With the exception of the first four videos - two for fun and two re Time and General Relativity the remaining videos are not arranged in any order except how you, the viewer, chose to view them.As always, my interest in the process-underpinnings of our cosmology necessitates first knowing about the universe we live in so that it may better inform the processes which live everywhere around us. For newbies, I'm referring to Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy and theology.R.E. SlaterOctober 19, 2021
REFERENCES
* * * * * * * *
BBC - How Big is Our Universe
November 11, 2021
How big is the universe ... compared with a grain of sand? 'You'll never get your head around how big the universe is,' warns astronomer Pete Edwards of the University of Durham in this film about measuring astronomical distances. 'There are as many stars in the universe as there are grains of sand on the Earth.' So how far is a light year? And supposing our galaxy were the size of a grain of sand, how big would the universe be?
What Triggered the Big Bang? | How the Universe Works
Mar 7, 2020
Science ChannelThe Big Bang is one of science's most famous theories, but we now know it wasn't big and it wasn't a bang.Stream Full Episodes of How the Universe Works:
Brian Greene Hosts: Reality Since Einstein
Jul 23, 2015
World Science FestivalIn celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's general theory of relativity, leaders from multiple fields of physics discuss its essential insights, its lingering questions, the latest work it has sparked, and the allied fields of research that have resulted.
Time Since Einstein
496,737 viewsSep 11, 2014
World Science FestivalAlbert Einstein shattered previous ideas about time, but left many pivotal questions unanswered: Does time have a beginning? An end? Why does it move in only one direction? Is it real, or something our minds impose on reality? Journalist John Hockenberry leads a distinguished panel, including renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose and prominent philosopher David Albert, as they explore the nature of time.
Quantum Fields:
The Real Building Blocks of the Universe - with David Tong
Feb 15, 2017
The Royal InstitutionAccording to our best theories of physics, the fundamental building blocks of matter are not particles, but continuous fluid-like substances known as 'quantum fields'. David Tong explains what we know about these fields, and how they fit into our understanding of the Universe.
The Matter Of Antimatter:
Answering The Cosmic Riddle Of Existence
Jun 6, 2018
World Science FestivalYou exist. You shouldn’t. Stars and galaxies and planets exist. They shouldn’t. The nascent universe contained equal parts matter and antimatter that should have instantly obliterated each other, turning the Big Bang into the Big Fizzle. And yet, here we are: flesh, blood, stars, moons, sky. Why? Come join us as we dive deep down the rabbit hole of solving the mystery of the missing antimatter.
A Thin Sheet of Reality: The Universe as a Hologram
Dec 29, 2014
World Science FestivalWhat we touch. What we smell. What we feel. They’re all part of our reality. But what if life as we know it reflects only one side of the full story? Some of the world’s leading physicists think that this may be the case. They believe that our reality is a projection—sort of like a hologram—of laws and processes that exist on a thin surface surrounding us at the edge of the universe. Although the notion seems outlandish, it’s a long-standing theory that initially emerged years ago from scientists studying black holes; recently, a breakthrough in string theory propelled the idea into the mainstream of physics. What took place was an intriguing discussion on the cutting-edge results that may just change the way we view reality.
The Limits of Understanding
Dec 14, 2014
World Science FestivalThis statement is false. Think about it, and it makes your head hurt. If it’s true, it’s false. If it’s false, it’s true. In 1931, Austrian logician Kurt Gödel shocked the worlds of mathematics and philosophy by establishing that such statements are far more than a quirky turn of language: he showed that there are mathematical truths which simply can’t be proven. In the decades since, thinkers have taken the brilliant Gödel’s result in a variety of directions–linking it to limits of human comprehension and the quest to recreate human thinking on a computer. This program explores Gödel’s discovery and examines the wider implications of his revolutionary finding. Participants include mathematician Gregory Chaitin, author Rebecca Goldstein, astrophysicist Mario Livio and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky.
* * * * * * * *
PHILOSOPHY / PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE / THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Whitehead’s Anti-Substantivilism, or
Process & Reality as a Cosmology to-be.
Thought-of-the-Day 39.0
JUNE 13, 2017 ALT-EXPLOIT
Treating “stuff” as some kind of metaphysical primitive is mere substantivilism – and fundamentally question-begging. One has replaced an extra-theoretic referent of the wave-function (unless one defers to some quasi-literalist reading of the nature of the stochastic amplitude function ζ[X(t)] as somehow characterizing something akin to being a “density of stuff”, and moreover the logic and probability (Born Rules) must ultimately be obtained from experimentally obtained scattering amplitudes) with something at least as equally mystifying, as the argument against decoherence goes on to show:
In other words, you have a state vector which gives rise to an outcome of a measurement and you cannot understand why this is so according to your theory.
As a response to Platonism, one can likewise read Process and Reality as essentially anti-substantivilist.
Consider, for instance:
Those elements of our experience which stand out clearly and distinctly [giving rise to our substantial intuitions] in our consciousness are not its basic facts, [but] they are . . . late derivatives in the concrescence of an experiencing subject. . . .Neglect of this law [implies that] . . . [e]xperience has been explained in a thoroughly topsy-turvy fashion, the wrong end first (161).
To function as an object is to be a determinant of the definiteness of an actual occurrence [occasion] (243).
The phenomenological ontology offered in Process and Reality is richly nuanced (including metaphysical primitives such as prehensions, occasions, and their respectively derivative notions such as causal efficacy, presentational immediacy, nexus, etc.). None of these suggest metaphysical notions of substance (i.e., independently existing subjects) as a primitive. The case can perhaps be made concerning the discussion of eternal objects, but such notions as discussed vis-à-vis the process of concrescence are obviously not metaphysically primitive notions. Certainly these metaphysical primitives conform in a more nuanced and articulated manner to aspects of process ontology. “Embedding” – as the notion of emergence is a crucial constituent in the information-theoretic, quantum-topological, and geometric accounts. Moreover, concerning the issue of relativistic covariance, it is to be regarded that Process and Reality is really a sketch of a cosmology-to-be . . . [in the spirit of ] Kant [who] built on the obsolete ideas of space, time, and matter of Euclid and Newton. Whitehead set out to suggest what a philosophical cosmology might be that builds beyond Newton [ala quantum physics].
 |
| Amazon Link |
One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.Whitehead’s master work in philsophy, Process and Reality propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality [are interwoven] into a consistent relation to each other. It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds.