because of title, as in “given” authority. This though, is the definition that goes with “scientific” authority:
a person with extensive or specialized knowledge about a subject; an expert.The actual authority of science is the evidence, so you're right about it not resting in an individual. It's imperfect, incomplete, fluid. But there still is such a thing as a person who understands the evidence and the logic better than others.
IMO, the term mathematical “imperative” is more suitable than “authority”, which suggests a decision making individual.
Imperative
1.a. A rule, principle, or need that requires or compels certain action. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/imperativesImperative is an impersonal mathematical rule that compels a certain process or action, based on relative values and prevailing conditions.
The fact that self-ordering and self-assembly in accordance to specific natural potentials are demonstrable recurring processes, would suggest that spacetime itself is the implacable impersonal authority which is mathematical in essence.
Write4U: " all universal patterns (regularities) are mathematical in essence."
I think you will find that recognition of “pattern”, “regularity” and “beauty” happens in the mind. Whether we look at or imagine a thing or collection of things, we are seeing or imagining a space with things in it. We can’t get around this; it is just the way our mind works. The spatial relationships among things is a geometry. Mathematics is the language we use to describe that geometry.
Writ4U: “Is E = Mc^2 a geometric equation?”
Certainly. M describes a thing. c describes the propagation of a wave from one point in a space to another. E describes the potential release of “energy” which is in terms of its effect or potential effect upon things. It is a description of potential change in objects in a space.
There are no scientific authorities, so nobody really knows if there is just 1 field with many largely independent properties, or whether there is a separate field for every force and fundamental particle, or some other combination of fields and properties.Someone just posted a fascinating lecture on this a month or so ago. Tim, maybe? There are 3 sets of 4 fields plus gravity. I don't remember it precisely, but I believe there was a good reason that the fields came in sets of 4 and gravity was just being a weirdo about it.
And while there are no scientific authorities, that is by design. There is no one person or group to tell scientists what is right and what is wrong. That is where scientific consensus comes in. Having a scientific authority would actually reduce what we “know” about the universe because it would stifle dissent. As it is, “what we know” is really, “what we think we know, for now, until something better comes along, so long as it works and we can ‘do something’ with it in the meantime”.
Write4UImperative is an impersonal mathematical rule that compels a certain process or action, based on relative values and prevailing conditions.
In a somewhat unique moment of agreement with Ed Feser I would say no, mathematics is descriptive, not prescriptive.
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/12/cundy-on-relativity-and-a-theory-of-time.html
Our mathematics is an abstraction, and given our state of knowledge of how the world works our mathematical models are inaccurate, incomplete, or at least in part just plain wrong.
In the above linked article is a discussion about presentist “A” theory of time as opposed to “B” theory of time. B theory of time is what you get when one makes the mistake that an extraneous solution or feature of an otherwise successful mathematical model must be existentially real “because the math says it must be real”.
Mathematics do not dictate reality. A mathematically valid model can be and often is inaccurate, incomplete, or simply extraneous.
