Subject
Re: THOUGHTS: Time and Relativity
From
Date
Body
On 02/08/2008 00:37, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> S K-B: HomSap is a remarkable species (i) driven by "pure" curiosity; able to
> enhance its own sensory perceptions BEYOND the minimum "animal-survival" needs
> (ii) able, magically, to CALCULATE exactly the LIMITS of what can be observed
> and measured (Heisenberg's Uncertainty and Planck's constant) (iii) able to
> SUSPEND both belief and dis-belief, i.e., happy to shun dogma; free to
> consider conflicting theories as equally plausible until further evidence. (
> Summary)
> JM: Gregory, in The Intelligent Eye, and Eye and Brain stressed that humans
> were sensorially poorly equipped and significantly inferior to all the other
> animals. But he also pointed out that our human freedom to think and to
> entertain revolutionary ideas is a direct consequence of this inferiority of
> ours: instead of seeing objective things as they "really"are, our deficiencies
> force us to interpret, hallucinate, invent them.He argues that, from the
> adaptative stand-point, our diminished perceptual capacity is an asset for
> survival.
> S K-B detailed how we can "view the world through our instrumentally enhanced
> sense organs, aiding and aided by astute analytical brains. Jumping slow
> evolution, we now have better eyes than a house-fly, faster flutters than a
> butterfly: our spectrometers, electron-microscopes and atomic clocks boost the
> natural scale of our perceptions a trillion-trillion-fold[...] whereas
> Gregory argued that we are adaptable to alien environments only because our
> deficiencies force us to exercise our imagination and inventiveness - in
> alliance with our intelligence, of course - whereas other animals, with
> their extremely ready-adapted eyes, ears, noses (or scientifically excessively
> atuned brains?) die, due to the lack of any coherent input their programs
> demand.
> Nabokov's writings, besides everything else, help me to envision verbal
> objects and their strange logic to reach towards realities which my senses
> only dimly apprehend. I think here S K-B would agree with me: "Nabokovians
> can, I suggest, more readily than most, imagine the vastly different
> world-views of mice, men and E Coli arising from having these widely different
> sensory acuities. Yet all these world-views are valid unto themselves,
> reflecting different aspects of what we loosely call an under-pinning
> "reality."
> He also noted that "NOBODY (oft mis-read by VN as "Nabokov," you may recall!)
> yet understands how these new observations FIT together." Is it fundamental
> to make these often contradictory "new observations FITt together"? Do we need
> to become more "evolved" animals in a struggle of a "survival of the FITtest"
> - or should we make allowances for this "vagueness" ( the risks are madness)
> which is such a part of artistic sensibility, generosity, tolerance... We may
> always consider that this "inaccuracy", at least, is fundamental for our
> "survival" as "simple humans".
> -----
> Jansy: my reply to JA, I hope, clarified the view that Science (capital S)
> addresses the properties/relations of those objects that can be
> observed/measured using the Scientific method! Some circularity seems
> unavoidable when using Natural Language. One should not expect a finite
> Dictionary definition of Science to nail down, once and for all, every facet
> of a complex, changing set of human activities and modes of debate. The
> statement "Science is what Scientists do" isn't as daft as it sounds. Even for
> those not knowingly "engaged" in Science, it's possible to form some idea of
> what's involved. First off, let's agree as a starting point that Science
> confines its range of study and pronouncements to those observable/measurable
> type-A objects having a certain level of shared reality. Other type-B objects,
> at different "reality levels," can be plausibly said to exist but we need not
> expect them to follow the same logic or laws of type-As. Your term "verbal
> objects" requires caution because we apply useful, often overlapping, names to
> both type-As and Bs. For example, compare the type-B "stiff vane" formerly on
> Shade's roof with the type-A "stiff vane" on my neighbour's roof. We can both
> "envision" Shade's vane, imagine its properties and write theses on its role
> in Pale Fire. Had JS (via VN) told us that one day his vane sprouted wings and
> flew off to Zembla, our thesis would have reflected on the symbolic
> significance. Type-B vanes can do whatever their creators like -- exceed the
> speed of light -- violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Or, they can try hard
> to behave exactly like my neighbour's type-A vane! We particularly admire VN's
> Type-B descriptions because he has carefully observed the corresponding
> Type-As and reports properties/relationships we may have overlooked.
>
> But the more interesting Type-Bs include (i) Unicorns and gods! (ii)
> Square-triangles; members of the empty set (iii) Hilbert spaces (iv) thoughts,
> beauty, love ...
>
> James Studdard wrote:
>
> Planck time is the time that it would take a photon travelling at light speed,
> in a vacuum, to cross a distance of Planck's length. Since this would
> represent crossing the shortest possible distance at the fastest possible
> speed, this gives us the smallest meaningful unit of time.
> --------
>
> This is a useful 'first-pass' view, James. You can equally start with the
> Planck time and use it to define the Planck length (the distance travelled by
> a photon in vacuo in one Planck time!) Modern ISO length standards (meter etc)
> are moving away from clumsy bars of metal stored in controlled rooms. It's the
> TIME unit that's more "fundamental" and covenient, based on the extremely
> steady oscillations of certain atoms (freqency is sortof 1/t). The formulae
> for Planck length & time both involve Planck's constant, h, the gravitational
> constant G, and the velocity of light, c, which explains why the units,
> length & time, are so closely related, and why they are equally "fundamental."
> There are other approaches to Planck length involving the Planck mass and the
> radii of minimal black holes! To give you a gist: the proton measures 1, 000
> [20 zeroes] Planck units in diameter (give or take a parsec, as we say with a
> chuckle). On a more Human Scale (think John Donne) the Planck mass is the mass
> of an average FLEA.
> ------
> The concept of a lesser Planck time has been explored and scientists
> working in the atomic clock field think they can create a model which would be
> diminutive of the classical "planck time."
> ----
> James: I think it's doubtful we can ever actually measure anywhere near Planck
> time -- we are now at the yacto-second some 1, 000 [22 zeroes] times larger
> than a Planck! What you mean, I think, is that some theorists (not
> atomic-clock makers) doubt that the Planck units really represent an ultimate
> minimum in "reality."
> -------
> The universe, is speculated to have come into existence with an age of 5.39 x
> 10-44 That's a mighty quick creation, but still does not confirm nor validate
> the "big bang" theory. Thank God!
> -----
>
> That "age" you cite is indeed the unit Planck time in seconds. Here the brain
> muscles do ache because one thinks of TIME and SPACE themselves starting with
> this mooted BB (Big Bang). Those who accept the Planck unit time as minimum
> can imagine the BB at time 0, initiating our universe, which then starts
> expanding, and aging in increments of Planck units. There's no measurable
> moment between 0 and 5.39 x 10^ -44 secs. Our cosmic stopwatch sortof clicks
> by these increments. That doesn't quite mean that there's "nothing happening"
> between these ticks! Merely that we are allowed discrete "snap shots."
> Furher, it's by no means clear that 5.39 x 10^ -44 represents a MIGHTY QUICK
> CREATION. Lacking a QG GUT (Quantum Gravity Grand Unified Theory) for these
> bizarre initial conditions, we have no idea which Laws apply. There are no
> PRECEDENTS, hee-hee. It's widely thought that our present 4 fundamental forces
> start off unified, so recalling that "clocks slow down under gravitational
> force," for all we know, that first Planck time could be the equivalent of
> untold billions of years by our current clocks. Some scenarios have the
> universe expanding from a Big Bang then eventually shrinking to a Big Crunch,
> from whence another Big Bang is triggered. As James Joyce says in FW: Ordovico
> or vericordo. Teems of times and happy returns. Oops, wrong List!
>
> skb
>
>
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
> S K-B: HomSap is a remarkable species (i) driven by "pure" curiosity; able to
> enhance its own sensory perceptions BEYOND the minimum "animal-survival" needs
> (ii) able, magically, to CALCULATE exactly the LIMITS of what can be observed
> and measured (Heisenberg's Uncertainty and Planck's constant) (iii) able to
> SUSPEND both belief and dis-belief, i.e., happy to shun dogma; free to
> consider conflicting theories as equally plausible until further evidence. (
> Summary)
> JM: Gregory, in The Intelligent Eye, and Eye and Brain stressed that humans
> were sensorially poorly equipped and significantly inferior to all the other
> animals. But he also pointed out that our human freedom to think and to
> entertain revolutionary ideas is a direct consequence of this inferiority of
> ours: instead of seeing objective things as they "really"are, our deficiencies
> force us to interpret, hallucinate, invent them.He argues that, from the
> adaptative stand-point, our diminished perceptual capacity is an asset for
> survival.
> S K-B detailed how we can "view the world through our instrumentally enhanced
> sense organs, aiding and aided by astute analytical brains. Jumping slow
> evolution, we now have better eyes than a house-fly, faster flutters than a
> butterfly: our spectrometers, electron-microscopes and atomic clocks boost the
> natural scale of our perceptions a trillion-trillion-fold[...] whereas
> Gregory argued that we are adaptable to alien environments only because our
> deficiencies force us to exercise our imagination and inventiveness - in
> alliance with our intelligence, of course - whereas other animals, with
> their extremely ready-adapted eyes, ears, noses (or scientifically excessively
> atuned brains?) die, due to the lack of any coherent input their programs
> demand.
> Nabokov's writings, besides everything else, help me to envision verbal
> objects and their strange logic to reach towards realities which my senses
> only dimly apprehend. I think here S K-B would agree with me: "Nabokovians
> can, I suggest, more readily than most, imagine the vastly different
> world-views of mice, men and E Coli arising from having these widely different
> sensory acuities. Yet all these world-views are valid unto themselves,
> reflecting different aspects of what we loosely call an under-pinning
> "reality."
> He also noted that "NOBODY (oft mis-read by VN as "Nabokov," you may recall!)
> yet understands how these new observations FIT together." Is it fundamental
> to make these often contradictory "new observations FITt together"? Do we need
> to become more "evolved" animals in a struggle of a "survival of the FITtest"
> - or should we make allowances for this "vagueness" ( the risks are madness)
> which is such a part of artistic sensibility, generosity, tolerance... We may
> always consider that this "inaccuracy", at least, is fundamental for our
> "survival" as "simple humans".
> -----
> Jansy: my reply to JA, I hope, clarified the view that Science (capital S)
> addresses the properties/relations of those objects that can be
> observed/measured using the Scientific method! Some circularity seems
> unavoidable when using Natural Language. One should not expect a finite
> Dictionary definition of Science to nail down, once and for all, every facet
> of a complex, changing set of human activities and modes of debate. The
> statement "Science is what Scientists do" isn't as daft as it sounds. Even for
> those not knowingly "engaged" in Science, it's possible to form some idea of
> what's involved. First off, let's agree as a starting point that Science
> confines its range of study and pronouncements to those observable/measurable
> type-A objects having a certain level of shared reality. Other type-B objects,
> at different "reality levels," can be plausibly said to exist but we need not
> expect them to follow the same logic or laws of type-As. Your term "verbal
> objects" requires caution because we apply useful, often overlapping, names to
> both type-As and Bs. For example, compare the type-B "stiff vane" formerly on
> Shade's roof with the type-A "stiff vane" on my neighbour's roof. We can both
> "envision" Shade's vane, imagine its properties and write theses on its role
> in Pale Fire. Had JS (via VN) told us that one day his vane sprouted wings and
> flew off to Zembla, our thesis would have reflected on the symbolic
> significance. Type-B vanes can do whatever their creators like -- exceed the
> speed of light -- violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Or, they can try hard
> to behave exactly like my neighbour's type-A vane! We particularly admire VN's
> Type-B descriptions because he has carefully observed the corresponding
> Type-As and reports properties/relationships we may have overlooked.
>
> But the more interesting Type-Bs include (i) Unicorns and gods! (ii)
> Square-triangles; members of the empty set (iii) Hilbert spaces (iv) thoughts,
> beauty, love ...
>
> James Studdard wrote:
>
> Planck time is the time that it would take a photon travelling at light speed,
> in a vacuum, to cross a distance of Planck's length. Since this would
> represent crossing the shortest possible distance at the fastest possible
> speed, this gives us the smallest meaningful unit of time.
> --------
>
> This is a useful 'first-pass' view, James. You can equally start with the
> Planck time and use it to define the Planck length (the distance travelled by
> a photon in vacuo in one Planck time!) Modern ISO length standards (meter etc)
> are moving away from clumsy bars of metal stored in controlled rooms. It's the
> TIME unit that's more "fundamental" and covenient, based on the extremely
> steady oscillations of certain atoms (freqency is sortof 1/t). The formulae
> for Planck length & time both involve Planck's constant, h, the gravitational
> constant G, and the velocity of light, c, which explains why the units,
> length & time, are so closely related, and why they are equally "fundamental."
> There are other approaches to Planck length involving the Planck mass and the
> radii of minimal black holes! To give you a gist: the proton measures 1, 000
> [20 zeroes] Planck units in diameter (give or take a parsec, as we say with a
> chuckle). On a more Human Scale (think John Donne) the Planck mass is the mass
> of an average FLEA.
> ------
> The concept of a lesser Planck time has been explored and scientists
> working in the atomic clock field think they can create a model which would be
> diminutive of the classical "planck time."
> ----
> James: I think it's doubtful we can ever actually measure anywhere near Planck
> time -- we are now at the yacto-second some 1, 000 [22 zeroes] times larger
> than a Planck! What you mean, I think, is that some theorists (not
> atomic-clock makers) doubt that the Planck units really represent an ultimate
> minimum in "reality."
> -------
> The universe, is speculated to have come into existence with an age of 5.39 x
> 10-44 That's a mighty quick creation, but still does not confirm nor validate
> the "big bang" theory. Thank God!
> -----
>
> That "age" you cite is indeed the unit Planck time in seconds. Here the brain
> muscles do ache because one thinks of TIME and SPACE themselves starting with
> this mooted BB (Big Bang). Those who accept the Planck unit time as minimum
> can imagine the BB at time 0, initiating our universe, which then starts
> expanding, and aging in increments of Planck units. There's no measurable
> moment between 0 and 5.39 x 10^ -44 secs. Our cosmic stopwatch sortof clicks
> by these increments. That doesn't quite mean that there's "nothing happening"
> between these ticks! Merely that we are allowed discrete "snap shots."
> Furher, it's by no means clear that 5.39 x 10^ -44 represents a MIGHTY QUICK
> CREATION. Lacking a QG GUT (Quantum Gravity Grand Unified Theory) for these
> bizarre initial conditions, we have no idea which Laws apply. There are no
> PRECEDENTS, hee-hee. It's widely thought that our present 4 fundamental forces
> start off unified, so recalling that "clocks slow down under gravitational
> force," for all we know, that first Planck time could be the equivalent of
> untold billions of years by our current clocks. Some scenarios have the
> universe expanding from a Big Bang then eventually shrinking to a Big Crunch,
> from whence another Big Bang is triggered. As James Joyce says in FW: Ordovico
> or vericordo. Teems of times and happy returns. Oops, wrong List!
>
> skb
>
>
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/