Deep thought with a Matrix twist

[Gaien]

The movie 'The Matrix' and it's sequels have spawned a great number of 'Brain-in-the-box' theories lately, but it seems that few have concidered how the machines achived their dominance over humankind. Perhaps they too are locked in their own 'matrix'. It would seem inevitable as we progress in technology that transcientience will someday emerge from distributed networks and post-genetic-algorithmic evolved transapient ecologies which will naturally learn how to utilize transfinite energy potential directly from the Chaos and electroplasmic metakinesis of the sub-Planck Quantum Aether underlining all being/action in the Cosmos itself. Anyone agree/disagree?

[Shalandra]

ummm....okie, both. lol, im sry G but i have no clue what you just said. but it sounds good

[Gaien]

I think that at some point machines, with an evolving system of neural nets and genetic agorithm based techniques, will develop ways of putting zero point energy to work.

Quantum physics predicts the existence of an underlying sea of zero-point energy at every point in the universe. This is different from the cosmic microwave background and is also referred to as the electromagnetic quantum vacuum since it is the lowest state of otherwise empty space. This energy is so enormous that most physicists believe that even though zero-point energy seems to be an inescapable consequence of elementary quantum theory, it cannot be physically real, and so is subtracted away in calculations.

A minority of physicists accept it as real energy which we cannot directly sense since it is the same everywhere, even inside our bodies and measuring devices. From this perspective, the ordinary world of matter and energy is like a foam atop the quantum vacuum sea. It does not matter to a ship how deep the ocean is below it. If the zero-point energy is real, there is the possibility that it can be tapped as a source of power or be harnassed to generate a propulsive force for space travel.

The propellor or the jet engine of an aircraft push air backwards to propel the aircraft forward. A ship or boat propellor does the same thing with water. On Earth there is always air or water available to push against. But a rocket in space has nothing to push against, and so it needs to carry propellant to eject in place of air or water. The fundamental problem is that a deep space rocket would have to start out with all the propellant it will ever need. This quickly results in the need to carry more and more propellant just to propel the propellant. The breakthrough one wishes for deep space travel is to overcome the need to carry propellant at all. How can one generate a propulsive force without carrying and ejecting propellant?

There is a force associated with the electromagnetic quantum vacuum: the Casimir force. This force is an attraction between parallel metallic plates that has now been well measured and can be attributed to a minutely tiny imbalance in the zero-point energy in the cavity between versus the region outside the plates. This is not useful for propulsion since it symmetrically pulls on the plates. However if some asymmetric variation of the Casimir force could be identified one could in effect sail through space as if propelled by a kind of quantum fluctuation wind. This is pure speculation.

The basis of zero-point energy is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, one of the fundamental laws of quantum physics. According to this principle, the more precisely one measures the position of a moving particle, such as an electron, the less exact the best possible measurement of momentum (mass times velocity) will be, and vice versa. The least possible uncertainty of position times momentum is specified by Planck's constant, h. A parallel uncertainty exists between measurements involving time and energy. This minimum uncertainty is not due to any correctable flaws in measurement, but rather reflects an intrinsic quantum fuzziness in the very nature of energy and matter.

A useful calculational tool in physics is the ideal harmonic oscillator: a hypothetical mass on a perfect spring moving back and forth. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle dictates that such an ideal harmonic oscillator -- one small enough to be subject to quantum laws -- can never come entirely to rest, since that would be a state of exactly zero energy, which is forbidden. In this case the average minimum energy is one-half h times the frequency, hf/2.

Radio waves, light, X-rays, and gamma rays are all forms of electromagnetic radiation. Classically, electromagnetic radiation can be pictured as waves flowing through space at the speed of light. The waves are not waves of anything substantive, but are in fact ripples in a state of a field. These waves do carry energy, and each wave has a specific direction, frequency and polarization state. This is called a "propagating mode of the electromagnetic field."

Each mode is subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. To understand the meaning of this, the theory of electromagnetic radiation is quantized by treating each mode as an equivalent harmonic oscillator. From this analogy, every mode of the field must have hf/2 as its average minimum energy. That is a tiny amount of energy, but the number of modes is enormous, and indeed increases as the square of the frequency. The product of the tiny energy per mode times the huge spatial density of modes yields a very high theoretical energy density per cubic centimeter.

From this line of reasoning, quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations (also called the zero-point field) creating a universal sea of zero-point energy. The density of this energy depends critically on where in frequency the zero-point fluctuations cease. Since space itself is thought to break up into a kind of quantum foam at a tiny distance scale called the Planck scale (10^-33 cm), it is argued that the zero point fluctuations must cease at a corresponding Planck frequency (10⁴³ Hz). If that is the case, the zero-point energy density would be 110 orders of magnitude greater than the radiant energy at the center of the Sun.

I think that what we call reality is not truely real, but I'll try to explain it using loop quantum gravity. In LQG even space, time and the laws of physics are created at the planck scale by a 4dimensional (or x-dimensional; it works for multiverses as well) "web" called SPIN-NETWORK. So reality itself (at least what most people mean when talking about reality) is produced by something and therefore not absolute. The states of single spins create the basic space-time structure and basic particles. These basic structures (superstrings, branes, bosons, gluons, fermions ect...) work according to the laws of physics (which are descirbed by the "source code" of the spin network).

Now we come to the "cosmic computation":
If we imagine single spins as logic elements (like NAND gates ect. ;not meant literally because we talk about quantum phenomenons), they do the same thing as a computer which creates a simulation (or any program) out of the states of the of logic elements it contains. Since the spin network creates space and time, it exists beyond them. It can be described as 4-dimensional but with other qualities than "our" dimensions.

We will probably arrive at this level of reality sooner or later and our planck-teched descendants will be capable of rewriting the "source code" of the universe (also known as "reality engineering"). A planck tech entity will also have the ability to step into the multiverse. But what will it find there?

Most probably multiverses are created by some kind of sub-planck super-spin-network (perhaps 5-dimensional in a 5-dimensional multiverse ect....). But then even "our" spin network is a simulation by the multiversal spin network, which is the simulation of an even greater multiversal spin network ect.

Perhaps the only real thing existing at all is an infinite dimensional spin network creating an infinite omniverse.

So perhaps we will spend eternity digging in increasingly small, complex and strange levels of multiversal un-reality.

Welcome to the matrix in the matrix in the matrix... ad infinitum!

Does that help make more sense?

[chevonne]

yeppers, now i gotta think bout it for abit

[Zugarok]

just back to the point of the propellants....I would think that through the use of future nano technology...we would be able to harness the kinetic energy of the movement of the universe or at least the far flung gravitational energy being sucked into black holes beyond the event horizons...unfortunately I do not have a huge science background...but I would think that this would be the only way to navigate interstellar travel...that I could think of anyhow.


Now if only Star Wars would quit having the space ships make sound in space...and making it appear that everyone is moving faster than the speed of light...or you wouldn't see beginning and ends to the blaster blasts! Dammit...and how do they make the light end...at the end of their light sabre's must be a force thing....lol sorry now back to a very serious scientofic thread.

Chevonne I suggest you read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking if you haven't already...he does a pretty good job of simplifying complex scientifics for the normal (non Gaien) type folks.

[Phelan]

zug there are multiple ideas for space travel via many different propellants that make travel to the edge of our solar system and back possible in ones life time. I wish I had the article to quote it all. It makes travel to even another solar system possible, the problem is it is all hypothetical. NASA won't try anything hypothetical, in fact they have a standing rule that a technology has to be a min of ten years old to impliment it into their spacecraft.

Another thing that was left out of Gaiens article was that there is only a small minority of Physisist that by into the whole zero point field engery idea.

there are several theories that are backed by small minorities of credible scientists. I am not commentign on Gaiens article further till I can do a bit of research into the idea, I only have a few quantum physics books here, so I need to go find more of them.

Phel

[hakiko]

I would suggest even before reading A Brief History of Time reading Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Some of the things in that theory have begun to fall out of favor (superstrings). However this theory does have a lot of good points to it as well. Superstrings will probably not wind up being the unified theory answer for mathematical reasons involving the number of spatial dimensions (no need to go into that). However they can be very useful in envisioning whats going on.

We still teach Newton in school even though relativity produces a more correct answer, but it is very hard to understand Einstein unless you understand Newton (who makes the wrong assumotion of a preferred reference frame). In the same way books on string theory or Penrose's twistor theory are very useful in wading through the newer stuff.

An interesting note about the Planck length described above. There is a theory that only your absolute difference from the Planck length matters. So that we would be unable to determine if something was smaller than the Planck length or larger than it. The universe could collapse and expand about this length and to the people living in it it would appear to be expanding if its size was moving away from the Planck length and contracting if its size was moving towards the Planck length.

Any way there is a lot of cool stuff to think about and there are as many theories at this point as there are major universities with physics programs.

Some recommended books for the non-physics, math, engineering major:

A Brief History of Time
Elegent Universe
6 Easy Pieces
6 Not so Easy Pieces
Empires of Time (shows how relativity sprang from the need to establish longitude lines)
The Emperor's New Mind (if you want to really know how a computer works)

[hakiko]

One more theory:

An old woman once stated that all of this was silly because the world sits on the back of a giant turtle.

When asked what the turtle walked on she replied: It's turtles all the way down.