A physics lesson: Absolute Nothingness And ...: Lesson 20

Preamble


Why teach a basic introduction to physics in a philosophy course?

People have a natural tendency to make order out of disorder, to organize things in the midst of chaos. People seem to instinctually fight the natural law of entropy, the universes pensioned from moving from organized to disorganized. The universe will eventually cause a cup and saucer to fall on the floor, and fly apart in a thousand pieces. However, nothing in nature will naturally cause those thousand pieces to automatically reform into a coffee cup! Except humans!

What is the present day process of recycling? We recycle paper, aluminum, plastics and more. When we recycle something, we take it from its natural elements to a manufactured product, the opposite of entropy. We use the product -- read the newspaper, drink the drink from the bottle, use the shampoo in the plastic container -- and then discard the leftover remnants of the product. Those remnants are then picked up, sorted, and sent off to factories where they are remanufactured into pristine new products.

The creation of things originally, seems to be against the law of entropy.

The notion of recycling materials after use of the created product is most certainly counter to entropy.

A contrary perspective


George Carlin was a famous philosopher/comedian in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. George once had a comedy skit about a living earth. He postulated that the earth wanted plastic, so the earth, through its evolutionary processes, created man, which created plastic. Eventually, the earth had enough plastic to suit its needs, so it decided that it no longer needed people.

However, humans didn’t just die off after the invention of plastic! So the Earth said, “How can I get rid of these people that I no longer need?”

The Earth decided that one way for sure to eradicate these pesky people was to invent the disease that is universally fatal to people and passed along in the process of reproduction, which people seem to love to do. The perfect solution.

Introduction

What happens when we reached the edge of the universe? Does it just go on forever? How long is forever, and how big must something be to be infinitely wide or long or high? This is a question that even physicists argue about to this day. Do we live in the finite bounded universe? That is, a spherical universe in which we can reach the edge, but if we reached the edge, we just doubled back on ourselves like rolling around the inside of the ball. Do we live in a finite unbounded universe? As soon as we approach the edge, does the universe stretched, like a balloon being filled with air? Do we live in an infinite universe? Does the universe have no end, no wage in any direction? What’s on the other side of the edge of the universe? Is there another universe? Are there an infinite number of other universes? Was our universe created when the black hole of another universe reach some limit and exploded?

Hypothesis.

Let us take a look at the first moments of the universe. According to scientist today, everything we know started as a compact mass of plasma, in this sense, plasma means a degenerate form of matter/energy which is both incredibly small, physically, and incredibly dense. That small, dense cluster of plasma viably exploded, creating heat, light, and the progenitors of all that we see in the universe today.

As this hot, gaseous plasma expanded, it began the process of cooling. Over billions of years it began to condense around pieces of itself, ultimately forming gas clouds, galaxies, solar systems, etc. The elements we know today began to form in that first, colossal explosion. The subatomic particles such as neutrons, protons and electrons probably formed first. Hydrogen, the first element in the periodic table having only one electron and one proton was probably the first elements that form. Compressed into great gaseous clouds, it ignited the massive stars. In their churning heat and gravity, the stars would have been the initial creators, the ovens, the makers, of most other physical matter.

In the hearts of stars, hydrogen fusing into helium, crushed together by the enormous gravitation and energy of these massive firestorms in the sky. Hydrogen and helium smashed together to form heavier elements. All the matter we know today -- rocks, plants, animals, were born in the hearts of stars. Without these massive engines of creation, nothing else would exist. We, and everything we see, everything we know, are the stuff of stars.

And, the stuff of stars, as the physicists tell us, all started from that first explosion, that first expansion of them massively dense, almost infinitely small pinpoint of plasma at the beginning of the universe.

Big questions.

What no one has ever told us, what no one knows, and what few we speculate regarding, is the source of that pinpoint of plasma that started it all. There are several possibilities:

1. The hot, dense plasma was at the center of a black hole in a parallel universe. Black holes in this universe might create enough pressure and gravity to create even more universes. Of course, this begs the question, how did the first universe start.

2. Our universe is formed over and over again. The universe, instead of expanding forever, collapses back on itself. Gravitation is strong enough that the hot dense plasma, the size of a pinpoint, explodes again, going to the cycle of expansion, gravitational attraction, compression, explosion, over and over. Of course, this does not answer the question of where the initial pinpoint of super dense matter came from.

3. The universe was created by the spontaneous generation of matter, much as walking speculate below, at the event arising a black hole. Presumably, all the was needed was the space for the additional plasma to form.

Breaking the law.

According to physicist Stephen Hawking, energy and matter are created, out of appearance nothingness at the event horizon of a black hole. One can think of the event horizon as a boundary around the black hole. Up to the boundary, you can exert enough energy to escape. Cross that boundary and nothing, not even light, which travels at roughly 186,000 mi./s, can get away. Gravity is so strong that it is inescapable by anything in the known universe.

By spontaneously generating matter or energy at the event horizon, the universe apparently violates one of Einstein's most famous equations, E=mc2. This tells us that energy can be converted to matter, matter can be converted to energy, but matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Apparently, there is at least one place where that law does not holes true, and that is the boundary of the event horizon of a black hole.


Continued...

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What Is Life? Lesson 30

Introduction

As far as we know, as far as we are taught, there are three forms of stuff in the world: animals, vegetables, and minerals. Using this broad categorization rocks and soil are certainly mineral. In the broader categorization as one of the three types of things, all of the elements on the periodic table, and all compounds made from them would be considered mineral. Thus, even the bodies of animals and vegetables are composed of is minerals, albeit with something extra. On a macro level, we think it is relatively easy to distinguish among them. However, when we look more closely, it becomes difficult. A sponge is an animal, so is coral. However, sponges, coral, and even sea anemonies sit in one place, a mobile, and catch and eat food that passes by. And what about the Venus fly trap? It has chlorophyll, it turns toward the sun, and it converts minerals it receives through its roots into energy for its growth. That’s all very plantlike. However, the Venus fly trap also catches and eats insects! The fine distinctions between plant and animal can be very deceptive. In fact, one could say that the distinction was purely artificial. As far as we know, everything is composed of some form of mineral, by the above definition.

Modern taxonomy.

A taxonomy is a method of organizing objects or ideas. For example if we have a bag of cubes and balls, we could organize the stuff in the bag by putting the bags content on the table and segregating it into two groups by shape, a taxonomy of shapes. We could also have a bag of cubes and balls in several different materials such as Styrofoam, leather, wood and plastic. Both the cubes and the balls could come in all of those materials. We can organize them by material of manufacture, a materials taxonomy. It is much the same with living in nonliving things. Scientists over the years have attempted to categorize living in nonliving things.

Historically, we learned in school that there were plants animals and minerals, a taxonomy with three categories. Scientists today have decided that the original three categories were insufficient. The new categories are:

• Minerals -- nonliving things which compose all matter, including living matter. One distinguishing feature between living things and minerals is that all living things that we know of are made up of a structure containing minerals. Living things are characterized by cellular structures. Minerals do not form cellular structures. Also, one mineral does not take into fuel in the form of light and organic compounds in order to produce exact replicas of itself.

• Viruses and prions -- things that reproduce by taking over or forcing the other living things to construct copies of themselves, often at the distructions of the original host. These objects are literally bundles of DNA with few structures. Since they do not conduct any of their own metabolic processes, scientists are reluctant to classify them as living things. However, unlike a chemical process, they do reproduce through other organisms and use the energy and other byproducts of the host organism's metabolic processes.

• Prokaryots -- primitive, living things that do not have a cell nucleus, and exist as simple, one celled creatures, or as an organization of several cells that are not differentiated. This is a very primitive form of life, possibly from which modern life sprang. Their physiology necessarily limits their size.

• Eukaryots -- living things that have a cell nucleus and may exist as single celled or multicelled organisms.

o Protists -- simple organisms that may have only one celled, or may exist as multicellular creatures that have no cellular differentiation.

o Fungi -- a class of living things such as mushrooms which does not photosynthesize. Like plants, fungi cell have a cell wall, however, the cell wall is composed of chitin, a substance used by animals to produce shells, rather than cellulose, which is unique to plants. According to modern taxonomists, structurally, fungi are closer to animals than plants!

o Plans -- multi-celled organisms with both the cellular membrane and a cell wall.

o Animals -- multicellular organisms without a cell wall.

As we have previously observed, it can be very difficult to tell a floral still filled animals such as a sponge from a carnivorous plant such as the Venus fly trap.

Again, we reiterate, originally, things could be divided between living in nonliving. Then they were divided into living plants versus animals, and nonliving. Now, as we can see, living things consist of more than plants and animals, realizing that some previously known entities such as viruses, prions, protests and fungi are clearly members of neither class.

How to tell living from nonliving.

This may seem like a silly question, however it is not so simple. One might say living things grow and nonliving things do not grow. But don't crystals grow? Can I not grow as salt crystals in water? Do we natural world is in other minerals as the crystals used in lasers? Do not stalagtites and stalagmites grow in caves, getting larger as the centuries pass? So growth, as in going from smaller to larger, is obviously not the determining factor.

We could say that all living things are composed of cells. However, what would that do to viruses and prions? They use the functions of living cells to reproduce copies of themselves. Of course, we have the question, are viruses and prions a stage between living in nonliving.

It would appear that all living things make use of the cellular structure. All in nonliving things, in the sense that they would never living, do not. So it could be said that all living things contained in, or make use of, a cellular structure, we produce things that have the same lifecycle, and multiply.

Living things.

How do we tell if something is a plant or an animal? We could say all plants have chlorophyll and conduct photosynthesis. But there's a problem. Sponges are animals. Some sponges have chlorophyll, or structures known as chloroplasts, in their makeup. If we classify sponges as animals, that means that all things containing chlorophyll cannot be plants. I could say plants are immobile, and draw nutrients through their roots and usually also perform photosynthesize. But what about the Western Tumbleweed? It just blows around with the wind! It's not fixed anywhere.

The most reliable definition is one that tells us that both plants and animals have a cell membrane, that which holds in their fluids and other structures that make up the cell. However, only plans have a cell wall, made of cellulose, outside of the cell membrane, and only fungi have a cell wall made of chitin, which allows them to have a rigid form without a skeleton.

So we can have plants that eat meat and animals that use sunlight to create energy. But we can always tell a plant from an animal by its cellular structure.

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What Is Life?Lesson 31

...Continued


So why does life exist?

The earth is teeming with life. Every millimeter of its surface, even under and in the oceans, and atmosphere is saturated with life. It would be statistically unlikely that of all the planets and their moons surrounding the sun, all the sons in our galaxy, and all the galaxies in the universe, as we know it, only earth contains life!

The notion that we are alone in the universe is not statistically probable. So why does life exist? There are several possibilities:

1. Cosmic accident theory. Life on earth is a cosmic accident; something that a confluence of events, unique to our planet, caused to happen. Life exists nowhere else in the universe.
2. Occasional happenstance theory. Like number 1, above, life is accidental, however it has occurred accidentally in some small number of worlds in the universe. Here we must recognize that small, in terms of the universe, is large in human terms. If 100, or 1000, or 10,000 planets harbor life, that would be very small indeed, in terms of the universe, however large as humans measure. However, if life is accidental, and the number of bodies harboring life is small, we may be the only life that exists in our galaxy. That would be unfortunate indeed, because it could take as many years as there has been life on earth to contact life in another galaxy. We may not be alone, but we may be isolated.
3. Common process theory. Life is common and ordinary in situations where the environment is suitable. It may be that celestial habitats capable of evolving life may be the minority of celestial bodies. But, out of the billions of stars that make up a galaxy, and billions of galaxies that we know of, even if life exists on only 1%, that's a lot by human standards! The odds of bumping into life in this galaxy rise dramatically.
4. The inverted theory. Our understanding is inverted, backwards. Intelligence, minds, predated this universe as we know it. Our universe is in fact existent solely for the purpose of creating a physical, corporeal existence for the mind. In essence, minds existed first and the physical universe came later. In essence, the universe as we know it was created by minds which preceded it. It really doesn't matter, in terms of this theory, whether there is one mind which manifests itself in many bodies and many units of consciousness, or whether each mind is unique.
5. The emergent mind theory. This theory states that mind is a byproduct, also known as an emergent property, of bodies. With this theory, body existed first, brains second and mind cotempers were brave, or third. In this theory, we have to separate the concept of mind and memory. Much is a computer stores memory on a flash drive or a disk, and coded in ones and zeros, and the storage medium can be transported from computer to computer, memory is an artifact resulting from thinking thoughts in the brain. As animals, humans included, may have a rudimentary capability to reach peace thoughts. There is some evidence that, if this is true, humans radiate thoughts at a particular frequency, like a radio station, and may have the ability, under the right circumstances, to retrieve other, typically previous thoughts, on that same frequency.
6. The dualistic theory. Mind and matter, mind and body, existed independently prior to the creation of the universe, or matter, as we know it. Mind, whether singuler with lots of tentacled, or whether independent, may have adapted to the presence of matter. It is even possible that mind uses matter much as humans and chimps use tools. In this sense, the tool, the body, may have come into existence long after the dawn of the mind.
7. The multiverse theory. This theory states that our universe popped into existence with the Big Bang, which at its beginning, was a tiny, hot, dense spot of plasma/energy that exploded, expanding into the known universe. The multiverse theory states that the Big Bang actually happened millions or billions of times. Our universe is but one of these. In each of these universes, the physical laws and mathematical constants may vary. A universe in which we live happens to have the right configuration of natural laws acend mathematical constants to permit life, therefore it evolved here on Earth, and perhaps other planets, where as other universes did not. Perhaps still other universes develop the modes of life or intelligence totally foreign to hours.

Analysis of the six theories.
Here, we take for a moment, a leap of faith. Occam's Razer told us that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Life emerging on earth as an accident, given that so many things in the universe follow predictable laws, even laws we don't yet understand, the sudden appearance of life as an accident on earth is highly unlikely. Not impossible, just improbable. This, of course, makes option number two even more unlikely. If it's unlikely that life was a mistake and one planet, the probability that the same mistake was made on many planets is very remote.

Option three which states that, in the right environment, life is likely to appear, and that in the billions and billions of stars, the relatively ordinary sun means that, undoubtedly, life is rather common in the universe. Even in our own solar system, life may exist on other worlds. Jupiter, various moons, and other unexplored territories are possible candidates for life. We also must remember that life here on earth is carbon-based. That may or may not be true on other worlds. Silicon is another element with properties very close to those of carbon.

Options four through six take a different approach to looking at mind versus body. Advanced cellular structures, what we call eukariotic cells, for example, which make up our human body are actually believe to be cells that, millions of years ago, captured other organelles, found them useful, and made them permanent residence or parts of the cell structure. This same process could have happened between mind and body. The two developed independently, possibly even indifferent conventional space. The line found that substance we call matter, and began experimenting with it, injecting pieces of itself into the physical existence.

Take a look at life on earth. It began as very simple one celled creatures, e-mail is the multicellular creatures in the seas, crawled out of the sea is to explore the land, and once for some very specific cycles. So these experiments were unsuccessful, and died off -- became extinct. Some of them were successful as life, but insufficient for the needs of the mind. They stayed. We experimented with very small lifeforms, very large lifeforms like a dinosaur, and ended up with humans, somewhere in the middle. Humanity is the mind's results in experimentation with the vessels capable of being illuminated by the spark of mind.

If you read six, the dualistic theory, is very similar. However, it assumes the mind and matter URL found two separate paths. Presumably, even mind is older, or capable of evolution much more quickly. Matter was observed by mind, and basically put use. Mind you discovered that it can accomplish more and experience more by using matter is a tool. That is, our bodies are essentially tools of that thing we call mine, which is still in the process of experimenting with matter.

Finally, we have the emergent property concept. Matter formed into cells, cells and life, and life became increasingly more complex. The mind is something that emerges from life, as a result of life. Much like if we throw a bunch of parts that ultimately formidable bicycle, into a box, without proper assembly, they just remain a bunch of parts in a box. The mind is a centrally the bicycle in a box. When life becomes complex enough, the body organizes the parts of the box into a bicycle -- into a mind.

There's only one problem with this. If we look at physics, there is a concept called entropy. Entropy says that everything moves from order and structure to disorder. I start with a tree, the tree dies, the tree decays into its component parts. Two people beget a third, the two original people essentially returned to dust, and over time, the third does also. Entropy exists. The concept of putting a bunch of parts in a box, and magically assembling those parts into a bicycle is contrary to the law of entropy. Mind is an emergent property of the body is contrary to the laws of entropy.

So what happened?

Entropy is the natural tendency for things to go from a state of organization to a state of disorganization over time. Entropy is a law of physics, and a law of nature. According to the law of entropy, everything decays. Rocks become sand. Living things die. Organic things decompose. Things that are hot become cold. Things that are bright become dim and eventually, dark. According to the laws of entropy, the universe is moving from that enormous expenditure of energy called the Big Bang to, if nothing else intervenes, a state of coal darkness. This may happen over many billions and billions of years, but, physics, the physics of our four dimensions, tells us, it will happen.

Now, if the law of entropy, which governs matter, also governs the behavior of non-material things, then there are two possibilities.

First, there is the possibility that life, as we know it, is actually a more disorganized state then the explosion which occurred at the Big Bang. That is possible, but does not, following contemporary human logic, seem likely.

Second, entropy is a condition of matter. Entropy is a law governing things from rocks, to our bodies, to planet Earth itself. However, while the world of subatomic particles, atoms, and more complex matter may be subject to the laws of entropy, there may be other laws that work. The N dimensions that exists (where N is greater than four) may follow totally different laws.

Since matter spontaneously generating a more complex form of life is counter to the law of entropy, it is logical, then, to assume that some force, some energy, was expended for the purpose of organizing matter. Given the laws of entropy, that force had to be outside the frame of reference, outside the frame of existence of matter. Otherwise, we would violate a basic law of physics, the physics that we understand as the physics of matter and energy.

End state.
This logic inevitably leads us to the conclusion that what we know is mind, in its broader definition meaning both the ability to think, and the ability to animate otherwise inanimate matter must be a force not subject to the laws of entropy, or, at least not subject to the laws of physical entropy as it exists in the material world. Mind, soul, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, must exist separate from physical matter that exists in our four dimensions.

This raises another interesting question! If time, as we measure it, always progressing in a forward direction, as we perceive it, how it is time a fact other dimensions? Are they eternal? Do they exist independently of time? Can something that exists in those other dimensions moved back and forth through time, since nothing in our known physics tells us that the arrow of time must always point from now to future with existing consciousness being stuck in the present.

Note. So far, through these lessons, we have agreed that there are four dimensions: height, width, length, and time. We have also stated, that according to physicists, there must be some more dimensions beyond those that we can perceive. We have been describing, counting, these dimensions as "N, where N is greater than or equal to three." In the rest of this document, we shall refer to the four dimensions we can perceive, and we shall refer to the rest of the dimensions as the Q dimensions.

Focusing Intention. Lesson 40

"Anything you believe, you can achieve."
          -- Anthony (Tony) Robbins




Definition.

Mind.

Mind is the characteristic of higher developed, multicellular, biological organisms -- such as people -- which manifests itself as thought, memory, and other attributes which are not limited to the products of cellular functions. Some of the names, in this context, for mind are: Spirit, soul, living essence, etc.

Intention.

Intention is the power of the mind, within each person, to achieve, through a variety of means, virtually anything that can be conceived.


Two terms that we shall bandy about in our studies are intention and mind. As you see, from the above written definitions, they contain the essence of what these words mean in plain English. However, we will use them in a very specific context.



Introduction to mind



Mind is a thing. It is a known, quantifiable property of a human. We measured IQ of the mind, and can identify a genius from their IQ. We say that a smart person has a power for mind. Clearly in our every day speaking, we subconsciously differentiate the mind from the brain. The brain is an organ of our bodies. It is a collection of cells. It sits in our heads. It is connected by a cable like mass of cells called spinal cord. The brain is a cellular mechanism that one, theoretically, can touch. The mind, on the other hand, is much more etherial.

We may casually save the brain thinks. However, when we ask someone what they used to think, the answer will be the mind. If I go into surgery, and I asked the doctor to show me the mind, he may show me the brain. Of course I would respond, that is the brain, a human organ -- not the mind, the collection of thoughts, memories, worlds, hates and such. Or, they may say the mind set in the brain. If I ask the same question over coroner, he may say, "Sir, I do autopsies on dead people. I can show you their brain, but I don't think there's any mind present."

In that respect, doesn't the mind more closely resembles the fact is e call spirits or soul?



Introduction to Intention.



People often say that it is their "intention to ..." Substitute any word you like. In common parlance, and intention, or intending to do something, is used synonymously with plan or planning to do something. To intend to do something is seen as a stronger assertion than to plan to do something. Generally it is used as, I intend or they intend, it is my plan to do something or your plan to do something.

We use intention in much the same way. However, is something we plan to do with our mind, as opposed to our brain or our body.

Intention, for our purposes, is a focused, mental exercise meant to achieve a particular purpose or action. One could view intention as one would view the magical powers of a genie let out of the bottle. The genie in the bottle grants you three wishes, and makes them come true. Generally, the drama arises because the genie takes the utterings, of the person who released him from captivity, quite literally -- often with comic or tragic results.

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Focusing Intention Lesson 41

continued....


In real life, intention operates much the same way as the Genie's magic, and quite often not as intended by the person who wielded it.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Focused intention, to the uninitiated, may seem like magic. However, like Clark's magic or advanced technology, focused intention behaves according to specified laws, with certain predictable results.

The path of truth.

Throughout these my graphs we will attempt to separate



"Anything you believe you can achieve." Anthony (Tony) Robbins

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