Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Janus D Strange]

Logicus wrote:

The shortest distance between two points in a 4-dimensional space-time continuum is a geodesic, not a straight line. This arises from the idea of curved space caused by matter. The path taken through curved space is straight to the traveller, but curved to other observers. In perceptual space, we are rarely dealing with distances where curvature is noticeable, but it is still there. As pointed out above, though, the local spacial environment is quite flat and Euclidean, as you say.

It is important, in all these arguments, to remember that these differing views are all just models. For some ideas, some ways of thinking work better than others. In the end, they are all just tools for understanding. The Real may turn out to be something different from any of them. I think it is important to try to avoid being seduced by any particular view because it is currently more successful, but I also think you have to stay with the most successful until you have greater knowledge. A working platform, even if defective, is better than no platform at all.

I think you are still misunderstanding my point, which is that we cannot perceive the curvature of space, although we may conceptually understand it to be actual, based on our scientific theories or mathematical models. I am also saying that we cannot visualise curvature of three-dimensional space,as we can without difficulty in the case of a two dimensional plane.

So it's not a case of being 'seduced by any particular view', it is simply the case that the 'Euclidean' view is the 'native' one for us.And it is not 'defective', unless you are concerned about it not conforming with some notion of 'how things really are'. This latter criterion may be important in the rarefied realm of advanced physics or the 'extreme gadget' realm of ultra-technology such as GPS, but these are hardly essential for the happy functioning of everyday life per se, although we have admittedly become somewhat reliant on such things.It is also far from uncontroversial as to whether this reliance is a 'good thing'.

Even if we grant that the development of such scientific theories and technology is essential to human well-being,there would still be no reason why humans should need to bring their understanding of perceptual space into line with such theoretical understandings, even if that were possible to do.

[Logicus]

Even if we grant that the development of such scientific theories and technology is essential to human well-being,there would still be no reason why humans should need to bring their understanding of perceptual space into line with such theoretical understandings, even if that were possible to do.

I agree that our perceptual understanding of the Universe will always be of a scale and nature that makes perfect sense to our everyday experience. The subject being the Limits of Science, though, the problem is the other way around: It is Science that believes our everyday perceptions are irrelevant to their quest for ultimate knowledge. The argument is that without that information no complete truth is possible. That's why all the discussions about consciousness and affecting experimental results by observation.

My comment about "defective platform" was in reference to the strict scientific view which leaves out some of the possible data in favor of the limited range of data favoring a reducible, predictable outcome. It has proven useful so we stick with it. It is not perfect or all inclusive, but it will serve as a reference until we know more.

[Janus D Strange]

I agree that our perceptual understanding of the Universe will always be of a scale and nature that makes perfect sense to our everyday experience. The subject being the Limits of Science, though, the problem is the other way around: It is Science that believes our everyday perceptions are irrelevant to their quest for ultimate knowledge. The argument is that without that information no complete truth is possible. That's why all the discussions about consciousness and affecting experimental results by observation.

My comment about "defective platform" was in reference to the strict scientific view which leaves out some of the possible data in favor of the limited range of data favoring a reducible, predictable outcome. It has proven useful so we stick with it. It is not perfect or all inclusive, but it will serve as a reference until we know more.

Ah, I see now where you're coming from! I was misunderstanding.

[Steve3007]

Xris:

Steve,if you are going to deny the original concept of an electron you have tell me what you are going to replace it with.

I don't know where I denied the concept of an electron. All I did in the first section of my last post was ask you what you mean by a "picture". What do you mean by a picture?

I will bow to your knowledge on Einstein. I believed he did not believe the double slit experiment was fully understood.

No! Don't bow to me. I don't know much about him. I just assumed that when you were talking about him before you were referring to his challenge to Bohr and Bohr's answers to him.

Mass, I have always assumed to be a quantity of matter that could be weighed. Gravity acts on mass.

I think that's a perfectly respectable answer. You've defined it as "that which is acted on by gravity". Although there are two very different ways to weigh an object and measure its gravitational mass - by comparing the force of gravity on an object with the force of gravity on another object (scales) or by comparing it with the electrostatic forces inside a spring (spring balance). Strictly speaking, the spring balance, or scales that use a spring, measure weight, not mass. i.e. their results will vary if the gravitational field is different. It is only the scales that use other reference masses (old fashioned kitchen scales) that measure mass, because in this system weight is compared to another weight, so will give the same result in a different gravitational field.

And there is also another way to measure mass - in terms of its inertia. It is not intuitively obvious that inertial and gravitational mass are the same thing. In fact experiments have actually been done to confirm that they are numerically equal. It was only in the theory of General Relativity that they were explicitly theorized, rather than just being observed, to be the same thing.

So these apparently simple things always end up being more complicated than they seem at first, I think. But light has also been shown by experiment and observation to have momentum, and therefore inertia and be affected by gravity. It has these things because it has energy. But what it doesn't have is "rest mass" - the mass that is irreducible, which is non-zero in all reference frames.

If by simple implication of an observed phenomena it is then believed to be not the case, I am truly amazed that's all it takes for science to change its mind. From that observation the consequences are enormous.

Not sure what you're referring to here.

[Xris]

Xris: (Nested quote removed.)


I don't know where I denied the concept of an electron. All I did in the first section of my last post was ask you what you mean by a "picture". What do you mean by a picture?


(Nested quote removed.)


No! Don't bow to me. I don't know much about him. I just assumed that when you were talking about him before you were referring to his challenge to Bohr and Bohr's answers to him.


(Nested quote removed.)


I think that's a perfectly respectable answer. You've defined it as "that which is acted on by gravity". Although there are two very different ways to weigh an object and measure its gravitational mass - by comparing the force of gravity on an object with the force of gravity on another object (scales) or by comparing it with the electrostatic forces inside a spring (spring balance). Strictly speaking, the spring balance, or scales that use a spring, measure weight, not mass. i.e. their results will vary if the gravitational field is different. It is only the scales that use other reference masses (old fashioned kitchen scales) that measure mass, because in this system weight is compared to another weight, so will give the same result in a different gravitational field.

And there is also another way to measure mass - in terms of its inertia. It is not intuitively obvious that inertial and gravitational mass are the same thing. In fact experiments have actually been done to confirm that they are numerically equal. It was only in the theory of General Relativity that they were explicitly theorized, rather than just being observed, to be the same thing.

So these apparently simple things always end up being more complicated than they seem at first, I think. But light has also been shown by experiment and observation to have momentum, and therefore inertia and be affected by gravity. It has these things because it has energy. But what it doesn't have is "rest mass" - the mass that is irreducible, which is non-zero in all reference frames.


(Nested quote removed.)


Not sure what you're referring to here.

Steve you deny the electron as a particle.A planet like particle buzzing around the atom. If you deny this concept what do you replace it with? As I asked before why not a EM rope?

Was Einstein correct in doubting the slit screen conclusions when he believed the thickness of the screen influenced the experiment. I can never understand how science tries to isolate itself from certain experiments. The double slit screen experiment should go further than observing an assumed wave effect of light on a screen. Did they look around and see light from that very experiment all around them? Did waves bounce of the screen in waves of light into the experimenters eyes? Waves need a medium but there is no medium.Did they try standing where the screen is and look into the light passing through the slits? This over simplification and self indulgent nonsensical experiment represents the very essence of quantum, its flaws and obvious anomolies are turned into a mystical micro universe. Why are we expected to treat this experiment with reverence as an example of perfect science?

Photons are assumed to be influenced by gravity by gravitational lensing. There is no other reason. The explaination you give comes from trying to give credence to this reasoning. Photons are mathematical inventions so to give them more substance than they deserve is criminal . If there is an alternative to gravitational lensing has it been considered or are we at a point where we are assured,certain? Gaedes ropes give an alternative, can you be so certain it is wrong?

[Steve3007]

Xris: Incidentally: Why do you often requote the entire previous post, unedited, before answering it? Seems a bit superfluous. A complete verbatum duplicate right underneath the original. Anyway...

Steve you deny the electron as a particle.

Do you think we'll keep having this discussion forever, or until one of us dies? In chess, if both players make exactly the same move three times, it's deemed to be a stalemate isn't it?

A planet like particle buzzing around the atom. If you deny this concept what do you replace it with?

I would replace it with the modern quantum mechanical model of atomic structure because it's very good at describing and predicting the properties of atoms, particularly the reasons for electron shell configurations which are the basis for all of chemistry. To be honest, I really don't understand how anybody who has more than a high-school education in physics or chemistry would think that the planet-like model of the atom was used by anyone as their best model, as Gaede seems to think it is. It's very odd. It's as if he doesn't actually know what it is that he is criticising.

As I asked before why not a EM rope?

The main reason is because he simply hasn't developed them as a working theory. I've looked at his website and seen a paper that he wrote. There's never any quantitative predictions of any kind that I can see. There's simply not enough to go on. If he thinks it's viable, he needs to develop it into a mature theory.

Was Einstein correct in doubting the slit screen conclusions when he believed the thickness of the screen influenced the experiment.

To be honest, I'm not familiar with any details of this criticsm of Einstein's. But it is interesting. Can you point me to a reference?

I can never understand how science tries to isolate itself from certain experiments. The double slit screen experiment should go further than observing an assumed wave effect of light on a screen. Did they look around and see light from that very experiment all around them? Did waves bounce of the screen in waves of light into the experimenters eyes? Waves need a medium but there is no medium.Did they try standing where the screen is and look into the light passing through the slits? This over simplification and self indulgent nonsensical experiment represents the very essence of quantum, its flaws and obvious anomolies are turned into a mystical micro universe.

You seem to have the idea that this experiment, as decribed by Feynman, is a single experiment performed once in one way with one single configuration of apparatus. It's not. As Feynman says in his lectures on physics (where this experiment was most famously described) it is a distillation, for the purpose of clear illustration, of the essential features of many different experiments measuring many different things in many different ways.

See, for example, the Mach-Zehnder interferometer that Teh talked about and created a thread about. Watch the video on Teh's thread. It's interesting. Although the presenter has a strangely camp manor. But physcists are all weird in one way or another.

Why are we expected to treat this experiment with reverence as an example of perfect science?

We're not. We just see it as a particularly clear illustration of a phenomenon that has actually been measured in practice in many different ways with different apparatus, different particles and different circumstances. (D'oh! You've finally caught me referring to them as particles. Let me replace that with the cumbersome term: "fluctuations in quantum fields".)

Photons are assumed to be influenced by gravity by gravitational lensing. There is no other reason.

Light, radio waves, and other EM photons/waves/whatever-you-want-to-call-them are observed to be influenced by gravity, in accordance with the predictions of General Relativity, in many different circumstances. It simply works. Replace it by all means, but only with something that works even better.

Photons are mathematical inventions so to give them more substance than they deserve is criminal

What, in your view, is not a mathematical invention? And why? For example, is the simple harmonic motion of a pendulum a mathematical invention that ought to be discarded? I don't see simple harmonic motion. I see a pendulum. I can draw a mathematical picture of that motion. But you and Gaede would reject that picture as a mere invention, wouldn't you?

And, on a related note, I'm still interested to know how you define the word "picture" in this context?

[Xris]

Hi Steve, I can not do quotes, not that capable. This rankle of particles will only be resolved when you can define what they are in fact and not just these mathematical expressions.Electrons have three formulas, have no point of reference and behave nothing like particles. I do honestly understand your point of view but you appear to be refusing to acknowledge the description of particles is used to explain the double slit experiment. It is not me that insist they are called particles. I much prefer EM ropes. The anomaly is created by refering to them as particles. I can not win if they are admitted then denied. I can not find any acceptable reference of Einsteins argument on particles bouncing of the edge of the slit. Only indirect quotes. I will try again.

Gaedes ropes can express any EM radiation. Simply saying they are all observed under the influence of gravity does not secure your argument.I have read about these damned experiments till I am blue in the face. They could all be resolved using Gaedes EM ropes. There is enough evidence for you to form an opinion or an objection on his thesis, why are you so reticent? Why do we have to wait for a formalised paper to be accepted? A picture formed by indirect observations need to stand the test of logic. Particles do not perform that simple task EM ropes do.

[Steve3007]

Hi Steve, I can not do quotes, not that capable.

You just click the button marked "quote" and enter or paste the thing you want to quote in there. Or, of you prefer, you can manually type open-square-bracket quote close-square-bracket. I actually find it quickest to write my replies in Notepad and then copy/paste then back in when I'm done. That way it's easier to see the original post that you're replying to and copy the relevant sections into your own post, adding the appropriate square bracket delimetered quote tags. I guess if you don't do that then you can't see the text of the post you're replying to, which, now I come to think of it, probably explains why you and many other posters do that requoting-the-whole-post thing. So that you can see what you're replying to.

This rankle of particles will only be resolved when you can define what they are in fact and not just these mathematical expressions.Electrons have three formulas, have no point of reference and behave nothing like particles.

You still haven't explained to me what you mean by "what they are in fact" and what you mean by a "picture". What do you mean?!? An electron is an electron in fact. What other form of definition are you looking for? You clearly don't want me to tell you some everyday things that electrons seem, in some ways but not others, to resemble. So what exactly do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to speculate about some other smaller building blocks that electrons might be made from? Do you want me to talk about a class of objects to which they might belong? Do you want me to define them in terms of how they appear to behave? Do you want a description in terms of their function?

There is enough evidence for you to form an opinion or an objection on his thesis, why are you so reticent? Why do we have to wait for a formalised paper to be accepted?

reticent = disposed to be silent or not to speak freely.

Would you say that, during my time on this forum, I have been silent on the subject of Bill Gaede?

At this point I guess I could, once again, dive into Gaede's website and then set out all the various observations which his theory says nothing about. I could point out again how the idea of ropes connected to the Sun's corona just wouldn't give the observed results. I could perhaps pick an example like the Mach-Zehnder interferometner, since it's been talked out on this forum recently, and examine exactly what is observed to happen in that device and how Gaede's ropes have no mechanism for explaining that.

But, if you were in my place, would you?

I've given Gaede so much of my time in the past. I've raised so many points that have not been answered. I've created a thread dedicated to trying to give a reasonably fair assessment of what he seems to say. It just doesn't seem to me that the considerable effort involved in another comparision of what he says with what is observed to be true would be worth the effort. The patterns from the past suggest that there would always come a point where you would simply stop reading and explode into another rant about religions and 80 billion dollars and all that.

[Xris]

Thanks for the lesson Steve.

I am not asking you to research his work and relate it to a wide spectrum of principles. Lets keep it to the double slit experiment. This is the experiment that gives most of us reason to doubt quantum claims. Can you not accept, in principle, that EM ropes answer all the anomolies this experiment conjures up. I am not in competition with you, I am interested to understand why his concept is so easily dismissed. Why certain posters , not like you may I add, will not even discuss him or his ropes in relation to this experiment. I have searched the web for educated opposition to his claims but, strangely, all I see is outrage and condemnation of the man not his theories.

[Steve3007]

Xris:

I think it is an unfortunate fact of life that the way you present yourself has a large influence on the kind of attention that people pay to you. If I was at a job interview, trying to pursuade somebody to recognize my talents and employ me, I wouldn't dress as a clown and insult the interviewers. It would probably plant preconceived ideas in their heads which would be difficult to shift. It's not fair. I should be allowed to do that if I want. They should judge me purely on my ability to do the job. But that's life. You have to play the game.

Bill Gaede seems, from his website, to deliberately present himself as a crank. He's free to do that. But he has to accept the unfair consequences. Presenting a new idea is not really much different from going to a job interview. Why would you want to deliberately plant unjustified ideas about yourself in the minds of your interviewers?

So, if Gaede presented his ideas rigourously and seriously, he might get some serious attention. I suspect he probably has done in the past, and I suspect the serious attention givers have probably pointed out flaws in his ropes theory, which is why he has probably resorted to clowning around in order to keep the attention. Any attention.

---

Here's my understanding of the relevant features of what is observed when an experiment that is similar to the "electron diffraction through twin slits" experiment is performed.

You will need:

1. A hot metal coil.

2. A vacuum.

3. A barrier with two slits or holes in it.

4. A phosphur screen.

5. An electrical potential difference between the coil and some point in front of the coil.

6. An electric or magnetic field around the area just in front of the coil.


It has been found in the long lost past, before any considerations of quantum mechanics, that when you arrange this apparatus in a certain way a bright dot appears on the screen. It seems to be possible to change the position of the dot with an electric or magnetic field (6). The dot seems to get brighter if you increase the potential difference (5). You can also make the dot bigger or smaller using the electric/magnetic field (6).

If you replace the vacuum (2) with a particular rarified gas, you see a beam going from the coil (1) to the dot on the screen (4). The beam is deflected by the electric/magnetic field (6).

If you reinstate the vacuum and turn down the heat of your coil very very low (not practicable in a standard CRT, but known to be the result from consideration of other devices) and look carefully at the screen, you start to see that the dot is not continuous. It varies in brightness with time. Turn it down really low and you see not a continuous dot but a series of flashes. Strange.

OK. If you turn up the heat again and make sure the dot is spread out into a nice wide blob and place your barrier (3) between the coil and the screen, and look very carefully (more carefully, in fact, than it is practically possible to do with a standard cathode ray tube) you see a pattern of light and dark bands that resemble the pattern that you get in a completely different experiment with ripples on the surface of water. Funny.

If you turn down the heat again, as before, and look carefully, as before, you see again a series of flashes but only in the parts of the screen that had the light bands. The lighter the bands were, the more frequently you see a flash. But each individual flash seems to be the same brightness.

---

I've described here purely what is actually observed in many similar experiments, with no analysis of what it might mean. No talk of electrons, or photons or anything else. The electron model that I have learned about seems to successfully described these observations. I don't see how the rope model does. I see how he attempts to use it to describe the interference pattern. I don't know how it would account for the other features - particularly the individual flashes. You are more familiar with the rope model than I am. So could you tell me the mechanism it postulates in order to describe these observations.

If you feel unable to do that I will have another look at what he says and try to find time to add it to this post later. But, from memory, I can't remember his giving a satisfactory explanation of all the observations.

[Xris]

You can see how he attempts to explain it using the rope hypothesis. You can see how but does he succeed. For you to ask me how this explains any further experiment was not our agreement. If the dual nature of light indicating particles is unsuccessful after seventy years of experimentation how do you expect me to validate ropes with no formal education or assistance. The basic experiment was simple an uncomplicated it was only tinkered with because the results were questionable and illogical. If his concept answers the basic anomolies that arose from assuming photons were particles, why is it not examined? Telling me science has ignored him because he is eccentric, weird and a maverick, indicates a kind of specialists refusal to accept they might be wrong. How can a weirdo do what so many giants of academia not do?

[Steve3007]

I don't really understand what a lot of your last post was referring to. I don't know what you mean when you talk about tinkering with simple experiments. In my last post I described the apparatus and observations, in simplified form, of the type of experiment that people normally mean when they refer to the "twin slit" experiment. Before we continue, could I just establish: is the setup I described the one that you are thinking of when you talk about it?

Regarding ropes: I only asked for your interpretation of the rope theory explanation of this experiment because you seem to have spent a long time looking at it and have stated that you think it gives a more accurate description of observations than competing theories. I took that to mean you must have examined it. Apologies for the mistake. I will look at it once more when I get the time.

Regarding Gaede: do you not accept anything I said about human nature? Does everybody have the obligation to examine in detail every theory that everybody on Earth comes up with? Is there absolutely no obligation whatever on the part of the theorist to present their idea in a sensible way? Should I go to my next job interview dressed as a clown and be outraged when I am not taken seriously? Really?

[Vick]

(Nested quote removed.)


I'm glad you are amused. Did you experience your amusement as being caused by what I had written? I'm gathering you're on Hume's side on this one.

I'm not saying I agree with Hume or Searle on this, but for some reason their arguments do not cause me to laugh as they seem to do to you.

Obviously Hume's argument is that when a billiard ball strikes another, we do not see, hear, smell, taste, touch or in any sense feel the force that causes the balls to change their direction and momentum; that in other words, we do not in any sense experience causation.

Searle is asserting with his examples, that we 'feel' the force of the push that sends us flying, the resistance of the kerb or the muscular tension that raises the arm, and thus, that we do experience causation.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, if you can pick yourself up off the floor long enough to return to your computer.

What and whom exactly were you referring as a hume? Start with describing a "Hume" ty: ( in your own words-and then look in the mirror and repeat that).

[Steve3007]

Here is a paper published by Bill Gaede on his rope theory:

scribd.com/doc/54917714/Light-%E2%80%94 ... Hypothesis

My attention was first brought to it by Xris and I cited it on the subsequent thread that I created giving my general view of Gaede's ideas:

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=6375

I've had another quick look through it. I see no reference at all to the observed particle-like properties of light as described very well by the guy in the video posted on Teh's thread about the Mach-Zehnder interferometer:

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=7617

Remember, the properties described in that video - the fact that light arrives in discrete lumps - are observed. They are not mathematical trickery. They are the evidence of the experimenter's eyes. The list of properties of light described in Gaede's paper does not seem to include this crucial observation.

I will look again at Gaede's paper. It does claim to explain many other observations. I will look to see whether they seem, in my non-expert opinion, to correctly describe observed results. But, Xris, note: I spent a lot of time looking at his website and creating, by the standards of this forum, a quite long and detailed OP about it. You replied twice on that thread and neither time did you reference anything at all about what I said. The evidence strongly suggests that my considerable efforts to fairly examine these ideas would probably be regarded by most people as a waste of time. Do you agree that is what the evidence suggests?

[Xris]

Steve, Mach Zehnder's interferometer can still be explained using ropes instead of discrete particles.

All you are doing and have done is argue with the same reasoning I use, I do not understand particles with logical reasoning. To say you could not believe in them, using your logic, simply makes a statement not an opposition that stands scrutiny. Using the idea of EM ropes solves the anomaly. If they exist? If they exist is not for me to decide. EM radiation occurs and it is transmitted, the mystery is how. You refuse to condemn or support particles depending on the argument. You refer to them in experimental terms but when I question you on their value you discount them. Even finding it hard not to use them in debate.I still claim Gaedes ropes, used in this contentious experiment solves the anomaly.