Nature of the universe:

The nature of the universe is all that which has produced all of the effects that have occurred in this universe. Those effects reach their greatest height in the development of human freewill.

Physics does not tell us about the nature of the universe. Rather it offers us a perspective on how to model and make use of mechancal knowledge. There are important missing parts of nature that physics cannot tell us about. Physics cannot tell us about cause, time, space, and intelligence. We learn about patterns in changes of velocity of objects from physicists, and, we learn how they imagine what cause or causes might produce those effects.

Imagination is good. It is an aid to learning and probably even more than that. It is a self teaching tool. Still, there is more to learning than imagination. Leaving physics aside, well really theoretical physics aside, the rest of the nature of the universe requires our attention. The difficulties with including theoretical physics involve its mechanical attitude and its inventions of the mind that fill in artificially for gaps in our understanding.

The knowledge that experimental physics gives us can tell us, if it remains in uncorrupted form, the knowledge of which it has to share and communicate to us. The equations of physics, left in their empirical forms, represent unadulterated learning. Theory is too often an added on obsruction that places a veil over our eyes and prevents us from learning the nature of the universe. Instead we learn what the theoretical physicist imagines.

Yet there are ways for us to learn that the theoretical physicsts cannot interfere with if we choose to make use of them. The irony is that it is physics that tells us this. Not because it intends to. Ideology and philosophy have become too ingrained into theoretical physics to allow easy access to to understanding the nature of the universe and ourselves.

This message will not tell more about it. My essay has to do with revealing the extensive great changes that must be made to theoretical physics. Even though my own work involves using terms that either are theoretical or are borrowed from theoretical physics, that is not the main purpose of it nor for my previous essays.

The main purpose is to say to others that theory is an obstruction to learning and should be removed from physics. This current esay indicates how that might be achieved. The reward is also indicated by the work. The reward is to find a better path to learning the nature of the universe. That path relies as much as possible upon empirical knowledge. The making of mass and force into definable properties is the first step necessary to move forward in this approach to learning the nature of the universe.

James

Dear James:

You commented on my essay:

"...that is, if we are willing to trade our preconceptions about what's logical for Nature's logic. "

Just getting started on your essay. Find it very remarkable that you are in possession of Nature's logic. Perhaps?! "

My reply is:

I certainly am not 'in possession of Nature's logic'. My point is that we tend to cling to what to us seems logical rather that to what is logical. Our logic isn't some infallible ability to distinguish sense from nonsense, but, evolved in a long history of trial-and-error, at best is but a poor reflection of nature's logic, which is what we want to decipher. Science is not about interpreting observations to fit our ideas about what is logical, a logic which may very well be based upon preconceptions, but about remaining alert for signs which may prove our assumptions wrong, our ideas of what is logical. The fact that every major breakthrough in physics was a conceptual revolution, a break from old, trusted assumptions and ways of looking at things, should help keep an open mind, which in practice is very difficult, as Max Planck found:

''A new scientific truth doesn't prevail by convincing its adversaries and show them the light, but rather because its opponents die out and a new generation grows up which is familiar with it.''

Though we have found it logical for millennia to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe, it took much effort to trade the preconception that the Sun revolves about the Earth for Copernicus' view, for Nature's logic. I'm afraid that Big Bang Cosmology similarly represents a completely obsolete, pre-Copernican view on reality. To me what happens in present cosmology is very much like an alien society where the belief that their own planet is at the center of the universe is a truth which under no circumstances is to be relinquished. As a result the alien cosmologists must dream up an artificial, far-fetched, complicated hypotheses to explain things, complete with equations to enable them to predict motions of stars and galaxies and at the same time keeps that illusion intact, so their equations must in some way be convoluted to be able to correct for the erroneous belief. If observations are made which seem to contradict this belief, additional hypotheses are dreamed up to circumvent or to 'explain' away such observations, just like the cosmic inflation and dark energy hypotheses were invented just to save the fatally flawed big bang hypothesis.

What I want to do is break the taboo by showing a how things look like from a different vantage point, where no far-fetched hypotheses have to be thought up to explain observations. Though physics shouldn't be a playground for philosophy but a domain for statements which can be experimentally tested, some philosophical insights can have a huge impact on physics if they concern the interpretations of observations, even if they aren't verifiable by experiment, like the question whether the speed of light refers to a velocity or to a property of spacetime.

Anton

    Anton W.M. Biermans,

    Hi Anton,

    I neglected to follow through and comment on your essay. Sorry about that. I didn't recall my statement until you refreshed my memory here. I did read your essay. Viewing the universe from both an inside and outside perspective. This message you have written here is well stated. I really should look back at your essay again before commenting on it over at your blog. Thank you for your message.

    James

    • [deleted]

    Hi,James

    I think the best contemporary review is http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.3518

      • [deleted]

      And this one http://arxiv.org/pdf/1009.5514v1.pdf

      Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology

      Hi Yuri,

      Thank you for the links. Are you going to submit an essay?

      James

      • [deleted]

      Yes James, my be next week

      5 days later
      • [deleted]

      An current emergency escape for theoretical physics is 'emergent properties':

      A short message I posted in the 'Time to go Retro' blog for the purpose of adding it to my effort to unseat 'emergence' in place of cause from physics theory:

      "...emergent properties -- derived from but more than the sum of the parts of the underlying substrates -- are just as 'real' as the components of the substrate. "

      I would say more real than its components. The supposed emergent property is pointing us back to our lack of sufficient knowledge of its supposed components.

      Nothing emerges without justification. Gifts are from the God's. They should be intolerable in physics. The shortcut of 'emergent properties' taken by theoretical physicists is added to a line of previous shortcuts that have become so ingrained that they are now foundational shortcuts passed off as foundational facts. My definition of shortcut is for the theorist to give a name to an unsubstantiated property supposedly responsible for making it unnecessary to admit the lack of explanation for cause. Give the cause! That is what I think.

      James

      Was logged out:

      A current emergency escape for theoretical physics is 'emergent properties': was my addition to my quiet blog.

      james

      • [deleted]

      james, thanks for reading my essay. I read yours and was expecting a different conclusion. You said this eliminates gravity as a fundamental force and I was expecting this explains the source of gravity. Can you explain?

        Gene Barbee,

        Thank you for your message and for this question:

        "You said this eliminates gravity as a fundamental force and I was expecting this explains the source of gravity. Can you explain?"

        I was asked to expain my point about two months ago and need to write that response. I have the essay and its math to refer to. I will first write the answer in message form and refer to the essay and its math. The reason for this is that all answers that I give result from the change I presented for mass in my essay. That is the key step in returning theoretical physics to its empirical roots and the unity which it recaptures.

        The choice to make mass an indefinable, or as it is stated in some modern texts, a primary property, was the beginning of injecting disunity into physics equations. Making it into a definable property, which it should always have been, begins a process of development leading from a single cause to all effects and constants. Other properties that have been treated as causes go away and are no longer needed.

        The force of gravity is due to that single original fundamental cause. My message will explain how I move from explaining mass to explaining gravity. I will try to have that message written in the next few days.

        James

        • [deleted]

        James

        I add new posts to my essay where you can read my vision about variation speed of light in history of Universe.

        See please cosmological picture of the Universe.

          Hi Yuri,

          Good. I will look at them soon. You are doing very nicely in the contest. Good luck to you.

          James

          • [deleted]

          James

          In my essay you can read that the cyclic universe gives the possibility of reconciliation between science and religion.

          • [deleted]

          James,

          I want to draw your attention to very interesting view of John Moffat

          "He proposes a variable speed of light approach to cosmological problems, which posits that G/c is constant through time, but G and c separately have not been"

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moffat_%28physicist%29

            • [deleted]

            I would like to make contact with Dr.Moffat, because I find a lot in common in our views .. He did not answer me.

            Arrogantism widespread among professionals.

              Hi Yuri,

              Yes I know. I read it. I will think about his essay more before saying anything to him. I defined G in my essay, not as a universal constant, but as a simple empirically based relationship between the electron and proton of the hydrogen atom. I need to be sure that I fully understand John Moffat's approach. Thank you for the alert.

              James

              Yuri,

              I do not think that way about professionals. There is variety among them as there is among any group, but, PHD's have earned the credentials necessary to speak as authorities. Their responsibilities as extensive and time consuming. Even cordial replies sometimes must wait. They face a difficulty in responding to non-professionals.

              If they respond at all the chances are the correspondence will become prolonged and usually for no good reason. The worst thing they can do is try to be diplomatic. Most non-professionals, who are always swarming to contact the professionals, take politeness as an invitation to teach the professional. Surely you know that almost all non-professional evaluations of theoretical physics are clearly wrong.

              If the professionals are honest in their evaluations, they are often treated disrespectfully. When they can and do give of their time and their opinion it should be accepted gracefully. Wait and while waiting don't use words like 'arrogantism'. If you don't receive a response then try somewhere else. I say this as someone who is occasionally treated disrespectfully and censored by professionals.

              Appreciate that you have the chance to rub elbows with professionals. If that is all you receive from some, it is more than you will receive elsewhere. It should be clear to you and to all that I have been around the Internet for many years and there is no place better to have a chance to say what one thinks scientifically than exists here.

              This is the only place that I converse with professionals other than if they contact me first through email. I never contact them elsewhere. If they see something I say as deserving a compliment, there are some who would and have stepped forward and said so and I thank them for that.

              James

              • [deleted]

              James,

              Do you now Professor Stenger from Colorado?

              http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/VWeb/Home.html

              Fundamental constants - field his research

              Yuri,

              I don't know him. If I did know him as an acquaintance, I would be sure to not talk about physics with him. I have a close relationship with a physics professor and never would I drag him into a discussion about my ideas. The Internet is a fine medium for discourse. It isn't totally relationship free, but, one can usually speak honestly about what they think. Often the conversation remains focused. Relationships, to whatever extent they exist, are of lesser concern and perhaps don't have an affect. In real life I don't burden friends with my ideas about physics. The relationships mean more. As I said in my other message, I never contact professionals directly unless it is to answer their emails. They get plagued enough!

              James