Transgressing the Boundaries - A new Quantum theory

[ramparts]

I just read a brilliant theory by this physicist at NYU named Alan Sokal. He claims that physical reality is fundamentally a cultural construct just like social reality, and talks about the "morphogenetic field" as a possible final, truly progressive and holistic theory of quantum gravity. Of course there's a lot more in there. You can read it here!

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/soka ... efile.html

 

[lanceromega]

I just read a brilliant theory by this physicist at NYU named Alan Sokal. He claims that physical reality is fundamentally a cultural construct just like social reality, and talks about the "morphogenetic field" as a possible final, truly progressive and holistic theory of quantum gravity. Of course there's a lot more in there. You can read it here!

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/soka ... efile.html

Nothing new, Bohm near the end of career also got all New Wave like. Heck Eddington and Dirac look for mystical connection in numbers and constant of nature. The Attempt seem to be an extention of Belief that Human Conscience has some deep connection to Quantum Mechanics, that We Human and our society is unique and give rise to the universe around us. A bit egostical for my taste.

.... It hard to see how Social reality can actually be connected to scientific reality, just look at advent of Quantum Physics and Relativity, just a few years earlier Lord Kelvin and scientist of his time believed physics was complete and Newtonian Mechanic was end all of everything. " all that left is few calculations" was Kelvin belief, and along came Planck to prove him wrong. (Hawking made a similar announce when string Theory came on the scene)

Society does contribute as a whether an idea is easily to distribute without being blocked the Power that be, look how Galileo struggle to get his idea out, and how he was silent by the church. Men like Galileo were rare exception, but standard morphogenetic field advancement as put fore by Rupert Sheldrake depends on critical numbers, so if Dr Sokal is correct there would be little advancement in science as reality would tend to cling to the beliefs of the time of the group mind. Instead Society is an important back play shaping the human mind and it abilities to develop new ideas to handle the mysteries that it faces.

Alot of his critism on GR are correct when you compare it quantum theory, Quantum theories look at the small , While General Relativity is approach from the Macroscopic reality of the Human Observer. It doesnot delve into the Atoms or electrons and aspect of their relativity, instead it deals with the effect of a large collections of such items.

Quantum mechanic instead start to delve on a scale where the reality of the Macro Observer disppears and is replace by alien landscape populated by quantum objects that seem to obey a totally different logic. As it stand we still donot understand the interface where Quantum wave function collaspes to form the classical behavior that we see everyday.
There are many theories of how this take place, many involve the Observer and the act of measurement, yet they cannot explain how measurement causes this change and collaspe of Quantum wave function. This is had lead to alot of new wave belief that there is something special about the human conscience. That the Universe is here because man is here to observe it. Dr Sokal theory seem to be extension of this to QR and Quantum Gravity.

But there is overlook by both the Field of GR and Quantum Physics, are the works of John von Neumann, who believed that the Collaspe of the Wave function which occurs during the act of measurement perform by the Observer is actually a gravitational event. And this is very likely where any interface between two theories must begin. It not a matter of Society pressing itself on scientific Reality thru some imaginary field ( I am a fan of Sheldrake and morphogenetic fields) but more how society shape the unique minds that can Grasp the threads of what we observe and pull out the fabric of a working theory. Einstein, Newton, Galileo and Hawking are products of their Societies but their theories describe a reality that is independant of Society.

Yes Society will solve the problem of Quantum Gravity, not by changing the nature of Gravity, but by siring the conditions that will allow a mind on the scale of Einstein or Hawking to come into being, who will find the thread that will weave together QM and GR..

 

[darkmatter4brains]

Yes Society will solve the problem of Quantum Gravity, not by changing the nature of Gravity, but by siring the conditions that will allow a mind on the scale of Einstein or Hawking to come into being, who will find the thread that will weave together QM and GR..

It's probably going to take more than a mind like Hawking coming into being ... since he's still around, and we still don't have it solved.

 

[darkmatter4brains]

But there is overlook by both the Field of GR and Quantum Physics, are the works of John von Neumann, who believed that the Collaspe of the Wave function which occurs during the act of measurement perform by the Observer is actually a gravitational event. And this is very likely where any interface between two theories must begin.

I seem to remember reading that John Von Neumann came up with a mathematical "proof" that the wave function collapsed AT the observer (i.e the oberserver's consciousness causes the collapse). I think I read that in a book by Nick Herbert called Quantum Reality - a great book. Obviously not too many people bought into it, or we'd be hearing a lot more about it still. I've always wanted to look into that to see what exactly it's all about.