Quantum mechanics and relativity theory are the crown jewels of physics because they have quite simply never been wrong. Modern physics began with Maxwell’s wave equations in the 1860s, then Planck’s constant in 1900, Einstein’s special relativity in 1905, general relativity in 1915, and Schrödinger’s wave equation in 1925. Despite initial skepticism, these theories met every logical and experimental test their critics could devise. They amazed even their advocates, as Fermi predicted the neutrino in 1933 before it was found in 1953, and Dirac predicted anti-matter before it too was found. Yet over a century later, quantum theory still doesn’t make any sense. As Ford says:

“Its just that the theory lacks a rationale. ‘How come the quantum’ John Wheeler likes to ask. ‘If your head doesn’t swim when you think about the quantum,’ Niels Bohr reportedly said, ‘you haven’t understood it.’ And Richard Feynman … who understood quantum mechanics as deeply as anyone, wrote: ‘My physics students don’t understand it either. That is because I don’t understand it.’”(Ford, 2004) p98

For the first time in history, the scholars of a discipline don’t actually believe what their reigning theories say! They accept the calculations are correct but deny that they represent reality. This is, to say the least, an unusual state of affairs. The problem isn’t inexperience, as these theories are used in a host of technologies that define life today, from cell phones to space exploration, yet:

“… physicists who work with the theory every day don’t really know quite what to make of it. They fill blackboards with quantum calculations and acknowledge that it is probably the most powerful, accurate, and predictive scientific theory ever developed. But … the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.” (Vacca, 2005) p116

The equations, tests and applications work but the theory makes no physical sense, e.g. in Feynman’s sum over histories an electron travels all possible paths between two points at once – but how can one electron do that? Theories usually increase understanding but in physics they seem to take it away. For example, wave-particle duality lets waves become particles, but this denies what waves and particles are. Given a choice between meaning and mathematics, physics long ago chose the latter. As a result, quantum theory still isn’t taught in high schools, because who can teach what makes no sense? Modern physics is a mathematical feast with no semantic substance, a hollow science built on impressive equations about quantum states that everyone agrees don’t exist! And this way of no meaning was deliberate:

“… we have locked up quantum physics in “black boxes”, which we can handle and operate without knowing what is going on inside. (Audretsch, 2004) (Preface, p x).

The result has been described as fairy tale physics (Baggot, 2013), where imaginary particles from invisible fields within empty space make equations work for no good reason. But when fundamental physics stopped trying to understand its findings, it stagnated:

“How unusual it is for three decades to pass without major progress in fundamental physics? Even if we look back more than two hundred years…it is unprecedented.” (Smolin, 2006) p viii

The cause isn’t a few anomalies in an otherwise perfect vision. Quantum theory rules the micro-cosmic world of atoms and relativity rules the cosmic world of stars, so for these core theories to make no sense at all is big problem. Even worse, relativity and quantum mechanics contradict each other! Each works in its domain, relativity for cosmic events, and quantum theory for atomic events, but together they clash:

“The problem … is that when the equations of general relativity commingle with those of quantum mechanics, the result is disastrous.” (Greene, 2004, p15)

This conflict tells us that something is wrong. Particle physics today is stagnating because the “shut up and calculate” doctrine of Copenhagen led into a theory desert, where false mirages abound. The denial of meaning resulted in myths based on imagination not reality:

“… the main reason for the existence of myths in QM {quantum mechanics} is the fact that QM does not give a clear answer to the question of what, if anything, objective reality is.” (Nikoli, 2008) p43

It is time to return to the original hard question of physics, which is “What is reality?“

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Strange theories abound in modern physics, e.g. in many-worlds theory, each quantum choice divides reality, so everything that can happen does happen in an inconceivable multiverse of parallel worlds (Everett, 1957). In the inflationary model, our universe is just one of many bubble universes (Guth, 1998), and according to string theory, it has six extra curled-up dimensions hidden from view. In M-theory, our universe floats on a fifth dimension “brane” we can’t see (Gribbin, 2000) p177-180 and in ekpyrotic theory, we are one of two universes that collide and retreat in an eternal cycle (J. Khoury, 2001). The days when physics just described the physical world we see are long gone.

These theories exist because the findings of physics are equally strange, like Einstein’s discovery that the sun bends light by curving the space around it, or that the earth’s gravity slows down time, so clocks tick faster on tall buildings than on the ground. Movement also dilates time, so an atomic clock on a plane ticks slower than a synchronized one on the ground (Hafele & Keating, 1972). Yet while space, time, and mass vary with speed, the speed of light is strangely constant.

If relativity is strange then quantum theory is more so, as experiments show that one electron can go through two slits at once to interfere with itself, entangled photons can ignore speed of light limits on causality, the vacuum of space can exert pressure, and gamma radiation has no physical cause. Einstein, who was as open to new ideas as anyone, thought that quantum theory made no sense, and that is because it doesn’t. Physics has studied our reality and the results are in:

“… the weirdness of the quantum world is real, whether we like it or not.”

(Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001) p4.

The theories of physics are strange because our world is strange.

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Quantum Realism Part I. The Observed Reality……Chapter 1. The physical world as a virtual reality

Brian Whitworth, Auckland, New Zealand

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”

Sir Arthur Eddington

We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to explain the findings of modern physics for some time now. An objective space and time should just be, but our space can contract and our time can dilate. Objective things should just exist but electrons in our world are probability of existence smears that spread, tunnel, superpose, and entangle in physically impossible ways. Cosmology also confirms that our universe just popped into existence over 14 billion years ago for no clear reason. This isn’t how an objective reality should behave!              Download Whole Chapter.                                                                                                      Next

QR1.1 A Strange World

QR1.2 What Is Reality?

QR1.3 The Physical Evidence

QR1.4 Implications

QR1.5 Evaluating Quantum Realism

QR1.6 A New Theory

Summary Table

Discussion Questions

References

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This book explores a possibility that we normally dismiss out of hand, that the physical world is a virtual reality. The reader is asked to keep an open mind, as what is proposed is neither illogical, unscientific, or incompatible with physics. Nor is it a modern idea, as that the world is illusory is an idea whose roots go back thousands of years. It arises today because scientists have discovered that physical reality is stranger than we ever imagined.

QR1.1.1 Strange Physics.

QR1.1.2. A Hollow Science.

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Thought hurts! Thinking goes from known data to new conclusions, i.e. it works forward. In contrast, justifying goes from a known conclusion to data that support it, i.e. it works backwards.

Fitting facts to a known view is why for thousands of years we thought the earth was flat, even though every mariner saw objects grow on the horizon. Justifying stagnates knowledge while thinking grows knowledge. The entire scientific method is about following the world’s data in an unbiased way.

To believe in science is to believe in thinking forwards, in going from results to conclusions not the other way. The only way to know that you are really thinking is if it hurts. If it doesn’t hurt, you probably aren’t thinking. Thinking without effort is like gain without pain – impossible. To prove what you already know is no achievement but to discover what you didn’t is.

One person pushing the boundaries of knowledge lets us all through. If you have a problem you can’t figure out, try this method. List what you know, ask what you don’t, then think until your head hurts. Then have a rest and try again. In my experience, an answer always comes. The answers really are out there – we just have to work to get them.

Life is an open secret. Why don’t people see what is right in front of them? Are they just stupid? When the allies reached the Auschwitz concentration camp, the Germans nearby said they didn’t know what was going on, yet they could smell the burning bodies. They bought into Hitler’s superior race myth and then chose not to know what it meant. They weren’t stupid but facts cannot change what you choose to believe. And still today, people do this. They buy into myths that suit them and then choose to see what they want to see.

Murderers believe their victims deserve it. Rapists believe their victims want it. Thieves believe their victims can afford it. All are just doing what they want to do and covering it up with a lie. Their ignorance is by choice not by lack of knowledge. To believe what you want to believe, regardless of what you actually see, hear or smell, is the real conspiracy of modern society. Life then is an open secret, known to those who want to know but not to those who don’t.

In this world, truth is a bastard rejected by those it exposes. Whistle-blowers without exception are disowned, abandoned or cast out. Isn’t it obvious that thinking based on evidence is better than trying to impose beliefs on the world? Why then was Socrates put to death? Isn’t it obvious that the rich skimming wealth from the poor but not adding value is not sustainable? Why then did it take Marx to point it out? Isn’t it obvious that people competing in a free market add value? Why then did it take Adam Smith to point that out? And isn’t it now obvious that lying and cheating for profit doesn’t benefit society, so why do we now all go along with that story when we can smell that it is wrong?  

Problems multiply like rabbits if left. When other people ask for help with a problem, they often work it out themselves if left alone. But many things don’t do that, instead they grow like weeds.

When we are young, our parents clean up after us, so this fact is invisible to us but when we leave home, it is not. My first experience of living independently was to join four “adults” fresh from home, who all left the cleaning to others. I saw every dirty dish and cup piled up on the sink, and to have a cup of coffee they cleaned one cup and then put it back on the pile! One day, I did all the dishes to find a teapot at the bottom with tea bags covered in mold! Fungi are nature’s garbage disposal. I learned that if you have to do something, better to do it sooner rather than later, lest it grow. A little acorn root that can be pulled out with one hand becomes a tree that needs a chainsaw.

Unless you’re a child with a kind mother, don’t ignore problems you see. Ignoring a problem often doesn’t make it go away because nothing in nature stays still. Many problems are like rabbits that multiply if left alone. They breed, just as misery breeds misery. So if you see something that you have to do at some point, do it directly lest its progeny overwhelm you. 

Man’s intuition

Everyone knows about woman’s intuition, that sees into the hearts of others, to know what they feel even before they do. Woman’s intuition lets a person emotionally “do”, to reach the hearts of others.

In contrast, man’s intuition sees not into hearts but into space and time, as it reveals where and when to be. Man’s intuition lets a person physically do, because when acting, time and place is everything. Just as there is no point expressing the right feelings to the wrong person, so there is no point in a “right” action at the wrong place or time.

We praise women’s intuition, because like magic it reveals the unseen heart, to reveal inner feelings that would otherwise be hidden. In contrast, man’s intuition, the skill of being in the right place at the right time, is generally attributed to dumb luck. If a man stops a baby falling or a bowl of hot soup spilling, that he was there to do it is considered to be luck rather than skill. Yet there is a skill in being in the right place at the right time, and not everyone has it.

Accidents often occur when people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they are not considered at fault. It was just bad luck, as the term “accident” implies. Yet we all the time choose where to be, so it is not entirely luck. Yet if a driver by intuition slows down, speeds up, or changes lanes for no apparent reason and so avoids a crash, no-one knows it was man’s intuition. This is because what might have happened, but didn’t, doesn’t exist! It’s the same when people fall or trip – some just get up again while others “fall on their head” and end up in hospital. Who knows why? I do, its man’s intuition.

A clever man can get out of trouble but an intuitive one doesn’t get into trouble in the first place. Man’s intuition looks like dumb luck but it really exists. One can know where to be and when. One can know how to fall and how not to fall. Everyone, men and women, can access their man’s intuition, to move rightly in time and space, because it is a natural human ability. The only thing stopping you is to know that it is possible. Man’s intuition exists and we should all cultivate it.

Some thoughts:

• Sky and Earth. A proposed new New Zealand flag.
• Man’s intuition. Everyone should develop their man’s intuition!
• Problems multiply. When ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.
  
• Life is an open secret. People believe what they choose to believe.
• Thought hurts. Why real thinking always hurts.
• Love. Comments on Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet, written for my daughter’s wedding.