Gravity: What We Know vs What We Don't

[ZapperZ]

OK----let's do it this way----

Are you, personally, 'satisfied' with YOUR knowledge about an apple?

Are you, personally, 'satisfied' with YOUR knowledge about gravity?

Maybe you should have read my original post in here:

This is misleading. If you look carefully at everything that you think you know, you will see that all you know is actually just your ability to describe something. The knowledge of a set of properties and behavior of something is what constitutes your ability to say that you know what it is. Now it doesn't mean that you know EVERYTHING about it, but it certainly does not allow you to say you know NOTHING about it.

That is what I am arguing against, the claim that "we know NOTHING about gravity". I'm not arguing that we know EVERYTHING about gravity.

Asking someone if one is "satisfied" (whatever that means) with gravity is vague. I'm satisfied enough with it that I am confident that the building that I'm in would not fall down and the bridge that I'm crossing would not collapse. If one isn't satisfied with gravity at this level, one should get out of any and all structures.

But I'm not "satisfied" with it when we try to extrapolate our knowledge into more exotic areas, because these are still "research-front" areas that have yet to successfully describe its properties in that regime. But this occurs in ALL areas of study - that's why there are areas of study! That's why there are scientists! We don't get employed to study things we already know!

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

I understand what you are saying, but in his definition of gravitational force he has used the word force to describe what it is.

That is similar to saying that the definition of Happiness is feeling happy. It defines itself and therefore requires no further explanation.

No it isn't. I can quantify the force of attraction between the two bodies. You have no ability to quantify "happiness". Either way, your explanation of a fruit and my explanation of gravity are still only description.

Zz.

 

[rewebster]

I understand what you are saying, but in his definition of gravitational force he has used the word force to describe what it is.

That is similar to saying that the definition of Happiness is feeling happy. It defines itself and therefore requires no further explanation.

I'm basically 'happy' with what I know about an apple---now, a cellular mechanic may not be--but I'm not a cellular mechanic.

The knowledge that you're looking for about gravity just isn't printed/'part of the knowledge base' yet----zapper just doesn't want to say that, maybe----the 'accepted' explanations are the 'main' ones---everything else is defined as 'crackpot ideas'

 

[ZapperZ]

I'm basically 'happy' with what I know about an apple---now, a cellular mechanic may not be--but I'm not a cellular mechanic.

The knowledge that you're looking for about gravity just isn't printed/'part of the knowledge base' yet----zapper just doesn't want to say that, maybe----the 'accepted' explanations are the 'main' ones---everything else is defined as 'crackpot ideas'

I don't know what "axe" you are trying to grind here against me, but I would suggest you stop putting words into my mouth. I know you are trying to pick a fight here for some odd reason, so I would strongly suggest you stop this line of "attack" right this minute.

Zz.

 

[rewebster]

No it isn't. I can quantify the force of attraction between the two bodies. You have no ability to quantify "happiness". Either way, your explanation of a fruit and my explanation of gravity are still only description.

Zz.

I don't have a 'degree' in 'happiness'----but for those that have studied the idea, I think they 'feel' just as strongly that THEY CAN quantify 'happiness'---just as strongly as you think you can quantify 'gravity'

---I just read your last reply--I'm not----I think we're just 'talking' about it-----if you feel that I am trying to 'start' something, I wasn't----but I will 'stop' if you wish

 

[cristo]

I don't have a 'degree' in 'happiness'----but for those that have studied the idea, I think they 'feel' just as strongly that THEY CAN quantify 'happiness'---just as strongly as you think you can quantify 'gravity'

Happiness cannot be quantified on a scale that is the same for every person, whereas the gravitational force between two bodies can be. That is, happiness is subjective, whereas the gravitational force between two bodies is objective.

 

[rewebster]

Happiness cannot be quantified on a scale that is the same for every person, whereas the gravitational force between two bodies can be. That is, happiness is subjective, whereas the gravitational force between two bodies is objective.

first, I'm sure glad this discussion is in the 'philosophy' section-----


'happiness' can be put on a scale for 'each' person, though----so it is (or can be) scalar----(just as each 'mass' is different)

Where I was going with it was, depending on one's interest in any given field (psych, philo, physics---and even in their 'sub'-fields) is where certain qualitative/quantifying factors are observed and defined. Some people want to know more, and ask in different ways.

To 'some people', the 'gravitional forces', say, of a 'black hole', between two meteors, and between two protons in the same nucleus, doesn't make sense from 'some viewpoints' ---

 

[russ_watters]

If that is all you want to know then I am envious.

I didn't say that it was!

See what you made me do! This is a thread about gravity and you have reduced me to a level where philosophy has had to enter discussion!

I warned you I didn't want to start an argument.

Right from the start, this was about science vs philosophy. You are objecting to science by asserting things about science that aren't how science works. Your objections are philosophical.

 

[kenewbie]

What is wrong about it?
"An apple is a fruit that grows on an apple tree" is the same as "gravitational force is the force of attraction between two bodies with mass".

In the end, both are "descriptions" of the property of the subject matter. If you claim that you know something about an apple, then how come you claim that "we" know nothing about gravity?

I don't buy that. There are different depths of knowledge. I believe the original comparison with the Mayans was very nice. They could describe the patterns of the planets very accurately, however we can do one better: We can show that the patterns emerge from another system, the planets (including our own) orbit around the sun. This deeper understanding can then be used to derive multiple phenomena, and so I would call our knowledge better/deeper/more correct or whatever, than the Mayans.

To me, science is the search for the deepest phenomena; the ones which all other emerges from. Once you get "one level below" a certain event and can explain it as deriving from something else, then that thing is more understood than something we can only describe at face value.

As far as I know, we have no phenomena that could explain gravity as emerging from something else. So, gravity is either a "deep phenomena" (as in fundamental law) or it is not yet understood. We cannot be sure of which, of course.

Also, there has been many attempts to "explain" gravity. One I know of was the idea that everywhere in space there are tiny particles that are uniformly distributed in all directions, and these particles push on objects. If an object is relatively alone in empty space, the force evens itself out as it pushes equally from all directions. However, once an object gets close to another, they will block out particles coming from the direction of the other, and so they both get a force that pushes them towards the other. This thing even follows the square of the distance description of gravity, but it did not work out for various reasons.

Now, with such an explanation that actually works, I would say that we would have an explanation of gravity beyond a behavioral description, and thus we could say that we do in fact "know gravity".

k

Edit: Ok, when I think of it, perhaps "space time" works as an underlying system for the emergence of gravity, I don't know enough about that to say for sure. But the point still stands, there are degrees of knowledge.

 

[baywax]

This is misleading. If you look carefully at everything that you think you know, you will see that all you know is actually just your ability to describe something.
Zz.

Well put!

Further to that we know everything but cannot begin to describe the knowledge. We are subject to all the stimulus presently occurring in the universe right now so, logically, we experience and perhaps even understand everything that is taking place at any time.

The impediment to this state of "all-knowing" is that fact that we cannot compute, express or describe the data we receive simply because it is absorbed simultaneously by the subconsciousor perhaps by an even less obvious mechanism of our bodies. And the nature of our physical make-up disallows the logical and sequential deciphering of the information.

This would partially explain the practically autonomic reflex we sometimes see when a person picks up the phone only to find the person they're calling already dialing on the line. It may actually explain a number of "coincidental" happenings. There is an undercurrent of knowledge that we have so far been unable to consciously tap into, at will.

So, somewhere in everyone's constitution we all understand what gravity is, how it takes place, why it takes place etc... but, we lack the training and understanding to decipher the vast storehouse of information we are probably carrying around regarding this, and many other, phenomena.

 

[oldman]

Further to that we know everything but cannot begin to describe the knowledge.

I agree with the gist of most of what you are saying, Baywax, ---that there is lots of knowledge which can't be expressed -- but this doesn't quite make us or anyone else all-knowing!

Zapper Z is almost correct in saying "If you look carefully at everything that you think you know, you will see that all you know is actually just your ability to describe something. " Indeed, describing gravity with one of our invented mathematical dialects, say Newton's law or GR, expresses predictively our species's current knowledge of gravity, which ain't "nothing", Seph 83.

I say 'almost' because Zapper Z takes the anthro'centric view, which is of course a prejudiced perspective that we naturally adopt.

But this is not to say that if a phenomenon can't be described, no knowledge about it is possible. For example, babies know perfectly well how to attract the attention of their parents. They know from yelling! One might classify this as instinctive or hard-wired knowledge, but knowledge it certainly is. Another example is my cat's unerring knowledge of how high to jump, and of how to pounce on mice. Or must one remain anthro'centrically correct, and never admit to knowledge in our fellow creatures!

Back to gravity: Seph 83 has indeed grossly underestimated our knowledge of gravity, but it is also misleading for physicists to say, for example, that "gravity is the distortion of spacetime by mass" as if this expresses the last word on the subject. Seph 83 could have correctly insisted that our knowledge of gravity is presently incomplete. Physicists have no idea at all of the means by which mass (whatever this is) distorts spacetime (an abstraction of two mysteries, namely space and time). Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to describe this means, and so deepen our understanding. But it may never be quite complete.

After all, we're just a chattering species of African ape, probably as limited in some ways as our African cousins, the cat family. We're vocal, but not much good at hunting mice.

 

[baywax]

I agree with the gist of most of what you are saying, Baywax, ---that there is lots of knowledge which can't be expressed -- but this doesn't quite make us or anyone else all-knowing!

Zapper Z is almost correct in saying "If you look carefully at everything that you think you know, you will see that all you know is actually just your ability to describe something. " Indeed, describing gravity with one of our invented mathematical dialects, say Newton's law or GR, expresses predictively our species's current knowledge of gravity, which ain't "nothing", Seph 83.

I say 'almost' because Zapper Z takes the anthro'centric view, which is of course a prejudiced perspective that we naturally adopt.

But this is not to say that if a phenomenon can't be described, no knowledge about it is possible. For example, babies know perfectly well how to attract the attention of their parents. They know from yelling! One might classify this as instinctive or hard-wired knowledge, but knowledge it certainly is. Another example is my cat's unerring knowledge of how high to jump, and of how to pounce on mice. Or must one remain anthro'centrically correct, and never admit to knowledge in our fellow creatures!

Back to gravity: Seph 83 has indeed grossly underestimated our knowledge of gravity, but it is also misleading for physicists to say, for example, that "gravity is the distortion of spacetime by mass" as if this expresses the last word on the subject. Seph 83 could have correctly insisted that our knowledge of gravity is presently incomplete. Physicists have no idea at all of the means by which mass (whatever this is) distorts spacetime (an abstraction of two mysteries, namely space and time). Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to describe this means, and so deepen our understanding. But it may never be quite complete.

After all, we're just a chattering species of African ape, probably as limited in some ways as our African cousins, the cat family. We're vocal, but not much good at hunting mice.

By my own statement a rock is "all knowing" because it is also exposed to all events that have taken place, are taking place and will take place in the universe. It just lacks the means to express what it "knows". It takes some very careful examination to extract the "data" that is found in the rock.

My answer to gravity, which I gave to ZZ at one time, is that the formation of mass (ie: wave condensation and the collision of quarks) after the bb created holes in the overall background radiation which attracted more, smaller amounts of mass (thus creating larger collections of mass/matter). So that, surrounding these collections of matter and condensed waves, there is an area of less "buoyancy" (no proper term here) than is found in areas with no mass present.

 

[rewebster]

By my own statement a rock is "all knowing" because it is also exposed to all events that have taken place, are taking place and will take place in the universe. It just lacks the means to express what it "knows". It takes some very careful examination to extract the "data" that is found in the rock.

My answer to gravity, which I gave to ZZ at one time, is that the formation of mass (ie: wave condensation and the collision of quarks) after the bb created holes in the overall background radiation which attracted more, smaller amounts of mass (thus creating larger collections of mass/matter). So that, surrounding these collections of matter and condensed waves, there is an area of less "buoyancy" (no proper term here) than is found in areas with no mass present.

"buoyancy" is a 'fun' one to think about--in these respects

 

[baywax]

"buoyancy" is a 'fun' one to think about--in these respects

Well, its not far from the rubber sheet model of gravity. Let's say you're in the Bermuda Triangle in a boat. You are bobbing along until a huge methane gas bubble wrecks your buoyancy and you fall through to the sea floor.

Now, let's say the universe is one big em radiation pool, soon after the bb. Then we get these holes forming because some of the em rad is condensing and colliding into pre-matter like stuff. The holes that form in the em are always around the matter... where em used to be and is now condensed. Where the hole is, things "fall".

 

[rewebster]

well----that's one thing I'm happy about----I haven't been in either of those situations

 

[baywax]

well----that's one thing I'm happy about----I haven't been in either of those situations

Ha! And experience is the best teacher so, I really haven't got a clue about any of this stuff either since I haven't been there either.

However, Lao Tzu said this about experiencing the world without actually going anywhere:

Without going outside you can know the whole world.
Without looking through the window you can see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage knows without traveling.
The sage sees without looking.
The sage works without doing (47).

http://www.hermitary.com/articles/china-4.html

 

[out of whack]

Without going outside you can know the whole world.
Without looking through the window you can see the ways of heaven.
The farther you go, the less you know.
Thus the sage knows without traveling.
The sage sees without looking.
The sage works without doing (47).

So that's how stay-at-home drop-outs happen to know it all!

 

[rewebster]

like Newton (he had books)

 

[out of whack]

like Newton (he had books)

Touché!

 

[rewebster]

Touché!

how do you get/do that 'e' ?------is your keyboard 'set' a little differently? --or?

(looking at my keyboard--?)

 

[out of whack]

how do you get/do that 'e' ?------is your keyboard 'set' a little differently? --or?

(looking at my keyboard--?)

Simple: Alt-0-2-3-3

But better, http://allchars.zwolnet.com/" is a little utility that let's you enter various key combinations like this.

 

[rewebster]

from memory, then?---(or a little cheatsheet near the computer)---or did you use that program for that 'e' , though?

(nice little program, I just downloaded it---thanks)

 

[baywax]

from memory, then?---(or a little cheatsheet near the computer)---or did you use that program for that 'e' , though?

(nice little program, I just downloaded it---thanks)

§o, ¥oü †hin∆ ¥ou® §mar†er †hañ å 5th Ωrader, eh?!

 

[rewebster]

§o, ¥oü †hin∆ ¥ou® §mar†er †hañ å 5th Ωrader, eh?!

is this another one of those trick questions?

 

[oldman]

By my own statement a rock is "all knowing" because it is also exposed to all events that have taken place, are taking place and will take place in the universe. It just lacks the means to express what it "knows". It takes some very careful examination to extract the "data" that is found in the rock...

It's now clear that you have some strange ideas, Baywax ---nothing at all wrong with this, but you need to convey them so that others can follow your reasoning, if you wan't them considered. For instance, why do you identify mass with 'wave condensation' --- I can't follow this --- and 'quark collisions': are you perhaps thinking of quarks as tiny marbles? Know-all rocks filled with data --- too strange! But keep thinking and good luck.

Rather ditch Lao-Tzu as a role model: He's too like the drop-out mentioned by out of whack.

 

[baywax]

It's now clear that you have some strange ideas, Baywax ---nothing at all wrong with this, but you need to convey them so that others can follow your reasoning, if you wan't them considered. For instance, why do you identify mass with 'wave condensation' --- I can't follow this --- and 'quark collisions': are you perhaps thinking of quarks as tiny marbles? Know-all rocks filled with data --- too strange! But keep thinking and good luck.

Rather ditch Lao-Tzu as a role model: He's too like the drop-out mentioned by out of whack.

Here's someone one who's thinking along the same lines... not as strange as you claim, really.

This isn't gospel physics and it hasn't been widely peer reviewed. Dale Wahl has touched precisely on the theories I have based my ideas of waves colliding and (edit) depleted e-m radiation fields.

Matter

According to current scientific theory, a process called nucleosynthesis which is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from preexisting nucleons is thought to have formed all matter in the universe shortly after the big bang. Once this process ended no additional matter has been formed within our universe. However, we do know matter can be changed from one element to another such as hydrogen to helium. There are four ways matter can be changed in form nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, radioactive decay and electron bombardment.

Experiments I have preformed strongly suggest matter is continuously formed within our universe. The process appears to begin with the interaction of electromagnetic waves. This interaction is commonly known as destructive interference and is currently thought to completely destroy two photons erasing them from existence. My experiments suggest a different outcome for these photons that experience destructive interference, their motion or velocity is all that is canceled and those photons continue to exist drifting in space similarly to matter drifting in space.

http://electromagnetic-waves.com/default.aspx

To help you grasp the concept of getting data out of rocks I'll refer you to the science of Geology.

To help you understand the manuscripts known as the "Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching", I'll just say that "Lao Tzu" is thought to be a term describing an anonymous group or club of University Frats who diverted from Engineering to put together an ethical handbook for a neighbouring sorority.

 

[out of whack]

To help you grasp the concept of getting data out of rocks I'll refer you to the science of Geology.

But rocks don't study geology. I hadn't commented on this earlier but I think your use of vocabulary was somewhat lax in your claim that rocks know everything. Knowledge is a characteristic of sentient beings. I don't suppose you believe that rocks are sentient. Perhaps some rewording would be appropriate to prevent misunderstandings.

 

[out of whack]

from memory, then?---(or a little cheatsheet near the computer)---or did you use that program for that 'e' , though?

(nice little program, I just downloaded it---thanks)

A quick chart:

0224: àáâãäåæç
0232: èéêëìíîï
0240: ðñòóôõö÷
0248: øùúûüýþÿ

I remember 0233 for some reason (more common?) but other characters are close to this value and quickly identifiable by trial and error since they follow a semi-regular sequence.

 

[baywax]

But rocks don't study geology. I hadn't commented on this earlier but I think your use of vocabulary was somewhat lax in your claim that rocks know everything. Knowledge is a characteristic of sentient beings. I don't suppose you believe that rocks are sentient. Perhaps some rewording would be appropriate to prevent misunderstandings.

OK, I use quotes when I anthropomorphize or use metaphoric terminology.

Sort of like saying "the harddrive holds all the data",
(even though it doesn't have fingers, hands or arms to hold anything)

 

[oldman]

Baywax, It seems you are getting caught up in all sorts of fringe nonsense. Examples:

Talk of sentient rocks, explained by: "(for) the concept of getting data out of rocks I'll refer you to the science of Geology". Then quoting someone who says: "Experiments I have preformed strongly suggest matter is continuously formed within our universe" which you claim "isn't gospel physics and it hasn't been widely peer reviewed". You bet.

Stating that you "use quotes when I anthropomorphize or use metaphoric terminology" instead of just using plain language to say what you mean.

And mysterious stuff about "Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching" generated by some "anonymous group of frats?...

Too much for me, I'm afraid. Cheers.