Sunday, June 8, 2008

Knowledge

I would encourage the reader to peruse a book by Chuck Palahniuk called Choke. Mr. Palahniuk also wrote Fight Club, on which the movie by the same name is based. I won't discuss the plot at length. There is a section that describes the protagonist's experience as a boy walking with his mother and looking at the mountains. The protagonist describes his mother's wish to experience the mountains without the filter of perception. Take a moment to think about that. Read my post titled "The world on a diet" before you go any further, if you haven't already.

We take for granted that the world we absorb through our senses is rock-solid and immutable. We have words for everything. If it exists, it is a noun. If it is some sort of process, it is a verb. We have a slew of adjectives and other parts of speech to spice it up some. The world comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. It is the entire basis for existence.

But this world, and the language that sustains it, is simply the world we can all agree upon. (Believe me, I am not talking about the opinions regarding society-- they are as varied as they come.) It is something that looks more or less the same to everyone and fulfills practical purposes.

A fish swims in the water. A fish is comprised mostly of water. It has no idea what water is, because water is everywhere and there is nothing to contrast it with. We look at fish swimming and see an agent moving freely and independently of its environment. We do this because we perceive the fish's shape and color. Without these perceptions, the fish (which is comprised mostly of water) is more or less like a lump in gravy-- a relatively small variation in the aquatic environment. Yes, it moves, but doesn't a lump in gravy move around when you take a spoon to it?

I had a discussion with someone about the expansion of the universe. The question was asked: what is beyond the edge of the universe? We can come up with plenty of guesses. Every one of those guesses will likely be a flight of fancy. It is about as far removed from our world of understanding as one can get. It was at this point that I developed three classifications in the realm of knowledge:

1. Knowledge that we possess. This is the entire body of scholastic work and/or scientific research accumulated throughout history. Ideally, this would be available to everyone, all of the time.

2. Knowledge we do not possess. This is information about the universe that exists but has not yet been discovered.

3. That which is unknowable. Structures and functions in all of reality need not necessarily have some sort of counterpart in the world of information. The unknowable isn't necessarily hidden-- it simply has no analog that relates to perceived classifications and meaningful language. An example of this is the concept of infinity. We can think long and hard about infinity, but we have no means at all of grasping it. We cannot think in dimensions beyond the four that make up the observable universe. And since all of space and time is a part of our ever-expanding universe, we cannot conceive of what might be beyond its edge. Some things are just totally outside the domain of knowledge and understanding altogether.

For most people, none of this is really a big deal, because they give little attention to knowledge, perception and understanding. With an entire cosmos to explore, they are still concerned with bling, sneakers and iPods!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Time Wave Zero and the Love of Ideas

60s aficionados may know the name Terence McKenna. I won't go into a biography here as I don't want to get lost in the details of this fascinating man. Mr. McKenna once devised an idea that the passage of time and events in history are inextricably linked. He used symbols from the Mayan calendar to build a fractal pattern that coincides with periods of disaster throughout Earth's history. He referred to these periods of coincidence as singularities, and these singularities would give way to a phenomenon he called novelty (in which the world basically rebuilds itself until the next singularity). It is a very interesting idea with some scientific merit. I recommend you read up on it when you have some time.

I do not embrace this idea as fact in any way. Whether or not the space-time continuum is actually affected by events in history is a question that leads to much speculation, and I don't have any answers here. But it is an idea with its own merits, its own beauty, one to be savored and kept in the mind until it can mingle with other interesting thoughts to possibly give birth to another beautiful idea.

We live in a polarized society that demands immediate results (that we usually won't fight for ourselves) and has become complacent in its thinking. Say you are a pro-choice individual and a pro-lifer speaks up on his beliefs on the matter. Do you automatically blow those beliefs out of the sky, deeming them completely wrong and without weight because they conflict with your own? If you are a creationist, do you shake your fists at the cosmologists who have developed the Big Bang theory, regarding them as stinking blasphemers?

One of the big hurdles we as a race must overcome is the desire to cast as wrong any idea that comes into conflict with our own. Don't get me wrong... we must take a stand against a great number of things like pedophilia, rampant crime and rising oil prices. But outside of the things that directly harm people, there is a great deal of room for movement. Let our arguments be friendly and our words well-considered. An idea should be enjoyed like a fine wine is, whether you embrace it or not.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

God's Creation

I think it is appropriate to post this as my 6th article, as the number 6 has a certain meaning in the Bible.

Many people I work and socialize with are familiar with my study of the sciences. Sometimes, conversations turn to the issue of science and religion. Inevitably, the following statement is made: "I don't believe in any of the Big Bang stuff. God made humans; they didn't come from apes." Now, the argument regarding evolution and natural selection is one I will save for another time. The point I want to make here is...

The Big Bang is NOT the same thing as evolution!!

I have explained this to multiple people who come back a week later with the same understanding of the Big Bang that they had before my conversation with them. This is frustrating.

Look at it this way. Creation in the Bible is spread out among six days. Take days one and two and you are essentially looking at the creation and development of the universe, the stars, and the planet Earth. Days three through six deal life on Earth, with day six being the day of birth of animals and Man. The first two days are what we are talking about in the case of the Big Bang. It is the birth of the universe: all of space and time, and the conditions leading up to the formation of matter. Following the Big Bang is the formation of stars which group into galaxies. Later, planets form. The time scales involved here are arguable, and believe me, they do get argued.

The domain of life falls within days three to six. The conditions for intelligent life are forged on Earth on days three and four, with simpler life forms emerging on day five, and more complex ones (including humans) on day six. Now, if you believe that evolution did take place, it is somewhere in there. If not, then you don't. But there was no more Big Bang taking place during that time period, and that is that.

The very first thing to be created in the world was light (Gen. 2:3). This is entirely consistent with the theory of the Big Bang. We know that all matter began as energy (consistent with E=mc^2) in the form of photons, which are particles of light. There is enormous evidence of the Big Bang taking place. (One person mentioned to me that since this is man's physics and not God's physics, our observation must be flawed. I say that the laws of physics are God's very first creation, and therefore must be sacred!) I must add that I do believe that there is a God and that He created everything. People argue that a creation needs a creator. I will not argue this. But, after all, do builders not use tools to build things? The mechanism of creation is never mentioned in the Bible, yet we have found it with science. Fundamentalists decry this discovery as blasphemous and the work of the devil. Why? The dichotomy between science and religion is artificial. Shouldn't looking upon God's creation yield only truth? And beauty? There is nothing out there that defiles the Bible.

Question: Why should I care about all this?
Answer: Read post #5.

That Which is Truly Priceless

"Why should I care about history? That was then, this is now!"

When I hear such a statement being made, I cringe. People who say things like this also make statements like "Why in the world would I ever need to multiply by letters?" I think it is a sign of the times: the masses are so engrossed in their own lives and their own profits that they are stuck in them. There is no expansion of one's horizons or appreciation for the finer things in the world. Ever see the commercial with the dog who brings a stick to a boy, tail a-wagging, and the boy simply throws the stick in the trash? That is what I'm talking about. So long as people can stuff themselves with McDonald's food, play with their X-boxes and show off their bling-bling, they are satisfied... and they are going willingly into a condition of consumer slavery.

The typical answer to my opening question is "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." That much is certainly true. After all, if you stub your toe on the same loose board every morning, clearly you are not learning from the past. But I believe that this pragmatic answer just doesn't cut it. History goes far beyond a tool of wisdom. Our past tells us who we are and where we have been. It is wholly and entirely our identity.

Can you imagine waking up one morning with total amnesia? Would you want to forget your name, your loved ones, and your entire past? Doesn't sound good, does it? Now imagine this happening to everyone in the world. In general we have a blase attitude toward history, and it is leading to collapse.

I feel that history is second only to the individual soul in terms of societal value. Come on, people... before too long, non-caring will become non-thinking, and hasn't that process already started?

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Rocket That Ran Into Itself (Or So We Wish)

A time machine without motion is doomed to collide with itself once it begins its transit back in time. This is easy enough to understand: once the stationary time machine begins the time-travel process, it will occupy space and time already occupied by an earlier incarnation of the time machine itself. Of course, this seems to be a self-abortive process.

It also seems that this may offer a clue as to why time travel (into the past, that is) has not yet been accomplished (that we know of). A corollary to this idea may be that it prevents faster-than-light (FTL) travel as well. As a rocket approaches the speed of light, there are relativistic effects, from the vantage point of a stationary observer, that prevent it from ever reaching the speed of light. The rocket’s length along the direction of travel decreases and approaches zero. The rocket’s mass approaches infinity. Time aboard the rocket, according to the stationary observer, becomes eternity.

Could this threshold, the speed of light in a vacuum, be rooted in the same property of space-time that inhibits the stationary time machine from its journey into the past? Could it be that the would-be FTL rocket simply starts to run into itself?

Scientists define inertia as the property of matter that causes it to resist acceleration. It is represented in the textbooks as mass. This mass is one of the primary studies in physics; it has rules, structure, and function, and its behavior can be observed. Where is the inertia hidden in matter? Is it a property of space-time? Bernard Haisch, in his book The God Theory, discusses his work with the zero-point field, describing it as “a sea of quantum light,” the very energy that is everywhere in the vacuum of the cosmos. He and a collaborator have developed a theory that it is this zero-point field that causes mass to resist acceleration. While not being fully embraced by most of the physics community, it has become a subject of serious discussion among physicists.

With all this being said, there are some questions that arise:

  • What thresholds does the zero-point field introduce?
  • Does the zero-point field behave differently for bodies approaching the speed of light?
  • Could the zero-point field prevent time travel?
  • Does the zero-point field act as some sort of guardian to prevent bodies from transitioning from one reference frame to another?

A more basic question is: is inertia simply the universe’s way of keeping us from running into ourselves?

Sunday, May 4, 2008

What About Time?

When I was a child in a rural part of southern New Jersey, I dreamed of two rustic fishermen walking through the nearby woods. They would come upon a great toaster, pop the lever, and out of the toaster would rise the Sun into the sky.

It is an odd dream, but the Sun has historically been the center of our gauge of something called time. So what is time? Is it a marker for stages of our lives? Is it an identification for levels of world history? Or is it more? We think of time sort of as a river, moving in a straight line, flowing from past to future. We ride in a small boat called the present. Some people believe the future is as unpredictable as the number of fish under the boat. Others believe that the future is fixed, just like the course of the river. We may find, in time, that time is not so easily defined or categorized as either fixed or uncertain. Time may turn out to be something different than we thought all along

In physical terms, time is an interval between cause and effect. Recent scientific developments show that there is more to time than this. Einstein’s theory of relativity shows that the properties of an event are inextricably linked to the size of the time interval in which the event occurs. Take, for example, a rocket flying through space. At velocities well below the speed of light, we need not calculate its flight time with any other than classical equations. However, as its velocity approaches appreciable fractions of the speed of light, we must use Lorentz transformations (equations of motion that are used for near-light speed bodies) to find the rocket’s relative velocity and relative time interval: at those high velocities, the passage of time decreases, that is, time slows for the rocket. We should also consider the presence of dense matter in space. It causes folds in the fabric of space-time; this causes gravity to exist. Where there is gravity, time dilates; that is, it runs slower within the gravity well than it does outside.

A science called quantum mechanics dictates the behavior of matter on the microscopic level. Quantum mechanics hints that time is not so linear as we perceive. Heisenberg proposed that on a small enough level, there is an uncertainty in the position and motion of anything physical. This phenomenon is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Take, for example, an electron (the moving, negatively charged particles usually bound within atoms). An electron emitted from a cathode tube can be controlled by electromagnetic forces to follow any particular trajectory. Yet there is a fundamental uncertainty as to when and where it will finish its journey, possibly being absorbed by an ion as a valence electron.

This uncertainty has been has been illustrated by the paradox of Schrodinger’s Cat. Suppose we have a sealed metal box, its interior completely opaque to observation. A mechanical apparatus is within, containing a vial of poisonous gas. A photon (the particulate unit of light, whose properties are similar to those of an electron) emitter is positioned across from a sensor, which, when tripped, will signal the actuator to open the vial. We place a cat inside the box, seal it, and press a button that will trigger the photon emitter.

What happens inside? Well, because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, we don’t know if the photon will actually enter the sensor. Therefore, we won’t know if the cat will be dead or alive once we open the box. If the cat turns up dead, we won’t know exactly when he expired. It turns out that we can only really know the starting point and ending point of the motion of the photon; we can’t be certain of its path. So, while the box is sealed, the cat is in a temporal “limbo” from our perspective. It is neither dead nor alive. In the interval of time between the sealing of the box and its subsequent re-opening, time is discontinuous for the cat (in the perspective of us, the observers). We shall return to Schrodinger’s cat momentarily.

If the motion of matter behaves this way on the quantum level, what about matter on the macroscopic level? For any object in motion, its Heisenberg uncertainty is

(change in energy) X (change in time) = ½ Planck’s constant,

or

(change in position) X (change in momentum) = ½ Planck’s constant,

where Planck’s constant (a fundamental quantity related to particulate bodies) is equal to 1.06 X 10^-34 Joule-seconds. Do not be intimidated by these equations; I illustrate them only to show that only either energy or time or either position or momentum can be known to a good degree of precision. Now, these uncertainties are far from negligible on the quantum level, but for a baseball they are of little consequence in conventional terms. Nevertheless, this uncertainty exists during every single time interval that the ball is in motion. From the time the ball is thrown, there is a standard deviation (albeit small) in the position of the ball at every time interval. This deviation is cumulative, that is, this uncertainty adds up from the time the ball is thrown to the time it is caught. On a long enough trajectory, the uncertainty in the motion of the ball becomes something of consequence: There is an entire range of times, velocities, and positions the ball could have stopped at.

One might ask, why does this matter? We know that we will actually only see the ball take one amount of time to get to its destination, traveling at a single speed, landing in a single position. This question ignores one thing: there is no time interval within the standard deviation for the position and velocity of the ball. Time intervals have their own deviation. Thus, the ball can be seen as being in more than one place at once. Since we can only view a single four-dimensional trajectory of the ball, one must assume there are additional causal paths for the ball that we cannot see. I will refer to these causal paths as potential time, or alternate time. By inference, we can also say that possibly an infinite number of these timelines exist concurrently and in parallel.

If a baseball has multiple timelines, what about planets? Or rocks? Or humans? Even if we ignore the uncertainty effect on living things, we cannot ignore the fact that the baseball is observed and has a causal effect on our lives. If the author watches the ball land here, another version of the author must see the ball land there. Therefore, people also have multiple timelines.

Let us return to Schrodinger’s cat. Within the box, he waits for the photon emitter to fire. Here he will face either his liberation or his doom, depending on the trajectory of the photon. Since the photon has multiple trajectories at once, the cat simultaneously suffers death and enjoys continued existence. Within the box, the cat is causally isolated from the rest of the world. He cannot have an impact on the observers until they are able to see the outcome and know his fate. Hence the limbo of the cat’s existence; the uncertainty in the trajectory of the photon prevents any guesswork on the life or death of the cat until the box is opened.

Remember that the deviations (in velocity, position, and time) add up. Two variations of your birth may be identical, but the timelines will diverge due to different nuances in each one. I ask you to think carefully about this for a moment. Basically, all choices, all circumstances that can happen, do happen.

What does this mean for free will? Consider, for a moment, the solar system. Certainly there will be random occurrences in the system: for example, free objects can pass through, or the Sun may have random (small) fluctuations in its luminosity. However, we know the Sun will still shine, and the orbits will remain fixed (although there are minute changes over time.) Likewise, there are things in our lives that will remain certain. As long as we are alive, we will breathe air. When we trip, we will fall. We know we will all eventually die. We follow a path of certainty until a choice comes, either on our part or on the part of something acting upon us. The path of certainty is of arbitrary duration.

Here, I propose a model that reconciles free will and fate. In the course of time, a “subject” (person, baseball, etc.) follows its own courses of action and experiences the resulting consequences. From the point of origin, the subject is on a fixed path (straight road) until it comes to a crossroads: a decision, or the decision or random act by another subject. In the frame of the subject and all mortal observers, the subject can only go straight or pick one of the turns. The straight road is fate, and the crossroads is free will. Of course, only living things have free will, so in the case of the baseball, the free will must occur on the part of someone who throws it.

You may ask, how can this model include fate if I say fate constantly changes? There is another element to the universe to consider; it is called entropy. Entropy has been referred to by physicists as the arrow of time. Entropy is the degree of disorder in any system. In the case of the universe, entropy always increases, no matter what. Relating entropy to fate, we can say that no matter what small paths the universe takes, the overall path always leads to increased entropy. Due to conservation laws, we may also say that no matter what path the universe takes, the final entropy of the universe is certain.

I will give a simple illustration of why entropy tends toward increase. Imagine a jar one-quarter full of blue marbles. Now add an equal volume of red marbles. Shake vigorously. The more you shake, the more mixed the red and blue marbles become. The “mixedness” of the system is a degree of disorder; it is called entropy. Shaking the jar even more will never return the system to its original state, with the red and blue marbles being separate. The marbles will always become more mixed until the system reaches maximum homogeneity.

Entropy is studied in a science called thermodynamics. We study thermodynamics to understand the energy properties (temperature, pressure, volume, etc.) of physical systems. Thermodynamics also describes a phenomenon called equilibrium. Equilibrium is a balance of all things in the environment, bringing it to either stasis or steady state. In time, things become balanced; in a sense, nirvana is achieved. This is the ultimate fate of the universe and all things in it. It is not just science that tells us this. Anyone who keeps any sort of faith does so with the knowledge that a certain balance of all things is to come.

It may seem that I have diverged from the topic at hand, but these things I have discussed are inextricable pieces of that enigma we call time. Time passes, and this passage is affected by the properties of the motion in which time is a gauge. Time began with the Big Bang, and it may have an ending. We do know where time will lead. It will lead to maximized entropy and nearly total equilibrium. These are notions of fate. The uncertainty in time allows for all choices and happenings to exist in parallel.

I personally believe that time, fate, and God are all one. There are mysterious workings to the universe, and somehow the chaos that runs rampant leads to order than reigns. We see this in our everyday lives, in history, and in faith. The way things work out tells me that there is an omnipresent and omniscient guide to reality. Our only window to this guide is our collective memory and a clock. The clock ticks away, and time, for me, is still the ultimate concept to aspire to. As for time for the cat: let us hope that his time is dictated by his own whim, rather than by the elusive photon.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The world on a diet

The world is hardly a world without someone to call it such.

I'll totally sidestep the issue of society here-- while society certainly isn't moot, it is not what I wish to address here. We all know that we are connected to the world around us through our senses. So, we have nice little adjectives like round, green, smelly, etc. to describe the world around us. Lo and behold, combine those sensory inputs with higher cognitive functions and we have language. We have history. We have a structured way of looking at the world, identifying each part and taking note of how the parts fit together and how they change over time. We know that the sky is separate from the firmament, and that we are surrounded by air. We have even probed the smallest particles of matter. (Never mind that even with all our advanced technology, we still get hung up on silly things like race, gender and creed). We know the difference between two people.

Try to imagine not having any senses-- somehow or another, you can detect motion around you, the direction of your own locomotion, changes in energy in the environment, etc, without your five senses. How do all the parts appear to you now? You would have to do without the superficial identifying qualities like blue, soft, or hot. Limited to environmental properties such as location, energy levels (heat), velocity... you know, the properties identified in physics, you would not only lose the relative value system that your mind assesses your immediate environment with, you would also lose the notions of separateness and distinctiveness.

Go to the beach on a calm summer morning. Breath in the warm salty air. Watch the seagulls frolic about in the sun soaked blue sky. Hear the waves cresting and crashing on the shore. Then close your eyes and remove all the color from the scene in your mind's eye. See only shapes, and then erase the lines from the shapes. Turn the sounds into simple vibrations in the air around you, then remove the air and replace it with billions of complex particles that respond to the sound vibrations. Rid yourself of the smells and detect only the gaseous molecules carried to your nose from various sources.

Last but certainly not least, rid yourself of blue, sun, ocean, etc... words have no place here.

Just what is it you perceive after all this? The honest answer: nothing. But after training yourself for a while, you may just begin to come up with an approximate image. Mine is a near-blackness everywhere, with subtle and blurred shapes moving about. This world, without the filter of perception, has no distinct parts. The area to my left looks slightly different than the area to my right, but everything is all one large system, and nothing is separate. The seagull is not differentiated from the air; Mr. Bird is but a center of activity in the beach-air-sky system. The air and the seagull are not separate, just elements of a greater whole.

In short, the human tendency to name and categorize everything in the universe is an evolved quality. To really understand the real world, you have to strip away the colors and the smells and the words we have all grown accustomed to and take for granted.

Love and quantum entanglement

Okay, so I watched that movie "What the *Bleep* Do We Know" and I had some thoughts. Of those thoughts, I'll share an impression the film leaves regarding love.

The "experts" (they were sorta like narrators) in the film begin to shift more toward biological processes and the brain at one point. This makes its way into addiction and love, which, chemically, are quite similar. When one love, one experiences a pattern of chemical transactions in the brain that cognitively have an object (he/she whom one love). When one (the "lover") no longer gets what one needs from this person (the "lovee"), the patterns change. So love is actually a series of chemical reactions within a person; this means that when you fall in love with someone, you are really in love with how you feel when you love someone (see also addictions). Take that away, addiction's done, lovin's over.

I don't want to believe that. I mean, it makes total sense, as we are made of chemicals, and if there is a change in our bodies or minds, it must be chemical in nature. And what about that guy or girl whom you loved who left you? Or cheated? How do you feel then, when someone doesn't return your love? Do you still love that person if he or she gives you nothing? Is it really love if you expect something in return? Suffice to say, after asking myself these questions, I was down in the dumps.

But there was another portion of the film that talked more about the physics end of reality (if I have lost you, go watch the movie!), and since physics was my major in college, I was fully tuned. A particular bit was about quantum entanglement; I won't get into the nuts and bolts of all that (again, watch the movie), but the gist of it is that all matter in the universe is interconnected, responding to stimuli that other matter is subjected to...

Okay, okay, since you're twisting my arm now, I will clarify. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon we have seen in which two particles, let us say electrons for example, come in contact with each other somehow (maybe within an atom) and then move apart from each other. They can travel very far from each other, even millions of light years (a light year is the distance that light travels in a year); perform an action on one of the electrons. Its distant companion will respond.

(It may help some of you to read up on the spin antisymmetry of atomic electrons.)

Now, this change would be instantaneous, meaning that the information about the stimulus to one electron would travel many, many times the speed of light to the other electron. We could even assume that this information travels at infinite speed. This is a huge deal! Especially when you consider that during the Big Bang, all matter in the universe was connected together and in contact. So that means that all matter is entangled. And every human on the face of the Earth is connected to all the others (not to mention everything else, living or not).

We are all connected to each other. How's that for love? That idea is the one I embrace.