HerbieP
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HerbieP commented on Time as a Manifestation of Causal Chains on October 16, 2009, 4:32 AM
Welcome back Musycks. Sorry to have missed it. Hope that you had a great time. You'll have to give me a blow by blow. I think that we're on the same page Denys. Causality is a conscious phenomenon, the ultimate anthropic principle. I think that many of the problems of modern physics arise from our inability to see that our view of phenomena is necessarily a 'consciouscentric' one. It's a little like the jump in perception that happened to see that it was not necessary to view the earth as the centre of the universe. Einstein went some way in showing that reference frames were essentially arbitrary, quantum mechanics has unsettled us further by challenging causality and the 'arrow of time'. What interests me at the moment is exactly how we imagine that one event 'causes' another. It seems that there cannot be a satisfying answer to this question. How does particle A 'know' from one snapshot to the next that it has a velocity with respect to particle B? Since the motion is relative it cannot be a property contained within the particle itself. How then is motion continuous through time? If particle A strikes particle B what is passed between them with the transfer of momentum which is only relative motion?
HerbieP commented on Time as a Manifestation of Causal Chains on October 15, 2009, 7:08 AM
"But again my question, would you say its mathematically and logically plausible that causal chains can be constants at all levels of matter and may simply lack linear continuity of time on the quantum scale thus appearing erratic?" I'm not sure that I understand you Denys. In our conscious realm it seems that the direction of time is significant and that causality only works one way. this is not true in the quantum realm. In quantum electrodynamics for example positrons can mathematically be described as electrons travelling into the past. It doesn't seem to matter for quantum processes which way you run your clock. In my day a lot of the thought was still focused on trying to apply causal rules but it seems that that is no longer the case is much contemporary physics (at least that bit not wrapped up in string theory). It is accepted that there are no causal chains for some quantum events. However my own feeling (and it is no more than that) is that many of our problems with quantum mechanics arise because we are trying to apply our marcoscopic notions of temporal contunity and causality where they don't fit. I think that causality and the flow of time as we generally understand it only fuctions on a scale that we can imagine (the window between the quatum and the cosmic) and this is because our consciousness is a phenomena that is dependent on this scale.
HerbieP commented on The Name of My Religion on October 15, 2009, 6:57 AM
If I understand you correctly Tim you are imagining a Euclidean space. General relativity does not describe a Euclidean space. Einstein tensors (a form of Ricci tensor) are quite complex. To describe a region of spacetime from a particular reference frame you have to solve a difficult partial differential equation that depends on the matter and energy that the region contains. The amount of energy in the frame depends significantly on its motion relative to other frames (as in special relativity). The equation is so difficult because the variables are interdependent. The net result is that you have a curved four dimensional space which essentially means that the shortest distance between two points is a geodesic rather than a straight line as in Euclidean geometry. This is why light does not travel in ‘straight lines’ and time appears to ‘flow’ at different rates. The curvature of spacetime can be extreme in strong gravitational fields. A simple two dimensional non-Euclidean geometry can be imagined on the surface of a sphere where the shortest distance between two points is on a curve and triangles do not have internal angles that add to 180 degrees.
HerbieP commented on The Name of My Religion on October 12, 2009, 5:34 PM
I'm afraid that you've picked an example that is immensely complex. To start with you have the problem of simultaneity. Over great distances you have to wait for light to reach you before you can judge simultaneity which in case of galaxies is thousands of years. Next you have decided on rotating refrence frames which are therefore accelerating. Not only that but distant stars will appear to be exceeding the speed of light because you are fixed and so they appear to orbit you at vast speeds so there are enormous distortions of spacetime to avoid them appearing to travel faster than the speed of light. You can only measure such distances by relying on Cephid variables or blue and red shifts. You seem to be under the impression that you can have an absolute reference frame with absolute measurements. The whole point of relativity is that there is no absolute frame. Events that appear to be symultaneous in one reference frame do not appear to be so in another.
As a young man I studied theoretical physics for a number of years but I have had no more than an amateur interest since and would not claim to have kept up with recent developments. My longest stretch in settling to anything was as an artist. A generous person would now regard me as a renaissance man, a shrewd one would recognise a dilettante.
I am married with two children and live for the most part in rural Suffolk, England, on a plot shared with horses and chickens.
I now work for an old endowed charity, manipulating assets to achieve the best return and trying to develop innovative and effective ways to distribute the funds to the least fortunate.
HerbieP commented on Gathering the thoughts of my belief on November 4, 2009, 2:33 AM
Pokoj! previously I haven't given you enough credit for how well and honsetly you have articulated your beliefs - thank you. I really have nothing to say. For me your position comes down to - 'I feel these things to have a truth'. Well I don't. I don't even have a point of contact with them. I don't rely on feelings much but if I were to I have personal experience that seems to deny some of the fundamental basis of what you say. I live with a number of animals and it the middle of the countryside. When I look into an animal's eyes or see wild or domestic animals' behaviour I know that they are exactly like me. All that separates us is the capacity for language and tool making. I don't have a special 'soul' or place in 'creation'. I am exactly like them. If I were to rely on feelings then this is a fundamental one for me. There can be no spiritual realms, I am wholly physical and wholly animal, there is no more to me than that. Your whole mythology has no resonance with my reality.