What is Possible for Theoretical Physics? by James A Putnam

Dear Amrit,

Thank you for your message. I have read your many messages promoting your ideas again and again. I read your essay. I do not agree with your beliefs. I wrote my essay from my own point of view. It does contradict your approach to interpreting reality. I see your universe as another example of an illusion. I will not be joining you in promoting it as representing reality.

Respectfully,

James

Dear Frank and Steve,

Thank you for your kind words and sharing your advice. Best wishes to you both in your endeavors. Why not submit your ideas to the essay contest, keeping the subject in mind, and see what happens. Steve, perhaps your friend Naima can help you with the English.

James

Dear Steve,

The rating does not matter. I did poorly in the first contest and I do not expect to do well in this contest. The subject is best suited for theoretical physicists who are mathematically exploring other dimensions, strange projections onto the universe, exotic hypothetical properties, and so forth. They are highly skilled at their work. I respect their talents. I do not mind how my ideas are rated by others. I have my opinion and others have theirs. This essay contest does allow me to express my concerns about the directions that theoretical physics has taken for the last hundred years. It is a valuable opportunity that FXQi has made available to us. They are accomodating to the point where authors can say something new. I appreciate FXQi, its contests, and the judges who give their time to make it work. I am satisfied enough that my essay was accepted.

James

Hi Amrit,

Of course you have beliefs. You believe in space. Your mind receives information about change. You believe in space because your mind draws a picture for you where you think you see space. It does not draw a picture of time. It is continuously interpreting information about changes in distance and time to draw you a picture that includes changes of distance during time. You believe those changes of distance do not require time. You believe that motion creates the image of time. You believe that clocks act first without time and then comes the image of time.

You believe in what you think you see. Yet you see only what your mind visualizes. You do not see what your mind uses to create that visualization. You believe in the reality of the visualization instead of the reality of its cause. The information you use to arrive at this belief includes both distance and time and the intelligence necessary to make use of that information. You cannot separate distance and time except in your visualization and belief. Also, you believe that you are correct. I believe that you are mistaken.

James

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your offer.

James

Dr. Casey Blood,

Part one:

My use of the word particle is intended in a generic sense, much like a pronoun, as a name to symbolically represent some fundamental cause of effects. I do not subscribe to mechanical type interpretations, whether classical particle or wave function. We only know about effects. We do not know what cause is. The names do not matter. It is the practice of assigning mechanical style interpretations to substitute for explaining cause to which I object.

I do not deny the importance of learning effects and using their empirical patterns to predict future effects. However, I think any mechanical interpretation is a low level substitute for understanding the nature of this universe that gave rise to intelligent life. Mechanics by any name will never give us answers that rise above mechanical style effects.

The mechanical style interpretations are accepted as leading, through increasingly complex assemblages of particles, toward more complex effects. Any interpretation, including awareness, is entitled to that same approach. The words awareness, intelligence, and knowing were developed for recognizable intelligence life. Unlike in mechanics, these words are resisted when looking downward and backward to the origins of natural fundamental properties of intelligence.

The irony, for me, is that it is only information and intelligence that we have direct experience with. Everything else that we think exists as part of the nature of the universe is interpreted by our intelligence from information. A complex storm of photons carries this piecemeal information. This is our most directly experienced evidence. I think it makes clear that intelligence is the key property of the real nature of the universe. The idea of a mechanical style nature cannot lead back to the intelligence that created it. It is an irreversible process. Yet current, mechanical style, theoretical physics proceeds on the belief that the process is reversible.

If the universe consisted only of information and intelligence we would not be able to distinguish it, except by the existence of intelligence, from the universe described to us by physicists. If I were to say that one electron knows about the existence of another electron and knows what to do in response to recognizing that it is an electron, that statement should not be dismissed as being inferior, i.e. unnatural, to saying that electric charge causes the electron to move. Electric charge is a theoretical, mechanical style invention. I indicated this in my essay The Absoluteness of Time in the first essay contest The Nature of Time.

With regard to free will for particles, they do not have it. At that low level free will would amount to loss of control and meaningless chaos. The universe is completely controlled. There is no meaninglessness contained within it. I have attempted, at my website, to show that even though the universe itself does not have free will, it does have the ability to give us a property that very closely approximates it. I will not try to defend that statement here.

All the mathematics, stripped of its theoretical baggage must also be successfully applied to developing a universe that has fundamental properties of intelligence. I think this is obvious. It should be embraced instead of used as a reason for denying that these properties could replace the mechanical ideology of theoretical physics. I feel certain that all of this should fit together and make much more sense.

Dr. Casey Blood,

Part Two:

I do not think that it should be rushed into without preparation. There is an interim step that should be tried first. That step is to establish that there is just one cause for all effects. It can be expected that it reveals itself in different ways under different circumstances. This effort, when successful, will actually be only another mechanical style interpretation. However, it will have served the purpose of removing the façade of current theoretical physics.

That façade is obscuring our vision and our thinking. The success of identifying one cause is that, then, we have a chance of following that same line of thinking for learning the development of intelligence. In other words, intelligence at its most fundamental levels, would be substituted as the single original cause.

I am attempting to do this. I am not ready to challenge theoretical quantum physics. I took the approach of redefining the fundamentals following a path similar to the historical development of theoretical physics. I began with f=ma and redefined its interpretation. I applied this new interpretation to developing a new classical style theory. I then moved to redefine the fundamentals of relativity style theory. I am now beginning to move to redefine the fundamentals of quantum theory.

I first prepared the way by learning as much as could be known about the uses of Planck's constant in the new theory, before carrying it over into a review of quantum theory. I am now working on the next step: Reviewing the meaning of the uncertainty principle. It may be that I am not skilled enough to accomplish a revision of quantum physics; however, I am the only person I know of willing to try it. I have come a long way since beginning this effort.

My own essay in this current contest indicates, only minimally, some of the thinking and results of this effort. I included an equation in that essay that I would think should demand attention. Yet, it gets passed over. I presume that others assume that since it does not appear to make sense within the context of current theory, that it must be a fluke without meaning. Its units do not match.

Even though I do not say this in my essay, that equation was derived from the development of new theory. It is a mechanical style theory with just one original cause. The equation makes sense in that theory. Its units match in that theory. It was included in the essay for the purpose of indicating the existence of fundamental unity.

Even if this new theory proved to be superior to current theory, it would still represent just one intermediate step to learning the true fundamental nature of this universe. The final theory must be useful for solving mechanical problems, but, it cannot itself be mechanical. Intelligence must be the one given in the nature of the universe. The final theory will be the story of the development of intelligence from the true natural fundamentals of the universe all the way from its origin to human free will.

James

http://newphysicstheory.com

Dear Leshan,

The purpose of my essay and the work it represents is not to find a new single property or prediction based upon current physics theory. Instead, I seek unity beginning with the fundamentals and continuing as a clear central part of all theory that follows. I will welcome, without forcing it, anything new that comes from that effort. The theory I am working on is another mechanical type theory. I accept that for now, because, that is the belief system that theoretical physics is built upon.

What I hope to accomplish with this step is to show that there can be, even in a mechanical style theory, a single cause for all effects. I do not believe that empirical evidence negates or contradicts this possibility. Afterwords, should I be successfull, I will immediately disavow my theory as representing the true nature of the universe. The reason for this next step is that the existence of intelligent life, in my opinion, negates the possibility of the nature of the universe being fundamentally mechanical.

Mechanics of any type, for me, is just one type of result that can be picked out for mathematical analysis. Its great usefulness for solving mechanical type problems, I believe, does not raise it above the lowest level of understanding of the real nature of this universe that gave birth, through its own properties, to intelligent life and human free will.

Presently I have reached a point in my work where I am moving into a re-evaluation and probable redefining of the fundamentals of quantum theory. For now the path I see ahead of me seems pretty clear, at least for the next few steps. I will be pursuing them, for now alone, in the manner that seems laid out before me. Thank you for your generous offer, however, I will be working alone for now. Best of luck to you in your ambitious work.

James