8/24/23

The Rocket Ship of Theseus

 Imagine the Athenian hero-king appeared in our time. Being a demi-god, he built a space ship capable of ngoing to the edge of our Universe. He believed in the multiverse theory of Cosmology and wanted to go from our realty (universe 1) to another (universe 2). So he blasts off with great ceremony (he's a hero) and soars through the cosmic void whatever reaching the peed of light ( or the edge of realty) and exits our universe 1.

But as soon as Theseus' craft busted through the barrier seperating our universe 1 from universe 2, a particle or atom interacts with, binds to, entangles or merges into particke(s) or atom)s) of the rocket ship. Possible results:

  1. The rocket becomes part of universe 2
  2. the rocket becomes universe 3
  3. the rocket ceases to exist
  4. universe 1 and universe 2 and the rocket all merge into universe 3
  5. nothing happens; Theseus even lands on a nice planet with stores carrying rocket parts and upgrades and repairs his ship for the trip home.
  6. everything disappears (vaporizes, disintegrates, whatever)
Seriously; What can be said about any of these outcomes based on string theory or any motivation for the multiverse concept.?

4/14/23

There Must Be some kind of Way Out of Here

This is an essay about 21st Century Physics literature involving entanglement, Cosmology and quantum physics. Science has to start somewhere beyond blame and self-pity to communicate to an  amateur audience (H Sapiens)  more concerned about getting their next meal than Schrodinger’s Cat. The use of the word “illusion” is not helping the general public’s perception of theoretical Physics. Until mathematics can advance to the point these concepts are defined in a testable multiverse, Science must use  vocabulary from the philosophy of Art - Perhaps the phrase “work of art” or  “artwork”, instead of “illusion” or “spooky”.


The Copenhagen “interpretation” must have looked really safe to young physicists when I graduated elementary school and by the time my BA was finally acquired (this was the 60s, babe)a self-serving structure known as “The Standard Model” was performing perfectly conforming calculations.


The denial of reality is not new; Sophism is the archaic Greek word for this philosophical position. Worse yet, this is associated with mental illness in popular culture-The image of a deranged homeless person on a city street. I urge the use of. There is no reason why Science needs blame, and illusion is full of blame, not to mention self-pity. (This is the same reason UFOs must be rejected by Science.) 


Somebody may have to hire a linguist -Physics is already starting to use the language and concepts of the Arts. Astronomers have named our galactic group using an indigenous Hawaiian phrase. Is the Mona Lisa an “illusion” of an Italian noblewoman in front of Tuscan hills? Did Warhol paint “illusions” of soup cans? We should not be bitter or resentful just because we cannot see the frame; We should feel lucky to be in such a big production.Think of all that we’re saving in museum admissions! 


For as long as computers ran on electricity, various machines have been built that try to “imitate” specific artists or a programmer’s idea of Art.  Recently, however, Physics has acquired bigger problems. In an article considering the ideas of Dr. Charles Sebens, quantum field theory is described as either “fundamental” or “ particles are the main actors that represent the vital information and fields are just a convenient script.”(1) 


Whatever determined the values of the Universe’s constants did not have ten fingers and toes. In the quantum game of entangled coin toss, there is no room for human intent or communication-Nature shuts us out of determining reality, even just two little particles, or one. When a human tries to determine or set a measurement, entanglement disappears, leaving just the randomness of each unpired particle.

If everything is inside the Universe, by definition, what is not? If information can travel faster than light, why can’t something come from “nothing” - vacuum energy in quantum fields. It;s only a hop to the left for “fluctuations" to become a force;How about cosmological coupling? Maybe everything is pouring energy into the Universe; What is bot? My proposal is to refer to reality and nature as The Masterpiece “illusion” .


Ethan Segal recently wrote in his popular blog that the multiverse has become essential to theory. How can Science find paths to  communicate these concepts? If universes are places where measurements “go”, what if there were no Science?In  the  approx two hundred thousand years of human history there were no universes before Science?


Some theorists have started using the word “brae” to describe these individual objects, complete with graphical images of treelike structure (think fruit). What is the  “tree”? In the last ten years an experiment was reported designed to disprove Einstein’s theory of “local realism”. The analysis used three theoretical brae to constrain the result in our universe; In two of these constructs, the Pythgorem theorem was not valid and the third had no mass. 


If there is more than one, they can be counted, even if there are more brae than stare in the sky. So k-1<k,k+1 is obvious and c(the physical constant)-1<c<c+1 is trivial;

infinity-1<infinity<infinity +1 is false because infinity-c=infinity; but what about 

U(k-1)<U(k)<U(k+1)? Is there anyway to compare or rank elements which are supposed to be infinite?; Do all brae have the same mass, volume or temperature? Physics must write: U(l-1)?U(k)?U(k+1).


The recent writings of Price and Wharton (3) focus on causality and time as an easier (more basic) way to resolve the phenomena of entanglement. Introducing “quantum retrocausality”, they argue that everything goes away if the present (or future) can influence the past.Their philosophical argument rejects the word “determine”; I’m not sure they can. Leaving that aside, their accessible argument validating reality (Special Relativity) and entanglement (“locality”) has the force of truth. Unfortunately, the conclusion also ventures into the concept of omnipotence-we don’t have it, but what does?


Fifty years ago a cultural event (before there were media events) that electrified America in a time of economic and political doubt. In the first “Cosmos” series, on television, Carl Sagan used a picture from one of the Voyager crafts to show Earth as a “Pale Blue Dot”, tiny” and “insignificant” against a starry background:

  1. The Earth is both our fragile and precious cradle and a prison from the Cosmos; not anywhere near a center or top of any firmament nor any importance or attention from any sentient being or force.This does not mean the Universe does not care about us; The Universe does not control us. The only connection humans have to the Universe is Science.

  2. There is no effort afoot by Nature to deceive Physics. The community should approach the philosophy of aesthetics to communicate quantum epistemology - In a recent description of Bayesianism  interpretation, Marcelo Gleiser writes like a Times critic defining Modern Art: States are really “expressions of how an agent experiences the world (Universe).”(2)

  3. Why do graphical representations of the Standard Model look like artists’ pallets? Not cartoon but actual artists use flat tables with color swipes sorted by tones and vibrations.

  4. Artists approach subjects through studies and experiments, though not scientific; After deciding on colors and forms, a series of attempts called renderings are produced, using different media or elements. Sometimes this is very dramatic, like in Picasso’s Guernica; The artist evaluates each approach. The only way to describe this series is also R(k-1)?R(k)?R(k+1); Any rendering can be eclipsed by the last one as well as the next one

  5. But time passes in the non-quantum world in only one direction. Human artists know the most important ingredient of their work is time-the length of the day and a life. Critics parse Picasso’s life into phases’ Astronomers parse the history of the Universe into epochs.Is “dark energy” merely a style? We’re in the “red period”! In the creative life phases are always revisited to benefit the present.

  6. There’s a reason the Greeks called it Art instead of “visual science”. The muse does not come  at the pleasure of man. In the Universe particles and the ideas of Art can both be described as Plenty; Entangling any two (or more) is not the place of human curiosity or caprice.

10/1/21

A Theist's Complaint

My ambitions never included getting published in Scientific American and after Physics I in my second year of higher education, any physical science journal. Certainly I would never submit commentary on any typical article as my final profession was a graphic comedian. But along the way I fooled around with Sociology and Philosophy, and that renowned journal is publishing radical Philosophy (Theology) as opinion.

The first idea  opined is that physicists "prefer" not thinking about consciousness as a basis for Nature. Prefers happen in fashion and wine orders; Physicists, sociologists and artists avoid intelligent causes of reality so their work has value. All religion makes human endeavor trivial; Marx was too limited, focusing only on work/labor. This is besides the fact that empiricism tells us that the Universe is "pointless".

On to our "fallen world" (The author really used this phrase!); Modern astronomy shows its the best one for life we've found so far. Leaving aside possible future definition of life, this brings up an old children's question: Where is God? The theme of the opinion writer is basically the answer to the children's question Why is there something instead of nothing? requires intelligence as a cause. So if God is clearly not here with us fallen, where?: As the old commercial goes: "Where's the beef??";  Show us something the "thing" has affected, beside one small, insignificant different world orbiting a main-sequence star in the suburbs of a typical spiral galaxy.

It is puzzling that an educational institution seems to be funding this advocacy; There are plenty of churches, temples and mosques throughout the world as well as Hoboken, NJ. The author should do less "science writing" and more science work.

5/12/18

Thaumaturge Road

Everybody's always asking "How do you get to the Top around Here?" You know...Level 9...so you can hang with me. I've got a lot of friends, but I need to know what you'll do when you hear about those golden roads in my Competitor's plantation. I can't stand "spiritual awakenings"; Hey, we're all jealous. Well, take notes, because I'm only going to post this once.
Sugar and spice
And everything nice.

She stopped Nestor's show.

Snips and snails
    And puppy-dogs' tails, and hearts, colons....
Something's stuck in the trash chute!
Gotta Run!!
All I want is my Fair Share; Seems to me He could give me that after all I've done for Him. Did you ever ask where the trash goes?
Wrong Way on the Highway to Hell...
Everybody thinks they should go to fucking you-know-where - Well, He doesn't have room for half of them and doesn't really want most of them. What a mess!
Oh, look...Something's come up!
Girls, when you get here, you'll never need birth control, but you'll kill for a large supply of bags with eye holes.