How do we know this is true: Matter can only be finitely arranged in a finite space.

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Tailspin, Oct 30, 2014.

  1. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think so. This sounds like more Plank mythology.
     
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  3. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    Mr. Spin, I took a brief look at your earlier post on the subject. I gather that your main focus is not so much to understand modern physics; but rather to know the limits of creativity. I understand your real question to be: Is there a finite limit on the number of thoughts that can be thought, songs that can be composed, books that can be written.

    Do I have that right? If so let me point out that we do not need to go to the forefront of modern physics to prove that there are only finitely many possible creative events in the universe. It's a very straightforward consequence of the fact that you have finitely many neurons in your brain, your lifespan is finite, only finitely many humans have ever existed, etc.

    You know how neurons work. An electrochemical signal goes down the nerve and gives off some chemicals into the synapse, the space between the transmitting end of one nerve and the receiving end of another.

    A thought, or a feeling, or an association, or an insight, is a set of related neuron firings in a part or parts of your nervous system, your brain and all the nerves in your body.

    Such a mind-event, let's call it -- a thought, feeling, etc. -- exists in a nonzero interval of time and involves a certain amount of electrochemical energy in the physical goo that makes up the brain.

    In your entire life, only finitely much electrochemical energy is going to flow through your brain. You can only have finitely many thoughts. If you could speed up time you could think all your thoughts in the next five minutes; but unless we give your brain *more energy to run on*, you can not have any more thoughts.

    This analysis applies to the human race in general; and to the universe in general, encompassing all possible thought-bearing entities. If the duration of the universe is finite, it has a maximum amount of energy in it. Only finitely many thoughts can be thought.

    Of course now someone's going to say, "Maybe the universe is infinite in duration and energy." Well maybe it is, but no modern theory of physics has that as an assumption or conclusion. I assume the duration and total amount of energy of the universe to be finite.

    To sum up: The question is whether creativity is limited by the total energy in the universe. Yes, it is. As long as a "thought" or mind-event is implemented (as it is in the human mind) as a physical process existing in time, having positive duration, and requiring a positive amount of energy; then a finite universe can only entertain finitely many mind-events. Once it composes all the sonnets in its bonnet, it's lights out.

    I hope I haven't managed to depress you even more. One of the posters in your other thread mentioned the quote about a block of stone already containing the sculpture, and that it's the sculptor's job to reveal it and bring it out.

    That's how I understand creativity to work. The novel is already typed on the sheaf of blank paper. The novelest's job is to type it. The letters and punctuation are already there, someone just has to choose the right ones. That's creativity. There is nothing new. Physics tells us matter/energy can be neither created nor destroyed. The total amount of energy in the universe is constant. It's got a fixed capacity for creativity.

    This post I wrote is nothing more than a finite string of symbols from a finite alphabet. In principle it could be generated by writing down all the strings "aaaaaaa...a", "aaaaaa...b" of a certain length, all the way up to "zzzz...z." A computer program to generate all possible forum posts of length 'N' would be trivially simple to write. If you ran the algorithm long enough, it would eventually generate my exact post.

    My creative contribution was to pick out one of these *potential* strings and actualize it into the physical universe. That's creativity. Making the potential real.

    Now get to work and dig YOUR sculptures out of those blocks of stone. That's all any of us can do.
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2014
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  5. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    This is a fine analysis, Layman.

    It has been pointed out that to break apart something on scale of Planck lengths would require a collider with an energy of 10^18 GeV. The folks who invented string theory knew this when they proposed the idea of strings. Hence, matter, if it exists, that is ordered on this scale could never be subject to experimental verification of any kind, including and especially any order that might exist at those scales. If such scales have vacuum energy fluctuations, which is likely, this is yet another reason why such arrangements are neither countable nor finite. Any such fluctuations start out with an infinite number of directions in which to propagate, and the numbers only get larger as couplings to other fluctuations and their directions and energies are taken into account.

    Matter as bound energy is dynamic. It is neither static, nor simple "countable states or arrangements" like the model proposed by Brian Greene.
     
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  7. Layman Totally Internally Reflected Valued Senior Member

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    I would be willing to bet any book for laymen that mentions the subject at your library will mention that it would take an infinite amount of energy to measure below the Planck Scale. If it is not true, then a lot of Ph.D.s that write books would be wrong. If you see the same thing written over and over in a lot of books, I think it would be safe to assume that it is true.
     
  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Sean Carroll 'Particle at the End of the Universe' is my source for the figure 10^18 GeV for probing (by breaking apart) the composition of strings on the Planck scale.

    Leon Lederman's earlier book on the God Particle cannot always be relied upon for collider energy calculations. Striking a match is not more energy than the output of the LHC, which is regularly dumped into multi ton graphite blocks after the beam is degraded every 10 hours of operation or thereabouts. It's enough energy to instantly melt a ton of copper, which is exactly what happened in the incident that destroyed about 20 30-ton dipole magnets when a liquid helium supply malfunctioned.
     
  9. Tailspin Registered Senior Member

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    danshawen, just to be clear, are you suggesting that this theory might not be ture? Becuase that would be great.
     
  10. Landau Roof Registered Senior Member

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    Duh! Have you ever packed your own suitcase or does your mummy do that for you?
     
  11. Tailspin Registered Senior Member

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    If you had read the OP clearly you would know that is not what we are disscusing.

    Can anyone tell me who came up with this theory in the first place? How old it is? How widely accepted it is?

    9 out of 10 people are 100% sure it's ture, what is they're reason for thinking that? Has it already been proven? If so, how did they do it?
     
  12. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    Mr. Spin, Did you read my reply to you above? It's easy to prove that there are only finitely many forum posts possible for any given length. Same thing for the number of possible novels, paintings, songs, or any other type of creative work. The idea about the finiteness of the number of possible states of a finite region of spacetime is essentially the same.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2014
  13. Tailspin Registered Senior Member

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    I took you post as a roundabout way of saying "You can only do so mutch before you die."

    Again, who came up with this? And why do most of the people on this site think it's true?
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    It is simple, if there is a finite set of something there can only be a finite number of combinations. The number of combinations will be unbelievable huge for the universe, but still finite.
     
  15. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    Even if you lived forever, you could only write finitely many novels of a million words or less. Once you had written them all you could not write a new one no matter how long you lived. Do you understand that? It's the key to understanding the argument that you're concerned about.
     
  16. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    If I lived forever and wrote novels of a million words or less, there would never be a finite number that could be claimed to have been written, as the writing is still continuing as long as I live, which is forever!
     
  17. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    Suppose your alphabet had 2 letters; and you were limited to writing 5 character novels. Then you could never write more than 32 distinct books. Surely you agree. The principle is exactly the same for any finite alphabet and finite book length. This is also the key to the OP's question, which is why (some claim) that there can only be finitely many distinct states of matter in any bounded region of space.
     
  18. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    Maybe you missed my point? If I write books forever, how many books did I write?
     
  19. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    At most L^N unique ones, where L is the number of elements in your alphabet and N is the maximum length of a book. The OP's concern is that you'd be forced to keep writing the same books over and over, which is true in this case.
     
  20. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong! I could still be writing the 1st book and not finished yet, forever. No books completed.
     
  21. someguy1 Registered Senior Member

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    I agree. But the OP is asking about the idea that there are only finitely many possible configurations of space in a bounded region. I'm explaining to him why that's so.
     
  22. Motor Daddy Valued Senior Member

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    I am explaining to you why you are wrong.

    A square of 1 square meter can be divided into 4 equal squares of .5m x .5m, 16 equal squares of .25m x .25m, 64 equal squares of .125m x .125m, ....

    The 1 meter square can be divided into an infinite amount of squares.
     
  23. Tailspin Registered Senior Member

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    Thank you for your reply but wouldn't the squares become so small that it would be impossible to tell the difference? That's where the Planck constant comes in.

    How do we know that there even is a finite set?
    When disscused this in another thread, one member said that this theory was proven and as certin as 2+2=4 by uising the pixels in a computer screen as an example. But the uiniverse is not an image on a screen. How can you say atoms and other particals are arranged like pixels.

    Yes there are only 26 letters and a book can't go on forever but is it impossible to create an infinate number of new letters?

    Everyone I've asked about this has stated that it's ture but have offered little explination why. Again, how do we know that matter can only be arranged finitly in a finite space. Who came up with it? How did he or she prove it? And why are so many people convinced?
     

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