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Return to E-mail Discussion page Previous in threadNext in thread Hi David, I am certain you would appreciate it if some folks other than myself, also join in this discussion. And certainly, so would I. So please folks, jump right in, the water is fine and I don't know anywhere near enough math to make my part of the conversation sensible. Until then, might I say that because my math is putrid I tend to approach this kind of conversation conceptually. This is hardly conventional, I know, and perhaps in that respect, I can possibly be of some assistance, because I do not tend to approach the questions as most scientists would, in the conventional paradigm. I hope by my being somewhat of a maverick in this regard, that we might mutually discover that there are other approaches to solving the conundrum of trying to find common ground for GR and QM. That remains yet to be seen. What I am attempting to encourage here, is a conceptual approach that is not based upon a-priori assumptions that are confined to or needing a reductionist perspective, in order to arrive at some form of coherence. It is for this reason that I have been resisting David's frame approach -- not to be argumentative or destructive, but rather to try to elicit an alternative approach that is not confined to Euclidean geometry. My first question therefore was to ask if it would be possible to conceive of non-euclidean coordinates in curved space-time? Since in reality there are no straight lines and as I understand it, the time coordinate is not a separate entity. (If it is a vector and has only one direction, it will eventually meet up with itself in curved space thus negating its apparent unidirectionality). Is this not so? What I find appealling in this approach is that linearity ceases to be predominant in our perspective. Relativity requires that the observer is part of the system and not apart from the experiment. The observer is involved in the relative measurements and cannot be outside the system being studied. Similarly, as I understand it, Quantum Theory also requires that the observer is a participant within the system. Nothing can be manifest without the participation of the observer. Every kind of experiment that I am aware of in QM, has always involved the observer. So by framing or limiting the coordinates, or by taking a reductionist approach to the problem will place us in the same old trap from which there is no escape. This means to me, that we ought not attempt to simplify the system in order to try to control or describe it on our terms, but rather, that we accept that the system is non-linear, is complex and is fracttal or holographic and then attempt to approach it on its own terms. I therefore reitterate and contend that if both GR and QM are studied as suggested above, in non-linear space and time, there might be the potential to possibility arrive at a confluence of the two systems, --- the macro and micro --- the implicate and explicate! Hopefully we might thus arrive at an understanding of the universe on its own terms, rather than on our hubristic and unrealistic terms. Does any of this make sense to anyone? Lose the constraints of conventional methodology, (i.e. Newtonian, Cartesian paradigms) and allow the system to define itself, non reductionistically, taking all aspects of the system into consideration, as is necessary (for example) in studying living systems i.e. (open systems). Furthermore, we have no way of knowing if the universe is a closed system, and most likely it is not. So, if we consider that the Quantum Vacuum is continuously increasing the content of matter in the Universe, and that the Paulli exclusion principal probably prevents the close approximation of manifest matter. This might cause us to assume that the universe is expanding in size as an empty balloon - thus objectifying the universe and its apparent boundary. But, perhaps it is not filled with nothing, but rather is an open system filled with matter which is being continuously created, thus causing an increase in size. Furthermore, if the Quantum Vacuum is located in Space, then it is non-locatable because space is everywhere. So in this perspective, it appears that space must be in primacy, --- space is the "Ground of all Being"! As energy bubbles free of the vacuum, and is continuously manifest as matter, so the quantity of antimatter must be equivalently increasing at some other location (perhaps in a black hole?). Well enough confusing and confused ruminating --- will anyone dare, or care to tackle this with anything less than a barge-pole? Cordially, Sid _________________ "To know even one atom fully would imply knowledge of its relations to all other phenomena in the infinite universe." - The Dalai Lama |
