md65536

What was the equation? I've seen a lot of "I solved it"s and "This explains gravity and planets and cat and dogs etc"... but I haven't seen any understandable explanations. Only claims. Perhaps I missed it somewhere among the posts of another thread. Let's just assume for a minute that you're right and that you've solved the universe. I still don't understand it. I'm just a stupid ordinary person. How will it be understood, used, discussed etc by others if it can't be explained in a way that we understand? If this is something that we are incapable of understanding and you're incapable of dumbing down for us, then there's no point in discussing it. Until I can understand any part of your solution to the universe, or even understand what it is you may have solved, I must assume that you haven't. (No need to comment on my being stupid. The degree of my stupidity doesn't change anything other than whether or not I'm your intended audience.)

That's true... and just using any of these words, like "Soul, Multiple worlds, Consciousness" etc carries WAY too many extra connotations to be able to figure it all out in an internet forum. It would be better to simplify and talk about only concrete things. Like: What specific aspects of a "soul" are we talking about here? Yes... but!... Suppose someone duplicated you perfectly so that there was no difference between you and your twin. I would assume that you wouldn't simultaneously "think" from the perspective of 2 people. You would each still think you were you. No matter how "same" you are, there would be some aspect of you and your consciousness that is unique to each of you. Or another example: You are the same person as "you" from yesterday, right? But that person no longer thinks, experiences, or exists. You from yesterday, as separate from you from today, can no longer think or experience in your universe. You each existed at different times, but you only associate your consciousness with the you that exists at the moment. -- Sorry if this makes no sense! It's all vague and confusing to me. My point is that there is something that you associate with "you" that can be sensed (IE. thought of, or observed), that is independent of the physical system. No matter how identical you and something else are, you still have a sense of individuality. I think that the answer to this puzzle is that we are not actually fundamental parts of the universe! Consciousnesses must have some emergent component(s). I assume consciousness is an effect of physical aspects of the universe (rather than existing independently of the physical universe), and to be affected by anything constitutes making an observation of it. So consciousness involves one or more observational perspectives. I assume every observational perspective can describe its own reality (very similar but not identical to all other realities). And I think that reality is emergent. Therefore, what I think of as "me" is "real" but not "fundamental": I exist in the reality I observe. Some form of me exists in the reality you observe. And, the physical constituent parts of me (my mass, energy, state, whatever) exists in a single fundamental universe, as we all do, but the identity I associate with myself does not exist there. Simple! If spacetime is emergent (which I believe it is) then geometry is emergent, and speed and position are emergent. I think this could mean it's possible that the energy of an electron exists in a "fundamental universe", and yet it can be observed differently (different speed and position) by different observers. :S I could try to explain this belief better, but it would take a long time and it's based on a lot of conjecture anyway. I'm not sure what you mean. Is "interaction effect" the same as what I'm calling "causal effect"? Or is there an example of an effect that wouldn't be considered causal? I think I could convert any MWI example as might be observed in reality, into a single-world interpretation. For example: Take Schrodinger's cat... Suppose the cat has all sorts of advanced sensing equipment and observes that the radioactive source does NOT decay and release any radiation, yet the Geiger counter observes that it DOES decay, and cracks open the vial of poison. The cat, being an exceptionally clever one, accepts that the reality it observes may be slightly different than the reality the Geiger counter observes, and thus accepts that the Geiger counter observed radiation even though the cat's equipment didn't. Thus the cat obligingly dies. All realities had slightly different observations, but all agreed on what everyone else saw (consistency), and thus all agreed on the results of all causal effects, and thus all agreed on consistent outcomes.

Well... I don't think that observations of uncertain realities are fundamental! I speculated about it here: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/55240-convergent-superficial-alternate-realities/ In other words: I think it's possible to have a single universe where things like thermodynamic energy are fundamental, but most of observed reality (time and distance and thus chronology and geometry) are emergent. I think it's possible for different observers to see a single universe differently, ie. different realities, but they are all consistent with the single fundamental description of the universe. Then the universe can be stochastic, and observations of it can be uncertain. -- This is based on my own work and is not developed enough to be anything more than an idea and an opinion. All of those have causal relationships, whether or not they are deterministic (I may be wrong). I don't think that some random event can be observed to both cause an event, and not cause an event, as seen by different observers. Or in other words, though different observers may disagree on what they see, they will agree about "what everyone else saw", so that if some event causes an effect on any given observer, all other observers will agree that the causal event took place. -- Again, opinion! I'm not sure if the science backs me up at all.

MWI makes more sense if you think of it representing all potential universes in superposition, rather than "splitting" into copies like a Mogwai that you spilled water on. If you imagine that all possible configurations can be described as different universes, and if it's possible for something to either exist or not exist, then "your universe" with some arbitrary thing removed from it would actually describe a different universe from yours. But it doesn't matter what that thing is... each of us could equally be "gods"... remove any of us and you get a different universe, different from "yours". But universes without you could also exist. If you mentally "destroy a single universe" by making it an impossible configuration (eg. suppose "my universe" with me in it, did not exist), that doesn't mean that any other possible universe can't exist. None of this really matters though, because it's true that if you removed yourself from your universe, your universe would not exist, even without the MWI. The reality of your universe is the reality that is experienced by you. Remove yourself from it and there is no longer any experience of reality. -- Sure, it could still be experienced by others, but it would need to be a different universe from the one you described as "yours", because the defining property of "your" universe is that you're in it. ... This is all just a way of saying VERY LITTLE at all: The universe could be a single universe shared by all of us, including Mr. X, but if you remove Mr. X from the universe, it is no longer Mr. X's universe. Try to imagine describing a universe that you are not there to observe, contemplate, or describe. What could you possibly describe while not existing? And if you can describe it using someone else's point of view, then yours probably wasn't that special enough to call yourself a god of your own reality. This is mostly just philosophical, however. Personally, I don't think that multiple worlds with different causalities exist. Whatever causes a die to be rolled a 1, will cause it to be rolled a 1 in all possible alternate realities.

I think your irreverence is humorous but it's sad that you feel that way. Often in threads when you "argue science fact" (is that for, or against established fact?), the threads get fixated on some detail of a theory, where a poster argues that it's right, and everyone else argues it's wrong and dismisses the whole theory. It would be "nice" if everyone encouraged the development of the theory to properly explain that one point that they're stuck on. However, this is not always possible because sometimes some small point is "wrong enough" that there's no way to go forward past it. There is no help that can be offered on something that is wrong enough or doesn't make sense enough or whatever. It's sad that threads tend to turn into passionate but negative arguments, or die as ignored and often confused or nonsensical underdeveloped ideas. Personally, I expect the next Einstein to be someone with more ideas than education. But what I think us crackpots should do with our ideas is DEVELOP THEM. Unfortunately, that means a lot of hard work and the only one who's going to do the hard work is you. When you develop an idea it changes it, and you can change it so that the "science fact" that everyone was so negative about, no longer applies. The idea gets better. The work involves proving that a point is right, or changing it until it is right. In most cases if the idea properly takes established science into account, it will either turn out to be wrong, or it'll be changed until it ends up very similar to established science. However there are new and good ideas all the time, and "established science" is always progressing and always ready to be pushed farther. An idea is only valuable if it is understood and useful. The work put into to getting it there is what makes it valuable. Arguing about an unconvincing idea is pointless.

But what is the difference between belief, and the ability to logically extrapolate the future (or "predict", as physics allows us to do), when the future has an inherent uncertainty? It seems to me advantageous to be able to predict a specific future and act on it, despite the the uncertainty of that future. I suppose in other words, taking chances can be advantageous. Thus beliefs should have a measure of logic to them -- some beliefs are more logical than others but belief and logic are not mutually exclusive. I suppose one way to make beliefs more logical it to incorporate the uncertainty into them, so that we can predict things but act according to an understanding that things may turn out differently. Then a belief is more of a guess than a lie.

Humans are not the peak of an evolutionary process, but rather part of a continuum of evolution. Evolution has been ongoing for billions of years and humans have only been around for maybe a few hundred thousand. Given another few billion years of evolution, the results will be new species, not just "more-advanced humans". Unless you mean, "peak up until now", in which case having our imagination restricted to only the past suggests we might not be beings who are able to extrapolate as far into the future as possible.

Is that true? I thought it only contracted. Yes though: Length is really the measure that I'm interested in. If you had a meter stick that is 1 m long in local spacetime, will any observer ever measure that stick as longer than 1 m, from any inertial frame? I realize now that acceleration can allow this to happen. For example, pull on the near-end of a stick and the near end will appear to you to move before the far end does, making the stick appear longer. In this case is the stick actually longer than a meter for a moment?

Isn't this the opposite of SR, GR, and experimental observations involving spacecraft? Wouldn't spacecraft clocks appear to us to tick slower (relative to ours) due to increased gravitational field nearer the sun? Moreover, near the sun the craft would move with higher relative speed, and thus be subject to greater time dilation than when farther away? I've got this backward myself a million billion times, and it's always due to having an intuitive but only partial grasp on the ideas of relativity while misunderstanding the complicated details.

I see, so local space-time appears the same to everyone, regardless of gravitational field (assuming local spacetime homogeneity). Is space-time curvature relative then? Not only does it appear flat locally, but it IS flat in all ways, locally? If I'm in a "medium gravitational field" say, and I look at an area with a stronger field (eg. gravitational lensing caused by galaxies), it will appear more "closed", and the angles of a triangle will add up to more than 180 degrees, right? If I look at an area with a weaker field, will it appear more "open"? Or flat? Or will all difference in curvature appear similarly, regardless of whether it's associated with a stronger or weaker gravitational field? Then... I assume there can be an absolute lack of gravitational field, but is there an absolute flatness (or openness?) associated with that? Or is it completely relative, such that some other force or mechanism can always make space appear more open somewhere else, even if I'm experiencing no gravitational field?

I admire the optimistic posts and the realistic ones, but I'm a little disappointed in the level of pessimism here. Kudos to the next Einsteins who voted! I think: Not all of the "basic" great ideas (those that don't require very specialized education) have been thought; there may not even be a finite number of them. Anyone can think of something important. Believing in yourself is a very good thing. It's true that Einstein had an extraordinary range and depth of talents that let him develop his ideas much much better than most of us ever can, but you can be "the next Einstein" with only a fraction of his accomplishments. The main important thing IMHO is to have an idea that changes science the way his did. The following characteristics are helpful or necessary: - Imagination and creativity. - Ability to reason. - Ability to comprehend (to answer your own questions by researching and reading about it). - A very open mind (to challenge both what you learn and what you think, AND at the same time be able to accept both what you learn and what you think). - A high degree of interest. - The optimism and self-belief to persevere. - A passable education in sciences, math, writing, perhaps logic, etc. The reason that I think that ANYONE can come up with a great idea, is that all of these things can be improved. They're not fixed and inherent. Most people are not interested enough. Most people don't believe they'd could do something important. But that can be developed. One exception is "ability to reason", ie IQ, which apparently is not something you can change a lot. So when I say "ANYONE", I must say it only figuratively, because of course there are many many exceptions. We are each living on the cutting edge of history (ie the present) and can each choose to be an important part of it, in one way or another. --- Is being unrealistically optimistic about statistically unlikely things, good? - Yes, but only where that optimism helps you (inspires you, drives you, etc). If it makes you skip research, or get into fights on forums, it is a hinderance. - Yes, if it's okay to fail. Suppose a million people believed they were the next Einstein but only one of them could be technically next. It would be silly if all of them avoid trying because of the low chance that it could be them. In the end, if that million people tried their best, and one of them made the next big discovery, wouldn't that still be worth it despite all those who tried and failed? For humanity, certainly it would be worth it. I think it would be worth it to be one of those million who tried, even if I fail. So believing that I can do it is a good thing. Sorry if I've rehashed any of the debate that's already been done many times in other threads. --- Edit: I created this motivator to sum up a point I was thinking about...

Not only that, but only female ants fight (males are only "stud ants"). http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_soldier_ants_male_or_female Ants also have matriarchal societies, though they don't have a central control power structure. So it appears that war as a behavior can evolve regardless of gender ratios. So the question might be restated something like: Is humanity's current "level of war" an evolutionary advantage rather than a disadvantage? And would it remain so if the gender ratio was severely different? If 'yes', then perhaps there will be just as much war in our inevitable future world where women have found and implemented a way to live (just not peacefully) without any men.

We (humans for all of history) live in a weak gravitational field, and thus in essentially "flat" space-time, correct? And the curvature of that spacetime has been constant throughout history (to the limits of our ability to measure it, at any time in history)? Is it possible to observe Earth from a location in a weaker gravitational field ("flatter spacetime") and observe that what we see as "flat" appears curved from that perspective? Then, would geometry appear different? Would a unit circle on Earth appear to have a circumference other than 2Pi when measured from this "flatter" perspective? Or are we basically already so perfectly flat that there would be no difference, and Pi would be the same value because it is based on "perfect flatness" or something like that??? Or are geometrical constants such as Pi not even dependent on something like "relative flatness"?

Yes, the poll could have been clearer and without gaps in the answers. Part of the poll's purpose is to figure out how grandiose (not necessarily unrealistic) our expectations are. Your post sums it up, for you. I think that having NEW ideas that are correct and important constitutes making an important discovery. So that option's good, except that it doesn't exactly express what you wrote. However, I can't think of how to perfect the wording of the poll. I'm more interested in where people expect their ideas to take them, rather than how realistic those expectations are. Personally, I think that posting an idea with a sincere belief that it is correct comes from never having experienced the proper development of an idea in a way that can answer questions about it (and inevitably having those answers change the idea). I think that assuming a specific idea is correct often indicates having a limited view of the alternatives; once you see how investigating an idea can open up a tonne of alternatives that you hadn't even imagined, it's harder to take ideas for granted after that. I like to think that ideas can be "good" and yet completely wrong, if answering questions about it refines the idea rather than eroding it to nothing. Posting a crazy idea might be just a starting point for it. I think that unrealistic goals can be good, but they need to be balanced with realism and an acceptance of possible (maybe likely) failure. Having a goal of winning a gold medal in the olympics is admirable. Having a goal of winning the lottery is foolish.

Thank you DrmDoc. I believe your post essentially proves my theory. Yes, that seems correct. However, thoughts can exist in some form without brain activity. For example, you can write out a thought. Knowledge or information can be expressed and passed from one person to another in different forms. Not all of those are "thoughts", however surely a lot of what makes up our thoughts comes from an external source. For example, we think in a language we didn't invent (typically). So some aspects of our thoughts are not created entirely within a single brain. Similarly, if I'm pondering an idea that someone else has come up with, some part of my thoughts comes from them. A teacher once described the brain as analogous to a computer, where not all of the thoughts we process are our own. Essentially, we can "run other people's programs" on our brain computers... this may be as simple as for example contemplating the ideas of some great philosopher. I don't actually know anything about consciousness, but it seems that a part of it manifests thusly -- in a language that's learned, incorporating ideas that have been learned. Say for example I wrote out all of my thoughts and ideas into a book. Then a thousand years from now, suppose someone read the book and meditated on it with such focus that they tried to think only what was written. Does their consciousness have anything to do with what came from the book? Or are the "contents of thoughts" merely data, while consciousness itself is just the state of brain: That it is switched on and operating and thinking thoughts (regardless of what they may be)? Does consciousness require self-awareness? And does self-awareness require the learning of some set of information? If yes to both, there may be some component of consciousness that is external to our selves???

I'm curious as to where my own beliefs and expectations are relative to my "peers". This poll is aimed mainly at fellow speculators for which I assume the following are true: - The topic you're speculating on is not related to your main area of work/study (unless working independently full-time on your theories). - You're more interested in developing a new idea on a topic than understanding all existing knowledge on the topic. Thanks for your input!

I had some ideas bouncing around in my head, when I suddenly realized this could only happen if the ideas were particles. These new particles are called "ideatons" and all consciousness is made up of them. Yes, I know the theory sounds obvious, but science requires incontrovertible proof and also numbers, so I went and discovered the empirical evidence of ideatons! What I did is: I weighed my head when it was empty, and then weighed it again when I was thinking some particularly "heavy" thoughts. I had to compensate for all the other "stuff" in my head (skull, hair, small amounts of air, etc), and I had to estimate the number of ideatons that made up the thoughts I was thinking. Then, dividing by the speed of thought (which obviously is c), I came up with an estimate that the mass of an ideaton is on the order of 10^27 kg. This estimate may be off by a bit, but it nevertheless satisfies the mathematical requirement of science ("There must be some math in a theory."), which proves that ideatons are REAL. Since ideatons are heavier than most other particles, I deduced that mass is made up of thought. Therefore, the universe is made up entirely of conscious particles, thinking thought energy back and forth. And since "great minds think alike", as in "together", it is thought energy that brings things together. This completely explains gravity. As in, "when a plan comes together." Objects are thoughts, and moving objects are plans... as in, they're planning on going somewhere. Since you can think about where a thought is going, that's how science is able to make predictions. This completely explains the Future and the signs of the zodiac. (This paragraph has been edited to make more sense.) That universal truth, "I think, therefore I am", also applies to the universe. It is a great day in history that I am able to publish this theory here in the Speculations forum, however I am a little sad that there are now no longer any mysteries in the universe.

Uh, I guess you gave some good examples linking women to war. But it's not about good vs evil, or women vs men, or stereotypes or unfair generalization. Men tend to have more testosterone. Testosterone levels are linked to aggression. Aggression is linked to war. A hypothesis that (a lot) fewer men would result in less war, is a good one. I expect that it's true. It might be false... perhaps the link between aggression and war is superficial. Perhaps war is inevitable, and any group will tend toward war as much as any other. But I don't think that's true. I think that if you removed all the males from a group, females would naturally fill any of the necessary roles that the removed males previously had, as well as some of the unnecessary roles. I don't think war is necessary or natural (though conflict in general appears natural), and I don't see any reason why women would maintain war at the same levels that the world does now (with war currently being dominated by males). Some possible indicators: - Do societies predominated by women tend to be significantly more or less prone to physical conflict? (Lesbos and the Amazons being examples of either side of the argument, but I don't know what is history and what is myth). - Do societies with female leaders tend to engage significantly more or less in war? (This may be more correlation than cause, as warring nations may prefer male leaders rather than that female leaders are better at avoiding war). I'm fairly certain that there's a strong link between men and war that is more than coincidence or circumstance. However, I don't want to bother doing the research and it's possible I am biased due to stereotype.

I think there would be less war (fewer wars, or smaller or less destructive). I think women are less inclined toward physical aggression. I was recently pondering an idea that matriarchies might be a more natural societal power structure in the absence of physical conflict, for humans and other animals as well. I think that if there was less war, there would be more women in power. So a decrease in the influence of men might be enough... you wouldn't have to get rid of men completely! I definitely think there is a correlation between men in power and the prevalence of war, but a causal relation between the two may go both ways. A group of animals that has more conflict may desire more male leaders, and a group that has more men may result in more conflict. I suspect that past conflicts in human history have allowed men to gain more power, changing matriarchal societies into patriarchal ones. Then, once in power, those in power tend to want to stay there, so they may prolong or seek out additional conflict to perpetuate their "usefulness". This may be intentional (as with "war presidents") or not (aggressive leaders may simply be naturally aggressive even in the absence of conflict). That is, patriarchies perpetuate war, and wars perpetuate patriarchies. There are probably cases to support this idea, but I don't know if it's strong enough to claim it's true in general, and certainly it's not true of all men and women as individuals.

This explains the true motivation for the main conjecture: lack of understanding of existing theories. If you don't understand why planets would tend to be round, it may seem like there is no existing explanation and any new idea is valuable. You could spend a lot of time searching for evidence that your conjecture is true, and will more likely come across some contradiction that makes it impossible. However, I think it would be a lot easier to research other answers to the questions you (and I) are guessing the answers to: Why do planets tend to be round? Why does rotating debris tend to form a disc? Then, I suspect that you will find that things your conjecture explains have much better explanations, and there is no reason to believe in your theory. OR, perhaps you will find some problem with the existing theory that you can explain better, and if you allow yourself to rewrite your theory completely to incorporate or at least match accepted science, it could lead to something.

Yes, and I was trying to help him out with that, but I think I've at best done a disservice. I was hoping to provide some possible ways to think through the problems with this conjecture. But my answers to your questions are nothing but a way to ignore the questions, and there's no evidence to support my answers so we're left where we started, and they "handwave" past problems that could, if properly explored, show that the conjecture is false. I think a lot of pseudoscientists will latch on to other wild conjectures (or some very specific interpretation of other theories), that align well in some specific ways with their own beliefs, which lets them "believe it" more strongly. (Personally, I seem to be connecting all my ideas with the holographic principle, lately.) I should not be helping others make this mistake.

I disagree with the theory but I don't like to see an idea killed by open questions. 1. It could be that the "planet birthing" process occurs deep within the sun, involving a process that makes use of only some portion of the sun's matter. Some number of factors could influence the size and composition of each "child". 2. Births are explosive events (think Alien). Supernovae and solar winds already let stellar matter escape gravity... explosive births could too. 3. It could be possible that there are multiple means of planet formation. 4. The planet formation process might be directly related to the sun's rotation. 5. Change in planet orbits may occur in short periods due to some phenomena we haven't witnessed in our history. The births may be accompanied by a "belch" that pushes everything away from the sun. All that said, there is no evidence that any of these answers or any of the original statements are true. Meanwhile, other alternatives (planet formation disks) are evident, much more plausible, and have fewer unanswered questions. I don't see any reason why someone would believe this theory. What problem does it solve or advantage does it have over other planet formation theories? I've seen a youtube video describing the theory that the Earth is expanding. The video argued that the continents fit together perfectly on a smaller sphere. It's an interesting idea, but it's not accepted and probably debunked and doesn't have the supporting evidence that tectonic plate theories have. But if you want to get on board with other crackpot theories, you might search for that. Or on the other hand... you could skip youtube and instead check out some science books or even wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia....etary_formation. Edit: I remember at the time reading that Neal Adams is... well, let's say not reputable. When I googled this video google suggested search term "expanding earth debunked". I would suggest looking into that before getting too into this.

Wouldn't this imply that a neutron is massless? Neutron stars would be a problem then ("a spoonful weighs as much as a mountain"). If neutron stars are actually observed and not just predicted (I figure it's the former), how would they be explained? Electrons have a (relatively small) mass. Does your conjecture imply that adding electrons would decrease mass, in opposition to what is observed?

Fascinating! Thanks! No, actually I'm only interested in dimension 3 but assumed it made more sense to figure it out in one dimension first. Oops. I don't get why the integral converges on finite balls centered at 0. I don't get the connection with random walks. Is the integral related to the probability of eventually returning to a finite segment in 1D, or area in 2D, or volume in 3D? Does that mean that for any arbitrarily small value of epsilon, a random walk starting at location x,y will return to within a distance of epsilon away from x,y, with infinite probability (given infinite time) -- but as soon as you add in a third dimension the probability becomes finite? What happens with [math]f(x) = \frac {1}{r^2}[/math] in 3 dimensions? Very interesting. I may need to crack out some math books and think about these things awhile before I understand all this.

I haven't done integrals for over a decade and I'm having trouble with them and my math skills are inadequate The function f(x) = 1/x^2 has a singularity at x=0. The definite integral of 1/x^2 is divergent, if it includes x=0. However, the integral from 1 to infinity, of 1/x^2, is 1. Are there examples of functions that have a singularity (where the function approaches infinity), with a convergent integral? For example of what I'm trying to get is... 1/x^2 remains non-zero for all finite values of x. Along the x axis, I imagine there's basically an infinitesimally tall rectangle that is infinitely wide, and yet it has 0 volume. Yet along the y axis at x=0, 1/x^2 is undefined and a similar infinitesimally wide rectangle has infinite volume. Is there any function, or any way, to basically "take what we have on the x axis and get it on the y axis as well", so that we have a function that stretches to infinity along both axises but has a convergent integral everywhere? (If you know of related Sage expressions that would also be appreciated thanks!)