• apokrisis
    7.3k
    If charges rotate wider, the magnetic moment changes. The superstrong color force keeps the prekns together, like the quarks in hadrons. So the Lagrangian is QCD like. Charged hadrons have various magnetic moments too.Haglund

    This is just babble. The question was about how the charges could rotate wider - in some hand-waving analogy to electron orbits - when you are also relying on (some equally hand-waving) assertion that the charges are bound by an analogous strong force.

    As usual, your replies substantiate nothing. They are slogans. When pressed, you can deliver neither specific arguments nor useful references.
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    It's not a matter of using maths explicitly, but that most of the concepts in mathematical physics require a grasp of the maths in order to understand.Wayfarer

    But as physics moved from Europe to the USA and increasingly under the patronage of the military-industrial complex then it became much more a matter of shut up and calculate.Wayfarer

    I think the irony is rather that mathematical physics has become an industry of ill-motivated speculation. The academies are pumping out post-grads trained in the art of spinning intricate mathematical tales like preons and leptoquarks. You can claim any kind of "metaphysics" as long as it is presented in the accepted mathematical forms as some kind of "calculation".

    And even the lay public ought to have an interest in whether this is a good thing or not, given that is their tax payer money that funds the great particle collider cathedrals, and them that are expected to shower prestige upon the priestly class of researchers.

    So to be a critic - someone doing metaphysics in the modern era - demands being able understand the mathematical ideas well enough to call obvious bullshit on branes, cycling cosmologies, or whatever.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    I find the philosophical musings of physicists about time and material causality to be interesting. Who's to say for sure what parts are BS
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    Who's to say for sure what parts are BSGregory

    It would be about being able to make a scholarly case either way.
  • Haglund
    802
    Logical causations or necessities seem to lack an element of time or matter.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Physicists are often undercover philosophers and they are free to express alternate pictures of reality as long as each thesis is self consistent. Some might seem outlandish but reality might be outlandish
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    Sure. So what is the problem? Apart from needing to be consistent with the facts as well.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    We don't know enough about the universe to verify much of what they write. I've been enjoying the books of Michio Kaku lately. To a medieval thinker those books would certainly be philosophy in large part
  • Haglund
    802


    Precisely. That's what physics is. Philosophizing about nature. Math is just the quantitave description of ingredients. And a recipe to cook them. Some ingredients have zero nutritious value though. A cake of air follows. I think strings and branes are such ingredients.
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    We don't know enough about the universe to verify much of what they write.Gregory

    Like what wild idea in particular? I’m sure that if you can think of an example, you will find wide discussion of its merits. There will be an informed assessment to be had in terms of the risk/reward of pursuing that line of thought.
  • Haglund
    802
    So you were hand-waving. Yet even my quick search found such consideration from 2004 - https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/0102242.pdfapokrisis

    That's from 2004! I talk about the recent muon g2 experiment. Divergent from the standard model. If you can find a calculation based on the C and U preons, show it please. There isn't. What's so difficult to understand that the dipole moment is different if the muon is an excited electron?
  • Haglund
    802
    The whole aversion for the model is based on one observation only. The quarks, leptons, W, and Z, are though basic. That's the dogma, the standard. And experiments have seen no subs. Unless you call the g2 evidence. They should just smash electrons head on! Shake them hard and they'll rattle! Gonna send them a message!
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    That's from 2004!Haglund

    Well yes. The muon issue was already clear by the conclusion of the Brookhaven experiment in 2001.

    If you can find a calculation based on the C and U preons, show it please. There isn't.Haglund

    I was asking you for a preon based view. When it became clear you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, I googled up an example for myself in about 30 seconds.

    Given your belly aching about the lack of love for a preon approach to the muon discrepancy, I thought you might be better pleased to find they exist.

    What's so difficult to understand that the dipole moment is different if the muon is an excited electron?Haglund

    What is easy to understand is hand waving that avoids tackling problems like how is the superstrong force analogous to the strong force, yet apparently without the critical feature of asymptotic freedom.

    Again, if you can provide a paper to substantiate your wild claim, go for it.
  • Haglund
    802


    Okay. Thanks for the link. But that preon model is not the one I have in mind.

    The supercolor force is asymptotically free just as the ordinary color. When the three charged preons are exicted they jump to a higher energy state. This causes the charge distribution to become spatially more extended. Like a charged hadron state of three quarks. Causing the magnetic moment to be different from the ground state.

    There are difficulties but again, this stems from massive preons. See here

    And here
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two like powers for there to be a world without causality. I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain. — Agent Smith/Pierre de Fermat
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    I see what you mean, I think. But what if your space changes it's metric? Your shapes would change. If you draw lines and shapes on a thin piece of stretchable rubber, don't the shapes change form? If they keep their shape, the distances between the shapes will change, like the distance between static galaxies in the universe grows.Haglund

    That's exactly the issue, a changing space. Apokrisis claimed space was both flat and curved, which I pointed out is contradictory unless this is a temporal change. If we assume that space actually changes, then we need a relation between space and time which allows for such changes, physical "change" being an attribute of time. This would force us, by logical necessity, to assign logical priority to time rather than space. The conventional conception makes time the fourth dimension, as an attribute of space, rather than making it the zeroth dimension, as prior to space. As the fourth dimension, the properties of time are determined based on observation and analysis of changes to spatial objects. Under this conception, space is not allowed to be a changing thing (aether for example). When time is understood as prior to space, then non-spatial activity (being allowed for by non-spatial time) can be causal in the spatial world.

    When the relation between space and time is understood in this way, we can give the non-dimensional point real status, as an active non-spatial point, which has location without occupying space, and is also causal in the surrounding space. The space surrounding the point can be mapped in the way I described, and changes to the physical things in this space observed. The points may be arbitrarily located for the observation purpose, but upon numerous observations of numerous points, a system can be developed to determine the real location of real non-spatial, active causal points, from the way that the surrounding spatial world is affected.

    The issue with "expanding space", is that if it expands in all directions from a given point, then the point, around which the space is expanding, must have real existence, and it is most likely causal in the act of expansion.

    It's only you who insists on seeing the embedding dimension that the intrinsic curvature of differential geometry has long done away with.apokrisis

    You speak of things in terms of "flat" and "curved" which implies necessarily a distinction of dimensions. What you don't seem to grasp is that the "curve" is fundamentally unintelligible in relation to a straight line or flat surface, as demonstrated by the irrational nature of pi. We always fall back on the ideals of straight lines or flat planes in any attempt to understand curves, as your example of Gaussian curvature, and the reference of zero curvature, demonstrates.

    If you understood the construct which I described you'll see that there is no curvature whatsoever within the model. There are points related to each other by lines, no flat planes. However, there is always, necessarily, "space" between the points which exist in straight line relations to each other. and curvature is allowed to be a real property of this space, as waves or something like that. Representing the transmission of wave energy with straight lines is, as we know, a faulty representation. Representing the curves of waves as existing relative to flat planes is what I say is a faulty representation, despite the usefulness of this representation. The exact properties of the curves (as waves) will remain unintelligible to us until we determine the nature of the medium (space) which exists between the points.

    Heat is lost into the space that gets made.apokrisis

    What exactly do you propose is the mechanism which creates space? Is that lost heat like a friction to this system, this space creating mechanism? If so, then the heat isn't lost into the space, it is lost into whatever it is which is outside of space. The space creating mechanism implies the real existence of whatever this is, which is outside of space, and is actively creating space.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    Physicists just take Laws & Constants for granted, without further explanation.Gnomon

    It hasn't always been like this. Newton for example indicated that the reality, or truth of his first law of motion, what we call inertia, is dependent on the Will of God. Apparently, God might pull out his support for this law at any moment, and perhaps put something else in place which could be quite different, or leave no temporal continuity at all. Since God doesn't seem inclined to change His mind though, and His Will appears to be very stable, and trustworthy, human beings are inclined to take laws like this for granted. God's trustworthiness provides very good reason to take such laws for granted. When these laws are taken for granted however, there is no need to assume God anymore, because the assumption of God is only required for the purpose of accounting for the stability in these laws. And we have very good reason to take these laws for granted, because God is extremely trustworthy. So we can all become atheist.
  • Haglund
    802
    And we have very good reason to take these laws for granted, because God is extremely trustworthy. So we can all become atheist.Metaphysician Undercover

    Not quite. The question still remains who created matter and the laws it obeys to. And you might construct a gigantic string landscape to account for coupling strengths being precisely the tight ones for our current universe to contain life (which is not what I think is a true landscape), but the very existence of this landscape cannot be explained with the theory.
  • Gnomon
    3.7k
    It hasn't always been like this. Newton for example indicated that the reality, or truth of his first law of motion, what we call inertia, is dependent on the Will of God.Metaphysician Undercover
    Good point. Until the Greek Revival / Enlightenment gave scientists the courage to abandon the age-old all-purpose explanation --- that the omniscient-omnipotent-god-concept explains all philosophical mysteries --- most sages & scientists were forced by their ignorance of ultimate causes to postulate a hypothetical First Cause, as a catch-all non-explanation.

    However, as bits of physical evidence became woven into understandable theories of local causal systems, such as Evolution & Electro-Magnetism & Thermodynamics, the perceived dependence-on & necessity-for an ultimate Final Cause faded away. And Natural Laws were treated as mere consistent "constants" & "regularities" (necessities??), to be taken for granted, and not explained-away with Metaphysical metaphors.

    Ironically, the presumptive triumph of reductive science, Quantum Theory, began to reveal new gaps in our understanding of fundamental reality. The search for a foundational Atom, seems to have found no physical bottom to ground our theories on. Instead, "quantum weirdness" appears to be pointing at ethereal "Mind Stuff" as the essential element of reality.

    As a result, some secular non-religious scientists are beginning to take seriously such antique notions as Panpsychism, and futuristic sci-fi theories like a Mathematical Universe. But the implication of a Universal Mind to generate & contain the Mind-Stuff (information) is reminiscent of the ancient postulations of Logos and Deus. :cool:

    Quantum weirdness goes deeper: It implies that the logical foundations of classical science are violated in the quantum realm; and it opens up a glimpse of an unfamiliar and perhaps older aspect of nature that some call the implicate universe.
    https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/WritingScience/Ferris.htm
    Note -- "Implicate" means implicit or inferred intentional meaning

    Mind-Stuff :
    (Originally) supposed particles of mental substance in combinations which are perceived as matter; (in later use also) any rudimentary abstract substance from which ideas, images, etc., can be formed.
    https://www.lexico.com/definition/mind-stuff
    Note -- that "abstract substance" is what I call Generic Information and EnFormAction.

    Natural Laws are not explanations :
    "Even William Paley, 17th century author of Natural Theology, “the gospel according to anthropomorphic design”, quibbled over some of the current terminology. “The idea that postulating ‘laws’ of Nature gave explanations of design, he thought to be a form of mysticism, ‘a mere substitution of words for reason, names for causes’ “ Thus, he nailed the weakness of reductive cosmology : it assumes that a random mechanism without Reason or Purpose could magically evolve creatures that are characterized by both. "
    BothAnd Blog, post 116

    The Problem with Panpsychism :
    In his Scientific American magazine article, science writer John Horgan questions an “ambitious” new theory [Integrated information] to explain how human Consciousness evolved from dumb matter, like atoms, to smart stuff, like brains. Or as he put it, “how does stuff become conscious?” His first introduction to the theory made him skeptical. And part of his doubt was due to the implicit Panpsychism (all is mind) of the theory. That sounds more like a religious or mystical notion than a scientific hypothesis. Ironically, as scientists delve deeper into the post-Shannon Information phenomenon, the more they tend to resort to ancient philosophical concepts to explain the ubiquity and power of the non-stuff that used to be imagined as the content of Minds & Souls. Horgan jumped to the conclusion that “This ancient doctrine holds that consciousness is a property not just of brains but of all matter, like my table and coffee mug”. He probably imagined little atoms chatting among themselves about the latest gossip.
    BothAnd Blog, post 115
  • Gnomon
    3.7k
    but there's a difference between discussing the philosophical implications of physics, and the kinds of debates going on inside physics, which are pretty well by definition only intelligible to those trained in it.Wayfarer
    Unfortunately, I get the impression that some aggressive posters raise such arcane technical questions in an effort to intimidate those outside the esoteric cabal of priests of Physics. Like you, I typically ask them to take-it-outside, as irrelevant (immaterial) to the "philosophical implications" of the topic under discussion. Typically though, they chalk-up that evasion as a triumph of enlightened Science over superstitious Philosophy. I for one, am inclined to allow them this little conceit, if it allows them to declare victory and beat a hasty retreat. :joke:


    Sophistry :
    A sophist was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics, and mathematics. ___Wiki
    Note -- perhaps Philosophy Trolls now specialize in esoteric Physics.
  • Haglund
    802
    There is no clear motivation given for how preons are confined. I'm seeing superstrong EM, gravity, and metagluons being offered as binding mechanismsapokrisis

    The mechanism is the same that binds quarks in a hadron. With color replaced by supercolor, megacolor, hypercolor, or however you wanna call it. And the only combination is /C/C/C, three charged anti C preons (and there are only two kinds if preons exist! How nice is that?). They are massless.

    The Universe is the heat sink. It expands and thus cools. Heat is lost into the space that gets made.apokrisis

    There is no energy lost to space, in my humble opinion. Energy just disappears.

    So preons are appealing in many ways. It is nice they could explain particle generations using the analogy of atomic orbitals. It is fun that they might make U(1) fundamental and present at the Planck scale, while making SU(2) redundant - when Standard Model and leptoquarks make its seem the most central gauge group with its complex number magic.apokrisis

    SU(2) is redundant. But another SU(3) takes it place.

    The mathematics though is not that important. Preons can be found in a way similar as quarks. By crashing two leptons full speed head on. And then... the sound of rattle! Finalky the search can be closed then. What more can there be? One can philosophize about the nature of particles. No topological orders or defects needed.

    :grin:
  • apokrisis
    7.3k
    Apokrisis claimed space was both flat and curved,Metaphysician Undercover

    Stop making shit up. I said space would be flat to the degree it ain’t curved and curved to the degree it ain’t flat.

    The issue was how to measure the kind of space you might be embedded in. The rest is your hysteria.
  • Wayfarer
    22.4k
    You will often read that the ultimate question for both philosophy and science is the nature of reality. But I would put it differently: I think the ultimate concern for philosophy is the nature of being. And even though ‘reality’ and ‘being’ are both very general words, and probably impossible to completely define, the connotation of concern with the nature of being, is that the matter of the enquiry is the reality of lived experience - not the purported ‘ultimate constituents’ of the objective domain from which one stands apart. Sure that sounds vague compared to the imagined crispness and precision obtainable through scientific measurement, but if the enquiry is focussed through a highly-attuned philosophical intelligence, then it is capable of precision of a different order - one example being the Buddhist abhidharma with its comprehension of the multi-factorial origins of consciousness.
  • Haglund
    802


    If the spaces between all matter particles vary along then curvature can't be measured, obviously. The ruler would stretch along. It's because the galaxies are gravity bound and the stars kept at constant radius, and we don't expand either, that space is seen expanding and light looses energy by expansion. If we consider 3d space expanding on hyperbolic 4d substrate space, dark energy is explained.

    It's kind of funny that on physics forums no one has offered such response on preons as you did!
  • Haglund
    802
    I think the ultimate concern for philosophy is the nature of being.Wayfarer

    Can't it be that if we know the gods we know the nature of being?
  • Wayfarer
    22.4k
    'Gods'? Gods went out with togas and chariots. I wrote that entry to highlight the distinction between philosophy and physics. They have some areas in common, but they're very different disciplines.
  • Wayfarer
    22.4k
    Yes. I read all of Feyerabend and wrote a thesis on forms of reality, from empiricism, logical positivism, to van Fraassen, Radder, Pickering, etcHaglund

    As a matter of interest, what school or department was that thesis submitted to?
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