Year: 2010

When watching last week’s BBC Horizon, I was disappointed to see the singularity and inflation still at the root of big bang theories. That’s despite the fact that two key subjects were brought up very early – causation itself (which is actually not discussed further), and the logical problem with the idea of time itself before the universe existed, if the whole universe (including time) does start with the big bang. So I watched it again.

OK, good to hear that it is mainstream to think that the current “universe” is a region of space-time that arose (through a big-bang event) in a pre-existing super-multi-universe …. hooray, multi-verses are no longer a quantum hack, they are indeed connected by time and n-dimensional space and the laws of physics. (Interesting that people just put aside the “first-cause” problem – in accepting pre-existing / always-existed super-universe and of many possible adjacent and successive universes, no beginning, no end, but hey, ho.) Weak to suggest this is an evolutionary / Darwinian model simply because this (each) universe has an ancestor, chicken and egg, unless there is also some evidence of genetic inheritance, but an attractive analogy. [Post Note : genetic inheritance is one part of Rick’s argument – see links below. The new universe does inherit from the state (asymmetries / constants / boundary conditions / etc.) of physical laws from the previous one in which the bang occurs – so no mystery on meaningless coincidences (except first-cause of course).]

But why, oh why, to keep looking for radical speculative solutions to the “cause” of the big bang, without going back to existing known physics explanations, that were only dropped to make way for inflation / size and dark-matter / energy / cosmological-constant discrepancies in deriving the standard model ? (Negative gravity, events inside black-holes, collisions between branes, you name it ?)

Mersini-Houghton’s wave solution sounded the most convincing, but not clear why string-theory was mentioned ? Insufficient material in the programme to know anything about the actual theory she is using other than first-principle-wave-equations with no physical boundary conditions. [* Post Note: Boscovich UFT ?]

(Roll-call : Kaku, Linde, Singh,  Smolin, Turok, Penrose, Nichol, Giaimi, Mersini-Houghton)

Actually I only went back to this previous edition of Horizon on-line because of a random Facebook contact with Rick Ryals today, that led me to look back at his three key knols and the various arxiv references from there (below). Having got rid of the “preposterous” conjectures, the cosmologists need to wind back to fundamental physics in the one consistent super-multi-universe again. We’ve got so focussed on the “creation” god vs science debate in the current climate, that we have failed to notice that the workings of the current super / multi-universe are no longer dependent on any attempt to explain something from nothing. Cosmologists have forgotten that they’re not really physicists. Something rather than nothing is still a massively interesting question, but not a scientific one thank god.

Physics is science, and cosmogeny is metaphysics or theology again. Phew!

Rick’s links …. the order of reading is important …
Or if you can read only one, read How Politics Kills Science

Rick Ryals’ – Einstein’s Universe, No “Biggest Blunder”
Rick Ryals’ – Goldilocks Enigma, Cosmological Constant from First Principles 
**>> Rick Ryals’ – Anthropic Principle, How Politics Kills Science
Brandon Carter’s – seminal work on Anthropic Principles
Richard Lieu – cosmology is groping in the dark unscientifically
Larry Kraus – the energy of empty space that isn’t zero
P Z Myers, Jerry Coyne & Sam Harris – Religion Pollutes Science
Peter Rowlands’ Dirac ReWrite – From Zero to Infinity

And that Larry Kraus quote, quoted by Rick from the above,

“… there appears to be energy of empty space that isn’t zero! This flies in the face of all conventional wisdom in theoretical particle physics. It is the most profound shift in thinking, perhaps the most profound puzzle … … when we look out at the universe, there doesn’t seem to be enough structure — not as much as inflation would predict … … when you look at CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That’s crazy. We’re looking out at the whole universe. There’s no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic … … telling us that all of science is wrong and we’re the center of the universe, or maybe the data is simply incorrect, or … maybe there’s something wrong with our theories on the larger scales.”

“Our” theories notice. Our position as observers on earth IS privileged (as observers that is, observers that had to be here because of the laws of physics, but not because of us as creators, except insofar as we “construct” our world-view, yes, even you physicists and theologians; philosophers already knew it).

[Post Note : updated Rick’s links since Google Knol went down, and highlighted the key link.]

Of no great significance … but last weekend we had a Class of 72 reunion of Guisborough Grammar School, and next weekend “we are flying down to Rio” for a conference and a few days R&R. Yesterday that “Rio” meme led me to dig out and play Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain. Today I see Bryan Ferry interviewed about his latest album Olympia, which of course mentions that original hit and ends with a photo of Ferry performing Virginia Plain, in the summer of ’72.

[Post Note: piling on the coincidences … Steve Brooks someone I’ve not seen in almost 40 years until the reunion two weeks ago, mentioned above, turns up at a Hamsters gig in Normanby last night. Turns out he’s not only a long term Hamsterhead, he’s also the owner of a left-hand drive US sports car; an AC Cobra in his case. Great performance by  Sza Sza’s 17 year-old nephew Matt Billups on drums standing in for Rev Otis, whose heart-op looks like it was successful yesterday. Only caught half the set, due to flying in from my Oslo trip, but they were on form. Last time I saw them – other than the Mad, Bad & Dangerous gigs with Wilko – was at The Brook in Southampton, and they seemed stale and tired, so it was great to hear Slim on form.]

A couple of years old, this New Scientist article on how brain activity is on “the edge of chaos”, in a state of “self-organized-criticality”. Neatly joins up two adages, of life being just complicated enough and the sweet spot being at the edge of chaos.

Hat tip to Johnnie Moore for his link via this Transversalinflections blog, which picks up on the analogue (in the original article) to the firing of neurones being akin to the periodic avalanches on a progressively growing sand-pile. Designing to meta-stability being an art. A question of scalable efficiency in massively granular & connected systems …. maximum effect for the smallest input …. a whole world in a grain of sand. (The tennis player returning the unreturnably fast service, the mis-timed leg-breaker in football, the control systems of unstable aircraft, etc …)

Research on psychedelics as part of the neuroscience of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is not new, but activity seems to be growing in this space again. Four blog links here from a couple of months ago, that bring a number of threads into one place.

Neurocritic, Neuroskeptic, Minds-Hacks,
and a potted summary from Neurophilosophy.
Plus the Shulgin (Erowid) PiKHaL and TiKHaL references.

Interesting reading whatever your perspective.

Excellent edition of Start The Week this morning guided by Andrew Marr, in stark contrast to John Humphrys’ incompetence interviewing his victims on the Today programme immediately before. Let’s hope we can forget Humphrys and talk about the balanced Religion vs Politics discussion between Stanley Hauerwas, Mary Warnock, Ray Tallis and John Gummer.

Note Start The Week is not podcast, so you’ll need to catch the repeat this evening.

Too much to summarize effectively beyond The Golden Rule / Stewardship / Human Nature being the fundamentals, but given the dangers of “dichotomising a continuum” and the apparent breadth of positions across these four, a very successful debate with much balance and agreement (and jokes from Hauerwas). Despite focussing initially on life and death (assisted termination – both start and end of life cases) it managed to get itself onto transcendent moral principles. Even Gummer, one in a long and intriguing line of Catholic converts, had the main point that the real problem was any one of them believing they had a monopoly on sense when it comes to the fundamentals. In fact the real debate is how to fit agreement on fundamentals into world governance without the slippery slope away from “the sanctity of life” and “the way of truth” being a part of it – checks and balances. (Theocracy clearly isn’t it, thank god. religion has no place in politics.)

“When Bush came to power I concluded he was sincere about his Christian faith. I also concluded it showed how little sincerity had to do with Christianity.” Hauerwas.

The only view missing from the debate was a PoPoMo like Zizek or Eagleton maybe. Agreement is quite straighforward when people stop demanding straighforward answers to simplistic questions – you listening Humphrys – in all these debates on fairness and priorities ? (Example – why is cybercrime significant ? System complexity that’s why. Ranking four political priorities in a list – Terorrism, Cybercrime, Natural Disaster and Foreign War – is a childish exercise if the list doesn’t recognize the holistic moral system they are all a part of.)

Now I think I understand what the Higgs particle is, and why it’s interesting. Lie groups will take a little more work. E8 has beautiful symmetry though.

Everyone takes pictures with phones these days, but these are pictures of people with phones. Particularly love the adjacent images 13 (Beatles) & 14 (Katharine Hepburn).

A Hard Day’s Night meets The Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Hat tip to The Slate. Talking of which, I love the “scientific” treatment of this taboo subject, and this “commercial” treatment of used books.