' ... The outside world is something independent from man, something absolute ...'
If the universe creates itself out of nothing and continues to do so, then the sum of everything inside of it, including spacetime itself has somehow to remain nil, so things certainly do not have an absolute kind of existence, a reality outside the universe -the 'somehow' being the main subject of physics. If (see Mechanics of a Self-Creating Universe) particles, stars and galaxies create each other and so only exist to each other as far as they interact or keep exchanging the energy they need to exist, then they have no absolute existence, no reality outside of interactions, outside their universe. The idea that an object can have an absolute kind of reality, as if there's some higher realm, some authority outside the universe to whom it exists and can be observed is a purely religious notion. Anyhow, since we consist of particles, the 'outside world' is not completely independent from us, hence Schrödinger's cat.
' ... Our present formulation of the fundamental laws of physics is inapplicable to contexts in which both quantum mechanics and general relativity play a non-negligible role (...) that quantum mechanics and general relativity both played crucial roles at the big bang...'
The reason for this inapplicability is that general relativity is a classic theory, formulated around the notion that objects do have such an absolute kind of existence, that is: that the mass of particles only is the source of their interactions and not (as quantum field theory in fact says) also their product. Besides the universe having no need for a bang to get started (so there isn't even a singularity where the two theories can clash), the mass definition I propose seems to have all basic elements to build a relativity theory with quantummechanics at its heart and so is free from the flaws of the present version. The problem, then, is that we believe the mass of particles to have an interaction-independent component, as if there's an unassailable holiest of holy inside the particles which cannot be affected in any way, and which indeed would create black holes with finite horizon diameters, with sigularities at their center. If, however, the mass of particles is as much the product as the source of their interactions, then there can be no singularity, no points of infinite density and zero volume, nor can the hole have a finite horizon diameter. Though the mass density of objects may have no limit, the density of any real object has a finite value.
'...From "within" each doll it should only be possible to get information on neighboring dolls ...'
If particles to keep existing, keep exchanging energy, then with this exchange they communicate all information about all particles in their universe, so a particle, like a hologramfragment, contains all data of the whole, be it that this information is less definite, more vague the smaller the fragment is.
'... an effect of gradual saturation of our ability to uncover new phenomena (...) the substantial lack of progress ... of the last quarter of a century...'
To me the origin of this 'saturation' seems to lie in our excessive respect for ideas and concepts which may have passed their sell-by date, in our aversion to leave the comfort of our belief in the gospel truth as proclaimed by our revered patriarchs of physics, in our lazyness or lack of imagination. If what has been useful in simpler times now obstructs its development and has become cause of our misery, then physics perhaps needs an overhaul which doesn't spare cherished concepts like those of charge and antiparticles, of the idea that gravity is exclusively attractive. As outdated ideas produce inconsistent theories, we perhaps construct problems which nature itself isn't aware of, problems we cannot solve as we created them ourselves and in the process cultivate the idea that the universe itself is impossibly complicated, as if it had to get at least a PhD in physics before being able to create itself.
The job Copernicus started apparently is far from finished: after acknowledging that every point is at the center of its own universe, part two is to finally admit that as there's no clock outside the universe, no point from which unambiguously can be determined what precedes what, the concept of causality has become useless in physics. Only in a universe produced by some outside intervention things can have an absolute kind of reality, an interaction-independent existence, being only related by having the same creator, their behaviour more a kind of side-effect of the properties they've been provided with rather than related to the need, the effort to keep existing themselves. In a universe where things create each other, they are far stronger related than causality can account for.
