the energy inside the container matches the size of the container in its frequency. — apokrisis

Frequency. This is an excellent description of space that has turned some mental tumblers. Before the big bang there would have been an absolutely compressed frequency which would put energy out of the spatial plane entirely. That's how it arose from nothing. It would have had a frequency of one meaning it was a line with a point moving vertically up and down it. Thus space is the background for an echo or a reverberation. Energy is creating its own context. I'll let that idea percolate for a bit.

Tonnes of good stuff to digest in your post. :)

What would the people have done if they could really do anything they wanted with her? — T Clark

Well, that's a point. Maybe what they did was the partially the result of a frustrated sexual drive. If it was a guy would they have done the same thing? Were most of the perpetrators male?

So it is absolutely the case that there is a relation between the available space for radiation and its consequent energy scale. — apokrisis

So the upshot is that the reason for the expansion of the universe is about entropy. If we knew the correlate between mass, entropy and space, we could calculate how much space it would take to drain the energy back out of matter.

If that’s correct, then it would seem to follow that the expansion of space would cease once that figure is reached (the Heat Death is reached) - but I know that the cessation of expansion isn't supposed to happen. This can only mean that the full conversion never happens.

Do you know the problem. Is it the wavelength of radiation - can it never become linear and thus disappear back into the initial condition? The exponential curve that never hits zero? Why would it keep expanding do you think? (I don't buy momentum from the Big Bang)

So the lack of room for light to move at the moment of the Big Bang is also what set its heat to the maximum energy scale or temperature that radiation can have. — apokrisis

It almost sounds like a false start doesn't it. Let me ask you a question. You've seen those drawing of a gravity well with mass sitting plum in the centre? Do you think that if we just created the well, matter might appear?

In Rhythm 0, the leader is absent. The audience consisted of adults so no, curiosity doesn't fully explain its behavior. — TheMadFool

Sorry, I was talking about two different things in the one paragraph. The Milgram experiment with the authority figure was one thing and the Rhythm 0 things was the other.

What if there isn't any choice, specifically, a rational choice to be good? — TheMadFool

Well that's a point. Perhaps though it may have to do with social hierarchy instincts. I think power over people is a thrilling proposition for many. We all jostle for our place at the table. It is the drive that causes many people to seek positions of power. That plays out though against empathy and social conformity. If Rhythm O was not showing any emotion, and the authority you alluded to was absent, the empathy and conformity drive may have been significantly impaired leading to an unchecked hierarchy drive.

I know what the pattern is. What the experiment has done is resolved an interference pattern. The aggressors are like the wake from a boat hitting against a concrete wall. The wave then comes back out from the wall - this is the protective response.

In our ordinary lives we live in an interference pattern of choice between wicked and good.

Certainly there is a pack mentality at play, which I believe also appears in the animal kingdom. In nature, people are conditioned to follow leaders. I heard somewhere that men when hunting are more successful if following a leader and working as a group - that's part of Milgram. There is also the curiosity children have with prodding dead birds with sticks and so forth. So, while interesting, nothing too far beyond the pail - although certainly disgusting.

I find the resistive force that arose very interesting though. If we can dissolve the personalities and look at the pattern there is something there. I just can't put my finger on what it is though.

You little ripper! - as we say in Australia.

** An expression of great joy. **

Wow, that's very interesting.

The authority figure is usually the presence that stops people from being evil. In the Milgram experiment maybe it was a conflict of the role of the authority figure - being told it was OK seemed that wrong- that caused the perpetrators of the electrocutions to not enjoy the experience of torturing.

You of course also have the Stanford Prison experiment that lends another insight into this type of psychology.

I find the spontaneous rallying of people around the Rhythm 0 woman quite interesting from a conceptual point of view. I think that may be where a deeper truth tucked in their somewhere

Got it. Thanks for your help.

Actually, never mind, it's not important. I just realised it is an energetic boundary I am wrestling with, not a spatial one.

Wait a second I rushed that answer back. I forgot I'm using the no single centre model.
In the checkerboard table cloth each checker would be pulling away from its checkerboard border and contracting.

You're missing the concept. This is all the parts of space rushing towards a single centre with those on the outer edges rushing in the fastest. That is not what I am saying at all.

In my model the centre is shrinking the fastest, but there is no single centre as all of space is contracting. So throw the 1980s checkerboard cloth over space and then contract all of the checkers. The ones in the centre smallest, the ones on the outer fringe the largest. The checkerboards don't overlap, there is no compression as all of the space inside the checkerboard is contracting too.

I know what you are saying Metaphysician Undercover. You presented your case well, but I put you in a bind by getting to you to concede to a determined past. In doing so, two different ways of looking at time became conflated.

The first way of looking at time, is in terms of the timeline. The timeline consists of the past, present and future. That is why you found yourself at odds with physics- all I had to do was say space and time and it became determined because every space on the timeline is associated with a time, and the timeline is a path.

The second way of looking at time is as the present. There is no past or future, period. There is only this bubble we live in where I can move things in space, a memory of events and ruminations about what will happen next. There is no need for a Platonic cloud - I think that arose as part of the conflation with the need for a timeline future while preserving the present as the only thing that existed (or maybe you actually think there is one, I don't know).

I do believe that both ways of looking at time allow for choice. In a timeline model I am quite OK with the idea of someone from the future coming to the present with knowledge of what will happen. Maybe I watch too much SciFi.

Which one do I think is truest reflection of reality? The second. The timeline is the construct in our mind.

Like I said, I think you did a good job at articulating your case. I was playing a devil's advocate roll to see if there was a deeper truth about it all I could find as well. When you push back against ideas you find their strength and weaknesses.

In a contracting model, the ratio of distances only grows larger, just as in expansion --> no heating

But say you could establish a contraction scenario that is exactly symmetric to the expansion scenario, what have you achieved but another way of saying the same thing? It wouldn't advance the science if it hasn't changed the science.

However the two directions make different predictions once we add in a conservation of energy constraint. Now one direction will cool radiation by stretching it, or redshifting it. The other will heat radiation by contracting it, or blue-shifting it. — apokrisis

If it's perfectly symmetric there is no blue shifting. The opposite of space itself expanding is space itself contracting. Because everything in that space is also contracting, there is no heating. The galaxy will not pull away from us, anymore than it is drifting towards us now under an inflationary model. The contraction doesn't have to be directional toward a centre point.

If it can be agreed that it can happen, then I can suggest one way it will change our understanding of science.

Imagine space as a matrix full of dots or circles. The dots are contracting away from each other, the centre most parts contracting fastest.

Righto, yep.

It takes two seconds to send a message, Baden. If you are deleting someone's OP, you owe them a bit of respect. All you guys volunteers though huh? If that's the case then I apologize to Sapientia. It is a good site. I'm sure you guys want this site to hum and attract a lot of people and a lot of discussion. I think to really make this place thrive you are going to have to better than blanket deletion of OPs.
I've got no idea what a PM is or how to do it.

How ironic, I have one in writing OPs.

Well, either the sarcasm detector or sarcasm emitter is broken, that's for sure.

I am really pissed you guys touched my OP. If you are going to interfere like that, then I would think such an action requires a modicum of courtesy on your part. A simple message with suggestions for bending it to your style may have avoided this whole affair. Without such courtesy, deletion is just plain arrogant. I will take Streetlights words on board and try and tighten it in places if I rushed assumptions.

Geeze, your sarcasm is even dryer than mine.

So you want me to have a PhD to express a thought?
— MikeL

Yes, that's exactly what I want. You're good at reading people. Is that a learnt skill or does it come naturally?

No, you're right of course. I've just signed up for my doctorate. I should be able to post something on this forum in about 5 years. I'm so excited - cant wait!

I have already done an OP entitled "Why Can't the Universe be Contracting?" In that OP I suggested it was possible the universe is contracting as a whole toward the centre of the universe (playing it backward) or if doppler shifts were a problem that each point of space could be contracting . It was almost unanimously agreed that it could be. There was one person who said a contracting universe was not likely, but when the issue of contracting from points was challenged there was no reply. So I have already laid a ground work.

The theory I proposed has many pieces in it, that is true, but the pieces are logically connected. There is a lot of known information that the theory draws on. I am mostly rearranging the information and combining it with applied observation.

If you want me to break it into pieces and feed it to the readers then the crescendo of the point is lost. It is one thing to give constructive advice about how you would like an OP styled, where precisely you would like it tightened up, but it is another to pull it without notice and then when I want to know why, demand I be an expert in astrophysics and quantum mechanics before even rating a mention on your scale.

The OP is written in simple language, designed to try and promote discussion on the issue. Perhaps it will fall like a lead balloon, especially now, but I thought this Forum was to promote the free exchange of ideas.

Ah, thank you at last some constructive feedback. How hard was that for the rest of you to do?

Go to hell the lot of you.

Know what I'm talking about? I know the theory of the universe as a Big Bang is just a theory, and one with plenty of holes in it. I know that it can be reasoned that the big bang was not an outward expansion. I know that entropy releases energy from systems. I know the theory that mass formed when the universe cooled because the symmetry broke and interaction of condensing matter with the Higgs field caused mass to 'appear'. I know that large systems like galaxies seem eternal , and we can all observe the rate of entropic decay of that system is very low (which is just another way of restating the fact they seem eternal). We know that as hierarchies form in nature and in life (emergent systems) that the rate of processes drops. This slower entropic rate when considered with slower functioning suggests a time correlate. We know that gravity exerts it effects increasingly as the scale of objects grow due to the ratio of surface area to volume, and thus as the nanoscale level it is all about the surface area and not about the mass. We know that when things like bonds form that is mostly anti-entropic in nature. We know that gravity crushes matter together and forms it into inorganic structures, often chrystaline. We know also that when there are such reactions that energy is also lost as heat, increasing the entropy of the universe.

So you want me to have a PhD to express a thought?

Yeah, I notice you don't have a problem with the first part.

I take your point. If you are not an expert in a field than say nothing unless you want to present a scientific paper on the matter. A very solid approach for shutting down ideas and promoting elitism. Well done.

If that is the only objection, I am happy to amend it.

Obviously it is a light hearted way of asking if they have opposing actions.

In this OP I am trying to bring together several ideas I have been working on.

In the beginning there was a big bang…. And already science is in trouble. I call it the container problem, but I’m sure it has other names. What is it expanding into? Nothing? Bullshit.

Whenever we have a material object we need the background in which it dwells. Imagine a sphere deep in the ocean. I can recreate that same sphere by completely removing it and have the space it occupies remain. This is like a shape and an anti-shape (or object and anti-object)– although again, I am fairly certain that having a background requirement is pretty much understood. It is context.

Space is expanding into something, and that something once invoked must also be inside something and so it continues on like Russian stacking dolls. It is funny how one of the main arguments against a god is that there is no need to invoke him because the question then becomes well who created God. It’s exactly the same container problem physics has. I don’t have an answer to that, but I do have a conceptual alternative to expansion.

I posited once, in another OP, that the universe could either be expanding, contracting or every inch of it could be shrinking and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and the debate remained largely unresolved, especially as it related to shrinkage.

This is interesting because shrinkage of space fits well into this description. It is said that when the Big Bang occurred it was a blast of energy so hot that particles were essentially massless, but as the universe cooled there was interaction with the Higgs field and mass was acquired. I’m no physicist and I’m sure there’s people who can explain it better. The upshot though is the curdling of energy into matter as the universe cooled.

I propose a model of the universe inside a container, much like the shape of a petrol can. Rather than exploding though, I want space to shrink: After all, a Big Bang is just representing a change in the spatial arrangements of the energy. This shrinkage of space fits in with the idea of cooling and curdling of matter, but what I am interested in is looking at the container. The petrol can itself.

We know how much energy gets condensed into an atom. Lots! Across the universe, the sucking of energy into atoms would have created an enormous negative pressure on the container – just like placing a heated petrol can suddenly in ice water. The container would have buckled in.

I propose that indeed the container of the universe did buckle in as energy was converted to mass. As the crumpling happened a restorative force opposing the movement grew– the container we have today wants to resume its unbuckled shape (perhaps the container it is in needs it to be so). The negative pressure of the contracted universe needs to be undone. To do this the energy in matter needs to be released.

Thus there is this huge sucking force on matter to bleed the energy back out into the universe. The drive to suck the energy out of structured matter is called Entropy. This explains why entropy is directional. It wants to dissolve all the well-structured atomic combinations down and release the trapped energy (as Apokrisis likes to remind us). Entropy is the restorative force of the universe allowing the container to return to its normal size.

It’s funny though that we have such universal monstrosities in our system like galaxies when the quantum realm should just feed the energy straight back out. As I see it, there have been two attempts to oppose the entropic force. A primary and secondary attempt. That they have occurred and how they have occurred is very interesting and raises a lot of questions – the one we debate so vigorously: why the structures of the universe exists and why life exists. Both of these have occurred through the formation of emergent systems. It is a bottom up system, not a top down one.

Entropy hates the idea of quanta becoming atoms becoming molecules and cycles and systems, and yet it happens (sometimes Entropy favours a reaction or two). It is going the wrong way.

Look at the galaxies and suns and planets in our universe. They formed because of an emergent force. Gravity. As mass increases gravity increases causing larger and larger accumulations.

I can’t make my mind up about gravity – whether it wants to oppose entropy or help it. Most of the other forces seem indifferent to entropy, but gravity takes separated particles of matter and crushes them in its bare hands until all the atoms are bonded into tight inanimate structures like rocks, or like solar furnaces. As it does so energy leaks out between its fingers and helps restore the container of the universe.

Apart from releasing energy though, there is a secondary effect: the remaining structure is extremely resilient to entropic decay. It stays around for a long, long time. Much longer than the fleeting quantum particle.

The second resistive force, as we mentioned, is life – once again a system that opposes entropy by building emergent systems while also hastening the release of energy from the environment (Once again, Apokrisis has made much of this).

But it doesn’t end there.

Time also slows as we move through the hierarchy. Planets do slow loops around the suns, (some taking as long as year to complete the orbit!). The entropy of hierarchical systems drops slowly the higher up the hierarchy you climb, they are almost immune to the entropy of the lower levels.
This is also very interesting. If we could standardise the rate of movement in hierarchical systems against the rate of entropy of those systems I predict we’ll find they all move at the same speed. This suggests a time differential between those layers. Time is moving at different speeds for different hierarchies!

The higher up you go the more timeless you are. Molecules process hundreds of thousands of reactions a second, which is much more than I can do, even listening to the Top Gun soundtrack. Likewise, as we mentioned planets slowly orbit the sun and the suns slowly orbit their galaxy, which slowly spins off into the nether-nether. The slowing of time is anti-entropic, suggesting time itself is entropic.

Are Gravity and Time enemies? What is happening here?

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one Metaphysician Undercover. Nice debating with you. See you on the next OP. :)

You don't really believe that human beings can change their world, do you? — Metaphysician Undercover

Have you studied this issue? There is nothing to abandon. SR and GR are solutions to measurement problems. They have zero ontological standing. They describe nothing about the experience of life. — Rich

Do you want me to work with you guys on this or do you prefer me to keep my side? I'm happy enough to jump on your side for a while.

So, you are abandoning the notion of space-time and proposing a whole new theory of the universe here to support the argument that the future isn't determined? Well, that's one way to go about it.
— MikeL
That is correct. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK, well, I'm glad we can both agree that in the universe as most people understand it, our world is determined.

Now we enter into a theory that has been created for the purpose of proving there is no determinism, and want to debate that instead. That's fine, I'll debate anything, so let's have a look.

time should rather be the 0th dimension. This allows for the reality of the non-spatial existence which we understand as ideas and concepts, — Metaphysician Undercover

A time outside of space is fine with me.

Then we can comprehend real non-dimensional existence, and activity within non-dimensional points. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, what type of activity might we see in a Time dimension with no spatial relationships? The mixing of ideas and concepts? The blueprint of of the coming present?

So we have a time line created by the "flow of time", which begins at the point of "now", and extends into the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is analogous to the sewing machine example I gave before, which showed a determined future.

The breadth of time is at a right angle to the flow of time, and it's magnitude is a representation of how we experience the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the point of the now has breadth, duration, then the whole timeline must be redrawn to allow that the timeline has breadth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's redraw the timeline with the breadth you call the 'now'. That only reinforces that every moment that ever existed is happening now. So if now is happening now and the sacking of Rome is also happening now, why can't a person say the same thing next year? It doesn't make sense to preclude the future from the now - after all, the fact that the time line has been redrawn in the 'now' format is telling us that there is no separation of time points on the timeline. Now is one gigantic superposition. Like it or not, that superposition includes the future as two weeks from now I will still be having that 'now' experience. It all becomes determined.

The second thing is what I said about the human experience of the present. What we call "the present" is limited to how we experience the present. So depending on the context, one might use "the present" to refer to a second, a minute, the day, the year, whatever arbitrary duration one chooses. — Metaphysician Undercover

I choose the entire timeline from the past to the end of the future? Determined. - but you sense the weakness of the position and the shut that option down when you say:

The only difference I am proposing, from how we currently use "the present", is that we cannot include any future time in "the present". — Metaphysician Undercover

Not to worry, sooner or later the nebulous future has to come out from hiding. As soon as it does, it interacts with the space dimensions, immediately rendering it determined. Our present of dubious duration becomes a series of connected determined present moments (if we decide we don't want to superpose all the nows).

You are making a false representation here, referring to "the future that I can see around me". What you see around you is the activity of things. The activity is the result of this process which is the future becoming the past (time passing) This occurs at the present. This activity is "determined", but it is determined by the Platonic Forms, which exist on the future side of the present, it is not determined by what has occurred in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, we are no longer even arguing that the present- the place we make choice- is determined, only what it is determined by. And you say it is determined by the Platonic Forms on the future side of the present. But I thought you wanted people in the present to have free choice. How can they when they live in a determined world - as determined by the Platonic Forms of the future? Isn't that the argument you're trying to use against me?

Because the present has breadth, the Forms may interact with each other during the process of emanation, at the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

Lucky for me my bed keeps emanating in my bedroom each present moment from the past - although at times I think the Forms emanate my wallet and keys to other areas of the house. :)

The real timeline cannot extend into the future because time has not come into existence there yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's the entire quote so you know I have not taken you out of context:

You've forgotten one thing though, time as we know it, only exists as the present comes to pass. So the "entire timeline" is from now until what we call the beginning of time. The real timeline cannot extend into the future because time has not come into existence there yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

If time has not come into existence in the future yet, then we only have space in the future. Space is full of spatial relations - it is determined, just like the past. Time when it comes along merely sweeps over it, creating the illusion of movement, just like flipping the pages of book with an animated comic drawn on them.

Insisting that the universe is determined doesn't answer my question of why you contradict yourself. You said it is a fact that human beings can change their world, but you also claim that what's to be, in the future, is already determined, just hidden behind a curtain. So how is it that human beings can change their world when what's to be is just hidden from us. I don't see how this allows for change. You don't really believe that human beings can change their world, do you? — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no contradiction. Human beings can change their world, that is why their determined paths through time are so complex, rather than straight lines. Do you not think that when Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon he made the decision to do so? - a decision you yourself have conceded was determined.

Your theory to prove that the universe is not determined wants to separate time into its own dimension separate from space, but the problem is that it does not mean space no long exists. By taking this position, you create a model where it is the sweep of Time over a determined universe that creates the movement we call the present.

I think you understand this problem and therefore have attempted to dissolve space into time, calling it a concept of the future. The problem with this model is that once again we have time and space together again, causing determination. You might just as well leave them where they were.

If a concept is a pattern that is transmitted how can the transmission be physical but not the pattern? — praxis

There are two ways to answer. The first way is just by restating that the pattern is a concept. A book may be translated into a hundred languages and the concept survives regardless of the pattern use to describe it (heiroglyphs, Chinese characters, the English alphabet).

In the second, to use Wayfarer's example, you need to have the interpreter who can:
1. decode the pattern
2. recode the pattern
And you need the end user who understands the concept.

** Oh, and of course encode the initial concept.

This is the hole which modern physics has fallen into as a result of people believing that special relativity expresses a truth about time. — Metaphysician Undercover

So, you are abandoning the notion of space-time and proposing a whole new theory of the universe here to support the argument that the future isn't determined? Well, that's one way to go about it.

Quantum field theory effectively destroys space, and what happens is quantum entanglement. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmmm, is this part of the new theory?

Why would you conclude, that if the present had breadth, it must be wide enough to encompass the entire past? — Metaphysician Undercover

You told me that the present had duration. How long is that duration? Is it less than the duration of the entire timeline? There are two conceivable answers.
1. No, the duration is the same - in which case the entire timeline is the present. The present is now. So the entire timeline is happening right now. If that is the case then it is determined.

2. Yes, the duration of the present is shorter than the timeline. In this case the present will run out before it reaches the end of the timeline. Having reached the end of its duration time will freeze. There will be no further progress into the future.

Thus, for the argument to stay alive, in addition to duration you might also invoke a breadth for the present and have the breadth span the entire timeline. The breadth is at right angles to the duration of the present. Thus when the present moves it does not move from past to future, but rather sideways across the timeline, so that all instants of the timeline occur now. As you can see though this solution also proves that the future is determined.

I really don't understand these other questions, perhaps we could take them one at a time, and you could explain more thoroughly the issues which you are questioning. — Metaphysician Undercover

OK, imagining for a second that none of what I said proves determinism, the question becomes about the interface between the future and the present. Where does this occur? The present is a duration of time which encapsulates me but there is no nebulous haze of future that I can see around me. It is filled with both space and time - nothing is outside of space or time, but we have established that space is determined. Everything in space has a place and is performing an action of some sort. Therefore, the bubble of time you are calling the present must also be determined. It must, at the very least, become determined at the start of the duration of the present. So now you must have not only a determined past, but also a determined present.

Spatial existence manifests from the realm of the future. This is where the Neo-Platonic Forms are, which are the cause of material existence. Temporal existence is defined by the passing of time. In the future, time has not yet passed. So these Forms are described as eternal (meaning outside of time, rather than forever in time). — Metaphysician Undercover

How much more determined can you get than a state of being that is eternal? If it is outside of time, it doesn't change.

I don't believe this statement from you. I think that is exactly what is being disputed. If you actually believed that human beings could change their world, you wouldn't believe that the waterfall at the end is necessitated by the passing of time. These two are completely inconsistent, incompatible, contrary, statements. — Metaphysician Undercover

- this about the comment of free choice in a determined universe.

I will answer with my corrupted version of the Parable of Death I heard many years ago. Maybe you know it.
A man was walking through a street market in Switzerland with his wife and two children when he looked up and saw Death staring directly at him. The man was terrified and fled the scene. He raced home and threw some items in a bag,grabbed his passport and flew out the door, leaving his wife and children behind. He flew from country to country, backtracking at points to throw death of his trail, until eventually he arrived in Australia four days later. He left the city immediately and headed into the Outback - a huge desolate area where you can see anyone approaching from a hundred kilometers away. Each night he pitched tent and the next day took it down and moved on. On his forth day, he was coming out of a swimming hole when a brown snake - one of the most deadliest in the world bit him. He fell ill instantly and slumped against the tree. His vision began to blur and he blinked it into focus again - only to see Death in front of him once again.
The man looked at Death and said to him: "I am surprised you found me all the way out here. When I saw you at the market in Switzerland I took off. I have flown around the world and thought I had hidden myself well."
Death replied: "You're surprised? You couldn't possibly imagine my surprise when I saw you in that street market in Switzerland with your wife and two children eight days ago, knowing I would be meeting you here alone in Outback Australia today at this moment."

Of course we can make choices. But the choices are fated. The universe is determined.

Concept - Transmission - Transmission is physical, concept not. No?

And?

All those representations are physical but the actual information is something different to that. — Wayfarer

That would be the conceptual component I mentioned wouldn't it?
Physical is being used in the broadest sense to include everything from beating a drum to TV transmissions and telepathy.

I don't think I quite get your point. Can you elaborate a little more?

Information transmission seems physical enough - the message though is conceptual. Is that what you're getting at?

I'm not exactly sure which one of these two Landauer was referring to. Has he conflated them? The idea of transmission of anything seems physical.