For me, the best definition of science was by physicist Joe Rosen in his book, The Capricious Cosmos . He wrote:

Science is our attempt to understand the reproducible and predictable aspects of nature.

He then defined the terminology, Nature meaning the material universe in which we interact, reproducible means experiments that can be repeated by other investigators, (of course, I am condensing his argument significantly here), predictability involves laws that can be formulated, predicting results.

Now, in my opinion, since the cosmologists always are “surprised” by what is observed in the universe and consistently invent ever new ad hoc concepts, such as dark energy, matter, etc., and that the big bang is neither reproducible or observable, it fails; it is founded on an assumption, which is not necessarily falsifiable.

And obviously, so is Darwinism.

Rosen believes the “universe” was a quantum fluctuation; it was, as another scientist wrote, “one of those things” that just happen!

To me, what is interesting about the debate about cosmology or Darwin is what it reveals about the debaters.

For the advocates of Einstein, who to me belongs in the company of Darwin, Marx, and Freud, those stopped clocks right two times a day, his ideas are beyond question. Yet his “god” of the limitation on the “speed of light” is contradicted. And while I shall present later some concepts that some may find compelling, I think we, as human beings, should attempt to perfect ourselves, our character, and our conduct, and worry less about the nature of things, which I fear our ultimately beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend.

My earlier citations of the work of Simon Berkovich revealed his discomfort with the current state of affairs, and I find his assumption of a “holographic” universe compelling.

However, while some are comfortable with David Bohms’ “implicate order” hypothesis, I think an electrical model fits the observations better.

Berkovich sees “God” as an information systems designer; he talks of design, but doesn’t believe “metaphysics” belongs in the purview of science.

There is tremendous evidence that the “universe” is not material.

My unanswerable question is on the nature of human beings; “God” to me is an epic poet, and not a mathematician.

Rupert Sheldrake wrote in his A New Science of Life :

The concept of genetic programming is based on an analogy with the programmes that direct the activities of computers. It implies that the fertilized egg contains a pre-formed programme which specifies the organism’s morphogenic goals and co-ordinates and controls its development towards them. But the genetic programme must involve something more than the chemical structure of DNA, because identical copies of DNA are passed on to all cells; if all cells are programmed identically, they could not develop differently. So what exactly is it? In response to this question, the idea can only disintegrate into vague suggestions about physio-chemical interactions somehow structured in time and space; the problem is merely re-stated.

…But if it is argued that genetic programmes are not analagous to ordinary computer programs, but to those of self-reproducing, self-organising computers, the problem is such computers don’t exist. And even if they did, they would have to be programmed in the most elaborate way by their inventors to start with…Indeed, the properties [neo-Darwinists] attributed to genetic programmes are remarkably similar to those which vitalists endowed their vital factors; ironically, the genetic programme seems to be like a vital factor in a mechanistic guise.

Life encompasses all the disciplines, does it not? Humans specialize — physicists, molecular biologists, etc. but the universe is a coherent whole.

I think Rosen’s definition is apt; I agree with Berkovich that a new “paradigm” is needed, but I do not know if human beings are ready for it, or they would ultimately become better human beings with greater understanding.

As to what makes more sense to me, personally, than superstrings, dark matter, dark energy, and “God” particles, consider the following:

If we deal with the real universe of our senses, augmented by modern technology, we stand the best chance of developing the physical concepts leading to a “real theory of everything.” Here “everything” is limited in the sense of “everything we can detect and know about at present.” For there is a limit to what we can detect and know, not only at the smallest and the largest of scales but also with regard to what we pay attention to and what we overlook at all scales.

Neither Einstein’s relativity nor quantum mechanics are physics so we cannot use them as a foundation for our new model (although we should find that the mathematics that works in the real world still applies). We have to discard “modern” physics and return to the classical physics of a century ago. This, perhaps, is the greatest hurdle – to discard our training and prejudices and to approach the problem with a beginner’s mind.

The “something absolutely fundamental” that is missing in our explanation of gravity and quantum behavior is the electrical structure of matter. Here we are not talking about negative electrons and positive atomic nuclei. We must “go down” one more level and propose that all subatomic particles, including the electron, are resonant structures of electric charges of opposite sign that sum to the charge on that particle.

The electron is not a fundamental, point-like particle.4 It must have structure to provide its dipole magnetic field. There must be orbital motion of charges within the electron to generate the magnetic dipole. The transfer of electrical energy between the charges in their orbits must be resonant and near-instantaneous for the electron to be a stable particle. The same model applies to the proton and the neutron. This model satisfies Einstein’s view that there must be some lower level of structure in matter to cause resonant quantum effects.

We cannot have a theory of everything until we have a workable concept of the structure of matter that satisfies the observation that inertial and gravitational mass are equivalent. When we accelerate electrons or protons in an electromagnetic field they become less responsive to the fields the more they are accelerated. This has been interpreted as an increase in mass. However, charges have no mass. So how do they give the electron, proton and neutron the property of mass?

The accelerating electromagnetic field will distort the orbits of charges within the electron or proton. It seems the more distorted a particle becomes, the more easily the energy supplied to accelerate the particle is assimilated in further distortion rather than in acceleration. Hence the apparent increase in mass. The inertial mass of a particle is a measure of the degree to which it responds to an electric field by distorting rather than accelerating. It implies the charge centers of a proton at rest have to be separated more than those in an electron at rest. That allows the proton to distort more readily than an electron in the same electric field and accounts for their differences in size and mass.

“What we call mass would seem to be nothing but an appearance, and all inertia to be of electromagnetic origin.” – Henri Poincaré, Science and Method.

A neutron combines the charges from a proton and an electron in a barely stable resonance, which decays in minutes. Its decay must have a cause and may involve an interaction with a neutrino. However, when combined with protons it seems neutrons form a new stable resonant structure that serves to bind the protons electrically despite the overall positive charge on the nucleus.

The notion that matter can be annihilated when normal matter meets antimatter is a confusion of language. Matter can neither be destroyed nor created nor can matter be exchanged for energy. Einstein’s E = mc2 refers to mass, a property of matter, not matter itself. The mathematical relationship represents the restructuring of resonant systems of charge. What seems to happen in “annihilation” is that the complementary resonant charge structures of a particle and its antiparticle combine so that almost all of the internal energy is radiated away and the combined charges form a new collapsed particle of low internal energy.

The most collapsed form of matter is the neutrino, which has a vanishingly small mass. However, the neutrino must contain all of the charges required to form two particles – a particle and its antiparticle. This symmetry explains why a neutrino is considered to be its own anti-particle. A neutrino may accept energy from a gamma ray to reconstitute a particle and its anti-particle. “Empty space” is full of neutrinos. They are the repositories of matter in the universe, awaiting the burst of gamma-radiation to expand them to form the stuff of atoms. The weird “zoo” of short-lived particles created in particle accelerators and seen in cosmic rays are simply unstable resonant systems of charge.

The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass implies that gravity is also an electrical force. Before Einstein, some noted scientists were suggesting that the gravitational force between neutral particles might ultimately be due to electrical polarization within the particles. In 1882, Friedrich Zöllner wrote in the introduction to his book, Explanation of Universal Gravitation through the Static Action of Electricity and The General Importance of Weber’s Laws, “…we are to conclude that a pair of electrical particles of opposite signs, i.e. two Weberian molecular pairs attract each other. This attraction is Gravity, it is proportional to the number of molecular pairs.” Indeed, gravity can be represented as the sum of the radially aligned electric dipoles formed by all subatomic particles within a charged planet or star.

This new electrical concept suggests that Newton’s “universal constant of gravitation,” or “G,” is a dependent variable. G depends upon the charge distribution within a celestial body. Highly charged objects like comets look like solid rock, yet they have a gravitational field that suggests they are fluff-balls. And as they discharge they suffer what is euphemistically called “non-gravitational” accelerations. The extreme weakness of the force of gravity, compared to the electric force, is a measure of the minuscule electric dipolar distortion of nucleons. Gravity cannot be shielded by normal electrostatic shielding because all subatomic particles within the gravitational field respond to the dipolar distortion, whether they are metals or non-metals.

What about magnetism? Ampere’s law for the magnetic force between two current carrying wires is found to be equivalent to the transverse electric force caused by the distortion of electrons in an electric field. This distortion causes them to form tiny collinear electric dipoles. That is, the magnetic force is simply another manifestation of the electric force.

This simple electrical model of matter has the great virtue of reducing all known forces to a single one – the electric force. However, it has a price. We must abandon our peculiar phobia against a force acting at a distance. And we must give up the notion that the speed of light is a real speed barrier. It may seem fast to us, but on a cosmic scale it is glacial. Imposing such a speed limit and requiring force to be transmitted by particles would render the universe completely incoherent. If an electron is composed of smaller subunits of charge orbiting within the classical radius of an electron, then the electric force must operate at a speed far in excess of the speed of light for the electron to remain a coherent object. In fact, it has been calculated that if released, the subunits of charge in the electron could travel from here to the far side of the Andromeda galaxy in one second!

We have direct evidence of the superluminal action of the electric force, given that gravity is a longitudinal electric force. Indeed, Newton’s celebrated equation requires that gravity act instantly on the scale of the solar system. It has been calculated that gravity must operate at a speed of at least 2×1010 times the speed of light, otherwise closely orbiting stars would experience a torque that would sling them apart in mere hundreds of years. Similarly, the Earth responds to the gravitational pull of the Sun where it is at the moment, not where the Sun was 8 minutes ago. If this were not so, the Earth and all other planets in the solar system would be slung into deep space within a few thousand years. Gravity is therefore an electrical property of matter, not a geometrical property of space…

The implications for biological systems in this electrical model of matter are profound. A method of near-instantaneous signalling between resonant molecular structures within cells and on cell walls seems plausible and may provide a way of looking at the mind-body connection and other communications external to the body. It may provide a link between classical physics and the pioneering work of the biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, in biological morphogenesis and telepathy.

“If H(p) is almost equal to “i” we stand in front of a poor quality and useless theory. In practice it does not tell us anything more that the input observation data tell us yet from the beginning.”

this was something that always bothered me about Darwinian evolution and its adjuncts (punctuated eqilibrium etc.) they always seemed to be little more than descriptions of data rather than a theory with any predictive power.

For a quick, introductory read on emergence I’ll plug Laughlin’s book-
A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (2005, Pub. Basic Books)

Very interesting discussion again and enjoyed the last link. Besides an easy, accessible read and summary of Gödel, Turing, Chaitin, and Von Neumann’s insights on biology, ProgettoCosmo reminded me of the great Italian seafood in Rimini, the wines of San Marino and walks along the mountains and coatal areas

Good memories and Good science. Int Ping!

Mathematics and the origin-of-life problem

It may be important in enough I’ll post a separate weblog.

Salvador

Even though I think one can argue successfully that the definitions of IC in math, physics, and biology are distinct, these definitions are unified in their rejection of reductionism.

Darwinism relies heavily on some sort of reductionism. That complex problems can be incrementally reduced to smaller pieces. A classic illustration of this is the micro evolution of finch beaks on the Galapogos islands.

Dry environments favored thicker beaks. The problem of getting a thicker beak could be incrementally reduced and decomposed into smaller pieces which gave feedback toward the optimal solution.

IC systems are not so friendly to this reductionistic approach. Consider your computer passwords. Can a hacker, in general, get a sense he’s getting closer to finding your password via a Darwinian pathway. No. All of the nearest attempted passwords (passowrds that are only one character off) are just as ineffective at logging in as the one that are farthest (attempted passwords many characters off). The bigger problem can’t be reduced (or scaled) into self-similar smaller parts. That is the nature of IC. Passwords are a good illustration of IC.

What if we find in biology, certain features that exploit IC phenomena in physics? There is no provable Darwinian pathway to that physical phenomena, since by definition, an IC phenomena in physics will not have a gradualistic pathway. That may be the case because the underlying math of physics has many IC phenomena as well (see the article above connecting emergent phenoma in physics to Godel’s incompleteness). Thus, physics and Darwinism probably don’t mix….

Have we found such IC systems in biology which use IC in physics? I don’t think so, yet. But we might not recognize it unless we’re actively looking for it. Hence, my suggestion to the informed readers at UD is to keep on the lookout. I espcially think we’ll find a lot of IC richness in study of neuroscience. Mathematical physicist Roger Penrose seems to be of this opinion….

Biology might be teaching us where there are interesting IC phenomena in physics. We might not recognize these exploitable technologies if we are not actively looking for them too. We might actually learn physics by studying biology!

And finally, if Chaitin is right about experimental math, biology might also clue us in on interesting areas of experimental math!!!!

geoffrobinson:

A mechanism for submitting stories would be great.

As a temporary solution, how about a thread at ARN maybe in their off topic forum????

Let’s save further commentary on this idea for another 2 days, and then let’s open discussion of this at the tail end. If it ends up being a substantial issue, I, or someone will open a thread on reader feedback.

In the meantime, I have a few more comments…

Sal