From: Paul
Date: March 7, 2014 at 7:04:23 PM AST
To: Dan Smith
Cc: David
Subject: My comments on your recent OMF posts
Here are my comments on your recent OMF posts in red.
by dan on Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:52 am
2:40-------
We may also harken to the existentialists, in their struggle with similar concepts........
Being & Nothingness, Presence and Absence, Being & Time, Alterity, Absurdity, etc.
We also need to follow up on Paul's observation that the Aether is the breath of the angels, i.e. ambrosia, quintessence and the like.
Is it not also the spirit that God breathed into the clay, in the formation of Adam? What about the animal spirits, however?
[PZ] My "observation" was that the Aether was described in Greek literature as the breath of the gods. Something analogous toordinary
air, but not ordinary air. Associated with the divine.
We might call it consciousness, supposing there to be a quantum leap between sentient and sapient consciousness. This aether is
something that we share with the gods. To call it a soul is reductionistic, and is to avoid pantheism/panpsychism.
[PZ] Yes well words like "inspire", "conspire", "aspire", "expire" etc. do suggest that ideas come to us as if from the air, or that our spirits
can leave us as if through the air. This makes sense if "air" is used as a metaphor for something more mysterious as in the ancient
literature on the aether/akasha.
Pure "spirit"? The etymology points in interesting directions.
The panpsychism of the BPWH is, unlike with its normal usage, mainly or entirely a projection from God, through us. It is We who
breathe life into the physical equations. The world is our folie-a-deux.
[PZ] Made in His image?
Leibniz held that all lower monads were reflections of the Supreme Monad, which encompassed all of them within itself as an organic
cosmic unity (held together by pre-established harmony). The "soul" of this cosmic unity (top monad) could be called "God".
Thus there is an Aristotelian aspect to Leibniz's philosophy.
6:25--------
My question to Paul is how might we get from the ether to informationalism, for instance?
[PZ] Black hole thermodynamics is part of the physics of the New Aether. Black holes are Aethereal structures.
The "holographic" dependence of the thermodynamic entropy of black holes on the area of the enclosing event horizon rather than
on the volume is aether physics.
Think of the controversy and confusion about the nature of black hole event horizons -- are they mere coordinate artifacts, or objective
structures? The modern view is that they constitute object light cne inlfection boundaries that are coordinate independent.
That is a good illustration of the conceptual difference between aether physics and Machian "general relativity".
This question may hinge upon the role of the ether in the quantum vacuum.
[PZ] The New Aether is the quantum vacuum, with added gravitational properties (described at the classical macroscopic level by the 4D
spacetime metric field g_uv(x) of GR).
Historically, this arose when Dirac discovered, in 1928, the first ever relativistic massive wave equation, coming after the massless
Klein-Gordon equation. Dirac's equation had two solutions, for positive and negative masses. Thus was born the quantum vacuum
of virtual particles.
[PZ] The vacuum is polarizable, and acts as an optical medium whose optical properties depend on the presence of matter. That is all
settled physics.
Gravitation and the optics of the vacuum are not separable in modern theory.
Clearly from the physical standpoint there is a "there" there that is arguably the same for all observers regardless of their states of
motion. Hence the New Aether publicly reintroduced by Einstein in 1920 (although Einstein talked about it in private letters as early
as 1916).
It may be gauge theory where the ether most directly impinges upon the quantum realm. This we need to sort out.
[PZ] Yes. If the actual non-tidal gravity field of GR cannot be "gauged away" and is thus not actually a gauge field (as opposed to
a mere fictitious field described by the pure affine part of the LC connection), then this raises serious questions about the
Standard Model ('SM') of elementary particle physics). Hermann Weyl may have simply got the wrong end of the stick, the rest now
being history.
Notwithstanding Einstein's EP, the actual gauge field of GR is a fictitious field. A kinematical artifact.
In the meantime, can the ether take us anywhere short of informationalism? Is there any ontology between those two?
[PZ] Whether the New Aether is pure information, or has physical information encoded in it, is still an open question. However, either
way, it is not a material substance, even if it is a substance.
I suppose that the Big Bang is an indication of the potency/potentiality of the ether. But each possible universe is supposed to have
its own unique vacuum, emerging more or less spontaneously from the 'background', whatever that may be.
[PZ] The unstable Minkowski "false vacuum", according to Jack (and others).
(cont.)
by dan on Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:50 am
I have been struggling with the ether. I am still not understanding how it applies to the gauge theories or to the lack thereof. Just
when I seem about to grasp it, the connection vanishes. I think I need to start over........
[PZ] It applies directly to gauge theories of gravity, but only indirectly to the U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) gauge theories that form the
theoretical foundation of the SM.
Paul points out that the equivalence principle (EP), in its original form, was supposed to have shown that the gravitational field could
be 'gauged away', and, thereby, obviating the need for an ether. This is the standard, MTW, view of gravity.
[PZ] No this is not correct Dan.
The official modern view of GR is that the tidal field described by the Riemann curvature tensor is the actual gravity field of GR, and that
the non-tidal field represented by the LC connection is not actual, but is entirely a matter of the observer's frame of reference. From
the "gauge" perspective, this means that the non-tidal field is a "gauge field" that can be "gauged away" by going to an LIF (Riemann
spacetime coordinates).
I say that this is a chimera. I say that the non-tidal field is also fully objective and cannot be gauged away. If there is a gauge field, it
is described by the non-tensor pure affine part of the LC connection, not the LC connection as a whole.
This was apparently not understood by Weyl, who attributed gravity purely to an affine relationship between LIFs. Based on this error,
the idea developed that non-tidal gravity is a gauge field, when in fact it is not.
From the gauge persepctive, the curvature field is understood as being the curvature of the affine connection. Metric compatibility of
the LC connection is not understood to be a non-gauge component of the LC connection. This idea was then transferred to QM by
Weyl in his 1929 attempt to transfer his original 1918 gauge arguement to the relationship between the electron phase and the vector
potential of electrodynamics.
I'm saying that this is all the fruit of a poisoned tree. GIGO.
However, on further examination by Paul and a few other skeptics, the EP was found to be seriously deficient in this regard.
[PZ] Even Einstein later admitted under severe criticism that his version of the EP was false if taken too literally.
Especially, now, with Paul's newly discovered decomposition of the Levi-Civita connection, one of the compenents is found to contain
(only?) first order derivatives, and so is not 'gaugable'.
[PZ] Newly discovered unique decomposition of the LC connection.
Alex Poltorak already had a non-unique abstract LC decomposition in 1980, based on the mathematical existence of Weyl's non-
metricity tensor.
I have a unique decomposition of the LC connection with a direct geometric meaning based on Levi-Civita's theory of parallel
transport, and a direct physical meaning within the framework of 1916 GR.
So far, so good. But does this particular L-CCC thereby constitute, just by itself, a mathematical expression for the long sought Ether?
Or are there significantly more logical steps necessary to flesh out a theory of the Ether?
[PZ] It overcomes the standard objections to "spacetime substantivalism" based on active diffeomorphism invariance (which is the
mathematical basis for gauge gravity). Without active diffeomorphism invarianc interpreted as a gauge symmetry of the vacuum, the
orthodox "anti-substantivalist" dogma collapses.
Regardless of the answer to this question, I am skeptical that there can be any such formula for the true Aether.
[PZ] In my model the mathematical formulas for the true aether are all encoded in the matter dependent metric field g_uv(x) of GR.
The formula for "no aether" is active diffeomorphism invariance in GR.
So the shoe is on the other foot.
This question may
be formulated as follows.........
I suspect there may be two ethers, and that Paul and I are after different game. His is the physicists' ether, and mine is the
philosophers' aether. Nay, mine is, perhaps, more akin to the philosophers' stone.
[PZ] Well my point here is that when Einstein's 1916 gravitational theory is properly understood, the two "aethers" converge, opening a
conceptual pathway to quantum gravity that is blocked in orthodox GR.
IMHO, the crux of this difference lies in the 'substance' of Occasionalism.......
Occasionalism has to do with spooky-action-at-a-distance (SAaD). It's like Saab, but with less chromium.
This problem came to the fore, historically, when Newton virtually disowned his own theory, due to its SAaD.
[PZ] No he did not. He just said he wouldn't speculate about the causes of gravity in the Principia. He said that the answer was anybody's
guess, given the insufficiency at that time of the empirical data, and that in that situation everyone could form his own personal opinion
about it.
But in the Opticks, and in private letters (to Bentley et al) he did speculate about an aether as a necessary supplement to his
corpuscular theory of light, to account for the observed wave-like behavior. He also stated very clearly that he did not believe in
action-at-a-distance, and hence he invoked the aether -- which is exactly what Einstein said in 1920.
So there is more than one Newton. Newton had a split personality. So did Einstein.
However, historically, gravity is not the usual venue for occasionalism. The usual venue is much more prosaic. It is the flame and
the cotton ball.......
[PZ] Doesn't theological occasionalism hold that God creates the world anew at every instant of time?
In fact, Hume's famous skepticism concerning the efficacy of causation was copped directly from the arguments of the Islamists,
going back to the 9th century...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occasionalism#Hume.27s_arguments.2C_Berkeley_and_Leibniz
[PZ] Interesting.
[...]
11am-------
OMG, I think I must be an Averroist (from wiki).......
1.) there is one truth, but there are (at least) two ways to reach it: through philosophy and through religion
2.) the world is eternal
3.) the soul is divided into two parts: one individual, and one divine
4.) the individual soul is not eternal
5.) all humans at the basic level share one and the same intellect (a form of monopsychism)
6.) resurrection of the dead
With the following caveats.......
#2) From God's perspective, but not ours.
#4) From our perspective, but not God's.
And that's all, folks. That's all she wrote.
Monopsychism is a term that, strangely, had not previously occurred to me. It should be a key feature of the BPWH.
That single word defuses much of my struggle with free-will. Free-will is subsumed within free-Will, if you will. God's
free-will consists mainly in her ability to reason. So much for strong AI.
[PZ] This looks like a can of worms.
noon------
Now, back to ether vs. aether, and how we may endeavor to subsume the former within the latter........
[PZ] "Ether" = "New Aether"
The pivotal figure, in this regard, is, of course, Newton and his theory of gravity. From a philosophical point of view, his
theory was a scandal, a sociological fact that we find hard to comprehend, retrospectively. This has to do with SA@D.
[PZ] Yes that is how his Cartesian critics (including Leibniz) interpreted Newton's theory of gravity. Newton however did not
advocate action at a distance. He even called it "absurd" in a letter to Bentley.
He tentatively formulated an aether theory of gravity to avoid action at a distance. But not openly, since this would be
too much of a concession to the continental Cartesians.
Those early moderns were very comfortable with Aristotle's four causes...... material, formal, efficient and final. The
culprit here is #3, efficient cause. Efficacy, here, is usually understood in the context of propinquity, in the mechanical sense.
Clearly, gravity was not that. Gravity was SA@D.
[PZ] Not for Newton, only according to his critics, who tried to discredit his theory of gravity by associating it with "SA@D"
over his objections.
All of theoretical physics since Newton may be understood as an attempt to make make gravity less SA@D. This is where
Paul and his LCCdC come into the picture.
[PZ] Including Newton himself.
First, we must take a slight detour with Maxwell's demon.......
His demon should properly be seen as anticipating the quantum measurement problem (QMP), at the crux of our struggle
with the continuities vs. discontinuities of nature.
[PZ] OK...
Maxwell's wave equation had to be reconciled with Einstein's photoelectric effect.
[PZ] Which at the time was the most advanced version of the wave theory of light.
But then we get into the problem of quantum gravity and gauge theory. And even before that, we may need to take a look
at advanced and retarded potentials, or, more specifically, with the Wheeler-Feynman absorber solution of Maxwell's
equations.
[PZ] Gauge theory does not tell you to quantize the vector potential. It only allows you to quantize it. Quantization is a separate
issue.
[PZ] Like Noether's theorems, gauge theory is 100% classical -- except that the electron phase is a feature of wave mechanics.
At the same time, we will need to KIM the two Feynman pictures of QM, point interactions vs sum over histories, with the
latter leading to Jakir's theory of weak measurements. And surely we will not forget the EPR problem.
[PZ] I thought the EPR problem was solved by various no-signaling theorems, together with the realization (and admission by
Bohr) that the collapse of the wave function is not due to a physical interaction in any case?
[PZ] Without EPR signalling or even physical interaction between separated QM subsystems associated with measurements
there is no "SA@D".
In all of these cases, we are seeing a recurrence of the problem of efficient causation vs. SA@D. This is showing us why
we may have to reconsider occasionalism, or why efficient cause is a convenient fiction.
[PZ] Gravitational "SA@D" is solved by finite propagation speeds and the New Aether. EPR "SA@D" doesn't exist unless you
believe that measurements performed on a local QM subsystem physically affect the states of remote QM subsystems,
instantaneously -- which according to the no-signalling theorems they don't.
IMHO, the only way out of these time paradoxes is to invoke a CTC based cosmology, which is tantamount to a robust/
rationalized (weak-measurement based) occasionalism, which also helps to explain Averroes temporal confusion wrt his
#2 and #4 theses, above.
[PZ] Ah. OK not a bad try, but see above.
2pm---------
What I don't yet see with sufficient clarity is how Paul's LCCdC may or may not contribute to a CTC cosmology (CTCC).
Off the top, the CTCC solves the IR problem, by rationalizing a long-wave cutoff of longitudinal photons. Hey, it's a start!
[PZ] CTCs are objective structures in the New Aether as physically real as light cone inflection boundaries. They have nothing
to do with observer reference frames. They ae not artifacts. That is the picture offered by fully covariant GR under the
"LCCdC".
So far, the eucharist is nowhere in sight..... or is it? Nor is any form of substantiation anywhere in sight.
[PZ] Of course it is. The LCCCdC demolishes the orthodox objections to "substantiation" that are based on active diffeomorphism
invariance! It overcomes the dogmatic pseudo-mathematical obstructions of GR orthodoxy.
4:30---------
Here are some things I do not understand.......
1.) We used to suppose we could gauge-away gravity, in accord with the EP, yet.....
2.) .... with QED, we, in effect, gauge-in the vector potential, by using it to offset the effects of a local symmetry
breaking of the quantum phases, i.e. the U(1) symmetry, a-la Emmy Noether.
[PZ] Because you need an Ehresmann connection to correct for artifacts in partial derivatives arising from localization
of the electron phase.
[PZ] That is a classic Weyl-type "gauge" argument of the kind that was actually ridiculed by Einstein in 1918, and also by
Wigner later on in the context of the SM.
I would like to have a better intuitive grasp of the connection between #1 and #2. Might Paul's LCCdC shed any
light on this?
[PZ] It sheds light on Weyl's misconceptions about the role of connections in physics, based on his misunderstanding of
the LC connection of 1916 GR as an independent "affine structure". It exposes the fallacies of the gauge model, and
shows how such misconceptions arose from a historical standpoint.
[PZ] Weyl's gauge field is actually the non-tensor pure affine part of the LC connection. It is not a physical gravity field.
The actual non-tidal field is represented by the metricity tensor. Taking his cues from Einstein's Alice-in-Wonderland
EP model for LIFs, Weyl systematically confused the covariant metricity of the LC connection with the non-tensor
part. Apples and oranges.
This shows very clearly how Weyl went off the rails, and how this led historically to the illusory gauge models of the
modern SM based on the so-called "gauge argument".
6:40-------
Paul quotes the Newtonians as agreeing that gravity could not propagate through a vacuum. What then was it
propagating through, if not a very insubstantial ether?
[PZ] That was what Newton discussed in the Opticks, and privately with Bentley and others. Newton entertained aether
models for the propagation of light and for the propagation of gravity. It's a historical fact. There is no question
about this.
[PZ] The fact of the matter is that Newton despised action-at-a-distance as much as the Cartesians.
But, now, with EPR, we have a more severe problem, where quantum entanglement 'propagates' instantaneously, and
very selectively. It is more accurate to suggest the EPR simply does away with space. It collapses space. This is
much more radical that simply postulating a space-filling ether.
[PZ] Only if you believe that measurements performed on a QM subsystem HERE have a physical effect on the state of
a remote QM subsystem THERE. Modern theory says no. According to this view the EPR effect does not represent
physical action at a distance. Even Bohr acknowledged this, significantly modifying his "Copenhagen" position on
QM in response to Einstein et al.'s arguments.
With EPR, physics becomes radically non-local.
[PZ] Not according to the no-signalling theorems. See above.
The solution is that the QM state is partly physical, and partly about our state of knowledge about the physical. It is the
"knowledge about the physics" part that changes in the EPR gedanken experiment, not the actual physics.
What is peculair about QM is that the subjective informational component is mixed up with the objective physical
component and no one (other than Bohm perhaps) has found a satisfactory way of disentangling them.
Our best acquaintance with such non-locality may be found wrt our own thoughts. EPR, then, is the closest thing to a
bridge between the ether and the aether.
[PZ] OK, maybe it is the closest thing to action-at-a-distance, but it still doesn't follow that it actually is action-at-a-distance.
(cont.)
by dan on Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:02 am
Not conclusive........
I'm not sure what I was trying to conclude. I'm trying to make sense of the insensible..... the nothingness of space.
One could also argue about the substantiality of time.
[PZ] Or about the substantiality of spacetime. Block universe?
Space is our most precious commodity, it would seem. So how can it be nothing?
[PZ] Not nothing, but not exactly something either.
By the same token, the flow of time is the most irresistible force in the world. How can it be nothing?
[PZ] Ask Parmenides.
In relativity theory,
the two are combined in the most intricate fashion, enabling us to convert pure matter into pure energy, in the most awesome
manner conceivable. Where is the nothingness, we might wonder?
[PZ] You can't polarize nothing.
How can we add nothing + nothing + nothing and get BOOM? I ask you.
[PZ] Space is not nothing. Time is not nothing either. Things happen in both. Things emerge from both.
[PZ] Space aka "the New Aether" carries energy and information. Information doesn't flow through nothing. Gravity doesn't
propagate though nothing.
So there is a "there" there (Einstein 1916, 1920).
If our physicists have demonstrated anything, they have demonstrated that our naive concepts of space, time and matter
are interdependent in the most sublime manner imaginable. We had no idea.
[PZ] Since Kant we did. At least some idea.
Only in the most abstract and rarified of circumstances might we ever suppose that these qualities could ever be disentangled
and quantified, and so be made to seem empty or vacuous.
But, in the end, we cannot even conceive of empty space. The only way we can conceive of it is to posit that it could be
habitable, per impossible(?), in its extremities. Out of such speculations come the strangest of metaphysics. With the
BPWH, I hope only to somewhat tame these wildest of speculations. Wish me luck.
[PZ] Good luck with that.
To the mix of space, time and matter, we are urged to posit gravity. Gravity is so mundane, until we stop to think about it.
[PZ] And then all hell breaks loose.
And, to make a long story short, the more we think about it, the more do we twist ourselves into logical knots. It is true that
the professional gravitationists do not enjoy bragging about their conundrums. It seems uncharitable for a rank amateur to
look askance. We pay scientists to explain things to us.
[PZ] We also pay con-men to pick our pockets and sell us bridges.
By evincing skepticism we seem to subvert their livelihoods, to take food from the mouths of their children. How could one be so cruel?
[PZ] Con-men have children too.
(cont......)
by dan on Sun Feb 23, 2014 3:46 pm
Paul and I had an hour-long convo this pm, prepping for Tuesday's radio show. I have a call into the Princess to discuss the last
minute details.
Paul and I, with Aliyah's mediation, will be discussing the history and prospects for the ether.
We will hopefully cover Paul's personal history wrt the ether, and then the history of the ether itself. But, before that, I wish to
present a preview of the putative coming attractions.......
In modern times, when physicists speak the 'physical' vacuum, they are actually referring to the metaphysical ether/aether, even
if they are not personally aware of that historical connection. The point is that there is more than a little embarrassment within the
scientific community wrt to the subject/ontology of the ether. This embarrassment perhaps should be the primary topic of
Tuesday's show.
My speculation is that the ether may be a 'can of worms' wrt scientific materialism. Or, as Paul suggests, 'there be serpents!'
[PZ] Although the irony here is that so-called "scientific materialism" is not actually scientific. Authentic positivist materialism is anti-
metaphysical.
Very succinctly, Paul further suggests that there is almost certainly a link from the 'physical' vacuum to the holographic/
informationalist cosmologies that are rapidly gaining traction within the physics community. The latest manifestation of said
'traction' is Stephen Hawking's very recently expressed doubts concerning the ontology of black holes. This is not just a
tempest in a teapot.
[PZ] Watch out. Hawking is a self-proclaimed positivist.
I then point out, with Paul's tacit approval, that it is a relatively small step from informationalism to panpsychism, if not to
monopsychism or panentheism.
[PZ] OK.
At some point, in just a few steps, the theoretical physicists will be confronting the possibility of turning their collars around,
bless their hearts.
So much for the future, now back to history.......
The crux of this history may lie in the LCCdC that was first broached by Paul, ~8y ago, TBMK. By means of his LCCdC,
he shows that gravity cannot be gauged away, and it is, therefore, an immaterial objectivity. This may be as close as we
can get to a mathematical formula for the ether/aether.
[PZ] In general agreement with Einstein > 1916. I just add the missing puzzle pieces.
by dan on Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:43 am
Allow me then to back up a few steps to obtain a wider perspective.....
It does seem that Paul and I may just be egging each other on, in our attempt to make a metaphysical mountain out of a
mathematical molehill. One might well wonder how it can be that seemingly pure mathematics can be used to a metaphysical
end.
[PZ] Because pure mathematics has already been used against Einstein's New Aether. I provide the antidote.
In this regard, I am tempted to compare Paul's LCCdC with Godel's (incompleteness) theorem, while recognizing that this
would, indeed, be a considerable stretch.
Bear with me, for the nonce.......
It may be that Paul is picking up where Godel left off.
What Paul is combatting, here, almost single handedly, are the residual effects of a century of philosophical positivism that
continue to permeate theoretical physics, this residuum, despite the widely recognized philosophical bankruptcy of said
positivism.
This latter-day positivism parades under the more auspicious banner of Pythagoreanism. As such, I was lending to it more
than it may be due. It seemed to me that, under the rubric of Wigner's 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics' (UEM),
Pythagoreanism was allowing us to transcend the coarser aspects of scientific materialism.
[PZ] Pseudo-positivism.
What I, evidently, did not appreciate was Paul's critique of Pythagoreanism as a cover for the underlying positivism resulting
in a particularly pernicious/tenacious form of anti-metaphysical posturing.
[PZ] Which privileges certain metaphysical models as "positive" while condemning others as "metaphysics".
Forgive me, then, if I am tempted to see this metaphysical foot in the door as possibly being the leading edge of the long
overdue MoAPS. I'm quite content to give it the old college try. We shall see.
When Stephen Hawking wonders what it is that breathes fire into the equations of mathematical physics, his question can only
have a metaphysical answer. The reluctance of the physics community, in this regard, manifests an underlying and
understandable caution wrt opening Pandora's metaphysical box. Given the opening to substantiation, can transubstantiation
be all that far behind, one might well wonder. Do I get ahead of myself? Do I count my chickens? What should we expect of
a Chicken Little?
[PZ] Pandora's box indeed.
For the pseudo-positivists, Einstein's New Aether is a can of worms. Since it doesn't present itself to us directly in sense experience,
it is no better than a spirit.
But in fact, that may be what it is: "inspiration" for the gods.
10am-----------
What, intuitively, is happening wrt Paul's LCCdC?
I am told that it, very conveniently, separates the mathematical artifacts from the underlying physics.
[PZ] In the coordinate frame kinematics of Einstein GR, the mathematical artifacts are related to fictitious fields, which Einstein famously
confused with real non-tidal gravity fields based on the EP.
Thus does it, uniquely, lay bare the non-geometrical aspect of the gravitational field. I trust that I have not mischaracterized the LCCdC.
[PZ] No, this is not correct. It shows that the geometric part of the LC connection represents the actual non-tidal gravity field, while the
non-geometric part represents a fictitious field of purely kinematical origin.
With the aid of special relativity and the EP, GR was thought to be an exercise in pure Riemannian geometry. For a few years,
Einstein, heimself, was caught up in the hyperbole. When, in 1920, he attempted to sound a note of metaphysical caution, the
nascent positivists were quick to drown out his misgivings.
[PZ] This is when Einstein parted ways with the logical positivists/logical empiricists and repudiated Mach's philosophy of science.
It is true that positivism, per se, may be viewed as a species of idealism, in that it discounts any sort of physical substrate.
[PZ] Empiricism.
But the situation might also be compared with behaviorism, wherein the mind is treated as just a black-box. Nay, a black-hole,
if you will.
We, metaphsicians, take it as our personal challenge to pry open these black-boxes. We are just incorrigible treasure-hunters,
with all the arrested adolescence implicit therein.
Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Well, by the time anyone manages to thoroughly look this gift-horse in the mouth,
the larger MoAPS implicit herein, may already have been let out of the barn. I have often said..... by hook or by crook, crass
opportunist that I am.
It's not always about what you know. It's also about who you know, and what is the context. When the context is..... man bites
dog, well, who knows where the story may lead? I'm just the kid with a new toy.
Or am I playing with matches...... naughty, naughty!
[PZ] Yes.
11am-----------
Molehill => mountain??
With Paul's LCCdC, the ether is laid bare, in an historically and strategically unprecedented manner. Sure, the positivists will soon
gather their remaining forces, and attempt a counter-attack, but it may be too little and too late, one might hope. Time is not on
their side.
[PZ] Right.
**Ether => holographic informationalism? Sure, on a wing and a prayer! Or, felix culpa, said the oyster to the grain of sand.
But that is just a teaser......... guess what happens when a seed of coherentism (Logos) is added to the supercooled sea of
informationalism? We get Ice 9! If that is not a MoAPS, I'll just have to eat my hat.
Ice 9 => VALIS..... QED!
Yes, Jacques Vallee calls it the Invisible College.
12:45---------
It may be (**) that is our biggest hurdle. Paul and I have not discussed this one in any detail. That there must be a link seems
a logically forgone conclusion, but to specify the nature of this link is another matter. I note that informationalism does not even
warrant a wiki entry, and, yet, it is widely touted in diverse speculations on the nature of reality.
Our initial stance wrt (**) might simply be that any lending of (scientific) support to the ether is bound to reflect positively upon
other metaphysical devices, and that ain't nuthin'.
[PZ] Right.
It is a wide net that we are being encouraged to cast. Who knows what may become caught up in it? To turn a blind eye to
the most obvious possibilities would seem downright neglectful.
2:40--------
One might easily argue that the foregoing is much too heavily weighted toward thinly motivated, radical speculations about
possible future developments in the philosophy of physics.
In my second attempt at an advanced degree, this time at the University of Maryland, in 1977, combing physics and philosophy,
I was sharply criticized for allowing my philosophical speculations to overrun the established results of science. It was simply
stated that the frontiers of physics should be left to the physicists, and that philosophers should, rather, serve as the historians
of science, and not pretend to be pioneers.
[PZ] You were a troublemaker.
Yes, times have changed, but not enough to satisfy my impatient, irrepressible curiosity, my predilection for the 'what if?'.
[PZ] At least we can hope for well-grounded speculation.
But, no, my main motivation now comes from a sense of urgency concerning the crying need for a MoAPS that can bridge the
intellectual chasm between science and religion, and allow us to transcend the dire possibilities for the future of civilization that
have now become the staples our postmodern outlook on the future.
[PZ] OK.
Yes, I am suggesting that to avoid a negative apocalypse, we will need to embrace a positive, best possible eschatology, rather
than settle for a cringing retreat from all our human aspirations. In the end, we will have no choice but to embrace our destiny.
Let us get on with it.
(cont.)
by dan on Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:23 am
I'm contemplating a modified approach to Jack, one that would put mind first........
I am attempting to equate the ether to mind. Jack, OTOH, equates the future horizon to the cosmic mind. I'm not sure if Jack
is the only one making this identification.
[PZ] Cosmic intelligence.
However, what Jack was doing, before latching onto the future horizon, was equating individual mind to his non-linear extension
of qm.
[PZ] Right.
I see no reason to suppose this later idea has supplanted his earlier idea. There is, though, a greater distinction, now,
between the individual minds and the cosmic mind.
[PZ] I don't see a conflict here. Do you?
In the former case the cosmic mind could simply be seen as the non-local extension of the individual mind. This model would
have been more susceptible to my SdA, super-duper aether, idea.
[PZ] OK.
I suspect that his precipitous latching onto the future horizon was mainly meant to avoid this more intimate immersion of our
minds into the cosmic mind.
3:15--------
I have a call into Paul to discuss the reframing of the prospective convo with Jack. I need to get a better perspective on the
relation between Jack's two 'theories' of mind, i.e. near-field and far-field. Also I need to know how his ideas may overlap with
those of others.
[PZ] As we discussed, Jack has an observer dependent cosmological horizon that he took from Tamara Davies' PhD thesis, and
applies a Hawking radiation-type argument to get a membrane with finite thickness.
Of course Hawking's arguments are applied to a real objective black hole event horizon that is observer independent, while Jack
applies similar argument to a cosmological horizon that depends on the position of the observer.
This is a bit like treating a Rindler horizon in Minkowski spacetime as a real physical structure, and then arguing that when QM
is taken into account, the Rindler horizon has finite thickness.
Jack will say that the photon population of the vacuum is in any case dependent on the acceleration of an observers' frame of
reference in mainstream physics (which is true), and that he is not doing anything particularly radical by supposing that an
observer dependent horizon membrane can be treated as a real physical object.
So Jack's VALIS membrane is there for one observer, and not there for another. But to be fair this is no stranger than Einstein's
now-you-see-it-now-you-don't gravity field, which is also intrinsically dependent on the observer's frame of reference, which is
also mainstream physics.
by dan Today at 8:22 am
I suspect that, amongst modernists, besides a very understandable desire for a continuing (perpetual?) material progress, there is
an equally strong desire to tame the spirit.
In point of historical fact, the purpose of science was to exorcise nature, and human nature(!), of spirits, i.e. to denature nature.
[PZ] That was 17th century parsimony. Occam's razor and all that. The most output from the least number of posited entities.
However, the same "parsimonious" types don't seem to have a problem with ~10^23 invisible "atoms" or even 10^500 invisible
universes of they will allow them to deny that purpose and intelligence are at work in nature.
Despite all the sound and fury of 'science vs. religion', at bottom the two Magisteria share the primary goal of taming the Spirit.
The 'ligio' in religion refers quite explicitly to the binding of the spirit. The Apocalypse refers to the unbinding, to the unleashing
of the Spirit.
[PZ] OK.
The Sixties were a mini-apocalypse, for many, from which there was a reaction, which sent many a flower-child back into the
embrace of science and/or religion.
In intercourse with the spirits, one is playing with fire. Science and religion, each in their own way, are a routinization of that
Charism. Without such routines, our lives would be chaotic. Spirits can and do run rampant. Religious wars may testify to that
fact. Alchemy and astrology were simply our early attempts at such routinization.
[PZ] If the phenomenal existence of material objects is "positive" because they are given in sense experience, why are not minds also
"positive", since they are also given in experience? Why are inner phenomena derogated in favor of external phenomena?
Isn't the inner/outer distinction itself given in our experience?
The role of millennarian/messianic furvor in history is considerable. Witness the Mideast, today.
I am suggesting that the historical standoff between science and religion is a very deliberate or effective posturing, even if very
few of the participants are directly aware of the underlying mutuality.
[PZ] Right. Science and religion are actually competing for the same turf -- a theocratic form of authorit. White Coats vs. the Black Coats.
Let us say that the PtB, or the sociological hidden hand, is very comfortable with this divide and conquer strategem. This is the
status quo that is sorely threatened by the overdue but imminent MoAPS.
[PZ] OK. The Illuminati understand this.
Jack and Gary are the outriders or the rear guard for the status quo. They occupy a particularly strategic hill, on the outskirts of
the established tradition. This particular hill is an outpost on the paranormal fringe, a very vulnerable underbelly, if you will. Their's
is not to reason why. Desperation rules.
Who am I to contest this Hamburger hill, as a forward scout in the culture war to come? I'm just another chicken-little. Don't mind
me.
[PZ] Ha ha.
(cont.)
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