Einstein, CMB & the multiverse

Continuing our series of posts on Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monumental monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

In this post, we shall conclude our review of Chapter 5. Some of the argument is very technical and we shall limit ourselves to giving readers a flavour of Dr Smith's reasoning.

Firstly, he lays to rest a widely held belief that E = mc² is essential to Einstein's relativity principle. It derives in point of fact from Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic fields (1865) and has no bearing on relativistic physics (as Einstein admitted in 1950). Smith then addresses the question of whether Einstein's theory is supported or controverted by empirical evidence. The discussion is admittedly quite technical. Readers sufficiently interested may study the empirical arguments against Einsteinian relativity that he derives from the Sagnac experiment (1913) and the way it is supported by the actual, rather than reported, practice of how the Global Positioning System (GPS) works.

Next, he describes how:

the effort to “marry” quantum theory with Einsteinian physics—which has been ongoing for a very long time, has enlisted a galaxy of brilliant physicists, and engendered some of the most dazzling examples of mathematical wizardry the world has ever seen—has failed abysmally to achieve its objective. And I vividly recall Michio Kaku, in a documentary film, The Principle,[1] stretching his arms wide and raising his voice as he informs us that relativity and quantum theory differ ultimately ''by one hundred twenty orders of magnitude!'' .... I regard it as yet another triumph of quantum physics that it has spurned the proffered union.

The discussion then shifts to astrophysics, but here again, Einsteinian physics has ''not fared too well.''

The grand expectations, fueled by the mystique of a ''four-dimensional space-time'' in which moving rods contract, clocks slow down, and the continuum itself curves in unimaginable ways, have not materialized...

The almost limitless ingenuity of mathematicians has been invoked to prop up the shaky structure. When, to give just one example, it turns out that there is not enough matter in the universe to produce gravitational fields strong enough for the formation of stars and galaxies, there are mathematical geniuses with a flair for particle physics who can make up the difference with something termed “dark matter.” This illustrates a strategy for keeping a scientific theory alive by means of ad hoc postulates, assumptions ''picked out of thin air'' for that very purpose. This technique has long served as a mainstay of Darwinist biology, even after the fatal blows suffered by the discovery of DNA and Dembski's work on Complex Specified Information.

Smith concludes his chapter with two ''hammer blows'' to the received, scientific weltanschaung :

• recent discoveries in connection with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB); and
• the fine tuning necessary for human life on earth.

CMB

The CMB is regarded by theorists as a picture of the universe some 300,000 years after the so-called Big Bang. NASA's COBE (1989), WMAP (2001) and PLANCK (2009) satellites were initially sent out to find proof of evidence of the Big Bang by measuring the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as a uniform energy fallout across space.

Data from the COBE satellite had suggested the existence of a pattern or ''axis'' in the CMB, spreading alarm among astrophysicists who came to describe it  as ''the axis of evil'', because it undermined the very notion of the Big Bang. Such a cosmology hinges upon the so-called Copernican Principle, which stipulates that the cosmos is perfectly homogeneous when viewed on a sufficiently large scale. Besides exemplifying the Einsteinian denial of “design” to perfection, this Principle also proves indispensable to relativistic cosmology on technical grounds: for unless one postulates global symmetries which epitomize the very ''design'' Einsteinians are pledged to deny, it constitutes the one and only condition under which the pertinent field equations can actually be solved for the cosmos at large.

In the hope of putting these fears to rest, another satellite, named PLANCK, specially equipped with the latest instruments—and lavishly protected against all conceivable ''extraneous'' radiation which might cause a non-existent axis to emerge—was put into orbit in 2009. When the Planck results came in, the dreaded axis was still there, plain as day—as if drawn by the Finger of God. As Smith wryly notes,

Yet there is more to the story: for it happens that the plane defined by that circular axis coincides with the ecliptic of our solar system; and for Einsteinians this constitutes indeed a worst-case scenario: for what was supposed to be an accidental “speck” within a galaxy—which itself is supposedly but an accidental speck in a universe bereft of order, bereft of design—this ''accidental speck within an accidental speck'' turns out to define the global structure of the universe! At the risk of sounding anthropomorphic, I surmise “the Old One” may have smiled when he traced that axis.

Fine tuning and the ''multiverse''

In the last section of this chapter, Smith reminds the reader of the so-called argument deriving from 'fine tuning' in the universe. By the middle of the last century, atomic physics and molecular biology had arrived at the conclusion that the existence of man on Earth appeared ''so vastly improbable as to be, in effect, miraculous.''

Smith explains that the central mystery resides in the fact that an exceedingly fine balance of the four fundamental fundamental forces known to physics is needed to render organic molecules stable enough to exist, which means that the basic constants of physics need be almost “infinitesimally” close to their given values. The default, almost dogmatic modern assumption is in favour of some form of evolution to explain life on earth. But how, Smith asks, could such a thing as the fine-structure constant, for example—a numerical constant of physics which happens to be 7.2973531 x 10-3, failing which “we” would not exist—how could that constant have conceivably “evolved”? Following the lead of Stephen Hawking, a considerable portion of the scientific elite have opted for an infinite ensemble of possible universes, termed the “multi-verse,” as the ultimate solution to the riddle posed by the existence of our world.

Smith's last paragraph comes full circle back to the title of the chapter: The War on Design:

Now, all this is of course perfectly insane, and brings home the lengths to which scientists of repute are willing to go in this ongoing ''war against design.'' One cannot but ask oneself: whence comes this deep-rooted aversion—this profound animosity, one is tempted to say—to the very conception of God?

To be continued.


[1] "The Principle" is the title of a film, released in 2014. It brings to light new scientific observations challenging the Copernican Principle. The film brings before the public eye astonishing results from recent large-scale surveys of our Universe which disclose surprising evidence of a preferred direction in the cosmos, aligned with our supposedly insignificant Earth. The film explores from all sides the question of Earth’s station in the universe and whether it could, in fact, have a unique importance.” 
“The Principle” features narration by Kate Mulgrew (“Star Trek Voyager”, “Orange Is The New Black”, and “Ryan’s Hope”), stunning animations by BUF Compagnie Paris (“Life of Pi”, “Thor”), and commentary from the most prominent scientists of our time, including George Ellis, Michio Kaku, Julian Barbour, Lawrence Krauss, and Max Tegmark.
Director: Katheryne Thomas; Writer: Rick DeLano

Einstein, Relativity & Ideology

Continuing our series of posts on Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monumental monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

Dr Smith contends that Einstein's preference for the ''Principle of Relativity'' is based in the final count not on scientific or empirical grounds but on ideological premises. This will involve quite a leap for those today who assume his principle reigns supreme, whether it be physicists or ordinary people with little or no technical background. The arguments of the remainder of his chapter are at points quite technical. I refer those interested in the details to Smith's own text. What follows aims to give a flavour of the reasoning involved.

Einstein inaugurated his ''special'' theory of relativity in 1905. In view of  its extraordinary and revolutionary impact, Smith summarises its main elements and seeks to discover why Einstein felt a need to develop this particular theory.

Here is a very short summary of the historical background to Einstein's 1905 theory.

Ptolemy (c100- c170) had argued that the earth was the centre of the universe. The Christian Church and the Bible affirmed this geocentrism although it was refined occasionally, notably by Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). Copernicus (1473-1543), however, rejected geocentrism and argued for its replacement by a heliocentric model.  He was later followed by Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) subsequently seemed to have provided cast-iron mathematical proofs of heliocentrism.  By the nineteenth century, everyone though the science was ''settled'': the earth revolved on its own axis and orbited the sun. All that remained was for scientists to prove the movement of the earth by means of the scientific method: an experiment involving observation and measurement. Several experiments took place, notably the Michelson-Morley series (beginning in 1887). The results of these experiments astonished the world of physics because no movement could be measured. This remained so even after repetitions of the experiment.

It is important to emphasise that Einstein's starting point was to accept that the earth did indeed move. The classical equations of mechanics (going back to Newton's Principia of 1687) and of electromagnetism (formulated by Clerk Maxwell in 1865) did not allow this conclusion. Hence, Einstein ''discovered'' (formulated) his ''special'' theory of relativity. He was able to use this theory to explain away the Michelson-Morley experiment's ''failure'' to detect movement by the earth. The problem for Einstein was that his theory was incompatible with Newtonian mechanics. As Smith notes at this point:

Now this leaves him, obviously, with two options: to reject his so-called ''special theory of relativity'' on the grounds that it does not square with the equations of mechanics, or to alter these equations—to render them ''relativistic'' by fiat as it were—to save his theory. And needless to say, Einstein chose the second course: the Procrustean option, his critics might say.

No-one among the avant-garde physicists at the time appears to have seriously entertained the possibility that the equations of classical mechanics may actually be correct. Whenever a disciple of Einstein postulates his Principle of Relativity, the question that needs to be asked is ''why?'' Why alter the Newtonian equations? Why suppose that they are in any way deficient? What experiment told us so? Later in the chapter, Smith hints at possible motivations by quoting Richard Lewontin: ''We cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.''[1] 

Smith himself argues that classical physics implies the very opposite of Einstein's postulate since one finds that physics itself defines a state of absolute rest (please see the Chapter for his arguments in favour of what he terms the ''Principle of Immobility''). He cites in support of his position a paper entitled “Newton-Machian analysis of a Neotychonian model of planetary motions”[2]—in which a physicist named Luka Popov calculates planetary orbits by means of Newtonian physics, based on a geocentric reference frame. Luka Popov’s result has broken the long-standing hegemony of heliocentrism. It demonstrates, on the basis of Newtonian mechanics, that it is equally legitimate to claim that the Sun rotates (annually) around the Earth: it all depends on your choice of coordinates, and geocentric coordinates are in fact legitimate.
Smith goes further, writing:

The picture changes drastically, however, the moment one takes electromagnetism into account: for now the Principle of Immobility comes into play, which, as we have seen, singles out the Earth from all other celestial bodies by the fact that it can be both stationary and central. What confronts us here constitutes evidently the very pinnacle of design: no wonder ''relativists'' of every stripe abhor the notion like the plague! So far from being a planet, the Earth can thus be viewed as the very antithesis: as the stationary centre, namely, around which all other celestial bodies are constrained to revolve diurnally. And as to the authentic planets or “wanderers,” beginning with the Sun: these do then execute, in addition, their appointed orbits around the Earth, very much as the ancient astronomers had ascertained.

In the final post on this roller-coaster Chapter 5, we shall take a brief look at the empirical arguments Smith cites against Einstein and conclude by unmasking a truly stunning ''anthropic coincidence.''

[1] Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929, New York City, to parents descended from Eastern European Jewish immigrants);  an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics.
[2] Eur. J. Phys. 34, 2(2013): 383

The War on Design: Darwin and Einstein

Continuing our series of posts on Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monumental monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

We ended the last post with a provocative but irresistible call to arms from Dr Smith: to ''jettison our Galilean, Cartesian, and Newtonian assumptions and become philosophically literate once again.'' An important key to the success of his campaign is the notion of vertical causality, which he proceeds to define and clarify.

The act of being confers upon creatures:

• existence; and
• a power to act by way of vertical causality (VC). 

This power of substantial forms to act may be referred to as substantial VC. There is a higher mode of VC which can give rise to substantial forms and which may be referred to as creative VC, which implies design. Examples of design include:

• speciation  (in the terrestrial domain) and
• immobility (pertaining to the cosmos at large).

Darwin. 1874

Smith now makes two claims which will shock those whose education has assured them that Darwinian evolution and Einsteinian physics are settled science:

1. The Darwinist claim, so far from constituting a scientific hypothesis supported by empirical evidence, proves to be in truth an ideological tenet, based upon the a priori denial of design in the form of speciation.[1]
2. Even as Darwinism rests upon the denial of design in the origin of species, relativistic physics at large is based upon the a priori rejection of design in the form of immobility. Einsteinian physics proves thus to be a kind of Darwinism on a cosmic scale; and turns out in the end—to the surprise and consternation of many—to be likewise untenable.

Elliott & Fry [Public domain]. Robert Ashby Collection.

[1] The discovery of DNA in the 20th century disqualified Darwinism as a scientific theory. Dembski's theorem on complex specified information rigorously disproved Darwinism on mathematical grounds.

The remainder of this fairly long chapter elaborates on Smith's second claim (see point 2. above). At times, the arguments become somewhat technical and a full reading of Smith's text is recommended for those readers interested in the details. We shall be giving a flavour of the implications of Smith's reasoning in the next posts.




Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921 (age 42). Ferdinand Schmutzer [Public domain]

The Verticality of Intellect

We continue our series of posts reviewing Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monumental monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

The last section of Chapter 4 moves from visual perception to the intellect, the so-called ''eye of the soul'' by which we see. Recalling that Descartes proposed a world consisting of res extensae and res cogitantes, Smith notes how disciples of this Cartesian bifurcation viewed the world as a single gigantic mechanism. It was for them a natural progression to assume that man too is also a mechanism, whose intellectual capacities must result from cerebral machinery.

He then presents a history of the development of this assumption.

c. 1900 : Ramón y Cajal identifies the neuron. (1852-1934, Nobel Prize in 1906)

Alan Turing aged 16 [Public Domain]

1936 : Alan Turing (1912-1954) conceives the ''Turing machine'', capable of executing every conceivable algorithm by means of a ''program'' in the ''software'' part of the machine.


Scientists assume that the human brain functions like a computer and that human intelligence is consequently algorithmic.




Smith then produces his surprise witness.

1933 : Kurt Gödel disproved the above assumption ''with mathematical rigour'' by proving the existence of true but unprovable propositions. I refer readers interested in the technical details of this proof to the relevant section of Chapter 4. The intelligence which enables us to see or understand the proof, for example, of a theorem, is non-algorithmic. The intellect ''sees the point'' instantaneously. The intellect is a power of the soul, it operates beyond the temporal and spatial domains; the intellectual or cognitive act is in Smith's sense, therefore, a vertical act.

To be continued.

In our next post, we reveal how Dr Smith calls on us to jettison Galilean, Cartesian and Newtonian assumptions, so as to become philosophically literate once again...

Visual Perception is Vertical: James Gibson's discovery

We resume our series of posts reviewing Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monumental monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

Houghton Mifflin; First Edition edition (1950)

Today's post will focus on how we ''see''. For many generations, the official view was that the eye is in effect a camera and that what we see is based upon a retinal image. Dr Smith introduces at this point the remarkable empirical research and insight of a cognitive psychologist at Cornell University, named James Gibson (1904-1979). Gibson argued that what we perceive visually is not an image but ''invariants'' in light reflected from the ''ecological environment''. Astonishingly, this terminology corresponds more or less precisely to the terms of Smith's own analysis. The ''ecological environment'' corresponds to Smith's corporeal domain and the ''invariants'' that we ''pick up'' in the act of visual perception are none other than the forms. This means that we perceive not a mere image or effect of that world but the very forms that constitute its reality.



In Smith's own words:

Gibson’s discovery ... amounts thus to a scientific refutation of the Cartesian doctrine: specifically its epistemology, which affirms that the object of perception constitutes a mere phantasm or “thing of the mind.” Even as Heisenberg’s physics has demonstrated that there exists actually no such thing as a Cartesian res extensa, so has Gibson’s discovery toppled the second pillar of the Cartesian edifice: the misbegotten notion of res cogitans.

1979. Available via Amazon Kindle

Accordingly, visual perception cannot be understood by merely looking at the retina and neurons in the brain. They are indeed part of a process but when I see an apple, for example, my visual perception is more than the sum of the various parts of the process. Smith points out that this ''more'' is none other than the ''soul.''

Scientists, such as Francis Crick, had noted that they had been able to see how the brain's neurons and particular processes can take a picture apart but were unable to see how they put it together as an identifiable entity. Smith then concludes this particular section with an elegant simplicity.

The soul is ontologically not subject to the bounds of space. The soul can therefore be present to each cell in the body, not in some fragment of itself, but in its entirety. This ubiquity of its wholeness is therefore the ''more'' referred to in the preceding paragraph. Apart from transcending the bounds of space, however, the soul transcends the bounds of time. This was revealed in Gibson's experiments comparing perception of still scenes with moving scenes. He concluded that we perceive motion not ''moment by moment'' but all at once - the only way that motion can be perceived. Were it to be otherwise, we would not see motion but a succession of images.

Visual perception, therefore, constitutes a vertical act, transcending time and space; it is effected by means of the soul which does in truth have access to eternity.

Interruptions

My review of Dr Smith's Vertical Causality was interrupted when I downloaded and read 'Living Machines' by Dr E Michael Jones
[Ignatius Press paperback published 1995; Fidelity Press Kindle e-book published 2019]

My apologies to those following the posts on Dr Smith, but I found 'Living Machines' impossible to put down. I do not have time for even a short review, but I can highly recommend it not only for the masterly effortlessness of his style but most particularly for the insights afforded by his penetrative research and courageous analysis. I wish I had studied this before lecturing my French clients on 'modern' London architecture.

I can also highly recommend another book by the same remarkable author for the very same reasons I have included in the previous paragraph.:

'Degenerate Moderns: Modernity As Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior'
[Ignatius Press paperback published 1993; Fidelity Press Kindle e-book published 2019]

DNA, CSI and vertical causality

We continue in this series of posts our review of Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

For further reading on this and related material, see the Philos-Sophia Initiative website.

One of the most extraordinary discoveries of the twentieth century, says Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash., was that DNA actually stores information—the detailed instructions for assembling proteins—in the form of a four-character digital code.

Signature in the Cell, by Dr Stephen Meyer (HarperOne, 2009).



Meyer states that research has demonstrated the complete absence of any attraction between the four letters of the DNA code themselves. From this, he concludes that, there being nothing chemically that forces them into any particular sequence, the sequencing has to come from outside the system.

Dr Smith adds another dimension to the arguments discussed by Meyer and others, when he writes:

The connection between free will and vertical causation came to light abruptly in 1998 when a mathematician named William Dembski published a remarkable theorem. Having introduced the decisive concept of “complex specified information” or CSI, Dembski stunned the scientific world by proving—with complete mathematical rigour—that no physical process, be it deterministic, random or stochastic, can produce CSI. But this means, in our terminology, that what has thus been disqualified from producing CSI is none other than horizontal causality! Wherever, therefore, we encounter the production of CSI, we have documented an act of vertical causation.

To be continued