Re: Oldest Bible On-line

ijdavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ian Davis) wrote in
news:h3o0b6$6h2$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:



I imagine that we are in the unique position to be both
paint and painter in this universe.

This seems reasonably consistent with quantum mechanics, and
much more plausible than the common Creator God -- Created
Creature arrangement that many propose.






I imagine it would be very hard to measure the speed of a
neutrino. If they had a lot of mass as a result of
travelling close to light speed, they would still be almost
massless. Another indicator I would imagine that they may
not travel at light speed is that neutrino's can decay in
flight from one form to another form of neutrino.
Travelling at light speed they would experience no
progression of time, which I would imagine precludes such
dramatic changes in state, that are themselves a function
of time.


That is precisely the puzzlement. How can it change or
oscillate at the speed of light? The fact that it does
implies mass, and mass at the speed of light is outside
current models of the Einsteinian universe.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neutrino/



I wonder if time is not curved the same way space is, in
the sense that it is not infinite like we imagine, but
finite.


Time seems closely related with complex numbers. I suspect
that times relationship to space would be much clearer, if
we existed in a world which permitted direct observation of
numbers whose squares were negative. Replacing time T by
i*T' and you have in T' a spacial dimension in harmony with
the others. For any two coodinates in space-time
x^2+y^2+z^2+T'^2 is a constant. Similarly if you look at
shrodingers equation, one must multiple the derivative of
the wave function with respect to time, by i to form an
identity with the second derivative of the wave function
with respect to space. In lay english with some
handwaving, the way that the wave function changes over
time, is related to i * the way that wave functions change
over space itself changes over space.

In math we can create all sorts of useful abstractions we
cannot intuitively visualize. We can do the math for
10-dimensional space; we haven't a clue as to how to really
visualize anything beyond the 3 dimensions we know and live
in. The math takes us quite outside our experience of
existence. The interesting thing about imaginary numbers is
that things we experience always end up fitting into real
numbers, so we don't know if the imaginary part is just
unperceivable or whether its just a useful math trick for
simplifiying descriptions of phenomena. In any event, i
worked miracles in transforming math and science.


Time and space are both curved by changes in velocity.
Indeed there are some astonishing relationships between
time and space. Throw a ball and the curve it naturally
takes we ascribe to gravity. But it happens to also be the
exact curve which from the balls perpective causes time to
run at its fastest. That ball in the air looks like it
curves but in space-time it travels the shortest distance
between two points -- because other paths would slow time
making the distance longer. Our time runs more slowly than
that ball, because of the effect of gravity, or
equivalently because we are denied the ability to travel
the ideal straight path through space-time because of the
ground beneath our feet.

Right. That's what Einstein's theory was all about. But
while I can crudely imagine space of the universe as being
finite and bounded as a surface of existence, it seems for
some reason difficult to imagine time as finite. It's as if you had a
number system at which negative infinity = postive infinity
-- sort of like a sphere in which the farthest point from a
location in one direction is the farthest point from that
location in the opposite direction.

Singularities and infinities are interesting limits of our
symbolic language. Is infinity squared greater than
infinity? Not a real question -- just something that
explores the limits of what we're trying to describe.


But we have overlearned it and overvalued it. Our human
minds, when facing the future act as complex calculating
machines making complex predictions based on extremely
limited personal experience and information. We exaggerate
our own knowledge, are hugely biased by personal quirks
that (almost invisible to us) distort our rational
evaluation, and in the face of complexity give credence to
simplistic notions of friends that we trust. (See Stumbling
on Happiness for a much clearer picture of processes at
work.) And we end up consistently making very flawed
judgments about the future.

By Patrick Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist?

Yes. Not a great book, but very interesting with some
practical insight into why people consistently make some of
the mistakes they do. The mind is a wonderful computer,
amazing efficient at creating compelling and useful visions
of reality -- so good we do not genreally realize we are
using processed and digested information. And one part of its
function is to guess and project the future -- near term and
far. It guesses so shrewdly much of the time that sometimes
that we completely forget its a calculated guess. And
sometimes we guess with faulty information and processing and
make huge mistakes. If we are unaware we are guessing, we are
repeatedly puzzled when we're wrong again and again as we
make the same bad guesses.


To what extent might law, codified over eons serve as a
play book for what collectively we've come to label acting
rightly and what wrongly. What tools best guide well? Is
the notion that one should seek to love others and put
their interests at least equal to ones own such a bad
approach to take? And is not law a balanced thing which
seeks to say the harm others may not legally do you, is the
same harm that you may not legally do others?

There are both moral and social wisdom in those laws -- moral
in the sense of being laws about what brings worth and
meaning to human life, social in the sense they contain
wisdom about how to exist in cohesive communities rather than
isolated wandering. In modern ages, communities have
become enormously larger than in remote times. At the current
size, it's not clear if glue that advanteously binds
civilization is sufficient to contain the forces of
self-interest that tend to tear it apart. Things like global
warming are a problem for earth based civilization, but the
institutions available to deal it are the ones based on
regional self interest. We human tend to overestimate and
over value our own pain while simultaneously underestimating
and undervaluing the pain of others. We screamed in total
anquish about the loss of lives in 9/11, but hardly blinked
when we unleashed orders of magnitude more hell on the Iraqi
civilians for no good reason. Humans -- not the best
handiwork of God.
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: funny creationsist
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  • Re: no i in Schroedinger?
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  • Re: Corrective interpretation of real numbers
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