3 hours ago, julius2 said:

It is interesting to see Brian Greene talk about consciousness. He says that how can you take a bunch of molecules / atoms, arrange them in a certain way and have consciousness? He says if these fundamental blocks (molecules / atoms) have no consciousness themselves how can this be?

Alternatively, if these fundamental blocks do have some consciousness, then a non-living thing, like a chair or table, should (in theory) have some kind of consciousness.

Hydrogen isn't wet and doesn't quench my thirst.

Oxygen isn't wet and doesn't quench my thirst.

H2O is, and does.

Some properties are emergent,

7 hours ago, julius2 said:

It is interesting to see Brian Greene talk about consciousness. He says that how can you take a bunch of molecules / atoms, arrange them in a certain way and have consciousness? He says if these fundamental blocks (molecules / atoms) have no consciousness themselves how can this be?

Alternatively, if these fundamental blocks do have some consciousness, then a non-living thing, like a chair or table, should (in theory) have some kind of consciousness.

I agree with @pzkpfw on this. Consciousness is an emergent property, like many others. An individual molecule has no temperature, can't be said to be solid, liquid or gas, has no colour, and so on. All these properties only emerge once you have a large aggregate of molecules.

In the case of consciousness, there is also the danger, it seems to me, of what philosophers call a "category mistake". Our culture in Europe and the Americas inherits a disposition towards Cartesian dualism: the idea that the body and are mind are separate, complementary entities. Thus consciousness is thought of as a thing, an entity. But surely it is better to think of it as an activity, the (electrical and chemical) activity of the brain?

Just now, pzkpfw said:

Hydrogen isn't wet and doesn't quench my thirst.

Oxygen isn't wet and doesn't quench my thirst.

H2O is, and does.

Some properties are emergent,

Interesting use of emergent. Thank you. +1

10 hours ago, julius2 said:

It is interesting to see Brian Greene talk about consciousness. He says that how can you take a bunch of molecules / atoms, arrange them in a certain way and have consciousness? He says if these fundamental blocks (molecules / atoms) have no consciousness themselves how can this be?

Same thing for life. But that has no direct connection with dimensions.

10 hours ago, julius2 said:

Alternatively, if these fundamental blocks do have some consciousness, then a non-living thing, like a chair or table, should (in theory) have some kind of consciousness.

That does not follow. We don’t consider a dead person to have consciousness, and it has the same building blocks as a live person.

The scientific issue is what is special about the configurations that do have consciousness.

Einstein Field Equations.

Involves the Einstein tensor, Metric tensor, Cosmologial Constant etc.

Left side has curvature and distances and angles in spacetime. Right side deals with matter, radiation, energy

Understanding, you start with the right side and then solve for the left side giving how distances and times are measured in spacetime.

There is the solution for empty space (Schwarzschild solution) or expanding universe (Friedmann equations).

Question: If we had slightly different field equations, would we have a different universe?

3 hours ago, julius2 said:

Question: If we had slightly different field equations, would we have a different universe?

You can have different equations give you the same result, so this is too vague to give a definitive answer.

10 hours ago, swansont said:

You can have different equations give you the same result, so this is too vague to give a definitive answer.

My understanding is that the field equations describe the "mechanics" of the existing universe. So changes in these equations would change the "mechanics" too?

Similar to 2T physics which adds another time dimension to spacetime, many people have "toyed around" with different theories in order to discover something new.

Just wondering if there are any existing papers / known physicists who have theorised on a universe with a different set of Field Equations???

24 minutes ago, julius2 said:

My understanding is that the field equations describe the "mechanics" of the existing universe. So changes in these equations would change the "mechanics" too?

It depends on the changes.

1 hour ago, julius2 said:

Just wondering if there are any existing papers / known physicists who have theorised on a universe with a different set of Field Equations???

Sure, there’s quite a large number of alternative theories of gravity that have been and still are being explored; it’s an active research topic. Have a look here for example:

https://emis.de/journals/LRG/Articles/lrr-2013-9/articlese2.html

Note that that is by no means an exhaustive list.

On 6/20/2025 at 1:16 PM, Markus Hanke said:

Sure, there’s quite a large number of alternative theories of gravity that have been and still are being explored; it’s an active research topic. Have a look here for example:

https://emis.de/journals/LRG/Articles/lrr-2013-9/articlese2.html

Note that that is by no means an exhaustive list.

Yes, so it seems that there are a number of alternate theories of gravity to help explain phenomena in the current universe. I guess because our current universe is so large and complex. Especially at the cosmic scale the magnitudes etc are mind bending.

I guess, I am wondering whether any equations have been looked at if we were to build a "new" universe? For example, a "gravity" where spacetime does not curve but goes at right-angles instead....

I don't know the equations on how you would do this. I guess it would depend on the tensors.

On 4/23/2025 at 3:06 AM, Phi for All said:

Multiple temporal dimensions causes some extreme problems with physics, from what I understand, based on this paper by Max Tegmark. Lots of instability and unpredictable outcomes.

It is interesting to note that scientists talk about the Theory of Everything. My understanding is that they are trying to reconcile quantum mechanics to general relativity. ie. the theories governing the very small to the very large. My idea is that you can't have a Theory of Everything unless you include life. There are major challenges to explaining life, so I guess physicists decided to skip it all together.....

Without being precise, I say that life involves higher dimensions (as mentioned on post above). So we get away from philosophical and go towards scientific. But finding out about these higher dimensions could be difficult or impossible. And in fact perhaps we are not meant to work it out? In which the planet will keep on turning and economic needs will rule the day....

Although lazy, under this idea and I turned to string theory or M theory etc. this may be the closest we get to "talking about" the higher dimensions. As mentioned, there is a chance we are not meant to discover.....

But we would not be where we are today, without trying.

2 hours ago, julius2 said:

It is interesting to note that scientists talk about the Theory of Everything. My understanding is that they are trying to reconcile quantum mechanics to general relativity. ie. the theories governing the very small to the very large. My idea is that you can't have a Theory of Everything unless you include life. There are major challenges to explaining life, so I guess physicists decided to skip it all together.....

Your understanding is correct, but your idea is trying to include ridiculous parameters. A ToE isn't meant to explain EVERYTHING, that's a misunderstanding due most likely to popular science articles. When it comes to GR and QM, living organisms don't need to be considered. Physics happens without life all the time.

3 hours ago, julius2 said:

There are major challenges to explaining life, so I guess physicists decided to skip it all together.....

It being a matter of biology* being a big reason

*and not being amenable to being modeled as a harmonic oscillator

On 7/3/2025 at 1:05 AM, Phi for All said:

Your understanding is correct, but your idea is trying to include ridiculous parameters. A ToE isn't meant to explain EVERYTHING, that's a misunderstanding due most likely to popular science articles. When it comes to GR and QM, living organisms don't need to be considered. Physics happens without life all the time.

Thanks.

I guess the idea is to try to "hone in" more on how biology affects spacetime.

My area of interest would be spacetime at conception. I imagine the focus of IVF research would have much research covered.

One paper I found so far is: The Biological Production of Spacetime: A Sketch of the E-Series

1 hour ago, julius2 said:

I guess the idea is to try to "hone in" more on how biology affects spacetime.

If I understand you correctly, this should be easy to model. Have there been experiments with weights and equivalent living examples to see if spacetime reacts differently to organic matter as opposed to inorganic?

The abstract of the paper you mentioned: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37359083/

Space and time, which should properly be taken conjointly, are both communicatively produced and created with certain contextual perspectives-they are not independent physical entities. The standpoint of production makes the relationship between space and time comprehensible. They can either be mental-subjective, physical-objective, or social-intersubjective. Social and intersubjective (or E-series) spacetime might shed new light on biological thinking. For general readers, this paper provides a clue regarding an alternative conceptualization of spacetime based on biology.

What??

On 5/22/2025 at 11:52 AM, exchemist said:

Consciousness is an emergent property, like many others. An individual molecule has no temperature, can't be said to be solid, liquid or gas, has no colour, and so on. All these properties only emerge once you have a large aggregate of molecules.

When explanation for something lack... emergent becomes an easy answer...the ocean is largely a large aggregate of water molecules how wonderful could it be conscious....or you will say the octopus feel it and communicate with it..hhh...

On 8/25/2025 at 1:33 AM, Phi for All said:

If I understand you correctly, this should be easy to model. Have there been experiments with weights and equivalent living examples to see if spacetime reacts differently to organic matter as opposed to inorganic?

The abstract of the paper you mentioned: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37359083/

Yes, the test would be to test spacetime reaction between organic and inorganic matter.

However, my understanding is that the effect on spacetime happens on large scales. e.g. when you look out in to the cosmos.

i.e. you can see the bending of spacetime (gravity) between the sun and the planets. I would say an experiment to measure spacetime effect on a human scale or similar would reveal a negligible result.

1 minute ago, julius2 said:

Yes, the test would be to test spacetime reaction between organic and inorganic matter.

However, my understanding is that the effect on spacetime happens on large scales. e.g. when you look out in to the cosmos.

i.e. you can see the bending of spacetime (gravity) between the sun and the planets. I would say an experiment to measure spacetime effect on a human scale or similar would reveal a negligible result.

I guess the original idea was that there was "time" before the BB - made up of many "primitive" times (the explanation of which is not available).

There was a collapse in these "times" to a "singularity", then the BB itself.

Then a reconstitution of sorts. The problem with this idea however is the vastness of the universe outside of earth. Apparently there are trillions of stars, if not billions of galaxies. This is just a mystery.

47 minutes ago, julius2 said:

Yes, the test would be to test spacetime reaction between organic and inorganic matter.

We sorta do this all the time. Do organic things fall at a different rate than inorganic? Do astronauts on the ISS orbit differently as compared to the inorganic station?

9 hours ago, MJ kihara said:

When explanation for something lack... emergent becomes an easy answer...the ocean is largely a large aggregate of water molecules how wonderful could it be conscious....or you will say the octopus feel it and communicate with it..hhh...

???

2 hours ago, swansont said:

We sorta do this all the time. Do organic things fall at a different rate than inorganic? Do astronauts on the ISS orbit differently as compared to the inorganic station?

The concept is that "life" comes in through spacetime (at conception).

When things die the "soul" returns through spacetime.

There is no evidence of this as such. But looking at the wider gambit of physics - particle accelerators, string theory etc. is a crack at finding any such evidence.

On 5/17/2025 at 3:11 PM, julius2 said:

It is interesting to note that experiments have been done with particle colliders to see if certain particles escape in to the extra dimensions as described by string theory.

No evidence has been found regarding extra dimensions at the LHC since it was switched on in 2008. I think extra dimensions and supersymmetric particles were on the science goals list besides the Higgs.

Only the Higgs was found out of those three.

18 minutes ago, julius2 said:

The concept is that "life" comes in through spacetime (at conception).

What?!

Life is an emergent property of organic matter.

Spacetime is a mathematical model we use to show the effects of relativity on matter and energy.

Conception is a vague and meaningless attribution that ignores the fact that all the pieces that contribute to life were already alive themselves.

27 minutes ago, julius2 said:

When things die the "soul" returns through spacetime.

There's no evidence at all for this, and it's easily testable. If there is a soul, it's nothing physical, it has no mass or energy. Is it emergent, like the personality you developed growing up? Could your soul be your persona, the accumulation of your experiences, your wit and humor, is that possible? Because having anything like that use the geometry of relativity is just bizarre.

1 hour ago, julius2 said:

The concept is that "life" comes in through spacetime (at conception).

When things die the "soul" returns through spacetime.

There is no evidence of this as such. But looking at the wider gambit of physics - particle accelerators, string theory etc. is a crack at finding any such evidence.

Yeah, you need to establish that the soul, or whatever, exists before worrying about this. “comes in/leaves through spacetime” is exceedingly nebulous.

On 9/12/2025 at 3:28 AM, swansont said:

Yeah, you need to establish that the soul, or whatever, exists before worrying about this. “comes in/leaves through spacetime” is exceedingly nebulous.

"exceedingly nebulous" - yes that is the idea - I can only report the "facts"

1 hour ago, julius2 said:

"exceedingly nebulous" - yes that is the idea - I can only report the "facts"

When do you plan to do so?