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Brian Ambrose
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But isn't this just a creation myth? |
Yes. It's an article of faith. We have to believe that all the current complications will somehow one day simplify out to something like eee equals emsee squared and we get to say, doh, look how simple and obvious it all is, why didn't I think of that? But as you say, it may turn out that it is actually impossible for us to comprehend the underlying structure of the universe.
But let's not give up just yet. Anyone with any ideas for a model that explains why two particles in an otherwise (apparently) empty universe will start moving towards each other? Whilst avoiding spooky-action-at-a-distance of course.
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admin
Librarian
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Gentlemen! Remember abstruse philosophical ramblings are not permitted on this site. Get down to cases!
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Brian Ambrose
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Pah! In what way is a call for a model that explains why two particles in an otherwise (apparently) empty universe will start moving towards each other an abtruse philosophical ramble?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Yes, shut up, Admin!
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The philosophers are the physicists themselves. Faced with the impossibility of measuring position and momentum simultaneously (is this why light is both a wave and a particle?) they've come up with the term "non-measurement" (they say if the particle detector doesn't detect a particle it means it's 'gone the other way'').
There's another Alice In Wonderlandish theory of 'many worlds', if you can't see the particle in this world you can no doubt see it in someone else's world (sounds a bit like Schrodinger's cat, alive and dead at the same time). I am completely non-plussed.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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No, dear, you are both plussed and non-plussed at the same moment in space-time. Jeez, do you have to have everything spelled out for you?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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So, there is still a mysterious something to invoke even in the rubber sheet explanation of gravity. |
To be fair, it usually has a grid of squares so they can say "look how the distortion is greater the closer to the star". They'll readily admit it's just an analogy, but I'm not sure where they stand on the question of whether the mass causes the distortion, the distortion causes the mass or the two are one and the same. Still not very helpful, and I've heard Relativists retreating quickly to the "doesn't matter: the equations work" position.
All they want to show is that straight lines are replaced by curves in this non-Euclidean geometry: it's no better and no worse than a Newtonian saying "I dunno how it got there, but it goes in a straight line because there is no force".
If we take the rubber sheet as a model Newtonian potential well, we still have to shrug and say "things tend to the lowest possible energy state".
I guess I'm saying that we have reached a point where we cannot explain these mysterious forces in terms of each other; this is just pushing the bubble around. |
But we might at least get down to just one bubble.
It's an article of faith. |
Absolutely.
Anyone with any ideas for a model that explains why two particles in an otherwise (apparently) empty universe will start moving towards each other? Whilst avoiding spooky-action-at-a-distance of course. |
Got a model that explains what's spooky about action-at-a-distance?
Maybe the ultimate truths are so complicated we could never understand them. |
It's the things people say that are true or false, as someone else once said.
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Brian Ambrose
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Got a model that explains what's spooky about action-at-a-distance? |
I think it's a universally shared conviction that action-at-a-distance (that is, x causing y, sans intermediary) is impossible and if it does exist, spooky. The only known violation of this seems to be particles which are quantum-entangled, and that behaviour is decidedly spooky (if you believe it of course).
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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No model, then. Just faith.
I'm interested in how the intermediary (particle, presumably) helps.
Or why a field can't be an intermediary.
But then, I have read Zen in the Art of Archery.
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Brian Ambrose
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Of course a field can be an intermediary. But only if you can explain (or at least model) what a field is. Same goes for particles (if you must, even though that seems to be a dead-end), if you can model how our original two particles move towards each other by throwing smaller particles at each other.
I don't think faith comes into it. I am equally willing to accept spooky-action-at-a-distance if you can model the process.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This action-at-a-distance thing is surely just matter of being prisoners of our conceptions. Since the Universe is a thing, as far as we know, then everything in it is literally no-distance-apart, since they are merely aspects of the thing. Looked at this way, there can literally be no such thing as action-at-a-distance (in the sense it is usually meant, ie too far to effect one another). The March of Science can simply be seen as a matter of being able to identify more and more connections of which we were previously unaware.
The reason I 'know' this, as an Applied Epistemologist, is because Life-on-Earth suffers the from the same problem. There too God had to be initially introduced to overcome the action-at-a-distance question. But now we're hung up because we refuse to believe (for instance) that genes can communicate with each other through the ether (as the action-at-a-distance concept is called in our smallish confines down here.)
The Electic Universe and Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance are examples of trying to bust out of our present conceptual straightjackets. Though I expect progress will come when somebody unites the two concepts.
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Brian Ambrose
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You were doing quite well there until you said 'through the ether'. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the ether and think it's the best bet for a decent model of things, but as soon as you introduce it you are providing a mechanism for, as you say, communication, and dispensing with your original idea that there is no such thing as distance. Still, you might be able to reconcile the two by proposing distance with instantaneous communication, so that everything is connected as if there was no distance.
Ok, if we have a model of a universe with a substrate supporting instantaneous communication (ie ether fills the universe), what is it about this substance that requires two particles placed within it to (appear to) move closer together? Obviously, pressure difference is the likely candidate, but how?
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Seems so. First glance was promising, but I've read the whole site now and can't see anything more than the germ of an idea. The most pertinent quote I could find is
Compared to Walter's work, HGW.org is only an outline that points toward the electromagnetic force as the basis for the unification of all forces. but it looks like Walter's work, The General Science Journal, http://www.wbabin.net/, is quite high up the learning curve.
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Grant
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Anyone with any ideas for a model that explains why two particles in an otherwise (apparently) empty universe will start moving towards each other? Whilst avoiding spooky-action-at-a-distance of course. |
They won't always. In some universes they will move apart; in some they won't move at all; in some they will move towards each other. Consciousness can exist only in universes in which they move together, so that's what we see.
Our consciousness comes first and physics follows
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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They won't always. In some universes they will move apart; in some they won't move at all... |
You're quite right Grant...I've visited most of these other universes and they're either quite repulsive or f**k all happens.
I only peeped through the window though...I was rather concerned for the safety of my consciousness.
Those were the days...(I haven't done acid for years).
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