The Elegant Universe

[Mnemosyne]

For the purpose of simplicity, I'll label the contents of this forum as "metaphysics".

Has anyone done research on quantum theory or string theory in the context of metaphysics?

I did some very high level research on it a few years ago and found it to be very fascinating. Nova has a great overview of the subject called The Elegant Universe, a three-hour miniseries you can watch from the web. From what I can tell, pretty much "anything goes" when it comes to string theory.

It's been a while since I've watched the Nova series so I may watch it again, but I'm wondering if anyone has investigated quantum/string theory and how it relates to metaphysics. If you're out there, please enlighten me!

[Mnemosyne]

I just realized that this post might be better off in the "Spirituality, Consciousness, & Awareness" forum. Maybe the moderator could move it for me?

[PhoenixOwl]

I've watched The Elegant Universe. The theory of relativity and string theory interests me.

String theory could be considered metaphysics by the extra dimentions that strings need in order to exist, and the other membranes, or 'unverses' that is predicted to exist if the string theory is correct. But for now, it's still only a theory, even if a very plausible one. ;D

[Jill]

I bought the book for my husband many years ago, and he really gets into it.

Way over my head though! I think he's watched some of that PBS show as well.

[Colin]

For anyone looking for a decent introduction to the craziness that is quantum physics, I found 'Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics' by Gary Zukav to be a good overview of the field.

I also think that 'The Holographic Universe' by Michael Talbot can be pretty thought provoking.

It can be quite enlightening to realise that all is not really as it seems.

[Lotus]

Obligatory Wikipedia link, for everyone who hasn't had the distinct pleasure of having his/her mind warped:
String Theory

For everyone who hasn't, do read the book; it provides more detail than the movie, but it will twist your head up in the same way. I'm insanely in love with all things quantum and astrophysical.

Mnemosyne,
What sort of metaphysics did you have in mind?
Prompt me, all I need is a soapbox and one or more minds to ping.

warning: BS alert (but tons of fun, and full of great current pop culture!):
You might be interested in knowing that The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster can provide theological background for Noodle Theory.

[Mnemosyne]

Lotus,

How about paranormal activities, psychic abilities, sixth sense... anything a true skeptic would quickly and easily dismiss.

[Calculusaurus]

Modern physics is misinterpreted quite often.

I still remember one of my "enlightened" humanities professor describing relativity and quantum mechanics. She would say stuff like "Einstein proved that everything is relative" then related it to philosophical or socialogical circumstance. But in reality, relativity is a physical theory that describes what happens to objects as they reach speeds a significant fraction of the speed of light. That's all. Period.

Quantum mechanics is another story. Sure, it's weird stuff, but people use it as an explanation for everything. If quantum mechanics opens the possibility of a billion true natures of reality, only one of which is right, then just because your new-agey idea of reality is one of those billion doesn't mean it's the right one.

Then string theory is particularly strange because it's almost an entirely useless theory to us. It's a theory, but it's unverifiable with our current technology, and many have argued that it has wasted the careers of some of today's brightest physicists. So really, not much can actually be said about string theory.

[Light]

I'm currently in the process of reading the book. I get relativity alright, but I don't quite understand quantum mechanics. However, the subject is very interesting to me.

[Kiba]

I don't get how science are related to spirituality, consciousness and awareness..

It is simply a scientific theory that explain how nature work. And scientific theory aren't necessary theory in everyday conversation. Some theory are the closest thing science can get to facts, which don't exist in science.

Science and spritiuality(and belief, consciouses) probably doesn't belong together together. They are two field that ask different questions.

[jdiddy]

@Mnemosyne

Yes, physics has fascinated me ever since I was a little kid, and finding content on metaphysics has only made me more certain that there's a concrete answer for all of this stuff out there somewhere. In fact I would absolutely love to find a group of people who are knowledgable about physics and open-minded about things that we typically don't think of as "scientific". The more I dig into this the more I'm convinced that there's an intersection out there somewhere where the two meet, and everything makes sense. Unfortunately, I haven't had a whole lot of luck finding people who are actually interested in both ends of the conversation. People who are interested in physics typically aren't interested in meta-physics, and posting to metaphysics boards seems to results in "it matters if you think it matters" type of responses, which isn't exactly the type of collaboration/help I'm looking for.

Anyway, with that, let me leave you with a post I wrote on another forum a while back that didn't get any intelligent responses, maybe you'll find it more interesting than they did.

*****************

First, what is your understanding of time, and could it be reversed?

I don't think there is such a thing, and I'd like to know what others think about it. To me, if you break it down, time is the way we think about and quantify change. But really time is simply the changing of atoms, strings, or whatever you call matter from one state to another. Even in a clock--the clock's matter is just changing to different locations to change the display or the position of the watch hands. Matter in one of the gears is simply pulled into another spot because it's attracted to others which are influenced by using stored potential energy from a battery or spring. We see the hands of the clock move, and percieve that as a second passing. Meanwhile, our matter has moved a little too, probably our eyes look at the clock while our heart is beating etc.

So really, time traveling back five minutes would just be a matter of changing all the matter in the universe back to the state it was in before it was in the state it is in now, by a certain amount, which we call five minutes.

According to what I understand, when we visualize and focus on something we put energy into it and it becomes more real. Supposedly if you shapechange into something and that becomes 99 or 100% of your reality, people would be able to see you as that thing and that would be more real than your human body. (Not sure if I have that right or not). So what if you spent all that shapechanging energy on a reality where everything is like it was 10 or 2000 years ago? Once that becomes more real that the present, wouldn't that be time travel?

Ok,now I have a question about death that's related to that. According to the theory of relativity, the faster you go, the slower time goes. Light is the fastest thing in the universe, and once you reach the speed of light, time ceases to exist and change stops. Everything breaks down at that point, and the physical rules don't apply any longer. Outside of time, outside of physical laws. And now scientists figured out they can slow light down by changing it (http://news.com.com/Slowing+the+spee...-5387842.html).

So basically when you cease to change, time stops. Isn't that also what happens when you die? We learn that light is pure energy in 4th grade now (http://www.iit.edu/~smile/ph9011.html). If our conciousness is pure energy that can't be destroyed, does that mean our conciousness is light then? When we die we turn into light? That sounds weird.

OR, do we just leave our bodies? Check this out: some scientists now believe that your conscious mind is composed of an electromagnetic field (http://unisci.com/stories/20022/0516026.htm). But if you think about, that would mean that our concious mind is actually a phsyical force, which we can actually measure as EEG. When we die, the EEG stops. The concious mind has left the building, nobody's driving any longer.

This actually makes more sense to me, because they've found that your EEG levels change in sleep. When your EEG is the lowest is when you're in REM sleep, which is also when dreams occur. That must mean that the electromagentic force that is our concious mind is actually somewhere else. And I'm just guessing on this part, if we are FULLY in the present, here and now and focused on this moment, EEG reading should shoot up and our electromagnetic force that is our concious mind would be able to use its full energy to control matter. Like, we should be able to charge batteries by directing energy into them and weird stuff like that.

So anyway, with that background in place (sorry about the long post), here are my questions: Do you think time travel is possible, what do you think happens at the point of death, and do you agree with that last paragraph?