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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Ed, was thinking [BICEP2 +] Plank 2014 data might say something about Jan's multiverse lament, but see the Plank 2014 data hasn't been released yet.
I also stumbled into a [possibly re-ignited, but obviously unavoidable] bolt war-like 'string-theory-isn't-science' debate related to the falsifiability of the theory (i.e. there is no experimental data that can falsify string theory).
Over my head, but quite entertaining nonetheless. Just curious where do you stand in that debate?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Now if only they enjoyed french kissing...
efforts to show our common heritage would be that much easier. :)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Now if only they enjoyed french kissing...
a sense of our common heritage would be that much clearer. :)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Now if only they enjoyed french kissing...
that would be pretty special! and fun to watch!! :)
(Okay, I'm done.)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Just curious where do you stand in that debate?
I don't know who said it, but physicists are very promiscuous with ideas that might help to understand the universe (and beyond).
Where I stand on the debate also addresses Jan's lament:
And to me the most frustrating part of the search for whether we live in a singular universe with universal natural laws or are just one bubble in a multiverse each with its own physics, is that none of us will likely ever know the answer in our lifetime. And then there's always the argument that quite possibly even the smartest among us is not equipped with a brain that can solve these problems.
which is that while physics as expressed by the theorists often address the very big picture, the experimentalists are often addressing much smaller issues, and a large part of that activity is in simply observing something better, or differently.
Currently, we have no way of telling if we can test String-theory, it can be shown that our current theoretical ideas are contained within it, and to the extent that they current theories are verified, String theory can claim those as confirmation.
Unique predictions of String theory are viewed to be difficult to perform in the lab, but there have been a number of experiments done to look at predictions of some models that are derivative from string theory. Those models have been ruled out.
No string theorist is worried about this, there are a large number of models, however, there are models that may be more important to string theory, and the confirmation of those models might be more important.
Obviously it is a part of the experimentalists' attention, to conceive of experiments that could refute string theory, so people are thinking about it. But more likely will be some observation in the coming era of precision cosmological observations whose first priority will be mapping out the dark matter and dark energy in the universe.
These observations will build a tomographic reconstruction of all the gravitational sources, in particular dark matter and dark energy, with dark energy being the primary focus. That program will start with the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) and may well be completed in our lifetimes. Since the sky has never been surveyed in this manner, that is, we'll make a "movie" of what is happening in the sky on a relatively short time scale, we will start to see things we hadn't seen before.
It has been the theorists that have had the loudest objections to string theory. As an experimentalist, I'd wait to see how it turns out... the interesting thing about empirical science is that you don't always know what you're going to find when you go out looking, and you have to go out and look.
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Jan and Ed:
Thank you for the interesting and entertaining links. This thread is becoming an increasingly valuable source for studying anthropology.
How can one watch those videos and not "see" we share a common primate ancestor?
Speaking of anthropology, Jan: in your comparative religion classes do you discuss Gobekli Tepe and the implications on the evolution of human social organization?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Who will bear us a humanzee to prove once and for all that we are one big happy evolved family?
Apparently, it's been tried. With human female volunteers. Those whacky Russians! The PI wound up booking a permanent bunk in a gulag shortly thereafter.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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PhilG, I teach comparative religion in the context of an Asian Studies department so we focus on Asian religions, occasionally comparing and contrasting them to Christianity and Judaism.
I would include Gobekli Tepe in my biological or cultural anthropology classes where religion is one facet of cultural development among many, the form of which fits into one of the six subsistence levels. The unusual thing about Goblekli Tepe is that it was pre agricultural people who built such an impressive ediface and previously it was thought that a society had to have sedentary agriculture before they were capable or even motivated to built monuments like that.
The interesting question is whether this is a one off anomaly or we will find more such temples. The fact that it occured very near where the first domesticated wheat has been found, makes it seem like it might be an anomaly.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Btw, the link Cintune posted up:
"You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant.”
A New Thermodynamics Theory of the Origin of Life:
http://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life
And requoted by Jan is quite interesting, the comments even moreso.
One of those comments links to another interesting paper which [boldly] attempts to put physics framework around the subject of consciousness for the purpose of experimentation:
Consciousness as a State of Matter
Max Tegmark (MIT)
(Submitted on 6 Jan 2014 (v1), last revised 27 Feb 2014 (this version, v2))
We examine the hypothesis that consciousness can be understood as a state of matter, "perceptronium", with distinctive information processing abilities. We explore five basic principles that may distinguish conscious matter from other physical systems such as solids, liquids and gases: the information, integration, independence, dynamics and utility principles. If such principles can identify conscious entities, then they can help solve the quantum factorization problem: why do conscious observers like us perceive the particular Hilbert space factorization corresponding to classical space (rather than Fourier space, say), and more generally, why do we perceive the world around us as a dynamic hierarchy of objects that are strongly integrated and relatively independent? Tensor factorization of matrices is found to play a central role, and our technical results include a theorem about Hamiltonian separability (defined using Hilbert-Schmidt superoperators) being maximized in the energy eigenbasis. Our approach generalizes Giulio Tononi's integrated information framework for neural-network-based consciousness to arbitrary quantum systems, and we find interesting links to error-correcting codes, condensed matter criticality, and the Quantum Darwinism program, as well as an interesting connection between the emergence of consciousness and the emergence of time.
Which is discussed at a link HFCS previously posted:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/why-physicists-are-saying-consciousness-is-a-state-of-matter-like-a-solid-a-liquid-or-a-gas-5e7ed624986d (comments in-line to the right of the paragraphs)
And more interesting comments on the paper here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jgd/link_consciousness_as_a_state_of_matter_max/
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Lots of humanzees in our lineage. Our chimp-in-the-woodpile Y chromosome tells the tale. Chimps and our ancestors continued to get jiggy with each other for at least 1.2 million years after the two species split.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Those whacky Russians! The PI wound up booking a permanent bunk in a gulag shortly thereafter.
Really? I heard it had found a home somewhere in the Seattle area where it found real (human-like) joy in practicing witty retorts on the innernets.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Lots of humanzees in our lineage. Our chimp-in-the-woodpile Y chromosome tells the tale. Chimps and our ancestors continued to get jiggy with each other for at least 1.2 million years after the two species split.
Details? I've heard of genes inherited from a common ancestor but don't know the evidence for this. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just unaware of any solid evidence.
But perhaps this explains why in spite of sharing DNA with the peaceful bonobos for affection and attachment that the chimps don't have, we also behave like aggressive chimps on many occasions as well..
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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There's some evidence that the X (not Y - tYpo) chromosome of humans may have diverged 1.2 million years after speciation, indicating interspecies partying.
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WBraun
climber
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The intelligent class has the human being as the common ancestor.
Most of modern mankind has the monkey as their common ancestor.
That is why they just can't get their sh!t together .......
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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But perhaps this explains why in spite of sharing DNA with the peaceful bonobos for affection and attachment that the chimps don't have, we also behave like aggressive chimps on many occasions as well..
thought i heard the narrator say that both chimps and bonobos shared all the same traits of intelligence and emotions, but that the bonobos were more sensitive and in control of their emotions. Where the chimps felt the need to inflict physical harm, and even kill to prove a point. Primarily done by the males who are via'ing for ranks in the leadership of the group. This was only witnessed to be 5-10% of the chimps activities for the day. Most of the rest of the day the chimps do pretty much the same thing as the bonobos. Hang around, eat, bond, and have sex.
On the other hand, the bonobos, who's females are incharge. When there's a discrepancy it's only tolerated for the male to stomp around waving a stick.
Most interestingly we are seeing two different natural natures evolved in Nature. One being the peaceful sensitive nature, like you mentioned. The other being aggressive to the point of committing murder without the intention of eating the kill.
Maybe we should teach the chimps some democracy, or meditation?
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