tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post8422535229945516062..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: Causal Dynamical Triangulationshederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-58236850925542352882008-08-29T08:08:00.000-07:002008-08-29T08:08:00.000-07:00Yeah, there's speculation now that there is some k...Yeah, there's speculation now that there is some kind of "stuff" where we once thought there was an absence of matter--anti-matter, whatever. "Black stuff." Too small to be measured, but there. Like the "aether." Doesn't give off light, but it's there. Very weird.<BR/><BR/>If there is no one to hear a sound, can there "be" sound? Maybe in the Wittgensteinian sense, it doesn't exist without a perceiver. And then, we can't "talk" about it without distancing ourselves from the reality, or by assigning surrogates (symbols or definitions). Only in the theoretical sense, I think. In the abstract. <BR/><BR/>I think that a lot of what astronomers are postulating about the heavens will turn out to be a misinterpretation of the data they use. If time is indeed fluid, then large extents of it might be subject to exaggeration or distortion. We are clearly a part of something happening that happened so long ago that what is happening to us at this moment is part of an aftermath that has occurred eons in the future ("after" the events we can see): The future (us) looking so far into the past, while the future (that which we can't see, because the light takes so long to reach us) will have happened so long after that. A human life seems such a minute blip (or sputter) in the void. <BR/><BR/>We are light. Everything we can see and touch is light. It seems to be the measure of everything. In a religious sense, it is so powerful a concept--so far reaching in its complexity--that it really does achieve the status of miracles. Or, at least that's the word we can use to describe something so baffling and impressive, but which we can't easily get our minds around.<BR/><BR/>Sputter, sputter.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-7871310709734373032008-08-28T14:22:00.000-07:002008-08-28T14:22:00.000-07:00Actually, I think you could argue that exploding s...Actually, I think you could argue that exploding suns <I>do</I> make noise: they create an outbound pressure wave in the surrounding medium - you can hardly say, "atmosphere", but there is stuff out there, and it can be compressed in the aftermath of an explosion. <BR/><BR/>There just isn't any entity available with sensory organs that can interpret those pressure waves and turn them into sound, the way our ears do. <BR/><BR/>At least, no entity that we know about.hederahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-50158717334956570582008-08-27T08:23:00.000-07:002008-08-27T08:23:00.000-07:00Theoretical physicists speak in the language of hi...Theoretical physicists speak in the language of higher mathematics. Few of us can follow them to that rarefied level of discourse, and so must take what they imply in their condescending descriptions on faith (I don't mean condescension in the negative sense here.) My wife and I have tried reading Feynman's lectures, just to get a sense of the insights, but it's nearly impossible, since the payoff usually is a formula, whose beauty and simplicity are lost on us. String theory, for instance, sounds intriguing, but the mathematical reasons for its theoretical basis are far beyond my comprehension. <BR/><BR/>What I find fascinating is that our perception of what the universe is "about" is limited to the dimensionality of our nervous system(s): Empirical measure, as you point out, works very well within the closed system of our earth-based experience; but it's perfectly possible to be completely taken in by data, as for instance when the desert horizon appears like a body of water on a hot day. In what sense, along these lines, do many of the astronomical phenomena present similarly deceptive views? What is "sound" for instance, where there is no "atmosphere" to transmit it? Exploding suns make no noise? If the universe is limitless, then we are literally no-where. The human mind boggles at these notions. One thing's sure: If we can't put our own house in order, it's unlikely we're going to have access to a replacement.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com