Most physicists don’t have much of a philosophical streak and they don’t tend to ask what they study all means. Philosophizing doesn’t pay their mortgage. Physics works, so they just go with the flow; they just shut up and calculate. Most philosophers on the other hand don’t usually have the technical education and background to wax lyrical and come to terms with modern physics. Whether physicists or philosophers, they don’t tend to advertise themselves too far out of their establishment’s standard model box. It’s not usually considered a wise career move, especially if you’re on the academic road upwards and tenure. As for myself, I have no academic career to damage or destroy, so I’m going to combine physics and philosophy and think way, way, way outside of the standard model box. It’s going to be quantum (particle) physics ‘explained’ by appeal to the Simulated (Virtual reality) Universe scenario. If I’m right, the Nobel Prize committee knows where to find me!
There are many anomalies from the macro-world that can be ‘explained’ by resorting to a Simulated [Virtual Reality] Universe scenario, from statues that walk (Easter Island) to the concepts of an afterlife to those feelings of déjà vu to recollections of previous lives to crop ‘circles’ to ghosts, and so on and so forth. However, most of these anomalies can be classified as belonging to the paranormal or as a pseudoscience and dismissed. Not so easily dismissed are anomalies from hardcore particle (quantum) physics, the most experimentally verified science every known and responsible in gismos and gadgets for over one-third of the world’s economy. Despite all the runs on the board, points of view on the subject of Quantum Mechanics tend to be along the lines of…
Albert Einstein: God does not throw dice.
Niels Bohr: Anyone who is not shocked by the [quantum] theory hasn’t understood it.
Richard Feynman: Nobody understands quantum physics.
And that’s comments by noted quantum physicists.
However, the key to reality* in general, including yours in particular, lies in the basics (i.e. – the Standard Model of Particle [Quantum] Physics) and how it builds from the ground up. That reality includes those anomalies and how they can be explained. It’s time to think the unthinkable!
# CAUSALITY
You tend to associate lack of causality, on the macro scale, with free will. What you decide to have for dinner tonight has no prior cause, just your spur-of-the-moment whim. It’s all free will and free will alone, pure and simple.
However, on the micro scale of fields and forces and particles, you often find they also do whatever they damn well please – no causality need apply. A perfect example is radioactivity. There’s no apparent cause why one unstable nucleus goes poof and an identical clone living next door doesn’t. In fact if something like radioactivity happens for no apparent reason at all, yet that happening follows one precise mathematical relationship (one out of numerous theoretical possibilities) then that surely implies some sort of intelligent manipulation behind the scenes. The Virtual Reality writing is on the wall for all to see.
Either you have to accept that the fields, forces and particles that collectively make up the Standard Model of Particle (nee Quantum) Physics have free will and thus are somehow ‘alive’ and ‘animated’ in some sense (although their free will comes with some restrictions just like your free will comes with restrictions – you can’t flap your arms and fly or hold your breath underwater for three straight hours), OR else it is all programming software which implies an intelligence (a Supreme Programmer**) somewhere on up the line.
# THE PARTICLE THAT WAVES
Traditional wave-particle duality is according to one interpretation a complementary but either/or phenomenon. Sometimes light/particle experiments show results that prove a pure 100% wave phenomena is responsible; sometimes however other light/particle experiments show results that prove a pure 100% particles phenomena is the only possible interpretation. That doesn’t make a great deal of sense unless there is a higher power (a Supreme Programmer) pulling the strings – or programming the program.
# DOUBLE SLIT EXPERIMENTS
The late Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist, Richard Feynman, thought the Double Slit Experiment (and variations on the theme) was the heart and soul behind the anomaly that is Quantum Physics. It was the ultimate anomaly in a sea of anomalies that could not, in any shape, manner or form, be explained by any sort of, or resort to, classical physics available in the observable Universe.
1 - If photons, electrons, Buckminsterfullerene molecules (Bucky-balls), etc. are fired in rapid succession at a single slit, with a detector (like say photographic film or a TV screen) behind the slit, then a quasi-blob of impacts are detected. Particles rule, okay!
2 - If photons, electrons, Bucky-balls, etc. are fired in rapid succession at a double slit, with a detector behind the dual slits, then a classic wave interference (constructive and destructive interference) pattern emerges. Waves rule, okay!
3 - If photons, electrons, Bucky-balls, etc. are fired one at a time, at a single slit, such that one photon, etc. completes the journey before the next one is fired off, again with a detector behind the slit, then a quasi-blob of impacts are ultimately detected. Particles rule, okay!
4 - If photons, electrons, Bucky-balls, etc. are fired one at a time at a double slit, such that one photon, etc. completes the journey before the next one is fired off, again with a detector behind the slits, then ultimately after enough firings, a classic wave interference (constructive and destructive) pattern emerges. Waves! However, that implies one photon, electron, Bucky-ball, etc. somehow manages to go through both slits at the same time and thus interferes with itself. That’s absurd. But you ain’t seen anything yet!
4A - The above assumes nobody (human observer or independent measuring device) is peeking and taking the slightest notice of what’s going on – the non-observing nobodies are just looking at the pattern on the detector screen after the fact; after the experiment has concluded.
4B - However, if someone, human observer or independent measuring device, is peeking and taking absolute and total notice of what’s going on, and determining at the precise time of passage which of the two slits the lone photon, etc. is actually going through (on the grounds that one entity cannot pass through two doors at the same time) then the wave interference pattern doesn’t eventuate and you get a quasi-blob of particle hits on the detector behind each of the two slits. Somehow the photon, etc. is somehow ‘aware’ that it is being observed and changes it’s self-interfering behavior accordingly – keeping in mind that the very act of observing before-the-fact unobserved properties of a photon, etc. alters those properties after-the-fact, since you can’t observe something without mucking around with it.
4C - What if someone, human observer or independent measuring device, peeks, but only after the photon, etc. has already passed through presumably, but absurdly, both slits and self-interfered with itself? That shouldn’t affect the ultimate wave outcome since it’s now too little to late for the photon, etc. to change its mind. Or so you would think. But again, irregardless, the wave interference pattern disappears even after the peeking is done after the photon, etc. has passed through both slits and self-interfered. The one very nasty and anomalous implication is that the photon, etc. has traveled back in time to just before, or when it was, initially emitted so as to now make the ‘correct’ choice and thus will pass through one and only one slit to correlate what it actually does with what is actually detected.
5 - Summary: If you turn your back and don’t peek, and there’s a double slit available, the detector screen, and therefore you, will detect a wave pattern because the photon, etc. will pass through both slits and self-interfere.
If you don’t turn your back away from the action, but do a peeping-Tom act, double slit notwithstanding, the detector screen and therefore you will detect a particle (quasi-blob) pattern behind each slit.
The two very disturbing facets are that a photon, etc. displays awareness, and free will, as well as exhibiting the ability to travel backwards in time. Photons, etc. not only know before-the-fact whether or not both slits are open (two open slits equals wave behavior); or that one or the other slit is open (either/or equals particle behavior), but also whether or not someone is peeking. If both holes (slits) are open and nobody is peeking we end up having wave interference behavior; if someone is peeking even if both holes (slits) are open, we get particle quasi-blob behavior. That means the photons, etc. know (how is that possible?) and adjust and exercise their free will (how is that possible?) accordingly.
6 – Conclusion: Now either you’ve got to believe we exist in The Twilight Zone #One where denizens of the micro world have an awareness of their surroundings and possess some degree of free will to react to and within those surroundings, OR you believe we live in The Twilight Zone #Two where said denizens of the micro world are programmed by higher authority** to behave in the way we see and measure them behave.
# MISSING IN ACTION
An electron can have this amount of energy corresponding to this ‘orbit’ (around an atomic nucleus) or that energy level corresponding to a different ‘orbit’ or this other energy level corresponding to a third possible ‘orbit’, etc. but not any energy level (and thus ‘orbit’) in-between (since energy comes in single indivisible quantum packets). Energy thus is a discontinuous phenomenon; just like you can have coins in multiples of five cents (I’m talking Australia
Here’s the rub. When an electron gains or loses energy, it rises or drops it’s ‘orbit’. But where the hell is it when it is rising, or falling between allowable ‘orbits’? Is it in The Twilight Zone or in another dimension or in Wonderland keeping Alice
A similar situation could be had for the anomaly known as quantum tunneling. A particle is here on one side of a barrier, then it is there on the other side of the barrier – instantaneously – never to be found in-between.
Of course virtual reality software could easily have our electron disappear and reappear as it quantum jumped from one allowable ‘orbit’ to another allowable ‘orbit’ or as it tunneled over, around or through the barrier.
*It is impossible to know the absolute really real nature of reality since we cannot know the properties of the micro world without measuring/observing them and the act of measuring/observing affects, even distorts, those properties. But, the measuring device is unbiased and independent measurements yield identical results so the disturbances, if any, are at least consistent. Further, theoretical predictions about the properties and reality of potential fundamental particles have all been realized. The predictions that there had to be neutrinos, antimatter, quarks, the particles that convey the weak nuclear force, even the Higgs Boson have all come to pass, so really real reality can’t differ all that much from what we observe and measure.
**Not by any means of necessity a deity! A real deity wouldn’t stuff things up and give us a Universe that has all the hallmarks that enable me to say that something is screwy somewhere!
To be continued…
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