Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 6c The Ten Assumptions of Science: Inseparability

The case for miracles: Matter without motion, finity, perfectly empty space, and mass increase with velocity.

I am ever so grateful to Bill Westmiller, whose comments are in bold. The quotes marked TSW are from "The Scientific Worldview"[1]:

TSW: "Illegitimacy arises only when we incorrectly assume that the success of the approximation indicates the actual existence of the ideal."

BW: I think your labels are upside down. It is the "idealism" that matter requires motion that is in error, not the evident fact that heat falls with diminishing electron interaction. I do think it's a mistake to equate "zero heat emissions" with zero election collisions, even if there is zero atomic entropy. In UT[2], it is practically impossible to stop all motion, simply because the precision of aiming fundamental particles to cause that result bumps up against UP[3].

[GB: Huh? Are you still suggesting that matter could exist without motion? Want to give up plate tectonics too? No one has ever found a single bit of matter that is not in motion. Why, everything in the universe is constantly moving. Neutrons wobble, electrons and planets revolve, and the solar system, the Milky Way, and galactic clusters are constantly spinning. As we explained in UCT[4] and NGT[5], vortex motion is the essence of the entire material hierarchy. In an infinite universe, of course, we can never prove that all matter is in motion and therefore requires motion, but it is an obviously successful assumption. Your statement that “It is the "idealism" that matter requires motion that is in error” clearly puts you in the indeterministic camp. You will have many friends there. On Sundays, you can denigrate evolution, which is simply the motion of matter that you think unnecessary. Let me give you both barrels on why matter must always be in motion:

Why Finite Particles Cannot Exist

Because everything in the visible world clearly is in motion, the idea that matter could exist without motion depends on the unseen world of the imagined finite particle. There are several critical problems with this:

1.                 All things in the universe are subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT), which states that the entropy or disorder of an isolated system can only increase. In neomechanics, of course, we see the SLT as a restatement of Newton’s First Law of Motion, and interpret this to mean that the various parts (submicrocosms) within a microcosm have a tendency to diverge from that microcosm. Finite particles, however, do not have any parts, so they present an unprecedented violation of the SLT, which has never been falsified.

2.                 Despite the failures of the atomists and of accelerators to discover the ultimate finite particle, the idea remains popular. That is because the current scientific world view of the mainstream is systems philosophy, with its tendency to overemphasize systems and underemphasize environments. That view is consupponible with the idea of gravitational attraction, wherein massive, seemingly solipsistic, ego-centered bodies gather in smaller bodies as if with outreached arms. The physical mechanism for attraction remains a mystery. One wonders what holds the imagined solid matter of the finite particle together. These finite microcosms certainly do not need any help from the macrocosm—their conjurers generally believe in perfectly empty space, which is the idealistic counterpart to the imagined solid matter.

3.                 The finite particle idea is a gross violation of univironmental determinism (UD), the philosophy and universal mechanism of evolution stating that what happens to a portion of the universe is equally dependent on the infinite matter in motion within and without. Thus, a microcosm is not “held together” by anything inside it, but by interactions with its macrocosm. A microcosm requires its macrocosm for its integrity. Perfectly empty space will not do. All microcosms are like beating hearts, expanding and contracting in response to changes in the macrocosm. This observation is seen throughout nature, but here are simple examples: Salt crystals in a saturated solution shrink and swell in response to dilution and concentration. If we add water, the crystals will dissolve; if we remove water, they will recrystallize. Minerals that attained their integrity at high temperature and pressure lose much of it when they are brought to the surface of the earth. The new macrocosm contributes to the formation of entirely new low-temperature minerals that generally are hydrated and/or oxidized.

Carrying forth the above ideas, Steve and I speculated that univironmental interactions were responsible for the production of ordinary (baryonic) matter (UCT, NGT). We began by assuming that baryonic matter could not pop up out of nowhere, despite the special pleading of Big Bangers. Every observation in science involves the transformation of one kind of matter into another kind of matter. If you just read NGT, you will see that infinity allowed us to hypothesize an infinite aethereal series, with the first set, aether_-1 being the constituents that form the complexes we see as baryonic matter. On the other hand, the finite particle has no aether and no possible mechanism for its production. The finite particle is the counterpart to the finite universe. The upshot is that the Finite Particle Theory (FPT) and the Big Bang Theory (BBT) are consupponible. Both require the formation of something from nothing.

TSW: "... the mere multiplication of a term for matter and a term for motion really does not guarantee their conceptual unification any more than the designation of matter and motion as separate terms guarantees their physical independence."

BW: ... nor their conceptual or physical *dependence*. I'll agree to "inseparability", but not the dependence of matter on motion.

[GB: Read it again: inseparability assumes that just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion, period. Logically, one cannot both accept it and not accept it at the same time. I suppose you could cherry-pick it in the same way that some folks choose either microcosmic infinity or macrocosmic infinity, but not both, but that is not logical either. That would require a completely different set of assumptions containing an ad hock, arbitrary division based only on scale.]

 
TSW: "... the all-too-common, but misleading, view that matter is equivalent to energy. This cannot be true because the term for matter (mass) in Einstein‘s equation never appears without the term for motion (velocity of light squared)."

BW: True, but (as noted above) Einstein's equation certainly suggests that matter (mass) increases with increased velocity, to a specific finite limit: c² (the only velocity that isn't relative in SRT[6]). Even Feynman, who I greatly admire, believes that the mass of particles increase with velocity in linear accelerators. (It does, but only because it is acquiring mass from the matter in magnetic fields.)

[GB: Bill, please reread my paper on “The Physical Meaning of E=mc²”.[7] Particles cannot magically gain mass simply because they are travelling fast. You are right at implying that any mass acquired by a microcosm has to be a result of interactions with the macrocosm. Of course, the acquired mass would be expected to remain after the acceleration is over. It wouldn't just magically disappear either. However, I am not aware that any accelerated particles are larger or heavier after the experiment is over. I prefer this explanation:

Mass Increase with Velocity

When studying anything having to do with Einstein and relativity, one must first understand his philosophical assumptions. Einstein was not only a solipsist and an immaterialist, he was foremost a positivist of the operationalist stripe. This is why he was continually fixated on the observer and reference frames. This excessively empirical standpoint may be summed up like this: if a thing or motion cannot be measured, it does not exist or occur. This view is still common among aether deniers today even though they forget that he initially based his denial on his mistaken assumption that the MM87[8] test of a fixed aether also meant that there was no entrained aether as well. It also is the reason Einstein denied simultaneity. He was correct that simultaneity cannot be proven through measurement. For instance, we cannot prove through direct measurement that Earth and Sun exist at the same time. Light takes 8 minutes to travel from Sun to Earth. By the time we see the Sun, it is no longer in that same spot because of the rotation of Earth. Thus, if the Sun happened to disappear a minute ago, we would still see its image for another 7 minutes.

In view of this, we need to look at mass and how it is determined. Mass essentially is the resistance of a microcosm to the impact of other microcosms. Pretty simple: it is harder to move a heavy object than a light object. The measurement, however, is not so simple. About the simplest case would involve a collider with momentum P=mv, where m is mass and v is velocity. One example would be this: Suppose you were a football player who got hit in the back, being knocked 5 yards and falling on your face. You would not be able to tell whether the player who hit you was a 300 lb lineman going at moderate velocity or a 150 lb linebacker going at high velocity. You would know little about the other player’s mass or velocity, but way too much about his momentum. To calculate the mass of the collider from his effect on your body (kinetic energy, KE=1/2 mv²), you would have to know his velocity. We do this all the time when we weigh ourselves (weight is W=mg). The weight that we get is dependent on where we are in the universe. On Earth, we generally assume that the acceleration due to gravity is about 9.81 m/s². Still, the so-called gravitational “constant,” g, is not a constant, varying constantly from place to place. It decreases with altitude, so if you want to weigh less, just take the measurement flying at 30,000 feet—over water.

Back to mass variation with velocity. I have not yet studied this in detail, but wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with Einstein’s erroneous assumption that the velocity of light is constant. Nonetheless, because everything in the universe is always in motion, there are no constants in nature, as Steve and I argued in UCT. Of course, idealists who believe in constants also must believe that there could be matter without motion, finity, and perfectly empty space. If one assumes a constant velocity, then the equations of physics can only explain practical results by assuming that other measurements are not constant. Thus, in the simplest case, if the momentum of a microcosm, P=mv, increased after a collision, I normally would suspect that its velocity had increased. If v was constant, however, I would have no choice but to blame it on an increase in mass. This would be strange indeed—seemingly miraculous. As a materialist, of course, I would not accept that. There would have to be some physical reason for the mass increase (chunks of matter added to the microcosm during the collision?), which never was explained by Einstein, Feynman, or other immaterialists.]

Next: Inseparability Part 3 of 5

cotsw 009

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[1] Borchardt, Glenn, 2007, The scientific worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein ( http://www.scientificphilosophy.com/The%20Scientific%20Worldview.html ): Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 411 p.

[2] UT is Unimid Theory is a version of Finite Particle Theory currently being formulated by Bill Westmiller.

[3] UP is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

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

[5] NGT is Borchardt, Glenn, and Puetz, S.J., 2012, Neomechanical gravitation theory ( http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_6529.pdf ), in Volk, Greg, 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.

[6] SRT is Special Relativity Theory.

[7] 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.

[8] Michelson, A.A., and Morley, E.W., 1887, On the relative motion of the earth and the luminiferous ether: American Journal of Science, v. 39, p. 333-345.