CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

PUTTING CONSCIOUSNESS INTO THE EQUATIONS OF SCIENCE:

The True Units of Measurement and The Theory of Everything

By Edward R. Close, PhD, PE, Distinguished Fellow ECAO

PREFACE

Many physicists, including Einstein, Pauli and Hawking have dreamt of a ‘theory of everything’. But to this point, their dreams have not been fulfilled. The reason is simple. You can’t have a theory of everything if you doggedly exclude a major part of Reality from your theory. That major part of Reality excluded by contemporary reductionist science is consciousness. 

For nearly 50 years, I have insisted that the dream of a theory of everything is never going to be realized until we find a way to put consciousness into the equations of science. Believe it or not, I actually found the way - as it turns out, only accessible to a precious few - using a new mathematical tool called the Calculus of Distinctions. The inspiration came to me in a dream in 1986, and I published it in 1989 in a book entitled “Infinite Continuity;” but in 1989, and even today, most people are not willing to invest the time and considerable effort it takes to learn a whole new system of mathematical logic.

Since 1989, I have been determined to find a better way to explain how to put the Primary Reality of Consciousness into the equations of science. In 1996, I published the book “Transcendental Physics”, an effort to make the 1989 work more accessible. It reached a few more people, but still only a relatively small number of scientists and others interested in the merging of science and spirituality. The audience has continued to grow over the years, albeit slowly.  One who shared my vision, and has been my research partner for the past six years, is the world-renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Vernon Neppe, MD, PhD. Together Dr. Neppe and I have developed a comprehensive framework, a paradigm for the science of the future. We call it the Triadic Rotational Dimensional Distinction Paradigm (TDVP). It was first published as a number of technical papers and then as a book titled “Reality Begins with Consciousness,” in 2011 (Links available here:  http://www.erclosetphysics.com/p/publications-by-edward-r-close-phd.html). These works have now been reviewed by more than 200 scientists and philosophers worldwide. And recently, through determined effort and grace, I have found yet a better way to explain the revelations of the Calculus of Distinctions of 1989, 1996 and 2011, a way that will be far more accessible to both the scientist and the general public. This paper is my first effort to elucidate the new discoveries. I believe it will do much more than make the work more accessible to a broader audience.

The bottom line is that, in this world of human experience, we will never truly understand the Nature of Reality until our searches for scientific and spiritual knowledge are merged into one serious, combined effort. Once this happens on a global scale, humanity will experience an explosion of new knowledge and understanding far beyond anything experienced so far in the current era of recorded history. In this paper, I show how consciousness is describable in the equations of quantum physics and relativity, and a few of the explanatory revelations produced as a result. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible, but already it opens so many new roads for scientific pursuit that I am in awe of its beauty and scope.

INTRODUCTION

In 1714 the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz stated that the most important question of all is: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”¹ Science proceeds from the assumption that there is something, something that we perceive as the physical universe. In order to investigate this something that we appear to be immersed in, we go about trying to weigh and measure the substances it is made of and look for consistent structures and patterns in it that can be described mathematically. We call such mathematical descriptions “Laws of Nature”. 

To find the laws governing the relationships between different features of physical reality, we have to define a system of units with which to weigh and measure those features. Historically, units of measurement have been chosen somewhat arbitrarily. For example, the units of the so-called English Imperial System were based on the practice of measuring things with what one always had at hand: parts of the human body. A horse was so many “hands” high; one could measure rope or cloth by “inching” along its length with a joint of one’s thumb or finger. Short horizontal distances were measured in multiples of the length of one’s foot, or the distance from the tip of one’s nose to one’s thumb on a laterally extended arm, and a mile was 1000 paces, when a pace consisted of two steps. Since not all people are the same size, measurements obtained this way are somewhat variably inaccurate. Consequently, units were eventually standardized so that the measurements of a given object, carefully obtained by anyone, should always be the same. But, even though units of measurement were standardized in many countries, the basic unit was not necessarily the same from one country to the next. 

As physical science advanced, the need for international standards grew, and the international system of units (SI) based on invariant physical constants occurring in nature, with larger units being multiples of ten times the smallest unit, was developed. The number base of 10 was chosen because it was already being used essentially worldwide. It was a natural outcome of counting on one’s fingers, and starting over after every count of ten. 

Science generally uses SI units now for two reasons: 1.) All but three countries of the 196 countries on the planet (the US, Liberia and Burma) use the SI metric system as their primary system of measurement. This is significant, even though the UK still uses a mixture of the two systems, as does the US and a few other countries to a lesser extent. 2.) Computations are simplified when all units are related by multiples or factors of 10, eliminating the odd fractions relating to inches, feet and miles, ounces and pounds, pints, quarts and gallons, etc. in the English system. In the process of developing the TDVP model, however, we find a need now to define a new unit of measurement based on discoveries of quantum physics and relativity. 

The purpose of this paper is to explain why a new basic unit is needed and how it is derived. It may seem to come as a surprise, that in the process, we provide an answer for Leibniz’s “most important question” (Why is there something instead of nothing) and at the same time introduce new science.

Beyond seeking practical applications that improve the quality of life, the motivation behind our efforts in science, religion and philosophy is the desire to know and understand the true nature of reality. Science, as we know it, i.e. the science developed during the past 800 years (a very short time compared to the length of time life has existed on this planet: less than two ten-millionths of the apparent age of the Earth), seeks to understand the reality experienced through the physical senses in terms of the measurable parameters of matter, energy, space, and time. Based on a number of clues from relativity and quantum physics, we have identified an urgent need to include the conscious actions of the observer in the equations of science. Consciousness is truly the missing link in the current scientific paradigm. This has been stated repeatedly by me and others for the past 30 years, but only now is it becoming possible to actually do it in a way that can be understood by many.

Could it be that consciousness is and always has been present in some form, even in the very most basic structure of reality, as quantum experiments seem to indicate? If so, we may have the answer Leibniz’s question. In a universe where consciousness is an integral part of reality, meaningful structure would be no accident. Consciousness and even conscious entities would be able to recognize meaningful order and patterns in the reality experienced and interact with certain aspects of it to enhance and perpetuate existing meaningful patterns and structures that are beneficial to their existence and growth. This process creates and perpetuates forms, and I have called this process negative entropy because it is the reverse of entropy. And without negative entropy there would be no universe, and we know this because of the second law of thermodynamics.  

There is more than matter and energy in our experience, there is also conscious experience of matter and energy. And according to the Quantum Mechanics experiments, no phenomena can be said to exist until it is observed. Therefore, no particle could ever form, no wave function could ever collapse. Without a conscious observer, no observation can be made, and no physical reality can exist. Physicists have ignored this because they had no way to understand how to incorporate it, until now. 

If matter, energy and consciousness are all required for the existence of this reality we experience, then consciousness is a third required basic form of reality. Without it, nothing exists at all. So, if consciousness is an integral part of reality, continually creating meaningful structure at the quantum level, there must be a way to include it in our scientific paradigm and the mathematics that describes it. TDVP is a serious effort to upgrade the mathematics of the physical sciences to include the direct and indirect involvement of consciousness. If successful, there is reason to believe that this new paradigm will provide a comprehensive framework within which all the branches of science can be expanded to include phenomena heretofore excluded from scientific investigation. 

And the surprising, awe inspiring aspect of this great scientific expansion is the explanation of previously unresolvable conflicts in our scientific paradigm. There are many who are working in this direction, but none have included the mathematics to support the ideas until now. 

Watch for more coming soon.