posted 06-06-99 07:00 PM ET            

Thanks. Now, where did everyone go?

posted 06-06-99 11:23 PM ET            

Darkstar: You made an interesting point about equality, and how the ideal is good, even if the reality is different.

From my point of view, the reality isn't really so different at all. Sure, on an individual basis, people range from the tall and magnificent to the short and pathetic (and vice versa, and even other permutation...) But the important thing has always been the group. This is why the 'we're all equal' talk seems to make sense - because we all belong to a group, and we all share that group's fate, regardless of personal differences (to be fair, you can always quit the group if you don't like the direction it's going, but the people who make speeches like the previous example also tend to be the sort of people who frown on treachery and jumping ship).

Also, it's rarely the elite in any group that achieve anything. Few knights have won battles when their peasant forces were being slaughtered. A great striker is no asset to a team where the defenders and midfield are being constantly outplayed. Victory in anything is something made possible by the peasants and then facilitated by the elite, rather than anything else.

As for belief in religion, I don't really hold with it as being a necessity. It's a nice thought when dealing with the death of a family member, or some similar event, but in my experience the priest is generally more of a liability than an asset to the occasion. I feel life is worth celebrating for it's own worth (a twist on yang's nihilism, but then he's my favourite faction anyway...)

posted 06-07-99 02:59 AM ET            

I have to agree. VG does not deserve such interesting discussions to be associated with him unless he starts it.

Nell was probably so overwhelmed by her fan club mobbing her that she didn't see you in line for a lap dance, Shining1. Humm... Lap Dance. I wonder if my friends down at the girly club need a light man? It doesn't pay as much as being a DJ, but then you don't have to play Mother Hen to the dancers...

posted 06-07-99 12:51 PM ET         

Nell, thanks for clarifying your viewpoint. I was happy to read all you wrote, always am when I encounter intelligent opinions intelligently presented in a fine literary style.

Of course, I have to take some exceptions.

Nell wrote: "I maintain that intelligence is no more nor less than a function of the brain ..."

The brain is like a radio tuner. The mind is the controller of the tuner, and the interpreter of the signals received. The mind is aware, the brain is not. The distinction is like that between physical and metaphysical. A complex feedback loop must be in place between the physical brain and metaphysical mind in order for intelligence to "resonate" at a harmonic frequency which the brain can tune and the mind can identify.
The mind and brain are together a tautology, a complementary existential pair.

Imagine a triangle, and the brain conjures up an example. But the concept "triangle" is more general and abstract than the brain can ever experience. The mind knows that the notion is timeless, and recognizes it in any experiential set of three interrelated things. But the brain cannot do the abstraction, it can only perceive and recreate variations on its own experiences.

The brain cannot do abstract mathematics without the mind to guide it. And the mind cannot learn without the brain as an interface to time and physical reality. They form an existential tautology, just as you cannot transmit information without a physical carrier, while the carrier is meaningless without a purpose. The brain is the hardware, the mind the software, and of course the boundary is fluid.

posted 06-07-99 01:04 PM ET         

Darkstar wrote: "... why is that no matter WHAT direction we peer into the sky, we see the same amount of galaxies and other celestial bodies?"

The boundary of Universe is not like those we are used to. Universe will not fit in a box, it cannot be circumscribed. It is its own boundary. Every point is a boundary point as well as an interior point. There are no exterior points. Everything is part of Universe, Universe has no outside.

If you buy that, then you must admit that every point of Universe is the center of Universe. A very strange geometry, to be sure, and not one we are likely to be able to ever comprehend -- for comprehension is the drawing of a conceptual box around something, and Universe cannot be circumscribed conceptually any more than physically.

Darkstar also wrote: "Hey, the speed of light isn't a constant as its a function of distance travelled versus time passed (as any SPEED is)."

Perhaps distance is not the fundamental notion we take it for. Perhaps motion is the true fundamental, perhaps speed and time are the fundamental units, and distance is derived.

More radically, perhaps there is only one speed, and everything is moving at the same constant speed, but light in vaccuo is the only thing that appears to move that speed because light is the only thing that moves truly straight. What is the length of the DNA strand in every nucleus of your cells? Yet this length is all wound up into such a tight space. Maybe motion is not straight, but is a spiral, or zig-zag, so that while the drift or net motion appears to be slower than light, the actual speed of traversal of the actual path is the same constant.

I bet that's how it works.

posted 06-07-99 01:10 PM ET         

If you buy that, then you must admit that every point of Universe is the center of Universe. A very strange geometry, to be sure, and not one we are likely to be able to ever comprehend -- for comprehension is the drawing of a conceptual box around something, and Universe cannot be circumscribed conceptually any more than physically."

Your description of the Universe is itself a conceptualization of the Universe so you have boxed it and it has an outside, thus your argument is moot.

posted 06-07-99 01:12 PM ET         

If you buy that, then you must admit that every point of Universe is the center of Universe. A very strange geometry, to be sure, and not one we are likely to be able to ever comprehend -- for comprehension is the drawing of a conceptual box around something, and Universe cannot be circumscribed conceptually any more than physically."

Your description of the Universe is itself a conceptualization of the Universe so you have boxed it and it has an outside, thus your argument is moot.

posted 06-07-99 01:12 PM ET         

Michael the Great wrote: "... a quasi four
dimensional array developed by Minkowski ..."

It is possible to reformulate Minkowski's idea in a more symmetric fashion by considering motion to occur in discrete steps in four distinct directions. Time and distance are then equivalent, but location is degenerate (you can reach the same point via many paths, some longer than others, e.g.). The result is a 4-D timespace that is very natural. I have developed and am developing this idea, trying to formulate a relativistic mechanics based on this coordinate system. Progress is slow. But the basic idea is sound, as is the assumption that "all is light", i.e., that everything moves at same constant speed.

I know, it sounds kooky, and I don't have time to formulate it here. I'll send you some email when I get the chance, in case you find it interesting.

posted 06-07-99 01:21 PM ET         

Similarly, my description is weak. But the essential points are stated negatively on purpose, because while I cannot find a positivistic decription, I can point out what Universe is not. It is not bounded. It has no outside. It cannot be circumscribed.

The problem with negativistic description is that it cannot ever say what Universe actually is. That is forbidden by the very structure of Universe. There is that which is inconceivable, nonconceptual, to which we can only point and mumble incoherently. That is the boundary of thought, of our conceptual abilities, and that boundary is also part of Universe.

posted 06-07-99 02:11 PM ET            

I like your description of Universe center/boundry, however... if every point is on the boundry, there there is another side, and the universe can be circumvented, theoretically. Considering we are beings of linear time, we are therefore constrained to obey our environment and can only function in that environment. This means we will never be able to circumvent the universe, and will have problems conceptuallizing how it could be.

I still believe that there is a discreet end boundry/marker to the universe in which there is no time past that point due to the fact that there is no gravity. However, by adding a material object such as a pioneering exploration robot, the boundry would be pushed back around the object to the point that gravity no longer exerted/existed. This would be the new boundry of eternity. However, to the regular universe, such an object would appear to have left this timestream, as it would have such a minimalistic flow of time due to the smallest of dilation of time around it.

The question that is begged to be asked seems to me to be: if matter and energy are enterchangable, and matter exerts a gravitational wrinking/warping of space-time, does energy? It is merely loose (non-concentrated) matter, after all. As I remember my basic [classical] physics, the answer was no, but it must have SOME intrinsic matter to it, as it is effected by gravity. Gravity is a force that is exerted by matter on other matter. Therefore, it must have a gravitation influence to it, however slight. Is it that a photon, with its extreme light mass, have effectively no gravitational influence to dialate time around it, yet enough mass to still be affected by gravity? Does that mean anything with less mass cannot effect matter, but matter can affect it?

quiz - you are playing defination games, not posting true comments. Materially speaking, as 3D creatures we cannot envision 4D material space coordinates. We can come close in certain ways, but they are merely logical interpretations and not the real thing. You might as well play the "math" games of 2+2 = 5 and who stole the dollar at the luncheon?

posted 06-07-99 05:36 PM ET         

First, the Universe boundary/center topic. It does not follow that there is a Universe boundary which can be escaped. As you noted with your spaceship examples, you are part of the boundary, so as you try to escape Universe, who are you fooling? There is no outside. Besides, gravity conspires to prevent your hypothetical situation from occuring anyhow -- imagine the great force exerted on you as you try to escape from the rest of Universe.

Moreover, your intuition about eternity is not incorrect, but looking for it beyond some physical barrier is. Timelessness (eternity) is the complement of the physical. It cannot be experienced directly, only as an afterimage ripple effect on the physical. It's all a dance between time/physical and timeless/eternity, one is the boundary of the other, and both combine to form the whole, which is not simply the sum of the two. They integrate synergetically in our minds, because we must see them as a dichotomy, but this vivisection is not Universe, because awareness is awareness of otherness, and Universe has no otherness of which to be aware. Whew!

Next, the speed thing. If everything is moving at the same speed, why is that the same as no motion? It's not. The locus and direction of motion allow variation. Motion is the attempt to reintegrate time and timeless, but once moving, the physical passes through the eye of the timeless needle again and again, never stopping at the perfect balance of eternity, ceaselessly vibrating around absolute perfection, which perfection acts as a template and pole of motion. The eternal crystal that has been "heisenberg'ed" becomes the physical. The equilibrium conformation is approached and passed through on the way to the next extreme.

As for light/enery/matter and gravity, it's all affected. Light is bent by gravity, and hence acts on the bending body, too, but in extremely small magnitude. Gravity is a symmetric interaction. Hot water will have a larger gravity field than cold water, because the extra vibrational kinetic energy of the molecules will act gravitationally. Why, I don't know. No one does. Gravity just is.

Finally, I am not being perverse with respect to the 4-D stuff. It is important to ditch the right-angles thinking, or at least to question it. A perfectly good coordinate system can be constructed with a tetrahedron as template, and with a few natural assumptions about the nature of motion, this system can be used as a timespace reference frame. I won't go into a full-blown description here, though if you like I can give you a rundown via email. My address is [email protected].

- icosahedron

posted 06-07-99 06:28 PM ET            

If everything is at the same speed, then there shouldn't be any interaction as you cannot distinguish between being at rest and a constant speed. Speed is truly an illusion when applied to Cosmology though. Its a concept not suited for application outside of its relative and comparitive framework. Without Space and Time, there can be no speed. Speed is merely a way to describe an attribute of SOMETHING and how it relates to the other SOMETHING around it. When two somethings travelling at the same relative speed are headed for each other, well, one could just as well be at rest as both moving. The speed and effects of them meeting are the same.

While it makes for a nice concept, there is something I must be missing to see how its all the same speed. Unless you mean that the slower I go, the faster time is... so at absolute zero, time is infinitely fast. If that was so, the more excited you made atoms, the faster their time would be, and their would be a point when time ceased to exist... oh yeah. That would be the E=MCC thing. Humm... I sense a logic game. And I have played this game before, although it was some time ago...

My spaceship example was how we are trapped and if we could somehow get out the Universe's sphere, by our very nature spread the Universe. We just can't figure out such things easily, and definately not observe them.

Hot water is less dense than cold water, so I instinctively doubt it would have a higher gravitational quotient. And water can only get so hot before becoming a vapor... cold water can be more easily made not to freeze, allowing you to build up its mass (and hence force).

If heat energy had a mearsurable gravity effect, wouldn't it have been measured with all the live atomic testing? They have released large amounts of energy...

And what about Potential Energy? That is merely the energy that is tied up in something because it is higher than its lowest state. Its unimportant if its a rock on top of the Washington Monument or the quantom state of electron 2 in an Oxy atom... they both can degrade/surrender their stored energy. The rock by falling, and the electron by giving off a photon. (Hey, you chemistry and atomic guys keep me honest here.) How would that fit into the big picture?

Odd thoughts, odd thoughts... but fun ones.

I was giving the 3D vs 4D coordinate system merely as a common example known of how you can't easily or truly look beyond certain built in limitations of our perceptions and senses. I here 7Space is a lot of fun artistically. Its easy to define a system that uses more than 3Space, and even use computers to help us explore and understand possibilities... but I think its funny that we use 2space to display high coordinate space systems. I'm just strange that way...

posted 06-08-99 01:58 AM ET            

Concepts of inside and outside when dealing with space time need to be addressed carefully. In the same way that newtonian physics breaks down at the speed of light, and relativity breaks down at the event horizon of a black hole, human concepts tend to interfere with our perceptions of reality. Space is curved. The universe folds back on itself in a huge bubble, though now, at least 8 billion years into the piece, it hardly matters, because to circumnagivate the universe at the speed of light would take forever (in the sense that, if there is going to be a end anywhere, you wouldn't make it round in time).

Having said that, it also pays to remember the human perceptions are, for the most part, entirely accurate when dealing with our own environment (i.e millimetres to astronomical units). Any theory that makes predictions that violate the observed rules in this range is wrong, and can easily be shown to be wrong.

As for the gravity thing, it's nice, and it's might be true, but it's also trivial. Gravity as a force is so phenomenally weak that the extra force invoked by the presence of photons in hot water matters not a jot, on anybodies scale. Gravity is approximately 10^-34 times weaker than the EM force, if I recall correctly. That's weaker than a bacteriums's fart in a hurricane.

Gravity remains a force to be reckoned with, but not on a boiling water level.

posted 06-08-99 07:15 AM ET         

El Presidente - One day you will understand, but it will be too late, for all of us.

~Rackam

posted 06-08-99 08:23 AM ET         

An incorrect conceptualization is still a conceptualization.

icosahedron went on to say: "Similarly, my description is weak. But the essential points are stated negatively on purpose, because while I cannot find a positivistic decription, I can point out what Universe is not. It is not bounded. It has no outside. It cannot be circumscribed.

The problem with negativistic description is that it cannot ever say what Universe actually is. That is forbidden by the very structure of Universe. There is that which is inconceivable, nonconceptual, to which we can only point and mumble incoherently. That is the boundary of thought, of our conceptual abilities, and that boundary is also part of Universe."

What he is trying to say here is that Godel's second theorem of incompleteness applies if we assume the Universe is a closed system. A closed system is a conceptualization. A conceptualization creates an outside to the Universe. Thus it can be completely described.

posted 06-08-99 12:35 PM ET         

First, in my cosmogony, their is no such thing as "at rest". No rest mass, etc. All "mass" is just energy in cyclic or pseudo-cyclic (e.g., spiralic) motion, and these little balls of concentrated motion appear more or less solid. The deeper the physicists look, the less "there" they find there.

Now for the big paradigm crunch. This is going to seem strange and I know it is not very precisely stated, but I am only trying to communicate the flavor of my beliefs at this point.

Space is an illusion! Space is the memory of motions converging and diverging in time. Time is literally that which separates motion from other motion, provides the lag between action and perception that allows awareness to crop up. Our minimum traditional unit of time is the second, because it is the second experience of otherness which instantiates awareness of relative separation between motions/processes. Time is relative separation. Space is the memory of relative separations that have come and gone. As motions converge to relative proximity and diverge to relative remoteness, they form patterns of convergence and divergence, which patterns of relative proximity nodes are connected by motions and outline relative remoteness windows (empty spaces, timespace points devoid of motion).

Motion has frequency and directional tendency. Frequency means how many "nodes" or way-points there are in the motion, like the number of nodes traversed by light in a given amount of time. Wavelength is 1/frequency, and the product of the two is unity (use units where speed of light is unity, in other words). Directional tendency is more complicated. Suffice it to say for now that directional tendency means that the actual path taken between two known stopover points is not deterministic, but that all available paths are time-wise equivalent.

As for hot water, while less dense than cold, it has more energy, and if we are careful not to lose atoms, it must weigh more. Perhaps imperceptibly, but in principle it must weigh more.

Potential energy is not energy at all. It is (lack of) entropy. In other words, it is an ordered state that, given the chance, will degenerate to a less ordered state. It is quite probable that resistance to gravitational acceleration, i.e., inertia, is an entropy effect, as the motion field of the object resists polarization of its directional tendency, which reduces the number of available equivalent paths of motion.

I agree that Euclidean 4-space is not imaginable. But I am not considering a Euclidean space. When you look at discrete lattices, you find that higher dimensionality (in the strict vector-space sense) is not incompatible with visualizability.

And I will send you a quick synopsis of my 4-D system of timespace.

posted 06-08-99 12:43 PM ET         

- icosahedron

posted 06-08-99 12:53 PM ET         

I am in no way assuming Universe to be a closed system. I am assuming it is closed and finite, yet non-unitarily conceptual (not definite), hence not a system. It is complete in and of itself; it transcends thought and Godel.

As for my weak conceptualizations of Universe, they are a priori incomplete and incorrect, admittedly. That is the nature of things. It is beyond my power to conceive Universe, but not beyond its power to conceive me.

posted 06-08-99 01:58 PM ET            

The problem with thinking hot water is gravitationally superior/stronger to cold water is that its simply not so. Cold water WEIGHS more, and therefore has more gravitational mass.

The main problem I see with your theories and philosophies (I've come across similar ones in my walkabouts of science and philosophy) is that they are based on illusions themselves. Space and Time are interchangeable, so if Space is an Illusion, so is Time. We, as creatures who naturally travel through 3Space as we choose, but through time as it chooses, have difficulties understanding that. But any tool that helps you envision or learn is a useful tool.

There is no reason to believe that the universal center or its overall 'motion' is at rest. The net effect to us, being inside it, would be the same as if it was, but if we aren't at rest, then nothing ever crosses the same time-space node very often. Thus, the universe can't be trying to get back to its initial state (not that I think it is). Regardless, if the universe IS expanding, then there is a natural push/force/general motion outward from the center so that you will never cross the same space for very long. If the universe was trying to return to a singularity state, it should be slowing down in expansion, or even shrinking, and yet, in the mere 12 to 16 billion years that is easily observable, we see no signs of this. That is the majority of the universes history as we know and understand. Perhaps we are missing very significant things right now (and I am sure we are as we are such a simple, young, and vastly ignorant species), but such a thing SHOULD be observable to some degree. We have all of the Universe's history to observe from, if we will just take the trouble to.

The nodal system is a nice way to map certain behaviors, but that is all it is. There are many ways to map behaviors, but maps have their built in preconceptions and limitations. So long as you don't need to use that mapping model near its envelopal edges, everything tends to play fine (or someone updates the map's rules). When one approaches the envelope of the map, that is when you start seeing through the cracks and experiencing the limitations. But anything that leads to a better understanding is always a positive thing.

In addition, Icon, the Spiritualistic side of your theory will naturally produce suspicion. I find it a nice change, but it is not necessary for the Whale Shark to be able to conceive of the microscopic or atomic structures in it for they to exists, so why would the universe need to be able to conceive of you as a concept? It just needs to be able to form an environment that was conducive for you to be biologically created in. That doesn't need Intent or Forethought. Some things just Are.

Shining1 - What do you mean its odd that I am not wrong? Such a nice thing to say though.

Quiz - I think you and Icon are talking about separate things. You say. "Ah, problem is that he is claiming it�s a closed system, but breaks these rules and tests." And he says "This is a system with a floating boundary. It only seems closed to those in It." After all, his system is one based on a nodal matrix math model. Most Math model mapping systems extend as far as you wish to extend it. "To Infinity and Beyond!" as it were. So you two aren't talking about the same thing, conceptually.

posted 06-08-99 04:23 PM ET         

Space and time are distinctly not interchangeable. Time is a scalar, space is volumetric. Space is literally the space between things. Time and distance are essentially equivalent, but space is volumetric, and requires angle as well as time in order to be defined.

And the nodes in the map do not exist a priori, but are the points where things cross or interact.

Anyhow, the whole idea of Universe as an object is absurd, even though English forces us to use it so.

posted 06-08-99 04:56 PM ET            

Hot water does not have a greater mass-energy than cold water. If it did, it would weigh more. It doesn't. The EARTH has way more mass-energy than any amount of hot water on the earth can have. It weighs more. One kilogram weight of hot water (at 99 degrees centigrade) will have more *volume* than one kilogram of cold water (at say 1 degree centigrade). But they have the same *mass*, and therefore same weight. However, as the hot water is less dense, any equal amount of volume space of the two waters, and the cold water will have more mass (being denser), and therefore more weight. Mass is your "energy-mass". The problem with your logic is the energy difference would be minimal and compared to the solid energy(matter) difference, negliable. And I'd bet a thousand US dollars, it is. That is basic math, which doesn't change in classic physics.

Second, the Universe is an object. Anything that has matter is an object in the English language. That is the base meaning of object, after all.

Third, your slip is showing. Refine the map model and send it to me. I'd enjoy the details. But if your nodes don't exist, you are merely talking vectorings, then aren't you? And we have had vectors for a very long time.

Fourth, prove time is linear. You can't because its not. If you travel SIDEWAYS to our common time flow, you would seem to us to be teleporting. Something quantoms do all the time. Backwards, and you are travelling in time. Something we believe is impossible, but that anti-neutrinoes do. [In SF terms, they are called tachyons. Fun fun.] There are many things that get a little confused from out point of view in Time, but as we are merely simple beings with no control over the consensual time flow, we are forced along it with the others whether we like it or not. Time is as volumable as Space is. Anywhere there is gravity, there is both. With gravity, you have a timeless void, a null, a nothingness.

posted 06-08-99 05:28 PM ET         

Universe is not an object because you cannot get outside of it, or obtain a perspective on it. Just because you can create a word-label to point to it with does not mean it is an object.

The nodes exist, so do the vectors. The nodes are the joints where the vectors cross. You need both concepts to work together to get a whole system.

Shape and frequency are covariables. Shape is timeless in the abstract, but any real shape must have a special case manifestation in time. Time operates in all directions, but is essentially linear, radiative, divergent. Shape operates in all directions, but is essentially angular, gravitative, convergent.

Maybe we have too many differences of viewpoint to agree yet.

- icosahedron

posted 06-09-99 10:38 AM ET         

Universe==god is not quite right, spiritually. Universe is perhaps the manifestation of god. Not sure it's even meaningful to try to understand god.

posted 06-09-99 04:19 PM ET            

There could be other universes out there... who knows? Is is a simple, single universe, or multiple stacked? Or On in many planes? Or many scattered around like billard balls on a billards table?

Icon - In understanding what God has made, one is trying to understand God, to some degree.