Systemic Isolation

[AbruptSLR]

The linked reference, presented in the framework of Shape Dynamics present Newton's constant and the cosmological constant as a conjugate pair of dynamical variables:

Lee Smolin (30 December 2015), “Dynamics of the cosmological and Newton's constant”, Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 33, Number 2


http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/33/2/025011/meta


Abstract: “A modification of general relativity is presented in which Newton's constant, G, and the cosmological constant, Λ, become a conjugate pair of dynamical variables. These are functions of a global time, hence the theory is presented in the framework of shape dynamics, which trades many-fingered time for a local scale invariance and an overall reparametrization of the global time. As a result, due to the fact that these global dynamical variables are canonically conjugate, the field equations are consistent. The theory predicts a relationship with no free parameters between the rates of change of Newton's constant and the cosmological constant, in terms of the spatial average of the matter Lagrangian density.”

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article entitled: "Gravity may have chased light in the early universe", elaborates on my last two posts.  Further, in an evolving holographic universe, one would expect fundamental parameters to vary:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113797-gravity-may-have-chased-light-in-the-early-universe/

Extract: " What really excites Magueijo about the idea is that it makes a specific prediction about the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This radiation, which fills the universe, was created shortly after the big bang and contains a “fossilised” imprint of the conditions of the universe.
In Magueijo and Afshordi’s model, certain details about the CMB reflect the way the speed of light and the speed of gravity vary as the temperature of the universe changes. They found that there was an abrupt change at a certain point, when the ratio of the speeds of light and gravity rapidly went to infinity.
This fixes a value called the spectral index, which describes the initial density ripples in the universe, at 0.96478 – a value that can be checked against future measurements. The latest figure, reported by the CMB-mapping Planck satellite in 2015, place the spectral index at about 0.968, which is tantalisingly close.
If more data reveals a mismatch, the theory can be discarded. “That would be great – I won’t have to think about these theories again,” Magueijo says. “This whole class of theories in which the speed of light varies with respect to the speed of gravity will be ruled out.”
But no measurement will rule out inflation entirely, because it doesn’t make specific predictions. “There is a huge space of possible inflationary theories, which makes testing the basic idea very difficult,” says Peter Coles at Cardiff University, UK. “It’s like nailing jelly to the wall.”
That makes it all the more important to explore alternatives like varying light speeds, he adds.
John Webb of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has worked for many years on the idea that constants may vary, and is “very impressed” by Magueijo and Afshordi’s prediction. “A testable theory is a good theory,” he says.
The implications could be profound. Physicists have long known there is a mismatch in the way the universe operates on its smallest scales and at its highest energies, and have sought a theory of quantum gravity to unite them. If there is a good fit between Magueijo’s theory and observations, it could bridge this gap, adding to our understanding of the universe’s first moments.
“We have a model of the universe that embraces the idea there must be new physics at some point,” Magueijo says. “It’s complicated, obviously, but I think ultimately there will be a way of informing quantum gravity from this kind of cosmology.”"



See also:

http://qz.com/846498/the-speed-of-light-is-constant-physicists-plan-to-test-a-new-theory-that-questions-einsteins-assumptions/

[AbruptSLR]

Continuing with my recent theme of providing evidence that the holographic universe evolves; the linked reference Erik Velinde argues that not only is gravity an emergent property of the universe but also that mysterious particles of "dark matter" do not exist.  Instead the reference argues that the universe evolves cosmologically.

Erik Velinde (Nov 8, 2016), "Emergent Gravity and the Dark Universe"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.02269v2.pdf

Abstract: "Recent theoretical progress indicates that spacetime and gravity emerge together from the entanglement structure of an underlying microscopic theory. These ideas are best understood in Anti-de Sitter space, where they rely on the area law for entanglement entropy. The extension to de Sitter space requires taking into account the entropy and temperature associated with the cosmological horizon. Using insights from string theory, black hole physics and quantum information theory we argue that the positive dark energy leads to a thermal volume law contribution to the entropy that overtakes the area law precisely at the cosmological horizon. Due to the competition between area and volume law entanglement the microscopic de Sitter states do not thermalise at sub-Hubble scales: they exhibit memory effects in the form of an entropy displacement caused by matter. The emergent laws of gravity contain an additional `dark' gravitational force describing the `elastic' response due to the entropy displacement. We derive an estimate of the strength of this extra force in terms of the baryonic mass, Newton's constant and the Hubble acceleration scale a0 = cH0, and pro- vide evidence for the fact that this additional `dark gravity force' explains the observed phenomena in galaxies and clusters currently attributed to dark matter."

See also the linked article is entitled: "Remarkable New Theory Says There's No Gravity, No Dark Matter, and Einstein Was Wrong".

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/remarkable-new-theory-says-theres-no-gravity-no-dark-matter-and-einstein-was-wrong

Extract: "… Professor Erik Verlinde, an expert in string theory from the University of Amsterdam and the Delta Institute of Theoretical Physics, thinks that gravity is not a fundamental force of nature because it's not always there. Instead it’s “emergent” - coming into existence from changes in microscopic bits of information in the structure of spacetime.

Verlinde first articulated this groundbreaking theory in his 2010 paper, which took on the laws of Newton and argued that gravity is “an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies”.  He famously stated then that "gravity is an illusion," elaborating further that: "Well, of course gravity is not an illusion in the sense that we know that things fall. Most people, certainly in physics, think we can describe gravity perfectly adequately using Einstein’s General Relativity. But it now seems that we can also start from a microscopic formulation where there is no gravity to begin with, but you can derive it. This is called ‘emergence’."

[AbruptSLR]

When I started posting I did not fully comprehend just how serious our current situation had become; but after 10,000 posts (out of the current total of ~94,100 posts on the forum), I am beginning to get the picture.  Certainly, when I started posting here in 2012, I realized that it was serious enough to assume the moniker of "AbruptSLR" and so that 80 to 90% of my posts are on this general topic.

I thought about summarizing some of the key points from those 10,000 posts, but the range of topics seemed too unfocused, so instead I decided to repost the following four images that caught my eye:

The first image shows that using projections from recently identified paleo values for climate sensitivity, we may be on track to exceed a 7C raise above pre-industrial global mean temperature by 2100 (I note that as we are currently forcing Earth Systems at least ten to one hundred times faster than the evaluated paleo conditions, these effective climate sensitivity estimates may ESLD).  Certainly, having Donald Trump elected president of the USA increases the probability that anthropogenic radiative forcing will follow a BAU pathway for decades to come.

The second image shows DeConto's 2016 projections for WAIS contribution to sea level rise following either a scenario that keeps us below a 2C GMST raise and one that has us exceeding a 2.7C GMST raise this century (I note that DeConto did not consider high climate sensitivity).

The third image shows Hansen's projections of changes in both global surface air temperature anomalies and changes in global energy imbalance for a relatively high radiative forcing scenario and the indicated ice sheet mass loss scenarios.

Finally, for those who do not see the value in facing the truth of current situation, I note that until one acknowledges the first noble truth that suffering exists, one cannot find one's way out of that suffering (see the fourth attached image, and remember that with the coming of the technological singularity, & the 4th Industrial Revolution, AI will be interfacing with humans in new and unexpected ways).

Hopefully, those who make it through the coming socio-economic-environmental transition (i.e. those who manage to avoid winning a Darwin Award) will show some resolve to be kinder to each other.

Some (including Bill Clinton) feel that when one presents evidence of the magnitude of the coming climate impacts that one must also present solutions to the current climate challenges like: carbon taxes, legal actions, technological solutions, reductions in population/consumption, divestments, boycotts, etc.; however, these only work when accompanied by human willpower.

So good luck & all the best to you and yours,

AbruptSLR

[budmantis]

I'm sure this is the last thing on your mind when you got started but congratulations for achieving Emperor level. I doubt anyone other than Sigmetnow will ever reach 10,000 posts!

[AbruptSLR]

I'm sure this is the last thing on your mind when you got started but congratulations for achieving Emperor level. I doubt anyone other than Sigmetnow will ever reach 10,000 posts!

budmantis,

Thank you, and yes it was the last thing on my mind; & thanks for your posts also, as I am always learning.

Best,
ASLR

[AbruptSLR]

In many different threads, I have frequently posted about "wicked problems" that too complex for conventional models to solve rigorously (e.g. see Reply # 134 and search for that term to find other posts).  This class of problems include climate change, human behavior, AI and consciousness in a free-will information network.  Depending on the complexity (or wickedness) of such problems, solutions to such problems may be uncalculatable in reasonable timespan and thus require alternate approximate approaches/strategies such as those discussed in the following Wikipedia article focused on social policy planning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

However, science has advanced sense C. West Churchman introduced the term "wick problem", and this post focuses on how chaos theory, strange attractors, information networks and energy landscapes can be used to create and calibrate alternate models for wick problems (including better understanding how systemic isolation leads to a lack of human willpower to effective tackle climate change)

The first linked article is entitled: "A mathematical view on personality"; and it introduces the concept of how attractors can be used to model the human psyche within a network (including the use of energy landscape concepts).

http://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2016/03/21/a-mathematical-view-on-personality-by-solve-saebo/


Extract: "Interestingly, more diffuse properties of the human psyche, like personality (Van Eenwyk, 1997) and consciousness (Tononi, 2004) may, in fact, be connected to mathematical properties of networks, and in this post I will focus on what mathematics can teach us about these matters.

In mathematics there are complex models for information transfer across networks called attractor networks, and the neural network of our brain appears to be well approximated by these models
…
Attractor networks are built from nodes (for example neurons) which typically are recurrently linked (loops) with edges (like synaptic connections), and the dynamics of the network tend to stabilize at least locally to certain patterns. These stable patterns are the attractors. For example, a memory stored in long time memory may be considered as a so-called point attractor, a subnetwork of strongly connected neurons.

The point attractors are low-energy states in an energy landscape with surrounding basins of attraction, much like hillsides surrounding the bottom of a valley, as shown in the figure below. {see the first attached image}
…
Also other types of mathematical attractors exist, like line-, plane- and cyclic attractors, and these have been used to explain neural responses like eye-vision control and cyclic motor control, like walking and chewing (Eliasmith, 2005).
Common to these attractors are their stability and predictability, and this is good with regard to having stable memory and stable bodily control, but what about personality? Is personality also an attractor? Do we all have our basins of attraction, which pulls our personality towards stable behavior?

Probably yes, but if you think about it, personality is a more unpredictable property than memory and body control. We think we know someone, and the suddenly they behave in an unexpected manner. Still, the overall personality seems to be more or less stable. How can something be both stable and unpredictable at the same time?

Well there is another class of attractors that may occur in attractor networks. These are the strange (or chaotic) attractors, and they are exactly that, partly stable and partly unpredictable. We say they are bounded, but non-repeating.

A famous example is the Lorenz attractor discovered by Edward Lorenz while he was programming his “weather machine” where typical weather patterns appeared, but never repeated themselves. In the figure below {see the second attached image} the blue curve is pulled towards the red strange attractor state, and once it enters the attractor, it is bound to follow a certain pattern, though it never repeats itself.

The discovery of strange attractors led to the development of chaos theory and fractal geometry in mathematics. Many phenomena around us may develop smoothly in linear predictable fashions until a certain border is reached, at which point a chaotic state appears before a new order may be settled."


The second linked reference cites the development of a dissipative strange attractor that coexists with an invariant conservative torus that can be used to better model brain dynamics.

Artuor Tozzi and James F. Peters (2016), "TOWARDS EQUATIONS FOR BRAIN DYNAMICS AND THE CONCEPT OF EXTENDED CONNECTOME"

http://rxiv.org/pdf/1609.0045v1.pdf

Abstract: "The brain is a system at the edge of chaos equipped with nonlinear dynamics and functional energetic landscapes.  However, still doubts exist concerning the type of attractors or the trajectories followed by particles in the nervous phase space. Starting from an unusual system governed by differential equations in which a dissipative strange attractor coexists with an invariant conservative torus, we developed a 3D model of brain phase space which has the potential to be operationalized and assessed empirically. We achieved a system displaying both a torus and a strange attractor, depending just on the initial conditions. Further, the system generates a funnel-like attractor equipped with a fractal structure. Changes in three easily detectable brain phase parameters (log frequency, excitatory/inhibitory ratio and fractal slope) lead to modifications in funnel’s breadth or in torus/attractor superimposition: it explains a large repertoire of brain functions and activities, such as sensations/perceptions, memory and self-generated thoughts."

Extract: "Starting from the unusual Sprott’s system of ODEs, we built a system equipped with both a conservative torus and a dissipative strange attractor. When a moving particle starts its trajectory from a given position x,y,z in the 3D nervous phase space, we may predict whether it will fall in the torus or into the strange attractor. The funnel shape is fractal, and not just a simple fixed-point attractor. A narrower funnel means that the trajectory is constrained towards a small zone of the phase space. When the two structures are closely superimposed, we might hypothesize a state of phase transition at the edge of the chaos, equipped with high symmetry, in which it is difficult to evaluate every single initial position: a slightly change in the starting point could indeed lead to completely different outcomes. When the torus and the strange attractor are clearly splitted, a single starting point gives rise to a sharp outcome. It means that in the latter case, the two conformations are neatly separated, as if the system went out of phase transition and a symmetry breaking occurred."

The third linked reference develops the concept of an attractor network to better understand how to calibrate nonlinear dynamical networks.
Wang et al (2016), "A geometrical approach to control and controllability of nonlinear dynamical networks", Nature communications 7, Article No. 11323, doi: 10.1038/ncomms11323.


http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11323


The fourth linked reference and the associated fifth linked article, discuss a new efficient Monte Carlo method that can be used to more efficiently find solutions to models of wick problems:

Stefano Martiniani et al. Structural analysis of high-dimensional basins of attraction, Physical Review E (2016). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.94.031301


http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.94.031301

Abstract: "We propose an efficient Monte Carlo method for the computation of the volumes of high-dimensional bodies with arbitrary shape. We start with a region of known volume within the interior of the manifold and then use the multistate Bennett acceptance-ratio method to compute the dimensionless free-energy difference between a series of equilibrium simulations performed within this object. The method produces results that are in excellent agreement with thermodynamic integration, as well as a direct estimate of the associated statistical uncertainties. The histogram method also allows us to directly obtain an estimate of the interior radial probability density profile, thus yielding useful insight into the structural properties of such a high-dimensional body. We illustrate the method by analyzing the effect of structural disorder on the basins of attraction of mechanically stable packings of soft repulsive spheres."


The linked article is entitled: "New method for making effective calculations in 'high-dimensional space'".

http://phys.org/news/2016-10-method-effective-high-dimensional-space.html


Extract: " Researchers have developed a new method for making effective calculations in "high-dimensional space" – and proved its worth by using it to solve a 93-dimensional problem.

…
Those include, for example, trying to model the likely shape and impact of a decaying ecosystem, such as a developing area of deforestation, or the potential effect of different levels of demand on a power grid.

…
"There is a very large class of problems that can be solved through the sort of approach that we have devised," Martiniani said. "It opens up a whole world of possibilities in the study of things like dynamical systems, chemical structure prediction, or artificial neural networks."

…
The set of initial conditions leading to this stable state is called a "basin of attraction". The fundamental theory is that, if the volume of each basin of attraction can be calculated, then this begins to provide some sort of indication of the probability of a given state's occurrence."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article discusses new finding about dark matter that indicates that the universe evolved differently than conventional models predict; which leaves room open for a Holographic Universe and/or HIOTTOE:

http://www.space.com/34926-dark-matter-not-so-clumpy.html

Extract: "Dark matter, the mysteriously invisible substance that makes up about 27 percent of the mass in the universe, may not be as clumpy as scientists previously thought.

In 2013, researchers with Europe's Planck mission, which studied the oldest light in the universe, found that dark matter has lumped together over time through gravitational attraction. What started out as a smooth and even distribution of dark matter slowly formed dense chunks over time.

But new research at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile suggests that dark matter is not quite as clumpy as the Planck mission previously found.

"This latest result indicates that dark matter in the cosmic web, which accounts for about one-quarter of the content of the universe, is less clumpy than we previously believed," Massimo Viola, a researcher at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands who co-led in the study, said in a statement.

How dark matter has spread and clumped together since the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, can provide insights into the evolution of the universe, according to co-author Hendrik Hildebrandt of the Argelander Institute for Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. "Our findings will help to refine our theoretical models of how the universe has grown from its inception up to the present day,"  Hildebrandt said in the same statement."

[AbruptSLR]

In Reply #203, I noted that there are many different systemic "solutions" to our climate change challenge, but that none of them are effect without the application of appropriate levels of human "will-power".

Therefore, this post provides a very few general steps that can be taken to improve human "will-power" (note that I put "will-power" in quotes because it is an emergent property (see Replies # 193 & #119) that is distinctly different than the "free-will" within a HIOTTOE free-will information network, which is fundamental and not emergent).

The first step to improve will-power is to find motivation, as in realizing the First Noble truth that suffering exists but that there is a way out of suffering:
1. Acknowledge that climate change exists and that consensus science is underestimating it rate of change and the magnitude of risk (probability times consequences) of that change.
2.  Acknowledge that the Earth Systems are currently in an overshoot condition and that some significant global socio-economic suffering is inevitable at this point, and that further delays will result in nonlinearly increasing suffering.
3.  Acknowledge that evolution is real both with regards to life sciences and with regards to the holographic universe.

The second step to improve will-power is to stop doing things that degrade will-power:
1.  Stop ignoring that the fossil fuel industry and crony capitalism are actively working to keep the global socio-economic system on a pre-conditioned BAU pathway.
2.  Stop ignoring that our global market based system promotes materialism/consumption.
3.  Stop relying on socio-economic systems that reduce individual accountability & start investing in information intensive socio-economic systems that enhance individual accountability.


The third step improve will-power is to start doing things that develop will-power:
1. Consider that Faith/Confidence, Wisdom & Energy/Effort are required to make progress.
2. Develop forecasting models to mimic  "Mind – Body" relationship models that use Bayesian methodology to focus on the transient nature of the present to develop true probabilities of reality as opposed to Frequentist/Scientism statistics.
3. Use Artificial Wisdom Evolved, AWE, to overcome systemic isolation by acknowledging the value of the great good.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Predicting unpredictability: Information theory offers new way to read ice cores", and it addresses the reference entitled: "A First Step Toward Quantifying the Climate's Information Production Over the Last 68,000 Years," appeared in Advances in Intelligent Data Analysis XV, the proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis, Stockholm, Sweden, October 13-15, 2016.

This work demonstrates the value of applying information theory, and permutation entropy, to climate change data analysis.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161206125325.htm

Extract: "At two miles long and five inches in diameter, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS) ice core is a tangible record of the last 68,000 years of our planet's climate.
Completed in 2011, the core is packed with information, but it's also packed with noise and error, making the climate story hard to read. Figuring out whether blips in the data are evidence of humans spewing carbon into the atmosphere, odd North Atlantic weather events, or equipment malfunctions often challenges the scientists trying to read the ice cylinder's story.

Drawing from information theory, a research team led by Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow Joshua Garland has proposed new, more sophisticated techniques that promise to make ongoing interpretation of the WAIS core easier and extract new kinds of data that could change the way we think about Earth's climate.

"There is information in these records that we didn't know existed until now, and it has opened doors where we didn't even know there was a door before," says James W.C. White, director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and a collaborator on the project.
…
In information theory, entropy is a measure of the unpredictability of information content. Permutation entropy essentially is a way to quantify the predictability of a future event.

Imagine an isolated climate system, void of game changers like supervolcanos or humans. Everything you'd need to predict the future climate would be contained in Earth's climate history. When game changers arrive, they inject new information that couldn't have been predicted from the climate's past patterns -- and that should manifest as an increase in permutation entropy (i.e., more unpredictability).

In fact, there are early signs in the WAIS record of an entropy increase roughly 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Holocene, suggesting human impacts on our climate began well before the Industrial Revolution.

Confirmation of that finding is pending. Meanwhile, Garland and team have already made two other surprising discoveries using their technique. The first concerns Dansgaard-Oeschger events, during which Greenland rapidly warms during glacial periods, triggering ripple effects throughout the world.

Geoscientists hypothesize that these events begin with some kind of external shock. But when Garland and team looked at another core, the North Greenland Ice Core, there didn't appear to be an increase in permutation entropy -- in other words, no external shock -- suggesting the events are likely part of the climate's standard operating procedure."

[AbruptSLR]

The first linked article is entitled: "World Economic Forum Annual Meeting to Focus on Five Challenges for 2017."  WEF's theme for 2017 (superimposed on top of 2016's on-going theme of the 4th Industrial Revolution) is for "Responsive & Responsible Leadership" to counter the growing international trend towards a multipolar, isolationist, world by focusing on five gravity centers (with 14 Systems initiatives) for improving (& restoring areas of degraded) international cooperation. 

People who like to think of all the progress that we are about to make in the fight against climate change should give some thought about how to stop (& then reverse) the international trend to slip into the darkness of systemic isolation.  In light of the fact that the US Electoral College will likely make Donald J. Trump the next president-elect, the need to stopping looking at the world will Pollyanna eyes could not be more urgent.

http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-to-focus-on-five-challenges-for-2017/


Extract: "The 47th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will take place on 17-20 January 2017 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, under the theme Responsive and Responsible Leadership. More than 2,500 participants from nearly 100 countries will meet and participate in over 300 sessions.

The theme of the meeting calls on global leaders to renew the systems that have supported international cooperation in the past by adapting them to today’s complex, multipolar world in ways that foster genuinely inclusive and equitable growth.

To build on this theme, the programme focuses on five “gravity centres”’, each constructed to help leaders address distinct yet related critical challenges in 2017:

· Strengthening Systems for Global Collaboration: Updating and re-designing our systems for international cooperation to better manage the effects of globalization

· Addressing Identity through Positive Narratives: Inspiring optimism and trust in the future, even as our world gets smaller and more complicated

· Revitalizing the Global Economy: Developing the skills and deploying the capital to address slow growth, unemployment and financing the Sustainable Development Goals

· Reforming Market Capitalism: Addressing short-term thinking, self-interested behaviour and corruption to build a new compact between business and society

· Preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Preparing workers and economies for the coming convergence of technology and humanity

“Our world continues to become increasingly interdependent, even as political events signal a desire for isolation and a retreat from globalization. To address both of these daunting forces, we must strive for better global governance and leadership systems that are responsive to the need for social inclusion and responsible in finding constructive answers to our multiple global challenges,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum."

See also the following links for an overview of WEF's Davops-17 program.
http://wef.ch/davos17
&
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_AM17_Overview.pdf

Extract: "Global events this year have reminded decision-makers that the more complex a system, the greater a community’s concern about its future. The weakening of multiple systems has eroded confidence at the national, regional and global levels. And, in the absence of innovative and credible steps towards their renewal, the likelihood increases of a downward spiral of the global economy fueled by protectionism, populism and nativism.

All the while the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to drive the convergence of technologies that blur the lines between physical, digital and biological systems. Our interdependence will not diminish, but more agile, inclusive and collaborative responses are urgently needed to address the complexity and uncertainty in people’s lives. We must hone our capacity to manage the systems that underpin our prosperity and security.
…

The emergence of a multipolar world cannot become an excuse for indecision and inaction, which is why it is imperative that leaders respond collectively with credible actions to improve the state of the world.
…

Responsive and Responsible Leadership therefore entails a deeper commitment to inclusive development and equitable growth, both nationally and globally. It also involves working rapidly to close generational divides by exercising shared stewardship of those systems that are critical to our prosperity.
…
14 System Initiatives:
Shaping the Future of Consumption
Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society
Shaping the Future of Economic Growth and Social Inclusion
Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work
Shaping the Future of Energy
Shaping the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security
Shaping the Future of Financial and Monetary Systems
Shaping the Future of Food Security and Agriculture
Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare
Shaping the Future of Information and Entertainment
Shaping the Future of International Trade and Investment
Shaping the Future of Long-Term Investing, Infrastructure and Development
Shaping the Future of Mobility
Shaping the Future of Production"

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Jerry Brown talks tough, but can he stop Trump on climate?", and it discusses multiple measures that Jerry Brown can take, including using measures out of the opposition playbook (see the Game of Throne posts):

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060047440

Extract: "Positioning the Golden State as the country's liberal champion, Brown noted that California has triumphed before on green issues, like pushing for the nation's toughest restrictions on vehicle emissions. The state's tailpipe pollution rule later became the national one in an agreement certified during the Obama administration.

California, he said in multiple appearances, will continue to hold the line on climate change for the nation.

"A lot of people say, 'What the hell are you doing, Brown? You're not a country,'" Brown said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. "Well ... we're the fifth- or sixth-largest economy in the world, and we've got a lot of firepower. We've got the scientists. We've got the universities. We've got the national labs, and we've got the political clout and sophistication for the battle, and we will persevere.

"Whatever Washington thinks they're doing, California is the future," he added."
…
Many see California and other liberal states like New York as likely to file lawsuits to stop the Trump administration from weakening federal rules on climate and other environmental fronts. The Golden State would play a role similar — though opposite politically — to that of Texas or Oklahoma, which challenged the Obama administration's actions. In Oklahoma, those came with Pruitt as state attorney general.

"There is a movement now among some of the more progressive states to use the courts to some extent for those kind of purposes ... to stopping the watering-down of regulations," said Deborah Sivas, professor of environmental law at Stanford University. "They're going to kind of peel a page out of that playbook."

Brown hasn't given specifics on what actions he'll take once Trump is president but last week told reporters that on climate, "I'm not waiting for what Washington may or may not do; I'm doing whatever I can through the resources of California and any other state or province or country that will join with us."
…
In some ways, Trump's election could help California on the climate front, Wara said. California in the past has approved some of its most far-reaching policies with an adversary in the White House. Those include climate law A.B. 32, precursor legislation to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and a rule that forces utilities to make one-third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Those all happened under the George W. Bush administration.

"When California looked at Washington and said Washington, D.C., doesn't believe in any of this stuff, and we are going to the city on the hill, that perspective is very appealing to California," Wara said. "We like to think we're exceptional.""

[AbruptSLR]

The linked Wikipedia article is entitled: "Catastrophe theory".  In order to better assess upper bound scenarios of abrupt climate change, such methodology should be used together with chaos theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory

Extract: "In mathematics, catastrophe theory is a branch of bifurcation theory in the study of dynamical systems; it is also a particular special case of more general singularity theory in geometry.

Bifurcation theory studies and classifies phenomena characterized by sudden shifts in behavior arising from small changes in circumstances, analysing how the qualitative nature of equation solutions depends on the parameters that appear in the equation. This may lead to sudden and dramatic changes, for example the unpredictable timing and magnitude of a landslide.
Catastrophe theory originated with the work of the French mathematician René Thom in the 1960s, and became very popular due to the efforts of Christopher Zeeman in the 1970s. It considers the special case where the long-run stable equilibrium can be identified with the minimum of a smooth, well-defined potential function (Lyapunov function).

Edit, the linked report is entitled: “Assessing State Fragility, With a Focus on Climate Change and Refugees:  A 2016 Country Indicators for Foreign Policy Report.”  It focuses on current fragility, but it establishes a baseline for state fragility assessments, together with Earth System catastrophe/chaos assessments, assuming that we continue to follow a BAU pathway:


http://www4.carleton.ca/cifp/app/serve.php/1530.pdf

[AbruptSLR]

For the holidays, some words of wisdom from a deep dimple:

[AbruptSLR]

The linked post is entitled: “Silicon Intelligence, Organic Wisdom In Pictures”.


https://evolvedgeneralist.com/category/wisdom/


Extract: “... it is time to separate out artificial intelligence from organic wisdom, and spend more time and resources on the latter.

Wisdom v. “Big Data”
Author/thinker Nassim Taleb points out in his book Antifragile, that the “tragedy of Big Data” is the generation of an exponential rise in spurious correlations—noise in essence: {see the first image}
…
A Wisdom Paradigm construct, which we have argued is the necessary [and overdue] evolution of the Information Age [i.e. the “Knowledge Worker” needs to become the “Wisdom Worker”, and the Information Age needs to give way to the Age of Sapience], avoids this trap:

…

Because this construct or “wisdom quotient” [WQ] relies on much more than one dimension of knowledge [also employs creativity, emotional intelligence and experience], the likelihood of making good decisions is greatly increased: {see the second image}”

I also note that wisdom is closely associated with the ability to reflect.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked websites provide background on the Simons Foundation collaboration on quantum fields, gravity and information called the: “It from Qubit”.


https://www.simonsfoundation.org/mathematics-and-physical-science/it-from-qubit-simons-collaboration-on-quantum-fields-gravity-and-information/


http://web.stanford.edu/~phayden/simons/overview.pdf



One example of topics evaluated is illustrated by the linked paper by Shira Chapman, Hugo Marrochio, Robert C. Myers (2016), “Complexity of Formation in Holography”

https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.08063


Abstract: “It was recently conjectured that the quantum complexity of a holographic boundary state can be computed by evaluating the gravitational action on a bulk region known as the Wheeler-DeWitt patch. We apply this complexity=action duality to evaluate the `complexity of formation' (arXiv:1509.07876, arXiv:1512.04993), i.e., the additional complexity arising in preparing the entangled thermofield double state with two copies of the boundary CFT compared to preparing the individual vacuum states of the two copies. We find that for boundary dimensions d>2, the difference in the complexities grows linearly with the thermal entropy at high temperatures. For the special case d=2, the complexity of formation is a fixed constant, independent of the temperature. We compare these results to those found using the complexity=volume duality. “


See also:

https://simonsfoundation.s3.amazonaws.com/share/mps/simons-collaborations/it-from-qubit/2016-annual-meeting/slides/Myers.pdf

[AbruptSLR]

The linked (paywalled) article is entitled: "Tangled Up in Spacetime", and it elaborates on some of the progress being achieved in the "It from Qubit" collaboration cited in my last post.  Selected contributions that quantum information science has recently made to the holography universe paradigm include:
1. Quantum error-correcting code has been identified in the 3D to 2D AdS/CFT correspondence duality.  To me this adds support for an evolved information based multiverse.

2. Work on the EP=EPR conjecture on entanglement and wormholes has allowed information theory to define time within a wormhole connecting two entangled black holes (and as time is relative in the universe, this definition could link the present to a different time).

3.  Quantum information science should allow proposed quantum gravity theories to be tested against the observed universe (thus helping to address the String Theory Landscape challenge).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tangled-up-in-spacetime1/

Extract: "The collaborative project “It from Qubit” is investigating whether space and time sprang from the quantum entanglement of tiny bits of information."

Edit: I previously forgot to mention that this collaborative work has also emphasized that both entanglement, and entropy, occur in many different forms and should not be overly generalized.

[AbruptSLR]

Phoenix rising.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked (open access) reference provides insights as to why quantum error-correcting codes natural arise in the mathematics of a holographic information universe.

Isaac H. Kim and Michael J. Kastoryano  (January 3, 2017), "Entanglement renormalization, quantum error correction, and bulk causality", arXiv:1701.00050v1


https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.00050.pdf

Abstract: "Entanglement renormalization can be viewed as an encoding circuit for a family of approximate quantum error correcting codes. The logical information becomes progressively more well-protected against erasure errors at larger length scales. In particular, an approximate variant of holographic quantum error correcting code emerges at low energy for critical systems. This implies that two operators that are largely separated in scales behave as if they are spatially separated operators, in the sense that they obey a Lieb-Robinson type locality bound under a time evolution generated by a local Hamiltonian."


Extract:  "In most physical theories, the notion of locality is imposed, as opposed to being derived from more elementary principles. The AdS/CFT correspondence indicates that this picture may need to be amended, at least for studying the quantum theory of gravity. An interpretation of the duality in the language of the quantum error correcting codes, and the proposal that spacetime may be built out of entanglement, suggests a fruitful avenue along which we can study these questions in the language of quantum information theory. 

There has been a recent surge of activity devoted to constructing holographic quantum error correcting codes."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "World Economic Forum says capitalism needs urgent change".  It is past time to systemically going along for the ride (BAU), as we advance into the anthropocene, man needs to learn to better manage our behavior particularly in the global economic market place.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/growing-gap-between-rich-and-poor-seen-as-key-economic-risk/2017/01/11/7e290a78-d7e3-11e6-a0e6-d502d6751bc8_story.html?utm_term=.2ada46c12d66

Extract: "Reforming the very nature of capitalism will be needed to combat the growing appeal of populist political movements around the world, the World Economic Forum said Wednesday.
Getting higher economic growth, it added, is necessary but insufficient to heal the fractures in society that were evident in the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
In a wide-ranging report from the organizer of the annual gathering of political and business leaders in the Swiss resort of Davos, the WEF identified “rising income and wealth disparity” as potentially the biggest driver in global affairs over the next ten years.
…
Although anti-establishment politics have tended to blame globalization for the loss of traditional jobs, the WEF said rapidly changing technologies have had more of an impact on labor markets.
“It is no coincidence that challenges to social cohesion and policymakers’ legitimacy are coinciding with a highly disruptive phase of technological change,” the WEF said.

Other key drivers identified in the survey of global risks related to climate change, rising cyber dependency and an aging population."

[magnamentis]

just adding, meant as a yes but, that it's the underlaying monetary system, precisely interest on interest that means failure for any economy on day one, while the forced growth to cover interest on interest is mostly responsible for the side effects on mankind and environment.

i know this is too simply said but TLTR to say much more, i'm working on 3 thick books on the matter, over 1500 pages in total, even thinking to split further that would once again disconnect the topics that belong together :-)

[Archimid]

Units of measure are getting a fundamental upgrade

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/units-measure-are-getting-fundamental-upgrade

Extract:

That issue nags at some researchers. They would prefer to define important units — including kilograms, meters and seconds — using immutable properties of nature, rather than arbitrary lengths, masses and other quantities dreamed up by scientists. If humans were to make contact with aliens and compare systems of units, says physicist Stephan Schlamminger, “we’d be the laughingstock of the galaxy."

I'll also share an image included in the article, which I find elegant and very insightful.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Scientists have a new way to calculate what global warming costs. Trump’s team isn’t going to like it."  If Team Trump ignores the NAS recommendations we may well stay on a BAU pathway for some time to come.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/12/scientists-have-a-new-way-to-calculate-what-global-warming-costs-trumps-team-isnt-going-to-like-it/?utm_term=.7f3a023e1b54

Extract: "How we view the costs of future climate change, and more importantly how we quantify them, may soon be changing. A much-anticipated new report, just released by the National Academy of Sciences, recommends major updates to a federal metric known as the “social cost of carbon” —  and its suggestions could help address a growing scientific concern that we’re underestimating the damages global warming will cause.

The social cost of carbon is an Obama-era metric first addressed by a federal working group in 2009. The basic premise is simple: Scientists agree that climate change will have all kinds of impacts on human societies, including natural disasters and effects on human health, productivity and agricultural output, all of which have economic consequences.

The social cost of carbon, then, refers to the monetary cost of emitting a single ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, given that these emissions will further contribute to global warming. The value has been used to aid in cost-benefit analyses for a variety of federal environmental rules. Currently, it’s set at about $36 per ton of carbon dioxide."

[AbruptSLR]

As a follow-on to my last couple of posts, the linked article is entitled: "Climate Change Is the World’s Biggest Risk, in 3 Charts".  This work illustrates how many decision makers are underestimating the climate change impacts that are likely to occur in 2017:


http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-worlds-biggest-risk-charts-21050

Extract: "The rise of the machines isn’t the biggest threat to humanity. It’s climate change, extreme weather and other environmental factors.

The World Economic Forum surveyed 750 experts on what the most likely and impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017. In a report released Thursday, they ranked extreme weather as the most likely risk and the second-most impactful, trailing only the use of weapons of mass destruction. Climate change is responsible for driving an increase in the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events, notably heat waves.

Failing to adapt to or mitigate climate change and a host of other climate-connected risks including water and food crises and involuntary migration also rank in the top 10."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Guest post: ‘An inconvenient truth’ – Exploring the dynamics of making climate change public", and in the following extract the authors abbreviate 'An Inconvenient Truth" as  AIT.  The article embeds its discussion of AIT within a larger context noted by John Dewey that the increasing specialization and professionalization of science it is becoming increasingly difficult to integrate expert knowledge into policy to manage a globalized society, which spells danger for democracy.  As climate change is man induced, it is an inherently political issue, which requires science experts to get out of their comfort zone and work to help the public, and policy makers, how to put their bare facts into context with both imagination and emotional impact.  If they do not climate change policy risks increasingly falling into the hands of amoral opportunists like Team Trump who do not hesitate to manipulate public emotions on a daily basis.


https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/

Extract: "We use aspects of political theory to discuss our findings, mainly taken from the work of John Dewey, as discussed by the political theorist Mark Brown. In around 1900 Dewey started to think about the effects that increasing professionalization and specialisation of expertise could have on what he called the popularisation of knowledge. His thoughts still resonate today. Dewey was worried that these trends would make knowledge less accessible to the public, but more importantly he feared that if expert knowledge was no longer integrated in society, this would spell dangers for democracy.
…
In its mix of the scientific, personal and political, AIT is perhaps best thought of as an ambitious, if flawed, experiment in science communication and in making climate change meaningful. It did so, whether consciously or not, by politicising climate change and reintroducing the human into previously apolitical representations of climate change. While it is now time for politics, not science, to bear the load of dealing with climate change, we note that one effect of AIT was to turn climate science into ‘Al Gore’s science’, closely tied to a narrow range of policy options that were anathema to US conservatives. This poses problems for both science and politics.

Both the success and failure of AIT show that while it is important to get (expert) knowledge and information out there, that information is always part of a wider context; and once ‘out there’, it will always take on a life of its own, which is difficult to anticipate and control. Knowledge is produced by people (with political and financial interests) for people (with political and financial interests). As Dewey said, to be effective, ‘bare ideas’ need to have ‘imaginative content and emotional appeal’.

With AIT’s success in bringing social context to scientific content came inevitable contestation. Scientists and experts have to be prepared for this."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Policymakers must reimagine the way in which economic growth is measured: WEF report".  The article indicates that previously the policies advocated by the WEF focused too much on GDF levels and not enough, and that the current version of global capitalism must be adjusted to include consideration of such issues as improvement of living standards and better control of climate change.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/16/policymakers-must-reimagine-the-way-in-which-economic-growth-is-measured-wef-report.html

Extract: "Policymakers must reconsider their priorities and put significant improvements to people's living standards at the heart of their economic policies, according to the findings of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Inclusive and Development Report 2017.

The latest WEF report stressed that the way a country measures economic growth must be re-imagined. Rather than simply addressing levels of gross domestic product (GDP), policymakers must reconnect with its increasingly frustrated citizens and consider a wider breadth of economic tools.

"The world is basically in loud agreement that inclusive growth is the way to go but it has been much more aspiration than action frankly for the last couple of years," Richard Samans, member of the managing board at the World Economic Forum told CNBC on Monday.

"(Economic) growth is essential, it is absolutely critical but… you can borrow a business analogy here, growth is like the top line. You need top line growth as a business would but the bottom line measure of success for society (in terms) of how well their economy is performing is (an) improvement of living standards," Samans added.
…
Policymakers must reconsider their priorities and put significant improvements to people's living standards at the heart of their economic policies, according to the findings of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Inclusive and Development Report 2017.

The latest WEF report stressed that the way a country measures economic growth must be re-imagined. Rather than simply addressing levels of gross domestic product (GDP), policymakers must reconnect with its increasingly frustrated citizens and consider a wider breadth of economic tools.

"The world is basically in loud agreement that inclusive growth is the way to go but it has been much more aspiration than action frankly for the last couple of years," Richard Samans, member of the managing board at the World Economic Forum told CNBC on Monday.

"(Economic) growth is essential, it is absolutely critical but… you can borrow a business analogy here, growth is like the top line. You need top line growth as a business would but the bottom line measure of success for society (in terms) of how well their economy is performing is (an) improvement of living standards," Samans added."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked WEF article is entitled: "Why we should all have a basic income", and it indicates a high probability the universal basic income, UBI, will become a reality sooner rather than later, especially if globalists stay ahead of the isolationist populist movements (the attached plot indicates an example of how it could be paid for in the USA).

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income/

Extract: "The idea is called unconditional or universal basic income, or UBI. It’s like social security for all, and it’s taking root within minds around the world and across the entire political spectrum, for a multitude of converging reasons. Rising inequality, decades of stagnant wages, the transformation of lifelong careers into sub-hourly tasks, exponentially advancing technology like robots and deep neural networks increasingly capable of replacing potentially half of all human labour, world-changing events like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump – all of these and more are pointing to the need to start permanently guaranteeing everyone at least some income.

“Basic income” would be an amount sufficient to secure basic needs as a permanent earnings floor no one could fall beneath, and would replace many of today’s temporary benefits, which are given only in case of emergency, and/or only to those who successfully pass the applied qualification tests. UBI would be a promise of equal opportunity, not equal outcome, a new starting line set above the poverty line.
It may surprise you to learn that a partial UBI has already existed in Alaska since 1982, and that a version of basic income was experimentally tested in the United States in the 1970s. The same is true in Canada, where the town of Dauphin managed to eliminate poverty for five years. Full UBI experiments have been done more recently in places such as Namibia, India and Brazil. Other countries are following suit: Finland, the Netherlands and Canada are carrying out government-funded experiments to compare against existing programmes. Organizations like Y Combinator and GiveDirectly have launched privately funded experiments in the US and East Africa respectively.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s the same thing most people think when they’re new to the idea. Giving money to everyone for doing nothing? That sounds both incredibly expensive and a great way to encourage people to do nothing. Well, it may sound counter-intuitive, but the exact opposite is true on both accounts. What’s incredibly expensive is not having basic income, and what really motivates people to work is, on one hand, not taking money away from them for working, and on the other hand, not actually about money at all.
…
But what about people then choosing not to work? Isn’t that a huge burden too? Well that’s where things get really interesting. For one, conditional welfare assistance creates a disincentive to work through removal of benefits in response to paid work. If accepting any amount of paid work will leave someone on welfare barely better off, or even worse off, what’s the point? With basic income, all income from paid work (after taxes) is earned as additional income so that everyone is always better off in terms of total income through any amount of employment – whether full time, part time or gig. Thus basic income does not introduce a disincentive to work. It removes the existing disincentive to work that conditional welfare creates."

See also the related linked article entitled: "Universal Basic Income Back In Vogue".

http://www.rttnews.com/2731929/universal-basic-income-back-in-vogue.aspx

[AbruptSLR]

The linked WEF article is entitled: "To save globalization, its benefits need to be more broadly shared".  The article indicates that globalists are working to address many of the problems with globalization that have sparked the recent trend in isolationist populist movements (which are actively working to prevent globalists from correcting problems with globalization such as wealth distribution (see my last post on UBI), volatility in the global financial market, and climate change:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/to-save-globalization-its-benefits-need-to-be-more-broadly-shared

Extract: "Economists tend to be advocates of globalization. The benefits of specialization and exchange are evident within a country’s borders: no one would seriously suggest that impeding the flows of goods, labour and capital within a country would raise national welfare. Globalization extends the possibilities of specialization beyond national boundaries. Recent work suggests, however, that while globalization is great in theory, vigilance is needed about it in practice.
The three main components of globalization - goods, labour, and capital - are associated with different costs and benefits. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that trade has positive impacts on aggregate incomes, but many people do lose out. The economic benefits of migration are very high, but it too has distributional consequences and impacts on social cohesion.
…
These findings suggest several steps to re-design globalization. The first step is to recognize the flaws in globalization, especially in relation to financial globalization. The adverse effects of financial globalization on macroeconomic volatility and inequality should be countered. Among policymakers today, there is increased acceptance of capital controls to restrict foreign capital flows that are viewed as likely to lead to—or compound—a financial crisis. While not the only tools available, capital controls may be the best option when it is borrowing from abroad that is the source of an unsustainable credit boom (Ostry and others, 2012).
…
In the longer run, the solutions lie not in redistribution but in mechanisms that achieve ‘pre-distribution.’ More equal access to health, education, and financial services ensures that market incomes are not simply a function of peoples’ starting point in life. This does not ensure that everyone will end up at the same point. But the provision of opportunities to do well in life regardless of initial income level, combined with the promise of redistribution for those who fall behind, is more likely to build support for globalization than will simply ignoring the discontent with it."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "The global economy is picking up. Now we must focus on making it inclusive, says IMF", which emphasizes the lesson learned from the surge of populism in 2016 that sustainable growth must be inclusive growth.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/a-shifting-landscape-the-latest-on-the-global-economy-from-the-imf

Extract: "An accumulation of recent data suggests that the global economic landscape started to shift in the second half of 2016. Developments since last summer indicate somewhat greater growth momentum coming into the new year in a number of important economies. Our earlier projection, that world growth will pick up from last year’s lackluster pace in 2017 and 2018, therefore looks increasingly likely to be realized. At the same time, we see a wider dispersion of risks to this short-term forecast, with those risks still tilted to the downside. Uncertainty has risen.

See also the associated report entitled: "World Economic Outlook – Update January 2017":

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2017/update/01/index.htm

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "The Roots of Trump's Trade Rage", and it offers a counter point to the WEF articles I have just posted.  In summary it indicates that the isolationist approach that Trump is likely to implement with regards to international trade, if done cleverly might provide some benefit; but if done crudely (& what other style does The Donald have) could damage both America and the world.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/the-roots-of-trumps-trade-rage-214639

Extract: "The Davos set ignored the warning signs for years. Now, global elites are rightly worried about what comes next.
…
Trump’s election indeed promises a new way forward that will be the most nationalist – and likely protectionist – that the United States has seen in nearly a century. The American political system—let alone the transnational elites now gathering in Davos, Switzerland—has not yet come to terms with just how massive the changes are likely to be: Trump’s policies will call into question the global investment strategies of U.S. multinational companies in industries ranging from autos to semiconductors, the global sourcing by large U.S. retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, and the global trade rules constructed under the leadership of the United States. They could shake U.S. alliances around the world, providing openings for adversaries like China and Russia.

Trump’s promise is that better, fairer trade deals will bring more jobs and opportunities home for U.S. workers. Done cleverly and diplomatically, his approach could be a long-overdue correction for trade and economic policies that have left too many Americans behind. Done crudely, it could drive the world back into the damaging trade wars of the 1930s, leaving Americans and the world much worse off.
…
There was a reason that presidents from Roosevelt onward came to embrace freer trade: The United States and other countries had tried the nationalist alternatives in the late 1920s and 30s, and the damage was enormous. Trump may be able to craft a modern version that tilts the trade playing field more in favor of the United States without destroying it entirely. But he is playing a dangerous game."

[DrTskoul]

I think the world is way past the point where nationalistic trade alternatives could be workable.  Global information exchange has made sure of that. Unless you go full blown isolationist... Even then the complex inputs to the economic system ( raw materials, ingotmayin, capital - human and economic) are so globalized that it cannot be undone without severe consequences.

[AbruptSLR]

I think the world is way past the point where nationalistic trade alternatives could be workable.  Global information exchange has made sure of that. Unless you go full blown isolationist... Even then the complex inputs to the economic system ( raw materials, ingotmayin, capital - human and economic) are so globalized that it cannot be undone without severe consequences.

Unfortunately, narcissists like Donald Trump do not hesitate to tear things down if they think that it will make themselves seem relatively more important.

[AbruptSLR]

As a follow-on to my last post, the first linked article is entitled: "When Emotional Intelligence Goes Wrong", and I am confident that the lessons recently identified about "narcissistic exploitativeness" are directly applicable to Donald Trump, and that the media, Congress, NATO, and the Democrats had better pay attention to such research.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/05/when-emotional-intelligence-goes-wrong/389546/

Extract: "… scores of researchers have shown how being in touch with feelings—both your own and other people’s—gives you an edge: compared with people who have average EI, those with high EI do better at work, have fewer health problems, and report greater life satisfaction.
There’s a catch, though: other researchers have recently examined what they call “the dark side” of EI, and their findings suggest an unnerving link between understanding people and using them. Last year, a group of Austrian psychologists reported a correlation between EI and narcissism, raising the possibility that narcissists with high EI might use their “charming, interesting, and even seductive” qualities for “malicious purposes,” such as deceiving others. Similarly, a 2014 study linked “narcissistic exploitativeness” with “emotion recognition”—those who were prone to manipulating others were better at reading them."


The second linked article by Joe Romm is entitled: ""Flawed individuals will victimize you": A top FBI profiler's lessons on extreme narcissists like Trump".  As an example Trump played (& still plays) the media like a fiddle, leading them to repeat his deluded sense of reality as if it were normal.

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/10/an-fbi-profiler-explains-trumps-narcissism_partner/

Extract: "There are 130 warning signs of the narcissistic personality.  Trump checks off at least 90.
…
As Navarro told me, "the purpose is to warn people that these traits are fixed and rigid" and that those who possess them in the extreme are a danger to everyone they have power or influence over."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Guest post: ‘An inconvenient truth’ – Exploring the dynamics of making climate change public", and in the following extract the authors abbreviate 'An Inconvenient Truth" as  AIT.  The article embeds its discussion of AIT within a larger context noted by John Dewey that the increasing specialization and professionalization of science it is becoming increasingly difficult to integrate expert knowledge into policy to manage a globalized society, which spells danger for democracy.  As climate change is man induced, it is an inherently political issue, which requires science experts to get out of their comfort zone and work to help the public, and policy makers, how to put their bare facts into context with both imagination and emotional impact.  If they do not climate change policy risks increasingly falling into the hands of amoral opportunists like Team Trump who do not hesitate to manipulate public emotions on a daily basis.


https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/

Extract: "We use aspects of political theory to discuss our findings, mainly taken from the work of John Dewey, as discussed by the political theorist Mark Brown. In around 1900 Dewey started to think about the effects that increasing professionalization and specialisation of expertise could have on what he called the popularisation of knowledge. His thoughts still resonate today. Dewey was worried that these trends would make knowledge less accessible to the public, but more importantly he feared that if expert knowledge was no longer integrated in society, this would spell dangers for democracy.
…
In its mix of the scientific, personal and political, AIT is perhaps best thought of as an ambitious, if flawed, experiment in science communication and in making climate change meaningful. It did so, whether consciously or not, by politicising climate change and reintroducing the human into previously apolitical representations of climate change. While it is now time for politics, not science, to bear the load of dealing with climate change, we note that one effect of AIT was to turn climate science into ‘Al Gore’s science’, closely tied to a narrow range of policy options that were anathema to US conservatives. This poses problems for both science and politics.

Both the success and failure of AIT show that while it is important to get (expert) knowledge and information out there, that information is always part of a wider context; and once ‘out there’, it will always take on a life of its own, which is difficult to anticipate and control. Knowledge is produced by people (with political and financial interests) for people (with political and financial interests). As Dewey said, to be effective, ‘bare ideas’ need to have ‘imaginative content and emotional appeal’.

With AIT’s success in bringing social context to scientific content came inevitable contestation. Scientists and experts have to be prepared for this."

The linked Forbes article is entitled: "Here's Why Emotions Are The Secret Sauce Of Innovation".  Big business understands the importance of emotional intelligence to succeed in the chaos of the international marketplace.  Which partially explains why the fossil fuel supported denialists are so successful at keeping global society on a BAU pathway despite science's consensus pronouncements that anthropogenic climate change is real and that the world should stay well below a 2C GMSTA increase. 

I suggest that climate change science reduce its dependence on the Frequentist crutch, and more frequently make use of Bayesian methodologies whereby: (a) one adopts a priori probability function that might contain some errors (just like emotions can), (b) one honestly assesses new/current observations (while showing emotional intelligence by not being unduly tied to the priori; and (c) one develops a posterior probability function that will serve as a new priori PDF to start a new Bayesian iteration.  Adopting such a process should spur innovation in climate change science, which would convey a message of moral courage, and emotional intelligence, to the public and to policymakers.  I note that adopting a Frequentist approach indicates that scientists are too afraid to demonstrate the emotional intelligence required to successfully employ Bayesian methodology.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/darden/2017/01/17/the-secret-sauce-of-innovation-emotions/#60c587a6ade6

Extract: "Artificial intelligence systems, deep learning, smart robots, the Internet of Things, nanotechnology, virtual and augmented reality will transform every business function. Operational excellence will be technology-based and, in many industries, commoditized. That would leave innovation as the key strategic value creation differentiator.

Innovation is not just a cognitive process. It’s emotional. It requires doing something new or novel, and that can be scary because it requires the courage to enter the unknown and it involves learning from experimental failures. Many of us learned as children that success comes from making the fewest mistakes. We learned to avoid making mistakes and looking stupid. We also developed emotional defensives to protect our views of ourselves – to protect our ego. Protecting our ego and fear are the two big emotional inhibitors of innovation.

How do we begin to see new things that others don’t see? As importantly, how do we perceive reality more accurately – see what we do not usually see? How do we have the courage to explore the unknown? How do we create something new? We have to overcome our fears of failure in order to iteratively learn. We have to overcome our self-centered views of the world so we can perceive the world as it is not as we believe it is. We must be more open-minded and less emotionally defensive when our views are challenged by others or by new facts. We must reflectively listen in a nonjudgmental manner. And to do all of that, we absolutely have to manage our emotions and be emotionally intelligent about our and others’ emotions since innovation is a team sport.
…
Innovation happens best when we reduce our fears and ego defensiveness thereby freeing our minds to imagine, create, connect, and explore the new and unknown with others in a non-competitive way. That happens best when people feel psychologically safe and trust each other. It is all about emotions."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Donald Trump was asked to name one of his heroes. His answer was very, very strange."  It is related to my Reply #232 about Trump's narcissistic behavior, and it indicates both that he assumes that he is always right, and probably implies that he is his own hero:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/17/donald-trump-was-asked-to-name-one-of-his-heroes-his-answer-was-very-very-strange/?utm_term=.beed244c4583

Extract: "Trump simply doesn't open up. Ever. He is constantly moving forward. He doesn't look back. He doesn't second guess. He assumes he has always done the right thing."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Donald Trump’s biographers: He’s narcissistic, belligerent and deeply fears that he’s illegitimate.  This article supports some of the recent points that I have made in about Trump's dysfunctional behavior in this thread:

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/19/donald-trumps-biographers-hes-narcissistic-belligerent-and-deeply-fears-that-hes-illegitimate/

Extract: "Blair argued that these traits can be traced back to his childhood.
There’s a fusion, I think, of his childhood, an emphasis on being combative, being killers — as his dad famously instructed his boys to be — but also, I think, his own competitive nature, and then his grasp in early adulthood that being a bully and really putting it to other people and not backing down often works. He also had his church background telling him that being a success was the most important thing and that got fused with the sort of “You want a crowd to show up, start a fight,” P.T. Barnum-type thing early on in his career. And then Roy Cohn as a mentor, a guy who stood for cold-eye calculus about how bullying people works. And you put all of those pieces together, that he’s been doing this his whole life, and I don’t see a single reason for him to back down. He’s going to go full blast ahead with that."

[AbruptSLR]

Continuing with my recent theme of providing evidence that the holographic universe evolves; the linked reference Erik Velinde argues that not only is gravity an emergent property of the universe but also that mysterious particles of "dark matter" do not exist.  Instead the reference argues that the universe evolves cosmologically.

Erik Velinde (Nov 8, 2016), "Emergent Gravity and the Dark Universe"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1611.02269v2.pdf

The linked article is entitled: "The man who's trying to kill dark matter", and it provides commentary on Verlinde 2016's new theory on a 'dark gravity~force' that conforms to a holographic universe and thus to HIOTTOE:

https://www.wired.com/2017/01/case-dark-matter/

or

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/

Extract: "“dark matter is an interplay between ordinary matter and dark energy,” Verlinde said.

To make his case, Verlinde has adopted a radical perspective on the origin of gravity that is currently in vogue among leading theoretical physicists. Einstein defined gravity as the effect of curves in space-time created by the presence of matter. According to the new approach, gravity is an emergent phenomenon. Space-time and the matter within it are treated as a hologram that arises from an underlying network of quantum bits (called “qubits”), much as the three-dimensional environment of a computer game is encoded in classical bits on a silicon chip. Working within this framework, Verlinde traces dark energy to a property of these underlying qubits that supposedly encode the universe. On large scales in the hologram, he argues, dark energy interacts with matter in just the right way to create the illusion of dark matter.
…
The mathematical translations are rapidly being worked out for holographic universes with an Escher-esque space-time geometry known as anti-de Sitter (AdS) space, but universes like ours, which have de Sitter geometries, have proved far more difficult. In his new paper, Verlinde speculates that it’s exactly the de Sitter property of our native space-time that leads to the dark matter illusion.

De Sitter space-times like ours stretch as you look far into the distance. For this to happen, space-time must be infused with a tiny amount of background energy—often called dark energy—which drives space-time apart from itself. Verlinde models dark energy as a thermal energy, as if our universe has been heated to an excited state. (AdS space, by contrast, is like a system in its ground state.) Verlinde associates this thermal energy with long-range entanglement between the underlying qubits, as if they have been shaken up, driving entangled pairs far apart. He argues that this long-range entanglement is disrupted by the presence of matter, which essentially removes dark energy from the region of space-time that it occupied. The dark energy then tries to move back into this space, exerting a kind of elastic response on the matter that is equivalent to a gravitational attraction."

See also:

http://bigbang-entanglement.blogspot.com/2016/11/new-theory-of-gravity-might-explain.html

&

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Trump Aides Prepare List of First Days’ Changes on Energy, Sources Say".  Apparently, Trump's top priority is to roll-back (as fast as possible) Obama's efforts to fight climate change (a clear example of systemic dysfunction):

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-20/trump-aides-said-to-prepare-list-of-first-days-changes-on-energy

Extract: "Donald Trump’s advisers have prepared a short list of energy and environmental policy changes he can take within hours of being sworn in Friday, including steps to limit the role that climate change plays in government decisions.

The list includes nullifying President Barack Obama’s guidelines that federal agencies weigh climate change when approving pipelines, deciding what areas to open for drilling or taking other major actions, two people familiar with Trump’s transition planning say.

Trump also is being counseled to suspend the government’s use of a metric known as the social cost of carbon until it can be reviewed and recalculated, and to rescind a 49-year-old executive order that put the State Department in charge of permitting border-crossing oil pipelines."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "What it would take to really rethink capitalism".  We will see how much progress the WEF makes towards ways to reshape capitalism before populist burn everything down:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/19/what-it-would-take-to-really-rethink-capitalism/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.742fbe52ccd1

Extract: "As protectionist politicians like President-elect Donald Trump ascend to power around the world, it seems that a nameless rage has seized global politics, and millions of people are voting just to burn it all.

Those gathered at Davos this year are taking notice. A theme has emerged in the speeches, panels and behind-the-scenes conversations here: How can modern capitalism become more equitable and inclusive?
…
The notion of a basic income has “clear, tangible costs, but theoretical benefits,” Kroes argued.
…
One activist, Alec Gagneux, was also advocating a constitutional referendum that would drastically reform the Swiss financial system.

In modern economies such as Switzerland's, banks create almost all the money in circulation by issuing loans. Those loans are not wholly backed by money the bank has already, and banks effectively create the money in borrowers' accounts out of nothing.

The proposed referendum would put the supply of money in control of the central bank, and commercial banks would have to back any new loans with cash or other reserves they have on hand, using loans from the central bank or their own profits.

Proponents of this kind of reform, known as “sovereign money,” say it would have extraordinary benefits. They argue banks would be barred from overextending themselves, preventing catastrophic bankruptcies at major financial institutions. Meanwhile, all the money created by the central bank would constitute a vast source of new revenue for the national government."

[AbruptSLR]

To revisit this thread's title of "Systemic Isolation", I reiterate that preconditioned information systems (i.e. such as we all dwell in before full enlightenment) exist in ignorance of the true nature (which can only be known by direct, and timeless, understanding) of the free-will information network.  In Reply #59, I presented discussion about the process of how to over-come the limitations imposed by having one's mind dwell in a preconditioned information system; which drew largely from the Buddha's teachings in the Satipatthana Sutta; in the following extract from the Mahasaccaka Sutta (Majjhima-nikaya MN 36) of the Buddha's teaching about his final liberation from ignorance.  With this extract I hope to illustrate that even after achieving full liberation one still is subjected to preconditioned sensations/feelings (as in an a priori probability density function) that one must continuously (& actively) work to maintain direct knowledge in a free-will information network (thus creating a posteriori probability density function that serves as new a priori pdf to be updated again).

Extract from Majjhima-nikaya, Sutta 36: "When my concentrated mid was thus purified … I directed, I inclined my mind to the knowledge of exhaustion of taints.  I had direct knowledge, as it actually is, that 'This is suffering'. that 'This is the origin of suffering', that 'This is the cessation of suffering', and that 'This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering'; I had direct knowledge, as it actually is, that 'These are taints,' that 'This is the origin of taints,' that 'This is the cessation of taints,' and that 'This is the way leading to the cessation of taints.'  Knowing thus and seeing thus, my heart was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance.  When liberated, there came the knowledge: 'It is liberated.'  I had direct knowledge: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what was to be done is done, there is no more of this to come.'  This was the third true knowledge attained by me in the third watch of the night.  Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who is diligent, ardent and self-controlled. But I allowed no such pleasant feeling as arose in me to gain power over my mind."

See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majjhima_Nikaya

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: “Pop goes the universe”, and it raises questions about the viability of standard inflation models, and suggests examining theories that model a “big bounce” instead of “big bang”.  HIOTTOE can model such transitions from a preceding cosmological phase to the present phase.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/sciam3.pdf


Extract: “Either the universe had a beginning, which we commonly dub the “big bang,” or there was no beginning and what has been called the big bang was actually a “big bounce,” a transition from some preceding cosmological phase to the present expanding phase.”

Edit, see also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bounce

Extract: "However, research in loop quantum cosmology purported to show that a previously existing universe collapsed, not to the point of singularity, but to a point before that where the quantum effects of gravity become so strongly repulsive that the universe rebounds back out, forming a new branch. Throughout this collapse and bounce, the evolution is unitary."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: “The Exercise Paradox”, and confirms that humans have evolved to cooperate.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/


Extract: “Evolving a faster metabolism bound our fortunes to one another, requiring that we cooperate or die.”

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "What Those Who Studied Nazis Can Teach Us About The Strange Reaction To Donald Trump", and it warns the public against adopting what the Germans call Gleichschaltung (coordination) or getting in line with the emotional fantasies being promoted by the Trump administration as part of its grab for power (& other things).  Instead, the article recommends continual resistance to such "Alternate Facts"/propaganda.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-nazi-propaganda-coordinate_us_58583b6fe4b08debb78a7d5c

Extract: "In his 1940 book, Germany: Jekyll and Hyde, Haffner explains this relationship between impression and propaganda, even for those opposed to the Reich. He writes, “Outside of Germany people often wonder at the palpable fraudulence of Nazi propaganda, the stupid incredible exaggerations, the ludicrous reticence concerning what is generally known. Who can be convinced by it? They ask. The answer is that it is not meant to convince but to impress. It addresses emotion and fantasy. Nazi propaganda seeks to create in our minds tenacious ideas and fantasies.”

…
While on the campaign trail in February, Trump urged followers to “knock the hell” out of protesters, promising to pay their legal bills if they were arrested and charged. That same February in Fort Worth, he promised a crowd that he would “open up our libel laws” so that news outlets can be sued for writing “false” or “purposely negative” articles. In July, he urged Russia to interfere in the election on his behalf, later saying he was joking. In September, he urged still other supporters to “monitor” polling stations. In October, he promised when victorious to throw his rival, Hillary Clinton, in jail. And just recently he advocated revoking the citizenship of Americans who burn flags.

So, in the last year, Trump has flirted with or, maybe more his style, groped and pawed at totalitarianism, yet the advice from many is to “give him a chance” ― or to coordinate.
…
The report of the study, “On the Perception of Incongruity: A Paradigm,” said, “Our major conclusion is that perceptual organization is powerfully determined by expectations built upon past commerce with the environment. When such expectations are violated by the environment, the perceiver’s behavior can be described as resistance to the unexpected or incongruous.”

The participants could only see what they expected to see. Their minds coordinated. For many Americans, the expectations of the game are divided government, stability and continuity regardless of what the candidate promises. However, if the new regime has embraced authoritarianism, then there will be trick cards in the deck that have to be identified correctly and challenged.

“Patriotism” became a trick card in Klemperer’s memoir and study of Nazi language, The Language of the Third Reich. Klemperer wrote of a Jewish neighbor, Frau K, who continued to speak with pride about Germany and the “Fuhrer,” despite having been deemed subhuman by the regime. Patriotism and deference to leadership ― respect for the office of the president, as we call it ― might have elevated Frau K in the old paradigm, but in the new one it worsened her condition.

“Divided government” became a trick card in Shirer’s 1960 history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, when Hitler pushed through the Enabling Act and, “In five brief paragraphs,” took the power to legislate, approve treaties, and initiate constitutional amendments away from Parliament. A divided government essentially “committed suicide,” according to Shirer, and bequeathed its power to a dictator. 

There were many others, but “dominance” made them difficult to recognize. Joachim Fest writes in his memoir Not I, “At first, the countless violations of the law by our new rulers still caused a degree of disquiet. But among the incomprehensible features of those months, my father later recalled, was the fact that soon life went on as if such state crimes were the most natural thing in the world.” Those months would turn to years. Not the thousand years that Hitler had predicted, but enough to cause millions of deaths.

We should not waste our time or imaginations trying to reconfigure Trumpism to explain why all of the “good people” supported him. It is more important to see it for what it is and resist."

[AbruptSLR]

The ancient biological 'arms race' between pathogens/parasites and humans has been the single most important driving factor in genetically determining who modern man is.  As we enter a period of accelerating climate change, accelerating changes due to the 4th Industrial Revolution; and global socio-economic changes like the ongoing fight between populists and globalist; we should be aware that humans are still subject to both genetic and cultural evolution, and while dealing with all of the oncoming changes our most important fight will be with parasites like denalists (including Team Trump).  With this in mind I link to a couple of related references about human/parasitic evolutionary interactions:

Cassandra Willyard (11 November 2011), "Parasites drove human genetic variation", Nature, doi:10.1038/nature.2011.9345

http://www.nature.com/news/parasites-drove-human-genetic-variation-1.9345

Extract: "Adapting to pathogens was more important than climate and diet in driving natural selection.
…
Modern humans began to spread out from Africa approximately 100,000 years ago. They settled in distant lands, where they had to adapt to unfamiliar climates, find different ways to feed themselves and fight off new pathogens. A study now suggests that it was the pathogens, particularly parasitic worms, that had the biggest role in driving natural selection — but that genetic adaptation to them may also have made humans more susceptible to autoimmune diseases."


See also:
https://notexactlyrocketscience.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/brain-parasite-drives-human-culture/

Extract: "We like to think that we are masters of our own fates. The thought that others might be instead controlling our actions makes us uneasy. We rail against nanny states, we react badly to media hype and we are appalled at the idea of brainwashing.

But words and images are not the only things that can affect our brains and thoughts. Other animals – parasites – can do this too."

[budmantis]

ASLR: In reference to your reply number 242, I'm thinking  back to the campaign season and how we laughed at Trump's campaign and his supporters. Then he won the Republican nomination. Despite this,  Trump's campaign provided much grist for discussion and humor and still wasn't taken seriously. Now he's POTUS.

In the opening week of his Presidency, we are now seeing the reality and I cant help but draw parallels between Trump's administration and Nazi Germany. One would hope that Constitutional checks and balances will negate the most damaging effects of his Presidency until some semblance of sanity returns to Washington.

He has beaten the odds thus far, which brings up the question, what will it take to stop this madman? Can we count on the legislative and judicial branch to do what's right? I hope so, but if not, it will be up to the citizenry.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Beware hate speech, says Auschwitz Holocaust survivor".  This holocaust survivor warns that civilization is just a thin veneer, and that it is important to resist hate-propaganda (such as that frequently used by populists) from the very start as it has the potential to erupt into Nazi-like consequences.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38745115

Extract: ""The Germans were well-advanced, educated, progressive. Maybe civilization is just veneer-thin. We all need to be very careful about any hate-propaganda.
"This is very important. It starts as a small stream, but then it has the potential to erupt - and when it does, it's too late to stop it.""

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "The Universe Is Expanding Surprisingly Fast", this finding could also support a Holographic interpretation of the universe>

http://www.space.com/35459-universe-expanding-faster-hubble-constant.html

Extract: "Astronomers have pegged the universe's current expansion rate — a value known as the Hubble constant, after American astronomer Edwin Hubble — at about 44.7 miles (71.9 kilometers) per second per megaparsec. (One megaparsec is about 3.26 million light-years.)
This newly derived number is consistent with a calculation that was announced last year by a different research team, which was led by Nobel laureate Adam Riess. But it's considerably higher than the rate that was estimated by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite mission in 2015 — about 41.6 miles (66.9 km) per second per megaparsec."
…
The discrepancy could also indicate that dark matter — the strange, invisible stuff that astronomers think vastly outweighs "normal" matter throughout the universe — has as-yet-unappreciated characteristics, or that Einstein's theory of gravity has some holes, they added."

[johnm33]

You don't need dark matter, if you allow for the aether which is called for in Maxwells equations. The aether is a superconductor and electromagnetism pervades the universe, it allows magnetism which is 39oom stronger than gravity to hold the galaxies together.

[sidd]

"You don't need dark matter, if you allow for the aether which is called for in Maxwells equations. The aether is a superconductor and electromagnetism pervades the universe, it allows magnetism which is 39oom stronger than gravity to hold the galaxies together."

1) disagreed that Maxwell's equations call for ether

2) disagreed that the putative ether would be a superconductor.

The second point is obvious since a superconductor excludes electric and magnetic fields. The first point is subtler.

3) EM holding galaxies together sounds like the Halton Arp theory, which is ... controversial.

4) no i am not going to watch a youtube video overturning a century of physics. if you wish to discuss, lets begin with the maxwell equations in free space with div E and B zero, curl E and B proportional to the partial time derivative of each other with a minus sign thrown in. Where is the ether in these equations ?

sidd

[DrTskoul]

Aether was the putative medium to carry the energy since the minds of the era could not handle photons and vacuum. It is a human construct to decrease stress and worry.  Does not exist in equations....