The Islamic view of the
world is something as follows:- There is only one
fundamental Absolute which is Eternal and Infinite, Allah. Allah, being
Absolute cannot be known directly by a mind which deals only in relatives, but
can be known by His revelations, manifestation or works. Allah creates the
Universe out of Nothing (59:24). It involves the
arising of a pair of opposites (51:19). The word ‘nothing’, therefore, refers
to anything besides Allah. Science is a study of the created world, not of
Allah. From this point of view Science may be regarded as justified in ignoring
Allah. But relativity itself is known only with respect to the Absolute. And
even science is not satisfied until it can show how existence comes out of
‘nothing’. But this is obviously impossible since there can be no cause in
‘nothing’. All we can say, therefore, is that it arises from the Command of
Allah. (36:81). The Universe is a creation having limits in time, space and
qualities, not to be confused with Allah. It had a beginning, stages of
development (7:57) and will end (55:26-27). It is a Unity (21:30), based on
unchanging Laws (30:40), has harmony (67:3), has proportionality being made of
discrete measurable units (55:49-50) and has purpose (30:8). It is created by
the introduction of information or truth (46:3).
In any
study we have to get down to something which is self-explanatory, something
which is taken for granted, a base with respect to which all other things are
explained. The Real World is not the world we see. The world we see, the
material world, is like the skin on the surface of the real world and produced
partly by the limitations of our minds. It is like one dimension of a
multi-dimensional world. The Real world may be regarded as a field of
Potentialities from which all material things are actualised, actualisation
being understood relative to man. The actualisation of potentialities is an act
of creation.
All things
are part of a whole, but the Whole cannot be known by a study of the parts,
though the parts can be described by means of aspects of the whole. There are
many levels of existence denoted by the seven heavens (65:12). The Act of
Creation is a single Command (55:50), which is the causal force to which all
things are subject (13:15). It passes down from the higher to the lower levels
(65:12). There are rhythms of various kinds. Time is relative (32:5, 70:3-4),
cyclic (39:5) and directional (30:8), so that there are stage, each having its
own possibilities (13:38). For instance, it is given by changes of day and
night or the changes in the seasons which depend on the rotation of the earth,
the revolutions of the moon round the earth, and the earth’s revolutions round
the sun, and so on. There is continuous and repeated creation (10:5,35) and regeneration (16:65, 22:5-6). There is a constant
exchange of energy between the earth and the Cosmos (34:2-5). Allah experiments
and tests (3:142). The ultimate outcome on the grand scale is pre-determined in
that whatever serves the goal survives, and that which does not is destroyed
(35:16-17). The cause of Phenomena in the material world lies in the real or
potential world. The cause is not, therefore, prior to the effect in time but
underlies it (65:12). There is no difference between cause and purpose. The two
are the same.
(A more
detailed description of the Islamic view of Creation is given in Book 3.)
The Islamic
view of the Universe has some similarities with the scientific view as well as
some differences, as we shall show. Some of these differences are due to the
fact that the purpose of the Islamic view is human adjustment to reality, human
development and is a general description of fundamentals, while the scientific
view has a technological purpose and is, therefore, much more detailed and
precise and deals with derived phenomena. The Islamic gives a complete unified
and instant picture, while the scientific picture is fragmented and has
developed gradually over centuries and is still changing.
The Science
of Physics has developed through several stages:-
1. Modern
Western Science begins with Newton.
Nature
displays infinite variety and change, and though there are similar things no
two things are exactly alike. All trees are recognised by their similarity but
yet they are also different from one another. This applies to all objects,
motions and events. The human mind has limits. In order to deal with life the
human mind has
(a) To reduce this
great number to a smaller number of elements with which it can cope. The great
variety can then be explained by the repetition and combination of these
elements.
(b) To seek for
regularities, persistence and repetitions to allow prediction and certainty. It
is not possible to recognise anything if things continually change, and no
action is possible if, for instance, we could not rely on the sun rising every
morning and our house, roads, surroundings and place of work remaining the
same.
(c) To find some link
between dissimilars which is also persistent, repeatable or
regular. Otherwise perception would be fragmented.
These
qualities of the human mind gave rise to (a) concepts and language; (b) they
also created the machine which differs from nature in continually repeating the
same motions. The need for commerce and profit led to the standardisation of
machines; (c) in order to regulate the variety of social interactions, a
manageable set of rules and laws had to be created. In order, therefore, to
understand the natural world Newton
took these developments, particularly the machine, as a model. The success with
which he was able to explain the workings of the Universe through this model
made it a model for all science thereafter.
It is to be
noted, however, (a) that the model ignores the variety, versatility and
adaptability of nature. (b) that it is inspired by
technology, commerce and politics - it is not independent of social conditions
and developments, arising from and affecting them. (c) that
it is a human creation, and not independent of their psychology. Ignoring this
fact holds the danger that man himself, the creator of the model, will be
reduced to an object, like the machine, to be regimented and manipulated.
Indeed, it
has had three consequences:- (a) In commerce, the
variations involved in craftsmanship were replaced with standardised production
by machines, though attempts are now being made in the West to reintroduce
variety and craft. (b) Some political regimes arose which treated man in this
way, and all political and industrial systems do this to various degrees. (c)
Ideologically, it created the exclusively materialistic, mechanical view of man
which deprived him of all spiritual and moral characteristics. On the other
hand it has also led to the arrogance that man is the creator of all facts.
These two mutually contradictory ideas led to the decline of religion.
The
Newtonian view of the world may be summarised thus:-
The
assumption was made that in order to study the universe the human mind and its
qualities had to be removed from consideration. Thus, all things in the Universe
consisted not of qualities , forms and purpose but of
particles, motions and structures, and, therefore, could be described by
numbers, time and space. This applied to sound, heat and light as well as
objects. Time and Space, and even numbers, were independent Absolutes, being
the medium in which phenomena took place. The variety in the Universe could be
reduced to a small number of different objects, each of which was repeated a
great number of times, so that what applied to one applied to all the others.
This enabled explanation of the whole variety by just a small number of laws.
Knowledge could be compressed. These objects have mass which is inert. All
changes are changes in motion. The motion of one thing is measured relative to
some other thing. There are three Laws of motion regarded as self-evident.
According to the First Law, all motions are uniform in direction and velocity.
To explain a change in motion required a force. According to the Second Law,
the change in direction or velocity of motion is proportional to the force
causing the change and inversely to the mass. Material bodies possess a force
called gravity which attracts them. This is proportional to the product of
their masses, and diminishes inversely as the square of the distance between
them. According to the Third Law, every action has an equal and opposite
reaction.
All events
are, therefore, mechanistically determined. Thus, given a particular present
state it is not only possible to predict all future states but also retrodict
all past states. Given the initial state of the Universe it is theoretically
possible to predict every future event. The Universe and all things in it are,
therefore, machine-like. Gravitational interaction was instantaneous and not
the property of matter. It is, however, obvious that Gravity and all forces in
general remain a mystery. It was an absolute created by God.
The
Universe was symbolised as a huge Clock in which all the wheels, though having
different motions, all worked in Harmony. It was a static unchanging Universe.
Indeed, the Quran, too, points to the harmony of the Universe (67:3-4).
However,
two other conditions were gradually uncovered. There are many other forces
operating between the heavens and earth, There are radiations, ionised matter,
electrical and magnetic fields and they create immensely complex phenomena
between them. There are also in the heavens a great many other objects besides
stars and planets. There are gases, meteors, asteroids and comets of various
sizes. Some of these have changing orbits affected by the gravity of the
planets and the gases and fields they go through. The planets, including the
earth are bombarded by these. They have created great catastrophes on earth in
the past, destroying many species of life, transforming both the earth and the
biosphere, and may have destroyed whole communities and civilisations. They may
do so again. Such disasters are also mentioned in the Quran, and these events
are attributed to the devils, that is, to disorder creating forces. (67:5-7) The idea of the Day of Judgement is probably connected with
this. The world was not unchanging.
Newton’s Laws of motion are a triumph
of the intellect over the senses. The three laws of motion follow directly from
the Principle of Objectivity. Observation does not show us that there are any
uniform motions in a straight line. To explain the discrepancy between theory
and observation the idea of force was invented. It was a relatively easy step
from these laws to the Law of Gravity and hence to explain the motion of the
planets round the sun. Mathematics which depends on pure thought, not on
experiment, gave the theory exactitude. One merely has to invent some constant,
e.g. G, the gravitational constant, to explain any discrepancy between thought
and observation. However, it is a remarkable fact that these are constants and
do not vary. Nature does conform to thought, or vice versa, thought conforms to
nature. Observation does not tell us that the earth rotates or moves around the
sun. It should, however, be noted that these motions are merely convenient ways
of looking at things. Since all motions are relative, it all depends from where
we are making the observations. The Sun is also moving round the centre of
Galaxy. If we were to make observations from the centre of the Galaxy rather
than the sun or the earth, the motion of the earth would be quite different.
There was a
distinction In Newtonian physics between:- (i) the laws of nature, (ii) the initial conditions, (iii)
the particles, (iv) the forces, (v) the medium i.e. space (vi) time and (vii)
the constants which determine relationships between one thing and another.
This theory
was successful in explaining and predicting the motion of the planets and all
kinds of phenomena on earth. It allowed the construction of machines and other
structures. It was stimulated by and facilitated the Industrial revolution.
Scientists were certain that this was a complete explanation of the Universe
until the discovery of magnetism and electricity. But even then this view was
merely modified to accommodate the new forces. There were, however, a number of
difficulties with the theory, and these were ignored because of its usefulness.
The
discovery of electromagnetism and the laws associated with it were incompatible
with Newtonian mechanics, yet such phenomena underlie everything else. From the
materialistic point of view action at a distance such as that of gravity
presents difficulties. Light, too, requires a medium in which it travels. The
concept of “aether” was, therefore invented. Experiments were performed to
determine the speed of light with respect to it. It was discovered that no
matter in which direction or speed the source of light was travelling with
respect to the observer, the speed of light remained exactly the same. The
concept of the aether had to be abandoned. There were unexplained discrepancies
between the actual motions of some planets and the orbits as calculated. Apart
from the mystery about what gravitation was, the existence of the Universe
itself was also a mystery since all stars should attract each other
gravitationally and become a single mass. Newtonian physics applied only to the
Middle World, not to the Micro-world of sub-atomic particles or the Macro-world
of Galaxies both of which also affect the Middle World. Experimental results
often departed from theory, but these discrepancies were attributed to
experimental errors. The average was, therefore, taken as the true.
The
mathematician Poncaire showed that if we try to calculate the relative motions
of more than two bodies then it was impossible to calculate this exactly. The greater the number of bodies the greater the inexactitude.
Indeed, it was altogether impossible to measure all motions exactly. Suppose we
try to ascertain the motion of a particle moving in an enclosed area. Suppose
its speed lies between 0 and 1 (any units of distance per any unit of time)
then there are an infinite number of rational fractions between these, and there
are an infinite number of irrational numbers between each of these. It is,
therefore, only possible to measure things to various degrees of approximation.
A very small inaccuracy in the beginning will create larger and larger
differences as time goes on just as a very small angle of direction will cause
the arms of that angle to widen the greater the distance. If the particles
under examination are colliding with one another and changing direction as a
result, then the calculations cannot even predict which will collide with which
and when. Complete control and prediction is, therefore, possible only for an
omniscient being. Science can only speak of probabilities and statistics and
not of certainties.
The
Newtonian Laws are Time reversible. That is, they do not distinguish between a
forward or backward motion through time. All our experiences, however, tell us
that Time moves forward only. Things that break do not reconstruct themselves;
elderly people do not get younger; hot things cool down rather than heat up.
Evolution does take place; and so on. Irreversibility is built into the world. Newton’s Universe is
continuous and symmetrical while we see many discontinuities and asymmetries.
Some people
have also noted that there are a number of logical difficulties with the Laws
of motion. There are unproved assumptions and vicious circles. The first Law
relates the notions of uniformity, direction, velocity and force, where
velocity is a relationship between time and distance. It depends, therefore, on
how we think about these. The Law also defines how these should be thought of.
Our notion of straightness and uniformity arise from it. Suppose that Time and
Space were not uniform! We make the assumption that change will be caused by a
force and then prove it by measuring the change! Note also that the
acceleration of a body is measured with respect to its surroundings and that
the change of motion in a body is not merely affected by the external force but
also its own mass; that the mass of the body is itself a force inherent in the
body and measured, like the external force by the change in motion. The terms
are defined by each other and produce a closed system. It is possible to create
many different systems in the same way, and many past superstitions depend on
just this way of thinking. You assume that garlic will keep away vampires and
protect your house with it. The absence of vampires then proves that garlic is
effective.
If Newton’s Universe was
infinite then the gravitation would be so great as to pull everything together.
If it was not, then it must be like a small ball in infinite space. It would
have finite boundaries. There is nothing in Newton’s Laws which explains the shape of the
Universe, why it did not expand or contract or why the forces of contraction
and expansion were equal. The difficulty was it recognised only mass and
ignored all other properties of matter.
Newton’s inverse square law regarding
gravity F = 1/d2 assumes that the forces exerted by a body are
equivalent to the force being exerted from its centre. In fact F= 1/d2+Ad
where A is a constant taking the size of the mass into consideration. Einstein
added this to his equations and called it the Cosmological Constant. Its size
must be near zero since the Universe is expanding.
The laws of
motion and gravity could explain the orbits of the planets but not why there
are that many planets, their distances, the tilt of their orbits and axis.
Given, that action is equal to reaction, it could not explain why there are
broken symmetries for instance in a magnet all the atoms are aligned one way
only. We could not have known about magnetism except for this fact. The
Universe is likely to have come into existence because of such broken
symmetries. It could explain simple motions such as those of planets and
isolated objects, but not complex ones such as the motion of particles in gases
and liquids. Newton
was, of course, interested in eternal regularities only and, therefore, ignored
all the unique and random events which direct experience gives us. Since he was
looking for eternal regularities he ignored the direction of time. All Newton’s laws are time
reversible, treating it as if it did not exist. This is connected with the fact
that Christianity sees God as eternal and, therefore, time as corrupting, and
having a Christian faith or conditioning, he was seeking the Divine. The
Islamic view is that though Allah is certainly Eternal and Transcendental. He
is also Imminent and manifests in events and change.
Allah is Time as the Prophet Muhammad stated. Indeed, given the permanency of
force and uniformity of motion, and the equality of action and reaction, it
could not really explain how things arose in the first place and why things
change. Ultimately, the Newtonian Universe is dead and sterile. The same events
constantly happen cyclically.
Further
thought and research, therefore, altered the picture. Einstein produced
theories which incorporated some of these facts.
2.
Einstein’s approach was different from that of Newton. Instead of thinking in the abstract
as Newton had
done, his approach was more practical. He looked at the way measurement was
done and the relationship between the instrument of measurement (or the observers) and the things measured. The difference
can be attributed to the fact that Newton
was a Christian and Einstein a Jew. The cultural background makes a difference
to thinking. An Islamic approach, had there been one, would have been more
psychological, concerned with the modes of perception and adjustment to
reality.
Einstein
showed that the puzzle regarding the speed of light could be solved if space
and time were seen as properties of objects and varied with their relative
speeds. He constructed theories called the Special and General Theory of
Relativity, incorporating these ideas. The results of these may be summarised
as follows:-
The
Velocity of Light is taken as the Absolute since all observation requires
light. It could be that this idea is derived from the Old Testament, which
states that one of the first thing created by Allah was Light, (Genesis 1:1-3),
though it also mentions two other factors, namely the Spirit and the Waters
which were ignored. The Waters may refer to Space-time or Aether, and the
Spirit to some fundamental force beyond the electromagnetic which produces it.
The fact
that the speed of light was always constant whatever direction or speed with
which the observer travelled with respect to the source of light led to the
following conclusions:-
(1) It was formerly
thought that light must travel in a medium called the aether with respect to
which the speed of light could be measured just as we measure the speed of
waves with respect to the sea. But this idea had to be abandoned.
(2) As we see
everything by means of light, we can only explain phenomena by taking into
consideration the speed of light and the position and relative motion of the
observer.
(3) Since speed is a
relationship between space and time, the constancy of the speed of light can
only be explained if time and space were not constants but varied. Time could
no longer be regarded as an Absolute. It changed with the relative velocity of
an object.
Consider a
stationary observer at the midpoint between two sources of light. If a flash of
light is emitted simultaneously from both sources then they will arrive at the
same time for that observer. If, however, the observers are moving from one
source to the other or in any other direction then the two flashes will arrive
at different times. They will not be simultaneous for these observers. The
duration between them will vary with their speeds and directions. It follows
that all observations made depend on the relative speeds of the observers and
that both time and space are integral to an observation. We cannot speak about
two things being simultaneous in two different places. The medium in which
things take place is not space but space-time. Einstein’s theories derive from
calculations based on these facts. He applied them to gravity and found that
space-time could be regarded as curved and gravity could be thought of as dents
made in the space-time by masses according to their size, like a ball which
makes a groove in a net. This was confirmed when the theory explained the
discrepancies in the orbit of Mercury and the light from distant stars was
discovered to bend as it passed the sun
It could,
however be argued that if we arrange that the moving objects trigger a switch
at the midpoint between the sources of light to cause a flash then the light
would arrive simultaneously at the midpoint no matter how it appeared to the
observers on those moving bodies. We could then distinguish between the
apparent (as seen by the observer) and the real as seen at the switch. We would
then have to convert the observation mathematically to derive an observer-independent
view.
Note, also,
that it is the speed of the motion of the clock, the measuring device, which
changes with velocity, not Time itself if considered as something which the
clock measures. However, it is assumed that we can only know time by means of
clocks. We get into the position where Time is defined as the motion of the
clock; or more universally as the processes of the Universe. This seems to
accord with the Taoist idea of Tao and perhaps also with the Islamic idea of
Allah, that God is not something remote but involved in all processes.
Space and
Time were properties of matter in motion. Time and space were dimensions of
something called Space-time, something with four dimensions. This concept
reinstated the aether in another guise. Not matter but events became the
fundamental concept. Space-time is not flat but curved. This gives us still
another, a fifth dimension. This curvature could expand or contract to a point,
the Singularity where space and time disappeared. To prevent this required the
addition of another arbitrary term into the equations - the Cosmological
Constant. This, however, was reluctantly dropped when Hubble provided evidence
for the expansion of the universe. Given the Initial conditions and the laws of
nature it was perfectly possible for time and space to come to a sudden end
(the End of the World, Qyamat?). There is no gravitation force. There are only
grooves in space-time. Masses caused Space-time to become curved, and this
accounted for the motions of objects near them, and therefore, for the
gravitational force. The sun, for instance, because of its mass distorts
space-time around it and this accounts for the orbit of the planets.
Acceleration was the same thing as Gravity. Inertial mass was the same thing as
gravitational mass.
Matter and
energy were equivalent according to the formula:- E=MC2.
Here E is Energy, M is mass, C is the speed of light (300,000 Km per sec.),
which must be squared giving 90,000,000,000. This formula has been tested.
Tremendous amounts of energy have been created by destroying matter as in the
Nuclear Bombs.
Matter has
also been created out of energy in laboratories. It was noticed that the
electron had the peculiar property of spin, one in which it had to spin twice
round to present the same face. This appeared to imply that there was an
opposite particle with an opposite spin, a positron, a piece of antimatter
similar to a matter electron. By feeding the electron sufficient energy it
became possible to create an electron/positron pair. It was also found that in
the neighbourhood of a strong electromagnetic field is was
possible to create this pair of matter/antimatter in zero energy. This is
because the antimatter positron consists of negative energy equal to the
positive energy of the electron. It is also thought that this can happen in a
very strong gravitational field e.g. near a Black Hole. The gravitational field
contains negative energy since it attracts rather than radiates like positive
energy. It is merely a warp in space-time. Thus matter comes out of nothing.
But it does require the correct conditions, the warp in space-time. This
condition must have existed near the Big Bang.
Note that
certain difficulties arise:- Since energy refers to
motion, we may ask: what is it that is moving? If mass can dissolve into energy
what has happened to the notion that all objective things are material? As
motion is seen as being relative where is absolute matter? What is seen,
therefore, becomes a function of the relative motions of observer and
object.
When the
velocity of an object increases then its mass also increases, it’s time slows
down and its length in the direction of motion contracts. When the velocity
reached the speed of light mass became infinite, time stands still, and size
reduces to zero. The instruments which measure time and distance are themselves affected, so that an observer on a moving object
would not notice the difference. Knowledge was not independent of the measuring
activity or of the relative motion of the observer. The world would, therefore,
look different to different people according to the speed of the observer with
respect to it. Different equally valid views of the world were, therefore
possible. However, simple transformation formulae could convert one view to
another. This has wider implications. Where ever there is a difference of
opinion, in politics or religion, it is not necessarily the case that either
one or both are wrong, but it may be possible, given suitable methods of
conversion, to translate and obtain agreement.
In the
formulae below, T is a quantity called Tau, v is the velocity or speed of an
object; c is the speed of light, 300,000 kilometres a second; when the object
is at rest with respect to an observer then m is the mass of an object, l is
the length and t is the time an event on the object takes. If the object is
moving away from the observer then M gives its mass, L gives its length in the
direction of motion and T is the time the event takes.
It is
evident that if the velocity of the object increases by adding energy to it,
then if it becomes equal to the velocity of light, Tau becomes zero; M, the
mass of the object will become infinite, T, the time an event takes to happen,
as well as L, the length of the object in the direction of motion will both
become zero from the point of view of an external observer. Time becomes
Eternity. The object will disappear. But for an observer on the object nothing
will have changed on the object. While an hour passes for him many years may
have passed on some other object. If his speed with respect to the Universe
were very close to that of light he might even observe the whole Universe
undergo a collapse into the singularity from which it was born.
The same will be seen to happen to external
objects moving with respect to that observer. There is, however, an asymmetry
between an object and the earth, for instance, owing to the gravitational
field. The General Theory of Relativity now applies. There must be acceleration
in order to reach the speed of light, and mass causes
this by bending space. Therefore, what a person calls Reality depends on
relative speeds. Time is relative. Note that the Quran also sees Time as
relative. There must, however, be a Total Reality in which all these different
times exist.
If Time is
one of the dimensions then the view of what is real changes. An object is a
four dimensional thing which we see only in three dimensions. Compare this with
a two dimensional object, a triangle, which moves downwards with respect to a
one dimensional line.
Looking
along the line the triangle cannot be seen at first, then
we get a point. This point grows, until it reaches its maximum size which is
equal to its base and then it disappears again. The triangle, however, has only
died with respect to the one dimensional world of the line, not the two
dimensional surface in which it exists. The triangle may, of course, be
altering its shape or inner organisation as well as it passes through the line.
The line may be regarded as this world, while the area above is before birth
and the area below it is after death.
Many of the
predictions made by this theory were confirmed by experiment and observation.
It explained many of the discrepancies resulting from Newtonian Physics. It
also led to further developments.
The
Relativity theory predicted that the Universe could expand or collapse. But in
order to avoid this, Einstein introduced a Cosmological Term into his
equations. This he latter admitted, was the biggest mistake in his life. The
expansion of the Universe was discovered by Hubble. The Universe must,
therefore, have started from a Singularity, the Primeval Atom in which all the
matter was concentrated, a White Hole from which it
emerged with a Big Bang owing to the energy concentrated in it. There is,
however, no explanation how it came to exist.
The size of
the stars depend partly on their mass, and, therefore, on their gravity, and
partly on the energy produced by the conversion of hydrogen into helium and
other elements. The star radiates this energy outwards. As this hydrogen is
exhausted it cools down and gravity causes it to contract. This increases its
gravity. It would then collapse with increasing speed. If the mass is great
enough then gravity will become great enough to prevent anything, including
light from escaping from within an area around it known as the ‘event horizon’,
Hence, it cannot be seen. It would become a Black Hole, and things falling into
it would disappear from the Universe. The centre of this would be a Singularity
with no space or time where all the laws of physics would break down. It would
attract everything around it, and anything and everything falling into it would
be annihilated.
It may be
that this matter reappears elsewhere as a ‘White Hole’. There may be
‘worm-holes’ which connect one part of space-time with another. This allows
objects and influences to pass from the future or past into the present and
vice versa, thereby making ‘time-travel’ possible. However, in order to prevent
‘anomalies’ from arising it is thought that some hitherto unknown mechanism
normally prevents this from happening. The passage of matter itself would cause
the worm hole to collapse. On the other hand it may lead to another Universe.
There are probably Black Holes of various sizes at the centre of galaxies and
elsewhere. The whole of the Universe would, if it had enough mass, collapse
back into a Black Hole with a Big Crunch. Space and Time would come to an end.
The Universe could be oscillating, expanding and collapsing periodically, as
ancient Hindu philosophers predicted.
But there
are difficulties with Relativity theory too.
It was
still time symmetrical and could not account for the direction of time. It was
still continuous. There was experimental evidence that velocities in excess of
light were also possible. The theory creates its own limits in that it predicts
the existence of Singularities where space and time disappear and the Laws of
relativity break down. These laws cannot, therefore, be universal ones, and the
theory cannot tell us how the Universe came into being. If the Primeval Atom
was such a Black Hole, then there is no explanation why it would explode.
Indeed, if space and time end in the singularity then it makes no sense to ask
what was before or outside the singularity and what was the cause of its
explosion. We are told nothing about where the information comes from by which
organisation takes place.
If two
objects accelerate away from each other then, because of the dilation of time,
the clock on each object would seem to be getting slower with respect to the
other. Each object would be getting younger than the other! Some other absurd
results also become possible. It would, for instance, be possible to go back in
time and theoretically to meet your father before you were conceived and kill
him. The theory deals with very large scale objects but does not fit very small
scale ones. Since the world described by Relativity theory is unlike the world
as we experience it, scientific descriptions are seen as useful rather than
true. But they are useful for certain purposes only.
Now, we may
choose either to believe that the Universe described by the theory actually
exists or else that it is merely a convenient way of describing Some aspects of the experience of the world. In fact it
makes no difference to our life. The difference between Einstein’s and Newton’s world is so small
that it only becomes significant at very large distances and speeds, on the Cosmic scale.
Further
research into the very small changed the picture again. Einstein himself spoke
about a puzzling phenomenon known as the photoelectric effect. When light falls
on certain metals they give off charged particles. But if the intensity of
light is varied this does not affect the speed of the particles emitted but
only their number. This could only be explained by supposing that energy came
in packets, in indivisible quanta. Energy was not continuous but discrete. The
Quran, it may be remembered, affirms that all things are discrete. It was found
that the units of light and other electromagnetic phenomena behaved sometimes
like particles having position and volume and sometimes like waves which were
distributed in space. They were neither particles nor waves but both. Or they
were adaptable to the experimental situation. This led to the Quantum Theory.
3. Quantum
Mechanics deals with the very small scale objects and events, the sub-atomic,
from which all things are made, particularly the interaction between electromagnetic
radiations (photons of light) and matter (usually electrons). Photons and
electrons show similar properties. Three types of phenomena are of particular
interest:- the independent motion of photons, of
electrons, and the interaction between photons and electrons. Electrons absorb
or emit photons. Absorption and emission are regarded as equivalent, one being
the negative of the other just as motion can be in a positive or negative
direction.
Experiments
show that light and its interactions with matter do not obey laws which human
common sense can understand. Consider light shining on a piece of clear glass.
Some of it is reflected and the rest goes through it. Logically, if one surface
reflects 4% then two should reflect 8%. Experiments, however, show that when
the thickness of the glass (or the distance between the surfaces) is gradually
increased, then the reflected light first increases and then decreases
cyclically between 0% and 16%. This can be explained if light is a wave form.
Then the percentage reflected will depend on the relationship between the
thickness of the glass (or the distance between the surfaces) and the
wavelength of the light. But if we measure the intensity of light by the clicks
made by a photomultiplier (an instrument which can detect and record the number
of photons) we do not get clicks which vary in intensity but only in the number
of clicks per unit of time. Light must, therefore, consist of indivisible
particles. How can they be waveforms as well as particles!
In another
experiment, light is directed at a screen with two holes and a detector is
placed on the other side in line with the source and one of the holes.
Logically, the light should travel in a straight line through the hole to the
detector. But it comes through both holes causing interference patterns,
confirming that light is wave-like. Obviously it is not coming in a straight
line through the other hole. But, if detectors are placed on both holes, then
it is found that the photons do not go through both holes at the same time, but
either through one or the other. The word ‘quanta’ was, therefore, applied to
this smallest packet of energy.
The question is:- how
and why do the photons choose their path to be reflected or transmitted?
Physics does not in fact deal with this question, but is satisfied with
accepting and describing the phenomena and merely calculating the probability
with which these events will happen, and this is based on the development of
techniques of description. Since a particle can take a great number of paths
with varying amounts of probability, then to restore some kind of certainty all
these paths have be taken into consideration collectively. We become certain
only at the end when the particle interacts with another or with our measuring
instrument. All the other probabilities collapse into a single certainty.
Thus the
equations describing the path do not, in fact, refer to any reality since we
cannot know these paths. They are merely useful devices.
In other
words physics has given up (a) certainty as well as (b) the desire to
understand, and (c) the notion of truth. This is probably connected with the
way (i) phenomena are experienced (we are designed or
conditioned to experience not the micro or macro, but the middle world. (ii) the nature of concepts used for description and (iii) the
process of thinking, logic itself, which requires that things can either be
waveforms or particles, not both. Each excludes the other and there is no room
for anything in between.
It could be
that the world is really like this: Everything is possible but to different
degrees of probability. This, in fact, is the Islamic view. We,
or objects, change things merely by changing these probabilities. Our
attention is drawn to, and we perceive things which have high probability and,
therefore, occur most frequently while neglecting things which have low
probability and take place less frequently. This may be the result of either or
both the fact that frequently occurring experiences reinforce each other and
create habits and that our attention is focused by desire, particularly for
security and certainty, on that which repeats itself.
It seems
possible that these particles must be connected by some force or field to form
a whole which controls the behaviour of the parts. This is no more mysterious
than gravity. Indeed, if two photons at any points A and B are moving towards a
point C, then the combined probability that they will arrive at C is four times
the probability of each arriving there independently. On the other hand, it may
be that it is not the same photons and electrons which are seen at the
beginning and at the end of an experiment. They grow and decay like all other
things, being replaced by others. Photons are constantly being absorbed and
emitted by electrons. This would explain the non-linear paths. The theory of
constant creation and recreation is an Islamic one.
Electrons
can have two states of polarisation or spin. Unlike photons, the probabilities
of electrons reaching the same position cancel out. Atoms of the various
elements have a nucleus consisting of various numbers of protons and neutrons.
The positive charge of protons attracts electrons which are kept in orbit by an
exchange of photons. Since no two electrons with the same polarisation can
occupy the same space, we have the “exclusion principle”,
The electrons must occupy different orbits. This accounts for all the variety
of elements, compounds and chemical reactions. The more protons in the nucleus
the more electrons there must be in the orbits around the nucleus. But they
will occupy orbits further and further from the nucleus, and will, therefore,
exchange fewer photons and will be less strongly attached. Photons from other
atoms can detach them. Different atoms will exchange electrons, thereby
creating a variety of compounds. There will be a sea of relatively free
electrons in certain substances such as metals which allow currents of
electricity to flow.
Photons may
split into electrons and positrons travelling in opposite time directions and
different space directions. These may encounter other positrons and electrons
to re-produce photons. Within the atom there is an exchange of photons between
protons and electrons. There are constant complex changes which are not
predictable and yet order arises out of chaos. An electron is not an entity
like a particle. Its motion round the nucleus is more like a smear consisting
of information.
Amplitudes
of probability apply also to the straightness of the path of light and its
velocity, and therefore, to the uniformity of space and time, the perception of
which is connected with light (i.e. seeing). A photon could travel faster or
slower than the average speed of light. It could travel backward in time, becoming
an anti-photon and an electron could do the same becoming a positron. If you
direct a beam of light through a hole at a screen, it forms an image on a
straight line, but as this hole is made smaller, not only does light become
dimmer, it also spreads out, showing numerous non-straight paths.
Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty Principle states that there is a basic uncertainty in measuring
sub-atomic particles. We cannot measure both the velocity and the position of a
particle at the same time. This is because the medium of observation, light,
comes in quanta which cannot be divided into smaller units. We cannot observe
anything smaller than a quantum. If it exists, it is not available to science,
and science ignores it. This does not mean that it does not exist, but that
there is an area of reality, the most fundamental one, outside science. To
access it would require a faculty other than our ordinary sense organs. Since
we are part of reality, it is not inconceivable that we can have such access.
The quantum Universe is, therefore, discontinuous. All visible phenomena can be
described by mathematics, by multiples of these quanta. Phenomena cannot be
explained deterministically but only statistically. Indeed, they cannot take
place deterministically - if we direct a beam of light at a screen having two
holes, it could not be predicted which hole a particle would go through. In
fact it went through both holes. A particle can be regarded as an area of
probabilities, a wave-function, or an information package, which is purely a
mathematical concept. As such they may overlap and affect each other forming a
field filling the whole universe in which one place affects all other places
instantly. We cannot observe the shape or path of the photon from the source to
the screen. We know where the photon has arrived only after it has landed
because the probabilities collapse into an actuality. If we reverse this
process and send the photon back to its source we have the same unpredictable
situation. This is like throwing dice. There are six possible sides to a dice
on which it can land. But once it has landed, there is only one actual
situation. The other possibilities have disappeared. The observer, which may be
a human being, a measuring instrument or any other object with which the photon
collides, therefore, influences the collapse.
Several
conclusions follow from this:-
(a)
Processes are not reversible. There is a direction of Time.
(b) If we
are dealing with probabilities then the Laws of Science are statistical. Calculations
can only be Statistical not exact.
(c)
Scientific descriptions of the basic particles do not refer to objective facts,
but are descriptive conveniences and relate to the experiments performed and
the mathematics involved.
(d) The
world and the objects in it are being continuously created anew.
(e) There
is a real world not ordinarily accessible to us which is
different from the world of ordinary experiences. Since science is interested
in logical consistency, it defines this inaccessible area as ‘Nothing’ or as a ’Vacuum‘ . But the meaning of these words has changed. They
are full of quantum events but unknowable. The Laws and events of the known
Universe come out of this. We have here something which in religion would be
defined as the Mind of God. The Electromagnetic field is a quantum field. It
can carry incalculable, that is, infinite energy. But Physics abhors Infinities
since, by definition, nothing exact can be said about it. It deals with these
by a process called ’renormalisation‘, cancelling them out by means of other
infinities. Particles which are linked remain linked even if they travel great
distances from each other. Thus measuring one tells us something about the
other. The two form a unit which alters the way the
word object is understood. Indeed, there is a connection between multiple
particles such that the behaviour of each affects and is affected by others and
this takes place instantly. They appear to form a field in which each part
affects all others. The actions of each person, therefore,
affects the rest of existence. Some of the particles such as quarks are
always found in threes having no meaning except in relation to each other and
may turn into each other.
(f) Since according to the Uncertainty
Principle it is not possible to know both the energy of a particle and the
length of time for which it has that energy, the consequence is that the
Principle of Conservation of Energy has to be abandoned. It becomes possible
for a particle to gain from or lose energy to ‘Nothing’. The Law of Causation
must also be abandoned. Events can happen spontaneously. How unpredictable the
world has become can be seen from the following:- A
single quantum event could produce a mutation in man which could change the
whole course of evolution.
(g) Knowledge is not independent of the
observer, his experiments and measuring activities. It is only he (or any
object or instrument which is affected and, therefore, acts as observer) who
causes the wave-function to collapse into a particle. Thus if there is no
observer then there is no object. The House to which you turn your back does
not exist. This is, of course, true only because we think that the house is
identical to our experience or description of it.
This led to
the Anthropic Principle. There are
two versions, the weak and the strong. According to the Weak Anthropic
Principle, given different possibilities we must choose the one which makes the
arising of human observers probable. The one which does not do so, cannot
account for the fact that we exist and have the experience and theory. However,
it is possible that some part of the Universe does not contain observers. Some
scientists interpret this principle as implying that we should not suppose that
the Universe was created for us, but only that we would not be here if the
universe was not constructed in this way. The Strong Anthropic Principle tells
us that objectivity no longer means that we can stand apart as unaffected and
unaffecting observers. The Universe is as it is because we see it so and
interact with it the way we do. We do not see the Universe as it is apart from
us, and cannot say anything about it, but only as it affects our present state
of minds. This would imply that if the nature of our consciousness and
interactions changed then we would see a different world. This is also the
Islamic position. The Anthropic Principle resembles the statement by the
Prophet Muhammad, “Allah said : I was a hidden
treasure. I wished to be known. Therefore, I created the Universe.”
(h) The
results of these experiments leave the scientist with five choices:-
(i) Either the world is not predictable, rational and
conforming to human reason - scientists do not like this because this leaves
the field open to mysticism and religion. A higher mind would be needed to
understand it and reason could not be used to verify statements made by such a
mind.
(ii) Or the unpredictability refers only to
the micro world, and cancels out when large masses are involved. This requires
that the laws which describe the regularities are a resultant of the
interactions between these particles. They are, therefore, connected by some
even more fundamental sub-quantum force. But microcosmic events do influence
the macro-world. Human behaviour and its effects on the environment, for
instance, depend on electronic events in the brain.
(iii) Or it is necessary to regard all
alternatives as being equally real. In order to avoid making science depend on
external separate conscious observers the ‘Many Universe Interpretation’ has
been advanced. There is no either/or but a sum of all possibilities. In
ordinary thought we are either dead or alive. In this theory there are a great
number of possibilities between the two. A particle could move between two
points A and B by means of several paths with different amounts of probability.
and we have to take all these into consideration. The
various alternative phenomena, which the notion of probability involves, are
equally real. There are, therefore, as many Universes as there are possibilities,
an Infinite number. However, all these Universes interact and, therefore, form
a greater whole. But we are aware only of one of these, because our minds are
conditioned to this Universe. Each one is seen as actual by the observer in it.
Thus the total whole, Reality, is infinitely greater than this Universe, and
could be regarded as a Field of Potentialities to distinguish it from the
actuality seen by us. There could be many copies of a person, for instance, in
different Universes, each slightly different from the others. Time travel would
be possible in the sense that a person could go into the past or future in a
parallel universe, thereby overcoming the absurdity involved in the possibility
of killing his own ancestor before he could procreate. However, as we cannot
see these other universes and there is no way of verifying their existence,
then by Occam’s razor, they ought to be discarded. Why have so many Universes
instead of one God in whom all the potentialities exist? Indeed, if everything
is possible in some Universe science is redundant.
This
possibility could also be interpreted as implying that each person has a great
many possibilities of which he actualises only one. Actuality, for each person,
simply means the alternative he experiences owing to his interactions. The
others are just as actual for the other alternative
person. The total individual is not dead if he dies in this Universe. The time
flow in all universes is not necessarily the same. It could also be said that,
as each person is the result of his interactions, then each person is, in fact,
every other person, each within his own Universe.
(iv) The fourth
possibility is that science is concerned only with interpreting and organising
data in order to facilitate calculation, prediction and control, not with
truth, and should not be confused with it. The question of Truth and reality
are meaningless in science and are left to religion. This, indeed, is the
position adopted by many scientists.
(v) That the unpredictability is only a
measure of our ignorance. It is entirely possible that the motion of particles
is not random at all, but depends on the field created by all the other
particles in its environment. The particle is like a pulsating cloud with a
nucleus moving in and controlling it, adjusting and reacting to its environment
- not much different from a living cell. Thhe causes of these events lie at a
sub-quantum level of reality which remains inaccessible to human knowledge, at
least in its present state of development. Perhaps if higher states of
consciousness are developed then this will become accessible. The possibility
of this exists in the reality of evolution. Apes did not and do not have access
to the world seen by man.
In fact it
is not necessary to suppose that there are infinite numbers of Universes since
they are, in fact, all alike in that we cannot see them. If a particle moves
from one spot and it is not predictable what its track is and where it will end
up, then we can suppose that some invisible particle has acted on it to deflect
it. We can then say that we have a visible world of matter and an invisible
world of spirit or of potentialities which also affects the former. Things are
not as mechanical or deterministic in this physical world as was supposed. This
is, of course also the religious position.
We could
also give up the deterministic view of the world at the same time as giving up
the notion of chance, and replace this dichotomy with the notion of will. This
is because these quantum events cannot be regarded as pure chance since they do
obey statistical laws. Statistical laws are obeyed by masses in which the
individuals have a certain amount of self-determination or self-motivation. The
notion of chance arises only as an opposition to determinism. However, it is
unlikely that scientists will accept this for a very long time to come.
Since all
our knowledge exists within consciousness, it is also obvious that it cannot
exist without consciousness. Though an objective world exists outside our consciousness,
it is known only by the effects it has on our consciousness. This knowledge can
only be objectively true if we suppose that the objective world is something
within a Universal consciousness with which we have or can have direct
communication, and to which we conform.
The Religious interpretation could be as follows:-
1. Reality is a
Field of Potentialities, of infinite possibilities. The Mind of God or Allah
refers to this absolute field.
2. The material or
observed world is a surface phenomenon, like the skin on an apple. Some
Restricting Principle (the Will of Allah?) operates which selects between
alternatives to actualise it. This Principle cannot be observed by ordinary
means in the same way as it is impossible to see the selection exerted by the
plant breeder by merely studying biological processes in plants. The human Will
probably works in the same way. It selects between alternative possibilities
among the events in the brain. The selecting cause lies at quite another level.
There are certain regularities and order everywhere. The Universe does not
create these Laws but is a result of them. The information which determines
events comes out of this field and disappears into it.
3, The Universe is
recreated at every instant by all the interactions. There is no need for an
infinite number of Universes, but only for this Field of Potentialities. The
whole is a single system such that change in any one place produces change in
the whole system and in all parts of it. The local interactions are governed by
cosmic interactions. Human beings are part of this interaction and are created
and create their own world by their activities.
If the
observer-based and the parallel universe theories are rejected then the way the
wave-function collapses flouts causality as understood in Einstein’s Physics
according to which nothing can take place faster than the speed of light. The
Wave is regarded as elastic. It extends through the whole Universe. But when it
collapses into a particle it does so instantly. All parts of it must know
instantly that a collision has taken place. Indeed speeds greater than that of
light have recently been discovered. This means that Einstein’s Theory cannot
be the whole truth. There is a phenomenon known as the EPR paradox. Two
interacting particles must have equal and opposite spin. But if they are
separated by vast distances they will have to retain these spins. If we measure
the spin of one then this is equivalent to measuring the spin of the other. Thus
particles at great distances form a single system. The notion of what an object
consists of must be revised. It does not necessarily occupy a particular space
to the exclusion of others. There may be many overlapping objects, some of vast
sizes, rarefied, and quite invisible. The notion of causation must change and
become more like the Will of Allah.
It has to
be admitted that:- (1) The photon, and other
fundamental entities, are not really particles or even waves, but something
else. (2) What we see is a matter of the kind of experiments we do and how we
interpret these and this can vary according to circumstances, culture and the
mental capacities of people. (3) The fundamental forces are not really
measurable and certain, but the perceived world that arises from them is an epi-phenomenon, measurable and certain to various degrees
and depends also on the observing mind.
The speed
of light, too, may be regarded as an average. Particles can travel at faster as
well as slower than the speed of light. Thus they could well escape Black
holes. Stephen Hawking, renowned Theoretical Physicist, has proposed the
following:-
The matter
in a Black Hole only retains mass, angular velocity and electric charge. All
other information is lost. There is, therefore, an increase in entropy. The
entropy must be proportional to the event horizon. If it has entropy it must
have temperature. If it has temperature then according to the Laws of
Thermodynamics it must radiate heat. But this contradicts the idea about Black
Holes which allow nothing to escape. Here Quantum mechanics come to the rescue.
The Uncertainty Principle allows the appearance of a pair of matter/antimatter
particles to appear briefly in the area surrounding the Black Hole. One has
positive energy and other negative, so that the total is zero. They come out of
Nothing! (It is clear that this ‘Nothing’ is nothing
only from a scientific point of view, that is, it is inaccessible. It is a
quantum Field which may well be similar to that which is responsible for Consciousness
in man and gives him creativity.) Since radiant energy can be regarded as
positive and gravity as negative energy, then the total energy and mass of the
Universe is zero. Energy and mass, therefore, are relative terms which apply
only to the Universe once it has been created.
While the
antimatter particle is attracted into the Black hole neutralising an equivalent
matter particle in it, the matter particle will be radiated into space and
will, therefore, appear to come out of the Black Hole. The Black Hole creates
matter, and hence Time and Space! As it emits energy it collapses. As the
matter in the Black Hole and, therefore, its gravity diminishes, the amount of
radiation increases and this accelerates the collapse. It will eventually
evaporate with a Big Bang, forming a White Hole. from
which another Universe may emerge. It could, therefore, be the case, as Hindu
philosophy states and the Quran implies, that the
Universe periodically contracts and re-expands. And this may also take place on
much smaller scales and greater numbers within the Universe. However, the
matter which emerges cannot be regarded as a reincarnation of the previous
matter because of the loss of information in the Black Hole, though there is a
recreation of information.
Objects and
processes have “Sum over Histories”, if all the possible paths particles can
take are taken into consideration. And we may speak of ‘Imaginary Time’ at
right angles to Serial Time, being the sum of all the times in which these
different histories exist. In the quantum theory of gravity, space-time is
neither infinite nor has it a beginning and end, but is completely curved like
a sphere, which is both finite and without boundaries, but there would be
nothing outside it. At the Big Bang there would be four dimensional space, one of which would gradually turn into time. The
Universe would then be completely self-consistent and its history would follow
the line of greatest probability. In this model one pole could be the Big Bang, the Universe expands until it reaches the equator and
then contracts again until it reaches the other pole in the Big Crunch.
This sphere
obviously does not represent the Universe which is only a section through it.
It represents Total Reality, all possibilities, almost Allah Himself. It
reminds one of the Hindu Doctrine of the Cosmic Egg. The Theory is, however,
only a description of known facts and cannot be tested. It is based on a
selection of many possible initial states, and numerous other rival theories
can be built. Other theories may fit just as well. This view would not be
completely incompatible with the Islam if Space came out of Time rather than
time out of space. The gradual turning of space into time has no meaning
without time. From Einstein’s theory we obtain the result that one second of
time is equivalent to 300, 000 km of distance. Time could be converted into
space and account for its expansion. At high speeds and near strong
gravitational fields time slows down and space contracts. The reverse happens
as speeds slow down and gravity diminishes. It is not clear, however, how a
second can come out of Eternity. In current theories it is not certain which is
the cause of which. This is because speed is a relationship between space and
time and gravity is a distortion in the geometry of space-time. Mass is the
same thing as gravity and all objects are patterns, bits of order or
information in space time. Thus, ultimately the Universe consists of this
Trinity, Space, Order and Time. (Is this Son, Spirit and Father respectively?).
Islamic theology is clear on this point, God is Time. He creates both Order and
that which accommodates it, Space. Order is His Command, Truth.
The notion of ‘imaginary time’ arises by multiplying a number with a
quantity denoted by ‘i’ which multiplied by itself
gives us -1. This is used to indicate a direction at right angles to a real
number and is used also to make time a fourth dimension to space. The notion of
‘Imaginary time’ was invented in order to overcome the problem of the origin of
the Big Bang. The Laws of Physics would still apply. The notion of God as the
Cause, it was thought, could still be dispensed with. But this seems to be an
absurd enterprise since we are always left with an irreducible problem, namely,
the origin of the Laws. Added to this the Universe has been made inconceivable,
and this structure, too, needs explanation. In fact, this new dimension of Time
should be called Eternity, while the other is ”imaginary
time” in religious language. There may even be a third dimension to time which
allows changes even in Eternity. This would be more compatible with the Islamic
view of Allah.
If
space-time is considered smooth without boundaries like the surface of a sphere
then the Universe can be thought of as being created from nothing. There is no
experimental proof for this. This requires that time becomes a dimension like
space. (i.e. the surface is 3-dimensional on a 4
dimensional sphere, time being the direction towards the centre.). No initial
conditions are required and there is no definite time or point when it was
created. If we trace the development of the Universe backwards, it does not
reach the Singularity, but a point X before it, and there is no Big Bang. It
may be remarked that the point X becomes the surface of a sphere, an Absolute.
In order to
describe the Universe in quantum mechanical terms we have to take into
consideration all possible evolutionary paths. To make the theory more
consistent with observed facts, especially to allow for variations in the constants
of nature (no reason is known why they should be fixed) and to account for why
the cosmological constant is near zero, it was necessary to include a class of
probabilities called “wormholes”. These are very small holes linking one part
of space time with another such that something could appear or disappear in one
place which, in order to retain the conservation principle, must have done the
opposite in another place. This could inter-connect different Universes also.
Or the Universe could be viewed as many spheres interconnected by wormholes.
The universe could be producing baby universes with varying durations.
The latest fashion in Physics is the theory of Superstrings. It is
designed to bridge Relativity theory, which deals with the very large objects
where gravity is significant and Quantum Theory, which deals with the very
small where gravity, being a weak force is only significant at very small
distances. This can be done if we think not in terms of particles as points
having no dimensions but in terms of vibrating strings or loops having a
certain fluctuating volume, instead of particles. These, as they travel through
space-time, trace out fluctuating tubes. The trouble with such theories is that
there is no way in which they can be experimentally verified. They only offer a
method of mathematically unifying all physical phenomena, but the appropriate
mathematical tools have not yet been developed.
Whereas
Quantum theory explained the behaviour of particles within atoms as well as
chemical reactions, it, too, is fraught with difficulties. The theory does not
explain events in the macro-world. It has not been able to explain the
direction of time, and the increase in the organisational information. It
appears to have brought the observer into the experimental situation and
destroyed the possibility of objective knowledge. It appears that the world is
created by the actions of the observer. This would not be a disaster if it was
not assumed that what man sees is the real and only world. On the other hand it
should have been obvious that the world does in fact consist of the total
number of interactions between all things, each being an observer with respect
to other things. The world in which physics operates is no longer the world of
common sense, and the entities which it studies are no longer sense objects. If
there are parallel Universes why is it that we can only see one of them?
Anything could happen in them. Perhaps, the parallel universes merely refer to
different experiences or points of view.
Phenomena
no longer conform to the rules of human logic. There appear to be only two
possibilities: Either it must be admitted that quantum physics creates
description which are not true of real things but only useful for certain
purposes, or that human faculties which have been designed and conditioned by
their evolutionary history and experience in the Middle world are not equipped
to understand the Micro and the Macro world. Indeed, these two alternatives are
not mutually exclusive but one leads to the other. Many scientists have given
up the very idea of the existence or possibility of objective knowledge in the
scientific sense. Science is regarded as a creative act on the part of the
scientist just as art is for the artist, technology for the inventor and
organisation for politicians. It could be pointed out that what they have given
up is their subjective idea of what objectivity consists of. It does not seem
very rational to suppose that knowledge can exist without a knower, an object
to be known, and interaction between them. Both affect the process of knowing
and vice versa. The acquisition of knowledge is only possible because it is
part and parcel of the process of adjustment to Reality, the process of living.
The recognition of this is ‘Surrender“.
One of the
mysteries of quantum theory is “entanglement” or integration. If a particle,
say of spin one is separated into two particles of spin 1/2 in opposite
directions then no matter how far we take them from one another, measurement of
one tells us something about the other. The mystery lies in this that the act
of measurement must cause the collapse of the wave into a particle. And this
must cause a collapse in the other instantly, and yet according to Relativity
theory there can be no causal connection beyond the speed of light - i.e.
between things whose cone of light do not touch. (The cone of light is like an
X or rather an hour glass in space-time, in which the mid point is occupied by
the object, regarded as an event, and the downward direction represents the
area of influence in the past and the upward direction represents the area of
influence in the future.) The two particles still act as one - they are both or
neither separate from one another nor one, but in an inter-mediate state. Dichotomies
like this do not apply to ultimate or fundamental things. They seem to be
oblivious of space and time and of causality. Indeed, all the particles in the
Universe appear to be linked by “entanglement” since detection, interaction or
observation implies that the particle becomes entangled with the instrument or
observer. Several quantum events together, even at a distance may form a single
event. A concept of “simultaneity” appears to be needed which is quite distinct
from causality and chance. The Universe at this level can be regarded as a web
so that an event at one point will create instant ripples everywhere else. The
links between the particles require a different force, one as yet unknown to
science.
Another
fact of importance is that the study of these fundamental particles requires a
great many more dimensions than just the three of space. But since we see only
three, we must suppose that these other dimensions have been folded or curved
in. There is, therefore, a distinction between outer and inner dimensions. What
we see when we look inwards into our minds may well refer to such inner
dimensions.
All the
mysteries of quantum theory follow from the properties of these
micro-particles. They are waves and bundles of probability. They spin in all
directions at once, have no particular locality, size or shape, vibrate in all
directions. They breakup and recombine, disappear and
reappear, and may be constantly annihilated and recreated. They undergo
spontaneous (externally uncaused) changes and can travel forward or backwards
in time and anticipate the actions of the experimenter. They appear to be in
many ways more like living and even conscious cells. It could be that time and
space have a positive as well as a negative side of which we see only the
positive. Particles oscillate by moving alternately between the two. They could
be like waves which arise from and sink back into the sea. But it is only the
mass of waves which we perceive as Space, not the underlying sea. Another model
is that a particle is like a spreading wave or ripples in space-time.
Complexity arises because the waves of all particles overlap.
There
appears to be a distinction between the events and laws operating at the
quantum level and those operating in the macro-world. This appears to be
similar to the distinction which used to be made between the laws of heaven and
earth or between the mind and matter. There are four alternatives views:- (a) That quantum description is true about Reality. But
this seems unsatisfactory if Reality is to be considered as One.
(b) That the description is not true but only a mathematical convenience, an
explanatory device to deal with certain facts. We must then explain how this is
different from any other non-scientific theory or system which can be regarded
as doing exactly the same thing. The description, also, must surely refer to
something real though unknown. (c)
That the description is unsatisfactory and incomplete and will have to be
replaced with something better. But this depends on the experiences, abilities
and efforts of the scientists and this is exactly what the religions tell us.
(d) We are left with this that all knowledge is a relationship between observer
and object, and depends on their nature and this relationship. Although, observer
and object form a single system this cannot be known for the very reason that
knowledge arises from the relationship. It is not necessarily the case that a
conscious observer is required to cause the potentiality or probability wave to
collapse into an actuality (as existing apart from knowledge of it), but a
conscious observer is certainly required to collapse it into an item of
knowledge - and that is all we can know.
There is
little doubt that quantum events are going on in the brain and that these are
linked with the quantum events in the environment and ultimately with those in
the whole Universe. Consciousness is certainly connected with this world in
three ways:- (a) The same underlying processes which
occur in the external world also occur in the brain. (b) There must be a link
between the external world and our minds. (c) Quantum theory is a product of
the mind though it applies to the world.
The problem
is this - how can such a world create the macro-world? How does space and time
come out of this? This appears to turn round the question of the collapse of
the wave into a particle. Is this a real event or merely an illusion? A
collapse of this kind, however, is not unprecedented or inconceivable. A flock
of birds, for instance, distributed over an area may suddenly centre upon a
prey; attention which is diffuse may suddenly concentrate on a focal point;
water vapour may condense on a particle of dust; Gases condense to form stars.
In the case of the macro-world where objects consist of a great many particles,
there should be an average result or perception where opposites cancel out and
similars reinforce each other while other dissimilars produce a kind of haze
which may be below the threshold of perception. Or the object could be a system
in which all the particles have to find a state of adjustment and
equilibrium.
4. The next
revolutionary stage in science was due to studies in Complex Systems and Chaos.
The study of the behaviour of gases in steam engines led to the discovery of
the Laws of Thermodynamics. These apply to all macro-systems involving great
numbers of particles such as in the atmosphere and the seas, chemical reactions
in the body, the motion of electrons in the brain, populations of cells,
animals and human beings.
Every
system exists within some greater system. It receives energy from and radiates
energy into this greater system. The first Law of Thermodynamics is a Law of
Conservation of Energy which states that energy can be transformed but not
created or destroyed. It assumes that some metaphysical entity called energy
exists apart from the forms it takes. The Law depends on the fact that when one
form of energy is converted into another then there is a constant which relates
the way the two forms are measured. There does appear to be such a constant,
though recent ideas in Quantum Mechanics appear to deny this. Energy can come
out of nothing and disappear into it, provided an equal amount of energy and
anti-energy is created.
According to the second law of thermodynamics
energy always flows from an area of high concentration to an area of low
concentration. The system continues to change, losing energy to or gaining it
from its surroundings until its temperature is equal to the temperature of the
surroundings. The rate of heat loss is proportional to the difference in
temperature. The point where no further change takes place is its position of
equilibrium and is called the ‘attractor’ for the process. (Thus there is
direction, a purpose, a goal for every process). The system is said to have
‘free energy’ equal to the difference in temperature. A quantity known as
Entropy always increases. Thus the point of equilibrium is one of maximum
entropy or minimum free energy. Entropy may be loosely regarded as chaos or
disorder. The opposite of this, negentropy, may be regarded as order and is
equivalent to free energy.
Order may
also be defined as something which has low probability since it requires work
to produce it. Entropy is proportional to disorder and high probability. It is
easier to destroy something, say a china plate, than to reconstruct it. The
chance that the plate will reconstruct itself by random motion of the parts is
extremely small. Left to themselves things degenerate
into chaos and energy is required to reverse this.
Thus, we
need a cause to explain the arising of something with very low probability.
Causation and Information are notions associated with negentropy and low
probability. But where there is complete chaos nothing can be known. Knowledge
depends on the existence of order. Thus, we have a definition of knowledge and
truth which are also associated with Order. Causation, Information, Law,
knowledge or truth are equivalent. The Second Law of
Thermodynamics gives us the direction of Time.
According to
this Law, the Universe should Involve, ending in a
Heat Death. Evolution, the increase in negentropy, order or knowledge, is the
reverse of this involutionary process. This brings up the problem of how the
Universe happened to be in a state of maximum order in the first place and how
is evolution, increasing order, possible. Given completely random motion of
independent molecules in a gas, there is no reason whatever that the molecules
should not sometimes accumulate in one part of an area, disperse in various
ways, and accumulate in another area. All events would take place randomly.
This is not the observed case. Therefore, the assumptions regarding the
independence and randomness of particles must be abandoned.
The second
of these questions is answered by Chaos Theory. In the process of change
towards equilibrium, order can arise spontaneously. While the whole system is
running down, this does not necessarily apply to its parts where energy may
become concentrated. The sun radiates its energy which may be absorbed by the
planets. Thus states far from equilibrium are maintained, for a period, in the
parts because the amount absorbed may be greater than that radiated, thereby
allowing evolution in them. There are several levels and steps in these processes.
Though the Sun deteriorates evolution takes place on earth. On earth the plants
and animals use this energy for their growth. There is energy pouring out of
the centre of the Galaxy which the sun absorbs. In its rotation round the
galaxy the sun may also be scooping up hydrogen. The Galaxy may be receiving
energy from some centre of the Universe.
It may be
that the whole Universe has an attractor or point of equilibrium. However,
there are many local attractors which may bring a process to a dead end and
there may be very complex attractors such that the point of equilibrium is not
static but cyclic. This can be illustrated by a ball rolling down a hill.
Instead of reaching the bottom, it gets caught in some pocket on the slope.
Energy is required to get it out of this hole, but then it rolls down again
only to be caught in another pocket. And so on. The planets in their orbits
round the sun illustrate a cyclic attractor. There are ‘strange attractors’
which are so complex that the cycles never repeat themselves.
Consider
the following experiment:-
A liquid is
trapped between two clear glass discs. The molecules appear to be moving at
random in a disconnected way. Heat is applied to the bottom of disc so that it
passes through the liquid and out from the top. This causes various currents to
be set up in it. When the temperature difference between the top and bottom
reaches a critical point, patterns of cells are set up in the liquid. There is
a bifurcation point at which the molecules can take either of two structures.
Some take one course and others take the other. Each of these can take either
of two other alternative structures at the next crisis point created by a
supply of further heat. And so on. Hence the arising of ever
more complex patterns. The motion of the individual particles, however,
is unpredictable.
Systems
could be held far from equilibrium by the influx of energy from their
surroundings. The further it is away from equilibrium the greater the number of
possible alternative states it can be in. Thus structure and order,
‘self-organisation’ appears. If you tilt a bottle of water slowly, at first the
water will flow out smoothly, but as the tilt increases it begins to come out
in blobs showing sub-structures. As the number of these structures increases
far from equilibrium we again get chaos. A great number of systems showing
self-organisation have been created and studied in chemistry, physics, biology
and sociology.
This leads
one to the following conclusions:-
(a) The
phenomena is not explicable by attention to individual
molecules. Millions of molecules are moving in unison as if connected together.
Science which bases itself only on the study of the behaviour of only a few
molecules cannot give us a true picture. The whole is greater than the sum of
its parts.
(b) The
spontaneous organisation depends on a constant supply of energy at one end and
the maintenance of a difference between the two ends. The organisation of the
Universe may not have arisen from the supposed Big Bang but from a Centre which
is constantly supplying energy and maintaining a difference, an opposition
which the processes of nature are tending to reconcile. However, it is thought
that the expansion of the Universe causes the difference. On the other hand the
expansion of space may itself be the result Thermodynamics, the dispersal of
heat (i.e. chaotic energy).
(c)
Although the state of a system depends deterministically on its past history,
its future state is not predictable because of the bifurcations. Clearly the
choice of alternatives for every particle depends on which route it has taken
in the past. This defines a property of Time. The path of evolution and
involution for particles are, therefore, unpredictable. However, considering
the pattern in the whole, these paths must be determined. This also has
relevance to thinking and decision making. Indeed, when light is transmitted,
its particles, too, takes either of two paths.
(d) The
cause of organisation is not prior in time but above it, as it were, in the
temperature differences of the whole system in this case. The Universe cannot
arise from uniformity. A contrast is required between light and darkness so to
speak. There must a state A and a state B which gives rise to the state C. This
triad must arise from and disappear into a Unitary
state.
(e) There
is a synthesis of chance and determinism, chaos and order here. This is
distinguished from the popular view of chaos by the phrase “deterministic
chaos”. It is not chance. There are both external and inherent causes. The
chaos here is understood relative to order, and constitutes a separation. This
should be called “disorder” as distinct from the religious view of chaos which
refers to a homogenous condition. It is probable that failure to make the
distinction leads to confusion.
(f) The
bifurcations can be compared to a tree so that the history of any particular
structure is determined by its position on the tree. It is not possible for a
structure on one branch to change into another on a different branch.
(g) There
is a conflict between Thermodynamics which has a Time direction and the rest of
physics which has not. Order is central to one and mass and energy to the
other. This conflict must be resolved. Some new view of the Universe is
required.
(h) There
are several different states of stability rather than a continuous and gradual
change from one state to another. Transformations from one state to another
take place rapidly. e.g. ice into water and water into
steam. But each state has a certain stability against
change. Ice remains ice and water remains water through a range of
temperatures. The history of biological evolution and Human history also show
rapid changes from one state to another. It could be that a quantum, like
atoms, molecules, crystals and cells, is also one of the points at which
stability is achieved.
It could be
said that the individual particles adjust themselves to their surroundings.
Their behaviour is not mechanical but the result of interactions and mutual
communication. There is no absolute distinction between dead and living matter,
but only one of degree.
Several other ideas of fundamental importance have also arisen.
Emergence or Self-organisation. In a
system of interacting particles, A, B, C etc a wholeness, X, is created which
acts on the system to create a kind of order. However, the system may itself be
regarded as part of a still greater system and so on. Thus, the reverse is more
likely to be true, that the whole creates the local systems, rather than that
it emerges from the activities of its parts. The Universe, after all is a
single unit derived from a singularity by the Big Bang. The experiment
mentioned above shows that the order in the system depends on the environment
in which the system exists. In any case, the particles do not only possess
inertia and energy, they do not only interact, but they have another property
not hitherto known, namely the ability to merge to form an overall wholeness.
Thus, given an initial cause, a great complexity of organisation can arise
spontaneously. The cause of this is imminent in the system. Is there a Mind
associated with the Universe as whole which controls all parts of it?
The attractor need not be a single point but may be a line, curve,
circle or cycle in space and time, setting up patterns and rhythms which can be
observed throughout nature. Or it may be very complex such that its path never
repeats itself. These are called Strange Attractors and lead to deterministic
chaos. Though these may be known, a very small inaccuracy in describing the
initial conditions could create great departures from the predicted results.
This is why weather forecasts are often wrong. The strange attractors create
infinite possibilities even within finite areas.
Self-similarity.- something which has the same
average pattern at different levels or scales. One can divide the system into
smaller and smaller parts and still discover the same pattern. Mandelbrodt’s fractals are well known to computer owners. A
simple formula creates immensely complicated patterns when the results are
continuously fed back into the equation. Each part can be magnified to show
similar complexity, and each part of this part will do the same, and so on.
This is displayed throughout nature. The general shape of the tree is displayed
in its branches and twigs. The structure of the Universe is also displayed in
the atoms. This idea is also incorporated in the notion of Similitudes in the
Quran and reproduced in much Islamic Art and literature. The search for the
ultimate particles of which the Universe is composed is probably futile. And
this may equally be true about the search for the greatest whole in which all
things are contained. What is true is that at each
level there is a smaller or lower world as well as a greater or higher world.
It is probably necessary to think of them as being equivalent and relative.
The idea of dimensions has also changed. Real things cannot be described
by whole number dimensions. They are not smooth but rough because of the above
considerations. If we measure the distance between two towns on a coast, for
instance, then the distance will depend on the scale we use. Kilometres will
not give the same results as meters or centimetres. This is because using the
smaller scale we can go along much smaller curves. Thus 100 centimetres is not
equal to one meter, nor is 100 meters equal to one kilometre. We can speak
about fractions of a dimension, 1.28 for instance. The same considerations
apply to time. The relativity of time is part of the teachings of most
religions.
Chaos
Theories showed that science had been too simplistic. It isolated one factor,
(A), from a whole system in order to study its variation with respect to some
other factor, (B). While most of the laws by which scientific predictions are
carried out were linear (where one variable changes proportionally with
another), nature obeyed non-linear laws which depend on feedback and
reciprocity. (A) acts on (B) to produce an effect (C)
which then affects (A) or (B). You need heat, for instance, to burn coal. This
creates the heat required to burn it. Chemical actions may need catalysts, but
the chemical changes themselves create the catalysts. The effects become the
causes. We get cycles of events. The effects may be cumulative. Non-linear equations
did not give predictable results, since there are more
than one solution to them. It created turbulence. But turbulence was not
complete chaos. It contained smaller areas of order which could themselves be
broken down into still smaller areas of order and so on. The whole Universe
could be regarded as a system in turbulence caused by the processes of change
towards equilibrium.
The
discovery that the behaviour of large systems cannot be reduced to that of its
constituents has made the study of Complex Systems into a
independent Science. When water freezes, for instance, it forms crystals which
as in the case of snow displays elaborate patterns. These cannot be predicted
from the chemical or physical properties of the molecules of water. Knowledge
of physics does not enable us predict the existence of complex chemicals. The
study of chemistry does not enable us to predict the arising of the different
life forms, and Biological studies cannot predict the faculties of man or his
political systems. Each of these is a separate science. But it unifies all
other sciences in that the emergence of order applies to all things.
The
discoveries made by the science of complex systems may be summarised as
follows:-
(a) The
Universe or any system within it is a balance between chaos and order. The
world is not in a state of equilibrium but at the border line between the two.
Variety arises at the interface between order and disorder. Absolute Order
means that nothing new can ever arise. There is a fluctuation between increase
in order and increase in disorder, construction and destruction.
(b) The
behaviour of a system is not independent, but depends on the surrounding
systems.
(c) Order
comes out of chaos by the recursive application of simple rules. That is, the
rules are continually re-applied to the results of the application of the rule.
Auto-catalysis is a case in biological systems. Chaos alone allows an infinite
number of possibilities which would take an infinite time. Nature, however, is
selective and reduces these to a much smaller number by means of these
rules. There are, for instance, about
100,000 genes in the human genome. This fertilised egg divides about 50 times
and differentiates into only the 250 different cell types which account for the
different tissues in our bodies. Completely random combinations would be able
to produce 10^30,000 different cell types. This is greater than the number of
hydrogen atoms in the whole Universe. It is clear that there is no randomness
here.
(d) There are more
than one solution to the equations describing these systems. Given a set of
causes in the system there is more than one outcome. It is not at all necessary
that the best solution to a problem will be established. Thus, progress and
evolution with respect to any sub-system is not assured. Things can degenerate.
(e) These rules must be regarded as
pre-existing before creation (order) can come into being. The emergence of
order is a fundamental fact of nature and not explicable in terms of anything
else.
(f) The results of the study of complex
systems can be applied universally to all systems such as the weather,
ecological systems, physics, biology, sociology, economies, politics
and so on. Chaos and anti-chaos also apply to atoms, molecules and cells. The
Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, for instance, becomes only a special
case by which evolution takes place. Mutations may not be accidental but may
depend on forces inherent in the system to which organisms belong and that at
several levels.
There is a game known to most home computer users known as The Game of
Life. This consists of a surface drawn like graph paper, so that each square,
known as a cell, is surrounded by eight other squares. The square can be either
black or white according to certain simple rules. For instance if two cells in
its neighbourhood are white (alive), then it turns white (the cells reproduce).
If there are more than two the cell turns black (dies having been eaten by a
predator). These rules are continually applied from generation to generation
and all kinds of patterns emerge. There are four kinds of patterns:- fixed, periodic, chaotic, and a combination of the three.
It is in this fourth kind that all the interesting changes are to be
discovered.
The
Catastrophe Theory is also worthy of mention. There are a great number of
phenomena in which energy is applied gradually to an object and no visible
changes take place. Then, when a certain threshold is reached, there is a
sudden change. Switches and thermostats work in this way. It is as if energy is
needed to take a ball up a slope, and having reached the top, only a little
push will cause it to roll down the other side or, indeed, any side. Many
phenomena are poised on a tip, as it were and could undergo dramatic changes in
one of many directions by adding a very small amount of energy.
The Science
of Complexity is, however, a very young science and not yet fully formed or
accepted. The main objection to it by scientists is not that it is unproved or
useful, but that it sounds mystical. No doubt the younger generation of
scientists will have a more flexible mind. In order to understand the results
of the Theory of Complex Systems consider the following simplified diagram:-
Fig. 11a
and Fig. 11b are two different views of the same thing. Fig. 11a looks at the
different levels vertically while Fig. 11b sees one level as included in the
higher. It looks at Fig. 11a from the top downwards. At the lowest level we
have three sets of three interacting particles, objects or systems represented
by small dark circles. (We take three as the lowest number for convenience.
there may be any number). Each set produces emergent phenomena at level 2,
represented by the middle sized light grey circles. They act on the systems at
the lowest level to exert an organising force. The three emergent phenomena at
level 2 also interact and produce the emergent phenomena represented by the
large white circle at the top, which in its turn acts on the level 2 to exert
an organising force. We have to study three levels because the phenomena at
level 2 is not merely the result of the interactions at the lowest level, but
also of the forces coming from the higher level.
It should
be noted that we get a mechanistic view of the system if we only look at things
from below upwards. This is represented by the upward pointing arrow on the
left side. We get a mystical view of things if we look only from above
downwards. This is represented by the downward pointing arrow. However, there
is a third way of looking at things, namely the vitalist, and this applies to
the middle level and is shown by the horizontal arrow. Thus the three different
ways of looking at things are combined in the diagram.
This view
of Reality is much more compatible with the notion of Allah in the Quran, in
that He is both transcendental and imminent in the Universe as well as having a
personal aspect; the notion of ‘Surrender’ which requires that the world is the
result of interactions, and that a sub-system must adjust itself to higher
systems or suffer tensions which destroy it; and it conforms to the observation
that the Universe displays order and patterns everywhere in different
combinations and variations. The significant thing about the Universe is the
continual separation of order from disorder. This requires the previous
separation between a point of concentrated energy and a point of low energy.
This difference has to be explained. How does a previous homogeneity produce
this difference, particularly as the second law of thermodynamics requires the
homogeneity to be recreated. Perhaps, involution and
evolution are balanced and there is a Law of Conservation of Information, or
something even more fundamental
The best
way to understand phenomena is probably as follows:-
The
fundamental particles are wave-like so that they have certain wavelengths,
amplitudes and frequencies. The combination of particles will then produce a
combination of waves. We will get beats which are also rhythms having their own
wavelengths, amplitudes and frequencies. A number of particles will then act in
unison, their arrangement being determined by these higher harmonics. Particles
would also react to each other through resonance. The particle itself is a
point of coincidence of waves in a Field. It would probably be better to study
nature in terms of Fields containing vibrations and rhythms. The study of
vibrations should become an independent science and this would unite all other
sciences. Every form of matter does in fact vibrate. Its shape also determines
what it will resonate to. According to most religions the fundamental cause of
phenomena is the Word, or Sound and this may be regarded as referring to
vibrations.
----------<O>----------
Cosmology
Physics recognises two kinds of particles: -
(a) Matter - All the objects we see can be divided into sub-units,
crystals, cells etc, which can be further divided into molecules and these into
atoms. Whereas atoms were described as the smallest units of matter at one
time, they have been analysed still further. They contain a nucleus consisting
of protons and neutrons around which there are electrons circling in various
orbits. But the units of matter in the nucleus have also been divided into a
great number of other particles. It is likely that they all consist of
different combinations of what are today regarded as fundamental particles, the
quarks. The nature of the particles becomes ever more strange the greater the
analysis.
According to one theory, the quarks are formed from neutrinos and they
are also connected by neutrinos. The neutrinos are able to turn into electrons
(matter) or positrons (anti-matter) depending on what experiments are
performed, that is, on the actions of the observer or the situation. They are,
of course, like electrons, bundles of information or probability, ghosts, which
only collapse into particles when they come in contact with something. The
Universe may, therefore, be regarded as a field of such neutrinos. Being
electrically neutral they cannot, of course, be known except when they produce
the effect. The Universe is uncertain and becomes a certainty only after an
act. Note also that a matter atom is neutral though it has negatively charged
electrons in its orbit and an equal positively charged nucleus. We may,
therefore, suppose that the Universe consists of both matter and anti-matter,
the latter being trapped within the former. We could, of course, conceive of a
Universe where the atoms were reversed, positive outside and negative within.
There are 3 forms of matter:- (a) positive matter (e.g. electron with
negative charge), (b) anti-matter (e.g. positron which is an exact copy of an
electron but it has positive charge and can be regarded as moving backwards in
time.) (c) neutral matter (e.g. Neutrino, a particle
like an electron with no charge. Other particles, including quarks have their
antimatter equivalents. Thus a pair of particles can arise out of nothing and
combine into nothing. A great number of particles have been found with various
weights and charges, some resembling electrons and protons, but of different
masses. It is not inconceivable that matter of kinds not known to Chemistry
exist which are organisations of these other particles.
There are 18 different quarks
with names such as:- strange, charm, beauty, truth, up
and down, top and bottom. The electric charges on them are multiples of 1/3
that of an electron. Each particle such as Proton and Neutron consists of 3
quarks. They have no size and are not independent. That is, single ones cannot
exist. They can turn into one another and the wholeness of a particle appears
to dictate the nature of each. As already mentioned they are not particles
having location but wavelike. They are also adaptable like life and diffuse
like consciousness. Space is produced by the distances between them. On the
neutron one Up and 2 Downs
give +2/3, -1/3, -1/3 which cancel out, creating a neutral particle. In the
Proton there is an excess charge of one, 2 Ups and one Down giving +2/3 + 2/3
-1/3 = +1. The quarks are held together by a force known as “Colour” carried by
gluons. This is in excess of what is required for the particle, hence it leaks
out to hold other particles to form the Nucleus of the atom. The excess
positive charge attracts electrons of negative charge which orbit round the
nucleus. The atom is described as consisting of the nucleus and the orbiting
electrons. The quarks, as there is some kind of relationship between them, and
the charge goes up by 1/3, cannot be the fundamental particles. They are
probably different combinations of something even more fundamental. 3 appears to be a fundamental number. Atoms combine into
molecules by sharing electrons, and molecules may similarly combine into
crystals and cells by sharing electrons. An electric current is produced when
electrons travel from atom to atom in series.
(b) Interactions - Four are recognised:-
gravity (the weakest, attracting all material objects. The concept ‘mass’ is
associated with it and a hypothetical particle which carries it is called a
graviton.), electromagnetism (keeping the atoms in the molecule and the
molecules together. The concept ‘charge’ is associated with it and refers to
its power to couple with a photon which is the particle through which
interaction takes place.), the weak force (as in radio-activity which has a
particle known as W.) and the strong nuclear forces (keeping the nucleus
together by means of gluons interacting between quarks). Photons can be
absorbed or emitted by electrons and can split into an electron-positron pair.
And these two can combine to form photons. Gluons have the same relationship
with quarks but there are several types and they can combine with and change
into each other. W is like a photon or gluon having spin 1 and can change one
quark into another. It may be a form of photon.
A fifth force, the Higg’s force, carried by bosons, has recently been
postulated which binds the fundamental particles together to create mass, These
forces account for all processes throughout the Universe. It is thought that
the four forces, The strong nuclear, the weak, gravity and electromagnetism
were originally a single fundamental force which differentiated at some time in
the beginning of the Universe by changes of phase in a manner similar to ice
changing into water and then into vapour. We could, therefore speak of
different levels of existence. This is compatible with the Islamic view.
Interaction between material particles is thought to take place by the exchange
of interaction particles such as gravitons and photons. These can combine to
create structured fields which allow interactions at a distance, e.g. the sun
and the earth. The space between them is not empty but filled by this field.
If the strength of the Nuclear force is equal to 1, then Gravity is 10-39,
electromagnetism is 10-2, the weak force is
10-5. Thus Gravity being extremely weak, its effects in the nucleus,
atoms and molecules can be neglected. It becomes significant only in large
masses such as planets and stars. There could be forces between these two extremes,
i.e. between 10-10 to 10-25. There could also be other
even weaker or stronger forces.
Energy comes in small indivisible packets called quanta which are the
basic building blocks of the universe. But they are both a particle and a wave.
However, Einstein had shown that inertial mass and gravitational mass were the
same thing. Inertia is resistance to change, to energy. Since gravity is
attraction, it requires energy to pull things apart, implying that the unitary
state is the natural one. Therefore, gravity is negative energy. We could,
therefore, dispense with the notion of matter altogether. It is merely inertia.
What keeps a planet from falling into the sun is the energy of its motion. It follows that matter is no longer the same
as the popularly view of it, as being inert and having only mass. The term
should be replaced with the word substance which refers to that of which things
are made, as distinct from their organisation and the laws regulating their
behaviour.
(It would be more compatible with the religious view if 7 forces were
recognised. The other two would lie at a higher level, arising later in the
history of evolution. Perhaps there is a bio-force responsible for the
phenomena of life and a psychic-force responsible for psychological phenomena.
As we shall see later many biological phenomena cannot be explained in terms of
physical ones, and many psychological ones cannot be explained in purely
biological terms.)
(c) Information - no qualitative study of information and its
relationships have been made. It will probably be necessary to have some kind
of theory about information as an order creating factor because the existence
of the Universe can ultimately only be explained by the introduction of order.
Present information theory is linked to logic and computers, so that
information is quantised in bits by assuming that there are only two states 0
and 1, no and yes. This is surprising in view of quantum theory. It should have
at least three terms - impossible, possible (or uncertain) and certain. This
would conform better to nature. However, it is true that light and the
radiations which carry information do come in discrete impulses rather than in
continuous variations. The nerve cells either fire or do not. But it is often impossible
to calculate whether they will or not. This is similar to the impossibility of
calculating whether a wave function will collapse into a particle or not.
Information is the opposite of chaos and requires some kind of repetition or
regularity. But the perception of this depends on our powers of discrimination.
Things appearing similar may on minute examination turn out to have
dissimilarities, and things appearing to be dissimilar may be different
combinations of similar elements.
It is now thought that there are Fields of Potentiality which contain
the information which determines what will happen when energy is introduced
into them. The Universe is no longer seen as arising out of “Nothing”. Or
rather, “Nothing” is no longer nothing, though it is
nothing in the sense that it is neither matter nor energy. There are said to be
37 kinds of fields which would explain all known phenomena. There may be others
giving rise to hitherto unknown possibilities. It may be asserted that physics
is no longer interested in the study of matter, but in these Fields, which may
be regarded as the Mind of Allah. It has also been suggested that there is a
single Ultimate Field which gives rise to and determines the nature of these
other fields, and which may produce still others. It seems clear, that there
can be no explanation for the existence of that Ultimate Field.
The notion of matter has, therefore, undergone a revolutionary change.
It used to be thought that matter was dead, inert and each bit was separated
from others by empty space. It is now known that it is in a state of motion and
vibration, that this is integral to its existence since mass is energy. All
material things are reducible to structures, at various levels, made ultimately
out of atoms which are so tiny that they are invisible even through
microscopes. Each atom consists of a positively charged nucleus where its mass
is concentrated and this is orbited by negatively charged electrons. Electrons
create an electrical field, and are waves in this field. It is not possible to
say that it is located at any particular point in an orbit,
A particle could be regarded as a field with a centre of concentration, the
intensity of which drops off with distance from the centre - almost like a
living cell. A group of particles would create a collective field having a
structure. There is, therefore, no empty space. Indeed space could be regarded
as something integral to the particles. The particle could be regarded as
something which manifests or represents the field in a manner similar to the
policeman who represents the law. There are massless photons which represent
the electromagnetic field and these can be absorbed or emitted and exchanged
between electrons. All chemical reactions and events in the world, as we see
it, depend on these processes.
The nucleus, which accounts for the mass, is a thousand times smaller
than the atom. The atom is, therefore, mostly empty of solid matter. This
nucleus consists of nucleons - protons which are positively charged and neutrons
which are electrically neutral. Whereas the proton is fairly stable, the
neutron can decay into a triad of three particles a proton, an electron and a
neutrino. Since an element is described by the number of its nucleons (and the
number of electrons must be equal to the number of protons), the decay of the
neutron causes the element to change into another element. These particles are
held together by another non-electrical force, the strong nuclear force. This
acts only at a short range and is attractive but becomes repulsive at still
shorter distances, thereby keeping the particles separate. However, the nucleus
can be broken up by bombarding it with other high energy particles. This
creates a great number of other kinds of short lived particles. The number of
different fragments, however, is finite, all the particles in a group are
identical, and there are definite proportions and symmetries between the
different particles.
All particles have anti-particles - there is matter and anti-matter and
the two can annihilate each other releasing energy. Perhaps a third neutral
form of matter should also be recognised. Three kinds of particles are regarded
as indivisible - quarks, leptons and gauge bosons. Quarks are said to come in 6
“flavours” - up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm, each of which can be in
one of 3 “colours” - red, yellow and blue - thus giving us 18 varieties.
Leptons are of 12 types - electrons, muons and tau, three corresponding
neutrinos, and the six anti-particles of each. There are 3 kinds of bosons
which are responsible for the three forces - The gravitational which gives
mass, the electro-magnetic which gives charge, and the strong nuclear which
keeps the nucleus together. Electricity and magnetism were regarded as separate
things at one time, and a third, the weak nuclear force, was also regarded as
independent, but they are now seen to be connected. The gravitational force is
thought to arise from the exchange of gravitons; the electromagnetic by an
exchange of photons between electrons; and the strong nuclear by an exchange of
gluons between quarks and anti-quarks. Other particles are made up of these and
are called Hadrons. There are two types - Baryons such as Protons and Neutrons
which make up the nuclei of atoms and consist of 3 quarks, and Mesons
consisting of a quark-anti-quark pair. There appear to be only three stable
particles - protons, electrons and neutrinos. It would seem that if the bosons
are exchanged between quarks, then quarks cannot be fundamental after all. Nor can
the leptons for the same reason. It is much more likely that it is the bosons
which are fundamental units, and that these derive from a single one, perhaps
the photon or even the graviton.
All particles are constantly moving, vibrating and changing. Particles
are said to have spin - that is, they look different from different angles.
Spin 0 means that they look the same from all angles. Spin 1 means that they
look the same when turned through 360 degrees. Spin 2 means that they look the
same when turned through 180 degrees. These spins account for force particles.
But the matter particles have a spin of 1/2 which means that they have to be
turned through 720 degrees (rotated twice) to look the same. The Pauli Exclusion Principle applies to them - that two similar
particles cannot have the same position and velocity at the same time. This
follows from the Uncertainty principle. It ensures that matter particles remain
separate but only within the limits of the velocity of light. Note that at this
level we have some kind of symmetry based on multiples of 3. We have positive,
negative and neutral. It could be that there are not 6 quark “flavours” but 9
(3x3), or that 3 of these “flavours” are distinct from the other three and
should be called something else, so that including “colour” we have 3x3x3=27
varieties of quark. We will return to these numbers in another chapter. An
explanation for these numbers may be that human perception is relative, and
relationships require 3 factors - two relata and a relating factor. Since
relativity itself must be relative to something, the Absolute, then a triad
always emerges from an underlying unknown unity.
The distinction
which classical physics made between mass, energy and force has disappeared.
These particles are, of course, waves of probability and not actualities and
consist of fields. Order comes out spontaneously as each particles
tries to adjust itself to its surroundings. Information may, therefore, be
regarded as an effect of this adjustment, or conversely, its cause. It enters
from the environment, the whole, into the part. Order, after all, means that
some kind of diffuse influence connects the parts. This is a characteristic of
consciousness. The emphasis in the study of particles has shifted from
describing their characteristics to describing their interactions. Two or more
may react to form another set with certain probabilities - A+B = C+D, and D+A+G
= E+F and so on. All these reactions can be illustrated graphically as a
Matrix, and no particle has any reality apart from this matrix.
But since these forces are distinct, the particles and the fields
associated with them are also distinct. They are vibrating between a negative
and positive state. Scientists are trying to find a theory which will combine
these three forces into a single formula. We also have a Quantum field from
which particles may spontaneously appear and into which they may disappear.
This can happen for instance by the appearance of a triad, a positive proton, a
negative anti-proton and a neutral pion without flouting the law of
conservation of energy. The pion then re-combines the other two and all three
disappear. The particle itself can be regarded as being surrounded by a cloud
of what are called virtual particles since they constantly come out of the
particle and disappear into it in a very short time. When two or more particles
come sufficiently near each other they may transfer or exchange these virtual
particles, thereby transferring energy. A particle must, therefore, have a
structure. If it did not, it could not react with others. There can, then, be
no fundamental particles. These entities are not particles in the usual sense
but processes. It is, therefore, thought that a particle is an area of
transformation in which reactions are taking place - some kinds of energy
entering it and other kinds leaving it. It is a channel.
One of the consequences of the Field theory is that local events, on the
earth for instance, are affected by and affect events in remote places, in
distant galaxies for instance. The motion of masses in one place produces
gravitational waves which carries away some of their energy to distant places,
just as light waves carry away the energy produced by moving electrons.
Certainly, the intensity of the gravity of the earth, and therefore, mass, can
only be understood relative to the total gravity of the Universe. The Quantum
Field is different from the world we know. According to Quantum Theory the spin
of an electron is undifferentiated until it is measured. The act of measurement
gives it a definite spin. Suppose we have a system composed of two electrons
spinning in opposite directions so that their total spin is known to be zero.
Suppose now that one of these moves off to a distant place. Then if we measure
the spin of one of them here, this will determine the spin of the other
instantly. The limits imposed by the speed of light do not apply. An action
here has caused an event elsewhere. If speed is distance divided by time
(s=d/t), then if the time taken is 0, speed must be infinite. Or since the
formula can be written st=d, then if st=0, d=0. There is no space. There is, therefore, a
connection between things which lies outside space. At this level space is an
illusion.
The Quantum field could, perhaps, be regarded as what has been called
the Void in Eastern Philosophies since it is inaccessible to human observation.
The vibrations in it may be called the Word of God and the field itself may be
called the Spirit or Chi which carries the Word, but is also created by it.
There may also be a Sub-quantum or Absolute Field which is completely
undifferentiated and accounts for events or vibrations in the Quantum Field. At
this level the distinction between the three forces should disappear. But if it
does, then in so far as knowledge is relative, it cannot be known. The ultimate
cause is integral to this field and cannot be a cause as usually defined, but a
purpose or intention. A photon could be regarded as a knot formed at points of
convergence in a network of forces underlying the electromagnetic.
If the description of an entity requires both space and time, and there
is no independent space but only space-time, then there are no objects but only
events. The combination of events is also an event. But an event can only be
perceived as a pattern or order, one event being distinguished from another by
the difference in order. The difference between different kinds of energy is
described by their frequencies, wavelengths and amplitudes. This requires
space, time and number. Perception, however, is relative. Some events happen so
fast with respect to others that they are seen as a whole by the latter, and
this produces the impression that they are static objects. Any event could be
seen as an object by one observer, while an object could be seen as an event by
another - an observer can be defined as any entity which is affected by an
event. Within the nucleus the motion of the particles is so fast that
relativistic as well as quantum effects must be taken into consideration -
space and time become different from what they are to us.
Matter is, therefore, no longer material in the usual sense. It consists
of entities which are diffuse, spinning, oscillating and moving round each
other; they are constantly colliding, combining, separating, being formed and
annihilated. Each bit of matter is affected by the surrounding matter and
nothing is separate or has an independent existence. No object, in fact, is
known directly, but only by its interactions and relationships with others. It
is not an independent entity. The whole always defines the parts and not the
other way round.
If we substitute an organism for a particle, we can see that most of
these ideas also apply to organisms. A human being, for instance, cannot exist
in isolation but is connected genetically, socially, culturally, organically,
economically and materially with other human beings and other things. Food,
water and energy enters into them, are transformed and
expelled. They are transformation devices. The circulation of matter and energy
connects all organisms. A human being cannot, in fact, be identified with his
material body since material is constantly passing into and out of him. The
same applies to the particles of matter.
A so called Bootstrap Theory has been proposed which does not accept
anything as fundamental but regards all things as interdependent so that each
element - mass, particles, forces, interactions and laws - is upheld by all the
others, regulated by its own self-consistency. But this seems to be an
untenable attitude since this self-consistency itself must be described, no
doubt in mathematical terms, and then becomes the fundamental reality for which
there is no explanation.
We conclude that:-
(a) Fundamentally, the whole Universe forms a single unified field, like
a net or an ocean in which waves arise and disappear.
(b) The Universe is dynamic with constant flux and change. It is
constantly being created and recreated at every level. Thus attachment to fixed
forms leads to suffering and destruction
(c) Yet there is something constant, regular, lawful, ordered and
rhythmic about these changes.
(d) There is a Field of probabilities of which the actual universe is a
sub-system.
(e) Each particle can be thought of as consisting of a bundle of information
or order and there is a constant exchange of information between things.
(f) Things possess a certain amount of autonomy. They are not only alive
but must also be regarded as conscious to various degrees since the adjustment
which each piece makes to its surroundings requires a degree of cognition and
motivation.
(g) There are levels of existence. It has to be observed that this
description of the quantum world does not come from direct observation but from
observation of scientific instruments. We have a complex situation where the
particles are created, and another complex situation where the effects are
recorded and measured, e.g. in a Cloud Chamber. We do not see the particle but
merely make calculations regarding the connection between these two situations.
We are dealing with another level of reality, a world underlying that which is
perceived by man. The world of bacteria which we see through microscopes and
the Universe which we see through telescopes are, of course still other levels
of existence.
(h) Since all things are inter-connected, it is not possible to study
things in isolation from one another. Doing this produces only approximations
to various degrees, not certainties. Certainty arises only when the
relationship of a part to the absolute whole is known.
(i) The perceptions, motives, actions,
interpretations and calculations of the experimenter are involved in the
results of the experiment. Science cannot, therefore, be anything other than an
interaction of man with his environment, and is not an objective process is the
classical sense. The observer is, in fact, a participant.
(j) It is not unlikely that an object described as a system of
inter-connected quantum particles can cover huge areas of space-time, that
several such objects can inter-penetrate each other, and that the same
particles can form parts of several objects at the same time.
(k) A study of quantum events requires many more dimensions than the
four of space-time which describe the world we are familiar with. It appears
that all these other dimensions have somehow curved into themselves. They may
be regarded as inner dimensions and could possibly account for certain types of
conscious experiences.
Many scientists have noted that the conclusions of the New Physics are
identical to the doctrines of Eastern Mystical systems based on the
investigation of states of consciousness. The basic teachings of all Religion
which derive from such sources endeavour to construct a way of life compatible
with this insight. This applies not only to the fundamental unity of existence,
but to its corollary, that the pair of opposites must derive from and return to
this Unity. In physics unification has been achieved between particles and
waves, space and time, mass and energy, existence and non-existence, constancy
and change. This gave rise to the notion of “Complementarity” - that things can be described by opposite notions. This idea
resembles the notion of Yang and Ying as found in Chinese Philosophy, an idea
also found in the Quran.
“All things have We
created by pairs, that haply you might reflect. Therefore, flee unto (the Unity
of) Allah.” Quran 51:49-50 and also 36:35
However, the interaction between particles is said to take place by
virtual particles since they are invisible and short lived. There is an
invisible third factor involved in all reactions. When a moving electron
receives a photon emitted by another electron, only then will both change their
direction or state of motion. Indeed the photon creates the pair of opposites -
electron and positron. The photon being neutral is itself invisible, but it is
the unit of light and all other electromagnetic radiations which are also
invisible. This third force is probably what is regarded as the Spirit of God,
and is, therefore, involved in all phenomena including enlightenment.
The universe appears to be composed of, connected together and operated
by means of forces which are in a state of vibration which can be described by
their frequencies, amplitudes and wavelengths. The orbits of the electrons
within the atom are determined by their wave nature. Vibrations can combine
together to form beats which are also vibrations of other frequencies.
Vibrations produce the phenomena of Resonance. That is, they can induce
vibrations in objects according to their structures and the frequency of the
vibration. There are, therefore, rhythms throughout the Universe and in all
objects which are related to each other. Human beings and other organisms, for instance,
have bio-rhythms which are connected with the motion of the earth and the moon,
the alternation of day and night, and the changes of the seasons. It is not
unlikely that, because the motions of other planets affect the gravitational
and electrical fields of the earth, they will also affect biological systems.
This is not to say that Astrological statements are true. The motion of the sun
and the planets are probably connected with even greater universal rhythms.
Resonance is a means by which information can be transmitted and acquired. The
phrase “The Music of the Spheres” is well known and has come down to us from
ancient times, but no concerted scientific investigation has yet been made into
this phenomena. The harmony of the Universe is, however, a central theme in
Religions. Though not yet understood in science, there is a belief in Islamic
and Eastern systems that there is what might be called a hologramic effect, so
that the totality is also reflected in the parts, and can, therefore, be seen when
awareness is sufficiently deep. A part can, therefore, be used as a symbol or
analogy for an aspect of the whole and vice versa. Instead of exploring the
external world of matter, we could explore our internal world and reach even
more direct knowledge.
----------<O>----------
If time is a dimension then the interesting possibility of time travel
arises. This could happen in several ways. We are, of course, all travelling
forward in time. But we could be travelling forward at different rates depending
on the speeds of our metabolisms and nervous activities, and it may be possible
to travel backwards. Certainly, if two objects travel forward at different
speeds then one will be going backwards with respect to the other. If a person
travelled away from this planet at a speed near the speed of light then all
processes in him would slow down compared to those on earth. When he returned
to the earth he may find that though he has aged only one year his twin brother
has aged by 10 years. He ends up in the latter’s future. If, however, it were
possible to travel at faster than the speed of light, then the sequence of
events would reverse themselves.
Instead of causes being prior to effects, then they would catch up with
these effects and move into their future. The traveller would end up in the
past.
Space-time is thought to be curved. This means that there could be short
cuts in hyper-space between any two points. This can be seen if we curve a
piece of paper. These short cuts could be formed by what are called wormholes
formed when the natural fluctuations of space-time become linked. Unfortunately
they are thought to be as small as the circumference of atoms with a lifetime
of fractions of a second. Perhaps technology can manipulate and make them
usable. But this requires enormous amounts of energy. On the other hand,
hyper-space may really exist and ways of travelling in it can be found. But
this involves turning materials into a non-material form and back again. It is
no different from disappearing and reappearing again as claimed for some saints
in religions. Perhaps, hyper-space-time is heaven, the other parallel world!
Time travel presents us with problems. If it becomes possible in the
future, then we ought to be visited by people from the future. Perhaps we
cannot see, recognise or believe them. Perhaps, they descend from
hyper-space-time and claim to come from heaven. The possibility exists that a
person travels into the past causes changes there which alter the future - he
might kill one of his ancestors. He would then not exist and could not travel
to the past to make such alterations. Nature appears to prevent the arising of
such contradictions. This requires some kind of unknown law. It is possible
that an object travels into the past collides with itself in such a way that it
imparts to itself the very impulse which governs its future motion where that
collision occurs. It could not act in any other way. This would create a closed
self-maintaining circle. These considerations show us that Time cannot, in
fact, be regarded as a dimension like those of space. No such contradictions
arise when travelling in space. Time remains a mystery despite Einstein’s
description of it. From the religious point of view it is an aspect of God.
Time is not measured by change and motion, but these are measured by Time. It
has both subject and objective elements and, therefore, refers to the
relationship between a part and the whole to which it belongs.
For every particle there is said to be an anti-particle with the same
mass and opposite charge - an electron has a positron, a proton has a negatron
and so on. A neutral photon is its own opposite. We may regard a positron as an
electron travelling backward in time. A photon may split into an
electron-positron pair or a positron and electron may combine to form a photon.
We can represent this in a diagram where the vertical axis represents time and
horizontal axis represents space.
The photon P1 splits into an electron E2 and a positron Po at B, or the
positron Po combines with the electron E1 at A
to form the photon P2. The positron Po splits
into an electron E2 and a photon P1 at B, or into P2 and E1 at A. The reaction
can be regarded as beginning with the Photon P1 and ending with the Photon P2,
or as beginning with the electron E1 and ending with the electron E2. Since the
positron has travelled backwards in time we see that though the event A takes
place in the future of B, logically A should take place before B. How can P1
produce Po at B if it was not created until A?
This can only be understood if Time is not passing, but a dimension and the
whole diagram is regarded as “Now”, a single unit of perception. There are
difficulties in thinking of time in any other way. If time is passing and
constantly coming from the future to the present and going into the past, then
if we think of the present as reality, it cannot exist. As soon as we have
grasped it, it has gone and become the past. It is the observer who is
travelling not time, and his unit of perception is short. For a Being who can
see all time as a single Unit, there is no past or future. Time must be
regarded as having a subjective element. People regarded as mystics tell us
that they can, indeed, experience all time as a single percept. The notions of
immortality are clearly connected with this.
The Universe shows not only (a) extremes in size in space and extremes
of duration in time, but also (b) changes in the dimensions of space and time,
and (c) extremes in complexity. Whereas the behaviour of one particle may be
simple, the complexity of interactions and relationships increases the greater
the number of particles. The whole, moreover, shows behaviour not contained in
the parts, and the behaviour of the whole varies with the way the parts are
organised. Thus, though the idea that some force, phlogiston, is involved in
fire and that “élan vital” is involved in life, has become unpopular, the fact
remains that the information by which a structure is described has an effect
and that it can even reproduce as in the case of genes. It organises materials
and cannot be identified with those materials. We cannot explain an object
merely by the materials it is composed of. The organisation of atoms,
molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals, conscious man, and even the
artefacts, machines and computers produced by man, planets, stars, galaxies
etc. all require a particular environment in which they can arise and exist.
The fundamental particles, for instance, needed particular conditions in the
early evolution of the universe, the elements needed
particular environments in the sun, the molecules needed the environment on
earth, and so on. There is no essential distinction between dead, living and
conscious organisations. Computers are silicon based and require carbon based
organisms (man) to catalyse their development. But they may later reproduce
themselves. There may be other organisations made of other materials, even
sub-atomic ones or they may arise given suitable conditions.
Information refers to the amount of order contained in things. Entropy
is disorder. Heat is the result of disorder. Heat is measured as temperature.
Given a number of particles moving around they can be arranged in a great
number of ways which are equally probable. There is total chaos and entropy is
at maximum. This gives us no information. If there is some kind of order which
persists, then this order occurring by itself is improbable. But it is order
which gives us information. Therefore, the amount of information is
proportional to its improbability. For order to exist we need an explanatory
cause which forces this to happen. A cause makes it probable. This gives us
information. Hence we need causes to give us information. These two terms are
inter-dependent. They are also inter-dependent because consciousness requires a
stimulus which is a contrast or opposition. This opposition and the interaction
between them constitutes a triad. Consciousness may be
regarded as a third factor which reconciles the opposition by means of an
explanation. The explanation is one way in which man adjusts to the greater
system, the world he lives in. The explanation must correspond to the cause of
the opposition and the interaction between them. The explanation, the cause and
the interaction also form a triad. But there must be a Unity from which they
arise.
According to the Laws of Thermodynamics, energy can only flow from a
place of great heat to a place of lesser heat, not the reverse unless even more
energy is expended to do this. That is, entropy or disorder must always
increase. This gives us the direction of Time. However, it may flow faster or
slower. It seems obvious, therefore, that the Universe will suffer a Heat
death, and that it must have started with very low entropy or maximum order, by
the introduction of Information at one instant. (Allah created the Universe
with Truth. 15:85)
The Black Holes are formed when there is an extremely massive object so
that its gravity is great enough to attract everything, including light. It has
no volume since everything is squashed into a point. Time has stretched to
become eternal. This is because the force of gravity increases the more things
are condensed, and the greater, then, is the condensation. The mystery is this:- Which of these, gravity, space or time are responsible
for this. There is no way of determining this from Einstein’s formulae. None of
the Laws of physics apply within it. It has an event horizon within which
nothing can escape. We can, therefore, see nothing within it since no light escapes. Everything falling into it is taken out of
the known Universe! It is found that (a) When matter
falls into it all information is lost, but mass, angular momentum and charge
are retained. These can be added according to the Law of conservation of
energy. (b) The gravitational field at the horizon is always uniform and (c)
the surface area of the horizon was equal to the entropy of the Black Hole and
the gravitational field was proportional to the Temperature. This means that
the Laws of the Black Hole become Laws of Thermodynamics. The entropy is the
number of different ways in which the particles in the Black Hole can be
arranged. When something falls into it, it becomes disorganised and its
information is lost. Therefore the area of the horizon is proportional to the
loss of information.
Gravity, evidently, has some connection with heat. Gravity and Heat are
opposites since one causes contraction and the other
expansion. There is some connection between gravity and information. Gravity,
too, has only one direction, to attract.
But a contradiction arose. If the Black hole absorbs everything, then,
because it cannot radiate, its temperature should be zero. This contradiction
was solved by Quantum mechanics which requires that the gravitational field is
not constant but fluctuates. This creates a pair of matter/anti- matter
particles near the horizon. The matter particle is radiated outwards appearing
to come from the Black Hole. It radiates heat back into space. The anti-matter
is absorbed by the Black hole where it annihilates a matter particle. This
presumably recreates information. Therefore, the Black hole has a tendency to
gradually disappear but for the fact that it is also absorbing matter. It is
therefore, a matter transformer, absorbing and radiating. It both annihilates
and creates matter as well as information. Within it we have perfect
homogeneity where nothing can be distinguished. There is no space but only
Eternity here. Here relativity and Quantum mechanics are united through
thermodynamics. The Universe may have come out of it and may return into it.
Though there may be many Black Holes in space with varying sized horizons they
may be each regarded as doorways to the same reality existing beyond the
Universe.
The Universe expands, and does so uniformly in all directions. The
further a star is from us the faster does it recede.
If we go backward in time it must at one time have occupied no space with
infinite density. Thus the Universe arose from a Big Bang explosion from this Primeval atom. But we can only see that part of the Universe
from which we receive light. Not only is it the case that we cannot see about
90% of the matter required to explain its gravitation, but since the speed of
light is 300,000 km per second, we cannot see any part of the Universe which is
receding at greater than that speed. Total Reality may be infinitely greater
than our visible Universe. The size of the visible Universe is 15 billion light
years in radius and its age since the Big Bang is about 15 billion years. When the
Universe was 10-35 seconds old, it would have been 1 cm across. But this is too
large for the contents to be in causal contact with each other by a factor of
3x10-25. To allow such contact and explain the uniformity of the Universe, it
is supposed that the expansion rate in the past must have been much faster,
gradually slowing down. It is possible that if the original state was chaotic
having various rates of expansion in different places, then the correct rate
could have occurred in a very small region of the totality. This Universe is
then a small part of the totality. But if this is so then any variations which
existed in the initial conditions of the universe would have disappeared. They
could not be known and no calculations could be made as to how the changes to
present conditions took place and what the laws of transformation were.
The picture which emerges is as follows:- (A)
There is an infinite fundamental or Absolute field in which random fluctuations
are taking place whose nature is unknown and cannot be known. (U1) At various
regions in this the conditions are right for a chain reaction or an explosion
to take place, a sudden inflation, a Big Bang. Each such region can trigger
similar inflation within or outside it, at some future date, which can trigger
even further regions of inflation. There may, therefore, be a series of them -
a series of Proto-Universes. (U2) In one or more of these regions of inflation
the initial conditions, constants and laws are correct for an Observable
universe (U3) to arise. There may be several of them containing Observers.
These Universes could either expand indefinitely to Infinity or collapse back
through the Big Crunch into a singularity after varying periods of time.
Experiments show that matter and anti-matter are produced in equal
amounts. A proton and an anti-proton annihilate to produce a pair of photons.
But observation shows that there are 2 Billion photons for every proton in the
Universe and that there are no anti-matter stars and no anti-matter in cosmic
rays. There must, therefore, be some other Universe which is made mainly of
anti-matter. The nucleii of atoms, there, may be
negative orbited by positrons.
Note that the word ‘Universe’, even when considered only from the
material point of view, now has 5 different meanings:-
(a) the part we can see, (b) that including dark matter, (c) that including
what exists beyond the limit set by the speed of light, (d) the totality which
includes the region from which this Universe arose, (e) all the possible universes.
This regression in the meaning of the term may continue even further. In each
case they contain the information which gives rise to all the phenomena in the
next Universe, including, of course, consciousness in this Universe. It is not,
therefore, unreasonable to have a concept of God as the ultimate or Absolute
which cannot be explained by means of anything else.
There are stages of development. The elementary particles, electrons etc
were formed in the great heat shortly after the Big Bang. These later congealed
to form the nuclear particles such as quarks, then protons and neutrons etc
owing to the strong nuclear forces. Since the nucleus of hydrogen has one
proton, the Universe consisted of Hydrogen. This gas, under the force of
gravity, condensed into Nebulae or Gas Clouds, which in turn condensed into
separate Galaxies. Here further condensation caused the development of separate
stars. The condensation and the heat created by it, caused nuclear reactions to
take place as a result of which hydrogen atoms combined to form the various
elements, and heat and light were emitted. That is, both integration and
disintegration in equal amounts took place. Each of the elements required different
conditions for its synthesis and these were provided by the fact that the
amount of hydrogen in the stars was being used up, and gravity was creating
even further condensation while the heat created by the reactions which has the
tendency to expand was being lost. However, the stars also attract further
hydrogen as they move through space. When the hydrogen was all nearly used up
the Stars explode as supernovae. This, as well as normal
dispersal caused the scattering of the elements into space. These collects around other stars because of their gravity
and condensed into planets. Here, as cooling takes place, the atoms combine to
form simple molecules. These form complex molecules including crystals and
proteins. These when conditions are right, as in the seas, where they can float
around freely, they form cells. These combine to form multi-cellular organisms,
which in turn form communities. This may have happened in many planets in many
Solar systems and many Galaxies. Thus given the original Big Bang everything
develops automatically.
There are, however, still a number of questions to be answered about the
Universe:-
(a) What is the cause of the Big Bang. If the
Big Bang occurred then there should still be some trace of the radiation in
background coming from all round the Universe. This has recently been
discovered, but its temperature is higher than predicted. If the Primeval Atom
exploded because it was extremely hot, why was it so hot, about a million
billion degrees Kelvin? Where did the energy come from? And what caused it to
be concentrated? However, Time and space are said to come to end at a
Singularity. They are also created at the Big Bang as are all the Laws of the
Universe. There could, therefore, have been Nothing.
But if there was really nothing, then there could also be no cause. Unless by
“Nothing” we mean an unknowable Absolute. In fact Serial Time merely stops. It
was Eternity before serial time began and becomes so when it ends in the Black
Hole. The Universe, like any other organism, could be said to have grown from a
tiny seed in Eternity. Time was at rest and when it began to stir the Universe
was created.
(b) Why is the Universe Isotropic i.e.
whatever direction we look the stars are equally
distributed. If it arose out of chaos then the distribution should be erratic.
Recent more detailed studies show that the distribution of galaxies in neither
uniform nor erratic but has some kind of structure. There appear to be empty
bubbles surrounded by Galaxies. There appears to be a what
is called a Great Attractor near the southern constellation of Hydra towards
which hundreds of Galaxies including our own are moving. This cannot be
explained by the Big Bang.
(c). Why is the Universe near its critical mass. If the mass of the
Universe were greater the Universe would have collapsed through gravity shortly
after its creation. If it was smaller it would have expanded rapidly and all
Galaxies would have been beyond our observation long ago. It could well be that
the Universe may collapse in a short time.
(d) Since all matter is positive, what happened to the anti-matter. Why is the Universe asymmetrical.
There is more matter than anti-matter in it. If this were not so then matter
and anti-matter would have annihilated each other and we would have no
Universe.
(e) What was the cause of the irregularity or disturbance which created
the Galaxies? Had there not been such a disturbance Space would have been
filled with Hydrogen or other particles in a homogenous way. It would not have
condensed into galaxies and stars.
(f) The shift of light towards the red end of the spectrum from distant
galaxies is interpreted as being due to the recession of that galaxy from us.
But suppose that there is some other reason for it. Some interacting clusters
of star systems show different amounts of shift as if they were too far away
from each other to have such interactions. It could be that the red shift, the
loss of energy, is caused by gravity, which is merely another name for the
structure of space-time.
(g) If the Universe is expanding then there should be a Hubble Constant,
a rate of expansion. But there is no agreement about this. It varies from 40 to
85. If the rate of expansion is at the greater end then the Universe is young
and there are stars in it which are older! Perhaps they are left over from a
previous Universe. The rate of expansion could also have been slower or faster
in the past. It could be that the expansion is caused by the radiation of heat
from the stars into space, and that this expansion is proportional to the
contraction of stars due to gravity.
If the Big Bang Theory of the Universe were to be presented in a court
of Law it would not stand up. There are too many unknowns. It is merely the
most popular one. There are a number of other theories which could fit the
known facts just as well. There is also a Steady State Theory which supposes
that as the Galaxies recede, the space between them is filled up by further
matter producing other galaxies so that things remain the same. Other theories could,
no doubt, be constructed depending on ingenuity and inspiration. It may well
turn out after further research that there is some Invisible Absolute Centre to
the Universe from which there is a constant radiation of force which is
gradually transformed into matter, as well as a constant absorption, to be
re-transformed and emitted again. The Primeval Atom continues to exist and
radiate energy continuously like a White Hole while also absorbing matter like
a Black Hole. There is constant recycling. Perhaps the Universe periodically
collapses and re-emerges from this Centre. On the other hand, some of these
questions may be answered by the Higg’s force which causes the fundamental
particles to collect together to create mass. and,
therefore, asymmetry in a previously symmetrical world, due to a phase change
in the same way as water turns into snow crystals as it cools. The
irregularities could be explained as quantum effects or as arising from the
effects of Chaotic Complex systems which require that only certain states of
equilibrium from among many possible ones will be chosen. The universe may be the result of the
introduction of information rather than energy. It is not at all certain that
what we see does not depend merely on what and how the experiments are done,
concepts are defined, interests are directed and calculations are made. Much
depends on a better understanding of psychology, particularly perception. It
may be that in order to understand the Universe a change in the state of
consciousness is required.
The present position is this:- Matter is
created by warps in Space-time. Space-time, like quantum particles, may arise
and disappear spontaneously without cause. If a tiny bit of space-time appears
it could expand. This expansion creates the negentropy (or information) which
creates the Universe, its laws and all things in it. This could be happening
all the time. Some Scientists, therefore, tell us that no God is required to
explain the Universe. In fact, however, they have described the fundamental
nature of reality, God. He is outside their knowledge and does, in fact, do as
He wills.
Despite the uncertainty and statistical nature of knowledge, there are
other indications that the Universe and life in it did not arise by chance.
Explanations of the phenomena of nature depend on the existence of
certain Constants. These include the Velocity of light, c; the Gravitational
Constant, G; Planck’s Constant, h, a quantum unit of electromagnetic energy;
and so on.
The mass of proton divided by the mass of the electron = 1836.104 The
fine structure constant given by the square of the electric charge of an
electron divided by the product of the speed of light and planck’s constant =
1/137.036
The gravitational-structure constant, Newton’s gravitational constant multiplied by
the square of the proton mass divided by the product of the speed of light and
plank’s constant = 5.9041183x 10-39
Planck length derived from velocity of light, planck’s
constant and gravitational constant l= (G8h/c3)1/2= 4x10-33 cm. Thus
the size of the Universe = 1060 Planck lengths.
A 1% change in the fine structure constant could prevent the sufficient
formation of carbon in stars to make life which depends on carbon compounds. A
small variation in G would make the existence of stars like our sun impossible.
It would only produce Red Dwarfs or Blue Giants making life impossible. If the
force between the proton and neutron within an atom were to be a fraction
stronger then no hydrogen could exist, nor could the stars and many compounds
such as water . If the density of the Universe had
been 1/1000 more than it is, it would have
re-collapsed in 10 years after creation. If it had been 1/1000 less it would
have expanded so fast as to be empty because no stars or galaxies could have condensed.
If the rate of expansion of the universe was greater or less than it is, then
the concentration of matter into different galaxies and stars could not have
taken place. If the gravitational mass of protons were different there would be
no stars in which the elements could have been formed. If the difference
between the mass of protons and neutrons were not twice the mass of electrons
we could not have the stable nuclei which make up the elements.
There is no explanation for the existence of these constants, and why
they have just those values and no other. They simply have to be accepted as
given. They must exist before the Universe was created. Had these constants
been different the Universe would have been quite different. Thus, it seems
that something has been imposed from outside to create this universe specially.
Whereas one might think that a variation in a constant may merely change the
size of something, it turns out that the combination and balance between them
could create dramatic differences.
It was consciously or sub-consciously supposed by scientists that they
needed only to discover the Laws of the Universe and that gave them a complete
explanation for the existence of the Universe. Few wondered where and how such
Laws came about. They were either taken for granted without explanation or
attributed to an abstract Mental Realm where Mathematical Truths existed. This
is not far from admitting the existence of God or that Reality is greater than
the physical world and may consist of several levels. But how did these Laws
impose order on the Physical World? These Laws, it was thought, arose in the
Big Bang, for which there is no explanation. The discovery that these laws are
so finely tuned to make life and human consciousness has focused scientific
attention on the question of the origin of these laws.
One way round this problem is to apply the Anthropic Principle - If the
Universe were other than it is, then we would not be
here to ask questions why it is so. The constants are accidents and could have
any value, but we arose only where they had just these value. We may suppose
that there are as many Universes as there are possible initial conditions. But
it is only in one of these that we have arisen to think about the Universe. We
have to admit that Reality is more than this Universe, and great enough to give
rise to a great number of Universes. They may well inter-penetrate. Indeed,
this is the Islamic position. The point remains that the Universe and its laws
exists. The fact is that this idea also depends on certain scientific facts, on
the existence of some higher level Laws. The point to be made is that all these
laws and calculations depend on the nature of the human mind. We are here
because this Universe is as it is and the Universe is as it is because we are
here and think about it in this way. But there may well be other kinds of
conscious creatures in all these other Universes. Scientists have not described
the nature of consciousness.
A different approach to the question has been tried based on computers
and Information Theory. Information processing requires a certain amount of
memory space and speed of operations. The size of the Universe is limited by
the speed of light since the Big Bang - about 14 billion years. According to calculations
by Seth Lloyd the Universe has processed 10^120 bits of information since its
beginning. This also means that in the past when it was smaller, it processed
less. The Laws of the Universe, therefore, are not fixed but change. But the
fact remains that the changes have taken place in a direction such as to bring
about conscious beings. Something seems to be causing this. The Universe
certainly has an order which conscious beings can understand. There must be a
correspondence between them. Consciousness might well be the basic Reality.
As we have seen, experiments show that basically the quantum units are
bundles of probability that collapse into an actuality when measured by
observers. Quantum "entanglement" whereby the state of two or more
quantum particles becomes linked, further complicates the situation. It is what
we do that determines what we see. Both the past and the future are selected by
the present acts. Only the present is real and the past and future are in it.
Time can be regarded as a dimension through which we are travelling. But Time
is not serial because, like the seasons caused by the motion of the earth round
the sun, it is cyclic. But as the sun also moves and events do not return to
exactly the same point, Time is a spiral like a spring. But it expands from a
point at one end outwards. In fact, Time can be regarded as an Eternal Present
three dimensional bubble. This means that nothing is random or exists by chance
as all things are interconnected in a self-consistent system.
By chance alone, the probability
that a simple protein molecule can be formed is of the order 1 in 1 with 113
zeros after it. This is a greater than the total number of atoms estimated to
exist in the universe. But around 2000 proteins are needed to create a single
cell. The chances of this occurring are 1 in 1 with 40,000 zeros after it. The
Universe, however, is regarded as having been in existence for a much shorter
time than would allow all the alternatives to be actualised. The cause of the
arising of life must also be integral to the principle which gave rise to the
constants.
It is also possible to argue in
the same way about the arising of life, human consciousness and their
faculties. Many different qualities and combination of genes are possible. More
species can arise than have ever existed. Even so the physiology of the Ape is
not much different from that of man, but the consequences are certainly very
great. The ape has not produced civilisations with its sciences, arts,
philosophies, complex social systems and technologies. Some other subtler
factor, not described in purely physical terms is involved in man’s arising.
It is not possible to get away from the idea that there is a certain
Absolute sub-stratum to the Universe which is a Mystery. This is referred to by
the word Allah, who creates both the Universe and Man and the interactions
between them.
----------<O>----------
Mysteries
There are a number of other phenomena which have received no explanation
by any theories created or accepted by conventional scientists.
There are certain disturbing facts about such systems as Homoeopathy.
Their system of treatment takes certain minerals or extracts from plants, and
dilutes these in water. One drop of the extract in 100 drops of the solvent
thoroughly stirred makes the strength denoted by ‘1C’. Take a drop of this in
100 drops of solvent and you get ‘2C’. And so on. The treatment may consist of
administering ‘100C’ of a substance. Calculations show that this mixture will
not contain even a single molecule of the original substance. And yet the
treatment works. Those who adhere to their theories reject the evidence. It has
not been understood by them that facts come first and the theories are only
constructed as tentative explanations, and must be discarded when the facts do
not fit. Not the other way round.
Clearly, something is wrong with how Chemistry sees matter. Things
become more comprehensible if we think of material structures as instruments
for transmitting certain kinds of energy, and we think of energy in terms of
patterns rather than motion. Energy is transmitted by means of waves having
wavelengths, frequency and amplitude, that is, structures in time and space. It
is the various combinations of these patterns which are responsible for
phenomena.
A French Scientist, Dr. Jacques Benveniste, originally a sceptic, did
some experiments which confirmed the action of these solutions and proposed the
theory of ‘water memory’. To confirm that this was an electromagnetic phenomena, he attached a drug to wires connected to a coil
immersed in distilled water. He then tested the effects of this water on the
heart of a frog. The result was the same as if the drug had been used.
The physical body consists mostly of water. Chemists regard it as
consisting of molecules each of which has one atom of oxygen and two of
hydrogen. In fact, water exists in ionised form so that we have free hydrogen
and hydroxyl radicals, being positively and negatively charged respectively.
This creates an electrical field, the structure of which may well be altered by
electrical fields associated with other compounds or even events. Religions
have used Holy Water for centuries, recognising the distinct properties of
different kinds of water. It follows
that:- (a) water is not so simple a compound as
formerly thought and has different properties in different places and
situations, (b) that there must be cell communication through water within the
body, (c) that all the chemicals in the body must act together to form an over
all field which affect each cell, and (d) that there could be communication
through water between an organism and its surroundings.
For his work this Scientist was persecuted by the closed minded
scientific establishment, the ‘priesthood of the scientific church’ so to
speak, because the ideas did not conform to their dogmas, and he was dismissed
from his post.
There is reason to believe that there is a discrepancy between the
amounts of certain elements, such as calcium, sodium, potassium etc. taken into
the body and excreted. This points to a transmutation
of elements within organisms without the need for great temperature. There are
also reports of the creation, in the laboratory, of cold nuclear energy, which
arises from such transformations. This is entirely possible since heat is
merely random energy and directed or ordered energy is not hot. Organic life
may have the function, not only of synthesising and transforming compounds, but
also the elements, and perhaps, within nervous systems, of the more fundamental
particles.
There have been other systems of Chemistry. It is not true that there
was no Chemistry before the Modern or Western type. The study of minerals and
plant extracts and the results of mixing these and their effects were studied
for centuries before Modern Science emerged, and it has quite different
attitudes and theories. There is a kind of arrogance in the West about their
achievements. They even tell you that America
and Australia and even Africa were discovered by them, though they were
certainly inhabited by people long before the European found them. On the other
hand they reject theories which do not accord with their views but which
nevertheless work well in China,
India, Africa or South America. Acupuncture, for instance, is used to
relieve many conditions. It works. But it is based on a system of thought which
is quite alien to Western science. The same applies to many other discoveries.
There appear to be forces not yet known to science such as those which
are connected with the so called Ley lines along which ancient peoples used to
construct their holy places in Europe, specially Britain, and in China
and South America. There are nodes where
several of these lines cross and paranormal phenomena, including UFOs
(Unidentified Flying Objects) are experienced by people at these sites. They
appear to be similar to the energy lines drawn on the human body by
Acupuncturists. Some people such as T.C. Lethbridge, a successful
archaeologist, experimented with and used an ancient science known as
Radiethesia which consists of finding underground objects by means of a
pendulum. Every object is said to radiate or emanate some kind of as yet
unknown energy, and the characteristics of this are specific to the object. If,
for instance, one is looking for a buried gold ring, one carries an oscillating
pendulum in search of it, then if, and only if, the length of the string is
14”, it will begin to gyrate clockwise when it nears the position of the ring.
This point is marked. The place is now approached with the pendulum from other
directions and the positions where the gyrations begin are again marked. A
circle is drawn connecting all these positions. The object is found in the
centre of this circle. It is found that the radius of the circle is equal to
the length of the pendulum. Different objects require this length to be
different up to 40”, after which a second phase begins reflecting the first.
The change of motion of the pendulum is not explicable by known physical laws.
It is possible that it will work only when there is a human operator whose
sensitivity to these emanations is essential to success.
There are psychological experiences which do not accord with the
scientific view of Time or Causation. Psychological facts have not been taken
into consideration or explained. Memory appears to capture time making all
parts of it contemporaneous. The past becomes an integral part of the present,
and in so far as we can make predictions or have intentions, the future is also
part of the present. Our perceptions, too, come in indivisible units. An event
has to last a twentieth of a second to be seen. An illusion of continuity can
be created from a series of separate pictures rapidly presented as in a cinema.
Perhaps time is not a continuity and is relative to
the observer and has several levels. The Christian view is that Time is linear
and has a forward direction. The life of Jesus is regarded as unique in history
and mankind is regarded as progressing to a Millennium. The idea of continuous
progress is based on this and on a false view of Evolution. Even the evolution
scientists neglected evidence which disturbed this idea. It excludes the idea
that degeneration can also take place. Other past systems regarded time as
cyclical. The Old Testament even forecast the descent into degeneration before
an upwards turn could be experienced (read the book of Daniel). The path of
coming History was divided into the Golden, the Silver, the Brass and the Iron
Ages. The Hindu scriptures speak of the Universe as the breathing out and in of
Brahma. And each of these cycles contains other cycles in it which contain
still other cycles. However, the Spiral may be a better analogy because, if a
cycle belongs to a higher cycle, nothing returns exactly to the same point. This accords with the Islamic view.
The unity of the ‘I’ is not a material entity. Enthusiasm, interest,
striving or ambition which causes people to devote themselves to the pursuit of
some subject and which is responsible for most human achievements cannot be
explained in material terms; neither can faith, love and hope, or creativity,
initiative and responsibility, or consciousness, conscience and will. Economic
and Political systems are also realities but we cannot find any material object
to which these names are given. Indeed, every material object itself turns out
on examination to be nothing but a structure in space-time.
The only things given to consciousness are sensations, feelings and
thoughts. They are distinguished by (a) their qualities (b) extensity,
intensity and duration; hence the concepts of Space, Force and Time, (c)
resistance, change and structures; hence the concepts of inertia, energy and
order. These are the only basic facts.
There are a great number of Paranormal or Psychic phenomena, some which
have been well tested, but no explanation for them exists in current theories.
This causes them to be ignored. However, the discovery of the Uncertainty
Principle and an aspect of reality which lies beyond direct scientific access has made many people more willing to accept such phenomena.
It is true of course that there are many frauds, much distortion due to
imagination, desire, wishful thinking and rationalisation, and many tricks of
memory, but it is not possible to dismiss widely reported experiences though
explanations for them may be faulty.
The conventional notion of matter needs revision. We need to know what
it is which we are studying. That which is being studied is not so much
objective reality but different kinds of experiences in different situations.
Either we have to discard the term and use some neutral term such as
‘phenomena’ or else if we retain the term we must not only attribute inertia
and mass to it, but also two other properties. One of these is rhythm such that
different substances are distinguished by their frequencies, amplitudes and
velocities. An entity is an event rather than an object. The other is
sensitivity by reason of which things affect each other and cease to be regarded
as independent. A particle or individual has a field associated with it such
that two or more particles form a combined single field. Events overlap and
combination of events are also events which may have parts.
----------<O>----------
Lessons
The following conclusions maybe drawn from the present state of
Physics:-
1. Knowledge is not independent of our faculties, motives and actions,
our interactions and social relationships. It has an external, Physical element
as well as a Psychological and a Social element. Science is a way of seeing,
interpreting, describing and understanding certain kinds of experiences. It is
a mode of adjustment. Other ways of doing this and with respect to other areas
of experience are also possible. The event observed depends partly on the
objects and partly on the activities of the observer, the experiments he
performs and measurements he makes. Observation, knowledge, is an interaction.
We participate in the processes of nature. We are an integral part of it.
Conversely, events depend on how we see things and what we do. And this depends
on our frameworks of reference, motives and attitudes. Objectivity no longer
means that we can stand apart as unaffected and unaffecting observers. Knowledge,
therefore, should be defined in the Islamic sense rather than in the hitherto
Western sense.
2. The view of the world we have depends on our mental concepts and
models. These arise from the cultural, social and economic background. Thus in Newton’s time the
Universe was seen as a machine. At first it was seen as mechanical clock, and
later when the Laws of thermodynamics were discovered owing to the study of
heated gases, it was thought of as a huge steam engine. In more modern times it
is thought of more as a computer both as to hardware and software, i.e. both as
a machine and a program. However, if we add the results of quantum and complex
system theories, we see that the nature of the Universe is indistinguishable
from that of biological organisms. In fact, it is beginning to look more and
more like the processes in a Mind. We are dealing, not with matter but with
concepts, patterns and probabilities which can only be apprehended by the mind.
The theories are constructed by the mind and if nature conforms to these then
it is a mind, but a much greater one which imposes constraints on ours. Objectivity, then means that we have to adjust our minds to its
mind. And this is ‘Surrender’.
3. In order to explain the behaviour of any system, we must know three
things:- (a) the structure and nature of that system, (b) the effects on it of
the sub-systems of which it consists, and (c) the effects on it of a higher
system of which it is a part. But in the case of the Universe, we can only
study the structure of the system and the effects on it of its sub-systems. In
the absence of a higher system, most processes in the Universe will seem to be
arbitrary. To retain consistency of thought the notion of an Absolute is
necessary. It also follows that Allah, who may be regarded as that higher
system, cannot be explained by science at all or by any other kind of thinking,
because Allah being the highest system we can conceive of, there can be no
higher systems than Allah. All such systems must be included in the notion of
Allah. The Fundamental Reality can be regarded as a Quantum Field. At this
level events are unpredictable. There is a certain probability that they will
occur at a particular point but no certainty. “Allah creates what He wills.”
Things appear and disappear in it. It is like an ocean in which waves arise and
fall. Everything else consists of structures in this Field at various levels.
When we speak of determinism, therefore, we are speaking of these dependent
levels, The cause underlies the event.
The Universe could be regarded as a huge brain and the Quantum field
may, perhaps, be regarded as the mind of God. The consciousness of the
individual may refer to this underlying field. It is, then obviously part of a
collective consciousness.
4. Fundamentally, there is a pair of opposite forces in the Universe,
positive and negative, the interaction between which is responsible for all
phenomena. “And all things have We created by pairs that haply you may reflect.” 51:49.
“Glory be to Him who created all the pairs.” 36:35,
43:12
5. Einstein’s theories tell us that matter and energy are
inter-convertible. As Gravity attracts, then it requires energy to pull masses
apart. This means that Gravity can be regarded as negative energy. Mass,
however, is positive energy. The Law of Conservation can be retained if equal
amounts of mass and gravity are created. (+n) + (-n) = 0. Thus something can
come out of nothing. Equally, things which exist can disappear. The total
energy of the Universe is zero. Therefore, the Universe is created out of
nothing. However, there must be some other factor involved which does the
creation or destruction. “He is Allah
the Creator, the Shaper out of Naught, the Fashioner.” 59:24. If the total mass of the Universe is also zero because matter
and anti-matter are created in equal amounts, then the only variable
responsible for the Universe is information. “He hath not created the heaven and earth save
with Truth, and for a term appointed.” 46:3. See also 16:3, 15:85, 44:39,
45:22.
6. The whole of the Universe and all materials, processes, laws in it
and even space and time are the result of a single creative event, the Big
Bang, the explosion of a Singularity, in which there was no passing time or
space. The evolution of the Universe proceeds as follows:-
There is first an unknown condition X. Something arises as a Cause of the
Creative Event, the Big Bang, several thousand million years ago. This produces
the energy, forces, matter, anti-matter, space as well as order. The Universe
has been expanding and evolving ever since. The size of the Universe at present
is several hundreds of thousand light years. To understand this size it is
necessary to realize that light ravels at 300,000 kilometres per second.
Every cosmology throughout human history has exactly the same form. A
beginning is always assumed and its cause is always unknown. This cannot be
otherwise because none of the factors for which we have concepts with which to
describe things existed then. Science is no different. The Big Bang may, in
religious terms, be formulated as “He
said unto it only: Be: And it is.” 2:117 or “And Our Commandment is but one, as
the twinkling of an eye.” 55:50
. The Universe is not uniform, but has a structure something
like a net, having large spaces surrounded by strings of galaxies connected by
gravitational and electromagnetic forces as well as by exchanges of materials.
It resembles a brain in many respects.
First, the fundamental particles are formed. Matter and anti-matter is
produced in equal amounts. These combine to form larger particles which combine
to form larger particles through many levels, creating man and his communities.
And this process of recombination may go on. However, at each new stage of
organisation some new factor comes into being which cannot be predicted from
the nature of the constituents. The nature of the materials of the Universe is
such that Order tends to arise spontaneously because of forces inherent in it.
We may regard these as actualisations of what was potential in the previous
stage. The further evolution of this planet is in the hands of Man, the
observer, thinker and transformer of this planet. He could not have arisen but
for the suitability of conditions for each of the previous steps in the
evolution of the Universe. However, as the Quran says, “Assuredly the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than
the creation of mankind, but most of mankind know not.” 40:57. It is, therefore, fair to say that the Universe was not
created for man, but rather that man was created as a vicegerent.
We may conclude that:-
(a) The Universe is a single system. Human
beings are part of it. Their minds, the materials they are composed of, their
structures and the energies which activate them come from the stars. They are
the successors or growing points of the entire process. They existed as
potentialities at the very beginning.
(b) The fundamental fact about the Universe
is not the matter, energy or order but the original creative impulse which gave
rise to the Universe. This same power continues to create the phenomena in the
Universe, including ourselves, and acts through us in everything we do and
create.
(c) Things arise in the Universe because
they have a function with respect to the system in which they exist. This
consists of absorbing, transforming and emitting certain forces. Their
survival, development or destruction depends on their adjustment, adaptation
and fulfilment of this function.
7. The whole of the Universe is a single system. But it can be divided
into inter-dependent parts. These can be divided into further parts and so on.
The Universe represents the upper limit to which we can see, but may itself be
part of a higher system. Within the Universe we have families of galaxies and
clusters of galaxies within them; the galaxies have stars; the stars may be
Solar systems having planets. These contain objects which can be divided into
crystals or cells. These can be divided into molecules which divide into atoms.
These in turn can be divided into still smaller particles until the lower limit
of perception is reached. These may, however, also be divisible. The spaces
between the particles are always by far much greater than the space occupied by
the parts. Thus, the Universe consists mostly of space and all matter is
infinitely compressible. Indeed, we can only discern structures in a field.
The Space, however, is not empty. It is filled with a great number of
forces which connect the parts together and these are responsible for the
structure and behaviour of the parts. The Universe may, therefore, be thought
of as a Field or Net-work of forces in Space-Time. It is an Event field in
constant flux. All things are inter-connected. Events in one section produce or
are connected with events in another section. The objects in it arise like
knots due to the convergence of forces at that point. The field has a
structure. It also has within it many sub-fields which in their turn have
sub-fields and so on. Thus, events in the higher field produce events in the sub-field,
and the events in sub-field affect events in the higher field.
The earth is connected with the rest of universe through gravity and
electromagnetic fields and is constantly bombarded with all kinds of ionised
matter and radiations, including Cosmic rays coming from the sun and the rest
of the Universe. These are very high energy particles which collide with atoms
in the atmosphere, transform matter and create new matter. They are also
responsible for mutations in living organisms, and perhaps also changes in the
brain. The Cosmos is, therefore, introducing creative forces into the earth.
The earth also surrounds us with radio activity, magnetic, electric, mechanical and other forces which also have transforming
effects. These earth fields, also actively catch or
focus these cosmic radiations.
8. There is reason to believe that the amount of mass in the universe is
sufficient to cause the gravitational forces to be strong enough to cause the
Universe to collapse back into a Singularity. The creation and collapse of the
Universe as seen by science is, therefore, in agreement with the Islamic and
the Hindu view. The Universe may periodically expand and contract and
re-expand. It could be that the Universe can be described as follows:- There is a Centre which is like a Black Hole from one
point of view and White Hole from another. That is like a magnet forces are
being radiated out of it from one end to be reabsorbed at the other end. The
whole Universe may periodically contract into it and expand out of it. The
point to note is that if we go backwards in time according to present theories
then the more concentrated the Universe is the more must time slow down. It
becomes infinite in duration near the so called Big Bang. There cannot,
therefore, have been an explosion at all.
“The Day when We shall roll up the heavens as a recorder rolls up a
written scroll. As We began the first creation, We
shall repeat it. It is a promise binding on Us.” 21:104.
“He produces
creation, then reproduces it” 10:5
9. Matter is not dead and inert as was once supposed.
(1) It possesses
gravity which implies that:- (a) A bit of matter can
recognise another bit of matter. (b) Each bit attracts other bits of matter.
(c) When matter combines then it has a collective gravity.
(2) Matter organises
itself, as in crystals and other phenomena. These crystals can reproduce
themselves and grow. Reproduction is not confined to living things. Even
electromagnetic waves are propagated.
(3) Each bit of
matter even when electrically neutral consists of positively and negatively
charged parts which are in constant motion in an ordered way. They contain
electrical fields. There are also unpredictable quantum events in them. Since
the human mind can be regarded as an electrical field created by the complex
motion of electrically charged particles, then we must suppose there are
different degrees of mind associated with all material objects from the very
small to the whole Universe.
10. It could be suggested that there is a field of forces below the
quantum level which, in religious terms, is called Spirit, and psychological
terms consciousness. All events in this field are inter-dependant forming a wholeness. It is only when local concentrations reach a
particular threshold that it becomes visible to our instruments as a quantum.
It is the combination of these at various levels which is responsible for all
things, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells or crystals,
multi-cellular organisms or objects, communities, the biosphere, planets, solar
systems, galaxies. The Universe. The arising of the
Universe is no different from the arising of thoughts in the human mind. These
are also quantum events. Allah may be said to exist beyond either end of this
series. It should also be possible, man being at the centre of this series, to
direct consciousness inwardly through meditation down through these levels or
externally up these levels.
11. Einstein has shown that time must be added as a fourth dimension
when considering phenomena. It is not, therefore, possible to think only in
terms of spatial structures as Chemists tend to do. The idea of vibrations
becomes more important. Recently, research has been done into the nature and
mechanisms of smell. How was it possible for a chemist to instantly recognise a
chemical from its smell when it could take days of chemical analysis to
discover what it was. It appears that molecules of the
substance floating in the air lodge in the nose where they fit snugly into
particular genes. The vibrations between the atoms of the molecule determine
the transmission of electrons into the nerves and from there into the brain
setting up particular patterns of activity. Each smell is associated with
specific frequency of vibrations. Smell is, therefore, like sight. It is possible
that all genetic and other information is transmitted in the same way and that
the materials involved have no function other than transmission of information,
and are themselves merely a product of information.
This is a revolutionary idea with far reaching consequences.
12. Entropy is measured as calories per gram per degree, and is the
total quantity of heat added divided by the temperature. Ent = E/t or Energy = Entropy x Temperature or
Temperature = Energy/Entropy. Thus the amount of energy required to melt a
well-ordered snowflake into a rain drop (from -1 to 0 degrees) is 80 times more
than the energy required to warm the raindrop by one degree. The formation of
ice from water represents a decrease in entropy and its melting represents an
increase in entropy. The creation of order, therefore, absorbs a considerable
amount of energy. There is, therefore, a relationship between energy and
information. Kinetic energy may be thought of as being transformed into
potential energy, and potential energy can be transformed into Kinetic. At the
Big Bang entropy was at its lowest and as the Universe expands entropy
increases towards its maximum. The expansion of the Universe could be regarded
as the result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
13. We can reconstruct the universe from what we know as follows:- At first there is pure energy in the form of photons
(There is at first light as the book of Genesis tells us). These photons split
into electrons and positrons (matter and antimatter) from the combination of
which all things are made. But these would have recombined back into photons
were it not for a basic asymmetry which allows more matter than antimatter to
exist. We have two mysteries - the asymmetry and the photons. Since gravity can
be regarded as anti-energy, we may suppose that there is an even more
fundamental field. It would be possible to produce an infinite amount of energy
or mass if it arises by the separation from nothing of an equal amount of
positive and negative. The conservation of energy law is a secondary law. This
must have been symmetrical until the big bang when it became asymmetrical. hence the expansion of the Universe. Indeed, the things in
the universe could not have formed if it had remained symmetrical. So what is asymmetry. It can have no other meaning than something
containing a contrast which defines information and stimulates consciousness.
14. The so called solid world is an illusion. Not only is it the case
that there is many times more space between the particles than contained in the
particles, but these particles are themselves merely bundles of probability.
When it collapses into an actuality, this is only one of many possibilities. It
is this world of potentialities which is the real world. The fact, however,
that probabilities are restricted points to the fact that something restricts them, and this can only refer to an even more fundamental
reality. We cannot, however, know this since knowing anything implies that the
object of knowledge is restricted and different from some other object. It is, of course also the case that if we
look around us we do not see the world of laws as described by the Sciences.
There are, therefore, several levels of reality.
15. The fundamental particles are packets of probability, wave function
which moves backward and forward in time. There is no law which determines the
collapse of this into an actual particle. This appears to be determined by the
choices made by the observer. The future
is open ended having many possibilities. The present state is, therefore,
determined by the future as much as the past, by purposes. In fact the purpose
creates the cause. The present is a selection from these future possibilities.
But, though it is one of numerous possibilities, it is still the case that all
these possibilities affect the outcome. We conclude, therefore, that the
possibilities are provided and restricted by the nature of existence, but that
the entity or individual makes a selection according to its own nature (i.e. by
the possibilities and restrictions contained in it). It follows that if the
possibilities within an entity are increased then the number of possibilities
for it are also increased.
16. He Laws of the Universe do not exist in the ground state of
existence or in the beginning, but arise out of it in order to create the
Universe. There is no necessity that they should be what they are.
It is likely that just as the Solar System which constitutes our first
heaven, has a centre, the sun, so also the galaxies, one of which constitutes
our second heaven, have Black Holes as their centre. The Universe itself, our
third heaven, may have a centre of its own. If the Black Holes consist of
matter in the quantum state, then the Centre of the Universe may consist of
sub-quantum material. There may well be still other higher heavens.
If the interpretation of the Quran given here is correct and the
fundamental substance from which the Universe is constructed is truth,
information or order then certain consequences follow. One of these is that
neither matter nor energy are fundamentals but deriving ultimately from order.
It could be that a change in order can produce changes in energy. A number of
inventors have claimed that they have produced machinery which produces more
energy than they put into it. In general scientists dismiss this idea and will
not even examine the evidence.
This author can think of one possible way of producing a machine which
will produce more energy than is put into it. He thought of this
43 years ago while at school but did not possess the means to construct an
experimental device, nor was he able to explain where such energy could have
come from.
If such a machine did work there were also rather frightening ideological,
economic and social implications. There would be a revolutionary change
world-wide owing to unlimited power.
The device is as follows:- An electric dynamo
passes a current of electricity through some water acidified slightly with
sulphuric acid. This is contained at the bottom of an insulated tube. Hydrogen
and oxygen are released according to well known formula (w=zct).
The gas expands and drives a piston. When it reaches the top a spark recombines
the oxygen and hydrogen back into water. The piston falls back. The motion of
the piston drives the dynamo. Calculations show that more energy is produced
then is required by the machine to do the electrolysis. Practically, some heat
is produced which may stop the process and this must be conducted away or used
to drive a steam engine. Theoretically, the dissociation and recombination
should be an exothermic reaction balanced by the endothermic one. However,
scientists will no doubt tell us what is wrong with the theory and no one will
actually test or modify the idea to make it workable. If by some strange chance
it should work the big petrol companies will buy up the patent and destroy it.
It is, therefore, presented here, free of charge.
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References:-
The
Arrow of Time - Peter
Coveney & Roger Highfield
Chaos
- James Gleick
Complexity - Roger Lewin
A
Brief History of Time - Stephen
Hawking
Q.E.D - Richard P.
Feynman
Theories
of Everything -
John D. Barrow
Encyclopaedia
Britannica
New
Scientist Magazines
Various
Documentary Programs on British Television.
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