Ask a Spiritual Physicist

Radar,

Yes, it's amazing the different possibilities of what is 'really out there'. (We still don't know what 'dark matter' is, do we?)

By the way, welcome back. I haven't seen you for a while!
 
Thanks. No, both dark matter and dark energy are things hypothesized to make the General Relativity work. Like m-theory, they are beautiful and explanatory, but very short on data.
 
One can "keep up on" the dark energy and matter notions on just by using wiki, actually. For a little more in depth, I search arXiv.org e-Print archive for the last year or so(the search engine is not bad and the databse, physicists who submit to peer reviewed journals, is pretty complete).
 
Here is a good one about the flat, infinate universe... see that is the beauty of modern physics (WMAP- Shape of the Universe). The issues are no longer who can prove what, rather it is how one could explain the data.

For instance physical cosmology no longer just revolves around the data and the math that can explain it. One has to address the broad range of possibly valid metaphysical explanations of cosmology. Can the universe be just thought (see Goswami)? Can it be cyclic (see Penrose and Hiller)? Can it be eternal and infinate (see the WMAP results)? Is there dark matter and energy (see MOND or NGT or any other of a number of alternatives)? Must there be many-worlds or many dimensions (see Tegmark or Penrose or Stapp)?

Not as easy at it was in Einstein's day, when the materialistic scientific monism was blindly accepted.
 
radarmark said:
Okay, did some serious physics-thinking last night. The problem is that we have (at this time) no information from anything earlier than the CMB at 400,000 years after the big bang. And we really (under the Standard Model) know no way to find any.

So first, there may be some artifact(s) that await discovery. If we find some kind of "Big Bang" gravitational waves (something we have tried but not been able to do), then relativity gets yet another big check and we may be able to find where they originated from. BIG IF, though, because by definition the singularity of the Big Bang is beyond the applicability of relativity.

Second, M-brane-string theory (all really just one approach) could end up predicting some Big Bang artifact (an early dimension now collapsed?) which would be verifiable directly or in terms of some later behavior (like magnetic monopoles). I did my physics in pre-string days and really am not qualified to prove this statement... it seems possible from very simplified string explanations (equations).

Lastly, a cyclic system (like Penrose and Heller have hypothesized) may leave some artifact (like the subtle circles and ellipses in the CMB). I do not know what artifact could identify a center of expansion, but it might be possible.

All three of those guesses are non-empirical, but rational (metaphysical) only. As far as what science can say at this time (and teach to its practitioners), it is the balloon analogy. Regardless of which of the three structures the universe has (Euclidean, Elliptic, or Hyperbolic--what we think of as geometry, geometry on a sphere, and geometry on a saddle-point) it behaves (and in the far past probably still behaved) like a balloon. Before the Big Bang the balloon was deflated to nothingness. The Big Bang blows up the inside, expanding the outside... the outside is the universe. It came from nothing... no time, no space. The universe is expanding time and space (like the outside of the balloon) which drags along the potentiality that becomes what we see as mass energy (which, in turn changes the space-time).

THIS BALLOON ANALOGY IS A VERY, VERY SIMPLIFIED VERSION OF THE STANDARD MODEL.
Click to expand...

The big bang was the big fall. Creation of the universe was a symphony of lights and formation when GOD created it. I believe that the universe is the garden of eden and that it was created in reverse order of heaven. In heaven The Creator(s) always existed creating things from them outward. The earthly universe was created outward to the inside with the earth being last. The last is in the image of the first.
 
"Can the universe be just thought...?"

--> I like the Buddhist idea that everything in the universe is a form of consciousness. According to this idea, even a brick wall is 'consciousness standing still'.
 
Well, Reality must include thought at the least. I believe Nick, if you look up the terms ("whitehead" and "Buddhism") or ("process philosophy" and "Buddhism) on Google scholar, you will be surprised.

Japan and China produce a lot of Process Scholarship now-days (over half of the articles published) primarily due to the fact that Process Metaphysics (what my new thread will be looking at, kinda) allows a "hard" science approach to mentality.
 
Nick the Pilot said:
"Can the universe be just thought...?"

--> I like the Buddhist idea that everything in the universe is a form of consciousness. According to this idea, even a brick wall is 'consciousness standing still'.
Click to expand...

Intelligent life has consciousness.... thought energy. The buddhist idea of everything being a form of consciousness is correct. Environments extend from the intelligent life to support the intelligent life. In the beginning god was said to give the human community only plants to eat. Animals are also intelligent life but lower than human beings. The process extends out from Intelligent life.
 
Nick the Pilot said:
--> I like the Buddhist idea that everything in the universe is a form of consciousness. According to this idea, even a brick wall is 'consciousness standing still'.
Click to expand...
That is a hell of an idea. How long does it stand still? Can we construct houses with such walls?

Aitareya Upanishad of the RigVeda did say "Prajnanam Brahma" which I translate as "Consciousness creates the universe". No consciousness, no observer, no universe.
 
Radarmark said:
For instance physical cosmology no longer just revolves around the data and the math that can explain it. One has to address the broad range of possibly valid metaphysical explanations of cosmology. Can the universe be just thought (see Goswami)? Can it be cyclic (see Penrose and Hiller)? Can it be eternal and infinate (see the WMAP results)? Is there dark matter and energy (see MOND or NGT or any other of a number of alternatives)? Must there be many-worlds or many dimensions (see Tegmark or Penrose or Stapp)?
Click to expand...

Most physical explanations depend upon the assumption of cause and effect. Human beings are biased towards believing in a cause for everything, but perhaps on the massive scale that we see beyond our tiny galaxy *cause & effect* no longer holds true. It would explain many things, yet observing effect without cause would count as a satisfactory observation. It would be dismissed. In that case how would the preceding theories you've mentioned ever be disproved? In other words, do these theories have a way to be tested?
 
Good points. Hard causality is really questionable since the advent of Quantum Theory. However, itworks and the the basis for most of our individual behaviors. Even without cause and effect (substituting probabilities like we do in Quantum) the theories are falsifiable (except string theory and the multi-cerse theory.... still lots of problems with provability there). For instance, the eternal and infinate idea is disprovable if we find out that the universe is exanding at different rates in different regions. The cyclic if expansion is universally zpplicable and large enough. Big Bang? If the other two are falsified, it wins by default. If cyclic is verified (even a little bit), it becomes part of cyclic (explaining how the universe re-bounds each time). The only way it gets disproved is if the cosmological constant is found equal to zero (which would really, really verify the infinate universe theory).

So all the conflicting cosmological theories are (in theory) disprovable. Multi-verse (an an alternative to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum) is not, but it is not really a cosmological theory, but more a metaphysics (even Susskind who supports it after he helped develop string theory admits this). String theory is a way to make Quantum and Relativity "exist togther"; however the experimental requirements for energy (as we understand it now) is still far beyond any imagined capability.

One breakthrough in the last ten years or so (more in light of the last two than cosmology) is unitary Quantum theory and Post-Bohmian Bohmian mechanics. The former oversomes the problems that led to the issues giving rise to string theory (a bunch of infinities in Feynmann calculations attempting to unify quantum and relativity). The latter by by-passing the hidden variables used by Bohm (my words) thus overcoming the objections to it due to Bell's theorem.

As far as cosmologies go, either is compatible with any of them. So the big thrtee issues (in my little mind) are (1) metaphysics (multi-verses versus probabilities), (2) unifying quantum and relativity (perhaps the new Bohmian theory can be extended to include unitary theory), and (3) cosmology (is the universe bounded and, if so, is it a one time or many-time event). The latter two can be (potentially solved) in the physics, the first cannot.

Thanks!
 
Just reading over the thread. Some really interesting discussion. Thanks to Radarmark for his clear explanations and openness. I have always been impressed with the Quakers I have known. You are no exception.
 
What's the difference between Mathematical Theory and Scientific Theory?

What's the similarity between Science and Religion?

Aloha.. Allen
__________
Know of any Living Bliss Masters, Please contact me
 
Scientific Theory:
In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand and either provide empirical support ("verify") or empirically contradict ("falsify") it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge,[2] in contrast to more common uses of the word "theory" that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which is better defined by the word 'hypothesis').

Mathematical Theory:
Is more complex to define in a short paragraph. In essence, however, a mathematical theory uses the same guidelines as a scientific theory, but is restricted, obviously, to mathematical theorems.

There is no similarity between science and religion. With the exception that both concepts were born to attempt to understand information about our world and the universe around us. How the two go about this process is completely different.

Yes there have been scientists who have been religious as well; there still are today. Anybody can be a scientist as long as they abide by the scientific method. When the scientific method is abandoned, the person can no longer be considered a scientist.

And yes I am stating this as an absolute. This answer is not 'in my opinion' or 'from my perspective'. This answer is factual based upon the definitions (There I go again!). To believe anything else sends us down the slippery slope where anarchy of thought is the only result.
 
Gordian Knot said:
And yes I am stating this as an absolute. This answer is not 'in my opinion' or 'from my perspective'. This answer is factual based upon the definitions (There I go again!). To believe anything else sends us down the slippery slope where anarchy of thought is the only result.
Click to expand...

One of your darlings?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top