multi-dimensional physics thread (for Gisteron) ;-)

Oh good! Now that you have conceded so much we can get into the details! This is exciting.


GIST: From time to time I ask to give me a break because English just happens to be my third
Of course I forgive you and shall give you a break. Thanks for asking. I can understand how hard this must be with this being your third language.


GIST: A theory is a model the predictions of which match observations to within the likewise predicted margins of error. Your... construction, for lack of a better term, doesn't even make any predictions
Oh but it does! This is the beauty. My theory, one I have developed over years. My work comes on the shoulders of other greats before me. They have contributed to this theory in great detail and the predictions of the model have held up to data. Want one? Ok. If other etherial worlds do exist in some form they should interact with our universe in some fashion and yet still not be quantifiable. Well that prediction has been proven true with your maths, we have proven that something does interact with the physical universe and it is what drives much of its behaviour. expansion, acceleration, galaxies forming and holding together! Prediction confirmed! Thank you scientists!



GIST: I have no idea what anything is "beyond some scribbles on a paper". What's your point?
What is my point???? LMFAO! My point is that you dont know what your talking about and you just admitted it. Its the entire reason behind this thread.



GIST: This thread is about physics. "What it is" is completely irrelevant.
you demand I prove my theory about what "it" is and when I do this you claim that it is irrelevant? are you insane or just confused?

Fyxe wrote: GIST: A theory is a model the predictions of which match observations to within the likewise predicted margins of error. Your... construction, for lack of a better term, doesn't even make any predictions
... Ok. If other etherial worlds do exist in some form they should interact with our universe in some fashion and yet still not be quantifiable.

The "margins of error" I mentioned aren't there just for the prettiness. They are what makes the prediction testable. Without them any observation can be reinterpreted to match the model, rendering the model unfalsifiable and therefore not a theory. If you expect an interaction, you must specify, at least approximate, the scope and magnitude of that interaction. Otherwise it is impossible to test whether the interaction occurred in accordance or in violation with the model. A model that matches all interactions like that, without distinction, even "unquantifiable interactions" (what ever that is supposed to mean), is a model that predicts none of them.

Well that prediction has been proven true with your maths, we have proven that something does interact with the physical universe and it is what drives much of its behaviour. expansion, acceleration, galaxies forming and holding together! Prediction confirmed! Thank you scientists!

I would like to nitpick at this wording with "proof" which has no business being in an argument over scientific confirmation, but I have told you this enough time to not need to geet bogged down with this again, and shall instead address your actual point. Your model's "prediction", as I said above, is deeply unspecific. We can literally measure a null signal and if we are to take your proposed prediction seriously, this would still qualify as "confirmation". You might as well go full Descartes on me and say "I think, therefore seven worlds, twelve realms, and ten dimensions". But with "predictions" this vague there is no distinguishing your model from a competing one that says there is, say, only five dimensions, two realms, and no other planes at all. Your predictions are not derived from any postulates the model makes uniquely. Therefore no data can indicate it over conceivable alternatives. Maybe you didn't start out with the strongest prediction it makes. I would have, were I challenged to substantiate a model I believed, but that's fair enough. At least for now the one "prediction" you present sounds more like a post-hoc rationalization than an actual specific prediction. If tomorrow it turned out that the deep space red shift was due to localized optical effects rather than galactic expansion, what part of your "theory" would have to be discarded or changed? If none, then can we really say that the expansion is something it predicts? If disconfirming a "prediction" does not disconfirm the theory that made it to at least that extent, can it even rightly be called a prediction of the theory?

GIST: I have no idea what anything is "beyond some scribbles on a paper". What's your point?
What is my point???? LMFAO! My point is that you dont know what your talking about and you just admitted it. Its the entire reason behind this thread.

I did not admit that. This thread is about science, about physics more specifically. It is about how things work, not about what they "are". I am talking, thus, about how they work, not about what they are. My saying that I do not know what they are (or even how to go about addressing a question like that) is not a statement about my knowledge of the actual subject at hand. Why you keep dragging ontology into it still is a mystery to me.

GIST: This thread is about physics. "What it is" is completely irrelevant.
you demand I prove my theory about what "it" is and when I do this you claim that it is irrelevant? are you insane or just confused?

Thanks, I guess, for yet more of that condescension of yours. No, what I am is consistent. The instant you brought up dark matter and dark energy, scoffing about how scientists broadly don't "even" know what they are I pointed out that they don't know what anything else "is" either. Not one of them, not on scientific grounds, anyway, and not in the sense of "knowledge" that one would employ for matters of science. I know this may be frustrating or dissatisfying that physics is not about what things "are" in any sense that goes beyond merely how they behave (i.e. the one and only part of their "being" - if to speak of it makes any sense - that we actually have any sort of verifiable access to, indirect though it may be), but there is nothing you or I can do to change that. This line of inquiry about what anything "is" beyond the "mere scribbles" that constitute descriptions of the respective behaviour, is wholly outside of physics, beyond physics. One might even call it "metaphysics", because that is exactly the area of philosophy ontology is a part of. It is not a field of physics, whether you like it or not. In this thread, I'll stick to physics. You don't have to do in kind, but at this point I see for myself no other choice than interpreting attempts at pressing the issue as attempts to veer off topic.

How do you set a margin of error on something existing or not existing? It either exists or it does not exist right? Does dark matter exist or does it not exist? Yes 100% or no 100%. Its not like, well it exists sometimes.. like if you are a scientist with all the fancy numbers then yes it does exist! and if your just a simple philosopher or seeker of esoteric knowledge weeelll then its much less likely to exist or maybe it exists only sometimes, like when the scientist wants it to exist. that’s not how it works Gist!

Soo we don’t have a “proof” gravity exist in science then? Isnt your fancy maths a proof? That’s what the math of a theory is right? A Proof. So that idea that you think it should not be in science is really strange. Now you have to put a “vague” value on my predictions like above. Well sorry but proof is a part of science and the “vague prediction” is not. Either it’s a prediction that can be proven as accurate or not accurate. Your maths proves dark mater exists, and that confirms my prediction that something beyond matter interacts with the universe. Simple multi-dimensional physics application.

Its about how things work you say? Well how can you know how they work if you don’t know what they even are? Oh wait you don’t know what dark matter is so you cant tell my how it works. The next part of my theory is in play here. I have made a prediction as to what it is and I then need to prove that by stating how it works. So I now state how it works and then test that statement. Im doing that all the time. You cant even get past what it is.

Lol yea, I like the term metaphysics. Do you think my studies are metaphysics then? If so why the hell are you trying so desperately to squeeze it into physics? I have a metaphysics theory, but you seem to want to bully me by telling me its not physics and calling me names and telling me Im stupid or a WEASEL and act all insensed at the ideas. Well my friend, all I have done here is make some suggestions as to what it MIGHT be in physics. But actually I don’t have to prove SHITE to you because I work in metaphysics and not PHYSICS here in a place that, at least on the surface, is about SPIRITUALITY!

So, wanna talk metaphysics now? Cuz Ill take ya to school bud!

Fyxe wrote: How do you set a margin of error on something existing or not existing? It either exists or it does not exist right? Does dark matter exist or does it not exist? Yes 100% or no 100%. Its not like, well it exists sometimes.. like if you are a scientist with all the fancy numbers then yes it does exist! and if your just a simple philosopher or seeker of esoteric knowledge weeelll then its much less likely to exist or maybe it exists only sometimes, like when the scientist wants it to exist. that’s not how it works Gist!

Okay. Your "prediction" wasn't that something existing, so I have no clue why you bring this up. Rather, it was saying that if these things called "other etherial worlds" do, then they would "in some fashion" interact with our universe. Well, a null interaction is not distinguishable from none at all. In scientific terms, to speak of interactions of any kind only makes any sense if there is some way, no matter how crude, to quantify them. If your model says that there is just "some" interaction, without any specifics besides that it may not even be quantifiable at all, that's not a testable prediction.

Soo we don’t have a “proof” gravity exist in science then?

Correct. We do not. We do not have a "proof" anything at all exists. Science is not in the business of solving philosophical problems like the hard problem of solipsism. It has neither the means nor the ambitions to answer metaphysical questions like that.

Isnt your fancy maths a proof? That’s what the math of a theory is right? A Proof. So that idea that you think it should not be in science is really strange.

No, it is not. Again I'm baffled how easily you can dismiss centuries old philosophical problems you clearly never read about with reference to yet another thing you have clearly never studied like maths in this case. No amount of "fancy maths" constitutes even so much as a demonstration of a model's merits, let alone a "proof". Proofs exist in mathematics, but only internally. They are demonstrations that statements that appear novel on the surface are really equivalent to the tautology at their root. We call those statements theories. They are true under a given logical framework, and the rules of inference and axioms assumed in that framework are what makes them true in their own context.
Incidentally, this is why mathematics is not a science. It is not a study of nature. No amount of evidence can prove a mathematical theorem, and no amount of mathematical construction can demonstrate the reality of anything in nature. By all means, mathematics has its place in the academy, and without the logical rigor and long form conclusions it provides us with a lot of modern science would look nothing like it does. Nevertheless science is nothing without the data, and maths requires absolutely none. The distinction is a fair and necessary one.
The mathematical expression of a scientific theory, then, rather than being a proof of the theory, is simply a more rigorous formulation of the idea itself, designed to allow making specific, falsifiable predictions, inferred of course by mathematical reasoning under the assumptions that the theory be "true". For instance, were it not for Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation (and Kepler's Laws that follow from them, albeit not historically...), the orbital trajectory of Uranus would not have seemed any kind of odd, as there would be no very strict and specific prediction about what it should look like. Newton's Law allowed for a precise forecast of the planet's motion, and if the planet deviated from that prediction by an amount that couldn't be dismissed as measurement error, then either the theory must be wrong (i.e. conflicting with evidence as given by nature itself) or less than all parameters the prediction depends on were taken into account. As it turns out, the irregularities in Uranus' orbit were not completely whimsical, but followed rather precisely what one would expect, were there yet another planet orbiting the sun at yet a higher altitude. That is what a mathematically reasoned scientific prediction looks like. If Newton's theory is correct, then there must not merely exist just another object of some unquantifiable description, but rather an object with a mass within a very certain narrow range, orbiting with a very specific aphelion and perihelion, phase, and inclination. But that mathematically precise prediction is not a "proof" of Neptune, it's just a logical consequence of a theory that could turn out to be far less universal than its name would suggest.
Speaking of gravity, Newton had to pretty much invent an entire mathematical field now known as calculus. The tensor algebra of general relativity was almost nothing new in 1915. When it comes to mathematical fanciness, Einstein had nothing on Newton, but that does not prove or disprove either man's theories. All that tells us is how much genius there had to be behind each, but not how accurate either of them describe observations. Only measurement, only physical evidence can serve to substantiate scientific models. Mathematics cannot. Which is yet another reason there is still not an entirely muffled controversy about the scientific merits of string theories... But I digress.

Now you have to put a “vague” value on my predictions like above. Well sorry but proof is a part of science and the “vague prediction” is not. Either it’s a prediction that can be proven as accurate or not accurate.

Shown, not "proven". But I didn't make your predictions vague. All I did was ask what an observation that violated your model's prediction would look like. If Neptune turned out to be fourty times its weight and moving retrograde - something no amount of fancy maths could prevent it from - that would have been inexplicable under Newton's Law. See, making a model after gathering some data is easy. We call those models phenomenological, as they offer starting points from whence to build grander models that explain a multitude of phenomena with fewer parameters than a raw sum of the smaller models, and that boast predictive power this way. It is those models, the ones that fit future data, not just past, that is the hard part. On their own, the phenomenological laws are just barely of use, often only when applied to the single experiment they were constructed to describe.
But yea, your prediction that there be "some interaction that may even be undetectable" is not testable, I'm sorry. To put it in the terms you use, the "can be proven as accurate or not accurate" is the property the prediction you offered does not have.

Your maths proves dark mater exists, and that confirms my prediction that something beyond matter interacts with the universe. Simple multi-dimensional physics application.

First of all, no, "my maths" does not prove the existence of dark matter. I'll quit nitpicking for now and interpret your usage of "proof" to be equivalent to "demonstration" when applicable, because I'm tired of repeating myself and you seem to not only be entirely unwilling to even consider that there might be a distinction, but also rather deliberately making sure to conflate the two to a greater extent than would be expected under simply colloquial usages/sloppy language.
Anyway, no amount of maths can demonstrate that dark matter exists. Maths is not evidence of anything but maths. The reason, bluntly speaking, why many physicists propose a (quantifiable, by the way, unlike your predictions) abundance of dark matter, is that, frankly, we don't know any better. General relativity is far, far too successful on far too closely comparable scales, and its predictions match observation so accurately and so consistently (by a comparison of the numbers, by the way, not by the oh-so-pure-and-exact "it exists" vs "it does not exist" - what does or does not exist is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one) that to seriously question it at this point is frankly nothing short of silly. Between "there is an abundance of one or more space-time curving substances that otherwise interact so weakly that we have thus far not been able to detect them with our instruments" and "the general theory of relativity is inaccurate on this one scale but cartoonishly precise on every other because it is ultimately just wrong", the former appears actually to be the simpler, more elegant and efficient explanation. This is an inference to the best explanation. It doesn't mean it's true, it's definitely not a proof, it is not any sort of evidence either. And, it is not mathematical in nature either. It is not a deductive argument like all of maths are, but an abductive one. It does not go back to Aristotle's logic, it goes back to Occam's Razor.

Its about how things work you say? Well how can you know how they work if you don’t know what they even are?

Why on earth would that be a restriction? Can I make observations or not? Imagine you are on the street at night, and you see two lights approachin from the distance. They move in unison, are very bright, shine roughly towards the ground ahead and are accompanied by the rumbling of what sounds to be a combustion engine. Which of these observations requires me to know that it's a Volkswagen, much less specifically a Golf? I can see the lights approaching, I can describe their velocity by measuring their relative brightness and angular separation changing. I can hear the engine's sound increasing in volume in accord with an inverse square law. If I have a keen enough hearing and understand enough of combustion engines I might even tell you how many cylinders it has or what sort of fuel it burns. I don't need to know what it is. It could be a VW, it could be a Honda, or a Ford. Heck, for all I know it could be a semi-trailer truck. But I can tell you it's approach direction and velocity long before I can tell you what it is. What a ludicrous idea, that one must know what something is, before one can tell how it behaves! What nonsense!

Oh wait you don’t know what dark matter is so you cant tell my how it works. The next part of my theory is in play here. I have made a prediction as to what it is and I then need to prove that by stating how it works. So I now state how it works and then test that statement. Im doing that all the time. You cant even get past what it is.

Not much of a test, if it is formulated in such a way that there cannot conceivably be negative outcomes. Imagine a class test where everyone gets a C irrespective of how they performed. That'd be a "test" in name only. No information about anyone's learning progress can be obtained if the rules enforce equal scores independent of said progress.

Lol yea, I like the term metaphysics. Do you think my studies are metaphysics then? If so why the hell are you trying so desperately to squeeze it into physics? I have a metaphysics theory, but you seem to want to bully me by telling me its not physics and calling me names and telling me Im stupid or a WEASEL and act all insensed at the ideas. Well my friend, all I have done here is make some suggestions as to what it MIGHT be in physics. But actually I don’t have to prove SHITE to you because I work in metaphysics and not PHYSICS here in a place that, at least on the surface, is about SPIRITUALITY!

Well, you did call it a physics thread. I didn't. I didn't make you call it so as to sound that it is "for" me. I didn't even force you to make it to begin with. I suggested it a long time ago, specifically to be about physics, because you were bringing it up in a thread that really wasn't about physics. But you didn't have to agree to do that back then and you didn't have to make good on that promise either. I'm not "trying desperately to squeeze" anything. You made a thread about physics, and said in your opening post that it's purpose was to converse with me about my questions. None of that is my fault, or my problem.

Oh, and since we are on the whining part again, I'll take this opportunity for calling you out on your lies again, if you don't mind. I never once told anyone that you were stupid. I do not understand what good it serves you to tell this lie repeatedly. If our readers were to pick one of us to say that one has openly and mockingly questioned the intelligence of the other, I don't think that vote would turn out in your favour, but regardless, stupid is not something I ever said of you, not to anyone. I did at most call you uneducated or clueless in some areas. There is no wrong in my so doing and I ask no pardon for it. You are clueless in some areas, uneducated in some areas. All of us are. If that feels like an insult to you, I suggest learn to get over it, for I owe you no apology and shan't compose one.

So, wanna talk metaphysics now? Cuz Ill take ya to school bud!

Eh. I don't think you will. If he way you treat subjects like the nature of things in themselves, properties, knowledge, abstract objects, or hypotheticals is anything to go by, I have a feeling a discussion of metaphysics between the two of us will not be one for you to walk out of with any more grace than you're displaying here. And that is even admitting that my interest in and patience for metaphysics is far more limited.
However, seeing as you created this thread to be about physics and my questions regarding the physics of your woo, I think this is not the place to veer off into your metaphysics either, as that would be grossly off topic here.

Interesting gist. I especially like the part where you change the word proof to demonstration and then claimed they were completely different.

I also like how you are saying my claim is unfalsifiable and yet you are all over this thread trying to do just that. Sorta weird as well. Why are you trying to falsify something you say is unfalsifiable?

I also did not bring up the term metaphysics, you did. Evidence presented by you that I now get to cross examine. So shall we change this thread name to

Multidimensional meta-physics?

I have no issue with either name as both contain the very real science of physics. And those physics have been presented as proof of my theory. And all you can do in response is sputter and rabbit trail and call me a weasel.

Fyxe wrote: Interesting gist. I especially like the part where you change the word proof to demonstration and then claimed they were completely different.

They are. Proofs are deductive. Demonstrations are inductive. I didn't just "claim" they were completely different, I explained in excruciating detail over and over again in several posts in several threads just how exactly they are. I'm glad you like those parts. Shame you keep ignoring them.

I also like how you are saying my claim is unfalsifiable and yet you are all over this thread trying to do just that. Sorta weird as well. Why are you trying to falsify something you say is unfalsifiable?

I'm not. You were the one insisting that physics agrees with, supports, or substantiates your model. I never tried falsifying it. Before I can try falsifying it I need it to make a testable prediction. If it cannot, then all it can hope to be is what we like to call "not even wrong". That's another way of calling it nonsensical gibberish noone has any rational grounds to take seriously. Making testable predictions, mind you, does not make your model correct. It just makes it falsifiable. It means we can meaningfully talk about it in science. It can still turn out to be wrong in just about every way, but if it can't make testable predictions, there is nothing even there to discuss!

I also did not bring up the term metaphysics, you did. Evidence presented by you that I now get to cross examine.

I have no problem with the term metaphysics. But when you promise to talk of physics and to answer questions within the context of physics or science more generally, and then carry on babbling about metaphysics instead, you are the one missing the mark, not me. I only brought up the term because that time I could see the direction you were veering off topic towards.

So shall we change this thread name to

Multidimensional meta-physics?

I have no issue with either name as both contain the very real science of physics.

They don't. Metaphysics is the study of concepts and primary, abstract principles. Physics is the study of the external, natural world we have practical reasons to operationally assume. At most you'll find philosophers giving their two cents on physical concepts - though nowadays never on any they spend enough time to understand first, it seems... Metaphysics, generally, however, does not "contain" physics any more than a singer "contains" their microphone. At most they use it, sing to it.

And those physics have been presented as proof of my theory. And all you can do in response is sputter and rabbit trail and call me a weasel.

Actually, no. First of all, if your theory is scientific, there is no such thing as a "proof" of it, but I understand you'll keep just ignoring such basic facts, so fair enough. More to the point, though, I didn't sputter, or rabbit trail. You are lying again, and for no reason, again. I did call you a weazel, because you were behaving like one. I do, after all, not know what you are, only how you behave, and judging by it you were weaving your way around the points, dodging queries and arguments, or outright ignoring them. And now you are yet again pretending like they were never spoken to begin with by asserting that this was all I can do. But in actuality, as anyone can go back and read, I have been responding to your points in detail, and raising my own in response. One of the things I pointed out to you is that a point of data is not evidence of a model until it is shown to be more consistent with the model than it is with competing ones. But physics is also not a point of data, but an academic discipline, so I don't know how it can serve as evidence of anything anyway, much less so generally and by just existing, rather than by matching any testable predictions...

We are going in circles. You ask for evidence and I give evidence and you say that's not evidence and I say yes it is.

This is no longer productive (if it ever was) anymore. Just saying it's not evidence is not showing anyone why it's not evidence. You have presented no counter theories or arguments to refute my claims.

In fact all you do really do is turn into bugs bunny and go off chasing carrots of illusion on your widdle wabbit twails!

If dark matter is not the ethereal universe interacting with the real world then please tell me what it is oh mighty smiter of "demonstration" of the facts of my theory?

I don't want to put words in someone else's mouth - but I believe Gist would be happy for you to put forward any theory you like, as long as you label it "FANFICTION" or something to that effect at the top and bottom so that no one is under the impression it is designed to be "tested"

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
And I know most people are going to try to throw it back at me and make it hurt but that's OK.

I feel badd for most Of you because you have never experienced a lot of things in life.

You can show one person a 437 yd shot with a pistol and you would say you're a liar!

And for others When you say I've jumped out of planes and done a lot of cool stuff You wouldn't even believe. Most people here would make fun and just say O what were you playing fortnight in your head. I get it it's hard to understand anything unless you have physically experienced it 1st hand.

And it's even scarier to think other people could be doing this stuff every day and you can't comprehend even how they do it.

Is the exact same thing with doing telekinesis Astral Projection. And many other things almost nobody here as any concept of.
I get it and I understand why you would think in your mind everybody else is making things up are living in a fantasy world.

Just a heads up one of these years you're going to be shown The books you have learned and memorized did not have all the information
And some more straight out lies just to mislead you.
Let's just say saturation with Disinformation.

Some of you may get it.
Excuse the grammar I Normally just talk into my phone and send a message without reading it. I know bad form I'm just extremely lazy.

Go ahead everybody can throw their 2 cents back at me and try to knock-me-down or hurt me.
I definitely don't know everything and the older I get I realize I don't know anyting.

I do slightly realize the difference between freedom and the allusion of freedom.
And also truth and the allusion of truth.
One last thing you always find what you're looking for. So just be real careful what you're looking for.

You can show one person a 437 yd shot with a pistol and you would say you're a liar!

And for others When you say I've jumped out of planes and done a lot of cool stuff You wouldn't even believe. Most people here would make fun and just say O what were you playing fortnight in your head. I get it it's hard to understand anything unless you have physically experienced it 1st hand.

And it's even scarier to think other people could be doing this stuff every day and you can't comprehend even how they do it.

Is the exact same thing with doing telekinesis Astral Projection. And many other things almost nobody here as any concept of.
I get it and I understand why you would think in your mind everybody else is making things up are living in a fantasy world.

I'm sure this is a ferris wheel I don't want to ride, but here we go - They are not remotely similar. Mostly because I can go to an aerodrome or range any day of the week (or at least weekends) and see (or even do!) the top two things - week in, week out. (I certainly couldn't make a 400m shot with a 9mm, and admittedly I've never seen it (I don't know anyone bored enough to try, and I think the range management would get sad if we started shooting pistols wildly on the long range...), but with a bit of math, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.

The point is, both of those disciplines (shooting, and jumping out of planes) are well explored and well documented, and if you have the resources (ie, time, money, and you're near an area that can facilitate one or both of those things) it's not hard to check on first hand as well. They're also both disciplines that the participants in are usually more than happy to strap a camera to their helmets.

Your two other suggested disciplines that we're all too blind and ignorant to appreciate share close to none of those qualities. Maybe I'm just unlucky, and my black stump town has not offered me the opportunity to truly experience these things, if I go to the big cities I can meet a real expert who can take the veil off from over my eyes and show me the secrets I am currently not privy to.


(I'm not an intellectual like Gist, I'm happy enough with my thoughts being a more prosaic peasant-wisdom. It lacks the scientific rigour and word count, but is occasionally more applicable to the mundane day to day experience of being a monkey in trousers just trying to stay alive long enough to get a leg over....)