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The Universe As Hologram
Several readers sent in news of theoretical work bolstering the proposition that the universe may be a hologram. The story begins at the German experiment GEO600, a laser inteferometer looking for gravity waves. For years, researchers there have been locating and eliminating sources of interference and noise from the experiment (they have not yet seen a gravity wave). For months they have been puzzling over a source of noise they could not explain. Then Craig Hogan, a Fermilab physicist, approached them with a possible answer: that GEO600 may have stumbled upon a fundamental limit where space-time stops behaving like a smooth continuum and instead dissolves into "grains." The "holographic principle" suggests that the universe at small scales would be "blurry," its smallest features far larger than Planck scale, and possibly accessible to current technology such as the GEO600. The holographic principle, if borne out, could help distinguish among competing theories of quantum gravity, but "We think it's at least a year too early to get excited," the lead GEO600 scientist said.
Translating dense physics-speak is not my forte, but as I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong -- here goes. Einstein said that gravity is a linear (not discrete) force. What that means is that while it might decrease over distance, the effect never truly becomes zero. I think these guys are saying that it does, in fact, become zero. That is, gravity, contrary to Einstein's relativity equations... is discrete, like a particle, and not all like a wave (that can continue forever). Is that about right?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
> Amazing how things come full circle.
If by a 'full circle' you mean that you are able to identify one of the millions of ideas from the past that has, when interpreted in a certain way, certain superficial similarities with a theory in modern physics, then yes, amazing!
You need to read up more on the ideas surrounding a holographic universe. There are plenty of things on that that actually suggest that model as a reason for many of the phenomenon we observe. It isn't anti-science at all. Science generally advances quite a bit when "well, we can't see what we wanted to...we must have been wrong...we should try something else".
"Elements" are called elements because EARLY chemistry believed that all things were made up of a combination of elements in nature (earth, fire, water, etc). Of course over the years this was refined, and then refined again, and then once again refined some more. Atomic theory has come a LONG way from the expectation that all things were made out of the "elements of nature" through these constant refinements and NOT finding what we expected to find.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Ceci n'est pas une pipe?
It's incredible to my mind (inconceivable! :-P) that for all the intelligence and know-how of the ancient world, no one worked out a simple experiment to prove or disprove spontaneous generation!
Why would they need to? There were "experiments" going on all the time in the ancient world, just as there are in refrigerators all over the planet today. A piece of food would get left somewhere, and when it was found again, it would be covered with mold, maggots and flies. It was obvious.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Axioms are necessary before observation can even be trusted. How do you know what your observing isn't all an illusion?
Science starts with the proposition that the Universe is rational and can be observed in a rational and repeatable manner. Then the observations are worth making.
Philosophy starts with axioms. Science starts with observations.
No, science starts with the acceptance of the scientific method as a way to determine the "truth". It presupposes the accuracy of our senses, the non-arbitrariness of the universe, and even the notion that there is an external universe to study at all.
While many philosophic systems rest on axioms, those axioms are not arbitrary. They are invented, or discovered, because they logically explain the experiences of the philosopher. Philosophers use the scientific method to determine the axioms which underlie their systems. Without philosophy, there would be no way to argue that the scientific method was valid at all.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Physics is a subset of philosophy.
No, it's really not.
Yes, it really is. There's a reason that almost all nonmedical doctorate degrees carry the same title: Doctor of Philosophy. In its highest form, all human knowledge is similar--it requires human thought, and as such is inherently philosophy.
I think what you are referring to is Plato's "forms". The objects we encounter merely participate in the -ness of the perfect forms which reside in what is playfully (or pejoratively) called Plato's Heaven. So my chair is a chair because it has the property "chairness", that is, there is a perfect chair that resides outside of our perceptual reality that lends its form to my chair. It is a bit more detailed but that is the gist. Aristotle was right to abandon it.
And as for the comments below about the distinction between philosophy and physics, both Descartes and Newton were considered philosophers. Most contemporary philosophy, though, relies heavily on the natural sciences to support or confute philosophical theories. Philosophy of mind works with cognitive science, philosophy of language with various natural sciences, and metaphysics with chemistry, physics, mathematics, etc... I prefer Wittgenstein's definition of philosophy from the Tractatus. He calls philosophy an "activity" that is meant to sharpen and hone the critical thinking necessary in scientific inquiry. There are many cases where philosophical theories have been supported by scientific investigation just as many have been thrown out because certain scientific hypotheses do not support them.
This, along with Dark Matter, Dark Energy and String theory are typical untestable theories which scientists lately have been using to fill in holes in their own understanding of the nature of the universe. Rather than going back to the drawing board when a model does not work, they use a cop out like this one to fill in the blanks.
Actually, this theory was a predicted consequence of a combination of information theory, relativity and quantum theory before there was any evidence for it. This is not a "model didn't work, so let's invent something to account for it" scenario: this is a "model predicted something and it looks like we might have found it" scenario.
Physics is a subset of philosophy.
No, it's really not.
I hate to be so blunt, but you don't know what you are talking about. Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy. All the sciences have their origins in philosophy, and anyone who ignores this does so at their own peril (and shows their ignorance of both science and philosophy).
I say peril because it is easy to take empirical science for granted. Empiricism is an epistemological position that must be defended, and to ignore the fact that science is a branch of philosophy is to forget how fundamental epistemological assumptions are to science.
Knowledge in science doesn't just happen. You don't observe theories or laws, and even observation itself is tricky. To say that science is about observation is to be way too glib about science. Science is much, much more complicated than that, and deserves much more respect and reflection than you give it.
You see, most philosophers understand that. Many scientists don't. Even fewer nonscientists understand it.
I don't say any of this to belittle science; I am a scientist. I say it because science is much more complicated than "observation," and seeing it as a proper branch of philosophy recognizes that.
Please don't butcher quantum mechanics like that. It's not like there are details which are left unfixed; it's that certain notions are incompatible with each other.
For instance, it's not like a particle might have some particular momentum and velocity, but somehow the universe is just being lazy about deciding their values. Rather, the notion of having a definite momentum and definite position is contradictory.
QM is much weirder than you think.
While I won't argue with you that science was largely invented by philosophers (and of course I agree entirely that it has rendered large swathes of previously philosophy obsolete) I disagree entirely that this historical curiosity makes it a subset of philosophy. Like many intellectual fields, it's grown far beyond its roots. By way of analogy, modern science is no more a subset of philosophy than modern literature is a subset of epic poetry.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
That basic assumption of science, as I've explained elsewhere in this thread, is our default view of the world, based on our experiences from the moment we're born.
Saying "We basically experience the world as it really exists" amounts to one pretty serious assumption, whether or not you want to call it that.
In science, our assumptions are based on experimentation.
Not true. Several assumptions have to be made before experimentation is possible. The scientifc method itself is an assumption.
Until very recently, science was called natural philosophy.
And now it's not.
You missed the point. I wasn't making the claim that just because it was called "natural philosophy" that means science is philosophy. My point was that you should think about the REASONS why it was called natural philosophy. Who cares what we call it now?
Observation is not the core of any science. Although observation is important, it is not a sufficient condition for science. To understand science, you have to understand how theories are built and defended. We don't OBSERVE the laws of motion. We don't observe natural selection. We don't observe relativity. These are theories to explain observations. How we go from observation to real, meaty scientific knowledge is where the real interesting part is, and that requires philosophy. You can't just take it for granted because it "works" (after all, that would be circular, wouldn't it?)
It probably doesn't matter in this forum which definition you use; what matters most on the internet is that the other guy is wrong. (And if you think I'm talking about you, I'm not. It's the other guy who's actually wrong. We are right-on here. Yes sir! Go us. we rock.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.