Einstein: Philosophy versus Empiricism

[Zuts]

Hi,

Whatever you can think of there is always something bigger. This applies to numbers, people, life and the universe. It just doesnt make sense to me that the universe is bounded in space or time or in dimensions.

So I am a believer in the multiverse. Space is infinite, the universe is infinite and there are an infinite number of universes. Everything is possible somewhere, sometime, somehow and in some universe.

In mathematics the natural numbers are infinite, but between each natural number there are an infinte number of other real numbers. There is a branch of pure mathematics, number theory, which deals with and explains the various categories of infinity. I think everything, the UNIVERSE is the highest category of infinity.

I believe that every quantum interaction in the universe causes another universe to split off, and every quantum interaction in all those other universes everywhere causes another split. An infinite infinity of universes.

Can this be proved? Sure

Take a gun and shoot yourself in the head. In some universe split at a quantum level the gun will not fire. So, shoot yourself again, and again and again........

After 1, 10, 100, 1000, ......., 1,000,000 firings of a gun in working order I am sure you will agree with me . The number of times you will have killed yourself in all these quantum splits is countless, but in one universe you will still be alive and I could say, I told you so.

Paul

[skwinty (Steve)]

Well that sure is the ultimate test.
I doubt you find any willing participants in that experiment.
I will read and digest these last two posts and reply sometime tomorrow as I am about to get ready for open night at the SAAO.

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by skwinty

Well that sure is the ultimate test.
I doubt you find any willing participants in that experiment.
I will read and digest these last two posts and reply sometime tomorrow as I am about to get ready for open night at the SAAO.

Sure,

This is one time i hope the empiricists don't get hold of an idea, coz you dont have to do it to yourself!

Paul

[Starless (Brian)]

According to the Oxford dictionary
universe
•noun
1 all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos.
2 a particular sphere of activity or experience.
ORIGIN
from Latin "universus" ‘combined into one, whole’.

So the term universe is esentialy everything.

Every one of the infinite quantum outcomes leads
to an infinite number of quantum choices.

Ipso facto, all things are not only possible, everything
will happen, eventually.

There is no reason, meaning or purpose to any of it,
to quote Dr Carl Sagen "this (the cosmos) is just
something hydrogen atoms do if you leave them lay
around long enough."

[Kokatha man]

"Conjecture is a first start. Without experimental evidence it is still mere conjecture." - Bert

A reasonable (very) initial proposition: methinks however, that Zuts and Starless imbue this with more faith than I could muster!

Regards, Darryl.

[skwinty (Steve)]

Yes, perhaps a quantum leap of faith.
To quote Douglas Adams:
"There are 2 things you should remember when dealing with parallel universes.
1. They are not really parallel
2. They are not really universes.

Even if you do not believe in the multiverse theory they do offer good analogies to the quantum world.
The double slit experiment is a good example.
The single photon passing through the slit interferes with another photon going through the other split. The second photon comes from another universe!

Now as far as conjecture goes. Yes it is conjecture until proven by observation, but it is conjecture with firm roots in solid mathematics.

Now to come back to repeatedly blowing ones brains out to prove a point.
Larry Niven wrote a book called "All the myriad ways"
This deals with suicide with the knowledge of multiple versions of ones self.
They commit suicide out of despair for their current situation because it doesnt matter what you do as the opposite will be true in another reality.

Perhaps this is why the boundary between the microscopic and macroscopic world is so obscure and difficult to penetrate. Quantum mechanics does not reveal itself in the realities of the macroscopic world for good reason.
How confusing would the observable universe be if it and ourselves were in two or more places at once.

Now I agree, all things are possible, but are they probable!
Schrodingers equations dealt with probabilities of specific outcomes and not that the outcomes all existed when the probability wave collapsed.

Quantum theory deals with uncertainties and Physics deals with certainties.

[Karls48 (Karl)]

Interesting tread. It would be even more interesting if people who participate in it would post their philosophical view on our Universe – how it begin, how big it is, is the speed of light ultimate speed, what is the time and the space. I think that most of people with hobby like Astronomy do formulate their own philosophical view on Universe that is not necessary same as current scientific view.

[Kokatha man]

Hi Karl - not content with occasionally correcting an old codger (me) who's forgotten/unaware of the specific specs of some electronic parts, you're now castigating our philosophical, etc musings....!

Seriously though (and I'm only the bittiest bit-player in this thread) I reckon you'll find that in canvassing concepts and constructs this thread touches on most of what you find interesting: that and the references/reading associated with it.

I for one reckon I'm getting a vague handle from others posts/intimations/implications, of their own philosophical leanings/appraisals.

I think it's a thread that needs to weave its way along without any definitive "this is what I believe/think/ it is" requirements: unless you want the sort of answer from that computor - you know, "the answer to life/existence etc is 23 and a half" (or whatever!)

So hopefully our chief contributors and those that are drawn in keep on weaving a sort of tapestry, the more and varied the better!

Or maybe it'll be like the million monkeys banging away on a million keyboards for a million years....!

Anyway Karl, give us a bit of your philosophical musings: this thread's ambit is (I think) broad enough for that.

Cheers, Darryl.

[Karls48 (Karl)]

Hi Darryl, I did not meant to be pain in backside when I butted in with my technical explanations. I’m retired (few years early due to accident) electrical engineer with long experience in manufacturing liner power supplies and security electronics. Some times the urge to correct something I consider not quite right gets better of me.

Now about Philosophy versus Empiricism I will start on bit different note. Although I do not believe in any religion I must say that I do to some extend envy people who do. All the answers to the mysteries of life, Universe and everything are supplied to them in few books. Unbelievers like me have to seek their own answers. It is fruitless and never-ending task. The answers change as I grow older and gain experience and wisdom (or becoming more senile). In earlier stage of my life I did believe that science and technology had all the answers. Later I started to see too many inconsistencies and contradictions and scientific facts that were facts in sixties were
no longer facts in this enlighten age when we know it all (we did know it all in sixties also). That why I think that Philosophy is just as important to day as it was 4000 years ago. I pass thru years of my life I learn and observe the world around me. I read about scientific (todays) facts and theories. Then I sit in the armchair or lie in the bed and try to blend that accumulated information in holistic point of view. That is my substitute to the answers supplied by religion. And I don’t care it if it doesn’t agree with some current scientific theories. Sometimes I wonder why we have this constant urge to understand everything. I suppose it is evolutionary survival trait.
I come out few times with my view of Universe in the past and I was empirically shot down in flames. In older times I think I would be burned at stake. I will see if anyone else will stick their neck out.
After reading yours and Skwity’s posts and appreciate your elegant use of English language I apologise for my clumsy English.

[Kokatha man]

Hi Karl - nothing wrong with any of your corrections re me and those electrical/tronics posts: both the ones I remember you making were spot-on comments to make - though I did re-post about my VR application; it was (a possible) suggestion for where a badly regulated charger was hanging off the battery.......see! There I go again, I'm as pedantic as the best of them; no need to justify correcting my mistakes etc, I allways stick my two-bob's worth in!

Reading your post here, I see many parallels with my own thoughts/experiences/musings; it has informed my own craving for not necessarily knowledge or understanding per se to the extent of "revelation" - I leave that for those with specific "faiths" - but at the same time believe that "wisdom surpasses all knowledge" - if that isn't too obtuse or cryptic a comment to make.

Bert (Avondonk) made an interesting comment re appraising the universe as an enormous "quantum computer" and makes the interesting point of "a ghost in the machinery" that could create interesting extrapolations.....perhaps herein lies an explanation of our human numinous.

Anyways, back to book-keeping and accounting for me at the moment: far more prosaic; but if I want my shelter and supper (let alone the next bit of AA equipment I want to burden my overloaded financial predicament with) I'd best get back to it!

Cheers, Darryl.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Hi,


Take a gun and shoot yourself in the head. In some universe split at a quantum level the gun will not fire. So, shoot yourself again, and again and again........

After 1, 10, 100, 1000, ......., 1,000,000 firings of a gun in working order I am sure you will agree with me . The number of times you will have killed yourself in all these quantum splits is countless, but in one universe you will still be alive and I could say, I told you so.

Paul

i wondered why i was having so much difficulty with philosophy, just as well i think, i will leave the thinking and shooting to others


interesting read though.

[skwinty (Steve)]

Originally Posted by Karls48

Although I do not believe in any religion I must say that I do to some extend envy people who do. All the answers to the mysteries of life, Universe and everything are supplied to them in few books. Sometimes I wonder why we have this constant urge to understand everything.

hi Karl,
To quote Richard Feynman:" I can safely say no-one understands quantum mechanics"
However, in my opinion it is better to die trying to understand, rather than to pin one's hopes on untested assumptions piled on top of more untested assumptions, which is what one does when religion takes over your thought processes.
Another benefit to trying to understand scientific issues is that oldtimers disease can be staved off by the brain exercise. I have had my fair share of religion and can say that envy is one of the cardinal sins, so go forth and envy no more.

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by skwinty

However, in my opinion it is better to die trying to understand, rather than to pin one's hopes on untested assumptions piled on top of more untested assumptions, which is what one does when religion takes over your thought processes.
Another benefit to trying to understand scientific issues is that oldtimers disease can be staved off by the brain exercise.

Hi Skwint - well, my own particular paraphrasing of your sentiments is: "it is better to live trying to understand!"

I've enough doubts of the prosaic kind to contend with as a mere mortal, who knows his (and everyone else's) ultimate fate: looking after an elderly mum who developed senile dementia, and taking care of a father still going (relatively) strong at 91; makes me focus on the here and now rather than wanting to contemplate my own (ever closer) future!!!

As for the other bit of your's above; well.....perhaps we'll allow each other some small measures of faith in that particular instance; in the absence of much else!?!

Cheers, Darryl.

[skwinty (Steve)]

Hi Darryl
Just a figure of speech. I always say that when trying to attain the impossible , if you werent prepared to die trying , then you werent trying hard enough.
My Mum also passed due to Altzheimers and my Dad in a car accident when I was eight years old so I guess the idea of death lost its mystery for me at an early age. As far as religion is concerned, to each their own. I sure gave religion a good test drive in my time and wasnt convinced.
I dont believe that death should be feared, rather embraced but never hastened or self inflicted.

[avandonk]

I read many years ago about a bright young student who proudly said to Einstein that he was one of the three people who understood quantum mechanics. The best I can work out this student was refering to Heisenberg and Einstein.

Einstein dryly said 'and who are the other two?'

We cannot have the answers without asking the correct questions. We have a remarkable ability to understand the Universe in a way that fits in with our mathematics. I still think that is because we are a part of it. Hence the term 'self referential'. Contemplating your own navel comes to mind.

Science moves foward slowly except for the major paradigm shifts.

We are still stuck within the quantum computer and unless we can 'see' outside it of it we are forever blind.

I wonder if a search for the spiritual side of our human nature is one way or scarier still the only way!

I think all shamans through history were taking on an altered state and 'seeing' beyond the logic.

Schizophrenia in some of us unfortunately is the price we pay for having a very well developed analytical brain. Or does it give us a window to the unreality of reality!

Bert

[avandonk]

The imminent loss of anyone dear to you is traumatic. It is these invisible bonds that are forever broken that really hurt.

I miss my father and I will leave it at that.

I thought I would say this seperately so as not to get confused with the discussion.

I have railed all my life at disease and have spent forty years fighting them with science.

Bert

[Kokatha man]

Hi Bert - all this becomes extremely "heady" stuff (pardon my pun) very quickly! Just what is language, and if it is hard-wired into us, what might we extrapolate from this?

Mathematics is often touted as the/our most fluent form of "expression" - but unless they're a mathematician, theorist etc; try selling that to someone gazing in awe at a beautiful sunset etc.

As a young boy full of dreams I wanted to be "an astronomer" - with very little real awareness of the degree of "science-based knowledge and/or discipline" required: not that I was slow at school, I was known as "Professor *#@!%" - both a mark of respect for my capabilities in physics, chemistry and maths, as well as a derogatory racial pejorative!

Life has lead me a merry dance over the years, and in my mid-life began to carve out a career and small reputation for myself as a visual artist. What has allways fascinated me (and hence the relevance to this thread) is the repetition of patterning that seems to run through everything from the micro to the macro cosmic, manifesting itself both internally and externally.

I suppose that pattern is by definition repitition or replication: one thing my ancestors were implicating at the core of (their) traditional art. I believe both "raark," or "x-ray" painting as it is known; and the concentric circles, spirals and wave patterning inherent to my own (Western Desert) traditions, implicitly symbolize at one level, their innate fundimentality to our world/universe.

Without (in general) any 3 dimensional or perspective representation to their imagery, it is easy, to the point of being facile, to infer that this was only some simplistic attempt at interpretation/interpolation of the world around: but when one listens to the story-telling and dramatic enactments therein, which are absolutely essential adjuncts to the imagery; you realize that in a number of ways that this has at its core an analogy to mathematical equations and basic principles, in terms of what is being defined under specific variable constants etc.

Perhaps to people "outside the loop" this may seem like an incredibly long bow to draw; but I have had the amazing priveledge to engage in mutually stimulating conversations with old men and women from traditional backgrounds, on some of the most intellectual and esoteric of subjects. Lingo is often a major impediment; but there is no confusion when participants strike chords that resonate the complimentary experiences, analogies or insights each has on obtuse and/or philosophical topics: each parties' differing metaphors only adding to a sense of their (each's) intellectual integrity and understanding.

My ramblings now flow onto imagery per se, be it that of the shaman, visual artist, writer, story-teller or scientific theorist "on a roll" - in the rapture of inspiration, revelation or paradigm shift in consciousness - through whatever communicative devices, aimed at whoever is the target audience.

Do these images/equations and other compositions really "speak a 1000 words" or do they unleash hitherto unspoken languages and unrevealed thoughts/ideas to enrich or expand the world to extend our understanding (or perhaps it extends our knowledge, but our understanding lags far behind?)

Perhaps the metaphor is all, or perhaps it is the best, that we possess to externalise on existence from within - you're "navel gazing" et al.

Patterns and metaphors have become my own "stock-in-trade" - when I was younger I was a cynic about art and its interpretation: not that there isn't far more bumf written, or spoken, or ascribed to much that is merely, at best, more properly defined (imho) as "fashion" - be it passing or otherwise!

But I have come to realize that at the very least, this form of expression/creativity does draw out of the individual something that is both inherently innate to humans; both from some sort of species specific unconscious perspective as well as from the subconsciousness of experiential causality.

On this topic I should say that I am the most savagest of critics over any pretension within my own art - and I have perpetrated my share therein - but part of my make-up and experiences has left me in a lifelong flux of doubt.

Notwithstanding this personal predilection, I also have refined my objectivity to such a level of detachment that I think of it as almost unnatural at times! However, I still constantly amaze myself with the degree of both unconscious and subconscious input and "referencing" that is imbued into my art without much conscious awareness - but perhaps this is the natural consequence of developing/extending patterning!!!

Lastly on this (perhaps seemingly interminable) rant; if I possess anything that could most easily be equated with "faith" or religous-imbued terminology, it is on the subject of "revelation."

No, not John of biblical text or any similar such dramas - mine is both personal/internal as well as having its repetition/reflection out into the wider world and beyond: it is to me what we inherently strive for (or at least believe we should!) by investing our knowledge in understanding: what I think is the core impetus of this thread, both the "machine and the ghost" you spoke of Bert - "the cause and the reason" - or should that be "the reason and the cause "??!!??!

Better get back to welding my pier before the sun goes down!

Regards, Darryl.

[avandonk]

My simple answer KM is that of all the bits of metal that go into a big V8 and the fuel that fires it, could anyone predict the beautiful sound that it makes. It must fire up a basic rhythm that evokes something that goes far back in time.

We are all trying to understand the whole picture and we barely know the colours.

We all possess a bit of the puzzle, it is called art, music, dance and dare I say it science.

It is not the final destination that is important, it is how you deal with the journey!

I should add we had two sayings in our lab at CSIRO.

If you doubt your sanity every now and again you are quite sane.

If you remembered you forgot you are OK.

PS
KM have you played with fractal image generators?


Bert

[DARKMATTER]

I Love This Site!

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by avandonk

My simple answer KM is that of all the bits of metal that go into a big V8 and the fuel that fires it, could anyone predict the beautiful sound that it makes. It must fire up a basic rhythm that evokes something that goes far back in time.



Bert

Now we're talking stuff we can chew Bert - I believe that V8 sound is an example of good ol', soul-deep, primal syncopation!

.....(but for you Bert) I'll throw in something about the various harmonic balances/imbalances inherent in 4-cycle engines of various cylinder numbers and configuratons....!

Regards, Darryl.

ps - skwinty will be awake by now saying - "my god: what are they doing to my thread!?!