(You appear to be simultaneously arguing that we understand everything, that we don’t understand everything but the things we don’t understand aren’t important, that everything is explained, that consciousness is not explained but since everything is explained it must not be explained but everything is explained so …oh, fuck, let’s say it’s spirit. Who knows how, but that explains it. Because everything is explained. Except for the stuff that isn’t. And all those unknown things that clearly cannot possibly exist because we don’t know what they are yet.)
Please, don’t torture us anymore! You asked for an example of something that we didn’t know “the fundamentals” of, and others including myself proffered quantum gravity. It is something fundamental that we don’t know about. If you are willing to brush that off by stating that we have a macro understanding of gravity (and that this is as fundamental as quantum theories about particles even though they completely are at odds with each other), then I will state this: you are correct. We understood the universe enough in ancient Greece, then, and surely enough by the time of Newton. The rest has just been working out the details.
If conscious obeyed laws, it would cease being consciousness anymore. It would have to be fundamental or it is “turtles all the way down” again.
I must apologize for not taken quantum gravity and other mass-related issues into account, perhaps in a footnote, in those other threads. I apparently deserved the resulting incredulity. That is what I get for never studying.
Britt:Although I must admit I always thought of all geocentric models as being modifications t the fundamental system Aristotle set out, thanks for the clarification
Actually, Britt, you’re righter than you think. The basic physics of the ancient/medieval universe—geocentric, with concentric sublunar spheres of earth/water/air/fire, superlunar ether, “natural” motion being circular above the sublunar spheres, etc. etc.—is generally referred to as “Aristotelian”. tracer’s right that when it came to the kinematics, Aristotle’s principles demanded uniform circular motion and homocentric spheres, which at first glance would seem to rule out such devices as the epicycles and eccentrics and equants of the Ptolemaic system. (Ptolemy wasn’t the first to invent those devices, by the way, but he was the one who combined them into a reasonably coherent single model that was adequately predictive for all the planets known at that time.) The task of working out the mechanics of Ptolemaic motions so that they could be reconciled with Aristotelian physical principles fell mostly to the medieval Islamic astronomers like al-Tusi, who developed some rather cool mechanisms such as the “Tusi couple” that seem to have made their way (via Renaissance translations from the Arabic) into Copernicus’s theories before he eventually took the step of abandoning the geocentric model! Ain’t ancient science fun? All right, no more hijack from me.
I’m guessing that the “wheel-chair guy” is Hawking, right? (Not exactly a stellar–no pun intended–reference.) Can you show us that they agree with you instead of simply asserting it?
No, you can’t see back to that point. You can see back to near that point. But how near is unknown. It is more correct to say that a certain time has elapsed since the singularity we call the “Big Bang”. The night sky is not a time machine. We receive light from X years ago. Given the fact that the earth is 4-5 billion years old, we’re not going to see back to the beginning of the universe.
Yes, it spreads out. Hence the same energy is spread over a larger and larger area, and it gets dimmer and dimmer. Hence the amount of energy flux through a constant area decreases as the distance from the source increases.
You did note the use of “roughly” in what I said, right? A better description might be to imagine the universe as a whole at some moment, and extend a ray in a straight line from a given point in any direction. In a closed universe, the ray would eventually come back to its starting point (or very nearly if you account for chaotic perterbations). The point is that the topological space is closed, just like the 2D surface of a 3D sphere is closed.
Also, there’s no such thing as the “exact center” of the universe in the inflationary model, just like there is no “exact center” of the surfact of a sphere. It’s meaningless.
There are plenty of people postulating “dark matter” as a solution, but there’s no hard data to back it up (and this has little to do with black holes).
The point is that a few years ago, there was nothing to even suggest this behavior. And we still don’t understanding it. All of the laws of physics pointed away from the conclusion. Had you asked the same question three years ago (with the hindsight of today), we could respond with, "yeah, the inflation rate of the universe is increasing not decreasing. It’s clear then that it would be utterly stupid to think we’ve got it all straight now.
What does the age of the Earth have to do with it? What could stop us from seeing stars older than the Earth?
He may be referring to this story I found on CNN.com about the Chandra X-Ray telescope finding the early universe apparently was teeming with black holes. It doesn’t say they are accelerating the expansion of the universe, though. More black holes would actually SLOW expansion by their accumulated gravity.
jmullaney, are you aware of the convulsions that have been taking place in the last few years in the field of cosmology as a result of the observation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating? This was a completely unexpected discovery that appears to reveal the existence of entirely new factors at play in the universe.
The number of black holes in the universe has nothing to do with this phenomenon. Ordinary attractive gravity clearly cannot produce a repulsive force. “Edge of the universe” indeed! If you wish to learn something about this matter, a search on “quintessence” and “inflation” should return some useful results. http://www.astronomytoday.com/cosmology/quintessence.html should contain some insights to start you off with.
Right? I mean this is sort of off topic, but I’m bearing with it.
OK, I’m a little fuzzy on all this, but, I’ll try:
The center of the universe is the same age as the universe, and again, due to the relative nature of space-time, every observer is at the center of the universe. You are this much right – there is a cosmic event horizon, ever expanding, beyond which we can’t see. Still, the event horizon is spherical, and the radiation which enters our horizon from opposite sides have the same temperature from any direction (isotropic) which suggests the radiation came from the same point – or what was the same shell of something in the past.
Like any singularity, the Big Bang would have to have an event horizon, and it is become ours.
Maybe
OK. Let me type my way through this…
Case 1: Theoretical ray moves “faster than light” hence effectively backwards in time (e.g. it could get to the light reaching us tommorow from alpha centaui that left there two years ago in a second, thus intersecting Alpha Centauri in 700 seconds, at the same time as light from the would be leaving which would not get here for two years, thus traveling 2 years, minus 700 seconds into the “past” except it could of course be moving even faster.)
In that case, it would eventually hit the Big Bang, and yes, it would end up at the point it started.
Case 2: It is traveling at the speed of light. Aim it at a star at the very edge of visible space. By the time it catches get there, the light which left that star is now at a further edge of space. It would be an endless race which our ray could not win.
But since us, the ray, and the star’s photon are all relativistically the center of the universe…
Well, I see your point. My head is starting to hurt!
If you have real player, which you can download for free, go here.**. If you haven’t the means of hearing this, and it really bugs you, order a transcipt of the 4/7 show through the link here.
This is a humorous quiz show, but it is also NPR’s attempt to make this kind of news palatable for the masses (like me). I’ve never heard of them making anything up. I was partly wrong – it was supernovae not black holes.
Well, it does seem to turn out it was gravity all along. A red herring – so perhaps we’ve really had it all straight for a while (again, excepting quantum gravity.)
Yes, under Feynman’s model a positron is an electron travelling backwards in time.
It is difficult to prove a negative. ???
Excuse me? Are you arguing with my statement that reality has no obligation to confor to the hope of physicists? Do you really wish to contest the point, or are you merely trying to divert attention from your misrepresentation of Cecil’s column.
We don’t know the fundamentals of Minoan. We know the fundamentals of matter. We know the fundamentals of language. Minoan is simply a particular arrangement of those elements. The brain is simply a particular arrangement of matter. There is meaning located in Minoan script. There is a consciousness located in the brain. The parallel is not perfect. No analogy is. But I think it serves to shed light on the special standard which you reserve for the question of consciousness alone.
Which ones? Which ones were you pointing at for abiogenesis? Standard one, meet standard two.
Newer Business.
Then you should refrain from drawing conclusions from the lack of complete explanations for some phenomena.
From my perspective, what has been lacking is a uniform standard for determining which phenomena count as unexplained and which can be reduced (without detail) to “chemistry” or “physics”. So far, it seems that anything inconvenient to your desire to find consciousness unique and insoluble gets put in the “reduce” bin.
It isn’t to say that they have explained it, either. So, do you argue that quantum gravity must have a non-material component as you do for consciousness?
Please provide a quote from Hawking that states his unambiguous conclusion as to the topology of the Universe.
Really, though, you seem to be conspicuously missing the point. Universal topology is generally expressed in terms of a fourth spatial dimension. Hence the sphere, saddle, flat models. The passage you quoted from Einstein even specifically mentions this. Nevertheless you continue to focus on the internal spatial dimensions.
I do not think this is incorrect. The “back through time” aspect is solely a function of distance and the speed of light. Seeing back to the Big Bang would require the “edge material” to have been travelling at exactly the speed of light ever since the event. (hmmmm, you might be able to get around that in the inflationary model, but it depends upon rates of expansion which, as others have noted, we do not understand nearly as well as we thought.)
Your requirement for faster than light travel in order to “cricle” a spherical Universe also relies upon an expansion rate that eternally keeps pace with c. Do you have a justification for this?
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Still, if the Higgs particle doesn’t obey the standard model, I’d expect there to be some unexplained phenomena which resulted from this apart from the behavior of the particle itself.
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Again, your answer to a hole in the “fundamental knowledge” of physics is to minimize it. Since your position that consciousness necesarily defies physical explanation depends upon the completeness of our physical model, this is understandable. Not particularly rigorous, but understandable.
Flaw? There are details about the current world which science cannot fully model. You have repeatedly dismissed mention of them with “physics” or “chemistry”. Nineteenth century mullaney probably sneered a similar “gravity” when discussing Mercury. Cal’s point was not flawed. It nicely encapsulated the fallacy of drawing sweeping conclusions from a present state of knowledge.
There is more than one quantum theory. Surely you don’t imagine the question of which one best represents reality is trivial.
Goodness, under that definition nearly every probability function qualifies as a potential “proof” that laws remain to be discovered. But, of course, you dismiss the “why or why not” of probability as “just the way things are”, don’t you. Like virtual particle materialization.
Well, it is the way things are. That doesn’t mean there are not laws governing it which remain to be discovered.
Of course they do. If they didn’t, then we would already have a grand Unified Theory. The “emerging properties” of the transition from teh quantum scal to the macroscopic scale do break the rules as we presently understand them.
You forgot:
5) Consciousness is an emergent property of matter is certain configurations. (You know, like life and heat and elemental identity)
6) Human knowledge is incomplete, so arguments of necessity based upon the limits of human knowledge are unjustified.
Spiritus, I have to disagree with you about positrons being electrons moving backward through time. That’s how you draw a positron on a Feynmann diagram, but it doesn’t represent physical reality–it’s just notation.
Formally, electrons and positrons are related by the charge conjugation operator (C takes one into the other). Time reversal is represented by a different operator, and it does not take electrons into positrons (it takes them into electrons-moving-backwards-in-time, which have the same charge as regular electrons).
Let’s summarize the discussion (I’m sticking to physics here bc it’s my field):
1)Quantum gravity is not understood. This is not related to observed phenomena that we can’t explain, but to a conflict between 2 theories that both work in different realms of application.
2)Several aspects of particle physics aren’t understood
a)Neutrino masses: speculation on this is due to the neutrino deficit - not as many neutrinos coming from the sun as expected according to known physical laws. Neutrino mass is a possible explanation, but there is NO resolution of this that is accepted by all.
b)Higgs particle: jmull is right, this should have observable consequences other than the behavior of the particle itself. In fact, very recent experiments seem to show that the magnetic moment of the muon is very slightly off from what the standard model predicts - if these hold up, a clear exception to the claim of the OP.
3)Expansion of the Universe: Recent observations (mostly of distant supernovas) indicate the expansion is accelerating - cause unknown. It COULD be due to a cosmological constant, but other possiblilities (e.g. quintessence) exist.
4)Dark matter: When you add up the apparent mass of a galaxy (by looking at the light emitted from its stars, dust clouds, etc.), you get a smaller value than the actual mass of the galaxy (which can be found from looking at the interactions with other galaxies, among other methods). Presumably this means there is missing, or “dark” matter in the galaxy. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THIS IS. There are very good reasons it can’t be “normal” matter - protons, neutrons, and electrons. This dark matter is (probably) at least 90% of the mass in the universe. WE DON’T KNOW WHAT 90% OF THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF! If this doesn’t qualify as “something science doesn’t know” then I don’t know what does.
Even if we stipulate that emergent phenomena can be reduced to underlying physics, chemistry, and biology, here are 5 completely unexplained problems. How many do you require, Jmullany?
Here’s one more to add to the list:
the good old wave-particle duality of light.
Which is ok, because these are just models which we use to explain things–one model works for some stuff, the other for other stuff; we don’t really have any more fundamental understanding than your average simian.
Honestly, can anyone really explain some of the most basic things: like fields? What the heck is a field? Faraday defined it as “a condition of space” (whatever that means), and we’ve just kept using them because they work.
Everything we “know” is just silly little models that work so far, but could be completely revised tomorrow.
As someone already pointed out, that is more of a conceit than an actuality.
I don’t feel I really misrepresented Cecil’s column. Suffice it to say: physicists who believe time travel into the past is possible are out of the mainstream. All the mainstream can suggest is that there is no evidence to support the idea.
Take the set of all understood languages. Minoan falls outside of that set.
Take the set of all known laws governing matter. Consciousness falls outside of that set.
Now, a law might be discovered which allows Minoan to be understood, but only if the law (e.g. a rosetta stone) itself links back to the set of understood languages.
A law might be discovered which explains consciousness in terms of matter, BUT only if that law links back to the set of known laws. Otherwise the explanation doesn’t intersect.
Minoan had meaning. It doesn’t have meaning anymore.
The ones we know about.
:rolleyes:
Newer Business.
I have reduced those for which you haven’t been able to provide an explanation why something outside of the known laws of physics and chemistry would be needed to explain the phenomena.
I have not reduced those for which something beyond the laws of physics and chemistry would be required to explain.
Is this uniform enough?
In some sense, yes. Once you get an explanation, you need an explanation for the explanation, which then requires and explanation. At some point, everything is the way it is, and there ceases to be a further why.
A cite is proving difficult to find.
I thought that was the question. I did mention the cosmic event horizon, which is the effective “border” of our universe.
WAG…
If space/time is infinitely curved at that horizon, a photon would follow that infinite curvature. Since the horizon is expanding, from our perpective it would appear to be spiralling outwards.
From it’s perspective, it would remain in the center of the universe. Objects it is moving away from would seem to curve around its own event horizon, and it would pass them again on a slightly different heading. But in an expanding universe, it wouldn’t intersect them again.
Please, give me an example of a phenomenon which can’t be explained using known laws for which I’ve made such a dismissal.
Quantum mechanics is a fairly unified field. There are various models to explain the implications of the theory, but the theory itself is based on experimental data where there is little argument – Higgs particles and neutrino masses not withstanding.
Otherwise there’s always another turtle.
[wuote]Well, it is the way things are. That doesn’t mean there are not laws governing it which remain to be discovered.
[/quote]
Doesn’t mean there are either, after a point, quantum graviation not withstanding.
Not really, unless you want to cite an example.
Take for example the drunk and the lamppost. The drunk wanders away from the lamppost in a random direction for a random, finite distance, turns a random angle, and repeats.
The emergent property is that, sooner or later, the drunk always will end up back at the lamppost.
Viewed from far enough away over a long enough period of time, we can, for all practical purposes, say that the drunk never actually leaves the lamppost.
However, a drunk passed out at the lamppost, or a collection of drunks passed out at a lamppost, or several lampposts will never have the emergent property of leaving the lamppost(s) on any scale.
Hence:
doesn’t work.
Like your Minoan example, I believe we’ll have to conclude that consciousness is intractibly a separate entity. FriendofRob - I have repeatedly conceded that a set of laws which predicts the effects of quantum gravity is an outstanding issue in the realm of physics. Your other four issues are merely related issues (e.g. a neutrino has mass depending on how/whether it interacts with the Higgs particle which is a the carrier of quantuum mass in such an interaction which also produces quantum gravity and if neutrinoes have mass that answers many questions regarding the missing mass of the universe), a few of which I actually covered in the OP.
Spirit is not something that is unexplained or mysterious. It is the vital essence of Life. It is the corporeal consciousness.
All right, no more hijack from me.
