The Scientific Worldview

This is a blog that takes the name of my magnum opus on scientific philosophy called "The Scientific Worldview." Reviewers have called it “revolutionary,” “exhilarating,” “magnificent,” “fascinating,” and even “a breathtaking synthesis of all understanding.” There is very little math in it, no religion, no politics, no psycho-babble, and no BS. It provides the first outline of the philosophical perspective that will develop during the last half of the Industrial-Social Revolution.

20140528

Critique of TSW Part 13b: Interconnection/Consupponibility

Blog 20140528

Bill’s obsession with free will causes him to predict a global population of a trillion people as he continues to review The Tenth Assumption of Science: Interconnection, with respect to its demand for consupponibility.

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

TSW: "Collingwood somewhat unwittingly insisted on consupponibility—the proposition that if you can assume one assumption within a constellation, you must be able to assume all the others as well."

BW: Anyone can assume anything they please, or any multiplicity of assumptions, without impediment. One has to adopt the principles of logic before multiple assumptions can be shown to contradict each other. If they do NOT contradict each other, it does NOT demonstrate that any of them are true: that requires evidence. If one assumption is shown to be "unmitigated truth", that does not ensure that any of the others are true, only that they aren't precluded.

[GB: Bill, go ahead and “adopt the principles of logic” to show that the three assumptions I mentioned above contradict each other. You simply cannot do it. It is not possible for the second and third assumptions to be false if the first is true. I agree that we cannot use consupponibility to prove truthfulness. Certain indeterministic assumptions are consupponible as well (e.g., finity, absolutism, etc.). Although, as univironmental determinists, we can never claim “unmitigated” or absolute truth for any assertion, we can continue to supply evidence in support of "The Ten Assumptions of Science" and Infinite Universe Theory.]

TSW: "... I confronted numerous contradictions based on the conventional belief in finity. Once I discarded finity, the logic fell neatly into place."

BW: Perhaps it pleased you, but macroscopic infinity says nothing whatever about any of your other asserted features. All of them can logically exist in a finite macroverse.

[GB: Except for the microcosmic part of infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions), which you must conveniently and continually overlook because you are a Finite Particle Theorist. There is no way that the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things) could work in your finite “macroverse.” One either assumes there is a complement to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or one does not. That is why its interpretation bedevils indeterminists to the point of ridiculosity as in the monstrous book by Rifkin.[1]

Logically, any assumption involving infinity must apply at all scales. Otherwise, one must hypothesize a micro and/or macro stopping point, as in Finite Particle Theory and the Big Bang Theory, which then becomes a contradiction of infinity. If you were able to see this contradiction for what it is, you would have to give up Finite Particle Theory. I doubt this will happen, for as Upton Sinclair said “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”]

BW: On the other hand, microcosmic infinity - as you've described it - precludes almost all of your other features. It logically requires a universal, material "connection": the Block Universe. But, that precludes the occurrence of events, so it contradicts causality and determinism.

[GB: Already beat this one to death. Your “Block Universe” idea is a contradiction of the Tenth Assumption of Science, Interconnection (All things are interconnected, that is, between any two objects exist other objects that transmit matter and motion). For that to be true, all subdivisions must result in both “matter” and “space.” There is no evidence whatsoever for solid matter since the atomists proposed it. Perhaps you dwell on the “Block Universe” idea so much because you desperately want to assume that your finite particle really is solid matter.]

TSW: "... there is an ether ..."

BW: I suspect this will get some treatment later, but there is no evidence for such a substance, while there is ample evidence demonstrating that it doesn't exist. As I mentioned earlier, Special Relativity was fabricated for the sole purpose of preserving the wave theory, which requires a medium for the transfer of kinetic energy.

[GB: In a sense you are right—I since changed back to the original spelling: aether. You are bit mixed up. The Michelson and Morley (1887) experiment only proved that there was no fixed aether. Sorry, but Einstein’s theory did not require a medium. He believed that Michelson and Morley had proven that aether did not exist. There is plenty of evidence for the existence of aether. More on that later…

TSW: "... support the replacement of the Big Bang Theory by the infinite universe theory."

BW: Simply asserting an infinite universe doesn't answer any questions about expansion, stellar evolution, or structural discontinuities ... even if the BBT is nonsense. I suspect there'll be more later.

[GB: You are right for once. Indeed, there will be much later. All the BBT nonsense is interpreted via the underlying indeterministic assumption of finity, which is one of the hallmarks of classical mechanics as well as today’s regressive physics. Simply replacing that assumption with infinity makes the BBT go away instantly. The question then arises: If infinity is so powerful, then what other ramifications does it imply?]

TSW: "The answer is that nothing, like completely empty space, is only an idea, just like solid matter is only an idea. As shown time and again in our experiments, the reality exists between these two idealizations. It turns out that it is impossible for the universe not to exist - everywhere and for all time."

BW: I agree with your conclusion, but not your premises. An idea is an abstraction of distinct features from reality. That doesn't mean that those features don't exist in reality, nor that some mitigated combination provides a better view of reality itself. It isn't necessary to discard matter or its separation in order to get a perpetual universe.

[GB: Nice that you like my conclusion. Of course, an idea must always be a finite abstraction, while reality is always infinite. Any abstraction only highlights the characteristics of particular features. Moreover, as you imply, a more complete or more accurate abstraction is always possible. Your last sentence betrays your apparent belief that matter is some kind of crème-pie filling suited to your Finite Particle Theory. In univironmental determinism, we define matter as an xyz portion of the universe that contains other matter, ad infinitum. This bedevils absolutists who look for something solid to hold on to. I am sorry that the infinite universe was not able to accommodate you.]

TSW: "We no longer need suffer the indignities of non-Euclidean curved space, massless particles, matterless motion, and a Second Law of Thermodynamics without its complement."

BW: Suffer "indignities"?? We can reject logically incoherent ideas without resort to fabricating "complements" or assuming that the contrary necessarily follows.

[GB: Sorry Bill, but I have indeed suffered “indignities” concerning the subjects mentioned. The only “C” I ever got in college was in a physics class that tried to force me to accept such logical incoherence. Obviously, I could not do it. You are right that, once out of indeterministic academic control, one need not try to understand the reasons for the outrage. Thousands of folks simply do not believe that stuff without questioning why it exists. Sorry, but convergence as a complement to divergence is not a “fabrication” and the universe is either finite or infinite. What part of that logic don’t you get?]

TSW: "... systems philosophy, will be discarded as the "environment," previously neglected, becomes increasingly prominent as a factor in our survival."

BW: I don't think any scientific philosophy "discards" the environment. It simply tries to reduce the number of incidental influences (which can't be accounted for) in order to test the validity of theories about substantive features and characteristics of matter in motion. Granted, a lot of those theories are preposterous, but testing them requires experimental *focus* ... eliminating the random influences that are clearly present.

[GB: Remember that systems philosophy was born of solipsism, which, by definition, completely “discards the environment.” That was the pre-Copernican way and it is the way of the Big Bang Theorists. You are right that a proper focus is necessary. Univironmental determinism maintains that the proper focus always must be between the microcosm and its interactions with the macrocosm. In other words, we theoretically divide the universe into two parts, not one part to the exclusion of everything else. You can do this with any experiment. It would have totally prevented the preposterous idea that the universe is finite and has nothing outside of it.]

TSW: "... our ecological "carrying capacity" of 10 billion people ..."

BW: Strange that you tend to be a radical opponent of orthodoxy, while accepting an orthodoxy at face value. Peak population projections are based on the current state of scientific knowledge. There's nothing inherently "unimaginable" about a world population of 1 trillion by 2200 or 100 trillion by 2300. Current analysis simply assumes perpetual stasis in fertility rates and consumables.

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6038
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/05/10-billion-plus-why-world-population.html

[GB: Sorry Bill, but this has nothing to do with orthodoxy whatsoever. The 10 billion claim is purely based on data. Jump to page 288 to see the figures on population trends. World growth rates maxed out in 1963 at 2.2%. They are now close to 1%. The annual increase in world population maxed out at 90 million in 1989, and has been declining ever since. By using that data as the inflection point, I was able to draw figure 12-3, which includes the mirror image of the data before 1989. This produced the sine curve showing that the maximum population for Earth will be 10 billion, which turns out to be the revised value predicted by population experts in your links above. Although unheralded by the “orthodox,” the year 1989 marks the midpoint in humanity’s growth and development. Until that inflection point occurred, we had little idea of what maximum population would be. This type of “demographic transition” has occurred for semi-isolated situations involving separate countries. Carrying capacity is a prominent concept in biology, especially in game management, with which I am most familiar. It describes a univironmental relationship between a specific species and its environment.

Your imaginings about trillions of people are plainly ridiculous. I have heard this type of silly speculation before, always from indeterminists. They imagine that billions of folks, in the grips of their supposed “free will,” could suddenly decide to reproduce once again at fantastic rates. It is not true that “current analysis simply assumes perpetual stasis in fertility rates.” All the data show that fertility rates decline as countries develop and become urbanized—that is what the demographic transition is all about. True, after 2050, when the population reaches 8.5 billion, the rates will not change much. Like other species, human populations require resources that are clearly limited. The first folks to the table have it easy, the last, not so much. As populations increase, it takes more and more effort to obtain the basics. That is one of the reasons urban families are usually smaller than rural families. Maybe you should try raising 12 kids where you live now. Be sure to budget that $6 million that you will need to put them all through college, which seems to be one of the basics nowadays.

Once we reach 10 billion after 2400, I suspect that there will be fluctuations in world population produced by, as always, fluctuations in resources. For instance, the next continental glacial advance might cover the higher latitudes with as much as a mile of ice as it did 22,000 years ago. This process will be slow, of course, allowing folks to move to warmer climes and appreciate the joys of having even smaller families.

The global demographic transition shows our species to be like all the others. Like all the others, we are microcosms subject to the macrocosm. We exist at the behest of the green stuff growing on this planet. We may be infinitely complicated, but we are a natural consequence of all that came before. The ongoing global demographic transition is a daily reminder of the failure of indeterminism and its doctrine of free will to predict or to understand anything at all.]

Next: Univironment

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[1] Rifkin, Jeremy, 1980, Entropy: A new world view: New York, Bantam, 302 p.

20140521

Critique of TSW Part 13a: Interconnection/Consupponibility

Blog 20140521

Bill’s absolutism gets the better of him as he fails to see essential connections necessary for understanding the infinite universe as he continues to review The Tenth Assumption of Science: Interconnection, with respect to its demand for consupponibility.

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

TSW: The Necessary Connection/ Consupponibility

"The inclusion of interconnection, relativism, and infinity in a set of assumptions necessarily makes the reasoning somewhat circular..."

BW: What you're doing is advocating for particular features of the universe. As such, I don't think any of them are consupponible: none of them logically require or preclude others.

[GB: Bill, you have to follow the logic presented here, otherwise you are simply restating your belief in the opposing assumptions. We have already assumed 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). Obviously, if you insist on assuming its opposite, absolutism, you will be following a different logical train. Instead of looking for connections, you would be looking for disconnection and finity. That is just what you find. You were well on your way to one of the best reviews of the book, but its value will diminish if we need to continue debating its foundation after this chapter.]

BW: One can have a connected, or disconnected, infinity; a relative or an objective connection; an infinite or finite relationship. However, any of these concepts can be construed as being logically incoherent with determinism.

[GB: We have already slain that dragon. We have chosen infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions). I guess that is what you mean by a “connected infinity,” while your “disconnected infinity” is a sort of microcosmic finity necessary for your Finite Particle Theory. I must admit that I cannot figure out what you mean by the rest of this comment.]

BW: If "connection" asserts the absence of "space", then there can be no "events", nor any effects caused by collisions. If "relativism" asserts that nothing has a distinct identity, then there is no novel identity for an effect that is distinct from its causes. If "infinity" asserts that all space is occupied, then it must be a Block Universe, that never interacts, because there is nothing else to interact with, so there can never be events.

Without events, there can be no causation. Without causation, there can be no determinism.

[GB: I believe we already discussed this, but let me go through it again since it seems difficult to comprehend. Review: This is the Tenth Assumption of Science: Interconnection (All things are interconnected, that is, between any two objects exist other objects that transmit matter and motion). This does not assert the absence of space (containing still smaller microcosms). To have an object transmitting matter and motion between two objects, there also must be “space,” otherwise the connection would be solid matter. As you said, there then could be no events and we would have your hypothesized “Block Universe,” which would never work. Perhaps you are imagining that there could be an end to microcosmic infinity—a sort of “Block Universe” for your hypothesized finite particle filled with solid matter. But, as Newton and Leibnitz showed in the calculus, there can be no “end” to infinity, as that would be a self-contradiction. The infinite universe is infinitely subdividable at all scales. Every successive division produces two things: matter and space, ad infinitum.]

TSW: "One might suppose that in the fantastic world of the compleat indeterminist there are no causes and no effects ..."

BW: To some degree, you're fabricating a Straw Man: no mystic denies cause and effect, even if they assert that there is some supernatural cause for some effects. I don't think it's valid to assume that knocking down the Straw Man proves the merit of your arguments. Each of them may be "logically ridiculous", but that doesn't prove that the inverse is logically valid.

[GB: Bill, I was being facetious. In case you did not get it, I consider all of indeterminism to be a “Straw Man.” That is why I enjoy knocking down each of your indeterministic interpretations as they pop up, one by one. That little section on the “compleat indeterminist” was just a fun illustration of how ridiculous extreme indeterminism would be. Actually, it is not very far-fetched. Despite your assertion, there actually are a few mystics who claim that the external world does not exist, or that it is all consciousness instead. For them, material causes and effects do not occur. As I mentioned in TSW, most forms of acausality are more moderate. For instance, there is specific acausality, which is the complement to specific causality. That is what you need to support your belief in free will or, for others, to support a religious belief while pursuing a career in science. Then, there is the finite universal causality of classical mechanics and classical determinism, which stops the search for causes at the door of infinity. For practical reasons, of course, we can only discover a finite number of causes for any effect. At that point, we have a philosophical choice: either there are more causes or there are not. Those who assume infinity say yes; those who assume finity say no.

You are right that the ridiculosity of an argument does not prove that the inverse is logically valid. As I have always maintained, none of the Ten Assumptions of Science can be proven true. Nothing, except logic prevents you from mixing and matching fundamental deterministic and indeterministic assumptions. Except for logic, you do not even have to believe in the necessity for consupponibility. Except for logic, you can be like other indeterminists, who welcome contradictions. Bill, you do not have to accept any of the Ten Assumptions of Science, but now I think it is time for you to accept the logic of their consupponibility.]

BW: Even if your assumptions are logically coherent, one doesn't require or preclude any of the others. Attempting to show they are consupponible is a complex task. Ten assumptions have 90 cross-references requiring validation, with many more to consider when you compare various sets of assumptions. A messy "web of interconnections".

[GB: Let me demonstrate what Collingwood[1] and I mean by consupponibility. It is quite simple. Examine these three assumptions and see if you can find any contradictions between them:

Eighth Assumption of Science, infinity (The universe is infinite, both in the microcosmic and macrocosmic directions.)

Second Assumption of Science, causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes.)

Third Assumption of Science, uncertainty (It is impossible to know everything about anything, but it is possible to know more about anything.)

Now, you may wish to assume only one of them or none of them. Each might stand or fall alone and you could logically exclude the others. Each of them is not derivable from the others, particularly when we wish to ignore that particular characteristic of the universe. In setting up this constellation (a group of assumptions), I was not required to include every assumption possible. I could have had only one, or I could have tried for more than a million. As you know, I choose ten for pedagogical and historic reasons. I chose the ones I did because they emphasized aspects of the universe I thought most important and stimulated the most debate between determinists and indeterminists. While that philosophical struggle rages on interminably, all (including you) should agree that the three assumptions above are consupponible. If these are the assumptions we wish to include in our constellation, they certainly are consupponible. It is time for you to man up: Logically, you must agree that, if the universe is infinitely subdividable, the number of causes for even one effect is infinite, and if that is the case, then it is impossible to know everything about even one thing.

Obviously, I am quite proud of "The Ten Assumptions of Science," and consider it a major discovery. I challenge anyone else to compile a constellation fulfilling Collingwood's criteria without including infinity. The whole idea of consupponibility infers interconnection.]

TSW: "The existence of these disagreements proves that these statements are assumptions - that is, matters of opinion."

BW: This is a huge concession to opposing views: they're all opinions. You seem to be saying that assumptions don't require evidence or logic, they are merely postulates. To say that ANY postulate is as good as another is to *diminish* the value of any scientific worldview, which is dependent on objective evidence and logical consistency with reality. To say that all assertions are *mitigated* by arbitrary, unsupported assertions to the contrary is to deny the basis for all knowledge.

[GB: I stand by that statement. Fundamental assumptions and the debates about them are made necessary by infinity. They can never be proven beyond a shred of an indeterminist’s doubt. Believers in finity cannot stomach the uncertainty. They may have given up religious absolutes, but still look for them in science. I called them “matters of opinion” to call attention to the mechanism by which we get these unprovable assumptions over which we have so much debate. Sorry Bill, but neither determinists nor indeterminists eschew evidence or logic when they develop their opinions or assumptions. Each of us has a distinct “worldview” caused by our interactions with the macrocosm. Each of us has a different idea about what constitutes valid “objective evidence and logical consistency with reality.” The parishioner considers the holy book and the claims of relatives and friends to be “objective evidence.” The cosmologist considers the cosmic redshift to be “objective evidence.” By using the same presupposition (finity), both come to the same conclusion: the creation of the universe out of nothing.

Sorry Bill, but I never said that “all assertions are *mitigated* by arbitrary, unsupported assertions to the contrary.” Where did you ever get that idea? My main point always has been that we need to choose wisely between opposing assumptions. I am aware of how we do this. I consider all indeterministic assumptions to be unsupported and all deterministic assumptions to be supported. I do not consider holy books and religious pronouncements to be suitable evidence. And as you saw in laboring over "The Ten Assumptions of Science," I have a lot of evidence to support my choice. I certainly do not think that any of these deterministic assumptions should be “mitigated” by any of the indeterministic assumptions. I agree that determinism is the basis for all knowledge—it is the only philosophy supported by observation and experiment. Too bad that the infinite universe cannot provide absolute proof for that assertion.]

TSW: "Presuppositions become assumptions just as soon as they are stated—a process likely to occur only when results are not so pleasing."

BW: You're overlooking the intermediate step, which is what science is all about: validation of hypotheticals. There may be logical consequences implicit in any assumption, but the only relevant *results* are a consequence of experiment and objective confirmation. Absent evidence and its logical interpretation, all views are just flat assertions.

[GB: You missed the point. “When results are not so pleasing” implies that the particular hypothesis under consideration has been falsified (i.e., the evidence disproves it). It then behooves us to find out what went wrong. We need to backtrack the train of thought, checking our calculations and reexamining the various components of that hypothesis. Usually, it involves some minor detail, but breakthroughs normally involve an entirely new way of looking at things. Hugh breakthroughs, such as major paradigm shifts, require foundational changes. But, as Kuhn[2] pointed out, this is not likely to be done by the usual practitioners of “normal” science. After decades of successful practice, people tend to forget the assumptions underlying their interpretive approach. Instead of being overt, the foundational assumptions become covert—people can no longer state what they are. Collingwood referred to these unconscious assumptions as “presuppositions.” They do not become assumptions again until we bring them into the light of day. Once we write them down and debate them, new choices can be made. That is why I knew I was on to something big with the discovery of "The Ten Assumptions of Science." The revolutionary shift from the Big Bang Theory to the Infinite Universe Theory required a revolutionary shift in fundamental assumptions.]

Next: Consupponibility continued

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[1] Collingwood, R.G., 1940, An essay on metaphysics: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 354 p.

[2] Kuhn, T. S., 1962, The structure of scientific revolutions: Chicago, the University of Chicago Press.

20140514

Are there Absolutes?

Blog 20140514

Captain Bligh writes:

No absolutes?

There are absolutes, perhaps not to the physics world, but to the philosophic world, which are not too far apart when it comes to these universal topics, such as space, motion, and time.

[GB: George, thanks so much for another of your critical comments. I am sure they will be useful to many folks even though I have a lot of problems with them (see below).]

E.g.:

1) I can see that I am absolutely present as a finite form as part of an infinite world.

[GB: What means “absolutely present”? My grammar checker says to remove “absolutely” as being redundant. I tend to agree. One is either present or not.]

2) I am pretty absolutely certain you are too.

[GB: Sounds like you are not all that certain.]

3) There is an absolute, but infinite universe, philosophically and I think physics understands this almost to a person.

[GB: Why do you need to add “absolute” to your description of the universe? Sorry, but the current understanding of physics is that the universe is finite (almost to a person). That is, after all, what cosmogony is all about. A universe with a beginning, especially one that explodes from a central point, must be finite.]

4) There is an infinite energy occupying space. It seems doubtful that space and energy can exist without the other, but I don't know what others say about this absolute.

[GB: Sorry, but there is no “energy” occupying space. Energy neither exists nor occurs. Energy is a calculation describing the motion of matter. Perhaps you are thinking of the Fourth Assumption of Science, inseparability (Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion). In Infinite Universe Theory, we do indeed assume that matter in motion is infinite, but we would never call that an absolute. While we assume inseparability and infinity to be true, we could never provide absolute proof of that assertion.]

5) Most importantly, to my physics, is the absolute now, by which I mean the instantaneous change occurring in an infinite universal energy that seems to be in a wave type form. No past, no future, exist only the movable Now, if you know what I mean.

[GB: Sorry, but I would never know what you mean by that. We use the terms, past, present, and future to describe time, which is the motion of matter. There is no such motion that could be “instantaneous change,” as I pointed out in a comment about catastrophe theory that I published long ago.[1] Here is an example of what I mean by the slogan “time is motion” with reference to past, present, and future: Consider a baseball being pitched toward a batter. The ball exists, of course, throughout its travel. As it travels toward the batter, its former path describes its past and its still-to-be-realized path describes its future. At no point does the ball have an “absolute now” or experience an “instantaneous change”. Any “now” that we can use to describe the ball after we catch it is certainly not absolute either, for all microcosms are continually in motion per inseparability. No matter how tightly we hold the ball, the submicrocosms within and supermicrocosms without will be in continuous motion. That is why “now” is always relative, never absolute, as you seem to realize with your appellation of “movable” to your absolute Now. It is why no one can ever give a correct answer to the question: How old are you now? No matter what your answer, you always will be older by at least a few microseconds.

Your statement about change in “an infinite universal energy that seems to be in a wave type form” is worthy of the faithful followers of Einstein. Perhaps you mean that all microcosms are moving within an aether medium that is subject to wave motion produced by still other microcosms.]

There are lots of absolutes philosophically speaking and the absolute now contains everything else. The everything else is of course all relative to each and every other thing.

[GB: Huh? See above.]

Metaphysics, I guess, but it has to be consistent with physics, to me.

[GB: Metaphysics is “that which goes beyond physics”. As I have maintained throughout my work, there are two opposing types of metaphysics: determinism and indeterminism. To be “consistent with physics,” you would have to use the deterministic assumptions I included in "The Ten Assumptions of Science".]

George

[GB: George:

Remember that absolutism is the indeterministic opposite of 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). With each microcosm in the infinite universe moving with respect to all other microcosms, I really do not see any “absolutism” being possible. In "Universal Cycle Theory” Steve and I pointed out that, in the infinite universe there are no true constants. Per the Second Assumption of Science, causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes), any measurement we can make will always entail a plus or minus. Pi, for instance, is 3.1416… followed by a non-repeating infinite series of numbers. By 2011, Pi had been calculated to 10 trillion digits with no end in site.

Newton and other indeterminists have sought some absolute reference frame, but that is not possible in an infinite universe guided by the Fourth Assumption of Science, inseparability (Just as there is no motion without matter, so there is no matter without motion). In the First Law of Motion, I think that Newton had to invent absolute space because he knew that an object moving in perfectly empty space could not be considered moving at all unless there was a referent. Of course, when we think about the First Law, we are really putting ourselves in the place of the referent.

That brings us to your declaration that absolutes are “perhaps not” in the physics world, but that there certainly are absolutes in philosophy. Sorry, George, but Infinite Universe Theory does not allow for that either. If that were true, then there would be no possible debate concerning the things considered “absolute”. You may be absolutely sure that you and I exist, but not everyone believes that. I once met a faithful follower of Einstein who claimed that I did not exist, but that the event of my birth did. Talk about the relativist’s objectification of time! Immaterialists would disagree with you about the nature of existence. To this day, many of them still claim that consciousness creates existence and not the other way around.

There is a sucker born every minute. When that little guy puts that blanket over his head, he makes the entire universe disappear—so he thinks. In due time he will realize that the universe is material and that it will continue to exist no matter what he does. The philosophical struggle between determinism and indeterminism allows no room for absolutes no matter how much the opposing sides scream and shout. That is why I called them "The Ten Assumptions of Science" and not the ten absolutes of science. They can never be proven beyond a shred of an indeterminist’s doubt. All we can do is to assume them and get on with our work.

I sympathize with your search for philosophical absolutes. In the infinite universe, we are continually faced with uncertainty (It is impossible to know everything about anything, but it is possible to know more about anything.), an assumption that is by no means certain itself. With everything in the infinite universe moving from place-to-place in a seeming blur of events, we would like to grab unto a saving raft. Idealists of every stripe are comforted by their holy books filled with what they think are absolutes. Many a student of philosophy began that pursuit in the search for certainty. With experience, however, we finally realize that absolutes are not to be found anywhere. An imagined absolute, like the concept of free will itself, is worthless in scientific philosophy. In science, the closest we ever get to absolutes involves the supposition that each of our fundamental assumptions is true. Nonetheless, the purpose of those fundamental assumptions is not to be absolutely true, but to be useful.

Usefulness also is the primary criterion when we use idealism in science. Thus, we can imagine “perfectly solid matter” and “perfectly empty space” as the endpoints of a continuum of real things. We know that those ideal endpoints can never really exist, but find them useful for understanding the reality in between. All scientific models are like that. All are abstractions on reality, for we can never include the infinite detail that is inherent in even one microcosm. The only thing we lose by eschewing absolutism and claims of perfection in theory is the naïve hubris of classical mechanism.]

[1]Borchardt, Glenn, 1978, Catastrophe theory: Application to the Permian mass extinction: Comments and reply: Geology, v. 6, p. 453-454. (
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221706038_Catastrophe_theory_Application_to_the_Permian_mass_extinction_Comments_and_reply )

20140507

Vortex Rotation and Accelerated Expansion

Blog 20140507

From Keith Pifer:

Is it plausible that it could be as simple as a cd shattering, to explain accelerated expansion? That all the matter was "spinning" at speed that caused it to shatter similar to a disc spinning at such a rate it explodes. It seems to work with the natural laws I understand, so sorry if it seems silly, but how will I know if I don't ask.

Keith:

Thanks for the question. The accelerated expansion is only one of the many paradoxes offered by the Big Bang Theory (BBT). For me, the most vexing was the explosion of everything out of nothing or the idea of making something by blowing it apart instead of putting it together. Things form through convergence per the Sixth Assumption of Science, complementarity (All things are subject to divergence and convergence from other things.) Since adopting the Infinite Universe Theory, those contradictions are not of any concern to us at PSI. Unlike the Big Bangers, we do not dismiss the Fifth Assumption of Science, conservation (Matter and the motion of matter can be neither created nor destroyed), otherwise known as the First Law of Thermodynamics. The opposing, indeterministic assumption is creation, which is one reason the BBT is so popular.

Accelerated expansion is particularly silly because it would be a violation of Newton’s Second Law of Motion, which states that acceleration only results after one body collides with another. We included vortex theory in our most recent book ("Universal Cycle Theory: Neomechanics of the Hierarchically Infinite Universe"). However, vortices tend to do the opposite of what you suggest. An increase in rotation rate pushes large, heavy objects to the center of a vortex (e.g., the Sun is 99% of the mass of the solar system) in a process called “accretion.” There is a demonstration video on our website. As the rotation rate slows, a vortex may lose matter in a process called “excretion,” which sometimes involves an explosion similar to what you suggest.

Initial increases in rotation rate are the result of glancing collisions in which one vortex cloud rotates clockwise, while the other rotates counterclockwise. Additional collisions produced by impacting objects from outside the vortex also can speed the rotation rate via changes in angular momentum. Note that changes in rotation rate would not occur without some macrocosmic (external) influence. Of course, as the archetype of systems philosophy, the finite universe of the BBT does not have a macrocosm. By definition, no outside influence exists that could change the rotation rate. Contradictions like this seem to be leading cosmologists toward Infinite Universe Theory by the back door. Hence, the invention of the oxymoronic terms “multiverses” and “parallel universes.”

Keith, your question shows that like other thinkers, you are perplexed by current theory, searching for a way out. It reminds me of the time in 1978 when I tried something similar when I was still a believer in the BBT. Not swallowing the 4-D stuff, I imagined that light from the old galaxies at the edge of the universe would precede the expansion. Photons from those galaxies would collide to produce new galaxies. In the process of analyzing the fundamental assumptions of the BBT and writing "The Scientific Worldview" I gave up on that idea altogether.