Contemplating the Higgs Boson, as of late, as well as the nature of photons. Been contemplating the idea that neither of these particles has an opposite, a mirror as it were, as most other subatomic particles do.
Doesn't this strike you as strange, that the Higgs Boson - and the photon, but that is mildly irrelevant - has no mirror, no opposite particle that serves an equal but opposite purpose?
I posit, then, with my limited physics knowledge and understanding of the universe, that there is, in fact, an Anti-Higgs Boson, a subatomic particle that imparts antimass to whatever it is attached to. That within the framework that the Higgs Field functions in, it is entirely possible that, at the same time that something could cause whatever it is attached to to become entangled in this field, thereby imparting mass, there could exist a similar subatomic entity that causes an object to be caught in the field in the opposite direction - stretching the fabric out in much the same way that the Higgs Boson causes it to be pulled inward.
Envision, if you will, a sphere. The Higgs Boson causes things it is attached to to be pulled towards the center of the sphere. It is not absurd to imagine something that could then push against the extremities of the sphere, stretching it away from the center of the sphere. Given the reciprocal nature of physics and the particles it has discovered, it seems only a natural proposition.
To relate this to previous topics on this blog, antimatter is thereby elusive because it participates in this Anti-Higgs Boson, as well as being invisible to our eyes - and therefore could be considered "dark matter". Antimatter is, perhaps by its very nature, not willing to participate in our games of mass and gravity, and is made nigh-impossible to detect because the antiphotons it precipitates are simply not visible in our normal spectrum of vision. We cannot detect the presence of antimatter with most of the tools we have at our disposal because the very nature of an antiphoton prohibits our instruments from detecting it - matter and antimatter annihilate upon contact, and thus an antiphoton will remain forever beyond our grasp, because all of our tools that could detect it are based upon matter.
It does not make sense to me to assume that the Higgs Boson is unique among subatomic particles, and has no "anti" counterpart. While perhaps a reasonable conclusion based upon the maths behind the concept of the Higgs Field, I feel that it bears more investigation of those not biased towards the concept of a matter-based universe. If the Big Bang should have given rise to equal amounts of matter and antimatter, then perhaps it is a far safer assumption that it did do so, and our means of discovery simply cannot handle the nature of antimatter, than that the universe simply did not make said amounts of antimatter, and attempting to formulate a system in which this could have arisen. While Ockham himself, and his philosophy, may have been a bit of an ass, it does not mean that his Razor is invalid.
This seems to me an obvious proposition.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
The Brain and Partitioning
Holy shit, this is goddamn important! No, seriously. This is significant.
Descartes, right? Dualism. Separation of the mind and body. Kind of wrong, but important in that it illustrates the divide between the physical aspect of the brain and the mental aspect. The mental part - your mind - is a product of the brain. Yes, I'm a physicalist, and I am totally okay with that, because it makes goddamn sense and doesn't turn the mind into some metaphysical psychobabble bullshit.
But what you need to remember is that the mind is a product of the brain, right? Analogy, f(x) = y, f is the physical part of the brain, x is its functionality, y is the mind. Makes sense, yes? Ish. Okay that analogy kind of fails, but I'm typing at the speed of thought here, so bear with me.
The goddamn brain is partitioned! Okay, like prefrontal cortex and all that neurobiological bullshit. The pieces aren't relevant, what's relevant is the fact that it's in pieces. "The sum is greater than the whole of the parts," some might say, and yes, I totally concur.
However, that phrase is usually used to indicate that the mind is greater than the sum of the brain parts. That somehow from all these disparate pieces a mind comes together, fully cogent, and what-not.
I CALL SHENANIGANS!
Layers, people! Ogres have layers, cakes have layers, onions have layers, and holy shit, your goddamn mind has layers, too! The fucking subconscious, it's a thing we talk about all the goddamn time, yet philosophers of mind seem to totally ignore it or treat it irresponsibility.
Okay, so we ...
...
What's the point in being excited about something that might wind up being bullshit upon further review.
Basically: theory. Between the layer that is the actual mind and the actual brain, there is a system of relatively-independent layers which are actuated by the various pieces of the brain. Instead of saying that the mind is a product of the brain, we have these "mind pieces" that are products of the "brain pieces," which - when combined - produce the mind itself.
This is a sensible conclusion, due to an individual's ability to "overwrite" reactions to input over time. For instance, pheromones: an individual can, over time, condition themselves to react differently to their presence.
If there was a direct mind-brain connection, this kind of overwrite wouldn't be possible, because of the systemic nature of the mind. It relies on the entirety of the brain, so overwriting one piece would be difficult at best, if not impossible. But if you break the mind into pieces at a lower level, one area can overwrite portions of another, without having an immediate impact on the mind at the higher level. Gradual, yes, but the kind of disruption that would come from a brain-to-mind-to-brain overwrite just isn't evident in the majority of cases, I think.
Such overwriting, if done at the higher level, would completely screw over the mind because of the nature of the mind itself - a product of the physical system at a lower level. The mind is a product of the brain-state taken as a whole, not as pieces. But if you insert another layer and say that the mind is a product of the mind-pieces-state, which is itself a product of the various pieces of the brain, you remove the issue. The changes are phased over the course of the process, rather than completely disruptive.
I'm starting to use rationalization, here, which is not so good.
But this model explains a lot of things, like the classic "internal struggle" - we can much more easily demonstrate such a thing if we introduce a sub-cognitive layer between the consciousness and the brain, where such conflicts take place. It doesn't make sense that these things would happen at the brain level: that's the hardware, it just does what it does. But to say that those conflicts and such occur at the cognition level seems inadequate: there is something more going on there, some conflict occurring that causes the mind to sometimes be unable to resolve itself. That would seem to indicate something going on at a lower level than is immediately accessible, but - again - the brain is just hardware.
That's all I've got, right now.
Descartes, right? Dualism. Separation of the mind and body. Kind of wrong, but important in that it illustrates the divide between the physical aspect of the brain and the mental aspect. The mental part - your mind - is a product of the brain. Yes, I'm a physicalist, and I am totally okay with that, because it makes goddamn sense and doesn't turn the mind into some metaphysical psychobabble bullshit.
But what you need to remember is that the mind is a product of the brain, right? Analogy, f(x) = y, f is the physical part of the brain, x is its functionality, y is the mind. Makes sense, yes? Ish. Okay that analogy kind of fails, but I'm typing at the speed of thought here, so bear with me.
The goddamn brain is partitioned! Okay, like prefrontal cortex and all that neurobiological bullshit. The pieces aren't relevant, what's relevant is the fact that it's in pieces. "The sum is greater than the whole of the parts," some might say, and yes, I totally concur.
However, that phrase is usually used to indicate that the mind is greater than the sum of the brain parts. That somehow from all these disparate pieces a mind comes together, fully cogent, and what-not.
I CALL SHENANIGANS!
Layers, people! Ogres have layers, cakes have layers, onions have layers, and holy shit, your goddamn mind has layers, too! The fucking subconscious, it's a thing we talk about all the goddamn time, yet philosophers of mind seem to totally ignore it or treat it irresponsibility.
Okay, so we ...
...
What's the point in being excited about something that might wind up being bullshit upon further review.
Basically: theory. Between the layer that is the actual mind and the actual brain, there is a system of relatively-independent layers which are actuated by the various pieces of the brain. Instead of saying that the mind is a product of the brain, we have these "mind pieces" that are products of the "brain pieces," which - when combined - produce the mind itself.
This is a sensible conclusion, due to an individual's ability to "overwrite" reactions to input over time. For instance, pheromones: an individual can, over time, condition themselves to react differently to their presence.
If there was a direct mind-brain connection, this kind of overwrite wouldn't be possible, because of the systemic nature of the mind. It relies on the entirety of the brain, so overwriting one piece would be difficult at best, if not impossible. But if you break the mind into pieces at a lower level, one area can overwrite portions of another, without having an immediate impact on the mind at the higher level. Gradual, yes, but the kind of disruption that would come from a brain-to-mind-to-brain overwrite just isn't evident in the majority of cases, I think.
Such overwriting, if done at the higher level, would completely screw over the mind because of the nature of the mind itself - a product of the physical system at a lower level. The mind is a product of the brain-state taken as a whole, not as pieces. But if you insert another layer and say that the mind is a product of the mind-pieces-state, which is itself a product of the various pieces of the brain, you remove the issue. The changes are phased over the course of the process, rather than completely disruptive.
I'm starting to use rationalization, here, which is not so good.
But this model explains a lot of things, like the classic "internal struggle" - we can much more easily demonstrate such a thing if we introduce a sub-cognitive layer between the consciousness and the brain, where such conflicts take place. It doesn't make sense that these things would happen at the brain level: that's the hardware, it just does what it does. But to say that those conflicts and such occur at the cognition level seems inadequate: there is something more going on there, some conflict occurring that causes the mind to sometimes be unable to resolve itself. That would seem to indicate something going on at a lower level than is immediately accessible, but - again - the brain is just hardware.
That's all I've got, right now.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Mapping the Hypersphere
So I was at work, the other day, and randomly contemplating the fifth postulate and the ramifications that would have on the nature of space and FTL methods... yeah it was a weird day.
Anyway, so I was like, okay, what if space is a sphere, right? We're on the surface of a giant sphere. So maybe you could cut across it?... but that kind of stopped making sense, because clearly space is three-dimensional. So how could we be on the surface of a sphere?
And then I remembered the lessons learned from Flatland, and realized - aha, we are effectively a flat surface from a 4-dimensional perspective (and by "effectively," I mean we could be on the surface of a 4-dimensional sphere)! But then I had an "oh crap" moment when I realized that I was unaware of any useful ways of mapping a 4-dimensional space (because honestly, is that a skill that comes up all that often?).
Then I remembered some things that I read awhile ago about mapping, using charts and atlases and such. See an atlas is composed of a number of maps that overlap to display the entire area you're mapping, if the shape of the thing is not a thing you can map on a 2-d surface - much like the surface of the earth. I don't honestly remember why I came across it - probably something to do with Minkowski spaces, that's a thing that comes up a lot with my random studying - but it was mildly useful, so huzzah for that.
So I pondered - hmm. Could you do much the same with 4-dimensional spaces, by using 3-dimensional maps that overlap, that - when taken together - show you the entire thing?
Of course, it should be possible to map a 3-dimensional space (even when taking interior space into account, unlike with maps of the Earth) with an atlas of 2-dimensional maps.
Which thus leads me to the conclusion that it is entirely possible to map any n-dimensional object with an increasingly exponential (or maybe logarithmic, who knows) number of 2-dimensional maps.
Possibly even approaching infinite, since to map a 3-dimensional sphere, including its interior, you would theoretically have to take an infinite number of bisections. Well okay, you could theoretically take an infinite number of bisections, though the utility of that seems less than ideal to me, so it would probably be a finite number, but depending on the spaces (ha!) involved, might get unwieldy fast.
Not entirely sure how useful this thought is. But I think it serves to illustrate how my mental processes work when contemplating a problem.
Anyway, so I was like, okay, what if space is a sphere, right? We're on the surface of a giant sphere. So maybe you could cut across it?... but that kind of stopped making sense, because clearly space is three-dimensional. So how could we be on the surface of a sphere?
And then I remembered the lessons learned from Flatland, and realized - aha, we are effectively a flat surface from a 4-dimensional perspective (and by "effectively," I mean we could be on the surface of a 4-dimensional sphere)! But then I had an "oh crap" moment when I realized that I was unaware of any useful ways of mapping a 4-dimensional space (because honestly, is that a skill that comes up all that often?).
Then I remembered some things that I read awhile ago about mapping, using charts and atlases and such. See an atlas is composed of a number of maps that overlap to display the entire area you're mapping, if the shape of the thing is not a thing you can map on a 2-d surface - much like the surface of the earth. I don't honestly remember why I came across it - probably something to do with Minkowski spaces, that's a thing that comes up a lot with my random studying - but it was mildly useful, so huzzah for that.
So I pondered - hmm. Could you do much the same with 4-dimensional spaces, by using 3-dimensional maps that overlap, that - when taken together - show you the entire thing?
Of course, it should be possible to map a 3-dimensional space (even when taking interior space into account, unlike with maps of the Earth) with an atlas of 2-dimensional maps.
Which thus leads me to the conclusion that it is entirely possible to map any n-dimensional object with an increasingly exponential (or maybe logarithmic, who knows) number of 2-dimensional maps.
Possibly even approaching infinite, since to map a 3-dimensional sphere, including its interior, you would theoretically have to take an infinite number of bisections. Well okay, you could theoretically take an infinite number of bisections, though the utility of that seems less than ideal to me, so it would probably be a finite number, but depending on the spaces (ha!) involved, might get unwieldy fast.
Not entirely sure how useful this thought is. But I think it serves to illustrate how my mental processes work when contemplating a problem.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
LOS and the Tele
Encountered an interesting spatial issue awhile back, thought I might share (primarily because now I will have hit both architecture and xenobiology, much as the description of the blog claims).
So, our flat is rather linear in nature - the first room you enter is the so-called "middle room," which then can exit into the living room (now a bedroom), the balcony, or the kitchen. Due to the room's dimensions, the couch and the television are on opposite walls, with the doorway to the kitchen in-between.
This, obviously, becomes massively inconvenient anytime someone is watching the tele. Want to go to the bathroom, you have to break their focus for a moment.
In further contemplating this conundrum, it occurred to me that most dwellings are not designed with television-viewing in mind - which is kind of fascinating, given our culture's fascination with the damn thing. Hell, we've gotten to the point where wall-mounted televisions are becoming more and more common, which makes this LOS (line of sight) issue even more prevalent: a TV on a stand you can position somewhere convenient, but walls have a rather common nature of being at right angles to each other, which can cause furniture-placement issues.
Ideally, what you'd want is essentially something like a giant alcove, explicitly for television placement/viewing. The point of such a thing would be to ensure that there is nothing on the other side that folk want to get into - like a closet, or a balcony, or anything - and the only reason for someone being in the alcove is explicitly to use the tele.
I imagine that, if you examined dwellings with larger rooms, you'd see something like this happening in practice via furniture placement - people arrange furniture in such a way as to effectively build a wall somewhere in front of the tele, producing an effective alcove. I also imagine that a common problem with such artificial alcoves is that there is a reason that a person would want to cross through the LOS area, like a closet or something.
So yeah. Architect-folk, you should probably fix this in modern housing design. Just sayin'.
So, our flat is rather linear in nature - the first room you enter is the so-called "middle room," which then can exit into the living room (now a bedroom), the balcony, or the kitchen. Due to the room's dimensions, the couch and the television are on opposite walls, with the doorway to the kitchen in-between.
This, obviously, becomes massively inconvenient anytime someone is watching the tele. Want to go to the bathroom, you have to break their focus for a moment.
In further contemplating this conundrum, it occurred to me that most dwellings are not designed with television-viewing in mind - which is kind of fascinating, given our culture's fascination with the damn thing. Hell, we've gotten to the point where wall-mounted televisions are becoming more and more common, which makes this LOS (line of sight) issue even more prevalent: a TV on a stand you can position somewhere convenient, but walls have a rather common nature of being at right angles to each other, which can cause furniture-placement issues.
Ideally, what you'd want is essentially something like a giant alcove, explicitly for television placement/viewing. The point of such a thing would be to ensure that there is nothing on the other side that folk want to get into - like a closet, or a balcony, or anything - and the only reason for someone being in the alcove is explicitly to use the tele.
I imagine that, if you examined dwellings with larger rooms, you'd see something like this happening in practice via furniture placement - people arrange furniture in such a way as to effectively build a wall somewhere in front of the tele, producing an effective alcove. I also imagine that a common problem with such artificial alcoves is that there is a reason that a person would want to cross through the LOS area, like a closet or something.
So yeah. Architect-folk, you should probably fix this in modern housing design. Just sayin'.
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