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Author
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Topic: Process and the Aether
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Laurent
Member
Member # 425
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posted 22. September 2002 19:43
The Aether and Relativity
Perception is an old function of matter, dead or alive. Our brains became Nature's best perception tool only after billions of years of evolution. This need for perception is what makes Relativity absolutely necessary for there to be a growth in knowledge and complexity, and the consequent formation and evolution of matter and all living organisms.
Perception/sentience/communication are fundamental functions of all matter, dead or alive. Sentience is not unique to living matter, living matter is the result of sentience. Sentience is synonymous to communication, and communication is any information exchange between any two or more parties. The observer could be a molecule, a rock, an ant or a human being. Perception is not an exclusive ability of living sentient beings, human sentience is the actual evolutive result of all the sensing matter has been doing through the ages. Matter is aware of its surroundings, but this doesn't mean it can think (unless it had previously being formed into a brain).
Reality is a never-ending, continuos, self-organizing information exchange mediated by light which arose from chaos in a random event governed by the laws of thermodynamics. Reality is process. The ontological features of our universe come from the constant processing of geometrical information which is continuously created by matter interacting with matter through space. Zeno de Elea was right.
There is a difference between time and the rate of existence, existence does not happen in a spacetime metric, it is the metric. Process (existence) always moves forward, in one direction, whereas time can appear to flow backwards within process. Existence (process) occurs at the speed of light. The speed of light is the rate at which an observer's present moves through time. Light is the universal measuring rod.
The reason that, in spacetime, frames must be related is because it all comes from a single entity, reality is one single process, the Universe is one, and all frames within the observable Universe are related by the aether, through the aether. All frames depend on the same aether.
Relativity can only refer to relative time or length because it is the description of a whole where every object is physically (energetically) related to each other. In other words, if an object could be conceived to be accelerating in a prefectly empty void or independently from any object or frame of reference it could not and would not experience any changes in time or length, but because it is embedded in a metric which represents the whole, objects do experience relativistic effects in relation to others. It is a property of the whole which arises from its physical need to abide by the laws of thermodynamics and the equivalency principle.
This is what triggered Einstein's interest in Bohm's 'undivided wholeness'. He understood that for there to be a continuum, and therefore for Relativity to hold, the Universe must be conceived as a whole. He eventually became a Pantheist, he simply had no choice... Or why else would an object's dimensions depend on its surroundings if it wasn't for this wholeness? How was Nature to enforce symmetry if it wasn't through wholeness in space and time?
Einstein's Gravitational Aether is more akin to Newton's absolute space than most people think, but it is imbued with Mach's reciprocity between matter and space, and relativation.
Einstein, as the master of process and continuity that he was, proved that there can't be this bunch of separated rigid bodies (Newton's billiard ball model) without incurring into FTL signal propagation, and invented - spacetime continuum - a continuos field from which all of reality emerges as objects interact with each other. This continuos field is the basis for his GTR.
He also realized that there can't be an absolute frame of reference, it would invalidate Relativity. Relativity is possible because the medium is infinitely divisible. Time and length contractions are real. They need to be in order for the Equivalency Principle and the laws of Thermodynamics to hold. There is no need for an absolute frame of reference when you have an infinitely divisible substrate from which everything is made.
The aether is a physically finite substance, but is spatially unbounded. Extension is a material property not applicable to the aether. Density is also a non-applicable property when defining the aether, it is only applicable when describing matter. Space is material. Space and matter are inseparable, and the properties of density and extension do apply.
If the aether were not physically finite, then why would the equivalency principle be necessary when describing the motion of a material system under acceleration? Still it can be conceived as infinitely divisible, or indivisible; simply because it is immaterial.
Because the aether is physically finite, matter is also finite at any given moment, but infinite as a function of time and transformation. Nature is the perpetual motion machine.
But we have to be careful with meanings here. What Einstein was referring to as 'empty space' is more akin to nothingness than the empty space we usually talk about. Remember that at the time Einstein wrote his 1920 essay "The Ether and the Theory of Relativity", QED was probably only a crackpot's dream. He thought that, in order to obtain an empty space, it was possible to extract all matter from a given volume. It wasn't until Timothy Boyer that we began to understand the different meanings of 'empty space'.
We must not to confuse the concept of space outlined by QED with Einstein's gravitational aether. CBR and ZPR are observable, material phenomena, with mechanical properties, like density and pressure. The gravitational aether is a physical but non-material, non-measurable, non-observable, yet very real substance.
Problems arise when you fail to grasp the notion, which arises from Relativity, that space doesn't exist by itself, neither does time nor matter. Space is an extension of matter. Space tells matter what to do, and matter tells space what to do. I am not saying they are not real, they are as real as they can be. They just can't exist independently from each other. Real is the process that relates space, time and matter in the formation of our reality.
Reality is not about things, it is about process. -------- Lee Smolin
There are no empty spaces in the classical sense. There can't be a void, not as a real thing. If it is, then it isn't a void. A void is synonymous to nothingness (no-thing), and if space is a thing then, a void must logically be devoid from any notions of space or space-like extensions. There is no place for voids in a spacetime continuum either, or it wouldn't be a continuum.
Einstein said that when trying to define the aether we need to put aside our notions of movement, extension... the future or the past. He also said this substance lacks all the properties of matter and yet all matter is made and ruled from it.
The beauty is in its simplicity. "The aether is a physical but non-material substance..." It is a substance but it is not material, therefore it does not exist in spacetime. Being is not the same as existing.
We can't ascribe a property like extension to the aether because the aether is immaterial. The aether is, but it doesn't exist in spacetime, therefore it isn't bound by spacetime rules. Extension is a property only applicable to material objects existing in spacetime. The same happens with the properties of motion and time, the aether is but it doesn't exist in spacetime, hence it is eternal... not subject to change. In order for the aether to exist it must become spacetime.
If the aether were to be truly an all-pervading substance, which existed in and outside of all matter, why would it need the property of motion? Motion and time are for objects in spacetime.
The aether is everywhere, it is the set that contains all other sets, the set of all sets. It is the circle Zeno, Bruno and Pascal once described, a circle whose circumference is everywhere and the center nowhere. It is not dependent on the geometry, but helps determine the geometry of spacetime.
Local events are bound by the rules of spacetime, like linearity, causality and determinism. Non-local effects (like the propagation of a given objective state), are not really happening in spacetime, they happen at the aether level, and are not bound by the rules of spacetime.
Lorentz invariant values originate at the aether level, they are real but non-material effects which often help determine Lorentz invariant geometrical properties of objects. This is why some people find Topology to be such an interesting discipline. They are a set of ratios determined at the aether scale; frame independent constants.
The aether helps determine things like the ratio of the electric displacement in free space, to the intensity of the electric field producing it (e0), or the ratio of the magnetic flux density, in free space, to the external field strength, (m0). But it itself is not observable, you can't say - here, lets take a look at this aether! - because it is immaterial, real but not in spacetime, real but not perceptible. This is why MMX failed so miserably.
We are effectively just talking about the vacuum state of any quantum field theory. Our concept of an "aether" has been integrated into physics for a very long time.
You can call it the long winded vacuum state of quantum field theory. I'd prefer to use the shorter word Aether though. The term aether isn't used since it harkens back to the idea of a fluid medium, which is very misleading. A vacuum state is exactly what it sounds like, the quantum mechanical state of the vacuum.
But is that vacuum considered a thing? Is it real? I suppose it is, since how could it be in any given state if it wasn't real? Is it real even though it isn't material?
It is real and it's called the Aether. Spacetime is, in a way, a product of the aether, this is why we say the aether is the substrate to all matter and space.
The Aether... (where Physics meets Philosophy)
Can you be without existing? Can you be in a realm where neither time nor space have any significance? Is there any useful, meaningful information below the Planck scale?
The difference between being and existing, is that - to be - you don't need to be somewhere, while - to exist - you do. To exist your location must be certain, you must exist above the Planck scale, but to be you don't even need to be physical, and all you need to be physical is to be able to act as a force.
The aether is the physical, nonmaterial substance from which the whole Universe is made.
The aether must permeate everything, it is everywhere by its own definition, you can't conceive a fragmentable aether, or it would not be the aether as it was defined thousands of years ago. By definition, everything is made from the aether, even the space that surrounds you. This definition is what makes GTR (General Theory of Relativity) true, since everything is related through and by the aether. Or how could it be that, just because you are in an accelerated state, time and length must change in relation to a stationary observer? Wasn't space supposed to be an absolute, primary, independent and non-derivable from anything else (Newton)? The Universe is one single entity, one process. Its space... its objects... Mankind, its all one thing, which by definition, we call the aether.
Any physical material substance will occupy space. This physical but nonmaterial substance (aether) does not occupy any space. It doesn't exist in spacetime, because it is spacetime, therefore it doesn't exist but it is. This physical nonmaterial substance becomes a physical material substance by means of spinning fields at very high speeds, creating the properties of volume, mass, gravity, solidity, light... and spacetime.
The aether gives us unity, interconnectedness, continuity and, since the notion of space doesn't apply to it, non-locality. There are no parts when you refer to the aether. You can look at electric fields, magnetic fields, gravitational fields, or any kind of force field as different 'things' or 'parts' of a greater whole made from the same continuos, inseparable aether.
At the quantum level, even the measuring apparatus would be very difficult to separate from the measured event, and if you were looking for the aether you would have to go by quantum mechanical parameters, since you can't even begin to look for an aether at the classical level. You can measure for the properties of fields, but you can't measure for the presence of the aether in one given location since by definition it must permeate everything there is.
Things move, but not in respect to the aether, things move in respect to other things at the classical level, but that loses meaning at the sub-quantum level, the level at which the aether exists and manifests itself as one entity. Everything is connected to the aether because everything is made from it.
Space (CBR and ZPE) is made from the same stuff Hawking's singularities are made. Space is indivisible... you could stretch it and create huge volumes within it but you can't divide it into separate entities. Space is one, it can be stretched to create more space (false vacuum) within it, but this space isn't empty, it is still filled by a thinly stretched background radiation.
Newton's gravitational constant 'G' (a proportionality constant) isn't a product of gravity, it comes from the tension created by an 'anti-void' force and the space suction caused by spatially separated objects' own gravity. It is simply the force created against any force trying to separate something (the aether) which is indivisible. It is also from this forceful separation of the metric that all kinds of potentialities arise, and these potential manifestations depend on which way you are pulling or stretching the medium. This is why there can't be displacement without replacement. This is where this 'anti-void' force comes from, as it is the aether's nature not to allow its separation (or tearing of the space fabric) for it needs to maintain its wholeness for phenomena like inertia and non-local (or spacetime independent) communications to be possible.
If you immerse in water a bullet shaped object (one foot in diameter) and then accelerate it to supersonic speeds, this projectile will inexplicably pull with a body of water attached to its rear, never allowing the formation of a void as the theory predicts. The same with Timothy Boyer's imaginary piston, if you were to pull it with high acceleration, the force resisting you would be higher than what Newton's second law predicts. Russians have obtained fields of 25 million oersteds generated from the void with a similar method. They used explosives to pull the piston.
This anti-void tension force may easily be what fuels eternal angular acceleration, galaxy spin, particle spin, tornado spin...
Nature (aether) abhors separation, that is why you can't have a void within space.
Information and the Aether
The aether, consists of basic, changeless, motionless fixed values (laws), from which everything else, including meaningful information, is being created as spacetime.
When you think about the infinite capacity of EM waves to store and propagate information, you have to ask yourself, why should we go sub-quantum when the quantum level and spacetime provide us with such a rich structure (Television, cell phones, radio, virtual particles and all EMR).
How can information contained as all kinds of geometrical relationships, ratios within ratios, that are evident or real only in spacetime, be created, stored and accessed by process, at a sub-quantum level?
The aether is what makes the magnetic, electric and gravitational fields react to each other and other phenomena (charge, mass...) the manner in which they do, as autopoiesis occurs.
Some of the information about the environment (about the Universe) comes from the aether, as it rules the whole Universe, all at once, with just a few fundamental laws (constants), but most of it is stored in spacetime. Thanks to the wholeness of the aether this information can be transmitted instantaneously as wave dimensions (through wave superposition), allowing at the same time all kinds of emergent informational systems to observe themselves in wholeness, consequently helping them to evolve.
Particle complementarity is due to an indivisible process which originates in a common background, but the only necessary information being transferred (through EMR in hyperspace) from the aether to the particles is that concerning momentum and location in relation with that inertial frame and the rest of Universe. There is no need for some mega information storage system which must contain the history of the Universe, all the information needed for the evolution of the system in spacetime is contained by the system itself - in spacetime.
I don't see all the information that comprises a material system coming from the 'implicate order', every object exists as a solid body coupled to a matter-wave, and its displacement through space must be described by a wave-function, information about the object's relation to its surroundings and the rest of the Universe is picked and brought-in by each object's particular pilot-wave. I see Hiley's pre-space as synonymous to the aether, but in my view the aether has no capacity to hold any information, just qualities which are turned into quantities by matter in spacetime.
So Quantum Mechanics' big mystery was - why do I have to observe the cat in order to know whether it's dead or alive? And the answer is that our brains are measuring devices, just like the rest of all matter. We are the best measuring device that ever emerged from all the information processing that has transcurred in our neighborhood to this date. Interactions within the system (brain) depend on more than the information it gets through its five senses, there is an interaction occurring at a deeper level between the system and its environment.
The medium in which any given self-organized system is developing is full of information which the system needs and will use in order to maintain itself. Matter is not different, it can be defined as a self-organized system, and the medium in which it develops is full of information in the form of EMR. Any given neutron will need to extract from hyperspace only the information a neutron would need to support its structure.
The fact that this information is gathered in hyperspace makes it a non-local function. This function was defined by Bohm's quantum potential as a holistic awareness function of matter, as he explained EPR type phenomena (entanglement, non-locality, FTL communication...).
If we allow for three different scales of reality with the aether as an eternal substrate for hyperspace and spacetime, it can be done. We could say that the aether, hyperspace and spacetime are all different states of the same entity, the difference between them is a matter of scale. At the aether scale (sub-quantum) there are no reference points, no meaningful motion, no time, no wave fronts... then at a larger scale it becomes hyperspace and we get EM waves, strings/branes and the quantum with it, and, finally, at an even larger scale we get Einstein's spacetime, the objective Universe as we naturally perceive it.
1) The Aether - (Sub-quantum level), dimensionless, eternal. Hawking's singularities or Hiley's 'pre-space'. Previously considered as an entity by great minds like Maxwell, Lorentz, Einstein... and more recently as the implicate order or pre-space by Bohm, Hiley and others.
2) Hyperspace - (Quantum level). Wheeler's pre-geometry, Kaku's hyperspace, CBR, ZPF...
3) Spacetime - (Classical level). Gravity, spacetime... the objective Universe.
When we rotate the plane of polarization in a beam of light the whole beam changes at once, instantaneously, so what kind of medium is this aether? Is it a particulated fluid, a super-elastic gel or, a hyper-solid?
The aether is non-dimensional. Events occurring within the aether occur without motion, but the manifestations we have in hyperspace, and the objective reduction of matter-waves into spacetime are ultimately ruled by laws coming from the aether's intrinsic electromagnetic properties.
If we could conceive reality to have started with a substance made of this non-material (because neither time nor length apply to it) indivisible stuff (that makes the points that make the lines that make the strings that make the quanta that makes the quarks...) from where hyperspace emerged (sharing the properties of both - the aether's omnipresence, and spacetime's linear time, motion and information processing), and finally we got spacetime as reference points emerged, which contains the properties of all three scales or realms. What else could we ask for?
It's an indivisible (or infinitely divisible), eternal singularity which has inflated and stretched to what the Universe is today. It has no parts and no process within it - it is the process. Motion, time, extension, order, size, beginning or ending are notions that do not apply, and yet everything is made from it, even space.
If space were what Newton thought it was, non-locality would have been a very hard thing to understand. (That's why action at a distance seemed like an absurd to Newton, since, in his view, there was no way an object could exist in two different places at the same time.)
To us (at spacetime scale) it seems as if it became a bunch of unrelated separated entities, but in reality it's all connected through the all pervading aether, even the most desolated regions of the Universe are part of the one single process that started it all, it's all made from the same aether that gave birth to it. Everything that changes will experience inertial forces, simply because in reality there is only one process (the Uni-verse) from where a myriad of informational nodes (objects) evolved to become apparently separated systems.
For any process to continue evolving there must be internal oversight as a whole, which is only possible if all the parts are interconnected, and that can be a huge problem when we are talking about a system the size of the Universe. We knew it had to be a non-local function, and this is only possible because of that oneness quality which we have only at the aether scale.
Action at a distance does appear to happen at spacetime level, where objects exist embedded in a coordinate system (metric) defined by the continuous functions of four independent variables (4D). Extension and separation are properties of spacetime, but at the aether level action at a distance does not make sense because there exists no separation, the aether is one, it has no parts and it lacks the properties of time and extension.
Within the aether, motion/information/momentum is reported instantaneously, distance doesn't apply, the aether has no parts, no units, it is one. Within hyperspace, we have only EMR, where information propagation is limited by moving mass (process) to the speed of light. Within spacetime most things obey Newton's motion laws, but thanks to the non-material properties and holistic nature of the aether, everything is non-locally interconnected to everything else in its neighborhood and the rest of the observable Universe. So motion (or information propagation), at this level, is instantaneous. The holographic properties and the instantaneous information propagation properties of momentum space are what make possible phenomena like inertia.
There is no process within the aether itself because it has no parts, but there aren't separate processes going on within it either. The aether is motionless therefore changeless. It can act as electrons, atoms, planets... but it is still the aether. Everything is made from it, from quanta to galaxies to space. The aether is the process itself, and it is an autopoietic process. All the parts are made from the aether, it is one determinable but indeterministic self-creating process... or determinism within randomness.
How could matter emerge out of nothingness? This is the reason we need the notion of an aether, it's the physicalists' God! The aether is the substrate to all there is, it provides the unity needed for the information to be transferred. This information is ruled by the laws of spacetime, laws by which the structure is going to be held intact in spacetime only if/when the spatial relationships are maintained in spacetime. These basic laws or qualities of the aether are the same fundamental laws that rule EM fields.
Order out of Chaos
Many advanced civilizations looked at the Divine not as a person but as order or harmony, i. e. Master Lao's Tao (500 BC), which was supposed to be in a state of unbeing and from which everything came to being and then back to unbeing as a natural process. This is a very old notion which goes back in history at least 4,500 years (Imhotep).
When you look at the Yin and Yang symbol as two fields sharing the same fluctuating wavefront, you can see that this field configuration would only be possible if both fields shared the same phase properties, even though they were symmetrically opposite. If and when you change the phase (break the symmetry) of one or both fields, making them overlap each other, you would get an explosion (inflationary Universe) as both field wavefronts collide, creating spacetime (or Guth's 'false vacuum').
Real life examples of these inflationary properties can be observed when studying the mechanics of EMR. Take the LASER for example. When a monochromatic beam of light is emitted all at the same time and at the same energy level (same phase) you get a coherent LASER beam. On the other hand, when you study regular white light you would be looking at radiation emissions with different wavelengths and different emission times, giving light beams an ever expanding conical shape as the differently phased wavefronts collide (hence the accelerating expansion of the Universe).
All motion at the CBR level is chaotic. Uncertainty is an inherent property of motion which evens out and fades as the size scales go up, becoming insignificant at the classical level. Information contained in photons, even though it may all be contained in each photon coming from a single source, has to be dealt with as averaged ensembles ruled by the laws of probability, that is the current approach of Quantum Field Theory, i.e., Brownian motion. This is how Nature and scientists order (quantize) disorder.
Order arose from chaos in an autopoietic process... (Maturana & Varela)
There are no static fields, only dynamic ones are possible within the confines of spacetime... but there is potential which can exist outside of time, thanks to the aether. Now, the question is; can this potential consist of, or help access some or even all the information needed to create matter and spacetime, or does it consists only of the basic elements that help shape and create such information in spacetime?
There is a physical relationship between a substrate at a sub-quantum level and the objective Universe (spacetime). Bohm called it Quantum Potential (Q). The concept of potential, in both cases, electrodynamics and Bohmian mechanics, represents a non-local connection between the non-dimensional aether and spacetime.
In Bohm's view, matter and mind draw information from their common background - 'the implicate order' - by a process of quantum superpositions where Nature can take a look at an infinite number of possible outcomes, all at once, as it chooses what it needs. Thanks to this wholeness quality that exists in Nature. Emerging from all this, we get wholeness, non-locality, non-linear parallel information processing, and very high degrees of order and complexity. Take a look at waves as an example of non-linear order and you will see that, thanks to wave superposition, you may have one simple wave which may be contained as a whole in another more complex wave which may also be contained as a whole in an even more complex wave... to infinite complexity (Fourier). Process or activity within hyperspace does not depend on linear time, wave superposition is a non-linear process.
Music, for example... is a great example of order and harmony whose meaning and beauty can only be perceived as a whole. Through the mechanics of wave superposition it is possible to have Beethoven's ninth symphony completely defined by a single 4D wave. The same with thoughts or ideas. If I try to explain an idea in writing that takes 10 lines and you only read three words you won't get the concept I am trying to convey. The idea is an ordered whole which must be perceived as such.
You could compare the movement of matter through the aether to the movement of waves in a pond, in the sense that what is really moving is the form, the in-formation that gives a particular shape to the wave. Similar to what happens with radios or cellular phone waves, it is the information contained in the shape of the EM waves which the receiver's tuner has to decode in order for it to reproduce the original sounds that ordered, or shaped, that given wave.
Order (mind & matter) arose from interactions within chaos, giving rise to self-dependent, separated, cybernetic systems, which in turn, evolved to take full advantage of matter's properties, after billions of years interacting with each other, to the point where they were turned into human brains for the only purpose of experiencing/perceiving/measuring existence a lot better (from a 4D perspective), so Nature could continue to improve in its methods to use information to its advantage as a tool against entropy or disorder. Why? Because all thermodynamic systems tend to move towards thermal equilibrium, and in doing so they have to interact forming physical geometrical relationships which are preserved in matter and are accessible by these cybernetic systems (including brains), when needed, as they evolve towards thermal efficiency.
Hyperspace is filled with information bits, matter precursors, a pre-geometry made of non-material units of information which exist in chaos and are ordered by logic and activity into spacetime. But for natural reasons, i.e. energy conservation laws, everything that comes into spacetime must be perceived and energetically measured before it can materialize. There has to be a measuring device sensing the particle's location and momentum in relation with the rest of that inertial frame of reference before it can crystallize, as the information that constitutes it flows radially from hyperspace towards its centre in spacetime. But this measuring device isn't some external being, it is the Universe itself. Each particle senses each other and their relation to space (Mach), building an information network filled with geometrical relationships (spacetime), which are in turn used as the future is built on the already existing information.
Information is created and preserved in matter (i.e., DNA).
The components, the ones generating this information, are all floating-in and interacting-with space as particles, molecules, galaxies... brains... All of which continuously exchange information as they continuously emit and absorb electromagnetic radiation as spatially separated cybernetic systems. EMR is one of the tools which Nature has successfully been using since the beginning of time to overcome space-like intervals between objects in order to evolve as a whole.
Spacetime is where experience takes place. Each new 'knowing' Nature experiences must be 'recorded' in spacetime in order for matter to evolve. Spacetime is then viewed as a vast 'databank' where the complete history of the Universe is embedded as fluid information. This information will continue to grow as History unfolds through infinity in spacetime.
Reality as Process
Electromagnetic fields should not appear as ultimate, irreducible realities.
Zeno and Democritus were correct, there is a non-material aspect of reality that never changes. That, as it was revealed by our math so many centuries ago, should have been the ultimate truth, but Plato was wrong in believing there is a realm for ideas and forms to be stored at. The aether has no means for storing information, it only helps determine all the ratios... the constants... the law. Nothing magic about phi or pi, they are just ratios... real but non-material (not in spacetime) quantities... the tools of logic... the gears of physical reality.
The aether is the substrate to all matter, including CBR, ZPE. Everything, even our brains depend on this substrate. This is where the laws of electromagnetism are administered from.
Materially speaking all there is is process, so in a way Anaxagoras was also right, just like Hegel, B. Russell, Whitehead... and Einstein. They all saw that continuity is essential to process, not discreteness or particulation. This continuity can only be provided by an all pervading aether.
Heraclitus also maintained that everything is in a continuous state of flux or change, but Parmenides rejected this view by saying that, for there to be change, a substance would have to transit through nothingness in order to become something else. He thought that the basic substance must never undergo change. Thus process, in Parmenides' view, was incompatible with being. He was wrong. There is process because there is aether, even though the aether itself remains unchanged. The aether is what it was and will be, the aether is forever.
Contemporary Quantum Field Theory supports the idea that the ontology is in the process which matter undergoes as it fluctuates in and out of 'nothingness'. Classical relativistic physics is a description of what the world appears to be, while Quantum Field Theory is a description of what the world is.
Reality is like a wave propagating in water... the form moves carrying information as water molecules are left behind. As we displace ourselves it is the information that constitutes our material body which is really moving, the underlying medium stays unchanged. The particle is more like a pattern of motion rather than a solid, permanent, and space independent thing.
Picture the rings that form and spread outwards after you throw a rock in water, now hit reverse and picture the rings moving inwards, towards the rock. The rock (particle) represents actuality and the inwardly flowing waves bring information about its past. The rings (EM waves) going towards the rock, are in reality, spherical. It's a concentric wave that is constantly feeding the particle information (contained in the form of wave phase) about its inertial frame and environment, as it develops a trajectory according with its relationship to the surrounding space.
A particle maintains its shape and internal structure, as it moves through space, by keeping intact the geometrical relationships that exist between its parts and the environment. As process moves forward, particles in spacetime must continuously reset their geometrical structure, therefore they have to continuously process all kinds of data/information in order to continue their existence. They are, in fact, information... active information. Thus there is no ordered information contained in hyperspace, just randomly fluctuating quanta, which is ordered as particle/wave systems move through it.
Space is full of energy in complete and utter disorder... and fields are simply ordered space. Order or information is what makes particles into solid 3D space. As a particle moves through space it doesn't displace space, it ordinates it. This means that what is really moving through space is an organizing process, matter as active information trying to maintain the relation of its structural parts. Geometrical relationships, that's what's real in spacetime!
The aether (substrate, background...) may help to maintain the relations that give shape to a particle as it moves, but that information stays always bounded by the laws of spacetime. For example, virtual particles that pop-up from nowhere into spacetime are the result of random field interactions in hyperspace, such as resonance. Particles such as Fermions stay in spacetime because they are stable standing waves. (So don't be bothered by all those subatomic particles being detected, they don't play any important role in reality, only the ones you find in your every day life have any real significance.)
Objective reality is a continuous self-maintained thermodynamically open process developing in a sea of discontinuities (CBR, ZPF...). Atoms are open thermodynamical systems, there is always energy/information/space being exchanged between matter and the environment. The same can be said about living biological systems, they are open energy dissipating systems restricted by the laws of thermodynamics.
But neither the aether nor the world are real, process is the real. Reality is process. Reality is not the objective universe. As matter and mind evolve, that which was a second ago is no longer, it's gone forever. Process exists because of the motion caused by thermodynamics and the electromagnetic properties of the aether. It was from this motion that order arose as random events started to repeat themselves giving rise to cause, time and meaning to their movement. Process is spacetime.
Space, Quantization and Gravity
In reality (spacetime) there is no such thing as an 'empty space', this is why the CBR's minimum temperature is uniformly and always at 2.7 K throughout the observable Universe.
Scientists now are starting to call space a CBR and ZPR substrate (Cosmic Background Radiation and Zero Point Radiation), which is akin to Wheeler's pre-geometry or quantum foam.
Space is grainy, each grain having a diameter of ~ one Planck length. Much much smaller than any neutron, electron or proton. The size ratio between the cells in a human body and the body itself is less than the size ratio between ZPR particles and a hydrogen atom.
These little grains are gathered and organized by matter waves, as they cristallize or condense into atoms, molecules, cells... etc. Matter waves continuously flow inwardly into matter as concentric or spherical waves, as, at the same time, EMR irradiates from matter, transmitting to surrounding objects in space, information about its objective state.
Each object, regardless of size, is accompanied by its own particular matter wave. Therefore the concept of super-wave-function where various particles are described by a single wave-function applies.
The aether I believe in is akin to Basil Hiley's pre-space, or Einstein's 1920 gravitational aether. A realm where the concepts of motion, therefore space, are not applicable. Motion and space come with spacetime, not before.
But don't despair, what you call free space, or absolute space complies with Einstein's aether. This aether is also very similar to Newton's absolute space.
Imagine a totally empty space with no boundaries, what do you have? You have Hiley's pre-space, and since it lacks any landmarks to use as reference points, you are unable to measure length or motion. You can't account for spacial extension, thus you can't tell size or distance. Space becomes an unnecessary concept. The aether is a single entity, it has no parts or components, yet it contains everything that exists in spacetime.
The aether is physical but immaterial. It helps determine the laws of electromagnetism and ratios like permittivity and permeability. And, [you are going to like this] it is not bound by the rules of spacetime, and exists independently from spacetime. It is before this reality, just as your - absolutely free of EMR - free space.
If Newton's view were to be correct, and objects could be perceived as really separated, related only by their macroscopic mechanical interactions (billiard ball model), then why would we need the equivalency principle to accurately describe this Universe? Einstein's equivalency principle (the basis for GR) sprang from the same concept of unity and wholeness implied in most of Mach's ideas. The Absolute is really the aether, not space, but Newton's absolute space (an empty plenum, a void, which he considered as something real) was the seed from which Einstein's aether was born. This unity and oneness of reality, which distills from GR, is the philosophical basis for Einstein's Pantheism.
Without an aether there can't be a process such as spacetime, there can't be any continuity, hence no causality or process. This is also what Mach believed. Resistance to motion - he thought - could only be the product of unity among all the masses (or objects). He believed that there is a constant dependence (reciprocity) between matter and the space that surrounds it, and that this unity could only be explained by the existence of an all pervading aether.
The empty space we are able to perceive, in spacetime, is there because of background radiation. You take the background radiation away and you can't have an empty space. The aether is not synonymous to space. Without an aether there can't be any particles or space.
Space (CBR) is a medium with mechanical properties (pressure and density). It is observable, hence measurable and, unlike Einstein's aether, it possesses material, mechanical properties. Space is made from particles, the aether is not, space is material, the aether is not.
Space is made from two types of particles, one which resists compression, or exhibits negative-gravitation (thermal radiation, light), and the other which is infinitely compressible and exhibits positive-gravitation (zero-point radiation, dark matter).
Boyer described the ZPR as fundamental to space, and thermal radiation as a product generated by the motion of ZPR particles. Which in turn were buffeted back into motion by this thermal radiation which they themselves had produced, providing the basis for a perpetual motion system, and solving the riddle of infinite energies coming from space. [See Puthoff, Haisch and Rueda's papers]
Now, if space is made from particles, then it may be subject to changes in pressure and density, like a gas. Therefore, if space particles (dark matter), carried by matter waves, continuously condense into material objects, that would mean that the closer you get to the object the denser the space would be, as a function of the object's mass and radius, explaining why gravitic pressure obeys the inverse square law.
Space particles (dark matter) are carried by matter selective inwardly flowing photons in an electrical current. Just like electrons are moved by an electromotive force.
Einstein's Equivalency Principle says that a physical system accelerated through the vacuum has the same equilibrium properties as an unaccelerated system immersed in a gravitational field.
Timothy Boyer said - 'A physical system accelerated through the vacuum has the same equilibrium properties as an unaccelerated system immersed in thermal radiation at a temperature above absolute zero.'
And - 'At a temperature of absolute zero a harmonic oscillator in a frame of reference at rest or moving with constant velocity is subject only to zero-point oscillations. In an accelerated frame the oscillator responds as if it were at a temperature greater than zero.'
As an object accelerates through space, there is an EMR exchange between the object and space (space being wholly constituted by EMR), as a mechanism in Nature to keep thermal equilibrium between the accelerating object and the space that surrounds it, and as required by GR's equivalency principle. When an object is just sitting, but immersed in a gravitational field, space is what's being accelerated (by an electromotive force) in relation to the object. Nature, in order to maintain thermal equilibrium, uses this mechanism, now known as Boyer's 'equilibrium spectrum', Unruh-Davies radiation, Rindler flux, or Hawking's radiation.
And this is how gravity is explained; space flow manifests as gravitic pressure. Pressure goes higher as we get closer to the source because space is denser. And this flow is caused by an electromotive force.
Quantum Discreteness
Most scientists agree with Planck in that quanta are the smallest measurable energy amount or quantum of action and that Planck's constant 'h' relates the energy in one quantum of electromagnetic radiation to the frequency of that radiation. That all of matter's spectral properties and patterns can be explained in terms of exact multiples of a basic minimum value, and that thanks to the determination of 'h', we now can conceive order at the quantum mechanical level. Most also agree with de Broglie in that every object in motion would move in a wave and is accompanied by a wave, also that he showed that electrons traverse an integral number of wavelengths for each complete orbit of an atom and that the quantization and structure of quanta will always depend on the properties of their source and the objects with which they interact.
Quanta are measurable amounts of cycling spacetime. In reality there aren't any vibrating point particles, as Heisenberg properly and adeptly assumed, it's more like wavefronts... or membranes. A quantum of action (quanta) appears as a very small region of randomly fluctuating, process independent object, and hbar as a ratio, mc^2/w, or energy divided by angular frequency.
There are no point particles, a point particle must be internally static, with no internal time, and that is not possible. Each particle, even the smallest, is in constant internal motion, each is the product of an internal instability. Each particle possesses its own internal time, and for this reason it is impossible to get rid of all uncertainties at a spacetime level.
It is very difficult to grasp, or to imagine, a singularity as a point, and then space-like separation being composed of a series of dimensionless points, that's even harder. The background (space) is grainy, it's a sea of virtual particles, each of which has a diameter and its own internal motion or cycle.
When you try to visualize a singularity it is necessary to exclude all notions of space or size, since it is one, it can't be measured against anything else. It isn't a point or an empty space. Within a singularity there can be process even though it has no parts or components. There isn't any motion, once there is motion it turns into spacetime.
The only way I could conceive it as a point is if the whole Universe could be happening inside, within the confines, of such a point. I can't see the Universe as separating from the point. The singularity must remain a singularity, even after the Universe has come to existence.
The fundamental particle must then be a small spherical region of pulsating spacetime whose diameter equals one Planck length. The Universe must be filled with them, it is spacetime's background, the substrate to all space and matter, a sea of randomly fluctuating particles. [Still, this is not happening at the aether scale. At the aether scale you don't think in terms of size, motion, time or separation, this is where ratios like permittivity and permeability are determined. It is a plenum. It is the substrate to all fields, the scale at which the whole Universe becomes one single entity.]
We can't get rid of 'h' - Planck's constant - from which Heisenberg derived his Uncertainty Principle, which is closely related to the particle's wave-length, and from where particle complementarity and the non-commutativity between momentum and position emerged as properties of space and matter and as proof of the inseparability of quantum processes. Momentum and position don't commute because you can't be stopped and moving at the same time.
Indeterminism
Schrodinger's equation develops in a sea of real uncertainties (background radiation). As reality unfolds, none of its possible outcomes exists prior to the wave packet collapse. Contrary to Bohm/Hiley and Penrose, who claim that there must exist some sort of Platonic realm where all possible realities exist in a quasi-static state... As Schrodinger's wave evolves the system will have some tendencies or propensities that depend on the system's properties in spacetime. There will always be some preferred outcomes (where the wave peaks in the function) whose probabilities are going to be much higher than those of others which are not as well related to the system.
Quantum mechanical process is indeterminate going forwards or backwards. Reality (like thought), is about becoming, it is process, and this process is totally dependent on the uncertainty in the movement of quanta. Uncertainty is what causes activity. It is due to the natural indeterminism of quanta that the Universe exists, you take the uncertainty away and it will stop moving. Uncertainty is inherent to evolutive process. If you don't allow for indeterminism in Nature then you must also reject Darwin and the evolution of species.
Aside from the reality of quantum uncertainty and the fact that sub-atomic processes are not time-reversible in self-organized matter, as proven by I. Prigogine, thought itself may also be ruled by quantum mechanisms (besides other classical mechanisms) and hence, indeterminism. The motions of all objects in spacetime, the size of an atom and bigger, are ruled by deterministic laws, even the way people move, everything in our normally perceived reality follows the rules of motion as described by Classical Physics and Relativity, but our thoughts may follow the laws of quantum indeterminism. Thoughts as well as sub-atomic particles have the potential to follow several different paths. A determination of the path a thought may follow depends on what we focus our attention on. In other words, thoughts, like single sub-atomic particles, happen as we observe and perceive them.
Virtuosity
Wave/particle systems never exist as wave only or particle only. Their concentric wave packets are continuously and classically flowing into them. High energy particles contract and stretch in and out of spacetime as they travel through the aether. It's like stone skipping in a water pond, where the water is spacetime and the air is hyperspace. I am not saying they stop existing, they stay here in the Universe conserving all of their geometrical information, but their detection or observation can, at times, be beyond the limit of our instrument's resolution, as they must also abide to spacetime (Relativity) rules.
Imagine a bicycle wheel, whose axle's linear speed is equal to 'c', now mark a point in the outer perimeter (rim) and measure its angular acceleration on all four quadrants as it spins, and you will see how, internally, a photon can go over the speed limit, causing it to apparently go in and out the confines of spacetime, and yet, conserving its wave characteristics in hyperspace, and maintaining the continuity of process and its spacetime information intact, as required by Nature.
All those infinities we get in high energy physics, which we actually resolve through renormalization techniques, are caused by hypercompression of particle/wave systems into flat surfaces (2D) due to very ample high speed (up to 4c) fluctuations. These un-denumerable infinities arise from the zero-time/zero-length conditions of 2D flat waves, creating the already familiar conditions of non-locality, FTL communication and apparently discontinuous process, sending us (spacetime creatures) into mental shock! ... If process is indivisible, how come we get all those discontinuities at the quantum level?
Imagine a single longitudinal wave in a vibrating rope or string which is traveling at 'c' in the same direction the wave is traveling. Now, if it were traveling in a perfect void, the form of the wave could never be affected, objects moving at 'c' in a perfect void would not experience any of the physical effects predicted by Relativity, but since it is traveling within a whole which in reality has no spatially separated parts, and it is all one single process - the medium, as a whole, needs to be informed at all times about any energy expenditures occurring within itself in order for the laws of Thermodynamics, the Equivalency Principle and the constancy of the speed of light to hold. This is also why there is a speed limit 'c'. Not because of friction against the medium but because of the laws of Relativity. At this speed the wave loses its wavelength and internal motion in relation to any stationary observer in the same inertial frame. This is why high energy radiation have such short wavelengths. A wave could never go over the speed limit while conserving its size in relation to a stationary observer, regardless of the amount of energy we put into it. Once it goes over the speed limit and the wave turns flat (no wavelength) it acquires the physical properties of the medium, temporarily losing its spacetime properties (this is when all those infinities start showing up in our math). So, in some cases, discontinuities are only apparent.
This inseparability of process tells us once again that it is all one determinable but indeterministic process which originated from a Hawking singularity billions of years ago.
Indeterministic because, as you know, any object's motion equation contains a number that represents a Heisenberg uncertainty, which we also owe to Planck and de Broglie, and won't ever be eliminated, not even by the best Quantum Mechanics we could ever muster. It is the nature of quanta. Schrodinger's equation develops in real uncertainty. Quantum mechanical theory will never reach 100% accuracy because indeterminism is in the nature of process.
Process and Continuity
According to Timothy Boyer, the CBR (space) is constituted by al least two different spectrums. One is noisy and expanding, while the other is self-organized and condensing. One exhibits negative gravitation, the other positive gravitation. From one space is created, from the other, matter. Matter waves are contantly flowing inwards into matter, while heat and light flow away from matter. There is a continuos condensation and expansion of the substrate (CBR) taking place. As objects are accelerated in a space-time metric, each new position creates new energy requirements from the continuum.
Before there can be any meaningful process there must definitely exist continuity, hence causality. The aether is one, it brings unity and continuity of process but there is no change occurring to it. Its only function is to provide support for spacetime as a unified whole, providing wholeness and interconnectedness... a continuum.
In the background of spacetime (CBR, ZPF...) there is mostly disordered motion, there is no significantly ordered process going on, therefore it can be interpreted by us as timeless, discontinuous, acausal motion. Spacetime in turn is continuos, all processes within it follow the rules of determinism. Objects in spacetime are continuously interacting with space and the environment through EMR and matter-waves, following classical field and quantum field rules.
It is a semiclassical process, an endless back and forth information exchange between the metric (spacetime continuum) and quantum matter (a Schoedinder wave evolving in curved spacetime). The Schroedinger equation for the matter fields must be solved according to the spacetime geometry, but then as the system continues to move in spacetime, the stress-energy expectation value needs to be reset to the new spacetime geometry, making it necessary to again solve for the new quantum state, this process repeats itself on, and on again, in a continuos cycle, for eternity.
It is a process where an object's matter-waves are described as being continuosly condensed by gravity.
Lets follow Rosenfeld's lead (1933, 1963) and consider
G_uv = 8pi(T^uv)psi
where PSI is the quantum state of the matter fields and;
*Gravitation is the beginning of a deterministic process. The gravitational field is a product of the electromagnetic properties of the medium, and is a classical, non-quantized phenomena.
*Gravity is not just another quantum field, but gravity and wave packet collapse are interrelated.
*Gravitation is caused by the radial space/information flow being carried on by the continuos collapsation of the object's wave-function.
*Quantization and organization of space (CBR) is determined by the exclusive dimensions (information) of a myriad of matter fields (pilot-waves) which originate from already existing matter, dead or alive. [Which means that there is no information being projected into spacetime from Plato's ideas realm, the information comes from reality at the spacetime level.]
We need two separate matter states, two types of motion with opposite directions, one deterministic and the other inderterministic, objective and subjective, matter and quantum matter. Particle-wave systems in a continuos exchange of information between matter and space in an eternal quest for self-consistency. Order (matter) coming out of entropy (quantum matter).
Mass and Inertia
Inertia, as conceived by Galileo, meant a resistance to change; and process is synonymous to change. Reality is process and gravity and inertia are products of this process. Inertia is the result of 'aether drag', a resistance to change in space flow rate, into and from the particle, as the particle moves through space/medium.
Inertia comes from the tension or 'informational lag' created by a system as it changes its rate of space/information flow, or... as it accelerates within the chaotic medium, not from particles colliding against accelerating objects. It is a momentum/information exchange, through EMR, between a particle and space, as they continuously need to reset their spatial relationships in order for thermodynamic laws to hold as required by Einstein's Equivalency Principle. (Unruh-Davies, Hawking, Cherenkov radiation)
While a particle is moving at a constant speed and all the geometrical parameters are set, it won't experience any inertial forces, but as it accelerates and the relationships change, it needs to keep adjusting to its new energy/space consumption settings. That's why relativistic effects are so real. When accelerated in relation to other particles, space shrinks, time slows down and mass (process) grows within the particle to balance energy usage in momentum space and maintain its dependence and relation to spacetime in accordance to energy conservation laws.
Information about a material system must be contained within the system, it doesn't come from anywhere else in space. The only external information being brought to the system by EM waves is the momentum and hence location of the particle in relation to the world. And this system must be comprised by a particle and its particular inwardly flowing concentric, spherical matter-waves. Thus gravitational non-linearities may be viewed as radial space/information flow. Information which is picked and organized by concentric waves as space is condensed into the particle/system. But the parts (not the information) to construct and maintain the system intact, as it moves through the medium, come from the chaotic hyperspace. CBR is in charge of communications and ZPF is the prime matter with which volumes are created. From where new geometrical information is created and incorporated into the system as it moves through spacetime.
Gravitational non-linearities are caused by radial space/information flow. As space from hyperspace is converted to spacetime and matter by an autopoietic process which is driven by Logic (Syntax and Topology) and the laws of thermodynamics. Gravity is caused by the continuos internal process occurring within matter as space/information radially flows towards the center of all matter as it precipitates from hyperspace into spacetime. Gravity and inertia are by-products of a semi-classical, quantum mechanical process where a drag force is created by the continuos inwardly flow of space/information into matter. Mass is equivalent to process. This is why we only have mass in spacetime... after particles are fully formed.
Mass is the result of matter interactions with space. Matter is a continuos - time dependent - self-organizing process. Particles, as they move through the CBR/ZPE, need to continuously re-ordinate the space that constitutes them. Particles are in constant motion, continuously processing space/information. Matter is process and all process depends on continuity, this is where time and causality come from. This continuity can only be supported by the aether from where the CBR and ZPF emerge. Matter arises from this process, and mass increases directly proportional to the amount of process. This is why the denser a particle is, the more massive it becomes.
Mass refers to the amount of information processing of all the energetic relationships that exist between matter and space. When a particle is moving at a constant rate there is no informational lag created by space/information flow within the particle, its spatial energetic relationships remain constant, but as the particle is accelerated the energetic relations between the particle and space will be in a constant state of change causing this space/information flow tension we call inertia.
Right now there is EMR and matter waves between you and everything around you, flowing towards you and every object around you. EMR 'bounces' off, picking and transmitting information regarding each object's objective state, while matter waves flow inwardly, towards each object, also bringing information about the environment, as the object continuously crystallizes into spacetime.
There is a delay as matter reaches thermal equilibrium with its surroundings. We experience it as inertia. This is the nature of Timothy Boyer's 'equilibrium spectrum'. It takes time for any moving object to reach thermal equilibrium with its surroundings, as it jumps from frame to frame in spacetime. Each frame being in reality marked by the collapse of each matter wave-front, like a quantum clock, as inwardly flowing matter-waves bring within them some of the information necessary for each quantization, for each objective state. Each object having its own rate, its own wavelength, or, its own pulse, so to speak.
Each object, according to its own material properties, will consequently exhibit its own inertial properties, like its own weight and momentum.
The objective state of an object is instantaneously and holistically transferred to the whole object, including its matter-wave, through space, as a non-local, non-linear function, by a mechanism of wave superpositions. This non-locality is possible thanks to the aether's oneness.
Holistic Awareness
Instead of - " to be is to be perceived " - (mind precedes matter), it should have been - " to be is to perceive " - (matter precedes mind).
According to present day theory the total mass in this Universe was preset at the moment of its emergence, and thermodynamics tell us that each of its parts must 'sense' how much energy it's being used in relation to the whole.
Each object that moves (and they all move) in space must follow the laws of energy conservation. But how else could the Universe 'sense' how much energy is being used by some galaxy 5 billion light years away if it wasn't through hyperspace... momentum space... a non-material medium from which all matter and space emerges as a product of active information?
According to Mach and others, motion by all objects within the Universe is instantaneously reported through momentum space. This is where phenomena like inertia comes from. As a particle senses other particles it completes the information exchange, realizing the spatial relationships between particles and space that is needed to collapse the wave packet from hyperspace as it crystallizes into spacetime. Perception is a very old natural function of matter not some exclusive human ability.
Particles in spacetime perceive, select and integrate into their wave-function only that information which is important or useful to them in their endless quest for thermal efficiency. Our human mind, with all of its mental waves and accompanying frequencies, became the modern version of the same holistic awareness function after ~15 billion years of information processing and evolution.
EMR feeds molecules with information about the environment (information that represents the molecule's past as it exists in a continuous rock-like 3D actuality). Light is what creates that holistic awareness so typical of consciousness. That wholeness in time and space is the function that allows Nature to evolve.
Evolution is this very slow ratchet-like motion, where nature selects and locks-in any advantageous randomly occurring changes. These are property based selections where the favored properties are usually the ones which will lead to increased thermal efficiency... and that is already going against entropy.
Holistic awareness is the fundamental property of Nature that made possible biological evolution. This is the same property that has made it possible for dead matter to naturally evolve into the present human brain as the ultimate self-observing example of self-organized matter. Holistic awareness, unity of process, is only possible because of the indivisibility of the aether.
The observer, in the present theory, must refer to any object that is able to interpret environmental information brought to it by EM waves. Observation/measurement with the only purpose of establishing the particle's spatial parameters (speed, size, density...) in that inertial frame. The particle must first be in thermal equilibrium with the environment before it can exist as matter in spacetime, and that's the law!
Von Neumann was right when he said that the evolution of the Schrodinger wave could only depend on quantum mechanical observables (implying that this information can only come from spacetime) yet including the observer (mind) as an efficacious agent (since the theory considers brains to be measuring instruments). The only reason human brains entered the equation was that, as they observed and perceived light (EMR) coming from the particle, information about momentum and location, which is vital to maintain energy conservation laws, became known to the particle/system allowing it to complete the feedback control loop and continue to condense.
Particle complementarity is due to an indivisible process which originates in a common background, but the only necessary information being transferred (through EMR in hyperspace) from the aether to the particles is that concerning momentum and location in relation with that inertial frame and the rest of Universe. There is no need for some mega information storage system which must contain the history of the Universe, all the information needed for the evolution of the system in spacetime is contained by the system itself - in spacetime.
I don't see all the information that comprises a material system coming from the 'implicate order', every object exists as a solid body coupled to a matter-wave, and its displacement through space must be described by a wave-function, information about the object's relation to its surroundings and the rest of the Universe is picked and brought-in by each object's particular pilot-wave. I see Hiley's pre-space as synonymous to the aether, but in my view the aether has no capacity to hold any information, just qualities which are turned into quantities by matter in spacetime.
What Mystery?
Quantum Mechanics' big mystery was - why do I have to observe the cat in order to know whether it's dead or alive? And the answer is that our brains are measuring devices, just like the rest of all matter. We are the best measuring device that ever emerged from all the information processing that has transcurred in our neighborhood to this date. Interactions within the system (brain) depend on more than the information it gets through its five senses, there is an interaction occurring at a deeper level between the system and its environment.
The medium in which any given self-organized system is developing is full of information which the system needs and will use in order to maintain itself. Matter is not different, it can be defined as a self-organized system, and the medium in which it develops is full of information in the form of EMR. Any given neutron will need to extract from hyperspace only the information a neutron would need to support its structure.
The fact that this information is gathered in hyperspace makes it a non-local function. This function was defined by Bohm's quantum potential as a holistic awareness function of matter, as he explained EPR type phenomena (entanglement, non-locality, FTL communication...).
Consciousness evolved from the same holistic awareness property which all matter (dead or alive) has shown to possess. The objective Universe was here before human observers. State vector reduction is an old function of matter that evolved to what our consciousness is today, it is not a new function of Nature.
Thoughts are formed very much in the same manner particles are, and just like particle systems depend on EMR so does our mind. Processes forming ideas are very much like the processes that form matter. Mind and matter both depend on the magic of superposition, non-locality and parallel information processing, all phenomena which gives them the ability to self-organize into ever more efficient systems. We are constantly choosing the present out of an infinitude of possibilities, a mechanism possible thanks to quantum superposition.
Perception is key to the crystallization of 4D reality. Every particle and object is accompanied by a wave that in-forms it about its shape and environment. The particle exists in 4D (three dimensions of length and one of time) only during actuality, at the 'now' moment. Gravity, solidity, linear motion and time manifest only at present or actuality in a spacetime continuum.
Consciousness
Could there be a mind where there is no space, no time and therefore no motion?
Consciousness is spacetime dependent, just like matter. No brain, no mind. Thus consciousness appears with the emergence of matter, not before. First there had to be matter before there could be any brains, and matter is spacetime dependent. Brains emerged from the evolution of information that existed in spacetime. There can't be evolution outside of spacetime.
Now, after billions of years, this information exchange between matter and the environment in which it evolves has produced ever more complex (information engenders information) self-organized systems. Like human beings for example, who have evolved to take full advantage of this holistic awareness function of Nature, which is what enables us to think outside the grip of time, allowing us to remember the past and imagine the future. Thought can be conceived as part of the same holistic awareness function with which matter started organizing itself billions of years ago.
Consciousness comes from the same holistic awareness function found in matter, and that is what enables us to think and develop in a 4D continuum. State vector reduction occurs thanks to this wholeness in space function of matter, and consciousness is possible thanks to a wholeness in time function of thought. It was from analyzing this holistic awareness function of Nature that Bohm envisioned his quantum potential (Q).
Holistic perception is an intrinsic function of Nature explained by the aether's oneness, and it is the function of matter which enables Nature to evolve.
Holistic awareness emerges from an inward necessity which is satisfied as information is chosen from the context in which a system may be evolving, and that's why experience/perception is fundamental in the development of all matter, and specially in sentient matter, because we need it in order to be able to choose. This is why Nature (self-organized matter) transformed into brains and eyes, from its need to observe itself. How can matter get organized if it can't observe itself? Matter, in order to evolve had to communicate in any way naturally possible (surface vibrations, air vibrations, and EM radiation).
EMR was and still is the main means of information propagation and natural communication between spacially separated objects, and within objects. Already existing information leads to the creation of more information. Information can only exist in a material form. Biological organisms evolved to use light to their benefit very slowly. As we already know, it took them billions of years (pre-Cambrian to Cambrian) to develop eyesight.
Brains are these little bio-mechanical tools that emerged with evolution for the only purpose of enabling us to interpret and interface with reality. In order to become more thermally efficient, the Universe needed to improve its ability to observe and perceive the environment, so matter evolved into brains that could take advantage of the properties of spacetime. Spacetime exists only because there are brains, and vice-versa.
Nature would still be able to exist and observe itself even without the human observer... it would just be a more primitive process. Our brains, then, are seen as Nature's best developed self-observational tool.
Experience is fundamental to existence, but it is not reality (Berkeley was wrong). Reality is the process through which Nature is constantly becoming. Our consciousness (as it manifests in our human existence) is an extension of the same holistic awareness function self-organized matter always utilized to observe itself, therefore consciousness is still - Nature observing itself.
As Roger Penrose explained quasicrystal development in The Emperor's New Mind (p. 564), he writes that it appears as if the whole crystal is 'observing' itself (each present atom configuration pattern is embedded into its pilot-wave) and choosing from qualia, using some holistic awareness mechanism by which they can compare present qualia to past qualia and all the possible rock-like outcomes, all at once, and which are limited by the system's tendencies or potentialities, until the right atom configurations are found while constructing their randomly forbidden, very complex icosahedral symmetries...
Experience plays an important role in the correct development of the crystals (as well as in all self-organized systems). The crystals accomplish their self-observation by following information contained in their pilot-wave (Bohm-de Broglie), which contains past (and even future) information about the crystal, as a whole. Proto-qualia for a quasicrystal would be how all the possible atom configurations would 'feel like' as they remain in superposition until the right one is found, and only then could the collapse of the wave packet finally occur.
From the moment the first self-organizing systems appeared in Nature to the moment the first human brain appeared it's being a few billion years, but in both occasions the objective has been the same; to experience existence. Penrose's quasicrystals don't have a brain, but they follow their wave-function as the measure by which they must exist, and if by any reason they were to stop following their wave-function as they add new atoms to their body, they would end up becoming a totally different type of material. The objective state a human being follows (or should I say - the measure by which a human being exists) is also defined by its brain wave-function.
--
Laurent R. Duchesne
[ 19. February 2004, 08:52: Message edited by: Laurent ]
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 22. September 2002 22:13
Quantum mechanisms requires non-material/non-mechanical influences...to be consistent with it's data and that of relativity.
But this is just "fingering at non-mechanical influences" and it's the "tip of an iceberg" that will hopefully soon come. Space-time is more mysterious than your post suggest.
To help with this coming and to achieving a more inclusive and comprehensive view one needs to look else where than physics, see my FYI post called "The Taboo Of Subjectivity." It's about a book of the same name, have a look at chapter 5.
[ 22. September 2002, 22:26: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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michaelgoodrich
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posted 23. September 2002 09:22
Mark writes: quote:
Quantum mechanisms requires non-material/non-mechanical influences...to be consistent with it's data and that of relativity.
What is your justification for this claim?
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 23. September 2002 11:00
The data/experiments and consistency with the findings of relativity ... basically they violate the notions associated with classical mechanics and materialism ... but the existence of consciousness does that already.
There have been attempts over the last century at a more "classical" interpretation (i.e., latest or past version of many-worlds that try to use enviromental decoherence), but none of these have worked.
The quantum "jumps" that Einstein was complaining about has to do with this as does the non-locality experiments. I maybe wrong about all this but so far I haven't seen anything to convince me otherwise. For more, take a look at the papers at Henry Stapp's site. He's a well known Quantum physicist and is writing a book about all this and how he thinks it relates to mind.
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html
Also, it would be interesting to try to get him into a "guest" discussion like this board is having with Chalmers, etc. That way you can "have at him" with your questions.
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michaelgoodrich
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posted 23. September 2002 12:10
Mark,
Are you up to speed on the deBrolie/Bohm formulation of QM?
It is deterministic thus requires no jumps, albeit it is non-local.
-mg
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 23. September 2002 12:38
Yes, actually that interpretation was my first exposure to QM, and yes it's non-mechanical effect is that non-local effect. One temporary problem with Bohm's theory is that it hasn't as yet been fully extended into QED/QCD like the "orthodox" view but that maybe because not as many people have worked on it as the "orthodox" view. See
Bohm's paper on the relationship between mind and matter.
[ 23. September 2002, 13:24: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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michaelgoodrich
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posted 23. September 2002 14:57
Mark said: quote:
Yes, actually that interpretation was my first exposure to QM, and yes it's non-mechanical effect is that non-local effect.
But, I'm curious: why are you saying that it features a non-mechanical effect?
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 23. September 2002 23:14
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have used effect ... slippery fingers ;-)
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michaelgoodrich
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posted 24. September 2002 07:36
Mark writes; quote:
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have used effect ... slippery fingers ;-)
Either way, it's the non-mechanical aspect that I'm inquiring about.
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 24. September 2002 10:57
Here's a couple
1. non-locality. Large history from the "enlightenment" on about this, basically a three-way ideological war with two sides against it, the materialists/mechanists and the Christians. One way the mechanists distinguished themselves was to only allow causation by contact-action in their belief system. Non-locality was considered an "occult" force.
One good source on this is Brain Easlea, "Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy: An Introduction to the Debates of the Scientific Revolution 1450-1750"
I think Mary Hesse has a book as well but I've never read it.
2. "particle" responds to form.
Bohm gives more in his paper at the link I gave. Also, in an interview with him he points out his reasons as well. I think the interview is on a cassette produced by "Mystic Fire", it's been a few years so I might be wrong about the company that produced the tape.
Bohm also has a paper very similar to the one I've linked to that tries to apply his model to parapsychological phenomena. All very non-mechanical.
Do you need more?
[ 26. September 2002, 14:29: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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michaelgoodrich
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posted 24. September 2002 15:19
Mark write: quote:
Do you need more?
Nope, thanks for the reference Would you say that strictly speaking this non-mechanical feature of Bohm's concept is really an explicit feature of his formulation or an interpretation (wether his own or others) of the import of his formulation?
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 24. September 2002 17:21
Both, since I don't seperate a model from it's equations. The equations alone could be much to general so they would correlate with to many other models and so I don't feel it would be right to call these alone Bohms formulation. Also, this could unhinge them from their empirical base in unexpected ways making no valid interpretation for QM.
Is there some other model that your thinking of that's acceptable?
[ 24. September 2002, 19:56: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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Laurent
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posted 25. September 2002 15:11
When you have a low density region in space, there is a convergence of space towards that region, so when two opposite currents cross each other side by side
<--------
--------->
the low pressure between them makes them curl into each other (remember my 'anti void force') consequently creating a vortex.
When the rotation becomes stable enough to persist for a long enough duration, we get a particle... no big mystery there, the mysterious part is what is the correct geometrical configuration that enables these more stable particles to achieve that required syntropic process which enables them to spin for millions of
earth years, apparently violating the laws of Thermodynamics.
The aether is the physical, non-material substance from which the Universe is made.
Like Zeno said, those are the properties of the aether; wholeness and non-locality. He said, it is like a sphere whose circumference is everywhere and center nowhere.
QM says basically the same, at the quantum level, it appears to us (at spacetime level) as if it were possible to be in two places at the same time. That's when theoreticians started talking about equally ambiguous notions like infinite speed, infinite energy, infinite displacement...
I smile when I listen to some one say - 'inside our atoms there could be complete universes, with galaxies and all' - well that's impossible. What is possible, thanks to the infinite divisibility (or indivisibility) of the aether, is to have a universe the size of an atom with relation to our universe.
--
Laurent
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mturner
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posted 29. September 2002 05:13
**
As a fervent adherent of Process Philosophy, I am intrigued by this thread and would love to see it developed.
Unfortunately, there is so very much in your IP that I can't quite digest it all, and in fact find some things a bit confusing. For instance, your opening sentence attributes to the Eleatics (Parmenides and his defender, Zeno), a position to which I believe they were, in fact, opposed. You will recall that that position, (that of existence as constant, universal change governed by an immaterial, immutable, eternal principle called The Logos), was that of the first Process Philosopher, Heraclitus. Parmenides developed his own ontology in direct and deliberate opposition to that of Heraclitus, (wherein he denied change, and even motion). Zeno backed up his mentor's claims with his famous conumdrums and paradoxes, many of which were not unravelled until very recently, thanks to quantum theory. Democritus, the second Materialist/Mechanist (after Leucippus), took his cue from the Eleatics, although that made his position a tad self-contradictory. Certainly he did not acknowledge the existence of anything but material, indivisible, 'atoms-in-motion'. At least, this, in an oversimplified nutshell, has always been my understanding of these philosophers.
Nextly, I don't quite grasp your definition of the word "aether" (aka 'ether'), which to my knowlege has always had the metaphysical and 'scientific' sense of an immaterial 'substance' or 'medium' used to fill in the space between bits of "Matter", ("Atoms"), in order to overcome the Eleatics denial of Motion, and thus Change, (that is, as being impossible through "non-being", "non-existing", space). You seem to me to be using the word as a substitute for The Logos of Heraclitus. Please explain further.
Well, that's all for now.
pax,
mturner
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Laurent
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posted 30. September 2002 12:25
"Zeno and Democritus were correct, there is a non-material aspect of reality that never changes." --- You are right, Zeno and Democritus were opponents in many ways, and like you said, Democritus had an apparently contradictory stance by being a materialist himself. But the crux of the matter is whether Plato's mental world exists or not, that's what it all comes down to. I, as a materialist (like Democritus), believe that there must be an infinitely divisible substrate to allow for the continuity of process. The aether is the substrate to all matter and thought, a substance.
(These days this substrate is loosely called by names like ZPF (zero-point field), CMB (cosmic microwave background), CBR (cosmic background radiation), Quantum Foam, pre-geometry, vacuum energy and even the Quintessence, but I think it is even more fundamental than that.)
But neither the aether nor the world are real, process is the real. Reality is process. Reality is not the objective universe... as matter and mind evolve, that which was a second ago is not anymore, it is gone forever... Process exists because of the motion caused by thermodynamics and the electromagnetic properties of the aether, it was from this motion that order arose as random events started to repeat themselves giving rise to cause, time and meaning to their movements. Process is spacetime.
The universe is ruled by Logos (syntax, logic, topology...), which arise from only a few neverchanging properties of the aether. But information (ideas) is processed, generated and preserved in and by spacetime. There is no need for external oversight, the Universe is self-inclusive, self-descriptive and self-organized. If some kind of information loaded field exists (active information?), it must still be within our Universe, not in spacetime but above the aether scale, at a scale which it can interact with matter, somewhere between the aether and spacetime, in hyperspace...
There is no process within the aether itself because it has no parts, but there aren't separate processes going on within it either. The aether is motionless therefore changeless, it can ACT as electrons, atoms, planets... but it will still be the aether.
" An act is a temporal process, and self-inclusion is a spatial relation. The act of self-inclusion is thus "where time becomes space"; for the set of all sets, there can be no more fundamental process...
Every object in spacetime includes the entirety of spacetime as a state-transition syntax according to which its next state is created. This guarantees the mutual consistency of states and the overall unity of the dynamic entity the real universe...
...thus, we can speak of time and space as equivalent to cognition and information with respect to the invariant semantic relation processes, as in "time processes space" and "cognition processes information"...
It follows that the universe freely determines its own constraints, the establishment of nomology and the creation of its physical (observable) content being effectively simultaneous and recursive. The incoversive distribution of this relationship is the basis of free will, by virtue of which the universe is freely created by sentient agents existing within it. "
----- Christopher Michael Langan
" Being is a relative invariant in the overall process of becoming. The basic ingredient must therefore be activity or process... " ---- Basil Hiley
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