Journey to Understanding Time

Thanks so much Dr. Kassie for the comments. I realize that your subsequent reading at PSI led you to change your mind about your first comment, but let me address some of the points you made anyway.  I am always intrigued about the journey folks must take to get down the road to understanding time.

Your comment about “allowing the mind to grasp concepts so fragile and seemingly illogical” is instructive. “Illogical” concepts, of course, are founded on alien fundamental assumptions. Thus, as I have mentioned, we commonly objectify time, treating it as if it were matter (“saving” it, “using” it, and imagining that it “flies by”). After treating time as a thing for a lifetime, it then seems illogical to suddenly treat it as motion. Of course, it is illogical until we change the fundamental assumption that leads to that conclusion. I got there by observing, like Newton did, that the universe displays two basic phenomena: matter and the motion of matter. In thinking of all phenomena as either matter or motion, it is temporarily necessary to ignore matter-motion terms such as energy, force, momentum, and spacetime, which have been used by regressive physicists to obscure the Newtonian observation.

I agree with you that the realization that “time is motion” “stems from the freeing of the mind from the shackles that bound our species in decades past.” Of course, as Tachini Pete commented on the “Time is Motion” blog, native Americans had no such shackles. In his native language “time is motion and can only be expressed as motion.”  

You mentioned that “movement ....from a state of no movement is the inception of the chronological quality of matter.” That statement goes back again to your original assumption, common among most folks, including Newton who unnecessarily used that idealization in formulating his First Law of Motion. There can be no “state of no movement.” That is dispelled by the Fourth Assumption of Science, inseparability (Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion).

By now, you probably realize that it is illogical to argue that “0 Kelvin is akin to proof of the separateness of matter and motion.” The absence of temperature would indicate the absence of matter (as I pointed out in my discussions of inseparability in TTAOS and TSW [see references for these abbreviations below]).  Zero Kelvin has never been obtained in the laboratory and does not occur even in intergalactic space, which has been measured at 2.7 K. I assume that you are being facetious when you wrote that 0 K “absolves matter of any wrongdoing in the crime of motion masquerading as time.”

Again, it is not true that “0 K is a state not a temperature.” Zero Kelvin is only an idea. It cannot occur, in the same way that empty space and solid matter cannot exist. “We may theoretically reduce the energy (the motion) of the atom/molecule to a point of no movement,” but we would be wrong. The correct theory, using inseparability, deduces that 0 Kelvin cannot be achieved.

You wrote, “We know the word particle is the term we CHOSE for the emanation of an energy fluctuance from a state/point/base/field/existence that allowed the disturbance of matter to arise.” Huh? Maybe, at this point, you are trying to say that motion could lead to the formation of matter “disturbance of matter.” Other independent thinkers have speculated that standing waves produce matter. That cannot be, because waves are simply the motion within a medium consisting of matter. Your use of the term “energy” in the conventional way is problematic. Energy does not exist. It is a matter-motion term, a calculation, describing the various forms of matter in motion. With the use of the Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions), we assume that all matter is formed from other matter. In TPMOE, UCT, and NGT, for instance, Steve and I speculate that: aether particles moving rapidly in a particular direction form ordinary matter when they produce vortices. This “round-up” of particles means that each of the particles in the vortex may continue to travel round and round at high velocity, but the “rounded up” group as a whole does not. A common example is a dust devil, in which the individual particles of dust rotate at high velocities, but the dust devil travels much more slowly across the desert floor. Thus, the formation of matter involves a slowing down, not a speeding up, as in a “disturbance.”

You wrote, “We intuit that motion then occurs to give birth to time.” Motion is time and time is motion. There could never be a bit of motion that could then transmute into time, just as time is not merely an “aspect of motion” that Steve first thought it was. Your imagery is akin to the objectification that we all tend to do and that Einstein was famous for (see EMIPE).

You wrote, “We conclude space is the ongoing reverberation of that fluctuant 'force' on matter that allows motion to masquerade as time and thus giving space/matter. But 0K relates to atoms and their profane gross motion in relation to each other. What about the 'temperature' or 'state of motion' of the fluctuance AT 0 Kelvin!? For me the Kelvin scale is not a yardstick by any measure...pardon the pun.

So for me, I still intuitively feel time may be motion, but until we (hopefully you because I'm taking flack from my wife and kids for being so abstract these days) figure out whether matter is motion too or not, considering we have no surrogate marker like temperature for the motion of finest fluctuance (aka subatomic 'particles') of the constituents of a 'totally still' atom at the theoretical 0 Kelvin mark, I think we may be a bit stuck.”

If you still have some qualms about absolute zero, you might want to see that discussion in TSW, p. 58-60. If you don’t have the book yet, you can see those pages with the “Inside the Book” feature at Amazon or iUniverse. There is no need to be stuck. All you have to do is give up separability, the indeterministic belief that matter could be motionless and/or that motion could be matterless.

BTW: It looks like you could benefit from an audio copy of TSW. We have one in preparation if you are interested in reviewing it during your commute.

Important PSI References

TPMOE

Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, The physical meaning of  E=mc² ( http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/The%20Physical%20Meaning%20of%20E%20=%20mc2.pdf ): Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, v. 6, no. 1, p. 27-31.

EMIPE

Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Einstein's most important philosophical error, in Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 18th Conference of the NPA, 6-9 July, 2011 ( http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_5991.pdf ), College Park, MD, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy, MD, p. 64-68.

IUT

Borchardt, Glenn, 2007, Infinite universe theory: Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance ( http://scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/IUT.pdf ), v. 4, no. 1, p. 20-23.

NGT

Borchardt, Glenn, and Puetz, S.J., 2012, Neomechanical gravitation theory ( http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_6529.pdf ), in Volk, G., Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 19th Conference of the NPA, 25-28 July: Albuquerque, NM, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy, MD, v. 9, p. 53-58.

SLT

Borchardt, Glenn, 2008, Resolution of SLT-order paradox ( http://scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/SLTOrder.pdf ).

TSW

Borchardt, Glenn, 2007, The scientific worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 411 p. (http://www.amazon.com/The-Scientific-Worldview-Beyond-Einstein/dp/0595392458/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1 )

TTAOS

Borchardt, Glenn, 2004, The ten assumptions of science: Toward a new scientific worldview: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 125 p. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059531127X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER )

UCT

Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press ( www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.

God, Einstein, and Newton

Indiana appears to be a hotbed of regressive physics. There is even one physics professor at one of the public state colleges (Ball State University) who has been teaching a course entitled “The Boundaries of Science.” From its reading list, it appears to be mostly propaganda supporting creationism in the guise of science. You will remember that creation is the indeterministic opposite of the Fifth Assumption of Science, conservation (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed). The professor was called out on this by Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. With a little legal push from the Freedom from Religion Foundation of Madison, Wisconsin, the course is being reviewed as a violation of church-state separation. The affair has stimulated much invective from a horde of creationists, who apparently have infiltrated much of the campus.

Check out this letter to the editor in the local paper from George Wolfe, a Peace and Conflict Studies professor at BSU:

http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20130721/OPINION/307210022/Change-needed-culture-inquiring-mind?gcheck=1 [Note: This link no longer works. Apparently, this opinion piece has been withdrawn by the author. Sorry.]

If you ever leaned toward thinking that relativity and the Big Bang Theory involved only facts and had no connection to religion, you need to reassess. The substitution of immaterialism for materialism in physics has been hailed by numerous devout folks, but Wolfe takes the cake. I thought the LOL kicker was when he ended his letter with this soon-to-be classic:

“Thank God Albert Einstein had the guts to question Isaac Newton.” -George Wolfe, 2013

Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 5b The Ten Assumptions of Science: Uncertainty

Teleology, purpose, predetermination, Bohm, and the Copenhagen mess.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are in bold:

Third Assumption: Uncertainty

BW: Long chapter, long commentary. [Second half]

TSW: "Although there always have been some who saw natural law in a teleological sense, there were others who saw it in a strictly objective sense. Whatever those objects did to each other occurred because there were no other possibilities under the conditions, and not because the objects were following a predetermined script."

BW: Odd phrasing. Teleology doesn't advocate a "predetermined script" dictating present effects from past causes, but rather that some future effect ("God's Will"?) dictates present causes.

 (Teleology: The use of ultimate purpose or design as a means of explaining phenomena; belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history.)

[GB: Teleology ascribes purpose (a desire that formulates a "predetermined script") for particular actions. It is most blatant when it is used to describe non-cognizant microcosms: The rock wanted to roll down the hill. The rock achieved its equilibrium, etc. I got caught doing that once by my major prof. Now I don’t do it for anything—even the cognizant microcosms.]

TSW: "... As Bohm pointed out, 'there is no real case known of a set of perfect one-to-one causal relationships that could in principle make possible predictions of unlimited precision.'

BW: True, but there's an even simpler case: we cannot determine *with unlimited precision" the diameter of any circle from it's radius, because PI is a transcendental ratio. In my Unimid Theory, there is no such thing as a perfect circle (or a straight line) in nature: it isn't possible. I won't expand on the proposition here.

[GB: Right, that is because the universe is infinite. PI theoretically can be considered to have an infinite number of decimal places. Similarly, Bohm is simply stating his belief that all relationships involve infinite causality. This is shown by the fact that all are actually “nonlinear,” always yielding correlation coefficients less than 1, and never yielding exactly the same result twice.]

TSW: "Finally, 'we do not expect that any causal relationships will represent absolute truths; for to do this, they would have to apply without approximation, and unconditionally.'"

BW: What I think Bohm misses and you don't address is that "certainty" is a state of mind, not a state of nature. That is - assuming determinism in the objective sense - Nature can only do what it must do, whether or not we know the causes of Her effects. That we do not - and cannot - know every cause (we're not omniscient) is not an impediment to arriving at an "unmitigated truth" about what Nature causes.

The error Bohm makes is epistemological: what we call "certainty" is not omniscience, but rather a psychological state of confidence that we have overwhelming evidence in favor of a particular cause-and-effect relationship, with no evident contradictions. The proposition is logically and evidently true *today*. That confidence is the essential characteristic of all scientific knowledge, even if we are amused by fantasies and respectful of authorities for other reasons.

[GB: There is another word for that kind of certainty:

Hubris /ˈhjuːbrɪs/, also hybris, from ancient Greek ὕβρις, means extreme pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power. (From Wikipedia)

In science, we must ever be on guard against hubris. It is more suited to indeterminists who typically assume immaterialism, lose contact with reality, overestimate their own competence, and display other elements of solipsism (e.g., see regressive physics).]

TSW: "This subjective view of causality is really acausality in disguise."

BW: I agree: the Copenhagen Interpretation is pure nonsense. That we cannot acquire "perfect knowledge" of nature does not mean that nature is not perfectly causal. There is no evidence whatever (beyond hypothetical musings) that any effect is uncaused or that anything is caused by our knowledge - or ignorance - of it.

TSW: "Like other primitive ideas, the belief that chance is acausal is destroyed by knowledge."

BW: Agreed, but I disagree that Aristotle is the "greatest of all sinners" in this regard (above). Aristotle, in spite of his flaws, was a "saint"; an intellectual hero astride the gloom of mystical cowards.

[GB: Let me repeat this quote from TSW p. 36:

“As Aristotle saw it, events come about in three ways: 1) by external compulsion, 2) by internal compulsion, or 3) without definite causes but by absolute chance. C. S. Peirce considered the doctrine of absolute chance to be the “utmost essence of Aristotelianism.” Indeed, it deserves to be called the essence of twentieth century philosophy and science as well. Wherever the doctrine of absolute chance is invoked, the association of causality with motion is severed cleanly.”

BTW: Despite this one major error, I am a fan of Aristotle as well. Someone who assumes microcosmic infinity can’t be all bad!]

TSW: "... acausality ... satisfied the demand for completeness and was consistent with the atomistic idea that the quantum was indivisible and that all quanta were identical.”

BW: Ooooo ... requires a long dissertation, which I won't attempt here. In a nutshell: Planck's quanta isn't even a quantity, it's just a conversion ratio of frequency to energy. The Unimid Theory explains why it is convertible.

However, I don't think the "atomistic idea" is invalid as a punctuated state of nature, nor that it is necessarily acausal. I won't reiterate my opposition to the idea of "microcosmic infinity" here.

TSW: "Mathematics, promoted as the language of mature science, could never develop a dialect of infinite length. Rather than adopt an assumption that defied mathematical treatment ..."

BW: On the contrary, mathematics (particularly Einstein's) inherently advocate infinities. Dividing velocity by the speed of light *requires* that light, moving at light speed, has an infinitely small length and mass ... explicitly *none*. Fodder for a longer discussion.

[GB: Maybe you need to read something else. I don’t believe that light is anything more than wave motion in the aether, so I don’t have to believe in things with no length or mass. You might want to discuss that with someone else with a lot of time on his hands. You are right that it will be a really long discussion, because there are a lot of contradictions in Einstein’s stuff.]

TSW: "Construed as a singular cause, the concept of chance did what indeterminists had always wanted to do: call a halt to scientific activity - the establishment of cause and effect."

BW: Agreed. Very sad. So much intellectual power lost over so many decades.

TSW: "'Practice' in modern physics increasingly became mathematical practice rather than experimental practice."

BW: Yes, and developed to a state that computer modeling is considered "evidence". Nothing delights a lazy "scientist" more than translating unsupported speculation into hard computer code.

TSW: "the Uncertainty Principle claimed to do what the classical mechanists had always wanted to do but could not: eliminate the admission of ignorance from explanation."

BW: Touche' ... groin kick! If we're looking for cause and effect, most "scientific investigations" are solely for the purpose of making politicians feel confident of their capacity to control the world. Butters their bread.

TSW: "The result is a bell-shaped curve that tells us that dogs weigh about fifteen kg ..."

BW: I've made similar points about pharmaceutical studies. The average response doesn't apply to 98% of people, who have worse or better outcomes. If a study of 100 people finds that a drug causes 12 deaths and 24 cures, it is considered "efficacious" on average. Since 64% experience no effects whatever, it is considered "safe" on average. I'm persistently amused by the commercial disclaimers on medicines: "This drug will make your joints feel better, but you'll want to kill yourself."

TSW: "Knowledge and ignorance must be seen as relatives; knowledge is nothing without ignorance."

BW: In another sense, knowledge is the antithesis of ignorance. We're all born knowing nothing, so it's a life-long struggle to replace our natural ignorance with acquired knowledge.

TSW: "According to uncertainty, there can be no system - macroscopic or microscopic - that does not necessitate a continual updating of our knowledge about it."

BW: While that seems intuitively true, I think you're on the verge of anthropomorphizing nature. That is, "uncertainty" is not a state of nature or any natural system, it is a state of consciousness (see above). I think the actual principle that you're trying to assert is that human beings cannot be omniscient. That doesn't mean that we are doomed to stupidity or ignorance, only that we can't know everything. Focus is a virtue.

TSW: "The Aristotelian belief in chance as singular cause only gives one a false sense of certainty."

BW: Again with demonizing Aristotle! He never talked about "singular cause", but rather four senses of causation:

"Aristotle argued that the most important and decisive cause was the formal cause ... thought to explain the stability of the world by explaining the structure of things, [whereas] the laws of nature were thought to explain ... the relations between things." - Hulswit

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/see/SEED/Vol4-3/Hulswit.doc

TSW: "In all of science, a special effort must be made to avoid using words such as chance, accident, random, or luck as indications of anything other than observer ignorance."

BW: Totally agree. A good posture for the end of your chapter.

Next: Inseparability (in 5 parts)

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Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 5a The Ten Assumptions of Science: Uncertainty

The indeterminist's eternal quest for absolute certainty and the popularity of Aristotle's "absolute chance."

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are in bold:

  

Third Assumption: Uncertainty

BW: Long chapter, long commentary. [First half]

BW: Begging the ironic question: Are you *absolutely certain* that uncertainty is a necessary human condition?

[GB: Very funny Bill. With regard to the future, no one can be “absolutely certain” about anything. That is why we need to use assumptions. I suppose one could make an argument about the past, however. It is certain that a 777 crashed at SFO on 7/6/13. Even though there were an infinite number of causes for that effect, only a few of them would have been significant.]

TSW: "It is impossible to know everything about anything, but it is always possible to know more about anything."

BW: A proper understanding of the Uncertainty Principle (UP) sets a limit on how much we can know about fundamental objects ... when all observational methods demonstrably change the status of the object, more cannot be known. I agree with the general propositions, but I think there are categorical exceptions.

TSW: "... best characterized by their enslavement to Aristotelianism."

I don't think it's fair to equate Aristotelianism with absolute certainty. What he does is posit the existence of a mental state (Nous), equivalent to my "unmitigated truth", when humans can arrive at a "common sense" conclusion about reality. He fully appreciates the flaws of induction, but believes humans have the mental capacity to achieve a notional grasp of first principles:

http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/maydede/Aristotle.pdf

In many ways, it's equivalent to your postulation and defense of "axioms" or "assumptions", which you think the evidence, clear logic, and "common sense" intuition require. What you call “consupponibility” is just logical coherence among the propositions.

[GB: The idea of “absolute chance” as one of the causes for effects may or may not be rightfully attributed to Aristotle. That idea, nevertheless, is still held by many folks today. It must be rejected completely (via assumption, of course). That humans have “the mental capacity to achieve a notional grasp of first principles” is, and always will be, highly debatable. If consupponibility “is just logical coherence among the propositions,” then we would not be having this discussion. Later, in your review, I believe that you will again object to infinity. Hopefully, you would not overtly reject it as being “nonconsuponnible,” but that is what you must do to maintain your belief in free will. As I mentioned, no two things, even consupponible assumptions, can be identical. Any differences they have, amount to at least tiny contradictions, which you need to jump on to maintain your assumption of finity.]

TSW: "... either causality is objective and uncertainty is subjective, or causality is subjective and uncertainty is objective."

BW: I think I understand your point, but I don't think it's a valid dichotomy. Causality can be (is) objective and uncertainty (UP) can also be objective: both can be confirmed as objectively true by independent observers of every known instance of either.

[GB: No. Totally disagree. That is the whole point of the Third Assumption. You must be thinking of the fact that analyses always yield different results each time they are performed. Those are objective effects of the infinite number of causes that produced them. That is certain. What is uncertain (to us) is which ones they would be ahead of time.]

TSW: "Indeterminists traditionally have approached the quest with the idea that absolute certainty or absolute knowledge actually could be found."

BW: If you're talking about the infallibility of the Pope, that may have been true ... but is no longer claimed. If you're equating "indeterminism" with "mysticism", then there's plenty of uncertainty about how (and even whether) it actually works, even among its advocates. The "Will of God" cannot be known to us, they claim, so any outcome is indeterminate, uncertain, and unknowable. Other mystics (deists) believe God put everything in motion, with full prescient knowledge of the outcome, as "determined" by Him in establishing the initial conditions. He didn't just rest on the Seventh Day, He went comatose until His ordained "Final Days" of mankind finally arrive and He gets the "friends" that He so dearly craves.

[GB: All that stuff was destroyed with the advent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the death of Laplace's Demon and predestination. No longer could there be a finite number of causes for even one effect. One could not even set a boulder rolling down a hill, being assured of the exact place it would land. Predestination was impossible, even for an imaginary being.]

TSW: "If one could not be certain of both the momentum and the position of a particle through time, then one could not be absolutely certain of the relation between cause and effect either."

BW: That depends on the meaning of UP. Contrary to Bertrand Russell, I don't think UP denies that particles *have* a specific momentum and position, only that it's modified by observation. Thus, the inability to measure it *before* it causes an effect does not preclude one from inferring both momentum and position *after* it causes an effect.

[GB: Agree. This just reiterates that “the relation between cause and effect” is never “absolutely certain.” Indeterminists are always able to assume just the opposite, just as determinists are free to assume that “there are material causes for all effects.”]

BW: For example: two billiard balls on a pool table, covered to hide the motion of the first ball: we cannot know it's momentum or position. But, we can determine those things by observing the instantaneous effect produced when it hits the second ball (which we can observe). Granted, an instant later, the momentum and position of the first ball changes, since we're doing an indirect "observation", but we certainly know what they were just prior to contact.

[GB: Agree. Uncertainty holds for causes that have not yet produced effects.]

TSW: "... Science was forced to admit that causality and uncertainty were indubitably linked and would have to be assumed; there could be no absolute certainty."

BW: That may have been the way Russell saw UP, but philosophers back to Aristotle understood that inductive reasoning from evidence could never establish the *absolute certainty* for any proposition: humans aren't omniscient and observation is never perfect. You don't need infinite causality to establish that point.

[GB: True, there is no possibility of perfection, but the whole idea of perfection is based on the assumption of finity. Finity is from “finis,” the end; there is no more. A perfect job, a perfect sculpture, a perfect crystal is one in which it is claimed that nothing more can be done to improve it—that is, until you get the microscope out. Even the most “perfect diamond” has all kinds of imperfections if one looks at it closely enough. Like Laplace’s Demon, we “aren't omniscient and observation is never perfect,” not particularly because of our own failings, but because everything we can observe has infinite characteristics produced by an infinity of causes.]

TSW: "For the religiously indoctrinated, the rationale for indeterminism and its implications for the doctrine of free will brightened."

BW: Perhaps, but you don't need indeterminism to advocate free will. A topic for later.

[GB: Again, determinism assumes that there are material causes for all effects, including those claimed responsible for imagined “free” will. In philosophy, the determinism-free will debate is elementary and interminable. My main point throughout my work is that the debate only can be settled by assumption. Like all fundamental assumptions, there is no way to prove which of the opposing assumptions is correct. Nevertheless, choosing the correct assumption is of primary importance. Choose the wrong one, and one may as well give up any pretensions to advance philosophy.]

TSW: "In the Newtonian view expressed by Hermann von Helmholtz, it was "possible to deduce all phenomena from their causes in a logically strict and uniquely determined manner."

BW: Then, Helmholtz didn't understand Newton, who was very circumspect about his assertions. For example:

"That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one another, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it." - Letter to Bentley

"I have not yet been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity from phenomena and I feign no hypotheses... It is enough that gravity does really exist and acts according to the laws I have explained, and that it abundantly serves to account for all the motions of celestial bodies." - Principia

Words like "abundantly serves to account" don't suggest absolute certainty that his laws were inerrant or universal.

TSW: "If, as Bohm emphasized, causality involved infinity, then the old view of determinism as both objective and subjective had to be discarded.”

BW: Bohm was responding to the EPR proposition [Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (1935)], concluding that non-locality (information transfer exceeding SOL [speed of light]) was a real feature of nature. That conclusion is still in doubt, long after Einstein's "dice" comment. I won't try to explain why I think EPR is a statistical misconception, but Bohm's assertion is purely casual: it certainly hasn't been proven that all effects have infinite causes. So far, you haven't said that you believe in "non-locality". If you don't, then you need something more than Bohm to justify *infinite* causality.

[GB: The speed of light, like any wave motion within a medium, is determined by the properties of that medium. No real medium, however, can have identical properties everywhere that it exists, so the speed of light cannot be constant. For instance, in "Universal Cycle Theory," Steve and I (2011, 2012) speculate that the density of aether_-1 increases with distance from baryonic matter. Light speed therefore must increase similarly, but I doubt that it would be significant enough for Bohm’s speculations. You will have to tell me more about what you think “non-locality” is. Sounds woo-woo to me. BTW: Those who assume that causality is finite must oppose all of "The Ten Assumptions of Science" to be logically consistent. I suspect that those who “need something more than Bohm to justify *infinite* causality” will never be satisfied.]

Next: Uncertainty Part 2

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References

Borchardt, Glenn, and Puetz, S.J., 2012, Neomechanical gravitation theory ( http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_6529.pdf ), in Volk, G., Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance, 19th Conference of the NPA, 25-28 July: Albuquerque, NM, Natural Philosophy Alliance, Mt. Airy, MD, v. 9, p. 53-58.

Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., and Rosen, N., 1935, Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? ( http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v47/i10/p777_1 ): Physical Review, v. 47, no. 10, p. 777-780.

Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press ( www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.

Crashing Galaxies in the Infinite Universe

Hi Dr. Borchardt-

As I think you know, I generally accept the 10 Assumptions of Science.  The recent photo of the (so-called) Penguin galaxy (http://www.nbcnews.com/science/galaxy-crash-gives-life-space-penguin-6C10411690?franchiseSlug=sciencemain) raises a question about the assumption of Infinity on the macrocosm scale [see above].

The photo of the Penguin galaxy is yet another example of a galactic shape that’s explained as the result of a collision with another galaxy (though why the elliptical galaxy it collided with is not also significantly distorted is apparently overlooked). Although I suspect that all irregular galaxies are NOT the result of collisions, collisions clearly do occur.  For example, the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies are reportedly heading toward a “dance” in 10 to 20 billion years (if I recall correctly), and our local group of galaxies is reportedly heading in the direction of the Hydra/Centaurus constellations apparently due to either the gravitational influence of a Great Attractor or the motions of Dark Flow.  So- if one accepts that 1) galaxies do collide; 2) such collisions radically disrupt the original structure of a galaxy; AND, 3) that the macrocosm we call the visible universe is infinite, then shouldn’t/wouldn’t there be more irregular galaxies than spiral galaxies? 

Conversely, if one accepts these 3 statements, it would suggest (to me) that spiral galaxies are formed by, and evolve from, collisions with elliptical galaxies.  If the latter is true, then the existence of spiral galaxies may be empirical evidence of the Infinity Assumption.  Looking forward to your thoughts on this.

[Thanks Bill.

Always like to hear your questions… BTW: According to the blueshift observed for Andromeda (z = -0.001), the collision with the Milky Way should occur in about 3.75 billion years at the present closing rate of 100-140 km/s (Wiki, 2013). The Andromeda-Milky Way combination is supposed to form an elliptical galaxy, I suppose because they are currently spinning in opposite directions—sort of analogous to my idea of electron-positron annihilation (Borchardt, 2009). It is instructive that we can see only the center of Andromeda with the naked eye or binoculars, but that with a telescope, it appears at least 6 times the width of the moon. I guess that if we didn’t know any better, us binoc-limited guys might call the “nonluminous” portion “dark matter.” (Just a positivistic joke, but it seems to me that the whole dark matter brouhaha is analogous. Like the positivist’s denigration of aether, if you can’t see it, it isn’t there. Good thing we know better than that, at least for the air we breathe.)

Now, let us get to your question about the collisions and shapes of galaxies. The observation that Andromeda is blueshifted is an obvious falsification of the Big Bang Theory, in which the various parts of the universe are supposed to be exploding away from each other due to universal expansion. Each new discovery of colliding galaxies piles the contradictions higher and higher. Apologists claim that the collisions are the result of gravitational “attraction” being stronger than the expansion. Whatever the excuse, it seems that the universe is a bit more crowded in certain regions as well as a bit more uncrowded in certain regions than expected by the Big Bangers. We expect such collisions to occur in an infinite universe governed by the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things) (Borchardt, 2008).

Your last question was: “[If] the macrocosm we call the visible universe is infinite, then shouldn’t/wouldn’t there be more irregular galaxies than spiral galaxies?” As shown in your link, collisions apparently produce irregularly shaped galaxies (I am also dubious about the NASA explanation in which one of the colliders/collidees has a pristinely spherical shape and the other appears to be a smashed mess). Nevertheless, collisions do occur and irregular shapes do result. If all galaxies had an infinitely long life, I imagine each of them would be pretty beat up after having suffered an infinite number of collisions over eternity. There would then be no spiral galaxies at all. That is not what happens because all microcosms in the universe have a finite life. According to complementarity, they come into being via convergence and go out of being via divergence. Each has a “birth” and a “death,” and the portion of the universe that we can observe should not be an exception. BTW: The visible universe is not infinite. As a microcosm like any other, it is an xyz portion of the universe with an infinite number of microcosms within and without.

On the cover of our recent book (Puetz and Borchardt, 2011) we show the observed universe as part of the next step in the universal hierarchy, which we call the Local Mega-Vortex (LMV). We developed this speculation as a logical deduction from the Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions) and our observation that every portion of the universe is part of a vortex. As you mentioned, some cosmologists apparently have data indicating the presence of a “Great Attractor” outside the observed universe. We don’t believe in attraction, of course, but we do believe in vortex motion in which large microcosms are pushed toward the center of rotation and small microcosms are pushed away from it. The video on our website (www.scientificphilosophy.com) shows how this works. The recent discovery of “Dark Flow” may be evidence that the observed universe is rotating, with galactic clusters all moving in one direction, as would be expected in a vortex hierarchy. The rotation would result in a gradual change in the gravitational effect produced by the “Great Attractor,” that is, by the dense nucleus of the LMV. We speculate that the observed universe is not only rotating, but that it is revolving around the LMV, no doubt, with an eccentric orbit. I would be surprised if any such motion could be detected, however.

In sum, I don’t believe that colliding galaxies are proof of our infinite universe. These could occur in a finite universe as well, although they would not occur in an expanding finite universe. Of course, that’s not saying much, as nothing whatsoever could occur in an expanding universe. An occurrence or cause, remember, is the collision of microcosms per Newton’s Second Law (F=ma). Pure expansion in a homogeneous universe would consist entirely of divergence. This might suit idealistic indeterminists well, because such a universe would be completely acausal. Just shows how silly the expansion hypothesis is…     

References

Borchardt, Glenn, 2008, Resolution of SLT-order paradox ( http://scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/SLTOrder.pdf ).

Puetz, S.J., and Borchardt, Glenn, 2011, Universal cycle theory: Neomechanics of the hierarchically infinite universe: Denver, Outskirts Press ( www.universalcycletheory.com ), 626 p.

Wiki, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

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