swampfox

My thoughts: It's an unfolding of a dynamic process between two stable states: Need to view the Universe as one big non-linear dynamo that was set in motion by trajecting the pre-existence through a critical point. Time does not exist without change. Before the Big Bang, the pre-existence may have been in a stable state: there was no change, there was no time. Something happened which pushed the pre-existence past some critical point: Like a piece of concrete stressed pass it's breaking point, it abruptly trajected towards some final stable state which it has been moving ever since: Like a vase pushed pass the critical point of balance over the edge of a table: The trajectory of the vase from table to floor is akin to the entire history of the pre-existence as it moves between two stable states with the dynamics of motion between these states being perceived by us as time.

My dad, he came by one day and cut down that tire swing he made for me. It was strange, didn't say why. I saw a story on TV, a man being interviewed about his boy who committed a terrible crime. The son was addicted to drugs and wore a prosthesis: A fall from a tree he had taken as a boy. They go back sometimes I think to myself, and pay a priceless gift for doing so. One day you'll think to do the same; they won't look nearly as bad to you then as they might do now. Some things you can only know by living a long time.

It's Deja vu all over again. How can you know about the cube if you only see the square? How do you know the man if you only see his shadow? Evolution is much more than the images we see in biology. Beneath it all lies a marvelous hidden mechanism but our minds have difficulty understanding it: our intellects are limited and we make errors accidental or otherwise. Try not to miss the forest for the trees by focusing on inconsistencies caused by human frailties. Seek the hidden source of it all. There I believe you'll find something wonderful: an elegant clockwork created not by the Lord's Quantum Mechanics but rather dynamics, dynamics more beautiful than we presently can imagine. But we're starting to grasp it in the form of complexity theory, emergence, and non-linear dynamics. And like the book I read as a child on the history of Medicine, they too will one day read about us and think the same as I did about the people before us: "it's so easy now . . . they just didn't know back then".

At its most fundamental level, life is a trajectory in phase-space; the trappings of biology and chemistry serving only as convinent exo-skeletons. We often describe life though in biological terms: metabolize, reproduce, and evolve. But those are the properties most easily observed by us and belie a deeper cause: dynamics. Those of you familiar with differential equations understand how solutions of simple equations form spirialing patterns, some form periodic orbits, and some scream off into infinity when plotted in phase space, or head to zero. Those patterns are trajectories describing the dynamics. Now imagine massively more complicated dynamics and the potential for likewise complicated patterns the trajectories assume. Life on earth is an instantiation of a particular trajectory in some complicated dynamical system which by happenstance assumed the Constructor with parameters Biology and Chemistry. My formulation of this view was influenced by the following: "At Home in the Universe" by Stuart Kauffman "Complexification" by John Casti "Self-Organization in Biological Systems" by Camazine and others "Signs of Life" by Sole Goodwin and Catastrophe Theory of Rene' Thom

Hallucination: mimicry in neurophysiology. A transient usurps the normal transmitter by posing as his long-lost identical twin. The receptor believes someone is at the gate so relays instructions to fire a salute. But no one is there at all, only figments of the imagination persists until the imposter is slowly re-uptaken, eliminated by the very trait that allowed his free reign.

Guess I got another one: So I'm flippin' the channels and get to MTV, something I used to like to watch. The subject was "springbreak nightmares": Apparently, girls going to spring break is a lesson in extreme dieting! Way to go guys. Wonder why? Tell you what, I don't want another daughter; don't want to go through the heartbreak of watching another one grow up. Good luck with um' guys. You having problems with them, start a thread and if I see it I'll try to contribute.

In order to speak of mind, consciousness, and self I believe "Emergence" is critical: mind emerges as a consequence of sufficiently complicated dynamics. In the case of biological substrates, it's neural assemblies. The dynamics give rise to the phenomenon I believe and therefore suspect mind, perception, awareness, consciousness, self is a dynamic configuration molded by the cutting edge of natural selection: When in New York, act like a New Yorker. How best to survive in a massively non-linear world? Develop massively non-linear dynamics via neural assemblies which mimics and reproduces this outside world. That synergy, between inside world and outside world is to me, the origin of awareness and self.

When my son was about 10, he was prescribed ritalin. I said, "dude, you don't need to be taking that" and I didn't give it to him. We rode bikes in the mud, built treehouses, and played a lot of football instead and I think he turned out fine. Girls? God I don't even want to get started, well maybe one: flipping through the channels, I caught something about a new show for some auditioning for think they're called pussycat dolls or whatever and one of the lines of one of the songs was "don't you wish your girlfriend looked hot like me". Way to go guys. That's just what you want your 7 or 8 or 9 year old daughter to be looking up to and when they can't measure up, BAM! you got emotional or psychological problems emerging. To me I've grown to conclude the media is the menace. edit: oh yea, went searching for buried pirate treasure also. Found some too! He was mad when he found out a real pirate really hadn't given me that treasure map.;)

Good for you Tormod! Know what's more precious in a man's life than a diamond in the sand? Really tough being a girl you know. Once I went to see Mary Pipher give a talk. Where were all the dads I wondered . . . bring them one day if you have a chance.:) maybe even read her book,"Reviving Ophelia". It's a tougher read later.

H-bond, really when I say dynamics, I mean all factors affecting a species or population or ecosystem in a complex web of interactions controlling its existence: biochemical, genetic history, chance, environmental, and the dynamics of other species. Often though we miss some of the connections; they may be subtle like the wolf population in Yellowstone affecting the aspen trees . . . wolfs don't eat trees. They eat elks though and when we initially removed the wolf population, the elk population rose and ate more of the aspen saplings and (I believe) pushed the dynamics of the aspen past some critical point. Later we brought the wolves back but I don't think the aspen ever recovered (I may not have the story exactly right but I think it's close).

Well, the external force is the dynamics in my view expressed best by Rene' Thom in "Structural Stability and Morphogenesis", a book I agree is thick in topology and difficult to follow. He states it this way: "All creation or destruction of form, or morphogenesis, can be described by the disappearance of the attractors representing the initial forms, and their replacement by capture by the attractors representing the final forms" Here the attractors (stable morphologies) are similar to the "strange attractors" like the Lorenz and Rossler attractors, and by "capture" he means the dynamics (evolution of that morphology) is perturbed by some event (such as a critical point) into the "basin of attractor" of a new attractor (a new morphology) and so is directed to it (the evolution we observe). In this way, the intrinsic dynamics of the biosphere is expressed in evolutionary change. That's how I interpret his analysis anyway. Could be wrong.

I noticed the thread "Punctuated Equilibria Theories" you guys discussed in 2005, at least the posts I reviewed, did not appear to mention what I have in mind: To me, Punctuated Equilibrium is beautifully explained by Catastrophe Theory: complex dynamic systems often contain critical points which if reached, cause abrupt and qualitative change to the future dynamics of the system. Viewed from this perspective, evolutionary change is an expression of the underlying dynamics of the biosphere with the actual chemistry and biology serving only as inconsequential trappings. Consider for example the predator-prey model for a population of fish in a pond. Remove some fish and the population usually adjusts smoothly. However, there is a point, just one more fish, which if removed causes the entire population to die off. That's a critical point. I believe critical points in the population dynamics of the biosphere are responsible for many of the seemingly abrupt qualitative changes in the evolutionary history of life on earth and feel these have been a major influence in the origin of life, the Cambrian Explosion, Punctuated Equilibrium, and the divergence of man from ape. Edit: Jesus, 302? I guess I feel I should have reviewed all those post under that thread before I opened my mouth but I don't see a delete button to remove this post.

I only wish to suggest to Durgatosh his concept of "nothing" seems to be an attempt to come to terms with origins without a familiarity with non-linear dynamics . . . just telling you what it looks like to me. You wish to know. I don't blame you. So do I: a long time ago I use to look outside my window and wonder why about a lot of things. Then I started studying non-linear dynamics. I no longer wonder why about a lot of things. Not saying I know, just sayin' I no longer wonder why.

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began, So is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. by Wordsworth (I believe this is relevant to the topic of the discussion since it illustrates what a computer can't do -- how would a computer device as we know them today, ever conclude on it's own without us programming it to "blindly" say so that the child is father to the man and then explain why it concluded that without our help?)

Personally, I think the neuron is qualitatively different than a transistorized processor. The neuron is non-linear, changes over time, has history, and are massively fed-back to one-another in the cortex. I'm saying this because of kalesh's original statement about computers having the power of human brains: human brains are qualitatively different than computer processors. It is this difference that has prevented AI from reaching it's full potential. A qualitative change will have to occur in technology, a new device developed, that more closely models a neuron and neural assemblies before we can begin to grow an artificial mind and start to compete with the human faculties we most admire: "observant, thoughtful, passionate, able to manipulate in the mind the symbols of language and mathematics, both the visions of art and geometry and poetry and music". Edit: Oh yea, just though I'd mention the Blue Brain Project in case some don't know already and are interested. It's a simulation of the cortex which I believe will be based on the hodgkin-huxley model. I understand they plan to include history later.

Here's a picture of the equilibrium surface of the cusp catastrophe: Note the folded sheet. The equilibrium state of dynamics modeled by the cubic equation above is the sheet. Away from the fold nothing much happens when the system is perturbed; it just move a little bit. Near the fold however, the dynamics is unstable and a slight tug will send it falling off the top fold trajecting onto the bottom fold. This then I present as a very simplified (qualitative) diagram of the "Equiverse", the equilibrium surface of the Anaverse. The fold is the point of the Big Bang. The trajectory, from the top fold to the bottom fold is the entire history of our universe as the Anaverse heads towards a new equilibrium point.

That looks interesting and new for me. Thanks for the link. Good deal then. I'm up to 10 with this one and so I'll post another with the picture of the cusp. Just figured out how to do that a few days ago and think it's neat.

I checked. I don't thing lagrange points would be considered critical points but perhaps. Usually though, critical points are points in systems where the dynamics changes usually abruptly and often qualitatively. For example, the freezing point of water is a critical point, snapping a twig is another, loading concrete to the breaking point still another, avalanches, warring nations, punctuated equilibrium, cambrian explosion, nuclear fission, nova, black holes . . . big bang?

I don't understand. What do you mean it "has a similar form than the power of three"? Do you mean simpler and if so how?

It's the simplest and I'm big on starts. Rene' Thom defines seven elementary catastrophes. The example I gave above is the cusp catastrophe. The next one is the swallowtail catastrophe but it's surface is 4 dimensional so we can't draw it completely (when I get up to 10 posts in the group -- the minimum required -- I'll come back and post a picture of the equilibrium surface showing the cusp catastrophe. The swallowtail would be: [math]\frac{dy}{dt}=w+vy+uy^2+zy^4[/math] but I'm not sure. Your equation even with x^5 is still a cusp catastrophe. You can see that by plotting: [math]y(x)=bx-x^3+x^5[/math] and noting it still has three real roots.

Hello sanctus. I think if this approach were to be successful (I'm optimistic), it would be an emergent one: start small and then build up. The goal would not be to continue the standard model initially but rather to study the principle in general: Can ANY physical process in nature, even a very simple one, be modeled by a larger dynamical system which has a critical point giving rise to the process? I suspect this could be done but my knowledge of non-linear systems is restricted to ordinary ones and even these show hints of an underlying universal dynamics: catastrophe. To me, the model of the Anaverse IS the cubic differential equation albeit in very simple terms: [math]\frac{dy}{dt}=a+by-y^3[/math] The dynamics modeled by this equation flows smoothly over most of a "folded sheet", the "equilibrium surface". At the edge of this surface however, it doesn't but rather "falls" off onto the bottom fold rather abruptly. This is the critical point, a catastrophe. I imagine the Anaverse as that sheet with the pre-existence the top fold. Something pushed the dynamics to the catastrophe point, the Big Bang occurred, quickly sending the dynamics towards the bottom fold. That trajectory, from top fold towards the bottom fold, we we now perceive as the universe. I wonder how much richer more complicated ones must be, how much richer massively coupled ones could be. Something would emerge I'm sure of it as the level of complexity of such equations reaches its own critical point.

I don't know sanctus. Never worked with Navier-Stokes but I'm pretty good with PDEs. Also, I'm not very familiar with the Standard Model and wouldn't know how to proceed with applying this continuation to it. I think I'm right about the concept though. I welcome everyone's comments and will try to reply . . . well the one about Buddhism and . . . not sure about the other one . . . anyway I've read them and appreciate your thoughts.

Why do you think that part is forever inaccessible to us? It's so easy to look back in our history and come up with examples of ideas that were thought impossible but later shown to be otherwise. I'm not offering a proof but only a possible avenue for investigation that I believe is based on sound reason.

Here goes . . . How can we possibly find out what came before the Big Bang and what caused it? Most people would say we can't but I'm beginning to think we may one day: Our world is massively non-linear. We see examples of this all around us and model it in the form of non-linear differential equations. In fact the equations of mathematical physics are mostly non-linear. A common property of non-linearity is "catastrophe"; the dynamics flows smoothly unless a "critical point" is reached at which point the state of the system changes abruptly and qualitatively. The perfect example of this is the cubic differential equation which models the "cusp catastrophe". To me, non-linear dynamics I see all around us are echos of a larger dynamic: the Universe itself giving us hints of its origin. The Big Bang may have been a critical point reached by a larger dynamic system. If so, how could we ever know what that larger dynamic system was? Maybe using the principle of "analytic continuation" we could gain some insight . This idea is commonly used in Complex Analysis to "extend" a function to a larger domain. The Zeta function is a good example: A sum originally defined for real numbers, can be "continued" to a complex function defined on the complex numbers. Can we "Analytically continue" the Universe, we see now, its dynamics I mean, to a larger dynamic system which has a critical point allowing for a qualitative change giving rise to dynamics we see emerging in the Standard Model of Cosmology? I'm not implying this could be done all at once but perhaps a sufficiently complex "simulation" could begin to show signs of this. For example a system that would give rise to the heat, wave, and Laplace dynamics would be a start. In time, improvement to the simulator would move it closer to our universe. It would be no guarantee of course that it faithfuly represented what came before the Big Bang but I this this is a possible approach to the matter.

Hello fluidfusion. Biochemistry? Good deal! They're two rocket engines in the body and on the top of both sits a key called adrenaline. Turn the key slightly and it triggers a cascading enzyme effect pumping both fat and sugar through these rocket engines into the combustion chamber of the Krebs cycle. You'll need to be good in math to do well in chemistry. Try and get good at it before you start taking chemistry classes. That's the best way to succeed.