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Author Topic:   What is Time and Space
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 106 of 204 (232156)
08-11-2005 3:40 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by randman
08-10-2005 8:55 PM


Re: Projection
That may be randman but the projector could also be part of the physical that makes this projection work, and the metaphysical is outside that as well.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 107 of 204 (232159)
08-11-2005 3:55 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by randman
08-10-2005 8:55 PM


Re: Projection
Cavediver's looking at the spiritual and metaphysical straight in the face
You're quite right, I am! I am a Christian, and my church is a sort of pentecostal/Vineyard/Hillsong hybrid, so I can hardly avoid it
But I am convinced that QM does not hold any key to spirituality or the spiritual. In my view, God can interact with any part of creation at any level.
Quantum theory really isn't that mysterious, but unfortunately that's a view built upon many years experience in the field and is very difficult to convey. Most people outside of the field have this idea of uncertainty and probability. But QM is totally deterministic. The evolution of a wave-function is purely a function of its initial conditions. It is only a "measurement" of the wave-function that introduces any sense of probability or uncertainty.
Furthermore, QM is totally causal, as in doesn't allow for FTL communication. Entanglement seems mysterious but that is from the perspective of large scale physics. From the mathematics, it makes total sense. As with GR, its mysteriousness stems from the mistake of comparing it with our observed everyday "reality". This is where all of the layman accounts (New Scientist, etc) get their mileage: ooh, isn't it different to everyday life!!!

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 108 of 204 (232163)
08-11-2005 4:08 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by randman
08-10-2005 8:55 PM


Re: Projection
the next step past the word of God in creating and upholding the physical universe
A quick addendum... this is a slippery argument and is tantamount to a god of the gaps. I have personally heard preachers announce that God upholds the universe by preventing nuclei from exploding from electrostatic repulsion. Well, in the long run I guess this is true and God's mechanism is known as the strong nuclear force... but this is not what they meant. A place for God has always been found in the next level of physical mystery, but He soon gets evicted as understanding dawns...

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 109 of 204 (232169)
08-11-2005 4:37 AM
Reply to: Message 104 by GDR
08-10-2005 7:17 PM


Re: Projection
String theory postualtes that everything is made up of minute bits of energy
Hmmm, you should realise now that this is mubo-jumbo. This is the language of New Scientist: conveys nothing, and if used as a basis for further musings it will rapidly leads you into crank territory
Remember, space is only a slice of reality... a "string" is a slice of a tube. It is the network of tubes, splitting and rejoining that creates the tapestry of string-theory. We are now talking about a highly convoluted two-dimensional surface. String theory is about the geometry and topology of this surface, and of the mathematical fields defined on this surface... it most certainly is not about "minute bits of energy".

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GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 110 of 204 (232321)
08-11-2005 1:59 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by cavediver
08-11-2005 4:37 AM


Strings and Greene
I have just ordered a DVD of Brian Greene's Nova series on his book "The Elegant Universe". I know that you're not a proponent of string theory but will this DVD straighten out my "mumbo jumbo". I thought that I had a bit of a sense of it when I thought that strings were little loops of energy that vibrate, and that the vibration would create the characteristics of the various particles.
Also, on the same topic in post #88 in this thread I quoted Greene on the relationship between string theory and loop quantum gravity. I'd like to know if you agree with what he has written.
One more thing. You mentioned that the real world or projector is a 2d worldsheet. (I realize that this is just theory at this point.) Do you feel that science will be able to investigate that so called "real world" in the way that approaches the way we are able to investigate the projection?
Thanks again for your patience.

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 111 of 204 (232492)
08-12-2005 3:59 AM
Reply to: Message 110 by GDR
08-11-2005 1:59 PM


Re: Strings and Greene
Hmmm, I'm not so sure. Greene will talk about loops of string, he's a particle physicist But you should see some string world-sheets (tubes) Look out for "pairs of pants"... it's what the universe rests upon
Brian Greene writes:
If I were to hazard a guess on future developments, I'd imagine that the background-independent techniques developed by the loop quantum gravity community will be adapted to string theory, paving the way for a string formulation that is background independent. And that's the spark, I suspect, that will ignite a third superstring revolution in which, I'm optimistic, many of the remaining deep mysteries will be solved.
Yes, I largelt agree with this. The background independent approach to string theory was an area in which I spent some time. It is really a formalism of my idea of space-time being a projection. Actually, I prefer the idea of "emergent concept" than projection. Projection, as Son Goku pointed out, is more the domain of the Holographic Principle.
Do you feel that science will be able to investigate that so called "real world" in the way that approaches the way we are able to investigate the projection?
Absolutely.

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madeofstarstuff
Member (Idle past 5929 days)
Posts: 47
Joined: 08-12-2005


Message 112 of 204 (232689)
08-12-2005 3:14 PM
Reply to: Message 79 by cavediver
08-04-2005 7:01 PM


Re: interesting in this
I haven't made it to the end of this thread yet but couldn't help myself. In Greene's book he says that the gravity of the moon would rescind simultaneuosly as the light from the moon tells us it is moving away. He does say that the effects of gravity travel at light speed on page 72.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 113 of 204 (232696)
08-12-2005 3:23 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by madeofstarstuff
08-12-2005 3:14 PM


Re: interesting in this
In Greene's book he says that the gravity of the moon would rescind simultaneuosly as the light from the moon tells us it is moving away.
I'm not sure what's being said here. Can you quote a little more from around this comment?

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madeofstarstuff
Member (Idle past 5929 days)
Posts: 47
Joined: 08-12-2005


Message 114 of 204 (232715)
08-12-2005 3:57 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by GDR
08-11-2005 1:59 PM


Re: Strings and Greene
First of all, ignore my first post as you have gotten to the bottom of that, I sure came out with a bang! I love this stuff and am beyond fascinated by it. I have no formal education in the subject just an outsider yearning for this understanding. Now on to why I posted this one.
Greene discusses the total entropy attainable in a black hole discovered by Hawking and Bekenstein as evidence to support that the most entropy you can shove into a region of space is proportional to its surface area, not its volume. Does this say that a two dimensional surface displays a reality contained within a higher dimensional space? This points to our perception of three dimensional space as being a holographic representation of a higher dimensional reality. Is it beyond our perception, even in physical or mathematical principles at this point, thus the need for string theory? Does this seem to be an accurate portrayal, or way off mark?
I have two other questions as well that are related I believe. Is our motion through time with respect to space analogous in any way to impedance of an electrical circuit with respect to its resistance? I am an EE major and understand this phasor relationship with imaginary components (the more capacitive or inductive the circuit is, the more impedance with respect to resistance), yet also understand the special relativity discussion in regards to different observers witnessing different orders of events by virtue of their motion. I imagine motion through spacetime is not the simple addition of the two motion vectors (time motion and space motion), as it is explained in Greene’s book, but is this analogous in any way?
Greene also states that gravity is repulsive as well as attractive, yet you (cavediver) said that it is always attractive. I thought that repulsive gravity was essentially negative gravity and requires vast amounts of empty space to achieve. Is this in any way accurate?

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 115 of 204 (232859)
08-13-2005 12:34 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by cavediver
08-11-2005 3:55 AM


Re: Projection
In my view, God can interact with any part of creation at any level.
I agree. I think you may be misunderstanding my point a little. Take the concept of every soul being created by God. We say to people that they are a special creation of God, a unique individual, but that doesn't mean we don't participate or that God does not use a fully natural process.
In fact, while the creation of the soul and spirit may be somewhat mysterious, we understand that God uses a very natural process to create an individual, and our free will and natural actions have something to do with it.
So I am not trying to suggest that because something is mysterious, it must be God, or that if we more fully or completely understand it, that God isn't somehow involved.
But just as natural principles work well with natural processes, I think QM principles seem to dovetail with spiritual principles, that are understood mind you, that it suggests to me that QM and GR are getting into what we have labelled the spiritual realm.
By "spiritual" here, I don't mean necessarily the biblical concept of spirituality in being submitted to God, but the broader sense of the arena we have called "spiritual."
For an example of what I am talking about, QM posits that some things we would consider impossible are actually, by the laws of physics, always possible, but very unlikely, or at least that's how it's been presented. An example I've read concerns quantum tunneling with the idea that a ball always has a slight chance to go right through a wall without breaking it, but this is so unlikely that we don't expect it to ever happen, but happens with smaller particles in quantum tunneling.
What I see in something like that is a mechanism for the miraculous. In other words, people have said miracles (very rare events either in actual deed or timing or both, aided by God) are not possible by such and such laws of physics, but really that old paradigm of classical physics is not entirely correct if taken to an absolute.
As with GR, its mysteriousness stems from the mistake of comparing it with our observed everyday "reality".
Well cavediver, something that appears very strange when compared to everyday "reality" is indeed strange, and just because we can come to understand it, does not make it strange.
Like you perhaps considering your church, certain spiritual phenomena are no strange to me at all because I have been educated about them and have some understanding and experience how they work, but I wouldn't say they are not strange because from the "natural" mind's perspective, they are strange indeed.
Just because math and deeper concepts can make sense of physics does not make it strange because it is strange, and it seems to me that even physicists find it strange when you hear them talk about it, and speculate if such and such is true.

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 116 of 204 (232864)
08-13-2005 12:41 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by cavediver
08-10-2005 6:51 PM


Re: Projection
[qs] A perfect artist doesn't leave brush strokes... or a perfect watchmaker, scratches... /qs
Not to be argumentative, but great artists in fact use the brush-strokes as part and parcel of the art.
Would a Monet, for example, be any good without the brush strokes being so visible?
Not really. The painterly aspect of much of the best paintings in the world are crucial to the art itself.
But I get the point. I do think that God does hide things, but not so much it is futile to ever seek and find Him out in certain areas.

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Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 117 of 204 (232867)
08-13-2005 12:50 AM
Reply to: Message 108 by cavediver
08-11-2005 4:08 AM


M
But I hold a place for God in both. Just because we begin to understand a part of the process does not mean God's not there.
I hear what you are saying, but principles of reality, whether natural or spiritual, exist, and according to Jesus' perspective of reality, there is some connection between one's inward condition, one's consciousness, (faith and believing and action) and what occurs in the physical world.
"Whosoever says to this mountain...."
Not to debate all the theological intricacies in that oft-preached passage in some quarters, suffice to say that Jesus thinks some causal effect exists between certain states of consciousness and action that can produce direct effects on physical reality, (i.e. "whosoever" not just the people of God).
It may not be correct but when I hear consciousness-based interpretations of QM, I can at least say it is predicted by the things Jesus said and actually other spiritual traditions, and that's pretty interesting.
It may well be though that transverse waves or back to claiming mechanistic interference is key, but a whole lot of QM still dovetails with spiritual principles.
Take the idea that information or an energy design is fundamental, right? And specific form is derivative of that information energy design?
If we come to understand that 100%, it won't change the fact it illustrated a biblical principle of information being more fundamental in terms of origination than specific form, which is derived from that. "In the beginning was the Word (Logos)...."

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 118 of 204 (232936)
08-13-2005 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 114 by madeofstarstuff
08-12-2005 3:57 PM


Re: Strings and Greene
Does this say that a two dimensional surface displays a reality contained within a higher dimensional space?
This is known as the Holographic Principle, and the idea is that all of 3d reality can be contained on a 2d surface. In other words, 3d reality is a projection of a 2d image.
This points to our perception of three dimensional space as being a holographic representation of a higher dimensional reality.
No, the opposite. It points us to a lower dimensional reality! And this is also the case in string theory. Despite all the talk of "extra dimensions", string theory is actually just concerned with two dimensions! But this is now getting technical...
I know why you're thinking along the line of phasors, and there are some connections (as you mention, adding vectors is not straightforward) but primarily the answer is no.
Greene also states that gravity is repulsive as well as attractive, yet you (cavediver) said that it is always attractive. I thought that repulsive gravity was essentially negative gravity and requires vast amounts of empty space to achieve. Is this in any way accurate?
It is potentially possible to create anti-gravity, but you are right... it is not easy. Casimir energy appears to be one way, though it is wholly undemonstrated that it would work. Yes, for an appreciable amount of negative enrgy-density you would need a very large volume of space.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 119 of 204 (232937)
08-13-2005 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by randman
08-13-2005 12:41 AM


Re: Projection
Not to be argumentative, but great artists in fact use the brush-strokes as part and parcel of the art.
True, but they don't have much choice in the matter They are stuck with the brush strokes themselves. They can use that to increase of their art if they have the ability and the desire.
I do think that God does hide things
I don't see it as hiding things. I just think that the creation is a contained whole, and that there is no "knot in the balloon" to find.

This message is a reply to:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4899 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 120 of 204 (233008)
08-13-2005 2:28 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by cavediver
08-13-2005 8:03 AM


Re: Projection
Well cavediver, the universe from a theological perspective is not considered to self-exist. Only God self-exists, and the Bible also indicates an immanent aspect to God within the universe.
Paul says to the unbelieving Greeks in his evangelistic message "That in Him we live and move and have our being."
He's not talking of the new birth there, but that we ourselves "live and move and have our being" in God, that it's His life animating ourselves. "Love believes all things"...? into existence?
So we should expect to discover some of the mechanisms of God within the universe, and that includes spiritual mechanisms and principles.
You yourself take on much more of this same thinking I espouse here than you may realize about yourself if I read your views on mathematics correctly in the coffee house thread.
Is math derivative of aspects of God, or purely a creation of the Lord with no basis in eternal truths of Who He is?
It's a good question, and in some respects I think I fall on the other side of the issue and think it is more a creation of God and as not derivative, but maybe math is advancing enough into the non-linear realm to be what you think it is. You seem to argue mathematics is connected, in the sense of "naturally" derivative of God, and thus God's immanence is seen in some respects in the math.
This message has been edited by randman, 08-13-2005 02:36 PM

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