From a Principal Research Scientist at Georgia Tech:
Could it be that the 21st century might eliminate absolutes? To allow for a reality that can be dynamically shaped in every possible way?
I don’t know what that theory looks like, but I know it will be completely general. It will not posit a thing exists in the world to create reality; rather, it will only posit that a world exists and thereby makes itself real. It will have no absolutes: no strings, no quantum field theory, nothing but, perhaps, shape, infinitely malleable, and underlying that shape, perhaps nothing, i.e. no thing. For to posit a theory of every thing requires that one not start with a thing, or you arrive at infinite recursion.
What is clear to me is that whether string theory pans out or not, we will have no theory of everything until we have a theory that has no things in it, including strings.
Tim Andersen, “We need a new Theory of Everything” at Medium
We’d have to guess that Stephen Wolfram’s attempt at a Theory of Everything didn’t solve all the problems.
At any rate, by the time we get down to “a theory of every thing requires that one not start with a thing,” it’s not easy to distinguish science from Zen. But then maybe that’s the idea.
See also: Stephen Wolfram’s Theory of Everything lacks something?
When thousands of people have been looking for something for several decades, spending billions of dollars, and it still hasn’t showed up, it’s time to stop looking. When you’re constantly adding more epicycles to a theory, it’s a bad theory.
Best advice: Abandon all theories. Just observe and describe.
This looks like another ultimately futile attempt to get around the inevitable basic flaw of the naturalism ideology in all theories of everything – the necessary presumption of some organized something at the beginning. This organized something had to have embodied a complex organization involving a complex set of laws of physics that unfolded from that point. So such theories of everything presume an unexplained something at the beginning – something which was very much more than absolutely nothing. They presume the prior existence of a physical reality of space, time, matter, energy, etc. etc.
The question of what was the origin of that is always ignored. This had to have had some intelligent origin, unless it is supposed it always existed. But we surely know that nothing ever comes from absolutely nothing – no space, time, matter, energy or organizing principles. So much for such speculations from physicists who have no competency in philosophy and metaphysics. This latest one is no different.
polistra: Best advice: Abandon all theories. Just observe and describe.
That would make designing aircraft, skyscrapers and bridges rather difficult. (Among many other things.)
Pearlman SPIRAL is the reconciliation of the empirical observations w/ basic science. The issue keeping it out of consideration and general acceptance is it’s outside the deep-time dependent box.
As to this comment:
Interesting comment. It is interesting in that it flies directly in the face of the recent empirical falsifications of ‘realism’ in quantum mechanics. (Of note: ‘Realism” is the ‘naturalistic’ belief that a ‘physical’ world exists ‘out there somewhere’ completely independent of our conscious observation of it.
First, via Leggett’s inequality, we find that “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Secondly, via Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment, we find that “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
That the existence of ‘reality’ itself is found to be a-priorily dependent on our conscious observation of it should not be all that surprising to find out. Consciousness itself is the primary prerequisite of all possible prerequisites for any definition of reality that we may put forth. That is to say, for anything to ‘real’ for us in the first place we must first be conscious of it. As Planck and Schroedinger stated,
And as Eugene Wigner stated,
Of related interest to the recent experimental falsification of ‘realism’ in quantum mechanics, and also of related interest to the fact that for anything to be ‘real’ for us in the first place we must first be conscious of it, of related interest to that, it is also interesting to point out that materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were merely ‘false memories’ by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary.
Simply put, they did not expect the results they got: To quote the headline ‘Afterlife’ feels ‘even more real than real”
My question(s) to atheistic materialists is this. First, “how is it possible for something to be real for us in then first place unless, as Planck pointed out. ‘consciousness is fundamental’?” Secondly, how is it even remotely possible, on materialistic presuppositions, for something to become ‘even more real than real’ during Near Death Experiences unless the infinite Mind of God truly is the foundation of all reality just as Christians have posited all along?
Of supplemental note: Here are a few,,, ‘more real than real’,,, quotes from Near Death Experiencers.
Verse:
Also of related interest, former engineer, turned pastor, John Burke has studied Near Death Experiences and has written a book on the subject, ‘Imagine Heaven’.
He also did an excellent video series on the subject:
Verse:
I think this is directionally right. The physical universe doesn’t exist except as a mental experience. There are no “things” in it, at least not in the manner we used to think. The post-materialism scientific revolution has already begun.
5 Bornagain77
As if materialism had not enough problems, the optics and physiology of sight have dealt it another (or THE) fatal blow.
Naturalism’s Epistemological Nightmare
The materialist creature is now limping, and it won’t be long before it hits the ground, to never get up again.
__________
7 William J. Murray
It’s about time.
Materalism’s Epistemological Nightmare
Materialism’s Epistemological Blunder
Materialism’s Encroachment on Science
Materialism’s Evident Falsity
Yet Another Materialist Fiasco: No Substantial Forms
Materialism’s Unnoticed Achilles’ Heel
Truthfreedom,
It seems to me that the biggest problem facing this paradigm change is the deeply programmed insistence that an external material world actually exists. This is almost as much a problem for “non-materialists” as materialists. It’s too much of a part of people’s identity to abandon. It requires a deep overhaul of how one sees existence.