Origin of Species

On By Michael TolbertIn WritingLeave a comment

I am struck by the parallel between the current debate over the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the long-settled argument between Natural Selection vs. Design (hint: Natural Selection won). The arguments in favor of a lab leak vs. natural zoonotic origin seem to rely on the much discredited notion of “finely tuned” variants. For example, of the 35 combinations of arginine amino acid codes, SARS-CoV-2 contains the “rarest and least likely to be found” in nature. It is also the “most common” technique used in gain-of-function experiments by virologists.

Assessing the validity of these claims is not simply a function of the state of genomics and virology in general. The unstated assumption upon which the argument rests is a rather curious modern version of “look how complex and finely adapted the eye is in nature.” Nowhere is the powerful machinery of Natural Selection given its due. Curious, for dramatic variations in viruses, as we are repeatedly warned, emerge quite rapidly in timescales compared to, say, our own evolution. Even if a variant is rare, that is hardly an argument against Natural Selection. One could easily turn the argument around and conclude this variation proves its very fitness allowing the virus to make the jump to a new species. One might also say that its rarity is evidence of the novelty of zoonotic leaps.

But virologists surely know this. Why then would some give credence to arguments in favor of design over natural selection? Perhaps virologists have become quite enamored with their ability to augment and manipulate genetic material. God, whether in lab or in Heaven, begets a confidence in our ability to control nature.

I am skeptical of the lab leak theory as much of the speculation is based on wish fulfillment. Anecdotally, it seems to me that many proponents are not satisfied with the “accidental” part, and believe the virus was intentionally released. This raises the desired hope that “someone needs to be blamed and we found the culprit” rather than agonizing over the fact that we, the by-products of Natural Selection, are at the mercy of chance and happenstance.

Broken Links

On By Michael TolbertIn WritingLeave a comment

I don’t recall the Internet being such an unwieldy, unsatisfying experience as it is today. One would expect the promise of technology to disappoint from a technical point of view. It was too complex to solve, we need to work on simpler steps before we build something that big. That would be acceptable. It’s a big plane, it won’t be easy to get off the ground, etc.

But what do we do when the disappointment comes from the experience itself. I don’t fart around on the Internet anymore in search of the new or novel like I once did. Not for technical reasons but for the simple fact that it is too damn boring. The way we communicate to each other is insipid. Did you see Kimmel crush Cruz? No, why would I? Will Cruz slink away after said crushing? Does Kimmel get to move in Cruz’s house as an award for beating him with a more talented group of writers? Why would I care about something where nothing happens and nothing of consequence is the result? Is that not the definition of nothing? And is not the experience of nothing, less than nothing?

There are stories of consequence. But these are presented as intractable forms of negative partisanship. There’s a fatalism that exists on both the left and right. The true conspiracy is in support of the status quo. You’re supposed to be turned off. You’re supposed to not care.

Time and Entropy

On By Michael TolbertIn Science, WritingLeave a comment

The arrow of time is often explained in terms of entropy. The seemingly irreversibility of time is the result of our universe moving from a state of lower to higher entropy. This is easy enough to grasp. We are more likely to see the falling glass shatter into pieces than the shattered pieces coming together to form the glass.

I wonder, though, if time and entropy may have a deeper connection than this simplified version of our standard theory suggests. It’s a muddled picture in my mind, made less clear by a lack of mathematics. More like fragments of random observations. The simplistic image goes something like this: assume four dimensionless points (I refrain from describing these points as particles as that can lead to conceptual problems). Why only four? I wish to draw a square to make the geometry more straightforward, that’s all. These points don’t exist in spacetime. They do not fill anything or take up space. They have no connection to each other. They do not self-interact.

What do these points consist of then? A number, that is to say, they have an intrinsic or spin angular momentum. Because there is no connection, these isolated points have no inertia (Mach’s principle). There is no space between them because there is no connection field. So where do these points exist? They are not embedded in spacetime for the point of the exercise is to predict the very existence of spacetime emerging as a connecting field takes hold.

For simplicity sake, let us say that these points (and here, let us begin calling them Q-bits to liberate these points from our common association with particles) exist within a complex topological boundary where spacetime is unable to exist within the regime of a non-inertial connection. Space isn’t expanding “into” anything. Space remains fixed to its initial boundary conditions while the formation of a connection field gives rise to inertial forces that “project” or map out the space of a concrete geometry (in this case a square). The boundary conditions can be described through a scalar field mapped onto the complex space (the stress-energy tensor of general relativity). Conceptually, these connecting fields are identified through their so-called duality frames.

A complete muddle. So what drives these four Q-bits to converge and form a connecting field? What is the combination? Is it like a slot machine where a lever comes up with a random pattern – heart, diamond, cherry, lucky7 – no jackpot, no connecting field? Another random pull yields a new kind of pattern – say all four lucky7s – jackpot! A connecting field emerges. Why and how did this symmetry break? Perhaps the laws of quantum mechanics do not allow four Q-bits to share the same spin. Thus, a connection field entangles the Q-bits in order to conserve angular momentum through a more complex geometry of spacetime. No information transfer is needed across each point. Entanglement ensures the eternity of spacetime.

Time, in this sense, is flattened, pancaked, localized space. Time is a rebounding effect or echo as a state moves from lower to higher entropy and space itself expands. Space is non-localized time. Entropy is the well curve for any defined “closed” system along the world line/sheet/volume.

Speculation without an equation.

Entropy in such a picture would emerge from an intrinsic conservation of angular momentum. The state goes from simple order (lower entropy state) of four independent points to a more complex organization (higher entropy state) with a connecting field representing a value in each point of space.

But this is all a muddle, and being an amateur theoretical physicist in one’s spare time is not conducive to real discoveries. As a Philosopher, I enjoy the muddle. Somehow, in ways that are not always clear, a rogue suggestion or an obvious error can lead others to great breakthroughs. And we all share in some small way in these victories.

Ant-Man is Dead. Long Live Ant-Man!

On By Michael TolbertIn ScienceLeave a comment

Ordinarily, we think of heavier* things being bigger (larger) than lighter objects. In everyday life, that scale seems to hold. Humans are heavier than ants, the earth is heavier than humans, the sun is heavier than the earth. It’s a natural assumption because we imagine things are made up of composite materials (cells, atoms, electrons, protons). It is natural to think of larger things as being made out of constituent parts known as building blocks.

But the scale doesn’t always hold firm. Although we don’t ordinarily encounter such exceptions in our day to day life, they do exist. A neutron star, for example, is much smaller than the sun, and yet far more massive (a teaspoon of a neutron star would weigh 4 billion tons!). The proton is more than 1,800 times massive than the electron. Yet it is smaller than an electron. It turns out that this intuitive scale is merely a rule of thumb, not as an iron-clad law of nature

Wait did you say the proton is smaller than the electron? I don’t understand. Don’t we always see a big old proton surrounded by tiny electrons? What’s going on?

Individual particles are not the particles of our classical understanding. Quantum mechanics came along and radically upended our view of reality at subatomic scales. What we call particles are actually excitations of fields. The world is made up of fields, and particles arise out of the interaction of those fields. And what are fields made of? Fields are fields, that’s all, but mathematically they can be described as values at every point in space. Fields can come in all kinds of shapes and forms (spinnor fields, vector fields, scalar fields).  

At the quantum level, these fields are described by equations for the wavefunction. For every particle of energy of certain momentum, there is an associated frequency and wavelength. The wavefunction gives the probability of measuring a particle as proportional to the square of the magnitude of the particle’s wavelength (the Schrödinger equation obeying the uncertainty principle).

Given the wavelike nature of these fields, how can we describe a particle’s mass at the quantum level? The relationship between the properties of mass and physical constraints for a subatomic particle is described by its Compton wavelength. The Compton wavelength is given by the formula:

λ = ћ/mc

where ћ is the reduced Planck’s constant, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light. Setting h-bar and c equal to 1 (natural units), we can simplify the formula for the Compton wavelength as equal to 1/m. This also simplifies the underlying relationship between mass and wavelength. As mass goes up, the wavelength is smaller. When measured, you get the following results:

The Compton wavelength for an electron is 2 x 10-10 cm.

The Compton wavelength for a proton is 1 x 10-13 cm

Thus the Compton wavelength is shorter for a proton than an electron because the relationship is determined by 1 over the mass.

In quantum mechanics, heavier particles are smaller in some real sense. This has to do with energy scales (energy = mass correlation). The Compton wavelength determines the smallest size the wave function can be and still safely predict there is only one particle. Think of it as the smallest box we can squeeze a particle into and still stay within a 1-particle regime. Any smaller and energy levels would give rise to a greater number of particles.

In other words you can’t make things out of individual particles that are smaller than their Compton wavelength. There is a minimum size you can squeeze the wave function down to and still call it a single particle.

The idea that we can shrink bigger, heavier things via some miniaturizing device into smaller, lighter things (while fundamentally still being considered the same thing) isn’t just science fiction. It’s forbidden by the laws of physics and the rules of quantum mechanics. 😿😿

Sadly, this also means that Ant-Man will never be real!  You can’t shrink down a person by shrinking the individual atoms. Either you must remove individual particles (to keep the person light) or the person will have to become more massive (and thus not a very agile, deft, or effective superhero, more like a superhero that keeps falling through floors).

(*Mass of course is the true measure of the amount of stuff that goes into creating a thing. Weight is a function of gravity, hence we feel lighter in an elevator going down and heavier going up.)

To the Lighthouse

On By Michael TolbertIn WritingLeave a comment

Virginia Woolf believed her novel was one of her finest ever. As it turns out, it was also one of ours.

Does consciousness work like that? I suppose many view the random disparate thoughts as the true unstable ground upon which human interaction must be built, upon which we struggle in vain to barely discern and piece together what our neighbors, our friends, family, our enemies truly believe at any one moment in time in a hopeless attempt to patch together a stable, coherent landscape. Worse, for what do we ourselves truly believe from moment to moment? Inconsistent, contradictory feelings pull us first in that direction and then in another. Indeed, a great deal of human communication lies just below this surface of tumult. The struggle then is to find the light, a permanent ground upon which to mark our path and return home safely.

I take a reserved position towards my thoughts, neither investing them with any great symbolic meaning, nor bothered by the rambling, tumbling nature they sometimes possess. The struggle is not that we are cut off from one another, like atoms inside a molecule. The struggle is that we cannot be cut off, the impossibility of a thought that is not mitigated through human connectivity. Language asserts itself, superposes itself on thought. The true struggle is thought’s resistance to the rigid structure of language.

In light of this, there is always a good chance of having an evil thought because human existence is full of evil. A garbage thought for a garbage world. The struggle is to break free from the confines of malice, depression, self-doubt, pity, pathos – enough. Enlightenment? Yes, more of that please. But didn’t the Enlightenment program fail? Fail? It has barely begun.

Blue Lives Revisited

On By Michael TolbertIn Culture, PoliticsLeave a comment

Policing is a dangerous profession. There is a certain level of criminal behavior tolerated in the general public (under the banner and law of personal freedom – unlimited gun ownership, stand your ground, etc.) which compounds the uncertainty of any potential police encounter. Police are trained to control the situation but in America we allow too many unknowns to enter the equation. We fail the police in this respect. But we also fail them in another respect. We reduce enforcement to a subjective determination of the situation. In theory, this grants a police officer wider freedom of action. But in practice, this forces a greater level of tension to act rather than be acted upon. We fail the police by ignoring the level of psychological pressures this places on even the most mundane and routine situations.

In an earlier post, I refuted the whole Blue Lives Matter as a rhetorical device by bad actors who could care less about police lives and the stresses they endure and wished only to support unrestrained physical force against black people. Sadly, 1/6 proved this point. It was easy enough for those who proclaimed Blue Lives Matter to take a fire extinguisher and smash it on top of Officer Sicknick’s head. None of them respect the authority that policing represents as the embodiment of the rule of law.

The standard by which police reform should be measured, and the success by which it is to be judged, will be in how it better protects the lives and well-being of police officers and the general public.

The Gems I Lose

On By Michael TolbertIn WritingLeave a comment

I woke up this morning with a gem of an idea. It seemed I only needed to take up my pen (metaphorically, I type on my IPAD) and the gem would turn into a new piece of writing. But I am at the age now where any delay in conjuring up from memory that dreamlike apparition (coffee, dog licks, or a whizz) dooms the thought to extinction. I don’t even have a trail or a lead. I lost it and the only way I can find it again is to recreate the conditions of waking up out of a dream. I may get lucky and find it. Once or twice I have. I can soothe myself and imagine it couldn’t have been that good since I cannot recall. But there’s a disquietude to the thought, as if I imagine a hundred books lie just below the surface, ones I will never have the good fortune to read.

Mind from Matter

On By Michael TolbertIn Philosophy, ScienceLeave a comment

We don’t have the exact picture of how organic life evolved from matter. But if we take a step back, the basic contours seem apparent. It’s the entropic two step. Free energy allows simpler systems to organize in complex ways. Complexity emerges as the most efficient way to maximize free energy at the lowest possible energy state, a process known as dissipative adaptation. “An initially disordered collection of particles can adapt their configuration to form an arrangement that more efficiently absorbs energy from the environment, uses it to maintain or enhance orderly internal motion or structure.” And why the need to minimize energy expenditure? To resist the decay, the dissipation that entropy gives rise to. Lower entropy “localizes” while total entropy increases.

Locality arises out of this complexification. Or better still, locality is given a higher degree of privilege (probability) from a total number of arrangements of (quantum) states. A geometry (or something that can be called a geometrical object) emerges as a certain limiting case of this topology of thermodynamic interactions. The state of a system at any one point of localized measurement is therefore dependent upon its degrees of freedom within a complex system.

Consciousness likely arises as a specific case of a localized geometry of particles (atoms, molecules, etc. there is no need to specify constraints since we are talking in generalized terms).

To see this, consider 4 imaginary dimensionless objects, each with a separate (uncoordinated) spin. Each spin reflects a discrete angular momentum that is inherent in the object and not in reference to an external geometric shape or field such as phase space. It is not a matter of simply connecting the bits together into an organized pattern that forms a spin network via some a priori rules of combinations. It is not the spin network that alone gives rise to a localized geometry. Rather, it is that the connection gives rise to a entirely new set of thermodynamic interactions. You no longer have four bits, but a complex space or map of four bits. The whole is greater (in terms of complexity) than the sum of its parts.

Mind from matter then is no simple evolution. Consciousness does not arise merely by combining simpler atoms into larger and more complex arrangements. Rather, a complex system emerges over and above the constituent atoms allowing the law of natural selection to do its incessant work, yielding ever more startling and wondrous geometric shapes and patterns which consciousness is but one small, and perhaps not even the most fitting, result.

History Behind Us, Now Shut the Door

On By Michael TolbertIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Shut the door. Let go the pathology, the spell of constant fires burning. Time to pull up our sleeves and begin the hard work of putting fires out. Healing is forgetting. There will be enough time for history. I long ago learned that the spell was the glue that holds this broken man, this broken myth together. I shut the door on that a long time ago. It was always in my nature. I perfected the art of disenchantment long before the enchanters came on the scene. I could have waited them out another four years. I had strengthened my resolve for four more years. I am under no illusions they feel this is the end of enchantment. But we do not have to follow. Shut the door, there is a chill in the air and we need to rekindle a love of democracy, a retelling of republican virtue, that is, a faith that self-government is the highest expression of autonomy. We need not be not dragged down into their cauldron of spells. Power is ours once more. Use it wisely. Use it justly. But above all, use it.