Fake Science

In the future, relativity will make intuitive "common" sense. For now, it doesn't. The fact that Einstein figured it out despite it making no sense doesn't make him a fake, as some (who likely don't get relativity) might say, it makes him astounding.

Relativity is correct, and besides, this post isn't really about Einstein, but about crackpots. Before I quote this article, you should know that the answer is "No": Was Einstein a fake?

"In most cases it is a sad story," says Smolin. "Sometimes someone has been working for many years on an idea, and has clearly a huge investment in it. Sometimes it literally comes from someone living on a park bench in Rio or in a homeless shelter in New York.
...
In the end, Gaensler says, "I feel sorry for these people — because, after all, there might be someone out there now like Einstein, working in obscurity, who does have some truly new insight, but scientists just won't take him seriously because of all these other crackpots we've had to deal with."

With my limited experience, it seems that there are two main aspects of theoretical physics. The first involves knowing what the answer is (a hypothesis), and trying to find the proper math to specify or prove it. The second involves having the proper math, and trying to figure out what it means, which gives you a hypothesis. The process is iterative. You don't get the right answer or the right math from nowhere, but each iteration gives you a few more clues that lead to what's right.

In purely theoretical physics, imagination is the laboratory, and math is the apparatus.

There's a certain element of "making it up as you go along", but I don't think there's anything fake about that. If it were, then the only science that isn't fake is the description of things that are already known. Then we might as well merge science and history.

But I don't think that an idea on its own has some absolute value. The idea can change and so does its value, as it is developed. Showing that an idea is right or wrong changes its value. Even how easy it is to investigate the correctness of the idea affects its value. If for example you have an earth-shaking new idea that is correct, but it will take 200 years before anyone is able to show that it is correct or to use the idea in developing any other work, then that correct idea may have a low value for its first 200 years. And so I think it's up to us crackpots to express ideas in a valuable way... simply, clearly, unambiguously, backed up with math and logic, even empirical observations if possible, and most of all comprehensibly.

At that point, is it possible for a crackpot to get anyone capable of understanding it, to try? Presumably, the more important an idea is, the farther it is from accepted mainstream science, thus the more it will incline people to ignore it. For now I will say that the failing is on part of the crackpots, and not the rest of the world. Eventually I hope to have some evidence to evaluate the latter.

The first version of the paper on time relativity was an incomprehensible mess. Will the next version be good enough to convince anyone of anything?

This thing all things devours

I'm in the middle of a horribly tedious rewrite and have had a crushing thought: I don't think my definition of time jives with my meaning of light being "instantaneous". Again I get that feeling that everything I'm talking about is exactly the same as what's been known for the last 100 years, and anything different is nothing more than poor wording.

I've been completely wrong in the science, the math, the language. The only thing that endures is the idea. Will it be boiled down until it's nothing more than a repetition of what I've read? Or will it be polished till it gleams, like a beautiful delicate golden turd?

Yet more contemplation and rewriting.

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If time is distance, then a moment in time with 0 duration is a single point. That is not light.

If light is not a moving thing, then what is it? It is not a single instant, because it spans time (distance). Yet it is at all points along that distance simul... simul-what? It spans time but it does not move through time. Does it bridge time? No, it does only exist at a single time value, but that time value is different for different observers. And does it not actually exist as a line of energy, observable along its entire length as single points of light by different observers, but rather exists only at its source and its destination? One cannot "see" a light signal unless it is intercepted, and though you can intercept signals all along light's path if there are enough signals (like a laser through a smokey room), it is still only observable at source (as a loss of energy) and destination (as a gain).

Perhaps then light is simply a teleportation of energy. It slips out of existence in one observation-defined location (and time), and shows up elsewhere. Yet, the path is important because it determines where the destination will be. Energy teleportation makes sense within the idea of a singularity, but how is geometry and the difference between matter and space represented within a singularity? And is the singularity idea really needed, when there is no way to observe a light transmission occurring in a single instant?

Or something.

Metapost

Dear diary,

I've wondered about my willful choosing of ignorance over research, the choice to contemplate ridiculous ideas about junk rather than trying to understand what science has already determined about said junk. Part of this is a fear that any idea I have will have already been thought of and disproved, thus robbing me of any feeling of creativity unless I ignore what's out there. Part is a fear that I won't understand what I read about, and I'd rather feel smart than struggle to actually be so. I've also recently heard of the belief that creativity requires that you don't know too much about a topic, basically because you will be lead far down the path of existing knowledge, and miss some possible new and hidden branch somewhere way back on the path.

At best thinking and figuring stuff out yourself might be good practice. Also, you can think of something until you get stuck, and then look it up for enlightenment, and your brain should be more willing to accept new knowledge than it would be if you just tried to force-feed it all in without the puzzling curiosity. However, this approach can be futile; Imagine trying to figure out the cosmos by watching the night sky and ignoring all of humanity's existing astronomical knowledge. You might not get past something like,"the stars appear to be fixed on a sphere that rotates around the earth".

But this is a blog, not a textbook. So it will be stupid at times (hopefully about average as far as blogs go), and incorrect too. It is about my exploration of the realms of metaphysics, and as much about the struggle to understand, or about bad ideas, or good, as my experiences with each warrant.

One of the basic tenets of science goes something like this: an idea, no matter how good it is, must be abandoned if it is proven to be wrong. Trying to fit all ideas to one central idea or belief = timecube.com. And so stupid ideas will come and go, and be revisited now and then, and conflicting ideas will get mixed up and others resolved, until I either get that nobel prize on my shelf, or give up, or go mad.

First post

Dear Diary,

This is my first entry in the Metaphysics Diary, in which I will try to post regularly (about every week, unlike some bloggers who start a blog and then just stop writing) about my philosophical investigation into the true nature of reality. This blog has 2 eventual goals:

1. To be able to explain modern physics (quantum mechanics and relativity and stuff) in a way that makes intuitive sense. Classical physics makes sense. Modern physics is so bizarre and counter to our basic understanding of reality, that it seems impossible or just wrong. I started thinking about the physics of multiple universes as a way to explain how the alternate reality in Lost was possible. I quickly came up with more questions than answers (perhaps fitting for the show). In the end it turned out that Lost has no useful science in it, however it would still be nice to be able to explain the more bizarre aspects of reality without getting stuck.

2. To uncover the true nature of reality, and in doing so, win a nobel prize. This is sort of a buddhist goal, to understand the universe. Also the nobel prize includes a cash award that is currently over a million dollars. So yes, it really is just a get-rich-quick scheme.

Though I don't expect it to be quick, nor easy. The timeline for these goals is somewhere on the order of 10 years. Will they still have blogs in the future?

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Wikipedia states that "Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science." To be clear, the content of this blog is philosophy and not science. It will be rambling thoughts (for which blog format is ideal), with hopefully some interesting ideas now and then, that may one day lead to new explanations of scientific junk. But until that one day comes, it is a diary, not a thesis.

Nevertheless, philosophical thought still has a place in science. When aspects of quantum mechanics were discovered and figured out, physicists had to explain new things in a way that made the most sense to their existing understanding of the world, which consisted of classical science and the philosophy of the day. Because their intuitive, philosophical understanding of reality didn't match the results of experiments, modern physicists had to come up with "interpretations" of the science to make it fit. We still have multiple possible interpretations, because the science of reality and current philosophy of reality do no match seamlessly. If the science is sound, our philosophy needs to be updated. There is still much room for discovery.

New philosophical ideas may lead to new thought experiments, which may lead to new theories, and physical experiments to test them, and in this way metaphysics can turn into science.

This is not a new approach, however. Out of necessity, the pioneers of modern science were forced to consider new metaphysical ideas, and doubtlessly millions have tried to figure it all out since. So admittedly, the hope that this blog will lead to anything valuable is a long shot.