#postulation

Could the programme get away with an entire episode

Engagement:

I object to the use of the term humankind. Mankind is to man as cat kind is to cats. We do not speak of queeneries. Humankind is to speak of Anglo-Saxon-man-kind and is far less inclusive, it is effectively to say Caucasian-kind and is difficult for other ethnicities to interact with[1]. Peoplekind is not used as people refers to the individual and not the type. Man as type, man as gender, man as dominion holder and man as the keeper.

Abstract:

I usually try and work with no presumptions. Ordinarily, that means nothing determines that the answer is some particular thing, but, equally, nothing means it cannot be. There is only what fits all of the data, and possibility. It is an interesting way to work.

One of the traps is to think that because some particular answer seems to fit the data that it will be the answer. It might be but, make no presumptions as there are always either other possibilities or, more to realise. In many ways it is like chipping away at a rock to find diamonds, exposing solid truth.

As I examine an idea I turn the facets of the idea in my mind and compare with known data to see how to my mind the idea seems to fit. If it is a good fit then factual comparisons with references, review of data, and actual computations are made to see if the way I hold the idea in my mind is consistent with measurable reality. With some practice, we become adept at making these comparisons.

Sometimes, weeks afterwards, after learning just one more fact, the entire results part of the conceptual model must be remade. If you can accept that as just a part of the process, then it is completely not frustrating but actually rewarding and you can easily move forward into the new conceptual model.

Climate-change discussions that I have been involved with pre-date discussions of the ozone layer. We were very fortunate to have a well connected secondary college, one that I now sadly miss as a government casualty, but one so adept at raising the brightest and the best. The early discussion considered changes in climate in terms of the possibility Sol was shining brighter than before or, that more solar output was somehow reaching the Earth than previously, that the interspacial conditions were changed. Consideration was given to the possible effects of deforestation. Nobody that I know of then foresaw the extent of the present glacial melt or, at least it was not spoken of. The important thing was that sound methodology was already looking at the measurables.

A postulation of climate:

It has been a learning process over a number of years to come into contact with various pieces of relevant information concerning the climate. Only more recently has media become involved with coverage stretching at times to near hyperbole, and with periods of a lull in coverage in between. At first public discussion via media, many of those who remember were spurred on by memories in the victory of ozone-depleting chemicals that whatever the issue we would resolve it but, as it happens for the issue of climate it is not that simple.

The Earth's atmosphere is a complex soup, many chemicals we give little thought to and have heard little of trickle into the atmosphere and yet play their part. Only a few are well known, such as methane and carbon-di-oxide, but their role in the broader ecology is for most people not well understood. There are vast reserves of both stored within Earth's habitat, deep underground and, under our glaciers and oceans. Therein lies a part of the problem as temperatures creep even part of a few degrees, that the climb in temperature and additional melt it causes releases more of the stored gasses, which in turn is inclined to result in further melts and further releases. It would seem that if climate cannot be reasonably maintained if not controlled, then the situation has disaster written all over it. That seems to be a summary of the position and direction of public education on climate change but, that is based on opinion. There is much more information available.

Other outcomes are equally, if not more possible. I intend in the next few paragraphs to deal in the realm of possibility and expect in the next few years some of what I write may well be shown to be outside the realm of possibility with new data. For the benefit of the reader to undertake a little self-research, I have deliberately limited myself to postulation with data and facts as I remember them. I have not yet taken my models to review and comparisons of references as discussed earlier, although I will do so shortly and suggest that you may also wish to do so. The purpose is to objectify that although the media disseminates information, it is often not responsible for the rhetoric it spruiks or for its own echo, and that there is a vast amount that we still do not understand about climate and what is likely to come. The news provided to the general public is largely unscientific.

Irreducibly, the pertinent decisions we as mankind must make are barely unaltered by climate change; it is simple to show that events only dictate the priority and order by which we must work, the timeline, and not what has to be accomplished. We must plant trees for the health of the Earth and, we must develop long-long-range off-planet habitation.

What may be:

Up until recently, I was unaware of a set of data compiled by NOAA (formerly NCDC) under the heading Glacial-Interglacial Cycle[2]. My previous personal outlook only provided views of the runaway climate model, or if we are able to intervene, as many years as possible of the climate we are much familiar with for the past thousands of years. There is a video on the internet describing a possible worst-case scenario[3]. Initially, my interest was piqued by a study in deforestation that shows, by estimate, we are short 50% of the arborage of Earth. Something like 3,000,000,000,000 trees since the close of the last ice-age, and it seems obvious that such a reduction is going to dramatically reduce the environmental coping mechanisms capacity for changes in atmospheric and solar conditions[4]. The specific accuracy of either the percentage of loss or actual count is of little importance provided we agree that they are estimates provided by some scientific process. Even if both the numbers for percentage loss and the actual count are overestimated by 75% it is still a significant number. I came across the additional NOAA data while searching for more references into tree numbers and deforestation, around the search term glaciation.

The picture provided by the Glacial-Interglacial Cycle, however, is vastly different to the runaway climate model but there are still causes for concern. What if the cycle relies upon additional greening from photosynthesis in the early stages of warming to somehow turnaround the warming cycle, possibly through additional cooling evaporation due to the abundance and colour intensity of the arborage? So that once the Earth begins to warm it flips a switch and cools significantly?

There are other possibilities to consider in processes that may, or could, take place here on Earth to result in cooling. The important thing is that it is not the first time we have approached what seems from our present view to be an unrecoverable warm, release, warm cycle, and so far, in each case, it is followed by remarkable cooling. What if it is so cold for such a sufficient period that we all freeze? We have all seen sprouts grow in a cupboard so we can be sure plants will still do some growing if there is sufficient warmth even without much light, but planning for building in mile-deep sliding snowdrifts, early soft glaciations, is not progressing. In fact, it is worth noting in passing that such conditions leave very little evidence of life or civiliation to remain so; by the time of a thaw, our great, great, great grandchildren, presuming that they survive, would possibly think that they started the world new.

There are other possible processes outside the local Earth environment that could play a part and this is part of the benefit of working with no presumptions and allowing the available data to dictate the model while working from possibility, so I will pose a long series of questions, and I suppose somebody will calculate eventually what the odds are.

We note that the Glacial-interglacial Cycle page provides a graph titled "Years before present (in thousands)" with the following blurb:

Solar radiation varies smoothly through time (top, orange line) with a strong cyclicity of ~23,000 years, as seen in this time series of July incoming solar radiation at 65°N (Berger and Loutre 1991). In contrast, glacial–interglacial cycles last ~100,000 years (middle, black line) and consist of stepwise cooling events followed by rapid warmings, as seen in this time series inferred from hydrogen isotopes in the Dome Fuji ice core from Antarctica (Kawamura et al. 2007). Atmospheric CO2 measured from bubbles in Dome Fuji ice (bottom, blue line) shows the same pattern as the temperature time series (Kawamura et al. 2007). Yellow columns indicate interglacial periods. Glacial-Interglacial Cycle (NOAA, n.d.)[2]

Altogether the graph appears very regular with set cyclic motions during even, regular time-spans. We can ask what events coincide with the notable events on the graph, suggesting that those preceding a given point may be the cause and those during up until the point of recovery may assist that the events continue. In the most recent cycle we cool, and cool, and cool, and cool, right up until approximately 10,000 years ago. We can say that in all probability we were inevitably involved 10,000 years ago but, what about the several occurrences previous to that? As to the causes, it may easily be celestial in nature even as it may be Eathly. Playing possibility, we observe that the output of Sol changes over time with its own cycles, why cannot it change more so, the 100-year average could easily rise and fall making the graph operate in accordance, but then we would wish to know what was its cause. A 100,000 year major cycle of the Sun reaching well below what we currently call solar-minimum makes some sense. Perhaps, even if for a year duration the Sun effectively went out by comparison with what we are used to? There would be possibly little archaeological record of that on Earth either in rock or in ice since the day-by-day states usually accumulate to make up averages in the record by depth.

We can observe the operation of a kerosine fridge, why is the Earth's atmosphere very much different? Turn the Sun out for a year, allow the Earth to chill and then turn the Sun back on. The Sun does not have to go all the way off, just reduce below what we consider the solar-minimum. The cooling heating means that the heating near the equator is likely more pronounced moving air currents higher where they cool more and provide additional cooling at the poles. The Sun going out restarting the blast chiller cycle on full. Technically if there is a way for the Sun to go out these things are easily foreseeable. Likewise, this could have happened in the past.

We could come up with all kinds of fancy theories as to how this may happen. A once every 100,000 years a super-highspeed galaxial comet that rushes past and snaps up the magnetic flux from the solar system disturbing the output of the Sun. A one every 50,000 years event that we experience first in one direction and then another, where we are largely shielded each second occurrence due to the polarity of the heliosheath. As it is presently, we cannot account for the cause of the cycles of Sol that we are observe and cannot determine then if there may not be additional solar confluences. Think in terms of harmonies and interaction, causing changes in the output and observable conditions of the Sun.

If some event on Earth, I propose that global wildfires or some volcanological event bring to a close the interglacial period, I cannot think of much else. It may be merely the prevalence of trees that bring the glacial period's opening. If a celestial event, either changes in the output of the Sun, possibly magnetically regulated, or changes in the local interspace conditions. Eventually, if you consider, the Sun both inside up to the surface, and again outside to the heliosheath, is not much different to a plasma ball. You change the excitement, you change the output, you change the medium, you change the permeation.

Conclusion:

Studies in harmony conclude that we should avoid doing anything with negative input into the equilibrium. This includes things that seem to be without direct negative consequences as the studies provide that a small thing can have strong and lasting consequences affecting many while seeming in itself and in observation in close quarters to affect nothing, such as cutting down a tree. If equilibrium is represented as a scale then as we observe close to the pointer arm further down closer to our present and personal situation there seems to be no noticeable effect for cutting down one tree, and as both sides of the scale arm move since it is a thickness wide there may even seem to be some positive effect noting in proximity to location and time, however, further up the arm and with the passage of time the pointer swerves wildly, the oceans churned and men are berayed. What if from that one tree came a new species necessary for the maintenance of climate, the habitation of far off worlds or an elixir of untold health and wisdom? People dismiss it is philosophy but, the butterfly effect is real, and I prefer to consider equilibrium and harmony than that. Also, do not allow a preference for equilibrium to make you weak, we are conquerors, we have dominion, we have a worthwhile purpose, we have much to accomplish and, we have responsibility.

Science data proves that the Glacial-Interglacial Cycle is something, and we postulate what it means and how it may conceivably operate.

-HRjJ

Bibliography:

This is a thesis written by Brian Whitworth of Massey University, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand. Only those familiar with computer science and information processing will understand this. But I’ve posted it because it backs the theory I’ve been talking about in a lot of ways, and I can make complete sense of it myself, so I know others have the intellect to do so too.

Here is a partial exempt from this riveting idea that the physical world is a virtual reality. Read at your own discretion.

“One of the mysteries of our world is how every photon of light, every electron and quark, and indeed every point of space itself, seems to just “know” what to do at each moment. The mystery is that these tiniest parts of the universe have no mechanisms or structures by which to make such “decisions.” Yet if the world is a virtual reality, this problem disappears. Other examples of how a VR approach could illuminate current physics issues include:

1. Virtual reality creation. A virtual reality usually arises from “nothing,” which matches how the big bang theory proposes our universe did arise (see next section).

2. Maximum processing rate. The maximum speed a pixel in a virtual reality game can cross a screen is limited by the processing capacity of the computer running it. In general, a virtual world’s maximum event rate is fixed by the allocated processing capacity. In our world, the fixed maximum that comes to mind is the speed of light. That there is an absolute maximum speed could reflect a maximum information processing rate (see next section).

3. Digital processing. If a world is virtual, everything in it must be digitized, and so discrete at the lowest level. Plank’s discovery that light is quantized (as photons) could then generalize not only to charge, spin and matter, but also to space-time. Discrete space-time avoids the mathematical infinities of continuous space-time, as loop quantum gravity theory argues [18].

4. Non-local effects. The processing that creates a virtual world is not limited by the space of that world, e.g. a CPU drawing a screen is no “further” from any one part of the screen than any other. All screen points are equidistant with respect to the CPU, so VR processor effects can ignore screen distance, i.e. be non-local. If our universe is a three-dimensional “screen” it’s processing is “equidistant” to all points in the universe, so the non-local collapse of the quantum wave function could be such an effect.

5. Processing load effects. On a distributed network, nodes with a high local workload will slow down, e.g. if a local server has many demands a video download may play slower than usual. Likewise a high matter concentration may constitute a high processing demand, so a massive body could slow down the information processing of space-time, causing space to “curve” and time to slow. Likewise, if faster movement requires more processing, speeds near light speed could affect space/time, causing time to “dilate” and space to extend. Relativity effects could then arise from local processing overloads.

6. Information conservation. If a system inputs no new information after it starts, it must also not lose the information it has or it will “run down”. Our universe has not run down after an inconceivable number of microscopic interactions over 14+ billion years, so if it is made of information it must conserve it. If matter, energy, charge, momentum and spin are all information, all the conservation laws could reduce to one. Einstein’s transformation of matter into energy (e=mc2 ) would then be simply information going from one form to another. The only conservation law VR theory requires is that of information conservation.

7. Algorithmic simplicity. If the world arises from finite information processing, it is necessary to keep frequent calculations simple. Indeed the core mathematical laws that describe our world are surprisingly simple: “The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and there is no rational explanation for it.” [28] In VR theory physical laws are simple because they must actually be calculated.

8. Choice creation. Information arises from a choice between options [29]. A mechanical or predictable choice is not really a choice in this sense. Einstein never accepted that quantum events were truly random, i.e. no prior world events could predict them. That a radioactive atom decays by pure chance, whenever “it decides” was to him unacceptable, as it was a physical event not predicted by another physical event. He argued that one day quantum random effects would be predicted by as yet unknown “hidden properties”. Yet if the source of quantum randomness is the VR processor, which is outside the physical world, this predicts that no hidden variables will ever be found.

9. Complementary uncertainty. In Newtonian mechanics one can know both the position and momentum of objects, but for quantum objects Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle means one cannot know both at once. Knowing one property with 100% certainty makes the other entirely uncertain. This is not measurement “noise”, but a property of reality, e.g. measuring particle position displaces its momentum information, and vice-versa. In a similar way virtual reality “screens” are typically only calculated when they are viewed, i.e. when an interaction occurs [12]. If complementary object properties use the same memory location, the object can appear as having either position or momentum, but not both at once.

10. Digital equivalence. Every digital symbol calculated by the same program is identical to every other, e.g. every “a” on this page identical to every other one because all arise from the same computer code. In computing terms, objects can be “instances” of a general class. Likewise every photon in the universe is exactly identical to every other photon, as is every electron, quark, etc. While the objects we see have individual properties, quantum objects like photons seem all pressed from identical moulds. VR theory suggests that this is so because each is created by the same digital calculation.

11. Digital transitions. When one views a digital animation it looks continuous, but in fact it is a series of state transitions, e.g. a movie is a series of still frames run together fast enough to look like a continuous event. Yet if the projector is slowed down, one sees a series of still pictures. Quantum mechanics describes quantum interactions in similar terms, as state transitions. These transitions could explain quantum tunneling, where an electron at A suddenly appears at C without moving through the intervening area B which is impenetrable to it. While this is strange for an objective reality, in VR theory all object movement would be expected to be by state transitions.

Individually none of the above short points is convincing, but taken together they constitute what a court might call circumstantial evidence, favoring virtual reality against objective reality. When coincidences mount up, they present a plausibility argument if not a proof. More powerful evidence is provided by cases which a VR theory explains easily but which OR approaches have great difficulty with.

Two such cases are now given in more detail:

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf“