Good question.

In general, I don't know that it's even possible to find a neutral source of information. I don't know that it ever was. I think some sources are more neutral than others, because some people lean into their biases while other people at least try to approach things objectively, but even the latter group are still subject to biases.

I think I've made it clear that I think it's very very unlikely, astronomically unlikely, to be extra terrestrial.

oh, you're just saying there are conditions that make the formation of DNA, or the building blocks of dna, more likely. Sure, that's undoubtedly the case.

I think what's interesting is, even if there weren't a lot of genetic ways to get that, the specific order of the genes isn't necessarily set in stone. So, you might have a certain set of genes for this trait and another set for that trait and so on, but if all these traits were developed independently in an entirely different lineage, you wouldn't get them in the same order.

And that's a big if already, because it's not a guarantee that there is only one genetic path to these features.

In addition, what's interesting about the genes of life on earth is that a lot of it is junk. A lot of it doesn't do anything. It's vestigial. If we share 70% of DNA with this alien, that means we share a hell of a lot of vestigal DNA - that's actually a pretty big problem. See, vestigal DNA sort of disappears at random - some bits remain, doing nothing, for millions of years, and other bits disappear in a few generations after they stop contributing. So even if we were to charitably grant that (a) life should have evolved similarly in the other planet, (b) it was likely to evolve with the same genes, and (c) those genes would appear in the same order in Aliens DNA (and again, all those things are definitely far from a given), you would still be massively surprised to find a huge overlap of vestigal DNA.

I just don't think the picture adds up.

But hey, maybe the story is more like Prometheus (the alien prequel), and these dudes are our generic ancestors. Or, more likely, these aren't aliens at all.

I'm sorry, I don't think I understand your question.

there's a lot of different genetic ways to get to similar physiological solutions. There's really no good reason for the DNA of two completely independently developed lineages of life to look that similar.

do you think the genes for these fins are similar?

Do you think the genes for wings in bats is similar to those for birds, is similar to those for flying insects?

They're not.

You are completely right that there are probably certain, let's say, local optimums in terms of physiology, and it's not inconceivable that some of those traits would occur even across planets. The idea that the genes would end up looking exactly the same, however, is off base. That's not how it happens on our planet, it's really not likely to happen across the universe.

It is not inconceivable that both DNA itself, and its content, could evolve independently this closely, if in fact they represent globally maximal solutions to the problems they solve. — hypericin

It's only not inconceivable by a technicality. It's more than astronomically unlikely.

Absolutely. I just have no idea why the government is choosing to give this person an audience.

I agree with all your points. The genetic stuff is a complete red flag. Why should alien life have 70% genetic similarity to life on earth? Seems implausible.

It has more red flags than anything. It's most likely a joke, in my opinion. I'm certainly laughing.

But I do think it's interesting that someone in the Mexican government is taking it as seriously as they are. It's funny, and puzzling. Are they stupid? It's it motivated stupidity, perhaps?

do you have any links to support these claims?

Energy is, believe it or not, considered part of the material world. Materialists believe in physics. Physics is all about how matter is moved around and changed by energy. So saying these things can't be accounted for in materialism, and then saying "that's because it requires energy to happen", seems to be a misunderstanding of materialism.

Of course materialists believe in energy! How else could matter move and change momentum!?

For example, when two (or more) people meet, their heart rhythms and brainwaves entrain with each other. These are energetic experiences that cannot be accounted for simply by assuming everything is materialistic. — Bret Bernhoft

Really? Why not?

There are obviously other aspects of our existence that transcend the physical. But none of which are unscientific. — Bret Bernhoft

Can you give some examples?

"Transcend the physical" could be interpreted in at least 2 ways. You could be talking about stuff that is completely not physical in any sense, or you could be talking about stuff that is emergent from physical stuff. I'd like to clarify which of those two senses you think obviously exists.

after all your clarifications, I'm still thinking you're talking about plain ol' emergence. A lot of emergence is substrate independent too.

It depends on how you define emergence I suppose. I do not mean classical emergence, where combinations of different substances somehow generate new terms that did not exist before. I think Jaegeon Kim dealt classic, substance based emergence a virtual death blow.

Prehaps emergence in the "more is different," sense you see at work in cellular automata. But then it's not really clear to me if this warrants the name emergence, or if it just obviates the idea of emergence, consigning it to the dust bin of history. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Examples from cellular automata, like the ol classic Glider, are just plain ol emergence in my book. I'm not really sure how that differs from "classical emergence" - I googled that term but couldn't find anything like a definition.

After all, it doesn't make sense to think of computations as being "composed of" smaller computations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ever?

I mean, I can think of plenty of situations where you can actually think of computations as being composed of smaller computations. Multiplication is composed of addition. Exponentiation is composed of multiplication. In software, functions call other functions that do tiny bits of the overall job. And literally everything in software is composed of assembly instructions / machine code, right? I guess I don't see why it doesn't make sense, it seems on the surface to make perfect sense.

The question of: "can what is not there be causally important," or can "properties that a system lacks," be essential for explaining phenomena. The range of possibilities seems essential for explaining things like the heat carrying capabilities of metals, or life, even though this range is not actual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sounds like you're just talking about emergence

you illustrated his point with that link very nicely. I appreciate that.

I personally wouldn't word it as "energy is material", but I'm not prepared to say that's explicitly wrong either. In any case, it's clear that a contemporary "materialist" world view includes energy.

No matter does not move around. — Athena

find me a materialist who would agree and you might have something there lol.

I have the same question. "Not truth apt" is an interesting phrase. It's like he's not saying it's false or wrong, it's like he's saying it's not even in the category of things that can be right or wrong. Now, I certainly accept that there are things that could be described like that, but I can't see that relativity is in that group.

It's not obvious to me that he's disagreeing with Einstein at all. Einstein at times seems to provide quotes suggesting he himself believes in an aether of sorts - just one that's Lorentz invariant, which makes it compatible with relativity.

Here's a quote from Einstein himself:

• According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable

It is mind-blowing to me that we are still materialists. Everything is energy.
— Athena
"Everything" which causes changes is material, ergo "energy" is material, no? — 180 Proof

This is the second time in my life that I've seen someone suggest materialists don't believe in energy lmao. How is that supposed to work? All materialists believe that matter moves around, right? And matter requires energy to move and interact and change directions and so forth, right?

I've never met a materialist who doesn't believe in energy. I have, however, met non-materialists who say materialists believe that. THAT'S what's truly mind blowing.

Sure. I think there's two big flavours of that at play (or two sides of a spectrum, maybe?):

1. The offensive: My ism is clearly correct, and anyone who disagrees with me is clearly wrong and probably stupid.

2. The defensive: My ism is at least *not clearly incorrect* and it would be unjustified to rule it out based on current evidence.

When we're dealing with topics on or beyond the frontier of science, 1 is probably, usually unjustified for almost all people, with the exception of the occasional Einstein. How do you feel about 2 though? The defensive position, for ideas that are beyond the frontier.

I think 2 can be reasonable at times. There's a lot of people saying "this idea is clearly impossible and ruled out for this reason or that", and *maybe* there can be value in pushing back against that kind of rhetoric at times, no?

We probably don't have an Einstein on the site. What in particular in this thread do you think oversteps the bounds here? Who is making too bold bets on things beyond the event horizon?

Is it anybody with a strong intuition one way or the other about materialism?

I am unsurprised, but nevertheless still baffled, at how far beyond our collective event horizon people are prepared to lay bets and debate the odds. — unenlightened

Why? It seems not only natural but beneficial that people would do that - on the condition that they do it in a moderate and unzealous way. I think disagreements beyond the frontier of current science might, in some ways, literally be a driving force for the frontier of science moving forward.

Einstein was way more confident in relativity that a lot of people think he had a right to be, for example, especially given that most of the experiments that would later confirm relativistic ideas hadn't been performed or even thought up yet. Einstein was very willing to lay bets on his view which was beyond that event horizon.

Perhaps Einstein is an exception, or perhaps we ought to allow this arrogant confidence, in moderation, to the experts who deserve it.

If quantum field theory is correct, then that would mean light does in fact propagate via a quantum field. Right? That's the idea. It seems to be the idea to me, anyway.

Based on my readings, it seems the consensus is that while these fields perhaps have some conceptual overlappings with the aether theory tested in MM, a quantum field is *fundamentally different* in some important ways that make people justifiably reluctant to call it "aether".

It's not clear to me what degree of ontological "existence" these fields are taken to have by the proponents of qft, or if instead they're considered an abstract mathematical model. Is it a "thing" that occupies all of space? I really don't know.

my beliefs aren't relevant. I'm just exploring the topic.

Even though my beliefs aren't relevant here, I'll answer the question honestly: I'm completely agnostic. I would defer to the experts. If the experts of quantum mechanics think that quantum field theory is true, then I might further ask if that field could reasonable be called an aether (even if it's not the same as the original aether concept the MM experiment tested for), and/or ask them if they would describe the field as a "medium through which light propagates".

quantum field theory has EVERYTHING to do with the propagation of light.

if "world" means the literal planet, then I see how higher energy prices might be good for the literal planet, sure

They probably give the interests of their citizens higher priority than what is best for the world. So if the group of people in the country who want green polices — Agree-to-Disagree

I feel like there's some deep irony in this. Anybody else notice that?

"What's best for the *world*" could be interpreted as, the health of the planet and global ecosystems, right? And, presumably, green policies are in fact better for that.

This is completely at odds with the fundamental basis of modern physics. There's no legitimate physicist in the world who believes it. Light propagates without a medium. If you post this on a physics forum, it will be removed immediately. It's pseudoscience. — T Clark

The idea he's presenting here is that of quantum field theory if I understand him correctly - he did bring that up before. Quantum field theory is, by my understanding, far from pseudo science, though the comparison between quantum field theory and the aether *might* be - it seems like at least a fair comparison to think of, but I don't know enough to say why it's not.

I have read, though, that the fields of quantum field theory are supposed to be "relativistic", which I guess implies that they wouldn't conflict with the Michelson–Morley experiment anyway. Whether these fields could be consider an aether or not, and why not, might be an interesting question.

Or maybe you're right and it's pseudo science, but I guess I don't know enough to say it is at this point

Edit. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/308413/ether-vs-quantum-field-theory#:~:text=The%20quantum%20fields%20though%20by,identified%20with%20the%20luminiferous%20aether.&text=The%20aether%20or%20luminiferous%20aether,that%20which%20light%20travelled%20through.

The comparison is an understandable one to bring up, I think, but this answer illuminates what I was saying above: the quantum field(s) being Lorenz invariant makes it fundamentally different from the aether

Edit 2.

Answer here is interesting as well: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/518806/do-qft-fields-constitute-an-ether

I thought you were going with some sort of acausal view, or at least alternative-causality view, when you were saying it doesn't matter if a causes b or b causes a. Alternative causality is something that comes up in QM sometimes.

For example, Tim Woods linked video above seems to promote the Pilot Wave family of theories, and some of those involve a sort of retro-causality - there's some "thing" that goes to the future, finds out what value needs to obtain, and then comes back in time and takes that value. Not all versions of pilot wave take that approach, but some do. I think I have some work to do to understand more about pilot wave / Bohmian ideas.

Anyway, please tag me in your next post if you have a development here.

No matter the frame of reference, the end result is the same, that Alice and Bob measure the opposite spin. — hypericin

The question, I guess, is what sort of mechanism allows the universe to guarantee that their measurements are opposite? That's the casual explanation I was looking for.

It's easy to guarantee opposite results if the values are pre-set as soon as the photons leave the emission site, but that's exactly what Bells Theorem seems to disallow. The mechanism for Many Worlds is called "decoherence", but that requires 2 bobs and 2 Alices. What's the mechanism in your view?

I invite you to listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OduDEz77h9U&t=830s
You can speed it up to however fast you can listen. He makes the point that what Bell's theorem rules out is any strictly local theory (thus non-locality) At about 21:00. And that Bell's theorem in not about hidden variables(!) 24:00. The whole worth the listen — tim wood

He's championing a particular interpretation, or class of interpretations here - pilot wave theory, which some argue has evolved since its invention into Bohmian mechanics. That's certainly an interpretation I have had my eye on for a long time, definitely worthy of thought and attention.

Every interpretation has its own way of answering to Bells Theorem - how a particular interpretation answers to Bells Theorem is a big part of the flavour of the interpretation itself. It's like a trade off - in order to answer to Bells Theorem, you have to choose something you want to keep in physics and choose something else you're okay with losing. Some interpretations are okay with losing "locality", for example. Some are okay with losing "realism".

That's kinda what's fascinating about qm - it took all of physicists intuitions and said, you can't keep all of them! You've got to let go of something. If you want to keep this, say goodbye to that.

Really interesting read.

The events at Alice's and Bob's detectors are not space-like separated. — tim wood

Being many light seconds apart is exactly an example of what it means to be space-like separated, no? They are... separated in space.

Thank you for the kind words btw

are you eschewing a casual explanation altogether? If not, how does the casual narrative look?

I also want to take the opportunity again to clarify that the stuff I'm presenting is only meant to illustrate a tension between relativity and Copenhagen. It doesn't mean that Copenhagen must be incorrect, AND it may be that the tension is resolvable anyway. I'm by no means attempting to convince you to change your mind. I just think all this stuff is interesting to think about.

I appreciate your feedback. However, the post you're replying to is purely about why Copenhagen family of interpretations require non local casualty.

Neither do I. Just take it from high and repeat what you've been told, I guess. — NOS4A2

Do you believe you're not doing this?

Thank you, I'll try to make it brief. It's truly just a differently-detailed example from before, but hopefully the new details are illuminating.

If you believe there is only one Alice and one Bob, then imagine a scenario like this.

You've got the entangled-photon emitter, emitting one photon East and one photon West like before. Bob is east, waiting to receive the photon 10 light seconds away. Alice is west, waiting to receive the photon 11 light seconds away.

At t=0s, the photons are emitted. At t=1, both photons are in their way to Alice and Bob respectively, BUT crucially the photons have an indeterminate spin at this moment, right? Because they haven't been measured.

At t=9, both photons are close to their respective destinations, but crucially still with indeterminate spins. Same thing at t=9.9999 right?

At t=10, Bob gets his photon and measures it as spin Up. At this moment, Alice still has not received her photon. Now, if you want this to all happen with only speed of light level causality, the problem starts to become clear:

Alice's photon is still unmeasured at t=10, and Bobs has only just been measured 20 light seconds away, which means Alice's photon must still be indeterminate, right? It was indeterminate at t=9.9999, and nothing casually exists that would have changed that in the meanwhile in our example, right?

So, here's the problem. Bob has measured Up. Bob knows for a fact Alice will measure Down. But Alice's photon is still indeterminate, and the information required to make Alice's photon collapse to "Down", at t=10, has 1 second to make it to Alice's photon. It has 1 second to travel 20-21 light seconds, to make Alice's photon spin state collapse to the matching value.

It has 1 second to travel 20-21 light seconds. The information has to travel over 20 times the speed of light to achieve this.

This is why you can't just believe in a single real world and say "my virtual worlds collapse at the speed of light".

I hope that makes sense.

it would really be wonderful if you were. If there's a petition going around to grant you omniscience, I'll sign it.