The 9/11 Forum

Awake though dreaming.

I am sure all readers know the experience of waking up at a moment when ones mind is in the middle of dreaming.

If large numbers of people go through their days and years believing in concepts that are not real, or having strong opinions the reason of which is based on absurd logic, is this not similar to someone who is dreaming but not aware of it?

Just as all readers know how it feels to suddenly wake up in the middle of a dream, so all readers most probably know people who entertain strong, fixed opinions based on a skewed sense of basic realities all around them.



Obsession with ones "self".

It is interesting to observe how an almost instinctive bias of a "self" over "others" become glossed over and justified within the most extreme examples of false, fixed opinions visible all around us and throughout recorded history.

Recall that Socrates considered the effort to separate "false knowledge" from "true knowledge" as central to the examination of ones own life. This is a simple idea that is very old and is found in many cultures.



Hypocrisy lies at the core of a smart idiot.

In simple terms a smart idiot has strong, fixed opinions that they consider beyond the need to examine deeper. This can be revealed through honest, careful and skilled examination of the fixed opinions.

In this sense, accurate self-knowledge and the capacity to examine the key assumptions in ones own opinions with brutal honesty can act as a "medicinal cure" for a smart idiot.


Hypocrisy destroys the natural impulses of shame and conscience.

One of the deepest mysteries of communal life is how seemingly decent, good people can willingly participate regularly in repulsive, barbaric acts without sensing shame. From the point of view of evolution, modern man seems as skilled at burying his head in the sand as at any time in the past, while some could argue we've actually regressed in the last 100 years.


Salvation through comfort: Materialism as a religion

The words "success" or "successful" in terms of gross material aquisition on a planet with rapidly melting polar ice-caps exemplifies the drug-like nature of self absorption well. American television sells the drug of material "success" with such a constant deluge of propaganda that the average passive viewer doesn' stand much of a chance to see the inherent hypocrisy of the dream.

For at least a few hundred years with the rapid expansion of machine inventions, material expansion has been equated with human evolution and a more comfortable communal life.

More comfortable for whom is hardly a question to people for whom out of sight means out of mind.



Good news for humanity! Idiocy can be cured.

Just kidding. All recorded history shows there is no collective cure.

Common, unquestioned assumptions by smart idiots: Why humans feel obsessed to drive the train of progress off the cliff.......over and over.


1) Just because a person gets out of bed, they are wide awake. FIxed false beliefs and prejudice are no more real than dreams but are much more "scary". Thank God a person is passively lying in bed when sleeping and dreaming. No such luck with people trapped in false, fixed beliefs who get up and go about their day fully immersed in dreams without realizing it.

2) The belief in automatic linear progress, automatic (mechanical) evolution. Even though there are many examples of regression in recorded history, a smart idiot somehow believes that we are all too smart to duplicate the same mistakes because we have "evolved" so much..

3) The assumption that time is inherently linear. The belief that the modern scientist has "figured out" what time is and any recognition of cyclical time patterns are just old, primitive beliefs by "backward savages".

Rather interesting example of how little people actually know about time: The wikipedia description of time.

Major_Tom wrote:Since first posting on The 9/11 Forum, I thank my lucky stars that OWE has participated in discussions as much as he has.

Most kind, thank you. I've blocked the Chinese and Ukrainian spammers from membership as well.

He is one of the best examples of how to approach a complex problem more carefully.

This comes from uncertainty. Caution is mandatory. And you forgot to mention s-l-o-w-l-y. Only just started 2D. But I get what you're saying and appreciate the nod.

It is difficult to move beyond blocks, I must admit. I think 98% of what I've done so far is blocks, although if points are awarded based on numbers of blocks, I'm doing pretty well. Blocks are where a lot of us started, back in the pre-verbal days when things were much simpler.

Blocks and straight lines are always the easiest places to start, but some people take that for reality while I haven't seen you (OWE) do that.



The 2 central components of Blockhead science and thought:

Mr Straight line in his natural habitat, the cartesian ( straight line/block) coordinate system.




and his 2-D extension,




If these two ideas are applied to physics, linear time is born. Just change the variable "x" to "t" and Newtonian space-time is born.

Is it real? Einstein didn't think so but what does he know?

The smart idiot knows that Newtonian space-time exists as an orthonormal coordinate system because his physics teacher told him so and his Mother did not disagree.....

et voila, space-time is born! Tell him otherwise and he'll call you an idiot. Because the experts know best. (and Einstein could have been a pinko. Can't trust him.)

Is time linear and uni-directional?



Electron positron annhilation. How can that damn positron move backward in time?

Dirac used the time symmetries in the relativistic wave equation to predict anti-matter.

WikiGod describes anti-particles. From link:

"Feynman–Stueckelberg interpretation

By considering the propagation of the negative energy modes of the electron field backward in time, Ernst Stueckelberg reached a pictorial understanding of the fact that the particle and antiparticle have equal mass m and spin J but opposite charges q. This allowed him to rewrite perturbation theory precisely in the form of diagrams. Richard Feynman later gave an independent systematic derivation of these diagrams from a particle formalism, and they are now called Feynman diagrams. Each line of a diagram represents a particle propagating either backward or forward in time. This technique is the most widespread method of computing amplitudes in quantum field theory today."

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"But what do they know! What do Einstein, Dirac and Feynman know! Were they engineers?

What do all those quantum field theory guys know about time? Or space and movement? Go back to school and get some engineering degrees, Assholes!"

"You don't know models! Did you ever take a math class, stoopid twoofer??"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hold on there, little guy.

Just in case anyone thinks they know what an electron is, let us look at the most current non-relativistic "energy state" solutions for a 1-D harmonic oscillator.

What could be simpler than a little electron vibrating under the simplest of forces, no?



They don't look like little balls, so what are those things?

A: They have no direct physical meaning at all. They are called waves, but there is no analogy with anything you can visualize.

Why a red and a blue wave?

A: The red wave is the imaginary component of the wave. The blue is the real component.

What does it mean that the wave has no direct physical meaning and has an "imaginary component"?

A: It means the most current mathematical models for electrons are quite abstract, far beyond your ability to visualize in terms you can understand..

How does one test this abstract model for accuracy?

A: Through a limited number of observables.

Where is the freaking electron? Can you point to it?

A: No. The integral of the wave multiplied by its complex conjugate over any area of space determines the probablility of finding the electron within that space.

And that the best mathematical model for a tiny harmonic oscillator human beings have in 2011?

A: Yup. Afraid so.

An abstraction of an abstraction, but the damn thing works (for now):



where



and

The Dirac equation for a free electron travelling at relativistic speeds. Alpha and beta represent 4 4x4 matricies.


Now you have an electron represented by a single "wave" with 4 imaginary components and 4 real components. It is called a 4 component spinor.

>>>>>>>>>>

What is it?

I have no idea, nor does anyone. It is a highly abstract mathematical model that matches a very limited number of observables.

Can a simple electron travelling very fast be represented in a simpler way? No. This is the best human beings have been able to do as of 2011.

One little electron, the most fundamental of God's little particles, kicks Paul Dirac's ass.

Reader, that is only a single tiny electron. Just one all alone. The simplest of elementary particles needed one of the most talented mathematicians of the 20th century to describe it as a "wave smear".

An electron is a tricky little bastard, way beyond the capacity of Paul Dirac to understand. What chance would a blockhead have, even though he fashions himself as a "master of the universe" armed with Newtonian mechanics and a university degree?

Life beyond the block...

What is an electron?

A: Nobody knows or can know. An electron is currently represented by a 4 component spinor.

What is a spinor ?

WikiGod: spinor

You do not have to be a mathematician to get the point. A spinor is a highly abstract beast representing patterns that our minds do not have the capacity to visualize.

Who would have thought you would need such advanced intricate patterns to describe a single "particle"?

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Engineers as Masters of the Universe: Beachnut vs a single electron

Honestly now, which will emerge the winner? Beachnut doesn't have a chance in hell to model that thing. No blockhead could model such intricately abstract, highly irregular patterns.

From spinors it is just a hop, skip and a jump to the standard model of all fundamental particles and interactions.....

What are the most fundamental "particles" and which particles are composites?


Only 12 fundamental particles and 12 anti-particles exist according to the most current knowledge. The green and purple areas show the 12 particles:



The red boxes represent the 'force carriers" or "force mediators" between the particles, called electromagnetic, strong, and 2 weak force carriers.

6 quarks, 6 leptons and 4 force carriers and their anti-particles are the whole show.


Blue are the fundamental particles, Pink are the composite particles, yellow are the fundamental interactive forces:




How are these objects mathematically modelled? As 4 component spinors. How do they interact? According to patterns on Feynman diagrams.

...............

Beachnut tackling the standard model...



"Can we turn the spinors into little cubes and bounce them off of each other? Where do I put my cartesian coordinates?

I'm an engineer! This is easy.""

Wait! It's a bird....no, a plane....no, it's...




Master of the Physical Universe! He can solve anything.

Major_Tom wrote:WIthin all the passionate defense of block models, it is useful to ask ourelves, "What is physics?

How does one describe the time evolution of a complex system using a mathematical model?

In particular, how does one describe and model this system of movement:



Some suggestions from outside the block:

1) The moving systems are partially visible. Dust movement obscures the view of the global mass flow.

2) The question is: Can global mass flow be discerned from the information available?

The answer is "yes" and a visual reconstruction of the movement of uneven ROOSD collapse front propagation and the dropping of all 4 perimeter walls of both buildings is compiled in the
WTC Twin Towers Collapse Dynamics study.

Likewise a Single Wall Collapse Model and a
Global Perimeter Shedding Model is provided,

and the propagation of the collapse front was measured down the SW corner here

The earlier descriptions of the WTC1 and 2 collapse progressions were limited by 2 factors:

1) The massive amounts of dust blocking our abilities to directly observe mass flow.
2) Limited video and photographic record.


Due largely to participants of this forum, both of those limitations were overcome by 2010 and 2011.

For the first time all researchers, including those who have worked for the NIST during the investigations, can see a reconstructed visual mapping of each building which pretty much removes all doubt as to what the true collapse modes were.

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In any science, the first direct visual mapping of movement of an object being studied would be welcomed as a breakthrough. People would check the previous and current models of the object against the visual mapping to see if the models were correct or incorrect.

It would be quite natural to use the new observations to test the current models.


Surrogate realities: Models that just won't die!

Models of WTC1, 2 and 7 by both "debunkers" and "truthers" seem to take on a life of their own in a way I have never seen before in any science.

It is as if the models are not required to match any physical features or realities of the object being modelled. Like little Frankensteins escaped from the Laboratory, these models seem to live and breathe on their own with no real physical constraints.

Frankenstein model shown on the right. The actual object being studied is shown on the left:




In this case no dust obscures the view of the actual motion, so how anyone can justify using the model to represent the physical object being studied is beyond my ability to comprehend.

Unlike with WTC1 and 2, most every point along the outside of the building remains quite visible during motion. There is no dust to block our views. If the whole building is right in front of our noses, what possible excuse could any of us have for promoting the model as representative of the actual building?

Besides abject stupidity, what could our excuse be for confusing this model with the actual object?

Is there any similarity at all between model and the object being modelled?


Entonces??

How can a model substitute for the real thing?


4 examples of models used to describe events at the WTC complex that bear little resemblance to the physical object being modelled:

1) WTC7 shown above
2) WTC1 collapse initiation sequence described by the NIST
3) WTC2 collapse initiation sequence described by the NIST
4) WTC1, 2 collapse progression model by Bazant

When I have pointed this out at JREF I am insulted and told that I "don't know models". You see, I am a "twoofer" and therefore too "stoopid" to understand how physical objects are modelled.

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Consider quantum mechanics as a mathematical model of a complex physical system. As a theory, does quantum mechanics have to match all observables?

Or are some observables "good enough"? Is quantum mechanics "good enough" in the non-relativistic limits of particle motion, even though there are some observables it doesn't match?

Of course not. It must match all observables or it will be replaced by a better theory quickly.

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Remember, with quantum mechanics or the general theory of relativity, only one observable which doesn't match the predictions of the theory is enough to cause a stir in the scientific community.

In 2011, is the general theory of relativity considered to be "good enough" even though there are a few odd observables it does not match?

In astrophysics this would be considered a pretty stupid attitude.

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Consider the standard model. Is it "kind of close" to observables or "good enough" even though there are a few masses that don't match predictions here and there?

Of course not. It is accepted because it matches all observables, and if it couldn't match even a single observable, a new model would be proposed.

My experiences at JREF told as a parable of 3 scientists.....

We place an apple on a table and ask 3 scientists to make a list of as many of the apple's quantitative and qualitative features as possible. Each scientist formulates their own list. Similar features on all 3 lists are then combined. Points on which the scientists differ are debated until a consensus is reached.

What if one of the scientists claimed there was no apple on the table? Would a reasoned debate be possible in that atmosphere?

What if 2 scientists claim the apple is red while one insists it is blue? Does a reasoned debate seem possible in an atmosphere where such simple mistakes are considered acceptable and even encouraged?

A much deeper question must be addressed before logical debate is possible: Why can't one of the observers see the apple on the table? It is absurd to participate in a debate with the person that claims the apple doesn't exist.