• How to envision quantum fields in physics?
    Jesus! You had an epiphany? Wow!Thunderballs

    Quantum Field Theory is the most accurate and succcesful in the history of science. The model of the sums of harmonic oscillators and its math matches the experimental results and gives rise to the standard model from which all kind of devices can be made that work.

    I don't know why QFT doesn't get explored all that much on this forum.
  • How to envision quantum fields in physics?
    quantum field theoryThunderballs

    And more, even the answer to Existence:

    On the One and Only Existence
    Prolog

    In this lost haunt on the Orion arm
    Of the galaxy, safe from the core’s harm,
    The philosophers meet in the forum,
    As sleuth-hounds unweaving the Cosmic yarn.

    We search for the Start of the Universe,
    The End, the Before, the After, the Kinds,
    The Measures, and All That Lies Between:
    The Music of the Spheres’ Magnificat.

    We follow every single avenue,
    Whether it’s brightly lit or a dark alley,
    Exploring one-ways, no-ways, and dead-ends,
    Until cornered where the Truth is hiding.

    Since we all became of this universe,
    Should we not ask who we are, whence we came?
    Insight clefts night’s skirt with its radiance—
    The Theory of Everything shines through!

    We are ever in touch with the unknown,
    For that’s ever the reach of science shown.
    Reality is grasped by focusing
    On what interacts with what and the means.

    There is a realm of happenings, not things,
    For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
    What remains through time are processes—
    Relations between different systems.

    An Eternal Basis has to be so,
    For a lack of anything cannot sow,
    Forcing there to be something permanent,
    As partless, from which the particles grow.

    Consider quantum fields of waves atop
    One another: waves are continuous,
    And so qualify as Fundamental;
    Quantized lumps are particles, then more.

    Note that there is no other absolute:
    Newton’s fixed space and time got Einstein’s boot;
    Particle spigots making fields are mute;
    Classic fields have no fundamental loot.

    There’s a lightness of elemental being
    Since any more would have to be of parts,
    And thus go beyond the fundamental arts.
    The puffs of vacuum energy are small.


    On the Forced Defaults for the Only Existence

    There can only be the one Existence,
    Forced, with no option for it not to be,
    Which is no mystery because the ‘Nil’
    Cannot be, even as spacers within.

    There is neither ‘Full’ nor ‘Null’,
    But a lightness of being near ‘Zero’,
    As that’s what the universe amounts to,
    Nor ‘Nil’s kin as ‘Still’, since there’s constant change.

    This must-be partless Existence Eterne
    Can’t end, so it must remain as itself,
    Transmuting into multiplicity
    Of the temporary as ‘elementaries’.

    Since Existence has to be, of not ‘null’,
    ‘Supernatural Magic’ isn’t required;
    So, there’s only the natural as the base;
    One degree of freedom is its forced default.

    Motion is a must, or naught could happen;
    It can’t have parts, so it’s continuous;
    Since no end, it can return to itself.
    There can’t be anything else but it.

    It is everywhere, with no gaps of ‘zilch’,
    Waving, as that’s ubiquitous in nature;
    Rearranging to the elementary
    Particles at stable rungs of quanta.

    Only quantum fields fit the criteria;
    ‘Particles as spigots’ failed to flow,
    Newton’s ‘Space’ and ‘Time’ disappeared via
    Einstein’s relativity special and general.

    Quantum field points that just spring up and down
    Form the field’s waves by dragging on others.
    These sums of harmonic oscillations
    Force the fixed quanta energy levels.

    So the wave estimate proved to be right;
    An electron/photon goes through both slits
    Because it is a spread out field quantum.
    Quantum jumps are due no wave fractionals.

    The universe is a large quantum field,
    For the 24 quantum fields interact,
    This containing the whole of physics.
    There’s no ‘God’s’ eye view; anything happens.

    The anything in the massive universe
    Is a lot of needed ‘extravagant’ stuff,
    Since on Earth the right conditions obtained,
    Our planet being where and what it has to be.

    Cosmic and biological evolution were forced,
    Stars collecting the elementaries,
    Producing all the atomic elements
    That went on to molecules, cells, and more.

    All this took 13.75 billion years,
    Since, again, there were no hoodoo shortcuts.
    Life and consciousness emerged, no ‘Mojo’—
    Since before that time on Earth there was none!

    We, too, are forced to exist.

    ‘Magic’ has fallen by the wayside, it
    As trancendence an intangible writ,
    Unable to be distinct from matter,
    Having to talk/walk the talk/walk of it.

    An extra distinct realm isn’t needed,
    As ‘intangible’, ‘ineffable’, etc.,
    For it only begs the question—a shock!—
    And as separate couldn’t have effect.

    The ‘nonmaterial’ and ‘nonphysical’
    Haven’t shown anything at all to date,
    Plus, all the more they’d have to be explained;
    The ‘metaphysical’ search has to fail.

    The ‘God’ idea has fallen from its throne;
    Forever quantum fields’ excitations’
    Elementary quanta roll on those fields
    That are everywhere and remain themselves.


    Epilog

    The quantum fields’ unity is the Whole,
    Being ever, exhausting Reality,
    Unbreakable and Unmakeable,
    As partless and continuous monads.

    All that emerges is still the fields at heart,
    Though secondary and temporary,
    Arising and at some time returning;
    The quantum fields are Indivisible.

    Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
    Whose excitations at harmonics cloak
    The quanta with the stability
    To persist and thus obtain mobility.

    The elementary particles beget,
    As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
    And combine in words to write the story
    Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

    Why Something?

    Quantum states melt via uncertainty,
    And this means that no quantum property
    Can e’er be zero—a precise amount,
    And so it is that motion can ne’er cease.

    The Something

    The quantum field is the bridge between ‘Nil’
    And basic matter, and can ne’er be still;
    Thus the ‘vacuum’ is the quietest field—
    The closest approach to ‘Nothing’ that can be.

    No ‘Null’ nor Matter Full

    ‘Nothing’ had no chance to be the hero,
    Plus QM scrubs the idea of zero
    Out of the physical world of being;
    ‘Zilch’ ne’er sleeps, but is e’er up to something.

    A Mere Blip

    But for the small quantum uncertainty,
    The Cosmos sums to naught, its lunch being free:
    No net electric charge; a weightless brick;
    Minus-potential = plus-kinetic.

    Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
    Such as Nought, Stillness, and the Block’s decree,
    As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
    The Unfixed Will, Blame, Fame, and Theity.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Extended…

    On the One and Only Existence

    Prolog

    In this lost haunt on the Orion arm
    Of the galaxy, safe from the core’s harm,
    The philosophers meet in the forum,
    As sleuth-hounds unweaving the Cosmic yarn.

    We search for the Start of the Universe,
    The End, the Before, the After, the Kinds,
    The Measures, and All That Lies Between:
    The Music of the Spheres’ Magnificat.

    We follow every single avenue,
    Whether it’s brightly lit or a dark alley,
    Exploring one-ways, no-ways, and dead-ends,
    Until cornered where the Truth is hiding.

    Since we all became of this universe,
    Should we not ask who we are, whence we came?
    Insight clefts night’s skirt with its radiance—
    The Theory of Everything shines through!

    We are ever in touch with the unknown,
    For that’s ever the reach of science shown.
    Reality is grasped by focusing
    On what interacts with what and the means.

    There is a realm of happenings, not things,
    For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
    What remains through time are processes—
    Relations between different systems.

    An Eternal Basis has to be so,
    For a lack of anything cannot sow,
    Forcing there to be something permanent,
    As partless, from which the particles grow.

    Consider quantum fields of waves atop
    One another: waves are continuous,
    And so qualify as Fundamental;
    Quantized lumps are particles, then more.

    Note that there is no other absolute:
    Newton’s fixed space and time got Einstein’s boot;
    Particle spigots making fields are mute;
    Classic fields have no fundamental loot.

    There’s a lightness of elemental being
    Since any more would have to be of parts,
    And thus go beyond the fundamental arts.
    The puffs of vacuum energy are small.


    On the Forced Defaults for the Only Existence

    There can only be the one Existence,
    Forced, with no option for it not to be,
    Which is no mystery because the ‘Nil’
    Cannot be, even as spacers within.

    There is neither ‘Full’ nor ‘Null’,
    But a lightness of being near ‘Zero’,
    As that’s what the universe amounts to,
    Nor ‘Nil’s kin as ‘Still’, since there’s constant change.

    This must-be partless Existence Eterne
    Can’t end, so it must remain as itself,
    Transmuting into multiplicity
    Of the temporary as ‘elementaries’.

    Since Existence has to be, of not ‘null’,
    ‘Supernatural Magic’ isn’t required;
    So, there’s only the natural as the base;
    One degree of freedom is its forced default.

    Motion is a must, or naught could happen;
    It can’t have parts, so it’s continuous;
    Since no end, it can return to itself.
    There can’t be anything else but it.

    It is everywhere, with no gaps of ‘zilch’,
    Waving, as that’s ubiquitous in nature;
    Rearranging to the elementary
    Particles at stable rungs of quanta.

    Only quantum fields fit the criteria;
    ‘Particles as spigots’ failed to flow,
    Newton’s ‘Space’ and ‘Time’ disappeared via
    Einstein’s relativity special and general.

    Quantum field points that just spring up and down
    Form the field’s waves by dragging on others.
    These sums of harmonic oscillations
    Force the fixed quanta energy levels.

    So the wave estimate proved to be right;
    An electron/photon goes through both slits
    Because it is a spread out field quantum.
    Quantum jumps are due no wave fractionals.

    The universe is a large quantum field,
    For the 24 quantum fields interact,
    This containing the whole of physics.
    There’s no ‘God’s’ eye view; anything happens.

    The anything in the massive universe
    Is a lot of needed ‘extravagant’ stuff,
    Since on Earth the right conditions obtained,
    Our planet being where and what it has to be.

    Cosmic and biological evolution were forced,
    Stars collecting the elementaries,
    Producing all the atomic elements
    That went on to molecules, cells, and more.

    All this took 13.75 billion years,
    Since, again, there were no hoodoo shortcuts.
    Life and consciousness emerged, no ‘Mojo’—
    Since before that time on Earth there was none!

    We, too, are forced to exist.

    ‘Magic’ has fallen by the wayside, it
    As trancendence an intangible writ,
    Unable to be distinct from matter,
    Having to talk/walk the talk/walk of it.

    An extra distinct realm isn’t needed,
    As ‘intangible’, ‘ineffable’, etc.,
    For it only begs the question—a shock!—
    And as separate couldn’t have effect.

    The ‘nonmaterial’ and ‘nonphysical’
    Haven’t shown anything at all to date,
    Plus, all the more they’d have to be explained;
    The ‘metaphysical’ search has to fail.

    The ‘God’ idea has fallen from its throne;
    Forever quantum fields’ excitations’
    Elementary quanta roll on those fields
    That are everywhere and remain themselves.


    Epilog

    The quantum fields’ unity is the Whole,
    Being ever, exhausting Reality,
    Unbreakable and Unmakeable,
    As partless and continuous monads.

    All that emerges is still the fields at heart,
    Though secondary and temporary,
    Arising and at some time returning;
    The quantum fields are Indivisible.

    Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
    Whose excitations at harmonics cloak
    The quanta with the stability
    To persist and thus obtain mobility.

    The elementary particles beget,
    As letters of the Cosmic alphabet,
    And combine in words to write the story
    Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

    Why Something?

    Quantum states melt via uncertainty,
    And this means that no quantum property
    Can e’er be zero—a precise amount,
    And so it is that motion can ne’er cease.

    The Something

    The quantum field is the bridge between ‘Nil’
    And basic matter, and can ne’er be still;
    Thus the ‘vacuum’ is the quietest field—
    The closest approach to ‘Nothing’ that can be.

    No ‘Null’ nor Matter Full

    ‘Nothing’ had no chance to be the hero,
    Plus QM scrubs the idea of zero
    Out of the physical world of being;
    ‘Zilch’ ne’er sleeps, but is e’er up to something.

    A Mere Blip

    But for the small quantum uncertainty,
    The Cosmos sums to naught, its lunch being free:
    No net electric charge; a weightless brick;
    Minus-potential = plus-kinetic.

    Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
    Such as Nought, Stillness, and the Block’s decree,
    As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
    The Unfixed Will, Blame, Fame, and Theity.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    nwheel.gif

    Of the Forced Defaults for Existence
    With no Beginning or End


    Since Existence has to be, of not ‘nil’,
    ‘Supernatural Magic’ isn’t required;
    So, there’s only the natural as the base;
    One degree of freedom is the forced default.

    Motion is a must, or naught would happen;
    It can’t have parts, so it’s continuous;
    Since no end, it must remain as itself.
    There can’t be anything else but it.

    It is everywhere, with no gaps of ‘zilch’,
    Waving, since that’s ubiquitous in nature;
    Transmuting into the elementary
    Particles as stable rungs of quanta.

    Only quantum fields fit the criteria,
    Particles as spigots failed to flow,
    Newton’s Space and Time faded away from
    Einstein’s relativity special and general.

    Quantum field points just going up and down
    Form the field waves by dragging others with;
    These sums of harmonic oscillations
    Force the fixed quanta energy levels.

    The universe is one complex quantum field,
    For the 24 quantum fields interact,
    This containing the whole of physics.
    There’s no ‘God’s’ eye view; anything happens.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Unless our fortunate universe is of the multiverse…

    An Answer to the Confounding Exact Parameters

    What great needle played, stitched, wound, and paved
    The strands of the quantum fields’ types of waves
    To weave the warp, weft, and woof of our ‘verse
    Into being’s fabric of living braids?

    The Bang’s source is a quantum computer
    That reckoned all future with its qu-bits.
    The path that went the furthest won the prize,
    Earth being the best of all possible worlds!

    The universe’s quantum computation
    Finished just before the Big Bang start,
    And then it played out in time perfectly,
    As the longest path of complexity.

    How else could the ‘shambles’ of Explosion
    Result in life in our universe that’s
    Only .02 percent of its way along?
    The universal constants were self-taught.

    Mass/energy has been shown to be
    Equivalent to information, so,
    The quantum universe did compute
    Itself, pursuing paths that go onward.

    It reached out to see what’s possible
    And what’s not, like particles forming
    In the quantum world, but, better than that—
    It made the potential possible.

    It ran scenarios of consequences,
    Ever abandoning those paths that end,
    Near at once, as quantum computers do,
    Since it explored all ways in parallel.

    Only thus could the exacting events
    So improbable and deep in their depth
    Have come forth in the Universe’s progress,
    In its precisely tuned Macrocosm.

    There never was, nor will be, but just ‘now’—
    All things, interacting—instant know-how;
    Thus mind ‘matters’, matter ever ‘minds’; so,
    The Cosmos self-adjusted—as the Tao.

    Or still:

    The ‘God’ idea has fallen from its throne;
    Forever quantum fields’ excitations’
    Elementary quanta roll on those fields
    That are everywhere and remain themselves.

    The Creation of the Universe:

  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    If we evolve aspects of our brain (or sense receptors) we could have more acute perceptions. As is the case of people who have 4 light cones instead of the traditional 3.Manuel

    (Some of was inspired from listening to the transhumanism aims of David Pearce.)

    When this trans-humanism arrives…

    Through natural evolution or via human-assisted evolution to higher being:

    The naturalist, with the senses deepened, would be able to absorb with awestruck reverence scenes of overpowering sublimity far beyond the simple prettiness on offer now.

    A musician would be able to hear and play music more exhilarating and heartfelt than anyone had ever dreamed of.

    The celestial music of the spheres heard by the mystics would become as a child’s toy flute in comparison to this grand and ultimate symphony.

    The sensualist would discover that what had passed for deep and passionate sex had been merely a pleasant prelude. Erotic pleasure of an intensity that flesh had never known would become enjoyable without guilt, even by thought alone.

    A creator or patron of the visual arts would be able to behold representative vision in a holographic reality of indescribable glory and completeness.

    Scientists would be able to apply a googolplex of neurons to their thought experiments, or by using AI, rivaling Einstein’s fortunate “ah-ha” moments, all of the time, to reveal much of what was unknown between heaven and Earth.

    Arguments by people insisting on their own selfish ways would melt into a new sense of increased reasoning, just as bad and aversive emotions forced upon us involuntarily would be greatly lessened by new and safer medical miracles.

    Wars would become much reduced, and humanity at large could finally progress beyond its everyday suffering.

    People would actually remember their car keys and glasses that had often and usually piled up at the vanishing point of the ‘lost and found’, which is at the end of the converging railroad tracks.

    Of course, throughout the ages there had always been those rare and mystical moments as described above, for some enlightened and peaceful souls or those in love, but they were but fleeting glimpses of a rare light that lit their minds for a while as a flickering candle, when all one’s thoughts perfectly conjuncted, but then, as usual, soon dispersed, scattering into the oblivion of forgotten dreams.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    It's been amazing to read the thoughts and examples of personal creativity.Amity

    You've contributed much to this thread. Well done!

    Good recitations for poems can be a great as singing them, plus not all poems can be easily sung.

    Here are some good recitations:



    The following printed versions of two quatrains got left out of the video, plus printing for the omaresque recitation at the end that I don't have the words for (perhaps someone who has better hearing than I have could transcribe them.)

    Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
    “My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
    But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
    Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!”

    And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
    Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on The Grass,
    And in Thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
    Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass!

    I also use the computer voices Brian and Amy, which are pretty good. My art is digitally composed in Photoshop by moving parts around to good places. Some of the moving character sequences were done in iclone by its features and digital compositing.

    My long project of extending The Rubaiyat with my own quatrains has reached a usable stage, but the videos are hours long… (I could post them.)
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Regular computer programming covering all eventualities probably can’t calculate the universe, as it’s too linear and too slow.

    So,

    The universe is a quantum computer,
    Reckoning the future with its qu-bits;
    The path that goes the furthest wins the prize,
    It being the best of all possible worlds!
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Some kind of a clue to something:

    Having an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs and many species to provide an opening for mammals to evolve seems too risky and clumsy for a ‘Designer’ to have done. Other near extinctions happened too; seems natural.

    Our planet is very good at promoting life,
    But it is much better at extinguishing it.
    Of the billions upon billions of organic things,
    99.99% are no longer around here living.

    Of all extinctions, the Permian was the worst.
    245 million years ago, for 95% of species perished,
    Suddenly disappearing from the fossil recording.
    Life had almost come to a total obliterationing.

    “Hurray,” said the shrew; now I can evolve!

    ‘You’ were once a lucky shrew, darting all about,
    But then attached to a favorable evolutionary line…
    Every single one of your forbears on both sides
    Being attractive enough to locate a loving mate,
    And they fortunately had the good health to celebrate!

    bird-beach-ff-2-asteroida.gif

    Our blind-fated path was the further paved
    When disasters finished most of the species.
    Far from a feature of Intelligent Design,
    It opened up the space that was needed.

    Actual footage of the Great Permian Asteroid:

  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    That is to say, our exposure to any object in the world, is so brief, quick and fleeting, that only very brief exposure leads to an image which we have no reason to believe exists "out there", as far as manifest reality goes.Manuel

    But the exposures get repeated and eventually coalesce into a useful representation…

    Conscious experiences are of qualia as reality based 'apparitions' honed in the early years and onward from outward in and inward out into what is the best guess for the model and so soon one can tell a bottle of milk apart from what’s else. It’s not like the waves have a label on them saying that they came from the bottle but that one kept estimating the separate object into the best representation. There is some help in that light peels information off of an 'obect'.

    In a night dream, the apparitions and phantasms are as true ghosts in that they have no outside basis, but the same world-simulating model is being employed, already having its best guess available.

    The identification of you as a self is also an experience as a best guess estimate.
  • Can Buddhism accomodate the discoveries of modern science?
    I'm just now reading a book on interpretations of physics, Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli. He refers to the Indian Buddhist philosopher, Nāgārjuna, as providing an explanatory framework which is compatible with his own philosophy of 'relationalism'. (I haven't finished it yet.)Wayfarer

    In his new book, ‘Helgoland…’, about Quantum Theory, Carlo Rovelli notes that All is Relational, that no entity exists independently of anything else, so that there are no intrinsic properties at all, but only features in relation to something else, which is essentially what Nagarjuna means by ‘emptiness’ in his Buddhism.

    Relationism and Buddhism
    (Outline gleaned from reading Rovelli)

    Quantum fields form and exhaust reality,
    As partless, continuous—there’s no Space!
    Reality maintains itself in place
    As the net of objects interacting.

    Copernicus’ revolution’s complete;
    External entities aren’t required
    To hold the universe; God’s not needed,
    Nor any background; there is no Outside.

    Nor is there the ‘now’ all over the place.
    GR’s relational nature extends
    To Time as well—the ‘flow’ of time is not
    An ultimate aspect of reality.

    All is Relational: no entity
    Exists independently of anything;
    There are no intrinsic properties,
    Just features in relation to what’s else.

    Interactions and events (not things) are
    Quantum entangled with such others else;
    Impermanence pertains all the way through—
    What Nagarjuna means by Emptiness.

    There are no fundamental substances,
    No permanences, no bird’s-eye view
    Of All, no Foundation to Everything,
    Plus no infinite regress ne’er completed.

    (The fields are not from anything—causeless!
    Or ‘not from anything’ is of lawless
    ‘Nothing’, which can’t ever form to remain.
    There is no reason, then, to existence.)

    Hope’s Necessary ‘God’ vanishes!
    This realization of Impermanence,
    No Absolutes, and Emptiness,
    Is Nirvana, though coincidently.
  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    So, then, to continue, given that we build things 'out there' via our representations 'in here', using material that's 'out there', and the devices work 'out there' and remain 'out there, such as a computer, as known 'in here', the noumena work quite well.
  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    I'd like to read a physicalist response.Tom Storm

    That we have senses indicates that they take something in, called noumena, and then makes it way through the brain and on into the phenomena of consciousness, and since we can navigate the world we know that we have a useful representation.

    From the article:

    To bring the point home, consider that in certain intense states of absorption – during meditation, dance or highly skilled performances – the subject-object structure can drop away, and we are left with a sense of sheer felt presence. How is such phenomenal presence possible in a physical world? Science is silent on this question.

    However,
    In meditation, the resulting quietus
    Of the brain’s self-boundary & ID center
    Via focus on mantras, hymns, or prayers
    Is but a neurological effect, nothing more,
    Thus one does not become one with the Cosmos.

    (Tested via electrodes in Buddhist monk meditators)
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Coding…

    page-27-jpeg-791px-24fps-138.gif

    (One of the objectives)

    The Programmer sets the if-then switches,
    Like eight-way 3D Rubic Cube intercepts,
    After having set the quarks and leptons,
    And coding stars to generate atoms.

    Then more precise tweaks, to dark energy,
    To umpteen decimal places so rare,
    And the forming of the DNA code
    To blend life’s ingredients, stirring slow.

    Darn, the n-body problem is so tough,
    For unforeseen side-effects e’er arise,
    Among branches of the would-be life-tree,
    A zillion variables overlapping.

    This was all still in a simulation
    To test out the the coming universe.
    Fixes were needed.

    The Programmer sat up at his terminal,
    Brought up his 1,000,000,000 line program,
    And opened the patient for surgery,
    Working swiftly from a red inked printout
    Marked up during a long coffee hour.

    He clamped off the bleeding capillaries,
    Redid most of their interfaces,
    And bloodlessly sealed them shut again,
    Although these were only preparatory
    And minor repairs in auxiliary areas.

    Next, the main arteries had to be incised,
    And therefore it was no longer possible
    To open and unblock the incursions in sequence,
    Since indirect ramifications and side concerns
    Concerns quickly arose and wildly flared,
    As fleeting thoughts, for one thing led to another,

    Thereby requiring immediate attendance,
    Lest, they, in the formless impressionism
    Of the art of computer programming,
    Fade to vague remembrance, and reappear later,
    Always at an inopportune time, as defects known as bugs.

    The phone rang while he was juggling
    These evaporating images and so he had to ignore it;
    But, no matter, for PhoneMail would record the call.

    Twenty minutes later,
    He had sutured the incisions and readied
    A compile and regression test which would
    Either attest to the quality of the operation

    Or reveal its fatal errors and necessitate
    The revitalization of the patient or, at worst,
    Require a complete restoration to
    Preoperative health from a backup file.

    Then He fed it all into the Big Bang.
  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    t would be nice to be able to ask.Manuel

    Oh, greatest of aliens, tell me what the future holds.

    No, for you won’t like it.

    I really want to know.

    OK; thus this thread can continue about what we can and can't know.

    In the Near Future, via the Great Quantum Computer projecting, he saw that:

    The Lake Tahoe area is mostly saved from the fires, but its ski chairlifts get charred.

    Afghanistan becomes a safe haven for terrorists to operate from and the Taliban go back to their old torturous ways, strictly enforcing the Will of Allah.

    What remained of Haiti from earthquakes was destroyed by a category 5 hurricane. They had but a few trees and none afterward, and so again the island suffered severe erosion. The hurricane kept right on going and ground Cuba into the ground.



    The Hoover Dam in the western U.S. held back nothing, its lake having gone dry. People suggested building a water pipeline to the west from the east, for the east had plenty of water from all the remnants of hurricanes that used up all the names from three alphabets in one year. Congress bickered over it and then killed it.

    Trump got reelected and still said that global warming was a hoax and defunded science. Evangelicals danced in the streets.

    The Covid Zeta variant virus had evolved to be able to remain alive for 400 feet and so this became the main concern for a while, drawing resources and attention away from the planet’s heat crisis until all the unvaccinated had died. Booster shots were needed for the rest.

    Meanwhile, the ice caps had melted and were gone. Greenland became truly green, whose name was but an advertising ploy after not so many had moved to Iceland, but then caught on fire and turned a charcoal color. Iceland had no more ice, and so was renamed ‘No-ice-land’.

    Much of the world had been ablaze for years now, and recently, a high cyclone, one of so many, had killed 150,000 people in Myanmar, and earthquakes had done in many more in China and elsewhere, as well as did a record number of tornados that had continued to sweep across many countries.

    Temperatures often hit 130F degrees.

    A tsunami sprung from the Atlantic and washed over Florida, coast to coast. Another one came forth in the Pacific, from the deep Marianas trench, sinking Baja. Mexico City disappeared into a sinkhole. Quebec Province was severed from Canada by quakes, and floated back towards France, where they had always wanted to be. Africa sunk two feet in an hour. The Indian ocean washed out Sri Lanka and entered the Indian subcontinent.

    Siberia sunk into a mush of methane gas, increasing the warming even more. Sicily got the boot from Italy. Alaska gushed oil all over the place. Gibraltar fell and sunk and closed off the Mediterranean Sea.

    All were aghast to see the LAX airport fracture, and slide into the ocean. The Amazon Jungle flooded, what was left of it after all the trees had been cut for lumber. Mauna Kea erupted and buried Hilo, Hawaii. Krakatoa came back to life. Sumatra went under. Finally, the San Andreas fault could take it no more and moved 1200 feet. What was left of California had become a small island. New Orleans was washed away like silt from a river. What was left of Mexico moved into Texas, where it used to be. Notre Dame Cathedral in France crumbled away into dust. The Eiffel Tower (Le Tour-i-fell), lived up to its name and tipped over.

    Trump declared martial law and gave himself another term in office. The Arizona county recount from 2021 was still going on.

    Russia shook and shook, destroying their nuclear reactors. Japan went under. In the Philippines, only the mountains broke the sea. Australia just about cracked in half. Antarctica sunk ten feet and out of sight. The pyramids crumbled, exposing the rulers of old. The Panama canal closed. Vatican City was no more. Rome was waterlogged. Venice was long gone.

    It was all the beginning of the mother of all near extinctions, one that might erase 99.99% of all life. A 50 mile section of the Alps disappeared from an earthquake, looking as if it were never there; you could see right through the gap. When all of Florida easily went under, being that it was already at sea level, the world had really woken up to the end of days, but it was much too late. Every very coastal city in the world had been inundated, for water always finds its way in. Northern Canada, along with its eastern and western sections, was no more, as part of the Great Lake of the North; only the now more temperate interior remained dry, it filling up with more and more people and tropical birds by the day.

    A small portion of Siberia was quite usable, too, for a while, only being at 100F degrees, and an ‘iffy’ part of Argentina was OK. Alaska was gone to its mountains, as were Central and Latin America, and most of Mexico. There were no more islands but for if they had high mountains, of course.

    The heat in the world had become totally unbearable, the temperatures now reaching 140 degrees F sometimes; crops would no longer grow. A new but rare and expensive form of food pill extended life for some of the rich. Most people really had no place to go. The pace of the disaster was startling, exceeding even the grimmest of predictions by scientists.

    Australia’s population, being mostly coastal, had retreated somewhat to the thin edge between its useless interior and the deep blue sea. The Great Inland Sea reappeared, then evaporated, and then returned. Meteorology had become a fruitless science; summer was now year-round everywhere.

    The Great Lakes were enlarging, even with their locks having been closed, for the water runneth over. Resistance was futile, for water was slippery stuff, its tiny hydrogen atoms easily rolling around the oxygen.

    Various schemes and solutions had been endlessly debated, most of them being as tough on mankind as the heat, the rest of them unattainable. It was all happening much too quickly. The estimates had been way off. Nature was now a dragon and she had roared, and was spewing her fiery breath upon her own fragile planet.

    Some ever had tried to live in their basements, but the heat still found them; some dug underground, but the floods came.

    Eskimos bought refrigerators and air-conditioners.

    Many near extinctions had happened before, one being only 174,000 years ago, when, at Toba, in northern Sumatra, a supervolcano erupted during an ice age. Six years of volcanic winter followed this eruption, bringing pre-humans to the very edge of elimination.

    There were but a few thousand of them left around, since very little light could reach the dusty ground. It took twenty thousand years for them to recompose from the caldron of fire that had almost brewed humanity away. It was from this handful of hardy souls that we modern humans arose.

    Due to the intense global warming and ice melting that reached a runaway exponential point, such as in calculus, the weather patterns had been greatly altered, and were bringing numerous and severe storms every day all over the globe, causing much interior flooding, plus wiping out most of the better crops that still had a chance to grow. Roads and tires had melted. The rate of destruction was becoming astronomical. No one could keep up with it; it was everyone for themselves.

    Charon had started using a fleet of huge ocean liners to ferry the damned dead across the River Styx.

    Billions had perished in a matter of a few years more, and there was little government infrastructure working anywhere. Humans were hardly a match for nature gone wild. It could and would only get worse unto the sure end.

    Trump still said that the 2020 election was flawed.



    Death seemed to be a way of life throughout history. That we were even here was due to the dinosaurs and 90% of all the species being wiped out. A small and nervous shrew-like creature looked out and ‘noted’: the dinosaurs, the forever Kings of the Earth, were gone. “Hurray, no I can evolve.” The shrews attached to a favorable evolutionary line. Every single one of our forbears on both sides had survived, they being attractive enough to locate a loving mate, with whom their love to celebrate.

    It no longer mattered that humans were on a one way trip from the quantum fluke, that maximal disorder within old Planck’s nook… to the escalation caused by the Dark Energy, the Universe heading toward the oblivion of its sparse and accelerated expansion, all that we ever loved and knew going to extinction; for, our world was ending now, or at least it was the beginning of the end, for the temperatures were still increasing daily.

    Al Gore had been the last one into the Washington bunkers, having steadfastly worked up to the end. Greta Thunberg went in with him.

    Some of the remaining nations of the world noted that they had indeed squandered the good things of life, squabbling over their differences in culture. Many had all been looking for truth in the wrong direction, which was back into the past of myth instead of to and for the future. They had fiddled, and now the world was burning.

    The Ninja Empire Grandmasters and their teams flew into Niihau on their last tanks of gas, there to take sanctuary and a vote for a desperate but uncertain plan. The landing strip now had a slight but tricky slope to it.

    Mountainous Niihau was somewhat unaffected, as were other of the higher island regions, although they were few and far between, for which the trade winds still brought some moderation; yet, the subtropical and near tropical areas were now all very much overly tropical.

    On Niihau, Jack, a young master, had to walk the last mile on the new beach that had formed inland. The world’s roulette wheel was rolling double zero on what might soon be the last survivable day on Earth, and a hurricane was headed in his direction. Tsunamis had washed deeper and deeper inland everywhere; most of the internet no longer functioned.

    The top dragon, Old Rascal, as the new #1 West, awaited them all. A rainbow appeared as the spirit of the previous GrandMaster West, flying through, past them, as the scent on the breeze and as the vision of the courage to act.

    The votes had been counted. Grandmaster Rascal had now engaged one of the last working underground silos. Grandmaster Trish, #1 East, keyed in the codes and nodded to him, saying “Would you like to do the honors?”

    “Yes, for unto me falls life’s last duty. Nature will now have to contend with herself. It will be fire versus ice, dragon against dragon, just as shown by the picture on the great China wall; however, this could well be the end for all of us.”

    “Or not, if it works,” she answered.

    “Hopefully, global warming will be defeated by the worldwide dust in the atmosphere, stopping it. The years will tell; it is our only hope. Ashes will fall everywhere like snow, and then real snow will fall.”

    Rascal pressed the button: Nuclear missiles were being fired deep into the heart of the Yellowstone caldera. At least seven surrounding states and two Canadian provinces would be obliterated; yet, winter would come, probably bringing its own array of problems to contend with, but, then, after that, could spring be far behind?
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    On the 'lucky' fine-tuning and also the possible 'multiverse'…

    THE MEADOWS OF HEAVEN

    We of the highest consciousness ever known
    And the most versatile form that’s been grown
    Reside as consequent beings in this Earthly realm,
    Possibly the most fortuitous creatures
    That the universe has ever wrought.

    Indeed,
    We are this universe come to life—
    Necessarily from a long line
    Of ‘fortunate accidents’.

    It had to be this way, for any universe
    In which we could emerge
    Would have to be appropriate for us
    Or we wouldn’t be here to discuss it.

    Looking back,
    We already know ahead of time
    That we will discover
    The many ‘happenings’
    That made us possible.

    All this we know and expect
    Because we are here.

    Perhaps in some other ‘wheres’,
    Junkyard universes litter the omniscape,
    For they flunked, failed, and miscarried—
    A quadrillion trillion universes broken down
    For every one that worked to any extent at all.

    In some of these forlorn universes,
    Perhaps the material was inert
    And so it just sat there, doing nothing, forever.

    In others, maybe gravity was insufficient
    Or had no natural place to collect particles
    And so they thinned out endlessly,
    Spreading coldly toward infinity.

    In yet others again,
    Even those in the same ballpark as ours,
    Perhaps the portions weren’t quite right.
    Although they may have formed a few elements,
    They went no further than that for a zillion years.

    It could also be that all the possibilities-probabilities
    That are of so many imbalances must ever trace back
    To the Perfect Imbalance of matter and antimatter,
    This no longer seen as improbable.

    In our universe, the dark chest of wonders
    Of Possibility and Probability opened up
    In just the just right way:

    Naked quarks spewed forth,
    Among other things,
    And boiled and brewed
    In one of the steamiest broths
    Ever cooked up.

    They somehow simmered and combined
    Into the ordinary matter
    Of protons and neutrons.

    Then quite independently,
    By some unknown means,
    Dark matter-energy arose as well,
    In just the right mix, and, luckily, too,
    Some very long filaments,
    Called cosmic strings,

    Formed and survived long enough
    To be useful as collection agents,
    Which were merely imperfections,
    As in an unevenly freezing pond—
    A kind of a cooling flaw.

    None of these happenings were connected,
    Except by Potential’s destiny,
    So, ‘fortunately’,
    The cosmic strings attracted,
    By their gravity,
    Both dark and ordinary matter,
    Which in turn
    Attracted even more of the same.

    These pearls of embryonic galaxies arose
    And were strung along these cosmic necklaces,
    As can still be noted today.

    So it was
    That some almost incidental irregularities,
    Frozen out as cosmic anchors,
    Were latched onto by matter, both light and dark,
    The proportionate portions of which were favorable,
    The dark matter dwarfing our ordinary matter
    For some reason of a happy ‘circumstance’.

    ‘Fortuitously’, as well,
    Anti-matter, if there ever was any,
    Did not fully cancel out the uncle-matter.

    The universe could not foresee any of this
    In and of itself’s fundamental substance(s),
    For if it could have
    Then we’d only have the larger problem
    Of how the foreseer could have been foreseen,
    Ad infinitum…

    So it could have been like the ‘trying out’
    Of all possibilities in superposition…
    A brute force happening
    Of every path gone down.

    We know much of the rest of the story
    Of how the stars and their supernovae
    Created the light and heavy elements,
    Which combined into molecules,
    Which ‘auspiciously’
    Became able to replicate themselves, as DNA,
    And progress to make cells, tissues, and life.

    And then there was the luck of oxygen,
    A mere waste product of photosynthesis
    By bacteria, and later, plants,
    That could fill the lungs
    As well as build an ozone layer of protection
    From the harmful rays of outer space.

    Luck on top of luck, good fortune,
    And then prosperity…
    ‘Stumbled along’ the right path.

    Of course all this took many billions of years—
    And it is of course this long ‘yardstick’
    That baffles the mind and sticks in the throat,
    But demonstrates the long time lag needed
    To produce even the tiniest of advances.

    It bears some of the hallmarks
    Of ‘randomness’ at work,
    Although quite probable
    If Potential had it all ‘worked out’.

    Dinosaurs roamed the Earth
    For over two hundred million years—
    Imagine the length of that time.

    They were supreme and invincible—
    The kings of all the Earth ‘forever’,
    On land, sea, and even in the air—
    Heading towards forevermore and beyond,

    But…
    Dame Fortune once again intervened
    When the asteroids or some such catastrophe
    Finished off the dinosaurs,
    As well as 90% of the existing species.

    This ‘random’ event left a vacuum
    In which newer species could thrive.

    Proto-man gave way to near-man
    And thence to us, eventually,
    When two ‘monkey’ chromosomes fused together,
    Making ‘us’ incompatible with the chimps
    And so our ancestors then
    Truly descended from the trees!

    ‘You’ were once a lucky shrew, darting all about,
    But then attached to a favorable evolutionary line…
    Every single one of your forbears on both sides
    Being attractive enough to locate a loving mate,
    And they fortunately had the good health to celebrate!

    We came to need no specialized niches,
    Since we could adapt to any terrain,
    Having brains that could learn much more
    After birth than instinct could bestow before.

    Our higher consciousness
    Was the crowning glory—
    We had won the human race—
    The be all and end all; the grand prize
    Of the universal lottery.

    So there is nothing more,
    Aside from our own progress
    To be and learn.

    This is it!
    That’s all there is.

    DNA remembers every step of our evolution—
    And you can see this in ‘fast’ motion
    When embryos form simply in the liquid womb,
    Replicate, and then grow cells
    That diversify into a human being
    After going through some nonhuman stages.

    The human embryo actually forms
    Three different types of kidneys,
    One after the other,
    The first two discarded
    (Resembling those of jawless fish
    And reptiles, respectively)
    Before our final kidney appears.

    There is also a fetal coat of hair
    That then greatly diminishes.

    Thus four billion years compresses into
    The nine months of pregnancy.

    So then hail and good fortune,
    Fine fellows and ladies,
    And welcome all of you
    To the Meadows of Heaven—
    The highest point of all being,
    Although we are surely
    Still in our infancy.

    The path “chosen” by Potential ends here,
    With our consciousness.

    There were many pockets of universes,
    And it is was this very one
    That could sing our verses.

    The further design
    And the role of mankind
    Is now in our hands.

    We were borne here upon the shoulders
    Of so many who have long since come and gone,
    All of them advancing the cause,
    Over eons of wiles—so here we are.

    Fare thee always well, fine friends,
    For we are some of
    The luckiest sons and daughters of being
    In a rare medium well done.

    Celebrate; live; be,
    For everyone dies,
    But not everyone lives.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    But, who wrote the code?Derrick Huestis

    We are back to the Great Scientist Programmer Deity, although many believers don't want a 'God' like that, plus what is He doing sitting around there all fully formed as the First.

    I was an information engineer computer programmer at IBM for 31 years creating software in support of the logic design. I've been retired for 20 years now.



    An Unnatural Universe? Fine Tuning?

    Physicists note that the universe seems unnatural, in that 6-7 base parameters had to be just what they are, to the nth degree.

    Some of the parameters can be understood:

    From Victor Stenger:

    For fine-tuning, only ‘dimensionless’ numbers that do not depend on the system of units are meaningful. The Fine Structure ‘Constant, ‘a’, is not even a constant. There can still be long-lived stars if we vary the parameters and certainly the universe is not fine-tuned for this characteristic. The 7.65 million electron-volts needed for Carbon to form actually hinges on the radioactive state of a carbon nucleus formed out of three helium nuclei, which has over a 20% range to work with without being too high. The vacuum energy of the universe is not fine-tuned, for the large value of N1 is simply an artifact of the use of small masses in making the comparison. The Expansion Rate of the Universe in not fine-tuned since the universe appeared from an earlier state of zero energy; thus, energy conservation would require the exact expansion rate that is observed. Same for the Mass Density of the Universe.

    Plus see:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/07/05/the-universe-itself-may-be-unnatural/?sh=763422766c9d:

    https://futurism.com/is-the-universe-unnatural

    Has the multiverse finally become necessary?

    The quantum fields can still be the All; they are there before and after Big Bangs; they are always there.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Not exactly. The energy released by the sun is many times less then the energy of the big bang, but as that energy dissipates smaller creations can come to be, all the way down to us weak humans. Basically, we needed the energy of the universe to lessen to come into being. As power goes down, creativity rises.Derrick Huestis

    The sun's energy is as a thousand atomic bombs going off every second, a mere pittance compared to the Big Bang. It's just the Bang made the sun to be possible. Our sun is a third generation metal-rich star, which is also what we needed, plus our planet being in the Goldilocks zone with other right conditions such as having a moon (else the Earth would wobble like a top, its surface areas ever going in and out of zones too freezing and too hot, alternating).

    Glad you're still looking into the logic! There's no greater philosophical quest.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    Just curious. Turning it around. Does opera inspire your poetry ?
    What do you listen to when you write ?
    Amity

    No, not regular opera, but more like the 'Phantom of the Opera', which music doesn't seem to ever wear out, or just any emotional music.

    My poetic style is kind of a blend of Shelley and Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, as in particular the Rubaiyat quatrain of ten syllables, with some variations:

    The verses beat the same, in measured chime.
    Lines one-two set the stage, one-two-four rhyme.
    Verse three’s the pivot around which thought turns;
    Line four delivers the sting, just in time.

    Such as:

    “I’m the darkest,” boasts the Shadow to the Night.
    “No,” gloats Midnight, “compared to me you’re bright.”
    “You floodlights!” crows Starless Space, “Stop your fight.
    The darkest plight is the lack of Love’s delight!”

    I'm still hoping that some of my more lyrical poems can get sung, but may have to settle for now for some the Rubaiyat's quatrains sung, since two singers have done so that I found and incorporated into videos (they changed some of the words to make it easier to sing):

    Dorthy Ashby:










    Michael Montecrosssa (Bob Dylan style)(my favorite Rubaiyat rendition):




    And finally, one of mine that I sang, ha, ha, needs improvement:

  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    I then asked the Alien, “Is there randomness?”

    “Your Anton Zeillinger found that randomness is the bedrock of reality to a confidence level of 3-sigma.”

    “I guess so, then, but why the randomness?”

    “The bedrock as the eternal fundamental with no beginning can’t have any input to it.”

    “Wow! That makes sense. Does this randomness carry through all the way up?”

    “Obviously, no; there is consistency in the laws of nature, regularities amenable to mathematics.”

    “When and how does the randomness go away?”

    “Gravity overcomes the vibrations that underlie superpositions when things get as large as a tiny piece of dust.”

    “How come we didn’t know that?”

    “Roger Penrose did, maybe.”

    “Or?”

    “When entities no longer touch the bedrock, or both ways, or another way, called decoherence.”

    “Ha, you don’t really know!”

    “I’ll have to ask an even higher alien.”
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    a few possible arguments in promotion of the idea of a mind:

    1. I've presented the case for creativity…
    Derrick Huestis

    Look into fine tuning.

    2. Consciousness as a higher-level of existence.Derrick Huestis

    In our universe, the lesser ever leads to the greater.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    God as a personal being who is believed to be caring and salvaging the world would be beneficial for the followers and believers for giving the possible psychological comforts in their daily lives and hope for the possible immortality after death.Corvus

    Yes, the belief provides comfort.

    It is doubtful if quantum field as a replacement for God could serve any purpose at all.Corvus

    It's doubtful that an Eternal Fundamental Existence with no beginning and thus no input could have any purpose. The only trait is that it cannot not be; that is the complete message: being is a must.
  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    An idea that illustrates what I have in mind would be that an Intelligent Alien can, for example, perceive how quantum indeterminacy happens in an intuitive matter. Much the way we intuit how the Sun goes around the Earth.Manuel

    The Alien told me that instead the Earth goes around the sun; I explained that it was a typo.

    The Alien further said that we shouldn't focus on just one probabilistic result but find the general pattern, which is that the probabilities are unitary in that they add up to one, showing precise group behavior; this is the pattern.
  • Complete vs. Incomplete Reality
    Any thoughts?Manuel

    Our instruments detect what we can't detect though our senses, although not yet dark matter.

    Conscious experiences are of qualia as reality based 'apparitions' honed in the early years and onward from outward in and inward out into what is the best guess for the model and so soon one can tell a bottle of milk apart from what’s else. It’s not like the waves have a label on them saying that they came from the bottle but that one kept estimating the separate object into the best representation. Well, there is a bit of help in that light waves peel information of an object to help isolate it.

    In a night dream, the apparitions and phantasms are as true ghosts in that they have no outside basis, but the same world-simulating model is being employed, already having its best guess available.

    The identification of you as a self is also an experience as a best guess estimate.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    no one really takes seriously his theory of the immaterial substance soul these days.Corvus

    Well, many religious 'God' followers believe in the 'immaterial soul' and the rest of the 'supernatural' in the way of having hopes and wishes. It's a whole nother story of why they want it.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    It sounds too imaginative and naive judgement to conclude that quantum field is God for all the reasons listed up there.Corvus

    Well, QFT doesn't prove 'God' as a Person with Mind but rather replaces and gets rids of that type of 'God' idea to leave us with just a Ground of Determination (G.O.D.) type basis. Even the Deity 'God' becomes unnecessary as redundant.

    QFT needs to be expanded to include quantum gravity and dark matter (unless neutrinos are already it) and then it will become the Complete Theory of Everything rather than very nearly.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Do you have any real life examples for these events?Corvus

    The closest I can think of that is of our real life is Descartes' declared separate and distinct categories of the mental and the physical. This fell apart because then the mental and the physical would not be able to interact.

    Further, there is no 'metaphysical' being true by just saying the word. So, it's not like we can have an option to say if 'God' is 'spiritual' or 'supernatural' or 'intangible', and such. We have to see what comes out of any analysis we can do to approach it to make it have to be so.

    Derricks' truth and proof of Existence not being optional really already suffices, but for us being curious as to its method, and quantum fields answers this.

    We apparently don't have all the Omnis to the extent wished for in a 'Person God with Mind', but this may not be what Reality is bound to, plus how could any mind be fundamental, much less a really extensive one.

    I suggested a Deity Scientist rather than a personal-god Theity Magician, but we can only meet a Deity's doings at the Big Bang, which we are not yet able to do, but, again, with Existence being a must, there is not really any more to it that it has to answer to.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    science saidCorvus

    Not just "said", as religion does, but shown and used and known.

    Whatever accords to the OP, especially the happy case of a real physical example, is a candidate for 'God'. The OP starts with 'nonexistence' not being possible and thus the Base and Only Existence having to mandatory and continuous, without even any little spacers of 'nonexistence' with it.

    Quantum fields are such, as fundamental, with no deeper parts, and omnipresent, as everywhere, with all the omnipotence they can have, as power to form the elementary particles, and omniscient, in the way of what all can become from it.

    An example of what is not fundamental would be such as a proton, for it has quark constituents that have to be prior. What is fundamental, then, is of an even more lightness of being, such as fields.

    No one knows if there is 'God' or what its nature would be if there is 'God', such as Personhood.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    The suggestion was to define the nature of your God in its substance. Is it physical, spiritual or conceptual? Or non physical something like space? I am not sure what exchanging energies mean. Could you please elaborate on that, if relevant. Thanks.Corvus

    "Exchanging energies" means to be able to interact with the material. If something 'mysterious' is inert or of a distinct and separate category, then it's as if it isn't even there. If not, then it's material, too, since it can interact.

    So, no 'intangible', 'non-physical', etc., affecting us and we back. 'Supernatural' would thus seem to be out and not there, or if it is then never the twain shall meet.

    There's no 'space' as nonphysical. The quantum fields exhaust reality. "All is field", as Einstein claimed. There is also no space as something separate from the fields that is just there to hold the fields.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    I am not sure if randomly promoting the quantum fields to the Fundamental Existence has any meaning when the OP has been trying to prove God.Corvus

    Not "randomly" promoting.

    Quantum Field Theory is the most successful, accurate, and important Theory in the history of science, giving us the Standard Model and a myriad of devices that work.

    The quantum fields accord with Derrick’s points in his OP, and further inform us in physical actuality of labels and associations that have been also used for ‘God’.

    Since the quantum fields are already fundamental, the hypothesis for ‘God’ would want to attend to that.


    Non-existence can't exist

    -so, there must be infinite existence in all directions for all time

    -something which exists carries certain attributes: is affected by things, effects things, takes up space and encompasses time

    -things are separated by things which are not of the same type, so the only thing that could separate existence itself would be nonexistence which cannot exist, thus there must be one undivided existence

    -this undivided existence must carry all the attributes labeled above. These attributes, when defined as being all-encompassing, define all the omni's associated with God: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. And perpetual change through creativity: omnificent.

    -add to this the fact that it must encompass all time: eternal, and you get all the labels attributed to God

    -thus, the notion of God can be grasped from a purely logical standpoint.
    — "Derrick
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    Applause and encore ?Amity

    Yes, both, to the fine summary of the Magnificat.

    Next, here's one about the decay in energy's quality driving everything:

    ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN As Energy

    Energy is a beauty and a brilliance,
    Flashing up in its destructance,
    For everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
    It’s merely here to die in its sublimeness.

    Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds,
    Yet ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
    Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
    An inexorable emergence with little reversion,

    Ever becoming of its glorious excursions,
    Bearing the change that patient time restrains,
    While feasting upon the glorious decayed remains
    In its progressive march through losses for gains.


    We have oft described the causeless—
    That which was always never the less,
    As well as the beginnings of our quest,
    And too have detailed in the rarest of glimpses
    The slowing end of all of forever’s chances.

    So now we must now turn our attention keen
    To all of the action that exists in-between—
    All that’s going on and has gone before,
    Out to the furthest reaches, ever-more,

    For everything that ever happens,
    Including life and all our questions,
    Meaning every single event ever gone on,
    Of both the animate and the non,
    Is but from a single theme played upon.

    This then is of the simplest analysis of all,
    For it heeds mainly just one call—
    That of the second law’s dispersion,

    The means for each and every occasion,
    From the closest to the farthest range—
    That which makes anything change.

    These changes range from the simple,
    Such as a bouncing ball resting still,
    Or ice melting that gives up its chill,
    To the more complex, such as digestion,

    Growth, death, and even reproduction.
    There is excessively subtle change as well,
    Such as the formations of opinions tell
    And the creation or rejections of the will,

    And yet all these kinds of changes, of course,
    Still become of one simple, common source,
    Which is the underlying collapse into chaos—
    The destiny of energy’s unmotivated non-purpose.

    All that appears to us to be motive and purpose
    Is in fact ultimately motiveless, without purpose.
    Even aspirations and their achievement’s ways
    Have fed on and come about through the decay.

    The deepest structure of change is but decay,
    Although it’s not the quantity of energy’s say
    That causes decay, but the quality, for it strays.

    Energy that is localized is potent to effect change,
    And in the course of causing change it ranges,
    Spreading and becoming chaotically distributed,
    Losing its quality but never of its quantity rid.

    The key to all this, as we will see,
    Is that it goes though stages wee,
    And so it doesn’t disperse all at once,
    As might one’s paycheck inside of a month.

    This harnessed decay results not only for
    Civilizations but for all the events going fore
    In the world and the universe beyond,

    It accounting for all discernible change
    Of all that ever gets so rearranged,
    For the quality of all this energy kinged
    Declines, the universe unwinding, as a spring.

    Chaos may temporarily recede,
    Quality building up for a need,
    As when cathedrals are built and formed,
    And when symphonies are performed,

    But these are but local deceits
    Born of our own conceits,
    For deeper in the world of kinds
    The spring inescapably unwinds,
    Driving its energy away—
    As All is being driven by decay.

    The quality of energy meant
    Is of its dispersal’s extent.
    When it is totally precipitate,
    It destroys, but when it’s gait
    Is geared through chains of events
    It can produce civilization’s tenants.

    Ultimately, energy naturally,
    Spontaneously, and chaotically
    Disperses, causing change, irreversibly.

    Think of a group of atoms jostling,
    At first as a vigorous motion happening
    In some corner of the atomic crowd;

    They hand on their energy, loud,
    Inducing close neighbors to jostle too,
    And soon the jostling disperses too—
    The irreversible change but the potion
    Of the ‘random’, motiveless motion.

    And such does hot metal cool, as atoms swirl,
    There being so many atoms in the world
    Outside it than in the block metal itself
    That entropy’s statistics average themselves.

    The illusions of purpose lead us to think
    That there are reasons, of some motive link,
    Why one change occurs and not another,

    And even that there are reasons that cover
    Specific changes in locations of energy,
    The energy choosing to go there, intentionally,

    Such as a purpose for a change in structure,
    This being as such as the opening of a flower,
    Yet this should not be confused with energy
    Achieving to be there in that specific bower,

    Since at root, of all the power,
    Even that of the root of the flower,
    That there is the degradation by dispersal,
    This being mostly non reversible and universal.

    The energy is always still spreading thencely,
    Even as some temporarily located density—
    An illusion of specific change
    In some region rearranged,

    But actually it’s just lingering there, discovering,
    Until new opportunities arise for exploring,
    The consequences but of ‘random’ opportunity,
    Beneath which, purpose still vanishes entirely.

    Events are the manifestations
    Of overriding probability’s instantiations—
    Of all of the events of nature, of every sod,
    From the bouncing ball to conceptions of gods,
    Of even free will, evolution, and all ambition,

    For they’re of our simple idea’s elaborations,
    Although for the latter stated there
    And such for that as warfare
    Their intrinsic simplicity is buried more deeply.

    And yet though sometimes concealed away,
    The spring of all creation is just decay,
    The consequence and instruction
    Of the natural tendency to corruption.

    Love or war become as factions
    Through the agency of chemical reactions,
    The actions being the chains of reactions,
    Whether thinking, doing, or rapt in attention,
    For all that happens is of chemical reaction.

    At its most rudimentary bottom,
    Chemical reactions are rearrangements of atoms,
    These being species of molecules
    That with perhaps additions and deletions
    Then go on to constitute another one, by fate,
    Although they sometimes only change shape,

    But too can be consumed and torn apart,
    Either as a whole or in part, so cruel,
    As a source of atoms for another molecule.

    Molecules have neither motive nor purpose to act,
    Neither an inclination to go on to react
    Nor any urge to remain unreacted;
    So then why do reactions occur if unacted?

    Molecules are but loosely structured
    And so they can be easily ruptured,
    For reactions may occur if the process energy norm
    Is degraded into a more dispersed and chaotic form,

    And so as they usually are constantly subject
    To the tendency to lose energy, as the abject
    Jostling carries it away to the surroundations,
    Reactions being misadventure’s transformations,

    It then being that some transient arrangements
    May suddenly be frozen into permanences
    As the energy leaps away to other experiences.

    So, molecules are a stage in which the play goes on,
    But not so fast that the forms cannot seize upon;

    But really, why do molecules have such fragility,
    For if their atoms were as tightly bound as nuclei,
    Then the universe would have died, being frozen,
    Long before the awakening of the forms chosen,

    Or if molecules were as totally free to react
    Every single time they touched a neighbor’s pact
    Then all events would have taken place so rapidly
    And so very crazily and haphazardly

    That the rich attributes of the world we know
    Would not have had the needed time to grow.

    Ah, but it is all of the necessitated restraint,
    For it ever takes time a scene to paint,
    As such as in the unfolding of a leaf,
    The endurations for any stepping feat,

    As of the emergence of consciousness
    And the paused ends of energy’s restlessness:
    It’s of the controlled consequence of collapse
    Rather than one that’s wholly precipitous.

    So now all is known of our heres and nows
    Within this parentheses of the eternal boughs,
    As well as the why and how of it all has come,
    And of our universe’s end, but that others become.

    Out of energy’s dispersion and decay of quality
    Comes the emergence of growth and complexity.

    (The verse lines, being like molecules warmed,
    Continually broke apart and reformed
    About the rhymes which tried to be non intrusions,
    Eventually all flexibly stabilizing to conclusions.)
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Conservation of energyDerrick Huestis

    What I wrote once:

    To look for what endures in the ongoing cause,
    Turn to the basics, such as the conversation laws,
    For they in summation with infinite precision
    Maintain the balance in all the decisions.


    On infinite precision:

    https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new-clues-come-from-a-century-old-approach-to-math-20200407/
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Here you get it wrong, the universe is in every way like a magnificent mind, performing many trillions upon trillions of calculations instantaneously without flaw. "Conservation of energy" is possible because the universe never makes an error in its calculations. What is tricky to explain isn't how a Mind could be first, but how the First Mind could create many minds much like it but so much smaller (and unfortunately sizably more inclined to error as well).Derrick Huestis

    I'm OK in that we have to build up to the desired points, which you are hinting at getting on to, since the readers won't all be that accepting of as declarations of "Mind" being so, especially as this is the polar opposite inverse of what they see in the reality of the history of the universe.

    Perhaps 'conservation of energy' is just due to how it has to be traded without lending/borrowing possible. There is only the energy that was or is becoming.

    The Fundamental never rests and so we see a kind of topological-like transmutation of it (since it ever remains as itself) as constant change according to what we call the laws of nature, with no miracles, skips, blips, or errors unless it has some 'random', which could be because the Fundamental can't have any input to it. We on Earth are in the Goldilocks zone, where we naturally ought to be, and not impossibly out near Neptune.

    As smaller minds inside the 'Mind' or created outside of it, we have to be less, and from other limits, too, perhaps as being in a lower dimension, being chained to time, limited ingredients put in, of a poor craftsman, and never being able to equal the One Mind because there can only be One.

    Of course, it was easy for us to out think the 'God' of the Old Testament and its cosmology and more, but that shows nothing but the human writing of a bad role model into it that many would not follow in the sense of the imitation of His qualities portrayed.

    The intended design by 'God' as the Designer or by evolution as a design without a designer evidently had to be what it became, although it's not all that pretty, but workable, and it really sticks that we can't tell one case from the other, suggesting that 'God' is the same as nature and thus a redundant idea.

    Most of the universe seems to a vast wasteland, most of the 10**76 'particles' of it. It's as if among all that extravagance, there was likely to be a few planets having the right conditions for life, it still taking 13 billions years of cosmic and biological evolution to get to that life, giving credence to natural processes from a very messy Big Bang.

    We have to somehow dig deeper to get to the 'Mind' doing it.
  • The Metaphysics of Poetry
    (Amity, please turn all this into something like a grand opera.)PoeticUniverse

    AmityAmity

    Done yet? Maybe your lute people could do it.
  • How Much Do We Really Know?
    Without science I can approach and try to surround these events too. So can my dog.MikeBlender

    My cat decided that a static discharge was a pain and so growled at the person who did it ever since.
  • Anti-Vaxxers, Creationists, 9/11 Truthers, Climate Deniers, Flat-Earthers
    Is it even worth it to engage with these people?Xtrix

    Not worth it, for they are stuck in their notions from thoughts that so often fired together that they became very strongly wired together. It shows a fixed will to the nth degree as well as an inhibited learning disability that prevents a new and wider range of will to form beyond the stuck notion.

    What we get out of it is the knowing of this trait being able to be so in human nature.

    In the case of not wearing masks and not getting vaccinated, it's even the simplest of science that can't be understood, so no wonder that great stuckness is prevalent in many less simple areas, too.

    So, they will die, but at least evolution has this new opening to rid us of stupid people.
  • How Much Do We Really Know?
    So ask a simple question: "what is gravity?", "what is a particle?", "what is magnetism?". The answers given are only the effects we can perceive of the phenomena. As to what these things are, we don't know.Manuel

    Yes, we approach and try to surround these events thanks to science.

    Quantum gravity remains elusive because it is a universal effect and so it cannot be renormalized such as was done with the electromagnetic in QED.

    The electric and the magnetic transition one into the other and back, and so forth, as a self-generating wave. An elementary particle is known to be the certain stable energy quanta of its quantum field.

    We know in general that more and more complexity emerges from the simpler and simpler from past to future.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Trying to assert an invisible, inaudible, untouchable, and un-perceivable object as some existence is irrational.Corvus

    Yes. The immaterial can’t exchange energy with the material unless they speak each other’s language, but if they can, then there is no distinct category of immaterial at play in the first place.
  • Can nonexistence exist? A curious new angle for which to argue for God's existence?
    Every existence is optional and contingent.Corvus

    The temporaries come and go; the Fundamental Existence of the quantum fields remains.

PoeticUniverse

Start FollowingSend a Message