Resting Light Theory

[analog]

As for your deterministic philosophy. I respect your position and welcome it here. But as you know I am not of that persuasion. Neither of our positions is provable. Both come down to a preference. Your reference to universal evolution is not quite fitting to your philosophy though. A determinist does not believe in evolution in the strict sense of the word. Evolution implies that the universe changes over time, but eternalism and block universe approach to determism would imply that the universe is not nor ever will change. The universe was, always has been, and always will be in precisely the same spacetime configuration(s) it is now forever. Evolution and change are human perceptions. Its an interesting position, but I'm not ready to swallow it.

I'm aware of the views of eternalism and the block universe Wick, and any reference to a passage of time within a block universe could give the impression of an evolving system if the configuration of the universe along the time axis changed relative to an underlying symmetry. If time passed as a universal now, and we understood the mechanics of the changes at every resolution, no matter how micro, after every passing moment, then we may conclude the symmetry (a.k.a. ToE) by which the universe evolved. We would have effectively given the explaination for all densities and arrangements of matter in all three spatial dimensions, and also described the underlying symmetry of all densities and arrangements along a fourth dimensional axis. The entire block would have an explaination for its configuration in all directions including 'time'. I'm not sure that it's relevant to use such analogies though, as presentism may be sufficient for such paradigms.

My version of determinism doesn't disprove evolution, it only implies that if you acknowledge a certain fundamental substance and define the parameters (i.e. properties) by which it moves at all scales and resolutions, then it becomes similar to a computer program, whereby from simple rules of engagement, complex patterns emerge and evolve; extend those interactions along a fourth dimension of time, and you have my interpretation of a block universe with symmetrical change along that axis.

It's just a universal scale of cause and effect, action and reaction. If there was a way to measure and understand the depths of complexity of the current stage of universal evolution at any moment, then you could appropriately determine/calculate the conditions and forces of the initial event that set things into motion (i.e. the conservation of momentum and establishment of direction). I take Newton to the beginning, and find QM and Relativity within later.

If you apply life to such a paradigm, then the seeming randomness of Darwin's rules of 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' would also find a deterministic underlying foundation by which they operated; along with such concepts as free will.

I have some thoughts on the billiards, but I need to get them together first.

later,

Tim

[Wick]

Yes. I wasn't implying that your ideas would disprove the theories of Darwin, only that since evolution is a time-dependent process, that an eternalist would have a hard time recognizing any time-dependent process. Things don't happen in an eternalist world. Everything simply is.

I look forward to your thoughts on the billiards. I must admit that I cheated a bit. You'll be able to figure it out. I think an interference-like pattern emerges none the less, but mapping it out would take a computer program.

Regards!

Wick

[Wick]

Now having tortured the dotted billiard ball metaphor to death, let’s consider why this metaphor breaks down.

In the metaphor, the ball represents the 4 dimensional fundamental particle, while the dot represents the thing we call the electron. Our assumption has been that the dot (the electron) remains a coherent and unchanging entity throughout the motion of the ball. But that is an incorrect assumption. The ball moves across the table upon its downward most point. It strikes the bank on its forward most point. We need not assume that these points are the same. If I assume that the point that is touching the table must be the same point that reaches the bank, I begin to paint myself into a corner from which it becomes most difficult to escape.

Yet we make this assumption with the electron. Our assumption is that the “point particle” we emit from the electron gun is the same point particle that touches the screen. The point particle assumption leaves us to flounder. But if we think of the electron as a tiny spheroid, we can begin to make new assumptions. A forward moving spheroid, for instance, has a forward point, a backward point, a rightward point, a leftward point, an upward point and a downward point. But at any given moment, we cannot associate any of those points to a specific spot on the spheroid. Because the spheroid is moving, its forward point is constantly changing. Once the ball has rotated 180 degrees that point we called the forward point a moment ago is now the backward point, and what was the backward point is now the forward point.

So if I emit a spheroid from a gun, an ultra-microscopic spheroid which we will think of now as a tiny bubble which is blown and then released, it will last touch the gun from its backward-most point. When the spheroid strikes something, it will strike it from its forward most point. These points are relative to the ball’s motion, and are not related to specific determined points on the ball.

Perhaps a more apt metaphor for what we call the electron would be bubbles.

Bubbles like billiard balls are spherical in shape. But bubbles are not always spherical. They begin their lives as a flat plane stretched across a circle of plastic at the end of a bubble wand. Air blown into this membrane causes the membrane to bow outward into a bell shape which eventually disassociates from the wand and snaps together to form a spheroid. When bubbles strike a target, they collapse or pop, leaving a spot (or point) where the collapse occurred. We are going to think of the electrons coming from the electron microscope in this way. They are bubbles. The electron source (gun) blows up a bubble using electricity and the matter associated with the gun, then fires the bubble through a slit-like mechanism and onto the detection screen where it "pops" and registers on the detector.

During the course of its life, our electron bubble holds many forms. A plane like membrane, a bell shaped “proto-bubble”, a spheroid and finally a point. If I were only to detect popped electron bubbles, I might come to the conclusion that electrons were point-particles. If I were to detect only unpopped electron bubbles, I might come to believe that electrons are moving spheres (or spinor fields). You get the picture. The nature of things appears to change depending on how you observe them.

So let’s consider fundamental matter (in this case, electrons) as bubbles, vice billiards, and return to the double slit experiment.

I have performed the double slit experiment with my children on several occasions. It amazes me. We only use light provided by a high quality laser pointer. Our slit is a pin hole in cardboard divided in half by a human hair (usually provided by my wife or one of my daughters). When the light passes through an undivided pin hole there is no interference. The light remains in a relatively confined spot directly opposite the light source. But when the light passes through the divided slit, its interference pattern spreads out for several centimeters in each direction with regular dark bands displaying where the “light waves” cancel out--the interference pattern.

Performing this experiment with electrons is not so easy a task, and the interference pattern is much more tightly confined. One of the most reliable version of this experiment is described at http://www.hitachi.com/rd/research/em/doubleslit.html

Equipment required is an electron microscope (which serves as single electron source or gun), an electron biprism (which serves as the double slit), and a dection screen. The electron microscope releases one electron (bubble) at a time, with each electron moving at about 40% of the speed of light through the electron biprism toward the detector. The electron biprism consists of a pair of parallel plates between which is stretched a fine filament about 1 micron wide (100 times thinner than the human hair I use in my home-made light-based double slit experiment.) As electrons are fired, one at a time, through the electron biprism, they form an interference pattern on the detection screen opposite the microscope.

When talking about this interference pattern (which builds up one electron at a time), we sometimes say that "the probability wave of the electron passes through both slits and interfers with itself". But the assumption here is that there is no other instrumentality at work.

But there is another instrumentality at work--namely, the background of EM waves that exists at every point in space throughout the entire universe. The electron is moving across that minute warping of our 3-space. It should not surprise us that the electrons should form an interference pattern, but they form the pattern because they are moving upon a medium--the 3-space which is moving in accordance with the ambient EM waves existing in the space between the electron microscope and the detection screen.

The interference pattern of electrons is somewhat similar to the interference pattern we sometimes see on beaches, like this interference pattern photographed on a Texas beach:



Each grain of sand which moved to form this pattern did not interfer with itself. It simply modeled the interference of the medium in which it was suspended, or in other words, ocean water. For electrons the moving medium of electromagnetic waves on the surface of 3-space serve as a suspension within which the electron bubbles move. As the ambient EM waves move around the biprism they form an interference pattern which "guides" the electrons to form an interference pattern.

EM distortions exist everywhere. There is no spot in the whole universe devoid of an electromagnetic measurement. Light-generated waves exist upon the surface of 3-space at virtually every point in the universe. The nature of this wavy environment varies from point to point just as the relative calm and disturbance of waves of water on the oceans varies from place to place and from moment to moment.

The electron double slit experiment is generally done in low light conditions, because a stray beam of light striking an electron would alter the course and nature of the electron bubble invalidating the experiment. But the electromagnetic field inside the electron biprism is by no means zero when the experiment is conducted. There is some ambient electromagnetic radiation, however small washing about in around the biprism. And this ambient radiation interacts with the biprism and creates an interference pattern on both sides of the biprism (however slight). Yet electron’s seem to cope with ambient EM just fine. It’s only when we alter the ambient EM, as we increase light conditions usually to detect electrons. As soon as the light becomes bright enough to illuminate or flash upon the electron, the electron bobs upon the surface of 3-space and creates a significant ripple of its own, a ripple that changes the shape of the 3-space by altering the ambient EM and its associated interference pattern. The electron then moves upon this ripple of light directly toward the screen.

[austintorn@aol.com]

It is almost, or is, that the literal oomph of the electron wave collapses to the point of impact, it varying based on where it is on the bubble at the moment.

[Wick]

Something like that. Although I put the word "pop" in quotation marks for a reason. If you believe in 4-space, you can almost convince yourself that popping is not an option for fundamental matter. The bubble simply moves out of 3-space and into 4-space where it leaves a strike point at the place where it passes through. Another bubble might form at the same location if there is sufficient energy to blow the bubble up.

Regards!

Wick

[labelwench]

Sometimes I blow bubbles in my drinking water, Wick, and it's pretty hard travelling through deep sand with a rider on your back.

"having tortured the dotted billiard ball metaphor to death"

I can just imagine that Austin is writing "The Memoirs of a Metaphor" at this very moment....

Regards,

Caramel

Attachment 479

[austintorn@aol.com]

Wow, an actual horse is posting here now!

I never met a phor I didn't like as a figure of speech, the image troping through the meadows of analogy by comparison through using symbols for the word painting of a picture.

[Wick]

Monet’s Dilemma

How shall I
reveal
a surface so complex
upon which
water lilies
rest
where light reflected
from the skies
broods
upon that same
bright water
over which
dragonflies
now
are skimming?

How shall I show
the world
that high above
and far below
this rippling surface
an infinite expanse
and the depths
of all creation
stretch out
unbounded?

I don't know how.

Yet, I will paint
in metaphors
a universe concealed
upon a pond--
a surface
on whose face
shines the image
of eternity--
through whose
shimmering stillness
can be seen
the watery depths
and mossy stones
and fishes
quick and silver.

--Wick

dedicated to Cricket and Caramel

[labelwench]

........Caramel, resting in the moonlight in the stable yard, was quietly contemplating the rippling surface and infinite expansion of the night sky above.....

Meanwhile her rider was making preparations to head to work......to earn the coin for bales of hay and Australian Shiraz......and possibly a new saddle.....

Attachment 481

[Wick]

My name is Wicken Little and this is my confession.

A few years back I learned that the sky was falling, but not to earth like that nitwit Chicken little thought.

You see, the earth is just a little part of the sky. The sky holds the earth and the sun and the whole rosary of planets we call the solar system. Its the whole sky, I'm talking about. Everything we call the universe...that's the sky.

And its falling.

I used to think the light was the thing that was falling...that this stuff we call light was falling in all directions at the speed of light...that neutrinos were falling just slightly slower than that...but I know better now.

The sky is falling, with us in it...falling at the velocity "c" through a resting background of light.

Why then am I not running around like a Wicken with its head cut off? Because its good to be falliing at the terminal speed of universal free-fall. How else could we possibly be free and accountable? The alternative is a block universe--a universal prison. I reject such a concept...I'm leaving that idea to Foxey Loxey.