Information just means in formation. A volume of space may contain a Bekenstein entropy, but this number doesn't show how the matter inside it is in form. Black holes are not bold with three hairs only. There is more than just mass, angular momentum and charge. A black hole made of peanuts is different from a strawberry hole.

Likewise for our brain. Our brain can resonate with all physical structures in the world. It doesn't compute on zeroes and ones like a computer does. A constellation of ones and zeroes in a computer is not comparable to constellations of ion currents on the neural network. A constellation of zeroes and ones in a computer refers to other structures. It's us assigning meaning to these patterns. A random sequence of zeroes and ones on a memory chip weighs a tiny weeny bit less than an ordered sequence of them. The random structure can be compared to a hot gass, while the most ordered state (say all ones, or 101010...) can be compared to a zero temperature solid. The interesting combinations, containing intermediate information and mass, lay between these extremes. But they can only get meaning if we assign it to them. Contrary to patterns of currents running on the brain, which have intrinsic meaning. That's an important difference with computers, together with the difference how currents flow. In a computer this happens by externally applying a voltage, while the current pulses in the brain run rather autonomously, following paths of least resistance (a pulse will easier run on a neuron path with strengthened synaptic connections). In the brain, there is no program pushing the pulses around.

What am I saying? I say that the physical and metaphysical are mutually dependent.

So we need gods so that people can go to war about which is the true god and give the universe meaning — Sir2u

No, we don't. All gods are true gods. But if people wanna fight about it, it's up to them.

Before you can make this statement, I think you should submit some proof that the universe either should have, needs, or is somehow dependent on having a meaning. — Sir2u

The universe can't exist because of natural laws only. It must have been created. So it has a divine spark in it. Without that spark it would be meaningless.

What a boring thread.

Biosemiosis is then development coupled to evolution. You have the extra thing of a code, an epistemic cut, and thus the emergence of a Darwinian filter, a selective memory, that can act as Pattee's rate independent information. — apokrisis

The epistemic cut is exactly where we are situated. The physical world is projected into our world of the brain, which analogously represents and actively shapes that world to which it belongs. There is however an element needed to accomplish this and the materialistic approach lacks this element. It's the element of the soul.

It would be an empty meaningless universe without gods. Now that's proof.

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.” — Tom Storm

That's what I mean. His truth. You really think our genes are up to something? We just employ them. They are completely altruistic... :razz:

How can materialism ever explain I see a world in colors while it looks like a dark world in which once in a while a ray of sunlight shows itself? A darkness due to a materialialistic outlook.

For the sake of argument, let's assume a universal mind that computes the universe continuously at the quantum level — magritte

How is that computing done?

Dawkins is an altruist - he does not take the facts of nature as an ought only as an is. — Tom Storm

He doesn't know the facts of nature for a starter. The facts of nature he perceives and thinks to be facts is what he advocates for and wants others to perceive as well. Selfish, that is, in agreement with his memetic take.

All the omnis of God contradict each other. His omnipotence contradicts his omnobenevolence. His omnipresence the likewise. His omniscience contradicts all the others. The poor thing is completely paralyzed.

Okay parrot boy

I, for instance, could kick the head off my cat right now. — Bartricks

No. You can't. Same for God.

but it'd be like putting high performance petrol into a horse. — Bartricks

You might better rethink that. Your horse could get killed. Or is that not what you think?

God can't destroy the universe. He's not omnipotent. And even if he could (which would make him evil, cause omnibenevolent creatures can't do wrong), he can't show his omnipotence to me. Which makes him even less omnipotent. Squeek squeek! Tjilp tjilp!

And believe me, some of the thoughts I am having about you are ones you don't want to know about. — Bartricks

Now I wanna know! Tell me! I won't get angry!

No I didn't. Describing a thought is not the same as showing you it. I am aware of my thoughts in a way that you are not - I have an introspective awareness of them that you lack. That's not an essential feature of a thought - God could show us his thoughts if he wanted. But I personally lack the ability to give you an introspective awareness of my thoughts. All I can do is tell you about them. And believe me, some of the thoughts I am having about you are ones you don't want to know about. — Bartricks

And more thoughts...

Christ, you really don't get this do you? — Bartricks

Thanks for the compliment! If he would destroy the universe he would be ultimately evil. So he can't destroy it because he's omnibenevolent. So he's not omnipotent. Simple as that.

can't show you my thoughts. — Bartricks

You just showed one.

God could show us his omnipotence. — Bartricks

No, he can't. His omnibenevolence forbids that. So he's not omnipotent.

I use the term God to denote a person who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent — Bartricks

But if a God can't show us his omnipotence, how can he be omnipotent?

Dawkins is an altruist - — Tom Storm

Someone claiming that the ultimate truth is organisms being machines programmed to pass on genes or memes has a loose screw somewhere in his machinery. Comparable to God psychotic schizo manias.

Information theory counts the degrees of freedom in nature. It reduces reality to its simplest possible 'bits". In physics, this cashes out as Planck-scale materiality - the probability of being able to measure a definite difference. A bare fluctuation. An entropic microstate. — apokrisis

What black hole entropy doesn't account for is what forms entered the hole. The entropy of a black hole formed out of a bike is the same as one formed out of a tree (if both have the same mass). This entropý has it all backwards and lays at the foundation of emergent gravity, which has it backwards too.

Sure, we could say, for instance, that geocentrism is optimal, perfect and rational as long as you ignore all of the evidence — Theorem

In general relativity, the Earth [becould[/b] be considered the center of the universe. Like the Sun or the center of the galaxy. Motion is relative.

Not at all, many questions are still to be answered in cosmology. — universeness

The only thing I haven't figured out is why the universe doesn't run backwards....

It could be that you think that the only reason for me asking such questions is due to my lack of knowledge of the detailed physics involved in your hypothesis and it would take too long for you to explain it to me. If that's the case then say so. I will accept that such could well be the case. — universeness

Einstein said that if you can't explain your physical theory to a six year old, your theory is wrong. Which is something else than Feynman said. I agree with Einstein.

This 'virtual photo' is emitted by one particle and absorbed by the other yes? — universeness

That's the popular image yes. But you can consider it like this:
Your image of the closed wiggly line is right. An uncoupled virtual photon. They are omnipresent, not moving forward or backwards in time. A real electron couples to it (also virtual electrons, also closed lines, can). This causes a potential around the electron (called a photon condensate). Another electron can couple too and this transforms the closed propagator (or in time oscillating, propagating virtual photon) into one between two interacting, say, electrons. A first order Feynman diagram. A second order diagram includes an extra virtual electron or photon (two extra verices). A third order two extra of them (four extra vertices), and so on. These are thought math tricks in qft, according to most (but not all) physicists. I consider them real. A non-zero particle size expels the need for renormalization. Indeed, by means of tiny curled up extra dimensions, like a tiny cylinder on a thin tube.

You just called it evidence — T Clark

I don't. But they do. I speak for those saying that personal evidence is proof. It's too easy. If they had better evidence than personal experience. Is the very fact that I think about God evidence? Is the very existence of the universe evidence? Does their existence even need evidence? Nuff said...

When a really intelligent scientists such as Sean Carroll or Carlo Rovelli and many of their contemporaries cannot prove exactly how the Universe works, — universeness

They would be out of a job!

Physics, metaphysics, ontology, religion, etc, they all belonged to philosophy.

Just left some context out... :smile:

Great imagery! Somewhat similar:



Epicycles spring to mind.

questions like whether "the fundamental quanta are in-fact 'field excitements' and have 'no definte edge' and are 'cloud like' etc." are abstract ideas and belong to metaphysics, — Alkis Piskas

I couldn't agree less! That's why I find it rather strange that these concepts are seen as physical reality. :smile:

Why won't you tell me what you mean by 'particle coupling,' for example? — universeness

The story continues. Let me say this. In a Feynman diagram there is a virtual photon between two charged particles. A wiggly line taking care of both changes in momenta of the charged particles. The vertex is where the coupling happens. The virtual photon gives both particles a push or pull. Then it returns to its solitary timeless state, a closed wiggly line (representing a sole virtual photon, uncoupled). The charge of a particle is a measure of the coupling strength and it's a generator to induce local phase transformations of both electrons. This is how the EM field is introduced, but the electron doesn't generate an EM field, that's misleading. The EM field is always there in virtual form and charge couples to it and can even cause real photons to exist (say during the fall to a lower orbital in hydrogen; during inflation, real photons can be pulled out of their virtual state without charge).

Kis who?

Metaphysica. You can't discuss this on physics fora.

Yes. The description is allright. But the electron's charge is not pulled into a spherical form. That's why the hopping image is fine. The smeared out thing is the wavefunction. Electron hops around in it. The space around the nucleus gives a potential. The electron is continuously bound to virtual photons between itself and the proton.

It can look smeared out if it hops like mad from one place to another. Prrrrrr.... hophophophophop..... If you imagine the s orbital, it's not everywhere at once but shortly after another it's here, there, there, making up the wavefunction.

I think all of the specs together ARE THE ELECTRON. The electron is not a single sphere in orbit around the nucleus. Its a 'smear' or 'cloud' orbiting the sphere, but a cloud or smear of what? — universeness

How can it be smeared out?

Well, the hydrogen atom is in the link in the OP. — universeness

Yeah, I saw that later...

If the fundamental quanta are in-fact 'field excitements' and have 'no definte edge' and are 'cloud like' etc then does this not open all sorts of other possibilities for whats really happening during experiments like the double slit? Maybe its true that if you do fire a photon, one at a time towards two slits that due to the fact that there are none of its type near it, its cloud like structure spreads out and passes through both slits. This is pure conjecture on my part and I await and expect the suggestion to be quickly dismissed but I just suggest it merely as one of those 'other possibilities' I am trying to percieve. Any others? — universeness

Ah! The photograph of hydrogen. See all the specks? The electron hops constantly between all of them. Within the bounds of the wavefunction. QFT is difficult to use for a bound state. QFT only works for particles that are initially and finally free (asymptotically free). The position and velocity are well defined at all times in this picture of QM.

Most physicists wont agree, like with Bohm. The math shows exactly the same outcomes though. You could e do an experiment though to discern. But it's a though one.

When you view the image of the hydrogen atom, why do you think the 'electron/cloud orbit' looks like it is made up of many much smaller quanta? and why does some of this quanta seem to 'break into' the 'blue area' between these concentric circular areas? — universeness

What quanta?

We were thinking of hydrogen at the same time!

But what makes it 'hop'? and what do you mean by 'hop'? Are you relating this to the proposed motion of an electron in orbit around a nucleus? A jump from an outer orbit to an orbit closer to the nucleus?
Does your particle jump right or left, then move forward for a time and then jump left or right again — universeness

The particle hops around non-locally, instantaneously. The wavefunction is made of hidden variables. These surround the particle and you could even consider them space itself. These variables determine the evolution of the particle. If the overall velocity of the wavefunction is zero, the particle hops around the center of the wavefunction, like in the lowest energy orbital of hydrogen. If the electron is in a higher energy orbital the orbital has angular velocity, angular momentum. If that orbital decays to the ground state (non-instantaneous, it's no collapse) the electron couples to the virtual field. It is described as the creation of a photon, while the electron decaying to the ground state actually couples to a virtual photon, which breaks up from its circular shape to become an open stretched state which sooner or later can couple to another state and excite that state (say, another electron in hydrogen). After that the photon returns to its virtual state (so it's not absorbed by that electron, but only gave it a real kick).