New Law of Physics Could Explain Quantum Mysteries

reply to post by Welfhard


Actually, it doesn't prove "god" at all, what is relevant is that reality is the result of a limitation on all that is possible.

Where "god" comes into it is just a matter in differences of perception. Where it is said god is "all knowing", it would mean that god would be that which was to view the higher initial "state space" in it's entirety(all possibilities, all played out), and our reality is a limited reality of that, which is view under a limited perception, where "time" and other illusions come as a result of that limited perception.

This is the father/son relationship. Where the father is much greater than the son, but in reality are 1 in the same. As "god" and consciousness are not part of this reality, but is a "void" in terms of the physical and that which is the observer. The difference in all these things is simply the perception available to us.

I just find it a bit humorous because when I presented the idea in that context, it was rejected by the same person who less than 2 weeks later ends up posting the same basic thing just without the context of "god". And now, when called out on it, that person is even going so far as to say things contradictory to the article they posted when asked to show the differences.

I'm just being called a troll because you don't like what I say, but I have been posting on topic and about the article the entire time.

Originally posted by badmedia
I just find it a bit humorous because when I presented the idea in that context, it was rejected by the same person who less than 2 weeks later ends up posting the same basic thing just without the context of "god". And now, when called out on it, that person is even going so far as to say things contradictory to the article they posted when asked to show the differences.

That happens a lot.

Often you will debate with someone who agrees with you...but just doesn't know it.

The issue is language. Our minds are trapped by the structure of our brains and it forces us to try to communicate in a limited language.

Semantics, rhetoric, and BS are hard to get past.

Many people are afraid of the word God, I remember when I decided I was an atheist back in middle school...but that was a long time ago.

Originally posted by badmedia
Why are you now disagreeing with the article you posted?

The theory suggests the existence of a state space (the set of all possible states of the universe), within which a smaller (fractal) subset of state space is embedded.

Are you sure you understand it?

Yes. Despite the pains I have taken, you haven't grasped what a state space is.

Until you have read the paper, our conversation is suspended.

[edit on 24/8/09 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by Jezus
Often you will debate with someone who agrees with you...but just doesn't know it.

Jezus, I have no beef with you, but could you please post something on topic here?

For crying out loud, this is the science, not the theology forum. Can't we at least discuss the scientific implications of this scientific idea before we get on to the metaphysical ones?

Looks like this thread is going to die of God suffocation. What could well be a watershed in our understanding of the physical world, and nobody here seems to care because they're too busy plugging their own tunnelvision line.

Much more of this and I'm out of ATS for good. Nothing here for me. Badmedia and the troll/crank fraternity can have it all.

I have enough ego to think ATS will be the poorer for my departure. Go ahead, mods, tell me I'm wrong by letting the thread choke.

reply to post by Astyanax


So are you saying the article is wrong? I quoted directly from the article.

Or are you saying that because of the way this reality is determined according to the law, that it makes those other things impossible?

I personally just took it as attempting to be the "missing link" with the problem of gravity between the quantum and Newtonian/Einstein physics. IE: Why gravity is weaker than it should be, and why the universe hasn't contracted back onto itself, as it would with a constant gravity equation.

On that level, I look forward to what it will say. But it still doesn't change that the from all possibilities comes this limited view/reality of it. Again, if you simply change the variables that make this reality unfold into what it will always try to default back too(which keeps the planets always on cycle, rather than randomly appearing somewhere as with quantum physics). In
other words "gravity". Which is the force that keeps things constant on the larger scale.

Which btw, we actually never got to discuss. Because when I mentioned this kind of stuff before, we never made it that far due to it being dismissed because I mentioned "god"(as the thread was one that called people who believed in god ignorant).

I'm not so sure why you have such a big problem with people mentioning the word "god". I didn't see people having such a problem with you talking about science and being able to "prove" things in the philosophy section. I just seen a video yesterday with Dr. Kaku mentioning the "mind of god" in relation to CERN, where they are trying to detect missing energy(which would go into another dimension) in the collisions. Einstein said Science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind. I agree with that.

I mentioned it mostly to point out your bias is a bit blinding. I said once before I'd love to get into things deeper and what it means, but because I mention things like god, consciousness and such, it's always dismissed. Which to me once again shows a bias towards the old way of science, where such a thing as consciousness, free will and choice are taboo. And science is by default ill equipped to handle it, as the very nature of it makes it not repeatable in a lab/experiment. Which I would guess Einstein recognized with his Science without religion is lame statement, and also rejected in the "randomness" of quantum theory of the time.

At the end of the day, while this may shed some light on gravity and it's relationship with cosmology and the world of the "big", there are plenty of forces that are much stronger than gravity. Seems to me you are overstating what the theory says, and that is leading to disagreement in what you and the article states as well.

Seems to me you have issues with the article.

reply to post by Astyanax


If reality was a fractal... could it be conciousness that sets the limits for these states that are "mathmaticaly" possible. If each atom was its own "universe" couldnt life that evolves within that universe alter the processes of that fractal resolution?

Could that be the one source of all quantum strangeness? Conciousness at a different fractal resolution effecting our reality?

reply to post by Astyanax


IM interested in your post. But your explaination made me even more confused. Thanks for the post tho

Originally posted by Astyanax
Jezus, I have no beef with you, but could you please post something on topic here?

For crying out loud, this is the science, not the theology forum. Can't we at least discuss the scientific implications of this scientific idea before we get on to the metaphysical ones?

Looks like this thread is going to die of God suffocation.

Your just stuck on your preconceived notions of what "God" is.

Don't think of an old bearded man in the clouds...think about "The Force" or even just "The Universe".

These comments have nothing to do with religion...

You have to look at science with complete objectivity, not avoiding certain issues you think are religious.

Badmedia

So are you saying the article is wrong? I quoted directly from the article.

You haven't yet grasped what a state space is, so you did not understand what 'possible' means in the sentence you quoted. It means mathematically possible, not physically possible, because it refers to a state space and not to the system it is modelling.

Or are you saying that because of the way this reality is determined according to the law, that it makes those other things impossible?

Yes.

I personally just took it as attempting to be the "missing link" with the problem of gravity between the quantum and Newtonian/Einstein physics.

No, this is incorrect, although a theory of quantum gravity is to be hoped for at some point in the future. Please read the paper. If you have not even grasped what it is about, how likely is it that your speculations about what it means are correct?

I'm not so sure why you have such a big problem with people mentioning the word "god".

Discuss God all you like - in another forum. Here we are discussing physics, not theology. Physics is not some kind of mystical business, full of metaphysical speculation. Before we get to the metaphysics, we have to understand the physics itself properly. You are jumping the gun.

Here's an analogy: I am trying to find out how the car works, and whether it will even start. You are already trying to plan a road trip to Heaven. Now do you get it?

Wertdagf
Instead of asking me - I'm no expert in these matters - why not read Tim Palmer's actual paper (this is the second time I'm linking it in this thread) and draw your own conclusions? Then you could post them here for us to discuss. You would be writing from a solid foundation of knowledge, and your posts could form the basis of a very stimulating and challenging discussion.

I would suggest the same to all those who wish to ignore the physics and discuss the philosophical implications instead. Get the basis first, then we can have an intelligent discussion. Anything else would just be empty-headed babble.

Jezus
God is not a subject in physics, however much the two may get confused in popular culture. As to my conception of God, kindly do not be patronizing. I am not a Westerner. In my country, most people are Buddhists or Hindus and the prevailing culture is of that persuasion. There are also significant Muslim and Christian minorities. In my now long-past youth I received instruction in all of the above faiths except Islam. That I studied later, together with the philosophical Taoism which is the closest thing I now profess to a faith. I have read quite deeply in Western philosophy, so I am familiar with the various concepts of God promulgated by Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, Augustine, Aquinas, Spinoza, Liebniz and others. I have studied magic, myth and religion extensively, much of it through the filter of Jung's psychological ideas. I did not arrive at my ideas overnight and I seriously doubt that any concept of God is unfamiliar to me.

I repeat to you the advice I offered Wertdagf: read Palmer's paper. If you understand it, and think it speaks to the subject-matter you wish to discuss, then by all means post your thoughts. I think you will find, once you have read the paper, that silence on the subject of its theological implications is very likely the wisest course.

All
From this point on, I shall confine my activity in this thread strictly to the subject of the Invariant Set Postulate and its integration into the rest of physics. Those who wish to discuss any other matters may do so among themselves.

From the Original Paper

3. The Invariant Set Postulate

The Invariant Set Postulate posits the existence of a fractionally dimensioned subset I of the state space of the physical world (i.e. the universe as a whole). I is an invariant set for some presumed causal (i.e. relativistic) deterministic dynamical system DI; points on I, hereafter referred to as world states, remain on I under the action of DI. World states of physical reality are those, and only those, lying precisely on I...

If states of physical reality necessarily lie on I, then points p∉I in state space are to be considered literally ‘unreal’. In a hypothetical ‘oracle’ theory of physics which (non-computability notwithstanding) had perfect knowledge of I, these points of unreality would be an irrelevance. However, for practically relevant theories (such as quantum theory and any algorithmic extension), the intricate structure of I is unknown and these points of unreality cannot be ignored. We return to this in §4c, where one of the key questions considered is how to represent quantum-theoretic states in a mathematically consistent way for such points of unreality.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I repeat to you the advice I offered Wertdagf: read Palmer's paper. If you understand it, and think it speaks to the subject-matter you wish to discuss, then by all means post your thoughts. I think you will find, once you have read the paper, that silence on the subject of its theological implications is very likely the wisest course.

The discussion has always been on topic...

You seem to have some kind of issue with the word "God" that stops you from fully realizing the implications of Palmer's paper.

Originally posted by Astyanax
I did not arrive at my ideas overnight and I seriously doubt that any concept of God is unfamiliar to me.

You seriously doubt that any concept of God is unfamiliar to you?

That is a bold statement...

Especially considering this statement...

Originally posted by Astyanax
God is not a subject in physics

Physics is God...

The observer you have within you is also part of that God.

That is the only reason you able to study and attempt to comprehend physics.

Physics is the will of the Universe...

reply to post by Jezus

Physics is God...

Or so you extrapolate. Perhaps your definition of the Word happens to explicitly include physics.

reply to post by Astyanax


I don't see where the paper is disagreeing. It is merely applying a base factor and geometric fractal to determine what is actually possible, where as traditional quantum physics would leave all in the open. By putting in the base factor, it narrows down the possibilities.

It even gives examples of this with the apples.

It is saying that by doing this, you can narrows down the probabilities and such as a way of removing that which is simply unknown as with the cat thought experiment.

As well, from the paper and something I have been putting importance on - the observer(what I call god):

On the one hand, consistent with Einstein’s view, the Invariant Set Postulate indicates that quantum theory is incomplete in the sense that it is blind to the fractal structure of the invariant set and hence DI. With respect to DI, physics is both deterministic (no dice) and locally causal (no spooky effects).

On the other hand, the Invariant Set Postulate provides an objective basis for understanding why the observer is a partner in the very concept of reality. From the Invariant Set Postulate, it is not meaningful to regard an individual quantum system as having any intrinsic properties independent of the invariant set on which the whole world state evolves. The invariant set is, in part, characterized by the experiments which inform humans about it. Hence, the Invariant Set Postulate implies that it is not meaningful to regard a quantum sub-system as having any intrinsic properties independent of the measurements performed on the quantum system. Since experimenters play a role in determining the nature of these measurements, they manifestly also play a key role in defining the very concept of reality. This is one of the key tenets of the Copenhagen interpretation.

So you still have all possibilities existing, he is just using geometry, and a base value(if we imagine it in a flat space, that would be our current position), and then that which is actually probable is simply narrowed down.

He makes this same point in regards to waves and the double slit experiment.

Whether or not a world state lies on the invariant set at some time t=t0 and hence is a point of reality, may depend on measurement events to the (indefinite) future t0. (This is effectively another expression of the non-computability of the invariant set.) Labelling a trajectory ‘A=wave’ at t0 only makes sense if there is a corresponding quasi-stationary region ‘A=wave’ of the invariant set into which the trajectory evolves.

Where again, we are taking the "point of reality" and the possibilities are defined geometrically from that point.

It is all about narrowing down the possibilities based on the point of reality.

This I have been doing myself as well, where as I consider the current point of reality, and then I would consider geometric shapes(the nearest possibilities). But I not only figure in his invarient set, but the possibility of even larger sets. Where in 3d, we would use a cube geometrically for the nearest set of possibilities, and then 4d would be a much larger, and a hypercube would be the shape and so on. He doesn't go that far obviously.

Since you mentioned the what the bleep do we know movie. In the example where they show the basketball all over the court at the same time, and all at once. What this theory is doing is narrowing down those basketballs and where they can possibly be. And this is done by using the current point in reality, and then grabbing what is possible based on that point, rather than leaving an open area.

So, from the basketball being in all positions at once, the area is reduced to only those states immediately next to the current position. Which in turn reduces the amount of possibilities for that position. In order to get the ball to any of those places shown before, then we need to move the point in reality over to that area, and then the invariant set will and can include all those possible places thought of before.

Obviously in terms of working with the ball, the smaller and more defined set is more useful in determining which position of the ball will become reality, where as that was indeterminable before. Thus putting quantum physics more inline with classic physics and such.

But in saying all those other possibilities no longer exist at all is a misrepresentation on your part. They still "exist" and are still a possibility, just not within the current the point of reality and the set based off it.

In the original article you posted, it shows a picture of this where it takes the bigger picture, and then circles in the middle of it.

As far as god, what I have been saying all along is that the observer = god. So if you don't like it when I say God, just replace it with observer.

Originally posted by OmegaLogos
To answer your question to makinho21 RE: "wouldn't there be some validity in "god" being programmed into the equation as a variable?" and I respond with YES as IMO 1: God must be IMMANENT [i.e.present] due to the OMNIPRESENCE A-PRIORI REQUIREMENT! 2: If 1 is correct then ALL the variables are then "God"!
3: 1,2 and 3 are only VALID if one wishes to semantically codify it like this either for personal satisfaction and/or use for wider communication as a jargon amongst like minded individuals! Beyond that the answer is probably NO until the current Kuhnian paradigm fails [i.e NO GOD!] and the Popperian "can it be falsified when compared with some peer reviewed A-Priori yardstick" [Omnipresence!?] is tested and validated one way or the other!

Personal Disclosure: It depends on the A-PRIORI POV's that we limit ourselves to and how robust those ideological bootstraps are!

Many thanks for the reply and I think I understand, though, is omnipresence a necessary assumption of god? Or rather, omnipresence does not necessarily denote an influential force in my mind? Or if it is, wouldn't that be a constant rather than a variable?

I have many questions from your reply actually, I don't think they are relevent to the OP though... You're friended for future reference

reply to post by badmedia

On the other hand, the Invariant Set Postulate provides an objective basis for understanding why the observer is a partner in the very concept of reality...

Again, you have misinterpreted this in a way that seemingly justifies your position but is not supported by the science. What Palmer is saying here is simply that the actions of human beings are a part of reality and thus help define it.

This is hardly news. Suppose I decide to build a house. I choose the site, retain an architect, have plans drawn up, obtain the necessary permissions, hire contractors, etc. Eventually, the house is built. All these acts affect and alter reality. Thus they help define it. But this is not the same as saying that consciousness creates reality; it merely shows that human beings are embedded in the world. Did you not know that already?

Similarly, in a quantum experiment, human participation in the experiment helps define the outcome; indeed, without the human, there would be no experiment. But it does not create the outcome.

Failing to recognize this is the fundamental flaw in all your thinking.

reply to post by Astyanax


I commend you for taking the time to deal with the troll in a rational, logical manner. People like you make me still visit this site from time to time.

Originally posted by Astyanax
Again, you have misinterpreted this in a way that seemingly justifies your position but is not supported by the science. What Palmer is saying here is simply that the actions of human beings are a part of reality and thus help define it.

If there was nothing there to observe things, what would be the difference in the state space, and the invariant set?

It's more than what you said, it's saying that the position in reality is based on that. If you look at the image on the original article, you notice a picture with a circle in it. That circle is the smaller subset within the state space. That position is defined by that which is observing it. It is that which defines the real from the unreal.

Without the observer does that subset still exist? What is there to make it "real" and unreal? A "partner" in reality.

So as I said before, it narrows down that which is possible. Rather than having the basketball in every position in the room as in the What the bleep movie, the invariant set instead defines a much smaller area based on the position of reality. Thus the ball can not be in all places at once in the invariant set.

Originally posted by badmedia
If there was nothing there to observe things, what would be the difference in the state space, and the invariant set?

Exactly, the point is that the system has no intrinsic properties without observation.

Any discussion of that issue is assumption based on speculation.

It makes sense logically in that what is not perceived and observed is not a variable within reality, but now it also makes sense on the quantum level.

"Yet another quantum mechanical concept that the Invariant Set Postulate may resolve is wave-particle duality. In the two-slit experiment, a world where particles travel to areas of destructive interference simply does not lie on the invariant set, and therefore does not correspond to a state of physical reality."

The observed option is what is happening in "our" reality and while the other option is just as theoretically viable it is not "real".

The two-slit experiment is convenient because it limits the variables but shows that observer participation can control reality.

It may seem like circular logic but apparently it also makes sense on the quantum level mathematically.

Who’s Minding the Mind?
www.nytimes.com...

"The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java."

“Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness...

Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.” "

"The brain appears to use the very same neural circuits to execute an unconscious act as it does a conscious one. In a study that appeared in the journal Science in May, a team of English and French neuroscientists performed brain imaging on 18 men and women who were playing a computer game for money. The players held a handgrip and were told that the tighter they squeezed when an image of money flashed on the screen, the more of the loot they could keep.

As expected, the players squeezed harder when the image of a British pound flashed by than when the image of a penny did — regardless of whether they consciously perceived the pictures, many of which flew by subliminally. But the circuits activated in their brains were similar as well: an area called the ventral pallidum was particularly active whenever the participants responded.

“This area is located in what used to be called the reptilian brain, well below the conscious areas of the brain,” said the study’s senior author, Chris Frith, a professor in neuropsychology at University College London who wrote the book “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates our Mental World.”

The results suggest a “bottom-up” decision-making process, in which the ventral pallidum is part of a circuit that first weighs the reward and decides, then interacts with the higher-level, conscious regions later, if at all, Dr. Frith said.

"Scientists have spent years trying to pinpoint the exact neural regions that support conscious awareness, so far in vain"

"Yet the new research on priming makes it clear that we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world that don’t always agree with our own, but whose instincts, these studies clearly show, are at least as likely to be helpful, and attentive to others, as they are to be disruptive."

Hi, theory fans.

We can stop argueing about it all, because this guy is VERY
close to demonstrate:

The new ***theory of everything*** !

www.ted.com...

And for parallel topics, I have those thoughts:

All in the universe is entangled. [What the BLEEP!? down the rabbit hole].

One day, science will tell us:
! All universe's matter is made of **solid light** !

Blue skies.