Several characteristics mark phase transitions in systems and substances. Of interest in astrophysics are bifurcations, rapidly diverging trajectories (diffusion), basins of attraction and self-similarity across different scales. The two most important bifurcations, from the standpoint of structure and observation, are positive and negative charge, and space and matter. Rapidly diverging trajectories are displayed by galaxies red-shifted away from...Read More.
This paper analyzes the terrestrial phenomenon of ocean tides to provide a new understanding of gravity as compression gradient, which is an extension of Einstein’s geometrization of gravity in general relativity as space-time structure. The rotation and inclination of the earth are degenerate motions left over from the original spiral-like formation of the earth. Earth’s rotation... Read More.
This paper argues for revisions in notions of space and gravity toward unifying physics with solutions for the wave/particle duality, dark matter, and the cosmological constant. The argument proceeds conceptually by taking up symmetry, space, gravity, waveform and spectral light. A variational principle emerges that is capable of generating salient physical phenomena on all scales of the universe. Both specific predictions and a suggestion for deriving characteristics of light from other conditions result. Besides the philosophical importance of these issues, there are additional motivations for airing these considerations. First, it...Read More.
Since all the proven laws of both macro- and microphysics, whether deterministic orprobabilistic, and whether Newtonian or relativistic, are true simultaneously, there must be one law that binds them altogether. I propose here to explore this necessity conceptually, without recourse to mathematical formalism. Insight into the nature of physical reality eventually leads to appropriate mathematical...Read More.
Tung-kuo Tzu asked Chuang-tzu, “Where is that which you call Tao?” Chuang-tzu said, “Everywhere.” Tung-kuo said, “You must be more specific.” Chuang-tzu said, “It is in this ant.” “In what lower?” “In this grass.” “In anything still lower?” “It is in tiles.” “Is it in anything lower still?” Chuang-tzu said, “It is in ordure and urine.” Tung-kuo Tzu had nothing more to say. (Creel, H.G., “The Great Clod: A Taoist Conception of the Universe,” in Chow Tse-tsung (ed.), Wen-lin. Studies in the Chinese Humanities, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press (1968) 262-3)...
This essay explores power, information and complexity in relation to the origin of life on earth. The origin of life requires decomposition of energy into power and information because such decomposition is necessary for feedback. The articulation of the decomposition of energy into power and information permits a significant correction of Francis Bacon’s dictum, Knowledge is power, which is one of the conceptual foundations of modern linear, reductionist science. Knowledge is not power; rather, knowledge orients power. The difference that life makes is seen as a different way of using energy, such as solar radiation, that is available to everything on earth. The difference in use is a consequence of living matter forming within the constraints of earth’s surface, which is the envelope of life or the biosphere. Complexity theory is used to conceptualize life as a consequence of morphogenetic constraints. Specific conditions of the earth, such as distance from the sun, speed of rotation and revolution, speed and extent of axis inclination, solar radiation, terrestrial and lunar gravitation, presence of free oxygen and protective ozone, Coriolis force, and ubiquity of water and land, are constraints on the existence of anything on or near the earth’s surface. Taken together, these constraints situate life on earth as neither a miracle, a mystery nor an accident. Life is rather a consequence. When we consider life as a consequence of morphogenetic constraints in the biosphere, then selection appears as an emergent feedback property of life. Viewed in this way, there are no random beginnings in life (Holland (2) 147-8), there are never infinite degrees of freedom in morphogenesis, there are no tinkered together contraptions in life (Kauffman 637 (1993)), and there is no order for free (Waldrop 120-5). This view also allows...
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