(This is just for fun)
At about 9 years of age in a tiny country school, the writer chanced across a book chapter called something like - 'what is light?'. The chapter discussed the problem of light acting as if it were a particle while at the same time behaving as a wave. Reading this had the effect of making one both very curious and very doubtful about the the things one was taught later about physics. Neither was the situation helped by reading popularised versions of relativity. It all sounded impressive but raised more questions than were answered.
At intervals after that one followed up the matter hoping that light would dawn. It seemed that for me, there was some some link in the chain of logic missing. And not just because mathematics was a subject that didn't appeal greatly! Geometry ? ... a piece of cake, as they say. Algebra? Nice logic, but no figures ever seemed to stick in this head very well .. even when one later had a real use for maths. Relativity can be explained in text books in a simple geometrical manner, and one would think that would settle the matter - for the logic is quite clear and no great mystery of space/time is involved, but somehow ....
Lately there have been a number of popular books on physics and the universe.
They can be very readable, but as soon as one starts questioning
I get the sinking feeling that they are assuming all sorts of things
that I don't think are certain at all. But the
writers are so brilliant - especially mathematically.
Until
they mention the dreaded indeterminate cat in a box !
Collapse the wave function with a human observer?! I
like the idea - since I want the universe to be mysterious - but the way
they use it here just says to me that if you start with a misleading assumption,
however intelligent you are, you must end up with a misleading result.
There can also be presented some strange logic that the 'uncertainty
principle'
causes things to happen! What extraordinary
faith in scientific dogma ... uncertainty is not a principle behind
facts but an observation made about finding facts .
Yes, I know great minds think the opposite. I wouldn't mind
if they were right, but I think there are other explanations.
Nonetheless,
one kept on and finally came to some conclusions, or perhaps better to
say, strung together some possibilities that gave a hint of understanding
for a non mathematical brain. Since I simply have
to stop doing this web site soon (or I will never do anything else),
here is a just a quick outline straight of the top of my head, complete
with confusion, till I can come back and organize it properly.
Please regard what follows as fun ... or pure science fiction. Think
of it as the same sort of speculation you get at the end of
the popular books where the writer lets their hair down and
makes a logical guess as to how it's all really going to be worked
out.
-------------
My mind tends to regard the material world, fairly automatically, at various scales depending what I am thinking of. The somewhat incomprehensible scale of the stars and galaxies with a vague notion of infinity beyond, the human scale with the earth, then moon and planets, the atomic scale ( being nudged by quantum effects), and, I am going to suggest here, a sub quantum level.
This last proposition is where I see an explanation for much that has puzzled me. It provides a framework for relativity, for supposedly random quantum behaviour, for gravity, for the speed of light, for the inverse square laws, a relation between gravity and photon ... etc. etc. At the extreme assumption it provides the writer at least, with a reason for there being a universe to get excited about at all. Or depressed about as the case may be.
Before one goes any further,
here is a simple, and not too misleading, 'mind experiment'.
Picture yourself as a 'science fiction' hero who has
perfected a shrinking device which can carry you safely, together
with working instruments, inside a transparent 'force field'
to any place. You decide to investigate the
atoms of the floor below.
You shrink. The floor looms.
You descend into the wood beneath the thick fibres of the carpet. You hesitate
at a particular cell and shrinking further, pass in at an equivalent to
molecule size. At which point you first notice a curious indistinctness
around one. One had perhaps assumed that there would a sort of solar
system like structure visible, as in the atoms taught at school.
You had seen x ray photos of supposed atoms and assumed there would be
some 'solidity' below the appearance. After all , the other
scientists insist on describing a great variety of sub -atomic particles.
However, though your instruments are registering the presence of
considerable forces, there is nothing of substance 'visible'.
And so it goes. As you shrink further and further it becomes obvious that there is nothing solid to be found. Even in the heart of some nucleus, there is just space ... apparently .. though it is affecting your instruments in a very strange way. And wherever you test, that space appears to be filled with forces changing at great speed, sometimes rhythmically and in harmonious patterns, sometimes in apparently random fashion.
It occurs
to you that the world you had lived in was something of an illusion.
It was only because you were composed yourself of enormous numbers of these
strange pulsating forces that you were able to react with other bodies
made of similar patterns of immaterial forces.
How on earth one asks, can forces exist as just that,
in empty space? What gives form to the universe of these shapes?
Why one pattern and not another? You retreat to the normal world
to cogitate.
Assume the
following. There is, at a minute scale beyond any conceiving,
( at the Planck limit, where the physicists start wondering about
mini wormholes and curled up one dimensional strings etc.) a continual
flux of changing dimensions. Each point of what we call space ( and
time) must adopt one form, or other, of a single 'primal energy'.
Assume that
the possible 'forms' that this point can take are various combinations
of what we term dimensions. Some are the common spatial
dimensions, some are the dimensions required by the mathematicians to make
the relationships of various forces, spin charge and etc- of 'particles'
work, all this happening in the dimension of time.
That is ;- all the dimensions must be present, but according
to current phase must have a dominance, in our space time, of one or several
of them. Not one of the forms is 'solid' - or energy.
It is only- mark this - it is only ever a relation to another
point of flux. You could even say the universe is a result purely of
an abstract mathematical relation. (Though that is only how
it appears to a human way of thinking, where abstract
mind experiences are seen as different from physical ones.)
Assume that the
flux changes it's state without 'loss', and can never stop, when regarded
from a time point of view.
( So did it 'start' with a big bang? A first single
impulse to change within the inconceivable infinite primal energy? ...
wait)
Assume that the flux acts exactly like a transfer of 'form' from point to point. Think of the picture given by the physicists of empty space being filled with virtual energy. Pairs of particles skipping in and out of existence. It would be better to think of the flux rising to a point of intensity of one form - which can then be detected by other points of intensity that have stabilized in wave resonant groups as 'particles.' i.e. created a human accessible scale of world where scientists poke about to detect quantum phenomena.
Now imagine
that this flux is rather like the continual movement of molecules in a
rippling pond. Each is a carrier of the energy ( or more accurately,
change of form ) of a ripple for a time.
That should be enough for anyone familiar with the subject to see exactly
where this is going. Feel free to work it all out for yourself.
Now imagine that as each instance of the flux changes .. er.. form is transferred. Like a sheet of metal in tension it cannot, by the nature of the disturbed multi- dimensional primal energy, be still. Once disturbed it must 'click' one way or the other, into one state or other. (actually that is not quite how I suppose it. The primal energy is something else, it is only taking the 'form' of dimensions ... from our human 'within the dimensions' point of view).
Now add the
proposition that the possible 'dimensions' of this point of flux
include space and time. The other 'dimension's appearing,
from our point of view, as 'relationship' between
the other flux units. Their interactive possibilities.
In short
we have a non - material, non- energy, nothingness, whose only attributes
are change, which is visible to creatures like humans, who exist,
(or more accurately do not exist!) in a 'space time world' which
is an illusory result of these mostly inconceivable, dimensions interacting
together.
( that was quite a good line!)
The next step
is to imagine that the flux is changing at a particular rate, so that change
can only spread across the flux at a certain speed. Giving
us the speed of 'light'. Except of course there is no
such thing as a real speed .. or time .. or space. The
change rate of flux, and the 'space' it occupies, could be said to be anything
at all. There is only the dimensional relationship between
flux units. Or rather, for us, the relationship between
inconceivable numbers of flux units averaged over the human scientific
world scale. So that however the rate of the flux changed it would
not alter the perception of it from our point of view.
Vaguely like running a
'CD of the universe' at slow speed. Since our
perception and measurements are part of the data on the CD, we still
perceive things according to their relationship, not some absolute
standard. The 'speed' of light is thus a result of the basic
settings of dimensional relation.
Over shorter
range there is the apparent random effect of the variations in the flux,
producing peaks where they interact with the incredibly complicated
wave structures of collections of 'particles' - which of course
are not really such at this scale . The other assumption
being, in case it wasn't obvious, that there is nothing else
existing beside this flux. The 'photons' and real 'particles' follow
wave mechanics and Feynman probability vectors because they
are
the result of waves. Feynman's description of every possible route
is precisely accurate. Every point in the flux
propagating to every other point.
Every part
of the universe subject to every other part over time - the
tiniest fading effect still counting. It is no wonder that peak effects
( photons ... whatever) are effectively random, their detection coincides
with a peak of near infinite vectors of unknowable sources. To effect change
detectable at our scale in the agglomerates of wave patterns requires
change of a level that breaks the resonance. A quantum change
in fact.
One
thought briefly that it ought to be possible to test with coherent
wave patterns and materials to alter the probabilities because of this,
till it was realized that of course it will alter the probabilities,
as it does in fact - because they are the same 'probabilities' scientists
actually use.
The flux idea means that strictly speaking there is no such thing as force .. gravity etc. ( or mass). Forces are merely what is measured by one volume of the flux, which has assembled as a stable resonant group, against another. Force is our word for the effect we 'feel' as a nerve/brain/reacting, fixed dimensional agglomerate of wave patterns. ( this is getting better all the time!) The reality is only ... 'change happens.'
It is possible
to picture the flux as an 'aether' of sorts where waves of change propagate,
and thus see how simple 'density' affects of a particular dimensional form
can alter passage of waves. It does work, really! Space,
not being empty, but full of the patterns of flux, follows exactly the
character of a 'field', and also acts as relativity effects are supposed
to. Draw pages full of dots arranged in wave patterns and field density
and work it out. While about it, consider the inverse square
law and the geometry of 'area presented' towards the flux of a certain
'mass' if there is a vector of appropriate character.
( This is so simple it just can't
be true! )
Also, since
the 'objects' are not separate 'bodies' but formed of flux patterns,
any measurement made accords with the principles of relativity. Most
specifically, the rate of 'mass less' propagation across the flux ( light
speed ) always measures the same. Infuriatingly I can't remember
now exactly how I managed to see that ! Which matters
very much .. because it is the one essential element of special relativity
effects , everything else is just a logical extension from that fact
.. augh .. my brain is tying in a knot whenever I try to think of
it again.
I do
remember, getting stuck on the exact nature of 'mass' which obviously doesn't
propagate in the same way. But, due to the 'loss less ' nature
of the flux change, the mass change once propagated would move continuously
( though it might be 'stationary' or seem so, for all we know = inertia
) There was ( historically) an idea of the 'field' of
gravity becoming more and more intense until it reached a stage of
a singularity 'manifesting' as a real particle at our scale.
Which fits
nicely to the concept of a flux. You could almost say it is the opposite
of Einstein's relativity. The mass doesn't cause space/time
to 'curve' ... the flux of time/space around where the mass appears
to be is what produces the mass. Except that this would be
really just the same thing from two viewpoints. And the 'singularity'
is off course, not quite that .. it is a mathematical artefact to have
infinities .. they appear because this is the source of all being and resultant
maths in the first place. ( what??)
It would be
fun to make some sort of prediction based on this harebrained scheme
and for a while I did think there was one. Namely, the universe was
going to expand for ever, at least by measurements from our point
of view. But damn it, I wanted it to collapse back
and be an endless cycle so that was out. And then I heard that apparently
the universe is expanding or infinite. Hah!
But I don't
think that is the whole story anyway. It is spatial measurement
that is supposed to expand, and that is only one of the dimensions
involved. And in any case, I am not trying to prove anything, just
enjoying the speculation.
For example, if this universe is all a matter of definition
of relationship between dimensions, and all the wave action is analogue
rather than randomly quantised, there is no 'arrow of time' as they call
it, and it can all exist complete and connected as one 4
( or 5 or 11 or 26 according to your theory ) dimensional continuum
containing all possibilities. If awareness, or our point
of view anyway, was not tied to time space as we know it, would we
then know there to be a single vast multi-dimensional whatsit/ all creation
through time ? Like the aforementioned 'CD of the universe'.
And would
one see, as it were, concurrently, that by the time the universe
had expanded sufficiently to reach final entropic death it had reverted
in parallel back to what it was originally - an infinite source?
Note, size is relative here. It doesn't have to collapse back
in on our present scale and therefore energy intensity.
It is only necessary for the original mathematical configuration/state
to recur. So that the end state of infinite energy is the same as
the beginning state ..( er.. if you take the time point of view).
For all we could say, the 'size' of the universe has not increased at all, rather, the continual ripples of the flux have grown more and more complicated and 'finer' so that everything has acquired more 'space' between them ... precisely as is meant to be happening I note .. red shift and all. Also, the question of what is 'outside' the universe or 'before' it, doesn't arise. It is only a mathematical - probably geometrical - based change happening 'nowhere' or perhaps in the mind of .... something.
Anyway, suppose the 'all that is', has reached the end
of it's time swing. All space, no change ... except that
at some infinite point, the ripples of the flux must reach .... unison,
identical frequency. Perhaps like a vibrating string with an all
but infinite number of harmonics. All harmonics are divided from the fundamental
vibration and eventually must arrive back at unison.
( or perhaps there is complete stasis .. or perhaps the time dimension
has a relation to the other changes that reverses everything?)
In any case .. there is a godlike declamation,
in deep electronic tones of vast significance ... " The cycle ends and
begins (again) !" The serpent bites it's own tail.
Or more likely, not.
Then there is the dimension of 'selfness' or 'consciousness'. Yes
indeed. Bit of a mystery that. (See the page entitled 'the
tree of life') I think one would have to say that the only
possible explanation is to just accept that is a reality, just
as much as we accept the reality of a world and the laws which it appears
to follow. At the deepest level neither has an 'explanation'.
Existence has this way of just existing. So awareness
just
is. And the only way you can 'fit it into' a real
universe is in the same way we fit all the other dimensions, -- just
accept it.
(Without bending one inch to agree, at this stage,
with the supposed need for an 'observer' to collapse the wave functions
of the universe.)
Rather, accepting that 'mind' or 'awareness' could
hold or contain the dimensions of the proposed sub quantum flux.
After all,
there is nothing much else but a mind that could hold, or be the substrate
for, a purely conceptually based universe. Suppose
further, as has often been suggested, the universe is the 'thoughts'
of this vast mind. A mind so real that the 'thoughts' are real things,
and are the nature of it. When 'god-absolute-mind'
thought " beauty" - the cycle of energy, matter, galaxies,
the stars and planets and all forms of life and knowing and joy and tragedy
were embodied. Not as a universe 'created' by working it all
out, so much as being a whole , which if only we could share the
point of view, is the inevitable and only nature possible to a godmind
/ existence.
( I once did a painting called 'the
sower and the seed'. It was a huge galaxy in space, with symbols
and a barely discernible earth like ploughed field in the lower quarter.
The idea was that the stars and worlds are the fields from which the seeds
of life must arise to play out the godmind's rather terrifying, yet
beautiful, depth of creative impulse. )
The above flux is a weird scheme, though not as weird as some of the alternative speculation around. I would actually rather like to believe the randomness and wave collapsing of quantum nature, and wormholes and infinite universes. I just think it's more likely the same sort of misunderstanding science always has before the next theory comes along .... a basic error in concepts.
A reader could search the internet for alternate
views. There are some mathematical versions ( of string theory etc. )
out there. I suppose they are more likely
to be right than this idiocy ... I suppose.
Try the following site .. (it was there in 2000)
for a somewhat 'new age' and sometimes 'psychic' view ;-
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paraphys/
It calls itself .. "Yggsdrasil, the magazine
of paraphysics", it includes some interesting and lengthy articles,
especially on 'theories of everything.'
For myself,
and I suspect many others, truth has to be put in words and concepts that
are real to us. Maths, yes, but seen in a way that shows it's
logical place in the scheme.
The flux idea above, is vaguely comprehensible
without working the maths. In theory I imagine, one could do
maths of the basic flux dimension relations, run it on a computer and produce
a complete model of the universe. ... but I care more
that it allows for greater than just physical possibilities,
it encompasses, ties things together, and points to something greater.
At which point one stops with the ( very slight ) chance of clearer explanation to come when there is time. Or when I have changed my mind about the whole thing. After all, there is still the possibility that any 'supermind' is completely outside the time space universe altogether and may dispose of the whole thing on a whim. About now for instance!!!
Apparently
not. Unless ... unlesss ..
At least then there might be a much more human friendly
'supermind of caring love', as pictured by christians and others.
A supermind which is the universe
is a very terrible one, where some individuals face a role that no one
would want .. unless there really is a 'soul' and laws that we do not know
about of course .. such as the 'karma' approach.
Or unless there is a knowledge and
nature outside our normal comprehension, which changes everything. A secret
so simple, yet astonishing, that we cannot see it. Which is what
I really like to think is the truth.
I hope you enjoyed the ride....
David W Lawrence. July 2000
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