Paul,

You describe the treatment of light in Relativity--where absolute c is just a law to use in a measurement-prediction model. But Einstein also introduced the "lightquantum" which became the photon. QED, you might say, contains observational light, but only in the form of wave-like probabilities emanating from a source and useful for predicting where we'll detect light-matter interactions. I would say that neither Relativity nor QED contain any ideas corresponding to actual, physical, Cosmic light--what it is and how it does what it does.

Henry

Jacek,

Consider the origins of space-time as I have discussed them. It is just an observer-based measurement model--the measured intervals between events--with the observer's rods and clocks. How-why can you argue that it can be considered a Cosmic substance? It's just measurements.

The gist of my argument is that Einstein did not fully understand the philosophical problems involved in Berkeley's and Mach's ideas, yet he used their epistemology. He never went beyond their observer-based, descriptive approach to physics. To produce theories about what exists and causes things requires a completely different approach. This is why he has left us with confusion. Yes, he would mention ether, but the idea of an ether is completely at odds with Relativity and QM. Therefore he waffled about ether and photons. He didn't succeed in getting out of the observer-based straightjacket and theorizing about the nature and causes of things.

The problem with Relativity and QM is not that they introduce simple perceptual relativity, of the kind Aristotle described, "The world becomes twain when I push on one eye with my finger". These models are rigorous treatments of the observer's measurements--relating the phenomena to the observer's extended "frame". However these models still limit physics to observer-based description--of his measurements, his experiences. Can you show me how Relativity and QM are any different in character, in epistemology, than the observer-based Ptolemaic system?

The idea that stars are spatial sources may eventually prove to be true, but for now, it can be only a hypothesis. We will have to see if it works or not to make sense of the biggest problem in Cosmology. I have written more about this possible implication of the flowing space theory in a draft paper. Remember that there was no way for Copernicus to prove that we were on a rock hurtling through space. Over time, the simplicity and usefulness of his idea, the constantly accumulating supporting evidence, and finally our flights into space actually "proved" that he was right.

Henry

Dear Henry,

I thought that I have understood your ideas but I was probably wrong. Anyway I will try to clarify a bit.

You say that 'these models still limit physics to observer-based description--of his measurements, his experiences' and about Copernicus that 'our flights into space actually 'proved' that he was right'. Our flights into space are exactly observer-based description and our experience, don't they are?

There is only one way to become independent from our perception that you call observer-based description. This is to try to understand our perception process and our brain limitations. It means to separate our everyday experience (e.g. feeling of gravity force) from proved reality (spacetime curvature). A lot of experiments' outcomes do not agree with our everyday experience. That is what Einstein wanted to achieve.

Let us start out with a simple thought experiment: we observe a small region in spacetime or space if you want (the size of an elementary particle radius) deformed to the grade that the actually detected wave (the way we perceive reality) is not emitted nor reflected by the observed object but it comes back to us along the geodesic (the notion of a "straight line" in general relativity). In fact we observe only a strongly deformed spacetime region, "empty" inside and redirecting our wave but apparently... we perceive a particle. We perceive means that our measuring instruments and our language out of the force of habit say so. The fact that deformations of spacetime exist is generally recognized as a part of GR theory. In contrast to GR the metric under consideration is different.

Before we proceed (in future, depending on the outcome of our real experiment) to construct the proper metric we need to take some assumptions regarding the spacetime (or space) properties to decide what could possibly emerge out of our reasoning:

a) the spacetime is continuous, i.e. not perforated, not torn and has a homeomorphism property

b) the spacetime has elastic properties (possible to assess),

c) the elastic properties of spacetime are isotropic

d) any spacetime deformation is unlimited (i.e. to some extent it deforms the entire spacetime due to its elastic and homeomorphism properties) - by the way it explains entanglment.

The spacetime here is not the infamous ether which was rightly rejected because it was to be a frame of reference and a background for all events. The spacetime is not the background, but the material of matter and energy itself and then it is quite natural that energy and matter can be transmitted as waves.

The real experiment. A source emits a right-handed photon, the photon impinges almost perpendicularly a mirror being reflected to a detector set up to measure the spin of particle. The photon shall be a low-energy photon to avoid a photoelectric effect, Compton scattering or pair production.

According to Standard Model the reflected photon's spin is the opposite to that of the photon emitted at the source.

According to our thought experiment carried out above the 'reflected' photon's spin is the same as that of the photon emitted.

That is the reason that our thought experiment should be very easy to falsify.

And what if the result confirmed our thought experiment prediction? Than the time would come to work out a new metric describing the new principle. We could propose the strongest equivalence principle (or say even the new correspondence principle) claiming that any interaction is entirely geometrical by nature (that is the metric alone determines the effect of any interaction) and the behavior of systems do not depend on a distance scale.

As I have noticed we must not simply criticize all famous physicists and existing theories but to show a clearly falsifiable hypothesis.

Doctor Lindner,

I enjoyed reading your essay. It was very informative, and although I am not e physicist, the clarity of the writing made it quite reasonable enough to understand.

Jacek,

Yes, we know of the world we know only via perception, but most of us believe there is a physical reality that we are perceiving--that the world is not a hallucination. So the question is what is it? How did it produce us? How do our perceptual systems and our instruments interact with it? Relativity and QM were not created to answer those questions. They were products a long-standing effort to suppress such questions.

You want to understand what the Cosmos is, but in your search you have accepted GR and its space-time model as describing some substance of which everything in the Cosmos is composed. Space-time is not a candidate for that substance. Look into it carefully. Space-time is just the observer's measured intervals between events. Einstein himself admitted it had no physical meaning or significance. For Einstein, it was just an idea that worked to organize our sensations and measurements, part of "reality as thought", similar to Plato's world of forms.

If you want to create a theory of what the Cosmos is, you cannot start with GR or QM. They were not created for that purpose. You need to start with a hypothesis about what exists and produces the phenomena that these models describe. As far as I and many other thinkers have been able to tell, space is a substance. Space causes the effects we describe with space-time intervals, virtual photons, etc.

The idea that there is a Science that consists only of falsifiable hypotheses is part of the ideology that gave rise to Relativity and QM, as I have described. Karl Popper, the author of that idea, was a positivist and admirer of Einstein. On the contrary, a realistic Cosmology must be based upon hypotheses that are not falsifiable. I posit, for instance, that the Cosmos existed long before I did and will exist when I am dead. Is that falsifiable? No. How about if I hypothesize instead that the Cosmos is my personal hallucination and you are a figment of my imagination. Can you falsify that hypothesis to my satisfaction? No. How about this: space is a substance that interacts with matter to resist its acceleration. Falsifiable? Possibly, if you fill space with something else that interacts with matter and call it something else besides space. For now, it appears to be a logical starting point for a theory that tries to explain movement and the effects of movement in this Cosmos.

Henry

Henry

"You need to start with a hypothesis about what exists and produces the phenomena"

Well said. What is it that we are enabled to be aware of, and how does that exist. All of which is a function of a physical process. We are trapped in an existentially closed system, whether existence occurs in other forms than that which is manifested to us is irrelevant, because we cannot transcend our existence in order to know. Sensing involves the receipt of physical input, which was generated as the existential sequence progressed. That is, what is received is an existent representation of what occurred, evolution having resulted in the development of systems which can process it, resulting in the perception.

"Relativity and QM were not created to answer those questions"

These, and spacetime, are not a valid start point because they contradict the way in which physical existence must occur, ie they attribute some form of indefiniteness to that reality, which it cannot have. Assert some effect by the recipient sensor, whereas sensing cannot have any effect on the physical circumstance, since it has already occurred. And involve the notion of time in reality, whereas there is none, it is only spatial. Time being concerned with the turnover rate of realities.

"The idea that there is a Science..."

Careful here. Science is only concerned with the knowable, ie existence as potentially knowable to us, which as said above is the function of a physical process. Therefore it is, potentially, definitive and falsifiable. Science is not concerned with possible alternative existences to the one we could know. Whether we will ever get to know all of that is never going to happen, but that is a practical, not metaphysical, issue.

Paul

Dear Henry!

Excellent essay, great questions and fundamental ideas. That's right, you need to update the structure of the problem space, then there is understanding of the nature of the information and the "place" her "store". I totally agree with you: «A working theory of space will revive natural philosophy and will inform and enrich all our sciences. We just need to reach beyond bit to It. »

I wish you success, Vladimir

Henry,

An impressive summary of sci hi fi ...scientific history of philosophy.

Replacing 'space' globally with 'aether' would make your essay and mine compliant.

E.g., Aether is a substance: the source of electromagnetism, gravity, inertia and all particles. Aether is quantized, composed of physical bits, explaining the efficacy of our mathematics. Aether is the missing link between mathematics and physics, consciousness and Cosmos, information and causality, bit and It.

Aether would answer many of your questions...

Q: What is light? Relative to what does it actually move at c?

A: Light speed is relative to the aether, only

Q:What prevents electrons and hadrons from moving at c?

A: Aether resisteance, the source of inertia

Q:What resists the acceleration of matter, but not its uniform velocity?

A: Aether is dragged along and co-moves with the moving matter.To either speed or slow the matter, aether resistance must be overcome....

so Aristotle was right. Motion requires an explanation..... any motion.

Q: What causes the redshift (time dilation) of the spectra of moving atoms?

A: The energy loss to sparse hot plasma .... see the work of Ari Brynjolfsson - http://www.plasmaredshift.org/Article_Archive.html

re: Thomas Aquinas tried to reconcile Aristotle and Christianity but could not prevent the inevitable divorce.

R: Did Acquinas try reconciliation.... or just editing and revision? It seems he did not try to 'baptize' Ari, but to translate his ideas into Scholasticism...

re: Relativity nullified the Copernican Revolution; GR made the historic struggle between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus meaningless since it was only a matter of ones choice of coordinate system.

R: Then why do we still insist that Earth orbits the Sun, if the laws of physics are reference frame independent, Henry? An orbiting Earth refutes relativity... Bradley's stellar aberration theory only works in the HC system, where Earth's speed is 30 km/s....

re: In truth, SR and GR dont work at all; what works is the application of certain equations in the correct, causal spatial frame.

R: Since the laws of motion are valid on Earth, doesn't that make the Earth the correct, causal spatial frame?

re:....we use the non-rotating Earth-centered frame for the global positioning system

R: Reinforcing the point; GPS network synchronization cannot be done with satellite clocks... the master clock MUST be on the ground.

re: ...he [Feynman ] asserts that the only criterion of a good theory is whether its predictions agree with experimental observations.

R: The scientific method also requires logical internal consistency .... the big issue with SR and GR. As Popper noted, an inconsistent system can prove anything is true.... so empirical results are worthless.

re: Because space-time contains the word space, physicists assume that it describes Cosmic space and its physical effects. They confuse space-time with space, often in the same sentence (e.g. expansion of space). They say that light travels at c in space or in space-time, not relative to every CS. They speak of motion in space-time, even though there is no such thing. They want and need to talk about Cosmic space and motion as objective realities, but Relativity stands in their way. Space-time is preventing them from understanding space and time.

R: Thanks for exposing a common point of confusion...

re: ...particles are localized objects by definition and have nothing in common with waves and fields.

R: In aethereal terms, particles represent bound states (structures) of the free state continuum of aether(vacuum)...

All the best,

Robert

    Dear Henry,

    I very much enjoyed your exploration of philosophy and metaphysics leading to the current crisis in physics. Your abstract begins: "It, the Cosmos, is a physical system evolving by its own mechanisms...". That is the basis of my theory. It can be written as an equation and leads to interesting results. It quickly leads to the suggestion that the basic substance is the field of gravity. As this is the only physical phenomena I can immediately and directly sense, I accept it as the basis from which to derive the theory. Freedom of movement and visual impressions lead indirectly to the concept of space, but I directly perceive gravity, not as a mental construct but as a sensation. There is, additionally, an aesthetic aspect to my theory. Modern theories of the universe are based on the hypothesized existence of hundreds of fields. I believe that our current state of existence can be shown to have evolved from *one* field.

    Ohanian and Ruffini -- "Gravitation and Spacetime": "The gravitational field may be regarded as the material medium sought by Newton; the field is material because it possesses an energy density."

    Einstein: "There is no space absent of field."

    I must say I enjoyed your mention of Platonism as a form of spiritualism. Recently Smolin said it is based on religious aspiration. Yet it is the driving force for "Bit from It". I also appreciated the Copenhagen interpretation as solipsistic.

    My theory is based on neither GR nor QM but leads to both in situations where this is appropriate. As you note, "acceleration, rotation, and gravity are physical effects...; they are physical." As for how QM fits into my system, see my previous essay, The Nature of the Wave Function. It provides a different take on "wave particle" duality. I certainly agree with you that "mathematical constructs and fixes are reified as cosmic entities and causes: information, virtual particles, symmetries, singularities, wormholes, strings, membranes, extra dimensions, holograms, multiple universes, etc.".

    You view particles as "persistent patterns of motion and of regions of space." Identifying 'space' as the gravity field, that describes my soliton-like particles.

    I found your remark "individual consciousnesses are virtual reality simulations of ourselves" to be somewhat compatible with my view, although we have terminology differences. I would say our "ideas" or "self-image" are such. I define [see Fundamental Physics of Consciousness ] consciousness as awareness plus volition, while I define intelligence as consciousness plus logic, where logic means essentially "hard circuitry" [i.e., the brain]. To go further into this takes many clarifications, some of which are found on the comments page of the above link.

    Also agree completely with your remark, "... Space must be a substance. If space is nothing, everything is magic."

    You've given me some good quotes for future use!

    In short we are almost in complete agreement on most of what you say. Where we part company [at the moment] is your hypothesis that "gravity is a flow of space." This seems to separate gravity from space and I don't see that--acceleration and velocity (characterizing gravity) *imply* space, but not necessarily space as separate. Have you worked out or given much thought to the equations for your flowing space theory?

    I'll have to spend more time thinking about your "radial sink flow", and 'galaxies as producers of space'. As you've already denigrated 'wormholes', I'm not sure where the space 'sinks' to. My model supports dark energy based on the equations that fall out, without a need to "produce space". I do not yet have a quantitative handle on this, but I suspect you do not either.

    Henry, I hope that you will find time to study my essay and compare and contrast it with your own. I look forward to any response.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Edwin,

      I very much enjoyed your essay too--you added much fuel to my assertion that QM is an ad hoc system of description--fine-tuned to get the numbers right--just like the Ptolemaic system. We have got to get physics out of this observer-dependent hole!

      I'm not sure why you singled out gravity. I think that all fundamental physical phenomena are just as real: inertia, electromagnetism, etc. They are real, we are made of them, we are real too. The question then is what does it mean to be real? As all these phenomena exist and interact coherently, they must all be produced various motions or distortions within some one substance. That substance must have some smallest parts. I think that your logico-mathematical representation is on the right track--first because it begins, like Newton's theory, by describing what exists independent of any observer or measurement. I think it will work as long as it accurately describes this primordial substance and/or its manifestations.

      The nervous systems of animals and of humans both must work by logic. Both are, after all, parts of the Cosmos and would perish quickly if their functioning did not accord with reality. Animals' brains have only neuro-logic. We have that system and on top of it we run a system of linguistic logic. Layers. If we use our linguistic representation system carefully we can create a rich understanding of the Cosmos. If we use language carelessly, we remain stupid, or worse.

      Regarding flowing space, I hope you'll read the paper I wrote on it. It was recently published in Physics Essays as per the footnote. It fits the facts, others have presented it mathematically in great detail. It doesn't separate gravity from space, it explains gravity as something matter does to its surrounding space. Consider Newton's absolute space as the seat of inertia. Think too of Einstein's gedanken about how sitting on the Earth's surface is just like being accelerated relative to space by a rocket. I say that the two situations seem the same because they are exactly the same, physically. Both observers are in a state of forced acceleration relative to inertial space, they feel this as weight. So gravity is just Newton's space accelerating Earthward. The predicted velocity of this flow is Newton's escape velocity--and behold it explains the "relativistic" aspects of gravity like time-dilation and black holes--perfectly. Every mass has inertia because it has gravity--it has an energetic, accelerational interaction with its surrounding space. Try to accelerate an object that has gravity relative to it surrounding space and one creates tension in space, which we call inertia.

      I'm not sure where space goes either, but I do think that hadrons and the strong force are the cause of the flow. I don't believe that there is any evidence that every form of "energy" creates gravity--not light, motion, heat, etc. That is one of many subjects I've explored in a follow-on paper I've written.

      Henry

      Henry,

      I'm glad you enjoyed my essay. As I explained in a comment (Jun. 8, 2013 @ 02:35) on my blog, I did not start with gravity. I started with the realization that awareness must be a field. (It has long been clear to me that mere logic cannot "become aware" -- not as I experience awareness!) And I associate both awareness and volition with consciousness so I asked myself how these realities interfaced to physical reality. Essentially, what force equation could cause willpower to have a physical effect? And how does awareness sense the physical world? The equation I arrived at turned out to be that for gravito-magnetism, a huge surprise to me, but the more I thought about it the more sense it made. Gravito-magnetism can produce an "anti-gravitic" effect, and whatever else life accomplishes, it does so only after it willfully defies gravity.

      Of course one could say that it's a different field with an equation 'similar to' gravity, but I strongly favor 'one substance' rather than the hundreds of fields that Susskind and others propose for the multiverse. Since gravity is the only field I am immediately aware of, and falls out of my simplest possible master equation describing the evolution of one substance, gravity is my natural choice.

      I'm unsure how to interpret your paragraph on the "nervous systems of animals". Of course you are correct that all such (even cellular life) works by logic. Perhaps you don't discriminate awareness from logic. I found many who accept a Darwinist view that awareness arises when the logic is complex enough. There is no evidence for that consensus view and it leads to many problems. But maybe that's not what you're saying.

      I found your essay but they want $25. Do you have a .pdf you can send me? I see your picture of 'weight' at the surface of the earth, but still don't see where space goes. You say hadrons and the strong force are implicated, but as indicated in my essay, nonlinear gravity can yield quark confinement, which is the essence of the strong force, so I view "color" as just a trick used to add 10 parameters to fit the data. [It wasn't introduced to do so, but that's what it actually does. It was introduced to address the Pauli exclusion symmetry, which is built into my model.] So I don't buy a 'strong force' solution to where space goes. I've written thousands of pages on this, so I don't expect it to be clear or make complete sense from a nine page essay but it explains more current anomalies than any other theory I'm aware of and largely agrees with your major points.

      For your information, Marcel LeBel's 2009 essay develops the logic of one substance, then he decides the substance is time. I subscribe to his logic, but not his choice. You seem to choose space. I like your logic but have reservations about your choice. I believe the gravity field defines space and gives rise to time. I hope you find my view worth considering.

      You say, "I don't believe that there is any evidence that every form of "energy" creates gravity--not light, motion, heat, etc." That's a very good point. Based on logical consistency I think it should, but I can't think of any evidence that it does. I would be interested in your follow-on paper discussing this issue.

      Best wishes,

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Robert,

      I appreciated your skewering of the simplistic notion that the Cosmos is a computer and everything is "information". It is interesting that your background in software and information processing led you to the idea that space is the substance that encodes and runs "reality".

      You can substitute "aether" for space indeed. I think that space is a slightly better term. We already know space, we just have to realize that it's not emptiness but as substance. It is basis of Cosmic reality. but we can only see its manifestations, not space itself. An aether can instead be some stuff that exists in space or moves through space, but then one can have two realities--aether and space. I think that since we only know space, we should just describe what it is and what it does. It is just hard for many people to think of space physically as they are so used to thinking of space mathematically--as a coordinate system in which things move. I think space itself moves, its parts move relative to one another. The evidence is consistent with the idea that it flows like a fluid into all inert matter.

      Everything refutes Relativity--Relativity is a subjectivistic system that does not work at all, hence paradoxes. Paradox is a euphemism for contradiction. Admit contradiction and you destroy philosophy. Anything can be anything. Physicists think that they believe in Relativity, but only because they do not actually understand it. They were children when it was imposed upon them, they had to profess belief in order to enter the academic priesthood, and now being the experts, they don't think that they need to listen to anyone else.

      Regarding the physical frame, the theory that gravity is the radial sink-flow of space into or out or celestial bodies leads to the conclusion that these large masses, the celestial bodies, determine the local spatial frame. Yes, the Earth is the local reference frame, but its rotation does not pull its surrounding space into rotation with it. The much more massive Sun and stars with their extended gravitational spatial flow-fields control the spatial milieu in which the Earth rotates with obvious effects. The GPS master clock is sitting in the 11.2km/s spatial flow into the surface of the Earth, and is slowed by the Lorentz transformation for that velocity. It is also being spun around in space with the Earth's surface--a horizontal aether-drift of 0.4 km/s, producing an additional small slowing.

      Both Lorentz's theory of actual length contraction and clock-slowing and Stokes theory of an entrained aether are sufficient to explain the null M-M experiment. I think that that aether-space field that Earth creates moves with it, so that there is no 300km/s wind at the surface. But if there were no entrainment and such a 30 to 300km/s wind existed, we still may not be able to detect it as per Lorentz's theory. Even the GPS would work as it does in such a spatial wind, as explained by GPS expert Ronald Hatch.

      Henry

      Henry,

      I loved this essay. I have been toiling over these issues pertaining to special relativity over the last couple weeks so what you're writing here hits close to home for me.

      So interesting you brought up LET, because in reading about the transition from LET to ESR it just seemed like such an arbitrary and needless transition now that we know that space is not a void in any way shape or form. It is a very medium that demands a reintegration w/ modern theory.

      I love Einstein, and he is a deserving genius, I just find it sad to see some of the fighting that goes on over special relativity because quite frankly its a metaphysical argument, not empirical, not 'scientific' as we usually understand it. I see people labeled as 'cranks' and 'idiots who don't understand' because they question these metaphysical dogmas and I see that as a sad state of affairs indeed.

      All the best.

      John

        For those who are interested, I have been able to make my papers available online.

        Beyond Consciousness to Cosmos: Beyond Relativity and Quantum Theory to Cosmic Theory http://henrylindner.net/Writings/Cosmism/Trilogy1.pdf

        An in-depth exploration of the philosophical issues and history. Published in Physics Essays, 2002 15, 113) Physics Essays is currently the only journal that publishes theories about the physical world and criticisms of our observer-based "modern" physics.

        Beyond Newton and Einstein to Flowing Space http://henrylindner.net/Writings/BeyondNewton.pdf

        Published in Physics Essays, 2012, 25, p.500. A presentation of the Flowing Space theory of gravity

        A QED-Based Wave Theory of Light, Electrons, and their Quantized Interactions http://henrylindner.net/Writings/PhysEssSpacePhysics2.pdf

        Submitted to Physics Essays. Feynman's approach to QED requires a wave-theory of light. The evidence contradicts the idea that light is composed of particles. This false photon theory of light leads to the quantum paradoxes and all the quantum "spookiness".

        Implications of Flowing Space http://henrylindner.net/Writings/PhysessImplications.pdf

        Unpublished. An exploration of the new physics implied by the Flowing Space theory of gravity

        John,

        Right, the problem with theoretical physics is philosophical; it's about assumptions, meaning, and approach. It is not a scientific problem; it's not a matter of better measurements, equations, or mathematical models. Physicists are schooled, trained to use observer-based Relativity and QM and are not allowed to question them. They are forced to suppress their own curiosity about the questions listed early in my essay. This is why they consider asking these questions and trying to answer them as "unscientific", somehow bad. They couldn't do it, neither should we! Their indignation is all the greater because they do not actually believe in the metaphysics or epistemology of their "modern physics". They are stuck in a hole, confused, and just keep struggling to make these obsolete models "work".

        Einstein was brilliant and added many important ideas to physics, however he was misled by the philosophical--actually the anti-philosophical--ideas he imbibed from the culture of the time. Physicists are not philosophers, and academic philosophers do not dare to question Einstein (Man of the Century!) or today's physicists. So no one in academia has been able to grasp the problem or fix it. It's past time to move on. We no longer believe in relating reality to observers, or that space is a void.

        I am happy that FXQi was created--apparently the experts realize, at some level, that something is wrong and they need new ideas. They are looking for quick fixes, however, not the major revolution that space theory will bring.

        Henry

        Henry

        Physics has a problem because it has failed to understand what it is investigating and how that must occur. The classical concept was correct, just not properly developed to its logical conclusion. The 'new' approach is wrong, because it presumes indefiniteness in reality. There is no relativity in existence, Einstein failed to understand timing ( by following Poincare's simultaneity) and conflated existence and the light based representation thereof. Observation/measurement cannot affect the physical circumstance because that has already occurred. And there is no time in any given reality, because this concerns the turnover rate of realities.

        Paul

        Henry,

        Can you elaborate a bit more on why the constant speed of light is held so sacrosanct in ESR but allowed for in LET? It seems like c was something devised/worked out by Poincare and, later forced to apply in all situations by Einstein to fit his theory and the paradoxes it gave rise to. Correct me if I'm wrong, thanks!

          John,

          First, what is the best theory? I think that much evidence indicates that light does travel at c in the substance of space. LET says that light travels at c in a single, Euclidean Cosmic frame corresponding to Newton's absolute space. I think that this substance is not a Euclidean solid but flows and is distorted in gravity. The simplest explanation of black holes is that space is flowing into the mass at >c, so light waves cannot propagate outward against the flow of the medium. The position and motion of space is determined by the distribution of matter. So in general, light really travels at c relative to the local and distant distribution of matter in the Cosmos.

          What we measure is another question. The same light, of course, does not actually travel at c relative to every observer, but if Lorentz is right, it may appear to do so. Einstein stumbled upon a strange fact, some have called it the conspiracy of light. That is that every observer may measure the speed of light to be c, so it could be used as a "law" for certain prediction purposes, but not for the purpose of understanding the Cosmos (without magic and paradoxes). The reason it may work is Lorentz's--that as the observer moves through physical space, his physical measuring rods are actually contracted (length contraction) and his atomic clocks are actually slowed (time-dilation). Both occur as per the Lorentz transformations, which are nothing but the Pythagorean theorem. These 2nd order v2/c2 effects conspire to hide the changes in the first-order speed of light. Einstein generalized the redshift of atomic spectra to a "time dilation". It is not. The redshift of spectra due to motion is well-established. Whether there is truly a length contraction of every physical object with higher velocity in space is not well established experimentally, but it does make sense that the electronic shells of atoms, being themselves EM phenomena, would contract in the direction of motion in the EM medium, therefore causing the material to also contract in that direction.

          Did I answer your question?

          Yes indeed. Thank you. BTW you might find this paper rather interesting as it also builds much of its theory around ether fonts and sinks, even treating electrons and positrons as such entities:

          http://www.gsjournal.net/old/science/tombe.pdf

          Take care.

          Henry,

          a second reading of your essay...

          re: ...we are becoming comfortable with the fact that our species is the result of a natural process of hierarchical Cosmic evolution: ....Logic and mathematics work because the Cosmos is a stable, interacting system that evolves through cause and effect.

          R: Scientific realism involves more than just simple cause and effect... the rule of sufficient reason requires that the effect be no greater than the cause; there is nothing in the effect that is not potentially in the cause.

          Evolution violates sufficient causality, when inanimate atoms evolve into animate life forms and, even more so, when humans evolve immaterial faculties of mind from the material brain....

          re: the Cosmos is a coherent system precisely because all its phenomena arise from motions and distortions in and of a single substance.

          R: E.g., aether wind correlates with substance motion and aether pressure with substance distortions

          re: In order to produce the uniformity that we observe, space must have smallest parts of some determinate size, the ultimate quanta

          R: What rules out a continuum of space/aether, Henry?

          re: Because space is quantized so too are length, time and action

          R: Why, if space is independent of time?

          re: Every clock's mechanism is altered by physical circumstances (temperature, acceleration, velocity, etc.).

          R: Except..... the astronomical clock is not.

          re: Newton argued that space was the seat of inertia (recall his spinning bucket argument).

          R: Newton never identified the locus of absolute space. The bucket frame was not, since the laws of physics(centrifugal force) were not obeyed by a bucket observer. But the Earth frame was a candidate, since all laws of motion are obeyed.

          re: ....all matter had some definite velocity in absolute space, even if it could not be determined.

          R: In the Earth's lab frame all matter has a definite velocity.

          re: Lorentz ether theory (LET), further developed by Poincaré, considered Newton's space to also be the electromagnetic medium in which light moved at c,

          R: The fixed aether of LET was disproven by the Fizeau water tunnel test, which supports the Fresnel aether drag theory.

          re: Newtonian-Lorentzian space is not a Euclidean solid but a massless, frictionless fluid flowing radially into all matter as into a sink.

          R: Are there one or two aethers/spaces, Henry?

          re: ...every celestial body creates a vast co-moving field of radial sink-flow that determines the local inertial and luminal frame to a great distance. This entrainment of space by matter is sufficient to explain Mach's Principle.

          R: How does aether entrainment explain relative rotation(Mach's principle)?

          re: To supersede QM and the Standard Model, we need only to relate the phenomena to space

          R: Yes...to aether!

          All the best,

          Robert