OT: This is Baylor country

[JRRRJ]

I've wondered about that a lot.I think it varies from pol to pol. Don't want to chance violating policy by naming names, but there are some that you just KNOW are sincere in their ignorance and others who seem to have something of a hard time faking it.

I've come to believe that there are far fewer "sincerely dumb" and "sincerely passionate" politicians than those who pander to the single-issue voters (who seem to mostly hold what I consider unsupportable views on those issues) in order to get elected, re-elected, re-re-elected, &c.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

I subscribe to Scientific American and I'm fascinated by much of what I read there. But when articles start talking about some of the stuff tossed around in some of the posts above I turn the page, totally baffled. I cannot get my mind around this fairly basic question: when the big bang went off, it went off into what? Or: With the universe constantly expanding, it is expanding into what?

 

[JRRRJ]

JR; No, I can't. I am by no means knowledgeable in the field of theoretical physics, only an awe-struck and fascinated observer. I just spent an hour trying to find an answer to your question. Some physicists seem to believe that the classic "two-slit" experiment is sufficient proof; others don't. It looks as if the best argument for the multiverse interpretation is that, incomprhensible as it is, it is less incomprehensible than alternate explanation of the strange world of quantum mechanics. The best statement of this that I could find is from Max Tegmark, quoted in Wikipedia; (part of a much longer article)
"A common feature of all four multiverse levels is that the simplest and arguably most elegant theory involves parallel universes by default. To deny the existence of those universes, one needs to complicate the theory by adding experimentally unsupported processes and ad hoc postulates: finite space, wave function collapse and ontological asymmetry. Our judgment therefore comes down to which we find more wasteful and inelegant: many worlds or many words. Perhaps we will gradually get used to the weird ways of our cosmos and find its strangeness to be part of its charm."[5]

I've no problems with incomprehensibility. It's a basic truth that our understanding of anything is limited and incomplete, no matter how we circumscribe the area under discussion. But by that very truth, a theory purporting to explain the observed facts without being able to reasonably predict consequences we haven't yet observed, is just an exercise in building castles in the air. No matter how logical and congruent it is, we have no clue whether it is actually related to the reality it attempts to describe or just pretty picture echoing what we already know, but in another modality.

And obviously the predictions need to be testable.

I have built many beautiful logical structures to explain why things happen in my world that turned out to be unconnected to the actual workings of those things.

And I don't live in the camp that holds that true understanding will reveal some "essential underlying simplicity". Sometimes, things are just complicated because they encompass many things. Occam's razor is a guideline to use in evaluating conflicting theories, not a gating criteria.

I got involved in this discussion because, coincidentally I've been thinking about the possible effects of branes intersecting along some shared dimension(s). Most interesting to think about if the number shared is higher than one.

 

[JRRRJ]

I subscribe to Scientific American and I'm fascinated by much of what I read there. But when articles start talking about some of the stuff tossed around in some of the posts above I turn the page, totally baffled. I cannot get my mind around this fairly basic question: when the big bang went off, it went off into what? Or: With the universe constantly expanding, it is expanding into what?

For me, the simplest way to express it is that the big bang creates the space it expands into. Kinda like an explosion in a vacuum: the particles from the explosion expand, making the space they expand into different than it was before. And "before" the big bang, all there was to our universe was a kind of dimensionless singularity. The question of "where did that singularity exist? What was it embedded in?" is what brings up all the multiverse stuff.

I currently favor the foam model: non-intersecting universes in an omniverse. Of course, that can be seen as just raising the "What's it embedded in..." question one level higher and opening up infinity. Or, you can read Henry Hasse's "He Who Shrank" for a possible (though troubling) pointer to an answer.

On edit: Oops! I checked out the end of "He Who Shrank", and I appear to have conflated it with some other story/movie that contained the ending I meant -- where the universe-hopper ends up back where he started. Nonetheless, it's a good story, very surprising in how many ideas you wouldn't have thought had currency in 1936.

 

[Zorro]

Yes - I had trouble keeping my observation 'apolitical' as well. Had more to say, but self censored - but it got into memberships of the various congressional committees most involved with science and technology.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more!

 

[Zorro]

I've no problems with incomprehensibility. It's a basic truth that our understanding of anything is limited and incomplete, no matter how we circumscribe the area under discussion. But by that very truth, a theory purporting to explain the observed facts without being able to reasonably predict consequences we haven't yet observed, is just an exercise in building castles in the air. No matter how logical and congruent it is, we have no clue whether it is actually related to the reality it attempts to describe or just pretty picture echoing what we already know, but in another modality.

And obviously the predictions need to be testable.

I have built many beautiful logical structures to explain why things happen in my world that turned out to be unconnected to the actual workings of those things.

And I don't live in the camp that holds that true understanding will reveal some "essential underlying simplicity". Sometimes, things are just complicated because they encompass many things. Occam's razor is a guideline to use in evaluating conflicting theories, not a gating criteria.

I got involved in this discussion because, coincidentally I've been thinking about the possible effects of branes intersecting along some shared dimension(s). Most interesting to think about if the number shared is higher than one.

The fact that (as I understand them) neither superstring theory, brane theory, multiverse theory nor any other attempt to track quantum mechanics to its den has at this point yielded testable hypotheses does not mean that none of them ever will. General relativity had no solid empirical evidence when it was formulated either, but testable hypotheses were developed and carried out by Eddington and others. I do believe that the quest for the elusive TOE or GUT will eventually home in on SOMETHING that will harmonize relativity with quantum mechanics. Both are indisputably accurate and useful explanations of their own domains; there HAS to be an explanation/theory that subsumes them both. And I do not believe that it is going to come from esoteric philosophy or theology.

 

[Zorro]

This thread has veered a long way off-course from Waco!!

 

[Icebear]

This thread has veered a long way off-course from Waco!!

Sounds just like the stuff David Koresh was teaching. LOL

 

[RS9999X]

Its been suggested we will never prove the existence of much of quantum mechanic theory. At best we will have math and a theory that answers much but proves little. Our instrumentation will never cross over the plane to another dimension. Physical bodies won't. Once into the 4th dimension and dimensions beyond proof will always be based on a faith that something in the known dimensions is missing and the present math doesn't add up

 

[Zorro]

I told Wilbur and I told Orville and I'm tellin you, the durned thing'll never leave the ground! Beam me up, Scotty.