Chapter 59: Measurement of Concepts, the Relativity Paradox Explained and Why our Health has Not Improved Over the Last 165 Years
Abstract: concepts can be measured in a number of ways and used to explain such disparate subjects such as the Michelson-Morley experiment paradox which is one of the assumptions behind relativity, the fact that our longevity has not increased in the last 165 years and setting the stage to investigate the causes of modern ‘diseases’.
I believe that the ‘determination shown by life-forms evolved a reality from the possibility of existence’, as I have said before, and that space-time is different in our world (O) and the universe (P) because we evolved to use speed and distance to evade predators, probably in the Cambrian because multi-celled organisms evolved to become large enough to be able to use lensed eyes. Prior to that, a predator had to literally ‘bump into’ a prey and the improved eyesight required a brain that could record the vast amount of information that the eyes could see and construct a continuous and seamless reality with it, as well as decision making and consciousness.
The ‘fifth dimension’ of a probability space is that the sum of every point in that space must sum to 1, and this suggests that the Conservation of Energy is a ‘fact’ and not supposition or a ‘Law’, however, as pointed out before, energy and matter are two ‘states’ of the same thing and Einstein’s equation that E = mc2 is actually the identity energy = mass and the c squared is to make the dimensions correct. In other words, mass and energy are two forms of the same thing that can change from one form to the other, like water and ice, and must be conserved because they are (essentially) the same. If they weren’t the same, or essentially the same, after fourteen billion years the universe would have ‘run down’.
Gravity is something that has to act within our space for us to exist, as was mentioned before, and gravity leads to potential energy, so all energy can be considered as matter and potential energy. Matter is ‘fixed’ in the form of particles, but photons (and kinetic energy of the particles) are infinitely variable as they move throughout the universe and their energy (colour/frequency/speed) changes to keep the sum of energy in the universe at 1.
Also, a probability space must have a relationship between every point, so that the total sum is 1, and I call that ‘entanglement’, and I have used the relationship of mathematics-of-concepts/entanglement/measurement (CEM) to describe, as much as I can, the relation between two points and thus every point in the space. Notice that I said ‘between two points’ because the mathematical relationship can only be between two points at a minimum. It might be clearer to say that for two points a and b, a+b=1, and that means that we have one equation with two unknowns, and that means that we always need to make a comparison and that there are no absolutes.
In the previous chapter 58: An ‘Instant Cure’ for Depression, a ‘Do It Yourself’ Personality Change and the Armageddon Corner, vitality and happiness were set up as ‘opposites’ to depression and that gave us two points and thus we could make a measurement of the severity of the depression. In other words, we need two points at least, to make a measurement and that is shown by the fact there is a standard metre as a reference in France, and that is the reference that we use every time we measure something, because it ‘stands behind’ every ruler or tape measure.
There is the (apparent) anomaly or paradox that two observers moving at a constant speed relative to each other measure the speed of light to be the same to each of them. ‘2 The speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or of the motion of the light source.The resultant theory copes with experiment better than classical mechanics. For instance, postulate 2 explains the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment.’ (Wikipedia, Theory of Relativity, Special Relativity) I should point out that ‘postulate 2 explains the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment’ is incorrect because the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment, were so paradoxial that they suggested the postulate and consequently, the theory.
Intuitively, we think that one observer should see the speed of light to be different because of the motion of their frames of reference. There appears to be a paradox because we have added a complication of trying to measure world P (the universe) in terms of (our) world O units. Our O world evolved units such as speed and distance because we needed them to survive in a predator/prey reality, but the world P is a simple place of CEM.
Space-time is our creation along with the evolutionary iteration/mind, and if we want to mix O and P, we have to use our mind with CEM. When we consider the photon, it is a concept that is entangled and indeterminant and does not exist to us until it is measured and P is a ‘simple’ space and we should interact with it on a single measurement basis. The answer to the paradox should be, why shouldn’t the speed be the same because it is a measurement between the light and the observer, but the paradox is still there because the observers are moving relative to each other!
The answer above is correct, but it is still unbelievable, at least to me! We have simplified the problem but can’t separate the two observers. We are use to the complex system that we have evolved as predator/prey and have ‘invented’ a time interval that leads to speed of attack as our margin of safety. A probability space contains three space dimensions, time passing and the sum of all points equal to 1, and so, only supports relations of the kind a+b=1, and if a light source a is measured by two observers b and c, then a+b=1 and a+c=1, then b=c! This is saying that the two observers are equivalent and there is no way to tell them apart in our simple universe.
In chapter 27: Existence, Reality and the Effect on Fundamental Physics, it was suggested that at the Big Bang, energy created time and when particles formed (after so-called inflation) space was created. Photons have no rest mass, but contain energy and it was suggested that the same mechanism that created the Big Bang occurs in a photon. Pure energy creates time and the particle nature creates space and the photon moves into it. Thus the speed of the photon is that required for us to exist and for the universe to support us, remembering that we ‘evolved reality out of the possibility of existence’, in my opinion. The point is that the photon has a speed independent of everything (in a vacuum) as found by the Michelson-Morley experiment. My simple theory can be extended in the following way.
The Special Theory of Relativity is valid because it is the relativity between two observers, using the assumption, as indicated by the Michelson-Morley experiment that the speed of light is the same when measured by two observers moving relatively to each other at constant velocity. From above, a+b=1 indicates ‘relativity’ between the observer and the photon and not between two observers. The other relation, b=c indicates that the two observers are equivalent and the above was to expand this thought. This statement that ‘the two observers are equivalent’ underlies the Michelson-Morley experiment and presents us with the paradox that the speed of light is the same, even when the observers are moving relative to each other.
I’m particularly interested in CEM, the ‘fifth’ dimension, and the effect of the ‘simple’ probability space. To me, there has always been a paradox in the supposition that the speed of light is the same for two observers moving relative to each other and now it can be resolved! I am going to take b=c one step further and say that it says that constant speed or even accelerated frames of reference are allowed. This takes us into the realm of General Relativity! The explanation is measurement and measurement is not in space-time, but it is in CEM (mathematics-of-concepts/entanglement/measurement).
I believe that: the Mathematics of the Mind is built on the basis/concepts of the mathematics of concepts, which is completely general, and the concepts form ‘pillars’ with entanglement linking them, allowing measurement. It was shown previously that a ‘decision’ could be made using (space-time) portions of the mind/brain, and it should be realized that the Rule of Life says that it will be done, if it can be done, because of the huge number of generations throughout evolution, and we can (and do) make decisions!
Logic is like mathematics and consists of measurement AND decision-making, and this should be kept in mind. The logic is simply that the photon(s) is moving through space changing colour/frequency/energy as it moves through the universe in response to its potential energy (with respect to every other particle in the universe), and its speed is measured. At that instant, both photon and observer are at rest and the speed/acceleration of the observer is irrelevant and this is a world P measurement albeit in world O terms or units. This simple explanation is true for any number of observers, but the relativity of two or more observers is world O and requires a Lorentz transformation between them. In other words, their velocity and/or acceleration requires a time interval in terms of world O, but world P only contains time passing, and not a time interval, so velocity and acceleration are zero at the instant of measurement. It was discussed previously that force and acceleration are world O units, whereas impulse is world P.
It should be noted that a ‘proof’ of this ‘paradox’ has been give earlier based on logic, but this approach through the properties of probability space is revealing and accentuates the interconnectedness of these concepts and strengthens the assertion that this is a useable and simple way to view our existence and reality through the three Laws of Life. Further, this interconnectedness leads us into the interesting question of how ‘modern’ ‘diseases’ have taken over from the diseases of 165 years ago, and how lack of measurement reveals how little that we understand our changing world, and this is considered below.
Another example using proverbs, that is leading us into the measurement of concepts in society, is the proverb ‘if you benefit, you can’t vote for it’ and this is used universally when voting is done, except in the elections to elect politicians! Firstly, the Mathematics of the Mind sets up the ‘opposite’ that ‘if you benefit, you can vote for it’ and the mind/brain makes a ‘value judgement’ and decides that the ‘correct’ answer is that ‘if you benefit, you cannot vote for it’, and this decision is made because to allow it, would be unfair/absurd/rip-off and against commonsense, except that our government allows welfare recipients to vote, and this was discussed in chapter 22: Magic, Proverbs, Politics and the Voting System and a proposal was put forward to decrease the ‘value’ of the vote of those seeking a ‘hand-out’.
I feel that more should be made of this ‘breakdown’ in logic. Why are politicians allowed to get away with such an abuse of logic? Perhaps their modus operandi is to tell people what they want to hear, but can we afford that type of behaviour in a modern world that has global problems. Perhaps we should start to try to remedy this state of affairs with a quotation from the previous chapter: ‘We are used to trial and error and the common sense approach, but science works by a much more formal process that leads often to counter-intuitive conclusions’ (The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize, Peter Doherty, p 26) This chapter, and the whole book is an attempt to use scientific methods on day-to-day concepts that the government should be better equipped to handle. In fact, it is hard to imagine the following scenario occurring over 165 years in the world’s super-power (of the time) without governments providing better direction, or appreciating what was happening.
The growth of the welfare system is ‘unmeasured’ because there is only one starting point, and that was about a hundred years ago when government-funded welfare started. Government is about concepts and yet it is not measuring them properly, and that is what started this book with the first chapter written (chapter 6: Dancing, Nutrition, Poker Machines, Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics) in response to politicians wanting to control poker machines to limit the damage that they can cause. The politicians in question did not succeed because they used a ‘poor’ method, in my opinion, and there are many other concepts that government uses, that do not stand up well to scrutiny
I doubt that it is possible to find anyone, anywhere, that would not agree that modern medicine has extended our lives greatly over the last 165 years by improvements in water quality, antibiotics, surgery, vaccinations, painkillers and anaesthetics and so on. Actually, this is untrue! Its all in the way that you measure, and we have all heard the proverb ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ where you can make anything that you wish to appeal to voters, appealing by the way that you present measurements. Notice that I have used the word ‘voters’ because we are trying to be scientific and a non-voter doesn’t get a vote and so has no input!
From above, we have been able to compare concepts by measurement when we have at least two, and we have seen that we are lost with just one unless we can set up an agreed ‘opposite’. Mathematics is a special case of the Mathematics of the Mind and, if we are careful, we can use mathematical quantities within the concepts to clarify, but it can lead to the ‘statistics’ in the proverb above, that rates this use as worse than ‘damned lies’. So, let’s look at the question of public health, as determined by longevity, and it so happens that the Mid-Victorians in Britain (1850 to 1880) lived as long as we do today, and this ‘fact’ allows insight into that which I have been calling ‘modern’ ‘diseases’. In this chapter, I will deal with the measurement that has led to the idea that our longevity (as a measure of health) has been increasing, and in subsequent chapters, the reasons for these ‘modern’ ‘diseases’ and how easy it is to overcome them, bearing in mind the negative effects of the antibest syndrome, determination and the death orgene.
In Mid-Victorian times, Britain’s ‘world-dominating empire were supported by a workforce, an army and a navy comprised of individuals who were healthier, fitter and stronger than we are today. They were almost entirely free of the degenerative diseases which maim and kill so many of us’ today. ‘The implications of the mid-Victorian story are far-reaching, because, unlike the paleolithic scenario, details of the mid-Victorian lifestyle and its impact on public health are extensively documented.’
I can only suggest that the magnitude of the effect of ‘modern’ ‘diseases’ on society has only been tolerated because society has not measured properly, and as will be shown, a measurement was taken at an unfortunate time and has led to complacency and a feeling that society was ‘on the right track’, when, actually, it was all going horribly wrong as shown in a paper: ‘How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died’ by Paul Clayton and Judith Rowbotham, from which I have extensively quoted. I have extensively quoted from it because it is ‘right on the money’ and there is little to add, except that it does not seem to have had the effect that it should have. I attribute this to the fact that specialists work in a specialist area and the ramifications need a ‘broader platform’, which I can hopefully supply as an uncommitted generalist owing nothing to anyone.
‘The decline was astonishingly rapid. The mid-Victorian navvies, who as seasonal workers were towards the bottom end of the economic scale, could routinely shovel up to 20 tons of earth per day from below their feet to above their heads. This was an enormous physical effort that required great strength, stamina and robust good health. Within two generations, however, male health nationally had deteriorated to such an extent that in 1900, five out of 10 young men volunteering for the second Boer War had to be rejected because they were so undernourished. They were not starved, but had been consuming the wrong foods. This reality is underlined by considering army recruitment earlier. The recruiting sergeants had reported no such problems during previous high profile campaigns such as the Asante (1873–4) and Zulu (1877–8) Wars.’
‘The fall in nutritional standards between 1880 and 1900 was so marked that the generations were visibly and progressively shrinking. In 1883 the infantry were forced to lower the minimum height for recruits from 5ft 6 inches to 5ft 3 inches. This was because most new recruits were now coming from an urban background instead of the traditional rural background (the 1881 census showed that over three-quarters of the population now lived in towns and cities). Factors such as a lack of sunlight in urban slums (which led to rickets due to Vitamin D deficiency) had already reduced the height of young male volunteers. Lack of sunlight, however, could not have been the sole critical factor in the next height reduction, a mere 18 years later. By this time, clean air legislation had markedly improved urban sunlight levels; but unfortunately, the supposed ‘improvements’ in dietary intake resulting from imported foods had had time to take effect on the 16–18 year old cohort. It might be expected that the infantry would be able to raise the minimum height requirement back to 5ft. 6 inches. Instead, they were forced to reduce it still further, to a mere 5ft. British officers, who were from the middle and upper classes and not yet exposed to more than the occasional treats of canned produce, were far better fed in terms of their intake of fresh foods and were now on average a full head taller than their malnourished and sickly men.’
From above, the statement that ‘the Mid-Victorians in Britain (1850 to 1880) lived as long as we do today’ has changed to the statement that the minimum height in the British army had been reduced to ‘to a mere 5ft’, and further that the men were ‘malnourished and sickly’ by 1900! Something had gone horribly wrong and the problem was not recognised, but considering the quotation above, ‘we are used to trial and error and the common sense approach, but science works by a much more formal process that leads often to counter-intuitive conclusions’ and this will be shown because I am using a scientific mathematics of concepts.
‘In 1904, and as a direct result of the Boer disaster, the government set up the Committee on Physical Deterioration. Its report, emphasising the need to provide school meals for working class children, reinforced the idea that the urban working classes were not only malnourished at the start of the twentieth century but also (in an unjustified leap of the imagination, reinforced by folk memories of the ‘Hungry 40’s) that they had been so since the start of nineteenth century industrial urbanisation. This profound error of thought was incorporated into subsequent models of public health, and is distorting and damaging healthcare to this day.’
‘The crude average figures often used to depict the brevity of Victorian lives mislead because they include infant mortality, which was tragically high. If we strip out peri-natal mortality, however, and look at the life expectancy of those who survived the first five years, a very different picture emerges. Victorian contemporary sources reveal that life expectancy for adults in the mid-Victorian period was almost exactly what it is today.’
‘Given that modern pharmaceutical, surgical, anaesthetic, scanning and other diagnostic technologies were self-evidently unavailable to the mid-Victorians, their high life expectancy is very striking, and can only have been due to their health-promoting lifestyle’, and we will look at this lifestyle in subsequent chapters and contrast it to our modern lifestyle.
‘The contemporary anti-ageing movement whose protagonists use 1900 – a nadir in health and life expectancy trends – as their starting point to promote the idea of endlessly increasing life span’ are presenting a misrepresentation of the facts as I believe them to be.’ The above quotations have been pulled out of the cited paper to show how the general populus has been misled because of the poor use of concepts. As I am presenting, what I believe to be, a new, or perhaps I should say, revived (from pre-mathematics) method that I call the Mathematics of the Mind (a general mathematics of concepts) it does have a scientific base and may possibly produce some counter-intuitive claims.
The quotations above present the picture that our health and longevity have been increasing over the years, and clearly this is not true because the mid- Victorians lived as long as we do, after adjusting for infant mortality over the first 5 years. Health, as reflected in height, dropped to a low point around 1900 and has been climbing ever since to the level enjoyed by the Mid-Victorians. This change in standards reflects how little that we understand the inter-play of worldwide events that have occurred, and should have alerted us to being more able to control events that affect populations to the large extent cited above, however, I can only hope that this book may go some way to bringing this about.
Unless we measure concepts using the Mathematics of the Mind, we can’t control them and the above, and following chapters will point out that (without knowing it or controlling it), we have passed from a period when death was from infection to a time, now, when death is mainly from degenerative ‘diseases’ without the population living longer. There is so much that we can do to lengthen life and the enjoyment of life when we understand the forces that we have unleashed, and that is for subsequent chapters.
darrylpenney 