Why is the science of chaos (ie complex systems) important: because it refutes the
assumptions of reductionist science
IONS willis Harman: paradigm shift
Roger sperry<
Nobel prize
for work characterizing the left and right brain
Put thoughts into a lead
article for the 1981 Annual review of NeuroScience
Changing Priorities
Says we are leaving behind
determinism,
behaviorism, and the
materialism of the science of the past
“we
are having to recognize the primacy of inner conscious awareness as a causal
reality”
Harmon says our minds effect reality; and it is often said we create our own
reality;
He says he thinks the
solution to our global problems lies in recognizing consciousness is a primary
cause of reality.
In the early years of
science, there wqas a Tacit agreement with the church that
science would not stray too far into the areas of soul ad spirit. Science was
characterized by 3 assumptions:
Objectivist, positivistic
and reductionist;
basic to western thinking; lead to great technological achievement, undermined
our understanding of values. Short term economic gains
Prigogene; theory of disapative structures
Unconscious:<BR>
Freud traumaatic
events in childhood an be repressed
William James: prof of philosophy; psychology; different
approach; labeled “expansion of consciosness almost
100 years ago; changing inner attitudes
Sleep & Dreams
Unconscious processes
hypnosis
Creativity
Psychic phen
William James had high
regard for Meyers work
World Views: The Quest for Fundamental Reality
Mathematicians such as the French Simeon-Denis Poisson, Andre-Marie
Ampere, and the German Wilhelm Weber, assumed that electrical charges and
magnetic poles act on one another at a distance, while Michael Faraday believed
electrical charges and magnets infuse all space with lines of force,
through which the electric and magnetic charges work. Many scientists of
Newton assumed that both absolute time and location are quantities which cannot be observed, but must be inferred from relative time and location [2a] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-principia/
In 1801, the British physicist Thomas Young appeared to prove light was a wave from the results of his “Double Slit Experiment” which showed that multiple light sources produce interference patterns ; yet in 1839, it was first shown that light waves falling on metal caused the emission of electrons, which suggests that light has particle properties.
Einstein
(German)
As science progressed, it was found that
Einstein’s theory that nothing could exceed the speed of
light flew in the face of
Einstein was not satisfied with general relativity; he wanted to expand his general theory to include electromagnetism, which had been unified from electricity and magnetism by James Clerk Maxwell only about 50 years before Einstein.
The EM force is billions and billions of times stronger than the force of gravity. That is why the atoms of earth or concrete stop an object which is falling due to the force of gravity.
Einstein brooded over an apparent
conflict between Maxwell’s equations and
Einstein Believed time is not absolute due to the behavior of light; space is also not absolute. Einstein's theories worked better for objects moving very fast. The two theories were: 1) the Special Theory of Relativity: Speed of light constant; as material objects approach the speed of light, they become more massive and shorter. Traveling at the speed of light, a material object would have infinite mass and zero length. 2) General Theory of Relativity: Gravity is the curvature of space.
Einstein's universe contains two fundamental types of stuff; matter and energy, related by the famous equation
E=M*C*C
Einstein's laws still did not give good results for very small particles. In addition, photons and electrons exhibited anomalous behavior.
Einstein and Maxwell’s theories were useless at defining what goes on inside atoms.
In the late 1920s, new developments in science showed that what happens inside atoms is governed by probability. Quantum physics was very successful in predicting what happens inside the quantum world, but is bases in probability. Einstein was very uncomfortable with this notion, insisting that god does not play dice with the universe.
The combined theories of kinetic theory of gasses,
thermodynamics, and Maxwell’s equations seemed to indicate that all of the
kinetic energy of molecules should long ago have been radiated away, leaving a
cold dead universe. What was missing? Nature seemed to have some hidden
mechanism which allowed a balance to be reached between the radiation that matter emitted and absorbed.
These anomalies finally lead to the development of the theory of Quantum Mechanics
Max Plank produced a formula in an “act of desperation” which allowed matter to absorb radiant energy only in discreet amounts, or quanta. Einstein completed the coup in 1905 by asserting that radiation itself comes in discreet packetd, now called “photons”. Maxwell made the point that although the things we call photons and electrons appear to us to behave sometimes like particles and sometimes like waves, we should not make the mistake of thinking that they are either. [4]
Einstein rejected quantum mechanics, noting that “God does not play dice with the universe”.
The Oddities of Spin
Electrons and quarks (thought to make up protons and neutrons) posses a property called “spin”. Experimenters have long accepted that the spin of a particle will always be found to point along whichever axis is chosen by the experimenter as his reference. Further, only when an elementary particle is rotated two complete revolutions of 360 degrees, will it have properties indistinguishable from those of the initial particle. [4+1]
The EPR thought
experiment was devised by Einstein Podolsky and Rosen
to discredit the new quantum physics. This thought experiment said that if
quantum theory were correct, a change in spin of one particle in a two particle
system would effect its twin simultaneously,
instantaneously, even if the two had been widely separated in space. A
mathematical proof of this was produced by JS Bell in 1964, and experimentally
confirmed in 1972. This effect is probably not the result of a transfer of
information, but rather a consequence of the one-ness of apparently separate
objects. According to Gary Zukav, "
Probing the structure of the atom, scientists found two more forces: the strong nuclear force holds the protons and neutrons of the nucleus together; the weak nuclear force allows neutrons to turn into protons, giving off radiation in the process.
Gravity is completely overshadowed by EM, strong and weak nuclear forces. The atomic bomb releases the power of the string nuclear force.
Where does gravity fit in?
For the last 20 years of his life, Einstein secluded himself
in a modest house in
In
1982 a remarkable event took place. At the
To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears. The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. [5]
In a series of
landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley
found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to
eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to
surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism
that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of
memory storage. Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered
the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain
scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes
memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in
patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way
that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece
of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram
believes the brain is itself a hologram. Pribram's
theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so
little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to
memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the
average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in
five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has
been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess
an astounding capacity for information storage--simply by changing the angle at
which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to
record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that
one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of
information. Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we
need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the
brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to
tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not
have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file
to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to
Return to: |Top |
The storage of memory
is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that
becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's
holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate
the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies,
sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding
and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a
hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an
apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses
holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives
through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions. An impressive body
of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its
operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained
increasing support among neurophysiologists.
Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli
recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena.
Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving
their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli
discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability. Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce
acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram's belief that our brains mathematically
construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain
has also received a good deal of experimental support. It has been found that
each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was
previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our
visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in
part dependent on what are now called "osmic
frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a
broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the
holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and
divided up into conventional perceptions. But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens
when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if
the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is
"there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the
brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this
blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes
of objective reality?
Return to: |Top |
By Michael Talbot,
from The Holographic Universe
Put quite simply, it
ceases to exist. As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material
world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings
moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion.
Looking for a GUT:
String Theory [6]
Four known types of
force in the universe: gravity, EM force, weak and strong nuclear forces.
Superforce: The world of subatomic particles. p 80-100
Although Gravity is
extraordinarily weak; billions of times weaker then EM force; it is also
universal. The weak force is much stronger than gravity, but much weaker than
the EM force. The weak force is confined to individual subatomic particles,
while gravity and EM are long range. The weak force results in spontaneous
transmutations of atoms. It was discovered that, left to themselves, neutrons
disintegrate after several minutes into a proton, electron, and neutrino. The
weak force is responsible for this. The Strong force holds protons together;
this force is stronger than EM, but like the weak force, is confined to a very
short distance. Neutrons and protons are subject to the strong force, acting to
hold them together, but electrons are not; nor are neutrinos or photons. In the 1960s, quark theory was proposed,
which held that each proton and neutron is made of 3 quarks, held together by
the strong force. This theory made the strong force easier to understand.
The product of high speed particle collisions include several
hundred types. These are not the “constituents” of the collided particles, but
rather resultant debris created on site. In the 1960s, physicists were
completely bewildered by the seemingly endless variety of particles being
discovered in these accelerator experiments. “Today, (1984) there is no longer
any doubt. There is a deep and
meaningful order in the microcosmos” which we are
only beginning to understand. The varying quantities are mass, charge, and
spin, and lifetime. Particles with 0, 1, or 2 spin are called Bosons, after Satyendra Bose; ˝ and 3/2 spin are Fermions. Big particles
which couple to the Strong force are called hadrons; those which feel the weak
force but not the strong are are called leptons
(“light thing”) only a handful of Leptons, which include electron and
Neutrino. Nutrinos feel
neither the strong force nor the EM force, almost
oblivious to matter they pass right through it. They are harmless so the neutrino
experiments require no shielding. They are the most common objects in the
universe, outnumbering electrons or protons by a thousand million to one: the
universe is a
All ordinary matter
is made form the two lightest leptons (electron and neutrino) and the two
lightest quarks (up and down), called the “top level structure”. All remaining
quarks and leptons are
unstable and rapidly decay into the top level structure. Why does nature bother
with them?
Viewed at the quantum
level, two electrons in a collision path would result in a scattering event in
which a photon is emitted by one electron and absorbed by another, and then the
two particles diverge. ( I thought a photon WAS an
electron) Schematic diagrams may be used to represent this activity, and were
first used by Richard Feynman to represent terms in an equation. The emitted
photon can be thought of as a “messenger particle” It is important to note that
this exchange is not observed in the interaction, it is only a conceptual way of thinking about
it. This type of photon is called “virtual”.
The description of
electromagnetic activity in terms of virtual messenger photons is a highly
sophisticated and detailed mathematical theory known as quantum electrodynamics
(QED) This theory is consistent with the principles of both quantum theory and
relativity theory. This theory allows a procedure for calculating the results
of any interaction between photons and electrons, however complicated.
QED passed two
decisive tests:
According to QED,
energy levels of the hydrogen atom ought to be slightly shifted from where they
would be if virtual photons did not exist. Willis Lamb of U of Arizona
conducted an experiment to look for the shift and measure its value showed the
measured and calculated values matched exactly. The second test involved a
small correction the magnetic field carried by the electron. Once again theory
and experiment matched exactly. QED is the most successful quantitative theory
in existence. QED became the model for the quantum description of the other 3
forces. For gravity a particle called the “graviton” messenger particle was
invented, analogous to the photon. When two particles exert a gravitational
influence on each other, thye exchange gravitons.
Photons and gravitons travel at the speed of light, so are “zero rest mass’
particles. The messenger particles which hold quarks together are called
“gluons” gravitons are classed real and virtual. Weak force messengers are the
Z and W particles. Z is identical to the photon except rest mass, and is a new
form of light. Quarks, leptons and messengers completes
the list of known subatomic particles.
George Keyworth, science advisor to the
p. 93 davies fenyman
diagrams
Much has been learned about the universe in spite of the fact that we do not have a GUT. However, some parts of the universe will never be understood without understanding how gravity, EM, and QM are related; that is, without a “GUT”
In 1916, German astronomer Carl Swarchfield proposed what we now call black holes. He postulated these would arise in cases where the mass was so concentrated that gravity was strong enough to prevent even light from escaping.
Today, satellite telescopes are discovering regions with enormous gravitational pull. Most scientists believe these regions are under the influence of black holes.
So, what equations do you use for something that is both very massive (gravity usually rules) or very tiny (QM usually rules) Here is a case where physical reality provides us with something we have no equations to describe.
20th century physicists have now joined in a search to find a way to mathematically describe both the very large (massive) and very small.
The primary contender is “String” theory, or “Super String” theory, which asserts that all phenomena are made up of very tiny strings of energy, which vibrate in varying ways.
Problems: the strings, if they exist, would be so small there would be little chance of ever seeing them.
So how do you test this theory?
( this is a lot like just creating another type of “atom”, or smallest particle.)
Einstein’s theory says that space can stretch or warp, but it cannot tear, so a “worm hole “ cannot be created.
At the level of the quantum, the fabric of space is chotic, so it might rip.
But that might be catastrophic.
This is where strings come in. they have a “calming” effect; they make rips in space possible
(this is getting on pretty thin nice)
modeling of atom went from protons & neutrons in nucleus & electrons orbiting, to a nucleus made of quarks of various flavors.
The next iteration was “String Theory”
By the mid 1990’s, 5 different string theories evolved, involving 10 dimensions.
Edward Witten regarded as standing head & shoulders above other physicists in mastery of mathematics; considered a successor to Einstein
At a world conference on string theory in 1995,
speculate the simple strings can now be membranes (Branes) that can be “as big as the universe”
and that our perceivable universe could be merely one “slice” of a “bulk” of parallel universes
The weakness of gravity confounded scientists for decades. String theory suggests gravity is not really weak, but “seeps” off of our universe like the sound of billiard balls seeps off the billiard ball table.
In early string theory, the strings were all closed loops. Later string theory has all the forces except gravity be un-looped strands hooked to out universe, while gravity is closed loop form which can freely escape into parallel universes. These closed loop strings are called gravitons.
It is also speculated by some that the “big bang” was due to the collision of two “membranes” (slices of toast)
It is noted that if you can’t test it in the lab, it’s not science, but philosophy.
Fermi lab has a 4 mile circuit atom smasher: looking for evidence of a graviton escaping our universe membrane
CERN is working on a much larger one.
String theory predicts supersymmetry: every proton electron grtaviton associated with “accompanying “sparticle”
String theory is predicted by mathamatics
Our picture of the universe has been revised several times to reveal new complexities
Scientists agree: string theory could be wrong
The Modern Kaluza-Klein
Theory unifies Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetic and Einstein's Theory of
General Relativity & Gravity. The theory provides the scientific and
technical basis for modeling galaxies, solar systems, and spacecraft for
traveling to the stars.
Zero point field
Paul Davies: Superforce
Paul Davies wrote: that the advances in theoretical understanding are made spectacular due to the rise of GUTs and supersymmery, which suggest that all nature is ultimately controlled by a “superforce. In the late 1960’s it was shown that electromagnetism can be mathematically combined with the weak force. The new theory predicted a new type of light, made up not of photons, but “Z” particles. In 1983, Z particles were produced in a subatomic particle accelerator.
It is from insights into the relationship between force fields, particles, and symmetry that there has come the conjecture that we live in an 11 dimensional universe. [7]
“The act of observation in quantum physics is not just an incidental feature, a means of accessing information already existing in the external world; the observer enters the subatomic realityh in a fundamental way and the equations of quantum physics explicitely encode the act of observation in their description . An observation brings about a distinct transformation in the physical situation.”[8]
Notes the relationship between the exponential and sine/cosine functions is an example of a kind of symmetry which physicists look for. [9]
Davies on Symmetry
The conservation laws follow directly from
When Maxwell initially wove the equations of electricity and magnetism thgether, he thought they looked unbalanced, He therefore added an equation to make the equations more symmetric. The extra term could be interpreted as creation of a magnetic field by varying an electric field. This turned out to actually exist. Inclusion of the second term allowed trig functions to be solutions to the equations, or electromagnetic waves.
Around 1900, Henri Poincare and Heinrich Lorentz investigated the math structure of Maxwell’s equations. The celebrated “extra term” turned out to give the EM field a subtle but powerful form of symmetry: a rotation not in space, but in space-time. The effect of rotating in space-time is to project some spatial length into time and vice-versa. It took Einstein’s genius to drive home the full implications. Space and time are not independent, but interwoven. The “rotations” Poincare and Lorentz found in Maxwell’s equations can occur in the real world, through motion. The key to the weird space-time projections lies in the speed of EM waves. Thus there is a deep relationship between EM wave motion and the structure of time and space.
Even though the mathematical symmetries may be hard, or even impossible to visualize physically, they can point the way to new principles in nature. Searching for undiscovered symmetries has thus become a major tool of modern physics.
If electric charge is conserved, the question naturally arises as to the nature of the symmetry associated with it. The energy required to lift a weight depends only on the difference in height it is raised; it is independent of route, and of the initial height. “There is a symmetry, therefore, under changes in the choice of zero height. A similar symmetry exists for electric fields. Here voltage is analogous to height. Height and voltage are considered gauge symmetries. It is precisely the gauge symmetry for voltages that assures the conservation of electric charge. [12]
The French Mathematician Henri Poincare
discovered that for formal mathematical reasons,
The questions of whether the universe had a beginning in time, and whether it was limited in space was extensively examined by philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781. He called these questions “antinomies”, that is, contradictions to pure reason, because he thought there were equally compelling reasons for believing the thesis and antithesis of each question.
The concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of
the universe. This was first pointed out by
In 1929, Edwin Hubble made the landmark discovery that wherever you look, galaxies are moving away from one another. Based on this, one could predict a time when the galaxies were all in one location; the time of the “big bang”, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense
[15]
[1] Using "dot" notation for motion with respect
to time. Leibnitz (German)
Is also thought to have invented caluclus
at about the same time as
In reality, calculus was developed incrementally:
ref: Change and motion: Calculus made
clear the teaching company
derivative: deltax/deltat
as t gets smaller: defnition of instantaneous
velocity
Aristotle said "motion is the
fulfillment of what exists
potentially insofar as it exists potentially"
Zeno' s paradoxes about motion starts off
development of calculus:
at one instant,is
a moving object movng? at
every moment it is not moving
dicotamy paradox: moving object will never
reach it's destinations.
these paradoxes bring up idea of
infinity. instantaneous.
200 years after calculus invented,
was "intantaneous" understood.
zeno 500 BC
Eudoxus 400 BC developed method of "exhaustion",
which is similar to the integral
Archimedes uses the method of
exhaustion to calculate volumes
1600s
: kepler and Galilei worked
on motion of planets 4 developing formulas for htese
motions
Cavalieri invented a "method of
indivisibles"
newtons teacher Isaac Barrow expressed
fundamental theorem of calculus, but did not realize it's significance.
most closely associated with calculus: newton & leibniz; the
systematized it;
still took many years to be understood.
Euler: infinite series se of
calculus
lagrange calculus of variations
fourier circular functions series
cauchy infinite series; tried to formalize
the idea of limit
neither newton
nor leibniz were able to master the concept of limit;
too another 180 years
Rieman developed modrn
definition of integral
Karl Weierstrass
developed rigorus definition of limit about 1850
[2] The Man Who Changed Everything: The Life of James Clerk Maxwell Basil Mahon
[3] ibid p180 f
[4] ibid p182 f
[4 +1] ] Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p. 32f.
[5]
The Holographic Universe Michael Talbot Harper Collins 1995 p. 52 f.
[6]
From The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene
[7] Superforce
Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p.5 f.
[8]
Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p.39 f.
[9]
Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p 56.
[10]
Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p.57 f.
[11]
Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p.59 f.
[12]
Superforce Paul Davies Touchstone Books 1984 p. 60 f.
[13]
Turbulent Mirror John Briggs and F.David Peat Harper
Row, 1989 p.27
[14]
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes Stephen Hawking Bantam Books 1988 p. 4-5
[15]
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes Stephen
Hawking Bantam Books 1988 p. 8.