Hi Raj,
I was really hoping not to have to come back here and clean up the following drivel:
Raj wrote:That is the story of General Relativity, and our best physics of today. The story of a deterministic world, devoid of novelty and surprise.
Surprise.. I'm back.
Raj wrote:But, just like the story of the 2nd law of thermodynamics causing the arrow of time, it is devoid of evidence.
Sorry, these Laws wouldn't be Laws unless they matched the evidence. But I will agree that while there is direct correlation between the Arrow of Time and Thermodynamics, I put Time as being the cause of thermodynamics and not the reverse.
Raj wrote:It is a story that demands impossible initial conditions and universal constants, which have to be just right in unison.
But later you write:
Raj wrote:The actual evidential story of our world, and that of our universe, is quite different from that. It is one of evolution from simplicity to complexity. Complex things emerging from combinations of simple things. Stars and galaxies evolving from hydrogen atoms and primordial dust. Complex elements evolving from simple elements. Complex molecules evolving from simple molecules and complex life evolving from simple life.
Ok, so there is some evidence.. which conflicts with your previous stance.
You take the current state of affairs and conclude it can't be that way due to high complexity then contradict yourself and explain that things evolved to get to the current state of affairs.
Did you hope we wouldn't notice your tendency to take a stand on Subject-X then take the opposite stand on Subject-X a paragraph later? Such self confliction is not the signature of rational thinking.
Raj wrote:The story also tells us that we do not know the initial cause, and cannot know. We might as well say “God” created it and we do not know the cause of God. That explanation is far more satisfying than the theory of an infinite number of universes, which we cannot know, and have no evidence of, as it satisfies Occam’s razor infinitely better.
Firstly, throwing a God into the mix doesn't make the "Story" more simple, it makes it more complex and thus can't be justified by Occam's Razor. And secondly, the above quote presumes you have been exposed to all explanations for Creation and have successfully refuted all of them. Well, I haven't presented my ideas regarding Creation here, and I won't, as that would be off Topic.
Raj wrote:Boltzmann, who explained the 2nd law of thermodynamics, didn’t know about the big bang, and thought the universe was eternal, puzzled why we had not already reached the dismal future you have painted, with matter, finely, and equally distributed in space, as we had an infinite amount of time to do so.
Now you have made the fallacy of attributing words/concepts to another person. If Boltzmann had believed the Universe was Eternal, he wouldn't expect a dismal end. Also, are you now taking a stand that we don't have Infinite Time to reach equilibrium? If so, who shut off Time?
Raj wrote:He proposed that our solar system and surrounding region had recently been formed by a very large fluctuation. We know now that we are not just a low entropy fluctuation surrounded by matter dispersed into quarks. His reasoning gave rise to the “Boltzmann brain paradox”. Small fluctuations, like a quark appearing and disappearing quickly, is far more likely than a large fluctuation like a hydrogen atom appearing and persisting. Fluctuations do not persist.
Persisting fluctuations depend on the Geometry of the Fluctuation and the Energy applied.
Raj wrote:Again, given an infinite amount of time, it is far more likely that a conscious brain such as ours, could arise as a random fluctuation for a short duration of time, rather than as a result of slow evolution over billions of years. Less likely again billions of such brains, the world, the solar system, our galaxy and the Universe. They are prohibited as virtually impossible, by the very laws he proved.
And yet, here we are!
The fallacy here is failure to recognize that systems do degrade.. unless one applies a continuous source of energy to such a system. Such application of energy does allow some systems to exhibit an increase in complexity. Or in other words, to evolve from simple to complex. The Sun is our source of Energy. Too much energy and complexity becomes chaos.. no life. To little energy and again.. no life. But that defines a region called the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are favorable to the Evolution of Life, as we know it.
Raj wrote:According to Smolin, the merger of space and time, leading to the block universe, is a gigantic mistake, which is resolved by putting time in its rightful place in reality, as a real entity.
Anyone who says the "Block Model" has no "Time" is a complete fool.. it is quite literally a "Map of Time". Would I dare argue that a Map showing the path from the West Coast to the East Coast can't be a Real Map, simply because I don't see myself moving on that Map? Get Real...
Raj/Smolin wrote:That, and the evolution of physical laws, will enable us to answer questions like, Why is the universe governed by a particular set of laws?
So is that a stand that Physical Laws can't evolve or be emergent over Time? Or is it saying that Physical Laws do Evolve and do explain how we got to our current state of affairs?
Raj/Smolin wrote:Why does the universe start off with a particular set of initial conditions? What mechanism selected them out of the infinite set of possibilities?
Sorry, I've given credit to the above quotes to both Raj and Smolin, because I can't tell which statements belong to Raj, which belong to Smolin and which parts are Raj's taking Smolin out of context or offering his own interpretation of Smolin's works.
But I'll answer the above anyway. Given an infinite set of available Laws then for any subset of said Laws, a Universe might be defined. Most such Universes will be pure trash with no internal witnesses. Some sets of Laws will produce a working Universe which may have internal witnesses, like the one we live in.
This thread got moved from Physics to Metaphysics to give participants greater Freedom of Expression. I applaud that move. But such Freedom doesn't include so many irrational and self conflicting statements as I've seen so far. It also doesn't give license to quote or misquote other people out of context.
Such techniques are the product of an individual who has a weak position to begin with and hopes that the use of such obfuscations can cloak said weaknesses. This has been tried many times on this site and believe me.. it doesn't fly for very long.
Metaphysics is not a license to be irrational. So much incoherence hurts my little brain. Stop it please!
Hi mitchellmckain, happy to see you contribute. We cross posted but I see no conflicts between our posts.
Best wishes,
Dave :^)