A cause for concern

Manifesto for the Real World Scientific Revolution

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:37:00 +0100

We hold the following to be the case:

(1) Given that it can be assumed that the universe consists just of matter/energy and the forces, what is called the standar model of quantum and particle theory does not make sense. And given any assumption that the known forces are all the causes that act universally, no theory can be successfully developed that generallly explains how the universe is the way that it is.

(2) How an invisible cause could act universally in addition to the forces cannot be demonstrated by measurement and calculation from any evidence found of matter and energy on the smallest scale. Nor can it be demonstrated that this cause acts in the world from any such evidence found of atoms, molecules, their subatomic components or photons of radiant energy when examined alone. This is a cause that, rather than attracting or repelling objects with some measurable strength, acts so that matter can remain in its naturally organised forms despite the action of the forces, and produces the effects that are called quantum wave, spin and entanglement. And only by sufficiently justifying and describing enough details of this cause by examining together enough available natural evidence of where it acts can it be explained how matter can exist at all while consisting almost all of the space be between its subatomic components as particles.

(3) Modern physics lost its rational scientific soul at the fifth Solvay Conference in October 1927 where the ideology of indetermism was first propounded (and subsequently incorporated into the language of all quantum physics textbooks) in what was to be called the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The 1927 conference was also where Louis de Broglie's pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics was rejected.

(4) The closest to a true account of quantum behaviour and its cause yet to be published was argued for in two papers by David Bohm entitled "A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of 'Hidden Variables' I & II"(1952). This account was a more sophisticatd version of De Broglie's Pilot Wave account, and was shown to be consistent with all the experimental evidence from which the original quantum mechanics was derived. This account demonstrated that the uncertainties and probabilites of measurement in quantum meechanics could be understood as limtations in any experimental set up, rather than real properties of quantum behaviour beyond the experimental results. And these observed results could be accounted for by quantum objects being both waves and particles with definable trajectoreies while in motion. As such Bohm's account can be described as a determinate nonlocal causal interpretation of quantum mechanics.. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v85/i2/p166_1 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/

(5) The probabilities and uncertainties of measurement of quantum behaviour that led to the Copenhagen interpretation were a diversion from the fact that matter had been discovered to consist of so little of of anything that could be called material objects. So that just this discovery in 1909 of the minute atomic nucleus was a clear indication the matter needed to consist of more than mere particles. Then the discovery of the electron wave property and Schrodinger's wave equation were clear indications that the quantum wave needed to exist universally as a real property for matter to exist at all as atoms and molecules.

(6) The present Standard Model of quantum and particle theory is severely limited by its lack of a causal explanation of quantum wave, spin and entanglement behaviour, and its description of virtual particle exchange and vacuum energy is not a true account of what occurs on the small scale beyond the measurable results of experiments. And there is no large scale evidence to support the existence of either virtual particals or vacuum energy in the quantity thaat quantum field theory predicts. But rather, the cosmological evidence is of a mysterious 'dark energy', of which there is less than the quantum fiels theory vacuum energy by many orders of magnitude This huge anomoly exists because, rather than causally explaining quantum behaviour in termsof objects in motion, quantum field theory assumes that Heisenbers's Uncertainty Principle applies to the actual behaviour of quantum objects in motion, while there is no direct evidence to justify this assumption. The Standard Model is thus successful as a mathematical scheme that accounts for many properties of matter by describing quantum behaviour just as directly detected and measured. But this model does not causally explain the quantum behaviour itself, and thus provides no scientific explanation of how the natural form and organisation of matter in general is possible.

(7) The only possible empirically verifiable account that may be called a theory of everything will be a natural explanation of everything that cannot be explained by the action of the forces alone. This account could be more accurately called a General Theory of Natural Organisation, where a determinate nonlocal causal nterpretation or hypothesis of quantum wave, spin and entanglement behaviour is supported by an examination of sufficient large scale natural evidence, and thus demonstrates, in enough detail from its observable effects, that and how a cause acts universally, constantly and nonlocally in addition to all the forces.

(8) In a General Theory of Natural Organisation the evidence examined on the large scale will be of available astronomical findings in relation to the evolution of the presently observed large scale structure of the cosmos and the formation of galaxies, stars and planetary systems; as well as living organisms in relation to the nature of the mind as a part of a nonlocal cause, the evolution of consciousness and general features of organic behaviour. This theory may be regarded as a sufficient general explanation of how the universe that includes living organisms is the way that it is, but is capable of indefinite further development.

(9) The General Theory of Natural Organisation may be regarded as a scientific explanation which demonstrates that the real universe makes eough sense of life from a human point of view and will allow human beings to make more sense of their lives by their actions.

The Real World Revolution

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:26:31 +0200

There have been industrial and technological revolutions and those for democracy or based on a theory of history. But no revolution has been brought about by pure scientific knowledge and that has really changed the status quo. So the findings of Copernicus, Newton and Darwin may have changed the minds of many but have not, just as such, led people to change their world in any radical way. And although it could be said that Marxism may not have come about without the influence of scientific findings, the influence of Marxist thought itself has now much diminished.

But suppose there could be a scentific discovery that clearly showed that the universe that includes all life on Earth is not as it appears to be?

Such a discovery could be regarded as a completion of the quantum revolution. For given the discoveries of matter and energy on the smallest scale it can be asked how can matter in any form, including human beings and all other living organisms be and remain composed out of its smallest parts? Doesn't matter in all its forms exist despite the action of all the forces and if so, how could this be so? Could these questions only be answered by discovering and describing enough details of an invisible cause acting in addition to the forces? And could such a cause also act in the universe on the very large scale?

From the scientific findings of the naturalworld so far it can seem very much as though the world is governed just by the push or pull forces and that the universe has no real purpose from a human point of view. But what if a discovery and description of a further universal cause from its effects showed that a viable cosmos could last indefinitely, and finally revealed the true nature of the mind and consciousness...?

The trouble with a physics of the forces alone II

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:29:24 +0200

Such a physics can construct the most successful of all scientific theories in the form of the Standard Model of quantum and particle theory and yet cannot explain how matter or the energy it radiates exists or is subatomically organised.

Why not? Because the theory does not explain how matter and radiant energy possesses behaviour that is called quantum wave, spin and entanglement.

Thus, like atoms and molecules themselves, the Standard Model is virtually hollow at the core without an explanation of how matter persists while being composed of so little that can be detected as material objects and be organised into elements and compounds. But instead this model tries to interpret and calculate the quantum wave out of existence, or argue that its explanation is of no significance or has already been explained by the quantum theory.

Whereas it can be asked:

How can any theory that, like the Standard Model, assumes the action of the forces alone, explain quantum wave spin and entanglement?

How can matter consist almost all of the space between its smallest or subatomic parts without the quantum wave?

Surely isn't the quantum wave something in addition to the forces that cannot be explained by them since the wave allows atoms and molecules to remain in their forms despite the action of the forces and can be measured when the subatomic particle are not components of atoms and molecules?

The trouble with physics of matter/energy and the forces alone

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:43:18 +0200

We have a Big Bang theory of the birth of the cosmos and only the known forces to account for the presently observed universe. The theory says that, by the time the cosmos was about 400,000 years old, matter on the small scale had evolved into hydrogen and helium. But describe just the forces to explain how atoms of hydrogen and helium are the way that they are and you get no answer. So why should such forces alone explain how galaxies are the way that they are of how stars and planetary systems form?

Construct a quantum theory that rules out the possibility that anything exists apart from matter/energy and the push or pull forces as causes, and you are stuck with a cosmology that requires the addition of vast amounts of mysterious and invisible matter and energy, plus a theory of the early cosmos that defies relativity, to possibly explain how the universe is the way that it is

Link to related blog

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:41:09 +0200

http://towardsanageofcertainty.blogspot.com/

The unexplained universe

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:31:47 +0200

A century ago this year a scientific experiment was performed revealing, for the first time, that matter consists almost all of the space between its universal components, the electron and the atomic nucleus as particles. And it can be concluded that there is still no generally recognised theory that explains how matter, and thus the observable universe, can so exist and be naturally organised into atoms, molecules and living organisms, and while the forces act within and upon it.

So although present quantum theory can mathematically describe principles of behaviour that the atomic orbitals of electrons obey, these principles do not explain how this behaviour is possible and thus how matter can be solid and remain in its forms despite the action of all the forces. Such an explanation can be considered to require a sufficiently detailed and empircally justified cause and effect account of how electrons and other quantum objects possess their wave, spin and entanglement behaviour. Although for such an account to be possible the thought could be that there would need to more evidence that can be examined of where an invisible cause could act than anything that could be described from the evidence found on the smallest scale of matter and the energy it can radiate. While to discover how matter can be and remain in its forms as the atoms and molecules of the elements and compounds and of the species of living organisms, there would need to be an invisible cause that would act universally in a different way to that of any force.

A quantum hypothesis - For a general theory of natural organisation

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:25:00 +0200

Abstract

Quantum theory has been developed into a Standard Model that has been highly successful in terms of accuracy, prediction and technological developments. Yet attempts to understand what is hidden beyond the experimental results have only led to various and conflicting interpretations. Although there is just one type of hidden variables approach to the quantum findings where a wide range of experimental results are accounted for in a determinate causal interpretation, and which includes a detailed description of quantum objects in motion that are both waves and particles with defined trajectories. Here we present an argument for and then a development of such a causal interpretation where a cause that would have non-local effects is indirectly represented by means of diagrams. We then find that this hypothesis can be supported by available large scale natural evidence of where such a cause could also be thought to act and we relate properties of a non-locally acting cause to Big Bang cosmological theory, observable astronomical findings and evidence of living organisms. We suggest how an experimentally testable prediction follows from the cosmological hypothesis and where this cosmology could be further developed and supported by a mathematically justified argument and further astronomical observation.

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Abstract………………………………..................................1

1. Initial argument for a non-locally acting cause…2

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1. Initial argument for a non-locally acting cause

Despite all the experimental findings of matter and radiant energy on the smallest scale, and all the methods found to describe these findings, from this evidence alone no effects upon quantum objects that may be described as non-local need be thought to occur on the world beyond the experimental results. These being effects that, unlike those of any force, would not vary in any way at any distance between objects. While the thought could be that even if they do occur then no details could be described of any cause of non-local effects. And especially because these effects that are described as resulting from the entanglement of quantum objects in composite states can only be described in terms of correlations between quantum components rather than any measurable strength of effect. And yet we can that consider all these findings imply that a further cause needs to act with a certain general property that would be unlike that of any force.

So the quantum evidence indicates that matter consists almost all of the space between its subatomic components which are each surrounded by powerful forces that act at a distance between these components, and atoms and molecules are also resistant to disruption by the forces of pressure and collision acting upon them. Hence an initial hypothesis can reason that, while these forces act so as to attract or repel these components or push or pull them, a further cause would need to act constantly just so as to conserve or maintain the atomic and molecular form and organisation of these components and despite the action of the forces.

The organisation conserved would therefore include, in particular, that indicated in quantum mechanics by the Schrödinger and Dirac equations and the Pauli exclusion principle, which describe quantum wave and spin behaviour as organisation required of the subatomic components of matter to account for the visible and chemical properties of the various elements and compounds. So that these wave and spin properties would be behaviour produced and conserved by the further cause.

Also, if it acts universally with a form and organisation conserving property, this cause could conserve the subatomic components themselves as discrete material objects given that, according to the equation E = mc², all matter is energy. For the question arises as to how all this energy can be confined in these components of matter.

Then we can also reason that, unlike any force, a form conserving cause would not act by pushing or pulling or
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attracting or repelling objects. Hence if it acted at a distance, the effects of such a cause would possess no measurable strength that could reduce or cease with increasing distance and so could act without varying at any distance between objects. That the mechanical description of quantum behaviour implies such action as an invariable correlation at a distance between subatomic components of matter was first pointed out in detail in 1935 in a paper by Albert Einstein et alia (EPR).[1] For these correlations are describable where the measured property of the behaviour of one quantum component is necessarily related at a distance to the measured property of another component in what are called composite or singlet states. So that in describing atomic and molecular organisation the Pauli principle requires that there should be such states between the subatomic components.

The EPR paper concluded that ‘no reasonable definition of reality’ would allow such a connection at a distance between objects, and so a quantum mechanics that implied these correlations must be an incomplete account of quantum behaviour; whereas in a complete quantum theory there would be no such implications. However, Irwin Schrödinger, who first devised a mathematical equation that accounted for the electron’s atomic behaviour in terms of a wave property, described EPR correlations as resulting from ‘quantum entanglement’ and regarded this as an essential distinguishing feature of quantum behaviour.

Then since 1972 many experiments have been carried out where the correlations could be measured at various large scale distances both between nuclear components of matter and between photons of light in entangled composite states, and just as described in the 1935 paper. These included the first experiments that measured EPR effects to occur at faster than the speed of light between photons at a distance of 18 metres,[2] and a similar experiment where the correlations were measured over 10.9 kilometres.[3] While the thought can be that these composite states can be measured because a relationship of quantum behaviour, such as the ‘spin-up’ in relation to ‘spin-down’ of protons or electrons, or the different directions of polarisation of photons, remain in these relationships despite the effects of experimental measurements.

The details of these behavioural relationships need not be described in this hypothesis. It is sufficient to conclude that the
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Pauli principle is an indication of how for atoms and molecules to possess their visible and chemical properties their subatomic components need to be organised at a distance in relation to one another. So that given our form and organisation conserving causal hypothesis we can propose that such singlet or composite behavioural relationships between or amongst quantum objects can be measured in experiments because a distinct cause acts at a distance so as to conserve them.

But then there is the problem that if EPR effects occur at super-luminary speeds, they would at least appear to contravene the principles of relativity theory. Moreover, there are widely accepted interpretations of the quantum evidence which consider that none of the findings that are detected and measured in experiments need correspond to what occurs in the world beyond the experimental results: the quantum wave, spin and entanglement being behaviour that is both unobservable from objects in motion and indeterminate. Thus such behaviour is actually measured to obey a systematic and universal principle of indeterminacy, often called Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (HUP). Also, a mathematically very detailed and successful account of the observable evidence, called quantum field theory (QFT), has been developed without needing to describe any further cause that could only be described from its effects from any of the results of quantum experiments. And then one could just ask: what could cause anything to occur that has no measurable strength, surely any cause would need to have some strength to produce any effect at all?

So these are all factors that can provide reasons to conclude that matter and radiation is just, somehow, self-organising or that, since there seems to be nothing that causes the particular results of quantum experiments, the universe experienced is just one amongst an indefinite number of worlds elsewhere that are organised differently or need not display much or any organisation. Or else, especially in a mathematically detailed development of QFT in a unified theory of the four forces that act at a distance, there could be found hidden properties of these known causes and of quantum objects to sufficiently explain the findings described by quantum mechanics.

Whereas firstly we can hold that from the fact that indeterminacy can be described from the observable and
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measurable results of quantum experiments it does not necessarily follow that the actual unobservable behaviour of quantum objects is itself indeterminate. But rather HUP could just describe a systematic limitation in the accuracy of measurements that can be made from the results of any quantum experiment, while the actual quantum behaviour beyond the experimental results could be determined and of a definite form. Secondly, although several attempts have been made to prove the impossibility of any theory that accounts for the observable results in terms of the unobservable or hidden variable behaviour of quantum objects in motion,[4] such proofs have been shown to be invalid.[5] And third we find that indeterminate interpretations result in a seemingly irresolvable logical and philosophical problem of measurement. [6] Then finally we can point out that a mathematically detailed, determinate, so-called non-local hidden variables account has actually been developed that is consistent with a wide range experimental results, and where no insoluble measurement problem need arise.[7]

This alternative quantum mechanical account has been called the de Broglie-Bohm Interpretation (de B-BI) or Bohmian Mechanics, and which does feature a distinct additional cause that can only be described from its effects, which is called the quantum potential. The term ‘non-local’ is used to distinguish such causation from that of all the forces that act at a distance, which can all be described as acting locally in fields that surround objects. So that gravity and electromagnetism are measured to reduce in strength according to the inverse square of the distance around objects and the nuclear strong and weak forces have no measurable strength beyond the atomic nucleus.

Whereas in de B-BI a non-locally acting cause is described that possesses no measurable strength and so could act without varying over any distance and, as we have deduced, could be true if a further cause acted just so as to conserve the natural form and organisation of matter and radiation. While given the action of such a cause, that could produce the quantum wave and spin properties and the EPR correlations, there need be no such measurement problem as the ‘collapse of the wave function’[8], nor need the jumps between energy levels that can be described of the behaviour of electrons as atomic components be regarded as discontinuous, as in the orthodox quantum mechanics.[9]
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Also, whereas just from the measurable results of various experiments, orthodox quantum mechanics can only describe quantum objects as possessing either wave or particle properties, de B-BI can account for these results by mathematically and diagrammatically describing in detail how each quantum object could be both a particle and possess an accompanying extended wave property while in motion.[10] The conclusion can then be that no measurement, calculation or mathematical formula would be sufficient to definitely show that or, in enough detail, how this quantum potential affects the behaviour matter or radiant energy.

However, this lack of measurable properties could be thought more to account for the fact that QFT could be developed in so much mathematical detail without such a cause being described and as a crucial reason for the existence of such causation not being generally recognised in modern physics, rather than as a sufficient reason to deny that a cause with non-local effects could act so as to conserve the form and organisation of matter and radiation.

So that, in what follows, we shall initially assume that a determinate non-local causal interpretation such as de B-BI is valid to find reasons to consider that a quantum hypothesis can be developed that is found to require, rather than measurement and mathematical formulae, the use of appropriate diagrams to represent the way in which a non-locally acting cause could relate in space in producing its effects and also the form that this causation could take to produce quantum wave behaviour. Then from this hypothesis reasons are found to consider that such a cause acts in the natural world on a larger scale, and firstly by considering various astronomical findings and a currently well developed cosmological theory of such findings, and finally we relate our diagrammatic hypothesis to general evidence of living organisms.

Apart from the geometry of spatial relationships no mathematics is used anywhere in this account, but we consider that mathematical calculations - and more observational evidence - could be used to further develop and support a consistent and comprehensive cosmological theory, and that the account of living organisms given here could be expanded in much more detail.

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