The Dutch I think launched a probe to test if we're really a simulation being run on a really smashing computer. That's a theory that'll bunch your knickers. I like how we actually need to test for it.
I have so much response in me.
SamX - the object you describe that may reveal 'framing' could only exist with some sort of energy balance. The gravity of it would cause it to collapse to a black hole unless there were a countering force - like a sun that burns can prop itself up, but when it cools and runs out of fuel that's when it crumples up. The problem with a giant sun (UY Scuti) is that it's so bright it's hard to see its surface.
To your multiverse ideas. You describe two different proposals. The Many Worlds Interpretation first described by Hugh Everett (Everett, WA??) is like you say; any time a particle has a non zero probability of different location/momentum/spin it will manifest each one of those possibilities in an alternate 'universe'. I've always thought this to be more of a manageable tool to aid in calculations and not really a genuine proposal of 'how it is'. But maybe. The other multiverse that you reference is the Quilted Multiverse. That sorta depends on the expanse of our universe to truly be infinite. I understand your argument against infinity as a substance or as a real world phenomenon, but I disagree. It exists as a concept and it exists in calculations and could possibly exist as a quantity of space and/or time. There are different kinds of infinity too.
(aleph naught) is countably infinite. Like 1, 2, 3,...
is uncountably infinite. Like all the irrational numbers between 1 and 2. And that you can hold in your fingers.
The Quilted Universe relies on two things. First the universe must be infinite, or possibly it only needs to be rockingly immense. Like a googleplex of miles. The other thing is that there is only a finite number of arrangements of the particles in our observable universe (93b light years). Particles may differ in position by an amount that we can't detect and that's good enough. If your ham sandwich has a single atom one picometer to the left, you'd never know the difference. So we'll call that the same thing. Then you can have repeated arrangements of particles which means somewhere far away there will be another Sun, another Earth, another you and me and this conversation. In fact it will be repeated an infinite number of times in an infinite number of universe patches. So that's neat.
I like the Bubble Multiverse Theory. A universe or 'big bang' -like event could spontaneously happen anywhere and anytime. Lots of bubble universes. One of them might've even bumped us. There's a weird warm spot in the microwave background. We might've gotten sideswiped.
Oi vey! I think my brain just exploded a little.
Wow, this thread is amazing. So many things to think about I'm not sure I can keep them straight.
So, let's see, I want to hit on 1) infinity; and 2) time/movement (!!!)
1) Kant's antinomies are of interest here. He points out pretty well how both the idea that the universe is infinite, and the idea that it is finite, are incoherent. In short, if the all of everything is infinite, that is in contradiction to the notion of it being the ALL, whereas if it is finite, that means it has a boundary, and thus there would have to be something outside of it, etc. So - I guess the conclusion is that it is neither. Kant finagles this in a certain way that I don't think works. Correct conclusion, I think, is that the universe is neither infinite nor finite - our concepts simply don't get it.
But, at the same time, I think SamXTherapy's argument misses the point. The series of natural numbers IS infinite, in principle, and there is a distinction between an indefinitely extendable series and the infinite. We can get the idea of the infinite, and even of orders of infinity, in mathematics. And, it's fascinating. It has nothing to do with us.
And so, 2) Time... shit, man, I don't know. There is this rigorous scientific position that makes it out to be an illusion, but I think the conceptual framework is just wrong. If you start from the idea that there are these "moments" then, yeah, you kind of can't get it going, but how about not that? What if the flow of time is the primary thing, and there is never anything static anywhere ever? Ceteris paribus with movement.
So, there are no moments, or now-points - the very idea of such a thing only exists in thought, abstracting away from the always real movement of time - there is only this flow of difference. Movement that might come to resemble rest, and so on...
It is only repetition that creates the sense of sameness. But it is always a repetition of difference. Think about the ring, or the tulpas, or pretty much anything else in Twin Peaks - we have floating signifiers, difference in repetition, etc. all over the place.
Wow, this thread is amazing. So many things to think about I'm not sure I can keep them straight.
So, let's see, I want to hit on 1) infinity; and 2) time/movement (!!!)
1) Kant's antinomies are of interest here. He points out pretty well how both the idea that the universe is infinite, and the idea that it is finite, are incoherent. In short, if the all of everything is infinite, that is in contradiction to the notion of it being the ALL, whereas if it is finite, that means it has a boundary, and thus there would have to be something outside of it, etc. So - I guess the conclusion is that it is neither. Kant finagles this in a certain way that I don't think works. Correct conclusion, I think, is that the universe is neither infinite nor finite - our concepts simply don't get it.
But, at the same time, I think SamXTherapy's argument misses the point. The series of natural numbers IS infinite, in principle, and there is a distinction between an indefinitely extendable series and the infinite. We can get the idea of the infinite, and even of orders of infinity, in mathematics. And, it's fascinating. It has nothing to do with us.
And so, 2) Time... shit, man, I don't know. There is this rigorous scientific position that makes it out to be an illusion, but I think the conceptual framework is just wrong. If you start from the idea that there are these "moments" then, yeah, you kind of can't get it going, but how about not that? What if the flow of time is the primary thing, and there is never anything static anywhere ever? Ceteris paribus with movement.
So, there are no moments, or now-points - the very idea of such a thing only exists in thought, abstracting away from the always real movement of time - there is only this flow of difference. Movement that might come to resemble rest, and so on...
It is only repetition that creates the sense of sameness. But it is always a repetition of difference. Think about the ring, or the tulpas, or pretty much anything else in Twin Peaks - we have floating signifiers, difference in repetition, etc. all over the place.
Wel...
Numbers as a concept can be infinite, since we need that particular convenience to make so many things work experimentally. That, however, is different from the reality of numbers, as in my example. The other thing to consider is, even though we can imagine infinity as a concept (and there's some debate on that) we are unable to imagine infinity itself.
So, the paradox is, we use a concept we (arguably) can't fully imagine, which involves a subject we can't imagine at all.
It's around about that time where thoughts start to orbit around a common centre, occupying lower and lower levels until they eventually disappear up their own arse.
Ah, right, so we get to the question as to the reality of numbers. I oddly tend to be something of a Platonist on that one. That is, conceiving of numbers/mathematics as having a reality in a mind-independent way seems much more straightforward than the other option. But of course that's weird.
It occurs to me that it would actually be very on topic at this point to recommend Neal Stephenson's Anathem. I don't suppose any of you have read it? It plays with a lot of the ideas that have come up in this thread.
Haven't read it, mate. Sounds worth picking up, though. I've read a few of his things which I enjoyed, so one more can't hurt.
Reality? I have an idea that Einstein was on the right track - sort of - but didn't have the means to pursue it. Here goes...
Gravity is everything. Really everything. Keep on subdividing the particles and eventually, there's nothing except a localized distortion in spacetime.
My take on numbers is exactly the opposite of yours, but then I don't believe in Plato's ideas about reality, anyhow.
Haven't read it, mate. Sounds worth picking up, though. I've read a few of his things which I enjoyed, so one more can't hurt.
Reality? I have an idea that Einstein was on the right track - sort of - but didn't have the means to pursue it. Here goes...
Gravity is everything. Really everything. Keep on subdividing the particles and eventually, there's nothing except a localized distortion in spacetime.
My take on numbers is exactly the opposite of yours, but then I don't believe in Plato's ideas about reality, anyhow.
I generally don't buy into Plato, either. It is really just when it comes to numbers/math that I find the approach appealing. It is rather odd, whichever position you take, I think. Either, you assert that math has a mind-independent reality (which it seems to possess insofar as mathematical truths seem to be objective), which takes you in the direction of granting a reality to ideas a la Plato (something I would want to reject for other reasons), or, you take a constructivist approach, which gets really complicated/convoluted and is in some tension with the apparent mind-independent nature of mathematical truth. This article may be of interest: https://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
The notion that gravity is everything is interesting, but are we sure it is a thing at all, as opposed to a relation between things? And, of course, modern physics itself heavily relies on mathematics.
Anathem is cool. The basic setup throws you into a world where academics have been sequestered in places sort of like monasteries, apparently because science got a bit out of hand at some point in the past. But he just throws you in, and things slowly unfold about this world. I don't think the real plot becomes evident until a couple hundred pages in, so I don't want to spoil that, but it does relate to what we have been discussing here.
Without going too far into the implications, I tend to think of numbers as a convenient label to differentiate between one thing and the next. But then, I think of all names - including my own - in the same way. That (the one about my name) is a story in itself. Well, a paragraph perhaps.
Thanks for the link; that's bookmarked for later perusal.
My idea about gravity may be a little odd but it's really just a change of focus. Consider the effect of mass on spacetime, well what if gravity was the stuff of spacetime itself, knotted up into little packages that attract others, agglutinate to larger packages and give rise to matter? It would be a neat and tidy explanation of how gravity and mass work exactly in step and may also provide some insights into Relativity in a wider sense. It'd also be a wrap up to the search for the ultimate particle, if everything was made from, well spacetime itself. It's simple, neat and tidy and, at first glance, seems plausible. Which means it's probably wrong.
I will definitely search out Anathem. I like books - any stories - that let you find things out gradually, rather than laying it all out at one go.
But what about things like 4 spacial dimensions? We can't really imagine it, we can't grasp it or experience it, but we can certainly manipulate the mathematics of it and discover characteristics. We can make prediction based on those ideas and we can confirm the consequences. To me that's real enough.
I think that mathematics is a thing that we discovered and categorized, not that we invented. It was already there. I think it's got a good chance of being a universal language among alien races.
However, I think mathematics only makes sense if you can agree on what 1 means. If an alien race has group consciousness, they might really struggle with the concept of 1. What is 1 individual? What is 1 object? They might only see in clouds of experiences. I think for us 1 represents the self and 0 represents death. From there the rest just follows a line of careful reasoning up through calculus and group theory and Calabi Yau spaces and all the rest.
To Cameron's first post - great stuff, btw, I don't know that we can call the universe finite or infinite just on those principles. The surface of the earth I think we'd all say is finite, but you never hit a boundary. The universe could be like that in 3 spacial dimensions. And it really starts getting weird if 'outside' of the universe is truly nothing. Not empty space, but really no space, no time, no fields - really and truly nothing. It's hard to claim it exists then. I could buy into saying that we just don't get it. That rings true. I also agree with the suggestion that we don't really understand time and what it's made of, how it behaves, and specifically if there is such thing as a 'moment'. I was thinking last night - we don't ever really experience the present anyway. Our every sensation is always an echo of something from slightly in the past. So to speak of the present is only possible in retrospect. The present is just as murky as the future, so if the present is totally outside of observation (even a microscope has to wait for light to bounce back), then maybe the 'moment' is just as much of an illusion.
And then the two slit experiment. How light will choose either the left or right slit to pass through if we are observing it, but if we turn off any record or measurement of the light's behavior, it will smear out and interfere with itself like ripples in a pond by going through both paths. And the extent to which the scientists have complicated and elaborated on this experiment is formidable. Always though - if you can determine where the light went, it chooses one specific path. If you can no longer determine the path, it will take all paths. This is true even for light that is coming from a quasar 1,000 light years away. If we measure whether the light went to the left or to the right of a galaxy that's between us and the quasar, the light will always have chosen to the left of the galaxy or to the right. If we stop measuring though, it suddenly appears to have gone around both sides. With our current understanding of time, the light must have made that decision 1,000 years ago. So how did it know what exactly we'd be doing centuries after it had to make its choice and then change that choice depending on if we measure or not? WTF?? That one we totally don't understand.
Wait, this is still a Twin Peaks forum, right?
4 spatial dimensions is a good example. It's also a perfect illustration of what I mean about numbers. The paradox is, we can use the concept but we can't fully understand it. As for "real", how do we define reality? Usually through our own senses, which are unreliable. Or, by extension, machines, which are also unreliable. That's not to say reality doesn't exist - probably we'll never know for sure - just that everything is subject to a degree of interpretation.
Mathematics. Yep, I agree. Our numbering conventions may be different from others (they're not even universal here on Earth) but the basis must remain constant, since the laws of nature don't change.
Any alien race using technology will have grasped the concept of 1 pretty quickly. Even if their idea of a single individual being is different from ours, they'll understand the concept of a single unit of something.
The best explanation I heard for the two slit experiment was something like, "That's what happens when you fuck about with probability and anyhow, at that level it's weird". From a Professor of physics at Sheffield University.
Oh... Yeah, sure. Twin Peaks is great!
I do think it relates. I mean, we got Schrodinger's Laura...
And I think approaching the Lodge beings in terms of them experiencing more dimensions is a fruitful approach. I think String theory suggests 12 dimensions, if I recall correctly. But, for Twin Peaks, I think we only need 5, with the Lodges/Zone being the 5th. This puts the events there outside of the course of time as we normally experience it, but not outside of time full stop.
One could also think of this 5th dimension as cutting across/tying together Many Worlds. Something like quantum indeterminacy seems to be a play - even if they experience time like we experience space, events do not seem to be predestined.
'Reality' is perhaps not a useful concept on its own. It calls out for an opposing term, like 'ideality' - but I am usually more interested in breaking down such distinctions than I am in employing them.
5th Dimension were a great band.
I never took to String theory; it seems like a messy compromise and, AFAICR, the Standard Model doesn't need it anyhow so Occam's Razor comes into play for me here.
For me, the opposing term for Reality would be Nothingness, or more precisely, Impossibility. Maybe once we determine everything that's impossible we'll be able to determine what reality is.
I won't hold my breath, though.
Well, if treat nothingness as a thing - I always want to reference the Neverending Story here - then we are conceiving of it as something, and thus not as nothing. So, there is no nothingness, because that would be something and not nothing. This, fwiw, my response to the classical metaphysical problem of why there is something rather than nothing - I think that it would not be possible for there to be nothing.
Determining what is impossible is fairly easy if we focus on logical impossibility - it is just a matter of ruling our contradictions. If we embrace something like the Many Worlds hypothesis, then, we could embrace the existence/reality of all worlds that are not logically impossible.
The wrinkle would be to think about something like Leibniz's notion of incompossibility - this would be a question of the consistency, or coherence, of any given possible world; whether things can fit together, etc. So, e.g., flying like Superman is incompossible with the law of gravity. But it is more complicated than that. Some have even suggested that the calculus serves a philosophical purpose for Leibniz in this regard.
Anyway, I like the approach you are suggesting. I have thought that maybe cataloging varieties of falsehood might be more fruitful than trying to define the truth.
And, yeah, I don't know about String theory, either, but there is this lingering problem about trying to unify quantum mechanics with classical physics, no?
Ehrm...
Since we already agreed it's possible to use something we can't actually conceive accurately, I think it's wrong to single out nothingness as an exception. Nothingness as a concept can exist and may do as a reality (or rather, the absence thereof). Whichever way you use it, it's a useful shortcut and in the case of defining our Universe, a boundary between here and not here, or at a real stretch, inside and outside. A useful shortcut, that is, to describe the seeming paradox of having a finite yet boundless Universe.
Nobody knows how Supes flies, anyhow. Maybe he generates an antigravity field, what with his advanced Kryptonian physiology and all that. 😉
Cataloguing varieties of falsehood (I like the phrase) is, I guess just a Boolean party trick that can work if all else fails. Even a compare/fail analysis would work well enough.
My brother found a fault in one of Australia's deep space radio dishes by doing a simple Boolean trick. Saved them quite a lot of time and money in the end. Thing is, if you know the error in a model, all you usually need to do is subtract or invert the error to put it right. The two of us proposed a similar approach to the faulty lens in Hubble, which would have worked as a stop gap so they could get better quality image data before the lens was replaced. They didn't use it but at least the option was there.
I'm not sure there is a real difference between classical and quantum, ya know? No data to back this up but I believe there's a bridging moment or place (cannot think of an appropriate word) where either both rules mesh or create a boundary change, as with a fractal. Thinking about it more - extemporizing again - it wouldn't surprise me if the boundary is fractal and the deeper we get, the more complex it becomes. Nature does that a lot; thinking about various types of life that can be classed as either plant or animal, depending how you judge 'em. Nothing seems to be as strongly demarcated as we'd like, at least, not down in the fine details.
Which then leads on to Heisenberg... If we could know the absolute state of every particle, we could predict the future. The Uncertainty Principle puts paid to that one, though. Not that it relates to anything, other than a random thought about previous posts on the nature and/or reality of time.
Fire walk with