Light Eye
03-11-2006, 12:13 PM
dear friends,
http://www.werbos.com/reality.htm
be well, be love.
david
what is reality? how can we discover the ultimate physical/mathematical laws
which govern its evolution in time ? or govern its state across space-time?
because this a very complex subject, because you all start out in different
places, and because i see an unconventional way to put togther the very
complicated mathematical concepts of mainstream physics, let me start out with
the general picture as i see it.
the general picture
at the united nations university on consciousness in 1999, the organizer, a
japanese physicist, asked us all to start out with a very brief haiku-like
summary of what is different about our viewpoint. i said:
?reality is strange but real.
we need more color in our lives and less in our quarks.?
today i would add:
?quantum field theory (qft) says that objective reality does not exist.
but objective reality says that qft does not exist (mathematically).
only if both ghosts reconcile and rise above the flat earth can either one
become solid.?
this path has taken me to visit and study very closely much of the work of the
great experimentalist, prof. yanhua shih. shih?s experiments with quantum
optics,
?bell?s theorem? experiments, quantum teleportation, quantum lithography and so
on are perhaps the most complete and accurate in the world. i have often
wondered: how can people talk about quantum measurement for years and years, and
profess to be experts, without taking a very long and hard look at the best
empirical data ? in its full depth and richness ? about how quantum measurement
actually works in the experiments which tell us the most about it?
as i look ahead? i see a possible path which starts out in the lowlands of
much more rigorous mathematical methods than those now used in high-energy
physics, but leads up ahead to future peaks ? obscured somewhat by clouds and
uncertainties ? of serious possibilities for enormous technological
breakthroughs (and hazards) after we develop our fundamental understanding
further. it also allows for the possibility that the greater universe ? full of
force fields we have yet to fully understand ? may be far stranger, in
qualitative terms, than everyday common sense seems to suggest. just how strange
could it be? just to begin? go to what is life?? or consider the backwards time
interpretation of quantum mechanics which i first published in 1973, and have
refined a great deal since then (and even since 2000).
circa 1900, the conventional wisdom in physics said: ?we already know it all,
with only a few very small holes to fill in. these holes in our understanding
are so small that they could not possibly have technological implications?? we
have less reason to believe that today than we did then, and look what happened
in the twentieth century! if we can avoid the historic tendency of aging
civilizations to become jaded and slowly repress creativity and diversity in
myriad ways, the objective opportunities look very exciting.
today?s high-energy physics has tended to become very myopic in its focus on
large accelerators and collisions between individual particles. certainly these
accelerators are an important tool in reasearch, but we should never forget the
larger question: what are we missing by not paying more attention to large scale
many-body effects for anything but the effects of electricity and magnetism? is
it possible that the elevated realms of grand unified field theory have
something to learn from the humble literature of people who build lasers and
chips? is it even possible that new technologies could emerge from that way of
thinking?
[non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://www.werbos.com/reality.htm
be well, be love.
david
what is reality? how can we discover the ultimate physical/mathematical laws
which govern its evolution in time ? or govern its state across space-time?
because this a very complex subject, because you all start out in different
places, and because i see an unconventional way to put togther the very
complicated mathematical concepts of mainstream physics, let me start out with
the general picture as i see it.
the general picture
at the united nations university on consciousness in 1999, the organizer, a
japanese physicist, asked us all to start out with a very brief haiku-like
summary of what is different about our viewpoint. i said:
?reality is strange but real.
we need more color in our lives and less in our quarks.?
today i would add:
?quantum field theory (qft) says that objective reality does not exist.
but objective reality says that qft does not exist (mathematically).
only if both ghosts reconcile and rise above the flat earth can either one
become solid.?
this path has taken me to visit and study very closely much of the work of the
great experimentalist, prof. yanhua shih. shih?s experiments with quantum
optics,
?bell?s theorem? experiments, quantum teleportation, quantum lithography and so
on are perhaps the most complete and accurate in the world. i have often
wondered: how can people talk about quantum measurement for years and years, and
profess to be experts, without taking a very long and hard look at the best
empirical data ? in its full depth and richness ? about how quantum measurement
actually works in the experiments which tell us the most about it?
as i look ahead? i see a possible path which starts out in the lowlands of
much more rigorous mathematical methods than those now used in high-energy
physics, but leads up ahead to future peaks ? obscured somewhat by clouds and
uncertainties ? of serious possibilities for enormous technological
breakthroughs (and hazards) after we develop our fundamental understanding
further. it also allows for the possibility that the greater universe ? full of
force fields we have yet to fully understand ? may be far stranger, in
qualitative terms, than everyday common sense seems to suggest. just how strange
could it be? just to begin? go to what is life?? or consider the backwards time
interpretation of quantum mechanics which i first published in 1973, and have
refined a great deal since then (and even since 2000).
circa 1900, the conventional wisdom in physics said: ?we already know it all,
with only a few very small holes to fill in. these holes in our understanding
are so small that they could not possibly have technological implications?? we
have less reason to believe that today than we did then, and look what happened
in the twentieth century! if we can avoid the historic tendency of aging
civilizations to become jaded and slowly repress creativity and diversity in
myriad ways, the objective opportunities look very exciting.
today?s high-energy physics has tended to become very myopic in its focus on
large accelerators and collisions between individual particles. certainly these
accelerators are an important tool in reasearch, but we should never forget the
larger question: what are we missing by not paying more attention to large scale
many-body effects for anything but the effects of electricity and magnetism? is
it possible that the elevated realms of grand unified field theory have
something to learn from the humble literature of people who build lasers and
chips? is it even possible that new technologies could emerge from that way of
thinking?
[non-text portions of this message have been removed]