@enon.

Please read the quote below from ryanbennitt.

As a scientist (I presume you have a scientific frame of reference) you should know that we don't know everything. When I was in elementary school, there were no quarks. Now there are quarks.

You must know that there are things we don't yet have the ability to measure.

Besides, even if you don't subscribe to the possibility of change on an energetic level, you must know about the power of placebos. Just think of alternative medicine as Structured Placebo. Placebos work. It has been proven.

>> ^ryanbennitt:

As has been said on many occasions, alternative medicine that has been proven to work is just called, yep, you guessed it, medicine. The alternative to taking medicine that works is taking something that doesn't work.

How appropriate that the guy who played Quark is in a movie that deals with making money.

As for self-starting vs. hoping society will make your life better...it's not really about that. It's about "what's a fair start?". You can't tell me that someone who inherits a ton of money has just as hard a time "self-starting" as someone who inherits nothing or starts life in an impoverished state or living in a house with lead paint.

It's about whether you believe you deserve your start in life (whatever it may be). It's a nature vs. nurture argument. Libertarians tend to discount nurture and the inherent differences between the way people begin their lives. Children are not tiny humans. Their brains don't work correctly unless they're shaped by experience and environment. "Life isn't fair" is not a counter-argument to this inherent unfairness that exists in the world. Because we have the capacity to do something about this type of unfairness, we must consider it. Whether or not we should actually act on it, well, most of you who will bother posting have already made that choice.

>> ^mxxcon:

at 1:10 isn't that Quark?


Yes, it is. Love that guy!

at 1:10 isn't that Quark?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^deathcow:
You mean like Anti-Water?

Basically, or if it has different properties because of (anti)quarks resulting in different chemical compounds.


Another thing that might be interesting to look at is decay rate. We already know how normal mass does it's thing, but anti-matter seems to be for the most part "gone" from the Universe. The non-symmetry aspect of anti-matter will be a big thing in physics, in general, to understand.

So I may have answered my own question as I'm sure decay rates would certainly be an obvious thing to look at. If any of the fundamental forces are different, for example, you could have anti-matter out in space hiding from view in blackholes, etc...

Right now they're looking at dark matter being a sort of "condensed state" matter that "can't" react with anything but itself and weakly at that. Gravity as well (it looks like). Outside of this state we might find it a lot, but we do not understand the mechanism that created it or is creating it. Anti-matter was brought up in this argument. At some point after the big bang the anti-matter would have joined with particle "x" and became this condensed matter that basically has most of it's fundamental forces bound to itself. Therefore, unless this stuff breaks apart due to some process, we may never find it as it is essentially swept under the rug and we can't lift the rug.

>> ^deathcow:

You mean like Anti-Water?


Basically, or if it has different properties because of (anti)quarks resulting in different chemical compounds.

>> ^Payback:

>> ^honkeytonk73:
They should look for the Jesus particle. Not only the God particle. I suppose there is also a Muhammad, a Buddha and a Xenu particle too.

Yeah, but the Xenu particle goes around talking shit about the other particles and uses embarrassing gluons it stole from well-known molecules that were edited by its brainwashed quarks.


Could very well be! Maybe the 'body thetans' stick to us via gluons after they get blown up by hydrogen bombs in volcanoes! We may just be on to something! Or.. ON SOMETHING. Yeah. Maybe that is it.

>> ^honkeytonk73:
They should look for the Jesus particle. Not only the God particle. I suppose there is also a Muhammad, a Buddha and a Xenu particle too.


Yeah, but the Xenu particle goes around talking shit about the other particles and uses embarrassing gluons it stole from well-known molecules that were edited by its brainwashed quarks.

The quarks always reminds me of that terrible 70's sci-fi sitcom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pqLjOg0hwo&feature=player_embedded#!Quark.

I prefer leptons. But quarks are cool, too.

>> ^Ornthoron:

Funny how he talks about the forefront of science in part 3, and mentions all the unsolved problems at the time of filming. All the problems he mentioned have since been solved, and it turns out reality is simpler than what he describes here, just like he predicted. For instance, we now know that there are 6 different quarks (plus the antiquarks) instead of 3, and that this simplifies the equations greatly.
The LHC is right now investigating the possibility of another property of physics called super symmetry, which if true would double the number of particles we know of. One or more of these new particles might turn out to be what the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the material universe is composed of. These are exciting times indeed.


I like the part where they discuss (also at the end of part 3) that the very laws themselves are stated without history. That, perhaps, at different times, or even different places in the universe, the laws are mutable. That the rules that most fundamental rules of the universe might always be in flux to some degree. If that be the case, it makes the investigation into this very "monad" centric science difficult.

It would also mean that we could find these laws of the universe, but we would never understand the meta rules that govern them. It would place a logical end point on empirical investigation.

He brings up thermodynamics ( you could add QED into this to make it even stronger, quantum foam and what not...), but entropy would be what he is talking about. Entropy can be seen as something that is the same homogeneous "thing" (quarks, photons, hydrogen; or in the case of QED potential energies) breaking down by "physics" or the physical mechanics and properties of the universe into a less homogeneous "thing". Hence energy then particles then elements, stars, black holes, planets, galaxies, cluster groups, the universe. It never really changed it is merely entropy that distinguishes most of these things.

Time itself may induce entropy, but we still have things to figure out in that area. What QED teaches is that you don't need anything special at all to create the universe, "chance" is more than enough. Throw in time or entropy and wallah, instant mechanical system created with it's own mechanics and in superposition to anything outside to detect it unless they become entangled to us. If they measure anything our "universes" would combine into a hybrid (most likely--impossible for now to begin thinking if this would be possible).

Recently scientists have been able to "tune" cobalt niobate (the magnetic spins) into a quantum critical state (superposition) and more recently they've done the same with electrons. The magnetic "tuning" frequency they used to accomplish this was extremely close to the Euler's number: e. "Euler's number" may be linked to the appearance of entropy merely being a function of mechanics that me be described by physicists later as an algorithm. If e is linked it would explain many observable systems we already have knowledge of. You can see it already at work in multiple situations. It also has a strong correlation with: fractals, golden ratio, golden spiral, Fibonacci sequence, etc... It's also an irrational number which may cause the algorithm to seemingly never stop; you could zoom in and out on the universe and it would continually look the same in correlation with an universal algorithm.

I hoped I made my thoughts clear enough; I dumbed down a lot of the material hopefully I still get the point across. It may be that the universe is merely just potential energies with an algorithm thrown in for spice. Other universes would have their own algorithm and constants like e.

Some articles pertaining to some of this: Here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Funny how he talks about the forefront of science in part 3, and mentions all the unsolved problems at the time of filming. All the problems he mentioned have since been solved, and it turns out reality is simpler than what he describes here, just like he predicted. For instance, we now know that there are 6 different quarks (plus the antiquarks) instead of 3, and that this simplifies the equations greatly.

The LHC is right now investigating the possibility of another property of physics called super symmetry, which if true would double the number of particles we know of. One or more of these new particles might turn out to be what the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the material universe is composed of. These are exciting times indeed.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'hadron collider, electrons, protons, quarks' to 'hadron collider, electrons, protons, quarks, Nima Arkani Hamed, Physics' - edited by eric3579

Sorry it took so long to respond, I had a busy weekend.

They are not simple probabilistic events, and they are operating off the same basic principles, that does not mean that systems do not have qualities which their component parts lack.

Does a piston have the capacity to convert petrol into kinetic energy? Does an internal combustion engine have this capacity? Which part of the engine imbues it with this power?

Systems are qualitatively different from their component parts, and some sets of systems, such as systems which decide, are qualitatively different from systems which don't

I'm going to need a definition of "decide" I suppose. It seems like you are dancing around these squishy intuitive concepts instead of having a specific physical distinction to point out. The amoeboid is composed of a lipid bilayer membrane riddled with intricate protein micro-machines that detect changes in the environment, and behaviorally compensate. To discount the intricacy of the mechanisms of genetic expression and chemical signaling that exist even in the simplest of eukaryotic organism is foolish IMHO. Many of the modern models of genetic expression, and compensation for environmental factors look strikingly similar to the connectionist network models of the brain. The computations are similar in the abstract.


You are anthropomorphizing the mold, it does move, this motion increases its chances of finding food, it survives/reproduces. It in no way displays evidence of doing any of this "in order" to accomplish some goal. If you want to suggest that evolution, as a system, displays intelligence, by selecting molds which move in certain ways, I would be willing to acknowledge that intelligence, not a consciousness, but an intelligence.

Well, more likely I'm moldopomorphizing us. What goals do we have that are ultimately distinct from survival, reproduction, and the general continuity of our species? Even something as seemingly unrelated as making music, or art could be cast as some sort of mating ritual. When you somehow separate our behavior from the rest of life on Earth it's as though you want to draw a barrier between us and them. You want to somehow separate us from the natural order. I hate to break it to you, but it just isn't so. We are just demonstrate the spatial heterogeneity of the second law of thermodynamics.


Why is context necessary for experience? What do you experience in infinitesimal time? Why should we posit some sort of experience which is entirely distinct from the type we claim to have?

I experience the moment. In fact, that's all I'm ever experiencing, although my sensation of it may run a little behind. I never experience my memory, I merely compare my experience to memory. Further, what I'm suggesting is not entirely distinct from any experience we claim to have. Some autistic individuals, for instance, report an extremely chaotic existence, in which causal models can't be formed as sensory modalities are not unified in the same way as ours. They are experienced as independent inputs, not reflective of a coherent physical world. Still, they experience it.

Physical laws are not obeyed, they are enforced. electron movements are completely deterministic, like billiard balls, they roll down hill, they don't decide if/when to do so.

Things can not be enforced without an enforcer. Further, as you've conceded the determinism of our brains, again, how are we not passively allowing the laws of nature to push us around? What exactly are we deciding?


I don't believe that you are claiming that electrons have tiny field sensors which feed into a neural network which analyzes them for patterns and then attributes meaning to them by comparing them to earlier similar sensation patterns. Perhaps you can state this more clearly.

No, I believe that by some other physical mechanism, likely involving quarks and particle physics that I admittedly have a poor understanding of, the electron receives information from not immediately proximal locations, and physically displaces itself to a location with more desirable properties given its current energy state. I don't see how that's different than cuddling up to a warm fire.


You seem to be positing that the structure of the universe is not topological, but that it is instead the consequence of 10^80 atoms all working on concert to decide what the laws of the universe are at this moment. If this is your thesis I am inclined to ask on what basis you think it is even vaguely likely that they would came to a consensus, such as they must to allow the functioning of a universe like ours.

Something like that , although I still don't like the word decide. I don't necessarily think they do come to a consensus. It's just that, as with an attractor network, or similar guaranteed convergence dynamical systems, certain macroscopic states are just more likely than others, despite chaos at the subordinate level. The reason I'd rather drop the word decide is because I don't necessarily want to open the door to something like free will. To cast it in a "God" metaphor, I imagine more of an omniscient God, than an omnipotent God.


Please provide some basis to believe that there is a phenomenal experience.

I can't other than to refer you to what I presume you to have. I could suggest focussing on your breathing, or what have you. I can point you towards literature showing that people that claim to focus on their consciousness can perform physical feats not previous considered possible (for instance monks rewriting the books on the physical tolerance of the human body to cold). Otherwise, I can't. I will say this, however, I take it to be the atomic element of inductive reason. The natural "laws" you are taking as primary are secondary. There is a simple reason for this as Alfred North Whitehead pointed out. If suddenly we were to observe all bits of matter floating away from one another, and were to confirm we were not hallucinating, and perhaps have the experience corroborated by our colleagues, it would not be the experience which was wrong, it would be the laws of nature. Experience has primacy. Matter is merely the logical consequence of applying induction to our particular set of shared experiences.


And that will persist as long as we are not talking about anything. You say "X exists". I say "What is X?". You say "You can't disprove X". And here we are talking about nothing.

I told you, in the best english I can, what X is. It's the qualia of phenomenal experience. Now I can't provide you with direct evidence for it, but I can tell you that nearly everyone I talk to has some sense of what I mean.


You must be using an alternate form of the word "believe". How can someone believe something, and simultaneously be completely unwilling to assert that it is a fact?

I take the Bayesian sense of the word. All probabilities are subjective degrees of belief. I adopt this degree of belief based on anecdotal experience and generalizations therein. None of this would be accepted as evidence by any reviewer, nor should it, and thus I wouldn't want to risk my credibility by asserting it as fact. I can believe some hypotheses to be more likely than others on the basis of no evidence, and in fact do all the time. That's how I, and all other scientists, decide what experiment to run next. I should not, however, expect you to believe me a priori, as you may operate on different axioms, and draw from different anecdotal experience. Thus, I would not feel compelled to assert my beliefs as fact, other than in so far as they are, in fact, my beliefs.