Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 8b The Ten Assumptions of Science: Complementarity

Why the expanding universe needs the assumption of finity and can you have wave motion without a medium?

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

TSW: Sixth Assumption: Complementarity (Part 8b)

[GB: Note that Bill’s essay below is founded on the regressive assumption that the universe is expanding. But as I pointed out in my blog, the cosmic redshift in no way indicates that the universe is expanding. Only an idealist (like Bill) could believe that light could travel 13.8 billion light years without losing energy. Like other indeterminists, Bill assumes that perfectly empty space is possible (he is an aether denier) and that Einstein’s hypothesized light wave-particles therefore suffer no ill effects on that trip. I will leave it to Bill and other regressive physicists to explain how the Doppler Effect (or empty space expansion), which they claim to be “fairly evident” evidence for expansion, could occur without a medium. I include Bill’s essay below for those of you who still believe as he does.]

BW: Macrocosmic infinity *might* explain why composition (convergence/order) occurs as often as decomposition (divergence/disorder), but the evidence says otherwise. If our cosmos is expanding (fairly evident) ... even expanding at an accelerated rate ... then it has "somewhere else to go": it isn't isolated (nor confined by the existence of non-visible portions of the universe) and all matter in motion still has "a less dense space to fill" before it achieves maximum separation or a state of balance (equilibrium). On the evidence, entropy still rules. We could speculate that this is a temporary "imbalance" in one portion (our cosmos) of the universe, but there's no evidence supporting that proposition. So, the mere assumption of infinity doesn't solve the observed problem Whyte noted:

"... the tendency toward disorder has not been powerful enough to arrest the formation of the great inorganic hierarchy and the myriad organic ones."

Even if we ignore the evidence for "local cosmic entropy" (within our light cone), even if we posit an infinite universe that has always been in equilibrium, even if we suppose an eternal universe that has had forever to reach some kind of "steady state", we still have NOT identified the material causes for a disentropic effect.

For example, what in my simplistic definition of entropy needs to change, in order to eliminate the "bounce"? For a starter, the presumption is that the "objects" are homogenous atoms or molecules of gas. If they aren't, then some might combine in chemical reactions, producing a momentary disentropy. The same effect occurs if the objects are a mixture of opposite-charged particles. So, we're left with only a few forces that might counteract the "bounce" of entropy: gravity, the strong, and the weak atomic forces.

In Unimid Theory, the cause is an "existential bond" between fundamental particles, which causes them to compose themselves into fractal structures that exhibit emergent properties. They are only "entropic" under specific conditions, which I won't describe here.

TSW:  "In reality, all systems are open systems; truly isolated or truly closed systems cannot exist."

BW: I agree, though I would have expected you to vociferously object to the distinction of Closed Systems, which presume motion without matter. Usually, it's phrased as an exchange of energy, which we know is actually matter in motion.

[GB: Let me repeat the definitions of the two idealizations:

An isolated system exchanges no matter or motion with its surroundings.

A closed system exchanges only motion with its surroundings.

In neomechanics there are no isolated systems. Although there are no closed systems either, we use the idealization portrayed in the figure below:

Fig. 5-4. Type D interaction: Emission of motion. A submicrocosm collides with and transfers motion to a low velocity supermicrocosm (TSW, p. 142).

This is by no means an illustration of motion without matter, as suggested by Bill and other aether deniers. When motion leaves an ideal closed system, it is transferred to the macrocosm via a collision with supermicrocosms contained therein. This nicely illustrates my paper on “The physical meaning of E=mc²,” which forthwith dispelled Einstein’s notion that matter could be converted into energy.[2] All we are doing here is transferring the motion of one thing to another thing. Of course, without aether, there would be no “another thing” to transfer motion to. That is why energy, construed as matterless motion, became so popular in handling this particular Einsteinian contradiction. During the fission that occurs in an atom bomb, for instance, this transfer of motion is quite a shock to the surrounding aether, as indicated by the energy calculation. Glad to see that Bill is getting somewhat closer to discarding the idea that energy might exist or occur. Maybe someday he will be able to think entirely in terms of matter in motion as Steve and I did in "Universal Cycle Theory: Neomechanics of the Hierarchically Infinite Universe."[3] ]

TSW:  "Complementarity assumes that, in an infinite universe, all real systems exist between the extremes of ideal isolation and ideal nonisolation."

BW: Correct, but even in an Open System, the effects of extraneous environmental forces can be minimized to inconsequentiality for familiar particles and objects ... even if the universe is infinite and eternal.

[GB: True. That is what makes science possible: controlled experimentation. We try to control as much of the macrocosm as we are able, changing only one macrocosmic factor at a time. This works even though there may be an infinite number of influencing microcosms.]   

TSW:  "In itself, [Schrödinger's] idea of an ordering process that functions as the dialectical opposite of the disordering process is excellent. The term negentropy is likewise excellent."

BW: Schrödinger was characterizing it as a "bridge" between matter and life; a poor substitute for the evolution of life in nature. It was actually Léon Brillouin who coined the term "negentropy", but I prefer disentropy. I think "negentropy" hints at a unique "life force", rather than a natural effect. I won't repeat my distaste for the term "dialectics" in nature (though I just did). Whyte's natural "morphic force" derived from the "geometry of space" is even less attractive.

TSW:  "... Einstein explained gravitation ..."

BW: He didn't "explain" gravity any more than Newton did. All he did was to construct a fanciful analogy to "fabrics" which was mistaken in a dozen different ways.

[GB: I agree, although he could have used turtles in his explanation or even curved empty space and it would still have been an explanation.]

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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] Borchardt, Glenn, 2009, The physical meaning of E=mc², in Proceedings of the Natural Philosophy Alliance ( http://scientificphilosophy.com/Downloads/The%20Physical%20Meaning%20of%20E%20=%20mc2.pdf ), Storrs, CN, Space Time Analyses, Ltd., Arlington, MA, p. 27-31.

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

Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 8a The Ten Assumptions of Science: Complementarity

The true meaning of entropy and negentropy in a mechanistic world. The Second Law of Thermodynamics recapitulates Newton's First Law of Motion.

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

TSW: Sixth Assumption: Complementarity (Part 8a)

"All bodies are subject to divergence [from] and convergence from [with] other bodies."

[GB: Sorry Bill, but I don’t agree with your bracketed changes. I am thinking that the divergence and convergence is “from” other bodies (e.g., as in the approach of an asteroid).]

BW: Abbreviated in the vernacular to "s..t happens". ;o) ... which is a crass way to introduce my complaint about scientific jargon. Too often, it's a jumble of borrowed concepts slapped together in analogies, with no explanation of *why* it must be so. For example:

“Entropy: A thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, due to lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

Whereas, a good explanation describes the process:

Entropy: The proposition that objects in motion tend to collide and bounce away from each other.

[GB: You are getting close—much better than the mess you quoted, but still no cigar. The bouncing part is irrelevant. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is really just a restatement of Newton’s First Law of Motion (A body stays in motion in a right line unless it collides with something). The obscuration you note as well as the “bouncing” part you included in your own definition is simply the result of the determinism-indeterminism struggle. As is typical in regressive physics, the mess you quoted misuses the energy concept in an effort to destroy mechanics (the assumption that the universe is described correctly by two phenomena: matter and the motion of matter). The so-called “isolated” system is a microcosm that contains the body in motion for a time. Because no system or microcosm is without exits, they all eventually allow that body to continue on its way via divergence.

Here is Fig. 3-3 from TSW, p. 79:

Fig. 3-3. The classical demonstration of entropy change described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. An increase in entropy is produced when the gas in chamber A is allowed to pass through the valve into the vacuum of chamber B.]

BW: Obviously, the tendency is more pronounced in isolated systems, where the bounces spread out until they achieve the maximum common separation, resulting in equilibrium.

[GB: Close, but no cigar. What you describe is an idealization that actually would not allow the Second Law of Thermodynamics to perform. The equilibrium you speak of is only ideal because there are no isolated systems. The Second Law of Thermodynamics works precisely because there always is a macrocosm into which the submicrocosms of the microcosm (or their motions) can be transferred. In other words, the valve in Fig. 3-3 is always leaky.]

BW: As you point out, the terms "order" and "disorder" are subjective. An isolated system in equilibrium is "well ordered", not disordered: the matter in motion is "perfectly" balanced. The A-B containers are both "well ordered" systems in themselves, until they are consolidated by opening the valve, creating a "disordered" unity, for a little while.

[GB: I like your use of the quotes and the phrase “for a little while.” Remember also, that the “for a little while” also applies to the “isolated” system at “equilibrium.”]

BW: That doesn't solve the quandary of why objects in motion would *not* be inclined to always bounce *away* from each other and why they tend toward maximum common separation. I don't think your treatment really answers that problem.

[GB: Remember that each microcosm forms a “container,” that is, the submicrocosms within follow Newton’s First Law, but they do not have complete freedom to escape the container. The “maximum common separation” that you mention is just what would be expected, given the limited amount of freedom afforded in light of Newton’s laws.]

BW: To the particulars:

TSW:  "Only by assuming complementarity can we resolve the contradiction between conservation, which assumes that the universe is eternal, and the indeterministic interpretation of the SLT, which implies that it is not."

BW: I think you mean "infinite", rather than "eternal". If the universe is finite, then the objects in motion in our cosmos always have a "better place to bounce" (the void) and will never maximize their separation: entropy rules. On the other hand, if it is infinite, then the universe is - and always has been - in a state of optimized equilibrium: maximum separation has been achieved (subjectively "well ordered", conventionally "disordered").

[GB: Actually, “infinite” and “eternal” can be used interchangeably when we assume inseparability. I used “eternal” here specifically because conservation only indirectly implies that the universe is infinite. The indeterministic assumption of noncomplementarity, however, assumes that the universe is finite, a system with nothing outside of it. That is why regressive physicists claim that the universe will die a “heat death” in which all matter is turned into “energy,” construed as matterless motion. That fits with the usual claim that matter can be converted into energy, which is also incorrect.[2]

Sorry Bill, but your idealism is showing through again. The infinite universe cannot have a “state of optimized equilibrium: maximum separation.” There are many reasons for that. For one, there is never enough time for that, what with each portion of the universe continually changing. About all one can say is that any particular microcosm or submicrocosm will travel in whatever direction allowed by the immediate surroundings within its macrocosm. For another, it appears as though you are thinking of identical idealized bodies that could achieve optimum equilibrium via maximum separation. This cannot happen because no two microcosms are alike, per the Ninth Assumption of Science, relativism (All things have characteristics that make them similar to all other things as well as characteristics that make them dissimilar to all other things). Your conjecture might fit with Hoyle’s “Steady State Universe,” but would never fit with Infinite Universe Theory. There is nothing steady or in “optimized equilibrium” in the infinite universe.]

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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] 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.

Egads! Negative Mass and Light Corpuscles

Einstein’s corpuscular theory of light still produces contradictions galore. Thanks to Rick for this article he found in the New Scientist, which is ever on the lookout for the mysterious contradictions promulgated by regressive physics. It seems that treating light as a particle instead of motion within a medium has falsified Newton’s Third Law of Motion, while producing a new kind of beast: negative mass (Figure 1). The reporter, Michael Slezak[1], explains “But if one of the billiard balls had a negative mass, then when the two balls collide they will accelerate in the same direction. This effect could be useful in a diametric drive, a speculative "engine" in which negative and positive mass interact to accelerate forever.” Of course, in neomechanics, we deny that light is a particle. In no way would the billiard ball analogy apply to light, which is simply wave motion within the aether. Other words hint at the bogosity of this claim: “accelerate forever.” It is nice that Slezak mentions that even quantum mechanics disallows negative mass and that even the misnamed “anti-matter” (with opposite charge and spin) still has positive mass. No wonder NASA dropped the project—even the Patent Office will not patent a perpetual motion machine.

Slezak writes: “…Ulf Peschel at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany and his colleagues have made a diametric drive using "effective mass". As photons travel at the speed of light they have no rest mass. But if you shine pulses of light into some layered materials, such as crystals, some of the photons can be reflected backwards by one layer and then reflected forwards again by another. That delays part of the pulse, causing it to interfere with the rest of the pulse as it propagates more slowly through the material.”

Folks who have understood my recent discussion of the “Shapiro Delay” will see a parallel here. Light entering a region containing baryonic matter is refracted, with its velocity being reduced in direct proportion to the degree of refraction. Thus, light passing through an atmosphere or crystal must slow down, with its wavelength decreasing in proportion to the degree of slowing. Light velocity then increases and waves become longer when the light exits the baryonic region—simply because the medium controls its velocity. That would surely produce the delay and resulting interference mentioned by Slezak, although it would not cause light to propagate “more slowly through the material.” Pulses having two different velocities outside a particular medium will have the same velocity within it. For instance, light having traveled through diamond (124,018 km/s) and light having traveled through air (300,000 km/s) will travel at 225,000 km/s when those two beams travel through water. All the Peschel experiment did was to produce a delay due, instead, to differing path lengths (Figure 1).

According to the party line: “As photons travel at the speed of light they have no rest mass.” The implication is that if these mysterious beasts ever slow down even slightly, they miraculously will have rest mass. As Slezak wrote: “When a material slows the speed of the pulse proportional to its energy, it is behaving as if it has mass – called effective mass. Depending on the shape of the light waves and the structure of the crystal, light pulses can have a negative effective mass.” Oh what webs we weave when light is considered to be matter instead of motion…

Then: “After a few round trips, the pulses develop an interference pattern that gives them effective mass.” Sorry, but an interference pattern cannot give motion (light) an effective mass. All an interference pattern indicates is that two sources of light are out of phase. This happens all the time when the two sources are not the same distance from the observer. It doesn’t convert motion into a particle, despite the erroneous theory and mathematics that makes such a silly claim.

Again: “The team created pulses with positive and negative effective mass. When the opposing pulses interacted in the loops, they accelerated in the same direction, moving past the detectors a little bit sooner on each round trip.” This finds the underlying cause of the absurdity. Once you make the ridiculous assumption that interference can produce mass, then anything goes. In my opinion, the creation of “pulses with positive and negative mass” is nothing more than a calculation involving the degree of constructive or destructive interference produced by varying the path length. The pulses appear to “accelerate” in the same direction simply because only constructive interference prevails.  

Figure 1. How to mistakenly create “negative mass” (from Slezak, 2013).

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[1] Slezak, Michael, 2013, Light can break Newton's third law – by cheating: New Scientist, v. 22, no. 11.

Critique of "The Scientific Worldview": Part 7 The Ten Assumptions of Science: Conservation

Bill tries to make the First Law of Thermodynamics an "unmitigated truth." Then why do creationists assume just the opposite?

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

BW: This will be short and sweet, but the next will likely be long and ponderous.

TSW: Fifth Assumption: Conservation

"Matter and the motion of matter neither can be created nor destroyed."

"... which has never yet been contradicted in any observation or experiment, scientific or otherwise"

BW: Sounds like an "unmitigated truth" to me.

[GB: Sorry, but until we have performed every possible observation and experiment, this will always be an assumption. Your “unmitigated truths” allow for no exceptions. The closest you can come to that would involve only a particular observation or experiment that everyone could agree with: that the Sun existed yesterday, for example. Despite all the evidence for it, conservation must forever remain an assumption as long as no complete proof is possible (never) and as long as others assume its opposite: creation, the formation of something from nothing. Many religious folks would consider creation to be just as “unmitigated.” Within “science,” Big Bang Theorists assume creation when they talk of the universe exploding out of nothing. Cosmogonists, those who believe the universe had a beginning, obviously do not believe that conservation is an “unmitigated truth.”]

TSW:  "The Greek philosopher Anaximander asserted that matter is eternal and indestructible."

BW: True, but I think Thales of Miletus deserves primary credit (even if his writings weren't preserved) for rejecting mysticism and advancing the primary scientific idea of conservation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales

TSW:  "The conventional use of the matter-motion term energy to describe conservation might be admirable, if it did not end up being philosophically misleading."

BW: If energy is definitively matter in motion, it must also be conserved. The conservation of energy *must* entail the conservation of its terms: matter and motion.

[GB: False. Energy neither exists nor occurs. Energy is a calculation. The energy concept was yet another way of trying to consider matter and the motion of matter at the same time. As with the other matter-motion terms (e.g., force, momentum, space-time) we use these to understand, describe, and calculate the effects of matter and the motion of matter even though none of them exist or occur.]

TSW:  "The creation argument ... assumes something can be created out of nothing."

BW: It seems silly now, but primitive humans certainly recognized the creation of some thing (spear heads) from another thing (flint). What baffled them were the cosmic things that must have come into being in the same fashion as their spear heads, but they didn't know what the other thing was that it might have been made from, nor by whom. So, rather than simply admitting ignorance, they gave the Maker a label: "God" and the other thing a label: "Void". It made it so much easier to demonstrate their superior wisdom (rather than ignorance) to their children. It worked for millennia.

[GB: Agree. Unfortunately, that is still the case. It is not always possible to determine what is producing the things around us. Just as primitives could not see the nitrogen and oxygen that make up the atmosphere; so too we are unable to see the aether that makes up the nitrogen and oxygen. As scientists, we simply must have the “faith” that creation of something from nothing is impossible.]

BW: The only other point I'd make is that a philosopher needs to be careful about repudiating "creation" per se ... when it is creation of one material form from other material forms. The Big Bang is an illogical, infinite, mathematical reduction of the evidence of current cosmic expansion. But there does need to be an alternative theory that conforms with the cosmic evolutions that are evident in nature, while remaining consistent with conservation.

[GB: That’s right, there are two definitions. One is the creation of something from nothing and the other is the creation of something from something else. In the first, we don’t bring things together, but in the second we do. Isn’t it ironic that the Big Bang Theory is not only a creation myth, but that it hypothesizes things coming apart instead of coming together?]

BW: In UT [Bill’s “Unimid Theory”], it's "The Perpetual Rip" of a central cosmic mass that regularly passes a threshold of angular velocity and generates components of "our cosmos" from the residue of the radiant and material emissions of adjacent cosmos - multicosms - far beyond our light cone, to infinity. The theory has NO correlation with the parallel multiverses of James or Everett.

[GB: That is much like the point at which I started this whole philosophical trip back in 1978 when I still believed that the universe was expanding. Because I didn’t like the implied ending for the universe, I tried a similar imperiment (thought experiment). I figured that the light from the farthest galaxies would send “radiant emissions” past the event horizon, whereupon they would collide, forming new galaxies. Of course, I no longer believe in expansion (see the Blog on the cosmic redshift) or that light is a particle, so that is no longer a concern.]

Next: Complementarity

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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.