If Schroedinger's Cat Enters The Forest, & No One Is Around To Observe It, Is The Future A Porkchop?

By Benjamin New

I often find myself thinking about the nature of the time space bubble we find ourselves in.
Perhaps you do as well. Certainly this is the primary function of the science of physics...to study the nature...of nature.
  According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum humor, the state of your reaction to my jokes is undefined until you observe them written here. Then you collapse into either one of the two humor eigenstates: either rolling on the floor laughing or frowning and groaning. There are a few assumptions being made on my part here, basically that my dear readers have a working familiarity with the basics of Quantum Mechanics. Fear not if you don't think you do! Here are a few links that will do the trick...if for instance you think that "the collapse of the wave function" is a condition over advertised by pharmaceutical companies that's cured with a blue pill, or if you think "discrete position and momentum" might be an illustration in some new sort of hipster Kama Sutra (Oh come on now. obviously sex is a semi-classical process---the quantum corrections are WAY too small to matter!),  then click this link to clarify things in regards to the rest of this article.

IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST,
AND NO ONE IS THERE TO OBSERVE IT,
DO THE OTHER TREES LAUGH AT IT?

Quantum Mechanics is the most battle-tested theory in all of science. And one-third of our economy involves products designed using it. The device you are reading this on is directly a result of quantum mechanics. The principles of Q. M. work for conducting fundamental science as well as for very for practical applications. Some folks suggest that is all we need to know...it works...why question a good thing? However, this consistently dependable and useful physics model absolutely challenges any reasonable worldviews as it either denies the existence of a physically real world independent of its observation... or it suggests an unimaginable infinitely unfolding series of worlds forming from every possible event that takes place. Today friends, we are going to concern ourselves with the two most widely accepted views regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen Interpretation, and the Many Worlds interpretation.

Copenhagen comes down to this: “everything we can measure ultimately behaves like a quantum wave, but this doesn't apply to me, so what are the implications of that?”
Many Worlds boils down to saying: “everything we measure ultimately behaves like a quantum wave, what are the implications of that?” The Copenhagen interpretation says what it says and it clearly does not  have apodictic dents in it's armor. It has no internal inconsistencies and it is not in contradiction at all with any observation done as of today...but the same can be said of Everett's Many Worlds interpretation.



Copenhagen is considered the standard model while Many Worlds has steadily gained in acceptance.

What we know is that particles are in fact in a state of superposition, that is to say that there is empirical evidence that simultaneous states co-exist in matter. Where paradoxes seem to occur are when we try to understand why or how. These undefined superpositions have been observed in larger quantum systems as well...and this is where the rub comes into play. Laws of physics as we understand them don't have exceptions. Gravity exerts force on galaxies, planets, bowling balls, beads, or molecules in a predictable and identical manner. Events in our macroscopic world all seem to have a causality. It's when we try to comprehend what our observations of very small particles means in the macroscopic world that we run into what seems to be contradictions with what we think we know of this objective world we are accustomed to. However it may well be that these paradoxes only exist in our brains. In other words, these paradoxes are only conflicts between reality and our feelings about what reality ought to be as opposed to what it actually is. As a physicist, one seeks to understand the nature of the physical universe, many physicists would rather stick to the mathematical calculations that represent physical reality and leave the interpretations and implications out of the picture.

( Professor Stephen Hawking and probably most physicists would rather not concern themselves with the interpretations, while Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, & others, certainly did. They discussed the possible philosophical implications as well as the physical implications ). There is an implicit ontology that no one really wants to discuss but everyone ponders when it comes to quantum mechanics.

HEISENBERG PROBABLY RULES

As far as can be tested, the Copenhagen model works, but comes at a price that Einstein & Schrodinger suspected was too high. And that price is acausal randomness and the implication that there is ultimately no objective reality. Our Newtonian reality intuitively does not seem to be that way. (Yet it probably is).  As Einstein said "the moon is not there if you don't look at it"...though he was being sarcastic...it is applying principles observed in the micro system to the macro system.
one of  the  key concepts of C.I is the wave function collapse. The idea that every event exists as a “wave function” which contains every possible outcome of that event, which “collapses”—becoming an actual outcome, once it is observed. A thought experiment that illustrates this (similar to Schrodinger's Cat) is if a room is unobserved, anything and everything that could possibly be in that room exists in “quantum superposition”—an indeterminate state, full of every possibility, until someone enters the room and observes it, thereby collapsing the wave function and solidifying the reality. The problem with this is that observation is given some sort of vaguely defined superpower in a way. It seems to suggest that we are somehow 'different' than the quantum systems we observe or outside of them...and I'm not sure I find that entirely feasible. Though as Niels Bohr, the father of the orthodox 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum physics once said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it". Some people have come to the conclusion that consciousness itself and particle physics are inter-related. There was a legitimate paper on this in 1997 by Dr. Henry Stapp at the University of California in which he suggested that the synapses in your brain are so small that quantum effects are occurring. He suggested that there is quantum uncertainty about whether a neuron will fire or not - and this degree of freedom that nature has, allows for the interaction of mind and matter. (I'll just say that this really doesn't seem intuitively correct to me, but that is just my opinion...and in the realm of QM, intuitions based on experiences in the classical or Newtonian world can't be taken all that seriously it seems). He's written several books on the subject and he is a quantum physicist who worked with both Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg. (unfortunately this sort of suggestion has given rise to all sorts of ludicrous quackery...which is clearly NOT related legitimately to QM....for instance NO legitimate science claims the result of the cat in the quantum box can be manipulated by wishful thinking...there's a ton of new-age quantum quackery proliferating out there on the web, avoid it if possible... except for a laugh.)  I have a problem with this interpretation actually, it does not strike me as consistent or reasonable within what we know of nature...even at the quantum level. A law of physics should apply across the board...if there is an exception, this would be a first. I mean to say that the Newtonian world we are used to interacting in isn't and shouldn't be separate in terms of physical laws from the quantum world. Rather isn't it more likely that everything is a quantum system, every combination of particles, a quantum machine of sorts... including ourselves? Even the entire universe....a quantum machine.
This is why I tend to think that Hugh Everett's Many Worlds interpretation is, well,....less wrong. 

NOT ONLY IS FREE WILL AN ILLUSION,

BUT IT'S ALSO IRRELEVANT

Welcome to Many Worlds!
Many Worlds was proposed by Hugh Everett in 1957. Essentially it states that there is no wave collapse, but when we observe something the universe splits or branches off into an alternate timeline or world so to speak. 

Max Tegmark, the well known and respected astrophysicist says this about Everett's theory:  

"Everett’s theory is simple to state but has complex consequences, including parallel universes. The theory can be summed up by saying that the Schrödinger equation applies at all times; in other words, that the wavefunction of the Universe never collapses. That's it - no mention of parallel universes or splitting worlds, which are implications of the theory rather than postulates. His brilliant insight was that this collapse-free quantum theory is, in fact, consistent with observation."  We have observed larger and larger objects that can be in multiple states, using the same double slit experiment or variations of it.  The same wave-particle duality was exhibited on a molecule which had fully 108 atoms, made up of 2,424 protons, neutrons, and electrons.  The entire molecule (actually, thousands of them) interfered with itself, demonstrating that it was in multiple states. It seems that everything that can indeed be tested has demonstrated quantum superposition, so why not just extend that to “everything obeys the same quantum mechanical laws, including superposition.”? This is the essence and indeed the beauty of Everett's interpretation. It applies to everything. The math is elegant. It makes logical sense, requires no particular special provisions, no dividing the universe into an indeterministic microscopic world and the deterministic macroscopic world. Many would say no, “the physics at small scales is just different!”.  Maybe so...but as I've stated earlier there are no physical laws that work differently on different scales.  In our experience, the same physical laws (see the Navier-Stokes equation) govern everything.
Generally, in science,  all laws apply at all scales, it’s just a question of degree.  Relativity is at work at all velocities, you just do not notice the effects until you move really fast. Should this “size argument” (that larger objects somehow have different laws) turn out to be true, it will be the very first instance of such a thing. The quantum world builds the classical world. Everything in the classical, macroscopic world is composed of microscopic particles acting in unison.

The problem is, if it's a problem at all; the consequences of not collapsing the wave function is that the universe is constantly splitting into alternate worlds which accommodate each possible outcome of every single event. It's likely that for many years before Everett wrote his paper, people had thought about this problem, but Everett was the first to propose a logically consistent way of removing the barrier backed up by convincing equations to support it. Schrödinger had said a few years before in Dublin in a physics conference a few years before Everett published his paper that physicists fear that if we don't have the collapse, "We should find our surroundings rapidly turning into a quagmire, or sort of featureless jelly or plasma, all contours becoming blurred, we ourselves probably becoming jellyfish."
  In other words if there is no collapse, then all these possibilities are going to start propagating all over the place, and there won't be any cause or effect anymore. We,our selves, our physical beings, being quantum systems, become duplicated, and every possible position that a human body can be in will suddenly exist in classical reality. Schrödinger looked at that and booted the idea...the implications being too mind boggling for even a quantum physicist. Even a "mystical" explanation that makes no logical sense seemed better than that to him...and many others!

SYNCHRONICITY IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION

Everett who was very much a realist simply could not accept that consciousness was "privileged," or that the universe would not exist without it. He assumed human consciousness is a quantum-mechanical system like any other quantum-mechanical system. Everett had an advantage the earlier theorists didn't though. Information theory. We have called tthe era in which we live the Information Age...do you know why? We entered the Information Age in 1948 thanks largely to Norbert Wiener (the father of cybernetics) & Claude Shannon,  Shannon and Wiener proposed remarkable theories that said that information actually has a physical reality that is independent of any kind of meaning that you might want to give it. (Which is synchronous with observations made in QM).  The development of understanding information itself as a physical thing has given birth literally to all modern technology including the internet . Well, Everett began to calculate using information theory, which had just been invented. He developed a mathematical argument showing how data correlates within itself. Which is what happens in a superposition. essentially he showed that The Schrödinger equation never ends, including in the classical world. In Everett's theory, what happens is that when a human actually looks at a clock or any other object, he or she splits like an amoeba. (In his view, the observation interaction, is just an exchanging of energy. (A person looking at the clock, in our example, is an energetic interaction, with photons of light bouncing off the clock and going into the person's eye.) According to Everett's view, when the human correlates him-herself, (interacts or exchanges energy with the clock or whatever is interacted with) then he-she splits into copies of him- herself, one for each element in the superposition. This split creates the 'many worlds'. As bizarre as this sounds—a person splitting into numerous copies of him-herself...Everett's theory has stood the test of time and peer review. It has not been shown to be mathematically incorrect. And to be sure, people have tried very hard. They have found some minor mathematical gaps, but no one has been able fault the basic mathematical logic, which has made a very convincing case that every time there is an interaction anywhere in the universe, one of the systems splits in order to accommodate all of the elements or superpositions that are contained in the wave function that describes the observed system. So the basis for having multiple universes emerges from this solution to the measurement problem in QM. The universal wave function of Everett's theory ultimately describes a series of branching universes that make up what David Deutsch has called the "multiverse," and recent discoveries in Astrophysics as well as in Neuroscience hint at this as well. (Hence the idea of titling  this section "synchronicity") In these branching universes, there are many trillions of copies of you, of your neighbor, of Everett. There are branches in which Everett is still alive, others where he died at birth. Everything that is physically possible happens in some branch of the multiverse.
The implications of this are nothing less than astonishing.
There is no ceiling of improbability, other than the laws of physics which may actually operate differently in other universes. Whatever could possibly occur does. So when  you are confronted with circumstances that appear to be impossible, like a missing woman unknowingly standing in the background of a photo being taken of her family for a newspaper story about her own disappearance,  remember that nothing is impossible on a large enough scale—indeed, given an infinite number of chances, literally anything you can imagine is not only possible, but inevitable.

IT IS AND IT ISN'T

Consider what we know about how probability works
In a Multiverse; on a persoanl level, the implications become somewhat overwhelming.
There are trillions of versions of you—all of which are undeniably you—but many of which are very, very different from the “you” of this world-line. The differences between the various versions of you are as vast as your imagination can allow...or more. There’s a world-line where you’re the worst dictator ever and an architect of genocide. Conversely, there’s another where you dedicate yourself to world peace. Your crappy  band in high school became the dominant musical force on the planet, somewhere. Ladies, in one timeline Johnny Depp is your lover. Men can find some solace in knowing that they are sleeping with Scarlett Johansson in at least one of these timelines..though conversely perhaps in another they are married to their former cell mate Bubba or a blow up doll. Well, you get the idea. Multiplicity might explain a lot of things...feelings of deja vu,  a close connection with someone you’ve never actually met,  the sense of synchronicity itself. Perhaps there is some type of resonance or distant memory of a previous timeline that explains this. Think of  Buddhism or Hinduism in a divergent light for a moment. Both suggest a reincarnation. They posit that we manifest physically on Earth multiple times, and that we can learn from our past and future “paths”. Indulge me for a moment but might these belief systems be an intuitive understanding of the Multiverse idea? ( I'm thinking about the previous assertion that you were, or are; an evil mass murdering dictator in one timeline... it can be comforting to know that the experience of all possible facets of human nature is explicitly required  for growth which is the case in those belief systems).

This is not to suggest you should kill people or engage in any other immoral behaviors mind you, but the alleged purpose of this cycle of learning is to eventually learn all that there is to learn, to actually transcend physical existence. Of course you dear reader are highly evolved and learned many lifetimes (world-lines) ago all there was to learn from indulging the dark side of human nature.

Of course you did! While some folks seem to believe that our destination is some type of eventual meta-godhood, where we are thrown from our carriages off of the great Ferris Wheel Of Karma or preside over a universe of our own creation... others believe that the cycle just simply repeats. If the whole thing runs down, plays out, or heat death ends all realities; perhaps the cycle is simply restarts and the next Multiverse begins. Perhaps this has already been happening trillions of times? Wiz Bang, expansion, contraction, collapse, Wiz Bang again! Bazoomy! Off we go! As Johnny Carson used to say "I'll be right back"!
...And perhaps he will.

DANCING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO THE QUANTUM WOO PRECIPICE

(But Not falling From Grace)

  In this Multiverse model with its infinite world-lines, you have existed before. In fact, all the infinite versions of you have existed before, and will exist again and again.  The same goes for Kurt Vonnegut, Billy the Kid, Thomas Jefferson, Jimi Hendrix, and Attila the Hun... along with every possible idea, creation and situation throughout all of our past and future, across all realities.
Of course you know if everything that exists or will exist has already existed there is nothing new and nothing original. Not exactly a concept that hasn't been touched on before.

• From a 19th Century BC Egyptian poem: "What has been said has been said."
• From The Old Testament : "It has all been done before; there is nothing new under the sun."
• From The Beatles "All You Need Is Love": "There's nothing you can do that can't be done."
• From John Steinbeck :"There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days"

Many writers, artists, and musicians (myself included on occasion) describe a sense that the pieces we craft are in some manner already existing, fully formed, merely waiting for us to come along and excavate them like fossils in some ethereal tar pit.  In an infinite Multiverse, there is a possibility this may be exactly what the pieces are. Creation and interacting with art is a very unique human experience. There are aspects of the human condition that are difficult or impossible to communicate by any other means. (Often physicists too say their ideas occur fully formed in dreams...and that language simply does not exist to express them adequately.)  This quality has been ascribed to the observations of QM, especially the "observe" portion of the Copenhagen Interpretation...an observation is kind of an interaction of any kind and it's said that there is no known language to properly describe this). While it is not possible to accurately describe in any language what love is, or what it feels like,  there are plenty of ways to communicate this in art. Most often it is through artistic expressions that resonate with us  that many of us develop our first notions of the nature of love or other complex human experiences that elude description in other forms of communication.

I am reminded of the lyrics in the Who's song "905"
from the Who's album  "Who Are You" written by John Entwistle:

"...Now I'm to begin
The life that I'm assigned
A life that's been used before
A thousand times

I have a feeling deep inside
That something is missing
It's a feeling in my soul
And I can't help wishing

That one day I'll discover
That we're living a lie
And I'll tell the whole world
The reason why

But, until then, all I know is what I need to know
And everything I do's been done before
Every idea in my head
Someone else has said
At each end of my life is an open door"

SUMMARY

While there are actually many interpretations of QM, the two most accepted are the Copenhagen and the Many Worlds...most others are tweaks on these two and are pretty much just variations on the two main ideas. There are however others that are different:

Pilot Waves, Hidden Variables and the Implicate Order

David Bohm (1917-1992) came up with an elegant but more complicated theory to explain the same set of phenomena (normally, more complicated theories are disqualified by the principle known as Ockham's Razor). Bohm's theory follows original insights by Prince Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), who first studied the wave-like properties of particles in 1924. De Broglie suggested that, in addition to the normal wavefunction of the Copenhagen Interpretation, there is a second wave that determines a precise position for the particle at any particular time. In this theory, there is some 'hidden variable' that determines the precise position of the photon.  John von Neumann (1903-1957) wrote a paper in 1932 claiming that this theory was impossible. Von Neumann was such a math wiz that nobody actually bothered to check his calculations until 1966, when John Bell (1928-1990) proved he'd bungled it and VIOLA! ...there could actually be hidden variables after all ... but only if particles could communicate faster than light (this is called 'nonlocality' in physics). In 1982 Alain Aspect demonstrated that this superluminal signaling did appear to exist, but then David Mermin came along and showed that you could not actually signal anything. There is still some argument about whether this means much of anything.
Bohm's theory was that this second wave was indeed faster than light, and instantly permeated the entire universe, acting as a guide for the movement of the photon. He called it a 'pilot wave'.
Although this theory explains the paradoxes of quantum physics, it also introduces a new faster-than-light wave and some hidden mechanism for deciding where it goes to create an 'implicate order'. That's quite a lot of luggage to carry and science generally likes to travel light. Worse still, Bohm  become something of a mystic, identifying his 'implicate order' with Eastern spirituality. It's all very interesting and we should keep in mind that "many worlds" was not broadly accepted at first...in fact it was more or less ridiculed...at least privately. 

Consistent Histories 

This interpretation analyzes sequences of states of a system (which may or may not include the whole universe), to find what questions can be consistently answered about the system, such as “was the particle at A or B at time T?” The measurement problem, however, is not resolved: the question of which histories actually happen remains a matter of probabilities just as with the standard Copenhagen approach...so I guess it's really just a variant on Copenhagen.

Shut Up and Calculate!
David Mermin said in a lecture" If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen interpretation says to me, it would be 'Shut up and calculate!"Some physicists talk of the “shut up and calculate interpretation” which is to ignore the philosophical puzzle of how the classical and the quantum coexist entirely.

Transactional Interpretation

This interpretation was proposed by John G. Cramer in 1986 and it has waves traveling forward and backward in time, setting up standing waves between an emitter of a particle and its detector.

Other Odd Considerations

Although not technically an interpretation of QM, there are some other theories related to it that frankly...give me a headache. Largely because they seem so far fetched yet undeniably plausible at the same time. One of these would be that the superposition is observed because we are actually in a computer simulation. When you open a simulation what happens? The various components of the simulation are in an undetermined state and then software tells them to form a certain way to create the simulation. It does explain the wave collapse doesn't it?  Far fetched? Certainly...wait...maybe not. After all if our technology were sufficiently advanced enough to actually simulate a universe, we likely would. If we could simulate one...why not another? Or many? ...all existing right next to each other. An advanced civilization could likely do such a thing...geez maybe even our ancestors were that advanced and are doing it right now! Maybe we are actually simulations of their ancestors in some computer somewhere. We currently actually have supercomputers performing lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations which essentially divide space-time into a four-dimensional grid which then allows researchers to examine what we call the strong force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature and the one that binds  quarks and gluons together into neutrons and protons at the core of atoms. Martin Savage, from Washington University has said “If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge", and by studying that, we could then look for a “signature” in our universe that has an analog in the current small-scale simulations. We can test this.
Savage and colleagues Silas Beane and Zohreh Davoudi, a UW physics graduate student, suggest that this signature could show up as a limitation in the energy of cosmic rays. At any rate suffice it to say some very intelligent and learned scholars do not find this notion ridiculous.
Then there's the idea that the universe is a hologram.  Leonard Suskind and other highly respected physicists posit this idea...watch this video...

   
 


So, I know what you are saying right now..."what's the bottom line on this stuff, what happens to Schrodinger's Cat? "

In Copenhagen: The cat's dead and alive simultaneously until you look at it..then it's one or the other.
In Many Worlds: The cat's dead in one world, alive in another.
In Pilot Waves, Hidden Variables and the Implicate Order: It's either dead or alive, of course! (But becomes a Buddhist monk.)
In Consistent Histories: Don't ask, don't tell.
In Shut Up And Calculate: No one cares about the cat.
In Transactional: The cat is both alive and dead but it's in the past as well as the future simultaneously.
In a computer simulation: The cat's a cartoon...but so are you!
In a hologram: The cat's a 3D cartoon and the future is indeed now a pork chop.

POSTSCRIPT

In 1957, when Everett's thesis was published in Reviews of Modern Physics, the editor of that issue was Bryce DeWitt. Initially, DeWitt was unimpressed with Everett's theory. He wrote to Everett and asked "if the universe is splitting, then why don't I feel myself split?"
Everett responded. "Well, Copernicus made the analysis that the Earth was moving around the sun, undoing thousands of years of belief that the sun was going around the Earth, and people asked him, If the Earth is moving around the sun, then why don't I feel the Earth move?"
 DeWitt, who was well aware of the Newtonian reasons why they wouldn't, simply said "Touché".

In the late 1960s,  DeWitt when he was working seriously in quantum cosmology, DeWitt was attracted to the universal wave function as an interpretive method of dealing with what was going on, and he started writing about it. In 1970, he published an article in Physics Today that set off a firestorm of letters back and forth in that publication, debating the theory. Then, in 1973, he went to Everett, and said, "I know that there's a longer version of your thesis than the one that I printed in 1957. I'd like to publish it." The full dissertation was  137 pages, while the thesis that was published in 1957 was only about nine pages. [You can read the full dissertation here if you like.]
Apparently John Wheeler  (Noted physicist who worked with Bohr) was a professor at Princeton University, and was influential in mentoring a generation of physicists who made notable contributions to quantum mechanics and gravitation including Everett, anyway he had cut three quarters of Everett's original thesis. Wheeler is said to have had a dream that Bohr was somehow going to approve it, so he made Everett remove his direct attacks on the Copenhagen Interpretation as well as his provocative metaphors about splitting observers like amoebas, and bifurcating cannonballs. (as well as, for some unknown reason, a whole chapter on information and probability theory).
  As a result, a lot of the explanation for things that people saw as weaknesses in Everett's theory were cut out of the version that people read.  In 1973, DeWitt published the long version, along with the short version and some other papers, including one by himself, in a book called The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. He used the phrase "many worlds," because he thought it would be provocative and catchy, it was! And the name stuck. Incidentally, Hugh Everett did not call his theory "Many Worlds"...he called it "The Relative-State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics."

If you have read all this material and the links, congratulations! You are now a certifiable quantum mechanic! Send me the 1200 dollars and I'll print you out a certificate with a 3 dimensional hologram of a cat in a box eating a pork chop ! 

Of course, no electrons were harmed in the making of this blog.

Heisenberg Probably Rules!

The "Infinity Environment,"
an installation art piece by Doug Wheeler on display at the Doug Zwirner Gallery in New York City.

Quantum mechanics describes the world in terms of probabilities,
rather than definite outcomes.
The Many Worlds interpretation
suggests our own Universe is drifting
among a veritable sea of spontaneously inflating bubbles,
each being a self-contained
and causally separate pocket of higher-dimensional spacetime.
It seems the mathematics of this theory
may suggest
that all possible outcomes of a situation
actually do occur — in their separate universes.

For example, let's say you are a blues musician,

and you are standing at a crossroads

where you can go right or left,

the present universe gives rise to two daughter universes:

one in which you go right, and one in which you go left.

  In each universe, there is a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome,

thinking — incorrectly — that your reality is the only reality,"

Every universe comprising the multiverse is a discrete timespace bubble

Einstein walks into a bar and says to the bartender,
"I'll take a beer, and a beer for my friend, Heisenberg."
The bartender looks around and asks,
"Is your friend here?"
"Well," says Einstein,
"he is and he isn't."

A Cloud of Probabilities

There are numerous disciplines that suggest a multiversity, or numerous universes.
Scientists can't be sure what the shape of space-time is, but most agree that likely, it's flat (as opposed to spherical, even donut-shape) and stretches out infinitely.
But if space-time goes on forever,
then it must start repeating at some point,
because there are a finite number of ways particles can be arranged in space and time.
So if you look far enough, you would encounter another version of you — in fact, infinite versions of you. Because the observable universe extends only as far as light has had a chance to get in the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang (that would be 13.7 billion light-years), the space-time beyond that distance can be considered to be its own separate universe. In this way,
a multitude of universes exists next to each other in a giant patchwork quilt of universes.


Physicists at University College London, Imperial College London, and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics have designed a computer algorithm that actually examines the WMAP [NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite] data for these telltale signatures of collisions with other universes. After determining what the WMAP results would look like both with and without cosmic collisions, the team uses the algorithm to determine which scenario fits best with the actual WMAP data. Once the results are in, the team’s algorithm performs a statistical analysis to ensure that any signatures that are detected are in fact due to collisions with other universes, and are unlikely to be due to chance. The results of this ground-breaking project are not yet conclusive enough to determine whether we do actually live in a multiverse or not; however, these scientists remain optimistic about the rigor of their method and they hope to continue this research as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is probed more deeply by the Planck satellite, which began its fifth all-sky survey on July 29.

In addition to the multiple universes created by infinitely extending space-time, other universes could also arise from "eternal inflation." Inflation is the notion that the universe expanded rapidly after the Big Bang, in effect inflating like a balloon. Eternal inflation, first proposed by Tufts University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, suggests that some pockets of space stop inflating, while other regions continue to inflate, thus giving rise to many isolated "bubble universes."

Our own universe, where inflation has ended, (allowing stars and galaxies to form) is but a small bubble in a vast sea of space, some of which is still inflating, that contains many other bubbles like ours. And in some of these bubble universes, the laws of physics and fundamental constants could be different than in ours, making some universes wacky strange places indeed.

String theorists also suggests we exist in but one membrane universe coexisting in a multitude of membranes.
(See the previous post)

Scientists have debated whether mathematics is simply a useful tool for describing the universe, or whether math itself is the fundamental reality, and our observations of the universe are just imperfect perceptions of its true mathematical nature.
If the latter is true,
then perhaps the particular mathematical structure that makes up our universe isn't the only option, and in fact all possible mathematical structures exist as their own separate universes.

As you can see there are many paths that arrive at multiple universes.
In the realm of probability, it's a good bet.

The immense Colossal Whizzbang Whangdangdoodle

Implications Of The Multiverse
On The Big Bang
or
How many theoretical physicists
specializing in general relativity
does it take to change a light bulb?
Two.
One to hold the bulb
and one to rotate the universe.

Hello friends!
I'm writing to you from an alternate universe in which time moves backwards, the planets orbit around Stephen Fry, The U.S. Congress is not comprised of racketeering imbeciles, & this article was never written. According to the Big Bang theory, our universe began extremely hot and extremely dense around 14 billion years ago. Space itself expanded and cooled down, eventually allowing atoms to form and clump together to build the stars and galaxies we see today. On this, most scientists are in agreement as there is plenty of evidence to indicate this is indeed so.
University of Pennsylvania particle physicist Burt Ovrut has said "I would say that there is 100 percent consensus, really, there is overwhelming evidence all of the predictions are true."

University Of Penn Physicist Burt Ovrut

For example, this theory predicted that the universe today would be filled with pervasive light left over from the Big Bang. This glow, called the cosmic microwave background radiation, was discovered in 1964,  20 years after it was predicted. However, what caused the Big Bang, what happened at that exact moment, and what came immediately after it, are much more open to contentious controversy, disputable debates, & general brouhaha.

Neil Turok

"Inflation is easily the most popular theory in cosmology," according to theoretical physicist Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. "It's a good theory, but it has some weak points. It can't describe the moment of the Big Bang."
The Big Bang theory envisions the universe beginning from a singularity, a mathematical concept of infinite temperature and infinite density packed into a single point of space. But scientists don't think this is what actually happened. "It wouldn't really be infinite," explained physicist Paul Steinhardt, director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University, who himself was one of the architects of the inflation theory. He noted "Infinity just means a mathematical breakdown. It's a statement that you shouldn't have extrapolated your equations back that far because they just blew up in your face."
So neither the Big Bang theory nor inflationary theory can describe what happened at that moment.

Princeton's Paul Steinhardt

There are some problems with inflation because of quantum fluctuations, different parts of the universe could inflate at different rates, creating "bubble universes" that are much larger than other regions. Our universe may be just one in a multiverse, where different scales and physical laws reign. In such a reality, everything and anything that can happen, will, so basically everything could be a prediction of inflation. This is a fundamental problem and we don't know how to escape it.

Of course there are scientists who say that while inflation may not be complete, it's still the most useful thing we've got to describe the origins of the universe.

Another case where the study of the smallest bits in the universe leads to an understanding of the largest bits is the idea of Cycles. The origins of which come from String Theory or "M Theory" more accurately  (a branch on the string theory tree).  Physicist Paul Steinhardt and Paul.Turok (Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics) proposed an idea called the cyclic model, based on an earlier concept called the ekpyrotic universe that they'd conceived with Ovrut.

In this scenario, the universe undergoes an endless sequence of "bangs" and "crunches".

 Periods of expansion followed by periods of contraction.

 At each transition, the universe would have some finite temperature and density, rather than the infinity of the singularity, and the expansion and contraction would be relatively slow, as opposed to the exponentially quick expansion proposed by inflation.

The idea is based on M-theory, a version of string theory which suggests that every particle is in fact a tiny loop of string whose vibration pattern determines what type of particle it will be. However, M-theory requires the universe to have 11 dimensions. So far, we can only detect four dimensions, three of space and one of time. The other seven are hidden, proponents say. Scientists call the four-dimensional part of the universe we can see a brane, (short for membrane) and suggest that other four-dimensional branes also exist inside this 11-dimesnional space.

"If you have another brane living in higher dimensions, it's extremely likely to move and slam into our own brane," Ovrut said. "You have a brane with exactly the structure of our real world, and other branes that are likely to hit us, and all of the energy of colliding universes would come into play. Gee, that sounds a heck of a lot like a Big Bang to me."

Advocates of the idea say it offers an exciting way of addressing the issue of what prompted the Big Bang, and it avoids some of the pitfalls of inflation such as infinity which is problematic.
Particles such as antimatter from a parallel universe, interacting with our own may be behind the mysterious deep space gamma bursts that have puzzled astronomers since their first observation.

"In the cyclic theory you are not only describing the last bang, but the ones before it," Turok explained. "It's a bigger picture, more complete and hopefully more logically consistent."

Schroedinger's Cat in it's natural habitat

The idea of alternate universes is not new, it's been around in Quantum Physics since the "many worlds" interpretation. In the Copenhagen interpretation, the mathematics of quantum mechanics allows one to predict probabilities for the occurrence of various events. In the many-worlds interpretation, all these events occur simultaneously.

What meaning should be given to these probability calculations?
And why do we observe, in our history, that the events with a higher computed probability seem to have occurred more often? One answer to these questions is to say that there is a probability measure on the space of all possible universes, where a possible universe is a complete path in the tree of branching universes. This is indeed what the calculations seem to give credence to. Of course this is all theory, yet quantum computing relies on a very real particle being in many places simultaneously, it relies on dimensions beyond the ones we perceive. Fortunately for those who work in this field, they don't particularly have to make sense of it or explain it, but rather just focus on the fact that it works. Indeed we are standing on a whale looking for minnows.

Sources-

1. ^ Perimeter Institute, Seminar overview, Probability in the Everett interpretation: state of play, David Wallace - Oxford University, 21 Sept 2007
2. ^ Perimeter Institute, Many worlds at 50 conference, September 21-24, 2007
3. ^ Wojciech H. Zurek: Probabilities from entanglement, Born’s rule from envariance, Phys. Rev. A71, 052105 (2005).
4. ^ M. Schlosshauer & A. Fine: On Zurek's derivation of the Born rule. Found. Phys. 35, 197-213 (2005).
5. ^ Lutz Polley, Position eigenstates and the statistical axiom of quantum mechanics, contribution to conference Foundations of Probability and Physics, Vaxjo, Nov 27 - Dec 1, 2000
6. ^ Lutz Polley, Quantum-mechanical probability from the symmetries of two-state systems
7. ^ Armando V.D.B. Assis (2011). "Assis, Armando V.D.B. On the nature of and the emergence of the Born rule. Annalen der Physik, 2011.". Annalen der Physik (Berlin) 523: 883–897. arXiv:1009.1532. Bibcode 2011AnP...523..883A. doi:10.1002/andp.201100062.
8. ^ Everett FAQ "Is many-worlds a local theory?"

Standing on the Whale, Fishing for Minnows

Explorations in the theory which is known as quantum mechanics
has yielded spectacular successes and insights into the nature of the universe ,
among which is describing properties of atomic structures.


Where relativity deals with the largest objects in the universe,
quantum mechanics deals with understanding the very smallest particles
of which all objects are composed.
Quantum physics has shattered the traditional ideas of the physical universe.
Yet it's elegant equations present us not simply with scientific knowledge,
but also with philosophical challenges regarding its interpretation.
It's implications are
vast, mysterious, revolutionary, and wondrous.
After all,
What is a quantum particle?
The dreams that stuff is made of!

Quantum Mechanics has been described
as the crowning achievement of the 20th Century,
a theory that has been validated with great precision.
The quanta - the idea that at the smallest of scales,
everything is discrete; has devastated classical physics and forced us
to perceive reality in a most unreasonable fashion by conventional standards.
Yet at it's very core, the stuff upon which the physical universe is hung,
is more real than the physical universe itself.
How did we arrive here?

THE ULTRAVIOLET CATASTROPHE
Hop aboard the old "wayback machine"
with Mr.Peabody and Sherman!
(which incidentally, exists courtesy of relativity ...
and/or Jay Ward!
Of course this begs the question,
in a quantum universe,
is Bullwinkle still a moose?)

In the 19th century much of the scientific community was absorbed in the study of heat properties of various objects. An abstract model that was considered was the Black Body, which was an object which absorbs all incidents of radiation and then re-emited the energy again. We can think of the radiating energy as standing waves inside our blackbody cavity. The energy of these radiating waves at a given frequency ½, should be proportional to the number of modes at this frequency. Classical physics states that all these modes have the same energy k T (a result derived from classical thermodynamics) and as the number of modes is proportional to ½ ² :

We would expect most of the energy at higher frequency, and this energy to diverge with frequency. When we sum the energies at each frequency we find that there is an infinite energy in this system!

This paradox was called the ULTRAVIOLET CATASTROPHE.

Physicist Max Planck resolved this untidy paradox.
He postulated that the energy of the modes
could only come in discrete packets - quanta - of energy:

Using statistical mechanics Planck found that the modes at higher frequency were less likely excited so the average energy of these modes would decrease with the frequency. The exact expression for the average energy of each mode is given by the Planck distribution:

You can see that if the frequency is low then the average energy tends towards the classical result, and as frequency goes to infinity we get that the average energy goes to zero as expected.

We might say this was the birth of quantum mechanical thinking.

The Clot Thickens...

Atomic Line Spectra
There was a further breakdown in classical physics regarding the observed discrete line spectra specific to each atom.
It was widely accepted that this must be due to transitions between atomic energy levels.
But this presented a considerable problem to classical physics as it predicted that accelerating charges emitted radiation.
It would thus seem that the energy orbital would be unstable as the electron slowly spiraled towards the nuclei as it emitted radiation.
There was absolutely no classical model which could explain a stable electron orbital.
In other words:
How could the electrons orbit the nucleus and not lose energy?
Why was this configuration stable?

Niels Bohr

Bohr was able to crack this puzzle by invoking the idea developed by Planck.
This quantization could not be proven on classical grounds or even justified,
but Bohr showed that when he made these assumptions,
he could predict the spectrum of hydrogen
with unprecedented accuracy.
This magical conjuring act
was able to accurately describe the energy levels
giving the exact energies of the lines actually observed in the atomic spectra.
This is the resultant equation.

Look here for a brief presentation of the derivation of his theory.

Bohr's success was indisputable.

Unfortunately it only worked on Hydrogen.

HeisenbergThe Uncertainty Principle

"The more precisely
the POSITION is determined,
the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known"
This seemingly harmless sounding statement
of the "uncertainty relation" between the position
and the momentum (mass times velocity) of a subatomic particle,
such as an electron sent reverberations
through the hallowed halls of science and philosophy.
The implications are unfathomably infinite.
This relationship has profound effects
on such fundamental notions as causality
and the determination of the future behavior of an atomic particle.
But as we discussed in Anarchs Of The New Paradigm,
the implications in Art, Music, Philosophy,
and essentially all man's endeavors are fundamentally of equal significance.

Consider a particle,
say an electron, moving through space.
We describe the electron's motion in terms
of its position and momentum.
Classically speaking,
we can measure both quantities to infinite precision.
However in Quantum Mechanics,
we can never know both quantities absolutely precisely.
This is because by taking a measurement
we inadvertently have disturbed the system.

"I believe that the existence of the classical 'path'
can be pregnantly formulated as follows:
The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it."
--Heisenberg, in the uncertainty principle paper

If every concept has a meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure it, we must agree that things that cannot be measured really have no meaning in physics. So for instance, the path of a particle has no meaning beyond the precision with which it is observed. But a basic assumption of physics since Newton has been that a "real world" exists independently of us, regardless of whether or not we observe it. (This assumption did not go unchallenged, however, by some alchemists and philosophers.)
Heisenberg now argued that such concepts as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we observe them.
Does this perhaps suggest that all knowledge is unknowable?
There simply are no certainties.
Only probabilities.
Tumblin' Dice...
Quantum theory...
"If we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future"
-it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise."
--Heisenberg, in the uncertainty principle paper

Heisenburg

So we can not be certain Bullwinkle is a moose,
in fact, merely making the inquiry
affects whether Bullwinkle is a moose or not.

Light can be both wave and particle
Some experiments show that light is a particle:
Einstein's Nobel Prize was actually for the photoelectric effect, where he showed that light carries energy in discrete amounts, a certain amount per particle. Yet other experiments also show that light is definitely a wave:
It exhibits interference patterns, which is something that only waves do.
There is however, no experiment which can show both results.
Whether light is a wave or a particle depends on how you're looking with it.
This may seem odd, but there are many examples of this sort of duality, even outside of physics. The same person could be perceived as a father, son, brother, nephew, or uncle, depending on who's perception we are dealing with.

Bullwinkle is a moose and squirrel.


Matter (us and everything else) is of a dual nature.
As discussed in the explanation of the nature of light.
The idea of duality is rooted in the debates over the nature of light and matter dating back to the 1600s, when competing theories of light were proposed by Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton. Through the work of Albert Einstein, Louis de Broglie, and many others, current scientific theory holds that all particles also have a wave nature. This phenomenon has been verified not only for elementary particles, but also for compound particles like atoms and even molecules. In fact, wave–particle duality applies to all objects, even macroscopic ones.

We exist as both particles and wave functions.
The wave function of an object represents the probability of finding it in a particular location or with a particular physical property (ie. it's reality) - when the probability of finding an object in a particular location or with a particular property goes to 100%, the wave function collapses and the object assumes physical properties. At this point it becomes "real".



Objects do not have any physical properties until they are observed.
Quantum physics contradicts the belief in an objective world existing independent of observation.
Our observations influence reality by collapsing the wave function of an object.
The point at which the wave collapses is consciousness itself.
An astounding yet mathematically supported reality.
Renee Descartes walks into a bar,
the bartender says 'sir can I get you a martini
'Descartes says
'I don't think...'
and he disappears.

The Tragic End Of Schrödinger's Cat
After a stint in the physics limelight, Schrödinger's cat fell on hard times.
The constant stress of never knowing from one moment to the next whether he was alive or dead took its toll on the cat's psyche. Schrödinger's cat began to drink, and drink heavily!
Often drinking himself into a catatonic stupor. Alcohol abuse began to affect his work.
This was especially evident in his last paper published shortly before his death, "Der Maus Eigenfunctionen im Unendlich-dimensional Hilbertraum", in which he published the following rather cryptic equation for analyzing the momentum of electrically-charged particles:

p[[p[p[p = <~~fafafaf | 35eeeeeeeeee >

It has been speculated that if properly understood, this strange-looking equation may have profound implications for our understanding of the interactions of particles in an electromagnetic field. Unfortunately, the original manuscript was covered with coughed up fur balls and a green-colored stain that resembled cat vomit.
One by one, Due to his drinking, his sources of funding dried up.
Soon, he found that he was no longer being invited to give seminars.
His scientific colleagues and students expressed uncertainty about whether or not he would even show up at his lectures. Some people even debated whether he was even still alive!
His last work was in telecommunications.
His invention of Cat-5 cable at Bell Laboratories laid the foundations for the Internet.
In his last days he also spent more and more of his time playing with string theory.

R.I.P. Schrödinger's cat

Physical reality is not "real"
It is the minnow we seek to catch
while standing on the whale

The title of this article is a Polynesian saying.
I first encountered it while reading a book by Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campell suggested that man's mythology was a powerful tool.
That perhaps we need a modern mythology to help us make sense of the universe
as we experience it in this time.
He postulated that the story of "Star Wars"
could actually be used to this effect in his celebrated interviews with Bill Moyers.
Though he could not not literally subscribe to any particular brand of mythology,
he recognized the importance and indeed the beauty of the stories.
And in his book, "the Hero With A Thousand Faces";
he observed that man's various mythologies were essentially all the same story.


Duct tape is metaphysical.
Duct tape is a metaphor for "the Force".
It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.


But what is it ultimately that one seeks?
Campbell suggested "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves."

. Evidence from man's research into subatomic physics
informs us that there is actually no such thing as physical matter.
That literally everything is energy.
Our greatest physicists
have told us that energy is controlled by consciousness.
What consciousness is, where it is,
and how it functions is the question.
(Please see Anarchs Of The New Paradigm for details.)

Universal consciousness
(the source of everything? God? Zappa's "crux of the biscuit?)
is the holy grail of the human quest for meaning.
Now of course we sentient human beings
each have consciousness,
of one sort or another ,
but how does human consciousness relate to cosmic consciousness?
Obviously,
this is a matter of speculation, conjecture, and controversy.
There is certainly a degree of scientific physical evidence
and indeed plenty of religio-philisophic writing that reflects on just this.
That perhaps what we allude to as "God" is not some hairy thunderer
but rather the sum of consciousness.
That each of us is a piece of God
or the cosmic consciousness.
The Hindu truth
that "I am the mystery of the Universe " comes to mind.
In the New Testament the author known as "John"
says that Jesus claimed " I am in the God, and God is in me"
paraphrased numerous times.
How about in Psalms "the kingdom of God is within you"?
Or the phrase "What you do onto the least of your brothers, you do onto me."
Lao Tzu said "at the center of your being you have the answer"
(what is at the center of your being other than consciousness itself?
The point of the wave collapse?)
Lao Tzu also said “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.”
Might this all imply an attempt
at cosmic awareness of the nature of the universe
rather than some dogmatic mumbo jumbo
completely misinterpreted, mistranslated,
or misrepresented for centuries?
Man's quest for meaning did not begin in the 20th century.

Is it at least possible
that true seekers may have glimpsed the implications
of the quantum universe without actually doing the math?
Is there more than 1 path to ultimate knowledge?
And is man, with his hat on, taller than a taxi cab?

The physical universe is a function of "something"
in the non-physical part of reality.
(A something or a no-thing that we call consciousness.)
The source of creation
is in the non-physical consciousness.
The physical experience is the result.

No electrons were harmed in the creation of this article. In an alternate universe, Bullwinkle is the governor of Alaska and has the disembodied head of Sarah Palin hanging on his mantel.

Your Ad Here

Anarchs Of The New Paradigm

The Theory Of Absolutely Everything

or
The Moon Is not There When No One Looks At It

There were six wise, blind elephants who were discussing what humans were like.
They could come to no agreement, so they decided to determine
what humans were like through direct experience.
The first wise, blind elephant felt the human, and declared, "Humans are flat."
The other wise, blind elephants, after similarly feeling the human, agreed.

It appears that man's march towards the right of the chart, from Neanderthal to Modern, has produced some interesting paradigms that are real, observable and even predictable.
As human consciousness itself, expands,
so too, do the institutions and devices of man, expand in unison.

Clearly the Ptolemaic universe mirrors the theocentric
& monarchic structures of it's heyday.
Just as the Cartesian mechanical universe of Newton
mirrors the "age of reason" and it's emanations;
capitalism, communism, nationalism, democracy etc.

Whether the social implications of rationality are the underlying foundation of an era's view of the universe, or the converse is true, is irrelevant.
They are aligned and adhered to each other in a great Celtic Knot.

Goya- The Sleep Of Reason

Would there be Goya without Voltaire?
Would there Be Voltaire without Newton?
Beethoven without his contemporary Franklin?
Jefferson without Locke?
Dali without Freud?
Einstein without Stravinsky?
John Lennon without Lewis Carroll?
Johnny Rotten without Wagner?
Would there have been a Hubble telescope without Ferlinghetti?

One thing leads to another in the manifestations of sentience.
If Issac Newton had written the joke,
it would have been:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.
or
It was pushed on the road.
or
It was pushed on the road by another chicken, which went away from the road.
or
It was attracted to a chicken on the other side of the road.

Ba da bing! Don't forget to tip your quarks and leptons folks.


Neural Network

--Neural nets--
webs spun of the fine fabric of the universe
whose threads reveal their composition
to be of webs of even finer fabrics of universes ad infinitum...
echoes and reflections,
gradients of reverberating colors;
blending seamlessly in a pallet of nothingness,
(Pitch black and white light! Which is all colors? Which is none?)
creating a painting of eternity for we casual observers to perceive,
at least peripherally;
hanging inverted and skewed,
on the walls of voodoo;
without shoes.



There was an old lady called Wright
who could travel much faster than light.
She departed one day
in a relative way
and returned on the previous night.

How Long Is A New York Minute?

If your minute in New York is spent with your hand in a deep fryer,
it's a very long time.
If your minute in New York is spent in a loving embrace in a pub
It's not long enough.

Einstein's universe. Relativity anyone?
It has only recently begun to reflect/be reflected by man's social permutations.
These relations are still somewhat inscrutable, esoterically entwined in multinational conspiracies, sundry emerging telecommunications-based technologies, the metaphysics of modern banking, & international terrorism .
Yet it's implications in the arts were swift and tangible.
The Beat Poets
Jackson Pollack
Bauhaus
Frank Loyd Wright
Charlie Parker
Milton Babbit
To scratch the surface.

A Table of Mankind's Major Paradigm Shifts

(With Spiritual, Political & Economic Parallels)

Paleolithic -- shamanic -- non-authoritarian -- hunter/gatherer

Neolithic -- polytheistic -- authoritarian -- agricultural

Earth-centered Cosmology -- theistic -- monarchial/hierarchical theocratic -- urban

Sun-centered Cosmos -- monotheistic -- divine right of kings -- colonialism & imperialism

Mechanistic universe -- deist or atheist -- democracy, capitalism, communism -- industrial/technological

Relativistic universe -- Modernism -- cybernocacy -- post-industrial

Quantum universe . . . ?

What is a quantum particle?
The dreams that stuff is made of!

Here is where it gets interesting. The advent of Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory open doors that could not be remotely fathomed in man's relative reality.
In fact, Quantum Physics places man's individual consciousness in a place overruled by physical science long ago...at the center of the universe!
The metaphors of Taoism, Tantra and alchemy suddenly seem to have a new purpose...as focusing devices and interpreters of the Quantum Universe.
Is this a step backwards? Hardly! We are at a distinctly different point in time and space, and the social necessities that gave rise to these disciplines no longer exist.
But there are new dynamics that our last paradigm simply can't encompass.
Call it Aquarian, if you like. But man's consciousness is changing.
The Mandelbrot Fractal known as the "Tail Curl" is a good way to visualize this.

The Tail Curl Fractal
I've often said you find what you seek and seek what you find.
That you can not escape what you design.
But in this fractal image, I see more than I care to acknowledge is actually possible.
Chaos and order are one.
Nature is formulaic.
Ultimate truth.
Beauty

A bit about fractals...

"Self-similar fractals (such as the Tail Curl)
are generated by recursively iterating formulas,
which are complex polynomials of the form z=f(z),
and plotting their graphs.
The Mandelbrot Set is the most commonly recognized fractal object, named after the father of fractal mathematics,
Benoit B. Mandelbrot.
It is the graph of the equation Z=Z2+C.

In the equation Z=Z2+C, 'Z' and 'C' are complex numbers.
The complex number 'C' remains a constant value,
while the complex number 'Z' varies each time the function is calculated, since the formula is set equal to Z.

Complex numbers
are numbers that contain the square root of -1,
which is called the imaginary number.
The imaginary number is written as the italics letter i
in mathematical formulas.

A complex number like Z or C isn't actually a single number value,
it represents a formula i*i+r.
That means any complex number contains two actual number values:
i, the coefficient of i, which is the "imaginary" component,
and r, the constant or "real" number that is added to the result."

For the Mandelbrot formula, you have the two complex numbers Z and C, and each of these has two components i and r, resulting in four distinct variables, Zi, Zr, Ci, and Cr.

Because of the nature of complex numbers, Z=Z2+C isn't the actual calculated formula, but an abbreviation for two more "usable" formulas: Zi=(2*Zr*Zi)+Ci;
and Zr=(Zr*Zr)-(Zi*Zi)+Cr; In order to render any mathematical formula as an image, we assign variables to coordinates, like X, Y and Z. Since the Mandelbrot set has four variables, These four variables can be thought of as four separate coordinates. With four coordinates, each complex polynomial containing two complex numbers defines a single fourth dimensional object!

If we could show the entire fourth dimensional object for each function, we would see all of the possible solutions to that function. But, there is no way to accurately depict a 4D object in 3D space, much less on a 2D computer screen, so fractal generators render the second dimensional cross-sections or "slices" of those fourth dimensional objects.

You can think of a fractal generator as working like a MRI scan; as the medical scanner crosses over a patient's body, the doctor sees a computer graphic representation of a 2D cross-section of a 3D object, in that case, a patient. The images from a fractal generator do not represent the appearance of the entire 4D fractal object any more than a single MRI scan image represents an entire human being, or a single slice of bread represents the entire loaf. "

source-www.utopiansky.com/labratory

Fractal Geometry shatters the confines of Euclidean Geometry.
Like quantum mechanics reduces relativity to shards.
It begs the question:
If there is a genetic code that is a formula for life,
Is there not also an equation that is the formula for a universe?

If it wasn't for Thomas Alva Edison,
we'd all be watching TV to the light of a candle.

Einstein rejected quantum physics. But, as iconoclastic a thinker as he was, he saw a
a cosmic traffic cop, placing a limit on the speed of light. A God of nature who refused to roll dice with the universe. This idea is incompatible with Quantum physics which is like a scientific manifestation of anarchist P. Goodman's "Stone Age Reaction" -- a turning-back so extreme as to constitute a revolution.

Theoretical physics neither suggests nor denies man's notions of God or Gods.
But if one could perceive a Mesopotamian or Judeo-Christian -Muslim type of God laying down the law in Einstein's universe..
in a quantum universe; God would look more like a dancing Shiva rolling dice and improvising jazz music.

Quantum Theory follows behind Quantum facts attempting to explain the reality "behind"them. Unlike Relativity, Quantum Mechanics offers no coherent ideas about "reality,"rather it gives us a set of tools for predicting, and statistical possibilities. The model of Quantum Mechanics "works" but Quantum facts remain inexplicable. The excitement lies in the way it has revived speculative philosophy as an integral component of science. Frankly, theories about Quantum "reality" rival any occultist or mystical excesses for sheer madness & breathtaking incredulity.

The Grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men,
He marched them up to the top of hill,
And he marched them down again.
When they were up they were up,
When they were down they were down.
When they were only half way up,
They were simultaneously up and down,
They were merely obeying the laws of quantum mechanics.

In his book Quantum Reality, physicist Nick Herbert outlines eight views,
"Quantum Realities," all based on Quantum fact but all different.
May Chaos be with you!

Quantum Reality #1

"There is no deep reality."

Often called the Copenhagen interpretation. Objects, everyday real things, "float on a world that is not as real." (Bohr, Heisenberg.) The emphasis on uncertainty reminds me of Buddhism, at least the anti-realism aspect of it.

Quantum Reality #2

"Reality is created by it's observer."

We reside in an observer-created reality in which the act of measurement gives rise to observed reality.
"The moon is demonstrably not there when no one looks" -- N.D. Mermin).

Quantum Reality #3

"Reality is an undivided wholeness."

The object and subject have become inseparable from each other.
According to David Bohm, "One is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts. . . . The inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality."

"In its phenomenal aspect, the cosmic One is thus intrinsically dynamic, and the apprehension of its dynamic nature is basic to all schools of Eastern mysticism. They all emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically, as it moves, vibrates and dances." (Fritjof Capra)

The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves and grows and changes continually. Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognised that this web is intrinsically dynamic. The dynamic aspect of matter arises in quantum theory as a consequence of the wave-nature of subatomic particles, and is even more essential in relativity theory, where the unification of space and time implies that the being of matter cannot be separated from its activity. The properties of subatomic particles can therefore only be understood in a dynamic context; in terms of movement, interaction and transformation. (The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra)

Now sure, there are no shortages of crackpot theories and retail snakeoil philosophers publishing on the internet, but the physics discussed here are indeed sound and espoused by the most learned and lauded physicists
of our age. The connection of Quantum Physics with Eastern Mysticism
is nothing new, as Tao of Physics was published in 1975.
I simply believe that like the tail curl fractal illustrates,
similar if not identical patterns emerge in the details of the whole picture, and the closer we examine it; the more patterns and relationships we observe. The synchronicity is obvious. Though Tantric thought and Taoism are from another point in time, imagine our universe as the Tail Curl Fractal. In the part that spirals around itself, imagine two points at the start and one further down the curl. One could follow the curling path through numerous loops to draw a path between the two points or one could draw a straight line from one directly to the other through the curls and have a very short path to connect the 2 points.
The concept of folding space to travel great distances in space is similar.
The line between the Tao and advanced theoretical physics can be seen as similar also.
Take a moment to experiment with the fractal generator on this page.

What is the name of the physics dept.'s baseball team?
The Unified Fielders!

Back to Quantum Reality...

Quantum Reality #4

"The many worlds interpretation"

Put forth by H. Everett in 1957, it suggests that the wave function never collapses -- that every possible event actually occurs, either in "our" world or in some instantaneously created "alternative universe."

The Copenhagenists deny reality altogether; Everett offers infinite realities which is indeed an elegant solution.

Quantum Reality #5

"Quantum Logic"

What Einstein did to Euclidean geometry, some Quantum physicist/mathematicians hope to do to Boolean (Classical) Logic. Basically a doctrine of chance. It seems like a good idea.

Quantum Reality #6

"Neo-realism."

Einstein, Planck, Schrodinger, Bohm & de Broglie have all looked for ways to "save the phenomena," to discover & describe Quantum Reality intrinsically, rather than take the pesky step of agreeing with the Copenhagen school of anti-realisms ("Atoms are not things" said Heisenberg. "There is no quantum world" said Bohr.) Reconciling the neo-realist project with Quantum facts leads to some fantastic revelations, such as maintaining that the world is real but "non-local." It's very possible the quarrel between anti-realists & neo-realists arises from a semantic problem about the definition of "reality." Both sides claim that reality means Classical reality. In that sense, the Copenhagen group is forced to deny that ordinary objects exist. The neo-realists are reduced to merely looking for loopholes in Quantum Mechanics, & seem so far to have been foiled. But what if a Quantum Reality & an ordinary reality are both real? Simply modes of a single reality? Dichotomy vanishes. String Theorists appear...everyone runs away!

String Theory - Super Strings - is a panoptic unified theory. Since 1984 string theory has been accepted by the mainstream physics community as a viable candidate to unite quantum mechanics, particle physics and gravity. A bold theory of absolutely everything.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about string theory is that it works! it is possible to derive (an extension of) the Standard Model (which has been verified experimentally with incredible precision) from a theory of strings. But it should also be pointed out that there is no direct experimental evidence that string theory itself is the correct description of Nature, not yet.
This is mostly due to the fact that string theory is still being constructed. We know bits and pieces of it, to be sure. but the whole picture has not been seen, and we are therefore unable to make reliable predictions. In recent years myriads of exciting developments have taken place, radically improving our understanding of what the theory might be.

Quantum Reality #7

"Consciousness creates reality."

Von Neumann said that only one kind of stuff exists, quantumstuff, & that ordinary objects are "made" of it. At some point the wave function, the all-possible nature of quantumstuff, "collapses" into a single statistical probability, a quantum jump which somehow "creates the world." one must ask just where does this occur? Logic appears to implicate human consciousness as the setting of the wave function collapse. It is with great irony that Von Neumann, the wizard of cybernetics & strategic game theory, should have been forced to develop a math which suggests that human consciousness must be written into any rendering of Quantum Reality. Von Neumann's interpretation is not the same as an "observer-created reality,"as the observer could be seen as a measuring device. Reality exists in Von Neumann's view, but only in conjunction or "unity" with consciousness.

Quantum Reality #8

Heisenberg's "duplex world"

A universe of potentials and actualities, in which real objects appear almost as manifestations or hypostases of a Quantum Reality which is simulteaneously more abstract & "more real" than everyday things.

My groping attempt at a synthesis is suggested by Chaos Theory, which holds to the axiom that reality itself subsists in a state of ontological anarchy. "The one gave birth to the two, the two to the 10,000 things" -- but all this IS the tao & nothing but the tao. Yin & yang have no being in themselves, but act as interpenetrating modalities of the tao. The real/unreal dichotomy enslaves us in false consciousness. Looked at from one point of view, nothing is real; from another point of view, everything is real; from another, "nothing is real except the Real"; from yet another, "I am the Real" (ana'I Haqq, a sufi "koan"). These semantricks create a set of paradoxes -- and the resolution will give us an essentially metalinguistic certainty of being's oneness. Such oneness cannot be structured or defined in any way. It has no "ruler" and no "laws". It is ontological anarchy. I think Chaos theory in a sense "proofs" or at least mirrors eastern philosophies. (Which are not necessarily theistic).

On a mathematical or statistical level, the chaotic nature of reality may manifest itself as randomness; I suspect it manifests in the Uncertainty Principle as well.

Whatever the truth of these speculations, I feel that Chaos Theory & Quantum Theory are moving closer & closer together and in some way reflect my personal beliefs about the nature of the universe, the nature of man's societies, as well as being observable in nature itself in both macro and micro forms.

Neutrinos, Gravitons, Alchemy, and Enlightenment

Is this evidence that the alchemist's "as above, so below" is an even deeper epiphany than it appears to be on the surface? If this is so, then we may be able to predict some social implications of Quantum Theory as a "paradigm".
We may in fact answer the questions posed by every seeker and philosopher through the ages. The answers, perhaps to everything, including man's quest for meaning (religion for some) is in Chaos Theory and ontological anarchy!
That's my view and I'm standing by it!
I suppose it begs the question... is Chaos God?.
(Or is God Chaos?)
I will leave that for you decide.

No electrons were harmed in the creation of this article.

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