md65536

The appeal to "links" is usually reserved for those who parrot the ideas of others. For the most part such is not the disposition of the author of this thread.

 

 

However: I have posted much to the web. Such referrals will be forth coming( This due to the necessity of chronology of discoveries.)

 

However: This thread represents a "link" of sorts.

I think this post speaks volumes in this thread.

You've misinterpreted what Klaynos meant by "causal links". What I think he meant is that you must show how your theory links causes to observable effects in the real world, not how other work is linked to yours.

You have misinterpreted the word "link", expanded it to include other meanings, and then associated all possible meanings together. This is what you're doing with your theory. You are misinterpreting connections between things and looking for meaning where there probably is none. The "causal link" that you probably need, would be to show that these connections actually DO have meaning, perhaps with some physical predictions your theory might make, or something like that. I don't know how you could possibly do that, and I agree with Klaynos that what's presented here isn't science.

Synecdoche ( /sɪˈnɛkdəkiː/; from Greek synekdoche (συνεκδοχή), meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:

• Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing (pars pro toto), or
• A thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it (totum pro parte), or
• A specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or
• A general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or
• A material is used to refer to an object composed of that material, or
• A container is used to refer to its contents.

Check out this "link": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization Some of the "links" at the bottom of that page may also be applicable to this thread.

I can fall asleep, by will, anywhere, or speed up anywhere I want by now. I think there is much more to dig up here than that...

I've seen your previous posts about similar things, and I am interested but skeptical, and remain confused about what it is exactly you're describing.

Can you provide some more specifics about some aspect of this? For example, falling asleep by will...

Do you simply have to decide to fall asleep, and it happens?

How long does it take to fall asleep?

How do you know that you've fallen asleep (do you retain consciousness, or do you awake after some time has passed)?

How long do you sleep for? Is it controllable?

Is the sleep, or the process of falling asleep, different from "normal" sleep (by that I guess I would mean intentional but not willfully induced periods of sleep)?

What thoughts or senses are noticeably "different" from what you would expect everyone else to experience when falling asleep?

etc...

Maybe there is a special usage of "causality" to which you refer. (If so please define.)

 

...

 

I mean it it the most simple and common sense way, which I have repeated many times: "The cosmic event horizon is as far as we can see"... with our best technology, including "background radiation from the bang" and optics from Hubble's deep space probe, focused on one relatively 'empty' spot in the sky for a relatively long time. (More of the same as far as we can see.)

The aspect of causality that I keep referring to is that no information can travel faster than light in a vacuum, which means that nothing can affect anything else over a very long distance and very short time interval (the limit is the distance light can travel in a given time), which implies that if we can observe an effect of something (including gravitation), then that something is (or was) within an observable distance (horizon).

A "common sense definition" is not really a good thing, because it is imprecise and can vary. For me common sense is that the horizon is the limit at which any observation is theoretically possible. Your definition seems to exclude things that may be theoretically observable but are not currently practically observable.

So I may be wrong and causality is not an issue with your conjecture.

The problem with imprecision is that you could be talking about something that disobeys causality, or you could be talking about dark matter, or any number of things that can't be precisely distinguished.

Finally, my question still remains as to why there can be no gravitational attraction by matter, in whatever array, (like scattered around as coalesced clumps) beyond our visible cosmic horizon which gravitationally pulls on stuff we can see, accounting for the accelerating rate of expansion in general and accounting for the kind of anomaly (even faster accelerating "patches" of our visible cosmos) cited above by Spyman.

The short answer is causality.

Causality is the answer that still remains, as to why there can be no gravitational attraction by matter that is beyond our cosmic horizon.

Do you accept that gravitational effects cannot propagate faster than c? If not, then your proposal is in conflict with special relativity, which is a problem because special relativity is consistent with all observed phenomena and is well accepted. Can you explain how causality doesn't apply, or how it can be circumvented?

If your proposal conflicts with causality, then I'm afraid you're going to have to provide a lot of pretty convincing evidence before I could consider the possible reality of your idea.

If you accept special relativity but don't get how it applies here, I could try to provide a clearer example.

If I am misunderstanding what you mean by "cosmic horizon", then some clarification would be helpful to me.

Then you'd get a view of the disc, belts and rings. Since you'd be 100X closer.

No, magnification is not the same as being closer.

The difference is best illustrated with cameras, and the difference between zoom and tracking:

It's also easy to experiment by playing around with the "view angle" in a video game.

As for "energy"... a telescope's front lens is usually bigger than your eye, and it focuses that larger area into the smaller eyepiece area, which means that it allows more incoming energy to enter your eye than without the telescope.

So, back to possible clumps of matter (say combined supermassive black holes) beyond our vision attracting these "patches" faster than their surroundings.

...

BTW: Who says that gravity is not a constant force ever since the bang or bangs, just diminished in force with more distance (the square of the distance, as I understand it) ad infinitum. There is no waiting while "gravity waves" reach us, as argued above. For example, the gravitational pull between earth (and other planets) and the sun is steady. No delays waiting for it to reach us just because it travels at light speed, if it does...which seems well established.

The short answer is that causality says so.

However, your idea of a continuum of gravity does seem intuitively correct to me. I can't think of any intuitive way that stretching space would leave gaps in gravitational effect. (Instant teleportation, or non-uniform stretching should allow it, but I can't imagine how or why that could happen.)

BUT, if there is a continuum of gravitational pull from a distant object, there would also be a continuum of light from that object (as Spyman pointed out). In that case the object never goes "beyond our vision". It never leaves our light cone?

Please distinguish what you mean by "beyond our vision". Do you mean outside of our light cone, and beyond the influence of causality and gravity? Or do you mean something that is inside our light cone but invisible (too dim perhaps, or obscured by something else).

If you mean the former, then causality is a problem for you, and you must then explain how special relativity is wrong or how you get around it in your model before it will be accepted.

If you mean the latter, then you are placing size restrictions on the effects of your model, and you should speak only about things that we haven't visually detected (ie. "dark matter") rather than about things that are "too far away to be within the scope of vision."

To first comment: True. But I initiated the thread and do have an interest in the topic, if you don't mind (or even if you do.) So then I reply to your post and you to mine, and off we go again. And your agenda to set me straight on textbook science while not comprehending what I am actually saying... continues.

Yes! Enough of all the textbook science. What this thread needs is more of the "new and exciting" science that is replacing the "old and boring": Blog science! I think congress is close to declaring that science requires popular consensus... and all you book-quoting and reference-citing scientists are soon to lose the popular vote!

 

The rubber in my membrane (and it is my model) is expanding like foam even as the whole balloon is expanding. That was the meaning of the hologram analogy... as with the whole balloon (expanding), so with the membrane itself, also expanding in "thickness" as well as with the whole balloon. Think of the foam out of a can that seals gaps in house maintenance.

So the only point of the balloon analogy was that there is expansion both in balloons and in your model (though nothing like the way a balloon expands)?

I too didn't get it and still don't, and remain oblivious to what you actually presented. Did you get any of what anyone who has replied to you has said?

You might find it interesting to know that there might have been something huge and very dense inside our past light cone in early times, while it is now outside so we are unable to observe it, we are still able to observe its effects on our surroundings.

Yes, that's interesting and I hadn't thought of it. This is now certainly beyond my knowledge.

However I think I'm still technically right...

If something was previously inside our light cone but was moved out (or otherwise disappeared), we may still observe that object but only as it was while it was inside our light cone.

If we observe another object being affected by it, we observe it being affected by it only as it was while it was still inside our light cone.

Once an object is moved outside our light cone, we cannot make any observation of that object in a state after it was moved outside, nor of any effect of that object in a state after it was moved, that was made on our surroundings (whether near or distant).

I guess it depends on whether you equate "something" with "the same thing in a past state."

It's true that no effect of the past state of something can be observed if its past state is outside our light cone.

It's true that no effect of the current state of something can be observed if it is currently outside our light cone.

It's NOT true (as you pointed out) that no effect of the past state of something can be observed if it is currently outside our light cone.

We cannot observe anything within our cosmic event horizon being affected by anything outside of our cosmic event horizon,

I think that's still correct because if we see an effect of something, we're talking about that something as it was while it was inside our light cone, not about an effect of that something as it was later (when it may have been moved outside the light cone).

Unfortunately the forum will no longer allow image installation, instead the following message appears: You are not allowed to use that image extension on this board. (i.e. the 'insert image' button) therefore I have resorted to referring readers to a pdf file.

I think that message refers to the filename extension of image. Jpeg and others should still be allowed.

Imagine messenger.

It travelled to Mercury. Along the way the "speed of light" increased because the rate of anti-spacetime flow increased.

This did not affect it's path or "gravitational" relationship to anything else in the solar system.

 

It all cancels out.

I have my own theories in which the "speed of light" is not constant. You can create your own variation of a definition of time, and use it to create your own variation of velocity. But does it make sense?

The problem is, an observer traveling to Mercury is not going to observe any change in the speed of light. You could use an artificially modified variant of time, so that the artificially modified variant of speed shows the speed of light varying, but that's not what the observers are going to see. All observations in recorded history, as well as all observations as predicted by SR and GR, show that all observers measure a constant speed of light. Nobody ever observes a change in the speed of light.

md65536,

Huh? What "in between stuff?" As far as we can see (present tense) is our cosmic event horizon. Beyond that is anybody's guess. I was guessing that stuff which is further out than we can see could be pulling outward on our visible cosmos, as we observe its expanding at an accelerating rate, and nobody knows why. Positing some sort of anti-gravity mystery matter or "dark energy" is not an answer, just making up words for "some mysterious unknown force." Spyman tells me that the pull of "far out" stuff can not account for this visible expansion.

Seems like you are playing in a different ballpark.

I might be talking about something else, but I think it applies here. The "in between stuff" would be "stuff that is visible to us" that might be pulled by farther away stuff that is beyond our "cosmic event horizon." I explained it poorly, but I'll try to say it again hopefully simpler to see if it adds anything useful:

We cannot observe anything within our cosmic event horizon being affected by anything outside of our cosmic event horizon, because the time that it takes for such observations to reach us, would allow the effects of that "outside" thing to reach us. If we have any evidence of its effects, then it is within our cosmic event horizon.

If we see something at the edge of the universe being pulled "outward" by a gravitational force, then we should also be affected (to a much smaller degree due to the huge increase in distance) by the same gravitational force.

Seems to violate the universal law of gravitation to claim that stuff further out than we can see is not pulling outward on stuff we can see... since all matter attracts all other matter, the closer the more attractive force...

This is where we're clashing. There is no such law, because it contradicts the law of causality. According to causality, if you separate 2 things by some great distance (say by inflation), they cannot begin to gravitationally attract each other sooner than it takes light (in a vacuum) to travel the distance between them. Universal gravitation would be restricted by the theoretical speed of gravity waves, which is c.

Seems to violate the universal law of gravitation to claim that stuff further out than we can see is not pulling outward on stuff we can see... since all matter attracts all other matter, the closer the more attractive force...

Must be that the pull of the closer stuff is balanced my the way more mass of the farther stuff in the rest of the total mass of all shells.

Well not really...

The stuff that is "farther than we can see" is so not because it's too dim or anything, but because of causality: Light, gravity etc from this potential stuff can't reach us in time for us to know that it's there. No information about this stuff reaches us.

If there is stuff "in between" what we can see and what we can't see, AND if that stuff can be affected by things that we can't see, that means that observations that can't reach us in time, can reach the in-between stuff and affect it. BUT, if we can make observations of this in-between stuff, that means that light from it has time to reach us.

So if this "in between" stuff is pulled by gravity due to something unknown, and we make an observation of that in-between stuff being pulled by gravity, it is only due to our being able to observe the in-between stuff, which means light has had time to get here from there. But then, light, gravity etc from the unknown stuff would also have the time to make it here (since an observation of it would arrive at the same time as an observation of the "stuff" being affected by it).

Stuff that's too far away to affect us causally, is too far away to affect causally anything that we can observe being affected.

Or in other words... if we couldn't see the far unknown junk due to causality, but some in-between stuff was being pulled by its gravity, we wouldn't know that it was being pulled until at least the time that the unknown junk became causally observable. We could not see evidence of the unknown stuff, until it is observable.

You are treating consciousness as a "Thing" rather than as a process (see next section).

 

 

[...]

 

As an example, one of them would be the original and the other would be the copy. Just knowing that I was the original would mean that my experience of the copying would be fundamentally different form the copy.

 

Or what about the scenario where the duplication split the original so that neither could say if they were the original or not? Well in this case we would have different spatial or temporal positions (eg: one wakes up on the left side of the room and the other on the right). These differences cause a fundamental distinction between the entities and this means the processes are different from the outset.

Then perhaps it is "identity" that I was thinking of as an emergent property.

Is it fair to say that identity is a product of consciousness, which is simply a process?

For examples I prefer the idea of splitting a consciousness so that there is no distinction between the 2 copies. If you say "one must be the original", that gives you an easy way to associate the identity of the original with only one of the copies, and avoid thinking about the problems. The problem is that there are now 2 copies and 2 separate processes of consciousness, and 2 identities... and while you could clone Bob and say "They're both Bob!", each of the clones would have a feeling of "me" that separates the 2... each knows "The other clone is not me," at least as far as the process that creates identity is concerned.

I think that the difference between our points is that I'm trying to say "The clones can be identical and yet each has something that is unique", while you are saying "As soon as there are 2 copies they are different, so there is no problem with them having unique identities." I think both points are correct; I'll have to dig deeper to find a useful distinction.

If we make the following assumptions:

- Identity is the result of the process of consciousness, which is a result of the physical makeup of a brain (including any applicable aspects of matter, energy, time, etc).

- Without the physical processes of the brain, consciousness would cease.

- Without consciousness, an identity associated with that consciousness would cease to exist.

Perhaps we can simplify everything by saying that the idea that "Identity is an emergent phenomena" is the same sentiment as "Identity is a process and not a physical thing." Perhaps the essence of "emergence" is that it involves characteristics that "come into being" only due to the arrangement and interaction of other physical objects and measurements. There IS no problem with identities being created or destroyed, because they don't exist as things. -- So, okay I think I get your point now.

Going back to the idea of being a "god of our own reality", this is true if...

- we allow that a god can exist as a consequence of other physical properties, rather than as independent physical properties

- we allow that a god can be created by a particular arrangement of reality, and destroyed when that arrangement is dismantled

- so despite being a god, we cease to exist if that particular reality ceases to exist.

This kind of goes against the connotation of being a god. Instead of saying "My particular reality exists only because I exist", it makes more sense to say "I exist only because my particular reality exists." Reality is the god; I am nothing.

Then, going back to my ramblings about a "fundamental universe" vs emergent realities...

I would say that the difference between what is fundamental and what is emergent then seems to be an issue of whether a physical aspect "exists" on its own independent of other things, or exists (only?) as a consequence of other physical aspects. One might say that the energy that makes up the mass of our brain is a fundamental part of the universe, and the spatial arrangement of that matter may be fundamental or emergent (I believe the latter), but the consciousness of that brain is emergent, and only exists as consequence of the arrangement of the brain's energy in space and time.

If this is acceptable, then I would say No, consciousness is not an extra dimension. The dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify each point within it [."]http://en.wikipedia....iki/Dimension]. If consciousness is just a consequence of the spatial and temporal arrangement of mass, energy, etc, then that consciousness can be completely specified by specifying the mass and energy in their spacetime dimensions. Given a particular arrangement of energy, a consciousness can be deduced. I don't see a need for anything extra that can't be specified in the "usual" dimensions (whether or not additional dimensions are included for MWI).

Assuming my understanding is correct, then it seems to me that people in this thread (not everyone of course) are sort of ignoring the bit I've highlighted above. You see this all the time in sci fi when they delve into this topic, all the alternate realities are the products of human decisions rather than what I thought the theory actually states, which is that all the alternate realities correspond to different quantum 'decisions'.

I think you're right about what the theory states. Neither "decisions" nor "observations" need to have anything to do with humans.

Human decisions seem to have an element of uncertainty to it (though it's not settled for good whether we, or the universe, is deterministic or stochastic -- the latter seems to be the correct one). A particular human decision involves a lot of individual interactions of matter and energy, probably involving a mix of many deterministic and non-deterministic processes.

I consider an observation to be any effect that depends on the state of something else.

For example, if an atom collides with another atom and is affected by it, that constitutes an observation.

An atom can be an observer, if an observation affects it.

My understanding of the MWI is that if the event of an atom colliding or not colliding is a probabilistic event that both occurs and doesn't occur (both in superposition), then the event of collision or no collision is a quantum observation (or decision) that differentiates 2 different worlds based on only this event. (With many many other worlds existing, differentiated by each of all the possible different random events that can occur in different ways)

Then I realize that *this* is the equation that Einstein was looking for. . . .

What was the equation?

I've seen a lot of "I solved it"s and "This explains gravity and planets and cat and dogs etc"... but I haven't seen any understandable explanations. Only claims. Perhaps I missed it somewhere among the posts of another thread.

Let's just assume for a minute that you're right and that you've solved the universe. I still don't understand it. I'm just a stupid ordinary person. How will it be understood, used, discussed etc by others if it can't be explained in a way that we understand?

If this is something that we are incapable of understanding and you're incapable of dumbing down for us, then there's no point in discussing it. Until I can understand any part of your solution to the universe, or even understand what it is you may have solved, I must assume that you haven't.

(No need to comment on my being stupid. The degree of my stupidity doesn't change anything other than whether or not I'm your intended audience.)

For a start, there is no evidence that a Soul exists, and different beliefs about what a soul is, is different between even people who believe in the same religion. So speculating on the effects of something that has not been shown to exist, and the definition of is inconsistent is not something that will lead to fruitful outcomes.

That's true... and just using any of these words, like "Soul, Multiple worlds, Consciousness" etc carries WAY too many extra connotations to be able to figure it all out in an internet forum. It would be better to simplify and talk about only concrete things. Like: What specific aspects of a "soul" are we talking about here?

However, we have a better handle on conciousness. As far as we can detect, conciousness is a product of the processes in our brain (that is all the properties of conciousness can be attributed to know processes that occur in the brain). Thus, if you were to duplicate the brain without interrupting these processes, then it would be possible to duplicate a conciousness (once duplicated it would be a different conciousness, but it could be done).

Yes... but!...

Suppose someone duplicated you perfectly so that there was no difference between you and your twin. I would assume that you wouldn't simultaneously "think" from the perspective of 2 people. You would each still think you were you. No matter how "same" you are, there would be some aspect of you and your consciousness that is unique to each of you.

Or another example: You are the same person as "you" from yesterday, right? But that person no longer thinks, experiences, or exists. You from yesterday, as separate from you from today, can no longer think or experience in your universe. You each existed at different times, but you only associate your consciousness with the you that exists at the moment. -- Sorry if this makes no sense! It's all vague and confusing to me.

My point is that there is something that you associate with "you" that can be sensed (IE. thought of, or observed), that is independent of the physical system. No matter how identical you and something else are, you still have a sense of individuality. I think that the answer to this puzzle is that we are not actually fundamental parts of the universe! Consciousnesses must have some emergent component(s).

I assume consciousness is an effect of physical aspects of the universe (rather than existing independently of the physical universe), and to be affected by anything constitutes making an observation of it. So consciousness involves one or more observational perspectives. I assume every observational perspective can describe its own reality (very similar but not identical to all other realities). And I think that reality is emergent. Therefore, what I think of as "me" is "real" but not "fundamental": I exist in the reality I observe. Some form of me exists in the reality you observe. And, the physical constituent parts of me (my mass, energy, state, whatever) exists in a single fundamental universe, as we all do, but the identity I associate with myself does not exist there.

Simple!

I was referring to the fundamental uncertainty regarding electron speed and position.

If spacetime is emergent (which I believe it is) then geometry is emergent, and speed and position are emergent. I think this could mean it's possible that the energy of an electron exists in a "fundamental universe", and yet it can be observed differently (different speed and position) by different observers.

:S I could try to explain this belief better, but it would take a long time and it's based on a lot of conjecture anyway.

My point was that there are interaction effects in the variables.

I'm not sure what you mean. Is "interaction effect" the same as what I'm calling "causal effect"? Or is there an example of an effect that wouldn't be considered causal? I think I could convert any MWI example as might be observed in reality, into a single-world interpretation.

For example: Take Schrodinger's cat... Suppose the cat has all sorts of advanced sensing equipment and observes that the radioactive source does NOT decay and release any radiation, yet the Geiger counter observes that it DOES decay, and cracks open the vial of poison. The cat, being an exceptionally clever one, accepts that the reality it observes may be slightly different than the reality the Geiger counter observes, and thus accepts that the Geiger counter observed radiation even though the cat's equipment didn't. Thus the cat obligingly dies. All realities had slightly different observations, but all agreed on what everyone else saw (consistency), and thus all agreed on the results of all causal effects, and thus all agreed on consistent outcomes.

What about fundamental uncertainty in quantum physics?

Well... I don't think that observations of uncertain realities are fundamental! I speculated about it here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/55240-convergent-superficial-alternate-realities/

In other words: I think it's possible to have a single universe where things like thermodynamic energy are fundamental, but most of observed reality (time and distance and thus chronology and geometry) are emergent. I think it's possible for different observers to see a single universe differently, ie. different realities, but they are all consistent with the single fundamental description of the universe. Then the universe can be stochastic, and observations of it can be uncertain. -- This is based on my own work and is not developed enough to be anything more than an idea and an opinion.

What about complex decision-making situations that involve multiple factors, like deciding when to go to the bathroom during a meeting and how to organize what you say to tactfully escape to the bathroom without shirking your responsibility to say something pertinent? Is what you say not influenced by your need to go to the bathroom? Is your tolerance for your discomfort not increased by your need to say what you have to say and leave at the right moment?

All of those have causal relationships, whether or not they are deterministic (I may be wrong). I don't think that some random event can be observed to both cause an event, and not cause an event, as seen by different observers. Or in other words, though different observers may disagree on what they see, they will agree about "what everyone else saw", so that if some event causes an effect on any given observer, all other observers will agree that the causal event took place. -- Again, opinion! I'm not sure if the science backs me up at all.

If this is true, would that not mean that each person's consciousness / soul / life would be seperated into it's own universe, where everyone else is just a dummy with "no soul" if you like.

This would techically make YOU the only real person / conscious thing in "your" universe? You would therefore be "God" in your own universe as without your consciousness, "your" universe would not exist?

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

MWI makes more sense if you think of it representing all potential universes in superposition, rather than "splitting" into copies like a Mogwai that you spilled water on.

If you imagine that all possible configurations can be described as different universes, and if it's possible for something to either exist or not exist, then "your universe" with some arbitrary thing removed from it would actually describe a different universe from yours. But it doesn't matter what that thing is... each of us could equally be "gods"... remove any of us and you get a different universe, different from "yours".

But universes without you could also exist. If you mentally "destroy a single universe" by making it an impossible configuration (eg. suppose "my universe" with me in it, did not exist), that doesn't mean that any other possible universe can't exist.

None of this really matters though, because it's true that if you removed yourself from your universe, your universe would not exist, even without the MWI. The reality of your universe is the reality that is experienced by you. Remove yourself from it and there is no longer any experience of reality. -- Sure, it could still be experienced by others, but it would need to be a different universe from the one you described as "yours", because the defining property of "your" universe is that you're in it. ... This is all just a way of saying VERY LITTLE at all: The universe could be a single universe shared by all of us, including Mr. X, but if you remove Mr. X from the universe, it is no longer Mr. X's universe.

Try to imagine describing a universe that you are not there to observe, contemplate, or describe. What could you possibly describe while not existing? And if you can describe it using someone else's point of view, then yours probably wasn't that special enough to call yourself a god of your own reality.

This is mostly just philosophical, however. Personally, I don't think that multiple worlds with different causalities exist. Whatever causes a die to be rolled a 1, will cause it to be rolled a 1 in all possible alternate realities.

If you suggest new things on here, the very few people who do respond usually respond negatively. When you argue science fact, the moderator usually will be a douchebag and stop you, EVEN in speculations. Then they lock your topic if they don't like the direction it goes. So who really cares why you would post a new idea. What you should do according to this site is take your new idea and shove it up your own ass.

I think your irreverence is humorous but it's sad that you feel that way.

Often in threads when you "argue science fact" (is that for, or against established fact?), the threads get fixated on some detail of a theory, where a poster argues that it's right, and everyone else argues it's wrong and dismisses the whole theory. It would be "nice" if everyone encouraged the development of the theory to properly explain that one point that they're stuck on. However, this is not always possible because sometimes some small point is "wrong enough" that there's no way to go forward past it. There is no help that can be offered on something that is wrong enough or doesn't make sense enough or whatever.

It's sad that threads tend to turn into passionate but negative arguments, or die as ignored and often confused or nonsensical underdeveloped ideas.

Personally, I expect the next Einstein to be someone with more ideas than education. But what I think us crackpots should do with our ideas is DEVELOP THEM. Unfortunately, that means a lot of hard work and the only one who's going to do the hard work is you. When you develop an idea it changes it, and you can change it so that the "science fact" that everyone was so negative about, no longer applies. The idea gets better. The work involves proving that a point is right, or changing it until it is right. In most cases if the idea properly takes established science into account, it will either turn out to be wrong, or it'll be changed until it ends up very similar to established science. However there are new and good ideas all the time, and "established science" is always progressing and always ready to be pushed farther.

An idea is only valuable if it is understood and useful. The work put into to getting it there is what makes it valuable. Arguing about an unconvincing idea is pointless.

Imagine a species that can "believe".

The definition of belief is to lie to oneself and accept it as and communicate it as the truth.

This same ability also gives this species the ability to manipulate symbols, record their incremental accomplishments and "have advantage" over other species.

 

This has no supportable logical extrapolations.

But what is the difference between belief, and the ability to logically extrapolate the future (or "predict", as physics allows us to do), when the future has an inherent uncertainty?

It seems to me advantageous to be able to predict a specific future and act on it, despite the the uncertainty of that future. I suppose in other words, taking chances can be advantageous. Thus beliefs should have a measure of logic to them -- some beliefs are more logical than others but belief and logic are not mutually exclusive.

I suppose one way to make beliefs more logical it to incorporate the uncertainty into them, so that we can predict things but act according to an understanding that things may turn out differently. Then a belief is more of a guess than a lie.

Actually . . . . . . . humans.

Humans are not the peak of an evolutionary process, but rather part of a continuum of evolution. Evolution has been ongoing for billions of years and humans have only been around for maybe a few hundred thousand. Given another few billion years of evolution, the results will be new species, not just "more-advanced humans".

Unless you mean, "peak up until now", in which case having our imagination restricted to only the past suggests we might not be beings who are able to extrapolate as far into the future as possible.

A ruler in zero gravity marks out a certain distance. Now put this ruler in the neighborhood of the Sun. If placed perpendicular to the Sun, it stretches compared to its length in zero gravity. The closer it gets to the Sun, the more it stretches. This is space being warped by the mass/energy of the Sun.

Is that true? I thought it only contracted.

Yes though: Length is really the measure that I'm interested in.

If you had a meter stick that is 1 m long in local spacetime, will any observer ever measure that stick as longer than 1 m, from any inertial frame?

I realize now that acceleration can allow this to happen. For example, pull on the near-end of a stick and the near end will appear to you to move before the far end does, making the stick appear longer. In this case is the stick actually longer than a meter for a moment?

so far the the theory predicts/explains;

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spacecraft clocks run faster when closer to the sun, slower when away.

Isn't this the opposite of SR, GR, and experimental observations involving spacecraft?

Wouldn't spacecraft clocks appear to us to tick slower (relative to ours) due to increased gravitational field nearer the sun?

Moreover, near the sun the craft would move with higher relative speed, and thus be subject to greater time dilation than when farther away?

I've got this backward myself a million billion times, and it's always due to having an intuitive but only partial grasp on the ideas of relativity while misunderstanding the complicated details.

[math]\pi[/math] comes from circles and triangles etc in Euclidean space. If one is not in a Euclidean geometry then it is not necessarily true that, for example the sum of the angles of a triangle will not be equal to [math]\pi[/math]. This would also vary over the space in general.

 

So, [math]\pi[/math] does depend on the space in which the geometric figures are drawn, in the sense above.

 

Now, in general relativity we know that locally space-time looks flat, so [math]\pi[/math] has the usual geometric interpretations locally.

I see, so local space-time appears the same to everyone, regardless of gravitational field (assuming local spacetime homogeneity).

Is space-time curvature relative then? Not only does it appear flat locally, but it IS flat in all ways, locally?

If I'm in a "medium gravitational field" say, and I look at an area with a stronger field (eg. gravitational lensing caused by galaxies), it will appear more "closed", and the angles of a triangle will add up to more than 180 degrees, right?

If I look at an area with a weaker field, will it appear more "open"? Or flat? Or will all difference in curvature appear similarly, regardless of whether it's associated with a stronger or weaker gravitational field?

Then... I assume there can be an absolute lack of gravitational field, but is there an absolute flatness (or openness?) associated with that? Or is it completely relative, such that some other force or mechanism can always make space appear more open somewhere else, even if I'm experiencing no gravitational field?

I admire the optimistic posts and the realistic ones, but I'm a little disappointed in the level of pessimism here. Kudos to the next Einsteins who voted!

I think:

Not all of the "basic" great ideas (those that don't require very specialized education) have been thought; there may not even be a finite number of them. Anyone can think of something important.

Believing in yourself is a very good thing.

It's true that Einstein had an extraordinary range and depth of talents that let him develop his ideas much much better than most of us ever can, but you can be "the next Einstein" with only a fraction of his accomplishments. The main important thing IMHO is to have an idea that changes science the way his did.

The following characteristics are helpful or necessary:

- Imagination and creativity.

- Ability to reason.

- Ability to comprehend (to answer your own questions by researching and reading about it).

- A very open mind (to challenge both what you learn and what you think, AND at the same time be able to accept both what you learn and what you think).

- A high degree of interest.

- The optimism and self-belief to persevere.

- A passable education in sciences, math, writing, perhaps logic, etc.

The reason that I think that ANYONE can come up with a great idea, is that all of these things can be improved. They're not fixed and inherent. Most people are not interested enough. Most people don't believe they'd could do something important. But that can be developed.

One exception is "ability to reason", ie IQ, which apparently is not something you can change a lot. So when I say "ANYONE", I must say it only figuratively, because of course there are many many exceptions.

We are each living on the cutting edge of history (ie the present) and can each choose to be an important part of it, in one way or another.

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Is being unrealistically optimistic about statistically unlikely things, good?

- Yes, but only where that optimism helps you (inspires you, drives you, etc). If it makes you skip research, or get into fights on forums, it is a hinderance.

- Yes, if it's okay to fail.

Suppose a million people believed they were the next Einstein but only one of them could be technically next. It would be silly if all of them avoid trying because of the low chance that it could be them. In the end, if that million people tried their best, and one of them made the next big discovery, wouldn't that still be worth it despite all those who tried and failed? For humanity, certainly it would be worth it. I think it would be worth it to be one of those million who tried, even if I fail. So believing that I can do it is a good thing.

Sorry if I've rehashed any of the debate that's already been done many times in other threads.

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Edit: I created this motivator to sum up a point I was thinking about...

Ants have wars. Many ants are females.

I guess a good way to think about it would look at the animal kingdom.

Not only that, but only female ants fight (males are only "stud ants"). http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_soldier_ants_male_or_female

Ants also have matriarchal societies, though they don't have a central control power structure.

So it appears that war as a behavior can evolve regardless of gender ratios.

So the question might be restated something like: Is humanity's current "level of war" an evolutionary advantage rather than a disadvantage? And would it remain so if the gender ratio was severely different? If 'yes', then perhaps there will be just as much war in our inevitable future world where women have found and implemented a way to live (just not peacefully) without any men.