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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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It's the only thing Werner said that's right. The Big Bang theory has to be rejected because it leads to such absurd results. Even inventing dark matter to fudge the results won't work.
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jstan
climber
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Don:
Can you be more specific as to what does not work? If there is something, I would like to know.
I found absurdity to be a very poor criteria back in the 50's when attempting to learn quantum mechanics. That criteria gets you nowhere. Most of the things we see around ourselves in normal life required QM for their invention. And even unto today we all are members of the Copenhagen school to one degree or another. Bohr advised us " To shut up and calculate." I think the ultimate resolution will come only when we teach QM to three year olds.
The presence of dark energy was one mechanism proposed to cause the accelerated expansion discovered in the late 90's. The searches for confirmation of both dark matter and for dark energy are
presently a hot bed of activity, both theoretical and experimental. There is a lot of activity concerning the first few seconds following the putative Big Bang. Thus the great interest in measuring polarization in the CMB, LHC searches for massive particles, and efforts to link string theory to experimental data.
Parallel and branching universes. How exciting are things going to get?
PS:
Lester Germer was involved in the discovery that electrons were simultaneously particles and waves. A single electron could and did simultaneously go through two different slits and then interfere with itself.
Lester and I once watched a boulderer risk serious injury at the Uberfall. With evident pain Lester said, "Sombody has got to do something!"
What he said has never been more true than it is today.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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John for starters, F=ma. What is the force causing "space itself" to expand at an accelerating rate?
The red shifts only prove there is some effect that is linear with distance. Interestingly QM of nanoparticles is one proposed explanation. Particles under about 50 angstroms can't absorb photons as heat but go into higher qm state then emit photon characteristic of particle size. (Thomas Pevenslik). But I am not convinced of that either since the density of ISM is far from homogeneous. One thing I want to do someday is look for a wavelength dependence since the shifts are observed in gamma rays through radio waves.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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That's ALL it is.
I don't think you understand the role of theory, and what theory is, but it is a common enough misconception to allow the phrase "it just theory" to be some sort killer argument.
"The Big Bang" was coined by Hoyle in 1949, but was discussed as early as 1927. While physical cosmology might have been born with Newton's "Universal Theory of Gravity," it was greatly revived by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, that is 1915 (over 100 years ago).
For many phenomena taking place in the universe, Newton's theory is more than adequate in describing what goes on, and is used within its known limitations.
Theory organizes the various physical phenomena into a very powerful logical system that allows deductions to be made, and tested. In many ways, these are predictions of yet-to-be observed physical phenomena.
Theory also constrains our observations and our arguments. For instance, if you insist that the "greenhouse gas" hypothesis is false because the "theory" of how CO₂ absorbs and emits radiation is incorrect then you have to explain how all those other molecules observed to have the same behavior must be wrong, and reinterpret a huge body of well measured and well understood science. Theory has organized this body of knowledge in such a way that picking out one particular phenomenon is not possible without a tremendous amount of explaining.
If you chafe under the "universal speed limit," the speed-of-light, you might think it rather an arbitrary result of "just theory." It turns out to be the result of rather deep and fundamental understanding of the universe.
It is not just a whim.
Science, or at least physics, is equal parts experimental work and theoretical work, though the two are in a dynamic equilibrium. There is no science without the two together.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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What is the force causing "space itself" to expand at an accelerating rate?
that is a major question,
recall that the Hubble expansion is uniform, thus no acceleration. It is set in the "Big Bang." Inflation is the "bang."
Once the "inflationary period" ends, the universe is set on its uniform expansion course.
Cosmologies based on General Relativity can have scalar terms, Einstein proposed such a term, the "cosmological constant" to keep the universe from gravitational collapse. After Hubble Einstein abandoned steady state cosmologies calling the "cosmological constant" a great blunder.
However, in the 1990s Weinberg recalculates the "cosmological constant" using what we had learned about the so called "standard model" of particle physics and concluded it was "huge." Later the SN Ia observations measured an accelerating expansion and the inferred "cosmological constant" was not zero, but not as large "as it should be."
The expansion is driven by the "equation-of-state" of the vacuum.
Weinberg's calculation demonstrates that there is more happening then we currently know, that is, our current theories are "missing something" (another role of theory, to describe, quantitatively, what you do and don't know).
This is a prediction.
Experiments aim to look for that stuff that is missing.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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Well, that's very complex compared to the steady state theory. I think it's mainly a case of people building a cult around Albert Einstein. I wonder how many Big Bang enthusiasts have actually worked through the tensor math? One in a thousand? The rest are just believers.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"But I am not convinced of that either since the density of ISM is far from homogeneous. One thing I want to do someday is look for a wavelength dependence since the shifts are observed in gamma rays through radio waves."
Don Paul, are you a cosmologist, astrophysicist or...? Just curious.
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Don Paul
Social climber
Washington DC
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High Fructose - I'm a lawyer hopefully that explains everything lol. Lawyers are experts in detecting BS though.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2018 - 10:49am PT
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That's not the question. First, it isn't a machine, it's layers of agency and awareness all the way down and your conscious awareness is just that agency which has context or state at the moment.
--
You whiffed on it again. Rather profoundly this time.
Awareness is not a step process that "emerges" by way of context or anything else. A little work with brain mapping tools, especially neurofeedback, would clear this up for you rather handily. Below the level of conscious awareness, the brain has no "awareness" of itself than a computer has of its own function. It's a strictly mechanical process going on "under the hood," informed and reinformed by way of feedback loop with your conscious mind. There's machine recognition, or registration, much as the movement sensor in my back yard responds to an input of a dog walking by. But the gadget is not aware it is a machine doing a task nor "thinks" or reasons. It just goes along mechanically.
My sense of it is that you can probably sort this all out if you looked into no-mind meditation. Most all of what you are spinning around on concerns mental content and the idea of having to have contextual parameters to "know" anything, to ever be aware. Let go of having to know, and see where it takes you.
Ed mentioned that he hasn't had any earth shattering experiences meditating, rather it works for him like a reset, "cleaning the palate." That's the launching point for exploring: what IS the palate. Where are it's edges? Who's observing said palate? this, in my experience, is just where it starts getting interesting.
For Healje, he need only set aside looking for some "process" from which this or that - he believes - arises. Interpretors, context, knowing - all mentalizing. At the bottom is a quest for answers.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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It seems some people have a misconception about people who appreciate science and it's thought that scientific people believe in science theory as facts. Most scientific people don't "believe" in the Big Bang, in that they have unquestioning faith that it's a fact.
Most scientific people understand models like the Big Bang include mechanisms and can be proven false. There may be several competing models. They need to fit with other scientific models. The models (hypothesis at this point) are then tested in the real world. Models that don't fit the evidence are rejected. If it survives the test it's published in journals where the community gives feedback. The tests can be replicated by other people. A model may emerge as the one that fits the evidence best and fits multiple lines of evidence. If enough evidence accumulates to support the hypothesis THEN it becomes a theory, you can't observe it like a chunk of granite so it's not a fact. It remains tentative, there's always the possibility it can be improved or thrown out as DMT says. People love to prove other people wrong so other scientists will try to prove them wrong.
Most scientific people don't claim to have all the answers like some other people do. They simply say show me something that is testable and hasn't been proven false and maybe I'll think it's likely a good explanation for some phenomenon. But I'm ready to update what I think if I get new evidence.
Maybe scientific people are just more okay with uncertainty, while some people need to believe how some things just ARE. Or maybe some people have had some insights or experiences (that may be ultimately true or not) that others have not had.
As someone who appreciates how science can help shape a world view I recognize when someones projects their views about belief onto science when that is not what science is about.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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this, in my experience, is just where it starts getting interesting.
Can you verbalize what comes after?
No-mind meditation for me feels like my mind is expanding (that is physically it feels like it's growing in diameter and unwanted stuff is kind of blowing away in the wind). It feels like when stretching or getting a massage and you feel all the scar tissue and lactic acid being broken up and flushing away, but it's the chatter of so many thoughts giving way and drifting away and leaving a quiet peacefulness. When I finish I can't help but think consciousness is pretty universal among animals. I think that the no-mind state may be similar to what animals feel, unencumbered by the thousands and thousands of thoughts that the capability of speech brings. I can then focus better on singular topics, maybe like the reset Ed describes.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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I suspect quite a few of us have engaged in mild forms of meditation, clearing the mind of thoughts, at least momentarily, and engendering a quiet and peaceful sensation. I practiced this kind of meditation in the late 1950s, and twenty years later practiced the art of dreaming.
I've made the suggestion on a number of occasions that both of these mental adventures, and the deeper commitments of Zen, demonstrate fascinating aspects of Mind. However, my opinion apparently is not shared by other devotees on this thread, save, perhaps, Jan.
A singular focus on one kind of internal adventure is not likely to satisfy a search for Mind, except among those addicted to that approach.
As for theories of physical realities, I look forward to explorations of multiple universes!
But I don't hold my breath.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2018 - 01:58pm PT
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Fet, let's step back for a second and review what people had recently said.
First, the difference between looking in and looking out both involve looking, directing our awareness and attention in a certain direction, be it to quarks, a math model to work up predictions, or at our perception itself. The chief difficulty per the latter is that perception itself is not observable as an external object off which we can pull measurements and evaluate in that way.
Since we are geared and trained to evaluate all and everything in external terms, as some thing or phenomenon "out there," our usual methods of inquiry fall short. But it is telling to see what we DO know about physical reality, and the exploration thereof.
First, it is axiomatic that when we apply reductive methods and modern instrumentation to a given object or phenomenon, what we find is not at all what it appears to be. It's almost as though something and nothing are seamlessly enfolded on each other. "Nothing," aka, void, space (often posited as a thing that bends, etc.), nothingness, is discovered to be a teaming soup of statistical potentialities. A thing (ie, forms, etc.) is in fact full of empty space, the few particles therein are constantly blipping in and out of existence, and are held in a coherent shape owing to fundamental forces that were apparently not "caused" by or emerged from some other force or thing, the big bang notwithstanding (which itself has no "cause," and let the debate begin). There is causation all over, but there's no explanation why only A emerges instead of Z. And for reasons John S. just stated, we're not certain about any of this.
What persists in this adventure is often a frame of mind made obvious in Healje's break downs: that the appearance of any thing or phenomenon is owing to processes that preceded it, that there is a layering up, that stuff accrues, that complexity builds, and emerging from this process is a consciousness we'd never enjoy sans those prior processes. Healje and others might go so far as to believe that consciousness IS those other processes, or the "context" bestowed by those processes.
How do you escape this matrix? Look at Fet's statement: No-mind meditation for me feels like my mind is expanding... That he believes the peaceful state is similar to what other animals FEEL, etc.
Note how his description of "no-mind" automatically revers back to mind, how his "mind" feels, which might be what animals feel.
Unpacking this is a crucial step in the process, IME. Again, it's not what you think, or feel, or believe.
More later...
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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"Unpacking this is a crucial step in the process, IME. Again, it's not what you think, or feel, or believe."
Unless you believe in the Sacred Emptiness that permeates the universe.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Awareness is not a step process that "emerges" by way of context or anything else.
Again, you seem to have an incredibly simplistic and monolithic view of almost every aspect of what's going on otherwise you wouldn't use words like 'step' or 'linear' or 'arise' - they don't serve you well.
A little work with brain mapping tools, especially neurofeedback, would clear this up for you rather handily. Below the level of conscious awareness, the brain has no "awareness" of itself than a computer has of its own function.
Well, you can play with all the tools you want, but as you say, they're no substitute for actual experience. I can assure you the subconscious agency responsible for my hearing speech does, in fact, have awareness of not only itself but also of 'me', my conscious awareness. When it interrupts my conscious mind and hands me what it thinks it heard, it clearly has an agency/independent dialog and that agency is entirely separate from my conscious mind. It literally intrudes on my awareness and says "here you go dude". But I get that while you've meditated and played with a bunch of toys, you've never actually had such an experience.
It's a strictly mechanical process going on "under the hood," informed and reinformed by way of feedback loop with your conscious mind. There's machine recognition, or registration, much as the movement sensor in my back yard responds to an input of a dog walking by. But the gadget is not aware it is a machine doing a task nor "thinks" or reasons. It just goes along mechanically.
As I said, never having experienced what I have I can understand why you might believe that, but I assure you you're wrong and that subconscious agency does, in fact, have awareness of its own and of both itself and of me.
My sense of it is that you can probably sort this all out if you looked into no-mind meditation. Most all of what you are spinning around on concerns mental content and the idea of having to have contextual parameters to "know" anything, to ever be aware. Let go of having to know, and see where it takes you.
Again, this notion that you somehow have a corner on no-mind meditation is beginning to border on narcissistic. And your mindless dog-with-a-bone fixation on content when it isn't even relevant to the discussion at hand just leaves the impression you can't see past your simplistic views of brain and mind. And no one said anything about "contextual parameters", but rather of a stateful context that is your awareness. You seem either unwilling or unable to grasp the reality that without state you'd have awareness, but no mind. That without state there would be no passage of time. That without state there would be no way for your awareness to be aware of itself and it wouldn't be. Think, dude, think. You make yourself out to be a deep thinker and philosopher - apply some basic logic around awareness and state, it isn't rocket science.
For Healje, he need only set aside looking for some "process" from which this or that - he believes - arises. Interpretors, context, knowing - all mentalizing. At the bottom is a quest for answers.
Dude, I'm not looking for anything, rather my subconscious finds and literally interrupts me on a quite regular basis. And that isn't a 'belief' and involves no 'mentalizing', but rather it's an actual near daily subjective experience, just one you've clearly never had. So, quite the contrary, you're the one doing all the mentalizing and 20k posts later you literally keep coming back from your no-mind meditation speculating about the nature of an attributeless no-thingness which, given the impenetrable nature of that singularity's event horizon, is the very pinnacle of 'mentalizing'.
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WBraun
climber
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Most scientific people don't claim to have all the answers like some other people do.
They simply say show me something that is testable and hasn't been proven false
And when they are shown they immediately refuse to test it.
It takes great intelligence to test the true reality that is beyond the material senses ...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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What persists in this adventure is often a frame of mind made obvious in Healje's breakdowns: that the appearance of anything or phenomenon is owing to processes that preceded it, that there is a layering up, that stuff accrues, that complexity builds, and emerging from this process is a consciousness we'd never enjoy sans those prior processes.
Uh, no, that's not what I'm saying. That's your endless projection of about the most simplistic view of both brain and mind I can imagine. Matter of fact, your apparent beliefs and views around both brain and mind are a pretty good example of an absurd level of reductionist thinking.
Healje and others might go so far as to believe that consciousness IS those other processes or the "context" bestowed by those processes.
Oh, you can be sure, despite the gross oversimplification inherent in "other processes", that is precisely what I believe as, once again: no context, no awareness, no consciousness.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Harsh, but, I gotta say, I'd have to agree (with healyje's next-to-last post). It seems like Largo isn't even trying to understand the science or the logic behind the science. Much of science depends on logic. You'd think that this would be a common denominator for scientist and philosopher.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Neuro feedback is a brain-mapping tool?
Maybe in the way a toddler's scribblings are a world-mapping tool.
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