Author Archives: Larry Franz

Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe by Lee Smolin

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The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin has written 4 books. I’ve read 3 1/2 of them.

His first book, The Life of the Cosmos, applied the theory of evolution to cosmology. Smolin suggested that our universe might be a good home for life because universes breed new universes, which differ somewhat from their parents. Over time, a universe with lots of black holes will generate a number of new universes with lots of black holes, and universes with lots of black holes tend to be hospitable for life, since their fundamental constants (like the strength of their subatomic forces) have values that permit life to evolve.

His next book, Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, was too technical for me, but I did finish his 3rd book, The Trouble With Physics. In that one, he argued that string theory is much too popular among physicists, since it isn’t a proper scientific theory. It’s too speculative and might never generate testable predictions.

Now there is Time Reborn. This is a kind of sequel to Smolin’s earlier books. He still subscribes to the evolutionary views presented in The Life of the Cosmos, but his principal thesis now is that time is real. In fact, time is more real than space. This contradicts the common view among physicists and philosophers that space and time are the four dimensions that make up “spacetime”. The standard view among physicists is that all events, whether past, present or future, are equally real. There is nothing special about the present moment. In fact, our perception that time passes is an illusion.

Smolin argues that this consensus view of the universe as a “block universe”, in which all moments are the same, is a mistake. He agrees that the laws of physics and the equations that express them can run forwards or backwards, but only on scales smaller than the universe as a whole. The planets could revolve the other way around the sun, just like clocks can run in reverse. But the universe as a whole has a history that is real and a future that isn’t determined. Smolin thinks that treating time as real might help resolve certain issues in physics, such as the “arrow of time”, i.e., the fact that certain processes always go in one direction (entropy tends to increase in isolated systems).

Professor Smolin tries to explain how his view of time fits with Einstein’s special theory of relativity (in which temporal properties are relative to an observer) and how something can act like a particle and a wave at the same time (as shown by the famous “double-slit” experiment). I don’t know if those explanations or some of his other technical explanations make sense. But it was reassuring to read a book by a reputable physicist who believes that time is real, physicists have overemphasized the importance of mathematics in understanding the universe, and there is a reality beyond what we can observe. Smolin also believes that there are probably more fundamental, deterministic laws that underlie quantum mechanics. I believe that’s what Einstein thought too.

Time Reborn veers into philosophy at times. There is much discussion of the Principles of Sufficient Reason and the Identity of Indiscernibles. The book concludes with some comments on subjects that aren’t physics, like the nature of consciousness. Smolin’s philosophical remarks are relatively unsophisticated. I assume his physics is better.

Even if he’s wrong about the reality of time, however, I enjoyed the book. For one thing, I can now see how two particles at opposite ends of the universe could be “entangled”, such that a change to one would automatically result in an immediate change to the other. Space might have more dimensions than we recognize. In another spatial dimension, the two entangled particles might be very close neighbors, making what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” (“spukhafte Fernwirkung“) less mysterious. That makes me feel a lot better.

If You Have Nothing To Hide

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Earlier this week, Reuters reported that certain information collected by the National Security Agency is shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency, allowing the DEA to arrest people on drug charges. Furthermore, in order to keep the source of the NSA information secret, the DEA commonly invents a “parallel construction”, i.e. an alternative history that can be presented as evidence in court. DEA agents claim that they discovered the subject criminal activity using ordinary methods, not information from the NSA.

That’s commonly called “lying” or “perjury”. 

From the Reuters article:

The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred. 

There hasn’t been much reaction to this story so far. But it does raise some interesting questions. For example, is the NSA sharing information with other government agencies? Are other agencies, not just the DEA, using the NSA to keep an eye on people they have an interest in, like supposed tax evaders, members of organized crime, political activists and troublesome journalists? 

More generally, how much government surveillance should be permitted in a democracy, especially one as flawed as ours?

(Not that there’s anything wrong with secret, widespread government surveillance. Whatever the government is doing is perfectly fine with me. Keep up the good work, guys! I’ve got nothing to hide, so no complaints here. You can trust me. Really! But you should check out those odd people across the street.) 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

What I Should Have Said

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Earlier tonight, I left a comment on someone’s blog. The topic of her post and my reply was wanting more friends. Here’s my comment:

When I was in my early 20s, I once told someone “I have no friends”. He questioned this and asked me if there was anyone I could borrow money from.

I could have borrowed money from him. But clearly we had different definitions of “friendship”.

As soon as I wrote that, I realized the last sentence wasn’t needed. Without that last sentence, my comment might have had a koan-like quality. I can’t change it now, but maybe I could ask the blog’s owner to strike that last sentence? And maybe do some more trimming:

I once told someone “I have no friends”. He asked me if there was anyone I could borrow money from.

I could have borrowed money from him.

Much cleaner. It’s probably greeting card-worthy.

But wait a minute! The point of your comment was to share a thought with someone who was feeling low. You thought you could give her a different perspective on making and keeping friends. That was the important thing, right? Stop worrying about how you said it. It’s not as if people are going to be reading these blog posts 1000 years from now, you neurotic jerk! In fact, you could have been even more explicit — talked about staying in touch with people you like, pointing out that having three very close friends is more than many people have, you know, that kind of thing.

Ok, I get your point. Sorry to make such a big deal about it. But just in case people are reading this stuff 1000 years from now, maybe I could tweak it a little? 

Is One of the Damn Things Enough?

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Back in the 70s, we bought a piece of art that’s still hanging on a bedroom wall. It’s a print by the photorealist painter Ralph Goings. I don’t think it’s one of his most popular works, but an image did make it onto the internet:

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Which I was reminded of by seeing some paintings by Gregory Thielker. For example:

And:

There is something wonderful about paintings that look photographic. In addition to their purely visual qualities, they are like magic tricks, successful illusions performed by a brilliant magician. 

Virginia Woolf is supposed to have said: “Art is not a copy of the real world; one of the damn things is enough.”

That’s an excellent point, but in this case, the “copies” are pretty good.

http://www.gregorythielker.com/index.html

Wondering About Fascism

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Observing the political scene, you might sometimes wonder whether America could ever turn into a fascist state. But aside from identifying Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany as its prime examples, not everyone agrees what fascism is.

In The Anatomy of Fascism, political scientist and historian Robert O. Paxton offers his answer. Published in 2004, it’s a book that’s worth reading. Here are some of his conclusions:

“The moment has come to give fascism a usable short handle, even though we know that it encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses a person.

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence, and without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

“The ideas that underlie fascist actions are best deduced from those actions, for some of them remain unstated and implicit in fascist public language. Many of them belong more to the realm of visceral feelings than to the realm of reasoned propositions:

  • A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
  • The primacy of the group … and the subordination of the individual to it;
  • The belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies, both internal and external;
  • The need for authority by natural chiefs … culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s historical destiny;
  • The superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;
  • The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group’s success
  • The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint … right being decided by the sole criterion of the group’s prowess within a Darwinian struggle.”

“Today a ‘politics of resentment’ rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same ‘internal enemies’ once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights. (But) the United States would have to suffer catastrophic setbacks and polarization for these fringe groups to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream….No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance….An American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy…. Its targets would be the First Amendment, separation of Church and State, … controls on gun ownership, desecrations of the flag, unassimilated minorities, artistic license, dissident and unusual behavior of all sorts that could be labeled antinational or decadent.

We can find … (the most) ominous warning signals in situations of political deadlock in the face of crisis, threatened conservatives looking for tougher allies, ready to give up due process and the rule of law, seeking mass support by nationalist and racialist demagoguery.”

Paxton repeatedly emphasizes that fascism has always arisen in response to the perceived failure of democratic systems to deal with some crisis or other, and that its ascension to power has always required the support of existing right-wing elites, such as leading politicians, senior military officers and wealthy individuals who see fascism as a counterweight to socialism or communism.

Given the historical record, it seems doubtful that America will one day adopt fascism as its political system. For one thing, Americans tend to be individualists, which conflicts with being good fascists. Secondly, despite what some right-wingers claim, there are remarkably few socialist tendencies in our politics for fascists to define themselves against. Furthermore, as Paxton points out, a government can become authoritarian (for example, by spying on everyone and locking people up without trials) without becoming fascist.

On the other hand, given a sufficiently serious crisis and a sufficiently charismatic demagogue, it could happen anywhere.