What came before the Big Bang?

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I knew that I just like the word malarkey.

Who doesn't

 

[Meow Mix]

Who doesn't

Probably space nazis. I know, that was oddly specific. Maybe I know something you don't.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Probably space nazis. I know, that was oddly specific. Maybe I know something you don't.

No. I watch Craig Ferguson.

 

[Straw Dog]

Hello Legion,

I used work as an example in my discussion of Einstein's relativistic energy-mass equivalence because both work and energy are properties of physical systems but only one has an "exciting" corresponding concept in "common parlence". We tend to think of energy in ways that are exciting and have little or nothing to do with physics, while we think of "work" as awful and in ways that have actually quite a bit more to do with physics, but both are quite similar in physics. I find that comparing energy to work helps take a bit of the mysticism of energy out of the equation (bad pun intended).

I've been more mindful lately about energy flow and work. It has become my mystical practice. Sometimes I feel like I'm here to transform energy into new forms and maximize net entropy over time. Can there be a physical-mysticism?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Can there be a physical-mysticism?

Can there be? Sure. And there are science-based "mysticisms", such as that of my former teacher Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming or the people I consulted with at one point. But I am too skeptical to believe in these (or close-minded, depending upon how one looks at it). Nor am I able to conceptualize what a physical-mysticism might be. Not yet, anyway. Apart from consulting on the paranormal psychology study, this is as close as I've gotten:

There is a good reason this thread is called what it is. Among the many famous exchanges (letters, conferences, conversations, etc.) recorded all over the place between Einstein and someone else is one he had with Heisenberg. Einstein criticized the very basis Heisenberg used to develop his theory, and when Heisenberg replied "Isn't that what you did with relativity?" Einstein came back with "Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning but it is nonsense all the same."

By 1935, he was already considered by some to be a relic obsessed with refuting a well-established theory because, as he put it, "we should try to hold on to physical reality".

The reason Einstein responded to another physicist with the sarcastic, rhetorical question "Is the moon there when you don't look at it?" is because that's what quantum theory was basically saying about the basic constituents of physical reality. His derisive attitude of QM (calling entanglement "spooky", refusing to attend the Solvay conference, etc.) was because he dismissed it as...well...mysticism. And in a very, very particular sense, quantum physics is mystifying:

To many an ancient Greek mystic, the idea that one could show beyond doubt that certain properties of some abstract shape held no matter how one might draw it, build it, or see it, was to speak the language of God. Or, as Leopold Kronecker put it, "Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk"....
All this time spent on "demystifying quantum physics" when in reality the word mystical and mysterious have the same origins and for those who used the word mystikos and various derivations of it, quantum physics would be "mystical" in the same way that mathematics is, or statistical mechanics, or Newton's physics:

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
-Alexander Pope

QM isn't numerology. It may be mystifying, but that is because it is counter-intuitive, not because it isn't well-established as a theory (even if its interpretation is not so well-established).


Whether or not we may find one day that something we dismiss now can be explained by physics and is real, that's not what's going on with Chopra. He's not giving us a new physics, but claiming the one we have is something that it is not. He's being dishonest, manipulative, and deliberately distorting or outright lying about what quantum physics is and what it entails. That is what I object to.







There are solutions to Einstein's equations which allow for, or entail, a sort of time-travel (called closed timelike curves). Where once it was only things like photons that could exist in superposition states, now we've done this with molecules. There is plenty in physics research that will "knock your socks off" (much of it will be wrong, as within any field most theories/models are, but that's how they become refined into a framework of well-established theories).

Personally, I find the brain is mystifying. A neuron fires with certain characteristic frequency: about 100 Hz. Your computer is more than 100,000,000 times faster. And yet even special computers that are over a billion times faster and built with special hardware and which incorporate special databases and use cutting-edge AI programming can't do what a dog's brain can, let alone anything approach a human's. Why? Perhaps because the human brain is arguably the most complex system known to exist. That doesn't mean we are entitled to declare that consciousness proves God exists or other such unsubstantiated claims.

Demystifying quantum mechanics isn't taking away the fact that it is mystifying, it is only making it as mystifying as it should be and as many other theories in the sciences are. It means removing mystical interpretations unsupported by quantum physics and leaving all that is mysterious and mystifying and is supported.

 

[s2a]

So 7billion copies of a device....that can only produce spirit (unique not special)
means nothing to you as evidence?{/quote]

What you present is not evidence, just outcomes of biological forces existennt long before we were around to take any notice whatsoever...

All of this life ends in dust and not chance that someone might survive the last breath and 'move on' ?

That's my current observation and understanding...yes. You are always invited to otherwise overwhelm me and persuade me with recent evidences to the contrary...

It's a large cosmos.
And Spirit cannot exist?

It is.
There is no evidence of any kind to suggest it does, ever, beyond utterly faith-based speculations and claims alone... no.

I suspect a more positive approach is better.....yeah

And that is why you fail

Your "message of hope" will only ever apply to any that yet retain a willing suspension of disbelief that magic or grandfatherly omniscient eternal spirits exist eternally and invisibly... kinda like Santa Claus.

Allow me to entertain your best case arguments (rooted in logic and science) proving that an earth-bound Santa exists... then I may consider the notion of an all-powerful and omniscient "god-like" entity being, that manipulates the entirety of 100s of billions of galaxies in the cosmos, is veritably as "real" as Santa.

Is that not a fair enough starting place?

 

[Straw Dog]

Can there be? Sure. And there are science-based "mysticisms", such as that of my former teacher Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming or the people I consulted with at one point. But I am too skeptical to believe in these (or close-minded, depending upon how one looks at it). Nor am I able to conceptualize what a physical-mysticism might be. Not yet, anyway.

Well, we should be skeptical about theories and continue to challenge them, but they may also be an adequate, yet tentative, means for mystical contemplation. For instance, the most basic contemplation may involve envisioning ourselves as entirely composed of molecules, cells, and neurons. Abiding in this contemplation might help the mind to better attune with the chemical, biological, and neural levels of being.

 

[godnotgod]

Hello Legion,



I've been more mindful lately about energy flow and work. It has become my mystical practice. Sometimes I feel like I'm here to transform energy into new forms and maximize net entropy over time. Can there be a physical-mysticism?

If and when you come to the realization that there is no self; no 'do-er'; no agent of any thought or action called 'I', it will also be realized that the invisible world of consciousness and what we only call the 'physical' world are actually one and the same thing, and that you don't do it, but it does you. 'You' are an action of the total, conscious universe, just as a wave is an action of the total ocean. But because of the self-created concept called 'I', we think we are a separate ego acting upon the world. That has been man's delusion (and misery) from the very beginning.

 

[godnotgod]

Maybe but I would think something is vibrating, something is the source of the vibration. Could empty space vibrating produce something like matter and energy? It is something rather than nothing.

If the 'something' you refer to that is supposedly vibrating were to suddenly stop vibrating, what would occur?

 

[godnotgod]

Consciousness is a product of a brain (although one could focus on a variation of this with even a life form that has no brain, such as a fly), and there simply is no evidence, for example, that someone's pet rock has "consciousness". Nor is there any evidence that there's some sort of "consciousness" floating around in our universe.

The notion that the brain creates consciousness is called the emergent theory, but at this point, it is only a hypothesis.

It has been shown, for one, that long-term mindfulness meditators grow thicker cortexes than ordinary people:


"...with the aid of advanced brain-scanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory. One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain’s cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results last November that showed that the gray matter of twenty men and women who meditated for just forty minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not.…What’s more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age.”

(How to Get Smarter, One Breath At A Time, Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. Time, January 16, 2006, p. 93.)

The Breath of Life: The Practice of Breath Meditation

You seem to separate consciousness from the universe, rendering the universe as an artifact or dead 'thing'. You do realize that science is but an extension of the religious view of God as Maker with the universe obeying certain 'laws', only with the concept of God stripped away. The problem is that what is also carried over is still the notion that the universe is an artifact; a created 'thing' that has no life or consciousness of its own other than what it's former Maker gave to it.

If, as you claim, consciousness is a product of the brain, how do you explain the non-material emerging from the material world?

 

[godnotgod]

As for your recommendation, I don't mean to be trite, but did you realize I'm a cosmology grad student?

I know a thing or two about quantum physics.

Ooooooooooh! Who was it that said that, if you think you know what QM is, you don't know what QM is?

 

[godnotgod]

Matter is stuff.

Matter is stuff, but stuff is an illusion.

 

[godnotgod]

so the universe is as dead (dust) as you will soon be?

Once again, Thief: you still linger in the dual world of 'dead' and 'not-dead'. You are attached to the illusion that the Absolute is manifesting called 'the universe', rather than going directly to the source itself, which is non-dual, absolute, and deathless. The paradox is that the universe is actually the Absolute itself, but as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation. You still think the rope is a snake, and that is because you are still attached to the dust that is the rational mind.

 

[Straw Dog]

If and when you come to the realization that there is no self; no 'do-er'; no agent of any thought or action called 'I', it will also be realized that the invisible world of consciousness and what we only call the 'physical' world are actually one and the same thing, and that you don't do it, but it does you. 'You' are an action of the total, conscious universe, just as a wave is an action of the total ocean. But because of the self-created concept called 'I', we think we are a separate ego acting upon the world. That has been man's delusion (and misery) from the very beginning.

How can I come to such a realization that there is no "I"?

This is merely a simple action of the total system. We have an accord.

 

[godnotgod]

The universe is active, thus producing new arrangements of one type or another all the time.

...either with no rhyme or reason as an unconscious gyrating stupidity, or for the sheer delight of it via an awakened consciousness, since, in either case, such prolific output and infinite variety have no useful purpose whatsoever.

 

[godnotgod]

Like I said

Matter is stuff

Energy is what stuff has, and on the basic its "potential energy" and "Kinetic Energy"

Potential energy based on the relational position of stuff to other stuff.

Kinetic energy based on the movement of the stuff.

Energy is not what stuff HAS; it's what stuff IS.

BTW, the only way you can even talk about either is with consciousness.

 

[Skwim]

Ooooooooooh! Who was it that said that, if you think you know what QM is, you don't know what QM is?

The consensus seems say it was Richard Feynman.

 

[godnotgod]

I'm not convinced that quote is even from Einstein, or was translated correctly. Einstein would have known the difference between mass and matter. I've poked around on the internet and I've seen the quote attributed to him, but never reputably and never with a source. I'm pretty sure it's a bunk quote. Einstein wouldn't make such an elementary mistake.

Unless he were using the word 'matter' as a form-of-convention response to the non-scientist.

Matter is created and destroyed alllll the time. It's the energy that's conserved, and even then it's slightly fuzzy with short-term violations.

Not really. It's form that changes all the time.

A physical thing is something with spatiotemporal extension. Energy does not have spatiotemporal extension, it's a property.

Neither does a physical 'thing', space and time being only concepts.

I agree that we have imperfect "vision" as you put it; but one thing that can't be set aside ontologically is logic. Whatever reality is, it's logical in order to "be" at all. Otherwise indeed, we can be open to anything that's logical.

What I'm saying is that a universe realized via logic is not what the universe actually IS. Logic only tells us how the universe behaves, but in reality, the universe behaves very illogically. To understand why this appears this way, we need to leave the sphere of logic, reason, and analysis behind, and enter another kind of conscious awareness.

Classical physics and logic have defined the world for a very long time, until Quantum Physics and Black Holes came along, overturning all previous 'logical' conclusions.

Science fails because the Infinite can never be encapsulated via logic, reason, or analysis, and that includes mathematics and physics.

Nature appears paradoxical because we are trying to 'understand' what it is via rational concept, which it does not conform to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRoYZSbbp_U

Michio Kaku: "Nature is smarter than we are". Indeed.

 

[godnotgod]

Yeah, I've mentioned that to him too. I'm not sure if he understood that, or that he ignored it.

He seemed to confuse mass with weight. Because we normally use weight as kilogram in non-scientific context, we sometimes forget that weight have different meaning in science.

Perhaps, I should start a new thread on matter, mass and energy, because creationists seemed to fail to grasp the difference. If they are going to debate about science or against science, then they should, at the very least, use the proper terms, and know and understand how to distinguish one term from others.

To say that mass and energy are what E=mc2 is about is to say that one property equals another, which makes no sense. The reference of both mass and energy is to the physical constituent we call 'matter', as ambiguous as it is. All it's really saying is that when the particular mass of a physical system is transformed into energy, there is mathematical consistency and equality, 'mass' referring to volume and density.

 

[godnotgod]

The consensus seems say it was Richard Feynman.

Thanks. Yes, he's the one..