Forks in the Stream
4 July 2009
8 Comments
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4 July 2009 8 Comments
And now somehow things make more sense.
4 July 2009 8 Comments
4 July 2009 8 Comments
One of the most fascinating aspects of this discourse is that in explaining their ideas, scientists become poets. Because the discussion resides at a theoretical level, specialists and nonspecialists alike are able to engage these very mysterious boundaries of reality and perception. I am convinced that the discovery and experience of other dimensions, time travel, etc., is not the prerogative of physicists but is equally the domain of philosophers, artists, historians, theologians, and anyone else who takes seriously the possibility of discovering that which negates the divisions of professions, specialities, and other prejudices by which identity is customarily formed.
I watched them all. This is much better than television. Thank you. The last question asked,”Is our universe really alone?” I thought that was answered in the theory of infinite universes which lead us to M theory in the first place. Then I realized the sarcasm in your statement and how now it makes sense.
I mean jeez. What about the soup theory? And the peanut butter and jelly theory?
What happened to theories actually having some concrete data to make them theories. I think, personally, this is one of the reasons that many haters of science can poke fun and have a good laugh at the theories. Also I think it’s a big reason the word theory has lost a lot of its meaning.
Einstein and many others had to bust their asses to prove the theory of general relativity in 1919.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090528204402.htm
What proof do we have of M theory or the 11th dimension?
At least Einstein could prove without a shadow of a doubt that space bends. A picture is worth a million words. This is where theories become truly theories. It’s wonderful and magical as some would suggest but if there is no physical proof then it will always be just smoke and mirrors, and I’m fine with that. I welcome the mystery of the universes. I enjoy not knowing.
I propose a 12th dimension. One where all dimensions live in peace and harmony.
I did enjoy the videos though at this late hour. Especially the animations.
clearly you’ve done more reading on this topic than i have. i hope you will excuse my ignorance, as i am pretty new to this topic.
i did not mean any sarcasm in my statement. it was a completely genuine statement about how i approach the unknown.
just to comment on your comment about evidence. i think it’s important to find evidence for those things that impress us–that make an impression on our minds or imaginations. i think it’s important to come up with ways to describe phenomena that presently have no rational explanation but which nonetheless arise out of experiences and encounters that do not fit in with conventional ways of thinking.
what i find reprehensible is the debunking of ideas that come out of experiences/observations–that is, the lack of evidence for making statements that negate the experiences that people report to have. as some put it, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. i believe this.
the task, to my mind, is to move toward that which is part of the human experience but which lacks concrete evidence. if the idea is there, it may mean that something exists to substantiate it. how we describe the experience is a matter of culture, history, and other orientations that are subject to change. but to negate out of hand the authenticity of the experience–the impression that gives rise to the idea–is to deny the Other, that which we have customarily thought does not exist but which may in fact help to define the meaning of human identity.
I’m just a man. Mystified. Standing in amazement. I claim no right to knowledge on such clearly intellectual journeys. Definitely not. But I can see how without absolute evidence debunking of such theories by the oppressors of science to be an easy task. Especially at the pulpit.
I don’t wish that upon any of these theories. I hope we can bend time and change human history. I’d have no problem with things being different. But I see a soup of ideas being presented not just here but on any presentation I’ve seen on modern physics and there seems to be no meat in that soup. No vegetables. Nothing a laymen such as myself can sink their teeth into.
At least with Einstein’s “Theory of General Relativity” we had without a doubt photographic evidence of space bending. If we could prove these theories to that degree then I don’t think the Creationist would not have such an easy time debunking science. The word “Theory” should have much more meaning. Gravity is a theory. And yet it has not been proven wrong. No matter how many times I jump off a 50 story building I will be proven to be a lump of flesh at the end of that fall. And yet it’s still called a theory. When do theories such as gravity become facts? When does evolution become a fact?
point taken, and well said.
i guess my problem is that i see strange mindsets, call them “creationists” or something else, and i see kernels of truth in them as well. i see the potential for a unity of what appears as a seemingly simplistic notion of two sides of a coin. forgive me as i go a bit off the rails for a second. there are people who are religious, who call themselves Christians, but who have unexplained experiences and have no way of fitting those experiences into their worldview except perhaps to chalk it up to the devil or angels or any number of labels that are difficult to engage rationally. certainly, we can call such descriptions superstition. yet we can’t deny the presence of the unexplained, its occurrence in the life experience. experiences of profound synchronicity, thinking someone else’s thoughts, seeing strange things in the sky, having premonitions, the sensation that someone else is in the room, having extremely moving dreams. i say this because i can personally relate to many such sensations, and i suspect that most rational, sober people have also had similar experiences. people who pay attention and periodically allow their minds to get quiet and allow themselves the luxury of contrasting such experiences against the demands of modern life have very often reported such experiences. perhaps the meat and vegetables are in such experience. i can imagine that you have had such experiences. perhaps the proof is in the experience for which we as yet have no shared language.
i think it is imperative to honor and explore such experiences–those things that defy conventional explanation. i don’t for a second think that mathematical equations about alternate dimensions came out of thin air. very intelligent, sensitive, gifted people have begun to give us ways of explaining such things–albeit through very specialized languages–that have the hope of capturing some sense of credibility in the public mind. i suspect that they originated out of a curiosity about the unexplained phenomena that exist in the experiences of people who decided to pursue–in as rational a way as possible–a foundation for describing those experiences. i don’t see a very large gap between the scientists and creationists in the experience of such phenomena, but there is quite a gap in the description of experience.
now getting at the mindset of those who debunk theories is tough. i think you imply that in your previous comment. there should be a way to bridge the expression of experience. there must be a way of viewing science that says that science is not far removed from the topics of religion. there has to be a bridge between divergent worldviews. for example, there must be a kinder, gentler way of announcing one’s atheism that does not conjure images of demonic communists who want to annihilate Christian children, take away freedoms, and destroy civilization. as you are aware, this problem is largely cultural–it has to do with the language that we use around one another. there is a very strict division between the ways people are allowed to discuss reality. and that division, i think, is consciously reinforced. ideas do matter, and they are also of political concern.
beyond that, if i may behave naively and idealistically, there is a concern that transcends the political. it has to do with something more real and definitive than political difference; it goes to the heart of the problem that we have for a couple of decades described as the “culture wars.” i wish i knew how to state it succinctly and clearly. but i suspect that you, as an artist, know what i am talking about, because its expression, in my opinion, is the highest function of the artist. it has to do with an awareness of and empathy for the other, especially when the other is despised or taken to be an idiot or incoherent boob. it has to do with the cultivation of a common language for discussing the unknown.
i know that my words can be taken as preachy and self-righteous, and i regret that that is the case.
yo homies,
these multi-dimensional theories are responses to a primary problem in physics, called the ‘measurement problem’, a problem that gave rise to the probability issue in quantum physics. the measurement problem arises from Einsteinian relativity, and earlier work he did whereby we discovered that light acts as both a particle and a wave. the difficulty we’ve had in determining the nature of photons (packets of energy that we experience as light) goes like this, the wave we would use to detect a photon is larger than the particle we are trying to detect, therefore it is impossible with scientific accuracy to predict a particles location, therefore we must deal with such items as probabilities.
in an attempt to bridge the gaps in macro and micro levels of physics, in a search for a unified field theory (which is wild, because i’m working on a song right now, with that title), but anyways, in order to create connections between electro-magnetism and gravity physicists have take to something called String Theory, it is a creative geometrical mathematics that basically uses mathematical gymnastics to accomplish some resolutions to mathematical problems in the physics, and because some of these techniques work to explain phenomena, physicists feel they might be true. however, in order to accomplish these feats, they have to ‘invent’ new dimensions to satisfy the mathematical maneuvers. It is important to keep all this in mind, that we are dealing with scientists who are taking some mathematical curiosities and describing them a bit too eagerly, in my opinion. String theory is ‘highly speculative,’ although i could be true, there is very little actual evidence. This is one reason why people who are interested in such topics are so eager for the new Large Hadron collider to get repaired, because the presence of a theoretical particle called the Higgs Boson, that could be detected by this huge machine, could swing the evidence in favor of certain strands of these theories, and that would provide some solidity to these topics. It is very possible many of these scientists will have years of research destroyed.
In science’s effort to understand the nature of the universe they have found a substrate that is swimming with forms of energy that are difficult to describe because of the nature of human experience. the relationship between an object, a force, information and exchange is outside our sensual knowledge. in this way we have entered a new age of polytheism, and what i mean by this, is that scientists are dealing with a new set of raw forces, that they do not understand, and trying to describe them, they are using methods as wrong and primitive as the Aristotelean theory of Earth, Fire, Water and Air. It is likely that the Singularity of computer technology and the transformation of consciousness will precede discoveries in these matters, simply because we are so much closer, and it is so much a simpler matter. After some time of trans-human exponential consciousness, we would be better equipped to deal with these problems as we become beings more closely related to the atomic phenomena.
this comment is stripped of all the niceties and manners, simply because i have such small windows of internet access, but suffice it to say that this is the current state of my thinking on this.
akbar
by the way, what’s a ‘Ponzi Scream’?
Akbar did you just reference a book on physics or are you truly a walking encyclopedia? This was a truly amazing summary of modern physics. Thank you.
Thanks guys for responding. I appreciate the thoughts about these theories not just coming out of thin air as I suggested. I think that’s the perception though by the laymen. I wasn’t trying to imply that I think that. I just want them to be backed up like relativity is. Good point Akbar about the Hadron Collider and the Higgs Boson particle. I need to do more research to get a better idea what theories they hope to prove with its future experiments.
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