Science In Crisis

Classical Unified Field Theory

2007-04-22T19:16:00.000-05:00

This is for any folks at Cosmic Variance who might make their way here after my brief conversation with Mark:

Mark said:
As someone intimately acquainted with the Einstein static universe, I don’t see any relevance to the post at all

So I'm left with an argument from ignorance:

If I were to reply to Mark, I'd say this:
You would have to actually do what I said needs to be done, in order to see the relevance, Mark, because things work-out a bit differently when the background changes every time that you make a particle from the rarefied mass energy that IS Einstein's dark energy, but you can also get it from the first post on my blog, where you or anyone else that doesn't immediately qualify themselves as a crackpot is welcome to read and review all linked threads and comments before explaining to me why I should let this go, because nobody has ever given me any good reason to think that I should not do exactly what I do to provoke the justified look.

Somebody please take this to my blog and fix what is wrong with my observations. Course, you won't be the first physicist that will have to admit that the mechanism is already known to work in inflationary theories, so be prepared to do some *real* splainin... no handwaving allowed. Don't do what this guy did, in other words, or you have only proven that you don't have a clue what is being said and why. This guy's mistake is to assume that I haven't taken the well supported aspects quantum theory into account, so he'll never be able to realize that this, (still unchallenged physics), doesn't overturn anything that is right with quantum field theory, rather, it fills in the gap, and fixes what isn't right with gravity theory, albeit greatly simplified.

Which brings us to this:

What did Einstein do in the last thirty years of his career?

Einstein's "Wasted" Effort
When the equivalent of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism is formulated within the framework of Einstein's theory of general relativity, the electromagnetic field energy (being equivalent to mass as one would expect from Einstein's famous equation E=mc^2) contributes to the stress tensor and thus to the curvature of space-time, which is the general-relativistic representation of the gravitational field; or putting it another way, certain configurations of curved space-time incorporate effects of an electromagnetic field. This suggests that a purely geometric theory ought to treat these two fields as different aspects of the same basic phenomenon. However, ordinary Riemannian geometry is unable to describe the properties of the electromagnetic field as a purely geometric phenomenon.

Einstein tried to form a generalized theory of gravitation that would unify the gravitational and electromagnetic forces (and perhaps others), guided by a belief in a single origin for the entire set of physical laws. These attempts initially concentrated on additional geometric notions such as vierbeins and "distant parallelism", but eventually centered around treating both the metric tensor and the affine connection as fundamental fields. (Because they are not independent, the metric-affine theory was somewhat complicated.) In general relativity, these fields are symmetric (in the matrix sense), but since antisymmetry seemed essential for electromagnetism, the symmetry requirement was relaxed for one or both fields. Einstein's proposed unified-field equations (fundamental laws of physics) were generally derived from a variational principle expressed in terms of the Riemann curvature tensor for the presumed space-time manifold.

In field theories of this kind, particles appear as limited regions in space-time in which the field strength or the energy density are particularly high. Einstein and coworker Leopold Infeld managed to demonstrate that, in Einstein's ultimate theory of the unified field, true singularities of the field did have trajectories resembling point particles. However, singularities are places where the equations break down, and Einstein believed that in an ultimate theory the laws should apply everywhere, with particles being soliton-like solutions to the (highly nonlinear) field equations. Further, the large-scale topology of the universe should impose restrictions on the solutions, such as quantization or discrete symmetries.

Einstein became increasingly isolated in his research on a generalized theory of gravitation, and most physicists consider his attempts ultimately unsuccessful.

Eddington thought that the cosmological constant version of the general-relativistic field equation expressed the property that the universe was "self-gauging".

Eddington considered that in the Einstein field equations for general relativity the stress-energy tensor Tμν, which represents matter/energy, was merely provisional, and that in a truly unified theory the source term would automatically arise as some aspect of the free-space field equations. He also shared the hope that an improved fundamental theory would explain why the two elementary particles then known (proton and electron) have quite different masses.

See also; Gönner, 2005
http://relativity.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrr-2004-2&page=articlese6.html

Is it just a coincidence that all of the anthropic ecobalances that make-up the goldilocks enigma are also "self-regulating"... just like every other known ecosystem is?

Like the flatness of the universe, in Einstein's static model, G=0 when gravitational pressure is absolutely offset by negative vacuum pressure.

He brought in the cosmological constant to counterbalance the runaway recollapse effect that occurs in this model because of the obvious fact that we do have matter, but in order to get rho>0 from Einstein's matter-less spacetime structure, you have to condense the matter density from the zero pressure metric, and in doing so the pressure of the vacuum necessarily becomes less than zero, P<0, which causes expansion.

*Note that the mass-density of the background changes every time that you do this.

Einstein didn't introduce the counter-balancing cosmological constant with matter generation from the vacuum in mind, so he didn't like it, because without this knowledge he naturally concluded that it added an undesirable extra entity, so the logic that was used to reject the cosmological constant when it was discovered that the universe is expanding was sound in context with the knowledge of the time, but this is not the case given knowledge that the vacuum has real, massive, particle potential.

It is plainly evident from this that most natural way to create new matter in Einstein's model, ("the most compatible with the spirit of general relativity"), also holds it flat and stable, (it is "self-guaging"), so any other conclusions that have been made since Einstein abandoned his finite universe without this knowledge are therefore subject to suspect review!

This does not conflict with quantum field theory. As with QFT, the normal distribution of energy does not contribute to particle creation. You have to condense or compress the energy down over a finite enough region of space to attain the matter density in before the virtual pair can be made real.

So where does it go from here?... if we are unable to disprove Einstein's finite closed spherical universe, given this "new-light" on the subject?... which no honest physicists has ever even tried to do, because they also recognize this as the same mechanism that gets used in modern inflationary models to generate mass at a great expense to negative pressure.

This physics predicts a higgs mechanism, but no higgs boson, which isn't to say that the playing field hasn't already been narrowed significantly in recent tests done by the smaller particle accelerators as the confidence level for this result climbs.

Inflationary Theory... A Warped Speculation

2007-02-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

The article that's linked in the title talks about how Alan Guth recently held-up a picture of a monkey to portray Neil Turok and what he thought of his cyclic cosmology. Well, Neil Turok can take heart in knowing that there is theoretical support that indicates that the so-called "evidence for inflationary theory" can just as easily mean something that doesn't require band-aids to big bang theory, like inflationary theory, in order to account for the flatness and horizon problems, but especially the magnetic monopole problem... i.e., observational inconsistencies. When you project backwards to the point that extraordinarily rapid expansion becomes necessary, then the most obvious solution to the problem without inflation is simply that the universe had certain volume when the big bang occurred, and... duh'.

Well, "lo.and.behold" that's exactly where we find - "RE-Heating and Thermalization"... surprise... surprise. Could it be that we were in such a big hurry to get to a **pre-assumed** cosmic singularity that we did not pay attention to what projecting the physics backwards was telling us?... I think so...

The actual mechanism that is behind inflation is not even known, but the theory is designed to make predictions that can be matched to the observational data, so it's success at accomplishing this has enabled inflationary theory to become a part of the standard hot big bang cosmology in spite of its many known flaws, and even though it has only been partially justified. The hypothetical particle or field thought to be responsible for inflation is now called the "inflaton"... uh-huh, prove it.

Since all attempts at grand unification have failed, it is now assumed that inflation will be included in a supersymmetric theory, (like string theory), or maybe a supersymmetric grand unified theory, because they can't handle the most apparent implication for a pre-existing time asymmetry, I guess. The standard interpretation is that thermodynamic arrow of time necessarily requires low entropy initial conditions, which John Page pointed-out would be extremely improbable. Rather than solving this problem, the inflation theory further aggravates it because the reheating or thermalization at the end of the inflation era, necessarily increases entropy, meaning that the initial state of the universe had to be even more orderly than in other Big Bang theories that don't have an inflationary phase.

As I noted a couple of posts ago, Lawrence Krauss pointed out that the amplitude of the quadrupole moment of the CMBR is unexpectedly low, and the other low multipoles are observed to be preferentially aligned with the ecliptic plane. This is a signature of what is known as, "non-Gaussianity", which contradicts the simplest models of inflation, requiring more bandaids and cream.

If the microwave background at the multipoles is correlated with the geometry and direction of motion of the solar system, and the incoherence manifests via octopole and quadrupole components in a closed and bounded universe, then there should be a center of gravity at the center of the visible universe that correlates to the ecliptic.

So maybe we're not exactly the "center" of the universe as Krauss thought, rather we're on a centrally preferred "plane" along with a lot of other similarly evolved galaxies, which, with very high probability, will include similarly developed environments and carbon based life, per this Goldilocks Enigma...

Our Darwinian Universe

2007-02-23T14:24:00.001-05:00

Instead of being “designed”, think of the observed anthropic cosmological constraint on the forces of the universe as an *inherent* energy conservation law that enables the universe to periodically “leap/bang” to higher orders of the same basic configuration in order to preserve causality, the arrow of time, and the second law of thermodynamics... indefinitely... ... ...

Then you have a perpetually evolving structure, where all of the so-called "anthropic problems" are resolved without need for apparent absurdities, like inflation or a singularity, when a causally connected universe with volume has a big bang, which also resolves all of the “anthropic problems”, found here, as well as the rest of them:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html

The following is one of many valid examples that can be found on this site of the physics that proves how this mechanism works via asymmetric transitions that occur when we and others like us make matter/antimatter particles from the rarefied mass-energy which comprises this vacuum that science abandoned long-ago:

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html

(this new information makes apparent the cosmological model naturally produces a theory of quantum gravity in a constantly changing background.)

Open challenge

This is the asymmetrical thermodynamic function, as it is referred to by Richard Dawkins as the "anti-chance mechanism" of natural selection:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASYMTRANS.html

Dawkins said:
Natural selection is an anti-chance process, which gradually builds up complexity, step by tiny step. The end product of this ratcheting process is an eye, or a heart, or a brain - a device whose improbable complexity is utterly baffling until you spot the gentle ramp that leads up to it.

Illustrated:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASYMILL.html

An Antrhopic Cosmological Principle necessarily defines a Darwinian Universe.

The Goldilocks Enigma, again...

2007-02-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

Circumstellar Habitable Zone - Ecobalance - Ecosphere

The evolving physics that define the vast array of coincidetally balanced, "just-right" conditions that make up the Goldilocks Enigma, ranges dramatically in magnitude and time, from the near-"flat", balanced structuring of the universe, itself, all the way down to our own local self-regulating ecobalance, whose chaotic cycles we directly contribute to enhance over time. These "ecospheres" began unfolding at the moment of the big bang, but it took most of 14 billion years to bring them all to "fruition", so claims that this structure defining physics isn't **necessarily** pointed directly at carbon based life, are, at least *apparently* absurd, and must be justified with something more than "somewhat" established cutting-edge physics speculations.

The relevant anthropic physics isn't strictly geocentric, however, because the same conditions also apply to other galaxy systems that are similarly evolved, time and location-wise, as ours is:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html

The Goldilocks Enigma constrains the parameters to a balance of extremes... so it only applies to the ecosphere of galaxies that formed on the same evolutionary time/location "plane" as we did. Planets orbiting stars in galaxies that are too old or too new, too large or too small, do not fit the "coincidentally balanced" nature as the average of extremes... etc... etc... ect... all the way down to the local ecobalances of the ones that do, and life will only arise on planets in galaxies, (and universes), where ALL of the anthropic coincidences are simultaneously in effect.

The "cosmological principle" derives a "mediocre" a priori statistical distribution of values of observables, but this is not what is observed and is the reason for the anthropic physics that defines the "Goldilocks Enigma", so the combined effect of the cosmological principle with the goldilocks constraint extends to the observed universe to produce a biocentric cosmological principle.

This also addresses the alleged, Fermi "Paradox", as well, since we should not *yet* expect to hear from similarly developed intelligent life, because their radio transmissions have not had time to reach us... *yet*... either.

That's a testable prediction about where and when life will most likely be found elsewhere in the universe.

This paper by A. Feoli, and S. Rampone, further discusses this in context with similarly developed systems, but they fail to take the balance of extremes that defines the "Goldilocks Enigma" into account here, because they apply the mediocrity principle, instead, so their formula and anthropic statement are not quite accurately inserted into their large scale equation, as would be the case if they'd considered the entire set of anthropic balance points that evolve, so their solution and anthropic statement are generalized and overstated, rather than being specific and pointed toward a fine layer of similarly evolved galaxies, stars, and planets:

"Is the Strong Anthropic Principle Too Weak?"
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9812093

We discuss the Carter's formula about the mankind evolution probability following the derivation proposed by Barrow and Tipler. We stress the relation between the existence of billions of galaxies and the evolution of at least one intelligent life, whose living time is not trivial, all over the Universe. We show that the existence probability and the lifetime of a civilization depend not only on the evolutionary critical steps, but also on the number of places where the life can arise. In the light of these results, we propose a stronger version of Anthropic Principle.

When you apply the Goldilocks Enigma, rather than the mediocrity principle, then a much more accurate and testable formula falls-out along with a more accurate statement about a strong biocentric principle, so this "coincidental" Enigma extends to include every similarly evolved galaxy that exists in the same common "layer" of galaxies as we do. The average of extreme opposing runaway tendencies that are common to the anthropic coincidences make many testable predictions about the observed universe.

Like, life, (past or present), will not be found on Mars nor Venus, but it will be found in other galaxy systems along the layer of spacetime that makes-up the goldilocks enigma. Venus suffers from the runaway greenhouse effect, whereas Mars represents the cold stagnate proof of what will happen if extremist environmentalists get things all their way too, so heed the lesson of this anthropic coincidence.

A Very Strong Anthropic Principle

2006-11-07T19:59:00.000-05:00

Steven Weinberg quoted by Susskind in and interview by Greg Ross of American Scientist

Finally, I have heard the objection that, in trying to explain why the laws of nature are so well suited for the appearance and evolution of life, anthropic arguments take on some of the flavor of religion. I think that just the opposite is the case. Just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the wonderful adaptations of living forms could arise without supernatural intervention, so the string landscape may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator. I found this parallel well understood in a surprising place, a New York Times op-ed article by Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna. His article concludes as follows:

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence.

There is evident irony in the fact that the cardinal seems to understand the issue much better than some physicists
-Greg Ross

That's not "irony", Greg, it is what Brandon Carter correctly identified as, "anticentrist dogma"... and it still does rule the minds of the vast majority of physicists.

Good reasons why science should not ignore the most apparent implications of the physics.

Evidence - Implication - Theory

1) It is an unavoidable fact that the anthropic coincidences are observed to be uniquely related to the structuring of the universe in a way that defies the most natural expectation for the evolution of the universe in a manner that is also highly-pointed toward the production of carbon based life at a specific time in its history, (and over an equally specific, fine-layer or region of the goldilocks zone of the observed universe). If you disallow unproven and speculative physics theory, then an evidentially supported implication does necessarily exist that carbon-based life is somehow "specially" relevant to the structure mechanism of the universe, and weak, multiverse interpretations do not supercede this fact, unless a multiverse is proven to be more than cutting-edge theoretical speculation.

That's the "undeniable fact" that compells Richard Dawkins and Leonard Susskind to admit that the universe "appears designed" for life! There is no valid "weak" interpretation without a multiverse, because what is otherwise unexpectedly observed without the admission of speculation, is most-apparently geared toward the production of carbon-base life, and even intelligent life. Their confidence comes from the fact that their admissions are qualified by their shared "beleif" in unproven multiverse theories, but their interpretation is strictly limited to equally non-evidenced "causes", like supernatural forces and intelligent design.

These arguments do not erase the fact that the prevailing evidence still most apparentely does indicate that we are somehow relevantly linked to the structure mechanism, until they prove it isn't so, so we must remain open to evidence in support of this, or we are not honest scientists, and we are no better than those who would intentionally abuse the science. We certainly do not automatically dismiss the "appearance" by first looking for rationale around the most apparent implication of evidence.

That's like pretending that your number one suspect doesn't even exist! There can be nothing other than self-dishonesty and pre-conceived prejudicial anticipation of the meaning that motivates this approach, and often *automatically* elicites false, ill-considered, and, therefore, necessarily flawed assumptions, that most often elicite equally false accusations about "geocentrism" and "creationism". That's not science, it's irrational reactionary skepticism that is driven without justification by sheer disbelief and denial.

2) At the very least, we can't honestly deny that an evidentially supported implication for a direct anthropic connection to the forces *most-apparently* does exist, unless we are willing to say that Leonard Susskind and Richard Dawkins, (as well as other historically noted and respected physicists), are lying to us about their true perception of the evidence. We must, therefore, be open to science that might be indicitive of this, or we cannot call ourselves honest unbiased scientists.

As such, it is unavoidable that we embrace the logically implicated possibilty that a true anthropic constraint on the forces of the universe might *necessarily* include a reciprocal connection to the human evolutionary process. Scientists should think long and hard about that, because this relates the human evolutionary process to the ever elusive structure mechanism, so the answer to the riddle of the near-flat expanding universe, as well as the rest of the anthropic coincidences, is expected to be revealed via this asymmetrical thermodynamic function, per the least action principle.

Given the potential impact that this has on the most accurate cosmological principle and model, any remote possibility that the above is true should be more than enough to make it so that it's not unreasonable to expect scientists giving equal time to this *distinct* possibility, since, (per the open admission of our mentioned scientists), the anthropic connection is the first *most-apparent* implication of the evidence without an infinite sea of potential to lose the *most obvious* implication in. There can't be any argument about the fact that the strong biocentric implication exists, unless someone can prove that the multiverse exists, or if you can otherwise prove that the stability mechansim is not inherently geared toward the production of carbon based life for some very practical physical reason, over a "golden region" of the observed universe.

That's what makes Leonard Susskind say that "we will be hard-pressed to answer the IDists"... if the landscape fails, although Lenny doesn't seem to be aware that *natural bias* is the default, if we're not here by accident, so ID doesn't even enter the picture and can't be inferred without direct proof. If we are not here by accident, then the default scientific approach is that there is simply some relevant physical reason why we are "needed" into existence by the natural physical process of our evolving universe, and this is what our intricate link to the commonly-balanced nature of the forces most logically indicates is going to be the case.

There is no valid basis for invoking weak multiverse interpretations to wipe-away the otherwise indicated significance, unless you're just debating with an extremist creationist. A scientist is obligated to accept the fact that she or he is being directed toward a bunch of balance points in nature that are intricately related to both the structure of the universe and the existence of carbon based life, and this is expected to somehow account for the otherwise completely unexpected structuring of the universe.

You can know that you're dealing with a self-dishonest scientist if they do not recognize that the above statements are factual and correct.

Anybody that wants to try, is welcome to prove me wrong about any of the above statements, if only you could...

String Theorists on the Anthropic Principle

2006-10-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

String theorist:
The weak anthropic principle is a selection effect.

Me:
No, that's not necessarily true. For example; The weak anthropic principle as defined by Tipler and Barrow describes the general form of the special case if there is only one possible configuration that the universe can take.

String theorist:
One possible universe?!?!... What ever gave you that crazy idea?

Me:
The least action principle.

String theorist:
phhhht... we gave up on that years ago, the multiverse is the only way, you can even ask Richard Dawkins and Lenny Susskind!

Me:
Oh, sorry, I forgot that you guys gave up doing real physics, for religion.

String theorist:
Look, you're a crackpot, because you don't believe in unproven assumptions.

Me:
Indeed, you mean, because I trust what the physics indicates, that carbon based life is weaved into the path of least action in a relevant way.

String theorist:
You're a crackpot because you think that carbon based life might be weaved into the path of least action in some relevant way, and I can deny without justification all evidence that you provide to support it.

Me:
Indeed.

String theorist:
Selection effects Selection effects Selection effects!!!

Richard Dawkins and the Anthropic Principle, again...

2006-10-20T20:23:00.000-05:00

"Natural selection is an anti-chance process, which gradually builds up complexity, step by tiny step. The end product of this ratcheting process is an eye, or a heart, or a brain - a device whose improbable complexity is utterly baffling until you spot the gentle ramp that leads up to it."

Asymmetric transitions
Illustrated

This is also what happens when we make real, massive particles from vacuum energy, and they even make the connection to vacuum energy as it relates to spontaneous symmetry breaking from zero-point energy at the bottom of the first linked page. It also defines the mechanism for the anthropic principle... as roughly defined, here:

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html

This fixes the flaw in particle theory, and the gravitational flaw in Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis, not to mention what it does to inflationary theory and string theory as well as loopy theories and the standard model at the higgs scale... where they're predictably finding nothing.

I told Lee Smolin and a bunch of other theorists about this, and the closest thing that I got back to a reply was from Lawrence Krauss, who "sees no purpose in nature".

Course, he's also the same guy that said this, so I have to wonder what it takes:

"But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe."

Richard Dawkins and the Anthropic Principle

2006-10-18T10:04:00.000-05:00

WHOO HOO!... have I got a live one on here...

Take a look at the rationale that this clown is using to avoid my points.

Pathetic, but perhaps I let him have it for it with a little too much enthusiasm... ;)

I can't resist bringing this quote in here though, because Dawkins and Lenny are both looking more like IDists every day... haha!

Richard Dawkins said:
On an even larger scale, it’s frequently stated that we’re somehow in a privileged universe with properties “just right” for life. Thus, by the same reasoning, and the anthropic principle, it’s reasonable to invoke the possibility of multiple universes to account for that apparent improbability.

So if the multiverse and the "landscape" fails, then Richard Dawkins is an IDist by rights, because he's too lame to realize that there is a perfectly natural explanation for this that doesn't require his leap of faith to unobserved "what-if's".

UPDATE
Okay, I'm half tempted to give my "opponent" more credit than I originally did, because he now seems resigned to my point, but silence rather than an honest open admission typically means that they don't buy it, but they simply don't have a better argument, so their method is to sit in silent denial in lieu of a better argument coming their way. Granted, I did not at first address every point, but all along, Jon ignored the fact that my last point, (the one that he finally "acknowledged"), was also in my first post.

What I cannot fathom is how anyone reading the exchange could possibly see me as losing this argument, but the most unexpected people will sometimes come along and say something really dumb that translates to something like... You lose because you show disrespect for dishonesty in science... and/or you have a history of showing disrespect toward rabid fanatics. AND... What papers have you written?... because I can't seem to judge the validity of very simple physics or the proper avenue of scientific pursuit for myself.

And THAT is what they base their freaking opinion on...

The Anthropic Principle is NOT a tautology

2006-10-13T18:15:00.000-05:00

The fact that conditions be conducive and that we exist must necessarily be true does not make for a cosmological principle.

The fact that the actual observed structure of the universe occurs in dramatic contrast to the modeled expectation... where *many* fixed balance points are commonly or "coincidentally" pointing directly toward carbon-based life, *does* indicate that there is some good physical reason for this otherwise completely unexpected structuring, that is somehow "specially" related to the existence of carbon-based life.

The Anthropic Principle is a cosmological principle, so you most certainly *can* falsify it if you can show that the *surprising* configuration that we ended up with isn't contingent on the existence of carbon-based life, as is indicated by the physics that drove physicists to formalize the observtion as an "ecological correction" to the cosmological principle, which erroneously extends mediocrity where it does not apply.

Absolute Symmetry

2006-10-10T19:00:00.000-05:00

It should be self-evident that the observed near-perfectly balanced structuring of our universe is indicitive that the big bang was an effort that was *aimed* toward absolute symmetry as the nearly missed goal of the effort.

The fact that the near-miss was extremely closer to absolute than not, is a dead give-away that this was a very nearly-missed attempt at perfection.

The time asymmetry is most apparently indicitive of an inherent imbalance, which will necessarily move to be satisfied, but the near-perfectly balanced configuration indicates that this effort produces the most energy-efficient structuring for economically achieving this "goal".

It should be equally obvious that it is inherent asymmetry which prevents this apparent "goal" from ever being attained, but the energy-maximizing configuration indicates that energy is universally conserved by the similarly balanced anthropic anomalies.

Makes you wonder where scientists gets their crazy ideas otherwise... ;)

Answering Paul Davies Plea for Sanity

2006-10-09T12:53:00.000-05:00

“I wanted to get away from the feeling in so many scientific quarters that life and human beings are a completely irrelevant embellishment, a side issue of no significance. I don’t think we’re the centre of the universe or the pinnacle of creation, but the fact that human beings have the ability to understand how the world is put together is something that cries out for explanation.”

I copied the following few paragraphs from various parts of this book reivew of The Goldilocks Enigma in order to point out the problems and the solution that Davies rightfully says is necessary:

Why is the cosmos ideally set up to support life? Physicist Paul Davies tells Stuart Wavell about the point where science meets religion.
Goldilocks and the riddle of the perfect universe

Anyone expecting Davies to recant his non-religious views and join the intelligent design lobby will be disappointed. “We can’t dump all this in the lap of an arbitrary god and say we can’t inquire any further,” he says. “The universe looks ingenious, it looks like a fix, and words like meaning and purpose come to mind. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a miracle-working cosmic magician meddling with events.”

Then there’s the viewpoint of Richard Dawkins, the ardent Darwinist and recent author of The God Delusion, who holds that life is essentially pointless and came about by chance before natural selection took over. Close compares Dawkins to religious fundamentalists, “who know they are right in their position, just as Richard knows he is right in his position”.

Davies wants to rise above such bickering. “I want to get away from this notion that something has to be accepted on faith,” he says. “That just becomes a sterile argument. These people can argue all night, but you’re never going to prove or disprove the other person’s position.”

The only way to satisfy Davies plea is to explain how the Anthropic constraint on the forces unifies them into a theory of everything:

In quantum field theory, a postiron has the same gravitational properties as an electron because the negative energy states are really the postivite energy states of antiparticles. That means that matter generation from this energy makes no difference to the gravity of the universe, and even general relativity supports this conclusion if the universe is infinite, since gravity is essentially curvature that caused by the energy that's contained in a region of space. In this situation, pair production changes this energy from photons to the mass of other particle pairs, but the energy curvature and gravitation of the universe remain the same.

But that's not what happens if the universe is finite.

You can't condense huge volumes of rarefied mass-energy from a finite closed vacuum and then contain the matter energy-density to a finite region of space without increasing negative pressure, because the gravitational acceleraton is zero when the density of the vacuum is -0.5*rho(matter).

This drastically changes the effect when... rho+3P/c^2=0 in a finite universe, because you have no choice but to condense this energy in order to attain the matter density when the negative energy states have negative pressure, because... P=-u=-rho*c^2

So there is no net change on the gravity of the universe, because the effect is two-fold... an increasing antigravitational *effect* is offset by increase in positive gravitational curvature.

But that means that tension between the vacuum must increase as particle pair creation drives vacuum expansion if the universe is finite, and the offset increase in both, negative pressure, and positive gavitational curvature necessarily holds the vaccum flat and stable as it expands, so it cannot run-away! Increasing tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter leads to a prediction that the integrity of the forces that bind this finite structure will surely eventually be compromised by this process and we will have another big bang.

So the second law of thermodynamics is never violated when the entropy of the universe always increases via the described perpetually inherent thermodynamic structuring, which enables the universe to continuously "evolve".

1) A literal anthropic constraint on the forces.
2) The basic tennents of evolutionary theory are correct.

Burton Richter - Physics Today

2006-10-04T10:54:00.000-05:00

The anthropic principle is an observation, not an explanation. To believe otherwise is to believe that our emergence at a late date in the universe is what forced the constants to be set as they are at the beginning. If you believe that, you are a creationist.

As with many experimentalists, this Nobel Laureate deserves a lot of respect for his knowledge of both experiment and theory, so I need to walk on egg-shells, but his statement above is wrong, as are most of the rest of the statements that he makes about the anthropic principle, and it is for the same reason that I commonly run into, which is this:

Scientists don't seriously believe that any form of real anthropic preference is even possible, so they simply don't bother to learn enough about it to think about it in that context. For this reason they apparently don't understand that statements that ignore any part of the following are not going to be anywhere near accurate:

The observed structure of the universe occurs in dramatic contrast to the modeled expectation... so many fixed balance points that are commonly or "coincidentally" pointing directly toward carbon-based life indicate that there is some good physical reason for it that is somehow "specially" related to the existence of carbon-based life.

If you bear in mind all of the relevant information of the above statement, then it becomes very obvious what assertions like the following neglect to consider:

The cosmological anthropic principle says that since we exist, the universe must have evolved in a way that allows us to exist.

It is true, for example, that the fine structure constant α has to be close to 1/137 for carbon atoms to exist, and carbon atoms are required for us to be here writing about cosmology. However, these arguments have nothing to do with explaining what physical laws led to this particular value of α. An interesting relevant recent paper by Roni Harnik, Graham Kribs, and Gilad Perez demonstrates a universe with our values of the electromagnetic and strong coupling constants, but with a zero weak coupling constant. Their alternative universe has Big-Bang nucleosynthesis, carbon chemistry, stars that shine for billions of years, and the potential for sentient observers that ours has. Our universe is not the only one that can support life, and some constants are not anthropically essential.

We talk about the Big Bang, string theory, the number of dimensions of spacetime, dark energy, and more. All the anthropic principle says about those ideas is that as you make your theories you had better make sure that α can come out to be 1/137; that constraint has to be obeyed to allow theory to agree with experiment. I have a very hard time accepting the fact that some of our distinguished theorists do not understand the difference between observation and explanation, but it seems to be so.

Richter then referenced this paper to support his statements:

A Universe Without Weak Interactions
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0604027

With full benefit of the doubt in place, I can only conclude that Burton Richter doesn't know how important it is to refrain from dissecting the complete statement:

Problems in a weakless universe
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0609050

The fact that life has evolved in our universe constrains the laws of physics. The anthropic principle proposes that these constraints are sometimes very tight and can be used to explain in a sense the corresponding laws. Recently a "disproof" of the anthropic principle has been proposed in the form of a universe without weak interactions, but with other parameters suitably tuned to nevertheless allow life to develop. If a universe with such different physics from ours can generate life, the anthropic principle is undermined. We point out, however, that on closer examination the proposed "weakless" universe strongly inhibits the development of life in several different ways. One of the most critical barriers is that a weakless universe is unlikely to produce enough oxygen to support life. Since oxygen is an essential element in both water, the universal solvent needed for life, and in each of the four bases forming the DNA code for known living beings, we strongly question the hypothesis that a universe without weak interactions could generate life.

I honestly don't want to be too hard on Burton Richter, but this problem is too common among scientists who sorely misrepresent the relevant physics simply because they have dismissed the possibility for any real anthropic preference out of hand, without any real consideration for possibilites. All the imagination in the world for any other possibility, but a complete lack thereof when it comes to this.

How can you possibly expect to ever explain what physical laws led to this particular value of α... if you're not willing to recognize that ALL of the anthropic coincidences point commonly or "coincidentally" toward carbon-based life, all the way down to the local ecobalance that enables our existence, so there is a clear indication that there is some good physical reason for it that is somehow "specially" related to the existence of carbon-based life?

The anthropic principle is an observation, not an explanation. To believe otherwise is to believe that our emergence at a late date in the universe is what forced the constants to be set as they are at the beginning. If you believe that, you are a creationist.

No, I'm sorry, that's false, and your non-scientific "belief" will necessarily obscure your view of reality, so it's pretty much guaranteed that you will never find the answer that you seek as long as you are unwilling to entertain the implication for true anthropic preference.

It's a number provided to us by nature... and a physicist believes that a theory will someday provide a reason for it...
-Paul Dirac

The Goldilocks Enigma

2006-09-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

Edited:

observer.guardian.co.uk
Paul Davies goes a long way towards suggesting that he believes the creation of life to be somehow the 'goal' of the universe without suggesting that it is the work of a higher intelligence or God. That is to say he tends towards the belief that the principle of life 'builds purpose into the workings of the cosmos at a fundamental (rather than an incidental) level, without positing an unexplained pre-existing purposive agent to inject purpose miraculously.' This belief is his tentative solution to the 'Goldilocks Enigma', the 'reason' why planets such as our own are 'not too hot and not too cold but just right'.

The evolutionary physics that defines the "just-right" conditions for the goldilocks constraint applies to other systems that are similarly developed, time and location-wise, as ours is:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthropic.html

The goldilocks enigma constrains the parameters to a balance of extremes... so it only applies to galaxies that formed on the same evolutionary time/location "plane" as we did. Planets orbiting stars in galaxies that are too old or too new, too large or too small, do not fit the "coincidentally balanced" nature as the average of extremes... etc... etc... ect... all the way down to the local ecobalances of the ones that do:

http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073181.html

This also resolves the alleged, Fermi "Paradox", as well, since we should not YET expect to hear from similarly developed intelligent life, because their radio transmissions have not had time to reach us... YET... either.

Um... just an FYI, but that's a testable prediction about where and when life will most likely be found elsewhere in the universe.

This paper by A. Feoli, and S. Rampone, further discusses this in context with similarly developed systems, but they fail to take the balance of extremes that defines the "Goldilocks Enigma" into account here, because they apply the mediocrity principle, instead, so their formula and anthropic statement are not quite accurately inserted into the Drake Equation, as would be the case if they'd considered the entire set of anthropic balance points that evolve, (time and location-wise), from the observed, nearly-balanced stucture of the universe itself, all the way down to our own local ecobalance... so their solution and anthropic statement are dramatically generalized and overstated, rather than being specific and pointed toward a fine layer of similarly evolved galaxies, stars, and planets:

"Is the Strong Anthropic Principle Too Weak?"
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9812093

We discuss the Carter's formula about the mankind evolution probability following the derivation proposed by Barrow and Tipler. We stress the relation between the existence of billions of galaxies and the evolution of at least one intelligent life, whose living time is not trivial, all over the Universe. We show that the existence probability and the lifetime of a civilization depend not only on the evolutionary critical steps, but also on the number of places where the life can arise. In the light of these results, we propose a stronger version of Anthropic Principle.

... and uh... when you apply the Goldilocks Enigma, rather than the mediocrity principle, to the Drake Equation, then a much more accurate and testable formula falls-out along with a more accurate statement about a strong biocentric principle... just in case nobody noticed.

UPDATE:
Peter Woit made the following statement in the comments section of his "rewiew" of Davies' book, and it is important as it applies to this thread, so I'm bringing it in now:

The “principle of mediocrity”, or more generally, the use of a multiverse model that gives an a priori statistical distribution of values of observables, combined with the anthropic principle as a selection effect, can in certain cases give predictions.

As this applies to our obseverd universe.

The "cosmological principle" gives a "mediocre" multiverse-"like" priori statistical distribution of values of observables, but this is not what is observed and is the reason for the anthropic physics that defines the "Goldilocks Enigma", so the combined effect of the Cosmological Principle with the Goldilocks Constraint... defines a Biocentric Cosmological Principle.

The average of extreme opposing runaway tendencies that are common to the anthropic coincidences make many testable predictions about the observed universe.

Like, life will not be found on Mars or Venus, but it will be found in other systems that meet the goldilocks criterion.

'Read em, and weep'... where "weep" is like a code-word to anticentrists to willfully ignore the hard evidence.

Failure of the System... and they want me to get a PhD!

2006-09-27T09:59:00.000-05:00

The failure of string theory "is not so much a particular theory but a style of doing science that was well suited to the problems we faced in the middle part of the twentieth century but is ill suited to the kinds of fundamental problems we face now." According to Mr. Smolin, there are five such fundamental problems for which we need a new style of science to solve:

1. Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is called the problem of quantum gravity.

2. Resolve the problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics, either by making sense of the theory as it stands or by inventing a new theory that does make sense.

3. Determine whether or not the various particles and forces can be unified in a theory that explains them all as manifestations of a single, fundamental entity.

4. Explain how the values of the free constants in the standard model of particle physics are chosen in nature.

Yet, for Mr. Smolin, the deeper problem is not string theory per se; it is in the social structure of science itself. In a penultimate chapter on "how science really works," Mr. Smolin sings the praises of thinking outside of the box, including and especially the staid and delimiting box of academia. The system is set up to create scientists who are risk-averse, and granting tenure doesn't help: "Too much job security, too much power, and too little accountability for older people. Too little job security, too little power, and too much accountability for younger people in the prime of their creative, risk-taking years."

Mr. Smolin concludes that we must do two things: "We must recognize and fight the symptoms of groupthink, and we must open the doors to a wide range of independent thinkers, being sure to make room for the peculiar characters needed to make a revolution." How can you spot one of these young revolutionaries? Easy. Find someone already doing science this way, or "find at least one accomplished person in the candidate's field who is deeply excited about what the candidate is trying to do," and, just to be sure, "find at least one professor who thinks the candidate is a terrible scientist and bound to fail."

Fringe Science, huh?

2006-09-26T18:41:00.000-05:00

I've been hearing the term, "fringe" lately from a "few" people who actually know enough about the subject to know better than to completely deny real physics when they see it, but who don't seem to understand a few things about how science works in this case, per the scientific method, to determine the preferred theory:

The anthropic physics will obviously carry different meanings, depending upon which cosmological model is actually in effect, so that's the reason that the interpretation of the anthropic physics that is commonly discussed here is anything but "fringe", because Einstein's General Theory with a cosmological constant is still the most conservative mainstream approach to explaining an expanding universe, contrary to popularized hype about whatever speculated exotic energy, like, "quintessence" or whatever other craziness.

There also seems to be some misunderstanding of what is expected of me because of advanced math which can still be done from this that appears to be directly relevant to quantum gravity.

Well, that's wrong, because I don't have to prove a damned thing about quantum gravity to make my point, and so anybody that wants to write down that part of it will surely get the credit, and all I can say, given the current lack of progress in quantum gravity, is, that's... "your loss"... because I don't need it.

It's one thing if there is no indication for it, but I have repeatedly demonstrated to the relevant powers that be that there is good reason to look.

Regardless of any of that, I've given very clear evidence that the most natural extension of Dr. Einstein's general theory with a cosmological constant is and always was valid, until proven otherwise, so it isn't me that's violating the scientific method, kids.

And as Dr. E would no doubt tell you... the anthropic physics in that cosmological model derives that his very own concept of purpose in nature had been vindicated, and "god"... damned sure does not throw dice!'.

So I really don't see where or how the ball is supposed to be in my court to do a damned thing, because I'm not the one that has made a bunch of otherwise unfounded assumptions.

It is a fact as it stands now that you guys are all dead-wrong and looking real stupid in Einstein's eyes, until you prove HIM wrong, since I have repeatedly demonstrated that this is not just my imagination.

I really wish that some nice PhD that may be looking-in again would speak-up to explain to me why modern physics treats Einstein's with such disrespect, considering that they are apparently much further from being correct than he ever was.

Quackery or Honest Decent Scientific Observation?

2006-09-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

Given the following, (which isn't even a scientific stretch, since Wheeler proved that number 1 is theoretically plausible, and nobody that can honestly read the writing on the wall is going to dispute number 2):

1) A literal anthropic constraint on the forces.
2) The basic tennents of evolutionary theory are correct.

Then there is a self-evident prediction that falls, because it would be utterly absurd to think that a true anthropic constraint on the forces would not *necessarily* include the human evolutionary process, so it is NOT unreasonable to ask in a scientific context if the INDICATED reciprocal connection means that there is a mechanism that scientists should look for, which would enable our universe to "leap" *relatively rapidly* to a higher odering of the same basic structure, because this sure as heck would explain a lot of stuff in perfect context with direct observation, including the asymmetry problem, the flatness problem, the horizon problem, etc etc etc... don't forget causality!

Number 2 is, of course, the well supported theory of evolution, and number 1 is supported by the fact that the actual structure of the universe occurs in **dramatic contrast** to the modeled **expectation**... so many fixed balance points that are commonly or "coincidentally" pointing directly toward carbon-based life, indicate that there is some good physical reason for it that is somehow "specially" related to the existence of carbon-based life.

If it's right, then it is readily supportable and everything falls into place easily, (which, it does), to define the preferred theory, since it resolves the mentioned problems way more simply than any current approach, but that's just the way that it falls out, this has nothing to do with me, so my honest observations do not warrent that people automatically reject, thereby insulting me for making them. That makes me say to myself that these people already have their non-scientific minds made-up right from the get-go, and history proves that they will recognize nothing that you offer as evidence after that.

All I'm after here is an honest admission that this is quite evident given two scientifically supported features of our world that relate our existence to our observed universe, but I'm NOT asking for a multiverse theory or any other rationale for why it might not be true.

"They" really hate this because they can't use it as an excuse not to look if you take their "explain-it-away" rationale away from them, which, unfortunately, is the current pattern of modern physicists and neodarwinians alike, regardless of claims to the contrary, which are designed to cover-up their failure to fully represent science. Normally, an indication FOR something directly relevant would set-off a frenzy among scientists looking in all directions, but this is not normally restricted to looking only away from the strongest implication, unless there is some pre-existing non-scientific motivation to do so.

There is no "opinion" involved here, in other words, I'm only asking for honest recognition that it's the prediction is QUITE APPARRENTLY THERE without straining your eyes.

Good luck with that... has been my experience, and I'll guarantee you that this has nothing to do with my honesty, but it does have everything to do with people foaming at the mouth, while calling me everything from an IDist, to the arrogant reactions of snobs who pre-reject any sort of implication for anthropic specialness out of hand.

My point is that the prediction is so apparent that it is equally obvious when people are very motivated not to see it, and the fact that nobody else has figured-out something this obvious before now proves that people are also very motivated not to look any further than generic statements about it before they form their opinion, and that's just wrong, as I've clearly shown here, because of the potential science that isn't even hidden if you just open your eyes.

I don't accept pure skepticism as an excuse to be self-dishonest in order to continue with a barrage of debate rhetoric. Healthy skepticism is one thing, but the pure devil's advocate approach isn't honest.

Ground Rules For This Forum... for, "anon"

2006-09-24T11:38:00.000-05:00

Why is it that my so-called "critics" never take me up on it when I offer to take their bullshit to the moderated physics forum?

1) Shoot this down or face the music.

These links should help clear-up any questions:
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-03/msg0073465.html

In Einstein's static model, G=0 when there is no matter density.

He brought in the cosmological constant to counterbalance the runaway recollapse effect that occurs in this model because we do have matter, but in order to get rho>0 out of Einstein's matter-less spacetime structure, you have to condense the matter density from the zero pressure metric, and in doing so the pressure of the vacuum necessarily becomes less than zero, P<0, which causes expansion.

*Note that the background changes everytime that you do this.

It is plainly evident from this that most natural way to create new matter in Einstein's model, ("the most compatible with the spirit of general relativity"), also holds it flat and stable, so any other conclusions that have been made since Einstein abandoned his finite universe without this knowledge are therefore subject to suspect review!

Theorists don't always get my meaning here, and they automatically think that I'm referring to our current understanding of the quantum vacuum, but that isn't even necessary if in 1917 Dr. Einstein tells Friedmann, DeSitter and "company" that his finite expanding model is NOT unstable, because, like Hoyle's flawed steady-state model, Einsteins universe expands due to continuous particle creation, except that Einstein actually has a built-in mechanism for this!

So where does it go from here if we are unable to disprove Einstein's finite closed spherical universe, given this "new-light" on the subject?... which no honest physicists has ever even tried to do.

2) Add the anthropic principle to this finite, closed, bounded structure and what you get is a very strong statement about biocentric structure that "evolves" perpetually forward to higher orders of entropic efficiency.

Don't hand me ANY crap unless you can disprove number one, or, failing that, don't forget that it is the default cosmological model with all the ugly trimmings, until you do.

Calling Out My Critic

2006-09-24T05:56:00.000-05:00

Anonymous said...
Guys like John Baez do real physics research. You play at doing physics research.

I've been a very respectful follower of John Baez for more years than I'd care to admit, and I have on many occassions reached for his wisdom when an authoritative "appeal" was needed, because I could always count on him for the most conservative mainstream approach to doing *honest* physics. I have great respect for his ability to communicate and teach, as well, in fact, it was one of his negative mass puzzles that helped me to understand what I had found here:

a href=http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2003-08/msg0053200.html

That's the simple truth, and no amount of claiming any scientist who counters your fringe theories are 'wilfully ignorant' will change that.

That's the problem, they don't. Read the linked articles to the physicist moderated research group, they DON'T counter anything, just as you've yet to offer anything except spout-off with zero meaningful content. You act like you've read enough of my blog to have the opinion that a valid working model of the most natural extension of Einstein's general theory with a cosmological constant, is "fringe".

You just don't get it, you clowns are the ones that let me down, (if I seem just a little cynical). I did nothing wrong. I was just studying gravity and following along with everybody else. You are the ones that continually fail to recognize that I have repeatedly given sufficient evidence to warrent that Einstein deserves another little look-see before you can claim a damned thing:

Back to 1917
Back 2
Back 3
Back 4

The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that "god" doesn't throw dice
Real Objects of Negative Orthodoxy, not Mass

If I'm "playing", then the rest of you are just hopelessly lost in la-la fairy-land, just like John Horgan says.

And just an FYI, but it was Brandon Carter who called your anti-anthropic mentality "anticentrist dogma", so don't blame me for verifying that he was absolutely correct until you've actually produced an argument that proves him wrong.

You're a great comedian though. All this AP stuff is comedy gold. It's kept me amused for ages.

Your idea of constructive criticism is right on par with the rest of what I've run into lately. Come back when you're ready to offer something besides absolutely meaningless rhetoric, because issue avoidance is real common and cheap, thanks anyway.

Horganism and John Baez

2006-09-23T19:10:00.000-05:00

Don’t go into particle physics! Especially don’t waste your time on string theory, or loop-space theory, or multi-universe theories, or any of the other pseudo-scientific crap in physics and cosmology that we science journalists love so much.

John Horgan's position is this, and it's not bad. He essentially thinks that he is fully qualified to know where and when things went wrong, as he was tight in the loop of cutting-edge theory when grand predictions were made by many leading physicists that did not pan out in reasonable time. He sees them as grasping at straws now, because he experienced first-hand, the break in the timeline of theoretical progress, and he is absolutely correct when he says this!

Neither String Theory, nor Loop Quantum Gravity has produced what they should have long ago, so many treasured assumptions about both are becoming more highly suspect every day. Does that stop anyone?... hell no... they just invent some more fantasy fizixes to try to fix a carried flaw, which can't be done.

None of them want to admit this, and they continue to grasp at straws, while thumbing their noses at the possibility that they missed something fundamental in the development of quantum theory, when Dirac's Equation should have unified both, SR and GR with QM, instead of only SR. These people will scoff at any suggestion in this direction, they are the "cutting-edge", after all, and some stuff about quantum theory is verified to extremely high degrees of accuracy, even though they can't tell you what that really means.

Brilliant mathematical physicists like, John Baez, do not just drop completely out of physics to purely persue math for no reason. I hope that I don't misquote him, but his explanation was a resigned admission that;

"Somebody will write down a theory of quantum gravity, but it isn't going to be me".

Guys like John Baez don't hang it up if there's any realistic hope in their mind, and I don't care what optimism for background independence or whatever new approach that he may express in public.

Guys like John Baez don't hang it up if there's any realistic hope for the methods that have most-hotly been persued.

This is a clear indication of a more-fundamental flaw than theorists are going to be willing to recognize until they are grasping for literal straws of survival as the walls of modern theoretical physics begin to crumble when John Baez' actions and public admission becomes a fulfilled prediction about a major flaw that exists in all of particle theory.

Mark my words.

Not Even Wrong... the cluelessly motivated and the willfully ignorant discuss the Anthropic Principle

2006-09-22T19:05:00.000-05:00

The Goldiocks Enigma

I can't believe that anyone would ask Peter Woit, professed fearless leader of the Loop Quantum Anthropic Priciple Haters Association... to review a book about anthropic physics:

My problem with anthropic reasoning isn’t that it is never a legitimate form of logical argument, the problem is that it may not be science, since you can’t use it to make falsifiable predictions.

Woit doesn't know that the goldilocks constraint makes testable predictions.

John Baez doesn't have a clue either.

The list goes on and on...

I've responded to John Baez on the moderated research group, but it isn't like they didn't have to willfully ignore stuff that I've already explained about it, which makes what they're saying nothing more than dogmatic denial:
[and I'll put the link here when it is approved]

I'd never experienced the unscientific motivations that actually drive theoretical physics, until I accidentally discovered the anthropic principle, myself.

But I never would have dreamed that the vast amount of knowlege that was hidden just below the surface of the biggest freaking nightmare of my life was so easy to find because only me-n-Paul Davies are honest enough to take a straight look.

Somebody shoot me.

Update:
I got rejected on my first attempt by Igor, who told me that I hadn't included any physics. So I did that and resubmitted.

Biocentric Structuring

2006-09-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

"The Millennium Simulation, used the largest supercomputer in Europe, at the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory, for over a month to model the history of the Universe in a cube over 2 billion light years on a side, holding 20 million galaxies."

Neurons

Neuron

The Millennium Simulation

Neurons

I'd hate to think what a thought might cause... ;)

Masters of the universe

2006-09-19T18:56:00.000-05:00

I really like the review that I linked in the title, and I recommend reading it in it's entirity. So much so, that I wrote to Tim Adams and told him so. Here are some segments that I cut out and they might not be in perfect context, much-less the correct sequence:

TheObserver Review

by Tim Adams

What is the purpose of existence? Is there an afterlife? Is there anyone else out there? It's not every day we confront the big questions about life, the universe and everything. But, seizing on our increased interest in this search for meaning, three of our finest thinkers - scientist Richard Dawkins, cosmologist Paul Davies and playwright Michael Frayn - are getting to grips with these existential dilemmas in their new books. Could Tim Adams find the answers?

From The Goldilocks Enigma by Paul Davies:
I do take life, mind and purpose seriously, and I concede that the universe at least appears to be designed with a high level of ingenuity. I cannot accept these features as a package of marvels which just happen to be, which exist reasonlessly. It seems to me that there is a genuine scheme of things - the universe is 'about' something. But I am equally uneasy about dumping the whole set of problems in the lap of an arbitrary god, or abandoning all further thought and declaring existence ultimately to be a mystery.

I went to see Richard Dawkins to talk about some of this at his home in Oxford.

Speaking to Dawkins you have the sense that religion has become a persistent kind of affront to him. When I put this to Paul Davies on the phone in Arizona, where he now works, he suggests that part of that is no doubt a fact of Dawkins's discipline: 'Biologists have a particular problem with the crazy Intelligent Design people [the 'American Taliban' as Dawkins has it, who persist in believing that nature is the work of a Creator] because the argument goes to the core of their subject, and it has become so politicised that it has to be constantly shot down.

I thought that this was very interesting though:

From the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins:
Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance, and to seek out graded ramps of slowly increasing complexity

STOP THE BUS!!! "Alternatives to chance" are not accidental, Richard, so are you admitting that there is a natural *HIGHER* purpose to these graded ramps? I didn't think so, it's called "double-speak" and you aren't being honest with yourself. What's new?

Davies can see a point where scientific theory of the universe and religious faith might meet, though he draws a very clear distinction between what he calls religious practice and religious philosophy. He is happy to sit down and talk with professors of theology, or accept the highly lucrative Templeton Prize (to Dawkins's scorn) which seeks to reward 'research or discoveries about spiritual realities'.

But, he says, he has no need of religion himself, beyond his sense of life-affirming laws: 'Sentient beings have a certain meaning and that lies in interpreting the observable world,' he says. 'And for me that is purpose enough. We have a partial understanding at least of how it all works. We are not the pinnacle of creation but neither are we completely insignificant either.

Happy Birthday, t' Hooft

2006-09-07T12:50:00.000-05:00

Gerard 't Hooft

Quantum Gravity as a Dissipative Deterministic System
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9903084

Determinism beneath Quantum Mechanics
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0212095

The mathematical basis for deterministic quantum mechanics
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604008

While 't Hooft's initial theory explained the uncertainty of quantum mechanics, such as the impossibility of precisely measuring both the location and momentum of a particle, it had what he considered to be a major stumbling block, because the states could end up with negative energy, which is assumed to be physically impossible, BECAUSE...

... that's the same wall that Dirac hit, and he rationalized the negative energy solutions by reinterpreting the vacuum state so that all of the negative energy states are filled, and all of the positive energy states are empty.

Dirac's theory was flawed in-spite it's success at predicting the existence of the "Positron", because it can't fully account for particles of negative energy, since it is restricted to positive energy particles, but the Quantum Field Theory representaton for this is not an accurate representation of Dirac's negative energy states.

The difference between Dirac's hole theory and quantum field theory
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0401208
Dirac's hole theory and quantum field theory are generally thought to be equivalent. In fact field theory can be derived from hole theory through the process of second quantization. However, it can be shown that problems worked in both theories yield different results.

This is the problem that keeps getting carried and compounded by orders of magnitude into every new theory, including t'Hooft's.

The negative energy solutions are the same problem that physicists have continually rationalized to become something that they are not.

KISS - Keep It Simple Stooooopid.

If you reach into the vacuum and rip out a chunk of it's energy to make a real massive particle with, then you will leave a real hole in the vacuum that will necessarily increase negative pressure and energy while driving vacuum expansion.

Don't hide from it, deal with it.

Lee Smolin and the Gentlemans Approach to Exposing String Theory...

2006-09-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

So you're calling bullshit on a big chunk of modern physics...
-Adam Rogers

Lee Smolin is an extremely non-combative dissenter to the modern approach to quantum gravity, but he also has a certain degree of fame as a respectable groundbreaking physicist, and he has written previous books on quantum gravity. So it's no suprise that his feet are being put to the coals when he says that String Theory is in a LOT of trouble.

This is Lee's new book:

The Trouble With Physics: "The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next"

The following is the introduction to an interview with Lee, by Adam Rogers of "WIRED Magazine", one of many interviews that are sure to take place now that Lee's new book has finally hit the market:

Physics Wars
By Adam Rogers
String theory was supposed to reconcile the subatomic world with the vast reaches of spacetime. Now Lee Smolin wants to unravel it.

The universe has a problem. The math that describes gravity and the structure of spacetime – general relativity – conflicts with the math that describes the interactions of subatomic particles – quantum mechanics. For the past two decades, the dominant approach to unifying the two has been string theory, which basically says that the universe is made of infinitesimally small, vibrating filaments of energy moving through multiple dimensions. It's wacky stuff, but no weirder than a lot of other science. Yet in his new book, The Trouble With Physics, theoretician Lee Smolin argues that string theory is not only weird, it might be wrong. A founding scientist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Smolin says that string theory is unconvincing – maybe even nonscientific – and that physicists have embraced it at the expense of other promising research. At home in Toronto, Smolin talked about physicist cliques and the true nature of the universe

"The End of Particle Theory" JoAnne Hewett sets the Date

2006-08-26T14:09:00.001-05:00

If the worst case scenario plays out, and the LHC discovers nothing, then that is the end of particle physics as we know it. And that includes string theory. They may think they are immune, but they are not - they will fall due to lack of funding with the rest of us.

Time to "recapitulate" some fundamental assumptions that have been projected as gospel into what is necessarily a flawed particle theory for this very reason. That makes me crazy, but of course, all hinges on the Large Hadron Collider.

I'd start with conflicts that commonly arise from direct observational evidence that makes scientists scratch their heads:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060822/sc_nm/science_darkmatter_dc_3
"It's very difficult to explain these observations with anything other than particle theory," Bean said. "The dark matter quandary to some extent is helped by these observations, because it helps target the theorists to try and look at particle physics, rather than gravity"

At last, a voice of reason among a sea of otherwise motivated conviction toward making something work that can't work as long as you continue to carry the flaw that prevents you from making it work!... Talk about, "circular reasoning".

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0401208

I'm just afraid that they'll make a bunch of previously unknown exotic particles during the interaction that people will use as an excuse to start chasing "technicolor" instead of Einstein.

OR... Maybe they'll just blow up the world instead, like modern day "keystone cops", considering the level of utter cluelessness that the complete collapse of modern particle physics and quantum gravity theory might seem to dictate... ;)

Back to "Square-One"

2006-08-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

I knew that this was going to happen. I commonly get into discussions with people on both sides of the ideologic spectrum, which **shouldn't*** have anything to do with science, but I try to face any obviously motivated questions with the facts as I can support them, (along with an occassional shot at their motivated mentality, which I don't do if I can't show evidence for it), figuring that this should be enough to satisfy whatever requirement for scientific integrity. Apparently that isn't good enough though, because I commonly find that what I've said was simply ignored in lieu of a better answer. That's not science, it's willful denial, and there is no "opinion" involved, so we're going to do this a little differently from now on:

1) Shoot this down or face the music.

In Einstein's static model, G=0 when there is no matter.

The cosmological constant came about because we do have matter, but in order to get rho>0 out of Einstein's matter-less spacetime structure, you have to condense the matter density from the zero pressure metric, and in doing so the pressure of the vacuum necessarily becomes less than zero, P<0, which causes expansion.

*Note that the background changes everytime that you do this.

It is plainly evident from this that most natural way to create new matter in Einstein's model, ("the most compatible with the spirit of general relativity"), also holds it flat and stable, so any other conclusions that have been made since Einstein abandoned his finite universe without this knowledge are therefore subject to suspect review!

Theorists don't always get my meaning here, and they automatically think that I'm referring to our current understanding of the quantum vacuum, but that isn't even necessary if in 1917 Dr. Einstein tells Friedmann, DeSitter and "company" that his finite expanding model is NOT unstable, because, like Hoyle's flawed steady-state model, Einsteins universe expands due to continuous particle creation, except that Einstein actually has a built-in mechanism for this!

So where does it go from here if we are unable to disprove Einstein's finite closed spherical universe, given this "new-light" on the subject?... which no honest physicists has ever even tried to do.

2) Add the anthropic principle to this finite, closed, bounded structure and what you get is a very strong statement about biocentric structure that "evolves" perpetually forward to higher orders of entropic efficiency.

Don't hand me ANY crap unless you can disprove number one, or, failing that, don't forget that it is the default cosmological model with all the ugly trimmings, until you do.

Wikipedia Changes

2006-08-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

I was getting really sick and tired of dumb arguments being used out of context concerning the anthropic principle and "selection bias" from people that get their information from the number-one popularized reference for the anthropic principle, so I fixed it. My changes were only slightly revised before being approved by the wiki-guard-dog.

Before I fixed it:

In cosmology, the anthropic principle in its most basic form asserts the truism that any valid theory of the must be consistent with the existence of human beings and of organic chemistry, here and now in the universe.

In simple terms, the anthropic principle says, if a billion universes existed, with a multitude of laws of nature, then humans would only be aware of those in which humans could emerge, and (no matter how many versions of laws of nature existed) the laws of nature ''humans'' saw would only be the laws of nature of those universes in which humans as we know them could emerge. In other words, "If something must be true for us (as humans) to exist, then since we exist, it is true." This is an effect known as selection bias.

Attempts to apply this principle to develop scientific explanations in cosmology have led to a little confusion and controversy.

After:

The Anthropic Principle represents an effort by physicists to explain the structure of the universe from the fact that the forces are coincidentally balanced in a manner that constrains it to evolve to a point that it produces carbon-based-life at a specific time and location in history the universe, in dramatic contrast to what is indicated by any practical model of turbulance driven structuring that should result from our big bang.

It is necessarily a truism, since any valid cosmology must be consistent with the existence of human beings and organic chemistry, but it is the coincidentally balanced nature of the evolutionary physics that stands-out to define anthropic significance in the forces, since all of the many anthropic coincidences are similarly balanced between extreme opposing runaway tendencies that occur over a spectrum that ranges from our local ecosystem, all the way up to the near-perfect balance that is observed to exist between gravity and the cosmolgical constant.

Attempts to apply this principle to develop scientific explanations have led to a little confusion and much controversy.

Before:

Origins

The first known occurrence of the phrase "anthropic principle" appears to have been by the theoretical astrophysicist Brandon Carter, in his contribution to a 1973 symposium titled "Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data" honouring Copernicus's 500th birthday. His article articulated the anthropic principle as the contrary of what has come to be called the Copernican principle (which Copernicus did not articulate), which denies that the situation of humans in the cosmological order is in any way privileged. (Just as Copernicus argued that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, we now know that the sun is a typical star located in a typical galaxy.) Carter's symposium paper, "Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology," included the statement: "Although our situation is not necessarily ''central'', it is inevitably privileged to some extent" (IAUS 63 (1974) 291).

After:

Origins Reasoning and Evidence for the weak anthropic principle

The first known occurrence of the phrase "anthropic principle" appears to have been by the theoretical astrophysicist Brandon Carter, in his contribution to a 1973 symposium titled "Confrontation of Cosmological Theories with Observational Data" honouring Copernicus's 500th birthday. His article articulated the anthropic principle as the contrary of what has come to be called the Copernican Cosmological Principle, which extends the General Principle of Relativity to require that all observers experience the same laws of physics uniformly throughout the universe, so at any given time, the universe will be both homogeneous and isotropic, (in 3-D space). This essentially denies that the situation of humans in the cosmological order is in any way privileged. Copernicus argued that the Earth is not the centre of the solar system, but Carter noted that pure cosmological extensions of this idea are what he called the anticentrist dogma, that led to cosmological forumlations like the Perfect Cosmological Principle, which does not result from the evolutionary physics that derives the cosmic coincidences and the otherwise unexplained large scale structuring of the universe that becomes absurdly apparent with the cosmological constant problem. This vexing problem is still the reason why the Antropic Principle is growing more popular among String Theorists that are trying to choose the correct vacuum solution from the landscape, since nobody has been able to come up with another practical stability mechanism that explains why this is. Carter's symposium paper, "Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology," included the statement: "Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent" (IAUS 63 (1974) 291). Direct observational evidence in support of at least some anthropic significance in the structuring of the universe includes the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation data whose anthropic relevance has only been partially "explained-away":

CERN Courier "Does the motion of the solar system affect the microwave sky?" VOLUME 44 | NUMBER 10 | DECEMBER 2004
"On the large-angle anomalies of the microwave sky" astro-ph/0508047
The Energy of Space That Isn't Zero "These observations were also recently discussed in this context after an extended working-vacation with many of the world's leading physicists by Lawrence Krauss [1]
Carter was not the first to invoke some form of the anthropic principle: [2]

Go me... ;)

Global Warming too?... what next, politics?

2006-08-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

I found this blog entry which is relevant to what has been discussed recently, so I decided to bring part of it here and also drop a line to see if "prototypo" might join the conversation:

Critics of Global Warming

prototypo said:
We do know that we have been polluting the air, water and land all around us since the industrial revolution and are continuing to do so at an increasing rate.

I've been trying to deal with this one from the perspective that we are also contributing memebers of the ecosystem that we belong to. In other words, can we separate ourselves from being integral players in the process that brought us into existence? Isn't that arrogant as hell?

But I have to weigh this against what part intelligence and awareness plays in that game, and the only conclusion that I can arrive at is that this enables us to back-off *enough* to keep us from getting culled, (bitchslapped back into line), involuntarily, by nature. I say "enough" with emphasis, because, (just like always), right-winged stubbornness will prevent liberal arrogance from allowing this to go exactly the way that the left would have it go if they got things all their way.

And all was well with the world. I don't mean to imply that anyone in this conversation has the following problem, but the one thing that people making predictions of gloom-n-doom never get when they point out all the potential downfalls that beface man, is that ALL of the anthropic coincidences occur almost exactly between cumulatively runaway tendencies toward certain death.

And yet, given all of the many adverse and inhospitible conditions that constantly and historically hung over our heads... as Morphius would say:

WE ARE STILL HERE!!!

prototypo
We do know that badly polluted areas are difficult to live in (such as Mexico City) or even impossible (such as Prypiat, Ukraine). Should we continue to pollute at such a rate until the science is 100% accurate in its ability to predict the future, or should we reduce our pollution rates?

I don't want to argue against meausures that are designed to improve or prevent such extremes from occurring, but, (as if to support my point about "self-regulating systems"), it has been shown that both wild-life and humans are surviving and proliferating in the dead-zone surrounding Chernobyl, and it has also been established that endangered species thrive better in bombing ranges than they do in nature preserves.

~

Having said that, I'm am also bringing-in part of this recent conversation between Neil and myself:

Neil had said:
As for global warming versus ice ages: Sure, there would have been an ice age, but our CO2 infusion stopped it not-cold! But instead of a nice cancellation leaving tepid temperatures rolling along, global warming overshoots ice ages.

island replied:
That's not normal global warming, it's a description of the runaway effect. Both global warming and glaciation are equally cumulative, so *some* global warming is continually necessary in order to hold off the cumulative runaway effect that is inherent to the exact opposite of what you said below:

Neil had said:
It prevents them from forming by melting ice up North, and then it can get even warmer without the ice to reflect sunlight.

And island replied:
I would agree that we need to back-off, but I'm just as convinced we'll die if we don't continue to efficiently increase entropy. Efficiency is the key here, anthropic selection has it that we will have the technology to take advantage of the next most difficult path of entropic action, at about the same time that we run out of oil. Cleaner, more efficient increases, are the key to long term survival.

Neil' then said...
No, they are not "equally cumulative"! It is not like mixing streams of hot and cold water, but non-linear behavior. That's the whole point. The warming actually prevents the cooling trend from having an effect, by melting enough ice to counter the reflection effect. You are right, it is not "normal" global warming we are having now, because of the huge and rapid increase in CO2 level, not just twiddles of the earth's motion, solar variability etc.

BTW, I don't want to return the earth to it's "pristine state." I and most other responsible environmentalists just want to keep plenty of the earth in such a state for our enjoyment and our and the planet's health, and responsibly use the rest. One thing we could do in the US, is to quit rewarding fecundity. Let's stop robbing childless folks to pay out those $1,000 tax credits for children, even to middle-class families! I can spring for public education, but not both! PS - I don't have a problem with expanded nuclear power as long as we can trust the operators and deal responsibly with waste products.

I unfairly cut Neil off at what I perceive to be his first error since that usually kills the rest of the argument:

No, they are not "equally cumulative"!

And island anwered:
Yes, they are, Neil... If the accelerating tendency toward glaciation isn't offset by increasing global warming, then the snow doesn't thaw out as much as it did the previous year, which causes the ice to reflect more sunlight... Like I said, equally opposing runaway tendiencies are at play here, and your attempts to willfully ignore well-known science don't change that.

~

I fear that I may not have made myself clear enough on my last point and will be misunderstood.

The rest of what Neil said sounds fine to me, except "(ab)normal global warming" WAS necessary until now, in order to head-off the kind of long-term momentum that lies behind a tendency toward a 100,000 year long ice-age.

A Creationist's Argument

2006-08-06T17:05:00.000-05:00

Now, THIS is a question.

Neil said:
Well... Maybe you have been able to explicate your option #3 in a truly satisfactory way, but I haven't been able to get a good summary of that.

Why anything at all?

This is by far Neil's best point, which has been kicked around since the greek sophists tried to explain what they recognized as purpose in nature, as a reconcilliation of the forces of the cosmos.

Even if I can give Neil the physics for exactly how, what and why, a human-like survival mechanism motivates the universe to move toward absolute symmetry, I can't tell him why that would be. I can justify all physics with a valid mechanism that defines an inherently insatiable imbalance in the energy of the universe that keeps it moving in one determined direction "forever and ever, amen"... but why does any of this exist to start with?

Why would there be any energy of the universe to begin with?..."that has an inherent insatiable imbalance that must, therefore, move forever toward the resolution of this inequity".

But it is this inherent effort toward reconcilliation that Neil sees as the "intent" behind the physics that justifies his conclusions about evidence for the "will" of a higher power.

Neil, I don't argue that atoms just bouncing around could properly form DNA, RNA, the correct proteins, etc. but this kind of physical "intent" manifests from some good physical reason for it in every knowable case, so why should I conclude that this is not the case now? Contrary to popular science, I don't deny the existence of this kind of teleology, so why should I make your leap of faith when it is not what is most naturally called for by every natural example of this?

Your mistake is to assume that human intent can possibly be different from any other form of expressed bias in nature, so you project that human-like intent exists behind an unknown natural bias, rather than the other way round.

Intelligent Design and the Anthropic Principle

2006-08-03T11:03:00.000-05:00

Ms. Anthropic asked me a very good question that probably deserves more than a "nutshell" explanation, but here goes:

So tell me, in a nutshell, what the debate is exactly, and where intelligent design (an idea I find problematic) plays into it?

There really is no debate to it, but creationists use scientific evidence that we might not be here by accident to claim that this means that god, or some un-named intelligent designer, is behind our existence in this universe.

This is an unwarrented assumption without more direct proof, since any good physical need for us to be here will accomplish the same thing, so the latter *should-be* the default scientific position, and this should be the end of the story.

Unfortunately for science, there is an extremely strong tendency among non-creationists to deny the significance of this evidence, rather than to look for some good physical reason for why our presence in this universe might be important enough to the physical process to justify that the forces of the universe would be "set-up" to bring us into existence.

There is an almost unbelievable array of these "ecobalanced" anthropic coincidences that are necessary to our existence, ranging from our local ecosystem, all the way up to the near-perfectly balanced structure of the universe itself, which cannot be be explained by any other means than the anthropic principle.

There are three ways to interpret the evidence:

1) God or some intelliget designer is behind the "fine-tuning". Creationists believe that there is purpose in nature.

2) The balanced pencils and balls on hilltops is purely accidental random chance occurrence. Anti-centrists believe that there is no "higher" purpose in nature.

3) Humans are necessary to the physics of the universe, so there is purpose in nature in this context, as well.

Number three is the reason that the anthropic principle was first introduced by Brandon Carter, but virtually nobody will recognize the hardest evidence for anthropic specialness, even when they are confronted with valid supporting science, and even though this means that there should be an intricate link between Darwin's theory and this feature of our universe, which carries ramifacations that go right to the highest level of science.

The creation/evolution debate, (including all of the common aspects of ideological conflict between the "right" and the "left"), is the main problem here, one side says "black", so the other side *automatically* says "white" because they buy the hype that "black" means that godidit. They don't even think to look for why "black" might be correct for different reasons than creationists push on them, due only to their knee-jerk "auto-reaction*, and they only think of "creationism" when they see it.

There is also a misplaced impression among most physicists that the idea that we are somehow significant to the physics of the universe is just geocentrically arrogant and so they dismiss the idea out of hand, without attempting to complete the principle, even though Brandon Carter had carefully explained needed to be done.

It doesn't take much looking to find out that the special physics doesn't only apply to the Earth, rather, it fits the profile of every spiral galaxy that evolved at approximantely the same time and location as ours did, so human arrogance is not even the huge factor that they wrongly presume it to be... IF they weren't pre-conditioned against this science from the get-go.

I commonly run into willful ignorance, dishonesty, and "silent denial" from people that I never would have expected it from, and I can prove that I just as commonly expose this nasty little truth, not that it matters to them.

A State of Silent Denial

2006-07-28T12:54:00.000-05:00

The results are in at Scott Aaronson's blog:
"The anthropicism that had to win"

Aside from the fact that NONE of the entries correctly analogizes the physics for the AP, I made the following comment, which nobody bothered to acknowledge:

Greg Kuperberg had said:
Now that you've had your fun, you should realize that the anthropic principle is true, even though it is the source of so much bad science. It has something in common with the Copernican principle, that the Earth is not in a special position in the universe. After all, why would anyone ever have thought that it does? That question has an obvious anthropic explanation.

My reply went as follows:
Not quite. Neither the copernican principle, nor the principle of mediocrity apply to a universe that is observationally proven to be, "less-than-copernican", and this is what Brandon Carter was saying.

Although the following *SHOULD* have an affect on dogmatic anticentrists... alas... it has none:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krauss06/krauss06.2_index.html

Lawrence Krauss, (after his vacation Pow-Wow with the rest of the leading physicists of today's world), said:

When you look at [the cosmic microwave background] map, you see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.

I'd like to know when the game quits being one of "explaining-away" the hardest empirical evidence that exists in support of anthropic specialness?... rather than to look for some good physical reason why the implication for specialness might be true.

Where and when to scientists start acting like real scientists again?... in other words.

I'm guessing that never is too soon for most, and don't pretend that I don't have a damned good empirically supported point.

I said the same thing to this this clown, but he didn't have any problem at all admitting that he is a non-scientific loser:

http://capitalistimperialistpig.blogspot.com/2006/07/misanthropic-me.html#comments

I rest my case.

~ ~ ~

It was no surprise that neither Greg nor anyone else replied to my point, as they sit in silent denial. They can't shoot me down, so they simply ignore the point.

These people are not scientists, they are ideologically motivated losers.

Anthropic Dogma... (repost)

2006-07-19T14:53:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: This post, (including previous comments), needed to be moved to the top and added to, since this problem is constantly relevant to stuff that's going on in the fantasy world of creationists and string theorists, as well as their antifanatical counterparts. Speaking of which, the latest comes to us from Scott Aaronson, who is currently holding a very lame contest for the, uh... "Best" anthropicism. This has spread among other "science" blogs:

http://www.harmlessfiction.com/?p=9
http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2006/07/new_physics_contest.php

And I imagine that it will only be a matter of time before the playful little monkeys at Pharyngula will make their pilgrimage to Scott's place to add their Douglas Adams brand of cluelessness to the mix. I say, "imagine", because I haven't been back to Scott's after taking a few early shots at their non-applicable childishness, and I kinda doubt that he even left my comments on the board, but who knows?

Anyway... go visit the SideShow to see how not to do science, and that's as nice as I can be about it, because they don't even understand how thier mindset adversely affects the way that they do science.

~

I COMMONLY run into people who get their information from popularized websites that are ideologically motivated to take a stand against the anthropic principle because they believe that any implication that we are not here by accident necessarily constitutes evidence for the existence of god, and/or, an "intelligent designer".

They buy straight into the creationist hype, in other words, and they typically don't even care to know the real reason why the AP was introduced. It is not commonly understood what is meant by first principles in context with the Large Numbers Hypothesis that eventually lead to Brandon Carter's derivation of the anthropic principle as an alternative to the extended Copernican mentality that still dominates the mind of science to this day, in spite of the fact that our best observational evidence flat-out contradicts this anticentrist dogma to better than a 99% level of confidence.

The anthropic principle came about from an honest effort by physicists, like Herman Bondi, Fred Hoyle, Robert Dicke, and Paul Dirac, who kept running up against the same problems that we have today when trying to find a causal explanation for the physical structuring of the universe. Many think that the popularizers of the principle, Barrow and Tipler, invented it themselves, when in reality, Brandon Carter wasn't even the first person to state the principle in it's current incomplete form.

At the conference in Cracow, in 1973, Brandon Carter said that the AP respresents a line of thought against exaggerated subservience to the Copernican-like Cosmological model that falls from the General Principle of Relativity, which requires all observers to experience the same laws of physics, so at any given time, the universe will be both homogeneous and isotropic, (in 3-D space). As previously noted this is not what is observed, and it has prompted Lawrence Krauss to note the following in his recent interview with "edge":

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krauss06/krauss06.2_index.html
...we live in one universe, so we're a sample of one. With a sample of one, you have what is called a large sample variance. And maybe this just means we're lucky, that we just happen to live in a universe where the number's smaller than you'd predict. But when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.

The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the center of the universe, or maybe the data is imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales. And of course as a theorist I'm certainly hoping it's the latter, because I want theory to be wrong, not right, because if it's wrong there's still work left for the rest of us.

More on this can be found here:
Does the motion of the solar system affect the microwave sky?

Carter said that he believed that the AP was potentially fertile but that it needs further development.

It is equally arrogant to assume a purely copernican universe as it is to conclude that we are at the center of the universe, because it does not logically follow from the ecobalanced nature of the anthropic coincidences and the large scale observational evidence, that life is as completely insignificant as a copernican principle would demand by extension. Carter called this anti-centrist approach, "dogma"... which in its most extreme form led to the "Perfect Cosmological Principle".

Modern anti-centrists and religious "anti-fanatics" are no less arrogant due to their pre-existing pre-dispositioning toward appealing to causality-lacking answers. Carter's observation clearly indicates that they still dogmatically deny the evidence in order to chase the same "random" extreme to the exact same meaningless dead-end. They have an **unbelievably** good imagination when it comes to avoiding any implication for anthropic prference, but absolutely none when it comes to embracing the idea:

What if... there's an uncertain infinite multiverse of quantum weird randomness... ? ... or something just as good...

uh-huh, What if... the freaking implications are true?... didya ever think of that?

Is John Wheeler the ONLY other person on earth besides me that is willing to even look in this context... ? How lame is that if it is true and the ToE is contingent, since an anthropic cosmological constraint *can* potentially either unify or explain *why* the forces can't be unified.

ANOTHER common misconception is that the anthropic cosmological principle is giving up on first principles, and so it runs contrary to the spirit of science, but it is not even possible to arrive at that conclusion without willfully ignoring that Brandon Carter never said that the AP was complete... e.g., potentially fertile, but that it needs further development.

The anthropic principle isn't giving up on first principles, rather, a failure to look for good physical reason why the implication for specialness is true, runs contrary to the spirit of HONEST science. I can't help but to shake my head whenever I hear someone say that, since the most popular alternative methods for picking the configuration of our universe are about as causality-dodging as scientific methods get!

Carter also pointed out that our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent.

This point is critically important to this, (although, widely ignored), because the anthropic principle readily extends to, and cannot be restricted from incuding planets that inhabit every spiral galaxy that evolved within the same "plane/layer/habitable-zone" of conditions, (time and location-wise), as our own galaxy, (in terms of the commonality and continuity in the evolution of the same basic raw materials that were produced by our observed carbon chauvinistic universe). In this case, the principle is "biocentric", meaning that life is *more-generally* important to the physics of the universe at this particular time in its history, and so it will *necessarily* be every bit as common to this region of universe as the physical need for it demands.

In this same scientific context, real HONEST scientists will ask questions like; 'I wonder if intelligent life does something that *cumulatively* affects the physics of the universe and makes it necessary to the process?'

There is a valid physics question about the most-apparent evidence for the intrinsic finality within goal-oriented thermodynamic structuring in nature that has nothing to do with god, nor any form of intelligent "designer", but this is rarely, (if ever) recognized by either side of the "debate". There is an openly hostile and ideologically motivated effort to downplay scientific interpretations that include the appearance of "anthropic specialness" which occurs as a result of the debate, and the effect is to blind science to the potential that the anthropic principles has for making predictions about life elsewhere in the cosmos, as well as more locally.

If the most accurate cosmological principle is biocentric in nature, then the principle is telling us the good physical reason why the forces are constrained in the manner that they are. This science should not be ignored because politics and misplaced perceptions about geocentric arrogance get in the way.

SOMBODY has to be unafraid to look...

~

3 Comments:

3:51 AM
Anonymous said...
I really enjoyed looking at your site, I found it very helpful indeed, keep up the good work.

3:56 AM
Simone Severini said...
I find this post very interesting. Finally, some proper information about the anthropic principle.

6:34 PM
island said...
Thank you, Simone, I recommend that you take a look at my web page at:

Anthropic-Principle.ORG

There is a whole library's worth of information about it at that location.

Thanks again!

More comments can be added below.

Not Even Wrong

2006-06-02T13:37:00.000-05:00

Roger Penrose calls it, "compulsive reading", but Peter Woit's new book, Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics...
has a much greater potential for compelling the mainstream to openly question String Theory, when Peter's book gets published at about the same time as Lee Smolin's new book, The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next".

What comes next should be to fix what never got fixed before moving on...

silly me

Further Developments:
I think that timing makes this relevant since this piece just appeared in the Finacial Times by, Science Writer, Robert Mathews... who severely thrashes String Theory for the farce that it will rapidly become known as, when the carefully manicured public finally gets the wake-up call that string theory is actually just a big ball of mathematical yarn.

Luckily for the world of string theory fanatics, we have the most fanatical of them all, Lubos Motl, to call everyone that doesn't buy the constant barrage of string theory hype, ignorant crackpots. He says that because he believes-in math theorems that may very well eventually prove to reflect no actual physics.

It's funny, but the way I learned physics from decent honest scientists, a crackpot was someone like Lumo, who takes for granted that no new information can overturn their otherwise crackpot-theory. Fanatics, in other words, who enable their belief system to produce willful ignorance that cannot be reasoned beyond with new facts.

scary

Fine-Tuning from first principles... again

2006-05-18T17:05:00.000-05:00

You don't like the Lindblad Equation?

Okay, then let's try ecosystems:

All of the anthropic coincidences are ecobalanced "just-so", in a "goldilocks" manner, between diametrically opposing runaway tendencies.

And "coincidentally"... ecosystems are also the most effecient means for uniformly disseminating energy, because they spread the process out over numerous "topological hotspots", over an extended period of time.

So, an expanding universe assumes the form that conserves energy and the second law of thermodynamics via an ecobalanced configuration that maximizes entropy.

What's the problem?

Lisa Randall interview...

2006-05-15T14:14:00.000-05:00

The whole interview is linked in the subject line, but I want to comment on the following as it pertains to the conversation that I've been having with Neil Bates:

Lisa Randall said:

The gist of it is that the universe seems to have two entirely different mass scales, and we don’t understand why they are so different. There’s what’s called the Planck scale, which is associated with gravitational interactions. It’s a huge mass scale, but because gravitational forces are proportional to one over the mass squared, that means gravity is a very weak interaction. In units of GeV, which is how we measure masses, the Planck scale is 10 to the 19th GeV. Then there’s the electroweak scale, which sets the masses for the W and Z bosons. These are particles that are similar to the photons of electromagnetism and which we have observed and studied well. They have a mass of about 100 GeV. So the hierarchy problem, in its simplest manifestation, is how can you have these particles be so light when the other scale is so big?

The normal distribution of vacuum energy cannot contribute to matter generation in a closed, finite vacuum that has negative pressure, because vacuum energy density is necessarily less than the matter energy density. As with electric charge, the normal distribution of negative energy does not contribute to pair creation. Only departures from the normal distribution in a vacuum will isolate enough vacuum energy to produce virtual particle pairs. These can be converted into real particles given enough energy, but positrons that are created under these conditions are departures from the norm that can't have the characteristics of negative mass particles that produce an antigravitational effect, so there is no conflict with Dirac's Hole Theory, and there is no need for a reinterpretation of the negative energy states.

Dirac thought that gravity fell-off with expansion, but particle creation from the vacuum of a closed and finite universe necessarily causes negative pressure to increase via rarefaction. If you condense enough of this energy over a finite region of space to achieve postive matter-density, then the local increase in the matter density is *necessarily* offset by the increase in negative pressure that occurs via the rarefying effect that real particle creation has on the vacuum.

That means that created particles have positive mass regardless of sign, and the electric force compared with the gravitational force is not a constant, but is increasing proportionally to the age of the universe.

Dirac had the right idea, but went the other way with it:
http://www.fdavidpeat.com/interviews/dirac.htm
"The age of the universe, of course, gets bigger and bigger as the universe gets older. So the other one must be increasing also in the same proportion. That means that the electric force compared with the gravitational force is not a constant, but is increasing proportionally to the age of the universe.

The most convenient way of describing this is to use atomic units, which make the electric force constant; then, referred to these atomic units, the gravitational force will be decreasing. The gravitational constant, usually denoted by G, when expressed in atomic units, is thus not a constant any more, but is decreasing inversely proportional to the age of the universe."

It's a number provided by nature and we should expect that a theory will someday provide a reason for it.
~ Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac ~

Unification of the Forces...

2006-05-14T20:48:00.000-05:00

Before I go any further I want to outline the reasons for the physics that I've been discussing:

1) A true "special" anthropic constraint on the forces of the universe should necessitate a connection to the human evolutionary process. It would be silly to think otherwise if given the strongest implications that come with an anthropic cosmological principle, so the prediction is self-evident given these combined circumstances.

2) Which means that there should be a mechanism that enables a predominantly entropic universe to leap/bang to higher orders of entropic efficiency, just like we humans did when we lept from apes to harness fire, and beyond...

So, the fact that this is true for us, serves as support for the validity of the hypothesis as an empirically supported theory.

3) Instead of expansion/recollapse, multiverse, or, uh... "babyverses", the universe simply convolves traits or characteristics inherently forward by the exact same mechanism that we do, just as one realy should expect from a true anthropic constraint on the forces of the universe.

4) In this context, the theory of evolution becomes the theory of everything when the anthropic principle explains *why* the forces cannot be unified... no many how times the universe leaps for absolute supersymmetry.

It's all about the inherently imbalanced journey, "alfie", not arriving anywhere... when it can be very simply proven that the second law of thermodynamics is *never* violated.

It would be insane to willfully ignore this highly obvious extension.

Our Evolutionary Universe

2006-05-12T19:50:00.000-05:00

The most popular models these days are inflationary multiverse theories... but I prefer a single perpetually evolving model, where the cosmological constant gets a little bit smaller each time that there is a big bang, as it is the effort toward absolute supersymmetry that drives the process.

In other words, the energy of the universe has an eternally inherent imperfection or imbalance that causes it to keep moving toward the reconcilliation of this disequilibrium through an endless series of leap/bangs.

The physics that provides the mechanism for it is actually incredibly simple and can be demonstrated in a sealed jar, or by the pseudo-negative pressure density that's produced by the Casimir effect.

Once Upon a SpaceTime...

2006-05-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

... A brilliant physicist by the name of, Paul Adrian Maurice Dirac, unified Einstein's, Special Relativity Theory, with Quantum Mechanics, by way of what is known as the Dirac Equation. This was rightfully hailed as a great feat in the world of theoretical physics, and he won the Nobel Prize for this contribution.

A funny thing about this, though, was that there are four solutions of the equation. Two of them correspond nicely to the two spin states of the electron. The other two solutions, however, extend to a strange prediction that there is an infinite set of quantum states where the electron has negative energy.

The two equations,

E=mc^2 and E^2=m^2*c^4

...are only different if there is a physical meaning to the negative mass and negative energy values, where the second equation allows for both positive and negative mass-energy solutions.

The expression arises from the fact that the magnitude^2 of the momentum four-vector is given by....

m^2*c^2=p^2-E^2/c^2

In the case of a body at rest, p=0, which leads to...

m^2=E^2/c^4

The concept of negative mass arises by analogy with electric charges, where the formula for the energy of a relativistic particle...

E^2=m^2*c^4+p^2*c^2

...derives that a particle with a certain positive energy but no momentum could theoretically have a positive or negative mass!

This brings us to his "hole theory", where Dirac rationalized the negative energy solutions by reinterpreting the vacuum state so that all of the negative energy states are filled, and all of the positive energy states are empty.

Dirac's theory was flawed in-spite its success at predicting the existence of the "Positron", because it can't fully account for particles of negative energy, since it is restricted to positive energy particles, but the Quantum Field Theory representaton for this is not an accurate representation of Dirac's negative energy states.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0401208
Dirac's hole theory and quantum field theory are generally thought to be equivalent. In fact field theory can be derived from hole theory through the process of second quantization. However, it can be shown that problems worked in both theories yield different results.

And therin lies the problem that has not been resolved by *any* "reinterpretation" of the vacuum state, and so the quantum expectation for the energy density of the vacuum is about 120 plus orders of magnitude^ greater than it should be without the assumption of an "ad hoc" suppression mechanism to cover this "little" discrepency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae257.cfm
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_constant.html
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/vacuum.html

The problem goes back to the negative mass absurdity that falls from the Dirac Equation, and QFT's "ad hoc" assumption is what I meant when I previously said that science has assumed the flaw, rather than to fix it, which only carries and compounds the problems when extended to Quantum Gravity theories of all varieties.

cosmology - physics - anthropic principle - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster

Hawking's Flexiverse is a Real Stretch...

2006-05-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think that these guys go to bed at night saying... I do, I do, I do, I do believe in ghosts.

...Exploring Stephen Hawking's Flexiverse

www.newscientist.com
20 April 2006
by Amanda Gefter

The history of the cosmos has yet to be decided. At last, a chance to play God

HERE'S how to build a universe. Step one: start at the beginning of time. Step two: apply the laws of physics. Step three: sit back and watch the universe evolve. Step four: cross your fingers and hope that it comes out looking something like the one we live in. That's the basic prescription for cosmology, the one physicists use to decipher the history of the universe. But according to Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge and Thomas Hertog of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the steps are all backward. According to these physicists, there is no history of the universe. There is no immutable past, no 13.7 billion years of evolution for cosmologists to retrace. Instead, there are many possible histories, and the universe has lived them all. And if that's not strange enough, you and I get to play a role in determining the universe's history. ...

It is a very sad statemet about the state of theoretical physics that assumptions about infinites and quantum weirdness have enabled this kind of causality-lacking approach to become the norm for resolving the fine-tuning problem.

...the sum over histories is formed by calculating the various probabilities for a universe like ours to arise out of literally nothing: that means we can never know anything for certain about how our universe got to be as it is.

We shouldn't be surprised, Hertog says: quantum theory has long shown us that it is impossible for us to know everything about the world around us. In "classical" physics, we can predict both the exact momentum and position of a particle at any time, but quantum mechanics doesn't allow it. No one suggests that quantum mechanics is wrong because of this, Hertog points out - and experiments have shown that it is not.

Whoa, wait a minute there, Tom. No one suggeststs that QM is wrong, but a number of respected theorists, like Roger Penrose, think that quantum theory will have to be modified more than relativity will, so don't pretend that your assumptions aren't up for dramatic revision just because you think that you understand something from an interpretation that can be thrown right back in your face given only very little new information.

For many, it remains a difficult argument to swallow. Science since Copernicus has aimed to model a universe in which we are mere by-products, but top-down cosmology turns that on its head, rendering the history of the universe a by-product of our observations. All in all, it is very like the "anthropic landscape" argument that is causing controversy among string theorists.

Which is a really nice way of saying that Hawking too is grasping at infinities and uncertainty, and that is a cop-out on the long-held understanding that there must be a good physical reason, (a stability mechanism), why the universe is the way that it is. Thank "god" that I'm not alone:

Princeton University physicist Paul Steinhardt says:
"It's kind of giving up on the problem. We've all been hoping to calculate things from first principles. Stephen doesn't think that's possible, but I'm not convinced of that. They might be right, but it's much too early to take this approach; it looks to me like throwing in the towel."

Stanford University's Andrei Linde is similarly unconvinced:
There are a number of technical assumptions that make him sceptical. "I don't buy it," he says.

I don't either, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe that first principles can possibly be disassociated from the human evolutionry process in an anthropically constrained universe... *duh*

Sit back and watch it "evolve".

Indeed.

Try As They Might... the anthropic principle just won't go away...

2006-05-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Poor poor pitiful Luboš Motl is a string theorist who hates the anthropic principle with a passion. This puts him in conflict with most of the rest of the string community, but it doesn't put him any closer to reality than they are. He commonly goes to Peter Woit's blog and argues with the loop quantum gravity theorists that frequent that group, and I found this jewel in one such conversation:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=380#comment-9974

I tend to agree with you that according to everything we know, a measurably evolving proton/electron mass ratio would imply a much more dramatic evolution of the vacuum energy [...] unless there exists some more robust cancellation mechanism that keeps vacuum energy tiny.

I still hope that both the anthropic principle as well as the conjectured evolving constants will be superseded by future research.

Dear Lumo,

You seem more than just a little bit lost and confused. If you want to find the "robust mechanism" that keeps the vacuum energy "tiny", then you should go have a look in the mirror. Okay, bad example, but the reason that we are here is the answer to what holds the expanding universe flat and stable, so if you want to know the answer to your question then you have to figure out what it is that humans do that makes us important.

Brandon Carter correctly noted that... "our situation is not necessarily central, but it is inevitably privileged to some extent".

This point is critically important to this, because the anthropic principle readily extends to, and cannot be restricted from incuding the arms of every spiral galaxy that evolved within the same "layer/habitable-zone" of conditions, (time and location-wise), as our own galaxy, (in terms of the commonality and continuity in the evolution of the same basic raw materials that were produced by our observed carbon chauvinistic universe). In this case, the principle is "biocentric", meaning that life is more-generally important to the physics of the universe at this particular time in its history, and so it will necessarily be every bit as common to the universe as the physical need for it demands.

In this same scientific context, scientists will ask questions like; I wonder if intelligent life does something that cumulatively affects the physics of the universe that makes it necessary to the process? The implication that we're not here by accident isn't so special if something that intelligent life does makes it cumulatively necessary to the thermodymaic process of the universe, because life will then be as common to the universe as the need for it demands.

If the most accurate cosmological principle is anthropic in nature, then it is highly probable that the connection between the forces of the universe and humans also extends to the evolutionary process of humans and the universe to higher-orders of the same basic structure.

So there should be some identifiable mechanism for this that will prove it.

If you don't knee-jerk react to automatically reject observational evidence for biocentric structuring, then one of the first questions that should come to mind is... "What is it that intelligent life does that makes it cumulatively advantageous enough to the physics of the universe that the constants of nature would naturally fall into place in a manner that brings intelligent life into existence at a specific time and location in the history of the universe?" This is an honest scientific question that naturally falls out of the implications that biocentric input into the evolutionary process of the universe derives a possible solution to why the forces are constrained in the manner that they are. If the most accurate cosmological principle is biocentric in nature, then the principle is telling us the good physical reason why the forces are constrained in the manner that they are. This science should not be ignored because politics and misplaced perceptions about geocentric arrogance get in the way.

Lee Smolin and others have noted that the structure of our universe is set-up to maximize the production of black holes... 'there isn't a universe that could exist that would create more black holes than this one.'

So it should be no great surprise to find out that black holes and intelligent life are two of only three known or expected sources for creating matter/antimatter pairs, which directly affects the symmetry/flatness of the universe...

hmmmmmm... isn't it amazing what you can figure out once you lose the lame rationale for hating something that you haven't bothered to seriously investigate?

math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress - motls.blogspot.com - cosmology - physics - anthropic principle - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

Unfounded Leaps of Faith...

2006-04-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

I found this creationist using Leonard Susskind's infamous ID blackmail statement to make the unfounded leap of faith to goddidit:
The Multiverse Theory & the Problem of Anthropic Coincidences
http://theolobloggy.blogspot.com/2006/04/multiverse-theory-problem-of-anthropic.html

Lenny's statement came in an interview with Amanda Geftler for New Scientist magazine and I call it, "ID blackmail" because it boils down to threatening a bunch of hard-line atheist physicsists with the false claim that creationists will be able to use the antrhopic principle to claim that goddidit... 'if you don't accept and believe-in my multiverse theory'.

The first sentence from the New Scientist article reads:
Ever since Albert Einstein wondered whether the world might have been different, physicists have been searching for a "theory of everything" to explain why the universe is the way it is.

But Einstein didn't buy into causality-lacking explanations for things, like uncertainty and infinities, and he didn't believe that the structure of the universe was ultimately random in nature, either, so how is it that this is possible within a scientific framework?

Answer number 4 of my last blog entry:

4) There was no absolute cosmic singularity, so the structure of our universe is perpetually embedded and inherent, no matter how many times that we have a big bang.

Which is all that we actually have evidence for...

Neither Lenny, nor the creationist are justified to leap beyond this most natural explanation without good reason to do so, so both are making the same unfounded leap of faith to conclude something that shouldn't even be an option, since there is no real precedence for leaping beyond nature and the observed universe in the first place.

The rational, natural, causality-responsible answer is that there is a thermodynamic mechanism which enables number 4 to be true, while explaining fine-tuning by way of first principles.

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073320.html
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073295.html
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2006-02/msg0073252.html

-----------------------------------------------------------

anthropic principle
Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

Cosmological FAQ's for the Creation/Evolution Debate

2005-11-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

Misconceptions about what theories are valid and applicable to the human origins science are extremely widespread and abused equally by both sides.

On the forefront of this is what universal model carries weight in the CrEvo debate, because speculative cutting-edge theoretical physics theories have no more business in the human origins science than an intelligent agent does, because both are sci-fi-like in the distance that you have to go to get realistic plausibility and provability.

Cosmological evidence for anthropic preference indicates that we should look for a good physical reason for it, but it does not indicate that we automatically "cop-out" on that obligation by grasping at causality-lacking cutting edge theoretical straws in order to "explain-away" evidence that we're not here by accident. Empiricism supercedes all such unproven models, until and unless they eventually bear-out to be necessary to quantum gravity or the ToE, so orignis science is necessarily restricted to only the most conservative mainstream approach that accurately supports what is observed, which is a finite universe that measures to be about 13.7 billion years old.

This approach is necessarily preferred, because theoretical rationale that uses notions about an infinite numbers of possible universes, multiverses, baby universes and other similar arguments, are invalid until proven, and that's for good reason. For example, as it is used in the debate... Hartle-Hawking Theory predicts that there are an infinite number of possible universes, whereas, Hawking in Dublin, Ireland, last summer, contradicted this idea when he introduced a new theory that says that information is never lost if a true event horizon never forms.

While both of these two theories carry scientific merrit in the world of theoretical physics, both are also competing and contradictory of each other, because the second theory predicts that there can be only one result of our big bang if the information that produced everything in the universe was inherent to the energy when it happened.

That would mean that there was no absolute cosmic singularity, as information was inherently "convolved" into our universe due to a less-than-perfect big-bang event.

The bottom line is that empiricism rules until something has been unequivocally decided, because one new piece to the puzzle can easily turn the projections of the theoretical flavor of the day completely around, and throw them right back in your face.

anthropic principle
Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

Insanity...

2005-07-25T11:12:00.000-05:00

We all know that in all matters of mere opinion that man is insane... just as insane as we are... we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity:

It is where his opinion differs from ours....

All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans.

All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it.

The rule is perfect: In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

-Mark Twain

Anybody that believes that either side of the debate is on this side of science, truth, or even Charles Darwin, is lying to themselves, because politics is what controls this debate, and honest scientists need to be made aware of this, because the distinction is made subtle by the popular trendiness of cutting-edge theory.

I would define a "Neo-Darwinist" as someone that allows their personal ideological bias to influence their scientific mind to the point that they automatically look for rationale that will downplay the significance of evidence, rather than to look for some good first principle for why the implication for anthropic preference might be true. I use the term much in the same way that Lynn Margulis did, as I too consider myself to be a "Darwinist", unlike those "neo-darwinian bullies".

I would define an "IDist" in the same manner, because members of both extremes are equally motivated to perceive the world via the distorted lens of politics, and either would rather die than to budge one inch in the other's direction, in spite of whatever reality may be smacking them upside the head.

Neo-Darwinists will deny this, because they pretend that they are the ones that are in-line with science, ("Lynn just has a beef because we won't completely buy her theory"). That's because they lean-on unproven runaway cutting-edge theoretical speculation for support for their runaway "copernican" belief system, especially when it comes to 'explaining away' cosmological phenomenon that any normal person would be curious about. I'll get into that more in the future, this fact is actually starting to pop-up on IDists websites and in news articles... so it won't be too long before they can't get away it anymore.

Darwinism -
Lawrence Krauss -
The Entropic Anthropic Principle - Anthropic-principle.ORG -
William Dembski - H. Allen Orr - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

The Entropic Anthropic Principle - how time is maximized

2005-07-21T18:04:00.000-05:00

The physical effects of the Big Bang created numerous principles and laws that have yet to be broken in spite of a lot of projections and speculation about the eventual and final fate of the usable energy of our expanding universe.

The inevitable heat death of the universe is one of the more obvious projections of an expanding "entropic" universe, but this conclusion doesn't completely justify the fact that the extremely small positive value of the cosmological constant means the big bang actually resulted in a near perfect balance between runaway expansion and gravitational recollapse, which actually puts the universe about as far away from the tendency toward heat death as you can possibly get, and yet still be heading in that direction. The principle of least action says that it is no coincidence that this near-perfectly symmetrical configuration is also the most energy-efficient means for dissipating energy, because this means that tendency toward "heat-death" is most economically restricted to the most-even distribution of energy possible.

The universe actually expresses a grand scale natural preference toward the most economical form of energy dissipation, so if the second law of thermodynamics is telling us that the entropy of our expanding universe increases with every action, then the anthropic principle is telling us that this will occur by the most energy efficient means possible, since the flatness of the universe is one of the many coincidentally ecobalanced requirements of the principle.

If the second law of thermodynamics points the arrow of time, then the anthropic principle determines that time and work is maximized.

We actually have evidence that the near-flat yet expanding universe is structured so that the entropy of the universe always increases in a manner that tends toward "maximum-energy" and maximum uniformity via the most-even form of energy dissipation possible, given that "nothing is perfect to start with"... so to speak.

Meaning that far-from equilibrium dissipative structures *can* serve as a natural damping mechanism... IF the universe is finite and causally bound...

We have no stability mechanism that explains why an expanding universe doesn't just blow itself apart, and even then, the entropy of our near-flat universe is much less than it should be, given any practical model of structure forming turbulence that occurs with expansion.

Unless far from equilibrium dissipative structures, (like us, humans, and black holes), serve to conserve the expansion process in order to maximize energy. Surely, the configuration of our universe must follow the least action principle.

Quantum mechanics depends very much on Hamiltonian mechanics, and so it isn't inherently able to describe dissipative structuring. This can be done, however, by way of a special master case for the "Lindblad equation", which derives that flatness acts as a natural harmonic damper mechanism that keeps the imbalanced expanding universe from evolving inhomogeneously, so this is the most natural configuration.

This will necessarily maximize the time that the expansion process takes, and that's what a flat universe accomplishes via anthropic structuring.

The Entropic Anthropic Principle - Anthropic-principle.ORG -
William Dembski - H. Allen Orr - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

Doubly Dubious Dembski

2005-07-20T06:05:00.000-05:00

I just got done bashing H. Allen Orr in my last entry, and now I get to beat down on Bill Dembski for taking my argument to the opposite extreme end of the fanatical spectrum of losers who intentionally distort reality to their own personal end. The following was copied from Dembski's latest blog entry:

July 19, 2005
Design Principles in Protein Science
The Protein Society’s upcoming big annual meeting (July 30 to August 3, 2005) has a session that should give proponents of unintelligent evolution pause and proponents of intelligent design courage:

Session 1, July 31, 2005, 8:00AM to 12Noon
Systems Biology:
Understanding Design Principles of Protein Networks
Chair: Andrew Murray, Harvard University
Speakers: Howard Berg, Harvard University
Andrew Murray, Harvard University (Sponsored by Chroma Technology Corp)
Roy Kishony, Harvard University
James Collins, Boston University
Adam Arkin, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Ask yourself how design principles from human engineering contexts can be so usefully employed in studying biological systems if those systems themselves are not, as proponents of unintelligent evolution assure us, the product of intelligent design. By the way, Howard Berg, the first speaker listed, is the same person who said that the bacterial flagellum is “the most efficient machine in the universe.”

No, Bill, ask yourself what gives you the right to presume that "design" has to be intelligent in origin? Did you get your flagerantly false idea from Michael Behe’s inaccurate definition for natural process that necessarily excludes a naturally guided process?

Einstein would tell you that the systematic and mechanistic nature of nature means that there is some methodological structure to nature, and to presume that humans and "intelligence", (or even "design"), aren't simply a functional manifestation of this, requires both, an unfounded philosophical leap of faith, and quite possibly even more human arrogance than "free-thinkers" like H. Allen Orr have.

William Dembski - H. Allen Orr - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

H. Allen Orr.. Darwin v. Intelligent Design (Again)

2005-07-19T12:59:00.000-05:00

Man... I never get over the absurdities of fanatics.

Example H. Allen Orr:

The pages of this magazine are not often taken up with reviews of creationist screeds. The stuff is, after all, intellectual junk food, served up with a transparent evangelical agenda. But now and then a reputable, or even esteemed, scientist launches an assault on evolution. These attacks are potentially important and, whether sound or not, are invariably great head-turners. A generation ago, for instance, the astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle announced that the theory of natural selection was deeply flawed and could never account for the existence of complex organisms like you and me. Hoyle's objections were frankly silly, reflecting an embarrassing misunderstanding of Darwinian logic. In retrospect, there was only one reason anyone listened: Hoyle was a physicist. And as everyone-including biologists-then knew, physicists are smarter than the rest of us.

But the days of biologists suffering physics envy are long gone. We biologists have discovered the structure of DNA, broken the genetic code, sequenced the entire genome of some species, and, to a remarkable extent, figured out how a little egg turns into a big person (the last in a breathtaking decade). If a Hoyle were to now announce that biologists are deeply confused about natural selection or neurobiology, he'd be greeted, if at all, with a big yawn. There's only one way to shake up biologists now-the attack has to come from within.

He's got that part right anyway, you typically can't tell evolutionary biologists a damned thing, because they've got it all figured out... everybody else is wrong, and are now proven to be more stupid than them... end of story. Yeah, right.

These geniuses KNOW that there is no such thing as "design in nature", even though they can't exactly tell you what that even means, other than to say that they see it as requiring "intent". They somehow have this magical knowledge that supercedes that of actual design designers, and yet they really have no idea how one might recognize an algorithm for "design" in nature if they saw it.

Can you say... pre-conceived ideological prejudice?... It is a fact that patterns in nature are the essence of all math and physics, so if they aren't a valid representation for design in nature, then we truly are children of Chaos, the almighty god of random insanity, which is what the fools would have us believe, given the choice that they don't have, thanks to fanatical activists on the other runaway end of the diametrically opposing ideological spectrum that currently govern the direction of the political tide.

Evolutionary biologists, like Orr, openly scoff at engineers and experimental physicists when these professionals quite often point out to them that they've often discovered, (after the fact), that the stuff that they have designed already exists in nature, and it turns out that they have designed it for the very same functional purpose that arose from some common and practical physical need!

"An engineer said it... so, " nuff said "...

This is a favored expression of evolutionary biologists, and isn't it nice to know that we have these people to tell us that design engineers don't know what design looks like when they see it, or we might actually have to give them their due respect and take a serious look at what they are talking about.

What evolutionary biologists recognize when they look at examples for "design"-in-nature, is right about exactly on par with what Orr said. It doesn't matter what engineers recognize when it comes the this subject, the following is all that matters:

The stuff is, after all, intellectual junk food, served up with a transparent evangelical agenda.

So don't listen to physicists and design engineers that point to examples for "design in nature", because their observational interpretations aren't always keyed into the politics and they might inadvertantly give creationists an inch, for which they would then take a mile. Instead, declare that you know better, even though you're demonstratably less qualified to make a call about it than design engineers are.

Tell me, oh-wise.all-knowing.evo-biologist.god... if design doesn't exist in nature, then just exactly how would you define what engineers do...?

Or are you claiming that engineers aren't a part of nature too?

I've got a little news for you willfully clueless geniuses... that "don't understand the physics." The capability for "design" doesn't just pop-out of humans if the potential for its emergence doesn't pre-exist within physics that constrains the force constants of nature, so it can only be your sheer unadulterated human arrogance that gives you the unmitigated audacity to "believe" that "human-intent" can ever reflect anything greater or less than the sum of expressed bias toward satisfying a pre-existing physical need.

Some web references:
http://evolutionblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.mikel.org/arch/2005/05/the_new_yorker.html
http://radio.weblogs.com/0107946/2005/05/27.html

H. Allen Orr - Evolution - Intelligent Design - Science - Religion - Education - Creationism - Astrophysics - Spagetti Monster - Cosmology

Dembski's Dishonesty

2005-07-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

I went over to Dembski's website to have a little chat, but got banished from posting there as soon as I pointed out that proof for design in nature is just that, and nothing more. I first explained that I had a valid point that you would never hear a "neo-Darwinist" putting forth, which got his attention long enough to delay the inevitable, but he gave me the boot when I explained that the only way to prove "intelligent design" was to produce a very old alien space-craft with the blue-prints for human construction hanging from the drawing board, otherwise, it requires an unfounded leap of faith to assume that his proof for design in nature was anything more than that.

Not only that, but he then removed two of my posts in order to manipulate the context to make it appear like I have something to gain by promoting this book... which is a lie, because I have no affiliation with these Dorion Sagan and Eric Schneider, except that they have independently derived one aspect of the same theory that I discovered.

Anyway, I figured that it was time that somebody spoke-up for nature, that isn't dishonestly motivated by the ideological bias that plagues both sides of the debate.

I intend to use this blog to convey the middle-ground truth that lies between the fanatical bookends of the creation evolution debate in order that people will have an alternative to the rightous insanity of both.