CeffTheCeph

I think you need to slow down a little bit and be more specific on a lot of the things you are saying. You are mixing a ton of very different theories here in a way that doesn’t really use the specifics of the theories to supports your arguments.

What I mean by this is that, in your theory you are using only the stated conclusions of hundreds of scientists who have spent thousands of hours meticulously outlining different physical theories (outlined within the barriers of formal physical laws), but not the actual components of those theories that were used to reach those conclusions.

However, in your new theory, which is an expansion of the work already conducted by others in the past, you are coming to your own conclusions for your theory based on the conclusions of those past scientists, not based on the actual theory those scientists used to reach their conclusions.

This is precisely how science fiction works, this is not how new scientific discoveries are made. One of the main problems that this approach leads to is unavoidable bias in your conclusions. For example, in this last comment here you did a great job of outlining a lot of recent theories that deal with conservation of energy within general relativity. However, general relativity is just a theory, it is not a physical law. So in order to form your own new theory based on GR you need to use the principles, postulates, axioms and assumptions that were used in developing GR.

What you have done here is used GR’s conclusions as justification for your assumptions and just stated your own conclusions without providing any reasonable instructions as to how you arrived at those conclusions (you’ve said that the maths show this, or that you can prove that, but you never actually did the math or proved anything, you just said ‘look at what they did’).

More critical to our current line of discussion, you still haven’t provided any justification whatsoever on why your assumption that ‘eternal power sources’ exist in the universe is valid. While, as you’ve pointed out, there is a line of theoretical development that allows that energy not be conserved within particular observational scales in the universe while still conforming to the 1st law, nothing you’ve highlighted here addresses the fact that hot moves to cold spontaneously in our universe (the 2nd law of thermodynamics).

The second law of thermodynamics applies everywhere across the universe at all times, is the reason time is irreversible, and most importantly for this discussion, eliminates the possibility of ‘free energy’, of ‘perpetual motion’ or of an ‘eternal power source’. If your theory claims that eternal power is possible, you need to provide irrefutable evidence supporting the assumption that the 2nd law is invalid. No one in history has ever been able to provide any such evidence and so without providing that irrefutable evidence your theory can only be considered as science fiction.

As I was trying to suggest before in my original comment, KEEP GOING! Your passion for discovery and your obvious abundance of creativity is so desperately needed in the scientific world. Creativity is what pushes boundaries. The only hard part is navigating that fine line between what is possible in our observable universe, and what we want to be possible in our creatively idealized ‘fantasy’ universe. Theory in fact does show us what could be possible, but only if it agrees with what has already been shown to be possible.

There is one more assumption you are making that I would like to ask you about. From my perspective, when you suggest that:

This energy is renewable, such that it represents a continuous and probably eternal power source

you are implying the assumption that some ‘eternal power source’ in the universe exists. This assumption is the opposite of what “most people do”, and so nobody ever starts there. This assumption violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics (this assumption would allow for Perpetual Motion.

Are you able to address this inconsistency of your research with the models most people are using for their understanding of energy physics?

“if someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, those experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law if thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” -Arthur Eddington, 1927 (the physicist who coined the term ‘arrow of time’)

Sure, I have a few questions, but I will start with one:

When you state:

This paper uses the insights from general relativity, especially cosmic expansion

Can you be more specific? What insights are you referring to? Are you assuming flat geometry of the universe under a Lambda-CDM cosmological model?

To me it seems that the geometry of the universe, whether open, flat, or closed would have a large impact on the mechanical action of the wires at the length scales you are proposing.

I didn’t mean to belittle anyone.

I was simply trying to suggest some interesting further reading on the topic you are studying and engaged with. This is an area of interest of mine as well.

I think it is great that you have committed so much effort to learning about how our world works and I would encourage you to continue to pursue your interests in cosmology.

However, the peer-review process in science is an important thing, and the simple fact that you have been struggling to get people to engage with your thesis for the past 6 months is the peer-review process at work, though not necessarily in a formal, academic setting.

For real, this paper you’ve written is science fiction. I truly believe that society needs to go beyond the limitations of science itself, into a process of Post-Normal Science, but Post-Normal Science is a very different thing than science fiction. Post-Normal Science is still subject to peer-review such that the assertions and assumptions are still logically consistent with our empirical reality. As an example of the distinction, though there are a lot of different elements out there in our universe, we have to make materials using the properties that those elements have available to us, we can’t make up the properties that we want the material to have first then try and force the elements to do precisely what we want them to.

Please accept with humility, this paper isn’t going to win a Nobel prize. However, don’t let that reality stop you from looking for answers to the questions you clearly are so passionate about. KEEP GOING!

To try and be a little more supportive I would encourage you to learn more about thermodynamics. Here is a question that has fascinated some of the most brilliant scientists in history that we still have no formalized answer to:

If the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy is always tending to a maximum, and that increasing disorder defines the arrow of time, how is it possible that life even exists? Humans are insanely complex, and exist by taking simple atoms and molecules and combining them in an intricate ordered structure. The different layers of external and internal complex structure is incalculable; we are extremely highly ordered in a universe forcing disorder.

As an example I’ll point out Schrödinger’s 1944 book called “What is Life” where he suggested the concept of ‘negentropy’ as a potential answer to this question. This question is relevant to your thesis, as realistically it is useful energy (or a Demon, I suppose) that is needed to do the work in ordering, that is, working against the 2nd law, and you’re thesis is trying to find a truly renewable (i.e. infinite) energy source in the universe with which to achieve the Demon’s task.

Since it is clear that you have a solid foundational background in physics, I would recommend reading Isabelle Stenger’s work on thermodynamics and dissipative structures. Very specifically, try chapter 10 of her book “Power and Invention: Situating Science”.

One prevailing argument here is that dissipated energy (i.e. heat) can never be converted into useful work (a different interpretation of the 2nd law). Some even argue that the expansion of the universe (the gradient that your web is attempting to extract useful energy from) is caused by the constant increase in dissipated energy that the 2nd law forces on our universe. Now this is only one interpretation of the existing thermodynamic framework in our scientific community, but this view is explicitly saying that useful work can never be extracted from the expansion of the universe, unfortunately contradicting your main thesis.

Thank you very much for your hard work and contributions to society here in bringing these ideas forward in this space to inspire public discourse and debate.

Love it! I think you put it all together very well.

My only criticism would be with the shoes. I think the rolled up pant leg transition into the shoes is fine, but the shoes don’t quite work with the level of casual that the burgundy brings to the outfit. The shoes, to me, look a little more like serious walking shoes, not casual walking shoes.

My favourite part of that book is where Penrose perfectly describes what today we call AI deepfakes and how the ‘bottom-up’ algorithms that run all our AI tech today will never lead to actual consciousness, or sentience in machines.

His arguments do still hold up today, and give an interesting perspective on our current AI bubble that keeps promising AGI is just around the corner.

I really hope that the people of Thunder Bay recognize how fortunate they are that they have such a dedicated group of local journalists actively engaged in battling decades of systemic racism, backed by an independent journalism institution actually committed to strengthening democracy.

That sort of thing seems like it is a little less common in our western world these days. What is it that they keep saying, democracy dies in darkness?

Several years ago I was taking economic classes at my local university out of interest and to be more informed about intentions in our geopolitical world.

A few years after those classes I ran as a candidate for city council in my local municipal elections on a platform based on sound economic policy. I did not get elected, not even close, as I was running opposite an incumbent.

A few years after that I saw this man at a coffee shop that I knew I recognized from somewhere, but had no chance of remembering him on my own. He came up to me and prompted me, and I then realized that he was one of my economic profs, retired now, from when I was taking courses all those years ago.

After brief pleasantries he said: “I recognized your name in the last election. I wanted to say that I voted for you.”

Quite surprised, I managed to respond with a sincere smile on my face: “coming from an economist, that really means a lot to me, thank you”.

I mean, it’s the same question as Plato’s cave

Did you read Penrose’s “Shadows of the Mind”? The ‘shadows’ is a specific reference to Plato’s cave.

No, what sets human apart is how we can communicate in detail and specifics. A single human conciouness sucks, it needs to learn from others. Just like a well trained dog will seem smart. It can’t speak, but it can listen if someone teaches it.

I would suggest that, even though they can’t speak using words, dogs most certainly can communicate in details and specifics.

It is our failure, our inability to interpret what the dog is communicating that just makes us feel like we are better at communicating than dogs. The whole point of my piss story is that some animals communicate complex ideas through their pee, a form of communication that we have no ability to properly interpret. Dogs have no ability to interpret the detail and specifics in our words, but they do communicate detail and specifics through pee. There is no distinction in the communication process there, the distinction is that our brains have the ability to create abstractions using words and symbols, and dog brains do not have that ability.

Which is why shit gets so fucked up when people stop communicating and get tribal about shit.

I don’t disagree with you at all that there is a big difference in how humans and dogs communicate. My intention isn’t to ‘argue’ with you or quibble over the semantics surrounding the relationship between consciousness and communication. I just want to point out here that when I saw the word “No,” above I instinctively felt as though I was on the defensive. This defensive reaction to the word “no” is actually “why shit gets so fucked up” and people “get tribal about shit”.

Maybe!

When my dog sniffs a pee stain out in the bush he instantly knows what species left it there, how long ago it was left there, whether there is a threat to him, whether whoever left it is in heat, a whole bunch of actual information useful for his survival. I can only smell stale piss.

My dog knows whether it was an other dog that peed, or a fox, or a wolf, or a lynx, or a marten, he knows there is a difference between them and knows how to react to those differences. He can map their geographical movements over time and establish patterns of his own movements that could give him the advantage in the event that their path crosses his at some point. But he isn’t aware enough to know that that is what he is actually doing when he smells pee.

I can recognize and taxonomically label all of the potential piss perps, look through their geneological history and map out their ancestors over millions of years, and I can describe in detail the fur trade history in the region and how it impacted the European economy over the past 300 years. But no matter how hard I try, it still just smells like stale piss to me.

Haha! Thank you so much for this comment!

I am currently writing a Master’s thesis on complex adaptive systems and have been having such a hard time coming to terms with how the reductivist worldview completely dominates western science, including neurobiology.

To be fair, I think even Penrose still holds this Platonic view and is desperate to find the mechanistic process of wavefunction collapse through gravity, somehow suggesting that gravity is responsible for the appearance of our conscious thoughts in our heads?? I don’t know, I’m probably interpreting it all wrong, I’m not an expert on Quantum Gravity.

I’ve just been convinced by my dog that I have a more developed level of conciseness compared to him, just as he has a more developed sense of smell compared to me.

This is only a glimpse into the Canadian syrup cartel wars…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist

On both your and daychilde’s comments here…

The system gets rigged when there are fewer people invested in the democratic process, when there are fewer people actually pursuing and participating in a democratic system. The more we outsource our democratic agency to others, the more likely those others are going to be corrupt. One of the main points of the article is that democratic backsliding is a global trend. This doesn’t mean that particular countries are democratically electing dictators, democratic backsliding means that across the world, incrementally, small policy changes are adding up to a less democratic world. These policies may have nothing to do with democracy in their discourse, but act to weaken the democratic process.

As an example, where I am from every school district has a set of trustees who are democratically elected in municipal elections and are tasked with ensuring that the local school board is following the Ministry of Education guidelines as they relate to the needs of the local community. Currently the state government is in the process of eliminating all trustees and appointing a single state ‘administrator’ to take on the role of the trustees for all districts in the state. Literally dozens of locally elected representatives are being replaced with a single state appointed administrator.

The discourse around this issue is troubling, essentially revolving around the notion that trustees are inefficient, don’t know how to properly use public education dollars and are costing taxpayers more while adding no value to the education system itself. While there most certainly is an argument to be made about efficient use of tax dollars with respect to trustees, the point that a functioning democratic institution is being replaced with a centralized authoritarian ruler is completely ignored.

The point of this story is that it is significantly easier to corrupt the democratic process, whether through a rigged election, or through manipulation, or gerrymandering, or whatever, when there are fewer people engaged in the voting process. In my state the average voter turnout for municipal elections is well below 40%. The reason people aren’t interested in the democratic backsliding that is caused by getting rid of trustees is because it is only a minority of people in the state who even bother to elect trustees in the first place.

Another important point that is being made in the article is that one way to effectively fight against threats to democracy is to call out those threats as they are. Getting rid of trustees may actually produce better outcomes in terms of efficiency, but we all have to acknowledge that getting rid of trustees is a direct threat to our democracy. An autocratic state is always going to be way worse for everyone than having some inefficiencies in the school board trustee system.

If there are more people engaged in the democratic process than there are more people who are able to critically scrutinize the democratic process. It is only when we are engaged in the democratic process that we can actually hold it accountable to us. The more people who believe in democracy, the deeper and stronger that democracy becomes.

The voting system may very well be rigged, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on democracy entirely. In reality, it is only when a majority of people give up on democracy that any voting system can be rigged. When the majority of people believe centralized efficiency is better than local representation, for example, democracy dies. In any case, the more people participate in the democratic process the stronger that process becomes. Just always vote. That is by far the most important and effective action you can take to prevent democratic elections from becoming rigged.

How this can be achieved is the question

Just fucking vote. Engage in all local, state, and federal elections. Be invested in the results. Everyone, all the time, vote on everything. Believe in democracy.

I genuinely appreciate your concern. I’m really glad that you are here in Canada, as open minded people make our world a better place.

Engaging with racism is always helpful, in any context. Here in TBay there used to be a city committee directly committed to addressing racism in the city. They had a campaign headlined: “If you witness racism, say something”, with a link to report observations. The headline was on billboards, city buses and everything around the city.

I suppose enough local tax payers complained about inefficient use of tax dollars and that committee has since been retired. But the international headlines about TBay continue.

I am from Thunder Bay and have lived here my whole life. These are not new stories, and the highest 10 year average in Canada in this case is not a surprise. TBay is a bottleneck between eastern and western Canada. It is a hub for dozens of Northern Ontario remote First Nations communities. In all of the small communities outside of TBay, there are billboards on the highway that are directed specifically at reminding people that “Human Trafficking is a Crime”. I don’t intend to be directly confrontational, but the comment:

maybe there should be some awareness campaign and/or educational programs to get the public more knowledgeable and work to recognize and report these instances or avoid them.

is incredibly ignorant. Located on the north shore of Lake Superior, TBay is visited by dozens of Great Lake and International cargo ships daily during the shipping season; it isn’t an issue of the public not recognizing that trafficking is taking place, it is a crime of opportunity. TBay is also regularly considered to be the ‘murder capital of Canada’. We have some of the highest drug overdose rates in the country as well. Some people might be oppositional to my point of view here, but the problem is systemic racism.

The only access to most of the remote First Nations in Northwestern Ontario is through TBay. Drug trafficking as well as human trafficking up North can only happen through the city. A lot of these remote communities are also struggling with increasing populations and limited access to resources. Several of these communities are under boil water advisories due to lack of resources and infrastructure, some of which have been so for over 15 years. This issue is incredibly complex, but realistically it comes down to the fact that anti-Indigenous racism is rampant and very well off still within our country, despite Harper’s apology and all of the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ that has been happening lately.

Some media resources, in case anyone is interested in looking further into the issue: Brief Podcast series on the topic Award winning narrative outlining the overt racism in TBay

Your circumstances are different, but consider the lyrics to the song “Almost Summer” by Jason Collett for a typical experience… https://youtu.be/xVnF0GsiwoY