Philosophy Now Forum

Cerveny wrote:I have a problem to believe in mainstream books when the gravitation is hopelessly quantized for eighty years and no one knows what (and where) a seventy percent of (dark) reality is

But QED is not a book on Physics its a book about what physicists do and in particular about the best proven subject in Physics, Quantum Electrodynamics, i.e. the interaction of Light and Matter, no Gravity involved. Its shows how QED explains and can predict all the interactions of Light and Matter from three simple axioms, clocks, little arrow diagrams and a shitload of Maths.

socratus wrote:Quantum particles and Aether.

Maybe you know that surrounding space ( a reference frame )
makes influence on the objects that exist there.
For example, the fish in the water has another form than
animals which live in the forest or savanna.
The same is about quantum particles and aether.
Quantum particles exist in an Aether.
The physical parameters of aether is near to T=0K.
This thermodynamic condition has influence on quantum particles.
=.
According to Charle’s law and the consequence of the
third law of thermodynamics as the thermodynamic temperature
of a system approaches absolute zero the volume of particles
approaches zero too. It means the particles must have flat forms.
They must have geometrical form of a circle: pi= c /d =3,14 . .
( All another geometrical forms : triangle, square, rectangle . . .etc
have angles and to create angles need forces,
without forces all geometrical forms must turn into circle.)
#
If physicists use string-particle (particle that has length but
hasn’t thickness -volume) to understand reality
(and have some basic problems to solve this task) then
why don’t use circle-particle for this aim ?
===.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik Socratus.
===.

Some details

Charles' Law was formulated in 1787
. . . . . .
because gas consist on particles i take this law to the particles.
this is my first heretical -idea.

and because Charles' Law belongs to the temperature
of absolute zero T=0K i take this law to the nothingness - vacuum T=0K
it is my second heretical-idea

and because Charles' Law belongs to the theory of ideal gas
i take this theory to the nothingness- vacuum
this is my third heretical - idea
==,,

socratus wrote:

Impenitent wrote:If you travel quickly enough, there is no future...

-Imp

More details.

1
If you travel with a speed less - less than constant speed
of quantum of light ( c < 1 ) then you have your present future
( sooner or later the death will come ).
The classical deterministic principle works in this situation.
2
If you travel quickly enough ( with constant speed
of quantum of light c = 1) then the time doesn't 'exist for you
and you don't know your future.
3
If you travel quickly enough (with speed faster than quantum of light c > 1)
then sooner or later a new time and future will come to you.
Heisenberg Uncertainty principle need to use here.
4.
Of course, a person cannot travel with such speed,
but a quantum particle has this possibility.
For example:
When speed of the photon is c=1 then time exists as an infinite time
(an eternity) as for photon as also for its reference frame.
But photon can destroy this eternity and create a time - phenomena .
We call such time - phenomena / effect: 'vacuum fluctuation'.
=.

Some details
=.
My first heretical point is:
No matter how the quantum particle travels
( c<1, c=1, c>1) its speed and own time are relative .

My second heretical point is:
there are two different reference frame -
one system without time, mass and gravity (according to Einstein's SRT) ,
and another system where there is time but this time is depended on
speed and mass (according to Einstein's GRT)

My third heretical point is:
the quantum particle can travel between these two systems.
Therefore we can see 'vacuum fluctuation '

My fourth heretical point is:
No matter how the quantum particle travels ( c<1, c=1, c>1)
for it - its own time ( history) is ever 'now'.
==,

Arising_uk wrote:I thought Feynman's QED said that Light takes all possible paths and 'settles' on the one with the shortest timepath or it takes all the paths but they cancel out leaving the shortest time one or some such.

Physics is very different from philosophy. If you want to put a man on the moon or build a computer chip, don’t ask a philosopher. On the other hand, I have had physicists tell me they don’t understand the question, ‘What do you think fundamental particles are made of?’ For the purposes of physics, particles just ‘are’. QED works just as well if you believe everything is ultimately made of fields, ideas or strings. Nor does it matter what particles actually do. Feynman said something to the effect that the only mystery in QM is the two-slit experiment. It’s still a mystery, but the numbers add up, so, as the Copenhagen interpretation is also known, shut up and calculate. In other words, Feynman may have been talking about mathematical rather than real paths.

Here's an Isaac Newton quote I lifted from Philosophy Now:
http://philosophynow.org/issues/88/Hypotheses_Non_Fingo

“It is not the Business of Experimental Philosophy (physics) to teach the Causes of things any further than they can be proved by Experiments. We are not to fill this Philosophy with Opinions which cannot be proved by Phenomena. In this Philosophy Hypotheses have no place, unless as Conjectures or Questions proposed to be examined by Experiments.”

This is still the attitude of many physicists today and with good reason. String theory, as far as I can tell is an attempt by mathematicians to do metaphysics. It is based on an ad hoc guess that particles might be made of strings. Last I heard, the problem is that there is upward of 500 million ways this might be true, making finding the ‘right’ one tricky, and pointless if it doesn’t give better results than the most successful theory ever. Even if it does you are left with the ontological conundrum of what they are made of, not to mention the practical issue of what has kept them vibrating for the best part of 14 billion years.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who know a bit about the histories of science and philosophy, consider that the development of Quantum theory was roughly coincident with the infatuation with Logical Positivism. Wittgenstein, not a logical positivist himself of course, set the agenda with the closing words of the Tractatus: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent." Talk of things that cannot be seen is, to some quantum theorists, meaningless. Instead they talk about the mathematical entities that explain empirical data as though they are real, just as Aristotle did about the 'spheres' Eudoxus imagined (egged on by Plato) to explain the observed motion of the planets. But that's another story.

It's 10 to power of 500 possibilities of strings, not just 500,000,000 I believe. I also believe it was philosophy that taught science to observe unbiasedly and cautiously. It seems that modern physics and cosmology have divorced from belief and serious application of mild observation. For instance, the observation that there is BOUND to be other universes owing to the simple and irrefutable observation that there is always many more than one of anything. They seem as hell bent on discovering a single unifying theory, bottom particle or edge of existence as religious men are of discovering the ultimate heaven or the single unifying God. It's the same fundamental erroneous drive that is being exhibited in both fields. Yes, we do need boundaries and definitions, but we need more to understand that our boundaries are of our own creation, and are of no importance once the function they serve is no longer required.

Bernard wrote:It's 10 to power of 500 possibilities of strings, not just 500,000,000 I believe.

Even better! I once heard a story about a schools inspector who at one school asked a student how many bricks there were in the building. "One million, three hundred and eighty six thousand, two hundred and eleven." Came the instant response. The inspector was delighted and told the class teacher they would be getting a very good report and that he would be telling the story to his superiors. The next time the inspector visited, the teacher asked him whether he had told the story to his superiors. "No," said the inspector, "I forgot how many bricks there were."

Bernard wrote:I also believe it was philosophy that taught science to observe unbiasedly and cautiously. It seems that modern physics and cosmology have divorced from belief and serious application of mild observation. For instance, the observation that there is BOUND to be other universes owing to the simple and irrefutable observation that there is always many more than one of anything.

Well modern philosophy began with Descartes and 'I think, therefore I am'. The empiricists, particularly David Hume countered with the insistence that the only thing which is incontrovertible is that there is thinking; it doesn't follow logically that there is therefore a thinking thing as Descartes assumed. That 'there is BOUND to be other universes' for the reasons you give is the problem of induction, Hume was pretty good on that too, but Bertrand Russell summed it up quite effectively with his tale of the chicken which learns from experience that the appearance of the farmer means he is going to get fed. This happens as regularly as the sun coming up, until the day the farmer wrings the chickens neck.

Bernard wrote:They seem as hell bent on discovering a single unifying theory, bottom particle or edge of existence as religious men are of discovering the ultimate heaven or the single unifying God. It's the same fundamental erroneous drive that is being exhibited in both fields.

This is back to Descartes too. He was a mathematician as much as a philosopher, if you have done co-ordinate geometry, you will almost certainly have used his Cartesian co-ordinates. He was impressed with the example of Euclid, who using just a few axioms (one of which is well dodgy as I remember) was able to prove lots of things about shapes. Descartes was trying to do the same for philosophy by creating an undeniable axiom on which to build knowledge. That's what a lot of science and philosophy is about; finding the simplest explanation for what we see; arguably that's what the rationalisation of all the gods of mythology into one is too. It's had it's effects on politics too, the American declaration of independence begins "We find these truths to be self-evident..."

Bernard wrote:Yes, we do need boundaries and definitions, but we need more to understand that our boundaries are of our own creation, and are of no importance once the function they serve is no longer required.

I agree.

tillingborn wrote:Physics is very different from philosophy. If you want to put a man on the moon or build a computer chip, don’t ask a philosopher. On the other hand, I have had physicists tell me they don’t understand the question, ‘What do you think fundamental particles are made of?’ For the purposes of physics, particles just ‘are’. QED works just as well if you believe everything is ultimately made of fields, ideas or strings. Nor does it matter what particles actually do. Feynman said something to the effect that the only mystery in QM is the two-slit experiment. It’s still a mystery, but the numbers add up, so, as the Copenhagen interpretation is also known, shut up and calculate. In other words, Feynman may have been talking about mathematical rather than real paths.

Hmm... have you read QED? As it postulates no fields or strings just two particles, i.e. photons and electrons and three axioms as to how they interact along with the measurement of their passage time by tailored clocks. His introduction says that this is not a book about QM at the lower levels but QED, a theory that is the most accurately experimentally tested theory Physics has ever had which allows them to predict all the interactions we see between light and matter, which is pretty much the phenomenal world from my point of view. I could be wrong but my memory has this book explaining why the two-slit experiment happens but I would have to reread it to confirm this.

Here's an Isaac Newton quote I lifted from Philosophy Now:
http://philosophynow.org/issues/88/Hypotheses_Non_Fingo

“It is not the Business of Experimental Philosophy (physics) to teach the Causes of things any further than they can be proved by Experiments. We are not to fill this Philosophy with Opinions which cannot be proved by Phenomena. In this Philosophy Hypotheses have no place, unless as Conjectures or Questions proposed to be examined by Experiments.”

This is still the attitude of many physicists today and with good reason. String theory, as far as I can tell is an attempt by mathematicians to do metaphysics. It is based on an ad hoc guess that particles might be made of strings. Last I heard, the problem is that there is upward of 500 million ways this might be true, making finding the ‘right’ one tricky, and pointless if it doesn’t give better results than the most successful theory ever. Even if it does you are left with the ontological conundrum of what they are made of, not to mention the practical issue of what has kept them vibrating for the best part of 14 billion years.

I agree that string theory is just that and until they can calculate with it and experimentally test it its just another theory.

I understand the Newtonian view, at least from a philosophical point of view, but still like Leibniz.

Arising_uk wrote:Hmm... have you read QED?

A long time ago.

Arising_uk wrote:As it postulates no fields or strings just two particles, i.e. photons and electrons and three axioms as to how they interact along with the measurement of their passage time by tailored clocks.

Perhaps we should both reread it before we get into an argument about what it did or didn't say. The point I was making is essentially the same as empiricists, in that it doesn't matter what you think the cause of the phenomena are, but like you, I think it's photons and electrons. The trick that physicists have to perform is to get their hypothetical entities to interact with photons and electrons in such a way that they cause observable effects in the phenomenal world; that's when the 'existence' of things starts to be taken seriously, it seems to me.
In the meantime the properties of particles, mass, charge, spin and whatnot are taken as given; in the phenomenal world these are properties that describe the way that electrons and photons are demonstrated to be moved, but as far as I can tell, QED, the theory, not the book, doesn't say what they are caused by; it doesn't matter to the theory.
From what I can work out, there is this thing called Quantum Field Theory according to which 'particles' are 'perturbations' (waves and twists as far as I can tell) in that field. Not being much of a physicist, I don't know what else is necessary to make a viable universe, but the Occamist in me says I need a very good reason to think that there is anything other than such a field.

Arising_uk wrote:I understand the Newtonian view, at least from a philosophical point of view, but still like Leibniz.

Go on; remind me.

tillingborn wrote:... Feynman said something to the effect that the only mystery in QM is the two-slit experiment...

The "life" with two-slit phenomenon is not a problem if you consider that electrons, as certain structural defects in the physical space (in vacuum) affect / distort their wider surroundings...
See real growing structural deffect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2HoNCF9pu8
You should to add one dimension: http://cerveny.in/pic/4.jpg :(

Conclusion :
according to SRT photon at speed c=1 must be a flat particle.
according to thermodinamics at absolute zero particle doesn't
have volume and must be a flat particle.
=.
Neither point nor string particle, but flat – circle particle
(c/d=pi=3,14) can explain the initial conditions of existence
=.

Cerveny wrote:The "life" with two-slit phenomenon is not a problem if you consider that electrons, as certain structural defects in the physical space (in vacuum) affect / distort their wider surroundings...

I looked at the links and from what you have said before, I understand that the decay of a vacuum into a universe can be visualised as the growth of crystals. I can see how that might be a good model for the big bang, but how do individual particles start? Does the distortion cause growth of a crystal, or are particles distortions on the original growing crystal? Either way, how does that help explain the two slit results?

tillingborn wrote:

Cerveny wrote:The "life" with two-slit phenomenon is not a problem if you consider that electrons, as certain structural defects in the physical space (in vacuum) affect / distort their wider surroundings...

I looked at the links and from what you have said before, I understand that the decay of a vacuum into a universe can be visualised as the growth of crystals. I can see how that might be a good model for the big bang, but how do individual particles start? Does the distortion cause growth of a crystal, or are particles distortions on the original growing crystal? Either way, how does that help explain the two slit results?

To be true, it is not a vacuum decay but rather its creation / condensation / crystallization from the "future". I've already suggested: the history is a crystal (solid) and the future is unknowable "fluid / plasma", from which the history (universe) is growing.
The universe beginning was calm. Universe began from "supercooled" "future" similarly as a first ice crystal appears in cooling pond.
Elementary particles are disturbances /defects in the structure of the vacuum (in ideal crystal). These disorders are replicated (during the growth) to next time (crystal) layers such like the helix in mentioned video. We can imagine that the passage of the spiral thru slots cuts it into two ones...
Elementary particles can be for example generated on the adhesions, in places where two independent crystals of space / of vacuum meet. Antiparticles are complementary defects to defects of the corresponding particles (very simplified example: vacancy is a particle and interstitial element is an antiparticle).
The elementary particles (disorders) may also occur as cause of uneven growth of the universe (crystal).
Next, if, for example, provided that antiparticles are gravitationally repel each other, antimatter can be evenly dispersed throughout the universe ......................
Sorry for repeating it again and again :(

Every quantum interaction (measurement) causes that the (uncertain, yet unordered) future becomes (is glued on) the fixed history. New time layers are thus involving into causality... The presence is a growing surface/boundary of causal (understandable) Universe… The Time and causality is not defined behind this boundary…

Today everybody knows that the Universe had a beginning from 'Big Bang'.
Alternative question:
Can the Universe begin to exist from Absolute Vacuum Zero: T=0K?
==..
We have two opinions about vacuum:
1
The most fundamental question facing 21st century physics will be:
What is the vacuum? As quantum mechanics teaches us, with
its zero point energy this vacuum is not empty and the word
vacuum is a gross misnomer!
/ Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg /
2
Why do physicists refuse to take vacuum as a fundament of Universe?
Book : ‘Dreams of a final theory’ by Steven Weinberg. Page 138.
‘ It is true . . . there is such a thing as absolute zero; we cannot
reach temperatures below absolute zero not because we are not
sufficiently clever but because temperatures below absolute zero
simple have no meaning.’
/ Steven Weinberg. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979 /
==.
We need to understand what 'nothing' / vacuum is.
Paul Dirac wrote:
" The problem of the exact description of vacuum, in my opinion,
is the basic problem now before physics. Really, if you can't correctly
describe the vacuum, how it is possible to expect a correct description
of something more complex? "
=.
Today everybody knows that the Universe had a beginning from 'Big Bang'.
As result of 'Big Bang' the temperature in universe is now T=2,7 . . . .
.. . .and this T=2,7 every second goes down to . . . T=0K.
When the universe reach the T=0K we will be all died. . . . .
. . . . but thanks to the ENTROPY, it will not allow this death.
===…