Edwin,

Re your iconoclastic survey of the status of modern physics.... Bravo! Your insights into the wild and wooly world of physics research are a refreshing .... well, just refreshing says it best.

The difficulties of experimental testing of extrema theories, like particle physics and cosmology, seem to tempt some of our colleagues to cheat on sci method testing in order to stoke the imagination. When objective analysis leads to an impasse, a resort is made to bypass testing or to shave away hairy problems with Occam's Razor, a subjective and unscientific standard.

Special thanks are in order for the revealing review of the QED skeleton in the closet. Apparently QED is really only Quantum ElectrON Dynamics, finely tuned parametrically to agree with electron testing, but QMD would require another tune-up for the muon... perhaps another alpha 'constant' and doubling of the parametric set? And then noting that QED has all the predictive power of Darwinism.... breathtaking expository precision but nonexistent predictions.

Interesting, Edwin... Why isn't this specificity trumpeted along with the 6 sigma QED compliance with reality?

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world!".....said Archimedes. Now this has been updated to, "Give me enough 'tunable parameters' and I shall completely curve-fit reality with least-squares laws!

"Planck satellite data shows with high precision that we live in a remarkably simple universe.".... but maybe too simplistic. More than the inflationary paradigm is in trouble, post Planck-2013... just the iceberg's tip, Edwin.

The CMB as officially interpreted: the remnant radiation from the surface of last BB scattering, capturing the primeval structure of temp differences then, for all time and all places. We are looking - we are told - back in time 13 billion years to the first formation of matter.

However, a series of unexpected multiple multipole alignments had appeared in the COBE and WMAP sky scans, but were assumed to be temporary artifacts that the Planck survey would erase.... Instead, Planck affirmed the anomalies even more credibly.

The combination of a complete lack of any known systematic error, and long odds against random alignment was such a threat to the BB model that the combo has earned the initial low-alignment anomaly the nickname - "Axis of Evil". The axial correlation between multipole harmonics evident in all 3 CMB sky scans matched the local sky geometry to a very high CL.... the Leo direction, equinoxes, ecliptic and galactic planes were all there. And now there are more.... a lot more. All of these anomalies contradict the standard model of the universe and have no explanation in the LCDM, the standard Big Bang model. We are told we are seeing a pattern ubiquitous in space and formed far back in time, yet what we see is what is in the sky now - the local symmetries and celestial landmarks of our solar system and galaxy. As if when peering into deep space with our telescopes, we would actually see the surrounding buildings and trees in our own backyard! And how is it that the Andromedans see our solar and galactic alignments in their local sky?

There are not one, not two, but three giant elephants in the living room.

1) What explains this evidence so contradictory to the conventional cosmology for the CMB, BB, LCDM and even the Copernican principle?

2) Why is this evidence treated as non-emergent in the world of physics?

3) Why is the vast CMB universe seemingly centered on an insignificant planet like Earth?

All the best,

Robert

    Robert,

    What a gracious remark you begin with.

    I could not recall which essay was yours and when I found it there was only one mark on it: 're-read', underlined. I will do so and respond on your thread.

    As for the current anomalies in physics, is it surprising that they seem to get 'swept under the rug'? The establishment structure is so heavily invested in QED that even 120 orders of magnitude change in vacuum energy is simply ignored by most. That should have been earthshaking, calling the whole concept of virtual particles into question.

    Although I do not mention it in the current essay, I have written about the 'Axis-of-Evil', which as you know, forms a really big bump under the rug. The silence is deafening.

    I do not have any quantitative calculations but hope to generate some. May I offer you a qualitative explanation for the axis. This works much better with a diagram, but I'll try to be succinct.

    The model I described (my master equation) has a perfectly symmetric solution G = 1/r if C is suppressed. If one assumes that the gravitational field explodes symmetrically, then the energy density, hence mass density, at the big bang should create a massive outward flow. Each volume element would induce massive gravito-magnetic circulation. But here's the kicker: every outward "ray" of energy is completely surrounded by neighboring rays of energy and the perfect symmetry causes each induced circulation to cancel its neighbor's circulation, completely suppressing all circulation.

    At some point, as always, symmetry breaks, and the axis on which it breaks will unleash tremendous energy, establishing a preferred direction, a.k.a., "the Axis-of-Evil".

    I won't conjecture in a comment on the peculiarly "earth-centric" aspect (the 'evil' part!).

    Since you don't mention him I'll assume you may be unaware of Michael J Longo's study of spiral galaxies. (Google: Longo spiral galaxies) arXiv:1104.2815 and a Physics Letters B 4/14/11 paper. Very interesting. And very compatible with my model.

    I thank you again for reading my essay and for your wonderful comment. I look forward to re-reading your essay and commenting on it.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Respectfully Doctor Klingman,

    You wrote in your essay that you had self awareness. Obviously, it is clear from the sheer brilliance of the writing that you are indeed gifted enough to have self awareness. You may be the last man in America to have self awareness.

    I never had self awareness. From my birth to the present no matter in which direction I faced, I have only been able to see humanly fabricated structures or humanly explored terrains. My nostrils have only ever received wafts of humanly compromised fumes. My mouth has only tasted humanly adulterated food and liquids. Man made sounds have constantly drowned out any bird songs or dog barks or cock crows. Only fabricated materials have ever touched me.

    There is no me here. I have three options. I can be a conventionally, consistently, or conspicuously conformist.

    Joe,

    Self-aware or not, you are unique!

    Lev,

    The focus of the paper I referenced was on inflation models and the conclusion was that many complex inflation models are eliminated by the Planck results.

    As I noted to Robert below, my C-field model qualitatively accounts for the WMAP and COBE multi-pole anomalies and the spiral galaxy distribution, and potentially provides dark energy and dark matter, although I have absolutely no idea whether this makes quantitative sense. The new nonlinear technique offers a greater range of possibility but decreases my intuitive feel for the solutions. I am currently focusing my efforts on particle problems where the numbers are well known. Cosmological numbers, such as the thickness of the Milky Way, can double overnight, so I never know what cosmological numbers to trust.

    I am aware of the quasar cluster but I've not put much thought into how it fits my model. My gut feel is that if I can explain the multi-pole anomaly, the rest will fall out.

    Thanks for pointing to this data. Whatever the final outcome I think it's clear that the current cosmological models are on life support.

    Best,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Dear Gene,

    Thanks for your heartening remarks.

    You mention that I did not include values for the C-field. This is correct, although the values are included in the linked references. I will give you a brief summary:

    In 2006, when I decided that a new field was likely, I asked myself how strong the field could be without interfering with known atomic and molecular physics and chemistry. I arrived at a value that turned out to be 31 orders of magnitude greater than indicated in Einstein's field equations. Then, within the year, Martin Tajmar reported measurement of the C-field with an experimental result 31 orders of magnitude greater than expected. So for the last seven years I've been using this scale factor. It has produced very interesting results, while at the same time not yielding other results that I expected to find. As mentioned in my essay Kauffmann's work in the East and Pretorius papers caused me to focus on the nonlinear approach I show on page 4. The result is that, rather than a fixed value, the strength of the field appears to vary depending on the driving force. This is a radical change from my previous work and I'm only beginning to pursue quantitative results. I have great hopes for this approach, but, so far, have solved very few quantitative problems. I expect this to change within a reasonably short time.

    I've looked at your essay, but of course have not yet worked through all of your numbers. And I'm not sure that I fully understand your model. You ask where your large factor exp (90) comes from. My belief, based on work I have done, is that the nonlinear approach yields very unexpected numbers. Your comment references Kauffmann (reference 15 in my essay). I recommend reviewing this and looking at my reference 16, East and Pretorius, to gain a better idea of the effect of nonlinearity on gravity.

    Thanks again for your extensive comment and your kind remarks.

    Best,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    I would like to call my readers' attention to a remarkable essay by Alexei Grinbaum. To understand fully the following comments, one must read his essay, nevertheless, my comment to him is worth reproducing:

    Dear Alexei,

    A most interesting essay! If I understand you correctly, you are considering the case of what will remain of a physics theory "if one clears away its human inventors and users," based on the assumption that our ideas of physical reality are primarily a function of the way our brains are wired. Thus the first thing you throw away are ontological bases for theories. You conclude that only a mathematical basis of theories remains.

    This appears to be a Platonic belief that math exists in some extra physical realm. An alternate perspective, developed in my essay, considers that, in the sense of Wheeler's "Participatory Universe", we are immediately connected to the physical universe (i.e., we sense gravity directly), while mathematics is a creation of the organization of our brains. In this case, if brain-based ideas are removed, then only physical reality, but no mathematical "principle" remains. This seems to cover the extreme cases.

    A Platonic mathematical universe seems reflected in your statement: "in theoretical physics the axiomatic method must be separated from the Greek attitude that axioms repeat truths about reality." And "the axiomatic method has become a powerful tool for mathematical research."

    My approach is based on the fact that I know how to derive math from matter, but I cannot imagine how to derive matter from math, and Occam's razor seems to argue against the separate independent existence of math and matter. Given a set of measurement numbers, an algorithmic procedure based on entropy maximization will produce a feature vector, with no ontological assumptions, and the space of such feature vectors is the typical basis of physical theories. The numbers and their mathematical manipulation, up to and including the derivation of the feature vectors, all are generated by material circuitry. Similarly, the fact that you discuss, that physics is observer independent (in the sense you describe) "only because quantum mechanics uses abstract mathematics..." is also compatible with matter generated math.

    You have an interesting discussion that concludes that we do not have the "precise physical constitution" of the observer. This too is compatible with matter-generated-math as there are countless ways to design mathematical circuits, all of which will produce the same numeric outputs. You conclude that "the defining characteristic of the observer" is that "it must have information about some physical system." In my model this information is equivalent to energy transferred from the system to the structure of the observer, and thereby 'registered', becoming information. In other words wholly dependent on the 'it' of the observer structure. The 'bit' is the result that comes into existence only when a threshold is crossed. This is in agreement with your remark that "this information fully or partially describes the state of the system."

    So we are both led to the conclusion that "An observer is a system identification algorithm."

    I was surprised when our different assumptions converged on this point. You note that the observer can be flesh or silicon. Like you, I treated a robot developing a theory of physics, based on measurement, for the same purpose of eliminating human preconceptions. It is fascinating that you appear to start with the reality of a mathematical world and the reality of information, while I deny both, and we reach an important common conclusion. This became much clearer with the development of your schema based on where one cuts the loop.

    You say "Each way of cutting the loop fixes one part of the loop in the position of derived concepts [...] while the other part becomes a given, ..."

    You have done a superb job in developing this formalism. Congratulations!

    You say, "it is mandatory to cut the loop, which makes it impossible to close within one theory the gap between the observer and the observed." This might also be considered the inherent boundary between the subjective and the objective. But where does one cut the loop? The system cannot choose, only the observer can choose. Based upon awareness that metric overlays on reality are mental constructs, and based on subjective awareness of the reality of gravity, I choose to interpret physics as real and information as a derived concept. I congratulate you again on having developed the schema and I hope you enjoy my essay as much as I enjoyed yours.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Gene,

      I'm slightly confused by your first table. Your label says Compton wavelength, but you show the Planck length. You say "they picked a combination of Compton mass and Planck energy that gave p/hc=1." Who is they? Also, by doing the calculations I see that E/C uses C for speed of light, while hc uses c for speed of light. It's time-consuming to have to check that you mean the same thing by C and c, and at the moment I don't have time to go through all the numbers in your essay to check everything.

      In short, the above page is too condensed for me to fully follow your arguments. It's not clear to me where the exp(90) comes from [which, I believe, is what you're asking me.] I will try to review your paper again, but at the moment I'm still catching up on the latest submissions, (some of which are very good.)

      I wish I could see the answer to your problem, but at the moment I don't.

      Best,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Because I have slightly misrepresented Alexei's position, I am including his response and my further response:

      Alexei Grinbaum replied on Jun. 14, 2013 @ 07:10 GMT

      Dear Edwin Eugene,

      Thank you for your comments. There is no claim in my essay about Platonism. Indeed I am not choosing between object realism, property realism, structural realism or Platonic idealism, i.e. the realism of mathematical entities (which is close to structural realism in some of its forms). I believe that science does not warrant claims about "reality", only about what is posited and what can be derived within a physical theory. There exists no proof of any predicate in the form "X is real", while one can show the opposite: "X cannot be held as fundamental".

      As for the question about where one cuts the loop, there is no one answer to that. The point of the loop view is that there can be many cuts, each of which leads to a different sort of theory. No one loop cut is better than the other: the job they are doing is different in every case. I understand that you prefer to posit something you call "matter" and to derive information. This is perfectly fine; but a different loop cut is equally possible.

      Is the loop cut the same as the cut between the objective and the subjective? I don't think so. In the Husserlian debate, of course, phenomenology is central, but my loop view is purely epistemological, i.e. it involves the ensemble of theories of (scientific) knowledge. All predicates are formulated in the third person and there are no first-person claims. Still, as you noticed, I support the attempts to analyze the connection between physical theory and observer-dependent point of view - in a scientific way. We lack mathematics for that, but I am hopeful that such mathematics will be found.

      Best wishes, Alexei Grinbaum

      Dear Alexei,

      Thank you for clarifying your position. It is more neutral than I assumed. I believe you have achieved a remarkable accomplishment, illuminating the essential arbitrariness of what is given and what is derived, when one is stuck only with logic. Fortunately I'm not stuck only with logic but possess awareness, experience, sensations, and knowledge. I can understand your goal, and find absolutely no fault with it. In fact I strongly approve it. But I have a different goal, which has been (for over half a century) to understand reality (to the extent possible). From my perspective, your development satisfies each of our separate goals.

      I fully understand that different loop cuts are possible, but I must cut the loop in the place it makes sense, based on my life as I have lived it. Others, it is clear, will make different sense out of it. You rightly proclaim that it is not (currently) amenable to a scientifically justifiable choice. From my perspective we will not find mathematics capable of making the choice, and not just because of Godel, but because math is an abstraction, unless one is a Platonist, which, as you point out, is not claimed or supported by your essay.

      From the perspective of the institution of science, which is inherently third-party, you show a scheme which does not fix an order of precedence. From my perspective, which is inherently first party, it is obvious what the precedence is. A win-win situation!

      Thank you again for your delightful essay. It should place highly in this contest.

      Best regards, Edwin Eugene Klingman

      This bold insightful essay has much in common with my own view on the current state of quantum theory. I especially applaud the comments on Bell's errant role in the current fiasco re nonlocality, and hope that my own contribution will be seen to rightly support the emergent view re Bell's theorem so clearly and forcefully presented here.

      [NB: My critique of Bell in no way diminishes my regard for his contribution to the search that so many of us now continue; the following being particularly relevant here:

      "Now nobody knows just where the boundary between the classical and quantum domain is situated. ... A possibility is that we find exactly where the boundary lies. More plausible to me is that we will find that there is no boundary. It is hard for me to envisage intelligible discourse about a world with no classical part - no base of given events, be they only mental events in a single consciousness, to be correlated. On the other hand, it is easy to imagine that the classical domain could be extended to cover the whole. The wave functions would prove to be a provisional or incomplete description of the quantum-mechanical part, of which an objective account would become possible. It is this possibility, of a homogeneous account of the world, which is for me the chief motivation of the study of the so-called 'hidden variable' possibility," Bell (2004:29-30).]

      So, given my preference for critical discussions of my own contributions, I want to critically address what is, for me, an unnecessarily off-putting by-product of the essay's focus on an important "hidden variable." That is: Its concluding emphasis on the word "AWARE" across (to my mind) far too many contexts!

      IMO that word has no place here, EXCEPT by way of psycho-physical analogy: FOR it is too closely rooted in and associated with the psycho-physical; and it is too far removed from basic foundational issues.

      However, NB, I have no problem with the use of psycho-physical analogies as we work to unite the BIG-and-the-small ...

      ... thus, by way of analogy, AWARENESS certainly provides the foundation for much of modern psychology and consciousness-theory; exemplified via this simple mnemonic that might help us here: ABC,

      Awareness -> Behaviour -> Consequence. (1)

      So, seeing no need for "taste" or "smell" in foundational matters, I certainly see no need for a "psycho-sixth-sense" -- as it were -- even as a foundation for our consciousness at this early stage: ALL these can emerge later! But I do see a need for the-issue-at-hand, the needed variable. Thus, favouring as I do the view that "maths is the best logic," let's represent the sought-for foundational variable by what I interpret it to be: R = Response.

      For analogously helpful (1) above can then be represented schematically, meaningfully AND physically by:

      response -> Response -> RESPONSE = Stimulus-Response theory; (2)

      with the following one-real-field (F) connection:

      response = F's response Ri to the stimulus of its Source Si. (3)

      Response = F's response Ro to the stimuli of all other Sources So. (4)

      RESPONSE = F's total response R to the Universe of S. (5)

      PS-1: Respectively: self-awareness; Other-awareness; TOTAL awareness! I can see this working for me. (And you, dear Reader?)

      PS-2: IMO, the essay would be improved by directly linking "IN-formation" to correlations and to its root "TO INFORM;" for, in the end it seems to me, the value of information is related to its degree of correlation with facts.

      Delighted to learn, via FQXi and this essay, of another highly-qualified non-conformist taking a fresh look at foundations, I look forward to further mathematico-logical developments, especially of the essay's equation (1).

      Gordon Watson

      Gordon,

      Thanks for the positive comments on my essay. Let me spend my time addressing the critical comments.

      You and I are both convinced that Bell's inequality is the root of what you label the 'fiasco of non-locality'. In particular you are focused on showing mistakes in Bell's logic. Toward that end, the focus on awareness, which you view as psycho-physical, and more properly in the realm of psychology, is a distraction; even one that leaves a bad taste in some physicists' mouth.

      I appreciate your position, and, as far as a practical attack on Bellian non-locality, agree with you. You wish to focus all firepower on the problem, without getting sidetracked.

      This is been your focus and goal since at least 1989. My long-term goals have been different. Since the mid-60s I've been focused on consciousness in an attempt to understand awareness. It was absolutely clear to me that the range of my awareness (and presumably others) did not arise from 'putting Lego blocks in the right order'. I cannot justify that position in a brief comment, but it is my key pursuit in life. After 40 years of this effort I arrived, as described elsewhere, at the realization that consciousness is a field and guessed at the equation relating this field to the physical world. To my initial amazement it turned out to have the form as the gravitomagnetic field equation, and things began falling into place nicely and have continued to fall into place for the last seven years.

      As there are many unsuspected physical effects of this field at the particle level, I have tended to focus at that level. As a result I believe I will be able to derive particle masses from first principles, an impossibility in the Standard Model. And also explain key anomalies that are so far unexplained. So (with the exception of one other essay) I tend to suppress consciousness aspects and work on physical calculations and predictions. But if there was ever an occasion to bring out the consciousness aspects of the field, this "It-from-Bit" contest is the occasion. The issues here are inseparable from Wheeler's "Participatory Universe" -- and his participatory universe has no meaning without consciousness.

      Nor does "information, meaning, knowledge, interpretation, context, etc." have any meaning without consciousness.

      A number physicists appreciate this and are supportive.

      Some physicists feel this issue is best left to psychologists and neuro-anatomists. Your comments seem to place you in this group. Your wording, "taste", "smell", and "psycho-sixth-sense" tell me that not only have you failed to understand my issues, but that we are so far apart on this that no immediate communications on these issues is likely to be fruitful. I found that even those for whom consciousness (in physics) is a major issue typically require a period of "converging vocabularies" before much communication occurs, simply because the standard terminology is fuzzy and precise definitions almost non-existent. For those who view consciousness as irrelevant to physics, no real communication is possible.

      Not as a defense, but merely as context: there are few great physicists in quantum theory who have not dealt in one way or another with consciousness and QM; Bohr, Einstein, Pauli, Bohm come immediately to mind. Bell, while admitting "a degree of embarrassment at consciousness being dragged into physics" [page 27 'Unspeakable'] nevertheless drags it in!

      To conclude, I fully understand, Gordon, why, finding a potential strong supporter for your attack on Bell's logic, you are mildly dismayed to find that he stoops to what you consider 'psychobabble'.

      This of course will have no bearing on my support for your logic. After one reading I am favorably impressed. It will require more than one reading to comprehend your logic. I plan to read it and reread it. If your logic convinces me I will be a very strong supporter, since we both agree that Bell's "non-locality" is proving disastrous for physics.

      This is completely independent of whether or not you come to realize the part that awareness must play in understanding information in physics. Or even whether you believe consciousness comes from putting Lego blocks together in the correct order.

      Thanks for a sincere critique. That's the best kind.

      Best,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Edwin; one (maybe both) of us is communicating badly. From reading another of your essays I got the drift of your admirable focus on consciousness -- BEFORE I replied. SO that was in no way my concern; especially as I've studied many writings on the subject by the founders, Pauli in particular coming to mind

      The essence of my concern -- please study it carefully -- was expressed thus:

      "So, seeing no need for "taste" or "smell" in foundational matters, I certainly see no need for a "psycho-sixth-sense" -- as it were -- even as a foundation for our consciousness at this early stage: ALL these can emerge later!"

      That is:

      (i) It is my view that consciousness is emergent and not therefore foundational.

      (ii) Given the potential physics associated with your ONE REAL FIELD, it seemed to me that consciousness would emerge nicely -- nicely linked to the Responsiveness of that field as you developed your quantitative calculations, etc.

      (iii) I was surprised that AWARENESS should be so frequently stressed so early -- "at this early stage" of development -- in the closing phase of this essay. (Over 30 times, I'd guess?)

      (iv) At NO stage did I have psychobabble in mind -- so I doubt it is to be found anywhere in my response!

      (v) Thus, Edwin, with great respect, this next says too much; yet not enough!

      "To conclude, I fully understand, Gordon, why, finding a potential strong supporter for your attack on Bell's logic, you are mildly dismayed to find that he stoops to what you consider 'psychobabble'."

      For my attack on Bell is only a means to getting at the fact that the quantum is classical!

      AND I have NO dismay whatsoever at your position on anything; quite the contrary!

      I appreciate you extended comments above re consciousness, and find no concerns therein: EXCEPT where you misplace me in sets to which I DO NOT BELONG!

      SO, please: Dismissing any notion of psychobabble, please reconsider my response in this extended context.

      Looking forward to your (hopefully amended) response, with best regards; Gordon

      Gordon,

      Amended response forthwith. Best to focus on a common position, which is that quantum is classical, since that is our shared focus.

      'Psychobabble' was an overreaction to 'psycho-sixth-sense' which is just as inappropriate from my perspective. As I noted, communication is almost impossible before the vocabulary is nailed down. 'Psycho' to me has to do with the psychology, which has to do with thinking, which is based on logical (physical) circuitry in the brain. This is clearly emergent. Awareness is awareness. It is (in my considered opinion) fundamental and could never emerge from the arrangement of physical entities. It is as fundamental as the fact that gravity pulls on you.

      But, as I mentioned at the end of my essay, one can delete awareness from the field, the physics still holds. But then one must account for awareness, and no one can do this. And, as I noted, this "It-from-Bit" contest is the perfect venue to discuss awareness because blah blah blah...

      Since we don't share a common vocabulary here, but we do (or should) share one re Bell, let's focus on our shared goal of restoring reality to physics.

      Best regards,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Dear Edwin

      Please help guide : What is name the Lee Smolin's new book ? and what write about matters? - many thank you.

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802

        Dear Hoang cao Hai,

        Smolin's book is the second reference at the end of my essay:

        L Smolin, 2013 "Time Reborn", Spin Networks Ltd ISBN 9780547511726

        Best,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Hi Edwin,

        Things like ''ad hoc 'creation' and 'annihilation' operators'', ''virtual particles'', ''Bell nonlocality'' and ''awareness'' look quite different when we discard causality -in which case we can no longer conceive of the 'speed' of light as the velocity light moves at but have to interpret c as a property of spacetime, which is something else entirely.

        If real particles are virtual particles which by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, force each other to reappear again and again after every disappearance (Uncertainty Principle (UP): the smaller their distance, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, pop up and disappear to pop up again, the higher their rest energy is), then they create and un-create each other over and over again. As the energy sign of a particle alternates, it is a wave phenomenon. If the energy, the rest frequency of a particle is the superposition of all frequencies it exchanges energy at with all particles within its interaction horizon, a frequency which depends on their mass, distance and motion, then the particle in its properties carries all relevant information about its entire universe, information which is refreshed in every cycle of its oscillation, so we might perhaps say that it at all times, in real time is 'aware' of what happens within its entire universe, however primitive that awareness is.

        We can distinguish between two kinds of interactions: the conspicuous kind in which the energy and motion of particles changes, and the energy exchange by means of which particles express and preserve their, each other's properties, interactions which, preserving the status quo, aren't observable so aren't thought to exist, in fact can be identified as the long sought for ''hidden variables'', which of course only works if their communication is instantaneous. As a Big Bang Universe (BBU) lives in a time realm not of its own making so it is the same cosmic time everywhere, here it does take a photon time to travel. In contrast, a Self-Creating Universe (SCU) does not live in a time realm not of its own making but contains and produces all time within, so here clocks must be observed to run slower as they are more distant even when at rest relative to the observer. As a result in a SCU it is not the same time everywhere, so here a photon bridges any spacetime distance in no time at all (see http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1328). That we cannot experimentally determine whether c must be conceived of as a (finite) velocity or as a property of spacetime, combined with the fact that an instantaneous transmission over any spacetime distance would make the riddles of quantum mechanics like entanglement, the EPR paradox and the double-slit experiment self-evident, should at least give pause for thought.

        Wheeler's participatory universe obviously doesn't require human participation to make the universe exist as his existence then would causally precede the universe. Since in a SCU particles create each other so particles, their properties are as much the cause as the effect of their interactions, their energy exchange, it is a participatory universe indeed. However, while in a SCU particles would vanish when we could cut of their energy exchange, in a Big Bang Universe (BBU) particles are assumed to keep existing even when they would be isolated from interactions since here their properties are privately owned quantities, only the cause of interactions so are unchangeable, they cannot be accused of having any form of awareness. The problem of a BBU is that it violates the conservation law according to which what comes out of nothing, must add to nothing, unlike a SCU which does obey this very most fundamental law of physics. Big bang cosmology conceives of the universe as an ordinary object we can imagine to observe from the outside, which has particular properties as a whole and evolves in time, i.e., lives in a time realm not of its own making. Since a SCU obeys the law which says that everything inside of it, including space and time must add to nil, it is that unique, paradoxical 'thing' which has no physical reality as a whole, as 'seen' from without but only exists as seen from within, here it doesn't make any sense to ask how old or large it is, how much energy it contains or what its entropy is, questions which anyway require that the meter, second, gram and joule are defined even outside the universe. As in a BBU particles only are the cause of forces, here one has to assume the existence of virtual photons and gravitons to transmit forces between real particles, so must move, like pin-balls in a pinball machine, at a finite velocity. Though the emission and absorption of virtual particles by real ones is supposed to be random so the energy of real particles fluctuate randomly, they nevertheless obey the UP according to which a deviation in the energy of a particle may last shorter as the deviation is greater, begging the question how its neighbors can know when to supply the particle in a timely fashion with energy so it can obey the UP. This is obvious in a SCU since here the particle in every cycle exchanges all of its energy: in fact, the UP is just another formulation of the Planck relation E = h v, with h the Planck constant and v the frequency the particle oscillates at.

        Continued in the next post.

        As to ''the origin of the universe'', as argued, unlike a BBU, the real universe we live in has no beginning as a whole, no cause, no origin as it does not exist as 'seen' from without: in a SCU every particle can consider itself to be (at) the center of its own interaction horizon, so is the alpha and omega of its own universe. A SCU obeys the perfect cosmological principle: here particles start to exist to each other, create one another as they start to exchange energy, start to evolve to higher energies, as they start to contract, which they will due to gravity which, as I argued in my 2013 essay, favors events which increase their mass above a decrease, powering time as they do. If according to the UP a particle with an infinitesimal energy has an infinite lifetime, then we can say that it always has existed: the smaller its energy, the less definite its energy, its properties are, the more it has a virtual character, the less its presence differs from its nonexistence.

        As to ''gravity may not fit into quantum mechanics'', in my study (which is a bit of a mess, see website) I have defined the mass of a particle as being greater as its position is less indefinite, agreeing both with the uncertainty principle which is at the heart of quantum mechanics, and, as the (in)definiteness in its position must be specified relative to an observing particle, also is a relativistic definition. The greater the mass of a particle is, the stronger the forces it exerts and feels from all directions, the more exactly equal they are, the smaller the area is where they are more precisely equal, the smaller the area it can be found in, the less indefinite its position is. Conversely, the smaller its mass is, the less definite its position is, the less it matters physically whether it exists or not, where it is when. If the (rest) energy of a real (massive) particle, its rate of change varies within every cycle, from an infinitesimal value to some non-zero magnitude, then according to this mass definition, the indefiniteness in its position similarly varies within every cycle and hence its momentum.

        Your lamentation that ''we don't have access to reality'' presupposes that there exists such a thing: as I argued in my 2012 essay, there is no objectively observable reality at the origin of our observation, with emphasis of ''objectively'' since in our self-creating universe, the building blocks of reality, its particles are made out of each other. The fallacy of classical mechanics, of big bang cosmology and general relativity is that they assume that there exists an absolute reality, something we could objectively observe from outside the universe if we could step outside of it, if we could look over God's shoulders at His creation, so these theories are infected, contaminated with religious suppositions we aren't even aware of.

        Regards, Anton