Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is enjoying a late surge in the polls for the Republican nomination, especially in the crucial early caucus state of Iowa. Part of his appeal is a sense of humor, as evidenced by this clever appropriation of the Chuck Norris Facts meme:
Chuck Norris, in addition to his considerable thespian credentials, is a proud creationist who wants the Bible taught in public schools. So it is not surprising to find Mike Huckabee denying the reality of evolution during a televised debate.
But this video, while also quite funny, is pretty scary. Via Cynical-C, it’s a 2004 speech to the Republican Governors’ Association.
A phone call from God! Quite the thigh-slapper. Huckabee artfully includes an assurance that God doesn’t take side during elections — although we all know his preferences, apparently.
I understand that it’s a joke. But there are moments of solemnity during the “phone call,” when Huckabee is being perfectly serious. One of those is at the 2:00 mark, where we are reminded that the President talks to God. And then we receive a list of instructions, including “protecting marriage.” (It needs to be protected from The Gays, for those who don’t have your decoder rings.) George W. Bush himself has occasionally mentioned talking to God, although usually in private meetings where it’s difficult to get objective verification, and admittedly his theology is somewhat unsystematic.
A lot of people who don’t really believe in the old-fashioned supernatural nevertheless think it’s a good idea to appropriate spiritual terminology for their own uses — re-defining “faith” as “any hypothesis that has not yet been proven,” or “God” as “the warm feeling I get when contemplating the universe,” or “religion” as “a nice kind of social club that brings people together to reinforce each other’s goodness.” It’s not a good idea. These are words, and they have meanings when you say them — people think they know what you have in mind. When you say “God,” most people think of the dictionary definition — “the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.” They’re not thinking of “the laws of nature.” And they honestly believe in this dictionary-definition God. And they let that belief affect, or at least justify, how they govern the country. Shouldn’t every non-religious person be deeply alarmed about this state of affairs?
At the Beyond Belief II conference, Stuart Kauffman gave an interesting (although flawed, I thought) talk about complexity and reductionism, and then ruined the whole thing by suggesting at the end that we should re-define “the sacred” as something arising from the radical contingency of the empirical path of biological evolution. Or something like that, it was a bit vague. What an abysmally bad idea. If you want to choose a word that refers to something other than the traditional religious conception of supreme beings and all that, then don’t use religious language. Because there are other people out there — far vaster in number than you — that are using those same words to mean exactly what they straightforwardly denote: a supernatural power with a vested interest in smiting the wicked, especially boys and girls who fall in love with boys and girls, respectively. And they’re running this country at the moment, and their beliefs are enacted into policy.
Of course, arguing with Mike Huckabee and his friends runs the risk that Chuck Norris will come along and kick your ass. That’s just the chance we have to take.
ags wrote:
Thanks, I was thinking that was the case. In considering ontological implications, the selection of equal and opposite velocities is a natural choice. The possibility of some (E) in midlife that allows for birth and death to be thought of as simultaneous events is a significant fact if it is really a fact. Much work remains to be done, but the possibility of (E) and a drive to manipulate velocities to achieve a balance around that (E) might help explain both life and a proclivity of certain advanced organisms to form religious concepts.
Your statement about religion and life trying to “manipulate velocities” makes no sense to me, there is nothing special about E and it has no causal effects on us, I was just using it as a mathematical example of different events being simultaneous in different frames. I could equally well have said that there is some event E such that in one frame it is simultaneous with my 30th birthday and another it is simultaneous with my 31st, or I could have said there is some event A which is simultaneous with my birth in one frame and my 27th birthday in another, and some event B which is simultaneous with my 27th birthday in one frame and my death in another. The point is just that as long as you put all frame’s definitions of simultaneity on equal footing with regards to what “exists”, then you end up being forced to conclude that every event in spacetime exists in exactly the same sense.
John Merryman wrote:
There are an infinte number of z/y axes possible. The problem is that there is no absolute set of axes, so unless they are specified. What if you had a set of axes that is moving on this plane, would that be three dimensional. It seems two claims are being made here, which contradict; Anything can be located in terms of the axes, but the axes don’t have to be specified. As well as that any event can be equally defined by any set of dimensional axes. Would one centered on a distant star, be equally valid for understanding the details of your life? Would one that made your birth and death simultaneous be equal to one where they were x mumbers of revolutions of this planet around its star? Would potential frames be as valid as actual ones? How about one where your death occurs before your birth? would the sets of coordinates that I and the people around me use to understand me, be valid for understanding your life?
Frames are just mathematical tools for assigning coordinates to events and writing equations for the laws of physics in terms of these coordinates, I don’t know what you mean by asking whether different frames are “equally valid for understanding the details of your life”. Again you seem to be making fuzzy conceptual arguments based on nebulous interpretations of words, rather than understanding their strict technical definitions and basing your arguments on those.
I agree that there are an infinite number of x/y axes possible on the piece of paper. But do you agree or disagree that the paper is 2-dimensional without the need to specify any particular set of axes? Do you agree or disagree that geometrical facts about the paper, like the distances between points on it, have definite answers without the need to draw coordinates? (even though you can calculate this distance using a given coordinate system, by using the pythagorean theorem which says the distance will be the square root of [difference between the two points’ x-coordinates]^2 + [difference between the two points’ y-coordinates]^2 …note that the result you get for the distance will be independent of your choice of coordinate system, you can draw a different set of x/y axes and get the same answer.) If you agree, I don’t see what’s so problematic about saying that spacetime is inherently 4-dimensional without the need to specify any particular set of axes, and that the spacetime interval between events, which is analogous to distance on paper in the sense that it’s independent of what frame you use, is a “geometrical” fact about spacetime that doesn’t depend on having a coordinate system (though like distance it can be calculated in any particular coordinate system…it’s equal to the square root of [difference between time coordinates * the speed of light]^2 – [difference between x coordinates]^2 – [difference between y coordinates]^2 – [difference between z coordinates]^2 ).
I try to make it as clear as possible that I am not an ex[ert in this field and am trying to learn. That doesn’t mean that I won’t question what doesn’t seem to make sense, given my experience in other fields is that people put up as much bs as they can get away with. So if it appears to me that the emperor is naked, I’ll mention that and if someone convinces me otherwise, I’m equally willing to accept their logic, even if it may take me some time to put it all in a frame I can absorb. And I thank you and anyone else willing to present their perspective, even if I may not be wholy accepting of it.
But you do seem to have a rather high level of confidence in your ability to take technical terms from physics and use them in arguments without having clear technical definitions in mind. It’s been noted in psychology that people with less ability in a given area often tend to have the most exaggerated judgments about their own abilities, because they don’t know enough to realize how little they know about the subject, a paradox discussed in the paper Unskilled and Unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. It seems to me that you are in danger of falling into this sort of mental trap, so it might do you some good to be a little more cautious about jumping to the conclusion that you understand an argument just because the words’ nontechnical meanings resonate with you in a way that seems to make sense intuitively.
I still don’t see how this refutes my point that four dimensional spacetime is the frame and the reason it’s not space itself is because any number of such frames can be used to define the same space.
How can “four dimensional spacetime” be a “frame”, when a frame specifically refers to a coordinate system? This is like saying a piece of paper is really a set of x/y axes, it just doesn’t make any sense at all.
By saying that spacetime is four dimensional, rather then any specific frame/coordinate system.
More nebulous statements–“absolute reference frame” has a specific meaning in physics, unless you can show how “saying that spacetime is four dimensional” gives us a definite procedure for defining an absolute velocity or an absolute definition of simultaneity, then you’re abusing the term. And going back to the paper analogy, does saying a piece of paper is two-dimensional mean we are assuming an absolute set of x/y axes? If not, why are you treating spacetime fundamentally differently?
That which had all its dimensions specified.
What does it mean to “specify” dimensions, exactly? Is it the same thing as specifying a set of particular x-y-z axes? If so, are you saying that space is not 3-dimensional until we specify a particular set of axes? Why not, when dimensionality refers to the minimum number of coordinates that would be needed in any coordinate system defined throughout the space, without the need to specify any specific coordinate system?
You can’t have sequential events occurring simultaneously, as might appear when referencing information from other frames, as described here;
The statement above says nothing about “sequential events occurring simultaneously”, so what do you mean “as described here”? And what do you mean by “other frames”–what was the first frame? Saying “You can’t have sequential events occurring simultaneously” is a lot like saying “you can’t have dots on a piece of paper that have different y-coordinates also having the same y-coordinate”–surely you wouldn’t argue there is some “real” truth about whether dots on a piece of paper have the same or different y-coordinates before we specify some coordinate system on the paper?
I would say the priviliged frame is the four dimensions which most closely approximates your life.
What does it mean for a “frame” (which again, is just a coordinate system) to “approximate my life”? Would different individuals have different “privileged frames”? If so, then this would already be incompatible with presentism, which says there is a single objective truth about simultaneity, so that only events happening in the objective “now” really exist.
This is essentially a strawman, because physical reality exists as momentum, as well as position.
What is a strawman? Presentism? I’m just giving you the accepted definition of this philosophical view. If you disagree with the notion that “only things in the present exist” than you are not a presentist. But if you also disagree with the “eternalist” philosophy that says all things in all times are on equal ontological footing (they all ‘exist’ in the same sense), then you really need to spell out exactly what philosophy of time you are advocating.
The concept of an absolute now would lack momentum and therefore the form derived from this activity.
In physics one can talk about instantaneous momentum at a particular moment, so presumably a presentist would say each object’s instantaneous momentum is part of what exists in the present. But if neither you or I is advocating the presentist view, then we don’t really need to talk about, although as I said it would be helpful if you explained what alternative view you are proposing about time and what “exists”.
Jesse
My point is that prior to a theory of special relativity, a biblical statement “That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” would only have made sense as a figurative expression with no literal meaning. However, the statement indicates that at least some people in the past, people obviously thinking in religious terms conceptualized different frames of reference without any scientific reason to do so.
With SR, we can now describe a velocity slightly below the speed of light at which the statement becomes literally true. For some reason there appears to have been an innate ability to incorporate SR in an informal faith-based manner while formally in our modern science-based world it seems paradoxical.
I am suggesting that the connection between religion and life might arise out of relativistic aspects of space-time. At some level of complexity, information might encode a beginning and an end—a birth and a death. Cells can turn on and off—live and die. Coding continues (or evolves) in an effort to preserve the middle ground or niche between the two poles. Primitive olfactory senses develop in such a manner as to invoke powerful memories of past events in space-time, memories that mark moments of consciousness where life exists.
My point is that prior to a theory of special relativity, a biblical statement “That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” would only have made sense as a figurative expression with no literal meaning. However, the statement indicates that at least some people in the past, people obviously thinking in religious terms conceptualized different frames of reference without any scientific reason to do so.
They didn’t conceptualize “different reference frames”, because they didn’t imagine this had anything to do with velocity, nor did they conceptualize other aspects of different frames like length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity (which is what we had been discussing, not time dilation). The basic concept that different beings might perceive time at different speeds doesn’t require that we imagine they had supernatural insight into laws of physics whose empirical effects would have been totally invisible to them–we all know the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun”, and there are plenty of mind-altering drugs and other ways of going into an altered psychological state in which time seems to flow at a different rate than usual, none of which has anything to do with relativity.
With SR, we can now describe a velocity slightly below the speed of light at which the statement becomes literally true.
It’s important to understand that there is no concept of absolute speed in relativity. If you are moving at a speed close to the speed of light relative to me, then your clock will run slow in my rest frame, but this is all completely reciprocal–in your rest frame, since it is my speed that is close to that of light, it is my clock that will be running slow compared to yours! This is just another way in which ancient ideas about time running differently for gods or fairies or other supernatural beings are different from how things work in SR.
I am suggesting that the connection between religion and life might arise out of relativistic aspects of space-time. At some level of complexity, information might encode a beginning and an end—a birth and a death.
There’s no reason to think that relativity should allow violations of causality, which is what you seem to be suggesting (i.e. information about a system’s own future being somehow accessible to, or having an influence on, the same system at earlier times).
Wow, this discussion is getting very interesting. Reminder and query for comments: If we imagined a “wave function” that was real in any sense at all, it gets very difficult to imagine a “realistic” way for it to instantaneously “collapse” upon measurement/impact in light of (heh) the relativity of simultaneity. And yet, one must imagine:
1. That an electron or photon (especially the former?) really has some “condition” as it propagates away from emission, and *it* is a real thing and can’t be brushed off as “information” etc.
2. It really can’t be going in a classical trajectory, from interference experiments etc.
3. When there is an impact, counter click, etc., then of course the particle can no longer be found anywhere else, and so “something” can’t be all over the place anymore,
4. Which leads right back to a train-wreck (remember?) regarding simultaneity.
It just doesn’t add up, and I am not impressed with post-modern blatherings about the collapse being an illusion, multiple worlds, decoherence etc. (as I have said, any failure to collapse in this creepy way would just leave a wave evolving “as a wave” forever, not a way to explain or allocate away localizations.)
My answer is to quit pretending that the universe is a rational system that we can make a “picture of,” and just accept it as a scheme for producing results according to “a way to be.” Interpret that as you wish.
Neil B. wrote:
It just doesn’t add up, and I am not impressed with post-modern blatherings about the collapse being an illusion, multiple worlds, decoherence etc. (as I have said, any failure to collapse in this creepy way would just leave a wave evolving “as a wave” forever, not a way to explain or allocate away localizations.)
But “a wave evolving as a wave forever” is exactly what is postulated by the many-worlds interpretation. At every moment, the state of the universal wavefunction is a superposition of many different classical outcomes (this is just a mathematical property of the wavefunction in QM, regardless of whether you accept the MWI or not), as I understand it the MWI basically interprets each of these elements of the superposition as being equally “real” from their own perspective (though I haven’t studied the MWI too carefully so you should probably take this summary with a grain of salt).
My answer is to quit pretending that the universe is a rational system that we can make a “picture of,” and just accept it as a scheme for producing results according to “a way to be.” Interpret that as you wish.
Well, that’s basically the Copenhagen interpretation in a nutshell (the CI is not usually understood to be the same as the notion of an ‘objective collapse’).
Note that there are a few other intepretations of QM available, like Bohmian mechanics and the transactional interpretation. None of them make any distinct predictions from the ordinary “shut up and calculate” approach (although it might be possible that elements of one of these interpretations could be incorporated into a future theory of quantum gravity in such a way that they did lead to real predictions), so take your pick!
Jesse
Are you saying there is no way to conceptualize a dilation of time in which a single day in one frame equates to 365,000 days in another frame?
Are you saying there is no way to conceptualize a dilation of time in which a single day in one frame equates to 365,000 days in another frame?
In relativity you could have two observers A and B such that, in the rest frame of A, B’s clocks would be running 365,000 times slower than A’s. But it would also be true that in the rest frame of B, A’s clocks would be running 365,000 times slower than B’s. There is no “objective” truth about whose clocks are running slower in SR. And I’m also saying that the fact that some ancient people imagined the idea of one being’s time running slower than another’s hardly shows they had advanced knowledge of relativity, since it doesn’t require a huge leap of imagination to come up with this basic idea (again, there are all kinds of circumstances in which people feel like time is passing slower or faster than usual).
Jesse
You wrote: (again, there are all kinds of circumstances in which people feel like time is passing slower or faster than usual).
Yes there are, probably many of us have experienced that phenomenon in high stress or existence threatening circumstances. Each of us has a central nervous system that extends from our head to our toe, but if all moments between birth and death are allowed to be on equal footing in space-time, we also have to consider our CNS extends throughout space-time. I do not believe the ramifications of such a fact have been fully explored by rational analysis. I support such an effort since it may yield long sought information.
ags wrote:
This might even lead us to the legendary phenomenon called “memory”.
Each of us may form a wave of energy whose wavelength and period are a function of our lifetime.
Jesse,
That’s an interesting point with regard to space. An idea that has occurred to me is that space is the real absolute. That geometry defines it, but doesn’t create it, so that the geometric zero isn’t the dimensionless point, but empty space. This gets into cosmology though and whether Omega=1, so that all the gravitational contraction and expanding redshift balance out into euclidian space. Not to totally go off on a tangent, but it would seem that if redshift is caused by space expanding from a point, then the speed of light should increase as space expands, otherwise it is measuring a stable dimension of space, not an expanding one.
You agree that while two axes define a specific plane, a plane does not specify a specific set of coordinates. Geometry defines space, while space is the basis for geometry, not a creation of it.
My real issue in this discussion has been whether time is an actual dimension, or is just modeled as one. That is the relationship between different coordinate systems moving about in the same space. This isn’t just physics, it’s politics as well, ie. how these different frames interact.
My curiosity exceeds my embarrassment. My interest in physics is the same as my interest in history, or politics, or economics. It is an increasingly unstable world and I feel it behooves me to gain as firm a grasp of what is happening as possible. If I was to take the time, I’m sure I can come up with quite a few examples where the professionals became so insulated from the larger world that they eventually lost touch with reality. It is safe to say that quite a few PhD’s are in this boat, since so many theories being put forth contradict each other. At least my living doesn’t depend on this.
In the fundamental duality of life, there are generalists and specialists, with advantages and disadvantages to both. If there were only generalists, we would still be living in caves and hunting rabbits with sticks. The problem for specialists is that they can become disconnected from the larger context and the towers of Babel they like to construct fall down when the divergence gets too great. Life is one step back for every two forward and generalists tend to be more adaptable.
Four dimensions are not a coordinate system? It seems to me that you assume the four dimensional map is the territory. Any four dimensional coordinate system can define the same territory, but from different perspectives. Absolute perspective is an oxymoron.
That referred to the quote which followed, not the preceding one. Here it is again;
It seems to me that you are saying all frames exist as one larger frame, so that if there is one comparable to E=b and another where E=d, then b=d, even in the original frames where they are not equal.
The problem is comparing frames that are in motion. The notion of stable dimensions breaks down, even if the principles by which they interact are stable.
You might want to think how this applies to and defines politics, as well as religion. We all consitiute our own frames and then we try to create larger frames of agreement, even when it means agreeing to nonsense, which has the added advantage of placing all parties in a strange frame. It explains a lot of psychology as well.
I’m arguing that time isn’t fundamental, either as point or line. I’m arguing it is a consequence of motion, similar to temperature, rather then dimensional basis for it, like space. Consider a thermal medium, say a pot of hot water, with lots of water molecules moving about. If we were to construct a time keeping device out of this situation, we would take the motion of one of these points of reference and measure it against the medium it is moving through. The point is the hand and the medium is the face of the clock. Obviously all the other points are hands of their own clocks, but are medium/face for all other clocks. As Newton pointed out, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So the motion of any point/hand is balanced by the reaction of the medium/face of the clock. To the hand of the clock, the face goes counterclockwise.
Time is described as a dimension because it has direction from past events to future ones, but these events go from being future potential to past circumstance. In the thermodynamic medium, the relationships of these points constitute an event, even though the perspective is different for every point. While any and all of the points go from past events to future ones, the medium against which any point is being judged is the overall context, which once created, is displaced by the next, so this event goes from present to past. Tomorrow, today will be yesterday.
The collapsing wave of potential is the future turning into past circumstance, which we distill out as linear narrative, Say the quantum event, the bottle of poison, the cat, the box, our eyes. This narrative is simply the stream of specific detail, much like a particular molecule traveling through the larger medium and the series of encounters involved. Yet, as I pointed out in the thermal framing, there are innumerable other points of reference also describing their own narrative and all this activity exists in an equilibrium, so there are waves of all these other narratives crashing around and nothing really collapses to a point, just continues on its merry way, because every narrative amounts to its own particular linear dimension, going its own particular way and there is no one dimension of time.
This isn’t presentism because time isn’t primary. That doesn’t make it imaginary, it puts it on a level with temperature and I don’t go around putting my hand on hot stoves. If you want to describe something ten lightminutes away as being ten minutes in the past, that’s certainly logical, but drawing convoluted comparisions of how different events can appear in different sequences, from different perspectives, somehow proves that time is a fundamental dimension and change is an illusion doesn’t pass the test with me.
The only absolute temperature is the complete absence of it and I suppose the same applies to time. Which doesn’t leave a line or a point, but just empty space. Of course, space fluctuates, so I guess absolute time and temperature don’t exist. Or don’t non-exist. Whichever.
Regards,
John
Neil,
Greg Egan wrote:
This might even lead us to the legendary phenomenon called “memory”.
I think neurophysiologists have a pretty good handle on the mechanics of memory, but consciousness is something else. It is in this area that I expect a cosmic connection may be uncovered. When comparing a computer simulated image of galaxies combining under the influence of gravity to form clusters with an image of actual neurons in the brain tissue of a cat I was amazed by an apparent similarity between the two pictures. I found myself wondering if the correspondence between the two patterns connoted a deeper connection between the cosmos and mammalian brain. Is it significant that, in using a single set of mathematical instructions to model accurately the formation of galaxy clusters, a modern supercomputer will graphically depict a structural pattern common to both neural and interstellar systems? Why does the neuronal system of the mammalian brain develop its connections in a manner that mimics the pattern of a gravitational coalescence of galaxies? Is evolving consciousness an analogue to gravitational coalescence? Will understanding dark energy reveal insights into our own consciousness. I think it is possible.
Can I interest you in a mouldy piece of bread that looks exactly like the Shroud of Turin? Bids start at $1,000.
Greg Egan
That’s a little expensive but if it might help understand something new it might be worth it.
John in # 88: Not a bad analogy or model, but it still doesn’t derive the impact being one place and not any other in a given case. As I explained, no mathematical model can do that (since mathematics itself is fully deterministic by nature, and can only borrow from physical, genuinely unpredictable processes, or use pseudorandom generators like digits of pi etc.
Neil,
What if this energy release effectively reduced the pressure/energy of the wave? That way, as particle, it is reduced to one point/strike, yet if this doesn’t happen, it’s still a wave. Consider that lightning bolts only really occur when they strike the ground. There are frequently lightning exchanges between clouds, but they are more diffuse flashes, then bolts. Whether light is measured as particle or wave depends on the type of test involved. I haven’t read up on the methods used, but possibly the one which measures light as particle is more electrically conductive than the one which measures it as wave. I’m certainly no expert, but you might find plasma cosmology interesting, if you haven’t looked into it already.
An interesting article;
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19841/page2/
“Using novel voltage-sensitive nanoparticles, researchers have found electric fields inside cells as strong as those produced in lightning bolts. Previously, it has only been possible to measure electric fields across cell membranes, not within the main bulk of cells. It’s not clear what causes these strong fields or what they might mean. But now that it’s possible to measure them, researchers hope to learn about disease states such as cancer by studying these electric fields.”
John Merryman
How does the idea of our cells having internal electric fields square with your thoughts on the passage of time? Those electric fields would exist in space-time as all other fields do. It does not seem that the fields would have any relationship to yesterday, today, or tomorrow; they just are. Any thoughts?
ags,
The connection was through plasma cosmology;
http://www.plasmacosmology.net/
With its focus on electricity.
My observation about time is non Big Bang geometry and I think this concept does a good job of explaining the forces involved.
As I’ve argued, reality just is. Time is a consequence of change, not cause of it.