Oscar Munoz

I wish I knew how to embed someone else's comments in my posts. Thanks, Eiuol.

The only "reductivism" I implied is tracing back the nervous system response to its source. For instance, when I CHOOSE to move my pinkie (for instance), the CHOICE does not lie in the pinkie. An electrical signal was sent to certain muscles to contract them, so that my pinkie moved. I then ask: why and where did this signal occurr? I can trace it back to a certain part of the brain, which initiated some electrochemical "switch" (to call it something; call it a gidgetwonker, if you want) that commanded the signal to be sent. This "switch' is "US." This switch is our minds, This switch is "YOU" saying "internally" somehow: Hey, I want my pinkie to move. It is volition, it is our minds, it is the CHOICE. However, all that is nice, but not enough for me. I want more, and of course, all the MORE that we learn will not contradict the settled philisophical issue of the fudamental laws of Objectivism. Do you get it? I hope so! So I am going to find out how the GIDGETWONKER works, and I am not afraid. I am not afraid that science will ruin the mystery of volition. Thinking that way is part of religious mysticism, not Objectivism.

Yes, there is no magic neuron cluster that corresponds to free will because then that magic neuron cluster would need to be explained. I agree. Seeing such an implication in my question is an ERROR. However, free will is a process IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD, and that is a very simple open statement that does not imply much at all, except that we can obtain insights into how volition works thru science. Wanting to see how volition (or better yet: more generally, how the mind) works implies that volition exists. Me asking the question was a CHOICE. Others answering the question is a CHOICE, etc. etc.

The life or death of free will does NOT hinge on scientific research, that is correct. My inquiry into looking for scientific literature on the subject WAS MY CHOICE; the people rsearching the issue CHOSE TO DO SO; and when we discover more, we can CHOOSE to do what we want with the information. Free Will is necessarily true and implied by everything I said. The philosophical issue IS CLOSED, I know! Hopefully, someone some day will post a link to the scientific literature where I can read up on the issue I brought up: "HOW" (not if) the voitional process of consciousness works. (OF COURSE, I am not looking for some final answer, but INSIGHTS.) Thinking that the answer (or the existence of the answer) will invalidate the initial premise is not justified. "Free will" does not have to remain a mystical, unkown, magical process in order to exist. For instance, I know that existence exists, but that does not mean we can't try to find out what exists.

Can someone point me to scientific literature (or an article by a science journalist) that talks about the beginning processes at the root of the Somatic Nervous System? Specifically, I am interested in finding out more on the scientific insights or discoveries on what in the brain triggers the electrical signals that go out thru the nervious system and then ultimately to the muscles? I am only interested in the VOLUNTARY nervous system: in otherwords, where the initial brain "switch" that begins the whole process is or can be activated by a self-conscious CHOICE. I am not insterested in any literature that discusses this from a philosophical perspective as such. I am interested in scientific theories and empirical research on this issue from a PHYSICAL MECHANISM point of view. thanks.

Hi, Stephen. I would love to see some of our correspondence. Maybe you can scan them in one day and email me some copies. Also, I did go to UCLA a couple of years, but I decided to go into business instead. I did once want to do theoretical research as a living, but seeing the so-called scientific culture at UCLA was too much to bear. UCLA was inspired me like waiting at the DMV without a reservation inspired me. Graduate work in Physics is too hard to not love the road you are on. So now I study Physics as a hobby.

Boydstun, hi. I wish I knew how to create hyperlinks and embed someone else's quotes in my post Sorry, but I don't remember you from the past. Can you help me remember? thanks

How does this fit in with General Relativity (GR), where the inertia of an object arises from its resistance to have its motion change from that of a geodesic in a Riemann space whose metric (tensor) is given by the gravitational field (tensor)? (1) The motion of an object can be represented by a changing set of 4 points or 4-vector V which, if the object is acted on only by gravity, forms a geodesic curve G (again, in a Riemann Space whose metric is equal to the gravitational field the object is acted on). (2) From the "strong" Principle of Equivalence, the object's weight/inertia arises because gravity acts on the object in such a way as to MAINTAIN the object on this geodesic G. In other words, an object on a geodesic will "want" to remain on the geodesic unless acted on by an external non-gravitational interaction. This is the GR version of Newton's 2nd Law. For example, when you lift a bowling ball, the ball will "resist" you, since it "wants" to travel on its geodesic: free fall straight down onto the wooden floor. And when you throw the balling ball and feel it resisting a forward acceleration, the ball will "resist" you, since the ball's geodesic does NOT involve it having any change in horizontal speed. If you free fall with the bowling ball and (1) try to have the bowling ball have the same vertical speed as the bowling alley floor, it will resist you, since relative to you, its geodesic is to have zero acceleration in all directions. and (2) if you try to push it parallel to the bowling alley floor, same thing. So mass and weight are the same thing: and both are caused because an object on a geodesic world line will stay on the geodesic world line ... unless acted upon by one of the other quantum fields (electroweak, strong, etc). Loosely speaking, gravity "forces" an object to have a geodesic trajectory in the Riemann 4-Space (or Riemann space-time) whose metric is described by the gravitation field contained in GR's field equations.

Check out: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/sci-tech/big-bang-theory-a-bust-scientist-claims-theres-something-out-there/story-fn5iztw3-1226393063285 Notice that in the Penrose theory, the idea is still accepted that all of existence took part in the big bang, although at least he accepts the "eternity" of space and time: the big bang did not start reality. It is a cyclical event in reality.

I think this sounds odd to me, for gravity to not be a force, because I've come across so many places where gravity is still referred to and treated as a force even while the curved spacetime idea of gravity is noted and treated as truth. I didn't realize there was any reason these were incompatible. Hmm . . . I think the more appropriate general tern is "interaction," thought if the word "force" is used, I really have no problem with that either. In the end, I believe in the general theory that gravity is an interaction involving field quanta, which we can call "gravitons." And that would not make sense at all if gravitational effects were purely a geometric effect and not dynamic at all. But I think that anyone who knows history pretty much understands that someday, the sooner the better, General Relativity will be improved upon.

Another angle >>> If, as Penrose states: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/nov/19/penrose-claims-to-have-glimpsed-universe-before-big-bang ... the current "universe" will condense again and re-ignite another big bang, the consider this: Why would the entirety of the universe be needed to create another big bang? Why not only 99% or 95% or 80? Why would the entire content of existence be perfectly balanced to INNFINITE PRECISION, such that only when that last infintely small speck of mass-energy was sucked into the singularity, would there be finally the explosion? Why not at 99.999999% and not at 100%? Why not at 1%? Why not one-trillionth of one percent? Why can't existence be so vast that our current big bang happened when only one-trillionth-to-the-trillionth-power of one percent of the totality of existence condensed enough to cause an explosion that would span 15 billion light years? I think "big bangs" are more common in the universe than we know, and they are inimately related to so-called "black holes." Why? The theory of black holes implies that everything that condenses will ultimately turn into a black hole. Perhaps what we see as a simple black hole, from the outside, looks like a Big Bang, from the inside. Who knows? I do know one thing: Today, we are just not exploring enough ideas critically. Most will be wrong, but reason and science will guide us.

Another comment about the galaxy cluster CL J1449+0856: (1) Cluster J1449+0856 has the maturity level of the neighboring Virgo Cluster, which is around 11 billion years old. (2) Yet its position as part of the "flying debris" of the big bang implies it is around 3 billion years old. Result (1) is based on current Galaxy Evolution Theory, whereas result (2) is based on the "Creationist" big bang theory: That is, everything came from the big bang, and there is nothing else. Gobat et al have only one suggestion: revise theory #1. I entertain the suggestion that one should consider the consequences of revising theory #2.

Here is another possible candidate for a galactic "object" that was not produced from "our Big bang, and this one is a galactic cluster: http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxy-cluster-universe-110309.html 12 billion light years away, and hence we are allegedly "seeing" it the way it was 2 billion years after its "birth day" when the big bang happened. Yet it looks 12 billion light years old. That is, assuming that our verified theory of galaxy formation is correct, the cluster CL J1449+0856 was not born on Big Bang day. Of course, the current "theory" is that current galaxy formation theory needs to be revised. But I am considering the alternate theory that cluster CL J1449+0856 was "born" from another different big bang not our own. I suggest that people scour the internet for other such galaxies, galaxy strings and clusters. I suspect that these suspiciously OLD formations exist in DROVES 14 billion light years out (and out and out), since that is the EDGE of our big bang "zone."

Here are 2 galaxies http://www.mpe.mpg.de/News/20111102/text.html which, if they are the product of our Big Bang, could only be 2 billion years old. The assumption that (1) these galaxies evolved thru their life times in accordance with standard models of galaxy formation and evolution, would (2) contradict that EVERYTHING in existence, including these galaxies, were produced from the big bang. So the Savaglio et al just assume that these galaxies (1) produced stars quicker than anything we now know at their earliest stages, and (2) stop doing so recently, since this is not happening any more. In other words, they are willing to consider the theory that their theories of galaxy evolution and formation are wrong, but they are not even thinking about the possibility that current galaxy evolution theory is correct, the galaxies are way TOO OLD to have formed from the Big bang, and hence our big bang is running into material from EXPANDING ADJACENT BIG BANG. Just a theory.

Jake, thank you very much for your stimulating thoughts. I disagree with your argument against my definition of beginning. My definition is a temporal definition, whereas you give a counter example for which the concept "begin" does not even have to be used. Number 1 is the lowest valued natural number. To say it "begins" the natural numbers is just a loose conversational statement. Also, even if you could give a self-consistent definition of the big bang as the beginning of existence (which I have never seen or heard, in my opinion), that would not mean that the specific scientific physical theory that uses the concept is supported by logic over-all or by empirical data, and I do not see any evidence that supports this current standard "CREATIONIST" interpretation of the big bang. I see lots of evidence of a really big explosion, around 15 billion light years in radius, but that is it. And logically, to say that the big bang was the first event is to say that Existence did not always exist. "Existence exists" has been and always will be true. Also, I truly expect that very soon, we will start to observe galactic structures that could only have existed BEFORE the big bang event. As a matter of fact, there are very good candidates now, like the Francis Filament, which is a string of galaxies that either evolved quicker than current laws predict ... Or this string existed long before the Big bang and hence did not take part in the explosion.