[eliniaguilefp7m]

Is this kinda like....it's not really a fart unless it stinks?

yes! If a bear shits in the woods does anybody step in it?

[Allbrunette]

outside theoretical construct only works on self-centered people who believe their perception is reality.

Seems to work like gangbusters for elitists. lol See the Heinz Stern quote in my sig.

[CIAFreeAgent]

yes! If a bear shits in the woods does anybody step in it?

Or... if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?



By the way, if nobody is around to hear it, it does *not* make a sound. Sound is produced in the ear...

Without something to turn the vibrations into "sound" there is no "sound", but only vibration.

[illiniastibly]

Or... if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?



By the way, if nobody is around to hear it, it does *not* make a sound. Sound is produced in the ear...

Without something to turn the vibrations into "sound" there is no "sound", but only vibration.

what if a tree fell in the forest and lands on schrodinger's cat...would it make a sound then?

[vosteglog]

what if a tree fell in the forest and lands on schrodinger's cat...would it make a sound then?

Well, that damn cat... might finally get dead if a tree fell on it.

[tearidrusydet]

Or... if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?



By the way, if nobody is around to hear it, it does *not* make a sound. Sound is produced in the ear...

Without something to turn the vibrations into "sound" there is no "sound", but only vibration.

I've been thinking about that recently, and that is the conclusion I came to. But then, what if a bird heard it or a bear? Does that count? Or does it have to be a rational being who could consciously associate the specific sound to the specific event (as opposed to just reacting to it in a frightened manner)? Of course once the rational being comes into it, then likely God heard it, so it happened.

Next important question: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

[jeraveike]

schrodinger's cat is something you whip up when you need to publish, or you're going to get fired. originally, you get the idea from the tree in the forest one liner, then you embellish it up to 30 or 40 pages for bullshit effect and to make yourself look uber educated with big fancy words, radiation, death, etc. in the end, it's still the tree one liner.

[CIAFreeAgent]

I've been thinking about that recently, and that is the conclusion I came to. But then, what if a bird heard it or a bear? Does that count? Or does it have to be a rational being who could consciously associate the specific sound to the specific event (as opposed to just reacting to it in a frightened manner)? Of course once the rational being comes into it, then likely God heard it, so it happened.

Next important question: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

I interpret the "if no *one* is around to hear it" part of the question to include any and all sentient beings (with eardrums or the like).

If you want to bring God into it, then He hears everything... but He also designed the tree and made it to grow and fall to begin with, so I reckon God hears what He wants.

Speaking of "the head of a pin"... there are as many points on the head of a pin as there are in the entire Universe!

[loginereQQ]

As far as the cat in the box is concerned....Even if you never looked in the box to see, after a period of time you'd still have the same result, a dead cat. Either because the chems killed it or by starvation. The stench would eventually solve the conundrum.

[vosteglog]

Here's an interesting take on the state of theoretical physics these days.


Is speculation in multiverses as immoral as speculation in subprime mortgages?

By John Horgan | January 28, 2011 | 53

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I’m becoming a moralistic prig in my dotage. Someone dear to me just proudly told me that her son, a freshly minted Harvard grad, is training to be an investment banker. This privileged young man, I grumbled, should try to make the world a better place rather than playing in a rigged, high-stakes gambling racket.

I apologized later—and vowed privately to be less self-righteous in my judgments of others’ career choices. After all, I ain’t exactly Gandhi. But then I read Brian Greene’s new book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (Knopf, 2011), and my moral hackles got all quivery again. (Weird coincidence alert: In 2006, the publisher RiskDoctor, Inc., released a book titled Options Trading: The Hidden Reality.) A physicist at Columbia University, Greene is an immensely talented science explicator who has brought physics to the masses through his smart, witty bestsellers, The Elegant Universe (turned into a television series narrated by Greene) and The Fabric of the Cosmos.
My beef with Greene is this: He has become a cheerleader for the descent of theoretical physics into increasingly fantastical speculation, disconnected from the reality that we can access empirically. Greene has argued eloquently for the plausibility of string theory, which (as I pointed out in a previous post) postulates the existence of particles that are far too small to be detected in any conceivable experiment.
In his new book Greene takes us even further away from reality, asking us to consider not just hypothetical particles but entire universes that lie beyond the reach of our instruments. Multiverses are old hat, of course. In a 1990 article for Scientific American on cosmology I included a sidebar, "Here a universe, there a universe…," about speculation that our universe "is only one in an infinitude of cosmos."
My tone was lightly mocking, because cosmologists themselves seemed to be kidding—even embarrassed—when they talked about all these alternate universes. But now Greene—as well as Stephen Hawking, Leonard Susskind, Sean M. Carroll and other prominent physicist/popularizers—want us to take multiverses seriously.
In Hidden Reality Greene notes that different theories of modern physics yield many different multiverse theories. One of the oldest is the many-worlds theory, which conjectures that all of the possible histories of our world allowed for by quantum mechanics are realized in other universes. Greene also touts the inflationary multiverse, which holds that new universes are constantly springing into existence via a mysterious antigravity force called inflation. String theory yields the brane multiverse; strings plus inflation produces the landscape multiverse; and that still leaves us with the quilted, cyclic, holographic and simulated multiverses, all of which Greene cheerfully elucidates.
These multiverse theories all share the same fundamental defect: They can be neither confirmed nor falsified. Hence, they don’t deserve to be called scientific, according to the well-known criterion proposed by the philosopher Karl Popper. Some defenders of multiverses and strings mock skeptics who raise the issue of falsification as "Popperazis"—which is cute but not a counterargument. Multiverse theories aren’t theories—they’re science fictions, theologies, works of the imagination unconstrained by evidence.
At their best, science fiction and theology can leave us awestruck before the unutterable strangeness and vastness of the cosmos. Multiverse theories used to arouse these emotions in me. When the Russian physicist Andrei Linde—one of the inventors of the inflation theory of cosmic creation—first explained his chaotic, self-reproducing, fractal, inflationary multiverse theory to me 20 years ago, my reaction was, "Wow! That’s so cool!"
Multiverse theories don’t turn me on anymore. Perhaps it’s because of 9/11 and all its bloody consequences, especially the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, I have two teenage kids, and I’m worried about the enormous problems they’re inheriting from my generation. Not only wars overseas but also global warming, species extinction, pollution, poverty, pandemics and so on.
Now, multiverse theories strike me as not only unscientific but also immoral, for two basic reasons: First, at a time when we desperately need science to help us solve our problems, it’s irresponsible for scientists as prominent as Greene to show such a blithe disregard for basic standards of evidence. Second, like religious visions of paradise, multiverses represent an escapist distraction from our world.
I find two multiverse concepts especially loathsome. One is the idea that an infinite universe contains infinite copies of our world. Greene writes that in another cosmos "your doppelganger is now reading this sentence, along with you. In others…he or she has, well, a less than felicitous disposition and is someone you’d rather not meet in a dark alley." Even worse is the proposition that our world is artificial, a simulation being run on a computer designed by an alien civilization. This sort of adolescent claptrap devalues our reality even more than heaven, Valhalla, nirvana and other ancient fantasies do.
Is theorizing about parallel universes as immoral as betting on derivatives based on subprime mortgages? I wouldn’t go that far. Nor do I think all scientists should be seeking cures for cancer, more efficient solar cells or other potential boons to humanity. But scientists should, at the very least, investigate the world in which we live rather than worlds that exist—as far as we will ever know—only in their imaginations.
P.S.: Earlier this week, I learned that JR Minkel, a former writer for Scientific American, died. Even before we met five years ago, I was a fan of JR’s work. He was not only a talented young journalist with an offbeat sensibility; he was also a thoughtful, gentle soul. I’ll miss him.

[tearidrusydet]

Here's an interesting take on the state of theoretical physics these days.

Yep. He and Max Tegmark. Given the choice between:

1. Admitting the earth is in a special place/situation (the anti-Copernican Principle);
2. or assuming that yes, it is true (the earth is in a special place/situation), but only in this one of infinite other universes;

They chose 2. That way they get to keep their game going for a while longer until other contrary evidence is found. Of course, this is tautological, so, there will never be any evidence against it (you cannot prove there are NOT infinite other universes). Welcome to the religion of scientism. Presenting the current high priests...

[vosteglog]

Shrodinger wrote, "the world extended in space and time is but our representation."

What do you suppose he meant by that?

[tearidrusydet]

Shrodinger wrote, "the world extended in space and time is but our representation."

What do you suppose he meant by that?

Not sure exactly, but these theoretical types see the universe as equations. Space and time are human perspectives.

[CIAFreeAgent]

Shrodinger wrote, "the world extended in space and time is but our representation."

What do you suppose he meant by that?

The "world" (Cosmos) exists as it is. Here and Now. Time and Space are human conceptions.... coping mechanisms, if you will.

[vosteglog]

The "world" (Cosmos) exists as it is. Here and Now. Time and Space are human conceptions.... coping mechanisms, if you will.

He had a lifelong interest in the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism, which influenced his speculations at the close of What is Life? about the possibility that individual consciousness is only a manifestation of a unitary consciousness pervading the universe. One Mind.

The Great Quest in Philosophy is to ask, "What is Reality?"

Is there just One Reality? In fact, the idea of One Reality has been essentially the basis of civilization since Babylon or earlier.
Monotheism, or One God expresses the same concept as One Reality.

Then how can there be anything Unreal or apart from reality? In One Reality everything must be Real. Every Thing, object, thought, Concept, Event or Otherwise. No exclusions. It's all One and it's all Real.

So, what about imagination? That which is imagined. Imaginary.

Is imagination not real? If it's imaginary and not real, then what is it and how can it be so relevant in our real world.

It's ironic that what human beings create must always first be imagined before it can become real,

and yet while that which is imagined is so vitally important to the creation of reality, it is simultaneously not real at all?

This is the paradox of Schrodingers Cat.