Re: Are We Really Conscious? (NYT Article today)

[meekerdb]

On 11/8/2014 5:09 AM, David Nyman wrote:

On 8 November 2014 07:54, LizR mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>> 
wrote:

Are not the relations between the subsystems part of the ontology?


Explicitly so in arithmetical realism, I would say.


Not really. Perhaps I could respond both to you and Brent in one here. I'm trying to 
make an explicit distinction between an assumed ontology and its (possible) 
epistemological consequences. In comp, the assumed ontology is restricted to basic 
arithmetical relations; physics likewise is a search for a fundamental level of 
explanation in terms of which everything else can explicitly (at least in principle) be 
rendered. Of course, one can speak in terms of systems and sub-systems composed of such 
basic entities and relations. But it is surely a guiding principle of reductive 
explanation that such composites, and the relations between them, must ultimately be 
exhaustively accountable in terms of the fundamental ontological assumptions.


So is the value of the fine structure constant and its role in coupling photons and 
electrons part of the ontology?  Is s() in arithmetic fundamental?  I'm not clear on what 
it means to account for relations in terms of the fundamental ontology.  Are you saying 
relations can't be in the fundamental ontology?  And I don't see that subsystems are 
necessarily composite.


Brent


If that were not the case, the attempted "reduction" would merely have been 
unsuccessful.

Indeed it is only in terms of some explicit point of view that we are ever forced to 
contemplate a strong form of emergence, or "realism", about any level of composition 
over and above the reductive base.


?? Can you give an example?  What does "forced to contemplate" mean?

Strictly speaking, composite systems and relations are *epistemologically* real, rather 
than ontologically so, in any strong sense.


That again seems to deny reality to relations.  Yet some philosophers and physics think 
things can be entirely defined in terms of their relations.


In fact so-called "weak emergence" isn't really emergence at all as, objectively 
speaking, nothing is to be conceived as being "there" over and above the basic entities 
and their relations.


So the relations are back into the fundamentals.

So my point is that it is simply self-defeating to deny that there is in fact any such 
thing as epistemological realism,


Epistemological realism would be a theory that says knowledge is real?

Brent

as Graziano explicitly does. In attempting to do so, he simply cuts the ground from 
under his own claim.


David
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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi Alberto,

   Is there really a global thermodynamic arrow of time? We can only infer 
its existence based on theoretical organizations of data that we collect. 
AFAIK, all "arrows" in actual physical dynamics are local.

On Friday, November 7, 2014 5:26:40 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote:
>
> if time is the thermodynamic arrow then then is meaningless the notion of 
> reversal of termodinamic arrow. 
>
> In which time the termodinamic arrow is reversed? Does it mean that the 
> time goes forward while termodinamic arrow goes backward? that contradict 
> the first assumption!!!
>
>
>
> 2014-10-15 2:14 GMT+02:00 Stephen Paul King  >:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>I re-read S. Mitra's paper  
>> again and it made more sense than before if I assumed that the reversible 
>> measurement idea is to be taken as a local reversal to the "direction of 
>> entropy flow" in an area and not the entire universe.
>>The trouble is this notion of locality. Are there any favorite 
>> definitions of "locality" out there? AFAIK, it does not have a fixed size 
>> in space, but may have a fixed size in "space-time" as location information 
>> expands at the speed of light if we ignore the effects of local structure 
>> that would modulate decoherence. This "decoherence" thing, IMHO, needs to 
>> be looked at carefully.
>>In deference to Bruno, I should ask a question relevant to the ongoing 
>> discussions. Is a finite universe with locally reversible time consistent 
>> as a 1p world?
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Kindest Regards,
>>
>> Stephen Paul King
>>
>>
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> -- 
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>  

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was it instead... actually a light techni-higgs particle that was discovered at CERN? (AND not the Higgs Boson)

['Chris de Morsella' via Everything List]

Was the Standard Models missing piece - e.g. the Higgs boson - discovered at
CERN - or is that evidence of something else entirely. of new physics. The
article I am pasting references a paper published in Physics Review D, a
journal of the American Physical Society (APS). Not subscribed to this
journal, but here is the link to the article:
http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.035012

 

Interesting read, wonder how many fundamental values, which we interpret as
validating our current prevailing models, but which could - as it seems in
this case - be interpreted as being evidence for new physics. Tantalizing,
and a little humbling as well, to think about such possibilities.

Or just ignore this open question, reiterating that the Standard Model *is
it* and be done with the moment, by slamming the door shut on other -
perhaps radical -- possibilities.

-Chris

 

article in Physics.org:

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-wasnt-higgs-particle.html#jCp

 

Last year CERN announced the finding of a new elementary particle, the Higgs
particle. But maybe it wasn't the Higgs particle, maybe it just looks like
it. And maybe it is not alone.

 

Many calculations indicate that the particle discovered last year in the
CERN particle accelerator was indeed the famous Higgs particle. Physicists
agree that the CERN experiments did find a new particle that had never been
seen before, but according to an international research team, there is no
conclusive evidence that the particle was indeed the Higgs particle.

The research team has scrutinized the existing scientific data from CERN
about the newfound particle and published their analysis in the journal
Physical Review D. A member of this team is Mads Toudal Frandsen, associate
professor at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology,
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern
Denmark.

"The CERN data is generally taken as evidence that the particle is the Higgs
particle. It is true that the Higgs particle can explain the data but there
can be other explanations, we would also get this data from other
 particles", Mads Toudal Frandsen explains.

The researchers' analysis does not debunk the possibility that CERN has
discovered the Higgs particle. That is still possible - but it is equally
possible that it is a different kind of particle.

"The current data is not precise enough to determine exactly what the
particle is. It could be a number of other known particles", says Mads
Toudal Frandsen.

But if it wasn't the Higgs particle, that was found in CERN's particle
accelerator, then what was it?

"We believe that it may be a so-called techni-
 higgs particle. This particle is in
some ways similar to the Higgs particle - hence half of the name", says Mads
Toudal Frandsen.

Although the techni-higgs particle and Higgs particle can easily be confused
in experiments, they are two very different particles belonging to two very
different theories of how the universe was created.

The Higgs particle is the missing piece in the theory called the Standard
Model. This theory describes three of the four forces of nature. But it does
not explain what dark matter is - the substance that makes up most of the
universe. A techni-higgs particle, if it exists, is a completely different
thing:

"A techni-higgs particle is not an elementary particle. Instead, it consists
of so-called techni-quarks, which we believe are elementary. Techni-quarks
may bind together in various ways to form for instance techni-higgs
particles, while other combinations may form dark matter. We therefore
expect to find several different particles at the LHC, all built by
techni-quarks", says Mads Toudal Frandsen.

If techni-quarks exist, there must be a force to bind them together so that
they can form particles. None of the four known forces of nature (gravity,
the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear
force) are any good at binding techni-quarks together. There must therefore
be a yet undiscovered force of nature. This force is called the the
technicolor   force.

What was found last year in CERN's accelerator could thus be either the
Higgs particle of the Standard Model or a light techni-higgs particle,
composed of two techni-quarks.

Mads Toudal Frandsen believes that more data from CERN will probably be able
to determine if it was a Higgs or a techni-higgs particle. If CERN gets an
even more powerful accelerator, it will in principle be able to observe
techni-quarks directly.

 

 

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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[Alberto G. Corona]

Most of the questions are explained in the presentation linked in the text

2014-11-08 22:46 GMT+01:00 John Clark :

> On Sat, Nov 8, 2014   Alberto G. Corona  wrote:
>
> > The arrow of time is defined by the increase of entropy
>>
>
> No, increasing entropy is not sufficient to establish a arrow of time, as
> I've said it can explain why Entropy will be higher tomorrow but by using
> the exact same logic Entropy should have been higher yesterday than today
> too, but clearly that is nonsense.
>
> To see how that is true consider all the logically possible microstates of
> Alberto Corona that would produce the macrostate that both you and I would
> recognize as Alberto Corona,  the vast majority of those microstates must
> have evolved from high entropy states because they outnumber the low
> entropy ones by an astronomical (too weak a word but I don't know of a
> stronger one) number.  But nobody thinks that is really true, and yet it is
> undeniable that you just can not deduce a asymmetry in time from
> thermodynamics or from any of the known laws of physics; this dichotomy is
> sometimes called Loschmidt's Paradox or Loschmidt's Objection.
>
>
>> > because that is the only direction in which life can operate.
>>
>
> I don't see why that would be true. If the arrow of time were reversed
> intelligent beings would just discover different laws of thermodynamics.
> They would remember that in the distant future, that is to say a long way
> from your "now", perfume molecules "were" (the most difficult part of of
> reverse time thought experiments is the grammar)  evenly distributed
> throughout the room, and they would remember that in the more recent future
> the molecules were only in the lower right part of the room, and they would
> remember that in the very recent future (very close to your "now") all the
> molecules were confined inside one small perfume bottle. They would then
> conclude that entropy always decreases or remains the same.
>
> And as to how the bottle got into that room in the first place well,
> you can make educated guesses but essentially the only way to know for sure
> what the past was like is to wait and see. .
>
> But the deepest question isn't why time points in one direction rather
> than the opposite direction but why it points in any direction at all.
> After all the fundamental laws of physics are time reversible, if I show
> you a film of non-macroscopic things you can't tell if the film is running
> forward or backwards with the electrical charges reversed and the scene
> photographed in a mirror. Even the laws of logic are reversible; if I gave
> you line 9 of a valid proof in pure number theory you could deduce both
> what line 10 must be and what line 8 must have been. So why do we perceive
> that time has a preferred direction?
>
> If the arrow of time doesn't come from physical law it must come from the
> initial conditions and we need to add a past hypothesis, that is in the
> distant past for some reason entropy was much lower than it is today.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[John Clark]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014   Alberto G. Corona  wrote:

> The arrow of time is defined by the increase of entropy
>

No, increasing entropy is not sufficient to establish a arrow of time, as
I've said it can explain why Entropy will be higher tomorrow but by using
the exact same logic Entropy should have been higher yesterday than today
too, but clearly that is nonsense.

To see how that is true consider all the logically possible microstates of
Alberto Corona that would produce the macrostate that both you and I would
recognize as Alberto Corona,  the vast majority of those microstates must
have evolved from high entropy states because they outnumber the low
entropy ones by an astronomical (too weak a word but I don't know of a
stronger one) number.  But nobody thinks that is really true, and yet it is
undeniable that you just can not deduce a asymmetry in time from
thermodynamics or from any of the known laws of physics; this dichotomy is
sometimes called Loschmidt's Paradox or Loschmidt's Objection.


> > because that is the only direction in which life can operate.
>

I don't see why that would be true. If the arrow of time were reversed
intelligent beings would just discover different laws of thermodynamics.
They would remember that in the distant future, that is to say a long way
from your "now", perfume molecules "were" (the most difficult part of of
reverse time thought experiments is the grammar)  evenly distributed
throughout the room, and they would remember that in the more recent future
the molecules were only in the lower right part of the room, and they would
remember that in the very recent future (very close to your "now") all the
molecules were confined inside one small perfume bottle. They would then
conclude that entropy always decreases or remains the same.

And as to how the bottle got into that room in the first place well,
you can make educated guesses but essentially the only way to know for sure
what the past was like is to wait and see. .

But the deepest question isn't why time points in one direction rather than
the opposite direction but why it points in any direction at all. After all
the fundamental laws of physics are time reversible, if I show you a film
of non-macroscopic things you can't tell if the film is running forward or
backwards with the electrical charges reversed and the scene photographed
in a mirror. Even the laws of logic are reversible; if I gave you line 9 of
a valid proof in pure number theory you could deduce both what line 10 must
be and what line 8 must have been. So why do we perceive that time has a
preferred direction?

If the arrow of time doesn't come from physical law it must come from the
initial conditions and we need to add a past hypothesis, that is in the
distant past for some reason entropy was much lower than it is today.

  John K Clark

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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[LizR]

On 9 November 2014 06:36, John Clark  wrote:

>
> On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 11:14 PM, LizR  wrote:
>
>
>> > The universe could potentially start in a state of maximum entropy (at
>> least in terms of the equilibrium of mass-energy)
>>
>
> That just means everything is at the same temperature, but that's not the
> only thing that determines Entropy.
>

Correct, which is why I've been banging on at length about gravity.

>
> > and still move to states where things can happen
>>
>
> I don't see how, disordered states outnumber ordered ones by a factor of
> astronomical to the astronomical power, so however the laws of physics
> effect things as they are today by tomorrow things will almost certainly be
> in one of those very numerous more disordered states.
>

Because expansion raises the entropy ceiling. It's effectively free order.

>
>
>> > if there are *any* inhomogeneities
>>
>
> If there were inhomogeneities in the early universe then it wasn't at
> maximum entropy
>

True. Quantum theory says it can't be.

>
> > the AOT can be handled by the entropy ceiling being continually raised,
>>
>
> If that were true things would never run down, but they do. The second law
> of thermodynamics doesn't say that Entropy must always increase, it says
> Entropy will increase until it gets as high as it can go, the heat death of
> the universe. And maximum Entropy means a state of zero order, zero
> predictability and zero free energy (work); they can't become less than
> zero because the concepts of negative order, negative predictability and
> negative work are not well defined.
>

Expansion raises the ceiling, so entropy can increase indefinitely. But the
rate at which the ceiling is raised slows with the scale of the universe,
hence the universe gets closer and closer to heat death but never quite
reaches it as long as expansion continues. Similar to how the big bang
fireball never quite reaches equilibrium at any point because of expansion.

>
> > almost regardless of initial conditions.
>>
>
> Initial conditions are every bit as important as the laws of physics.
>

Yes initial conditions are "as important", but that misses what I'm saying.
Part of the project of science is to either explain how initial conditions
got fine tuned or to show that fine tuned initial conditions aren't
necessary. The idea I'm suggesting takes the latter approach.

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Re: "The Span of Infinity"

[John Clark]

On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 6:55 PM, Bruce Kellett 
wrote:

  > MWI struggles to explain the violations of Bell's inequality.


The Many world's interpretation easily explains the violation of Bell's
inequality; yes the explanation is weird but any successful theory would
have to be weird because Quantum Mechanics is weird.  Unlike General
Relativity no same person would come up with Quantum Mechanics unless
forced to do so do to experimental results. Common sense tells us that
Bell's inequality can never be violated, but common sense is dead wrong.


> >  It can do so only in a very strained way, and that at the price of
> counterfactual definiteness. It seems to me that this price might be too
> high.
>

But it's even worse for the conventional Copenhagen interpretation, it says
that a electron's position and momentum aren't just unknown they don't even
exist until somebody looks at it, and if you look at it in such a way that
you can determine it's position then it's meaningless to ask what it's
momentum would have been if you'd measured that instead. Many worlds says
that the electron always had a real position and momentum but when you (and
by "you" I mean the only thing the laws of physics lets third parties see
that fits the description of Bruce Kellett) measure the electron the
universe splits, in one universe "you" measure the electron's position and
in the other universe "you" measure the electron's momentum, and although
they (the 2 yous) can't communicate with each other both are equally real.
So if you're a fan of counterfactual definiteness you should be a fan of
Many Worlds too.

  John K Clark

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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[Alberto G. Corona]

>If instead in the first instant of time the universe was in a very high
>entropy state then in the second instant Entropy could have been >smaller
or larger with about equal probability and there would be no >second law of
thermodynamics and time would have no arrow.

> I say "almost" because there are some ways around it.  If the universe
> recontracts the AoT will probably continue to point toward the Big Crunch


The arrow of time is defined by the increase of entropy because that is the
only direction in which life can operate.

http://es.slideshare.net/agcorona1/arrow-of-time-determined-by-lthe-easier-direction-of-computation-for-life

Then if there are observers, they live in the direction of entropy
increase. and they create the notion of "beginning" as the location in
space-time where entropy was the lowest. That notion of beginning that only
has meaning for a being living in time.

Then it is redundant to say that the beginning was a state of low entropy.

2014-11-08 5:14 GMT+01:00 LizR :

> On 8 November 2014 16:53, John Clark  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Nov 6, 2014 at 3:56 PM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>  > I'd say that expansion of the universe is almost necessary, not
>>> contingent.
>>>
>>
>> I'd say that by about 1850 when people started to have a understanding of
>> what Entropy was physicists had all they needed to have known that the
>> universe must have started out in a very very low entropy state, that is to
>> say they could have predicted the Big Bang in the early to mid 19th
>> century; and they wouldn't have needed to go near a telescope to do so. But
>> unfortunately they didn't, it's one of the great failures of nerve or
>> imagination in the history of science.
>>
>
> Another feature of the big bang / expanding universe is that it
> continually raises the entropy ceiling (maxium entropy that can exist in a
> given volume).
>
>>
>> > The AoT has to point in the direction of entropy increase
>>>
>>
>> But the question is WHY does time point in the direction of entropy
>> increase. The answer is because in the first instant of time the universe
>> was in a extraordinarily low entropy state, probably as low as it could
>> get, and because there are vastly more disordered (high entropy) states
>> than ordered (low entropy) states. So regardless of what the laws of
>> physics were by the second instant of time the chances are overwhelming
>> that entropy will be higher than it was at the first instant.
>>
>
> The universe could potentially start in a state of maximum entropy (at
> least in terms of the equilibrium of mass-energy) and still move to states
> where things can happen (if there are *any* inhomogeneities).
> Gravitational entropy is trickier, as it would tend to indicate the
> universe should start as a black hole (although that would never actually
> start...) But the rest  of the AOT can be handled by the entropy ceiling
> being continually raised, almost regardless of initial conditions.
>
>>
>> If instead in the first instant of time the universe was in a very high
>> entropy state then in the second instant Entropy could have been smaller or
>> larger with about equal probability and there would be no second law of
>> thermodynamics and time would have no arrow.
>>
>> > I say "almost" because there are some ways around it.  If the universe
>>> recontracts the AoT will probably continue to point toward the Big Crunch
>>>
>>
>> Even if that were true time would still have a arrow, it would just be
>> pointing in the opposite direction we are accustomed to. But why should
>> time have a preferred direction at all? The laws of physics alone can not
>> explain it nor is there any reason to expect that they should. Even if you
>> know all the laws of physics there is to know you still can't predict what
>> a system is going to do tomorrow unless you know what state it is in today;
>> you've got to know the initial conditions. The laws of physics can explain
>> why Entropy will be higher tomorrow than today, but it can't explain why it
>> was lower yesterday than today, for that you need initial conditions.
>>
>> True, although (see above) I think we can sneak around requiring any
> "implausibly low entropy starting conditions".
>
>
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Alberto.

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Re: Reversing time = local reversal of thermodynamic arrows?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 11:14 PM, LizR  wrote:


> > The universe could potentially start in a state of maximum entropy (at
> least in terms of the equilibrium of mass-energy)
>

That just means everything is at the same temperature, but that's not the
only thing that determines Entropy.

> and still move to states where things can happen
>

I don't see how, disordered states outnumber ordered ones by a factor of
astronomical to the astronomical power, so however the laws of physics
effect things as they are today by tomorrow things will almost certainly be
in one of those very numerous more disordered states.


> > if there are *any* inhomogeneities
>

If there were inhomogeneities in the early universe then it wasn't at
maximum entropy

> the AOT can be handled by the entropy ceiling being continually raised,
>

If that were true things would never run down, but they do. The second law
of thermodynamics doesn't say that Entropy must always increase, it says
Entropy will increase until it gets as high as it can go, the heat death of
the universe. And maximum Entropy means a state of zero order, zero
predictability and zero free energy (work); they can't become less than
zero because the concepts of negative order, negative predictability and
negative work are not well defined.

> almost regardless of initial conditions.
>

Initial conditions are every bit as important as the laws of physics.

 John K Clark

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Re: Half of all stars may exist outside of galaxies!

[zibbsey]

On Saturday, November 8, 2014 7:17:48 AM UTC, cdemorsella wrote:
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com  [mailto:
> everyth...@googlegroups.com ] *On Behalf Of *zib...@gmail.com 
> 
> *Sent:* Friday, November 07, 2014 2:36 PM
> *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com 
> *Subject:* Re: Half of all stars may exist outside of galaxies!
>
>  
>
>
>
> On Friday, November 7, 2014 6:19:09 PM UTC, cdemorsella wrote:
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] *On 
> Behalf Of *zib...@gmail.com
> *Sent:* Friday, November 07, 2014 2:56 AM
> *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com
> *Subject:* Re: Half of all stars may exist outside of galaxies!
>
>  
>
> it's because we are near the furthest the universe can get before things 
> drop away or out of synch and there's that. 
>
>  
>
> couple of weeks back a related opposite paper came out that the universe 
> should have 400% more light, but it's vanishing they can't find where. Then 
> they say, what's weird is when they look back in time the light builds back 
> and everything pans out. But not here. Maybe someone should put these 
> people together because one might have found what the other is looking for. 
>
>  
>
> Interesting… and also weird, would like to read it, you don’t have a link 
> to that by any chance?
>
>  
>
> On the other hand maybe this team is shit, because the other report said 
> counter intuitively less light had the effect making the universe look 
> brighter by reducing glare. Maybe this time is seeing the brightness and 
> assuming it's brightness.
>
>  
>
> I don’t see how that follows. Essentially telescopes are photon buckets… 
> if there are fewer photons out there, then the light sources that do exist 
> will pop out more – e.g. have better contrast against the relatively dark 
> background. But that still is less light. I believe the one experiment was 
> measuring the amount of light (e.g. incident photons) – that measurement 
> would not care about – nor be affected by -- the degree of contrast between 
> some light source (a galaxy, a star etc.) and the cosmic background.
>
>  
>
> Hi Chris, I was reading this again. Would it ok that you run this by me 
> again...obviously not cut and pasting the above :o0 
>
>  
>
> Well it seems the missing light observation is centered on ultraviolet 
> light wavelengths in the inter galactic dust ribbons that characterize the 
> sponge like macro structure of the universe. Quite an interesting 
> discrepancy and what is causing it…. Certainly an interesting potential for 
> speculation – as they are in fact speculating.
>
> I believe that this would not have had any effect on the measurements 
> being done by the other team that found an excess of diffuse light – not 
> originating from any known galaxy, but rather from the background in 
> between. They hypothesize that this diffuse light is caused by wandering 
> stars, ejected from their parent galaxies that are too far to image, but 
> that in their aggregate are the source of this light.
>
> This is my read on it at least.
>
> -Chris
>

Thanks for this. I can certainly see that I hadn't thought carefully enough 
there. 

Yeah weird. I know what I think it is but it's too different worldview for 
the same language. Not being mystical. that said harry potter is a personal 
friend and I've been on platform 8 1/2 

>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> On the current reading I think you are saying what the tea that found 
> missing light are saying. and likely defining measuring the way they 
> measured, because although they identified that lower light resulted in 
> brigher picture, they didn't fall for it or have trouble getting the 
> measurement not distorted by it. 
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> -Chris
>
>  
>
> by 
> On Friday, November 7, 2014 12:20:19 AM UTC, cdemorsella wrote:
>
> This is in the news today…. Not what I thought to be the case, nor what I 
> expected to hear. If true cosmologists will need to rework their models of 
> galaxy formation.
>
>  
>
> http://phys.org/news/2014-11-caltech-rocket-cosmic.html
>
> Using an experiment carried into space on a NASA suborbital rocket, 
> astronomers at Caltech and their colleagues have detected a diffuse cosmic 
> glow that appears to represent more light than that produced by known 
> galaxies in the universe.
>
> The researchers, including Caltech Professor of Physics Jamie Bock and 
> Caltech Senior Postdoctoral Fellow Michael Zemcov, say that the best 
> explanation is that the cosmic light—described in a paper published 
> November 7 in the journal *Science*—originates from stars 
>  that were stripped away from their parent 
> galaxies  and flung out into space as 
> those galaxies collided and merged with other galaxies.
>
> The discovery suggests that many such previously undetected stars permeate 
> what had been thought to be dark spaces between galaxies, forming an 
> interconnected sea of 

Re: Half of all stars may exist outside of galaxies!

[zibbsey]

On Saturday, November 8, 2014 3:26:38 AM UTC, cdemorsella wrote:
>
> Interesting, thanks for bringing this to my awareness; another mystery and 
> evidence of the on-going incompleteness of our current understanding. 
>
> This is my favorite line from the article: "You know it's a crisis when 
> you start seriously talking about decaying dark matter!" Katz remarked.
>

Got a good laugh from that cheers 

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Re: Are We Really Conscious? (NYT Article today)

[David Nyman]

On 8 November 2014 07:54, LizR  wrote:

Are not the relations between the subsystems part of the ontology?
>>
>
> Explicitly so in arithmetical realism, I would say.
>

Not really. Perhaps I could respond both to you and Brent in one here. I'm
trying to make an explicit distinction between an assumed ontology and its
(possible) epistemological consequences. In comp, the assumed ontology is
restricted to basic arithmetical relations; physics likewise is a search
for a fundamental level of explanation in terms of which everything else
can explicitly (at least in principle) be rendered. Of course, one can
speak in terms of systems and sub-systems composed of such basic entities
and relations. But it is surely a guiding principle of reductive
explanation that such composites, and the relations between them, must
ultimately be exhaustively accountable in terms of the fundamental
ontological assumptions. If that were not the case, the attempted
"reduction" would merely have been unsuccessful.

Indeed it is only in terms of some explicit point of view that we are ever
forced to contemplate a strong form of emergence, or "realism", about any
level of composition over and above the reductive base. Strictly speaking,
composite systems and relations are *epistemologically* real, rather than
ontologically so, in any strong sense. In fact so-called "weak emergence"
isn't really emergence at all as, objectively speaking, nothing is to be
conceived as being "there" over and above the basic entities and their
relations. So my point is that it is simply self-defeating to deny that
there is in fact any such thing as epistemological realism, as Graziano
explicitly does. In attempting to do so, he simply cuts the ground from
under his own claim.

David

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